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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Enron Insider Commits Suicide
Aired January 25, 2002 - 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. I'm Aaron Brown. It is very strange indeed to think that one man's suicide was the biggest news story in Washington and in Houston and in Wall Street as well. But as Alice might say, the Enron story is getting curiouser and curiouser, and now it's gotten a whole lot sadder.
The death of J. Clifford Baxter, which we'll get to pretty quickly tonight is evoking a number of different reactions, sadness surely. A man died, a husband and a father and a friend gone. It no doubt makes unraveling the Enron mess that much harder, but something else too.
In our e-mails today, we saw half a dozen references to another suicide, the death of Vince Foster. Mr. Foster, a close friend of the Clintons, killed himself early in the Whitewater investigation, and the conspiracy theorists on the political right, went absolutely nuts, right up to and including accusing the Clintons of murder.
The government spend a king's ransom investigating the Foster death at least three times. Now we suspect the questions are being raised by those on the left, and this time it's the Republicans who will howl.
What goes around, comes around, goes the old saying. Facts be damned. And the facts tonight all point to suicide and it's where we begin our whip around the world and the correspondents covering it. We start here in New York with Allan Chernoff. Allan, a headline please.
ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron, it was the former Vice Chairman of Enron who committed suicide. In fact, he had been in charge of the most important business at the Enron corporation, and Congressional investigators had been planning to speak with him.
BROWN: Allan, we'll get to you right at the top of the program. Reaction too to this story from Washington, and more on the Enron investigation too. Kate Snow in our Washington Bureau, Kate, a headline please.
KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Congressional investigators were as surprised as anyone to hear about the death of Mr. Baxter, perhaps even more surprised because they thought they were going to sit down with Cliff Baxter next week for an interview. They had heard he had some interesting things to share with them. In fact, just this morning Baxter's lawyers were talking with investigators about setting up that interview, none of them knowing that Baxter was dead.
BROWN: Kate, thank you. Troubling story tonight about pilots and their concern about a specific kind of airplane. One of those planes went down in Queens a few months back. Charles Feldman in our Los Angeles Bureau has been working that. Charlie, a headline from you please.
CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. Some American Airlines pilots are so concerned. They say that the safety of the Airbus, they want the plane grounded. I'll have more about that later. Aaron.
BROWN: Yes, you will. Thank you. A lot more coming up for you on NEWSNIGHT tonight. Someone wrote, please do one of your Friday programs, a few laughs at the end of a tough week. I wish it were so, but it's not. The hockey dad was sentenced today. He broke down, especially when the kids of the man he killed talked about what life is like without their father. We'll play you some of the sound out of the courtroom coming up in a little while.
Another painful story about kids, kids in South Africa dying of AIDS. One woman is trying to make their lives and their deaths a little easier. And for Segment 7 tonight, Beth Nissen completely thawed now, reports on a real cold war, real cold.
All that coming up. First, the death, the suicide it appears of former top executive at Enron, J. Clifford Baxter. He came to work at Enron in 1991, flew through the ranks. He no doubt knew a great deal about the business and there is evidence he had deep concern about the company's business practices, and its accounting methods. That as surely as a wife lost a husband and children lost a dad, investigators have lost a witness, a tragedy all around. We have two reports tonight, beginning first with CNN's Allan Chernoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF (voice over): Baxter was found near his Sugar Land home in a Mercedes Benz sedan on Palm Royale Boulevard, a gun in his hand, a suicide note in the car.
SERGEANT TRUMAN BODY, SUGAR LAND POLICE DEPARTMENT: At 2:23 a.m. Sugar Land police discovered John C. Baxter, located inside his vehicle with an apparent gunshot wound to the head.
CHERNOFF: Baxter, 43, had been a key executive at Enron before resigning last May. He had questioned the company's finances, according to whistleblower Sherron Watkins who, in her memo to Enron Chief Ken Lay wrote: "Cliff Baxter complained mightily to Skilling (Enron's President) and all who would listen about the inappropriateness of our transactions with LJM." That was one of the partnerships that contributed to Enron's demise.
Congressional investigators wanted to talk with Mr. Baxter. As late as Friday morning, investigators were trying to arrange a meeting through Baxter's lawyer, unaware that Mr. Baxter had already taken his own life. Baxter graduated New York University in 1980. A former Captain in the Air Force, valedictorian of Columbia Business School's Class of '87, Cliff Baxter had been a star at Enron, rising rapidly during his decade at the company.
Before stepping down. Baxter earned nearly $22 million from selling Enron stock. He, along with other officers of Enron, had been sued by stockholders.
Enron released a statement. "We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and colleague, Cliff Baxter. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHERNOFF (on camera): Sherron Watkins' attorney released a statement, saying Ms. Watkins is "stunned beyond belief." Mr. Baxter had had the most integrity and she respected him immensely.
CNN reached a former Enron employee who had been a close colleague of Mr. Baxter and had spoken with him on Monday. He said Baxter showed neither signs of depression nor panic and did not seem upset when he discussed the shareholder lawsuit in which he was a defendant. Aaron.
BROWN: I hate to turn a financial reporter into a - put him on the cop beat here, but is there any rumbling in Houston that you've picked up, any suggestion that this is anything but a suicide?
CHERNOFF: No, they were quite sure. In fact, they did not want to conduct an autopsy at first, but then later it was decided to go ahead, be careful and do so. But the car itself was actually locked when the police officer did see it, the gun in the hand, the wound to the head, and a suicide note.
BROWN: Allan thank you. We'll see where this goes again. As Allan mentioned, House and Senate investigators wanted to sit down and talk with Cliff Baxter, and he's not the only one. We're also learning there is another Congressional action in the works. This one involves the Vice President.
We'll go back to our Washington Bureau, CNN's Kate Snow has been working double duty, both stories. Kate, why don't you start with Mr. Baxter and then we'll move on to the Vice President.
SNOW: Right. First on those investigators you mention, Aaron, both House and Senate investigators looking to talk to Mr. Baxter. They had been talking to his lawyers about that, particularly the House Committee that's been looking into Enron so closely. They were supposed to talk with Mr. Baxter, I'm told, next week. And in fact, as you've heard, they were talking this morning with Baxter's attorney, thinking they were setting up this meeting and lo and behold, neither of them, neither side knew that he was actually gone.
They say that Baxter was cooperating. They expected him to be cooperative with them. They saw him, I'm told, as a bit player, not one of the big fish in all of this and that's partly why they were so surprised when they got the news this morning on Capitol Hill.
A couple of reasons why investigators wanted to talk with Baxter, I'm told: one, It was what Allan just mentioned, that he was part of that whistle blower letter last summer. They think he may have had more to say about that. Two, He left the company suddenly last spring, and the committee according to one source, had suspicions about why he left so suddenly. Maybe he thought something "was funny" and "wanted out," I'm told by one source.
Another source says that committee investigators were told by someone, although this source wouldn't say by whom,, that Baxter had things to tell them. Aaron.
BROWN: Same question I asked Allan, then we'll move on to the Vice President. Are you hearing anything in Washington that they find suspicious about the death?
SNOW: There's a lot of whispering going on, Aaron. I won't lie to you about that, but in terms of hard evidence of anything other than a suicide, no.
BROWN: OK. Now let's move on to the Vice President, because this is a story that has been simmering for quite a while, and in some ways, you can find its genesis going all the way back to the Clinton Administration and another issue. Why don't you lay it out?
SNOW: Well, when we talk about the energy policy and looking at that, it goes back to really last spring. You know, there is this whole question about Vice President Dick Cheney and an energy task force that he started and led last spring to develop the Bush Administration's energy policy. They had a number of meetings.
Lawmakers since last spring, particularly Democratic lawmakers, have been asking for some information about those meetings. What did he do with that task force? Who did they meet with? What top energy executives came here to Washington? When did they have the meetings? Where did they have the meetings? And finally, how much did it cost the taxpayers?
Well today, I spoke with the branch, the head of the branch of Congress, or rather the arm of Congress that does its investigations. It's called the General Accounting Office. They're the ones that have been asked by lawmakers to look into this whole energy task force, the GAO they're called.
The head of that organization now says, if they don't get what they want, in terms of more information from Vice President Cheney, they are going to sue the Vice President as early as next week. They're going to make the decision, I'm told, next week, after the State of the Union.
Now that would be a first. The GAO has sued other interests before, but they've never sued a government agency. Mr. Cheney meanwhile isn't budging it seems. We're told by two sources that in a meeting, a private meeting this week, with Senate Republicans, he told them "I'm not going to be giving up any of this information about my task force."
The administration for months now, Aaron, has been saying the reason they don't feel it's appropriate to give that up, there's a couple reasons:
One, There are a lot of people who come to Washington to have meeting with lawmakers and the administration. Those meetings should be respected and not scrutinized by the public. And, two, they say the GAO doesn't have the statutory authority to ask for this kind of information. That's exactly why the GAO is looking at lawyers now, law firms to help them go to court over this. Aaron.
BROWN: Well, they'll fight it out. Kate, thank you for your work today. Kate Snow in our Washington Bureau. It's very similar to an issue that arose during Mrs. Clinton's forming of health care policy in the early days of the Clinton Administration. It continues.
If you've been watching the Enron story for a while, you might get the impression it's all about the shredding, who did it? When? How many documents got destroyed? That sort of thing. In the end, investigators though may discover a lot more by following, not the paper trail, but the paperless one.
Shredding paper is easy. Shredding e-mail and making it stay shredded is a lot harder than you may realize. Just ask Ollie North. White House e-mails he thought he had deleted came back to bite him. Investigators hope the same goes for al Qaeda. It might happen at Enron. It's interesting stuff. Here to talk about it with us, Alex Wellen, who's the co-host and producer of "CYBER CRIME" on Tech TV. Nice to see you.
ALEX WELLEN, PRODUCER, CYBER CRIME: Thank you for the invitation.
BROWN: I may regret asking this, actually. Can you explain in simple terms why, when I hit delete, it really doesn't delete?
WELLEN: In many cases it doesn't delete. That's exactly right. What happens is, it identifies the beginning of that document and then puts it at the bottom of the index, and until you overwrite it, it's a bit of a misnomer isn't it, because you don't actually delete it. It puts it at the bottom of the index, and then eventually when you write something else, when there's another file, it might overwrite it and then it's truly gone.
BROWN: So, it's not like some trick. If you just hit delete like five times, then it's gone?
WELLEN: That's right. That's not the magic number.
BROWN: You have to fill the hard drive?
WELLEN: Well no, not necessarily. I mean computer forensics is something. It's a huge specialty. We work with law enforcement all the time on this. There's an industry surrounding computer forensics. It matters how the information is saved and how it's ultimately deleted, and the people who would be involved with deleting information would probably have to even take more, manifest greater steps in deleting that kind of document than shredding it. And we can assume that there's going to probably be counterparts on the computer systems.
And the answer to your question is, unless they know exactly where those bits were stored and in many cases, Aaron, it's fragmented right. So you have a file. It's saved in locations 1, 10, 15 and 30. Well, you have to overwrite all of those.
BROWN: Now how does the cyber cop then go in there and figure out whether it's on 1, 10, 15, 30 or 180? How does that process work?
WELLEN: Well, it's a mixture of things. Of course, it's an art and there are forensic specialists who have special software. They know what they're looking for. There's a lot of different steps, and again, I'm not that person but I talk to those people all the time.
I talk to postal inspection service, and the U.S. Secret Service, all the forensic analysts. What they do is, first they want to get an image of what's on the computer, and a lot of times you can do a lot of damage by turning the computer on again.
A lot of things are very secure at that moment. They take an image of the computer and then they have tools to look at what pieces are there and what elements they want to find. And they may be looking for certain words. There may be certain words that you don't want to save, certain words that they're looking for in order to reconstruct and piece it back together to some extent.
BROWN: So these cyber forensic people, these computer forensic people, would you guess that they could go in and then restore in some form the shredded documents? And the other part of the question then is, is that as valid a piece of evidence as the document itself?
WELLEN: I anticipate it. That's the right question, right? I mean authenticity.
BROWN: I'm trying to get to it. It takes me a while.
WELLEN: You've been there all along. You're absolutely right. The point is, how authentic is it and what's the difference between - as an attorney when I practice, I mean there's a difference between something that might be on paper like this, and unless it's signed and there's a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and there's something that's on a computer, actually the computer can even be stronger evidence, even more authentic.
There's going to be information in the computer that you would never get on this document. You know when it was modified, when it was deleted, who did it, what time, often. And what they do is, it's a mixture. Maybe they know what they're looking for. And if they don't know what they're looking for, they spend a lot of time trying to piece back what used to exist before. BROWN: But how do you prove - this may make no sense at all.
WELLEN: OK.
BROWN: All right, you've got one piece of the hard drive over there. You've got one piece over there and one here. How do you prove that these three pieces are in fact all of the same document?
WELLEN: Right. Well, I think that's a good question. My response to that is, well they actually fit back together nicely and there's something to that. I mean they're looking for commonalities. They're looking for when something might necessarily be deleted at the same time. They're looking for trends.
The people who want to delete that - let me put it to you this way.
BROWN: OK.
WELLEN: You're talking about the best. You're looking for somebody who really knows what they're doing. In a court of law, by the way, that's going to be bad because they really have concentrated on deleting something that was very valuable.
In the shredding case, people could be involved in something that might necessarily be, well maybe doing it at someone's discretion. There may be something more innocuous.
But you're talking about somebody who is looking for all kinds of pieces to put back together again, and it's very, very difficult to be in that circumstance. In many cases, they can recover the information that's there without even having to look for it. But there are many clues that will put it back together for them.
BROWN: Well, you go back in the Green Room and put this back together.
WELLEN: Yes, I can do that and I'm not even a forensic analyst.
BROWN: Thank you for coming in. It's nice to meet you.
WELLEN: Nice to meet you.
BROWN: Thank you very much. We'll see if they can do it at Enron. Just ahead tonight, the tour of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. We'll talk with a Senator who was on that tour. It's Friday. It's NEWSNIGHT, and it's a busy night ahead. We're right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A couple of developments in the search for more terrorists tonight. You may remember the video we showed you last week, five men saying their last goodbyes before heading out on what authorities say were suicide missions.
At that time, one of those men was unidentified. Today, he has a name, Abderraouf Jdey. According to the Justice Department, he's Tunisian, goes by half a dozen aliases, might be a Canadian citizen, but nobody knows. At least what nobody is saying at least is where he and the other four men are and whether they're still alive.
Also a bit more tonight about the accused shoe bomber, Richard Reid, sources telling CNN there's more evidence showing that he had help. Palm prints and hair, not belonging to Reid, were discovered in the explosives in his sneakers. This is not terribly surprising. No one really believed Reid was the sort who could have pulled this plan off by himself.
On to the detainees at Guantanamo. The Pentagon has always said it had nothing to hide when it came to their treatment, that security, not brutality is the standard at Camp X-Ray. The Red Cross was there not long ago, the International Red Cross. Their report will be confidential.
But no such restrictions of the lawmakers who visited today. In a moment, we'll talk with one of the Senators who was at Guantanamo. First, CNN's Bob Franken.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): "Because you're elected representatives," the General said to the members of Congress "you will get in there. Not everyone gets in there."
And as the cameras watched from the customary 200 yards away, 25 members of the House and Senate got a close-up look at Camp X-Ray, and the prison conditions that have caused such a worldwide controversy.
SEN JAMES INHOFE (R) OKLAHOMA: We are giving very good treatment to these people. Quite frankly, I personally think, better than they deserve. We're dealing with terrorists here.
FRANKEN: That was a variation on the reaction from each of the members. They spend about an hour inside, walking very close to the cells, but they had no conversations with the detainees, who've had no earthly idea who these people were.
There was a non-stop briefing and at one point, the group walked past an inmate who has become one of the most infamous.
REP I. ROS-LEHTINEN (R), FLORIDA: They pointed out who was the one who said that he is committed to killing an American, and I think it really sent chills when our delegation, as we passed through his detention cell. I think we practiced our evil eye on him.
FRANKEN: Several members of the Congressional delegation told CNN, that detainee was the Australian national. The tour also included a look at the new interrogation sheds, where investigators will pursue one of the main objectives here.
REP STEVE BUYER (R), INDIANA: It is the primary purpose is for military utility to gather information for national security, so we can understand the network of the terrorists to save lives. FRANKEN (on camera): This tour was organized by the Department of Defense, under the assumption that members of Congress would be receptive to the contention that the United States has nothing to be ashamed of here. Clearly, that was a correct assumption. Bob Franken, CNN, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
BROWN: We're joined by one of those Senators, a tired one, just back from Camp X-Ray, Jeff Sessions, Alabama's former Attorney General, former U.S. Attorney, and since 1997 a junior Senator from the state of Alabama. He joins us from Washington. Nice to see you, sir, thank you.
SEN JEFF SESSIONS (R), ALABAMA: Good to be with you.
BROWN: Why don't we take a little bit, a few seconds at least, and describe generally your reaction to the conditions that they're being held in and we can move on from there.
SESSIONS: I thought that our conditions were very good under the circumstances. They're given excellent treatment, superb medical care, which is very important for many of them. Forty percent have malarial conditions, a number have tuberculosis. They were given treatment for gunshot wounds and injuries, good food, good clothing. I thought things were very well there and the charges that this was somehow inhumane treatment are just plain false.
BROWN: As you're walking through there, down that breezeway with looking into those cells or cages or whatever we want to call them, what are you thinking?
SESSIONS: Well, I was wondering what kind of people they were, wondering, you know, there's a language barrier with many of them. It would have been interesting to really talk to them about what led them to make the decisions that they made.
But regardless of that, they didn't seem to be particularly talkative. They seemed to be laid back, looking with no particular interest as we walked by.
BROWN: Do you think they have a clue, seriously, where they are?
SESSIONS: I'm not sure. Some of them, I think, are educated. Some even are reputed to speak English well. So I think some do. The weather was magnificent. That's a beautiful location. The breezes were blowing. It was even a warm, particularly warm actually, and so I think it's all in all not the worst place in the world to be detained.
BROWN: Are you hearing anything about what, if anything, they are saying or what they have said in the interrogations that either went on in Afghanistan or have gone on at Guantanamo?
SESSIONS: That's a critical thing if we can obtain additional information, we may be able to stop further terrorist attacks or identify those responsible for past attacks. I did get the indication that they have had some progress in interviews. But they've really just begun in a formal way.
The investigators seemed to me to be quite professional. You have to do some work before you do an interview. You need to know who they are, where they came from, what they're like as a person, if you expect to get a rapport established and get information.
So it takes some time to really begin to develop the kind of information we hope to get.
BROWN: I'm not sure what the precise term would be under these circumstances, but would it be appropriate for the U.S. government to essentially plea bargain with any of these people? You tell us everything you know about who's in the United States or what is planned or anything else and we'll cut a deal?
SESSIONS: I think that's somewhat possible. You can't threaten someone, but you could perhaps suggest or make the promise that if they are faithful and they tell accurate and true and effect information that helps us prevent a tragedy or apprehend a dangerous criminal, that they might get less punishment than otherwise would be the case, that they might be protected from reprisals. Their families might be moved, so they would be protected from reprisals.
So I think those kind of promises that are common in criminal justice systems, should be usable here.
BROWN: Senator, next time you go, will you take me along?
SESSIONS: It's a great trip, now. Bob Franken has got a suntan. I'm not sure he's coming back.
BROWN: Thank you, sir. It's nice to talk to you. I know it's been a long day. I appreciate it. I'd like to go down there and see that. One other note before we go to break here. The only American servicewoman killed in Afghanistan in the war there was buried today in Gary, Indiana.
Sergeant Jeanette Winters was killed on the 9th of January, when a KC-130 tanker plane crashed in Pakistan. Six hundred mourners, including 50 of her fellow marines, one of them her brother, attended the funeral. And that should have been the end of this story, but it's not. While this family was burying their child, during the funeral, someone broke into the family home in Gary and ransacked it.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, another look at a different prison, a very different one. This one here in the United States, inside Angola in Louisiana, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We talked a lot about the detainees this week, about the conditions they're living in. One of the things we wanted to do was compare the condition these men are in, the ones in Guantanamo, with the condition in a growing number of super max prisons in the United States, where the baddest of the bad, the Tim McVeighs and the John Gottis and the like are held. And in fact, the conditions are very similar, 23 hours a day in the cell, meals served through a slot in the door, manacled whenever they're allowed out, and that was the point. We wanted people to see that even prisoners in this country are housed in a very similar fashion for similar reasons. Maybe that's right. Maybe it's not. That's not our judgment to make, but we did want to show it.
The problem is those places don't let reporters wander around. Not with cameras at least. So we went the next step down to one of the toughest prisons in the country, a prison that is holding men who earned their stay there, dangerous people, but they are people who live in a country club compared to Camp X-Ray. CNN's Brian Cabell tonight from Louisiana State Prison in Angola.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Jerry McAllister is 24 years old, a convicted armed robber facing his next 26 years in prison. Peter Davis is 41, a convicted murderer doing life with virtually no hope of getting out, but at least he's outside.
PETER DAVIS, INMATE: Most people would be looking forward to going to work to just get out, stretch their legs you know, get some fresh air.
CABELL: Davis and McAllister are serving time at the sprawling Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, 18,000 acres for 5,000 inmates, half of them murderers, almost two-thirds doing life terms.
They're dangerous men but McAllister insists they're generally treated fairly.
JERRY MCALLISTER, MAXIMUM SECURITY INMATE: Through my experiences, I've never really had no - I've never been mistreated as far as, you know, to an extreme. So, in my experience I can say, you know, I've been treated pretty well, you know.
CABELL: McAllister admits he lives in some fear, but it's primarily because of other inmates.
CABELL (on camera): What's remarkable about Angola, aside from its enormous size, is the freedom that most inmates can enjoy here, including convicted murderers, as long as they behave.
CABELL (voice over): If they behave, they live in secured dorms, with access to a TV, even a pool table. They can buy food from a canteen. They work outside. They even harvest their own vegetables.
If they misbehave seriously, holding contraband for example, or starting a fight, they go to Camp J at Angola, 400 inmates here in conditions to what prisoners are experiencing at Guantanamo.
One-man cells with a cot, a commode, and a sink, no TV, no radio. Fifteen minutes a day outside the cell, only three days a week in the outdoors in a confined pen. Throw your food or steal eating utensils at Camp J and you get this, your meal ground up and baked into a loaf. Threaten to kill yourself and you wear a paper (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
Peter Davis and Jerry McAllister have it better but they're still being punished for more minor infractions. They live in what's known as a working cell block, 6 x 8 foot cells with a roommate, a TV, a radio, newspapers and books if they want. Most important, they get outside, see the sky and dream their dreams.
But every day, almost every hour, they're reminded of the fact that society considers them dangerous, wants them put away, maybe for good. More than 80 percent of the inmates who enter here, die here. Brian Cabell, CNN, Angola, Louisiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Next on NEWSNIGHT, from South Africa. It's about kids and AIDS and one woman's efforts to ease the suffering.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Someone once said, "An eye for an eye, and pretty soon everyone's blind." Blind or wounded or dead. Israel -- Israel's F- 16s hit Palestinian security installations today in retaliation, the Israeli government says, for a pair of Palestinian attacks.
One, a suicide bombing wounded 22 people near an old bus station in Tel Aviv. Islamic Jihad taking responsibility for the bombing and promising more to come.
The Israeli government sees it all differently, holding Yasser Arafat responsible for reining in all of the violence coming out of the territories. The White House, in the meantime, appears to be inching closer to the Israeli view.
A front page story in this morning's "Washington Post" said the White House may cut off all relations with Arafat. Today President Bush said no, not yet, but did not rule it out either.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am disappointed in Yasser Arafat. He -- he must make a -- a full effort to rout out terror in the Middle East. In order for there to be peace, we've got to rout out fear.
And, you know, ordering up weapons that were intercepted on a boat headed toward -- headed for that part of the world is not -- is not part of fighting terror. That's enhancing terror. And obviously very disappointed in him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The President was speaking dockside in Portland, Maine, after touring the Coast Guard cutter Tahoma. As you no doubt know, AIDS is ravaging much of Africa, and for a variety of reasons: money chief among them. Not nearly enough is being done to either stop the spread or help the afflicted. And in far too many cases, we are talking about very young children who will live very short lives.
Tonight, a story out of our bureau in Johannesburg, about a few of those children, and one woman's effort to to make their lives -- and perhaps their deaths -- a little less painful. Here's CNN's Charlayne Hunter-Gault.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At first glance, it looks like something from another planet, until you see the humans finishing this place that will soon be home to other humans who will be coming here to die.
Humans like these, who have just finished their first day of school, brought here on this day to help them get acquainted with the place they will soon call home.
Some of them, like little Jackie, now critically ill, will probably not have many more days in school. She, too, will be coming here to die.
As will those who live in this hospice a few blocks away, in a house straining at the seams to meet the needs of those who live here, all terminally ill, their bodies destroyed by the often tell-tale signs of complications from AIDS.
This baby probably won't survive until the move in just a few days' time. But others will, like this boy, abandoned in a garbage can when he was six hours old. At two, still clinging to life, as is this little one, clinging also to my bracelet, fascinated by the ladybugs inside it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a rat-infested corner.
HUNTER-GAULT: All made possible by this woman, who hung up her nursing hat after working with some of the few AIDS patients in the country nine years ago.
She went on to attend Bible college. After that, she says she had a vision about how to meet a need that has grown beyond what anyone could have imagined back in 1992: a kibbutz-style village.
CORINE MCCLINTOCK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SPARROW MINISTRIES: We want them to have them to have a dignified last couple of months on earth, and -- and the very best that human nature can give to them.
HUNTER-GAULT: With a gift of several thousand dollars from a European donor, and some government grants, Corine McClintock hired an architect who had created the kind of structure she said she saw in her vision.
He says it's a shape ideally suited for the terminally ill.
DAVID VAN DER BERG, ARCHITECT: These days, they know shapes that definitely influence people, and this type of building is a retardant of a beneficial energy wave beneficial to humans.
HUNTER-GAULT: Ultimately, some 450 AIDS-affected adults and children will live in 24 cluster units. In the spirit of the self- sufficiency of kibbutz life, there will also be a cluster for crafts, where those who are able will create items for sale. There will also be a school.
LYNETTE NEL, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: To other children, a normal disease would just be two weeks out of school. For our children, it could take their life.
HUNTER-GAULT: But the school will have to wait until more money is raised, as will some of the other buildings on the drawing boards. Meanwhile, locals who have been hired from the ranks of the unemployed are also working kibbutz style.
Having been given the materials to make bricks, they sell the bricks to the project, as others build the structures, which take only about a day and a half.
With this village almost up and running, those whose vision made it possible now have another vision: to see villages like this one in every province of this country, if not every country in Africa.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN, Roodeport, South Africa.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
BROWN: Up next from us, when a bunch of pilots say a plane they're not sure if a particular kind of plane is safe to fly, you do stop and pay attention. We'll bring their story when NEWSNIGHT continues on a Friday night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We learned a little bit more about that bizarre bus ride some Pennsylvania schoolchildren took yesterday. Strange story is this. The bus driver, Otto Nuss -- or Nuss, told a judge today in a Maryland court that he is, quote, "not insane," but that he was, quote, "set up." No explanation of what he meant by that .
Meanwhile, the details of the five-hour ride he took with 13 children are coming out as well. Apparently this kidnapping included stops for bathroom breaks at a Burger King.
It's still a complete mystery. Why did the tail fin of American Airlines Flight 587 fall off that plane as it was crashing into a Queens neighborhood last fall?
A group of pilots is concerned about this kind of Airbus plane, the A-300. They say not enough is known about the materials that make up the tail portion of the plane and whether those materials might break down.
I asked a pilot tonight if he felt safe putting his family on one. And he said given his choice, no. But he didn't say he wouldn't under any circumstancesm at least.
So we would describe this concern as serious, but they are not certain. Maybe there's a problem. Maybe there's not. They would like to know for sure. So would CNN's Charles Feldman.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
FELDMAN: Nothing like this has apparently ever happened in the history of commercial aviation: a jumbo jet crashes after its tail fin falls off. About 60 pilots who fly the Airbus for American Airlines are supporting a petition asking the plane be grounded until they know what caused this tragedy.
"Are we completely comfortable putting our friends and family on an A-300?" the pilots ask. "If the answer to that question is not a resounding yes, then logic would lead a well-trained pilot to conclude that noone else should be flying on them either."
Pilots are particularly concerned about the Airbus A-300 tail, made of carbon fibers glued together to form what's called a composite. American says it has visually examined its 34 other A-300 jets and has not found anything wrong.
The human eye cannot see flaws inside the composite material, but ultrasound tests can.
DEBRA CHUNG, COMPOSITE EXPERT: If one just looks from the outside, you can only see defects when they are already very drastic. And that's not what we want. We want to see the defects before they become very dangerous.
FELDMAN: American Airlines declined an on-camera interview.
In a statement, American says the concerned pilots are "well intentioned," but "lack the scope of information" needed to evaluate the safety of the Airbus.
American says it won't take action against the pilots who organized the petition, but at least one pilot was called in for a disciplinary hearing.
56 airlines fly the A-300 worldwide. Since the plane is built by a European group, any decision to ground by a U.S. airline may be a political hot potato.
JIM MCKENNA, AVIATION EXPERT: They would argue -- rightfully so -- that in the past several years we've had major questions, major uncertainty about the causes of crashes involving Boeing 737s, involving Boeing 747s. In none of those instances did anybody seriously entertain the idea of grounding the airplane.
(END VIDEO TAPE) FELDMAN: Now, more than 2,000 Airbuses fly today with similar tails, and until now their safety record has been excellent. But use of composite materials in jetliners is still relatively new. And no one can be sure yet how much wear and tear they will take. Aaron?
BROWN: OK. Quickly. There are a lot of -- or there are a number of these particular Airbus models out there. Is the concern all-around or only with the A-300, or other models as well?
FELDMAN: No, the concern there is with all the Airbus models because the tails are very similar in composition and design. So we're talking about -- as I said -- 2,000 airplanes all over the world.
BROWN: Thank you. Charles Feldman in our Los Angeles bureau tonight.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, sentencing for the so-called hockey dad. This was another very emotional day in court. We'll have that for you in a moment.
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BROWN: We've said a number of times over the last week, week and a half that we found ourselves feeling sad about a couple of stories. Each time we said it, we've been pummeled in writing.
For example, we found the John Walker case sad. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable, but he's just a kid and he's in a world of trouble, and that's sad.
Same goes for Thomas Junta, the so-called hockey dad. He was sentenced today for killing another father after an argument at their children's hockey practice. Six to ten for a man never in trouble with the law before.
But jail isn't the only form of punishment, and listening to the pre-sentence testimony in court today was a form of punishment in itself.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
MICHAEL COSTIN, JR., SON OF VICTIM: My life hasn't been the same.
(AUDIO GAP) 07:26 - 07:46
(VIDEO GAP) 07:26 - 07:46
COSTIN: The drawers were emptied. He's just not there anymore. I miss him. Even now not ten minutes goes by that I don't think of him.
I want you to know what punishment that I hope you give to Thomas Junta for what he did to my dad. First, no matter how much of a sentence that you give to Thomas Junta, my dad got more. My dad will never be back to me and to my family. Thomas Junta will be back to his family.
If you give Thomas Junta an easy sentence, he may get out and do this again.
BRANDON COSTIN, SON OF VICTIM: It's now been a year and a half since this tragic event and to this day I just cannot believe that he is really gone. Sometimes I just think he'll come back never will I -- never will it really happen.
My brother -- my brothers, my sister, and I will live with my grandmother now and I miss my dad so much it's just indescribable. Now only in my dreams can I hear his voice and do things that I once did. The daddy is gone that I loved so dearly and it's just a shame that such a nice man like him had to leave this earth like he did.
On the day of this verdict, my client sat down downstairs alone. He wrote a couple of letters.
THOMAS ORLANDI, JR., DEFENSE ATTORNEY: "If you're reading this letter, that means I lost my case. I want tell you how much I love you, how proud you have made me in the 17 years since I first saw you.
I will miss you very, very much, but every night I will say, 'good night, honeybunchey. I love you.' And every morning I will say, 'good morning, honeybunchey. I will be thinking of you.'"
The second letter I'll paraphrase in closing.
And it says, "Hey, Quin. I just thought I would write you and -- and Kendall a letter. She has one of her own. First pal, thanks for your help in this case. I know it must have been very hard for you. But remember you told the truth, I did, and so did the -- the (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Also, Quin, I want to tell you how much I love you and how you make me proud to be your dad.
Keep trying hard in school, pal. Hockey is supposed to be fun. But it's just a game. It takes brains, too, in life."
(END VIDEO TAPE)
BROWN: How a few minutes changed his life. "Segment 7" when we come back.
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BROWN: As dawn is breaking now on an early Saturday morning in Afghanistan, American troops are waking up, trying to rub the winter cold out of their bones.
The Marines, the 101st Airborne in Kandahar, special forces spread across the country, have all been dealing with battlefield conditions on top of the winter conditions. Fortunately, the Afghan winter so far has been pretty mild. But if it gets worse, the United States troops will be ready, thanks to the work of a little-known group of soldiers in Alaska. Our "Segment 7" is reported tonight by Beth Nissen.
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BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the U.S. Army's Cold Region Test Center, in the Alaskan interior, two hours' drive from Fairbanks.
Temperatures here average minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit between October and April. How cold is that? Well, watch what happens to hot water when it hits air that's 30 degrees below zero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It'll turn into ice crystals because of the cold.
NISSEN: Arctic air, blowing snow, hard-frozen ground can stop a military mission cold.
LT. COL. CHRIS MILLER, COMMANDER, COLD REGION TEST CENTER: We have to be able to fight in a cold environment. All the equipment, from clothing to the vehicle to generators, everything has to be tested in the cold, and everything has to be able to work in the cold.
NISSEN: Almost everything an army uses is affected by extreme cold, especially vehicles. Common motor oil congeals to the consistency of a hockey puck. Hydraulic fluids freeze. Batteries die in trucks, in sensors, in navigation equipment.
MILLER: Battery life is degraded from 100 percent at room temperature to about 10 percent in -- in this type of environment, in minus 30 degrees.
NISSEN: Get a vehicle going, and there are often problems stopping it. Brakes freeze up, fail. Traction is a major problem. When first tested, even the M-1 tank, which weighs 50 tons, would spin its treads on snow and ice. Test officers recommended a design change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We developed an ice cleat to keep it from -- to keep it from sliding, which works very well.
NISSEN: Test officers recommended several modifications on the armored security vehicle.
This is the kind of vehicle used for peacekeeping?
BEN FELLNER, TEST OFFICER: Yes. Currently there are 18 of them over in Kosovo.
NISSEN: One cold-weather problem: the shock absorber that helps lift the vehicle's heavy armored door.
FELLNER: Shock absorbers of any type are a real high failure rate in the cold.
NISSEN: And what happens if those seals fail?
FELLNER: Well, if that seal fails, and you're trying to open this door, and all of a sudden, you have 150 pounds thrown at you, it can cause injuries to personnel.
NISSEN: The solution?
FELLNER: You can see the coil spring here? They're going to add coil springs down here, so that won't fail in the cold.
NISSEN: At firing ranges on the test center's remote 670,000 acres, weapons and munitions are tested.
MILLER: Is it going to come out of a tube properly? Is there going to be frost build-up? Is there going to be -- is there going to be a cloud that will obscure it?
NISSEN: Remember what happened to hot water when it hit very cold air? In tests of the Apache helicopter, something similar happened when the Apache fired its missiles.
MILLER: The propellant used created an incredible obscurant in front of the helicopter. And the pilots actually would lose visibility for a short period of time.
NISSEN: The solution: change the propellant and train pilots to change altitude after firing a missile. Humans are the key factor in most every test.
MILLER: Well, obviously, almost every piece of equipment we have in the army -- except for maybe some unmanned aerial vehicles -- has a -- has a person behind it.
NISSEN: A person in harm's way, and harm can take many forms. The U.S. military learned harsh lessons during the Korean War. More than half the troops who came off the front lines were casualties of cold, not enemy fire.
MILLER: We've learned from that, and that's one of the reasons the Cold Regions Test Center is -- is here.
NISSEN: Soldiers' cold-weather uniforms are tested layer by layer to see if boots can keep feet warm, even while wading through icy streams, or if an Arctic parka hood is big enough to fit over a helmet. Special attention is paid to gloves and mittens.
SGT. KEVIN COULTER, TEST OFFICER: To put these gloves through their pace, we have soldiers, Marines, airmen, Navy personnel. We put thermal couplers on the soldiers' fingers. We put them outside at minus 25. We do a variety of things.
NISSEN: Such as shooting weapons, working communications gear, trying to do basic repairs and maintenance -- not easy when you're wearing something that's a cross between an oven mitt and a carpet sample.
But soldiers who took their Arctic mittens off for a minute or two risked misplacing them, or getting them wet in snow. The solution: a U.S.-military issue mitten string.
NISSEN: That's a pretty low-tech solution to...
COULTER: It is, but it works.
NISSEN: Just a string around the neck, like when you were a kid.
COULTER: Yes, ma'am.
MILLER: Our equipment, it can't let down the soldier. If it doesn't work, then the soldier's going to find themselves in a survival situation. The best thing we can do is to provide the equipment that'll best suit the mission in the cold.
Beth Nissen, CNN, in the Alaskan interior.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
BROWN: That's our report for tonight and for the week. Next week, Monday and Tuesday we're in Washington.
We'll preview on Monday the president's State of the Union speech, which comes Tuesday night. Our coverage begins at 8:00. And then Minneapolis and St. Paul Thursday -- Wednesday and Thursday. We hope you'll join us. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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