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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
NASA Concerned About Space Shuttle Columbia; Manhunt in Bosnia Kicks Into High Gear; ABC to Replace 'Nightline' with David Letterman
Aired March 01, 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, HOST: Good evening again, I'm Aaron Brown.
I think this is going to be a ride tonight. There are so many things I wanted to write about in this space, and every time I sat down to do it, I realized I was writing with my heart and not my head. I have been besieged today, there is no other word for it, by e-mails from viewers and I gather they are friends also, for an utterly routine segment we did last night and a gaff made by the president's press secretary. "It showed courage to take on the White House," said one. Said another, "most of you creeps don't have the gut to take on the White House." There were more than 50. I stopped counting at 62. A sort of organized campaign I gather by people on the left, who have come to believe that we slant the news to avoid criticizing the president.
I'd like them to meet their counterparts on the right. They have a mirror view of how these things work out. In any case, I realized I was happier with criticism than compliments. Well, perhaps compliments is a bit strong, since I was called "a media whore" about 20 times. It's been a day.
And all of it was made worse, I am sure, by the news that ABC News apparently, or ABC, is on the verge of killing off "Nightline," the best news program on broadcast TV. That's broadcast TV. We'll have more on that later, but this is so sad this news. The economics of the time may justify it, I don't know, but it is nevertheless sad, and it did nothing to make my day brighter.
And yes, this is a rant. I know that. And I know I kind of sort of promised not to rant anymore. But hey, when you are just another media prostitute, what's a promise anyway?
Perhaps we just better go on to the whip before I really get in trouble. Trouble aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia today. CNN space correspondent Miles O'Brien is covering that. Miles, welcome to the whip. The headline, please.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: It's good to be here, Aaron. You know, the shuttle radiator isn't exactly boiling over, but NASA engineers are watching that gauge ever so carefully, sweating some details overnight tonight to make sure the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed. The basic line now is they will press on with this mission to fix the Hubble space telescope, but watch the needle closely.
BROWN: Miles, thanks. Back to you shortly. The search for a war crimes suspect in the Balkans. Jamie McIntyre following that tonight. Jamie, a headline from you, please.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a few years ago it might have been our top story. Now it's been somewhat overshadowed by the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But in Bosnia, the manhunt for indicted war crime suspect Radovan Karadzic has been kicked into high gear. NATO troops, with U.S. forces in the lead, literally kicking down doors to find him.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Back to you too shortly.
And now to the fate of "Nightline," program my colleague and friend Jeff Greenfield knows well. Jeff, what's left of the headline goes to you.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it's not often that journalists' jaws drop when they pick up the front page of a newspaper, but seeing the story in "The New York Times" and "Washington Post" today that perhaps the single most prestigious show of our generation in terms of news is on the verge perhaps of being booted out of its late night spot to make room for David Letterman at ABC absolutely stunned the journalistic community.
And as you mentioned just a moment ago, whether or not the economics of the business dictate this, what it says about the balance between news and entertainment if this story pans out is one of the loudest statements anyone could have possibly imagined.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you very much. Back with all of you shortly. A lot more coming up on this Friday edition of "NEWSNIGHT." A fascinating report from a place you probably couldn't spot on a map before September 11, and maybe can't even now. It's Kyrgyzstan. It used to be in the thick of the Soviet Union, but today a U.S. air base is there. Imagine that.
And the Olympics may be over, but the controversy is not. And this is one that has been dogging the games for a long time, athletes and doping. A new discovery in Utah, a new investigation. We'll get into that today.
We'll also talk with the energy secretary, and we'll throw in one really weird surprise. It is Friday after all. And what a Friday it has been.
We begin, calmly now, with the Space Shuttle Colombia. It is the oldest in the fleet in one way, and in another way it's the newest. It was the first to fly, but it's been grounded for 2.5 years while engineers rewired, replummed and otherwise made it better than new, which is no guarantee against glitches that do sometimes happen, and today one did. So back to CNN's Miles O'Brien.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And lift off of Space Shuttle Columbia, to broaden our view of the universe through the Hubble space telescope.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): After a two and a half year, $164 million overhaul, the oldest shuttle in NASA fleet got off the pad and into space without a hitch. But there was trouble knocking on Columbia's door, in a payload bay door, to be exact.
Attached to the doors, radiators for two critical cooling systems that keep the crew and the equipment from over heating in space, and also during the fiery re-entry. Shortly after launch, Columbia's crew checked out both system, which circulate coolant from stem to external. The right side was operating just fine. But on the other side of the orbiter, the flow of freon was a bit anemic. A perfect cooling system circulates about 300 pounds of freon per hour. The faulty system is pumping at a rate of 225 pounds per hour, still above the bare minimum, or red line of 211. If the system dropped below the red line, NASA would be forced to order Columbia to land immediately.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It appears that we have a possible restricted flow somewhere in the system on loop one.
O'BRIEN: NASA engineers combing through the data believe some sort of debris inside the plumbing clogged the filter in an avionics bay at the aft end of the shuttle, but they also say the bulky system is working well enough, and appears not to be getting any worse.
RON DITTERMORE, SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER: We are not in a condition where we have to come home early at this time. Our initial looks at the system show it to be stable, even with the degradation, and we believe that we are safe to continue on working for the next 24 hours, while we continue to look at further information and to refine our analysis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: But if you have ever had a car that is on the verge of overheating, you know what is that like. You spend a lot of time driving looking at that gauge. Take a look at these live pictures now from Houston, and you look at the people looking at the gauges right now in that room. The crew has been up for about an hour now. They're working a deep overnight shift on the East Coast, and they're going to press on with their timeline as it is. Somewhere in that room, there is somebody looking very closely at that freon flow right now. The hope is it will stay stable -- Aaron.
BROWN: Miles, a couple of quick things. Was there a point in this where they worried the crew was in any danger?
O'BRIEN: Well, no. It never got quite to that point. As we said, it's sort of in the yellow zone. It never got to that red zone. If, in fact, it had gotten to the point where that entire freon cooling system had failed, that would be the time where things would get a little more tense in that control room you just saw. Of course, NASA folks don't like to show that kind of thing, but the fact is, the Space Shuttle Columbia will be well on its way to landing, if not already on the ground by now.
BROWN: And is it therefore just a little or a lot uncomfortable on board for the crew?
O'BRIEN: No effect to the temperature whatsoever. Each of these systems, even the bulky one, if it were the only one operating, would be enough to cool the orbiter just fine, thank you very much. And that was the litmus test as the engineers went through their -- they call it a fault tree, which means they consider all the options. As long as the bulky cooling system was enough to do the job, including re-entry at 2000 degrees plus, then they said they were good to go.
BROWN: Miles, thank you. It's good to see you again. Miles O'Brien working the space story for us this evening.
This next one happens a lot these days, it seems like, a story that is both reassuring and scary at the same time. This morning, we learned that the vice president wasn't the only one sent to an undisclosed location on September 11, that an entire back-up government was and is still there, and may be there for as long as anyone now at least can imagine. Reassuring on the one hand that the government is planning for the worst, and scary, of course, that it has to.
Back to our senior White House correspondent John King who worked the story for us.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Traveling in Iowa, the president for the first time discussed a secret ongoing operation designed to keep the federal government running if Washington is paralyzed by a terrorist strike.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I still take the threats that we receive from al Qaeda killers and terrorists very seriously.
KING: The operation was first reported by the "Washington Post," and confirmed to CNN by several administration officials. The shadow or bunker government involves roughly 100 senior staffers from every cabinet department and major government agency. Operates primarily out of two secret bunkers in the Eastern United States. And is charged with running the executive branch if communication with Washington is severed.
BUSH: My administration has an obligation to the American people to provide, put measures in place that should somebody be successful in an attack in Washington, D.C., there's an ongoing government.
KING: The secret plan took shape in the minutes and hours after the September 11 strikes, as Mr. Bush took a cautious route back to Washington. The so-called continuity of government plan was discussed during a National Security Council meeting Mr. Bush led from a military and command control in Nebraska. At another bunker, this one, deep beneath the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials implemented plans that date back to the Cold War threat of a nuclear strike. In this case, sources say one concern was the possibility Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network might have accrued nuclear device. Senior officials say the bunker government will remain in place for the foreseeable future because of a continued terrorist threat. But officials are reluctant to offer many details.
VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: So you don't want the bad guys to know where you are putting the people, what your plans are.
KING: Mr. Cheney himself went into seclusion for a stretch, once Mr. Bush made it back to Washington on September 11.
(on camera): And now, nearly six months later, administration officials are scrambling to get more telephone lines and high-tech computers into these secret bunkers. And at least one member of the Bush cabinet is being kept out of Washington at all times, under heavy security, just in case this so-called shadow government is activated and needs a leader.
John King, CNN the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Five years ago, Radovan Karadzic formally became a wanted man for his role in what was seen as genocide in Bosnia. And for five years, nothing much happened. Critics say NATO peacekeepers wouldn't even cross the street to arrest him.
Well, something apparently has changed. Troops are now trying to grab him though they haven't had much luck. For the second straight day, an operation to capture the Bosnian Serb leader has failed. Again, here's CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: For years, the man at the top of NATO's most wanted list, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, has benefited from NATO's policy of only arresting war criminals if it happened upon them. But that has changed over the last year or so, sources say, as NATO has gotten better intelligence and U.S. commanders have overcome the fear that combat casualties could weaken support for the Bosnia mission.
LORD GEORGE ROBERTSON, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: I have a solemn message for Karadzic and for the others who are indicted for war crimes. Your time is running out. One day, whether it is tomorrow or next week or next month, S4 (ph) will come for you.
MCINTYRE: Pentagon and NATO officials say several dozen U.S. troops spearheaded the first of two unsuccessful snatch missions over the past two days that were based on intelligence Karadzic was hiding in Celebici, a remote village in eastern Bosnia in the sector controlled by the French.
BRIG. GENERAL JOHN ROSA, DEPUTY OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, JOINT STAFF: We got an intelligence tip. We reacted on that tip. Several dozen buildings were inspected. We found small arms, machine guns, rifles, mortars, anti-tank weapons, but we didn't find Karadzic. Shortly thereafter, we reacting to another tip, we made a more scaled-down operation.
MCINTYRE: While publicly, NATO says its mandate hasn't changed, privately, alliance officials admit the hunt for Karadzic and other war crimes fugitives has taken on new urgency, especially with the United States anxious to reduce its troop presence in Bosnia.
ROBERTSON: This was not the first time that we have launched such an operation to arrest Karadzic and it will not be the last. And I repeat, it will not be the last.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (on camera): NATO sources say the stepped-up campaign to nab Karadzic actually predates the U.S. war against terrorism. In fact, they say there were several other covert attempts to nab him, also unsuccessful. And while NATO officials are disappointed they didn't get him this time, they say they are hot on his trail and NATO is showing new resolve to bring old war crimes suspects to justice -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, if it wasn't September 11, and I know they don't want to say they weren't looking for him before, but was there a trigger to what does seems to be an intensifying of the effort?
MCINTYRE: Well, according to sources, it began to build about March of last year, when they began to get better intelligence about where Karadzic was. As odd as it seems, even though he seemed to be -- his presence seemed to be generally well known, they couldn't quite pin down where he was.
That combined with the fact that after September 11, the U.S. has been emboldened to take more dramatic action in military terms, seems to have combined to put U.S. in the forefront now of some missions that are actively trying to go out and get Karadzic.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.
On to Houston and the trial of Andrea Yates. There was testimony today the defense hopes will give jurors what they need to make sense of what at least on the face of it seems like a very difficult paradox, this notion that Andrea Yates was so delusional, she didn't know right from wrong on the one hand, but was lucid enough to tell police she had just done something terrible.
The case hinges on how jurors see this point and today that point was at the center of everything. Again, CNN's David Mattingly was in the courtroom.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sweet big brother. DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the explanation jurors have been waiting two weeks to hear. If Andrea Yates didn't know right from wrong when she drowned her five children, then why did she call police? Why did she want to be punished?
Noted psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick testified Yates' action were the result of a "cruel dilemma which turned upside down her sense of right and wrong." Resnick, known for his work for prosecutors in high-profile cases including Jeffrey Dahmer and Timothy McVeigh defends Yates, saying she thought she was sacrificing her life and her afterlife to save the souls of her children. Resnick called it a case of rationality within irrationality.
In her delusional thinking, Resnick explained Yates was convinced her children were not growing up righteous. She killed them to send them to heaven and save them from an eternity in hell. She knew it was against the law and wanted to be executed, he says, because the devil was in her and her execution would rid the world of Satan.
Jurors also saw a videotape, a part of Resnick's interview with Yates. On it, she appeared gaunt, pale, her eyes deep set and dark. Answering in almost a monotone voice, she at times seemed confused. Yates said she first thought about killing her children months before.
(on camera): Resnick's expert testimony gives the jury a lot to think about over the weekend. He returns to the stand on Tuesday. On Monday, defense attorneys plan to call the psychiatrist who was treating Andrea Yates in the days leading up to the killings as they return to their strategy of attempting to spread the blame.
David Mattingly, CNN, Houston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a pioneering program in television news, it's fate very much in question tonight. The "Nightline" story from NEWSNIGHT next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK. On to the apparent demise of the ABC news broadcast "Nightline" now. I can't imagine a story where I or indeed we at NEWSNIGHT have a clearer conflict of interest. So in fairness to you, let me count the ways.
Until recently, the proudest professional moments of my life were those spent anchoring the program while I was at ABC news. OK, it only happened on major holidays, but it was still "Nightline" and it was still me in Ted's chair and I was proud. The people who work the program are extraordinarily talented. They are friends and, in some cases, they are great friends.
And Ted Koppel has been hugely important to me. He's a model of what a reporter ought to be and what a boss can be. It's not just me. And it's not just me. Our producer, David Boreman (ph) was a senior producer of "Nightline" 20 years ago. And he, too, has no objectivity where the apparent demise of "Nightline" is concerned, a decision that would allow ABC to steal David Letterman away from CBS and put him in that late night spot. And yes, it is about money.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "NIGHTLINE")
TED KOPPEL, NIGHTLINE: I spoke with a senior federal law enforcement...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC MINK, TV CRITIC: You don't get any better journalism than you have at "Nightline." They do excellent work. The idea that the only way to make money is to get rid of "Nightline" and throw in an entertainment show seems to me to be ludicrous.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "NIGHTLINE")
ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News "Nightline."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): Almost since its beginning, "Nightline" has been the place where Ted Koppel held court, perhaps the most respected broadcast journalist of his generation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I can't believe it.
BROWN: The program was an accident. ABC had nothing else in those days, so it inserted a 15-minute news program in 1980, right after Americans were taken hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOPPEL: Can we talk about next week so we can all go home?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: "Nightline" became an institution.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST: I checked this now with the CBS attorneys, and legally I can't continue to call myself Dave.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Letterman, on the other hand, after 10 years at NBC, bounced over to CBS in 1993, and has been there ever since.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
LETTERMAN: And through this seance, we're going to try to bring CBS back from the dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The question now is, for how much longer?
MINK: If you have an audience that is more desirable to the advertiser, you can charge slightly more per body than you can for an older audience.
BROWN: If statistics are accurate, when it comes to grabbing the coveted 18 to 34-year-old demographic, "Nightline" sits in third place behind Letterman and the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "TONIGHT SHOW")
JAY LENO, HOST: OK, you got 10 seconds, switch over. You can see Dave. Looks fine. Welcome back!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Koppel and the "Nightline" staff learned about the program's likely demise much like you did, from a reporter who called for comment. The network never bothered to tell one of its most important players the end was likely coming.
In the program's e-mail to viewers today, "Nightline" made no comment about the end, beyond saying the obvious, it is a difficult time and the days ahead will be difficult as well. The note ended this way: "I know that all of you care deeply about "Nightline," or you wouldn't have signed up for the e-mail. But for now, we're going to let our work speak for itself."
MINK: On a pure Letterman basis, I think CBS losing the Letterman show will be a big loss to it and ABC could rightly say they have stolen away a major television talent.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More on this now. We're joined tonight in Santa Barbara by someone who used to be a "Nightline" regular, CNN's Jeff Greenfield, now our senior analyst, and in Washington tonight, Robert Kaiser, of the "Washington Post," who has co-authored the book called "The News About the News, American Journalism in Peril." Welcome to you both.
Jeff, let me start with you and get a reaction, I suppose, when you opened the paper today out there in Santa Barbara and read.
GREENFIELD: As I said at the outset, it's very rare that, you know, a journalist's jaw drops when he sees a piece of news. Sometimes he knows it's coming, takes it in stride. This absolutely staggered me. Part of it I'm sure was a sense of kind of self- interest. I worked on the show for 14 years, anchored it a few times, as you did. But...
BROWN: That happens sometimes. Mr. Kaiser, still there? ROBERT KAISER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "WASHINGTON POST": I'm here.
BROWN: Mr. Kaiser, we'll try and plug Jeff back in. We'll go to you. Television, as I often say in speeches, is the most democratic business there is. People vote every night all the time. Sometimes they vote 20, 30 times in an hour. If not enough people or not the right people watch the program, it goes away. Why is that so difficult?
KAISER: Aaron, let's start with some numbers. Your colleague and my colleague, Howie Kurtz, said them in the "Washington Post" this morning. Last fall, the sweeps in the fall, I guess, Leno had 5.7 million viewers, "Nightline" had 5.6 million viewers. Stay tuned. Letterman had 4.7 million viewers, one million less nearly than "Nightline." You said at the top of the show, this is dictated by economics of the industry. I say baloney. This is dictated by selfishness and by stupidity, if I may be blunt.
There is absolutely no reason to do away with such a successful program as "Nightline," except to get this marginal advantage among this young demographic, 18 to 35, that the advertisers are supposed to crave. It just doesn't make sense to me. It is a desperate move by a network that is obviously feeling a lot of pain at the moment. ABC is losing out on the prime-time ratings, and this is a maneuver, I guess, to try to come back.
But to do so at the expense of public service, at the expense of good journalism.
BROWN: But these are, and more and more there are even bigger companies, these are big companies, they have shareholders they are responsible to. Let's say "Nightline" makes in an average year $15 million to $20 million and let's say Letterman there could make three times that much, four times that much. Don't they have an obligation to dump the show? As painful as that is?
KAISER: You know, I just don't buy that. I think they have an obligation. They use the public air waves. CNN does not. I believe they have an obligation to the public. And the news and to informing the citizens of the United States. That's a philosophical argument, obviously.
And I don't know that your numbers are right. It's hard for me to imagine that the difference is that great in the amount of money that the two shows can earn. But I also think that news is an important part of the franchise for each of the major networks, and as we were reminded after September 11, look at the brilliant coverage they gave us, and the country watched us as they watched you guys.
But if you don't have a strong news presence, over time I believe your whole position is going to be eroded as a network, because news is a very important flagship for every network.
BROWN: It is indeed. Jeff, let me go back to you for a second on this. One of the quotes in "The New York Times" piece today, a source quote from an ABC executive unnamed is that the program has essentially lost its relevance, that the advent of 24 hour cable, programs like this one and others make "Nightline" less important than it once was. There's some truth in that, I think. What are the implication for the broadcast news business then generally?
GREENFIELD: Well, you can see the impact of cable news and competition in general on a broadcast news profession that was once a shared monopoly. They have had to move very -- and not just they, the cable news networks have had to move kind of pretty clearly toward an entertainment kind of value system. Make the news quicker. Make it more entertaining. Make it sexier. Make it news you can use. Don't bother people about far away places with strange-sounding names. You pointed out. "Nightline" got the started because of the Iran hostage crisis. It recently devoted five nights to the Congo.
And the argument has always been traditionally that this is stewardship aspect of this, and I think now the competition in general, the wave of mergers, where news divisions of broadcast networks and even something like CNN become a much smaller part of a huge publicly held corporation driven by quarterly profits has meant that that notion that you give something back has faded. Even the FCC has moved way away from the kind of public interest notion toward a much more free market system.
And in that situation -- I keep coming back to this point. I said it before I dropped out, I guess. If a show like "Nightline" and a person like Koppel can be in jeopardy, then who's safe? What's safe in terms of news?
BROWN: Jeff, we'll leave it at that. Mr. Kaiser, thanks also for joining us tonight. Maybe it won't happen. We'll see. Thank you both for being with us.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT -- that's news night. It's not over yet. Another Olympic controversy. We'll take a look at that one when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, we thought all the controversy was behind us. The Olympic controversy, as we mean. But that was before some house cleaners in Utah yesterday made an intriguing and troubling discovery. They found blood transfusion bags in the home, where Nordic skiers from Austria stayed during the Winter Games. The Austrians took home three medals, a silver and two bronze. And now the IOC has launched investigation into whether the Austrians might have used transfusions to boost performance, a gory old technique known as blood doping.
Joining us tonight, from Los Angeles, Anita Defranz, and IOC member and a former vice president.
It's nice to see you tonight. Can you explain really quickly and pretty simply, what blood doping is?
ANITA DEFRANZ, PRESIDENT, AMATEUR ATHLETIC FOUNDATION: Blood doping is taking your own blood out, and then having it sit for a while, while your body creates more of its own blood, and then putting your blood back. The idea being that you'll have more red blood cells, so that it can carry more oxygen. And certainly, when you're an Olympic athlete and you are in those last bits of the competition, your body is crying for more oxygen.
BROWN: And have the Austrians offered an explanation for this?
DEFRANZ: Yes, they say it's something that you do -- what they were doing was actually preventing colds. They were taking out the blood, and then having it irradiated, and then putting it back with little shot of Vitamin C, because they were deeply concerned about catching colds.
BROWN: Now I'm a pretty cynical person. Are you buying that?
DEFRANZ: I am not. And I'm very happy that president, Dr. Zack Rogue, has insisted that we take every means, including using DNA to find out what really happened.
BROWN: Look, if they were cheating, shame on them for doing it. But at another level, shame on you, shame on the IOC, for not catching it in the first place. Why, given all the attention that's been paid to drug testing, and the like of athletes, how could something like this slip through?
DEFRANZ: Well, if it is as they say, their own blood, how can you tell, except that you might be able to find that there's a higher red cell count? The testing done prior to the competition, each athlete was tested to determine the number of red platelets. I can't give you all the specific terms, but each athlete was tested.
And if they were not over the limit, they were allowed to compete. If they were over the limit, they were taken out of the competition for health reasons. After the competition, the athletes who won medals were again tested. They were -- blood was taken, as well as urine. And if it didn't turn up, it didn't turn up.
BROWN: Well, but if it doesn't turn up, then how do you prove that they did something wrong? I mean, we're sitting here saying this is very suspicious, but they tested OK?
DEFRANZ: We'll have to review the test to determine if there was something in the test. The doping code has a provision for related products. And indeed, it talks about blood doping means the administration of blood, red blood cells and related blood products to an athlete which may be preceded by withdrawal of blood from the athlete, who continues to train in such a blood depleted state. So it's against the rules.
BROWN: Well, then we hope you get them. If they broke the rules, we hope you get them.
DEFRANZ: Yes.
BROWN: Thank you for trying to explain what is complicated science and sport as well.
When we come back, a fascinating trip to a new spot, and an important one, in the war on terrorism. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Not all that long ago, an American service man's only view of the place we're about to take you would have been from the cockpit of a B-52, just before dropping a nuclear bomb on it. Tonight, it's the home of an American air base.
Back then, it was very much enemy territory, tucked away in a remote corner of the Soviet Union. Now in its place, the Russian Federation, many small, newly independent nations. Their names are confusing to remember, sometimes hard to pronounce. But they are suddenly hugely important to the American military. Not as targets, but as bases. Is that part of the world we take you to now, to a city in Kyrgyzstan and an air base nearby.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): On the streets of this once secretive Soviet city, time seems as frozen as the weather. There's no shortage of monuments glorifying the Soviet past, but foreigners are rare, but that is about to change. Perhaps forever.
Nearly 1,000 American airmen have arrived here over the past two months, the vanguard of an even greater force that will turn the now independent nation of Kyrgyzstan into the forward staging area of the war against terrorism, an historical sea change not lost on the base commander.
CHRISTOPHER KELLY, BRIGADIER GENERAL, U.S. AIR FORCE: I grew up in an age where this indeed was the big bear. And to have imagined even 10 years ago that I might some day be in a former Soviet Republic, starting up an air base and doing military operations, was just inconceivable.
BROWN: Runways are being improved. Maintenance facilities being built. Tons and tons of equipment being moved. All to prepare a very large American air field deep in the heart of central Asia.
KELLY: We will have from a number of coalition partners, C-130 aircraft, small cargo airplanes. We will have KC-135 equivalent air fueling airplanes. And then we will have -- we just learned this morning some search and rescue capability from here. And then, we will also have some fighter attack aircraft.
BROWN: All this activity is making the next door neighbors a bit jittery. A new American base named in honor of a New York City fire department captain, Peter Ganci who died on September 11, is just across these mountains from Russia and only 100 miles or so from China.
ZEYNA BARAN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INT'L STUDIES: Yes, a number of Chinese, including probably very senior government people, will not be happy about it. But I think this administration's going to try to work it out. So that they may not be happy, but hopefully they'll get used to it. ROBERT LEGVOLD, PROFESSOR, POL. SCI., COLUMBIA UNIV.: We're backing into this region in a very substantial way, because of this military power. But probably without a long-term vision, certainly not without calculating carefully what the many complex problems of this region are that we're buying into.
BROWN: At Ganty Air Force base, geopolitical considerations like that are not yet on the radar screen. The military seems to be settling in for the long-haul. Tents are everywhere. They're heated. There's a kitchen in place. A wreck hall, too. A wreck hall with instance Internet connections for servicemen to contact loved ones back home. All of it built essentially from scratch.
GERRITT MCCRORY, SGT., U.S. AIR FORCE: Basically this whole area, where we're standing right now was a nothing but a bone yard, with nothing but old broken down Russian aircraft and Kyrgyzstan aircraft. So for us to set up what you see right now, we had to get all that stuff moved over, had to move a ton of snow because the whole place was covered with snow and ice. A lot of debris everywhere. So it was quite a challenge to get all the stuff out of the way, so we'd be able to operate smoothly, the way we are now.
BROWN: Right now, the Americans have only a one year lease from the Kyrgyz government to operate the air field. But unofficially, you'd have to look long and hard to find someone who doesn't believe these men and this equipment are going to be here for quite some time to come.
MARTIGO CALDWELL, SGT., U.S. AIR FORCE: We have an official and an unofficial mission. Our mission here is to provide war front capabilities, as far as food service, lodging, fitness and morale for all the personnel that are stationed here. Our unofficial mission is to go and kick the bad guys' butts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The view from a place Americans never thoughts they would be.
Coming up, we'll talk with the secretary of energy about the energy plan that is stalled in the Senate. And I'm told, and I'm concerned about this, that the accordion guy is in the building. We have called security.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Personal damage done and lost money and lost jobs. One of the casualties of the Enron mess may turn out to be the president's energy plan. Lots of people already had concerns that the plan was weighted too far towards the energy industry, coal and oil, even before Enron. And that feeling, fairly or not, has only spread since.
The plan has already passed the House. It's waiting for a vote in the Senate, but it may be a long wait. We talked with the Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham, the other night about a key portion of the policy, drilling for oil in Alaska and the politics getting the plan enacted into law.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: This proposal back in the 1987 timeframe. We were talking about, or at least the government was talking about a huge footprint, a major development project. We've said we'll confine whatever development is done to 2000 acres. That's about the size of a major city airport, out of an area that's in total, the size of South Carolina.
So I think we're showing a willingness on our part to dramatically reduce the footprint, and do it environmentally and in a sensitive fashion. So we're looking for a way to balance these concerns. The environment on one hand, and the need for more domestic production on the other.
BROWN: What do you think you have to do to get this thing moving in the Senate then?
ABRAHAM: Well, we hope that ultimately, people will understand the importance of being more energy self-sufficient.
I mean, here's the bottom line. At this point, we import huge amounts of oil. Over 50 percent of the oil we use comes from someplace else. And to a large extent from places in the world that are not very stable. The Persian Gulf region, for example.
We believe that it's important to make the case, and I hope it will help to us gain votes for people to understand, if we have the Alaska oil opportunity, then we can offset 50 years of imports from Iraq. We can offset 10 to 15 years of imports from Saudi Arabia, perhaps more, if we had to. People, I think, really need to understand that if there's a real disruption in supply, we need to have alternatives. And they have to be domestic ones.
BROWN: Quickly on nuclear waste, there's a proposal out there in putting in Nevada. There's obviously enormous resistance in at least among -- in Nevada and the delegation. Other than muscling your way through it, how do you solve that? How do you convince people that moving the stuff across country from all over the place, putting in one place in Nevada is the way to go?
ABRAHAM: Well, first and foremost, right now at 131 sites all across America in 39 states, we've got nuclear waste, sometimes in open pools or in temporary storage facilities and near people. Near large populations, including New York.
We believe that's not in the long-term, in the best interest of the country, either from the standpoint of safety, security or the environment, or for that matter, in terms of just trying to make sure that the energy companies that use nuclear energy can keep running. Because if the waste -- we run out of space, the companies won't be able to function. But this is an issue, just to put in perspective for Americans, we've spent $4 billion over 24 years researching the safety of this proposal. That's five times longer than it took to build the Hoover Dam. It's six times longer than the Manhattan Project. It's twice as long as it took to put a man on the moon.
We've done the science. Based on sound science, I can say that it can be done safely. And it provides many national benefits, including our ability to keep the nuclear navy running, our ability to make non-proliferation programs with Russia work, our energy security, and international and homeland security as well.
BROWN: It's going to be an interesting fight.
ABRAHAM: It will be.
BROWN: Nice to meet you. We just began dealing with some of the issues. I hope we'll continue this conversation.
ABRAHAM: Thanks, I look forward to doing so.
BROWN: Thank you, sir. Nice to meet you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The secretary of energy. We have one final story. A highway and the flags. We're right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARRY MITCHELL, THE ACCORDION GUY: Good evening. It's come to my attention that recently Aaron announced the accordion guy has been banned from NEWSNIGHT. This came as a complete shock. And I honestly don't know what I did to bring it about. But whatever it is, I'm sorry.
And I'm here to beg for my job back. When I first heard I was going to be on CNN, I was so excited. I went out and got plastic surgery. Not on me, on the accordion. It had a little crack right over here. Now I know you think that playing accordion on TV seems like a glamorous life, but the truth is, I don't have a lot of money. My wife, Pat here, doesn't even have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat. And I always tell her she'd look great in anything.
One other thing I probably should tell you, we received a package from a viewer. You know what it was? A little black and white accordion. My youngest daughter here, Trisha, called its Checkers. And regardless of what they say, we're going to keep it.
All right, look, this isn't my wife. And it's not my kid, OK? They're a couple of actors I hired. I'm not even married. I just want to sing funny songs about the news. Is that so wrong? Two minutes, maybe once a week. That's all I'm asking. It doesn't cost you anything extra. It's basic cable. So in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I guess my feelings can best be summed up by something Britney Spears said. I'm not a girl, not yet a woman, all I need is time, a moment that is mine. Please, ladies and gentlemen, can't you find it in your hearts to allow me a moment that is mine? Please e-mail your support to "Save the Accordion Guy, NEWSNIGHT@cnn.com. And on behalf of accordionists everywhere, thank you. I'm not yet a woman.
BROWN: Hey, you saw what happened to "NIGHTLINE." We're not taking any chances here. Wow! Finally from us tonight, the keeper of the flag. Here we go. We've seen these kinds of stories here and there since September 11. People doing their part in some unusual or unexpected way. This is one of them.
A guy who saw that flags were his falling off cars, ending up on the road. Someone who just couldn't let himself drive on by. Here's CNN's John Zarrella.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tom Figsigna's (ph) count stands at close to 400.
TOM FIGSIGNA, KEEPER OF THE FLAGS: A few starts, tattered stripes. This one is one of my favorites.
ZARRELLA: You could call Tom the conscience for anyone who's had a flag blow off their car and didn't go back and get it. The American flag, he says, simply doesn't belong lying on the side of a highway.
FIGSIGNA: Each day I've been thinking, "Well, maybe today's the day they'll be no more flags on the side of the road, but hasn't happened yet."
ZARRELLA: Picking them up is a matter of patriotism and a gesture to four men who died in the World Trade Center. Tom knew them as boys when they were growing up in New York.
FIGSIGNA: I think about those guys every time I pick one of these things up. The guys I went to grammar schools, guys I hung around the neighborhood with. Edmund, Timmy, Christian (ph) and Richie.
ZARRELLA: Tom has found all his flags on the way to and from work. A round-trip of 80 miles on busy, interstate 95 in South Florida.
(on camera): It's just a tiny little stretch of Americana that you're picking these flags up on?
FIGSIGNA: Yes, I've thought the same thing.
ZARRELLA: Well, here's another one, right?
FIGSIGNA: Yes, afraid so.
ZARRELLA: You're amazing.
(voice-over): This keeper of the flag sees to see them all, no matter how small.
FIGSIGNA: Look at this. This is the miniature version.
ZARRELLA: Eventually, Tom wants the tattered and torn flags destroyed in a dignified manner. According to the U.S. flag code, burning is preferable. The others will be made into a lasting memorial, displayed on the 4th of July.
FIGSIGNA: I think so far, the idea is just a string them out, side by side. It's going to be a couple of hundred feet worth of flags.
ZARRELLA: And with each flag Tom finds, the stars and stripes tapestry grows.
FIGSIGNA: There's one right there.
ZARRELLA (on camera): How did you see that?
FIGSIGNA: I've been practicing.
ZARRELLA (voice-over): Now that he's on this crusade, Tom says he doubts there will ever come a time when he doesn't stop to pick up a flag.
John Zarrella, CNN, Boynton (ph) Beach, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's all. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. Good night.
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