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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

The First U.S. Indictment of a Suspected Al Qaeda Members Comes Three Months After The September 11th Attacks; More Information Emerges on The Young American Taliban Jon Walker

Aired December 11, 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. It's been three months. It's either been the longest three months in history or the shortest. At times today to me, at least, it seemed like both.

In that time, hundreds of bodies have been found, but thousands remain missing. There have been three terrorist alerts and one attack, the anthrax attack, that remains as much a mystery as ever. In that time, the nation has gone to war and the war has gone well, or at least this part of the war has gone well. Who knows what the next phase will be and how that will play out?

In that time, we have struggled, as a great democracy sometimes must, to balance important civil liberties with crucial national security questions. And how that has gone is very much the subject of debate. It may take years and many historians to sort it out.

In that time, three months, millions of Americans, perhaps millions of people around the world, discovered that they, too, in their own way, are New Yorkers. Was it yesterday or a lifetime ago? Both, it seems.

Until today, no one had been charged directly in the September 11th attacks -- until today. That changed, and we'll be covering that a lot tonight. It's a face you've seen on and off since September 11. Now the United States has connected the face with a crime, or so the government believes. Zacarias Moussaoui, charged with conspiring to kill thousands, possibly the twentieth hijacker -- an indictment the attorney general described as a "chronicle of evil."

The victims of the evil, as we said, were remembered around the globe today, even above the globe on the shuttle Endeavour. And here, where it all started, at Ground Zero.

(BAGPIPES PLAY "AMAZING GRACE")

BROWN: Some of the workers just stood silently and watched, but others thought the best way to honor the dead today was to just keep on working. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld remembered the Pentagon's dead, sometimes overshadowed by the enormity of the New York disaster.

And no pause this morning in the relentless attack on the al Qaeda holdout in the Tora Bora area. Eastern Alliance forces says al Qaeda troops have two choices now: surrender or die. The defense secretary warned that a "wounded animal can be dangerous."

A lot going on here. We'll look at events today at Ground Zero. Beth Nissen will give us a look under Ground Zero, a strange and chaotic place, as you might expect. Also tonight, the fate of a sculpture close by that survived the attack. No one much noticed it before, but that all changed, like so many things on the 11th of September.

That's all coming up. We begin, as we always do, with our whip around the world and the correspondents covering it. We begin with CNN's Susan Candiotti. The headline today, Susan, on the investigation, please.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. It's finally happened, the first person charged in the September 11th attacks. Six conspiracy counts, an indictment of someone investigators had been calling a material witness. And he's been locked up since August, a month before the suicide attacks.

BROWN: Susan, back with you shortly. Now to CNN's Brent Sadler at the Tora Bora area, the latest on the siege against al Qaeda. Brent, the headline from you, please.

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, all quiet on the eastern Afghanistan front right now. But that could change very shortly, when a surrender deadline runs out, in less than half an hour from now. Eastern Alliance commanders telling al Qaeda diehards in the White Mountains behind me, "surrender or die." Face another onslaught both on the ground and possibly from the air -- Aaron.

BROWN: Brent, thank you. And to Kandahar now, and CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, the headline from you, please.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, today Mr. Karzai goes to Kabul. The new interim head of Afghanistan's government is going there not just promising peace and stability, but promising that as a top priority, he will never this country again become a sanctuary for terrorism.

BROWN: Christiane, back with you. Back with all of you shortly.

We begin at home with a 30-page criminal indictment and the face behind it. Zacarias Moussaoui has been in jail since well before 9- 11. Today he became the first and only person directly charged in the attacks. But the making the charge and making the charge stick are two different things, and so part of what we'll do tonight is try to figure out how much evidence there is. This is a death penalty case, and even in the aftermath of 9-11, evidence counts.

Back to CNN's Susan Candiotti in Washington. Susan, good evening to you.

CANDIOTTI: Good everything, Aaron. The government begins to lay out a conspiracy of terror, and says Zacarias Moussaoui is a key player. There are almost two dozens others named in the indictment, but not charged, including al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): The attorney general calls the indictment "a chronicle of evil."

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: For those who continue to doubt al Qaeda's role in the murders of September 11, our indictment offers 30 pages of chilling allegations of al Qaeda's campaign of terror.

CANDIOTTI: The first to be charged, a native of France, Zacarias Moussaoui. He holds a master's degree in international business, but investigators say his real business was terrorism.

ASHCROFT: Zacarias Moussaoui is alleged to have been an active participant in this conspiracy alongside the 19 terrorists who carried it out. Moussaoui is charged with undergoing the same training, receiving the same funding and pledging the same commitment to kill Americans.

CANDIOTTI: Moussaoui faces six conspiracy counts, including aircraft piracy, destroying an aircraft and the murder of U.S. employees. Four of the counts carry a possible death penalty. Osama bin Laden and one of his top lieutenants, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are among 23 unindicted co-conspirators. So are the 19 hijackers.

The indictment charges bin Laden with providing training and money for the terrorists, and says Moussaoui trained at one of the Afghan camps in April of 1998. For the first time, the charges trace in writing what CNN has reported, tens of thousands of dollars funneled from the Middle East to the hijackers, and, in the days before the hijacking, leftover money was wired back to Dubai.

The man who may have been behind Moussaoui, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, thought to have been the missing 20th hijacker, had he not failed four times to enter the U.S. for flight training. Soon after, Moussaoui went to Pakistan, came back, and began flight training in Oklahoma.

BRENDA KEENE, AIRMAN FLIGHT SCHOOL: He had never attained even a solo certificate at this point. So that would leave me to believe that he was not a very good pilot.

CANDIOTTI: In early August, the indictment says, Ramzi bin al- Shibh wired $14,000 to Moussaoui from Germany. Moussaoui apparently used that money to enroll in a second flight school in Minnesota. He was in training only three days before that flight school became suspicious.

He was picked up on immigration charges. But the FBI said Moussaoui did not cooperate, and agents had no clue about his plans. Sources say it wasn't until after September 11 that crop dusting materials and flight training tapes found in his possession made things click.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

In October, Moussaoui's mother in France received a four-page letter from her son, by then being held as a material witness. He wrote these words: "Don't worry. I didn't do anything, and I can prove it when the time comes." No telling when that trial will be.

Moussaoui is now being held in New York. The indictment was filed in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, where he will be arraigned January 2nd -- Aaron.

BROWN: Let's try a couple. Do you want to take a whack at explaining why unindicted co-conspirators, on bin Laden and the rest?

CANDIOTTI: Well, presumably the government is not yet ready to charge anyone else in this case. Certainly, it's a question we've been asking time and again. And presumably at this time, the government is still gathering evidence.

BROWN: Did it come up today with the attorney general, why not a military tribunal?

CANDIOTTI: Yes, it did. And he, I must say, did not answer the question directly. We do know this, that it has been under consideration. And our CNN senior White House correspondent, John King, was told by senior administration officials that part of the debate involved an ongoing controversy surrounding these military tribunals. And that, in fact, because of that ongoing debate, a thought was, let's not make the first case involving a military tribunal.

However, Aaron, they are leaving open the possibility that some evidence involved in this case might be brought before such a tribunal.

BROWN: Susan, thank you. Susan Candiotti in Washington tonight.

There's an intriguing development out of Portland, Oregon as well, tonight -- a case that looks terribly familiar. Police say they have a Lebanese man in custody on weapons charges. A search of his home and car turned up a Russian pistol, a Rumanian-made assault rifle, $20,000 in cash and what authorities believe is a fake I.D. They also discovered a plaque bearing the name "Hamas" and a calendar with a date highlighted. The date was September 11th.

The man says he received training in Lebanese guerrilla camps. It raises all kinds of questions about who else is out there, what they're up to -- a question for Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek" magazine. We're always pleased to have him with us, especially so tonight. He joins us from Washington.

Michael, nice to see you.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, "NEWSWEEK": Good to be with you.

BROWN: Does the government believe there are other people out there with a direct connection to September 11th in the country now?

ISIKOFF: The government suspects there are, but it doesn't know it for sure. There are a number of other suspicious characters along the lines of Moussaoui. Moussaoui is clearly the most suspicious, and that's why they brought the indictment today. But it doesn't, as far as we understand, have any hard evidence against others connected to September 11th who are currently in custody, otherwise they would have shown up in the indictment today.

BROWN: And on the subject of hard evidence on Moussaoui, what do we know about direct evidence, as opposed to circumstantial evidence? Is there any?

ISIKOFF: Actually, this is an entirely circumstantial case. If you read the indictment, it is quite compelling, circumstantially, that Moussaoui was involved with the hijackers. And certainly the most devastating piece of evidence is that wire transfer from bin al- Shibh, who was Mohammed Atta's roommate, who had wired money to other hijackers, who was clearly involved in the whole planning for September 11th.

He wires $14,000 to Moussaoui. Moussaoui then uses that money to put down cash for the flight training school in Minnesota. When you put that together with Moussaoui being placed in an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and the fact that he begins to enter the country as bin al-Shibh is being denied entry -- bin al-Shibh, remember, tries four times to enter the country -- it is only when those visa applications are turned down that Moussaoui pops up and tries to enter the country.

You put that all together and it looks, circumstantially, a compelling case that Moussaoui was clearly involved with the hijackers in some way. Then you put that aside and look for the direct hard evidence, and you don't actually see that. The actual overt acts that Moussaoui is charged with are things that can have entirely innocent explanations.

One of the overt acts, which is my favorite, is Moussaoui joins a gym in northern Oklahoma. It's put in there because this is about the same time Mohammed Atta and other of the hijackers are joining gyms. But of course, that's not exactly -- that is something that doesn't necessarily have a sinister connotation.

Similarly, Moussaoui is charged with an overt act with buying a pair of knives. Again, you know, something that is open to an innocent explanation. My understanding is that there are no direct -- there is no direct testimony against Moussaoui here. There is no direct evidence, there is nothing that implicates him. No witness is going to come forward and say, yes, I was in on a meeting with Moussaoui when September 11th was being planned.

Entirely circumstantial case.

BROWN: About 90 seconds left, a couple other things to try and cover. Why northern Virginia? ISIKOFF: Northern Virginia, because it's about the most pro- prosecution friendly jurisdiction you can find in which charges could have been brought. Not just because the conviction rates are very high in northern Virginia and the judges are very friendly, and it's got a rocket docket that can bring this case quickly to trial, but also, perhaps most importantly, the court of appeals, based in Richmond, which oversees court cases brought in Virginia, is a hard- line law and order conservative court of appeals that is, again, very friendly to prosecutors and would resist objections, constitutional appeals, to how the case had been brought.

BROWN: And finally here, Susan talked about, in her pieces, that they had him in custody in August. At least some officials wanted to take a look at his computer, that was denied. Are there other signs out there, either relating to him or others, that -- I won't play the second-guessing game here -- but that this thing might have been averted, if only?

ISIKOFF: There are a lot of questions about that that have not been fully explored, because there haven't been any hearings or any inquiries launched into what the government knew beforehand. We do know that they had Moussaoui in custody. We do know that -- Director Mueller said today that there were aggressive agents in Minneapolis who wanted to open up his computer, who wanted the warrant to search everything that they had seized from Moussaoui, and they got turned down in Washington, by lawyers in Washington who felt, as he said, there just wasn't enough evidence.

It was not a ringing endorsement, we heard today, from Bob Mueller to the lawyers in the FBI in Washington who rejected that warrant request from the agents in the field. And what he said, ended up saying, was could this have been averted? We just don't know. Again, that's one of the intriguing questions that's going to be explored in the months ahead.

BROWN: And probably the years ahead. Michael, it's always good to see you. Thanks for coming in tonight.

ISIKOFF: Anytime.

BROWN: Michael Isikoff from "Newsweek" magazine. Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, memorials around the world for something that happened but three months ago. And a rare look at what's below Ground Zero, its own world of destruction. This is NEWSNIGHT on a Tuesday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A clergyman we know said in a memorial two weeks after the attack: "Don't think of this as 4,000 deaths, think of it as one person dying 4,000 times."

The president today said it this way: "Every death extinguished a world." Although the final death toll isn't clear even now, it will be somewhere around 3,400 people -- a lot of worlds extinguished. Around the country today, around the world, people remembered those people in those worlds, lost. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They took down those structures, but they will not take away this spirit.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our enemies have made the mistake that America's enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw weakness. And now they see defeat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We join the control centers in standing in memories of those who lost their lives and were affected by this tragedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We give thanks, oh lord, for the way in which you have led us through the devastation that resulted from the attack by the enemies of our nation, in this space.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: For all that Ground Zero has come to mean, there are times we're drawn to it simply for what it is, the strange and unique place it seems to be on the planet, these days. Both a city unto itself, and a reminder of the city that used to be. We see it nearly everyday from above.

Tonight we'll take a rare look at the ruined city below -- a forbidding place, dark, unstable, dangerous, even by the standards of Ground Zero. Work crews spend very little time there. NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen and a CNN camera crew have spent some time there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Around the clock, grappler machines claw at the estimated 1.2 million tons of World Trade Center debris, only part of which is visible at Ground Zero. The rest is compressed below ground, in what might be called underground zero -- six levels of what used to be a parking garage, shopping concourse and commuter train terminal beneath the Twin Towers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just be aware, you might have hanging debris, wiring.

NISSEN: It is dark, dank, eerie. Broken water mains have formed small, foul lakes. Water drips steadily from the fire hoses up top, still pouring water on wreckage that has smoldered for 12 weeks now. The air is heavy with the stinging smell of smoke. with swirls of ash and fine particles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a parking area for employees.

NISSEN: Hundreds of cars burned here when their gas tanks exploded from the heat of the burning towers above. Other cars were crushed when Tower One fell. Debris punched through the adjacent World Trade Center building six, sliced through the parking ramps. Cars tumbled into the vast crater. Some still clutch, improbably, to sharply-angled concrete.

Few Ground Zero workers go down here. This team from the Port Authority police department emergency services unit came with a group of engineers monitoring the site.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a backup and support group to any of the engineers that come down here, to see how far they can go, where they can go to.

NISSEN: No one can go far without hearing the sound of rubble shifting and tumbling, as grapplers pull at it from above.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There have been collapses because of soft debris shifting as they move out metal. It creates a void, and then things start to shift. And they've lost a couple of machines.

NISSEN (on camera): Does it make you at all uneasy to be under this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's uneasy, but you're cautious. This area, with the condition that it's in, could change from day to day.

NISSEN (voice-over): It is changing. Whole walls of compressed debris are shifting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This has moved already, the length of my hand, from its original point.

NISSEN: That is putting pressure on floors, causing them to crack and buckle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of this buckling is recent. This is just, what, the last few days?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Due to the shifting of the support columns and the construction of the heavy machinery upstairs. So every day you come down here, it looks a little different, and becomes a little bit more unstable.

NISSEN: Unstable, even where debris is super-compressed, in the depths of the World Trade Center sub-basement, at the path commuter train terminal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's actually parts of a collapse that has generated all the way down into the path track, six levels below street level. And we've gone through some of that debris and you can pick up pieces of paper that refer to being on the 40th and 50th floor, are all the way down here.

NISSEN: A Port Authority police officer managed a speedy evacuation of the entire train terminal that morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tuesday, September 11th. Somebody was on the phone probably here, with his paper, and dashed out.

NISSEN: The station was empty when the towers collapsed and debris crashed through.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can come up. This is good right up through here.

NISSEN: At the jagged edge of the crater, a sheer two-story drop to the train tracks below. Most of the commuter trains had been sent back through the tunnel to New Jersey, although one train remained in the station, empty. The huge pillar of debris missed these cars, but crushed the rest of the train flat to the track.

The debris is most dense, most compacted, here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That wall right there, see how that's all compressed? That's all from building one.

NISSEN: More than 10 stories of the World Trade Center tower are compressed here into about 10 feet. Entire floors of an office building, reduced to about 12 inches each.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're coming up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a training drill on how to step lightly.

NISSEN: It is a long and precarious walk back up to ground level, back out to Ground Zero. The jackhammers and grapplers and steel saws will be working at the surface for months yet. It may take as much as a year before any full-scale excavation of underground zero.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead from us tonight, the shooting war. We'll go to the Afghan mountains, where there's evidence of a battle in the waiting. Also, word of real targets that may have slipped away. That and more, as NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A number of developments to note tonight in Afghanistan. In the Afghan mountains, a deadline for al Qaeda fighters to surrender -- surrender or else. And near Kandahar, Marine hunter-killer teams are scouring the desert. And tonight we have our first look at what happens when they find the enemy. Our pool report comes from Rick Leventhal -- Rick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK LEVENTHAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A Marine hunter killer team lives up to its name. This just-released video shows what happened December 6 when the Marines interdicted a convoy of enemy forces sought of Kandahar.

Seven enemy fighters were killed, three vehicles keys destroyed. And the search for more Taliban and al Qaeda troops near Kandahar continues. Three months to the day since the attack on America. The events of that awful September morning are still fresh in the minds of the Marines who call Camp Rhino home, never forgetting why they're here.

LT. PATRICK ENGLISH, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Suddenly, everyone's focus changed immediately, and since then it's been nothing but preparation for coming out here to try to do something.

LEVENTHAL: The Marines of Bravo company help guard Rhino's perimeter from their fighting holes, dug into the sand around the clock. A tough job, but a job with a purpose.

LANCE CPL. CHRIS MCNEEL, U.S. MARINE CORPS: It's not fun sitting in a hole, but I like being part of it, and I like being out here doing my part.

LEVENTHAL (on camera): There are no memorial services at Camp Rhino today, no organized moments of silence to mark the three months since 9/11. But it seems clear the events of that day are never far from the mind of any Marine at this base.

MCNEEL: It was a direct hit on our home. It's not like we're going to bail out some other country. You know, that was our house.

LEVENTHAL (voice-over): There are similar feelings aboard the C- 130s rolling into Rhino every night. Marine pilots and crewmen delivering equipment and supplies, taking a moment to reflect on what brought them to this place.

CAPT. DOUG MAYS, U.S. MARINE CORPS: And it really just kind of puts things back in perspective for you. Why am I here? There's a very good reason we're here, so it just puts things back in perspective for you.

LEVENTHAL: With the Marines in southern Afghanistan, I'm Rick Leventhal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: To the mountains now, where it's been quiet all night, but may not stay that way. A deadline for al Qaeda fighters to surrender is coming. So is powerful evidence of what's in store if they don't. But there's also evidence as well that important al Qaeda members won't be fighting or surrendering. They may have already fled. CNN's Brent Sadler is in Tora Bora for us this morning. Brent, good morning to you.

SADLER: Good morning, Aaron.

Yes, indeed, a surrender ultimatum is just about past. Eastern Alliance gave al Qaeda leaders in the White Mountains behind me until this time today to surrender or face the consequences, which means more ground assaults here on the ground by the eastern alliance. Their tanks and their fighters up in the mountains. And we see right now, a heavy U.S. warplane doing a 360 degrees in the blue skies just (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Again, possibly more airstrikes in store if there is no surrender.

Now, you were mentioning there the advances, the gains, the territorial advances that the Eastern Alliance have made in the past 24 hours.

Yes, indeed. They took -- overran a very important al Qaeda complex, a training base up in the mountains several miles behind. We slogged our way up there yesterday and saw for the first time close-up visual identification of the kind of damage, destruction, obliteration that has been caused by nearly two weeks of heavy U.S. airstrikes. This al Qaeda camp abandoned, the complex of caves and tunnels around it.

Al Qaeda, though, still up there. Not surrendering. No word of any contact between commanders of the Eastern Alliance and al Qaeda at this hour.

And if stays like that, then you can be pretty certain we'll have more battles, more military action later today. Aaron.

AARON BROWN, ANCHOR: How intense has the -- not the air assault -- but how intense has the ground fighting been?

SADLER: Well, this is really rugged stuff. Both sides -- the al Qaeda terrorists and the advancing Eastern Alliance are as tough as nails, these fighters.

Let me just give you an idea of the conditions up there. We're talking about 3,000 meteters -- 10,000 feet -- so high-altitude fighting. It's difficult to breathe. You've got to climb up steep hills to get to where the battles are, and they're really fighting at very close quarters indeed. We saw firefights yesterday where we were pinned down for several minutes.

And this was machine gunfire coming into a ridge we were walking along trying to get to that first cave complex that we got pictures of exclusively yesterday.

And there we came under fire, huddling together with a group of journalists. The hillside sprayed with fire. And you heard then me being yelled at to get back to a safer position.

And very soon after that the moving advance forwards of the -- the advancing Eastern Alliance really then pushed forward and cleared that hill. That hill made safer for us to move down and get you those first pictures of that cave complex. Aaron.

BROWN: And we mentioned when were leading into you that there was at least some suspicion that some important al Qaeda members have already fled. Are you hearing anything about that from your position?

SADLER: No specifics on that. What I can tell you is that the Afghan warriors, their leadership, as I said, face-to-face contact with al Qaeda representatives yesterday when they discussed this idea of a surrender, lay down your weapons or face the consequences. And really the Eastern Alliance says it does not want to go and kill all those al Qaeda fighters if it can help it because, you know, they are -- they're Muslim brothers, as it were. They don't want to have a fight to the bitter end. A fight to the death.

They would rather take a surrender, but the mechanics of that surrender, Aaron, are horrendously complicated that could be put into effect. The Eastern Alliance is talking about a possible involvement of the United Nations should that happen.

And you only have to look behind me to see those mountains. Al Qaeda are in many different positions, not concentrated in one small place but spread quite wide over several square miles of area: gullies, mountain tops, dug-ins, rock faces, caves and so forth. And is Bin Laden himself, Osama Bin Laden himself -- the al Qaeda leader -- is he there? Well, we don't know.

But the Eastern Alliance leadership believes there's a chance he's there. He may have been killed, they say, either in their firefights but more likely as a result of U.S. bombings.

And we know that special forces are on the ground. We know they are out there in the important places. So we'll have to see how this plays out this day when see whether or not their -- this surrender possibility has any chance of moving forward. Aaron.

BROWN: We shall watch. Hopefully you will watch safely. Thank you very much, Brent. Brent Sadler in the Tora Bora region.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT now, the Taliban leader who urged his followers to lead a simple life. Perhaps advice for everyone but himself. Inside Mullah Omar's compound when NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There's often a point -- it often comes near the end of a military conflict -- when something is discovered that reveals or suggests the true character of one leader or another. And it sort felt like that today when we got a look at a compound in Kandahar, the compound of the Taliban founder, the spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

It's a spread. And while it might not be exactly Beverly Hills chic, it is a stunning contrast to the way millions in Afghanistan live: cold, hungry, and a plastic tarp for a blanket.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour taking us inside the compound and joins us from Kandahar. Christiane, good morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Well, absolutely, as you said, it's often sometimes the only way we can get a clue as to the lifestyle and the mind-set of the various strongmen around the world is when their regime collapses and their complexes, their homes that have been off limits -- not only to journalists, of course, but to their own people -- become evidence.

So we went there yesterday as we -- today your time -- as we went to interview Hamid Karzai, the new leader of Afghanistan who is temporarily housed in what was Mullah Omar's compound. And what we saw raised a few eyebrows. Not just ours, but the people there, the new occupants who showed us around.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

AMANPOUR: In a stunning setting in the foothills of Kandahar's mountains, Mullah Omar's compound offers a few surprises. In the driveway of the man who ordered the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed, this bizarre sculpture.

None of the new occupants quite knows what it is. "My gut feeling, " laughs Abdul Jalil Mujahed, "is that it's for the deers to enjoy."

Loyalists of the new Afghan interim leader, Hamid Karzai, are now billeted with him in Mullah Omar's old place. They are wide-eyed as they show us his marble and pastel-painted mosque. And inside, chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, plush carpets and a mirrored wall.

It's a level of showy opulence that no one here imagined from a man promoted as a humble cleric living in a simple mud-brick house. This large compound is luxurious by Afghan standards. It has been heavily bombed by the United States, but a survey from the roof shows that the mosque and Mullah Omar's bedrooms were unscathed.

Here, anti-Taliban soldiers are posing for pictures with their weapons on Mullah Omar's double bed.

Outside, walking through the rubble of the guest and cattle quarters, we see that every room had air conditioning, including the cow sheds. Electric ceiling fans to cool the animals. And to drink, running water from these taps.

The vast majority of the people in this country don't have access to clean water. "They built this all of this for the cows, while our people never had these things," said Saylab. "This was built with Osama's money, with the blood of the Afghan people."

While most people make do with outhouses and holes in the ground, Mullah Omar had tiled bathrooms, with shower fixtures and flushing toilets. He is thought to have fled the comfort of these muraled walls shortly after the air war began.

U.S. special forces are believed to have raided the compound for evidence early on. The only evidence found here today suggests a leader who, in the name of God, demanded so much sacrifice from his people, but seemed to suffer none himself.

(END VIDEO TAPE) AMANPOUR: Now, Hamid Karzai, as I said, who is now billeted there temporarily, is today headed for Kabul. And he has been telling us and anyone who will listen that he is committed to making a better life for the Afghan people and to never again allowing the kinds of terrorism, the kind of oppression that has befallen the Afghan people to be able to take root here again. Aaron?

BROWN: Christiane, on the subject of how Afghans are living these days. I saw something earlier tonight about -- I don't want to call them riots -- but disturbances. People trying to get food and the like. Generally speaking, is there food available to people these days?

AMANPOUR: There is. Trucks do still come through from various different countries, most particularly Pakistan. And it does come to the various towns.

And of course it's the matter of the cost. And so many people in Afghanistan are unable to afford all that they need and so many people are dependent on handouts and so many people are almost entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance from the international community.

And that will get more and more difficult as the weather gets colder and colder, which is one reason they desperately need this multinational force which is being discussed now -- especially the humanitarian groups say they need it to be able to safely deliver the food and humanitarian assistance that this country needs, throughout the winter especially.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you. Christiane Amanpour in Kandahar. It is already morning there.

Up next on NEWSNIGHT tonight, an American for the Taliban sends a letter home. Excerpts and more when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We just got a hold of a letter. A letter home from the American Taliban soldier, John Walker. Apparently this was dictated to the Red Cross, the International Red Cross, which would have some responsibility to make sure that prisoners of war and the like are being treated well.

Dated on the third of December, the fax came to his parents in Northern California. And here is some of what Walker has to say.

"Dear Papa and Mama," he writes, "I apologize for not contacting you in a long time." He then goes on to say, "I realize this must have caused you a lot of grief. I am currently alive and well in Afghanistan. I am in safe hands. I cannot give you many details about my situation, but it would be good to hear from you all."

And that from John Walker Lindh, the name he uses there. How precisely he got to this moment in his life is a subject of considerable talk both in this country and in other places too.

We have more on that now from Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The tale of an American teen who was smart, hip, and hooked on the web. That's where John Walker left a digital diary of sorts in postings to news groups, where he used a variety pseudonyms. It plots the transformation from a cocky hip-hop music collector to a devout student of Islam.

In 1995, Walker logs on to a hip-hop site and pretends to be black himself. "Our blackness does not make white people hate us. It is their racism that causes the hate."

At 14, he was selling music and comic collections and busy buying audio equipment. Suddenly, walker appears to question whether his love of music might be an Islamic taboo.

"I've heard recently that certain musical instruments are forbidden by Islam. There is nothing in the Koran that I can find relating to this matter."

On the streets of Fairfax, California, where his mother lived, "do your own thing" might be called a way of life; a world apart from the strict tenets of a devout religious lifestyle. Yet Walker at 16 was showing signs that he preferred just that. He joined the local mosque and prayed with Abdullah Nana. Nana says Walker, who began to call himself Suleyman Alferas (ph) approached the religion like a scholar.

ABDULLAH NANA: Suleyman was -- was a devout person. He was a pious person, and he had mentioned to me his goal was actually to memorize the whole holy Koran.

DORNIN: In May of '97, Walker again questions Muslim law. He logs on Islamic web site and asks, "Are drawings of living things besides plants forbidden altogether?"

He also wants to know "Is it alright to watch cartoon on TV or in movies?" Walker begins to pontificate on Muslim behavior and criticizes Zionism. "It's a shame that so many Jews have fallen into this ideological trap that modern Zionism presents to them."

While another John Walker was emerging, his parents describe a gentle, sweet teen.

FRANK LINDH, FATHER: Very musical. Very adept at languages and very studious. He's not someone that would -- that I would ever imagined could pick up a gun at all.

DORNIN: Not something Abullah Nana would have imagined, either. Nana saw Walker as an independent thinker but:

NANA: I've -- I've seen it myself. It's my general -- it's my observation that new Muslims are -- are influenced by the -- by the people around them. They -- whoever they mix with and whoever -- whoever they lean on for their Islamic advice and for their Islamic questions, they will be influenced by those people.

DORNIN: A young man who never quit asking questions, and got answers that led him to a cold, dark prison in Afghanistan and possibly charges of treason. Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BROWN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are sculptures, statues out there that you might walk on by every day and never give them a second thought. Or you might think maybe once, what is that? And why is it there?

Lower Manhattan has one of those. But what happened three months ago has transformed it, giving it so much more relevance -- not just for what it depicts, but also for how it survived. Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the story of a statue that gained in stature when the World Trade Center came tumbling down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, he survived. And that's wonderful.

MOOS: His name is Double Check. And those who encountered him that day must have done a double-take.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They must have thought that he was a person who was in shock in something.

MOOS: This is what Double Check looked like on September 11th. Jeff Mermelstein took this now-famous photograph for the "New York Times."

JEFF MERMELSTEIN, PHOTOGRAPHER: Right place, right time kind of thing. And -- and the picture's a good picture. And I'm proud of it.

MOOS: Proud, but surprised at the attention it got. E-mails and letters, even a poem. Praise from strangers and relatives.

MERMELSTEIN: He congratulated me on making the picture of the century.

MOOS: It wasn't long till rescue workers made a shrine out of Double Check, leaving everything from notes to hats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the least I can do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My God.

MOOS: By the time Double Check's creator, sculptor J. Seward Johnson, got to ground zero weeks later,

J. SEWARD JOHNSON, SCULPTOR: You couldn't see him practically. And it was -- I don't know. He was buried -- sort of buried in love.

MOOS: Johnson plans to cast the mementos in bronze and weld them onto Double Check as a permanent tribute. He wants to add a finish that mimics the ash-covered look.

JOHNSON: I had just figured that, you know, he was gone.

MOOS: Johnson, an heir to the Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical fortune, says Double Check reminds him of a Japanese statue that survived two miles from the epicenter of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

A gift of the Japanese government, the statue must now withstand pigeons in front of a Buddhist church in New York. There are actually a total of eight Double Checks in existence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to see what he looks like without his hat.

MOOS: One art expert called it weird that such a forgettable work should become so poignant.

JOHNSON: Forgettable, yeah. But you know, it's funny. It made me angry at first.

MOOS: But Johnson says his statues are supposed to blend in, to take you by surprise.

JOHNSON: Somebody going by and saying, "Oh!" You know?

MOOS: One ground zero volunteer said of Double Check:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He represented the body of all the people who didn't have bodies.

MOOS: The Taliban may have succeeded in blowing up ancient Buddhas in Afghanistan, but time hasn't run out for this bronze businessman. Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BROWN: Some final thoughts and pictures from ground zero, in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, all of us here thought a lot today about how we wanted to end this program, three months later. We knew it had to be ground zero. But then what? What words to write, what speeches from which dignitaries?

And in the end, we decided no speeches and no dignitaries. Just a bit of music -- or two -- the faces of another group of 9/11 heroes, the people who go to work there each day -- and that's not easy. And they move the broken scrap and they sift through the dirt and the debris looking for bodies or something a family could bury or treasure. We leave you with them tonight, and we'll see you tomorrow at 10:00. Good night.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(FOOTAGE OF GROUND ZERO WORKERS)

(END VIDEO TAPE)

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