Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Anthrax Investigation Focuses on One Man; Two Americans Go Home in Caskets After Jerusalem Bombing; California Teens Are Rescued From Abduction
Aired August 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, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, again everyone.
We can't prove this, but we suspect the most uncomfortable person in the country today is a guy named Steven Hatfill. Dr. Hatfill's name was leaked today as a potential suspect in the anthrax murders of late last year.
He has not been charged. He is not formally even considered the suspect, and it may turn out that this guy has nothing to do with the anthrax murders at all.
Still, it must be a pretty miserable night in the Hatfill home. His place was searched by the FBI today. Parts of his story have been on TV for much of the day. If it turns out he is not the killer, he may well utter those words first said by former labor secretary Ray Donovan: "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"
Having said all that, we're going to look pretty closely at Dr. Hatfill tonight. NEWSNIGHT producer David Fitzpatrick has been working on this for several weeks, and we will report what we know in a little bit.
But we want to be clear on this now, and will likely make the same point again in a little bit: telling you what we know, why the government is interested in this man, is not meant to be, and should not be taken as meaning, this guy is the guy. We don't know that. And if the government thinks it, it is not saying.
But we do know the government's interest, and we think it's important to look at some of the reasons why we believe the government is looking so closely at Steven Hatfill.
So now the anthrax investigation begins "The Whip." I'm not sure when we last said that around here.
Kelli Arena has been working this story all day long.
Kelli, the headline from you, please.
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well Aaron, from person of interest to potential suspect, FBI agents descended upon the apartment of that former Fort Detrick researcher today, and it was not their first visit.
BROWN: Kelli, thank you. We are back to you in just a moment.
To the Middle East next, where two of the American victims of yesterday's bombing in Israel began their journey home.
John Vause in Jerusalem again for us tonight.
John, the headline from you.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as those two Americans make their way home, word to us here in Jerusalem of a fairly major military operation in the old city of Nablus. Tanks, armored personnel carriers and bulldozers moving into the old city. There are reports of a heavy exchange of gunfire. And this could be -- could be -- retaliation for the bombing of the Hebrew University -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you.
The anger seemed to build at the White House over yesterday's bombing attack. Kelly Wallace on duty there tonight.
Kelly, the headline from you.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, President Bush said he's furious about the loss of Israeli and American lives, but he says he still believes peace is possible. He huddled today with Jordan's King Abdullah. The two men, though, don't exactly see eye to eye, especially when it comes to Iraq -- Aaron.
BROWN: We'll deal with both of those with you in a little bit.
And the two teenagers kidnapped at gunpoint last night; two teenagers who are safe and quite lucky tonight.
Thelma Gutierrez covering that from southern California. The headline from you please.
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, you're right, two teenage girls are reunited with their parents this evening after they were kidnapped at gunpoint. It happened at a popular look-out spot for teenagers early this morning -- Aaron.
BROWN: And Thelma, we are back with you and the rest of you guys in just a moment.
Also coming up on the program, we'll have quite a bit on the anthrax investigation. We'll talk with Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek." He has been working his sources on this. We'll also have an investigation into one of the September 11 hijackers. Could he have been stopped?
Sheila MacVicar reports that story for us in a little bit as well.
A very different story on this one, about the vice president -- the vice president as CEO. An intriguing story about Dick Cheney and a deal that went bad during his time when he was running Halliburton.
"New York Times" reporter Richard Stevenson joins us a little bit later on.
All of that in the hour ahead. A busy day, not an easy one, certainly.
We begin with anthrax and the man authorities are, for the first time, calling a potential suspect. He is a scientist with an intriguing background and to a layman, at least, a scary resume.
Until 1999, Dr. Steven Hatfill worked at one of the Army's germ factories. He worked with nasty diseases. There are fascinating connections between his work experience, his life experience and aspects of last year's attacks.
All of which we, again, point out may be coincidental or innocently explained. Dr. Hatfill has yet to be charged with anything, may never be.
But tonight, at least, he finds himself very much at the center of attention of this case. We have a pair of reports tonight.
We begin first with CNN's Kelli Arena.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA (voice-over): For the second time this summer, FBI agents searched Steven Hatfill's apartment in central Maryland. Hatfill is an expert in infectious diseases, who worked at Fort Detrick. It houses a U.S. Army bioweapons defense lab, and workers there have experimented with anthrax.
Witnesses to the search say FBI agents confiscated a Camaro, among other items.
JOEY DILAURA, ANTHRAX SEARCH WITNESS: I don't know, I just know it's heavy. When you see that many cars rolling in with Washington plates and Virginia plates, I know it's very, very heavy.
ARENA: After the first search in late June, sources said nothing incriminating was found. While Hatfill gave his permission then, this time investigators came armed with a search warrant.
They also searched a friend's residence. It is not clear what brought investigators back, but Hatfill, who sources say was being called a person of interest, is now, according to those same sources, a potential suspect in the anthrax investigation.
The FBI would not comment. When asked, Director Robert Mueller had only this to say:
ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: As I said, I can't get on to the -- what is being undertaken in the course of the investigation, but I do believe we're making progress. ARENA: Sources say Hatfill has previously been interviewed by the FBI and polygraphed. He's just one of dozens of scientists who have agreed to cooperate with investigators who, from the beginning, have said they were focusing on the scientific community.
VAN HARP, ASSISTANT FBI DIRECTOR: Whoever produced that had significant technical ability. We feel they had some experience, and they had access to some pretty sophisticated equipment.
ARENA: The FBI is still looking into other individuals as its investigation continues, and sources say no arrests are imminent.
But Hatfill has drawn the most attention. He's even been the subject of Web site gossip among scientist about possible domestic suspects.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA: Now, one of the reasons for that is a study Hatfill commissioned in 1999 that described a fictional terrorist attack in which an envelope containing anthrax is opened in an office.
Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: OK, and I received that.
Have you had a chance to look at the warrant? There must -- you can't just go pick up a search warrant. There has to be some probable cause to get one.
Do we have any idea what the problem cause was?
ARENA: We do not, Aaron. We know that obviously something -- some information came in between the last time they searched and this time to cause them to go back. Investigators though, at this point, are not saying.
BROWN: Is that warrant sealed? Is that something we can eventually get our hands on?
ARENA: Hopefully it will show up in paperwork somewhere. At this point, though, we cannot get our hands on it.
BROWN: OK. I'd like to see it. I know you would.
ARENA: Sure would.
BROWN: I know you would.
Thank you very much, Kelli.
More now on Dr. Hatfill, the man at the center of this anthrax story tonight. He is in fact, a member of a very small fraternity in this country, or anywhere else.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R), CONNECTICUT: The very people you are asking to help you in the investigation may ultimately be the perpetrators, and so you need to do things like lie detector tests on the very people you are considering your friends and your allies in this investigation.
BROWN (voice-over): Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays is not speaking directly about Dr. Steven Hatfill here, but Hatfill is one of a relatively small number of scientists with the background and the knowledge to draw the attention of the anthrax investigators.
DR. MERYL NASS, ANTHRAX EXPERT: Not many people have the knowledge or ability to prepare anthrax in that manner.
BROWN: An extensive investigation by NEWSNIGHT shows that Dr. Hatfill, seen here in a photograph taken a decade ago, has a background in both infectious disease research and the military. And that has taken him across the world and back again.
According to his resume, obtained exclusively by NEWSNIGHT, Dr. Hatfill served in the U.S. Army in the Army's Institute for Military Assistance from 1975 through 1978 which, among other things, trained soldiers from other countries.
For its part, the Army says, yes, he was a soldier, and then took training in both basic airborne and special forces units.
Then soon after, according to the resume, he went to Rhodesia. And there he joined the Rhodesian Special Air Service, an elite combat unit during the period that whites and blacks were at war over the future of that country.
He lived there before and during one of the worst outbreaks of cutaneous anthrax ever recorded. It resulted in the deaths of hundreds of black farmers and of more than 10,000 cattle.
The government of present-day Zimbabwe has not linked Dr. Hatfill with the anthrax outbreak. It only says now that the outbreak was a deliberate tactic used against black farmers and their cattle.
At Fort Detrick, Maryland, Dr. Hatfill, according to his resume, conducted research on the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses. In early 1998, he posed for this photograph, published in a weekly magazine called "Insight." He was dressed in a full biowarfare protection suit, and the caption reads: "cooking up the plague at home."
He worked at Fort Detrick until 1999 when, according to sources, he was fired for taking unauthorized material from the premises. A year ago Dr. Hatfill was working with a Pentagon contractor when he lost his security clearance. According to several newspaper accounts, one reason was that he failed a polygraph test regarding that long-ago service in Rhodesia.
In May, he was appointed the deputy director of Louisiana State University's Center for Biomedical Research and Terrorism. Officials there say they had been told by the FBI that Dr. Hatfill was not a suspect in the anthrax attacks and they say they fully expect him to assume his duties in the fall.
Another note of interest here: The return address on those anthrax letters sent to both senators Daschle and Leahy was, as you'll recall, fictitious, Greendale School. There is no Greendale School in New Jersey, where the letters were mailed, but there is a wealthy suburb of present-day Harare, Zimbabwe, once Salisbury, Rhodesia, that is called Greendale.
Since we began this investigation more than a month ago, we have tried repeatedly to reach both Dr. Hatfill and his attorney Thomas Carter of suburban Washington. We have telephoned time and again. We have faxed his attorney this letter and we have sent the same letter through overnight mail.
Receipt of the letter was acknowledged, but so far we have received no comment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
We're joined in Washington tonight by "Newsweek" investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, who has been covering the anthrax story since it first broke, which now seems a long time ago. Michael, it's good to see you again.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: Good to be with you.
BROWN: Just a quick one here. You anything on this guy you want to add that is either, well, that is exculpatory, if that's the right word under the circumstances. He hasn't been charged with anything -- or that just gives us a little bit more to work with?
ISIKOFF: Well, first of all, the most important thing to say is what you said from the outset. He hasn't been charged, he hasn't been arrested. And we have to presume that he's innocent until otherwise. But that said, it is worth noting that clearly there's a lot of interest in the FBI in Dr. Hatfill, and one thing that's important about today's development is this was not the first time he was searched but this was the first time he was searched with a search warrant.
The earlier search was a consensual search, and Dr. Hatfill had been described as cooperating with the FBI, and indeed there are some indications that he invited the FBI to search his apartment to establish his innocence.
BROWN: Yes.
ISIKOFF: Clearly he didn't do the trick, because this time they went in without his consent, went to a court and established some probable cause to search his apartment.
BROWN: And you don't know what that probable cause is, do you?
ISIKOFF: Well, there are some indications that they have learned some stuff since the last search. And how compelling it is, we just don't know at this point. You know, one thing that's interesting, again, about Dr. Hatfill, though, is regardless of whether -- of what the ultimate outcome of this search is, there's been a lot of different theories about the anthrax case, but one the theories that has gained the most currency in recent months is the idea that it was somebody inside the U.S. biowarfare establishment, biodefense establishment, and perhaps not necessarily with malign motives.
BROWN: Well, right, this is the -- this is the hero theory, correct? This is let's show the country how vulnerable it is?
ISIKOFF: Right. I don't know if hero is the right word.
BROWN: Well...
ISIKOFF: Somebody who felt the need that our defenses were lax and something dramatic was needed to call attention to how lax we were in order to increase our defenses and increase spending on our defenses, and Dr. Hatfill had been one of those who had been vociferously critical of the level of attention that was being brought by the government to this issue.
And I think if that theory proves correct, he fits that profile. That doesn't mean, again, he did it, but he fits the profile of somebody. And the FBI has previously said there was something like 20 to 30 people who had been looking at...
BROWN: Yes.
ISIKOFF: Suspects within the biodefense establishment.
BROWN: Just, I want to do a little more on the theory here, because as we've been kicking it around today, and I assume it's been going on some in news rooms all over the place, the idea is that this person, under this theory, and we don't know who it is, would send out the anthrax to show that the country is not prepared to deal with it. And the one problem that jumped into my mind is the strength of the anthrax kept getting -- correct me if I'm wrong here -- but by the time we got to the Daschle letter...
ISIKOFF: Right. Much more refined.
BROWN: ...and we'd already been through the NBC letter and the CBS letter and, sadly, the case in Florida, it was a much more concentrated, much more deadly, much more potent -- I could go on with these adjectives, but the point is clear -- form of the anthrax, and that does not sound to me like somebody who had a benign reason to do it.
ISIKOFF: You're right. Although one variant of the theory is that the suspect, whoever he is, did not intend to kill anybody and may well have been surprised that this highly refined anthrax seeped through the pores of the envelopes and did have the deadly effect it did.
BROWN: But Michael, again, my timing may be off here. but the Daschle letter came a fair amount later from the first anthrax death. ISIKOFF: About month or so, yes.
BROWN: Yes, I mean, somebody had already died.
ISIKOFF: Right.
BROWN: So, I know this -- I mean, honestly, we've been kicking this around all day today and trying to figure out if it made sense, and it's an interesting theory. I just don't know if it holds up against the facts.
ISIKOFF: You know, you have raised the major problem with the theory, which is that the anthrax did get much more -- progressively more deadly, and that if it was somebody as sophisticated as has been postulated under the theory, it's somebody who should have understood that, who should have known that there was clearly a deadly potential to the anthrax, but then again, maybe the person in his, you know, most likely warped mind believed that it took a death or two to make the point, and that the earlier Florida letter, even though it did cause a death and that the earlier ones to the TV networks didn't do the trick, and something more dramatic was needed.
BROWN: Well, we'll see where it goes. Michael, it's always good to see you, good to talk to you. Thank you. Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek" magazine with us tonight.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the dramatic California kidnapping. And up next, the victims and the fallout, and it is considerable, from yesterday's terrorist attack in Jerusalem. This is NEWSNIGHT on Thursday in New York City.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Someone on our staff got a call yesterday from a friend who had studied at Hebrew University, a call that came right after word of the attack there. No doubt in my mind, she said, there will be Americans hurt, maybe killed. She was proven right within hours. At first, it was one dead, then it became three. Today, it became five Americans killed, along with two Israelis and dozens wounded at a school that is as cosmopolitan as you can imagine.
We'll have the reaction from the White House in just a moment. But first the reaction at Hebrew U today. Classes began in the afternoon as scheduled. As one professor put it, we will not let them kill our aspirations for peace.
But in the face of that determination it was the heartbreaking journey home for some of the victims. Once again, CNN's John Vause is in Jerusalem.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE (voice-over): It was never meant to be this way for Janis Coulter and Benjamin Blutstein, their bodies returning home in plain wooden caskets, loaded on to an El Al flight to New York at Tel Aviv Airport. MICHAEL MELCHIOR, DEPUTY ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: These children specifically were children who believed in the future, who worked for the future.
VAUSE: They'd come to Israel for different reasons, Benjamin to study Hebrew and to be a teacher. His two-year course was over. This was a day he'd planned to return home to Pennsylvania.
Janis arrived here just two days ago. She often came to Israel. It was her job to accompany new American students to the university. She was sitting with some of them in the cafeteria when the bomb went off.
DANIEL KURTZER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: Tonight as Americans and as Israelis, we need to recommit ourselves to the values that these two beautiful people stood for: democracy, tolerance, the continuation of the struggle for freedom.
VAUSE: Many of the students returned to the campus to be told the names of those who died. In all, five Americans and two Israelis were killed by a bomb which police believe may have been detonated by a cell phone. Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for the attack, says it wasn't targeting Americans nor was it making a distinction between Arab or Jew.
YAEL COHEN: It's just blind killing. That's what's bad about it.
VAUSE: Israel has promised a military response, and in Bethlehem soldiers destroyed family home of 17-year-old suicide bomber, who in an attack the day before blew himself up and injured seven Israelis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
And Aaron, we could be seeing part of that military response underway right now in the old city of Nablus. Tanks, armored personnel carriers supported by Apache helicopters and bulldozers have moved into the center of the old city. We're told by Palestinian sources that Israeli soldiers have taken up positions in the middle of the city. There has been exchange of gunfire, reports at least one Palestinian has been killed.
The bulldozers there an indication that the Israelis are intent on demolishing some buildings. But another reason for the Israeli operation could be that the people of Nablus over the last few days have in fact been defying a curfew, the curfew that has been put in place over the last six weeks. It has only been lifted very, very rarely.
The people in the last few days became restless and defied the curfew basically in a show of civil disobedience. So this military operation tonight could in fact just be a show of strength by Israelis, reasserting their authority over the city of Nablus -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, we just don't know, and we don't need to try to guess on this one, except to say that at least as I understand it, the Nablus protest has been a peaceful one. The people have simply come out of their homes, much of the community has. They haven't been shooting at anybody. They've just been going about their lives.
VAUSE: They've been very proud of their act of civil disobedience, saying this is something which they want to show the world, that they don't need to defy the Israelis with suicide bombs or terror attacks. They can actually in such a way that they can do it in a peaceful manner. But make no mistake, Nablus does have a proud history of militancy, nothing quite like Jenin or Gaza.
It's the most populous of the cities on the West Bank, and because it is under curfew is indication that the Israelis do consider it a threat -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you. John Vause in Jerusalem tonight.
There was a very sharp, intense reaction to all of this at the White House today. CNN's Kelly Wallace has been covering that, and files for us tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE (voice-over): Alongside Jordan's King Abdullah, President Bush expresses outrage at the loss of Israeli and American lives, but vows the U.S. won't be deterred.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm just as angry as Israel is right now. I'm furious that innocent life lost. However, through my fury, even though I am mad, I still believe peace is possible.
WALLACE: The Americans killed included 24-year old graduate student Marla Bennett, planning to return home to California Friday, and 36-year-old Janis Coulter of New York, escorting American students who were enrolling at Hebrew University. Asked if the U.S. would retaliate, the president said his administration would help track down those responsible, and said the U.S. is already waging a global fight against terror.
BUSH: I cannot speak strongly enough about how we must collectively get after those who kill in the name of -- in the name of some kind of false religion.
WALLACE: The Jordanian king came to lobby the U.S. to put more pressure on Israel to withdraw its forces from Palestinian towns. But Mr. Bush, who also met with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, did not specifically call for Israeli restraint in response to the bombing.
BUSH: Israel must defend herself, but, as I say to all parties involved, we must keep the vision of peace in mind.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: In the Oval Office, President Bush never mentioned the name of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but he could hidely -- hardly hide his frustration. The president saying the first step must be developing a security force that, in his words, actually serves the people, not one leader.
Palestinian officials expected to come to Washington in the near future. And also now we know, Aaron, the FBI opening an investigation into Wednesday's bombing -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly, there were other things talked about besides the Middle East. They talked about Iraq. What do we know about the conversation between King Abdullah and the president on that?
WALLACE: Well, on this one they are choosing to disagree. Publicly the president making it clear to King Abdullah he believes that Saddam Hussein must go and that all options are on the table. Before coming to the White House, the Jordanian king making it very clear he believes any military action would be a terrible mistake and would further destabilize the region.
In the Oval Office, it was all diplomatic niceties and he was focusing on the areas of agreement. We're told behind closed doors he did not register his opposition to any military campaign. The message from the White House, the consultations will continue, put the president is adamant. He believes Saddam Hussein must go -- Aaron.
BROWN: I'm sorry, I may have misunderstood you. In the Oval Office the king did not say he opposed military action against Iraq or he did?
WALLACE: He -- publicly he didn't even sort of address the opposition. He just said that the president is someone who is focusing on the big picture and in the end will focus on peace and stability in the region.
And then we asked aides, privately, when the two men were meeting, did King Abdullah register his opposition to the military campaign? According to his senior aide, he did not, Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly, thank you very much. Kelly Wallace.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT still, an investigation into what U.S. intelligence agencies knew about one of the hijackers on September 11. Up next, though, the dramatic kidnapping and fortunately the safe return of two California teenagers. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: On to a story now about Vice President Dick Cheney and his tenure at one of America's big oil service companies, Halliburton.
It was reported today in the "New York Times," and it involves a very important deal that Halliburton made back in 1998; a deal to buy Dresser Industries. It turns out that Dresser had far greater exposure to asbestos litigation -- and that is very expensive litigation. Companies have gone bankrupt trying to pay their asbestos liability. In any case, Dresser had more liability than was first thought.
The question now is whether Halliburton and its then-CEO, the vice president, was aggressive enough in looking at those liabilities before they merged the companies, whether shareholders were told sufficiently about the risks as well.
Richard Stevenson shared the byline on the story, and he joins us tonight from Washington.
Good to have you.
Let's talk a bit about, first, about what the story doesn't do. As I read it -- I read it twice today -- you don't allege any specific wrongdoing by the vice president or then-CEO Dick Cheney, correct?
RICHARD STEVENSON, "NEW YORK TIMES": That's right. That's correct.
BROWN: So what is it that -- in a sense, Richard, I think I want to know what it is that you guys are arguing here -- that they didn't do their homework properly?
STEVENSON: Well, we're not really arguing anything. We're just trying to lay out the facts about the vice president's role in what was a very big business deal at the time, during a period when here in Washington the political climate is one that is focusing a lot of attention on the actions of business executives generally, and kind of rebounding into reexamining the roles, both of President Bush when he was in the business world, and Vice President Cheney as well.
So we thought it was important to go back and look at this: what exactly happened at Halliburton, what was the vice president's record there. And, you know, we've all heard over the last few weeks about the SEC investigation into Halliburton's accounting practices.
This is something that has, I think it's fair to say, caused the vice president a lot of political embarrassment over the last month or so.
But there was a bigger issue, business issue, as far as Halliburton. And no one had really taken a very close look at what happened here.
And as you say, we didn't come to a conclusion that he had done anything wrong. But there are some interesting questions about how much do due diligence was done by Mr. Cheney's team at Halliburton before they brought Dresser, and whether the shareholders of Halliburton really ended up getting the short end of the stick from this deal.
BROWN: And by due diligence, what we mean here is how aggressively did they look at the books, did they look at the company they were buying, did they do their homework in -- to put it a different way.
Is there any reason to believe they did not? STEVENSON: Well, there are two ways to look at this.
One -- the one that is favorable to the vice president -- is that nobody really could have known at the time that the asbestos litigation would explode and become as expensive as it did in the years following the deal in 1998. All of this sort of peaked after Mr. Cheney left the company in July-August of 2000 to join the Republican ticket.
The other way to look at it -- which isn't quite so flattering to him -- is that by 1998 pretty close to two dozen companies had gone bankrupt from this. It was fairly clear that Dresser had fairly substantial liabilities from it, and that they probably should have taken a really close look at this.
Now, it's unclear exactly what they did to look at Dresser's books and legal threads that might ultimately cause them some heartburn here.
One thing that my colleague, coauthor on the story, Jeff Gerth turned up was a letter that informed the chairman of Dresser a month before the Halliburton shareholders approved the acquisition of Dresser that Dresser might be on the hook for a lot more liability from asbestos than...
BROWN: And Halliburton's position is that it never saw the letter before it submitted all of this go to the shareholders.
Richard, it's one those stories that is -- you just have to read it all, because there is no allegation of wrongdoing. It's in today's "New York Times," and people ought to take a look at it. A nice piece of reporting.
Thank you.
STEVENSON: Thank you very much.
BROWN: Richard Stevenson of the "New York Times."
Tonight, still ahead on the program, talk about intriguing: Did the government have one of the Flight 93 hijackers under surveillance, or did it not? We'll explore that question.
When we come back, though the California kidnapping case.
This is NEWSNIGHT for Thursday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In southern California tonight, two teenage girls are safe, and that's the best news we can report, considering what they have been through, which is a terrible ordeal.
The girls were kidnapped at gunpoint last night, they were sexually assaulted as well, we learned tonight. They were rescued today. Here CNN's Thelma Gutierrez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): They cried tears of joy and tears of relief.
LARRY WALDIE, ASSISTANT SHERIFF, L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: The girls have been found, they're been safe.
The efforts of everybody saving two lives is remarkable.
GUTIERREZ: It was a happy end to a long ordeal that began some 12 hours earlier.
JOSHUA BROWN: He told me he was going to kill me, and that he didn't want to. He actually just wanted to tie me up. He just wanted the truck.
GUTIERREZ: It was Joshua Brown's 18th birthday. He and his 16- year-old friend were sitting in Brown's white Bronco at this popular lookout point in Lancaster, California.
Authorities say this man, now identified as 37-year-old Roy Ratliff, approached the teenagers. They say he tied Brown with duct tape then sped away in the Bronco with the teenage girl inside.
Investigators say Ratliff then approach another 17-year-old girl, who was in a separate car with a friend. They say he also abducted her.
Then the Bronco headed toward Bakersfield, 100 miles away.
WALDIE: It just took a phone call from Kern County Sheriff's Department saying they had stopped the Bronco and that they had the girls in custody, they were safe.
GUTIERREZ: It was a very lucky break.
The teenage girls, described as popular, did not know one another. They were found, frantic but alive.
Their alleged abductor shot and killed off the side of the road by Kern County sheriff's deputies.
NADINE DYER, MOTHER OF VICTIM: It was just really exciting. And your kind of heart just went back in your chest to know that your kids are alive.
SAMMIE BROOKS, FATHER OF VICTIM: I couldn't be a happier man right now. And I hope I never, or any of you have to go through something like this.
GUTIERREZ: The teenagers were transported to a local hospital where they were privately reunited with their parents.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUTIERREZ: Now those teenage girls are still here at the hospital. They're being examined. But hospital officials say that they should be released later on tonight.
As for the deceased suspect, Roy Ratliff, who's wanted on earlier rape charges here in Kern County, they also say that a car that he drove to that lookout point where he abducted the girls was a car that was reported in a carjacking back in July in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Aaron back to you.
BROWN: Thelma, thank you. Thelma Gutierrez from California for us tonight.
Ahead on the program look at the hijacking of Flight 93, and whether it might have prevented, a CNN investigation when NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It seems like we've read this page before. Each time we learn of another instance in which authorities stumbled onto pieces of the 9/11 conspiracy, but didn't follow through, or failed to connect the dots, we read this page. We've read it in March when the INS sent visa letters to a pair of the hijackers, six months after the deed. We read it in May when the FBI came under fire for dropping the ball. And tonight, the story takes us back to early last year and centers on whether U.S. intelligence was watching one of the flight 93 hijackers, or not. Same story, different verse.
Here's CNN's Sheila MacVicar.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): On September 11, from the flight deck of United Airlines Flight 93, this was the voice of Ziad Jarrah:
ZIAD JARRAH: Here's the captain. I would like to ask you to remain seated. There is a bomb onboard, and we are going back to the airport. And our demand is to please remain quiet.
MACVICAR: After a fight between the passengers and the hijackers, Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing 44 people. Investigators now believe the plane was heading for the White House.
Ziad Jarrah was the hijacker-pilot, a key conspirator. Could he have been stopped?
In Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, there is evidence that an intelligence agency was apprehensive enough about Jarrah months before September 11 to track some of his travels and arrange for him to be interrogated here. U.S. officials, U.A.E. officials and other intelligence and security sources do agree on one thing: Ziad Jarrah was stopped, here at the Dubai Airport, nearly nine months before September 11.
That's where the accounts begin to differ. U.A.E. government and Middle Eastern and European intelligence sources tell CNN the agency that picked up Jarrah's trail was the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA.
This is how those sources tell the story:
(on camera): It was late January, 2001. Here in Dubai, the CIA told officials of the United Arab Emirates that Ziad Jarrah would shortly be arriving from Pakistan, and they wanted him stopped for questioning. U.A.E. officials say they were told the CIA was interested because Jarrah was, quote, "suspected of involvement in terrorist activities."
(voice-over): That's not the way they tell the story at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. A CIA spokesman vigorously denied the CIA had known anything about Ziad Jarrah before September 11, or had anything to do with his questioning in Dubai, saying, quote, "that is flatly untrue."
The CIA says the first it learned that Jarrah was stopped was in a cable from CIA officers in the U.A.E. after September 11. Senior U.A.E. government officials told of the CIA's denials, continue to say that Jarrah was questioned at the request of the U.S. Both the U.S. and the U.A.E. acknowledge the relationship between the two countries' intelligence services is extremely close.
Senior U.A.E. government officials told of the CIA's denials, continue to say that Jarrah was questioned at the request of the U.S.
By January, 2001, as we know now, Ziad Jarrah had already spent six months in the United States learning to fly. In his passport was a valid multiple-entry U.S. visa -- this fragment found at the crash site of Flight 93. And investigators confirm that he had just spent at least three weeks that January at an al Qaeda training camp.
U.A.E. officials insist it was those travels that interested the U.S.
CARGLINE FARAJ, CNN.COM ARABIC: According to the information they got from the U.S., was that he stayed in Pakistan for three months. So they wanted to know what, exactly, was he doing, and whether he was also in Afghanistan.
MACVICAR: On January 30, 2001, onboard a Pakistan Airways flight from Peshawar, Ziad Jarrah arrived in Dubai. He was in transit, heading for Europe.
(on camera): U.A.E. sources say that, in a telephone call from the U.S. embassy in Abu Dhabi, they were asked to intercept Ziad Jarrah to find out where he had been in Afghanistan, and how long he had been there.
The questioning of Jarrah in Dubai fits the pattern of a CIA operation described to CNN by U.A.E. and European sources. These sources say that in 1999 the CIA began an operation to track suspected al Qaeda operatives as they transited there.
(voice-over): One of these sources provided this drawing, showing the airport layout, and described how people wanted for questioning were intercepted, most often at a transit desk.
As was the case with Ziad Jarrah, CNN sources say U.A.E. officials were often told in advance by American officials who was coming in, and whom they wanted questioned.
U.S. officials declined to comment on whether the CIA operated this way at Dubai Airport.
In January, 2001, Ziad Jarrah was released after questioning. A senior U.A.E. source says U.S. officials were informed of the results of his interrogation while Jarrah was still in the airport. He was released, they say, because U.S. officials indicated they were satisfied.
Again, the spokesman for the CIA denies any such contact.
Senior U.A.E. sources say because Jarrah was in transit, U.A.E. security had no interest in questioning him for its own purposes.
Senator Richard Shelby is the ranking Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: If all this were true it would be troubling to the committee and it would show again that there were missed opportunities.
MACVICAR: In the early hours of January 31, 2001, Ziad Jarrah caught his KLM flight back to Europe, and from January to September, he traveled to the U.S., to Lebanon, to Germany, and back to the U.S. There is no sign he was ever again on the radar screen of any intelligence agency.
AIR TRAFFIC: It's United 93 calling. United 93, I understand you have a bomb onboard.
MACVICAR: On the morning of September 11, Ziad Jarrah took over the controls of United Flight 93 and turned the plane towards Washington.
It was only the heroic actions of the passengers which prevented him from reaching his target.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACVICAR: And, Aaron, we have learned that Senator Shelby, you saw there earlier in the piece, has said that this story, these allegations contained in the story will be part of the House and Senate Joint Intelligence Committee investigation - Aaron.
BROWN: Well, one of the problems here is this is a kind of he- said-she-said. And you're trying to evaluate a bit where the truth lies. Do the sources in the Gulf region, do they have any agenda here that might make their story less credible than the one they're presenting?
MACVICAR: I think it's really important that we say several things. One is that we have talked to the CIA on a number of occasions, and we have reported their very vigorous denials.
On the other hand, we also have gone back to our sources in the Gulf and have talked to them, as well as talking to others. And those sources have been very clear with us that, in spite of those very vigorous CIA denials, they stand by what they told us.
Now, it has to be said that both sides here -- both the U.S. intelligence community and the intelligence community in the Gulf -- is very careful to say that the relationship between both intelligence agencies is a very close and very cooperative relationship, where there has been an ongoing and very close relationship for a period of time.
In terms of why the Gulf state might be choosing to concoct something, frankly that's something we've considered, and we haven't been able to come up with any reason why they might choose to make something up out of whole cloth.
BROWN: Sheila, thank you, it's a fascinating piece of work. Nice job. Sheila MacVicar.
MACVICAR: Thank you.
BROWN: Quickly on that tonight -- quickly, a couple of the Ground Zero submissions. We've talked about this all week. Send them to us if you've got some ideas of what to do with Ground Zero at cnn.com/NEWSNIGHT.
And we take a look, and we've gotten thousands of them, literally 4,000.
This comes from Ben in West Virginia. He sees it as a sort of pyramid.
Show me a couple more.
Tommy in Houston, a memorial ring, seven interconnected skyscrapers.
And this model comes from Alexandra. Four buildings located in four corners overlooking a large memorial.
From Michael Cole in Texas, water starting between the two towers.
Anyway, we've gotten like 4,000 of these. We'd like to see your ideas for what to do with Ground Zero.
Send them to us at cnn.com/NEWSNIGHT. No prizes, no awards, but we will appreciate them a lot.
We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Finally from us tonight, elk. They are something to see if you've never seen one: majestic, grand as the mountains where they roam, and, tragically, too many are dying.
Here's CNN's Jason Bellini.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPH WHITE, ELK RANCHER: They're amazingly majestic creatures. They're just beautiful. You're dealing with a very intelligent animals. And the people, you know, they're amazed at just how incredible these animals really are.
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dennis and Steph White are some of the last elk ranchers in northern Colorado.
The owners of these huge and hungry creatures won't do what both state and federal authorities tell them they ought to do now: destroy their animals.
DENNIS WHITE, ELK RANCHER: It's not going to stop us. So that's why we're still in the business. We're not going to let them slaughter those beautiful animals.
BELLINI: Killing the elk is the only way to determine whether they're infected with chronic wasting disease, a disease much like mad cow disease in cattle. It kills by destroying the animal's brain.
The Whites believe their herd is disease-free. They think authorities are overzealous in their decision to kill thousands of deer and elk, even though less than 1 percent of elk have tested positive so far for the disease.
S. WHITE: Can you justify killing that many animals, doing a slaughter and doing nothing with this meat but burning it or taking it to the dump. Can you justify that?
LYNN CREEKMORE, USDA: Because of some of the knowledge gaps that we have, because the insidious nature of the disease, the long incubation periods, and the fact that we don't have a test that will detect the agent in a live animal, depopulation is a management tool that, unfortunately, is one that is really useful right now for trying to control the spread of the disease.
DIANE MORISON: It's outrageous, when they're killing so many healthy animals.
BELLINI: The Whites are joined by many Colorado nature lovers who share their skepticism and anger.
(on camera): Pretty heartbreaking, it sounds like.
(voice-over): Diane Morison, who breaks down in tears when she talks about the deer now dead took these photos. (on camera): Is this the county dump.
MORISON: Yes, they are county. They want the appearance of doing something to protect the hunters, and they're doing the right thing so you won't be afraid to come here and hunt, because you know that the Division of Wildlife is doing everything they can to prevent this disease from touching humans.
STEVE PORTER, COLORADO DIVISION OF WILDLIFE: Anytime you have that type of situation, you're going to have people that don't agree with the exact methods that you're taking to attack it.
BELLINI (voice-over): Colorado's Department of Wildlife tells land owners they're not just out to protect the hunting industry, that if they don't destroy all the animals in areas where infected ones have been found, the situation could spiral out of control.
PORTER: We're dealing with a disease tight now that there's a lot of unknowns -- things that we don't even know about that we're learning now through research.
BELLINI: Already the disease has spread beyond Western states, to Wisconsin, where authorities found 18 deer with CWD.
That state's Department of Natural Resource plans to kill 25,000 deer in response.
D. WHITE: Why would America do that to their wildlife, which is given to us from God?
BELLINI: Ironically, both sides ultimately fear the same result: that there might not be elk and deer around for future generations.
Jason Bellini, CNN, Fort Collins, Colorado.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Man, tough night, start to finish.
We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00. Good night from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
