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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Miss World Pageant Moved to London

Aired November 22, 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.


ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening, everyone. I'm Anderson Cooper.
You may have seen the pictures coming out of Nigeria today. Terrible violence surrounding the Miss World pageant. There was a big decision involving the pageant today. They're moving it to London. We'll look at that and what set off the riots in a moment.

But we thought it important tonight to remember the story behind this story, the original controversy. The one the violence of the past few days now threatens to overshadow. It's a story about a young woman in Nigeria, not the one representing her nation in the Miss World pageant. This woman, does, however, represent something about Nigeria: injustice. The injustice of a brutal archaic form of Islamic law that holds sway in parts of that country and parts of the world.

This woman's name is Amina Lawal (ph); that is her there. And an Islamic court in Nigeria has sentenced her to death by stoning. Her crime, having a child out of wedlock.

So what happens to her now, we wonder. The government of Nigeria has promised, or they had promised to prevent the stoning. Some speculated that was because they wanted to keep the pageant from relocating. Now that it is relocating, we can only hope that they'll keep their word.

And it's that story, that decision that leads "The Whip" for us tonight. Jeff Koinange is on the video phone for us in Kaduna, Nigeria. Jeff, the headline.

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN LAGOS BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning from Kaduna, Anderson, where scores are dead and hundreds injured, as the country's latest violence leads to cancellation, in Nigeria at least, of what's generally considered one of the world's most watched television shows -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Jeff, we'll check back with you in a moment. More now on that capture of a top al Qaeda operative. Kelli Arena is in Washington with that. Kelli, the headline.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, U.S. officials are interrogating Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in the hopes that he will lead them to Osama bin Laden. Now, he's got a lot to say, but not much of it has been very useful yet.

COOPER: All right, Kelli. We'll check in with you. The latest now on another cruise ship that's made some passengers sick. Susan Candiotti is following that story from Miami. Susan, the headline.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello. Disney cruises are designed for family fun. A stomach virus is not on the itinerary. For the second time this week, a virus has hit two different ocean liners -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Back with all of you in a moment.

Also coming up tonight, a Miss World finalist from 1999 who has spoken out passionately about the rights of women in Nigeria, Natasha Allas. Not all serious stuff tonight. However, it is Friday, after all.

We'll look at a Thanksgiving delicacy that clogs your arteries just talking about it. That's it right there live. The turducken. The turkey stuffed with a duck that's stuffed with a chicken. We'll talk with that man right there, legendary chef, Paul Prudhomme.

And remembering a life well lived. A fond farewell to the Grand Damme of the Bronx, a great old gal named Samantha.

All of that to come in the hour ahead. We being with the last minute change of venue for the Miss World pageant. Ordinarily, we couldn't imagine a situation in which a beauty contest would be leading a newscast. But then again, we couldn't have imagined a beauty contest tearing an already divided country even further apart.

We couldn't have imagined riots breaking out or dozens of people dying, but all of that has been happening in Nigeria, the site of the Miss World pageant until a few hours ago. So tonight, the organizers decided to pull out of Africa, at least for this year, and relocate the pageant to London. The story now from CNN's Jeff Koinange.

KOINANGE: Anderson, and what sparked the latest violence was a newspaper article from the local daily. In the article, it stated that if the prophet Mohammed were alive today, he would pick one of the beauty contestants as one of his wives. This sparked a wave of violence throughout the northern corridor of Nigeria.

In Kaduna, where we are right now, they burned the local newspaper headquarters and they went out on a killing spree. On Thursday, Muslims went after Christians throughout the city. Dozens were reported killed on that day.

On Friday, during the Muslim day of prayer, Christians turned on Muslims. All this, prompted event organizers to say this cannot go on, the show cannot go on despite pleas from Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who said the girls' safety would be guaranteed. This call was not heeded by the event organizers.

They called a press conference late in the evening, rescheduling the venue to London. Muslim groups are praising this as a victory, a lot of Nigerians are seeing this as a missed opportunity. They regret this because they put so much effort into it.

This was a way to showcase Nigeria in a way that Nigeria is not generally seen. They literally had the stage, the world watching them. As you well know, an estimated two billion people are scheduled to watch the event. This time, they're not going to be watching it out of a booth, Anderson. They'll be watching it out of London.

COOPER: Jeff, in the city you're in, Kaduna, it's the site of where most of this violence has been. Is the violence continuing where you are now?

KOINANGE: As of this evening, Anderson, most of the violence has petered down. The president had called in the police and riot squads. Tensions were still high, but it seemed pretty much in control. Residents were returning to their homes, which is a good sign that at least peace and stability was slowly returning to this city, but that is not going to appease the Miss World contestants or the organizers.

They want to get out of Nigeria as soon as they can and leave the Nigerians to pick up the pieces of this latest violence -- Anderson.

COOPER: Well, Jeff, a lot of human rights groups and even some pageant officials and pageant contestants have protested having the Miss World pageant in Nigeria because of this death sentence for this woman who will be stoned to death. Now the government in Nigeria had said they would stop the stoning in a response to a lot of this protest. Now that the pageant is moving out of Nigeria, any sense of what is going to happen to this woman?

KOINANGE: Well, right now, since it's the Muslim holy month of Ramada, Anderson, all court cases have been postponed until December and beyond. I spoke to the woman's lawyer -- Amina Lawal's lawyer. She told me the death sentence still stands at September 25, 2003.

There are appeals in process. They plan to appeal this. They hope that their client will not be stoned to death, but that death sentence still stands. And even though the Nigerian government says they will fight the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as much as they can to make sure that this does not happen, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Accords, as you well know, they govern this northern territory of this country. Your call is as good as mine, Anderson, whether this woman will be stoned to death later next year -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Jeff Koinange from Kaduna, Nigeria, stay safe. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.

And joining us now from Los Angeles is Natasha Alles, who competed in the Miss World pageant in 1999 and who very much opposed holding the pageant this year in Nigeria. Welcome to the program.

NATASHA ALLAS, MISS WORLD USA 2000: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Now you had opposed this all along, the pageant being in Nigeria. Why?

ALLAS: Well, because of the story that you just saw. Because of Amina and because of the human rights violations as far as the treatment of women. And the fact that she's being stoned to death for adultery.

So I was contacted by Amnesty International about two months ago, and I wrote a letter to the Miss World organization saying that I was not in support of them having the pageant in Nigeria. I thought it was highly inappropriate for this beauty pageant.

COOPER: In a sense then, you're not really surprised at the violence that has taken place. I mean, in the last two days or so, dozens of people have literally died over this issue. Who is to blame for this? I mean do you look at pageant organizers and say, why didn't you stop this? Why didn't you think of this?

ALLAS: No. I mean I think that it wasn't a good decision for them to have the pageant in Nigeria. For the reasons they decided to do it, I don't know. I wanted an answer, which is why I wrote the letter and which is why a couple of other titleholders wrote a letter as well.

I think that a lot of what happened maybe was sparked by irresponsible journalism. I think the gentleman who made the comment in the paper was completely out of line and inappropriate. I don't think that the pageant is what's to blame for the violence. I think that they just wanted a reason for the violence, and the pageant has been a spark, and so was the comment by the gentleman from this day.

COOPER: Are you still hopeful that this death sentence on this young woman who had the child out of wedlock will be turned over?

ALLAS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely we are. That's why I was contacted by Amnesty International and the human rights organizations that have been fighting for Amina and her freedom for a long time. I mean, when the pageant had announced it was going to be held in Nigeria, then it was more of a platform for girls like myself to speak out against it and say that we were not in support of the pageant being held there.

COOPER: Very briefly, I know you have tried to contact some other very big celebrities who have been in the Miss World pageant before. I believe Linda Carter, Halle Berry. Did you get any response from them?

ALLAS: No, I sent them letters to their agents and managers in hopes that they would send their own letters to the Miss World organization. Halle Berry was Miss World USA 10 years ago and Linda Carter 20 years ago. They both represented this country, as I did, at the Miss World pageant.

So because they're celebrities and Halle Berry is a big film star, we were hoping that they could put some added pressure on to changing the venue before any of this had happened.

COOPER: All right. Natasha Allas, I appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you very much.

ALLAS: Thank you.

COOPER: We go now to a story that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just a few moments ago. Soon to be reported in the pages of "Newsweek" magazine. Word that money sent to a number of the 9/11 hijackers might -- and I want to emphasize "might" -- be traceable to the government of Saudi Arabia.

"Newsweek's" Michael Isikof has been working the story and he joins us now in Washington. Michael, the story is literally just a few moments old for us. Tell us what you know.

MICHAEL ISIKOF, NEWSWEEK: Well, it's been percolating behind the scenes for some time, but basically, the FBI and the congressional Joint Intelligence Committee inquiry into 9/11, the investigators, have uncovered evidence that payments were made through the bank account of the wife of a senior Saudi diplomat to two individuals, two Saudi students in San Diego who provided substantial assistance and who befriended two of the key hijackers who participated in the events of 9/11, Khalid Amidar (ph) and Nuwaf al-Hasmi (ph).

The payments to these -- to the two students started just a couple of months after the hijackers arrived in the United States. $3,500 a month until July 2001, when one of the students, who had provided the most assistance to the hijackers, who had arranged to get them an apartment, who helped pay their rent, who introduced them to the Muslim community in San Diego, that guy left the country two months before September 11. And then the payments resumed to one of his confederates, who had also befriended the hijackers.

So this has raised the question, although, as you stressed, it's far from conclusive, but it's raised the question as to whether Saudi government funds were routed to the September 11 hijackers.

COOPER: There's a lot to talk about this. And we should sort of get into some of the details. First of all, in your story, you say that the Saudi government official is the Saudi ambassador to the United States. And it's the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States...

ISIKOF: Well, it's the wife to the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar (ph). This is princess Haifa (ph).

COOPER: And the money from her bank account that was sent to originally one Saudi student in San Diego, a man by the name of Bayumi (ph), I believe?

ISIKOF: Right, yes. Omar al-Bayumi (ph), who has been under FBI investigation for a considerable amount f time.

COOPER: Now, we don't know for -- at this point, you do not know why that money was sent?

ISIKOF: There has been no explanation for why such a high- ranking official or the wife of such a high-ranking official would route money to a seeming nobody in San Diego. Now, it is also pointed out by Saudi diplomats and people who work for the Saudi government that it is not uncommon as a form of Muslim charity for wealthy Saudis to provide financial assistance to struggling students in the United States. So there could be an innocent explanation for this.

COOPER: But at this point, we just do not know what the connection is.

ISIKOF: We just do not know. But the circumstantial evidence by the committee, the timing of the payments coming shortly -- the guy, Omar al-Bayumi (ph), who got the bulk of the money, had been in the United States for some time since 1995. He didn't start to get these payments until just after the hijackers arrived. And that's precisely the time he began providing assistance to the hijackers.

Now, he has maintained that he had no idea that they were on any sort of terrorist mission, that he knew nothing of their al Qaeda ties. But the FBI has been suspicious about large elements of his account and, as the FBI confirmed as recently as today, he remains under investigation. He is somebody who the FBI would very much like to put into custody.

COOPER: As you say in your story, too, he also very quickly befriended these two when they arrived in the San Diego area. He threw them a party.

ISIKOF: Right. As soon as -- threw them a welcoming party, introduced them to the Muslim community, got them an apartment right next door to his, and even helped pay their rent for the first couple of months.

COOPER: He has now disappeared into Saudi Arabia. He was in England for a while, he was held there, I believe on a visa technicality, and then was finally released and is now back in Saudi Arabia. Do we know where the other person is, this...

ISIKOF: The other guy actually has recently pled guilty to visa fraud. He is identified by federal agents as a known al Qaeda sympathizer. This is the other guy getting the money from this account who celebrated the events of -- the heroes of September 11 and talked about what a wonderful glorious day it has been.

He also had befriended the hijackers, but there was no direct evidence tying him to the events of the plot of September 11. He was convicted of visa fraud and he has been deported to Saudi Arabia.

COOPER: So they're both in Saudi Arabia right now as far as we know?

ISIKOF: Yes, correct.

COOPER: Michael Isikof, thank you so much. If you want to read more about this story, it's right now on the newsweek.com Web site. It is a fascinating story. Obvious one we'll be following for the next couple of days, no doubt. Michael, thank you very much for joining us.

ISIKOF: Thank you. COOPER: More now on the captured al Qaeda leader. What he's been telling interrogators and what more he might have to say. Here again, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Government officials say it's likely captured al Qaeda operative, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, knows about terror plots now under way. Experts save he may also know the location of active cells, weapons factories and cashes.

KENNETH KATZMAN, MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: He presumably would know what else is being planned right now in the Persian Gulf region, which appears to be his responsibility. So there's a very good chance we're disrupting with his capture some things that were in the works.

ARENA: Sources say al-Nashiri is talking and that his interrogation has already led the FBI to warn about possible large- scale maritime attacks. Officials say that is his specialty. He allegedly helped plan the bombing of the USS Cole.

But obviously they want more information out of him. The key, according to a former FBI interrogator, is finding his weak spot.

CINDY CAPPS, CENTER FOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE STUDIES: Every person has a button that can be pushed, but you have to find the button.

ARENA: Terror experts rank al-Nashiri among the top 25 al Qaeda leaders. One source says he attended the infamous al Qaeda meeting at this building in Kuala Lumpur in January of 2000. It was chaired by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who government officials believe masterminded the September 11 attacks.

While al-Nashiri may divulge information that is damaging to al Qaeda in the near term, experts say there's only one way to do permanent damage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing that's really going to devastate al Qaeda would be to find the top leadership, bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. They are the charisma, they are the ethos behind the organization.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Experts say because the two men are still at large, al Qaeda will have no problem recruiting new members to replace those who are now in custody -- Anderson.

COOPER: Kelli, do we know anything about the conditions this man is being held under or where he's being held?

ARENA: We don't know where he's being held, but we do know he's in U.S. custody, which means that as he's being interrogated he's not subject to torture. He is subject to the laws that govern U.S. interrogations, Anderson. COOPER: OK. Because the person in your piece talked about finding the right buttons to push, and often those buttons are involving a third country whose techniques might be a little bit more persuasive, I suppose.

ARENA: Well, interrogators have said that those buttons include many things. One is, is he worried about his family and their safety? Is he worried about possibly being, as you said, transferred to the custody of a third country, where torture might be included in the interrogation? Might they have other information where they, you know, tell him that they have someone else being held and he's worried about that person's safety. So it just depends on where they find his vulnerabilities and how to exploit them.

COOPER: Right. All right, Kelli Arena, thank you very much tonight. Appreciate the update.

A bit later tonight, the methods used by interrogators, some of which Kelli just mentioned, and how they learn their craft. Mike Boettcher takes us inside an Army training school for interrogators. It's a very interesting look.

Also ahead on NEWSNIGHT, what is in a name? Ask that of the man with the same name as a suspected al Qaeda terrorist. Then we'll go to the school where they teach American soldiers interrogation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: So if there was such a thing as a squirm meter, the needle in this next story would definitely be in the red. It is about a cruise ship and the passengers who got a nasty virus on board. Now that is squirm worthy enough, we think. But get this -- the ship isn't the same ship we were talking about last night. This is another one. Here's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): A vacation gone awry for about 100 passengers and crew aboard the Disney ship Magic. An attack of the still unidentified virus making passengers and crew sick to their stomachs and stuck in their state rooms.

DIXIE FANSOM, SPOKESWOMAN: We're taking every precaution necessary to make sure that we don't have a recurrence.

CANDIOTTI: A recurrence of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, just experienced by more than 500 passengers who contracted the Norwalk virus on the same Holland American cruise ship in its last four sailings. Some passengers who were on the Amsterdam called their cruise a nightmare, sick or not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just felt (UNINTELLIGIBLE) all the time and you weren't having as good a time as you would have normally.

CANDIOTTI: Travel agent Isaac Ever has been fielding calls from cruise customers with vacations coming up. He and his family are booked on a Disney cruise in a couple of weeks.

ISAAC EVER, TRAVEL AGENT: It's a serious illness and I have two young children. But I know that it will be OK.

CANDIOTTI: The Centers for Disease Control is investigating the latest viral outbreak. Cruise ships especially susceptible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: where you have lots of people in a contained environment, a real common way for it to get spread is contamination of surfaces that people touch.

CANDIOTTI: The Norfolk virus, nearly as common as the common cold, has hit eight cruises since last May. In July, it attacked a Holland American Alaskan cruise. Martin Massey died a week later. While his widow does not allege the virus itself was the cause, his family and about 200 others are part of a class action lawsuit against the cruise line, alleging the company did not sufficiently disinfect the ship and warn them ahead of time of a previous outbreak.

BARBARA DEELY, FORMER PASSENGER: I don't know how Holland America could ever compensate for the damages, mental and physical, that were caused to us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: Holland America would not comment on that lawsuit. As for the Amsterdam, it continues to be out of service while the cruise line scrubs it down from end to end. As for Disney's Magic, it is due in port tomorrow morning, Saturday morning, and is scheduled to go back out again Saturday night.

Now, if any passenger doesn't want to go, they do qualify for a full refund or their trip can be rescheduled. That was not the case with Holland America passengers when they arrived for their cruise last week and were told about the viral outbreak. They would only get a full refund if they could win their argument on a case-by-case basis, according to the cruise line. Back to you, Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Susan Candiotti, thanks very much.

We're going to look into a little bit more about what is going on with these cruise ships. We thought we'd talk about all this with Peter Greenberg. He's a travel analyst and author of "The Travel Detective: A How-To Guide On Getting Great Travel Deals." Welcome. Thanks for being with us.

PETER GREENBERG, AUTHOR, "THE TRAVEL DETECTIVE": You bet.

COOPER: What is going on with these cruise ships?

GREENBERG: Well, as in Susan's report, I mean it doesn't happen that often. You now, when you think about it, having two ships happen within such a short period of time going out of two separate ports in Florida is a little unusual.

COOPER: Well, that's the thing. I mean, when it happened on the first ship, you said, OK, maybe they just didn't clean it well and it kept happening on the same ship. But now that it has either spread or a separate bug or something is on a second ship, it raises questions. I mean I guess you look for commonality.

GREENBERG: Well, sure. What happens is, if it just happened on one ship, you would want to isolate the passengers and see what they had in common, where did they congregate, what did they order for dinner, what did they all share in common that might lead you to the cause?

When you have two ships, you go beyond the passengers to see what did the ships have in common? Who supplied the ships, where did they get their meat, their produce, their vegetables? What could have happened there?

Is it just in the ventilation system? If it is, then it's a coincidence.

COOPER: Or perhaps they were in the same port of call and a supplier supplied a tainted meat or something like that.

GREENBERG: Exactly. Now traditionally, when you have a situation like this, when you have some gastrointestinal problems, it usually goes back to improper food handling, you could go right to the galley and find it. They haven't been able to find it.

COOPER: Do you feel safe? I mean would you take a cruise for Thanksgiving?

GREENBERG: Absolutely. Maybe not for Thanksgiving. I don't want to have that many kids on the ship or dysfunctional family members looking for turkey. But, the bottom line is, sure, I'd go back.

COOPER: Because?

GREENBERG: The incidence is still in your favor. I mean the percentages are still overwhelmingly in your favor. Cruise ships do a very good job. You know, the United States public health service inspects these ships on a regular basis to check for sanitation situations to make sure that these things don't happen. Every once in a while they do.

COOPER: But, you know, this first cruise line, I think it was Holland America, there were four different cruises and...

GREENBERG: Well, sure. That's a case of really bad public relations. Because once you've established you've got a problem, you don't keep sending the ship back out. They did it not once, not twice, but four separate times, over 500 people infected. Now they've learned their lesson and they've pulled the ship for the next 10 days minimum. If they can't find it in 10 days, that ship is still not going to go out because nobody wants to book that ship until they're absolutely sure it's clean.

COOPER: And it seems like initially they didn't isolate the passengers when they came off.

GREENBERG: No. They didn't isolate anybody because they were worried about disclosure. The lawsuits that are happening now are mostly based on the lack of full disclosure to the passengers on the second, third and fourth cruises. Not the first.

COOPER: I haven't heard of this happening before. Has this happened before?

GREENBERG: Oh, yes. As in Susan's report, it has happened before. It happens about once a year on ships. It's not unusual. I mean, when you think about this, what is a cruise ship? The CDC guy said it himself. It's a floating petri dish if it's not properly maintained.

You have no where else to go. You're in a contained environment. So if something starts, it spreads quickly.

COOPER: I don't think they're going to be using that in the ads, floating petri dish.

GREENBERG: That's a fun cruise, baby.

COOPER: All right. Peter Greenberg, thanks for coming in.

GREENBERG: You got it.

COOPER: Well coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the unfortunate story of a good guy with a bad guy's name. And the school where the good guys learn how to get information out of the bad guys.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: With the capture of that top al Qaeda operative, authorities are racing to answer two broad questions -- what was his role in terror attacks, and more importantly, what does he know about future attacks? Getting the answers will depend heavily on the people doing the questioning. We thought we'd take a look at how interrogation works. While it may seem like an art, there is a science behind it as well. The story from Mike Boettcher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Captured fighters on the Afghan battlefield, each one a potential goldmine of information. But how does the army get at the information locked inside the mind of the enemy? After 63 days in Arizona, these U.S. Army trainees will know how. Here at the U.S. Army intelligence training center, at Fort Wachuka, student soldiers learn the steps to breaking a prisoner.

MICHAEL GOULARTE, SPECIALIST: I think a lot of people get this impression, interrogation is just this real big, intimidating thing. You know, it's like a dark room and all this like -- almost like detectives, pushing you and shining a light in your face, when really it's not. It's very methodical. BOETTCHER: Through exercises with role players and instructors, student interrogators practice their techniques. Here Private Timothy Schultz uses an approach labeled pride and ego down, trying to deflate an arrogant enemy special forces prisoner, whose pride is his armor against questioning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My understanding is special forces soldiers fight and --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't want to risk of lives of my men.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, your men? Do you even know where your men are now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

BOETTCHER: And combines that with an incentive approach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll tell you what, let's talk here, you answer my questions, we'll get done here, I'll even bring you to your men.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll get me to my men?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?

BOETTCHER: One instructor, who asked that his identity not be revealed, recently returned from Afghanistan, where he questioned suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. As is the gays with prisoners of any type, many in Afghanistan respond to a simple, direct approach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would be amazed at what a kind word and cup of hot cocoa on a 15 degree night will get you as far as information.

BOETTCHER: The tough image the U.S. military projects in the world can also work to the advantage of interrogators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of them are scared out of their skin anyways. And, you know, they knew that we were Americans and -- but they didn't really know exactly where in the structure we fit, you know.

BOETTCHER (on camera): Did the reactions vary according to their status inside the Taliban or al Qaeda? I mean, were those with higher ranking status harder?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, actually, oddly enough, it's seemed the opposite. One of the highest-ranking al Qaeda guys that came through, I was amazed. They brought him in; he started crying. He was one of the ones that peed his pants before we said a thing to him.

BOETTCHER: There are rarely ah-ha moments, instead small puzzle pieces of information that can be key to knowing an enemy's plans.

BOETTCHER (on camera): Do you believe the information you were able to gather from the interrogations saved lives?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know that they did. I know for a fact that it did.

BOETTCHER: Mike Boettcher, CNN, Fort Wachuka, Arizona

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A few other items making news around the world tonight. Starting off the coast of Spain, high winds today pushing another wave of oil from a sunken tanker to shore. The rough weather making it hard to contain the slick or do anything about the oil remaining inside the tanker.

A United Nations aide worker died today in the West Bank City of Jenin. He was killed in a shoot-out between Israeli and Palestinian forces. No word yet where the bullet came from.

Still to come, on NEWSNIGHT, turducken? What is it? Freak of nature or demon spawn? We'll hear from Chef Paul Prudhomme.

And the nightmare of one man who has the same name as an al Qaeda detainee. Just how do you get off an FBI watch list?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The FBI's director took issue today with reports the bureau is falling to meet the challenge of terrorism.

In a letter to "The New York Times" Robert Mueller writes: "We are a different FBI than we were a year ago...never before has the FBI undertaken such a transformation." And he goes on to say, "That the more than 27,000 dedicated people in this organization have answered that call."

The letter comes the day after a memo surfaced in which the bureau's second in command scolded his field offices for not answering the call or not doing it quickly or imaginatively enough.

One of the things the FBI did do quickly in the days following the 9/11 attacks, was circulate a list. It was a list of people the bureau wanted to interview. Some were terror suspects, others people who may have known them. What if you found out your name was on the list,, not because you'd done something wrong, but because you happen to have the same name as a suspected terrorist? As one man has found out, once your name is on this list, it is virtually impossible to get it off. Here is CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every time Asif Iqbal flies this is what he goes through. The 30-year-old computer software expert is stopped and questioned by police or FBI agents.

ASIF IQBAL, ON THE FBI WATCH LIST: This is absolutely humiliating and embarrassing. And this is the treatment that I'm getting with the airline that I've flown maybe 90 plus times. If I were to go to a brand new airline and fly, it would be a whole bigger scene.

FEYERICK (voice over): The reason he's stopped -- documents obtained by CNN show his name is on a government watch list. Airline computers lock down whenever Asif Iqbal's name comes up.

Given that you've been checked 94 times and cleared 94 times, have you asked any official for a letter saying this guy is clear to fly?

IQBAL: The way the system has been implemented, there is nothing that you can do, that show an ID and you would get by. The computer simply locks up.

FAYERICK: Asif Iqbal is a common Pakistani name. The 20-year-old al Qaeda fighter in custody at Guantanamo Bay has the same name. Problem solved? Not exactly, because after the September 11th attacks the FBI, breaking protocol, handed out watch lists asking everyone to be on the lookout for people the FBI wanted to question.

Car rental agencies got copies, so did banks, casinos and private businesses, which quickly helped spread the names around the world. The FBI says those early lists soon became obsolete, but the Genie was out of the bottle. Immigration lawyer Sohail Mohammed.

SOHAIL MOHAMMED, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: The way our agencies work, don't share the information. And I think this was one example where they're trying to share the information and they just didn't know how to do it.

FEYERICK: One FBI official blames private companies for circulating the list. Saying unauthorized copies are not the agency's problem. As for the people who have turned up on the watch list, the FBI director says -

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: As soon as we determine they do not present a threat, and assuming there are no outstanding warrants or there are any -- there are no outstanding immigration holds on the individual, then they immediately come off the watch list.

FEYERICK: Still Asif Iqbal, the computer expert with the popular name, continues to be stopped at airports. He's been lobbying the FBI and new transportation security administration, the TSA, to fine tune watch lists by adding birth dates or ID numbers. The FBI wrote him a letter saying they sympathize with his frustration, but like the TSA, can do nothing.

IQBAL: They should be reallocating their resources and going after the bad guys. This system the way it is -- it seems like they're going to come to me for the rest of my life.

FEYERICK: The Justice chief says agents will continue to share names and other information with the public. Following a meeting to address Iqbal's problem, one U.S. official gave him some friendly advice -- change his name.

FEYERICK (on camera): Who was it that made that suggestion?

IQBAL: It was the director of civil rights.

FEYERICK: You see irony there?

IQBAL: Oh, absolutely.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A few other stories to mention tonight. The first is about the Space Shuttle Endeavor. It shouldn't be sitting there on the launch pad, right now, at the Kennedy Space Center. That's a live picture. With nine minutes to go, NASA stopped the countdown for the Endeavor liftoff. Bad weather was to blame. They will try again tomorrow night.

And 39 years ago today President Kennedy was assassinated, but it wasn't that number in a way that struck us, it's this number -- 85. That's how old President Kennedy would be today.

NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment with a Thanksgiving tale, turducken. A turkey that's also a duck, that's also a chicken. Legendary Chef Paul Prudhomme will explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: All right, we like to think that NEWSNIGHT is all about diversity of thought. Trying to do things just a little bit differently. So when we do turkey tips for Thanksgiving, we don't think Butterball, we think exotic. For you vegetarians there's always the Tofurkey, a big lump of tofu and wheat, billed as having incredible turkey-like texture and flavor. Yeah?

Then for the people who never met a living thing they didn't want to kill and eat, there's the turducken. The turkey stuff with a duck, that's stuffed with a chicken, turducken, get it. They get it.

The definitely get it in the South, but considering it was Front Page news in "The New York Times" this week, the turducken's global conquest may well be underway, at least if Chef Prudhomme has his way. He joins us now from New Orleans.

Chef Paul, thanks for being with us.

Now, I understand you want to do for turducken what you did for Cajun food. You want to get the name turducken out there across the whole country. So, let's start now. What is turducken?

CHEF PAUL PRUDHOMME: What I really want to do is make people happy. Because, see, that's my job. I'm a cook. If you're a good cook, you make people happy. Turducken is what you said it was. It's one of those wonderful things that when you serve it, whether it's on Thanksgiving, or any other holiday, or just a good regular Sunday with the family reunion, when you serve it, people anticipate. Because it's unusual, it's wonderful, it has a great taste. And it has multiple tastes to it and it has more than one flavor and those flavors match. It really gives it a great wonderful, celebration-type feeling.

COOPER: Let me just interrupt. I don't understand how this works. How do you get a chicken inside a duck, and then inside a turkey?

PRUDHOMME: Actually, once you experienced at it, Anderson, it's pretty easy. What we do is we make the stuffing first. By the way, we have a recipe for this, and you have it on your web site. It's also on my web site, www.chefpaul.com. So, you can go get the recipe.

But the idea is that there's a procedure to make it easy. There's a way of making everything easy or hard. With this one, you make the dressings and cool them down. Then after the three dressings are made, one of them is a shrimp dressing, one is a cornbread dressing and the other is Andouille sausage, which is a Louisiana wonderful smoked sausage dressing.

And once those are made and cooled down you debone the turkey, the duck and the chicken. They lay out flat. With a turkey, you leave an area in it where the thigh goes, you take the bone out of the thigh but you don't break it all the way out, so it is still a connection there.

COOPER: Is that the turducken right there in front of you?

PRUDHOMME: The bone is still in the thigh.

That's the turducken, right here.

COOPER: So, if you could point to that, what are the different layers that we're seeing there? I guess, the outer layer is the turkey?

PRUDHOMME: I'll be happy to point them out. I'll be happy to point them out. See, this is the turkey, the first layer. And the second layer is the corn bread dressing. The third layer, which is right in here, that's the duck. And then the dressing that's in the duck, that's the Andouille sausage dressing. And then there's chicken down here, and that has corn bread dressing in it.

So, that's the three dressings, that's the thing that really makes it a wonderful flavor. The other thing is that we cook it at a very low temperature. And we cook it for a long time so it stays juicy, it's absolutely wonderful to eat. And can you eat it for days and days and days and days.

COOPER: Well, about the only thing I know how to cook is cereal. So, part of my question, because I'm sure it's a moronic question, but how do you get all the bones out of that thing? PRUDHOMME: You do it very carefully, so you don't cut yourself. But I'll tell you, it's really not as hard as it sounds because there's a structure, all the flesh is on the outside of the bone structure, except the legs and the thighs. So you start right on the back and the skin has less meat on the backbone than anywheres else. So you cut the skin. And then you literally take a knife, and you tease it.

What I mean by that, is that the bone is here, and the skin is here, and you just go in between, you tease it like this. And as do you that, the skins falls away, And you just follow the bone and scrape it. When you get to the thigh and the wing, then it gets a little more difficult, you just go around the wing of the bone. And you pull the meat back and then you cut the wing off. That's just about what it is. I mean it's just -- after you do it a time or two, it makes it easy.

COOPER: Do people actually go out and make these, or can you go out and just and buy a pre-made turducken?

PRUDHOMME: Well, it's like anything else in the world. How good can you want it? You know? I mean, if you want it really good, you should do it fresh at home. It takes a while, but if you get the neighbors involved or your brothers and sisters, get the whole family together, get the kids going with it. You know, then it's a very fun thing and it's exciting. When you get this thing at the dinner table that you've built yourself, it's absolutely wonderful.

But you can also go to the butcher, you can get a boned out bird at the butcher. And then make the dressings and put them in. Can you simplify it many different ways. You could just use one dressing all the way through it.

COOPER: Just for our audience, who is just like salivating at this point, what does this thing taste like?

PRUDHOMME: It's going to taste -- I mean, can you imagine how it would feel to have your fantasy girlfriend in front of you, and you're 16 years old, and you're just going to get your first kiss. That's the way it feels, Anderson. I've been through it a lot of times. When you put the sweet potato-eggplant gravy on this, and that's what this is. This is a sweet potato roasted eggplant gravy and you put that on this turducken, it's like one of those one of those wonderful, exciting, juicy kisses.

COOPER: My executive producer, who I can barely hear in my ear, because he is salivating and drooling so hard, wants to know what wine to serve with this.

PRUDHOMME: This is the type of thing you should serve your favorite wine with, because it has multiple flavors to it. Red would go with it. I mean, nothing does not go with it. You should always -- never overbuy the wine because it's a holiday. You want to buy the wine that you normally like that you enjoy. And you have that with this, and you'll just be absolutely ecstatic. And the family will be.

If you use the recipe that I've done, there's dressing left over, so everybody can have extra servings and there's lots of gravy.

COOPER: OK. Chef Paul, we so appreciate you joining us from your lodgings (ph), from Cape Paul (ph). Give us your web site again, so for those who want to look up this turducken piece can look it up.

PRUDHOMME: Well, it's www.chefpaul.com. I'll tell you one more thing -- good cooking, good eating, good loving, that's what this turducken is. I love you guys!

COOPER: Thanks very much, Paul. Appreciate it.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, Samantha slithers into the sunset. Our "Segment 7" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, we regret to inform you of the passing of Samantha R. Python, who died at home yesterday in New York City.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice over): There's no telling exactly how old Ms. Python was. She came to this country from Borneo as an adult in 1993, but her other vital statistics were matters of record. She was 26 feet long, weighed 275 pounds. This made Ms. Python the largest of her kind in captivity anywhere.

In her illustrious career as a star attraction at the Bronx Zoo, Ms. Python was visited by something like a million people a year. Crowds were always thickest on the one day a month Mr. Python was fed a still warm euthanized 25- or 30-pound pig, which she would spend a quarter hour swallowing and a week digesting.

Samantha R., her middle name was Reticulated, died of natural causes. Her nearest surviving relatives are four pairs of shoes and eight handbags, all of Palm Beach, Florida. And a belt of Paris, France.

Eventually, when the necessary arrangements have been made, Ms. Python will lay in state at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

Those who knew her best said she was mellow and easy going. Evidently, however, she could also be a real handful, or 18 real handfuls, to be exact. So long, to a so long star. RIP, S.R.P.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: That is NEWSNIGHT for this evening. I'll be back tomorrow at 10. Aaron is back on Monday. Have a great weekend.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 22, 2002 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening, everyone. I'm Anderson Cooper.
You may have seen the pictures coming out of Nigeria today. Terrible violence surrounding the Miss World pageant. There was a big decision involving the pageant today. They're moving it to London. We'll look at that and what set off the riots in a moment.

But we thought it important tonight to remember the story behind this story, the original controversy. The one the violence of the past few days now threatens to overshadow. It's a story about a young woman in Nigeria, not the one representing her nation in the Miss World pageant. This woman, does, however, represent something about Nigeria: injustice. The injustice of a brutal archaic form of Islamic law that holds sway in parts of that country and parts of the world.

This woman's name is Amina Lawal (ph); that is her there. And an Islamic court in Nigeria has sentenced her to death by stoning. Her crime, having a child out of wedlock.

So what happens to her now, we wonder. The government of Nigeria has promised, or they had promised to prevent the stoning. Some speculated that was because they wanted to keep the pageant from relocating. Now that it is relocating, we can only hope that they'll keep their word.

And it's that story, that decision that leads "The Whip" for us tonight. Jeff Koinange is on the video phone for us in Kaduna, Nigeria. Jeff, the headline.

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN LAGOS BUREAU CHIEF: Good morning from Kaduna, Anderson, where scores are dead and hundreds injured, as the country's latest violence leads to cancellation, in Nigeria at least, of what's generally considered one of the world's most watched television shows -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Jeff, we'll check back with you in a moment. More now on that capture of a top al Qaeda operative. Kelli Arena is in Washington with that. Kelli, the headline.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, U.S. officials are interrogating Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in the hopes that he will lead them to Osama bin Laden. Now, he's got a lot to say, but not much of it has been very useful yet.

COOPER: All right, Kelli. We'll check in with you. The latest now on another cruise ship that's made some passengers sick. Susan Candiotti is following that story from Miami. Susan, the headline.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello. Disney cruises are designed for family fun. A stomach virus is not on the itinerary. For the second time this week, a virus has hit two different ocean liners -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Back with all of you in a moment.

Also coming up tonight, a Miss World finalist from 1999 who has spoken out passionately about the rights of women in Nigeria, Natasha Allas. Not all serious stuff tonight. However, it is Friday, after all.

We'll look at a Thanksgiving delicacy that clogs your arteries just talking about it. That's it right there live. The turducken. The turkey stuffed with a duck that's stuffed with a chicken. We'll talk with that man right there, legendary chef, Paul Prudhomme.

And remembering a life well lived. A fond farewell to the Grand Damme of the Bronx, a great old gal named Samantha.

All of that to come in the hour ahead. We being with the last minute change of venue for the Miss World pageant. Ordinarily, we couldn't imagine a situation in which a beauty contest would be leading a newscast. But then again, we couldn't have imagined a beauty contest tearing an already divided country even further apart.

We couldn't have imagined riots breaking out or dozens of people dying, but all of that has been happening in Nigeria, the site of the Miss World pageant until a few hours ago. So tonight, the organizers decided to pull out of Africa, at least for this year, and relocate the pageant to London. The story now from CNN's Jeff Koinange.

KOINANGE: Anderson, and what sparked the latest violence was a newspaper article from the local daily. In the article, it stated that if the prophet Mohammed were alive today, he would pick one of the beauty contestants as one of his wives. This sparked a wave of violence throughout the northern corridor of Nigeria.

In Kaduna, where we are right now, they burned the local newspaper headquarters and they went out on a killing spree. On Thursday, Muslims went after Christians throughout the city. Dozens were reported killed on that day.

On Friday, during the Muslim day of prayer, Christians turned on Muslims. All this, prompted event organizers to say this cannot go on, the show cannot go on despite pleas from Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who said the girls' safety would be guaranteed. This call was not heeded by the event organizers.

They called a press conference late in the evening, rescheduling the venue to London. Muslim groups are praising this as a victory, a lot of Nigerians are seeing this as a missed opportunity. They regret this because they put so much effort into it.

This was a way to showcase Nigeria in a way that Nigeria is not generally seen. They literally had the stage, the world watching them. As you well know, an estimated two billion people are scheduled to watch the event. This time, they're not going to be watching it out of a booth, Anderson. They'll be watching it out of London.

COOPER: Jeff, in the city you're in, Kaduna, it's the site of where most of this violence has been. Is the violence continuing where you are now?

KOINANGE: As of this evening, Anderson, most of the violence has petered down. The president had called in the police and riot squads. Tensions were still high, but it seemed pretty much in control. Residents were returning to their homes, which is a good sign that at least peace and stability was slowly returning to this city, but that is not going to appease the Miss World contestants or the organizers.

They want to get out of Nigeria as soon as they can and leave the Nigerians to pick up the pieces of this latest violence -- Anderson.

COOPER: Well, Jeff, a lot of human rights groups and even some pageant officials and pageant contestants have protested having the Miss World pageant in Nigeria because of this death sentence for this woman who will be stoned to death. Now the government in Nigeria had said they would stop the stoning in a response to a lot of this protest. Now that the pageant is moving out of Nigeria, any sense of what is going to happen to this woman?

KOINANGE: Well, right now, since it's the Muslim holy month of Ramada, Anderson, all court cases have been postponed until December and beyond. I spoke to the woman's lawyer -- Amina Lawal's lawyer. She told me the death sentence still stands at September 25, 2003.

There are appeals in process. They plan to appeal this. They hope that their client will not be stoned to death, but that death sentence still stands. And even though the Nigerian government says they will fight the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as much as they can to make sure that this does not happen, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Accords, as you well know, they govern this northern territory of this country. Your call is as good as mine, Anderson, whether this woman will be stoned to death later next year -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Jeff Koinange from Kaduna, Nigeria, stay safe. Thank you very much for joining us tonight.

And joining us now from Los Angeles is Natasha Alles, who competed in the Miss World pageant in 1999 and who very much opposed holding the pageant this year in Nigeria. Welcome to the program.

NATASHA ALLAS, MISS WORLD USA 2000: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Now you had opposed this all along, the pageant being in Nigeria. Why?

ALLAS: Well, because of the story that you just saw. Because of Amina and because of the human rights violations as far as the treatment of women. And the fact that she's being stoned to death for adultery.

So I was contacted by Amnesty International about two months ago, and I wrote a letter to the Miss World organization saying that I was not in support of them having the pageant in Nigeria. I thought it was highly inappropriate for this beauty pageant.

COOPER: In a sense then, you're not really surprised at the violence that has taken place. I mean, in the last two days or so, dozens of people have literally died over this issue. Who is to blame for this? I mean do you look at pageant organizers and say, why didn't you stop this? Why didn't you think of this?

ALLAS: No. I mean I think that it wasn't a good decision for them to have the pageant in Nigeria. For the reasons they decided to do it, I don't know. I wanted an answer, which is why I wrote the letter and which is why a couple of other titleholders wrote a letter as well.

I think that a lot of what happened maybe was sparked by irresponsible journalism. I think the gentleman who made the comment in the paper was completely out of line and inappropriate. I don't think that the pageant is what's to blame for the violence. I think that they just wanted a reason for the violence, and the pageant has been a spark, and so was the comment by the gentleman from this day.

COOPER: Are you still hopeful that this death sentence on this young woman who had the child out of wedlock will be turned over?

ALLAS: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely we are. That's why I was contacted by Amnesty International and the human rights organizations that have been fighting for Amina and her freedom for a long time. I mean, when the pageant had announced it was going to be held in Nigeria, then it was more of a platform for girls like myself to speak out against it and say that we were not in support of the pageant being held there.

COOPER: Very briefly, I know you have tried to contact some other very big celebrities who have been in the Miss World pageant before. I believe Linda Carter, Halle Berry. Did you get any response from them?

ALLAS: No, I sent them letters to their agents and managers in hopes that they would send their own letters to the Miss World organization. Halle Berry was Miss World USA 10 years ago and Linda Carter 20 years ago. They both represented this country, as I did, at the Miss World pageant.

So because they're celebrities and Halle Berry is a big film star, we were hoping that they could put some added pressure on to changing the venue before any of this had happened.

COOPER: All right. Natasha Allas, I appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you very much.

ALLAS: Thank you.

COOPER: We go now to a story that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) just a few moments ago. Soon to be reported in the pages of "Newsweek" magazine. Word that money sent to a number of the 9/11 hijackers might -- and I want to emphasize "might" -- be traceable to the government of Saudi Arabia.

"Newsweek's" Michael Isikof has been working the story and he joins us now in Washington. Michael, the story is literally just a few moments old for us. Tell us what you know.

MICHAEL ISIKOF, NEWSWEEK: Well, it's been percolating behind the scenes for some time, but basically, the FBI and the congressional Joint Intelligence Committee inquiry into 9/11, the investigators, have uncovered evidence that payments were made through the bank account of the wife of a senior Saudi diplomat to two individuals, two Saudi students in San Diego who provided substantial assistance and who befriended two of the key hijackers who participated in the events of 9/11, Khalid Amidar (ph) and Nuwaf al-Hasmi (ph).

The payments to these -- to the two students started just a couple of months after the hijackers arrived in the United States. $3,500 a month until July 2001, when one of the students, who had provided the most assistance to the hijackers, who had arranged to get them an apartment, who helped pay their rent, who introduced them to the Muslim community in San Diego, that guy left the country two months before September 11. And then the payments resumed to one of his confederates, who had also befriended the hijackers.

So this has raised the question, although, as you stressed, it's far from conclusive, but it's raised the question as to whether Saudi government funds were routed to the September 11 hijackers.

COOPER: There's a lot to talk about this. And we should sort of get into some of the details. First of all, in your story, you say that the Saudi government official is the Saudi ambassador to the United States. And it's the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States...

ISIKOF: Well, it's the wife to the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar (ph). This is princess Haifa (ph).

COOPER: And the money from her bank account that was sent to originally one Saudi student in San Diego, a man by the name of Bayumi (ph), I believe?

ISIKOF: Right, yes. Omar al-Bayumi (ph), who has been under FBI investigation for a considerable amount f time.

COOPER: Now, we don't know for -- at this point, you do not know why that money was sent?

ISIKOF: There has been no explanation for why such a high- ranking official or the wife of such a high-ranking official would route money to a seeming nobody in San Diego. Now, it is also pointed out by Saudi diplomats and people who work for the Saudi government that it is not uncommon as a form of Muslim charity for wealthy Saudis to provide financial assistance to struggling students in the United States. So there could be an innocent explanation for this.

COOPER: But at this point, we just do not know what the connection is.

ISIKOF: We just do not know. But the circumstantial evidence by the committee, the timing of the payments coming shortly -- the guy, Omar al-Bayumi (ph), who got the bulk of the money, had been in the United States for some time since 1995. He didn't start to get these payments until just after the hijackers arrived. And that's precisely the time he began providing assistance to the hijackers.

Now, he has maintained that he had no idea that they were on any sort of terrorist mission, that he knew nothing of their al Qaeda ties. But the FBI has been suspicious about large elements of his account and, as the FBI confirmed as recently as today, he remains under investigation. He is somebody who the FBI would very much like to put into custody.

COOPER: As you say in your story, too, he also very quickly befriended these two when they arrived in the San Diego area. He threw them a party.

ISIKOF: Right. As soon as -- threw them a welcoming party, introduced them to the Muslim community, got them an apartment right next door to his, and even helped pay their rent for the first couple of months.

COOPER: He has now disappeared into Saudi Arabia. He was in England for a while, he was held there, I believe on a visa technicality, and then was finally released and is now back in Saudi Arabia. Do we know where the other person is, this...

ISIKOF: The other guy actually has recently pled guilty to visa fraud. He is identified by federal agents as a known al Qaeda sympathizer. This is the other guy getting the money from this account who celebrated the events of -- the heroes of September 11 and talked about what a wonderful glorious day it has been.

He also had befriended the hijackers, but there was no direct evidence tying him to the events of the plot of September 11. He was convicted of visa fraud and he has been deported to Saudi Arabia.

COOPER: So they're both in Saudi Arabia right now as far as we know?

ISIKOF: Yes, correct.

COOPER: Michael Isikof, thank you so much. If you want to read more about this story, it's right now on the newsweek.com Web site. It is a fascinating story. Obvious one we'll be following for the next couple of days, no doubt. Michael, thank you very much for joining us.

ISIKOF: Thank you. COOPER: More now on the captured al Qaeda leader. What he's been telling interrogators and what more he might have to say. Here again, CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Government officials say it's likely captured al Qaeda operative, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, knows about terror plots now under way. Experts save he may also know the location of active cells, weapons factories and cashes.

KENNETH KATZMAN, MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: He presumably would know what else is being planned right now in the Persian Gulf region, which appears to be his responsibility. So there's a very good chance we're disrupting with his capture some things that were in the works.

ARENA: Sources say al-Nashiri is talking and that his interrogation has already led the FBI to warn about possible large- scale maritime attacks. Officials say that is his specialty. He allegedly helped plan the bombing of the USS Cole.

But obviously they want more information out of him. The key, according to a former FBI interrogator, is finding his weak spot.

CINDY CAPPS, CENTER FOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE STUDIES: Every person has a button that can be pushed, but you have to find the button.

ARENA: Terror experts rank al-Nashiri among the top 25 al Qaeda leaders. One source says he attended the infamous al Qaeda meeting at this building in Kuala Lumpur in January of 2000. It was chaired by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who government officials believe masterminded the September 11 attacks.

While al-Nashiri may divulge information that is damaging to al Qaeda in the near term, experts say there's only one way to do permanent damage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing that's really going to devastate al Qaeda would be to find the top leadership, bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. They are the charisma, they are the ethos behind the organization.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Experts say because the two men are still at large, al Qaeda will have no problem recruiting new members to replace those who are now in custody -- Anderson.

COOPER: Kelli, do we know anything about the conditions this man is being held under or where he's being held?

ARENA: We don't know where he's being held, but we do know he's in U.S. custody, which means that as he's being interrogated he's not subject to torture. He is subject to the laws that govern U.S. interrogations, Anderson. COOPER: OK. Because the person in your piece talked about finding the right buttons to push, and often those buttons are involving a third country whose techniques might be a little bit more persuasive, I suppose.

ARENA: Well, interrogators have said that those buttons include many things. One is, is he worried about his family and their safety? Is he worried about possibly being, as you said, transferred to the custody of a third country, where torture might be included in the interrogation? Might they have other information where they, you know, tell him that they have someone else being held and he's worried about that person's safety. So it just depends on where they find his vulnerabilities and how to exploit them.

COOPER: Right. All right, Kelli Arena, thank you very much tonight. Appreciate the update.

A bit later tonight, the methods used by interrogators, some of which Kelli just mentioned, and how they learn their craft. Mike Boettcher takes us inside an Army training school for interrogators. It's a very interesting look.

Also ahead on NEWSNIGHT, what is in a name? Ask that of the man with the same name as a suspected al Qaeda terrorist. Then we'll go to the school where they teach American soldiers interrogation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: So if there was such a thing as a squirm meter, the needle in this next story would definitely be in the red. It is about a cruise ship and the passengers who got a nasty virus on board. Now that is squirm worthy enough, we think. But get this -- the ship isn't the same ship we were talking about last night. This is another one. Here's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): A vacation gone awry for about 100 passengers and crew aboard the Disney ship Magic. An attack of the still unidentified virus making passengers and crew sick to their stomachs and stuck in their state rooms.

DIXIE FANSOM, SPOKESWOMAN: We're taking every precaution necessary to make sure that we don't have a recurrence.

CANDIOTTI: A recurrence of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, just experienced by more than 500 passengers who contracted the Norwalk virus on the same Holland American cruise ship in its last four sailings. Some passengers who were on the Amsterdam called their cruise a nightmare, sick or not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just felt (UNINTELLIGIBLE) all the time and you weren't having as good a time as you would have normally.

CANDIOTTI: Travel agent Isaac Ever has been fielding calls from cruise customers with vacations coming up. He and his family are booked on a Disney cruise in a couple of weeks.

ISAAC EVER, TRAVEL AGENT: It's a serious illness and I have two young children. But I know that it will be OK.

CANDIOTTI: The Centers for Disease Control is investigating the latest viral outbreak. Cruise ships especially susceptible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: where you have lots of people in a contained environment, a real common way for it to get spread is contamination of surfaces that people touch.

CANDIOTTI: The Norfolk virus, nearly as common as the common cold, has hit eight cruises since last May. In July, it attacked a Holland American Alaskan cruise. Martin Massey died a week later. While his widow does not allege the virus itself was the cause, his family and about 200 others are part of a class action lawsuit against the cruise line, alleging the company did not sufficiently disinfect the ship and warn them ahead of time of a previous outbreak.

BARBARA DEELY, FORMER PASSENGER: I don't know how Holland America could ever compensate for the damages, mental and physical, that were caused to us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: Holland America would not comment on that lawsuit. As for the Amsterdam, it continues to be out of service while the cruise line scrubs it down from end to end. As for Disney's Magic, it is due in port tomorrow morning, Saturday morning, and is scheduled to go back out again Saturday night.

Now, if any passenger doesn't want to go, they do qualify for a full refund or their trip can be rescheduled. That was not the case with Holland America passengers when they arrived for their cruise last week and were told about the viral outbreak. They would only get a full refund if they could win their argument on a case-by-case basis, according to the cruise line. Back to you, Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Susan Candiotti, thanks very much.

We're going to look into a little bit more about what is going on with these cruise ships. We thought we'd talk about all this with Peter Greenberg. He's a travel analyst and author of "The Travel Detective: A How-To Guide On Getting Great Travel Deals." Welcome. Thanks for being with us.

PETER GREENBERG, AUTHOR, "THE TRAVEL DETECTIVE": You bet.

COOPER: What is going on with these cruise ships?

GREENBERG: Well, as in Susan's report, I mean it doesn't happen that often. You now, when you think about it, having two ships happen within such a short period of time going out of two separate ports in Florida is a little unusual.

COOPER: Well, that's the thing. I mean, when it happened on the first ship, you said, OK, maybe they just didn't clean it well and it kept happening on the same ship. But now that it has either spread or a separate bug or something is on a second ship, it raises questions. I mean I guess you look for commonality.

GREENBERG: Well, sure. What happens is, if it just happened on one ship, you would want to isolate the passengers and see what they had in common, where did they congregate, what did they order for dinner, what did they all share in common that might lead you to the cause?

When you have two ships, you go beyond the passengers to see what did the ships have in common? Who supplied the ships, where did they get their meat, their produce, their vegetables? What could have happened there?

Is it just in the ventilation system? If it is, then it's a coincidence.

COOPER: Or perhaps they were in the same port of call and a supplier supplied a tainted meat or something like that.

GREENBERG: Exactly. Now traditionally, when you have a situation like this, when you have some gastrointestinal problems, it usually goes back to improper food handling, you could go right to the galley and find it. They haven't been able to find it.

COOPER: Do you feel safe? I mean would you take a cruise for Thanksgiving?

GREENBERG: Absolutely. Maybe not for Thanksgiving. I don't want to have that many kids on the ship or dysfunctional family members looking for turkey. But, the bottom line is, sure, I'd go back.

COOPER: Because?

GREENBERG: The incidence is still in your favor. I mean the percentages are still overwhelmingly in your favor. Cruise ships do a very good job. You know, the United States public health service inspects these ships on a regular basis to check for sanitation situations to make sure that these things don't happen. Every once in a while they do.

COOPER: But, you know, this first cruise line, I think it was Holland America, there were four different cruises and...

GREENBERG: Well, sure. That's a case of really bad public relations. Because once you've established you've got a problem, you don't keep sending the ship back out. They did it not once, not twice, but four separate times, over 500 people infected. Now they've learned their lesson and they've pulled the ship for the next 10 days minimum. If they can't find it in 10 days, that ship is still not going to go out because nobody wants to book that ship until they're absolutely sure it's clean.

COOPER: And it seems like initially they didn't isolate the passengers when they came off.

GREENBERG: No. They didn't isolate anybody because they were worried about disclosure. The lawsuits that are happening now are mostly based on the lack of full disclosure to the passengers on the second, third and fourth cruises. Not the first.

COOPER: I haven't heard of this happening before. Has this happened before?

GREENBERG: Oh, yes. As in Susan's report, it has happened before. It happens about once a year on ships. It's not unusual. I mean, when you think about this, what is a cruise ship? The CDC guy said it himself. It's a floating petri dish if it's not properly maintained.

You have no where else to go. You're in a contained environment. So if something starts, it spreads quickly.

COOPER: I don't think they're going to be using that in the ads, floating petri dish.

GREENBERG: That's a fun cruise, baby.

COOPER: All right. Peter Greenberg, thanks for coming in.

GREENBERG: You got it.

COOPER: Well coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the unfortunate story of a good guy with a bad guy's name. And the school where the good guys learn how to get information out of the bad guys.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: With the capture of that top al Qaeda operative, authorities are racing to answer two broad questions -- what was his role in terror attacks, and more importantly, what does he know about future attacks? Getting the answers will depend heavily on the people doing the questioning. We thought we'd take a look at how interrogation works. While it may seem like an art, there is a science behind it as well. The story from Mike Boettcher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Captured fighters on the Afghan battlefield, each one a potential goldmine of information. But how does the army get at the information locked inside the mind of the enemy? After 63 days in Arizona, these U.S. Army trainees will know how. Here at the U.S. Army intelligence training center, at Fort Wachuka, student soldiers learn the steps to breaking a prisoner.

MICHAEL GOULARTE, SPECIALIST: I think a lot of people get this impression, interrogation is just this real big, intimidating thing. You know, it's like a dark room and all this like -- almost like detectives, pushing you and shining a light in your face, when really it's not. It's very methodical. BOETTCHER: Through exercises with role players and instructors, student interrogators practice their techniques. Here Private Timothy Schultz uses an approach labeled pride and ego down, trying to deflate an arrogant enemy special forces prisoner, whose pride is his armor against questioning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My understanding is special forces soldiers fight and --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't want to risk of lives of my men.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, your men? Do you even know where your men are now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

BOETTCHER: And combines that with an incentive approach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll tell you what, let's talk here, you answer my questions, we'll get done here, I'll even bring you to your men.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll get me to my men?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?

BOETTCHER: One instructor, who asked that his identity not be revealed, recently returned from Afghanistan, where he questioned suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. As is the gays with prisoners of any type, many in Afghanistan respond to a simple, direct approach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would be amazed at what a kind word and cup of hot cocoa on a 15 degree night will get you as far as information.

BOETTCHER: The tough image the U.S. military projects in the world can also work to the advantage of interrogators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of them are scared out of their skin anyways. And, you know, they knew that we were Americans and -- but they didn't really know exactly where in the structure we fit, you know.

BOETTCHER (on camera): Did the reactions vary according to their status inside the Taliban or al Qaeda? I mean, were those with higher ranking status harder?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, actually, oddly enough, it's seemed the opposite. One of the highest-ranking al Qaeda guys that came through, I was amazed. They brought him in; he started crying. He was one of the ones that peed his pants before we said a thing to him.

BOETTCHER: There are rarely ah-ha moments, instead small puzzle pieces of information that can be key to knowing an enemy's plans.

BOETTCHER (on camera): Do you believe the information you were able to gather from the interrogations saved lives?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know that they did. I know for a fact that it did.

BOETTCHER: Mike Boettcher, CNN, Fort Wachuka, Arizona

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A few other items making news around the world tonight. Starting off the coast of Spain, high winds today pushing another wave of oil from a sunken tanker to shore. The rough weather making it hard to contain the slick or do anything about the oil remaining inside the tanker.

A United Nations aide worker died today in the West Bank City of Jenin. He was killed in a shoot-out between Israeli and Palestinian forces. No word yet where the bullet came from.

Still to come, on NEWSNIGHT, turducken? What is it? Freak of nature or demon spawn? We'll hear from Chef Paul Prudhomme.

And the nightmare of one man who has the same name as an al Qaeda detainee. Just how do you get off an FBI watch list?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The FBI's director took issue today with reports the bureau is falling to meet the challenge of terrorism.

In a letter to "The New York Times" Robert Mueller writes: "We are a different FBI than we were a year ago...never before has the FBI undertaken such a transformation." And he goes on to say, "That the more than 27,000 dedicated people in this organization have answered that call."

The letter comes the day after a memo surfaced in which the bureau's second in command scolded his field offices for not answering the call or not doing it quickly or imaginatively enough.

One of the things the FBI did do quickly in the days following the 9/11 attacks, was circulate a list. It was a list of people the bureau wanted to interview. Some were terror suspects, others people who may have known them. What if you found out your name was on the list,, not because you'd done something wrong, but because you happen to have the same name as a suspected terrorist? As one man has found out, once your name is on this list, it is virtually impossible to get it off. Here is CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every time Asif Iqbal flies this is what he goes through. The 30-year-old computer software expert is stopped and questioned by police or FBI agents.

ASIF IQBAL, ON THE FBI WATCH LIST: This is absolutely humiliating and embarrassing. And this is the treatment that I'm getting with the airline that I've flown maybe 90 plus times. If I were to go to a brand new airline and fly, it would be a whole bigger scene.

FEYERICK (voice over): The reason he's stopped -- documents obtained by CNN show his name is on a government watch list. Airline computers lock down whenever Asif Iqbal's name comes up.

Given that you've been checked 94 times and cleared 94 times, have you asked any official for a letter saying this guy is clear to fly?

IQBAL: The way the system has been implemented, there is nothing that you can do, that show an ID and you would get by. The computer simply locks up.

FAYERICK: Asif Iqbal is a common Pakistani name. The 20-year-old al Qaeda fighter in custody at Guantanamo Bay has the same name. Problem solved? Not exactly, because after the September 11th attacks the FBI, breaking protocol, handed out watch lists asking everyone to be on the lookout for people the FBI wanted to question.

Car rental agencies got copies, so did banks, casinos and private businesses, which quickly helped spread the names around the world. The FBI says those early lists soon became obsolete, but the Genie was out of the bottle. Immigration lawyer Sohail Mohammed.

SOHAIL MOHAMMED, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: The way our agencies work, don't share the information. And I think this was one example where they're trying to share the information and they just didn't know how to do it.

FEYERICK: One FBI official blames private companies for circulating the list. Saying unauthorized copies are not the agency's problem. As for the people who have turned up on the watch list, the FBI director says -

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: As soon as we determine they do not present a threat, and assuming there are no outstanding warrants or there are any -- there are no outstanding immigration holds on the individual, then they immediately come off the watch list.

FEYERICK: Still Asif Iqbal, the computer expert with the popular name, continues to be stopped at airports. He's been lobbying the FBI and new transportation security administration, the TSA, to fine tune watch lists by adding birth dates or ID numbers. The FBI wrote him a letter saying they sympathize with his frustration, but like the TSA, can do nothing.

IQBAL: They should be reallocating their resources and going after the bad guys. This system the way it is -- it seems like they're going to come to me for the rest of my life.

FEYERICK: The Justice chief says agents will continue to share names and other information with the public. Following a meeting to address Iqbal's problem, one U.S. official gave him some friendly advice -- change his name.

FEYERICK (on camera): Who was it that made that suggestion?

IQBAL: It was the director of civil rights.

FEYERICK: You see irony there?

IQBAL: Oh, absolutely.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A few other stories to mention tonight. The first is about the Space Shuttle Endeavor. It shouldn't be sitting there on the launch pad, right now, at the Kennedy Space Center. That's a live picture. With nine minutes to go, NASA stopped the countdown for the Endeavor liftoff. Bad weather was to blame. They will try again tomorrow night.

And 39 years ago today President Kennedy was assassinated, but it wasn't that number in a way that struck us, it's this number -- 85. That's how old President Kennedy would be today.

NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment with a Thanksgiving tale, turducken. A turkey that's also a duck, that's also a chicken. Legendary Chef Paul Prudhomme will explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: All right, we like to think that NEWSNIGHT is all about diversity of thought. Trying to do things just a little bit differently. So when we do turkey tips for Thanksgiving, we don't think Butterball, we think exotic. For you vegetarians there's always the Tofurkey, a big lump of tofu and wheat, billed as having incredible turkey-like texture and flavor. Yeah?

Then for the people who never met a living thing they didn't want to kill and eat, there's the turducken. The turkey stuff with a duck, that's stuffed with a chicken, turducken, get it. They get it.

The definitely get it in the South, but considering it was Front Page news in "The New York Times" this week, the turducken's global conquest may well be underway, at least if Chef Prudhomme has his way. He joins us now from New Orleans.

Chef Paul, thanks for being with us.

Now, I understand you want to do for turducken what you did for Cajun food. You want to get the name turducken out there across the whole country. So, let's start now. What is turducken?

CHEF PAUL PRUDHOMME: What I really want to do is make people happy. Because, see, that's my job. I'm a cook. If you're a good cook, you make people happy. Turducken is what you said it was. It's one of those wonderful things that when you serve it, whether it's on Thanksgiving, or any other holiday, or just a good regular Sunday with the family reunion, when you serve it, people anticipate. Because it's unusual, it's wonderful, it has a great taste. And it has multiple tastes to it and it has more than one flavor and those flavors match. It really gives it a great wonderful, celebration-type feeling.

COOPER: Let me just interrupt. I don't understand how this works. How do you get a chicken inside a duck, and then inside a turkey?

PRUDHOMME: Actually, once you experienced at it, Anderson, it's pretty easy. What we do is we make the stuffing first. By the way, we have a recipe for this, and you have it on your web site. It's also on my web site, www.chefpaul.com. So, you can go get the recipe.

But the idea is that there's a procedure to make it easy. There's a way of making everything easy or hard. With this one, you make the dressings and cool them down. Then after the three dressings are made, one of them is a shrimp dressing, one is a cornbread dressing and the other is Andouille sausage, which is a Louisiana wonderful smoked sausage dressing.

And once those are made and cooled down you debone the turkey, the duck and the chicken. They lay out flat. With a turkey, you leave an area in it where the thigh goes, you take the bone out of the thigh but you don't break it all the way out, so it is still a connection there.

COOPER: Is that the turducken right there in front of you?

PRUDHOMME: The bone is still in the thigh.

That's the turducken, right here.

COOPER: So, if you could point to that, what are the different layers that we're seeing there? I guess, the outer layer is the turkey?

PRUDHOMME: I'll be happy to point them out. I'll be happy to point them out. See, this is the turkey, the first layer. And the second layer is the corn bread dressing. The third layer, which is right in here, that's the duck. And then the dressing that's in the duck, that's the Andouille sausage dressing. And then there's chicken down here, and that has corn bread dressing in it.

So, that's the three dressings, that's the thing that really makes it a wonderful flavor. The other thing is that we cook it at a very low temperature. And we cook it for a long time so it stays juicy, it's absolutely wonderful to eat. And can you eat it for days and days and days and days.

COOPER: Well, about the only thing I know how to cook is cereal. So, part of my question, because I'm sure it's a moronic question, but how do you get all the bones out of that thing? PRUDHOMME: You do it very carefully, so you don't cut yourself. But I'll tell you, it's really not as hard as it sounds because there's a structure, all the flesh is on the outside of the bone structure, except the legs and the thighs. So you start right on the back and the skin has less meat on the backbone than anywheres else. So you cut the skin. And then you literally take a knife, and you tease it.

What I mean by that, is that the bone is here, and the skin is here, and you just go in between, you tease it like this. And as do you that, the skins falls away, And you just follow the bone and scrape it. When you get to the thigh and the wing, then it gets a little more difficult, you just go around the wing of the bone. And you pull the meat back and then you cut the wing off. That's just about what it is. I mean it's just -- after you do it a time or two, it makes it easy.

COOPER: Do people actually go out and make these, or can you go out and just and buy a pre-made turducken?

PRUDHOMME: Well, it's like anything else in the world. How good can you want it? You know? I mean, if you want it really good, you should do it fresh at home. It takes a while, but if you get the neighbors involved or your brothers and sisters, get the whole family together, get the kids going with it. You know, then it's a very fun thing and it's exciting. When you get this thing at the dinner table that you've built yourself, it's absolutely wonderful.

But you can also go to the butcher, you can get a boned out bird at the butcher. And then make the dressings and put them in. Can you simplify it many different ways. You could just use one dressing all the way through it.

COOPER: Just for our audience, who is just like salivating at this point, what does this thing taste like?

PRUDHOMME: It's going to taste -- I mean, can you imagine how it would feel to have your fantasy girlfriend in front of you, and you're 16 years old, and you're just going to get your first kiss. That's the way it feels, Anderson. I've been through it a lot of times. When you put the sweet potato-eggplant gravy on this, and that's what this is. This is a sweet potato roasted eggplant gravy and you put that on this turducken, it's like one of those one of those wonderful, exciting, juicy kisses.

COOPER: My executive producer, who I can barely hear in my ear, because he is salivating and drooling so hard, wants to know what wine to serve with this.

PRUDHOMME: This is the type of thing you should serve your favorite wine with, because it has multiple flavors to it. Red would go with it. I mean, nothing does not go with it. You should always -- never overbuy the wine because it's a holiday. You want to buy the wine that you normally like that you enjoy. And you have that with this, and you'll just be absolutely ecstatic. And the family will be.

If you use the recipe that I've done, there's dressing left over, so everybody can have extra servings and there's lots of gravy.

COOPER: OK. Chef Paul, we so appreciate you joining us from your lodgings (ph), from Cape Paul (ph). Give us your web site again, so for those who want to look up this turducken piece can look it up.

PRUDHOMME: Well, it's www.chefpaul.com. I'll tell you one more thing -- good cooking, good eating, good loving, that's what this turducken is. I love you guys!

COOPER: Thanks very much, Paul. Appreciate it.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, Samantha slithers into the sunset. Our "Segment 7" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, we regret to inform you of the passing of Samantha R. Python, who died at home yesterday in New York City.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice over): There's no telling exactly how old Ms. Python was. She came to this country from Borneo as an adult in 1993, but her other vital statistics were matters of record. She was 26 feet long, weighed 275 pounds. This made Ms. Python the largest of her kind in captivity anywhere.

In her illustrious career as a star attraction at the Bronx Zoo, Ms. Python was visited by something like a million people a year. Crowds were always thickest on the one day a month Mr. Python was fed a still warm euthanized 25- or 30-pound pig, which she would spend a quarter hour swallowing and a week digesting.

Samantha R., her middle name was Reticulated, died of natural causes. Her nearest surviving relatives are four pairs of shoes and eight handbags, all of Palm Beach, Florida. And a belt of Paris, France.

Eventually, when the necessary arrangements have been made, Ms. Python will lay in state at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.

Those who knew her best said she was mellow and easy going. Evidently, however, she could also be a real handful, or 18 real handfuls, to be exact. So long, to a so long star. RIP, S.R.P.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: That is NEWSNIGHT for this evening. I'll be back tomorrow at 10. Aaron is back on Monday. Have a great weekend.

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