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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Bush Declares Saddam a Tyrant in Speech to American Public; Senate Argues Along Party Lines Over Iraq Resolution
Aired October 07, 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, ANCHOR: Good evening, again.
There's so much to do in this hour, the less said on this page the better. The president, as you know, laid out his case against Iraq to our ears. He was like a prosecutor closing a murder case. His tone: low key. His words: stern.
Saddam, a murderous tyrant, a homicidal dictator addicted to weapons of mass destruction. It was not that the president plowed new ground tonight. Most of what he said he, or others in the administration have been saying for weeks.
It's that he laid it all out together. Not a sound byte here or a photo-op there. A 30-minute argument about why Iraq must disarm and why the world must force him to do so now.
In the first minute of the speech, the president mentioned the September 11 attacks on this country. He chose to make the speech on the one-year anniversary of the first attack on the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And he argued that confronting Iraq is the logical and necessary continuation of the war on terror.
The president had a number of audiences tonight: the U.N. Security Council, whose support he clearly wants, the Congress, whose support he clearly will get, and the American people, who continue to support the president on Iraq, but by a narrowing majority. All of these audiences matter tonight, and we'll get reaction from all of them as we go along.
We begin, as we always do, with "The Whip," and "The Whip" begins at the White House and our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
John, a headline, please.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, in that 30-minute address tonight the president trying to answer his many critics and answer the many questions of the American people posed a question of his own. He said if the world knows Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, and Mr. Bush said he does, why wait to confront him and let him gather even more?
BROWN: John, we'll be back with you in just a moment.
Reaction too tonight from Capitol Hill. Our Congressional Correspondent, Jonathan Karl, has been checking on that. So, Jon, a headline from you.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm up here on Capitol Hill. The great debate is under way. But unlike most debates on Capitol Hill that pit Republicans against Democrats, this is one that pits Democrats against Democrats. And you can see some of that in the reaction tonight.
BROWN: Jon, thank you.
A couple of other stories tonight we need to note.
Maryland, first, another victim of the sniper attacks; a 13-year- old this time. Bob Franken has been covering this story since it began last week.
Bob, the headline from you.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Aaron, it's been five days now since the area around Washington D.C. has been under siege. And today the story got even more horrible.
BROWN: Bob, thank you.
And this, too, might have led the broadcast on a different day. A major development in the New Jersey Senate mess. This coming from the U.S. Supreme Court. Deborah Feyerick has been covering that for us.
So Deb, a headline from you, please.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, New Jersey Republicans lose the legal battle, but vow to win the political war.
BROWN: Back with you and the rest of you too in just a moment as we go along.
Also coming up on the program, "The New York Times" columnist Nicholas Kristof, who is just back from Baghdad. He'll be along a little bit later. We'll bring your voice into the mix as well.
Candy Crowley tonight gauges public reaction. She's been out in Chicago. Ambivalence seems to be the dominant feeling. Kelli Arena tonight on the dramatic shift by the Justice Department in the war on terror, prosecuting people before they attack. Jeff Greenfield is with us too.
We've got a long way to go in the hour ahead. We begin with the speech. It was personal and it was policy. The president said he hoped the Iraqi regime would comply with the demands of the international community. But there was no doubt that what he wants is the removal of Saddam Hussein.
He invoked the words of President John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis and the echoes of FDR, when he said "Americans will not live in fear." He acknowledged that many people have legitimate questions, but he laid out his answers without a hint of gray, all black and white.
It was not the beginning of a campaign, so much as it was the continuation of one that started on the 12th of September at the United Nations. We begin our coverage with Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): A prime-time address and a clear bottom line.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... terror cells. And outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both. And the United States military is capable of confronting both.
KING: One year to the day after the first U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, Mr. Bush called Iraq a logical and urgent next front in the war on terrorism. The administration released two newly declassified satellite photographs to back the president's assertion that Iraq is rebuilding nuclear weapons facilities. And Mr. Bush said Iraq's chemical and biological weapons pose a grave danger as well.
BUSH: Understanding the threats of our time. Knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime. We have every reason to assume the worst. And we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.
KING: The speech came at a critical juncture in the Iraq debate.
SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: Why now?
KING: Congress votes this week on a resolution authorizing the president to use military force. And the United Nations Security Council is divided over the White House demand for a tough new ultimatum to Iraq. Public opinion also is evolving. Fifty-three percent of Americans favor invading to remove Saddam from power, 40 percent oppose an invasion.
But support drops to just 33 percent if an invasion would result in 5,000 or more U.S. casualties. Six in 10 Americans surveyed in the new CNN-"USA Today" Gallup Poll opposed military action in such a scenario.
BUSH: I hope this will not require military action. But it may. And military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures.
KING: Mr. Bush warned Iraq's generals to ignore any orders to launch chemical or biological weapons. The 29-minute speech contained no major new evidence about Iraq's weapons programs or its alleged ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: An effort by the president to answer not only his many critics and skeptics but also what Mr. Bush called the legitimate questions being raised by average Americans.
And, Aaron, a clear effort by this president to make clear that he means it when he calls Iraq a unique threat and that he means to deal with that threat with or without the blessing of the United Nations.
BROWN: But he would like the blessing of the United Nations. So how is that going?
KING: Well, the speech was part of the effort. Privately, administration officials say that diplomacy is working, that there is now a consensus at least for a new resolution. The debate now, how explicit that resolution should be in putting the threat of military force on the table. The president, in addition to practicing this big speech during the day today, spoke to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
He wished him a happy birthday. He asked for his help in the Security Council. U.S. officials a little frustrated. They say this is going to take two, maybe three more weeks, but they think they're making headway.
BROWN: What they want here, just to be clear, or at least for me, is that they don't want -- they want one resolution that covers everything. That is to say, here are the rules, and if you don't you, the Iraqis, don't abide by the rules, hear are the consequences. And the French and the Russians argue otherwise, right?
KING: The French and the Russians argue, at least at this point, at least publicly, if there is a problem, if there is interference with a new weapons inspection regime, let's have another meeting at the United Nations to discuss the consequences. Have a meeting to discuss whether it's an egregious violation by Iraq. The president does not want to get into any of that.
You used the terms "black and white." The president wants this to be any time, any place, anywhere, or else no more meetings, no more debate.
BROWN: John, thank you. Senior White House Correspondent John King tonight.
As we said, the president was speaking to a number of audiences tonight. Lawmakers in Washington are well on their way to voting on a resolution supporting the president. Right now it seems a question of how big the margin of victory will be. We turn to Jonathan Karl for that side of the story. Jon, good evening.
KARL: Good evening, Aaron. Well, the president's speech drew predictable praise from Republicans, who are almost to a person up here on Capitol Hill lining up in support of the president's policy on Iraq. It also drew some praise from the growing ranks of democrats who are supportive of the White House Iraq policy.
But then there are the democratic critics, and they are a relatively small but a very powerful lot. And the democratic critic up here who has emerged as the staunchest critic of the president's Iraq policy is Robert Byrd. He spoke right after the president's speech on "LARRY KING LIVE" and said he was not impressed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BYRD: There was nothing new, nothing that we haven't known for a month, six months, or a year. I kept waiting. He continues to demonize Saddam Hussein. I agree with all of that. Nothing new in that.
But what he does in doing that is he obscures the fact that the United States Senate is being asked to vote on a resolution which puts the stamp of approval on the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive attacks and preventive war. I think that's wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: On the other side, Democrat Joe Lieberman has emerged as the staunchest supporter of the president's Iraq policy. And by a coincidence of scheduling, he was actually giving a speech that began immediately after the president's speech at 8:30 Eastern Time tonight, a speech on Iraq, presenting his vision for what would happen in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Joe Lieberman said that the important thing now is what commitment the United States would give to rebuilding Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D) CONNECTICUT: When the fighting stops, other critically urgent work will remain. Uniting the Iraqi nation behind new leadership, righting the wrongs of that brutal regime of Saddam. Lighting the path to a better future for the Iraqi people. And working with other nations to support Iraq's development.
We cannot be content with tearing down this brutal dictatorship. We've also got to build up something better in its place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: But Aaron, it's far from clear who actually speaks for the Democratic Party on Iraq. As a matter of fact, tonight the Democratic National Committee put out a notice that listed Joe Lieberman's speech as the, "democratic response to the president." About 40 minutes later they put out a hasty correction, simply listing his speech as one of several democratic events going on and not as an official response, because the Democrats on this are really all over the map -- Aaron.
BROWN: Among the most interesting words I read today came from someone else who might like the nomination in 2004, Senator Edwards, who is supportive of the president but.
KARL: Yes, this was interesting. Senator Edwards of North Carolina, clearly somebody thinking about running for president, has been one of those people that have come out and said that he will clearly support the president on this resolution. But in a speech today that was billed as a major policy speech, Edwards seemed to be almost in a debate with himself, because while he was supporting the president on this resolution he was also criticizing the president for going it alone. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: Instead of demonstrating purpose without arrogance, as the president promised in his inaugural address, the administration's policy projects exactly the opposite: arrogance without purpose. We seem determined to act alone for the sake of acting alone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: So while criticizing the president for acting alone, Senator Edwards was also saying that he will give the president the authority to do just that -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jon, thank you. Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill tonight.
We turn quickly now to Jeff Greenfield. Normally we talk about what we're going to talk about. We haven't had much time tonight.
I was struck by the tone of the speech, which I've described I think a couple of times as stern. To me it was almost an oval office speech before a live audience.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Well, it was. It was stripped of almost all the kind of rhetorical stuff that you expect of presidential speeches. I mean Michael Gerson (ph), his chief speechwriter, is very good at that. This struck me as a prosecutor's brief, the summoning of all the evidence, the specifics of it. This is what a defector said after leaving in 1995; here's what our pictures said.
And I was surprised. I had thought he would make a kind of more domestic speech, praising, say, Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, maybe subtly isolating some of the Democrats. He was so far from getting near the politics of this and so determined to set out the evidence that it was a very, yes, stern is a good word.
BROWN: Did you find it effective in the way it was presented?
GREENFIELD: You know, yes. What I was thinking about -- and this is how the White House would like to think about it, I'm sure -- is suppose someone were trying to give a speech urging the international community to stop Hitler in 1935 or 1936, pre-Austria, pre-Czechoslovakia, pre-Poland, maybe even pre-Rhineland. That was the tone of this.
I mean this is actually a throwback to the arguments before Vietnam, (UNINTELLIGIBLE); namely, the domino theory in a way. If you don't stop them here you are going to have to stop them here and the consequences will be greater.
And I think that by setting out at the very beginning of the speech, saying, look, you all have a lot of questions and they're legitimate. Let me try to answer them. I thought he summoned the evidence well.
BROWN: Was there in the speech to your ear a sort of deal closer argument?
GREENFIELD: Look, I think the most strongly felt belief of some of the people who are less inclined to the pre-emptive notion and less inclined to the view not in the speech that, if we do this in Iraq we can change the whole Middle East, was the argument about blackmail. When he said if Saddam gets a hold of nuclear weapons he'd be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression.
I think people who are not keen on the more grandiose vision of some of the hawks do believe that. That that's what worries them more than a kind of a -- you know he'll take Pittsburgh in two weeks.
BROWN: Yes. I was struck by -- the president, at one point, acknowledged there is no -- where nuclear weapons are a clear smoking gun, but...
GREENFIELD: Yes. And that I think is the hardest sell he has (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He was saying, we don't know, and that's the problem. And he used the line that's been used many times before by Condoleeza Rice and others, you know, we can't wait fro the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
I don't think he has convinced the people who think, look, we have contained this guy for 11 years. This notion that he's chomping at the bit to do terrible things is wrong. He cares more about his own survival and Iraq's survival.
But I do think that the very fact that he stayed away from a kind of more Stentorian rhetoric we're sometimes used to is probably a smart move.
BROWN: Thank you. Thanks for coming in, Jeff Greenfield.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the U.S. Supreme Court says no thanks to getting in the middle of New Jersey's Senate race. We could have invited Jeff in to talk about that too.
Next, another sniper attack outside of Washington. This one gets worse by the day. And we continue in a moment.
This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The president said tonight Americans will not live in fear. The thought was right. The reality is not. Fear takes many forms. And the fear in Maryland, in Virginia, and Washington D.C., too, is palpable.
We saw a shot today of a mother taking her child from school today, clutching that child's hand, rushing him out of the school into the car. The child's head ducked low. The end of a terrifying school day for kids in the area.
A 13-year-old gunned down as he arrived this morning. The latest in a killing spree, or shooting spree that started last week. Tonight, this young man is fighting for his life. As the Montgomery County Police chief put it, shooting a kid, it's getting to be really, really personal now. It may be personal, but so far whoever is on this killing spree still has the upper hand.
Once again, CNN's Bob Franken.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN (voice-over): Another suburban Maryland county, but a frighteningly similar story. This time a 13-year-old student at a Prince George's County middle school was hit in the chest and abdomen by a single shot from an apparent sniper as he walked inside just after 8:00 in the morning.
Unlike the six who have been killed in adjacent Montgomery County and the District of Columbia, this victim survived, like the woman shot Friday in Virginia. It took a day-long investigation before officials had the dramatic announcement. The shootings were connected.
CHIEF GERALD WILSON, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY POLICE: The projectile that was recovered from our victim this morning has been linked to the other cases in the Washington metropolitan area.
FRANKEN: The 13-year-old was MediVaced to Washington Children's Hospital in critical condition, where doctors recovered remnants of the bullet during surgery for investigators to conduct their forensic tests.
DR. MARTIN EICHELBERGER, D.C.'S CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: In general, we don't do that. But because of the situation that we're confronted with in this community today, we did make a special effort to at least find a portion of the missile.
FRANKEN: Investigators flooded the area. Specially trained dogs were brought in to sniff for gunshot residue. Police recruits were assigned to scour for evidence. The middle school itself had been emptied during the morning as parents rushed to pick up their children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw a lot of police officers, and all the teachers told us to run into the building. And teachers were closing up the windows and -- because -- and they told us to stay away from the windows just in case it happened again. And a lot of kids were crying.
FRANKEN: Other schools in the county stayed open under a so- called code blue, in which students were locked inside until they were released under heavy security at the end of the day. And police who have been investigating these shootings since last Thursday say they've reached a new low. CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Now all of our victims have been innocent, have been defenseless. But now we're stepping over the line because our children don't deserve this. So parents, please, do your job tonight. Engage your children. Be there for them. We're going to need it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: Officials are using the word "terrorism" to describe this wave of attacks, saying that they're not going to let terrorism shut the system down, they're going to open the school systems tomorrow, arguing that the students will probably be as safe there as they would be anywhere -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, it will be interesting to see how many parents keep their kids home. Anything on suspects at all at this point?
FRANKEN: There have been glimmers from some witnesses, that's what we're being told by investigators. Glimmers that they're trying to sort of piece together in some sort of puzzle to try to come up with something more definite, something they can act on.
BROWN: Bob, thank you. We wish them nothing but luck. Enough of this.
We heard this comment from one Maryland woman today. "Now I know what it's like to live in Jerusalem." Clearly, the small town of Bowie today got an education in something it never wanted, certainly didn't deserve, an education in terror.
Here's CNN's Michael Okwu.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This sort of thing doesn't happen here. But then, this sort of thing rarely happens anywhere. Bowie, Maryland: population 50,000, the fourth largest and fastest-growing city in the state. Quiet, relatively crime-free, say residents, and now the target of a sniper.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like this is a war zone that I'm living in, you know. President Bush is talking about fighting Iraq, going in and fighting Iraq, and we have a war right here in this own country that he needs to deal with.
OKWU: It's a town where some people know of war, just not in their back yards.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have a lot of retirees. You have military, active and retired. You have a lot of officers and secret service.
OKWU: Bowie Town Center, usually humming by noon, was a ghost town. Residents expressed their shock in equal parts anger, disbelief, and fear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like to go and catch the guy myself, you know what I mean? See what he looks like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When a young person gets shot I think it's a little bit more disheartening because everybody feels so very vulnerable. And when the youngest in your community does get targeted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a little scary. But you know I feel like I need to get on. You know, carry on with everything.
OKWU (on camera): Many residents here in Bowie said they would carry on life as normal. And yet others did just the opposite. In spite of the school board's determination to keep school open, many parents rushed here as news helicopters hovered overhead and took their children home.
Jermel Newman said she would keep her 11-year-old son Marquie out of Benjamin Tasker Middle School Tuesday. She struggles to find a way to make sense of this to him.
JERMEL NEWMAN, MOTHER: The only thing I can just tell him, is to just stay calm, watch your surroundings. You know, because we don't know who's doing this.
MARQUIE NEWMAN: It could be anybody. It could be my neighbors who are shooting them. I don't know.
OKWU (voice-over): Bowie is located in the heart of Prince George's County. The county is known for being the wealthiest predominantly African-American county in the country, though that's not what it's known for today.
Michael Okwu, CNN, Bowie, Maryland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Joining us now with more on the profile of who just might be doing this, we're all trying to figure out who might be doing this as if there was some magic formula here, John Timoney. He's the former police chief in Philadelphia, was a high-ranking member of the New York Police Department for a long time, is now the CEO of Beau Dietl & Associates, which is a security firm. Nice to see you.
JOHN TIMONEY, CEO BEAU DIETL & ASSOCIATES: Good to see you, Aaron.
BROWN: Lousy circumstances.
TIMONEY: Awful.
BROWN: Do you have in your mind a sense of the kind of person who's doing this?
TIMONEY: You know everybody's baffled. You know, you speculate privately, could it be some hunter, obviously some whack job. But there's no indication of the race, the ethnicity. We actually at this point have no idea who we're looking for. All we know is the type of weapon that's been used and the way it's been used. You know, there was fear here when I was a cop in 1977, that the son of Sam, summer of Sam...
BROWN: David Berkowitz.
TIMONEY: David Berkowitz. But that was limited really to young men and women in lover's lane late at night. And so it was something you could avoid. This thing is universal, it's random, it's old, young, black, white. And then today the 13-year-old, which is -- I agree with Charlie Moose, over the top.
I mean this is a kid that's going to school. What all kids are supposed to do. And if you can't accomplish that task, we're in trouble.
BROWN: Does it tell you anything that last week it was adults, today it's a kid?
TIMONEY: Yes. Oh, yes. I would take that there's a message here, and I would take that message. And the message is that really everybody and anybody is vulnerable here. And this guy is playing god. He's a complete whack job that thinks -- and he's really spread out now, probably about 100 miles in circumference, the area going from D.C. down to Prince George -- actually, down to Virginia.
BROWN: It's interesting you put it that way because -- and you're right. I mean, if you look at it one way, it's a fairly large area.
TIMONEY: Yes.
BROWN: But there's no reason the guy couldn't have shown up in North Carolina or in Cleveland, Ohio, or anywhere else and continued to do the same thing. So does it tell you anything that he has stayed within this Maryland, Virginia, D.C. area?
TIMONEY: Yes, usually people will commit crimes generally, and this may be the exception, they're generally not going to come down from the state of Washington over to the east coast and this area surrounding Washington D.C. My belief is that the guy lives -- or guys live somewhere, you know, on the East Coast.
BROWN: In that area?
TIMONEY: In that area. I would think they'd feel pretty easy, pretty comfortable going up and down 95, you know the connecting to highways and byways. I wouldn't fathom somebody coming, you know, from Alabama or from Oregon coming here. There's just too many ways you can slip up.
BROWN: Do you think -- and again, there's no way to know this. But would you guess that this is someone with a military background because, A, he's very familiar with weapons clearly and is a heck of a shot? TIMONEY: That's what I thought initially. And I still -- I believe that. But you know, it was funny I was talking to some gun experts in the Philadelphia Police Department today. And these weapons anymore are so sophisticated, so easy to handle with the scopes that one of the experts at the Philadelphia Police Department was saying, you know, it wouldn't surprise him if this is a novice. In other words, a person that's only shot a gun a few times, that with these telescopic lenses at 150 yards you can be pretty accurate.
BROWN: Somebody knows something.
TIMONEY: Oh, guarantee it. Absolutely guarantee it. I've never come across a case where after we made the arrest, after there was a series of rapes or homicides where someone didn't say, you know, I suspected all along or I kind of knew it but I want to call the police because I was afraid I was wrong, I'd get him in trouble or something like that.
We saw it with the bomber, where the brother knew all along and then waited. And then finally he wrote a letter to the FBI saying, listen, I don't want him hurt, just arrest him, it's him. There was a rapist-killer in Philadelphia. And when I went on the radio and television saying I know family and friends know. Well, sure enough, later on after he was arrested, the wife said, you know, I kind of knew, but.
BROWN: Somebody knows.
TIMONEY: Somebody knows.
BROWN: Got to come forward.
TIMONEY: Yes.
BROWN: It's good to see you. You've been a great friend of the program. We appreciate it.
TIMONEY: Thank you very much, Aaron. Good to see you, buddy.
BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the home front in the war on terror. We'll take a look at the Justice Department and changes in procedures there.
But up next the latest in the soap opera known as the New Jersey Senate race. A very busy night. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This being the first Monday in October, the U.S. Supreme Court was back at work. And the real news coming out of the court today is what the court will not do. It will not overturn the New Jersey State Supreme Court's unanimous decision that allows Frank Lautenberg on the ballot.
We may never know why the court did what it did. The court works that way. But we do know the decision has potentially enormous implications for Democrats, not just in New Jersey, but for those who hope to keep the party in control of the Senate in November.
Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After suffering two devastating court losses, New Jersey Republicans had a new message. The litigation's over. The race has begun.
DOUG FORRESTER (R), N.J. SENATE CANDIDATE : Together we can beat the Torricelli-Lautenberg machine once and for all.
FEYERICK: The Supreme Court denied Republicans an emergency stay. Without it, the Republican challenger Doug Forrester could do nothing to stop new ballots from being printed with the Democrats' new pick, Frank Lautenberg. Military and overseas ballots, which take longer to process, are expected to be in the mail sometime Tuesday. Even if the Supreme Court takes up the senate case later on, without the emergency stay, it's unlikely to do any good for Republicans, who asked for emergency relief in the first place.
ANGELO GENOVA, ATTORNEY FOR DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE: Mr. Forrester and his lawyers failed to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that they were right enough in their position to put the brakes on the processes of this election.
FEYERICK: The Supreme Court ruling changed a federal court ruling minutes before it was to be announced. In Trenton, U.S. District Judge Garrett Brown (ph) said he'd been ready to grant a stay of the ballot printing, pending the Supreme Court ruling. The federal case was brought by two absentee voters who feared their votes might not count, if delays prevented new ballots from reaching them in time. Once the Supreme Court denied the stay, Judge Brown abstained from considering the matter altogether. Republicans vowed to keep a close eye on the election process.
WILLIAM BARONI, ATTORNEY FOR REPUBLICAN PARTY: Doug Forrester's been committed since day one, since last week, to protecting the overseas and military ballots. And we have fought that fight, and we continue to want to look out after the military ballots, and we will continue to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FEYERICK: Now that the legal debate is apparently over, the political debate begins. Each candidate trying to define himself in the four weeks left before voters go to the polls -- Aaron.
BROWN: So with a month to go, you've got a candidate in Senator Lautenberg who's quite well known, who was a three-term senator, and one who is not so well-known. In 20 seconds, the issues will be?
FEYERICK: The issues -- they're going to try to separate themselves on the war, the impending possible war, the environment, and also other outstanding issues like gun control. Those are the main issues. BROWN: So again, a fight. Wedge issues, gun control, abortion, those sorts of issues?
FEYERICK: Exactly. Because Lautenberg abstained from the gulf war, didn't want to go into the gulf war, so it will be interesting to see what he decides this time around.
BROWN: It does at least appear the race is on.
FEYERICK: It certainly is. Four weeks. It will be a short one.
BROWN: Well, probably not a bad idea, in any case. Thank you, Deborah. Deborah Feyerick tonight.
A number of other stories making news around the country. Briefly, tonight, we begin on Wall Street.
Another sell-off. This one late in the day. The Dow fell more than 100 points, in part because of profit warnings from sears and also increasing concern about the possibility of a war with Iraq. Here we go with another week.
Another factor in the market's decline, this ongoing west coast port lockout. The president today signed an executive order creating a board of inquiry which will look into the dispute between longshoremen and management. The cost of the port shutdown is estimated at $2 billion a day. It seems to me that is up a billion dollars from last week, isn't it?
A guilty plea today from a former WorldCom accounting director for falsifying financial records. He said he did so at his boss's request. Buford Yates is the second executive agreeing to help the government with its case involving WorldCom.
And the space shuttle Atlantis. these pictures -- you cannot get prettier pictures than this. Lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center today. A video camera mounted near the top of the external fuel tanks gives us a new way of looking at a shuttle launch. It was the first shuttle flight in four months. The entire fleet grounded this past summer because of cracks in the fuel lines. They're off to the international space station for 11 days, if all goes well.
That is -- you know, no matter how many times you see that, it's something.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with "New York Times" columnist Nick Kristof who is just back from Baghdad.
Up next, the War on Terror, catching the big fish, the little fish, or just an old shoe. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks talking about what's become known as the Bush Doctrine, a dramatic break with the past in terms of U.S. foreign policy. The United States asserting the right to strike against a nation that may be a threat even if that nation has yet to attack the United States.
In a way, it seems like the Bush doctrine extends to the War on Terror being waged by the Justice Department, as well. Prosecuting people before they commit an act of terrorism. If anyone doubted that September 11 was going to take us into uncharted legal territory, here's some proof from CNN's Kelli Arena.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two Americans the government says were members of a suspected terrorist cell in Portland, Oregon, told a court they are not guilty. They were charged along with four others.
JAMES BRITT, SUSPECT'S BROTHER: I'm confident that these allegations are just part of the hysteria that's been caused by the War on Terrorism.
ARENA: The indictments in Oregon follow similar ones in Detroit, Seattle, and Buffalo, New York, all involving people living in the United States accused of conspiring to help al Qaeda or related groups. Even though some of those in custody were trained in al Qaeda camps, there is no evidence any of them posed an imminent terrorist threat. Leading some to suggest the FBI is dealing with terrorist wannabes.
JULIETTE KAYYEM, TERRORISM ANALYST, KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: The War on Terrorism is not going to be won by these kinds of arrests. They're going either be won through intelligence or some of the more dramatic arrests that we're seeing abroad. But these guys are, I mean, I hate to say it, but really are sort of the little fish in the big conspiracy.
ARENA: But government officials point out none of the 19 hijackers would have been described as big fish before September 11.
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We're conducting the largest investigation in history. We're disrupting and punishing possible terrorist-related activity throughout the United States of America and around the world. Our hard work is showing results.
ARENA: But results can be hard to gauge, especially when the work is geared toward preventing terrorism, rather than prosecuting after the fact. Experts say arrests of even minor players helps break down the larger terrorist network.
STEVE POMERANTZ, FMR. FBI COUNTER TERRORISM OFFICIAL: I think they're important because they prevent these individuals who have clearly shown a propensity to engage in terrorist activity, you prevent them from doing it. You stop them early on.
ARENA (on camera): Sources say as many as 200 people remain under constant surveillance in the United States. As law enforcement officials point out, it doesn't take a major terrorist to do harm, just someone with initiative.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Now on to Osama bin Laden and a few other stories making news around the world tonight. Al Jazeera, today, broadcast what it said was a tape from bin Laden. On it, a voice warns of more attacks against the United States. I promise you the voice says that Islamic youth are preparing for something that will fill your hearts with terror. At least that's what the voice on the tape says.
More violence in the Middle East today. This might have led the program, too, on any other night. At least 14 people killed, about 100 wounded after an Israeli military operation in Gaza. The Israelis say they were going after Hamas, when they opened fire with tanks and helicopters on a number of crowded residential areas. Palestinians say the victims were civilians including at least one young child.
No answers yet to the explosion and fire aboard a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. At first, officials in Yemen denied it could have been the work of terrorists. The French, however, called it a suicide attack. Now both are saying they are not sure what all happened here. And the fire, meantime, continues to burn.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, how folks in the middle of the country are looking at the possibility of war with Iraq. And up next, we'll talk with Nick Kristof, of "The New York Times," who is just back from Baghdad.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our next guest recently spent some time in Iraq, looked around, talked to the people, came back with some questions about what the U.S. might have in store, if it does come to a fight. Nicholas Kristof is a columnist for "The New York Times," and we're glad to say no stranger to the program. We're glad he is back safely. Welcome.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Thank you.
BROWN: We like when guests bring stuff, too.
Show and tell.
BROWN: Particularly if it's money. This reminds me of, my father once a hundred years ago, it seems like, brought back all sorts of lira. He said here's 10 million lira. It was worth about a nickel. I gather that's what you brought in here.
KRISTOF: I was a millionaire in Iraqi Dinar. Each of these is worth about 10 cents. And you know, it's all in bundles of a hundred bills. So when I paid my hotel bill it was with a shopping bag with about 20 pounds of Dinah.
BROWN: Is it a country that believes that war is inevitable? KRISTOF: Maybe not inevitable, but there is a strong sense that it is probably coming. There's a lot of fatalism about that. A lot of talk about that. A lot of nervousness.
BROWN: Are they a country that -- the president said, talked tonight about that they'll welcome the Americans in the way the Afghans welcomed the Americans in. Is that your impression?
KRISTOF: I think that's a complete misreading of the situation. I think that -- first of all, I should say it's very hard as a Westerner, there in Iraq to really get a clear understanding of what Iraqis think. But to the extent you can tell, you get a very strong sense, A -- that Iraqis don't like Saddam Hussein, that they think he has led them deeply astray, that he's impoverished the country, that they're very hostile to Saddam and his family.
But you also get the sense that they also dislike the U.S., distrust the U.S., they think the U.S. is after their oil. They blame the U.S. for sanctions. And I mean, fundamentally, I think you get the sense that Saddam's propaganda hasn't been effective in bolstering his own image, but it has been effective in tarnishing the U.S. image.
BROWN: It's a complicated place in that there are really three kind of distinct regions in the country with three distinct population groups. And we've talked a lot about the Kurds in the north. But there's this whole group in the south. What happens there if war comes?
KRISTOF: I mean, I think that a real headache will begin the day after Saddam is toppled because, historically, the 16 percent of the population that is Sunni Muslim, is basically around the country. And about 60 percent is Shiaa Muslim.
And there was an enormous rebellion in the south in 1991 after the Gulf War. This time, I think, the moment Saddam is toppled, these places are going to rebel again. There's going to be an uprising. Anybody associated with the regime is going to be, you know, lynched, essentially. And the question is what do we do?
BROWN: Is this Rwanda?
KRISTOF: It's not to that level. It's not exactly every Shiaa against every Sunni. But on the other hand, anybody associated with the regime in these places is going to be in enormous trouble. I think these guys are having sleepless nights thinking about it. And I think there will be a huge amount of bloodshed.
BROWN: You know, Saddam may not have learned the broad lesson about taking on the Americans and the world, but it does sound like he has learned one lesson about fighting the Americans, and that's not lay your army out in the desert to be picked at.
KRISTOF: That's right. I went down to Basra in the south and went from Basra down to the Kuwait border because that will probably be a key invasion route when the Americans go in, if they do. And there were no fortifications, no tanks, no troops in that whole area. And everybody you talk to say that they're not going to put their tanks out in the open. They're going to keep them in the cities. They're going to have their guns and all their defenses in the cities to make it very difficult for the U.S. to attack. You know, because we're not able to really bomb the cities without horrendous casualties.
BROWN: Do they count an American sense of, I don't know, morality?
KRISTOF: Yes. Absolutely. When I was there, I took a plane right through a no-fly zone. And I was nervous about, you know, are the Americans going to shoot down this plane? But every Iraqi around me was just cool as ice.
And they were -- I mean, they knew, and they were completely right, that of course the U.S. wouldn't shoot down a civilian plane going through a no-fly zone. And I think that's exactly Saddam's calculation, is by putting heavy artillery and guns in the cities. Especially in Baghdad and in his hometown of Tikrit (ph), which will probably be the main targets.
BROWN: I don't know, half a minute or so, maybe a little more. The newspapers you brought with you.
KRISTOF: Okay. This is a typical Iraqi paper. This is "Algom Haria" (ph), which is the republic. You know, Saddam right here. This is the English language version. You know, the lead headline is a story which, unfortunately, we missed in "The New York Times." President Hussein receives telegram.
BROWN: Why is there an English language paper at all?
KRISTOF: It's propaganda. I mean, it's to present to foreigners there. I might say that a lot of Iraqis get news via foreign radio. So they do have other sources.
BROWN: I can't imagine it was anything but a fascinating experience to have been there in this moment. It's nice to see you.
KRISTOF: Good to be here.
BROWN: I hope you'll come back and talk to us more about this.
KRISTOF: I'd be happy.
BROWN: Thank you. Nick Kristof of "The New York Times."
Let's take a short break, come back and hear what's on your minds, at least if you live in Chicago, about the possibility of war in Iraq. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Finally, from us tonight, voices of concern. I think all of us have been trying to figure out where the country is as far as Iraq is concerned. There's no perfect way to know these things. No poll is perfect. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just start talking to people and listen carefully to what they have to say.
CNN's Candy Crowley did just that in Chicago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eight hundred miles from New York, 700 from Washington, D.C. is Chicago. Immortalized by the poet Carl Sandburg as the stormy, husky, brawling city of the big shoulders. Much weighs on those shoulders now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That our country may go to war, that concerns me. I have different friends that are in the military.
CROWLEY: Inside Valoy's (ph) Cafeteria on 53rd street, it may not always be the first thing they mention, but ask what concerns them and Iraq comes up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think we should go. It's too -- not only is it too political, but I smell oil somewhere.
CROWLEY: Valloy's is in Hyde Park on Chicago's south side, the nation's largest urban black community, mostly blue collar, heavily Democratic, very conflicted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm up in the air about Iraq, right now. I do believe something needs to be done about Saddam Hussein. I believe he has military weapons. I don't (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, and it really is a tough question to answer, and to jump -- and innocent lives are going to be affected by that.
CROWLEY: At the "Chicago Trib," the deputy managing editor has heard that a lot.
JAMES WARREN, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE": It's something people at the barber shop and elsewhere are talking about a little bit more, but doing so while scratching their head.
CROWLEY: Twenty miles due west of Hyde Park is Hinsdale township. They call it a village, a Mercedes driving bedroom community, mostly white, mostly Republican. Inside the golf shop, they worry less about going to war than not going to war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the threat of Saddam Hussein and what he's capable of is more of a concern, right now to me, than I think that we have to start now before he gets, you know, nuclear armament.
CROWLEY: But there is less to the distance between Hyde Park and Hinsdale Village than it might seem. Because here, too, they are mostly conflicted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Saddam thing is, of course, another issue that's very troublesome. Should we, shouldn't we? Is he? Isn't he?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he's a bad guy, and we should get rid of him. I'm not totally comfortable that we've really thought through the process of how to do that.
CROWLEY: Nobody anywhere was for war. Nobody anywhere wanted Saddam to stay. Many worried about war's effect on the economy, on the world, and something else that James Warren has picked up.
WARREN: By and large, people will support Bush, who still is the beneficiary of a tremendous amount of post-September 11 goodwill.
CROWLEY: If it comes to that and most think it will, this stormy, husky, brawling city of the big shoulders will be there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But if we don't have that coalition, I think we have to understand that we were attacked and that we have the responsibility to protect our country. And that might mean going alone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Saddam's out of order, and we find he's really out of order, the American people will back the president.
CROWLEY: And one more thing. In Chicago, they do not see this issue in black and white, war or no war. They talked in a way Washington sound bytes do not. Chicago's discussion takes place in gray areas.
Candy Crowley, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We start a very busy week for us. We'll end it on the West Coast. But we're back here tomorrow at 10:00. We hope you are, too. Until then, good night for all of us from NEWSNIGHT.
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Public; Senate Argues Along Party Lines Over Iraq Resolution>
Aired October 7, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, ANCHOR: Good evening, again.
There's so much to do in this hour, the less said on this page the better. The president, as you know, laid out his case against Iraq to our ears. He was like a prosecutor closing a murder case. His tone: low key. His words: stern.
Saddam, a murderous tyrant, a homicidal dictator addicted to weapons of mass destruction. It was not that the president plowed new ground tonight. Most of what he said he, or others in the administration have been saying for weeks.
It's that he laid it all out together. Not a sound byte here or a photo-op there. A 30-minute argument about why Iraq must disarm and why the world must force him to do so now.
In the first minute of the speech, the president mentioned the September 11 attacks on this country. He chose to make the speech on the one-year anniversary of the first attack on the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And he argued that confronting Iraq is the logical and necessary continuation of the war on terror.
The president had a number of audiences tonight: the U.N. Security Council, whose support he clearly wants, the Congress, whose support he clearly will get, and the American people, who continue to support the president on Iraq, but by a narrowing majority. All of these audiences matter tonight, and we'll get reaction from all of them as we go along.
We begin, as we always do, with "The Whip," and "The Whip" begins at the White House and our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
John, a headline, please.
JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, in that 30-minute address tonight the president trying to answer his many critics and answer the many questions of the American people posed a question of his own. He said if the world knows Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, and Mr. Bush said he does, why wait to confront him and let him gather even more?
BROWN: John, we'll be back with you in just a moment.
Reaction too tonight from Capitol Hill. Our Congressional Correspondent, Jonathan Karl, has been checking on that. So, Jon, a headline from you.
JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm up here on Capitol Hill. The great debate is under way. But unlike most debates on Capitol Hill that pit Republicans against Democrats, this is one that pits Democrats against Democrats. And you can see some of that in the reaction tonight.
BROWN: Jon, thank you.
A couple of other stories tonight we need to note.
Maryland, first, another victim of the sniper attacks; a 13-year- old this time. Bob Franken has been covering this story since it began last week.
Bob, the headline from you.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Aaron, it's been five days now since the area around Washington D.C. has been under siege. And today the story got even more horrible.
BROWN: Bob, thank you.
And this, too, might have led the broadcast on a different day. A major development in the New Jersey Senate mess. This coming from the U.S. Supreme Court. Deborah Feyerick has been covering that for us.
So Deb, a headline from you, please.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, New Jersey Republicans lose the legal battle, but vow to win the political war.
BROWN: Back with you and the rest of you too in just a moment as we go along.
Also coming up on the program, "The New York Times" columnist Nicholas Kristof, who is just back from Baghdad. He'll be along a little bit later. We'll bring your voice into the mix as well.
Candy Crowley tonight gauges public reaction. She's been out in Chicago. Ambivalence seems to be the dominant feeling. Kelli Arena tonight on the dramatic shift by the Justice Department in the war on terror, prosecuting people before they attack. Jeff Greenfield is with us too.
We've got a long way to go in the hour ahead. We begin with the speech. It was personal and it was policy. The president said he hoped the Iraqi regime would comply with the demands of the international community. But there was no doubt that what he wants is the removal of Saddam Hussein.
He invoked the words of President John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis and the echoes of FDR, when he said "Americans will not live in fear." He acknowledged that many people have legitimate questions, but he laid out his answers without a hint of gray, all black and white.
It was not the beginning of a campaign, so much as it was the continuation of one that started on the 12th of September at the United Nations. We begin our coverage with Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): A prime-time address and a clear bottom line.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... terror cells. And outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both. And the United States military is capable of confronting both.
KING: One year to the day after the first U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, Mr. Bush called Iraq a logical and urgent next front in the war on terrorism. The administration released two newly declassified satellite photographs to back the president's assertion that Iraq is rebuilding nuclear weapons facilities. And Mr. Bush said Iraq's chemical and biological weapons pose a grave danger as well.
BUSH: Understanding the threats of our time. Knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime. We have every reason to assume the worst. And we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.
KING: The speech came at a critical juncture in the Iraq debate.
SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: Why now?
KING: Congress votes this week on a resolution authorizing the president to use military force. And the United Nations Security Council is divided over the White House demand for a tough new ultimatum to Iraq. Public opinion also is evolving. Fifty-three percent of Americans favor invading to remove Saddam from power, 40 percent oppose an invasion.
But support drops to just 33 percent if an invasion would result in 5,000 or more U.S. casualties. Six in 10 Americans surveyed in the new CNN-"USA Today" Gallup Poll opposed military action in such a scenario.
BUSH: I hope this will not require military action. But it may. And military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures.
KING: Mr. Bush warned Iraq's generals to ignore any orders to launch chemical or biological weapons. The 29-minute speech contained no major new evidence about Iraq's weapons programs or its alleged ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: An effort by the president to answer not only his many critics and skeptics but also what Mr. Bush called the legitimate questions being raised by average Americans.
And, Aaron, a clear effort by this president to make clear that he means it when he calls Iraq a unique threat and that he means to deal with that threat with or without the blessing of the United Nations.
BROWN: But he would like the blessing of the United Nations. So how is that going?
KING: Well, the speech was part of the effort. Privately, administration officials say that diplomacy is working, that there is now a consensus at least for a new resolution. The debate now, how explicit that resolution should be in putting the threat of military force on the table. The president, in addition to practicing this big speech during the day today, spoke to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
He wished him a happy birthday. He asked for his help in the Security Council. U.S. officials a little frustrated. They say this is going to take two, maybe three more weeks, but they think they're making headway.
BROWN: What they want here, just to be clear, or at least for me, is that they don't want -- they want one resolution that covers everything. That is to say, here are the rules, and if you don't you, the Iraqis, don't abide by the rules, hear are the consequences. And the French and the Russians argue otherwise, right?
KING: The French and the Russians argue, at least at this point, at least publicly, if there is a problem, if there is interference with a new weapons inspection regime, let's have another meeting at the United Nations to discuss the consequences. Have a meeting to discuss whether it's an egregious violation by Iraq. The president does not want to get into any of that.
You used the terms "black and white." The president wants this to be any time, any place, anywhere, or else no more meetings, no more debate.
BROWN: John, thank you. Senior White House Correspondent John King tonight.
As we said, the president was speaking to a number of audiences tonight. Lawmakers in Washington are well on their way to voting on a resolution supporting the president. Right now it seems a question of how big the margin of victory will be. We turn to Jonathan Karl for that side of the story. Jon, good evening.
KARL: Good evening, Aaron. Well, the president's speech drew predictable praise from Republicans, who are almost to a person up here on Capitol Hill lining up in support of the president's policy on Iraq. It also drew some praise from the growing ranks of democrats who are supportive of the White House Iraq policy.
But then there are the democratic critics, and they are a relatively small but a very powerful lot. And the democratic critic up here who has emerged as the staunchest critic of the president's Iraq policy is Robert Byrd. He spoke right after the president's speech on "LARRY KING LIVE" and said he was not impressed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BYRD: There was nothing new, nothing that we haven't known for a month, six months, or a year. I kept waiting. He continues to demonize Saddam Hussein. I agree with all of that. Nothing new in that.
But what he does in doing that is he obscures the fact that the United States Senate is being asked to vote on a resolution which puts the stamp of approval on the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive attacks and preventive war. I think that's wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: On the other side, Democrat Joe Lieberman has emerged as the staunchest supporter of the president's Iraq policy. And by a coincidence of scheduling, he was actually giving a speech that began immediately after the president's speech at 8:30 Eastern Time tonight, a speech on Iraq, presenting his vision for what would happen in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Joe Lieberman said that the important thing now is what commitment the United States would give to rebuilding Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D) CONNECTICUT: When the fighting stops, other critically urgent work will remain. Uniting the Iraqi nation behind new leadership, righting the wrongs of that brutal regime of Saddam. Lighting the path to a better future for the Iraqi people. And working with other nations to support Iraq's development.
We cannot be content with tearing down this brutal dictatorship. We've also got to build up something better in its place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: But Aaron, it's far from clear who actually speaks for the Democratic Party on Iraq. As a matter of fact, tonight the Democratic National Committee put out a notice that listed Joe Lieberman's speech as the, "democratic response to the president." About 40 minutes later they put out a hasty correction, simply listing his speech as one of several democratic events going on and not as an official response, because the Democrats on this are really all over the map -- Aaron.
BROWN: Among the most interesting words I read today came from someone else who might like the nomination in 2004, Senator Edwards, who is supportive of the president but.
KARL: Yes, this was interesting. Senator Edwards of North Carolina, clearly somebody thinking about running for president, has been one of those people that have come out and said that he will clearly support the president on this resolution. But in a speech today that was billed as a major policy speech, Edwards seemed to be almost in a debate with himself, because while he was supporting the president on this resolution he was also criticizing the president for going it alone. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), NORTH CAROLINA: Instead of demonstrating purpose without arrogance, as the president promised in his inaugural address, the administration's policy projects exactly the opposite: arrogance without purpose. We seem determined to act alone for the sake of acting alone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: So while criticizing the president for acting alone, Senator Edwards was also saying that he will give the president the authority to do just that -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jon, thank you. Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill tonight.
We turn quickly now to Jeff Greenfield. Normally we talk about what we're going to talk about. We haven't had much time tonight.
I was struck by the tone of the speech, which I've described I think a couple of times as stern. To me it was almost an oval office speech before a live audience.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Well, it was. It was stripped of almost all the kind of rhetorical stuff that you expect of presidential speeches. I mean Michael Gerson (ph), his chief speechwriter, is very good at that. This struck me as a prosecutor's brief, the summoning of all the evidence, the specifics of it. This is what a defector said after leaving in 1995; here's what our pictures said.
And I was surprised. I had thought he would make a kind of more domestic speech, praising, say, Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, maybe subtly isolating some of the Democrats. He was so far from getting near the politics of this and so determined to set out the evidence that it was a very, yes, stern is a good word.
BROWN: Did you find it effective in the way it was presented?
GREENFIELD: You know, yes. What I was thinking about -- and this is how the White House would like to think about it, I'm sure -- is suppose someone were trying to give a speech urging the international community to stop Hitler in 1935 or 1936, pre-Austria, pre-Czechoslovakia, pre-Poland, maybe even pre-Rhineland. That was the tone of this.
I mean this is actually a throwback to the arguments before Vietnam, (UNINTELLIGIBLE); namely, the domino theory in a way. If you don't stop them here you are going to have to stop them here and the consequences will be greater.
And I think that by setting out at the very beginning of the speech, saying, look, you all have a lot of questions and they're legitimate. Let me try to answer them. I thought he summoned the evidence well.
BROWN: Was there in the speech to your ear a sort of deal closer argument?
GREENFIELD: Look, I think the most strongly felt belief of some of the people who are less inclined to the pre-emptive notion and less inclined to the view not in the speech that, if we do this in Iraq we can change the whole Middle East, was the argument about blackmail. When he said if Saddam gets a hold of nuclear weapons he'd be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression.
I think people who are not keen on the more grandiose vision of some of the hawks do believe that. That that's what worries them more than a kind of a -- you know he'll take Pittsburgh in two weeks.
BROWN: Yes. I was struck by -- the president, at one point, acknowledged there is no -- where nuclear weapons are a clear smoking gun, but...
GREENFIELD: Yes. And that I think is the hardest sell he has (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He was saying, we don't know, and that's the problem. And he used the line that's been used many times before by Condoleeza Rice and others, you know, we can't wait fro the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
I don't think he has convinced the people who think, look, we have contained this guy for 11 years. This notion that he's chomping at the bit to do terrible things is wrong. He cares more about his own survival and Iraq's survival.
But I do think that the very fact that he stayed away from a kind of more Stentorian rhetoric we're sometimes used to is probably a smart move.
BROWN: Thank you. Thanks for coming in, Jeff Greenfield.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the U.S. Supreme Court says no thanks to getting in the middle of New Jersey's Senate race. We could have invited Jeff in to talk about that too.
Next, another sniper attack outside of Washington. This one gets worse by the day. And we continue in a moment.
This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The president said tonight Americans will not live in fear. The thought was right. The reality is not. Fear takes many forms. And the fear in Maryland, in Virginia, and Washington D.C., too, is palpable.
We saw a shot today of a mother taking her child from school today, clutching that child's hand, rushing him out of the school into the car. The child's head ducked low. The end of a terrifying school day for kids in the area.
A 13-year-old gunned down as he arrived this morning. The latest in a killing spree, or shooting spree that started last week. Tonight, this young man is fighting for his life. As the Montgomery County Police chief put it, shooting a kid, it's getting to be really, really personal now. It may be personal, but so far whoever is on this killing spree still has the upper hand.
Once again, CNN's Bob Franken.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN (voice-over): Another suburban Maryland county, but a frighteningly similar story. This time a 13-year-old student at a Prince George's County middle school was hit in the chest and abdomen by a single shot from an apparent sniper as he walked inside just after 8:00 in the morning.
Unlike the six who have been killed in adjacent Montgomery County and the District of Columbia, this victim survived, like the woman shot Friday in Virginia. It took a day-long investigation before officials had the dramatic announcement. The shootings were connected.
CHIEF GERALD WILSON, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY POLICE: The projectile that was recovered from our victim this morning has been linked to the other cases in the Washington metropolitan area.
FRANKEN: The 13-year-old was MediVaced to Washington Children's Hospital in critical condition, where doctors recovered remnants of the bullet during surgery for investigators to conduct their forensic tests.
DR. MARTIN EICHELBERGER, D.C.'S CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: In general, we don't do that. But because of the situation that we're confronted with in this community today, we did make a special effort to at least find a portion of the missile.
FRANKEN: Investigators flooded the area. Specially trained dogs were brought in to sniff for gunshot residue. Police recruits were assigned to scour for evidence. The middle school itself had been emptied during the morning as parents rushed to pick up their children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw a lot of police officers, and all the teachers told us to run into the building. And teachers were closing up the windows and -- because -- and they told us to stay away from the windows just in case it happened again. And a lot of kids were crying.
FRANKEN: Other schools in the county stayed open under a so- called code blue, in which students were locked inside until they were released under heavy security at the end of the day. And police who have been investigating these shootings since last Thursday say they've reached a new low. CHIEF CHARLES MOOSE, MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Now all of our victims have been innocent, have been defenseless. But now we're stepping over the line because our children don't deserve this. So parents, please, do your job tonight. Engage your children. Be there for them. We're going to need it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: Officials are using the word "terrorism" to describe this wave of attacks, saying that they're not going to let terrorism shut the system down, they're going to open the school systems tomorrow, arguing that the students will probably be as safe there as they would be anywhere -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, it will be interesting to see how many parents keep their kids home. Anything on suspects at all at this point?
FRANKEN: There have been glimmers from some witnesses, that's what we're being told by investigators. Glimmers that they're trying to sort of piece together in some sort of puzzle to try to come up with something more definite, something they can act on.
BROWN: Bob, thank you. We wish them nothing but luck. Enough of this.
We heard this comment from one Maryland woman today. "Now I know what it's like to live in Jerusalem." Clearly, the small town of Bowie today got an education in something it never wanted, certainly didn't deserve, an education in terror.
Here's CNN's Michael Okwu.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This sort of thing doesn't happen here. But then, this sort of thing rarely happens anywhere. Bowie, Maryland: population 50,000, the fourth largest and fastest-growing city in the state. Quiet, relatively crime-free, say residents, and now the target of a sniper.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like this is a war zone that I'm living in, you know. President Bush is talking about fighting Iraq, going in and fighting Iraq, and we have a war right here in this own country that he needs to deal with.
OKWU: It's a town where some people know of war, just not in their back yards.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have a lot of retirees. You have military, active and retired. You have a lot of officers and secret service.
OKWU: Bowie Town Center, usually humming by noon, was a ghost town. Residents expressed their shock in equal parts anger, disbelief, and fear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like to go and catch the guy myself, you know what I mean? See what he looks like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When a young person gets shot I think it's a little bit more disheartening because everybody feels so very vulnerable. And when the youngest in your community does get targeted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a little scary. But you know I feel like I need to get on. You know, carry on with everything.
OKWU (on camera): Many residents here in Bowie said they would carry on life as normal. And yet others did just the opposite. In spite of the school board's determination to keep school open, many parents rushed here as news helicopters hovered overhead and took their children home.
Jermel Newman said she would keep her 11-year-old son Marquie out of Benjamin Tasker Middle School Tuesday. She struggles to find a way to make sense of this to him.
JERMEL NEWMAN, MOTHER: The only thing I can just tell him, is to just stay calm, watch your surroundings. You know, because we don't know who's doing this.
MARQUIE NEWMAN: It could be anybody. It could be my neighbors who are shooting them. I don't know.
OKWU (voice-over): Bowie is located in the heart of Prince George's County. The county is known for being the wealthiest predominantly African-American county in the country, though that's not what it's known for today.
Michael Okwu, CNN, Bowie, Maryland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Joining us now with more on the profile of who just might be doing this, we're all trying to figure out who might be doing this as if there was some magic formula here, John Timoney. He's the former police chief in Philadelphia, was a high-ranking member of the New York Police Department for a long time, is now the CEO of Beau Dietl & Associates, which is a security firm. Nice to see you.
JOHN TIMONEY, CEO BEAU DIETL & ASSOCIATES: Good to see you, Aaron.
BROWN: Lousy circumstances.
TIMONEY: Awful.
BROWN: Do you have in your mind a sense of the kind of person who's doing this?
TIMONEY: You know everybody's baffled. You know, you speculate privately, could it be some hunter, obviously some whack job. But there's no indication of the race, the ethnicity. We actually at this point have no idea who we're looking for. All we know is the type of weapon that's been used and the way it's been used. You know, there was fear here when I was a cop in 1977, that the son of Sam, summer of Sam...
BROWN: David Berkowitz.
TIMONEY: David Berkowitz. But that was limited really to young men and women in lover's lane late at night. And so it was something you could avoid. This thing is universal, it's random, it's old, young, black, white. And then today the 13-year-old, which is -- I agree with Charlie Moose, over the top.
I mean this is a kid that's going to school. What all kids are supposed to do. And if you can't accomplish that task, we're in trouble.
BROWN: Does it tell you anything that last week it was adults, today it's a kid?
TIMONEY: Yes. Oh, yes. I would take that there's a message here, and I would take that message. And the message is that really everybody and anybody is vulnerable here. And this guy is playing god. He's a complete whack job that thinks -- and he's really spread out now, probably about 100 miles in circumference, the area going from D.C. down to Prince George -- actually, down to Virginia.
BROWN: It's interesting you put it that way because -- and you're right. I mean, if you look at it one way, it's a fairly large area.
TIMONEY: Yes.
BROWN: But there's no reason the guy couldn't have shown up in North Carolina or in Cleveland, Ohio, or anywhere else and continued to do the same thing. So does it tell you anything that he has stayed within this Maryland, Virginia, D.C. area?
TIMONEY: Yes, usually people will commit crimes generally, and this may be the exception, they're generally not going to come down from the state of Washington over to the east coast and this area surrounding Washington D.C. My belief is that the guy lives -- or guys live somewhere, you know, on the East Coast.
BROWN: In that area?
TIMONEY: In that area. I would think they'd feel pretty easy, pretty comfortable going up and down 95, you know the connecting to highways and byways. I wouldn't fathom somebody coming, you know, from Alabama or from Oregon coming here. There's just too many ways you can slip up.
BROWN: Do you think -- and again, there's no way to know this. But would you guess that this is someone with a military background because, A, he's very familiar with weapons clearly and is a heck of a shot? TIMONEY: That's what I thought initially. And I still -- I believe that. But you know, it was funny I was talking to some gun experts in the Philadelphia Police Department today. And these weapons anymore are so sophisticated, so easy to handle with the scopes that one of the experts at the Philadelphia Police Department was saying, you know, it wouldn't surprise him if this is a novice. In other words, a person that's only shot a gun a few times, that with these telescopic lenses at 150 yards you can be pretty accurate.
BROWN: Somebody knows something.
TIMONEY: Oh, guarantee it. Absolutely guarantee it. I've never come across a case where after we made the arrest, after there was a series of rapes or homicides where someone didn't say, you know, I suspected all along or I kind of knew it but I want to call the police because I was afraid I was wrong, I'd get him in trouble or something like that.
We saw it with the bomber, where the brother knew all along and then waited. And then finally he wrote a letter to the FBI saying, listen, I don't want him hurt, just arrest him, it's him. There was a rapist-killer in Philadelphia. And when I went on the radio and television saying I know family and friends know. Well, sure enough, later on after he was arrested, the wife said, you know, I kind of knew, but.
BROWN: Somebody knows.
TIMONEY: Somebody knows.
BROWN: Got to come forward.
TIMONEY: Yes.
BROWN: It's good to see you. You've been a great friend of the program. We appreciate it.
TIMONEY: Thank you very much, Aaron. Good to see you, buddy.
BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the home front in the war on terror. We'll take a look at the Justice Department and changes in procedures there.
But up next the latest in the soap opera known as the New Jersey Senate race. A very busy night. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This being the first Monday in October, the U.S. Supreme Court was back at work. And the real news coming out of the court today is what the court will not do. It will not overturn the New Jersey State Supreme Court's unanimous decision that allows Frank Lautenberg on the ballot.
We may never know why the court did what it did. The court works that way. But we do know the decision has potentially enormous implications for Democrats, not just in New Jersey, but for those who hope to keep the party in control of the Senate in November.
Here's CNN's Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After suffering two devastating court losses, New Jersey Republicans had a new message. The litigation's over. The race has begun.
DOUG FORRESTER (R), N.J. SENATE CANDIDATE : Together we can beat the Torricelli-Lautenberg machine once and for all.
FEYERICK: The Supreme Court denied Republicans an emergency stay. Without it, the Republican challenger Doug Forrester could do nothing to stop new ballots from being printed with the Democrats' new pick, Frank Lautenberg. Military and overseas ballots, which take longer to process, are expected to be in the mail sometime Tuesday. Even if the Supreme Court takes up the senate case later on, without the emergency stay, it's unlikely to do any good for Republicans, who asked for emergency relief in the first place.
ANGELO GENOVA, ATTORNEY FOR DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE: Mr. Forrester and his lawyers failed to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that they were right enough in their position to put the brakes on the processes of this election.
FEYERICK: The Supreme Court ruling changed a federal court ruling minutes before it was to be announced. In Trenton, U.S. District Judge Garrett Brown (ph) said he'd been ready to grant a stay of the ballot printing, pending the Supreme Court ruling. The federal case was brought by two absentee voters who feared their votes might not count, if delays prevented new ballots from reaching them in time. Once the Supreme Court denied the stay, Judge Brown abstained from considering the matter altogether. Republicans vowed to keep a close eye on the election process.
WILLIAM BARONI, ATTORNEY FOR REPUBLICAN PARTY: Doug Forrester's been committed since day one, since last week, to protecting the overseas and military ballots. And we have fought that fight, and we continue to want to look out after the military ballots, and we will continue to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FEYERICK: Now that the legal debate is apparently over, the political debate begins. Each candidate trying to define himself in the four weeks left before voters go to the polls -- Aaron.
BROWN: So with a month to go, you've got a candidate in Senator Lautenberg who's quite well known, who was a three-term senator, and one who is not so well-known. In 20 seconds, the issues will be?
FEYERICK: The issues -- they're going to try to separate themselves on the war, the impending possible war, the environment, and also other outstanding issues like gun control. Those are the main issues. BROWN: So again, a fight. Wedge issues, gun control, abortion, those sorts of issues?
FEYERICK: Exactly. Because Lautenberg abstained from the gulf war, didn't want to go into the gulf war, so it will be interesting to see what he decides this time around.
BROWN: It does at least appear the race is on.
FEYERICK: It certainly is. Four weeks. It will be a short one.
BROWN: Well, probably not a bad idea, in any case. Thank you, Deborah. Deborah Feyerick tonight.
A number of other stories making news around the country. Briefly, tonight, we begin on Wall Street.
Another sell-off. This one late in the day. The Dow fell more than 100 points, in part because of profit warnings from sears and also increasing concern about the possibility of a war with Iraq. Here we go with another week.
Another factor in the market's decline, this ongoing west coast port lockout. The president today signed an executive order creating a board of inquiry which will look into the dispute between longshoremen and management. The cost of the port shutdown is estimated at $2 billion a day. It seems to me that is up a billion dollars from last week, isn't it?
A guilty plea today from a former WorldCom accounting director for falsifying financial records. He said he did so at his boss's request. Buford Yates is the second executive agreeing to help the government with its case involving WorldCom.
And the space shuttle Atlantis. these pictures -- you cannot get prettier pictures than this. Lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center today. A video camera mounted near the top of the external fuel tanks gives us a new way of looking at a shuttle launch. It was the first shuttle flight in four months. The entire fleet grounded this past summer because of cracks in the fuel lines. They're off to the international space station for 11 days, if all goes well.
That is -- you know, no matter how many times you see that, it's something.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with "New York Times" columnist Nick Kristof who is just back from Baghdad.
Up next, the War on Terror, catching the big fish, the little fish, or just an old shoe. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks talking about what's become known as the Bush Doctrine, a dramatic break with the past in terms of U.S. foreign policy. The United States asserting the right to strike against a nation that may be a threat even if that nation has yet to attack the United States.
In a way, it seems like the Bush doctrine extends to the War on Terror being waged by the Justice Department, as well. Prosecuting people before they commit an act of terrorism. If anyone doubted that September 11 was going to take us into uncharted legal territory, here's some proof from CNN's Kelli Arena.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two Americans the government says were members of a suspected terrorist cell in Portland, Oregon, told a court they are not guilty. They were charged along with four others.
JAMES BRITT, SUSPECT'S BROTHER: I'm confident that these allegations are just part of the hysteria that's been caused by the War on Terrorism.
ARENA: The indictments in Oregon follow similar ones in Detroit, Seattle, and Buffalo, New York, all involving people living in the United States accused of conspiring to help al Qaeda or related groups. Even though some of those in custody were trained in al Qaeda camps, there is no evidence any of them posed an imminent terrorist threat. Leading some to suggest the FBI is dealing with terrorist wannabes.
JULIETTE KAYYEM, TERRORISM ANALYST, KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: The War on Terrorism is not going to be won by these kinds of arrests. They're going either be won through intelligence or some of the more dramatic arrests that we're seeing abroad. But these guys are, I mean, I hate to say it, but really are sort of the little fish in the big conspiracy.
ARENA: But government officials point out none of the 19 hijackers would have been described as big fish before September 11.
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We're conducting the largest investigation in history. We're disrupting and punishing possible terrorist-related activity throughout the United States of America and around the world. Our hard work is showing results.
ARENA: But results can be hard to gauge, especially when the work is geared toward preventing terrorism, rather than prosecuting after the fact. Experts say arrests of even minor players helps break down the larger terrorist network.
STEVE POMERANTZ, FMR. FBI COUNTER TERRORISM OFFICIAL: I think they're important because they prevent these individuals who have clearly shown a propensity to engage in terrorist activity, you prevent them from doing it. You stop them early on.
ARENA (on camera): Sources say as many as 200 people remain under constant surveillance in the United States. As law enforcement officials point out, it doesn't take a major terrorist to do harm, just someone with initiative.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Now on to Osama bin Laden and a few other stories making news around the world tonight. Al Jazeera, today, broadcast what it said was a tape from bin Laden. On it, a voice warns of more attacks against the United States. I promise you the voice says that Islamic youth are preparing for something that will fill your hearts with terror. At least that's what the voice on the tape says.
More violence in the Middle East today. This might have led the program, too, on any other night. At least 14 people killed, about 100 wounded after an Israeli military operation in Gaza. The Israelis say they were going after Hamas, when they opened fire with tanks and helicopters on a number of crowded residential areas. Palestinians say the victims were civilians including at least one young child.
No answers yet to the explosion and fire aboard a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen. At first, officials in Yemen denied it could have been the work of terrorists. The French, however, called it a suicide attack. Now both are saying they are not sure what all happened here. And the fire, meantime, continues to burn.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, how folks in the middle of the country are looking at the possibility of war with Iraq. And up next, we'll talk with Nick Kristof, of "The New York Times," who is just back from Baghdad.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Our next guest recently spent some time in Iraq, looked around, talked to the people, came back with some questions about what the U.S. might have in store, if it does come to a fight. Nicholas Kristof is a columnist for "The New York Times," and we're glad to say no stranger to the program. We're glad he is back safely. Welcome.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Thank you.
BROWN: We like when guests bring stuff, too.
Show and tell.
BROWN: Particularly if it's money. This reminds me of, my father once a hundred years ago, it seems like, brought back all sorts of lira. He said here's 10 million lira. It was worth about a nickel. I gather that's what you brought in here.
KRISTOF: I was a millionaire in Iraqi Dinar. Each of these is worth about 10 cents. And you know, it's all in bundles of a hundred bills. So when I paid my hotel bill it was with a shopping bag with about 20 pounds of Dinah.
BROWN: Is it a country that believes that war is inevitable? KRISTOF: Maybe not inevitable, but there is a strong sense that it is probably coming. There's a lot of fatalism about that. A lot of talk about that. A lot of nervousness.
BROWN: Are they a country that -- the president said, talked tonight about that they'll welcome the Americans in the way the Afghans welcomed the Americans in. Is that your impression?
KRISTOF: I think that's a complete misreading of the situation. I think that -- first of all, I should say it's very hard as a Westerner, there in Iraq to really get a clear understanding of what Iraqis think. But to the extent you can tell, you get a very strong sense, A -- that Iraqis don't like Saddam Hussein, that they think he has led them deeply astray, that he's impoverished the country, that they're very hostile to Saddam and his family.
But you also get the sense that they also dislike the U.S., distrust the U.S., they think the U.S. is after their oil. They blame the U.S. for sanctions. And I mean, fundamentally, I think you get the sense that Saddam's propaganda hasn't been effective in bolstering his own image, but it has been effective in tarnishing the U.S. image.
BROWN: It's a complicated place in that there are really three kind of distinct regions in the country with three distinct population groups. And we've talked a lot about the Kurds in the north. But there's this whole group in the south. What happens there if war comes?
KRISTOF: I mean, I think that a real headache will begin the day after Saddam is toppled because, historically, the 16 percent of the population that is Sunni Muslim, is basically around the country. And about 60 percent is Shiaa Muslim.
And there was an enormous rebellion in the south in 1991 after the Gulf War. This time, I think, the moment Saddam is toppled, these places are going to rebel again. There's going to be an uprising. Anybody associated with the regime is going to be, you know, lynched, essentially. And the question is what do we do?
BROWN: Is this Rwanda?
KRISTOF: It's not to that level. It's not exactly every Shiaa against every Sunni. But on the other hand, anybody associated with the regime in these places is going to be in enormous trouble. I think these guys are having sleepless nights thinking about it. And I think there will be a huge amount of bloodshed.
BROWN: You know, Saddam may not have learned the broad lesson about taking on the Americans and the world, but it does sound like he has learned one lesson about fighting the Americans, and that's not lay your army out in the desert to be picked at.
KRISTOF: That's right. I went down to Basra in the south and went from Basra down to the Kuwait border because that will probably be a key invasion route when the Americans go in, if they do. And there were no fortifications, no tanks, no troops in that whole area. And everybody you talk to say that they're not going to put their tanks out in the open. They're going to keep them in the cities. They're going to have their guns and all their defenses in the cities to make it very difficult for the U.S. to attack. You know, because we're not able to really bomb the cities without horrendous casualties.
BROWN: Do they count an American sense of, I don't know, morality?
KRISTOF: Yes. Absolutely. When I was there, I took a plane right through a no-fly zone. And I was nervous about, you know, are the Americans going to shoot down this plane? But every Iraqi around me was just cool as ice.
And they were -- I mean, they knew, and they were completely right, that of course the U.S. wouldn't shoot down a civilian plane going through a no-fly zone. And I think that's exactly Saddam's calculation, is by putting heavy artillery and guns in the cities. Especially in Baghdad and in his hometown of Tikrit (ph), which will probably be the main targets.
BROWN: I don't know, half a minute or so, maybe a little more. The newspapers you brought with you.
KRISTOF: Okay. This is a typical Iraqi paper. This is "Algom Haria" (ph), which is the republic. You know, Saddam right here. This is the English language version. You know, the lead headline is a story which, unfortunately, we missed in "The New York Times." President Hussein receives telegram.
BROWN: Why is there an English language paper at all?
KRISTOF: It's propaganda. I mean, it's to present to foreigners there. I might say that a lot of Iraqis get news via foreign radio. So they do have other sources.
BROWN: I can't imagine it was anything but a fascinating experience to have been there in this moment. It's nice to see you.
KRISTOF: Good to be here.
BROWN: I hope you'll come back and talk to us more about this.
KRISTOF: I'd be happy.
BROWN: Thank you. Nick Kristof of "The New York Times."
Let's take a short break, come back and hear what's on your minds, at least if you live in Chicago, about the possibility of war in Iraq. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Finally, from us tonight, voices of concern. I think all of us have been trying to figure out where the country is as far as Iraq is concerned. There's no perfect way to know these things. No poll is perfect. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just start talking to people and listen carefully to what they have to say.
CNN's Candy Crowley did just that in Chicago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eight hundred miles from New York, 700 from Washington, D.C. is Chicago. Immortalized by the poet Carl Sandburg as the stormy, husky, brawling city of the big shoulders. Much weighs on those shoulders now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That our country may go to war, that concerns me. I have different friends that are in the military.
CROWLEY: Inside Valoy's (ph) Cafeteria on 53rd street, it may not always be the first thing they mention, but ask what concerns them and Iraq comes up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think we should go. It's too -- not only is it too political, but I smell oil somewhere.
CROWLEY: Valloy's is in Hyde Park on Chicago's south side, the nation's largest urban black community, mostly blue collar, heavily Democratic, very conflicted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm up in the air about Iraq, right now. I do believe something needs to be done about Saddam Hussein. I believe he has military weapons. I don't (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, and it really is a tough question to answer, and to jump -- and innocent lives are going to be affected by that.
CROWLEY: At the "Chicago Trib," the deputy managing editor has heard that a lot.
JAMES WARREN, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE": It's something people at the barber shop and elsewhere are talking about a little bit more, but doing so while scratching their head.
CROWLEY: Twenty miles due west of Hyde Park is Hinsdale township. They call it a village, a Mercedes driving bedroom community, mostly white, mostly Republican. Inside the golf shop, they worry less about going to war than not going to war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the threat of Saddam Hussein and what he's capable of is more of a concern, right now to me, than I think that we have to start now before he gets, you know, nuclear armament.
CROWLEY: But there is less to the distance between Hyde Park and Hinsdale Village than it might seem. Because here, too, they are mostly conflicted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Saddam thing is, of course, another issue that's very troublesome. Should we, shouldn't we? Is he? Isn't he?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he's a bad guy, and we should get rid of him. I'm not totally comfortable that we've really thought through the process of how to do that.
CROWLEY: Nobody anywhere was for war. Nobody anywhere wanted Saddam to stay. Many worried about war's effect on the economy, on the world, and something else that James Warren has picked up.
WARREN: By and large, people will support Bush, who still is the beneficiary of a tremendous amount of post-September 11 goodwill.
CROWLEY: If it comes to that and most think it will, this stormy, husky, brawling city of the big shoulders will be there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But if we don't have that coalition, I think we have to understand that we were attacked and that we have the responsibility to protect our country. And that might mean going alone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If Saddam's out of order, and we find he's really out of order, the American people will back the president.
CROWLEY: And one more thing. In Chicago, they do not see this issue in black and white, war or no war. They talked in a way Washington sound bytes do not. Chicago's discussion takes place in gray areas.
Candy Crowley, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We start a very busy week for us. We'll end it on the West Coast. But we're back here tomorrow at 10:00. We hope you are, too. Until then, good night for all of us from NEWSNIGHT.
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Public; Senate Argues Along Party Lines Over Iraq Resolution>
