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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Congress Looks at WorldCom; Pentagon Admits Mistake in Killing of Civilians in Afghanistan
Aired July 08, 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.
LARRY KING, LARRY KING LIVE ANCHOR: Aaron.
AARON BROWN, NEWSNIGHT ANCHOR: You have got them no less. I can't tell you how much I missed that, Larry. It's nice to see you, and good evening again everyone.
We ran across a statistic the other day that seems to apply to this day pretty well. It was a poll, 82 percent of all CEOs admitted to cheating while playing golf. This, by the way, is much higher than the number of news anchors who admit to doing the same thing, but that's another matter all together.
If it were just the CEOs who created this Enron, WorldCom, Xerox mess, it would be one thing, but alas it's not. Your congressional representatives, you know the ones speaking the loudest about reform lately, they've been taking money hand over fist from the accounting industry to make sure the rules were not changed to make the industry accountable.
And those Wall Street analysts, the ones who study the companies' books so you don't have to do all that hard work, and then they issue a buy recommendation. It turns out some of them were little more than shills, saying whatever could bring their firms more business, and them a higher salary.
And perhaps we too, all of us, get some of the blame as well. For a long time, we wanted to believe the phony numbers and the inflated stock prices. It was a lot easier to get rich on paper than do even the smallest amount of research, let alone exercise any common sense, and you know what? The next time the great bull runs down Wall Street, and this tech company or that phone company or some dotcom soars, we'll buy in.
Wall Street thrives on two things, greed, and fear, greed being a lot more fun for CEOs and elected representatives and the rest of us, which lead us to the whip.
The president's speech tomorrow on Wall Street, corporate responsibility is the theme, political danger is the concern. Our Senior White House Correspondent John King will be reporting on that tomorrow and previews it tonight, John the headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, on Wall Street, Mr. Bush will tell corporate CEOs directly that if he gets his way any CEO who cooks the books deliberately will go to jail. Democrats, though, continue to say this president, because of his past, is not the right spokesman for corporate reform now.
BROWN: John, thank you, back with you in a moment. A very dramatic day on Capitol Hill as well, hearings into the accounting disaster at WorldCom, Kate Snow worked that, Kate a headline from you please.
KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a House panel wanted to know what went wrong at WorldCom. How was it they were able to allegedly hide nearly $4 billion in expenses. They didn't get all the answers they were looking for, most importantly because two of their key witnesses refused to say much at all. Aaron.
BROWN: Kate, thank you. To the Pentagon next, one week after a tragic mistake that left innocent people dead in Afghanistan, Jamie McIntyre is working that, Jamie the headline from you tonight.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, it is one week since that AC-130 rained down deadly cannon fire on a compound in Afghanistan. Today, Pentagon officials finally willing to admit it was a mistake, saying they deeply regret it, but they still don't say how many people were killed and exactly how they died.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, and now the International AIDS Conference, and a look at a new drug to fight the HIV virus, Dr. Sanjay Gupta reporting from Barcelona tonight, Doc the headline from you please.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, 40 million people have HIV, 20 million have already died, 70 million are expected to die in the next 20 years. These are the bleak numbers that we've been hearing for the first couple of days here in Barcelona, but if there was a glimmer of hope, it came today in the form of a drug, and perhaps even a vaccine. Aaron.
BROWN: Sanjay, thank you, back to you and all of you in just a moment, a lot more coming up on the program as well. We'll look at a debate that's been going on for more than a decade over just what to do with thousands of tons of nuclear waste. The message from Nevada: "Not in my backyard." They may not have a choice. And, we'll take a look at a legendary general, remembering the life and the military career of General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., what a man.
All of that and much more coming up in the hour ahead, but we begin with how the White House plans to deal with the corporate scandals, the financial mess that is taking on an especially thorny political dimension.
With so many companies under investigation, and so much money evaporating with employees looking at empty 401 (k)s, and a rising sense that the rules are different, very different for the big guys, there is enormous political pressure right now to do something.
On the op-ed pages of the papers today, Republican Senator John McCain called on the nation's top market regulator to step down, the head of the SEC Harvey Pitt, who used to lobby for the accounting industry.
Democrats are campaigning against an administration they say is much too cozy with business, and with that as a backdrop, the president tomorrow goes to Wall Street to speak. Here's Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice over): The president vigorously defended his past business practices, and accused Democrats of playing politics with the debate over corporate responsibility.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The way I view is old style politics, and I guess that's the way it's going to be.
KING: This news conference was dominated by the corporate corruption debate, and Mr. Bush travels to Wall Street Tuesday to outline new steps he says are critical to restoring investor confidence in the economy.
Administration sources tell CNN, the president will call for corporate CEOs to personally vouch for financial statements, and other public company reports; potential jail time for corporate officials who deliberately file misleading financial reports; new powers to revoke CEO bonuses, if financial misconduct is proven; new authority to bar company officers, who abuse their powers, from serving on corporate boards or other leadership positions; and, a new requirement that corporate leaders, who buy or sell significant chunks of company stock, disclose those transactions within two business days. Current law allows up to a year.
BUSH: We have a duty to every worker, shareholder, and investor in America, to punish the guilty, to close loopholes, and protect employee pensions, and we will.
KING: Mr. Bush also promised to seek more money and more investigators for the Securities and Exchange Commission, and rejected growing calls for his handpicked SEC chairman to step aside.
BUSH: Harvey Pitt was put in place to clean up a mess, and he's working hard to do that.
KING: The accounting scandals are not a major midterm election issue. This ad, part of an effort by Democrats and their allies to suggest Mr. Bush is in no position to lead the charge for reform.
Mr. Bush said Democrats would be better off working with the White House on reform legislation.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: And, even after that news conference today, Democrats say they still have not heard a satisfactory answer as to why Mr. Bush was eight months late reporting a major stock transaction 11 years ago, but the president says he was cleared of any wrongdoing.
One big goal in that Wall Street speech tomorrow, beyond any new policy initiatives, to make the case to the American people that the much more pressing issue now is trying to restore investor confidence in the stock market, and the broader U.S. economy -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, it's an interesting moment for the president who hasn't had to deal with political issues, as such, for a while. How, based on what you know now, we'll get the specifics tomorrow, will the president's proposal differ from the proposals that House Republicans, for example, have already made?
KING: He does go beyond the House Republicans in putting on the table the proposal to have criminal penalties. If a corporate CEO, or another top officer, is found to have deliberately misled investors, and the public at large, in a financial statement, they could go to jail. That is not in the House bill, as it is now spoken. We also heard from the president today that he is much more open to compromise with the Senate.
He wouldn't come right out and say so. There were some things put forward by Senator Paul Sarbanes, a Democrat, including a new independent accounting board to monitor the accounting industry. Mr. Bush would not say flat out today that he would sign that piece of legislation, if it were in a bigger bill, but we are told by White House aides that he would do so.
They recognize here that the political environment, remember campaign finance reform, the president was against this, against that, against this. In the end, he signed the bill. We are in a very similar debate now.
BROWN: John, thank you. We'll see you tomorrow here in New York for the president's speech. We will, of course, carry the president's speech. I'll be here. Lou Dobbs from "MONEYLINE" will be here.
John King will be here. Our coverage begins at 11:00 Eastern time tomorrow, the president expected to be on Wall Street to make his speech at 11:30, but again, our coverage begins at 11:00 tomorrow. We hope you'll join us for that.
And, what has to be a sense of deja vu for some on Capitol Hill, a war of words going on between WorldCom and its former accountant firm, Andersen, played out today before the House Financial Services Committee.
It was not exactly the main event, which involved WorldCom's former CEO, along with his former chief financial officer. He went before the committee, and had a lot to say. Well, he had a lot to say, at least, until the questions were asked.
Here again, CNN's Kate Snow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SNOW (voice over): Everyone knew what was coming. After the oath, WorldCom's former chief financial officer invoked his protection under the Fifth Amendment.
SCOTT SULLIVAN, FORMER WORLDCOM CFO: I respectfully will not answer questions.
SNOW: Former CEO Bernard Ebbers did the same, but didn't leave it at that.
BERNARD EBBERS, FORMER WORLDCOM CEO: I believe that no one will conclude that I engaged in any criminal or fraudulent conduct during my tenure at WorldCom.
SNOW: The statement drew fire. In declaring his innocence, members on both sides of the aisle said Ebbers had waived his right to avoid their questions.
REPRESENTATIVE MAX SANDLIN (D-TX): He must testify. I'm asking the committee to hold him in contempt.
SNOW: When the chairman tried to excuse Ebbers for the day, he faced a near mutiny.
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL CAPUANO (D-MA): But to be nice to him, simply so he can go off and count his money?
SNOW: And so, Ebbers stayed, sitting stone-faced for five hours, taking in stinging criticism.
REPRESENTATIVE SUE KELLY (R-NY): It's my understanding you get $1.5 million for life. I have a real hard time explaining that to the people who live in my district, the single mom, who decides if she has a little extra money leftover at the end of the month, whether to take her kids to McDonald's or Burger King.
SNOW: He spoke more than a dozen time, but it was always the same answer.
REPRESENTATIVE GARY ACKERMAN (D-NY): What I would like to know is a simple question. Do you sleep well at night?
EBBERS: On the instruction of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer on the basis of my Fifth Amendment constitutional rights.
SNOW: That left the talking to a Wall Street analyst, who was criticized for being too tight with WorldCom, overplaying its strengths, and the former senior partner with Arthur Anderson, in charge of auditing WorldCom's books. Why, members wanted to know, did Andersen fail to notice nearly $4 billion in misreported expenses?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there no - let me put it this way, is there no responsibility on the part of the auditing firm for the audited statements?
MELVIN DICK, FORMER PARTNER, ARTHUR ANDERSEN: Well, the auditing firm's responsibility is to perform their audit in accordance with generally...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well what are you going to do, just check the arithmetic?
DICK: Let me finish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And give them a gold star if they added right?
REPRESENTATIVE DONALD MANZULLO (R-IL): Did you look at any documents to verify or confirm the statements of WorldCom-MCI, other than the documents that they gave you?
DICK: Well, we look at the systems. We look at the controls.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SNOW: Both Mr. Dick, that you just saw there, and analyst Jack Grubman, both said that all they could do is go off the information they were given by WorldCom. They said they noticed no red flags early on and again all they could do is go with what they were told.
Now, many of the members of Congress didn't buy that, particularly from the analyst Mr. Grubman. He was repeatedly asked, Aaron, about his close relationship with Mr. Ebbers, and with the company, and about his $20 million a year salary. He was asked, was there a link between how much he was paid, and the fact that his own company was also having WorldCom as one of its clients.
One member said that Grubman was a clear example, a walking, living, breathing example of why analysts need to be separated from those who they're supposed to analyze -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kate, thank you, Kate Snow on Capitol Hill tonight.
A little more on this now, we're joined from Washington by CNN Political Analyst and L.A. Times Political Writer and probably other things on his resume too, Ron Brownstein. Ron, it's nice to see you.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening.
BROWN: A quick one first. I'm sure you watched the president and his news conference today.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
BROWN: I'm curious your take on how he handled the Harken issue and the rest.
BROWNSTEIN: I actually thought he was pretty shaky. It's been a long time, as you suggested, since the president's faced any tough questions, particularly of a personal nature, and I thought his answers were surprisingly unprepared.
At one point, he said he didn't know, even at this point, why the filing to the SEC was so late back in 1990, on the sale of stock that he made at Harken. This comes after the White House put out an explanation for why it said it happened. At another point, he said that the accounting issues aren't always in black and white, which is probably not the message that his staff wanted to send out right before this speech tomorrow, drawing sharp lines of corporate responsibility.
So, I think he looked a little unsteady and, Aaron, all the signs are the Democrats are going to press this further with more demands coming, as Tom Daschle made on Sunday, for the SEC to release documents relating to the Harken investigation a decade ago, and I think the president is probably going to get, whether he likes it or not, a few more opportunities to hone his answers.
BROWN: I want to talk about the Democrats here a bit too, but one more just directed at the White House. This is a president who has made no bones about the fact that he is not a great fan of regulation.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
BROWN: He talks about cooperation, not regulation. Does he have a credibility problem?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, he's making a turn in direction here. I mean there's no question that, from the beginning, the message of this administration on the broader range of government regulations had been that Washington should be more cooperative, less coercive, with business.
He's appointed an awful lot of people to regulatory agencies, who come from the agency, come from the industries they now regulate. I mean there's been a lot of focus, for instance, on Harvey Pitt as the chairman of the SEC, but Bush has also sought to appoint two other alumni of the accounting industry, the SEC, which would give it for the first time in its history, a majority of members linked to that industry.
So, in a variety of ways, and these appointees had echoed the message that Washington should be more conciliatory, should seek less litigation, more cooperation. You hear that at the EPA, at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
So, for President Bush to come out tomorrow and talk about throwing the book at corporate lawbreakers is a very different message, not only because of the historical questions, but really the contemporary issues of the general tone they try to set.
BROWN: As a political matter, are the Democrats in much of a position to capitalize? One of the things we've learned, maybe it wasn't Enron money, but it was Global Crossing money, or it was WorldCom money that got spread around. Everybody's hands have been touched by this corporate money.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
BROWN: So, does anyone in Washington, in a sense, have the credibility to make this a good political argument? BROWNSTEIN: No one has credibility, I think, in terms of having perfectly clean hands. You know during the Clinton years, when Arthur Levitt (ph) at the SEC tried to restrict the accountants from consulting for firms that they audit, there was a bipartisan revolt in Congress from members of both parties, who were close the accounting industry and taking money from them that forced them to back off.
You can go back to earlier decisions than that, in which the Congress has often been a shield for the accounting industry, against federal regulations. So, in that sense, no one does have credibility, but you know the way politics works is that the parties do have sort of almost ancestral credibility on different issues.
The Republicans are stronger on national security, and when you look at sort of defending the little guy against big business, corporate America, defending, protecting environment, or occupational health, or the workplace, the marketplace, business I think by and large as associated with the Republicans and the Democrats are more associated with little guys.
So, I think they will have some credibility to press that case. It clearly is one issue, Aaron, where they want to be able to draw distinctions with Bush. They've been frustrated at his ability to blur some of the other domestic issues. This is one where they think they have a clear contrast.
BROWN: Half a message, can one speech on Wall Street tomorrow turn this story for the president?
BROWNSTEIN: No. I think it will - it shows a desire to be out in front of this, but the questions, the personal questions, and the contemporary questions about their attitude on other regulations affecting business, I think guaranteed that this goes forward and raises some tough questions for the White House.
BROWN: Ron, thank you. It's always good to see you.
BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.
BROWN: Thank you, Ron Brownstein of the L.A. Times, and political consultant to us as well, or analyst to us. Keeping these titles straight is not always easy.
Two items from the Pentagon to note tonight, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld today urged Congress to expedite a $14 billion emergency spending bill. He says the money is essential to fight the war on terrorism. He wants it by the middle of the month.
And, over the weekend, the Pentagon took responsibility formally for killing innocent Afghan civilians in that air strike a week ago. A formal investigation has been launched. For more details there, we go to CNN's Jamie McIntyre; Jamie, good to see you tonight.
MCINTYRE: Good to see you, Aaron. Well that investigation now, the preliminary investigation is complete. The investigators talked to the witnesses firsthand. They inspected the site in Afghanistan, where Afghan authorities say there was a wedding party, and that 48 people were killed, and 117 injured, including many women and children.
You see here some of the holes that the Afghans say were caused by an AC-130 gunship that rained cannon fire on this compound, and now a week later, the Pentagon is finally willing to admit a mistake was made.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICTORIA CLARKE, PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: We're at the point where there were civilian casualties and civilians killed as a result of this strike. We just don't have hard and fast numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCINTYRE: Now, we're at the point where a much more formal investigation will be undertaken to interview everybody possible, a joint U.S. military and Afghan investigation. It will look at some nagging questions, such as if the U.S. military had observers watching this area for months, as it claims, for five months, how did it not know a wedding party of several hundred people had gathered there?
Other questions was, if the AC-130 was responding to antiaircraft fire, why was no gun found at this site, and if so many people died, why didn't the investigators who went there initially, see more graves?
Now the Pentagon also says that there's a videotape from the AC- 130 that may shed some light on it, but they say it will have to be analyzed, along with information on the ground.
And Pentagon officials said today that they deeply regret the loss of civilian life, even as they're not willing to say exactly how many people they think died.
And they also echoed a sentiment that was first said by one of the commanders over in Afghanistan, namely that there's one side in this conflict, they said, that is intentionally trying to inflict civilian casualties, and it's not the United States. Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre, Senior Pentagon Correspondent tonight.
Later on NEWSNIGHT, a controversial decision to send America's nuclear waste to Nevada is in front of the Congress this week. We'll take a look at that. Up next, while the AIDS epidemic continues to rage, whatever happened to a vaccine? We have much more on a Monday night. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: A mix of news coming out of the world's largest AIDS conference, which is going on in Barcelona. There was confirmation that the disease has grown faster in poorer countries, that for a number of different reasons.
On the flipside, there's new evidence of how effective an inexpensive measure can be, a number of them, in fact, condoms, education, and even as one set of researchers talked about, new strains of HIV becoming harder to kill. Other researchers discussed new ways of upping the ante. Here again, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: A new drug, offering new hope, for the estimated one million Americans infected with the HIV virus.
DR. DANI BOLOGNESI: T-20 is very different in that it blocks a process that prevents the virus from entering the cell altogether.
GUPTA: If approved by the FDA, T-20 would be added to the cocktail of drugs currently taken by HIV patients, and the drug couldn't come at a better time, because some infected people are already building a resistance to current medications.
BOLOGNESI: Virus is emerging, which is resistant to the existing drugs, and what is needed is a new class of agents that specifically attacks multi-drug resistant virus.
GUPTA: But the new drugs weren't the only highlight Monday at the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, but researchers also unveiled a new vaccine trial for fighting HIV.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Now, people feel this burst of energy that, now we're going to get to the real answer empirically. What does it do in the trenches?
GUPTA: The trial, to be run in Thailand by the U.S. government, is not the first, but it is the largest, with 16,000 volunteers. It will be five years and $36 million before results are known. If successful, they could have the vaccine available in five to seven years.
But the real dilemma with building a vaccine is that HIV is unlike other diseases. No one has kicked HIV on their own, so researchers don't have a model to design a vaccine after.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA (on camera): And that's sort of the interesting part about it, Aaron. There are a lot of ifs here, but it's really the scientists that look at the human body and how it attacks the virus. They use that same model to build their own vaccines. In this case, they don't have that option, so that's one of the interesting things, and part of the reason it's taken so long to even come up with a vaccine.
BROWN: Twenty seconds here, why Thailand?
GUPTA: There was a trial going on in Thailand. There was a trial going on simultaneously in the United States. What they found is the trial in Thailand actually was answering the very questions they wanted to answer, which was how do you get the body's immune system to actually kill the virus? It's sort of a scientific reason, but that was one of the primary reasons.
BROWN: Dr. Gupta, thank you, Sanjay Gupta in Barcelona tonight at the AIDS Conference. There are a number of other stories making news around the world today. In Central Russia, the Russian President Putin paid his respects at a memorial service for victims of last week's midair collision.
And, as far as the cause of the crash, investigators now say a Swiss air traffic controller told the Russian pilot to dive, the opposite of what warning equipment on board the plane was telling the pilot to do. That set the airliner back into the path of the DHL cargo jet, which was diving as well.
Of less serious note, there are certain things you have to do no television, and this is one. When the bulls run in Spain, you have to show it, which allows the anchor to say things like, how dumb can people be, while offending as few people as possible and offending no bulls at all. No one seriously hurt.
And, here's another must show when it happens. This is stately Wimbledon on Sunday. Just to show you how far men's tennis has fallen, the streaker was the most interesting part of the match, or as we said just a moment ago, how can people be so dumb? See, you can say it and no one is offended.
It's a job folks. Later on NEWSNIGHT, why did they freeze Ted Williams' body? There are some things I never thought I would say on television, and that is one of them. Up next, the debate over what to do with nuclear waste in America. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This is a story that, in a way, you could think of in terms of homeland security, but the timeframe in keeping America safe isn't measured in months or years or even decades, but in millennia.
It's about what to do with the thousands of tons of radioactive nuclear waste that's been piling up across the country. The places that have it want to get rid of it, and the place where the government wants to send it, no surprise here, doesn't want it at all.
The place is Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and the Senate could, as early as tomorrow, approve a final plan to bury the waste there, after decades, literally, of debate.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supports the Yucca plan, isn't taking any chances on the vote, putting out ads like this in key parts of the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Nuclear waste is piling up on the East Coast. Four presidents, over 20 years, have developed a plan to safely remove it from our region. The plan would store the waste safely in the remote Nevada desert, and get it out of our communities. After 20 years of careful study, and $7 billion, the U.S. Senate is on the verge of approving the plan. Yucca Mountain, Nevada is the safest place to store America's nuclear waste. It's a common sense plan. But out-of- state special interest groups want to leave the nuclear waste on the East Coast, where it doesn't belong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Feels like we're in a political campaign again, doesn't it?
The Senate tomorrow may settle the issue involving Yucca Mountain, but it doesn't seem likely they'll settle the controversy, the political one or the scientific one.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): You would think that the people who count here, the casino owners and the big-time politicians, would never bet on a losing proposition. But after nearly 15 years of vehement opposition, the state of Nevada and the gambling industry seem close to losing their biggest battle ever, the federal government's plan to store tons and tons of nuclear waste here inside the mountain named for a desert plant.
GOV. KENN GUINN (R), NEVADA: It is an ill-conceived plan, and we want America to know that.
BROWN: Welcome to Yucca Mountain, a spot 90 miles north of Las Vegas that gives new meaning to the word "desolation."
After years and years of testing and construction, President Bush has agreed with the Department of Energy that spent fuel rods from the nation's nuclear power plants should be entombed here forever.
PATRICK ROWE, SENIOR ENGINEER, YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT: We know more about Yucca Mountain than any other mountain in the world. We have spent 20 years characterizing this site, and tremendous amount of money doing this to understand exactly what we have here.
BROWN: This five-mile-long tunnel, the thousands of experiments at Yucca Mountain, have cost more than $4 billion so far, and that is just the down payment. If nuclear waste is ever buried here, the total price tag over the project's lifetime will be close to $50 billion.
ROWE: We use the past in order to help predict the future. And we can do it with quite a bit of confidence, because it has been stable for millions of years, and that gives us a lot of confidence that it will continue to be stable for millions of years.
BROWN: But critics say Yucca Mountain, scientifically speaking, at least, is all wrong. Its rocks are too porous to actually protect anything. Therefore, the critics argue, the important thing are the hardened cases which hold the nuclear waste, and they could be stored anywhere.
ARJUN MAHKIJANI, INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH: By the Department of Energy's own calculations, the geologic formation at Yucca Mountain is practically worthless. Almost all of the containment of the radioactivity is now projected to be done by these engineered barriers, this huge metal container, that is supposed to do almost the whole job.
BROWN: Apart from disputes about the science of Yucca Mountain, its opponents are counting on public jitters about simply getting the nuclear waste to Nevada in the first place. The government's preferred method is by train, and if not that, then by truck.
ANNOUNCER: With over 50,000 nuclear trucks and train loads moving through our streets, even the government admits nuclear accidents are inevitable. And terrorist attacks will become harder than ever to prevent.
BROWN: The state of Nevada is financing this commercial that plays to those fears.
GUINN: I don't think it's scaring, I think it's factual, and I think we should give consideration to that.
BROWN: For its part, the nuclear industry says tons of low-level nuclear waste have already been trucked safely over the nation's roads over the past few years. But critics say every time the government runs into a problem, it has a simple -- too simple -- solution.
MAHKIJANI: The government's response and the DOE's response, instead of moving to a new place to look for a repository, has been to change the rules.
BROWN: Congress first anointed Yucca Mountain as the nation's likely nuclear waste repository in the mid-'80s. Back then, Nevada was given a one-of-a-kind provision. It could veto any presidential decision to make it permanent.
Now the House has overwhelmingly overridden that veto, and the Senate's decision comes next.
ANNOUNCER: Only the Senate can stop this now. Call your senators today.
BROWN: Nevada has paid for this ad too, aimed solely at the state of Vermont, whose two senators are presumably more environmentally oriented and would vote against the Yucca Mountain project.
But the odds are long, and Nevada's governor knows it. Not one but four Nevada lawsuits are planned against the federal government.
GUINN: We are well organized. We have a very fine litigation team. We are funded. And we will see our day in court. And as all good Americans, once the court rules one way or the other, we're going to get on with it, and we'll be good, patriotic Americans one way or the other.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Yucca Mountain story, and again the Senate could vote, could vote as early as tomorrow, ending this 20-year national debate.
Other stories making news around the country tonight, begins with a gloomy forecast for central and southern Texas in terms of weather, at least, and financial damage caused by the extensive flooding there. More rain expected in a state that hardly needs it, 30 inches or more has already fallen over the past week. The Texas governor, Rick Perry, today said that losses from the floods could total a billion dollars.
Of course, the most important loss is the loss of life, and the death toll tonight stands at eight.
On to Inglewood, California. A police officer there was suspended after a videotape showed him slugging a handcuffed black teenager in the face. Inglewood police say the teenager lunged at the sheriff's deputy. Local activists are calling it another Rodney King.
The day before the All Star game, a baseball strike has been averted, at least for the moment, OK? Representatives for the players did not set a strike deadline today, but they still could. The union chief said a walkout would be the last resort. And he added he hopes to have serious talks with the league owners in the coming weeks, no strike vote yet.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the question of what to do with Ted Williams' body. Yes, that is a question on the table tonight. But not the next one. Up next, what one photographer saw on 9/11.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: There's an old quote from the legendary photojournalist Robert Kappa (ph), "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." No one could accuse that ever of James Nachtway, one of the great war correspondents of all time. He is always close enough, and his pictures are very nearly perfect.
He has been in the middle, sometimes literally, of some of the most dangerous conflicts of the last 30 years. He found himself somewhat by accident in the middle of September 11.
We spoke with Nachtway recently. He is a very quiet man whose intensity is best conveyed by the extraordinary power of his photos.
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BROWN: Mostly, it seems to me, you shoot a lot of wars. You've been in a lot of bad places. What is it about war that you find attractive to work in? JAMES NACHTWAY, PHOTOJOURNALIST: I think it's the -- it's an area that needs to most understanding, it needs the most awareness. And it needs public opinion to come to bear. And that's why I photograph mainly conflicts, but also other critical social issues.
BROWN: I want to talk about a couple shots you took on 9/11 and right around then. The first one is a shot of the first tower collapsing. What do you remember about the moment?
NACHTWAY: It went into slow motion. I was standing about a block and a half away, and I was framing the building when it was still standing, but on fire, with the cross of a Christian church in the foreground. And when the tower collapsed and this kind of boiling avalanche of debris and smoke was rushing towards me, it all went into slow motion. And I felt like I had all the time in the world to make the frame.
And only at the last moment did I realize I was about to be hit with it.
BROWN: When you were framing this, did you think, This building's going down?
NACHTWAY: No. I didn't expect it at all. It was a complete surprise. In fact, when I -- when it happened, I wasn't even sure what had happened.
BROWN: Yes. Without knocking the business I'm in, there is something incredibly powerful about a still over time that I don't find in a -- in moving pictures over time. What is that, do you know?
NACHTWAY: The fact of freezing a moment, I think, is something that's very powerful, that you suspend time and allow the viewer to look at it over time. And most photographers who have developed some skill have a kind of visual signature that's their point of view. They become the author of a work. It's not just a generic viewpoint but a specific insight that it -- one individual brings to an event.
BROWN: Take a look at this one. This is down at ground zero later on. I'm not sure how much later.
NACHTWAY: This is just after the first tower fell.
BROWN: So the second tower's still standing.
NACHTWAY: The second tower is still standing. Standing virtually right under it. I went and felt compelled to make an image of the first tower in ruins, made my way through the smoke, and it looked like a movie set for a science fiction film of the apocalypse. It was completely deserted. And as I was taking this picture, the second tower fell and was coming down right on top of me.
BROWN: Did you think, I could die? Did you think that?
NACHTWAY: It was very clear that -- I thought I was going to die. BROWN: And there was no one around. I mean, there is a starkness, it does look like it's absolutely desolate, at that moment. In our minds, there are a lot of people running both in and out of buildings at that point. But in fact, in that shot, at least, not so.
NACHTWAY: Well, this is immediately after the tower fell, and I think people either ran for cover or were unfortunately caught in it. The only other people who were down there were two other photographers who were, you know, wandering around in the same ruins.
BROWN: Let me ask you about the Middle East. And we'll put up some pictures of the Middle East. When you think about shooting there, is it different from shooting other conflicts you've been in, or are they to one degree or another all the same?
NACHTWAY: They're all different. Each one has certain things in common, and there are certain dynamics that make war and conflict a kind of universal human phenomenon. But each one has very specific differences which make each one unique.
BROWN: Again, is there -- do you get excited about the prospect of going back to the Middle East because you know that there -- it is great fertile territory for the work you do? Or is there some sense of dread, or both?
NACHTWAY: There's a sense of dread and actually depression about it, to be perfectly honest with you. I've been working on that story since 1981, 21 years ago, and it's never been worse.
BROWN: Do you think you'll shoot a picture someday of it being over?
NACHTWAY: I certainly hope so.
BROWN: Yes. It was great to meet you the other night. As I told you then, I'll tell you again, I'm a huge fan of the work you do. I think it's art as much as it is journalism. It is certainly both. It's nice to see you.
NACHTWAY: Thank you very much.
BROWN: Thank you very much.
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You know, most of us don't look at photo credits and that sort of thing that -- Jim's work appears mostly in "Time" magazine, and when you see an extraordinary picture, you might take a look at who took it. They risked their lives.
Later on NEWSNIGHT we'll remember a man who led a groundbreaking unit in World War II. It's a great story. Up next, the controversy over what to do with Ted Williams' body. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: This will define the broadcast, this story. We're used to families fighting over the estates of deceased loved ones. We are not used to their fighting over the DNA. That it involves Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of all time, doesn't make it more sad, just more public, a public mess for his children. Sad and strange stuff.
And Keith Olberman is here to talk about it. And better you than me, all I can say.
KEITH OLBERMAN, NEWSNIGHT CONTRIBUTOR: Remember when they stole Charlie Chaplin's corpse?
BROWN: Yes.
OLBERMAN: Were you reminded of that in this, this, this...
BROWN: Yes.
OLBERMAN: ... thing over the weekend? That the passing of an American hero should be so overshadowed by what is almost a literal tug of war over his body is ghoulish enough, but the fate of the remains of Ted Williams has risen to the realms of science fiction, freezing the greatest hitter of all time in hopes of some sort of comeback, or some sort of merchandising?
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OLBERMAN (voice-over): Cryogenics, the preservation of human remains in liquid nitrogen in hopes of eventual revival. Freeze a man who, his daughter insists, wanted to be cremated, the seeming full spectrum of afterlife options, heat or cold, ashes or ice cubes.
"The Boston Herald" quotes an anonymous source who says the freezing has already been done. But the source also insists that the son who did it, John Henry, is not acting from some bizarre motive, that Ted Williams, who, after all, flew fighter jets in Korea long before they worked very well, liked science nearly as much as he liked baseball or fishing and could indeed have agreed to the biggest of big chills.
John Henry's sister, Bobby-Jo Ferrell, says, "I will rescue my father's body."
BOBBY-JO FERRELL, TED WILLIAMS'S DAUGHTER: Metal tube on his head so frozen that if I touched him, it would crack him because of the warmth from my fingertips. It makes me so sick. And it's not what my dad would have wanted.
OLBERMAN: Obviously the courts will decide. The cryogenic facility in Scottsdale, Alcor Life Extension, requires an incredible paper trail before it adjusts the ultimate thermostat.
But Bobby-Jo's other charge has yet to be knocked down, that her half-brother, John Henry, said to her, "We can sell Dad's DNA and people will buy that because they'd love to have little Ted Williamses."
Cloning, farms full of potential .400 hitters, sales of splendid slivers of the man they called the Splendid Splinter, dozens of them being controversially traded to the New York Yankees.
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OLBERMAN: There's more to come tomorrow. Baseball has just named the award for the most valuable player in tomorrow's All Star game in memory of Teddy Ballgame, but with all the grim connotations, will the winner hesitate to accept the Ted Williams Trophy?
And tomorrow or Wednesday, this all gets very serious. The executor of Williams' estate goes to a Florida court seeking an injunction preventing the freezing of the body, or, if that has indeed already occurred, one which orders it to be thawed out.
The one comfort in this mad mixture, "Field of Dreams" meets "Alien: The Resurrection," is that Ted Williams was the kind of man who would have snorted in appreciation at at least some of the dark humor, at the observation that he's gone from being the man who hit .400 to the man who hit 320 degrees below zero.
And thank goodness we can laugh about it, because otherwise we'd have to cry.
BROWN: Yes, I mean, that's the -- do we know enough about these two kids to have any feel, these -- they're -- neither of them are kids any more...
OLBERMAN: Not any more.
BROWN: ... his two children here, to have any idea where the truth lies here, by the way?
OLBERMAN: Not yet. I think the best answer is going to be what that paper trail suggests, because you can't freeze somebody's body without a significant amount of documentation to it. But they have been estranged...
BROWN: Thank goodness for that. Well...
OLBERMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
BROWN: Yes.
OLBERMAN: Happen to either one of us at almost any moment.
But they, they, they clearly -- John Henry Williams had kept his half-sister away from Ted Williams in the last year of Ted's life, so this is certainly an extension of that.
BROWN: And has there been a long disagreeable relationship between these, these, these two people?
OLBERMAN: The whole Williams family has been, I think it's fair to say, dysfunctional, without being too judgmental about it.
BROWN: Yes.
OLBERMAN: And so where the fingers are correctly pointed is more than any one of us should guess.
BROWN: You know, the -- I mean, this is kind of funny in a strange way, but it is profoundly sad, because you're talking about someone who actually in the scheme of this century in sports really matters.
OLBERMAN: Yes. And has been reduced, since we met last Friday...
BROWN: Yes.
OLBERMAN: ... from this, you know, great and moving and symbolic -- not tragedy, but sadness, to this farce. And of course, if they are selling this stuff perhaps as souvenirs, they will sell it, it will move.
BROWN: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
OLBERMAN: They sold Ty Cobb's dentures.
BROWN: Yes.
OLBERMAN: Mickey Mantle's last girlfriend tried to sell some of his hair, for goodness' sake. So there'll be a market for this.
Yes.
BROWN: Thank you.
OLBERMAN: You're welcome.
BROWN: I love the addendums always, they're always good. I can think about Ty Cobb.
Benjamin O. Davis, when we come back.
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BROWN: Finally from us tonight, there are some people in our history who have faced discrimination and responded only with dignity. They have answered every slight with an achievement that in and of itself put the bigoted to shame.
General Benjamin Davis, Jr., who died last week at 89, was most definitely one of them. It is fair to say he fought America's enemies his whole life, the Germans, the North Koreans, later terrorists. And through his whole life, he fought one of the most wicked enemies, racism.
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GEN. BENJAMIN O. DAVIS, U.S. ARMY: During my long association with our Army, I've seen many firsts...
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BROWN (voice-over): As the son of the Army's first black general, the life of Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., seemed almost predestined. And like his father, Davis proved that he too could be a military leader in this country, and black.
In 1932, he entered West Point believing that his character and his talent would be more important than his race. He was wrong then. Davis lived without a roommate. He ate his meals alone. He was isolated, but not destroyed.
Four years later, Davis graduated as the first black cadet in the history of West Point, and he set his sights on flying, training and earning his wings at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama.
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NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: The routine morning patrol goes on.
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BROWN: By June of '43, he was in the war, a young Lieutenant Davis, then leading young black pilots against an enemy abroad while all the time monitored by his commanders, who did not believe blacks had either the brains or the guts to be combat pilots.
They could not have been more wrong.
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GEN. BENJAMIN O. DAVIS, JR., AIR FORCE: Performance is the absolute key in combat. And when I speak of performance, I mean it's either the delivery of bombs on targets...
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BROWN: He led his squad against some of the toughest defenses the Nazis had. They shot down more than 100 enemy planes in the air, another 150 destroyed on the ground...
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DAVIS: Yesterday I fulfilled one of my ambitions as a combat pilot. I got one airplane.
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BROWN: The story of Davis's air assault team came to be known as the Tuskegee Airmen, and the subject of a Hollywood movie. For his leadership and his bravery during World War II, Davis was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. And by 1947, the Air Force, credited in part to Benjamin Davis, Jr., officially integrated.
He returned to the United States following the war, only again to see combat in 1953, this time in Korea, this time as a brigadier general, becoming the first black man to earn a star in the U.S. Air Force.
For the next two decades, Davis served at the Pentagon and at various posts overseas. He earned two more stars. But in 1970, he retired from the military, joined the Department of Transportation, aiding in anti-hijacking efforts.
Then in 1998, President Clinton awarded Benjamin Davis, Jr., his fourth star, full general, the military's highest peacetime rank.
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BROWN: That's all. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night.
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