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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Tsunami Survivor: 'We're Somewhere Between Hope & Hell'

Aired December 29, 2004 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


TUCKER CARLSON, CNN ANCHOR: We begin once again tonight with the latest from South Asia, two major threads to the story, people and nations mobilizing to help as the human scope of the disaster keeps escalating. As one survivor put it today, "We're somewhere between hope and hell."
For now, though, hell appears to have the upper hand. The numbers tell a large part of the story even as they defy the imagination, more than 80,000 dead, 45,000 in the nation of Indonesia alone, 23,000 in Sri Lanka, the Red Cross anticipating 100,000 fatalities and possibly many more from disease and starvation.

The toll is rising for another grim reason. The sea has begun giving back the dead. Even so, at least 5,000 people remain missing around the region tonight. Meantime, the largest relief effort in living memory is in motion, nations pledging nearly a quarter billion so far, airlifts getting underway, aid workers volunteering. That said, help of any kind has yet to reach many of the hardest hit areas. Those are the broad outlines tonight.

Now a closer view and it is chilling, new video coming in just a few moments ago, you may have seen it on "LARRY KING" if you were watching, shot from above by a British pilot. It shows an area along the coast of Indonesia where towns and villages ought to be, where they once were but are not anymore.

CNN's Mike Chinoy is reporting the story tonight from Indonesia. He joins us now from there -- Mike.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Tucker.

Well these pictures were taken by a British conservationist who is based in Indonesia named Mike Griffiths (ph). He took them on Tuesday. He flew up the entire western coast of Sumatra over the area that was closest to the epicenter of the quake and the pictures show a scene of absolute, total devastation. He talked about it comparing it to a nuclear bomb. He said whole towns have just been vaporized.

The evidence from the pictures show that the tsunami moved inland at enormous height for about a kilometer and a half, almost a full mile, and just knocked down everything in its path.

These pictures are of a town called Chalong (ph) normally a town of about 13,000 people. Almost every single structure gone and the photographer said that he saw about 30 or 40 people huddling on a hillside but other than that there was no sign of life. He flew over other towns nearby where there wasn't even that much, no evidence whatsoever that anyone was alive. And in the main largest town along the coast, called Malabo (ph), a town of about 50,000 only a third of the structures were still intact, presumably they are just empty shells.

The photographer has no way to be sure but his guess is that somewhere around 30,000, 35,000 people may have died there, although there's no way to be precise about these numbers.

A whole stretch, 100 kilometers or more going up the coast, every town, every village, every community leveled, all the bridges gone, all the roads gone, nothing is left -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Mike, a town of 13,000 eliminated. It's almost hard to believe. Is there any indication that any of those people could have gotten out by boat?

CHINOY: No. These communities are right on the coast. They're the closest to the quake. The quake would have happened. Within a very short time this huge tsunami, and it would certainly have been bigger there than anywhere else, would have rolled over them.

These are -- this is a third world developing country. There's primitive communications. There's no warning system. These people would have been caught completely unaware, the vast majority of them live right on the coast. There would have been no escape and you just get a sense of the incredible power of this wave that it just went in and literally vaporized whole towns.

CARLSON: Now, has the Indonesian government sent aid to the region to the extent there are still people left to help?

CHINOY: Not yet because there's no way to get there. These pictures were taken by a plane that flew over but couldn't land because in the one main town, Malabo, the airstrip has been completely buckled and broken up because of the quake and then the flooding from the tsunami that followed.

So, there's no way to get there by roads. It's very unclear whether any fixed wing aircrafts could land there. There are no communications. That's why it's five days since the quake. These pictures were taken two days ago and they are the first visual images we have of the area.

So, there may have been -- there may be beginning to be some supplies air dropped by some of the relief organizations but I would say at this point very, very little. It's hard to tell where the survivors would be. These towns are gone.

We don't know whether there are some people in the rubble, hard to see any living beings from the air. So, it's still a huge question mark but all we can say is that the devastation is if possible even worse that we feared -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Unbelievable. CNN's Mike Chinoy thanks a lot, Mike. We have correspondents all over the region and the world reporting the story. We go next to Thailand and CNN's Matthew Chance. A warning here as well what you're about to see is jarring.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Beneath this smashed concrete a whole family is trapped. This is no search for survivors just more bodies for Thailand to count. This is where the awesome power of the tsunami struck this country hardest.

In the mud reminders of the many lives lived and lost here. Rescue workers told us only half the dead have yet been recovered, the final horrific cost of this disaster still in doubt.

"When we first arrived it was total destruction," he says. "There were bodies all over the place. We've cleared it up a lot but I believe there are many more beneath this rubble."

And for days makeshift morgues, like this one on the grounds of a Buddhist temple, have filled with the remains of Thais and tourists alike. Forensic teams are helping with identification. Within a few days, they say, mass cremations will have to begin.

(on camera): This is a scene of the most gruesome kind. The bodies have been laid out in their hundreds here and are now being sprayed with disinfectant, laid out so that their families and loved ones, survivors, can try and identify them but these are appalling conditions. It's hot and humid and the stench is overwhelming.

(voice-over): And so is the grief. The days here are now filled with hurried funerals. This family told me of their terrible loss, seven dead, ages 79 to just 6.

"We don't know what to do," said Laird (ph), a grandmother. "We've gone crazy. I don't think I can survive all alone" she says. No comfort her loneliness will be shared by so many.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Tucker, Thailand is by no means the country most affected in this tsunami and its aftermath but still there are 1,500 people confirmed as dead and at least another 1,500 said to be missing by the Thai authorities. Some of their photographs and posters, you may be able to see over my shoulder there, have been put on the walls by family members, survivors, their friends in a desperate bid to get information about their loved ones.

This is, again, not the most heavily affected area in the region but it is the area with perhaps the most foreigners in it, the most people from different countries around the world and so in that way it has touched the hearts of many people in the international community -- back to you.

CARLSON: Matthew Chance in Thailand thank you. Well, to put the wall you just saw behind Matthew in perspective, there may be as many as 3,000 European vacationers still unaccounted for. Nobody knows how many Americans have vanished. The State Department is getting about 400 calls an hour from people seeking loved one.

For many, perhaps for most, the news may be bad news but thankfully not for all of them. Monday night, you may remember, we showed you a picture of a toddler from Sweden who was vacationing with his parents and grandfather in Phuket. When he turned up in the hospital nobody knew who he was.

Then a relative recognized the photo on a Web site, got word to the father who is being treated at yet another hospital. Well, today father and son were reunited. Both are doing fine, so is the grandfather. The boy's mother, though, is still missing.

For every child reunited with a parent it's safe to say there are many more who have lost their families. In any disaster, the smallest and youngest survivors are by definition the most vulnerable. Across Southeast Asia an untold number of children are now homeless facing enormous health risks and uncertain futures.

Reporting from Colombo, Sri Lanka CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here are the consequences of the tsunami. A Buddhist temple suddenly turned to orphanage and hundreds of new, nameless faces, the vulnerable looks that only children can give.

(on camera): We're obviously surrounded by a lot of children here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

GUPTA: All displaced by the tsunami?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, for the past three days they have been here.

(voice-over): Hard to believe they can smile. Some are still painfully shy and most for the time being anyway oblivious to just how much their future has changed.

How many displaced have there been as a result of the tsunami?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't have the correct figures but should be children and the women.

GUPTA: More than a million at least and many of these families from some of the most deprived areas of the country, now more deprived than ever.

(on camera): What do you do for them here? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually now what happens is here we supply the food and the medicine and whatever the basic necessities they need at the moment.

GUPTA (voice-over): At a time when care and relief arrive in cargo planes, no amount of aid can ever give them back their parents but still here's where the story gets a little hopeful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any children under ten years who are without the parents just let us know and we are willing to take care of them and we will plan their future.

GUPTA (on camera): You can really tell how bad something is in a country by how the kids are doing, can't you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the vulnerable groups and these are the future of the country, right?

GUPTA: Right.

(voice-over): And so by that measure, Sri Lanka is doing better than you might expect.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Now we were just visiting one of these NGOs, Tucker, and we actually were taken into a courtyard where hundreds, and it's going to go to thousands, of children were displaced, a lot of them orphaned. Their parents are missing.

But there are good parts of the story, Tucker. They said they were already getting tons of calls in about adoption and they welcome that. They welcome those calls possibly finding homes for hundreds of thousands of these displaced folks -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Sanjay, is it possible for Americans or other westerners to adopt these children or are those calls coming from within the country?

GUPTA: Calls were coming from all over the world. I'm not sure of the process. I'm sure there's a legal process that's going to be involved here but obviously a great interest in trying to care for these children, both within the country and around the world.

But, as they mentioned in that particular organization, any child under the age of ten who has lost their parents in the tsunami has a home with this particular non-governmental organization and several of them exist around the country.

CARLSON: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta thanks a lot, Sanjay.

Well, as high as the death toll now stands, and it's growing higher, stories of survival keep surfacing, each one a remarkable reminder that who lived and who died very often came down to timing and luck. Consider this irony, being under water when the tsunami struck saved one American couple vacationing in Thailand. Here's CNN's Miguel Marquez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How to survive a tsunami, for one lucky couple it was scuba diving directly in its path.

FAYE LINDA WACHS, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: We were sucked down to 40 meters very quickly, which is deeper than you want to be diving with an open water certification.

MARQUEZ: Faye Linda Wachs and her husband Gene Kim were exploring a shipwreck about seven miles off Thailand's Phi Phi Islands when the tsunami swept past them.

GENE KIM, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I consider myself a novice to intermediate diver. This is the first time I had to do an emergency ascent under unusual and harsh circumstances, so it was terrifying.

MARQUEZ: They attempted to surface by inflating their life vests but the massive current of water racing toward Thailand's shore pulled them into deeper water.

KIM: I was getting tossed around. I bumped up a couple times against the wreck itself and swam up as hard as I could, looked at my gauge and I was still dropping.

MARQUEZ: They had just survived a tsunami. Only hours later when they headed for their hotel did they realize it.

WACHS: The island is essentially gone. We left paradise. It was a beautiful island and we came back to just hell.

MARQUEZ: They helped rescue and care for the injured. With all their belongings swept out to sea they returned home wearing only swimsuits still counting themselves as lucky.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Well, Faye Linda Wachs and Gene Kim join us right now from Los Angeles, welcome.

KIM: Thanks, Tucker.

WACHS: Thanks.

CARLSON: That is -- of a week filled with amazing stories that is definitely one of the most amazing. Let me ask you the obvious question first. How weird a sensation is it to know that the tsunami passed right over you?

KIM: It was an eerie feeling. The conditions were so turbulent and chaotic and when we talked to our dive master back when we were on the boat it was completely mystifying but it was scary.

We all agreed that it was going to be out of the water but we had absolutely no sense at all that something like a tsunami had passed through that part of the Andaman Sea.

We actually did another dive about an hour after we got back on the boat in another location, still choppy. The current was still very strong. It was about a 40-minute dive.

We got back in the boat but because it was so rough out there and, you know, there were white caps and some current, we decided to pull the plug on the third dive. That's when we headed in and we began to see the debris from everything coming out from the harbor.

CARLSON: Now, Gene, you all sent us some pictures, which I think we're going to put up here on the screen. As we're doing it, tell me when did you first -- there it is. I think that's the harbor you're coming back into. When did you first realize what had happened?

KIM: We started approaching the main part of the island and when we got to about, I'd probably say maybe three or four miles away from the harbor, we began to notice debris floating out, things like plastic bottles.

WACHS: Chairs.

KIM: Chair, just very strange debris and it became -- it was more and more dense and when we made the turn all the boats were basically out of the harbor and we saw a warplane fly over the island and then there were choppers that were landing on the main part of the beach and when you looked at it, the left side had disappeared and there was just debris scattered everywhere.

It was incredibly horrifying and the closer we got we began to observe bodies that were floating in the water, so we helped with other boats to retrieve some of them.

CARLSON: Now, Faye, when were you able to get back actually onto dry land?

WACHS: We probably didn't get back onto dry land until about 5:00, 5:30 in the afternoon. It was very difficult to maneuver the boats in. We weren't -- the driver of the boat wasn't really sure what the safe thing to do was to be at that time but our dive master's brother had been onshore so he was very anxious to get back and look for his brother.

CARLSON: So, the dive master, who I assume was a local, understood that his town had been leveled by a tsunami?

WACHS: There was another gentleman diving with us and his wife had been on the island and just for sheer dumb luck she had decided her activities, since she wasn't diving, would be to climb to the highest point on the island and look at the view and she text messaged him "catastrophe" and he text messaged her back "What do you mean?" And she text messaged his back "Tsunami." And so then we understood. Our dive master was actually from Israel originally and was out at the island just for the dive season.

CARLSON: So, the husband was scuba diving and the wife was mountain climbing as the tsunami struck?

WACHS: Yes. And they were just both incredibly lucky.

CARLSON: That is unbelievable. And how long did it take you both to get back to Los Angeles? How did you get back?

KIM: We spent -- so the day of the tsunami, we spent the night on the island. The next day we were on a boat at around eleven o'clock to a town called Crabby (ph) along the Andaman coast in Thailand.

And from there, the Thai government chartered a bus and then chartered a plane a Bangkok, so we were in Bangkok that evening. We stayed the night in Bangkok that evening and then spent the whole day there basically and were able to take a flight out at 1:00 a.m. basically two days after the tsunami.

CARLSON: Wow.

KIM: And we arrived in Los Angeles this morning.

CARLSON: Well, welcome back.

WACHS: Thank you.

KIM: Thank you.

CARLSON: The tsunami went over your heads. Very few people can say that.

KIM: I guess not.

WACHS: Yes.

KIM: We're very lucky.

CARLSON: Thanks.

KIM: Thank you.

WACHS: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, ahead on the program, American help and the president's defense of American help; a break first. From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: President Bush spoke publicly today for the first time about the disaster. After thanking people in this country and around the world for answering the call, he responded to criticism that the U.S. isn't doing enough. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the year 2004, our government provided $2.4 billion in food, in cash, in humanitarian relief to cover the disasters for last year. That's $2.4 billion. That's 40 percent of all the relief aid given in the world last year was provided by the United States government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, the size of the American relief effort, as well as the president's decision to remain in Texas on vacation this week, have ignited a round of partisan sniping in Washington.

Here's CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A U.S. C-130 cargo plane lands at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, where Air Force personnel load it with critically needed supplies.

While it was almost four days after the tsunami hit that the first of these supplies made it to Thailand, U.S. officials reject any suggestion they were slow to react.

ANDREW NATSIOS, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTL. DEVELOPMENT: The Pentagon was informed. They began planning on Sunday to do this. You don't just send people out in two hours. You begin mobilizing. You start the planning and you start sending. We did that on Sunday.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. has already begun setting up disaster relief headquarters at Thailand's Utapao Naval Air Base and U.S. assessment teams that have just arrived are fanning out to Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

LT. GEN. JAMES CONWAY, DIR. OF OPERATIONS - JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Their task, of course, will be to make immediate assessment as to the nature and the scope of the impact of the disaster.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. is dispatching more than a dozen warships equipped with medical facilities, rescue and earth-moving equipment and helicopters but it will be days before they arrive.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its four escort ships were the closest in Hong Kong and assuming the Strait of Malacca is clear could be off the coast of Sumatra by this weekend.

The amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was in Guam between seven and eleven days away from its destination, Sri Lanka. Its seven ship task force includes some 2,100 Marines who could be deployed if needed.

The U.S. is also sending ships from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which could arrive in four or five days with equipment capable of producing 90,000 gallons of fresh water a day. (on camera): While the disaster relief may seem slow in coming, U.S. officials say while it's important to get aid there quickly, it's often the long term commitment to reconstruction that ends up being the most valuable assistance.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: With us now is Leslie Gelp. He's the President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Gelp, thanks a lot for joining us.

LESLIE GELP, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Good to be here.

CARLSON: You criticized the president for his remarks or the delay in making his remarks today in "The Washington Post."

GELP: That's right.

CARLSON: What should the president have said?

GELP: Well, I think he could have said yesterday or three days ago exactly what he said today and, as you know, I wasn't criticizing the amount of aid that the U.S. was going to give that he announced today. I think in the end we'll be the most generous of all countries. We almost always are.

What I was criticizing was his waiting on making that pronouncement on missing the opportunity to display humanitarian, moral and diplomatic leadership in the world at a time when the United States' standing abroad is very poor, particularly among Muslims.

And, you know, I regard myself as a hard head and I'm not in favor of these things for soft-minded reasons. I think when people abroad dislike us to the point where they won't cooperate with us then we have to deal with it. It's a problem because in managing most problems we need cooperation.

This was one of those opportunities for him and I thought he missed it. And besides, I think if you went to the White House today and pressed the truth button, most of the people in the White House would tell you they wished that he had said what he said today three days ago.

CARLSON: Well, I got the sense from the remarks from people we'll say in the background from the White House of two things, one that they thought the president really was waiting to figure out what the scope of the aid would be and that when he figured that out he'd say something about it.

And, second, that this is sort of an unfair attack since, for instance, Kuwait, a Muslim country and a very rich one has pledged only $2 million and nobody is criticizing Kuwait or, for that matter, Saudi Arabia, which I don't think is going to come through. GELP: Well, I'll criticize them. They're cheap.

CARLSON: Right but in other words -- you're right that seems to be true but in other words that this is an effort on the part of some in the U.N., for instance, who already don't like the United States to just beat up on the U.S. This is a convenient opportunity. Do you think that's fair?

GELP: Yes, I think the remark by the U.N. official was unfair because I think if you look at the history of disaster relief we end up doing more. Now, we don't on a proportional population basis given the size of our economy but in absolute terms we do.

What the president said today was correct. Last year we gave about $2.4 billion as a government in humanitarian disaster relief. That was about 40 percent of the whole international package and, on top of it, we give over $5 billion privately, American citizens and corporations to the relief organizations. That's quite an effort.

CARLSON: Well isn't -- maybe that's part of the problem. I keep reading -- I read quotes, a number of them in the paper today from Thais and Indonesians, people affected by the tsunamis who have said "Where are the American helicopters? Where is the American aid?" And you got the sense that maybe the expectations of what America can and will do are awfully high. Do you think that's true?

GELP: Well, they are high and I think it's an opportunity too for the president to exercise leadership. For example, if you have a monster disaster like this one and I don't know that there's been one of these proportions, the job falls on the military to bring the supplies, distribute the supplies, working with the relief organizations.

Now I think this is a chance for the president to go to the Indians, the Indonesians and the Chinese and say, "Let's get our military working together on this kind of effort."

Fortunately they're not at war with each other. Let's get them helping people, saving lives, and I think he could pull something like that together and to exercise leadership in that realm is a good offset to his being, you know, a war president. You need both.

CARLSON: All right. Leslie Gelp, thank you very much.

GELP: Sure.

CARLSON: Their loved ones were on holiday in South Asia and now they are missing halfway around the world, the agonizing wait for word on their fate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: As we said earlier, the dead and missing in South Asia include thousands of tourists from more than a dozen countries. Many were on Christmas vacation when the tsunami struck. Britain alone counts 26 citizens among the dead so far. ITV's Paul Davies filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL DAVIES, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another day of tearful reunions at British airports, as survivors of the tsunami return home, these families aware just how fortunate they are.

For across Britain there are increasingly desperate families awaiting news of loved ones still missing. Twenty-two-year-old James Hurran from Great Yarmouth called his father on Christmas Day from the Thai holiday island of Ko Phi Phi. He hasn't been heard from since.

DALE HURRAN, JAMES' FATHER: Since it happened (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just stuck by the phone, you know, 24/7, haven't heard from him, so now I took the bull by the horns and flying out tomorrow to Thailand myself.

DAVIES: Fourteen-year-old Francesca Britton from Blackpool knows her missing mother, grandfather and uncle were struck by a giant wave on Ko Phi Phi.

FRANCESCA BRITTON, DAUGHTER OF MISSING WOMAN: We've sent pictures out. There's posters all around the hospitals, you know. Everybody is trying their best to find them.

DAVIES: For some, like Nigel Willgrass, the worst fears have already been realized. He last saw his wife, Louise, alive going to buy sun cream in the Thai resort of Phuket. Mr. Willgrass' four children and their car were swept away but somehow survived. Back in his Norfolk home he described finding his wife's body in a local hospital.

NIGEL WILLGRASS, HUSBAND OF VICTIM: And there was a door on the right-hand side that said "morgue" and I thought I'm sure she's not in there but, you know, I can't seem to go in, you know, into the wards. I'll just go there and see if she was there. And I went in and she was there with many other people. And it was -- it was just awful.

DAVIES: Arrangements are now being made to fly Louise Willgrass' body back to Britain.

Paul Davies, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Soon after the tsunami struck on Sunday, the numbers began pouring in. Nearly four days later, the estimated death toll, already staggering, is still climbing sharply. We measure things in part to understand the unknown, to give shape to the unfamiliar. What happened on Sunday was so enormous, its scope so broad, it's difficult to comprehend.

But tonight, NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen tries to help makes sense of the senselessness.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What on earth happened?

First, an earthquake so strong that NASA geophysicists now believe it may have caused the planet to wobble on its axis. What followed changed the face of the planet. This was the satellite view of the west Sri Lankan coast before the earthquake broke the ocean floor and released the monstrous tsunamis. And this is the view after those huge waves crashed ashore, blurring the edges of nations and a subcontinent, entirely erasing an unknown number of small islands.

The devastation reached across six time zones, more than 4,000 miles, from Malaysia and Thailand to Somalia and Tanzania in Northeast Africa. That's more than the breadth of the entire U.S. mainland from the tip of Maine to San Francisco. It is harder to measure, to comprehend the extent of human misery, loss, how to fathom at least 45,000 death in Indonesia. That's as if most of the population of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had been killed in a sudden roil of mud and seawater, how to imagine more than 23,000 dead in Sri Lanka.

That's close to the entire population of Helena, Montana, suddenly gone. Compared to those fatality numbers, the preliminary total of the dead in India, more than 10,000 so far, seems perversely small, the loss of at least 1,800 in Thailand smaller still. That alone staggers, that the loss of almost 2,000 fellow humans is relatively small.

It is unlikely there will ever be a count of the lives forever changed by those deadly waves, the number of children who have lost loving parents, of parents who will never see their children grow up. The waves of anguish, grief are global. The death count includes people of at least 40 nationalities, many of them vacationing in the area, British and Japanese, South Korean and South African, 12 from the United States.

As many nationalities are among the thousands still missing. About 20,000 Swedish tourists are thought to have been in the area. An estimated 1,500 of them among the missing, so many that Sweden's foreign minister said, you won't find many people in Sweden who don't have some personal link to this tragedy.

U.S. Embassy officials are working from a list of more than 2,000 names of missing Americans, although the State Department believes most of them are alive, but unable to get a phone call home. Numbers of the missing are fluid, quickly changing, as many as 1,200 from Switzerland, perhaps 1,000 from Germany, 900 from Norway unaccounted for, 600 from Italy, 200 each from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland.

To factor the true loss, multiply the missing by the number of those who loved them and cared for them, who raised them, grew up with them, worked with them, lived next door. What on earth happened? This, the loss of a life in the flash of a moment, this multiplied by 80,000, maybe 90,000, maybe more.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Yesterday, 24 Iraqi police officers were killed in incidents across that country. Today, the war on law and order escalated in Iraq. Insurgents lured police to a booby-trapped house in Baghdad. The home was packed with nearly a ton of high explosives. Seven officers were killed in the explosion that followed, and so were 22 civilians.

Also today, American forces launched a new offensive aimed at rooting out insurgents in the area south of Baghdad known as the "Triangle of Death." And elsewhere, some remarkable stories of survival and loss began emerging from the deadly bombing last week in Mosul.

With that, here is CNN's Jeff Koinange.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sergeant Eric Wroblewski is proud to be a member of the U.S. Army's 705th EOD, a unit responsible for defusing bombs and mines. On Tuesday, December 21, he had joined friends for lunch in the mess hall at Camp Marez in Mosul.

SGT. ERIC WROBLEWSKI, U.S. ARMY: I got up to go get some pizza. And on my way back is when the explosion occurred. The explosion knocked me to the ground. I got up, found my glasses as soon as possible. They were about two feet behind me.

KOINANGE: Instinct took over.

WROBLEWSKI: I ran around grabbing aprons from some of the workers, taking their aprons off them, because they didn't need them. We were using anything we could. I don't have my -- I already took my BDU top off by them, anything we could use to -- just to stop the bleeding.

KOINANGE: The mess hall, he says, was filled with pandemonium. In this photograph taken by a journalist visiting the base, Wroblewski rushes to the aid of his fallen colleague.

WROBLEWSKI: Specialist Hewitt was opposite side of the table from me, right across from me. And we sat there. I mean, that was our normal sitting spot. We always sat in the same area. That way, if somebody came late, they would know where to find us and they didn't have to sit alone.

I went in one more time to look for Specialist Hewitt. I couldn't find him. And he was dead when he arrived at the hospital.

KOINANGE: Every day, he struggles with vivid memories of those moments. WROBLEWSKI: Just to see that hole just reminds me of the fireball. I mean, the fireball was so big. I was very lucky. If I didn't get up to get pizza, I could either be with Specialist Hewitt right now or recovering next to Sergeant Vauda (ph).

This right here is Specialist Hewitt.

KOINANGE: Wroblewski is struggling to come to terms with the loss of his best buddy.

WROBLEWSKI: Specialist Hewitt was a really good soldier. He was a really good friend. I know it's hard, but I hope they're proud of what he was doing, because he was really proud of what he was doing and to be here. The last thing Specialist Hewitt said to me, we were talking about my wife, actually. And he said, your wife made some really good pancakes. And that's when I told him I was going to go get more pizza. That was the last thing he said to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We stay in this mud much longer, I'm going to start missing Afghanistan.

KOINANGE: Jeff Koinange.

WROBLEWSKI: I don't know about all that.

KOINANGE: CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: NEWSNIGHT will be back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So, if what we refer to as the intelligence community is in fact a community, here's a question. What's the neighborhood coming to and where is everybody going in? Today, we learned that the CIA's deputy director for intelligence is stepping down in February. The DDI runs the analytical side of the agency. Her counterpart on the clandestine operations side resigned earlier this year, and so did their boss, the deputy director of central intelligence and many others since Porter Goss took over as the new head of the CIA.

So, what's happening? With us to try and make sense of some of the things that are happening, we hope, is Michael Scheuer, and author, though billed as "Anonymous," of the book "Imperial Hubris."

Now, Mr. Scheuer, at least five high-level CIA officers, officials, have left the agency or said they're going to leave the agency since former Congressman Goss took over. Is there a pattern here? And, if so, what does it mean?

MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CHIEF OF CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: I think it's still the repercussions, Mr. Carlson, of the CIA being left holding the bag for 9/11.

There is a feeling, I think, within the agency that we were unjustly blamed for the occurrences of 9/11. And there was a great expectation that once the 9/11 Commission report came out that it would be clear to the American people that the CIA had given the government chances to get rid of bin Laden.

In addition, Mr. Goss has not done very much to defend the agency either on that score or -- you'll remember two weeks ago one of the cables from our chief in Baghdad was leaked to the press, and was criticized for not toeing the party line in terms of what the Bush administration likes to think is going on in Iraq. And, again, Mr. Goss opted out of defending that.

CARLSON: But, wait a second, Mr. Scheuer, with all due respect. At least according to Bob Woodward's book, the then head of the CIA, George Tenet, said to President Bush famously, during the run-up to the Iraq war, that the intelligence that CIA had gathered and analyzed indicated that, without question, there were likely, with very small question, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He famously called it a slam-dunk. That, of course, turned out to be wrong.

So, isn't it justified that people who gathered, analyzed that intelligence would face some sort of censure for it?

SCHEUER: Well, it may be, sir, but it also seems odd that you fire the deputy director for intelligence and give the Medal of Freedom to the man who said it was a slam-dunk. It's a very odd situation at the moment.

And, clearly, of all the organizations in Washington that can serve as a punching bag, there's fewer that are better equipped for that role than the CIA. Clearly, there were mistakes made analytically or operationally in terms of Iraq. But, that said, it was not any piece of intelligence that came out of the CIA that said that it was a slam-dunk regarding WMD. Those were the words of the director of central intelligence.

CARLSON: Do you think that CIA is better positioned to help fight the war on terror three years after 9/11 or is it less effective?

SCHEUER: I think, as a whole, the community is less effective, sir.

One of the things they never did after 9/11 was the hard arithmetic of trying to find out how many officers the intelligence community had who were experienced and knowledgeable about the bin Laden-related target. During the Cold War, we had literally thousands and thousands of those kinds of people who were specialists on the Soviet Union. And our universities were churning out people every year to add to that pool.

We have in the low hundreds of experts and experienced officers on the Sunni extremist target, the bin Laden target. And now they've diluted that number by creating the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They really have put the cart before the horse. CARLSON: Well, wasn't the idea after 9/11 that the U.S. government and the CIA in particular was going to hire some untold, but very large number of Arabic speakers and scholars? Has that not happened?

SCHEUER: Well, clearly, the intent is there to increase the work force, but the process of being hired at the Central Intelligence Agency is one that takes a good year to get through at least in terms of testing and polygraphs and other security investigations.

And then, once you get people on board, it takes three, four, five, six years for them to be stand-alone intelligence officers, people who you can count on. So what you are looking at is, once these people are hired, better part of a decade before they're ready to go. And, in the meantime, we've diluted our pool of people who were already on the job to a great extent and really undercut our ability to fight the war on terrorism, that entirely aside from the drain on manpower that's going on because of Iraq.

CARLSON: Now, you said at the outset that you thought that the CIA was -- essentially become the scapegoat for failures that were not its fault. Is there a great deal of resentment at CIA toward the White House?

SCHEUER: Not toward the White House, I think, but toward the -- certainly toward the two commissions that investigated 9/11.

The fortunate part of this for me is that no one has to take my word for the following. The 9/11 Commission report documented eight to 10 chances where the U.S. government could have killed or captured Osama bin Laden by the middle of 1999. And none of those opportunities were taken. And, as I said earlier, there was a widespread expectation in the agency that, when that report was published and that information was put on the public record, the American people would see that, while the agency is not perfect, it had more than done its job in terms of giving opportunities to get rid of Osama bin Laden.

CARLSON: So, you're saying it was a failure of political will on the part of the Clinton White House, not the CIA's fault?

SCHEUER: Absolutely. Well, across the bureaucracy, sir, there's a great reluctance to do anything that would offend international opinion or Muslim opinion or -- we're extraordinarily sensitive to what others think. That always comes before protecting Americans.

CARLSON: All right, Michael Scheuer, former CIA employee and author, best-selling author, I think, thanks for joining us.

SCHEUER: My pleasure, sir. Thank you.

CARLSON: Thanks.

Still ahead tonight, back to the flood, how Americans from all corners of this country have taken up the job of lending a hand.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: And there was other news tonight around the country, starting with a new bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Briefly put, it details the work al Qaeda has been doing to case certain financial institutions in New York, Washington and New Jersey. That said, officials tell us there's no reason to believe any of these buildings are in any immediate danger, though, of course, it's not very reassuring.

Six commercial airlines have been targeted in the last few days by unknown people shining laser beams from the ground into their cockpits, this according to a government official who did not say where the incidents took place or whether they were part of a pattern. None of the crew suffered eye injuries. All six planes landed safely.

The most expensive fighter ever built may be too expensive even for the Pentagon. According to "The New York Times," the Defense Department is looking into scaling back orders for the F-22 Raptor to help pay for the war in Iraq. Each Raptor cost about $250 million. Complicating the equation, contractors for the plane are spread across 43 states and many more congressional districts. So, look for a dogfight on this one. It's guaranteed.

And, finally, actor Jerry Orbach has died of prostate cancer. People knew lately him as Detective Lennie Briscoe on "Law & Order." He was also one of the best Broadway song and dance men who ever lived. Jerry Orbach was 69 years old.

Back now to South Asia. Every disaster is a story of losses and of giving. As we said at the top of the program, $222 million in aid has been received or pledged so far to help to tsunami victims. Large relief organizations are spearheading the efforts, but smaller groups are pitching in as well all around the world.

Here is CNN's Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Buddhism teaches one to be selfless. In this time of need, members of this Sri Lankan Buddhist Vihara, or temple, in New Jersey are taking their religious teachings to heart.

REV. BULUGAMMANA PIYARATHANA, SPIRITUAL PRACTICE: Our life is helpful life. We always help, help, help. So now it's more than that.

ASOKA RANASINGHE, NEW JERSEY VIHARA MEMBER: Buddhism teaches selfless love. Actually, it doesn't have to be a certain group of people. We basically have a universal love to mankind.

CHERNOFF: The Vihara community is collecting and packing clothing, food and cooking utensils, as well as raising funds for the tsunami victims. Sri Lankan communities in Queens and Staten Island, New York, are doing the same. They plan to pool their donations and send the shipments from New Jersey to their homeland next week.

(on camera): The New Jersey Vihara organized a similar effort complete with a shipping container only two years ago when Sri Lanka suffered flooding on its southern coast. But now the effort is far more extensive. The Vihara anticipate sending several containers.

(voice-over): Anil Vitarana, a New Jersey Vihara member, happens to be an executive at an Arabic shipping company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the ship working now?

CHERNOFF: He's arranged for free passage on a container ship.

ANIL VITARANA, NEW JERSEY VIHARA MEMBER: There's been a great team spirit here among the Sri Lankan expatriates, really in giving support and really rising to the occasion.

CHERNOFF: Vitarana has already coordinated with friends in Sri Lanka who will deliver the goods when they arrive in several weeks. In Buddhism, what you give is what you take into your next life. The Vihara devotees now appear to be giving all they can.

Allan Chernoff, Franklin Township, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Some chilling images, in some cases, of villages wiped off the face of the earth, literally. Reports are, the people who lived there had no warning at all. It doesn't have to be that way.

Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Behind a secure fence on the Hawaiian island of Oahu work some of the world's foremost experts on tsunamis.

(on camera): Now, you're responsible for not only the Hawaiian islands, but all the nations and territories here, even the continent of Australia?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, at least the Pacific side of it.

TUCHMAN: The scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center use seismic ocean sensors, gauges and sophisticated computer technology to protect people who live on the islands of the Pacific Ocean. They don't do the same for the people who live near the Indian Ocean. As a matter of fact, nobody does.

CHARLES MCCREERY, DIRECTOR, PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER: There's no warning system for the Indian Ocean and for many of the other oceans and seas around the world, because tsunamis are so infrequent in those areas.

TUCHMAN: This past weekend, the Hawaii scientists knew right away there was a significant earthquake an ocean away, but they had no data indicating a tsunami would follow. But even if they had a hunch...

MCCREERY: Suppose we did call the government of Sri Lanka and we got ahold of some high official and we told him, you know, we're the Pacific tsunami warning center and we would like you to evacuate all your coasts because we don't know, but there's a possibility a tsunami might be coming. I don't even know that they could possibly take action on a phone call from someone they don't know, that they've never set up procedures with.

TUCHMAN: The Hawaii center is recording aftershocks in India.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The earthquake happened about 12 minutes ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentlemen, we're looking at two aftershocks in the last few minutes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: And has in a matter of days established a new procedure to call governments that don't have warning tsunami systems to give advice, something that's been done for the people of the Pacific for more than half a century.

(on camera): When it comes to tsunamis striking, there's no more vulnerable area on earth than the Pacific Ocean. And there's no more vulnerable area in the Pacific Ocean than the Hawaiian islands.

(voice-over): Historically, Hawaii has been far more likely to be hit by powerful tsunamis than the Indian Ocean region. But when the next dangerous tsunami arrives:

MCCREERY: There's no reason why anyone should die or be injured in a tsunami that comes from around the Pacific Rim and strikes Hawaii.

TUCHMAN: And it's all because of a warning system the people of the Indian Ocean region do not have.

Gary Tuchman, Ewa Beach, Hawaii.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Well, that's it for NEWSNIGHT. Thanks for staying with us.

All this week, CNN has been running coverage from CNN International after NEWSNIGHT. So, if you're interested in hearing more on what's happening in South Asia, stay with us.

Have a great night. See you tomorrow.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired December 29, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TUCKER CARLSON, CNN ANCHOR: We begin once again tonight with the latest from South Asia, two major threads to the story, people and nations mobilizing to help as the human scope of the disaster keeps escalating. As one survivor put it today, "We're somewhere between hope and hell."
For now, though, hell appears to have the upper hand. The numbers tell a large part of the story even as they defy the imagination, more than 80,000 dead, 45,000 in the nation of Indonesia alone, 23,000 in Sri Lanka, the Red Cross anticipating 100,000 fatalities and possibly many more from disease and starvation.

The toll is rising for another grim reason. The sea has begun giving back the dead. Even so, at least 5,000 people remain missing around the region tonight. Meantime, the largest relief effort in living memory is in motion, nations pledging nearly a quarter billion so far, airlifts getting underway, aid workers volunteering. That said, help of any kind has yet to reach many of the hardest hit areas. Those are the broad outlines tonight.

Now a closer view and it is chilling, new video coming in just a few moments ago, you may have seen it on "LARRY KING" if you were watching, shot from above by a British pilot. It shows an area along the coast of Indonesia where towns and villages ought to be, where they once were but are not anymore.

CNN's Mike Chinoy is reporting the story tonight from Indonesia. He joins us now from there -- Mike.

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Tucker.

Well these pictures were taken by a British conservationist who is based in Indonesia named Mike Griffiths (ph). He took them on Tuesday. He flew up the entire western coast of Sumatra over the area that was closest to the epicenter of the quake and the pictures show a scene of absolute, total devastation. He talked about it comparing it to a nuclear bomb. He said whole towns have just been vaporized.

The evidence from the pictures show that the tsunami moved inland at enormous height for about a kilometer and a half, almost a full mile, and just knocked down everything in its path.

These pictures are of a town called Chalong (ph) normally a town of about 13,000 people. Almost every single structure gone and the photographer said that he saw about 30 or 40 people huddling on a hillside but other than that there was no sign of life. He flew over other towns nearby where there wasn't even that much, no evidence whatsoever that anyone was alive. And in the main largest town along the coast, called Malabo (ph), a town of about 50,000 only a third of the structures were still intact, presumably they are just empty shells.

The photographer has no way to be sure but his guess is that somewhere around 30,000, 35,000 people may have died there, although there's no way to be precise about these numbers.

A whole stretch, 100 kilometers or more going up the coast, every town, every village, every community leveled, all the bridges gone, all the roads gone, nothing is left -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Mike, a town of 13,000 eliminated. It's almost hard to believe. Is there any indication that any of those people could have gotten out by boat?

CHINOY: No. These communities are right on the coast. They're the closest to the quake. The quake would have happened. Within a very short time this huge tsunami, and it would certainly have been bigger there than anywhere else, would have rolled over them.

These are -- this is a third world developing country. There's primitive communications. There's no warning system. These people would have been caught completely unaware, the vast majority of them live right on the coast. There would have been no escape and you just get a sense of the incredible power of this wave that it just went in and literally vaporized whole towns.

CARLSON: Now, has the Indonesian government sent aid to the region to the extent there are still people left to help?

CHINOY: Not yet because there's no way to get there. These pictures were taken by a plane that flew over but couldn't land because in the one main town, Malabo, the airstrip has been completely buckled and broken up because of the quake and then the flooding from the tsunami that followed.

So, there's no way to get there by roads. It's very unclear whether any fixed wing aircrafts could land there. There are no communications. That's why it's five days since the quake. These pictures were taken two days ago and they are the first visual images we have of the area.

So, there may have been -- there may be beginning to be some supplies air dropped by some of the relief organizations but I would say at this point very, very little. It's hard to tell where the survivors would be. These towns are gone.

We don't know whether there are some people in the rubble, hard to see any living beings from the air. So, it's still a huge question mark but all we can say is that the devastation is if possible even worse that we feared -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Unbelievable. CNN's Mike Chinoy thanks a lot, Mike. We have correspondents all over the region and the world reporting the story. We go next to Thailand and CNN's Matthew Chance. A warning here as well what you're about to see is jarring.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Beneath this smashed concrete a whole family is trapped. This is no search for survivors just more bodies for Thailand to count. This is where the awesome power of the tsunami struck this country hardest.

In the mud reminders of the many lives lived and lost here. Rescue workers told us only half the dead have yet been recovered, the final horrific cost of this disaster still in doubt.

"When we first arrived it was total destruction," he says. "There were bodies all over the place. We've cleared it up a lot but I believe there are many more beneath this rubble."

And for days makeshift morgues, like this one on the grounds of a Buddhist temple, have filled with the remains of Thais and tourists alike. Forensic teams are helping with identification. Within a few days, they say, mass cremations will have to begin.

(on camera): This is a scene of the most gruesome kind. The bodies have been laid out in their hundreds here and are now being sprayed with disinfectant, laid out so that their families and loved ones, survivors, can try and identify them but these are appalling conditions. It's hot and humid and the stench is overwhelming.

(voice-over): And so is the grief. The days here are now filled with hurried funerals. This family told me of their terrible loss, seven dead, ages 79 to just 6.

"We don't know what to do," said Laird (ph), a grandmother. "We've gone crazy. I don't think I can survive all alone" she says. No comfort her loneliness will be shared by so many.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Tucker, Thailand is by no means the country most affected in this tsunami and its aftermath but still there are 1,500 people confirmed as dead and at least another 1,500 said to be missing by the Thai authorities. Some of their photographs and posters, you may be able to see over my shoulder there, have been put on the walls by family members, survivors, their friends in a desperate bid to get information about their loved ones.

This is, again, not the most heavily affected area in the region but it is the area with perhaps the most foreigners in it, the most people from different countries around the world and so in that way it has touched the hearts of many people in the international community -- back to you.

CARLSON: Matthew Chance in Thailand thank you. Well, to put the wall you just saw behind Matthew in perspective, there may be as many as 3,000 European vacationers still unaccounted for. Nobody knows how many Americans have vanished. The State Department is getting about 400 calls an hour from people seeking loved one.

For many, perhaps for most, the news may be bad news but thankfully not for all of them. Monday night, you may remember, we showed you a picture of a toddler from Sweden who was vacationing with his parents and grandfather in Phuket. When he turned up in the hospital nobody knew who he was.

Then a relative recognized the photo on a Web site, got word to the father who is being treated at yet another hospital. Well, today father and son were reunited. Both are doing fine, so is the grandfather. The boy's mother, though, is still missing.

For every child reunited with a parent it's safe to say there are many more who have lost their families. In any disaster, the smallest and youngest survivors are by definition the most vulnerable. Across Southeast Asia an untold number of children are now homeless facing enormous health risks and uncertain futures.

Reporting from Colombo, Sri Lanka CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here are the consequences of the tsunami. A Buddhist temple suddenly turned to orphanage and hundreds of new, nameless faces, the vulnerable looks that only children can give.

(on camera): We're obviously surrounded by a lot of children here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

GUPTA: All displaced by the tsunami?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, for the past three days they have been here.

(voice-over): Hard to believe they can smile. Some are still painfully shy and most for the time being anyway oblivious to just how much their future has changed.

How many displaced have there been as a result of the tsunami?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't have the correct figures but should be children and the women.

GUPTA: More than a million at least and many of these families from some of the most deprived areas of the country, now more deprived than ever.

(on camera): What do you do for them here? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually now what happens is here we supply the food and the medicine and whatever the basic necessities they need at the moment.

GUPTA (voice-over): At a time when care and relief arrive in cargo planes, no amount of aid can ever give them back their parents but still here's where the story gets a little hopeful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any children under ten years who are without the parents just let us know and we are willing to take care of them and we will plan their future.

GUPTA (on camera): You can really tell how bad something is in a country by how the kids are doing, can't you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the vulnerable groups and these are the future of the country, right?

GUPTA: Right.

(voice-over): And so by that measure, Sri Lanka is doing better than you might expect.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Now we were just visiting one of these NGOs, Tucker, and we actually were taken into a courtyard where hundreds, and it's going to go to thousands, of children were displaced, a lot of them orphaned. Their parents are missing.

But there are good parts of the story, Tucker. They said they were already getting tons of calls in about adoption and they welcome that. They welcome those calls possibly finding homes for hundreds of thousands of these displaced folks -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Sanjay, is it possible for Americans or other westerners to adopt these children or are those calls coming from within the country?

GUPTA: Calls were coming from all over the world. I'm not sure of the process. I'm sure there's a legal process that's going to be involved here but obviously a great interest in trying to care for these children, both within the country and around the world.

But, as they mentioned in that particular organization, any child under the age of ten who has lost their parents in the tsunami has a home with this particular non-governmental organization and several of them exist around the country.

CARLSON: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta thanks a lot, Sanjay.

Well, as high as the death toll now stands, and it's growing higher, stories of survival keep surfacing, each one a remarkable reminder that who lived and who died very often came down to timing and luck. Consider this irony, being under water when the tsunami struck saved one American couple vacationing in Thailand. Here's CNN's Miguel Marquez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How to survive a tsunami, for one lucky couple it was scuba diving directly in its path.

FAYE LINDA WACHS, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: We were sucked down to 40 meters very quickly, which is deeper than you want to be diving with an open water certification.

MARQUEZ: Faye Linda Wachs and her husband Gene Kim were exploring a shipwreck about seven miles off Thailand's Phi Phi Islands when the tsunami swept past them.

GENE KIM, TSUNAMI SURVIVOR: I consider myself a novice to intermediate diver. This is the first time I had to do an emergency ascent under unusual and harsh circumstances, so it was terrifying.

MARQUEZ: They attempted to surface by inflating their life vests but the massive current of water racing toward Thailand's shore pulled them into deeper water.

KIM: I was getting tossed around. I bumped up a couple times against the wreck itself and swam up as hard as I could, looked at my gauge and I was still dropping.

MARQUEZ: They had just survived a tsunami. Only hours later when they headed for their hotel did they realize it.

WACHS: The island is essentially gone. We left paradise. It was a beautiful island and we came back to just hell.

MARQUEZ: They helped rescue and care for the injured. With all their belongings swept out to sea they returned home wearing only swimsuits still counting themselves as lucky.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Well, Faye Linda Wachs and Gene Kim join us right now from Los Angeles, welcome.

KIM: Thanks, Tucker.

WACHS: Thanks.

CARLSON: That is -- of a week filled with amazing stories that is definitely one of the most amazing. Let me ask you the obvious question first. How weird a sensation is it to know that the tsunami passed right over you?

KIM: It was an eerie feeling. The conditions were so turbulent and chaotic and when we talked to our dive master back when we were on the boat it was completely mystifying but it was scary.

We all agreed that it was going to be out of the water but we had absolutely no sense at all that something like a tsunami had passed through that part of the Andaman Sea.

We actually did another dive about an hour after we got back on the boat in another location, still choppy. The current was still very strong. It was about a 40-minute dive.

We got back in the boat but because it was so rough out there and, you know, there were white caps and some current, we decided to pull the plug on the third dive. That's when we headed in and we began to see the debris from everything coming out from the harbor.

CARLSON: Now, Gene, you all sent us some pictures, which I think we're going to put up here on the screen. As we're doing it, tell me when did you first -- there it is. I think that's the harbor you're coming back into. When did you first realize what had happened?

KIM: We started approaching the main part of the island and when we got to about, I'd probably say maybe three or four miles away from the harbor, we began to notice debris floating out, things like plastic bottles.

WACHS: Chairs.

KIM: Chair, just very strange debris and it became -- it was more and more dense and when we made the turn all the boats were basically out of the harbor and we saw a warplane fly over the island and then there were choppers that were landing on the main part of the beach and when you looked at it, the left side had disappeared and there was just debris scattered everywhere.

It was incredibly horrifying and the closer we got we began to observe bodies that were floating in the water, so we helped with other boats to retrieve some of them.

CARLSON: Now, Faye, when were you able to get back actually onto dry land?

WACHS: We probably didn't get back onto dry land until about 5:00, 5:30 in the afternoon. It was very difficult to maneuver the boats in. We weren't -- the driver of the boat wasn't really sure what the safe thing to do was to be at that time but our dive master's brother had been onshore so he was very anxious to get back and look for his brother.

CARLSON: So, the dive master, who I assume was a local, understood that his town had been leveled by a tsunami?

WACHS: There was another gentleman diving with us and his wife had been on the island and just for sheer dumb luck she had decided her activities, since she wasn't diving, would be to climb to the highest point on the island and look at the view and she text messaged him "catastrophe" and he text messaged her back "What do you mean?" And she text messaged his back "Tsunami." And so then we understood. Our dive master was actually from Israel originally and was out at the island just for the dive season.

CARLSON: So, the husband was scuba diving and the wife was mountain climbing as the tsunami struck?

WACHS: Yes. And they were just both incredibly lucky.

CARLSON: That is unbelievable. And how long did it take you both to get back to Los Angeles? How did you get back?

KIM: We spent -- so the day of the tsunami, we spent the night on the island. The next day we were on a boat at around eleven o'clock to a town called Crabby (ph) along the Andaman coast in Thailand.

And from there, the Thai government chartered a bus and then chartered a plane a Bangkok, so we were in Bangkok that evening. We stayed the night in Bangkok that evening and then spent the whole day there basically and were able to take a flight out at 1:00 a.m. basically two days after the tsunami.

CARLSON: Wow.

KIM: And we arrived in Los Angeles this morning.

CARLSON: Well, welcome back.

WACHS: Thank you.

KIM: Thank you.

CARLSON: The tsunami went over your heads. Very few people can say that.

KIM: I guess not.

WACHS: Yes.

KIM: We're very lucky.

CARLSON: Thanks.

KIM: Thank you.

WACHS: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, ahead on the program, American help and the president's defense of American help; a break first. From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: President Bush spoke publicly today for the first time about the disaster. After thanking people in this country and around the world for answering the call, he responded to criticism that the U.S. isn't doing enough. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the year 2004, our government provided $2.4 billion in food, in cash, in humanitarian relief to cover the disasters for last year. That's $2.4 billion. That's 40 percent of all the relief aid given in the world last year was provided by the United States government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, the size of the American relief effort, as well as the president's decision to remain in Texas on vacation this week, have ignited a round of partisan sniping in Washington.

Here's CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A U.S. C-130 cargo plane lands at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, where Air Force personnel load it with critically needed supplies.

While it was almost four days after the tsunami hit that the first of these supplies made it to Thailand, U.S. officials reject any suggestion they were slow to react.

ANDREW NATSIOS, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTL. DEVELOPMENT: The Pentagon was informed. They began planning on Sunday to do this. You don't just send people out in two hours. You begin mobilizing. You start the planning and you start sending. We did that on Sunday.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. has already begun setting up disaster relief headquarters at Thailand's Utapao Naval Air Base and U.S. assessment teams that have just arrived are fanning out to Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

LT. GEN. JAMES CONWAY, DIR. OF OPERATIONS - JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Their task, of course, will be to make immediate assessment as to the nature and the scope of the impact of the disaster.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. is dispatching more than a dozen warships equipped with medical facilities, rescue and earth-moving equipment and helicopters but it will be days before they arrive.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its four escort ships were the closest in Hong Kong and assuming the Strait of Malacca is clear could be off the coast of Sumatra by this weekend.

The amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was in Guam between seven and eleven days away from its destination, Sri Lanka. Its seven ship task force includes some 2,100 Marines who could be deployed if needed.

The U.S. is also sending ships from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which could arrive in four or five days with equipment capable of producing 90,000 gallons of fresh water a day. (on camera): While the disaster relief may seem slow in coming, U.S. officials say while it's important to get aid there quickly, it's often the long term commitment to reconstruction that ends up being the most valuable assistance.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: With us now is Leslie Gelp. He's the President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Gelp, thanks a lot for joining us.

LESLIE GELP, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Good to be here.

CARLSON: You criticized the president for his remarks or the delay in making his remarks today in "The Washington Post."

GELP: That's right.

CARLSON: What should the president have said?

GELP: Well, I think he could have said yesterday or three days ago exactly what he said today and, as you know, I wasn't criticizing the amount of aid that the U.S. was going to give that he announced today. I think in the end we'll be the most generous of all countries. We almost always are.

What I was criticizing was his waiting on making that pronouncement on missing the opportunity to display humanitarian, moral and diplomatic leadership in the world at a time when the United States' standing abroad is very poor, particularly among Muslims.

And, you know, I regard myself as a hard head and I'm not in favor of these things for soft-minded reasons. I think when people abroad dislike us to the point where they won't cooperate with us then we have to deal with it. It's a problem because in managing most problems we need cooperation.

This was one of those opportunities for him and I thought he missed it. And besides, I think if you went to the White House today and pressed the truth button, most of the people in the White House would tell you they wished that he had said what he said today three days ago.

CARLSON: Well, I got the sense from the remarks from people we'll say in the background from the White House of two things, one that they thought the president really was waiting to figure out what the scope of the aid would be and that when he figured that out he'd say something about it.

And, second, that this is sort of an unfair attack since, for instance, Kuwait, a Muslim country and a very rich one has pledged only $2 million and nobody is criticizing Kuwait or, for that matter, Saudi Arabia, which I don't think is going to come through. GELP: Well, I'll criticize them. They're cheap.

CARLSON: Right but in other words -- you're right that seems to be true but in other words that this is an effort on the part of some in the U.N., for instance, who already don't like the United States to just beat up on the U.S. This is a convenient opportunity. Do you think that's fair?

GELP: Yes, I think the remark by the U.N. official was unfair because I think if you look at the history of disaster relief we end up doing more. Now, we don't on a proportional population basis given the size of our economy but in absolute terms we do.

What the president said today was correct. Last year we gave about $2.4 billion as a government in humanitarian disaster relief. That was about 40 percent of the whole international package and, on top of it, we give over $5 billion privately, American citizens and corporations to the relief organizations. That's quite an effort.

CARLSON: Well isn't -- maybe that's part of the problem. I keep reading -- I read quotes, a number of them in the paper today from Thais and Indonesians, people affected by the tsunamis who have said "Where are the American helicopters? Where is the American aid?" And you got the sense that maybe the expectations of what America can and will do are awfully high. Do you think that's true?

GELP: Well, they are high and I think it's an opportunity too for the president to exercise leadership. For example, if you have a monster disaster like this one and I don't know that there's been one of these proportions, the job falls on the military to bring the supplies, distribute the supplies, working with the relief organizations.

Now I think this is a chance for the president to go to the Indians, the Indonesians and the Chinese and say, "Let's get our military working together on this kind of effort."

Fortunately they're not at war with each other. Let's get them helping people, saving lives, and I think he could pull something like that together and to exercise leadership in that realm is a good offset to his being, you know, a war president. You need both.

CARLSON: All right. Leslie Gelp, thank you very much.

GELP: Sure.

CARLSON: Their loved ones were on holiday in South Asia and now they are missing halfway around the world, the agonizing wait for word on their fate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: As we said earlier, the dead and missing in South Asia include thousands of tourists from more than a dozen countries. Many were on Christmas vacation when the tsunami struck. Britain alone counts 26 citizens among the dead so far. ITV's Paul Davies filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL DAVIES, ITV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Another day of tearful reunions at British airports, as survivors of the tsunami return home, these families aware just how fortunate they are.

For across Britain there are increasingly desperate families awaiting news of loved ones still missing. Twenty-two-year-old James Hurran from Great Yarmouth called his father on Christmas Day from the Thai holiday island of Ko Phi Phi. He hasn't been heard from since.

DALE HURRAN, JAMES' FATHER: Since it happened (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just stuck by the phone, you know, 24/7, haven't heard from him, so now I took the bull by the horns and flying out tomorrow to Thailand myself.

DAVIES: Fourteen-year-old Francesca Britton from Blackpool knows her missing mother, grandfather and uncle were struck by a giant wave on Ko Phi Phi.

FRANCESCA BRITTON, DAUGHTER OF MISSING WOMAN: We've sent pictures out. There's posters all around the hospitals, you know. Everybody is trying their best to find them.

DAVIES: For some, like Nigel Willgrass, the worst fears have already been realized. He last saw his wife, Louise, alive going to buy sun cream in the Thai resort of Phuket. Mr. Willgrass' four children and their car were swept away but somehow survived. Back in his Norfolk home he described finding his wife's body in a local hospital.

NIGEL WILLGRASS, HUSBAND OF VICTIM: And there was a door on the right-hand side that said "morgue" and I thought I'm sure she's not in there but, you know, I can't seem to go in, you know, into the wards. I'll just go there and see if she was there. And I went in and she was there with many other people. And it was -- it was just awful.

DAVIES: Arrangements are now being made to fly Louise Willgrass' body back to Britain.

Paul Davies, ITV News.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Soon after the tsunami struck on Sunday, the numbers began pouring in. Nearly four days later, the estimated death toll, already staggering, is still climbing sharply. We measure things in part to understand the unknown, to give shape to the unfamiliar. What happened on Sunday was so enormous, its scope so broad, it's difficult to comprehend.

But tonight, NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen tries to help makes sense of the senselessness.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What on earth happened?

First, an earthquake so strong that NASA geophysicists now believe it may have caused the planet to wobble on its axis. What followed changed the face of the planet. This was the satellite view of the west Sri Lankan coast before the earthquake broke the ocean floor and released the monstrous tsunamis. And this is the view after those huge waves crashed ashore, blurring the edges of nations and a subcontinent, entirely erasing an unknown number of small islands.

The devastation reached across six time zones, more than 4,000 miles, from Malaysia and Thailand to Somalia and Tanzania in Northeast Africa. That's more than the breadth of the entire U.S. mainland from the tip of Maine to San Francisco. It is harder to measure, to comprehend the extent of human misery, loss, how to fathom at least 45,000 death in Indonesia. That's as if most of the population of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, had been killed in a sudden roil of mud and seawater, how to imagine more than 23,000 dead in Sri Lanka.

That's close to the entire population of Helena, Montana, suddenly gone. Compared to those fatality numbers, the preliminary total of the dead in India, more than 10,000 so far, seems perversely small, the loss of at least 1,800 in Thailand smaller still. That alone staggers, that the loss of almost 2,000 fellow humans is relatively small.

It is unlikely there will ever be a count of the lives forever changed by those deadly waves, the number of children who have lost loving parents, of parents who will never see their children grow up. The waves of anguish, grief are global. The death count includes people of at least 40 nationalities, many of them vacationing in the area, British and Japanese, South Korean and South African, 12 from the United States.

As many nationalities are among the thousands still missing. About 20,000 Swedish tourists are thought to have been in the area. An estimated 1,500 of them among the missing, so many that Sweden's foreign minister said, you won't find many people in Sweden who don't have some personal link to this tragedy.

U.S. Embassy officials are working from a list of more than 2,000 names of missing Americans, although the State Department believes most of them are alive, but unable to get a phone call home. Numbers of the missing are fluid, quickly changing, as many as 1,200 from Switzerland, perhaps 1,000 from Germany, 900 from Norway unaccounted for, 600 from Italy, 200 each from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland.

To factor the true loss, multiply the missing by the number of those who loved them and cared for them, who raised them, grew up with them, worked with them, lived next door. What on earth happened? This, the loss of a life in the flash of a moment, this multiplied by 80,000, maybe 90,000, maybe more.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Yesterday, 24 Iraqi police officers were killed in incidents across that country. Today, the war on law and order escalated in Iraq. Insurgents lured police to a booby-trapped house in Baghdad. The home was packed with nearly a ton of high explosives. Seven officers were killed in the explosion that followed, and so were 22 civilians.

Also today, American forces launched a new offensive aimed at rooting out insurgents in the area south of Baghdad known as the "Triangle of Death." And elsewhere, some remarkable stories of survival and loss began emerging from the deadly bombing last week in Mosul.

With that, here is CNN's Jeff Koinange.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sergeant Eric Wroblewski is proud to be a member of the U.S. Army's 705th EOD, a unit responsible for defusing bombs and mines. On Tuesday, December 21, he had joined friends for lunch in the mess hall at Camp Marez in Mosul.

SGT. ERIC WROBLEWSKI, U.S. ARMY: I got up to go get some pizza. And on my way back is when the explosion occurred. The explosion knocked me to the ground. I got up, found my glasses as soon as possible. They were about two feet behind me.

KOINANGE: Instinct took over.

WROBLEWSKI: I ran around grabbing aprons from some of the workers, taking their aprons off them, because they didn't need them. We were using anything we could. I don't have my -- I already took my BDU top off by them, anything we could use to -- just to stop the bleeding.

KOINANGE: The mess hall, he says, was filled with pandemonium. In this photograph taken by a journalist visiting the base, Wroblewski rushes to the aid of his fallen colleague.

WROBLEWSKI: Specialist Hewitt was opposite side of the table from me, right across from me. And we sat there. I mean, that was our normal sitting spot. We always sat in the same area. That way, if somebody came late, they would know where to find us and they didn't have to sit alone.

I went in one more time to look for Specialist Hewitt. I couldn't find him. And he was dead when he arrived at the hospital.

KOINANGE: Every day, he struggles with vivid memories of those moments. WROBLEWSKI: Just to see that hole just reminds me of the fireball. I mean, the fireball was so big. I was very lucky. If I didn't get up to get pizza, I could either be with Specialist Hewitt right now or recovering next to Sergeant Vauda (ph).

This right here is Specialist Hewitt.

KOINANGE: Wroblewski is struggling to come to terms with the loss of his best buddy.

WROBLEWSKI: Specialist Hewitt was a really good soldier. He was a really good friend. I know it's hard, but I hope they're proud of what he was doing, because he was really proud of what he was doing and to be here. The last thing Specialist Hewitt said to me, we were talking about my wife, actually. And he said, your wife made some really good pancakes. And that's when I told him I was going to go get more pizza. That was the last thing he said to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We stay in this mud much longer, I'm going to start missing Afghanistan.

KOINANGE: Jeff Koinange.

WROBLEWSKI: I don't know about all that.

KOINANGE: CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: NEWSNIGHT will be back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So, if what we refer to as the intelligence community is in fact a community, here's a question. What's the neighborhood coming to and where is everybody going in? Today, we learned that the CIA's deputy director for intelligence is stepping down in February. The DDI runs the analytical side of the agency. Her counterpart on the clandestine operations side resigned earlier this year, and so did their boss, the deputy director of central intelligence and many others since Porter Goss took over as the new head of the CIA.

So, what's happening? With us to try and make sense of some of the things that are happening, we hope, is Michael Scheuer, and author, though billed as "Anonymous," of the book "Imperial Hubris."

Now, Mr. Scheuer, at least five high-level CIA officers, officials, have left the agency or said they're going to leave the agency since former Congressman Goss took over. Is there a pattern here? And, if so, what does it mean?

MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CHIEF OF CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: I think it's still the repercussions, Mr. Carlson, of the CIA being left holding the bag for 9/11.

There is a feeling, I think, within the agency that we were unjustly blamed for the occurrences of 9/11. And there was a great expectation that once the 9/11 Commission report came out that it would be clear to the American people that the CIA had given the government chances to get rid of bin Laden.

In addition, Mr. Goss has not done very much to defend the agency either on that score or -- you'll remember two weeks ago one of the cables from our chief in Baghdad was leaked to the press, and was criticized for not toeing the party line in terms of what the Bush administration likes to think is going on in Iraq. And, again, Mr. Goss opted out of defending that.

CARLSON: But, wait a second, Mr. Scheuer, with all due respect. At least according to Bob Woodward's book, the then head of the CIA, George Tenet, said to President Bush famously, during the run-up to the Iraq war, that the intelligence that CIA had gathered and analyzed indicated that, without question, there were likely, with very small question, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He famously called it a slam-dunk. That, of course, turned out to be wrong.

So, isn't it justified that people who gathered, analyzed that intelligence would face some sort of censure for it?

SCHEUER: Well, it may be, sir, but it also seems odd that you fire the deputy director for intelligence and give the Medal of Freedom to the man who said it was a slam-dunk. It's a very odd situation at the moment.

And, clearly, of all the organizations in Washington that can serve as a punching bag, there's fewer that are better equipped for that role than the CIA. Clearly, there were mistakes made analytically or operationally in terms of Iraq. But, that said, it was not any piece of intelligence that came out of the CIA that said that it was a slam-dunk regarding WMD. Those were the words of the director of central intelligence.

CARLSON: Do you think that CIA is better positioned to help fight the war on terror three years after 9/11 or is it less effective?

SCHEUER: I think, as a whole, the community is less effective, sir.

One of the things they never did after 9/11 was the hard arithmetic of trying to find out how many officers the intelligence community had who were experienced and knowledgeable about the bin Laden-related target. During the Cold War, we had literally thousands and thousands of those kinds of people who were specialists on the Soviet Union. And our universities were churning out people every year to add to that pool.

We have in the low hundreds of experts and experienced officers on the Sunni extremist target, the bin Laden target. And now they've diluted that number by creating the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They really have put the cart before the horse. CARLSON: Well, wasn't the idea after 9/11 that the U.S. government and the CIA in particular was going to hire some untold, but very large number of Arabic speakers and scholars? Has that not happened?

SCHEUER: Well, clearly, the intent is there to increase the work force, but the process of being hired at the Central Intelligence Agency is one that takes a good year to get through at least in terms of testing and polygraphs and other security investigations.

And then, once you get people on board, it takes three, four, five, six years for them to be stand-alone intelligence officers, people who you can count on. So what you are looking at is, once these people are hired, better part of a decade before they're ready to go. And, in the meantime, we've diluted our pool of people who were already on the job to a great extent and really undercut our ability to fight the war on terrorism, that entirely aside from the drain on manpower that's going on because of Iraq.

CARLSON: Now, you said at the outset that you thought that the CIA was -- essentially become the scapegoat for failures that were not its fault. Is there a great deal of resentment at CIA toward the White House?

SCHEUER: Not toward the White House, I think, but toward the -- certainly toward the two commissions that investigated 9/11.

The fortunate part of this for me is that no one has to take my word for the following. The 9/11 Commission report documented eight to 10 chances where the U.S. government could have killed or captured Osama bin Laden by the middle of 1999. And none of those opportunities were taken. And, as I said earlier, there was a widespread expectation in the agency that, when that report was published and that information was put on the public record, the American people would see that, while the agency is not perfect, it had more than done its job in terms of giving opportunities to get rid of Osama bin Laden.

CARLSON: So, you're saying it was a failure of political will on the part of the Clinton White House, not the CIA's fault?

SCHEUER: Absolutely. Well, across the bureaucracy, sir, there's a great reluctance to do anything that would offend international opinion or Muslim opinion or -- we're extraordinarily sensitive to what others think. That always comes before protecting Americans.

CARLSON: All right, Michael Scheuer, former CIA employee and author, best-selling author, I think, thanks for joining us.

SCHEUER: My pleasure, sir. Thank you.

CARLSON: Thanks.

Still ahead tonight, back to the flood, how Americans from all corners of this country have taken up the job of lending a hand.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: And there was other news tonight around the country, starting with a new bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Briefly put, it details the work al Qaeda has been doing to case certain financial institutions in New York, Washington and New Jersey. That said, officials tell us there's no reason to believe any of these buildings are in any immediate danger, though, of course, it's not very reassuring.

Six commercial airlines have been targeted in the last few days by unknown people shining laser beams from the ground into their cockpits, this according to a government official who did not say where the incidents took place or whether they were part of a pattern. None of the crew suffered eye injuries. All six planes landed safely.

The most expensive fighter ever built may be too expensive even for the Pentagon. According to "The New York Times," the Defense Department is looking into scaling back orders for the F-22 Raptor to help pay for the war in Iraq. Each Raptor cost about $250 million. Complicating the equation, contractors for the plane are spread across 43 states and many more congressional districts. So, look for a dogfight on this one. It's guaranteed.

And, finally, actor Jerry Orbach has died of prostate cancer. People knew lately him as Detective Lennie Briscoe on "Law & Order." He was also one of the best Broadway song and dance men who ever lived. Jerry Orbach was 69 years old.

Back now to South Asia. Every disaster is a story of losses and of giving. As we said at the top of the program, $222 million in aid has been received or pledged so far to help to tsunami victims. Large relief organizations are spearheading the efforts, but smaller groups are pitching in as well all around the world.

Here is CNN's Allan Chernoff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Buddhism teaches one to be selfless. In this time of need, members of this Sri Lankan Buddhist Vihara, or temple, in New Jersey are taking their religious teachings to heart.

REV. BULUGAMMANA PIYARATHANA, SPIRITUAL PRACTICE: Our life is helpful life. We always help, help, help. So now it's more than that.

ASOKA RANASINGHE, NEW JERSEY VIHARA MEMBER: Buddhism teaches selfless love. Actually, it doesn't have to be a certain group of people. We basically have a universal love to mankind.

CHERNOFF: The Vihara community is collecting and packing clothing, food and cooking utensils, as well as raising funds for the tsunami victims. Sri Lankan communities in Queens and Staten Island, New York, are doing the same. They plan to pool their donations and send the shipments from New Jersey to their homeland next week.

(on camera): The New Jersey Vihara organized a similar effort complete with a shipping container only two years ago when Sri Lanka suffered flooding on its southern coast. But now the effort is far more extensive. The Vihara anticipate sending several containers.

(voice-over): Anil Vitarana, a New Jersey Vihara member, happens to be an executive at an Arabic shipping company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the ship working now?

CHERNOFF: He's arranged for free passage on a container ship.

ANIL VITARANA, NEW JERSEY VIHARA MEMBER: There's been a great team spirit here among the Sri Lankan expatriates, really in giving support and really rising to the occasion.

CHERNOFF: Vitarana has already coordinated with friends in Sri Lanka who will deliver the goods when they arrive in several weeks. In Buddhism, what you give is what you take into your next life. The Vihara devotees now appear to be giving all they can.

Allan Chernoff, Franklin Township, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Some chilling images, in some cases, of villages wiped off the face of the earth, literally. Reports are, the people who lived there had no warning at all. It doesn't have to be that way.

Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Behind a secure fence on the Hawaiian island of Oahu work some of the world's foremost experts on tsunamis.

(on camera): Now, you're responsible for not only the Hawaiian islands, but all the nations and territories here, even the continent of Australia?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, at least the Pacific side of it.

TUCHMAN: The scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center use seismic ocean sensors, gauges and sophisticated computer technology to protect people who live on the islands of the Pacific Ocean. They don't do the same for the people who live near the Indian Ocean. As a matter of fact, nobody does.

CHARLES MCCREERY, DIRECTOR, PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER: There's no warning system for the Indian Ocean and for many of the other oceans and seas around the world, because tsunamis are so infrequent in those areas.

TUCHMAN: This past weekend, the Hawaii scientists knew right away there was a significant earthquake an ocean away, but they had no data indicating a tsunami would follow. But even if they had a hunch...

MCCREERY: Suppose we did call the government of Sri Lanka and we got ahold of some high official and we told him, you know, we're the Pacific tsunami warning center and we would like you to evacuate all your coasts because we don't know, but there's a possibility a tsunami might be coming. I don't even know that they could possibly take action on a phone call from someone they don't know, that they've never set up procedures with.

TUCHMAN: The Hawaii center is recording aftershocks in India.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The earthquake happened about 12 minutes ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentlemen, we're looking at two aftershocks in the last few minutes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: And has in a matter of days established a new procedure to call governments that don't have warning tsunami systems to give advice, something that's been done for the people of the Pacific for more than half a century.

(on camera): When it comes to tsunamis striking, there's no more vulnerable area on earth than the Pacific Ocean. And there's no more vulnerable area in the Pacific Ocean than the Hawaiian islands.

(voice-over): Historically, Hawaii has been far more likely to be hit by powerful tsunamis than the Indian Ocean region. But when the next dangerous tsunami arrives:

MCCREERY: There's no reason why anyone should die or be injured in a tsunami that comes from around the Pacific Rim and strikes Hawaii.

TUCHMAN: And it's all because of a warning system the people of the Indian Ocean region do not have.

Gary Tuchman, Ewa Beach, Hawaii.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Well, that's it for NEWSNIGHT. Thanks for staying with us.

All this week, CNN has been running coverage from CNN International after NEWSNIGHT. So, if you're interested in hearing more on what's happening in South Asia, stay with us.

Have a great night. See you tomorrow.

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