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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

A Letter Addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy is Believed to Contain Anthrax; Harry Potter Opens in Theaters Today

Aired November 16, 2001 - 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.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. We have used the space for many things in the last months -- the gentle rant, the odd observation, the thoughtful discussion of important issues. OK, we haven't used it for that, but those other ones are true.

Tonight we're going to use to it warn you. Later in the program we're going to have a review of the Harry Potter movie. Everyone has done it. We will, too. But because we've only annoyed our bosses one time this week, and because the producer of this program, my friend, David Bohrmann, is slightly demented, we're going to do it a bit differently.

So if you're one of those people who is more comfortable with the usual -- and there's nothing wrong with that -- about 33 minutes from now you might want to turn away for awhile. On the other hand, if you are one of those people who enjoys something a little different, or perhaps just enjoys a good train wreck, this one is for you tonight.

But before the fun there is serious business to do. And the serious business tonight is no fun at all. Especially for the United States, as the Muslim holiday, the holy month of Ramadan begins. Remember, the United States was concerned about bombing during Ramadan. Now we're hearing that a U.S. bomb has damaged a mosque in Afghan. Not good news for the Pentagon.

A big loss, apparently, for Al Qaeda as well. Mohammed Atef, a top official in Al Qaeda close to bin Laden, said to be killed by U.S. airstrikes.

We haven't talked about anthrax all week at all. Our luck ran out tonight. A contaminated letter postmarked Trenton, New Jersey has been found, addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy.

We have a lot of ground to cover tonight, and we haven't even mentioned yet what's happening on the ground in Afghanistan. We'll begin with our whip around the world, the return of anthrax, to Capitol Hill. Correspondent Kate Snow.

Kate, the headline, please.

KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They have found a letter addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy which they believe appears to contain anthrax. This letter remarkably similar to the letter that came here just about a month ago, addressed to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. It was found by investigators in a heap of unopened Congressional mail that they have been looking through, and it could provide some much-needed clues to this investigation -- Aaron.

BROWN: Kate, thank you. To Kabul now, a lot of developments in Afghanistan. CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, the headline, please.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have been scouring a neighborhood that used to be occupied by the Arab fighters who came here to ally themselves with the Taliban and who are linked to Al Qaeda, and we have found a long and direct trail that leads completely and directly to terrorist activity: letters, documents, material, explosive hand guides, nuclear research material.

We also are watching very carefully the situation in Kandahar, trying to see whether in fact Mullah Omar, the reclusive leader, is beating a hasty retreat or not.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you. And an unanswered question on the table tonight: Where is Osama bin Laden? Correspondent David Ensor working on that. David, the headline please.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Revenge, or perhaps justice in the September 11th case. They may have gotten a down payment on it today with the news that Muhammad Atef is apparently dead from a U.S. air attack. But that is raising the question once again, the first question that started this whole thing: where is Osama bin Laden? We'll look at that tonight.

BROWN: David, thank you. We'll be back with all of you in just a few moments. We begin with the developing story on anthrax. It's been a while since we dealt with this, but investigators all along have remained busy searching through stacks of Congressional mail.

For a while there's been a suspicion that perhaps there were more tainted letters out there somewhere. It seems somewhat of a stretch to believe that just the one Tom Daschle letter, the one sent to the Senate majority leader, could have caused the extensive contamination seen in both Congress and in the Washington, D.C. postal system.

It now appears Vermont Senator Pat Leahy was on the anthrax hit list as well. Back to Capitol Hill, and correspondent Kate Snow. Kate, good evening.

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. As you mentioned, the letter was found in a heap of Congressional mail that investigators have been sorting through. This letter, to another Democrat on Capitol Hill. Senator Patrick Leahy is the chairman of powerful judiciary committee in the Senate.

As a precaution, tomorrow, we've now been told that they will shut down the building in which his office is, the Russell Senate office building, and also the building right next door, tomorrow afternoon, to do some more precautionary environmental testing. At a press conference just completed, health officials said there's no reason for concern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. GREG MARTIN, CAPITOL PHYSICIAN'S OFFICE: We feel very confident that there will be no incidents of disease from this exposure. We have a number of reasons to base that opinion. We have done extensive nasal swabbing. Over 6,000 people have been done, all over the Capitol, including people from every office building and every floor in the entire Capitol complex.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: And it has been nearly five weeks since they discovered the letter to Senator Tom Daschle, and that means this new discovery, this new letter, could actually in a strange way prove to be more help than anything else -- another clue in the anthrax mystery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): In a statement, the FBI said the letter appears to contain anthrax. The as-yet unopened letter has an October 9th, 2001 Trenton, New Jersey postmark, and appears in every respect to be similar to the other anthrax-laced letters. Senate sources say the handwriting on the letter, addressed to Senator Leahy, is strikingly similar to the writing on the letter sent to majority leader Tom Daschle.

The two letters are postmarked from the same Trenton post office, on the same day. The new letter was found at a warehouse in northern Virginia, where investigators this week began sifting through 250 barrels of unopened Congressional mail.

It's unclear whether the letter was ever actually delivered to Senator Leahy's office in the Russell Senate office building. Congressional mail was gathered and handed over to the FBI after the letter containing anthrax was opened last month in Senator Daschle's office.

In a statement Friday, Senator Leahy said of authorities: "I am confident they are taking the appropriate steps, and that eventually they will find this person. Our Senate leaders and officers did the right thing in isolating the Senate's mail."

A spokesman for Senator Leahy's office says the senator and no one in his office have felt any ill effects. No one has had any sign of illnesses in the last five weeks. But this is letter could, again, provide some much-needed clues, Aaron, to investigators.

As you mentioned, all along, many of them suspected. Investigators, health officials, Capitol police suspected there might have to be another letter out there in order to cause so much illnesses, and in fact even two deaths here in the Washington area -- Aaron.

BROWN: So I assume now that the search of all this other mail continues to go on, because there's no reason to believe there's just one other one.

SNOW: It does. They had 250 barrels of mail to go through. They started it earlier this week. We're told by postal inspectors that they're going to continue. They're almost done at this point, but they do continue to look, wearing biohazard suits, being very careful about it, continuing to look to see if there are any other suspicious pieces of mail -- Aaron.

BROWN: Kate, thanks. Kate Snow, have a good weekend. Thank you.

To Afghanistan now. The Taliban retreat appears to be in full bloom. Sources are telling CNN correspondents in Pakistan that the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, has agreed to withdraw from Kandahar, although American sources are saying the situation remains quite fluid, so we'll just have to see.

There is nothing fluid about the retreat in Kabul. The Taliban left the city quickly and either they, or their Al Qaeda friends, left behind stacks of documents saying a lot about who they are and what they hoped they might be able to do some day. CNN's Christiane Amanpour, back with us now from Kabul.

Christiane, in your case, good morning.

AMANPOUR: Good morning, Aaron. And yes indeed, since the Taliban beat that hasty retreat from Kabul, we've been able to go and try to investigate as much, as we can, these links towards terrorism that U.S. officials are believing here.

And what we found are a huge number of documents and materials in so many of the houses that we visited in a specific quarter of Kabul that had been given over to the Taliban, to these Arab guests, they called, who either fought with them or were allied with Al Qaeda. And what it shows is a very direct link and a very direct route, at least, to terrorist intent.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): In this house, deserted in the Taliban's hasty retreat from Kabul, we found a letter that appears to refer to the events of September 11th. The writer says he has changed his name and can no longer leave Afghanistan.

EDDIE MALOU (PH), CNN INTERPRETER: "You must be aware that I cannot travel anywhere by now, due to what happened in the last operation in America. I am present now in Kandahar with the rest of the fighters."

AMANPOUR: Our Arabic-speaking colleague, Eddie Malou (ph), helped translate the piles of papers we discovered. Some were written in English. This letter was sent to Abu Habab (ph), which happens to be the name of one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants. Indicating the presence of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, the letter says -- quote -- "I am sending some companions who are eager to be trained in explosives or whatever they want." It was signed and dated January 12, 2001.

We found this house empty, except for these papers in a bag, tossed away as garbage. It appears to be detailed nuclear weapons research, some of which could have been taken from material that is already in the public domain.

The Arabic handwriting says, "the biggest bombs." When we flip through the photocopied, handwritten pages, we found reference to uranium 235, and next, in English, the words "nuclear," "atomic bomb." And then, "TNT." And finally:

MALOU: Here it specifically mentioned how to make a nuclear bomb.

AMANPOUR (on camera): While we were scouring this now-abandoned house, we came across this picture on the wall. These are the falls of Iguazu in Brazil, and this is where U.S. intelligence officials say they've identified terrorist cells that they say are linked to Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network.

(voice-over): We also found an 82-page training manual that says it's published by the Al Qaeda world committee for recruitment. Here's another carefully handwritten track that instructs how to hijack and blow up airplanes and other facilities, including bridges, towers, railways and ships. And in the shed of this house we found all sorts of chemicals, like sodium oxide and nitrate, that experts say are used in explosives.

(on camera): All the documents were found in this neighborhood. It used to be Kabul's diplomatic quarter, but when the Taliban took over, this became home to their Arab guests.

(voice-over): Northern Alliance commanders have taken over one of these homes, where we found pamphlets on how to -- quote -- "liberate Saudi Arabia from American influence," as well as an open letter from bin Laden to the Saudi king.

"The Arabs came here speaking of Islam," says this commander, "but they deceived the Afghan people as they went about their own work of terrorism and fighting."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Now, although Osama bin Laden has expressed interest in weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials and nuclear experts say that without sufficient quantities of enriched uranium or plutonium, it's extremely unlikely that he would be able to have any kind of material needed for that chain reaction for a nuclear explosion.

On another issue of concern to the United States, there had been reports that there was an anthrax factory here in Kabul that was of concern to U.S. officials. Well, we went to visit that factory yesterday, and we saw that U.S. bombers had tried, or at least had bombed around it. There's considerable damage, but the factory itself is empty. The factory says that it is a vaccine laboratory -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just for my help here. This is the factory that the Red Cross participated in running or building or managing?

AMANPOUR: Yes. This is a factory that was set up by the International Red Cross. What they said was that it was for animal vaccines. Here, you know, a lot of cows and agriculture. They needed this anthrax vaccine. But then, we were told it was taken over by the Taliban Ministry of Agriculture.

And that was the confusion. I believe U.S. officials didn't quite know what, exactly, it was producing. In any event, there were reports that it had not -- the U.S. had not targeted it. When we went there yesterday, we saw in the land in front of it, just 50 yards in front and to the side, clear bomb impacts.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you. That's a fascinating day of reporting. Thank you. Christiane Amanpour in Kabul tonight.

You might remember a few weeks back, the date November 17 hovering over the Pentagon. In a way that was a deadline for getting some big wins in Afghanistan, because it was the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Bad politics to bomb during Ramadan -- that was the conventional wisdom at the time.

Well, the 17th is tomorrow and all of us know there has been a lot of big wins over the last week. What happened today, however, is not one of them. A U.S. bomb missed its target in central eastern Afghanistan and damaged a mosque there. How bad the damage is, we don't know at this point.

The accident doesn't mean the United States is retreating during Ramadan, and to prove it, Defense Department today confirmed there are special operations forces on the ground in Afghanistan. The way that some of them are moving around is, as you can see, is pretty low tech -- on horseback. You get around as best you can, where you can. Soldiers on horses.

Of course, not the real victory, the real picture of victory today. Credible reports, as U.S. officials put it, say that Muhammad Atef has been killed by U.S. airstrikes. He's a top lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. Hardly just a business relationship, it would seem. Atef's daughter is married to one of bin Laden's sons.

In any case, if it is all true, an important player has been taken out. Whether that was very good intelligence or very good fortune is not clear tonight, but whichever it was, it's a reminder that it may well be possible to find the proverbial needle in the haystack.

And the biggest needle of them all is Osama bin Laden. So where is the world's most wanted man tonight? That's among the things that CNN's David Ensor has been working on, and David joins us with that, and a little more on Atef. Correct, David?

ENSOR: Well, correct. I just wanted to tell you how intelligence officials learned about this fact that he's apparently been killed. It's sort of interesting. They were watching after the airstrike as people went over the wreckage to try to find survivors, and they were able to monitor some communications from those people, who were talking to others, about who might have been killed in the wreckage. So that's the evidence that they have that he's been killed. Nobody has actually seen the body yet, but that obviously will be something that would be desirable, in the view of U.S. officials. This is a big win for them.

BROWN: It would sound like it. Let's move on now to the biggest fish in the sea at this point, bin Laden. Do we know where he is?

ENSOR: Do not know where he is. There's been a lot of talk about how he might have gone to other countries. Where is he? I took a look at that today and here's my report on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): Where is he? Is Osama bin Laden still in Afghanistan? Or could he have fled on a horse or mule into Pakistan? Or perhaps, in a helicopter?

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I don't doubt for a minute that there are some well-hidden helicopters that we can't find, and that they are undoubtedly available to the senior people, as opposed to the junior people. And that it is possible to run down a ravine and not be seen.

ENSOR: But neither Rumsfeld nor U.S. intelligence officials nor outside experts believe bin Laden has left Afghanistan. Not to Pakistan.

EDWARD LUTTWAK, SENIOR FELLOW, CSIS: Pakistan has a regular sort of army, police. It's a normal control. It's not a wild west.

ENSOR: And not to any other country, either. Too risky for him. Too risky for them.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For every regime that sponsors terror, there is a price to be paid.

ENSOR: So that leaves Afghanistan, perhaps in disguise as a woman in a burqa -- not easy when you're at least 6 foot 4.

LUTTWAK: The only reason there's any chance that he might be found is that he's so extraordinarily tall.

ENSOR: That leaves the mountains. Hundreds of square miles of them, riddled with caves and tunnels, dug through centuries of warfare. Some, as this animation suggests, fitted out for fighters to survive months and years underground. Major General Makmud Gareyev was an adviser to the Soviet-backed communist Afghan government of the early '90s.

GEN. MAKMUD GAREYEV, FMR. SOVIET ADVISER TO AFGHANISTAN (through translator): Some of them are 300 to 400 meters deep. Many are located around other areas, where there is a 3-kilometer-long tunnel. ENSOR: And even if American soldiers figure out which cave complex contains the Al Qaeda leader, Nlamatullah Arghandabi, who fought the Russians from caves and tunnels of Afghanistan, warns U.S. special forces will lose men taking bin Laden.

NLAMATULLAH ARGHANDABI, FORMER AFGHAN CAVE FIGHTER: Even if they know where bin Laden is, maybe they will fail. And they have to back up and they will lose a lot of people.

ENSOR: Some experts on bin Laden say in fact, they believe the terrorist mastermind has already planned his own end.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think that he's decided to die in his final conflict. The unfortunate thing is that he may well decide to take a lot of other people with him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: The key to finding bin Laden is clearly intelligence information. And the $25 million reward that the U.S. is offering for that information could go a fairly long way, although one senior official that I spoke to the other night, Aaron, said there's discussion of perhaps raising that amount. Anybody like to try $50 million for bin Laden? That's a possibility -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you. It's hard to imagine the difference would be that much, but you never know. Have a good weekend. David Ensor in Washington.

Coming up here, we're going to revisit this question of Al Qaeda and nuclear weapons. Is it possible? What do these documents show us? NEWSNIGHT continuing for Friday here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We saw in Christiane Amanpour's report a few moments ago some of these rooms deserted, these safe houses deserted by the Taliban in Afghanistan. CNN, as she reported, had found documents that make it clear that at the very least, Al Qaeda was interested in developing nuclear weapons.

We've heard that before. The question, of course, is how far they've gotten along in their development. The signs are complicated. From Washington, physicist David Albright joins us tonight. He's the president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Mr. Albright, it's nice to see you. Thanks for joining us.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, PHYSICIST, PRESIDENT, ISIS: Thank you.

BROWN: I know you've had a very quick kind of cursory glance at some of these documents. But give me just your take on what you have seen and what they tell you.

ALBRIGHT: First of all, it's surprising to find such a document in Afghanistan. And also, although it's an extremely crude document, it covers quite a bit of territory on the process of trying to make a nuclear weapon.

BROWN: Is it -- I had a feeling that I could go on the Internet and in about 15 minutes find a fair amount about building a bomb, if not a nuclear bomb. Is it, in your sense, more sophisticated than what any of us could find on the Net?

ALBRIGHT: What I saw on the documents, it's not more sophisticated than what you could find on the Internet. It's just trying to pool all of it together and move in a certain direction. And it was surprising to see things on uranium mining -- someone making what appears to be making uranium metal, which is used in nuclear weapons, and typically not used in civil nuclear programs.

So I didn't see anything that would lead me to believe there's classified information in it. It does imply intent, and it's just another indicator that this group wants nuclear weapons.

BROWN: And just to be clear on that, it says more about intent than it does about progress, doesn't it?

ALBRIGHT: What I saw is very crude. And there appear to be mistakes in it. They have a lot of, a lot of ground to cover, and it's mostly theoretical. And the practical steps of building a nuclear explosive are quite formidable. And I didn't see any indication that much of that was covered.

BROWN: Probably a good thing to note, here. Anything, as we look through these documents in the next several days, that we ought to be paying particular attention to?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I think it's important to use these documents to get leads. You want to find out who the scientists were. You want to find out what this document is. Is it an old document from years ago? Is it a current document? You'd like to know what kind of schedule they may have on nuclear weapons. Is it kind of a pie in the sky goal? You also want to know how they plan, how they might plan to use them.

And basically what you want to do is get the information together so that you can round up the scientists that you can find, question them and then seek to dismantle and destroy whatever of this program that you can find. It's very important also, to get to the bottom of it. I think everyone wants to know, how close are they to nuclear weapons? Is it as far away as people believe?

Unfortunately, when we looked in other countries, there's always surprises, that we tend to see the tip of the iceberg. And there's always this question of how deep is the iceberg.

BROWN: So we ought not to pretend that they may not have moved along a bit. Mr. Albright, thanks for your time tonight.

ALBRIGHT: Thank you.

BROWN: Look ford to talking to you again. Have a good weekend. David Albright with us. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, much more ahead. We hope you'll stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Been more than two months since the attack of September 11th, but an airport security bill is now on its way to the president's desk. This was often an ugly partisan fight that, in the end, produced a comprehensive plan, including 28,000 federal baggage screeners, federal employees. Now, in three year's time airports will be allowed to opt out of the federal system and choose private security companies if they want. But not initially, not for three years.

Scare today at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta. All domestic flights -- they had to evacuate the airport. You can see the crowds of people who had to wait and wait and wait. And what happened is a man breached security. He was seen running up and down escalator -- down an up escalator, one or the other.

In any case, you see him there in the security camera running down the escalator towards the main terminal building. The man is in custody now. He said he was just rushing to a flight and a college football game.

Boston Logan Airport has suspended the license of the Argenbright security company, which handles checkpoints for several of the airlines at Logan. Logan says been security lapses. Logan, of course, had its own problems. The hijacked flights that hit the World Trade Center originated at Boston Logan.

Last week someone asked first lady Laura Bush how she viewed her role as first lady, whether it was more like Hillary Clinton,or more like Mamie Eisenhower. "I view my role as first lady as Laura Bush," she said. And on Saturday, the first lady will make a little bit of history. She will deliver the weekly radio address in total, in the president's place, to talk abut the Taliban and their treatment of women.

For more on this, here's CNN's Major Garrett.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's never happened before, but a first lady will deliver the president's entire national radio address. White House aides say Laura Bush will issue a stinging indictment of Taliban abuse of women, the initial blow on a massive public relations campaign by coalition nations to add women rights to the list of grievances against the Taliban regime.

KAREN HUGHES, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT: We feel it's an important part of our war on terrorism to explain to the world the brutality and the repressive nature of these terrorists and -- and how they seek to impose their will and destroy something as important as the -- as the human dignity of the women and children in Afghanistan. GARRETT: A new State Department report obtained by CNN chronicles the downfall of women in Afghanistan. Before the Taliban, women comprised 70 percent of school teachers, 50 percent of government workers and university students and 40 percent of the nation's doctors.

Under the Taliban, women were confined to their homes, all access to work and higher education denied. The report to be released Saturday concludes: "The Taliban regime cruelly reduced women and girls to poverty, worsened their health, and deprived them of their right to an education, and many times the right to practice their religion."

At their summit in Texas, Presidents Bush and Putin said Taliban abuse of women was practically medieval, or worse.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Taliban is the most repressive, backward group of people we have seen on the face of the earth in a long period of time.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA: Overall, women in Afghanistan are basically not treated as people.

GARRETT: Sherie Blair, wife of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will join the coalition chorus this weekend. The White House will follow up with speeches from female members of the Bush cabinet and leading women in Congress.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GARRETT: At first, this campaign was designed to intensify world condemnation of the Taliban. But with the regime in near full retreat, the goal is to place women's rights front and center as the international community begins to mold a new government in Kabul. Major Garrett, CNN Crawford, Texas.

BROWN: OK. Now, coming up next on NEWSNIGHT, the Harry Potter review. Remember the warning. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK. We've come to that moment now. The Harry Potter movie review moment.

We need to make a couple of quick points first. Number one, this is a Warner Brothers movie, as in AOL-Time-Warner, our parent company. What that means, of course, is I love the movie. I haven't seen it yet, but I love it anyway.

Secondly we probably should have had a child do this review, but because the program is on so late it seemed the wrong thing to do. So we settled on the next best thing to a child: "Time" magazine humorist Joel Stein and his grandmothers.

They went to the movies today. They go to a lot of movies. They often go early so they can get bargain prices at both the theater and the restaurant afterwards, but they know movies. There they go. So meet now, Mama Ann and Mama I -- their grandson Joel is around too -- for their review of the Harry Potter movie. From Mama Ann's living room, I do believe. Welcome to both of you.

MAMA ANN, "HARRY POTTER" VIEWER: Welcome.

MAMA I, "HARRY POTTER" VIEWER: Thank you.

BROWN: Welcome. Well, either one works. Mama Ann, start us off. Take a half minute or so and tell me what you thought of the movie?

MAMA ANN: I thought it was great.

BROWN: OK.

MAMA ANN: I really enjoyed it.

BROWN: You have 27 seconds left to fill. Tell me what about it you thought was great.

MAMA ANN: Well, the scenery, the witchcraft it was really good. But I think children may be frightened with it.

BROWN: How -- what age do you think is appropriate?

MAMA ANN: Eight and above.

JOEL STEIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: But kids nowadays, like you said, they can...

MAMA ANN: Well, they're more sophisticated today, the kids. But there are some frightening scenes in there.

BROWN: Are there? And do you think they'll keep you up tonight, or you will be OK?

MAMA ANN: No, I'm fine. But I'm wondering -- it's the children it will keep up.

BROWN: OK. And would you go see it again?

MAMA ANN: Yes, I would.

STEIN: Without me.

BROWN: OK. Without Joel.

MAMA ANN: I'll take him along.

BROWN: That's -- that's because you're a good grandma. That's what...

MAMA ANN: Yes.

STEIN: She's a great grandmother. BROWN: Now we'll go to Mama I. Mama i, you saw the movie today, right?

MAMA I: Yes.

BROWN: And did you enjoy it?

MAMA I: Yes. Well, Joel insisted we go see the movie.

BROWN: So you were...

MAMA I: And we did.

BROWN: Go ahead. No, go ahead, please.

MAMA I: And we did, tonight. Surprisingly, I liked it. I mean, it gave me a headache. There was an awful lot of noise.

STEIN: It was a noisy film.

MAMA I: A very noisy film. And Mr. Harry Potter didn't impress me one bit.

BROWN: He did not?

MAMA I: I mean, no expression on his face. And very disappointed in him.

BROWN: So...

STEIN: You thought he was cute, right?

MAMA ANN: He was adorable.

STEIN: Yeah, he was a cute kid.

MAMA I: But I liked -- I really did like the movie.

BROWN: Good.

MAMA I: I liked the fantasy and the magic, witchcraft.

BROWN: But you didn't think -- you didn't think the acting was up to snuff?

MAMA I: No.

BROWN: All right.

MAMA ANN: I did.

MAMA I: I didn't like that English girl, didn't understand a word she was saying.

BROWN: All right. So, so far, Mama i the movie gave you a headache, you didn't like either Harry or the girl. MAMA I: Well, I liked it.

BROWN: What exactly did you like?

MAMA I: No, I really did like it. Those are little -- just little things. But I really did like the movie.

STEIN: You liked the story, the imagination?

MAMA I: I liked the story, I liked the fantasy of it, and I certainly liked the scenery. Absolutely beautiful.

BROWN: All right. OK. Now, don't you guys go anywhere. Well, you're not going anywhere. You're in Ann's kitchen there -- or living room.

MAMA I: No, in the living room.

BROWN: The living room. Just stay where you are. We are going to show a little clip of the movie, so people watching the program can get a headache too, I guess.

MAMA I: I'll stay here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HAGRID: Did you ever make anything happen, anything you couldn't explain? You're a wizard, Harry.

HARRY POTTER: I'm a what?

POTTER: Dear Mr. Potter: we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In a few more minutes you will pass through these doors and join your classmates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep an eye on the stair cases. They like to change.

PROFESSOR MCGONAGALL: Good afternoon, class. Welcome to your first flying lesson. Stick your right hand over the broom and say, "up."

POTTER: Up! Wow.

MCGONAGALL: Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Longbottom, exactly where do you think you're going?

RON WEASLEY: Do you really have the -- scar? Wicked.

PROFESSOR SNAPE: Mr. Potter, our new celebrity.

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE: First years should note that the dark forest is strictly forbidden, with no magics to be used between the classes in the corridors. HERMIONE GRANGER: Centrifugus totalus.

DUMBLEDORE: The third-floor corridor is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to suffer a most painful death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throw him in the dungeon!

HAGRID: Understand this, Harry, because it's very important. Not all wizards are good.

GRANGER: I'm going bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed. Or worse, expelled.

WEASLEY: She needs to sort out her priorities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is clear that we can expect great things from you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I thought -- I thought the trailer made it look great. Just my opinion, but I feel that way about Warner Brothers movies generally. Mama Ann, did you think it was true to the book?

MAMA ANN: Unfortunately, I did not read the book.

BROWN: Ah.

MAMA ANN: But I'm going to go out and get it.

STEIN: Really? You're going to read the book now?

MAMA ANN: I definitely am going to read the book.

BROWN: And Mama I, do you think if there's another Harry Potter movie you'll go see it?

MAMA I: No, definitely not.

STEIN: Wait, I thought you liked it.

MAMA I: Well, one time is enough.

STEIN: You have all the Harry Potter you need.

MAMA ANN: I would go again.

STEIN: You would. OK.

MAMA I: You mean would I see the movie again?

STEIN: No, when there's a sequel.

BROWN: Right. Like the next Harry Potter II movie.

MAMA I: No. MAMA ANN: I would.

MAMA I: No, definitely not. I've had it.

BROWN: What if -- what if we agreed to put you on television again if you went to see it? Not likely?

MAMA I: You know, I think once is enough.

BROWN: OK. Give your grandson a hug.

MAMA I: Sure.

BROWN: And thanks for joining us, all of you. The Harry Potter review.

MAMA ANN: It was my pleasure. Thank you.

BROWN: It was ours. No, have a great weekend. Thank you.

Front pages from newspapers around the country, or at least a couple of places around the country, delivered by actual editors, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is a live television program. We are having a live television problem. We are having an audio problem in both the remotes of our newspaper editors in El Paso, Texas and in Newport News, Virginia, and we are trying to figure out the right plugs to put in.

Can either of you guys hear me, Mr. Moore and Mr. Gates? Are you able to hear me?

BOB MOORE, EDITOR, "EL PASO TIMES:" I'm picking you up in El Paso.

ERNIE GATES, EDITOR, NEWPORT NEWS "DAILY PRESS:" I can hear you. Faintly, but good enough.

BROWN: Let me tell you, we -- can we go with faintly but good enough?

GATES: I'll try it.

BROWN: Why not. Bob Morris, the managing editor of the "El Paso Times," Ernie Gates, the vice president and editor of the "Daily Press" in Newport News, Virginia. Welcome to you both. I hope this will work. We'll find out. Your front page, Mr. Moore, done for tomorrow?

MOORE: It's getting there, yeah. We are pretty well committed to what we are going to have on the front page.

BROWN: What's your lead story on the front page? MOORE: Well, the lead is going to be a local story that has strong ties to the fallout from the attack. It's going to focus on efforts by the Border Patrol to begin manning the ports of entry between the United States and Mexico to help speed up the flow of traffic, which has been severely slowed with the increase of security since September 11th.

BROWN: That's a terrific example, isn't it, of how to localize this national story? And I think all newspapers are trying to do that. And Mr. Gates, is your front page pretty much put together at this point? It must be.

GATES: It's a -- it's work in progress, but we've got the lineup pretty well set.

BROWN: And what's your lead?

GATES: Two -- two things going on, really. First of all, the Mohammed Atef story is our -- probably our lead out of Afghanistan.

And we've got big news in the state, as well, as the economic impact of September 11 and frankly the entire year has put a big hole in our state budget.

BROWN: So you have got a local story which you're at least weaving a tie into -- you're big -- the area that you work in is a big Navy area. I would assume you've run a lot of military stories since September 11th, or at least the days after.

GATES: Absolutely. This -- this area is a big Navy town. It's also a big Air Force and Army town. That means the -- the flyers over Iraq, the flyers over Afghanistan, a lot of those people live here. So this is a very local story for us.

BROWN: Have your readers been demanding of you more and more and more because of that, or do they seem content with what you're giving them?

GATES: I think we always want to give more and more, and this is the kind of story where in particular, newspapers have that advantage. This is the thing we do best, is give more information, more explanatory information, the kind of things people can spend some time with.

BROWN: And Mr. Moore, same thing with you? Have you been able to expand the news window in the paper to give people -- to give your readers more depth on some of this, a look at religion or what have you?

MOORE: Sure. That was true especially in the days after this attack and then in the days immediately after we began bombing Afghanistan.

We -- we increased our news hole in -- in those days and we are seeing even in non-traditional sections like our lifestyle section an increased focus on things that are related to the attack. A lot more stories on -- on Islam, for example. A lot of cultural stories and that kind of thing.

And as with the other paper, we are also in the middle of a heavy -- a heavy military town, too, so it has that kind of impact here as well.

BROWN: We've got about a minute or so left. Do you think the newspaper business has fundamentally changed for the long term because of the events of September 11th, or is this a short-term phenomenon? Mr. Moore, why don't you take a whack at that?

MOORE: I -- I hope it's a long-term change. In particular I hope that the attraction of people back to newspapers continues and this -- this sense of mission that newspapers have to provide information, I think that's going to continue as well for the long term.

BROWN: And Mr. Gates do you -- do you think the newspaper business has been energized by this?

GATES: well, I think there's no question. Not just the newspaper business. One of the most interesting things to me is how the readers have been -- come to rely more and more on newspapers. And the relationship that we have with the readers has taken on this -- this new sense of importance, which resonates in the newsroom and also out there in the readership.

BROWN: All right. I hope you're right. There's nothing like getting a newspaper in the morning or the afternoon. We appreciate your time. Have a good weekend.

GATES: Thanks.

MOORE: Thanks.

BROWN: Mr. Moore and Mr. Gates in Newport News, Virginia, and El Paso, Texas. Thank you both.

One more thing before we leave papers today. If you lived in New York, the "New York Post" celebrates -- celebrated its 200th anniversary today. Think about that.

And they sent out -- we'll hold it up. You can't see it terribly well. But they sent out a -- what, a copy of the original paper, which mostly appears to be ship sailings. I don't know where that shot was coming from. It appears to be ship sailings on Monday, November 16th, 1801.

So happy birthday to the "New York Post". We love the "Post." We actually don't think they're crazy about us, but we love them and we wish them happy birthday. We will take a break and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, in almost way it looks like a cookie-cutter airport hotel, what a business traveler might want. Not much else. Exercise room, modem, airport shuttle, those generic conference halls that play host to meetings and trade shows. But the JFK Ramada Plaza in Queens plays host to something else, something that makes this hotel unique: known to the locals simply as "heartbreak hotel." Here's CNN's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They call it the heartbreak hotel. The Ramada Plaza at JFK Airport in New York. After the crash of American airlines Flight 587, the hotel became the gathering place for families of those lost.

The families of plane crash victims have come here before. In 1996, after TWA Flight 800 exploded off Long island. Two years later, after Swissair Flight 111 crashed in Nova Scotia. And in 1999, after Egyptair Flight 990 plunged into the Atlantic.

STEVEN BELMANTE, PRESIDENT & CEO, RAMADA HOTELS: We have become very, very good, very sensitive about handling these situations.

NISSEN: Airport officials use a hot line to alert the staff that a plane has crashed.

GAIL GALLOWAY, FRONT DESK CLERK: When that red phone rings my heart goes like this. It's -- it's a horrible feeling when that phone goes off.

BELMANTE: We have to bring in as many as 200 people immediately after that phone call and be fully up and operational within an hour and a half.

NISSEN: The hotel works off its own carefully-crafted action plan. Hotel space is allocated for a chapel, child care, work space for airline officials, government authorities, the Red Cross. Rooms are readied for victims' families.

ANITA PUNCH, HOUSEKEEPING SUPERVISOR: Sometimes we put teddy bears in the rooms, we put candy in the rooms. And you know, we have tissues and everything ready for them because we know they're going to come and they're crying.

NISSEN: The kitchen starts working around the clock. After Monday's crash, chef Michael Ciriaco cooked for 20 straight hours.

MICHAEL CIRIACO: Because so many of the families were Dominican, we prepared items that were very traditional to their home, their rices their chickens, their meat dishes, had that traditional style.

NISSEN: Staffers do what they can to make the families comfortable while they wait for answers and for the dead to be identified. They see and feel the families's anguish. Housekeeper Maria Mateo says it pains her to see that many families don't sleep for days.

"I notice that they haven't laid down on the beds, and are a lot of tissues in the waste baskets," she says. Waiter Franklyn Polonia says many families stay isolated in their rooms, but when he brings then room service they are grateful for his listening ear.

FRANKLYN POLONIA, WAITER: You know, they have somebody to talk to. They have somebody to lean on when they need, you know, somebody.

PUNCH: They show us pictures. They tell us who they lost in their families, their mom, their sister or their uncle.

NISSEN: Why do they turn to you?

PUNCH: Because we're there.

NISSEN: Staffers are taught it's OK to talk with families, to offer a sympathetic hug, a tear-proof shoulder.

GALLOWAY: I had one lady the -- with the last disaster. There were no flights going out. And she couldn't get home and she just started crying. I came from behind the desk and held her, because she wanted to get home.

BELMANTE: It's just pure grief and sorrow in the rawest form, and all you can do is hug these people, cry with them.

NISSEN: This time, some hotel staffers are themselves among the grieving. Flight 587 crashed just after it left JFK for the Dominican Republic. 20 percent of the Ramada JFK staff is Dominican, including Franklin Diaz, who lost three friends on the flight but still came in to work a double shift.

FRANKLIN DIAZ, HOUSEKEEPER: That's why we are here for. To help. Ramada is not just a hotel to stay. It's a hotel to help.

NISSEN: Many staffers become very close to the crash families, stay in touch with them.

POLONIA: To this day I think about each flight that we've had. I think of those people from now and then, how they're doing, how they're feeling, you know? Just like family members, you know.

BELMANTE: As sad as it is, it's wonderful to know that -- that people could -- total strangers can still bond and comfort each other. The media has referred to this hotel as the heartbreak hotel. We kind of like to think of it as the hotel with a heart.

NISSEN: A heart with 478 chambers, ready for the next air disaster, hoping the red phone stays silent. Beth Nissen, CNN New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A real quick program note before we send you on your weekend. A reminder: CNN presents this weekend "Unholy War," Saira Shah's sequel to "Beneath the Veil" Saturday and Sunday. You see the times. We will see you Monday at 10:00. Good night for NEWSNIGHT. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com