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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Will Diplomacy Work With North Korea; Why Are So Many of Detroit's Children Being Murdered?; David Westerfield Sentenced to Death

Aired January 03, 2003 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again. I'm Aaron Brown.
We were struck the other day by an internal e-mail we received. Our booking department had done a quick survey of our military analysts about Iraq and how they see the issue playing out.

You'll hear from them all in just a bit, and, depending on where you find yourself on this issue, you'll either like what they have to say or you won't.

Without overly tipping our hand or theirs, we will say they all agree on how this is going to play out to on one degree or another, even as they disagree some on the reasons and the ramifications.

Two months from now, they all believe it is very likely the United States will have attacked Iraq. I suspect most of you think that as well, and I suspect most of you think that is a good and right thing to do. So consider a couple of questions tonight.

What if the weapons inspectors come back and say they didn't find anything significant? Then what? Saddam remains Saddam, dangerous, unpredictable, brutal, the same guy.

But what if he doesn't have those weapons or what if they are so well hidden the inspectors miss them? Then what? Hard to imagine the United Nations will give its blessing.

Does that matter? It's hard to imagine that, absent that sort of proof from the inspectors, many other countries will join such a fight.

Should that matter? Last summer, before he decided to go to the United Nations, the president said regime change was the goal, and the U.S. was prepared to go it alone.

Should we? Maybe the inspectors will find their smoking guns, and this question will be moot.

But what if they don't? Then what?

That's coming up later on the program.

"The Whip" starts us off as always. And first up, the crisis in North Korea playing out tonight in the capital of China. CNN's Lisa Rose Weaver is there.

Lisa, a headline please.

LISA ROSE WEAVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More tough talk from North Korea. A repetition of a demand for dialogue with the United States.

BROWN: Thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

Next, to Venezuela and the ongoing turmoil there. CNN's Ingrid Arnesen on the videophone.

A headline from you, please.

INGRID ARNESEN, CNN PRODUCER: Thirty days into the strike. Two dead. Seventy-seven victims. Violence erupts as peace negotiations fail.

BROWN: Ingrid, back to you, too, shortly.

And back home, with levels of most kinds of violent crime lower than they've been in years, there is also a sad counterpoint, and CNN's Jeff Flock has been working on that.

So, Jeff, a headline from you tonight.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, my headline is that, while we talk so much about terrorism and a war with Iraq, the fact is that, for the past year, the most vulnerable and youngest on the streets of Detroit have been terrorized. I'll have the story of their war against it later in the broadcast.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you very much. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up in the hour ahead, an absolutely riveting day in a San Diego courtroom as the parents of Danielle van Dam confront her killer. You'll hear what they had to say tonight.

Also tonight, the professor versus the Pentagon, the battle being waged over a missile-defense system. Theodore Postal is with us, and his accusations against one of the country's most respected universities are shocking.

And we close out the program and the week with one of the finest storytellers out there, Pete Hamill, and his story of the New Yorker who really has seen it all.

All of that in the hour ahead.

But, we begin again tonight with Korea. The North Koreans still calling for a non-aggression treaty with the United States. The United States again today saying no deal until North Korea's nuclear program is scuttled.

In public at least, the words have not changed. But, as we've been reporting all week, there are words going back and forth out of earshot between and among the players in Washington and in Asia.

Here again, CNN's Lisa Rose Weaver.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA ROSE WEAVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The demands were familiar: a dialogue with the United States and a guarantee. The non-aggression pact Pyongyang has been seeking as a condition of discussing its nuclear weapons program.

American unilateralism had forced North Korea's hand, the explanation went, and resulted in Pyongyang expelling weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

CHOE JIN SU, NORTH KOREAN AMBASSADOR TO CHINA (through translator): Running against the global trend of reconciliation and peace, the U.S. alone, with its cult war thinking, was threatening us with nuclear weapons. We were forced to take self-defensive measures against the threat for national dignity and for our right to exist.

WEAVER: The nuclear standoff is making matters worse, said North Korea. Details were not spelled out, but the statement later referred to the U.S. cutting off shipments of fuel oil, a move that would affect the country's ability to produce energy.

Pyongyang said, without a non-aggression pact, it does not believe Washington's conciliatory tone about military confrontation.

CHOE: As for the U.S. claim of no intention to invade our country and its willingness to solve the crisis through diplomatic channels, we don't believe these words.

WEAVER: The State Department's response to Pyongyang's offer was anything but conciliatory.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We're not going to enter into negotiations in response to threats or broken commitments. We're not going to bargain or offer inducements to North Korea to live up to treaties and agreements that it has signed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WEAVER: Now, Aaron, what we heard yesterday out of Beijing was not entirely new. The main demands coming from Pyongyang -- we heard this nearly a week ago when Pyongyang expelled some weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The diplomat reading the statement yesterday was also repeating something that Pyongyang's foreign ministry said a few days before. However, the fact that they are repeating a call to sit down with the United States may well be an indication of a sense of urgency growing in North Korea to do just so.

One possible reason: The oil shipments. The fuel oil shipments that the U.S. and other countries had been sending to that country now cut off. You know North Korea is a very, poor country with very minimal infrastructure. What little there is depends on oil like this.

So it stands to reason that the call to sit down with the U.S. -- that one aspect of that may be an effort to get those oil shipments flowing back into North Korea.

Now the next step in this story is in a couple of days from the International Atomic Energy Agency will -- say something about North Korea's nuclear program.

It's expected to give a very tough statement but not expected to take it to the U.N. Security Council, at least right now, giving perhaps another window of opportunity and more time for all sides to talk.

Also, we're expecting to see a lot more diplomatic pressure on China by U.S. officials to wield its influence on North Korea -- Aaron.

BROWN: And what exactly, other than, I suppose, asking really nicely, do we expect the Chinese -- does the United States expect the Chinese to do here?

WEAVER: Well, it's never been clear in very clear terms precisely what Washington can expect Beijing to do. All along Beijing has claimed that it maintains in constant contact with Pyongyang and will wield its influence. Exactly how it's doing it is becoming frustratingly unclear to observers and diplomats.

Now China has a lot of economic influence over North Korea. It seems unlikely that it would use economic health or support as a tool, in other words, threatening to pull away help from that country.

You have to remember that China would be the first country to bear the brunt of an even poorer and more unstable North Korea. So it doesn't seem likely that it would go the economic route.

Diplomatic pressure for sure because of the long ideological relationship between the two countries. No other country has quite the same sway as China -- Aaron.

BROWN: Lisa, thank you. Lisa Rose Weaver in Beijing tonight.

For more than a week now, the words "military option" and "North Korea" haven't crossed the president's lips. The focus has been and remains Iraq. That's where the troops are going.

Today, elements of the 45,000-member Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Pendleton, California, got the call. They'll join thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines either already in the Gulf or on the way.

Today, the president spoke at Fort Hood, Texas, to some of the men and women who are waiting for the world.

Here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A note of gratitude to the 4,000 soldiers at the nation's largest Army base.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Wherever you serve or wherever you may be sent, you can know that America is grateful and your commander in chief is confident in your abilities and proud of your service.

BASH: And a warning to Saddam Hussein that he will call on these men and women to attack Iraq if he has to.

BUSH: If force becomes necessary to secure our country and to keep the peace, America will act deliberately, America will act decisively, and America will prevail because we've got the finest military in the world.

BASH: Thousands of troops from Fort Hood served in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Are they ready to take on Saddam Hussein again?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the commander needs me, I will be there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm ready to do my part for my country and bring some people to justice.

BUSH: Our people are well fed right here.

BASH: Ordering roast beef and mashed potatoes in the mess, checking out the tanks, Mr. Bush made clear, while he believes they're ready for war and will prevail, giving the order will not be easy.

BUSH: I know that every order I give can bring a cost. I also know, without a doubt, that every order I give will be carried out with skill and unselfish courage.

BASH (on camera): The president had another message for the troops and for the world: If the U.S. does invade Iraq, he says they'll go there to liberate it, not conquer it.

Dana Bash, CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: One small counterpoint before moving on. Slate magazine's Saddameter, which tracks each day what the editors think the prospects for war are, slipped some recently from near 80 percent early last week to just 68 percent today. Just 68 percent. That's editors.

We've got generals. And, if you ask them about the prospects for war with Iraq, they think it is almost certain. We're joined by them today, all of them, the three of them.

Retired General Wesley Clark joins us from Little Rock, Arkansas, retired General David Grange is in Oak Brook, Illinois, and retired General Don Shepperd joins us tonight from Tucson, Arizona. It's good to see all of you. It's been a long time.

General Grange, let me start with you, if I may. You say war is virtually inevitable for a variety of reasons, and the one that intrigued me most was the one that has the least to do with Saddam specifically, and that is the importance of Iraq more broadly in the region.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Yes, I believe that Saddam Hussein is the intermediate objective. There's not a lot of talk about this.

But I believe that to go ahead and remove that regime, to then temporarily occupy Iraq, to change it from a fascist regime to some type of democratic governance will then give us a geopolitical advantage in that region to change the status quo, which will affect Iran, it will affect the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, it will affect the Hezbollah terrorist organizations.

And then, with the resources from Iraq, the oil, for example, will cause it to be able to transition very quickly and actually cause a big change, I think, in the Middle East.

BROWN: Before I move on, General, would you agree that that is the most optimistic assessment of each stage of the game that one could possibly reach?

GRANGE: Well, it's optimistic, and, hopefully, we're planning for good results, if we do conduct this attack, because we want it to be better than it is now. Otherwise, we shouldn't go there in the first place.

BROWN: All right. General Clark, let me go to you and the question I posed at the beginning of the program. What happens if the United -- if the U.N. inspectors come back and they have no clear proof, no picture like Adlai Stevenson had at the U.N. during the Cuban missile crisis? What then?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Well, I think that is what's likely to happen, Aaron, and I think that it's up to the president then to go forward on his own word. There are a certain percentage of people who believe he has secret information that's never been disclosed.

There are others who simply add up all the many reasons, neither -- none of which is convincing in itself, but, when you add it up and you say the credibility of the United States government's on the line and we do believe he has these weapons, I think that -- whatever the U.N. inspectors find, I think it's going to be very difficult for the president and the government of the United States to say, well, I guess -- OK. Since you didn't find anything, I guess, you know, maybe our intel's wrong, and so, therefore, we -- we won't go in.

No, we're going to go in on this unless something happens to Saddam, and it will be up to the administration to give the most cogent and persuasive explanation possible to the American people and to the world community.

Now all...

BROWN: Well, that -- excuse me. Doesn't that explanation in this scenario -- we're not sure it's what will happen -- have to begin with the U.N. inspectors fail to find what we know the Iraqis have?

CLARK: I think that's exactly right. They fail to find the evidence. You know, the scientists that they interviewed were all complicit in some way. Their families were threatened. We couldn't get them out of the country. Saddam may have appeared to be cooperative, but, underneath, they weren't cooperative.

And then there'll be a dribbling of information out there, the indicators. Intelligence is seldom as clear cut as Adlai Stevenson presented in the Cuban missile crisis. It's bits and pieces and fragments, and that story will come out.

BROWN: Let me -- I want to go to General Shepperd in a second, but let me just -- one more question on this point, General Clark. As a general, are those the circumstances -- given where the American people seem to be in that they would like the U.N. to be behind this effort, they don't really want the country to go it alone, at least the polls I've seen, is that the kind of circumstance you'd like to enter a war like this with?

CLARK: No, it's not the most desirable circumstances, but the United States won't enter alone in any case because the nations in the Persian Gulf by and large will line up.

They're tired of being at the center of the conflict, and they've told the United States, look, you know, you're out there, you're way out front on this thing, you've done as much as you can. OK. You don't get the -- but either do it or get out of the region.

And the United States is going to do it, and they will basically support it.

BROWN: General Shepperd, let me throw into this mix now North Korea and whether or not it has any affect on anything or is just an issue that tends to derail the way we look at something.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE: Well, North Korea is certainly an important issue, Aaron, but, on the other hand, the president is appropriately trying to push that back and deal with Iraq first and then deal diplomatically with North Korea.

The military action in North Korea would be devastating to South Korea. Nobody wants to see military action over there, and the president is doing everything he can to help this play out diplomatically. So it complicates the situation.

We would like to not have it going on. We'd like to deal with Iraq and then deal with North Korea later. Unfortunately, he's pushing to having to deal with both of them at the same time. Not ideal, but that's the hand he's dealt, Aaron. BROWN: General Grange, do you think enough time has been spent looking at the question of what happens after the war, this period of occupation of Iraq?

GRANGE: Well, you know, I don't know how much has been put into it. I'm sure a lot of work's been done.

You know, it's going to take a lot of troops for the initial transition before an international force comes in of some sort monitored by the United Nations to transition to this new type of democratic governance, whatever it looks like.

You have to disarm a lot of people. You have to keep factions from fighting each other -- the Sunni, the Shiite, the Kurds. You have to keep adjacent countries from interfering with this transition. So I think a lot of work's been done to do it right, but it's going to take some time.

And, you know, we haven't really finished or really accomplished a whole lot yet, the international community, in Afghanistan.

BROWN: And a good point. Let me -- final word tonight from General Clark. The thinking of all of you is that this will happen, if it happens -- and it probably will -- sometime mid-Februaryish. Tell me what can go wrong.

CLARK: Well, I think -- I think, if you assume that the president sets the diplomatic stage right, then you're looking at the risks of a preemptive strike by the Iraqis against the forces in Kuwait, but we're alert and ready for that.

You're looking at something being launched or started against Israel. We're certainly ready for that. There's been talk that Hezbollah might open up a northern front against Israel with a lot of rockets and so forth. I think the Israeli are ready for that, and they have made it clear to the Syrians they'd go all the way into Syria, if that happens, if necessary, to take out Hezbollah.

And then it's a matter of the sort of operations on the ground, and what you're going to see an air campaign with the ground forces moving forward. There's probably some tough river crossing to be done.

And then there's the problem of what happens if he uses a bioweapon against his own people, and what happens if he's successful in holing up inside Baghdad.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's again good to see you all. I feel like it's a conversation we just started, and we'll keep it going in the days and weeks ahead. Thank you and happy new year to all of you. Thank you very much.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, later in the program at least, we'll talk with Pete Hamill about his new novel and his city, which is New York. Also, a report on a terrible problem facing the parents in Detroit. Hard to imagine a worse problem. Too many children dying random, violent deaths in that troubled city.

And, up next, the trouble in Venezuela appears to get worse. Live report from the capital of Caracas.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A month into the crisis, the mess in Venezuela grows messier each day. Added to the mix today, tear gas fired by national guard troops and army soldiers, stones and bottles thrown by protesters. Two sides are squared off for and against the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The result is a crippled the economy and a question mark for the world's oil supply since Venezuela is the fifth largest exporter of oil.

CNN Producer Ingrid Arnesen reports tonight from Caracas on the videophone.

INGRID ARNESEN, CNN PRODUCER: Aaron, today in Venezuela, we witnessed the most violent outburst in 33 days of an oil strike, which has turned into a national strike. The total today: two dead, 77 injured.

It started originally with an opposition march that was supposed to gather at a military headquarter to demand the military to state firmly their position regarding the strike.

That was met halfway by pro-Chavez demonstrators who gathered just a few blocks away, and a very tense standoff started out and then broke out into violent riots with an exchange of gunfire and tear gassing that sent demonstrators running to the streets of Caracas -- downtown Caracas.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the secretary-general of the OAS Cesar Gaviria had come back yesterday to jump-start very fragile negotiations. In a somber signal to what is to come here in Venezuela, Cesar Gaviria emerged tonight at a news conference and said (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the standoff was continuing as massive amounts of demonstrators were scurrying around the streets, national guard, army, and police were brought in to try to calm things, albeit unsuccessfully.

The standoff continued late into the evening only to be dispersed yet once again by a flurry of tear gas. It is throughout the whole area. It seemed to disperse finally the last of the diehards tonight, though they left saying they would be back tomorrow -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ingrid, thank you very much. Pictures in this case tell a lot of the story there. Thank you for your work today.

A few more quick items from around the world starting in Bahrain. The U.S. 5th Fleet is based there. Protesters in the country want it gone. About a thousand people marched today against the fleet, against American troops in their country, and against the possibility of U.S. war on Iraq. This is something of a novelty in Bahrain where political demonstrations have only been legal for about a year.

Some hopeful reports tonight coming out of one of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. A photographer arriving there in the wake of Cyclone Zoe found a lot of storm damage but no casualties. Relief agencies have yet to arrive, and a number of the more remote islands have yet to be heard from. So the story could take another more dispiriting turn before this is all over.

And Mount Etna isn't the only active volcano in Italy. A mountain on the Sicilian Island of Stromboli came to life last weekend, touched off a landslide, which triggered a tidal wave, which battered the island. All the residents of the island have been evacuated. That's some picture, isn't it?

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, what's the truth about whether a missile- defense system works? Can it work?

And up next, an emotional day in court, as a convicted child killer is sentenced to death.

This is NEWSNIGHT on Friday from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This much seems settled. The terrible story that began with a death will also, it seems, end with a death.

In San Diego today, a judge in the murder trial of David Westerfield decided that his life should be ended by lethal injection. Those are the essential facts, but it's not really our story.

While the jury found Mr. Westerfield guilty, at times, it seemed the defense put the child's parents on trial. Who they danced with, who they slept with, what they smoked all became part of their ordeal in court.

Today, they had their say, a chance to talk to the man who killed their daughter and to the world who may have passed judgment on them as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAMON VAN DAM, DANIELLE'S FATHER; Let's just say my life as I knew it before Danielle's murder has been destroyed. Every day, there is something else I am missing because she is not here. Danielle was my daughter, my only daughter, my only Danielle. There will never be anyone else like her.

I'll never get to see her grow up. I'll never get to see her be a friend to her brothers as they grow older and need a girl's perspective. I'll miss seeing her on her wedding day. I won't -- I won't get to walk her down the aisle. I'll miss seeing her become a mom. She's such a good -- I know she would have made a great mom. As the years pass and all these things don't happen, all I'll have are the memories of her, helped by some old pictures and videos and dreams of her, which I hope are always as vivid as they are now, and having to know how brutal the last hours of her life were. My heart and my wife's heart have been broken, and my other two children have been deeply hurt.

BRENDA VAN DAM, DANIELLE'S MOTHER: The tears are always one memory away, but I can tell you how it felt to not know where Danielle was for 26 terrifying days, to know that someone else knew where she was and it was not her mommy or her daddy but an evil stranger. It was sickening. And I felt like my heart was breaking in two, and I was dying from the inside.

Our precious Danielle was taken by a monster, seeking only self- gratification and not thinking about the sweet little child that he was harming or how his horrific crime would impact her family, the community, and the world. You sat by smugly as thousands of people frantically searched for Danielle, and her family anguished over finding her.

It disgusts me that your sick fantasies and your pitiful needs made you feel that you needed Danielle more than her family. You put your needs over the needs of her entire family, an entire community, an entire nation to find Danielle. What could make one human being murder another? This is a question I will forever ask myself.

This should not be happening to our children. Our children should be able to be innocent children and safe in our community and our world. When you took Danielle from us, you took away all of our future dreams that we looked forward to sharing with her. If you do have a heart, which I think is very unlikely, you will feel some of this pain soon because you have a daughter of your own. You will miss all of the good times in her life.

You have victimized your own children just because you wanted mine. Although your children may try to move and change their names, they will always live with the fact that their father is a cold blooded killer.

Danielle was not an object to be taken. She was a human being to be lovingly cared for by her parents. You do not deserve any leniency, any mercy because you refused to give it to Danielle. You had to live -- you have to live with the memory of her death.

I will cherish the memory of her life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The pain and anguish in a courtroom in San Diego today.

Now take that and multiply it dozens of times and you have what's going on these days in the city of Detroit. It's our next stop. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT why are so many of Detroit's children dying? Short break and we're right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In a better world, we would have only one story about a murdered child to report to you tonight. Being reminded of the short life and violent death of Danielle van Dam is grief enough by any measure, but that would be putting our heads in the sand. We know already that such crimes which ought never to happen, happen instead all the time.

Particularly, it seems, in Detroit for reasons nobody can explain, too many children die violently, even in places where they seem to be out of harm's way, sitting on their own sofas at home, on their own beds or in the family car. Somehow the city has been hit by an epidemic of murdered children. And what could be more sad than that?

Here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLOCK (voice-over): Ajani Pollard's (ph) mother takes us back to this scene.

ALLZABETH NLEBIRZYDOWSKI, VICTIMS MOTHER: The car was pulled up to like right here.

FLOCK: This scene, where her young daughter was shot by a man who sprayed their car with gunfire last February.

NLEBIRZYDOWSKI: When she first died, I had her coat. I used to sleep with her coat just to smell her scent. And I don't smell her cent any more.

FLOCK: The stories are heart wrenching. First, 7-year-old Ajani (ph), then 3-year-old Destiny Thomas, shot watching TV in her bedroom when someone fired an A.K.-47 at her house.

Eight-year-old Brianna Cadell (ph) killed in her bed by strayfire.

Antoine Belton (ph), 11, hit on his porch when someone shot at his house.

By the time 2002 ended, 23 children aged 16 or under shot, shaken, strangled or stabbed to death, up 21 percent, one of the worst rates in the nation, most innocent victims in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(on camera): The odd thing is that overall crime is down in Detroit. Violent crime is down, the overall number of shootings down and yet there is this spike in killings of the very youngest.

Why? KWAME KILPATRICK, MAYOR, DETROIT: Don't know. Can't answer that question with a single sentence.

FLOCK (voice-over): At 32, Kwame Kilpatrick, the youngest mayor in Detroit history, has taken the child killings personally, cracking down on weapons, targeting abandoned houses and gangs. His police force solved all by three of the child murders, eight people already in prison.

But Kilpatrick says he hasn't done enough.

KILPATRICK: As long as there's bad things happening, I wear it on my shoulders and I give myself a bad grade for being able to bring people together.

FLOCK: Weusi Olusola was hit four times in gang crossfire in 1986, the worst year for child killings in Detroit, when 43 were murdered.

He's been paralyzed ever since.

WEUSI OLUSOLA, SHOOTING VICTIM: Rather than putting a lot of our energy on what's going on overseas and the war on terror, we really need to be looking more in what's happening in our own back yard.

FLOCK: With Ajani Pollard gone not yet a year, this is all her mother has left, Ajani's braid and death certificate and her own grief and guilt.

NLEBIRZYDOWSKI: I was her mommy. I was supposed to protect her and I feel like I didn't do it. I didn't.

FLOCK: no one, it seems, has been able to protect Detroit's children. It may take a village to save a child, but only a single bullet to kill one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLOCK: Aaron, so many of the people we talked to, when we were in Detroit said that we hear so much about the terrorist threat from without. What they want to know about the terrorists within, the terrorists here at home -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, is there -- did these killings -- many of them, most of them, have anything in common? Are they drug related, are they -- I mean, is there a common denominator here?

FLOCK: There is such a randomness to it. Only three of the 23 were young people involved in themselves committing crime. So the other 20 really cases of kids being in the wrong place at the wrong time or having a parent kill them, stab them. A father shot at a mother in one case and the bullet instead hit the child. No pattern unfortunately.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you. That's a tough story to report. Thank you. Jeff Flock tonight. A few more items from around the country before we go to break, beginning with politics. The Reverend Al Sharpton says he's running for president. He'll file the papers on the 21st of the month. Reverend Sharpton says he wants to bring the Democratic party back to its roots and despite having never held elective office, says he's more qualified to lead the country than his opponents.

It wasn't exactly you won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore, but it wasn't exactly Minnesota nice either. Jesse Ventura held his last news conference today as the governor of Minnesota. He told the gathering -- quote -- "somebody ought to shine a mirror back on the media." And said, "As of Monday, will you fear me." Sounds like a guy about to get a talk show.

And an illegal Mexican immigrant who wound up working at the White House has been indicted. The charges against Salvador Martinez Gonzalez were unsealed today in Houston, Texas. They include illegal re-entry into the United States and possession of false documents. Mr. Gonzalez allegedly posed as a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico to get his White House job.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, new controversy over America's missile defense system and whether or not it will actually work. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Next on NEWSNIGHT, missile defense, is it fact or fantasy and are we being told the truth about it? This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our next story features a nearly stock character, the lone scientist with some inconvenient facts in his possession. For years Professor Theodore Postol has believed those facts expose the flaws at the heart of the technology designed to defend the country from enemy missile attacks. He has crossed swords with the government and his own university, MIT.

This week his higher-ups announced an investigation. Do the university's top laboratories lie to cover up problems with the Bush administration's proposed anti-missile defense system? You'll hear from the professor in a moment. Some background first.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): When Patriot missiles seemed to be destroying Iraqi Scuds with routine precision during the first Gulf War, the Army, most of the Pentagon establishment and Raytheon, the missiles' manufacturer were all thrilled.

But Ted Postol was not. After reviewing videotapes of the Patriot missile batteries in action, the professor said they made few, if any, direct hits. That the Patriot success was one of the great myths of the Gulf War. It took a decade before Defense Secretary William Cohen just days before leaving office agreed the professor was probably right.

For the past year and a half, the professor has been on a somewhat similar mission. His own university, the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, he says has been covering up serious problems in the administration's proposed new anti-missile defense system, a system that is scheduled to be deployed in very expensive stages over the next several years, even though the testing of it at best has been mixed.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I like the feeling, the idea of beginning or putting something in the ground or in the air or at sea and getting comfortable with it and using it and testing it and learning from that.

BROWN: Ted Postol believes there's a lot more to be learned. And what he calls the fraud at MIT could be, quote, "the most serious we've seen at a great American university."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And Dr. Postal joins us tonight from Utah. It's good to see you, sir. Fraud is a serious charge so we ought to start there, I guess. Obviously there's a difference between a different interpretation and the same set of facts and fraud. Why do you use the term fraud?

THEODORE POSTOL, PHYSICIST, MIT: It's not error is the point -- and I think it needs to be explained.

What happened at MIT was there were -- MIT has a laboratory known as Lincoln Laboratory, it and is what's called the federally funded research and development center. Laboratories like this were created at the end of World War II in order to provide the government with impartial and independent advice on matters related to the particular laboratory's expertise. So their role is to provide the government with accurate information.

The Department of Justice came to Lincoln Laboratory in 1998 with very strong evidence that fraud had occurred at TRW. Lincoln Laboratory was asked to evaluate the information that the Department of Justice and Department of Defense investigators had collected.

What Lincoln did is they concealed information that would have indicated that fraud absolutely must have occurred. That is, Lincoln Laboratory knew that the sensor in this experiment, this little telescope that was trying to observe objects at long range had failed to operate as designed and that the data that was collected was meaningless.

Lincoln Laboratory knew this, we know that Lincoln Laboratory had internal reports that had reached this conclusion. We know that they reviewed external documents that provided information that should have been, if they reviewed these reports as they claimed, they would have known that the sensor was not operating properly. And...

BROWN: I'm sorry. Why would they engage in this fraud? POSTOL: Well, I can only guess. I can tell you that fraud occurred and I can prove it.

But I think the best explanation, which I believe is probably true is that Lincoln Laboratory gets a very large sum of money every year from the Missile Defense Agency, which has a vested interest in covering this thing up. The Missile Defense Agency would not like it exposed that hundreds of millions of dollars of charges were made to the government when the Missile Defense Agency had failed to monitor TRW.

In addition, the particular fraud at issue relates to whether or not this system can ever work. So it's not a matter of improving technology, it's a matter of whether it can ever work under any conditions of advanced technology.

BROWN: The system here we're talking about is the Missile Defense System. And, if I understand this, this is dangerous ground for me, at its core is its ability to discriminate between what is real and what is not?

POSTOL: Yes. And I think it's a very easy way to understand that. If you'll bear with me, I can give you the analogy.

Imagine that -- well, first of all, let's look at how the missile defense discriminates. It has a kill vehicle and the kill vehicle is maybe five and a half feet high, maybe weighs 120, 130 pounds and it's launched at a very high speed by rocket boosters. And it's closing on the complex of targets, the decoys and war heads at speeds of 10 to 15 kilo kilometers per second.

So when the kill vehicle requires targets, let's say at 500 kilometers range, it's only 50 seconds from actually having to maneuver and hit the right target. So when it's looking at such a large range, it can only see points of light and it tries to tell which is which by looking at the brightness of one object relative to another, which is easily altered by an adversary and maybe the fluctuation of the brightness.

BROWN: And literally, sir, as briefly as can you, you question right now whether, at least, that can ever work. Is that correct?

POSTOL: Right. Let me give you the analogy.

BROWN: No. I just want to understand that that's in fact what you're arguing is that you're not at all persuaded that the evidence supports the knows that it can ever work. Correct?

POSTOL: There is no science that supports it, yes.

BROWN: Dr. Postol, thanks. It's complicated stuff, we appreciate the effort. And I wish we had more time tonight. Thank you.

That's tough. We need to do this again.

Pete Hamill joins us. And that a treat. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, we'd like to end the broadcast with a treat, especially true on Fridays. Usually the treat is something on tape, a story we think you might like, but the treat tonight is better even than that. Not a story on tape, but a storyteller in the flesh. Pete Hamill is a newspaperman, an essayist, a novelist, a really, really good writer whose new book is about a man who has been a New Yorker even longer than Mr. Hamill himself, since 1740 in this case. It's nice to see him. Mr. Hamill, good to see you, sir.

Take 20 seconds and lay the premise of the book out.

PETE HAMILL, AUTHOR, "FOREVER": A young man arrives in New York in 1740 to find the man who killed his father. Almost mythic quest. He arrives from Ireland. He finds the killer. But he finds a whole big complicated story laid out before him, a rebellion in 1741 involving blacks and Irishmen against the British crown. As a consequence of what he does there, he's granted through a shaman, through what they called a babalao (ph), the gift of eternal life, provided he only stays on the island of Manhattan. And he stays. And he's still here in 2001, and through that device I'm able to tell the story, this whole amazing story of this place, this city.

BROWN: The book is called "Forever." Now I want to talk about some things. You finished the book on the day before September 11, which calling it September 10 somehow doesn't sound right to me, so the day before September 11.

HAMILL: At 20 after 11 at night.

BROWN: You had to rewrite. Did you have to rewrite?

HAMILL: I had to rewrite. I didn't have to rewrite the whole book, because parts of it were in there. He lived within view of the World Trade Center. The woman in the book, in the present tense of the book, worked in the North Tower on the 84th floor. He had lived in the 19th century on Cortland Street, which is one of the streets that was removed in order to build the World Trade Center. And most of his life has been spent downtown, because that's where most of New York City's life was until the turn of the 20th century, had been lived downtown. That was where we all came from.

And so in rewriting it, I knew I had to put September 11 in. I couldn't avoid it. It was like painting a mural about a city's history and not having the most terrible calamity in its history as part of that mural. It had to be in there. But I was so wary, for reasons that are obvious, Aaron. You know that the last thing you wanted to do was either a journalistic tack-on, or exploit somehow the horror of what had happened that day. So I had a very difficult task in doing that.

BROWN: We'll let readers figure out how you did it. Let me ask you two quick things. Is the fact that you're writing -- this is so indelicate, I apologize. Does the fact that you're writing about a guy who lives forever mean that you are thinking these days more and more about mortality as in yours?

HAMILL: Oh, absolutely. The origins of the novel, I've been working on it for four years, it's still in my brain, began when I turned 60. And I had this sense that, God, I'm not going to have the time. All the things I thought I could do in my life when I was 18, there's just not going to be enough time. I won't have time to read all those books, I won't have time to see all those paintings, I won't be able to learn to play the piano, I won't write the books that I would love to write. And that sense of impending actual mortality made me say, God, I wish I could live forever.

BROWN: In 20 seconds, that's all I have, do you really wish could you live forever?

HAMILL: No, it's a curse.

BROWN: I would think it's a curse.

HAMILL: It's a curse because you bury everybody you love. You bury the women you love, you bury your children, you bury your dogs, you bury everything that you loved in the world, and it would be a curse. And that's one of the things my guy learns in the course of a long life.

BROWN: The book is called "Forever" and I'd read anything that you wrote. I've known you a while. It's always a treat to see you. The book is on the bookstands and Pete Hamill is with us tonight.

Best of luck to you. You look terrific.

HAMILL: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thank you, sir, very much.

Good to you have with us. We'll see you all on Monday. That would be the next time we show up, wouldn't it? Have a wonderful weekend. Hope you're out of New York, where it's very sloppy right now. Happy new year to you all. Good night for all of us at "Newsweek" -- no, NEWSNIGHT. NEWSNIGHT. That's the second time I've done that.

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





Detroit's Children Being Murdered?; David Westerfield Sentenced to Death>


Aired January 3, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again. I'm Aaron Brown.
We were struck the other day by an internal e-mail we received. Our booking department had done a quick survey of our military analysts about Iraq and how they see the issue playing out.

You'll hear from them all in just a bit, and, depending on where you find yourself on this issue, you'll either like what they have to say or you won't.

Without overly tipping our hand or theirs, we will say they all agree on how this is going to play out to on one degree or another, even as they disagree some on the reasons and the ramifications.

Two months from now, they all believe it is very likely the United States will have attacked Iraq. I suspect most of you think that as well, and I suspect most of you think that is a good and right thing to do. So consider a couple of questions tonight.

What if the weapons inspectors come back and say they didn't find anything significant? Then what? Saddam remains Saddam, dangerous, unpredictable, brutal, the same guy.

But what if he doesn't have those weapons or what if they are so well hidden the inspectors miss them? Then what? Hard to imagine the United Nations will give its blessing.

Does that matter? It's hard to imagine that, absent that sort of proof from the inspectors, many other countries will join such a fight.

Should that matter? Last summer, before he decided to go to the United Nations, the president said regime change was the goal, and the U.S. was prepared to go it alone.

Should we? Maybe the inspectors will find their smoking guns, and this question will be moot.

But what if they don't? Then what?

That's coming up later on the program.

"The Whip" starts us off as always. And first up, the crisis in North Korea playing out tonight in the capital of China. CNN's Lisa Rose Weaver is there.

Lisa, a headline please.

LISA ROSE WEAVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More tough talk from North Korea. A repetition of a demand for dialogue with the United States.

BROWN: Thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

Next, to Venezuela and the ongoing turmoil there. CNN's Ingrid Arnesen on the videophone.

A headline from you, please.

INGRID ARNESEN, CNN PRODUCER: Thirty days into the strike. Two dead. Seventy-seven victims. Violence erupts as peace negotiations fail.

BROWN: Ingrid, back to you, too, shortly.

And back home, with levels of most kinds of violent crime lower than they've been in years, there is also a sad counterpoint, and CNN's Jeff Flock has been working on that.

So, Jeff, a headline from you tonight.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, my headline is that, while we talk so much about terrorism and a war with Iraq, the fact is that, for the past year, the most vulnerable and youngest on the streets of Detroit have been terrorized. I'll have the story of their war against it later in the broadcast.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you very much. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up in the hour ahead, an absolutely riveting day in a San Diego courtroom as the parents of Danielle van Dam confront her killer. You'll hear what they had to say tonight.

Also tonight, the professor versus the Pentagon, the battle being waged over a missile-defense system. Theodore Postal is with us, and his accusations against one of the country's most respected universities are shocking.

And we close out the program and the week with one of the finest storytellers out there, Pete Hamill, and his story of the New Yorker who really has seen it all.

All of that in the hour ahead.

But, we begin again tonight with Korea. The North Koreans still calling for a non-aggression treaty with the United States. The United States again today saying no deal until North Korea's nuclear program is scuttled.

In public at least, the words have not changed. But, as we've been reporting all week, there are words going back and forth out of earshot between and among the players in Washington and in Asia.

Here again, CNN's Lisa Rose Weaver.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA ROSE WEAVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The demands were familiar: a dialogue with the United States and a guarantee. The non-aggression pact Pyongyang has been seeking as a condition of discussing its nuclear weapons program.

American unilateralism had forced North Korea's hand, the explanation went, and resulted in Pyongyang expelling weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

CHOE JIN SU, NORTH KOREAN AMBASSADOR TO CHINA (through translator): Running against the global trend of reconciliation and peace, the U.S. alone, with its cult war thinking, was threatening us with nuclear weapons. We were forced to take self-defensive measures against the threat for national dignity and for our right to exist.

WEAVER: The nuclear standoff is making matters worse, said North Korea. Details were not spelled out, but the statement later referred to the U.S. cutting off shipments of fuel oil, a move that would affect the country's ability to produce energy.

Pyongyang said, without a non-aggression pact, it does not believe Washington's conciliatory tone about military confrontation.

CHOE: As for the U.S. claim of no intention to invade our country and its willingness to solve the crisis through diplomatic channels, we don't believe these words.

WEAVER: The State Department's response to Pyongyang's offer was anything but conciliatory.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We're not going to enter into negotiations in response to threats or broken commitments. We're not going to bargain or offer inducements to North Korea to live up to treaties and agreements that it has signed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WEAVER: Now, Aaron, what we heard yesterday out of Beijing was not entirely new. The main demands coming from Pyongyang -- we heard this nearly a week ago when Pyongyang expelled some weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The diplomat reading the statement yesterday was also repeating something that Pyongyang's foreign ministry said a few days before. However, the fact that they are repeating a call to sit down with the United States may well be an indication of a sense of urgency growing in North Korea to do just so.

One possible reason: The oil shipments. The fuel oil shipments that the U.S. and other countries had been sending to that country now cut off. You know North Korea is a very, poor country with very minimal infrastructure. What little there is depends on oil like this.

So it stands to reason that the call to sit down with the U.S. -- that one aspect of that may be an effort to get those oil shipments flowing back into North Korea.

Now the next step in this story is in a couple of days from the International Atomic Energy Agency will -- say something about North Korea's nuclear program.

It's expected to give a very tough statement but not expected to take it to the U.N. Security Council, at least right now, giving perhaps another window of opportunity and more time for all sides to talk.

Also, we're expecting to see a lot more diplomatic pressure on China by U.S. officials to wield its influence on North Korea -- Aaron.

BROWN: And what exactly, other than, I suppose, asking really nicely, do we expect the Chinese -- does the United States expect the Chinese to do here?

WEAVER: Well, it's never been clear in very clear terms precisely what Washington can expect Beijing to do. All along Beijing has claimed that it maintains in constant contact with Pyongyang and will wield its influence. Exactly how it's doing it is becoming frustratingly unclear to observers and diplomats.

Now China has a lot of economic influence over North Korea. It seems unlikely that it would use economic health or support as a tool, in other words, threatening to pull away help from that country.

You have to remember that China would be the first country to bear the brunt of an even poorer and more unstable North Korea. So it doesn't seem likely that it would go the economic route.

Diplomatic pressure for sure because of the long ideological relationship between the two countries. No other country has quite the same sway as China -- Aaron.

BROWN: Lisa, thank you. Lisa Rose Weaver in Beijing tonight.

For more than a week now, the words "military option" and "North Korea" haven't crossed the president's lips. The focus has been and remains Iraq. That's where the troops are going.

Today, elements of the 45,000-member Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Pendleton, California, got the call. They'll join thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines either already in the Gulf or on the way.

Today, the president spoke at Fort Hood, Texas, to some of the men and women who are waiting for the world.

Here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A note of gratitude to the 4,000 soldiers at the nation's largest Army base.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Wherever you serve or wherever you may be sent, you can know that America is grateful and your commander in chief is confident in your abilities and proud of your service.

BASH: And a warning to Saddam Hussein that he will call on these men and women to attack Iraq if he has to.

BUSH: If force becomes necessary to secure our country and to keep the peace, America will act deliberately, America will act decisively, and America will prevail because we've got the finest military in the world.

BASH: Thousands of troops from Fort Hood served in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Are they ready to take on Saddam Hussein again?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the commander needs me, I will be there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm ready to do my part for my country and bring some people to justice.

BUSH: Our people are well fed right here.

BASH: Ordering roast beef and mashed potatoes in the mess, checking out the tanks, Mr. Bush made clear, while he believes they're ready for war and will prevail, giving the order will not be easy.

BUSH: I know that every order I give can bring a cost. I also know, without a doubt, that every order I give will be carried out with skill and unselfish courage.

BASH (on camera): The president had another message for the troops and for the world: If the U.S. does invade Iraq, he says they'll go there to liberate it, not conquer it.

Dana Bash, CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: One small counterpoint before moving on. Slate magazine's Saddameter, which tracks each day what the editors think the prospects for war are, slipped some recently from near 80 percent early last week to just 68 percent today. Just 68 percent. That's editors.

We've got generals. And, if you ask them about the prospects for war with Iraq, they think it is almost certain. We're joined by them today, all of them, the three of them.

Retired General Wesley Clark joins us from Little Rock, Arkansas, retired General David Grange is in Oak Brook, Illinois, and retired General Don Shepperd joins us tonight from Tucson, Arizona. It's good to see all of you. It's been a long time.

General Grange, let me start with you, if I may. You say war is virtually inevitable for a variety of reasons, and the one that intrigued me most was the one that has the least to do with Saddam specifically, and that is the importance of Iraq more broadly in the region.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Yes, I believe that Saddam Hussein is the intermediate objective. There's not a lot of talk about this.

But I believe that to go ahead and remove that regime, to then temporarily occupy Iraq, to change it from a fascist regime to some type of democratic governance will then give us a geopolitical advantage in that region to change the status quo, which will affect Iran, it will affect the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, it will affect the Hezbollah terrorist organizations.

And then, with the resources from Iraq, the oil, for example, will cause it to be able to transition very quickly and actually cause a big change, I think, in the Middle East.

BROWN: Before I move on, General, would you agree that that is the most optimistic assessment of each stage of the game that one could possibly reach?

GRANGE: Well, it's optimistic, and, hopefully, we're planning for good results, if we do conduct this attack, because we want it to be better than it is now. Otherwise, we shouldn't go there in the first place.

BROWN: All right. General Clark, let me go to you and the question I posed at the beginning of the program. What happens if the United -- if the U.N. inspectors come back and they have no clear proof, no picture like Adlai Stevenson had at the U.N. during the Cuban missile crisis? What then?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Well, I think that is what's likely to happen, Aaron, and I think that it's up to the president then to go forward on his own word. There are a certain percentage of people who believe he has secret information that's never been disclosed.

There are others who simply add up all the many reasons, neither -- none of which is convincing in itself, but, when you add it up and you say the credibility of the United States government's on the line and we do believe he has these weapons, I think that -- whatever the U.N. inspectors find, I think it's going to be very difficult for the president and the government of the United States to say, well, I guess -- OK. Since you didn't find anything, I guess, you know, maybe our intel's wrong, and so, therefore, we -- we won't go in.

No, we're going to go in on this unless something happens to Saddam, and it will be up to the administration to give the most cogent and persuasive explanation possible to the American people and to the world community.

Now all...

BROWN: Well, that -- excuse me. Doesn't that explanation in this scenario -- we're not sure it's what will happen -- have to begin with the U.N. inspectors fail to find what we know the Iraqis have?

CLARK: I think that's exactly right. They fail to find the evidence. You know, the scientists that they interviewed were all complicit in some way. Their families were threatened. We couldn't get them out of the country. Saddam may have appeared to be cooperative, but, underneath, they weren't cooperative.

And then there'll be a dribbling of information out there, the indicators. Intelligence is seldom as clear cut as Adlai Stevenson presented in the Cuban missile crisis. It's bits and pieces and fragments, and that story will come out.

BROWN: Let me -- I want to go to General Shepperd in a second, but let me just -- one more question on this point, General Clark. As a general, are those the circumstances -- given where the American people seem to be in that they would like the U.N. to be behind this effort, they don't really want the country to go it alone, at least the polls I've seen, is that the kind of circumstance you'd like to enter a war like this with?

CLARK: No, it's not the most desirable circumstances, but the United States won't enter alone in any case because the nations in the Persian Gulf by and large will line up.

They're tired of being at the center of the conflict, and they've told the United States, look, you know, you're out there, you're way out front on this thing, you've done as much as you can. OK. You don't get the -- but either do it or get out of the region.

And the United States is going to do it, and they will basically support it.

BROWN: General Shepperd, let me throw into this mix now North Korea and whether or not it has any affect on anything or is just an issue that tends to derail the way we look at something.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), U.S. AIR FORCE: Well, North Korea is certainly an important issue, Aaron, but, on the other hand, the president is appropriately trying to push that back and deal with Iraq first and then deal diplomatically with North Korea.

The military action in North Korea would be devastating to South Korea. Nobody wants to see military action over there, and the president is doing everything he can to help this play out diplomatically. So it complicates the situation.

We would like to not have it going on. We'd like to deal with Iraq and then deal with North Korea later. Unfortunately, he's pushing to having to deal with both of them at the same time. Not ideal, but that's the hand he's dealt, Aaron. BROWN: General Grange, do you think enough time has been spent looking at the question of what happens after the war, this period of occupation of Iraq?

GRANGE: Well, you know, I don't know how much has been put into it. I'm sure a lot of work's been done.

You know, it's going to take a lot of troops for the initial transition before an international force comes in of some sort monitored by the United Nations to transition to this new type of democratic governance, whatever it looks like.

You have to disarm a lot of people. You have to keep factions from fighting each other -- the Sunni, the Shiite, the Kurds. You have to keep adjacent countries from interfering with this transition. So I think a lot of work's been done to do it right, but it's going to take some time.

And, you know, we haven't really finished or really accomplished a whole lot yet, the international community, in Afghanistan.

BROWN: And a good point. Let me -- final word tonight from General Clark. The thinking of all of you is that this will happen, if it happens -- and it probably will -- sometime mid-Februaryish. Tell me what can go wrong.

CLARK: Well, I think -- I think, if you assume that the president sets the diplomatic stage right, then you're looking at the risks of a preemptive strike by the Iraqis against the forces in Kuwait, but we're alert and ready for that.

You're looking at something being launched or started against Israel. We're certainly ready for that. There's been talk that Hezbollah might open up a northern front against Israel with a lot of rockets and so forth. I think the Israeli are ready for that, and they have made it clear to the Syrians they'd go all the way into Syria, if that happens, if necessary, to take out Hezbollah.

And then it's a matter of the sort of operations on the ground, and what you're going to see an air campaign with the ground forces moving forward. There's probably some tough river crossing to be done.

And then there's the problem of what happens if he uses a bioweapon against his own people, and what happens if he's successful in holing up inside Baghdad.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's again good to see you all. I feel like it's a conversation we just started, and we'll keep it going in the days and weeks ahead. Thank you and happy new year to all of you. Thank you very much.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, later in the program at least, we'll talk with Pete Hamill about his new novel and his city, which is New York. Also, a report on a terrible problem facing the parents in Detroit. Hard to imagine a worse problem. Too many children dying random, violent deaths in that troubled city.

And, up next, the trouble in Venezuela appears to get worse. Live report from the capital of Caracas.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A month into the crisis, the mess in Venezuela grows messier each day. Added to the mix today, tear gas fired by national guard troops and army soldiers, stones and bottles thrown by protesters. Two sides are squared off for and against the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The result is a crippled the economy and a question mark for the world's oil supply since Venezuela is the fifth largest exporter of oil.

CNN Producer Ingrid Arnesen reports tonight from Caracas on the videophone.

INGRID ARNESEN, CNN PRODUCER: Aaron, today in Venezuela, we witnessed the most violent outburst in 33 days of an oil strike, which has turned into a national strike. The total today: two dead, 77 injured.

It started originally with an opposition march that was supposed to gather at a military headquarter to demand the military to state firmly their position regarding the strike.

That was met halfway by pro-Chavez demonstrators who gathered just a few blocks away, and a very tense standoff started out and then broke out into violent riots with an exchange of gunfire and tear gassing that sent demonstrators running to the streets of Caracas -- downtown Caracas.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the secretary-general of the OAS Cesar Gaviria had come back yesterday to jump-start very fragile negotiations. In a somber signal to what is to come here in Venezuela, Cesar Gaviria emerged tonight at a news conference and said (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the standoff was continuing as massive amounts of demonstrators were scurrying around the streets, national guard, army, and police were brought in to try to calm things, albeit unsuccessfully.

The standoff continued late into the evening only to be dispersed yet once again by a flurry of tear gas. It is throughout the whole area. It seemed to disperse finally the last of the diehards tonight, though they left saying they would be back tomorrow -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ingrid, thank you very much. Pictures in this case tell a lot of the story there. Thank you for your work today.

A few more quick items from around the world starting in Bahrain. The U.S. 5th Fleet is based there. Protesters in the country want it gone. About a thousand people marched today against the fleet, against American troops in their country, and against the possibility of U.S. war on Iraq. This is something of a novelty in Bahrain where political demonstrations have only been legal for about a year.

Some hopeful reports tonight coming out of one of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. A photographer arriving there in the wake of Cyclone Zoe found a lot of storm damage but no casualties. Relief agencies have yet to arrive, and a number of the more remote islands have yet to be heard from. So the story could take another more dispiriting turn before this is all over.

And Mount Etna isn't the only active volcano in Italy. A mountain on the Sicilian Island of Stromboli came to life last weekend, touched off a landslide, which triggered a tidal wave, which battered the island. All the residents of the island have been evacuated. That's some picture, isn't it?

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, what's the truth about whether a missile- defense system works? Can it work?

And up next, an emotional day in court, as a convicted child killer is sentenced to death.

This is NEWSNIGHT on Friday from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This much seems settled. The terrible story that began with a death will also, it seems, end with a death.

In San Diego today, a judge in the murder trial of David Westerfield decided that his life should be ended by lethal injection. Those are the essential facts, but it's not really our story.

While the jury found Mr. Westerfield guilty, at times, it seemed the defense put the child's parents on trial. Who they danced with, who they slept with, what they smoked all became part of their ordeal in court.

Today, they had their say, a chance to talk to the man who killed their daughter and to the world who may have passed judgment on them as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAMON VAN DAM, DANIELLE'S FATHER; Let's just say my life as I knew it before Danielle's murder has been destroyed. Every day, there is something else I am missing because she is not here. Danielle was my daughter, my only daughter, my only Danielle. There will never be anyone else like her.

I'll never get to see her grow up. I'll never get to see her be a friend to her brothers as they grow older and need a girl's perspective. I'll miss seeing her on her wedding day. I won't -- I won't get to walk her down the aisle. I'll miss seeing her become a mom. She's such a good -- I know she would have made a great mom. As the years pass and all these things don't happen, all I'll have are the memories of her, helped by some old pictures and videos and dreams of her, which I hope are always as vivid as they are now, and having to know how brutal the last hours of her life were. My heart and my wife's heart have been broken, and my other two children have been deeply hurt.

BRENDA VAN DAM, DANIELLE'S MOTHER: The tears are always one memory away, but I can tell you how it felt to not know where Danielle was for 26 terrifying days, to know that someone else knew where she was and it was not her mommy or her daddy but an evil stranger. It was sickening. And I felt like my heart was breaking in two, and I was dying from the inside.

Our precious Danielle was taken by a monster, seeking only self- gratification and not thinking about the sweet little child that he was harming or how his horrific crime would impact her family, the community, and the world. You sat by smugly as thousands of people frantically searched for Danielle, and her family anguished over finding her.

It disgusts me that your sick fantasies and your pitiful needs made you feel that you needed Danielle more than her family. You put your needs over the needs of her entire family, an entire community, an entire nation to find Danielle. What could make one human being murder another? This is a question I will forever ask myself.

This should not be happening to our children. Our children should be able to be innocent children and safe in our community and our world. When you took Danielle from us, you took away all of our future dreams that we looked forward to sharing with her. If you do have a heart, which I think is very unlikely, you will feel some of this pain soon because you have a daughter of your own. You will miss all of the good times in her life.

You have victimized your own children just because you wanted mine. Although your children may try to move and change their names, they will always live with the fact that their father is a cold blooded killer.

Danielle was not an object to be taken. She was a human being to be lovingly cared for by her parents. You do not deserve any leniency, any mercy because you refused to give it to Danielle. You had to live -- you have to live with the memory of her death.

I will cherish the memory of her life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The pain and anguish in a courtroom in San Diego today.

Now take that and multiply it dozens of times and you have what's going on these days in the city of Detroit. It's our next stop. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT why are so many of Detroit's children dying? Short break and we're right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In a better world, we would have only one story about a murdered child to report to you tonight. Being reminded of the short life and violent death of Danielle van Dam is grief enough by any measure, but that would be putting our heads in the sand. We know already that such crimes which ought never to happen, happen instead all the time.

Particularly, it seems, in Detroit for reasons nobody can explain, too many children die violently, even in places where they seem to be out of harm's way, sitting on their own sofas at home, on their own beds or in the family car. Somehow the city has been hit by an epidemic of murdered children. And what could be more sad than that?

Here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLOCK (voice-over): Ajani Pollard's (ph) mother takes us back to this scene.

ALLZABETH NLEBIRZYDOWSKI, VICTIMS MOTHER: The car was pulled up to like right here.

FLOCK: This scene, where her young daughter was shot by a man who sprayed their car with gunfire last February.

NLEBIRZYDOWSKI: When she first died, I had her coat. I used to sleep with her coat just to smell her scent. And I don't smell her cent any more.

FLOCK: The stories are heart wrenching. First, 7-year-old Ajani (ph), then 3-year-old Destiny Thomas, shot watching TV in her bedroom when someone fired an A.K.-47 at her house.

Eight-year-old Brianna Cadell (ph) killed in her bed by strayfire.

Antoine Belton (ph), 11, hit on his porch when someone shot at his house.

By the time 2002 ended, 23 children aged 16 or under shot, shaken, strangled or stabbed to death, up 21 percent, one of the worst rates in the nation, most innocent victims in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(on camera): The odd thing is that overall crime is down in Detroit. Violent crime is down, the overall number of shootings down and yet there is this spike in killings of the very youngest.

Why? KWAME KILPATRICK, MAYOR, DETROIT: Don't know. Can't answer that question with a single sentence.

FLOCK (voice-over): At 32, Kwame Kilpatrick, the youngest mayor in Detroit history, has taken the child killings personally, cracking down on weapons, targeting abandoned houses and gangs. His police force solved all by three of the child murders, eight people already in prison.

But Kilpatrick says he hasn't done enough.

KILPATRICK: As long as there's bad things happening, I wear it on my shoulders and I give myself a bad grade for being able to bring people together.

FLOCK: Weusi Olusola was hit four times in gang crossfire in 1986, the worst year for child killings in Detroit, when 43 were murdered.

He's been paralyzed ever since.

WEUSI OLUSOLA, SHOOTING VICTIM: Rather than putting a lot of our energy on what's going on overseas and the war on terror, we really need to be looking more in what's happening in our own back yard.

FLOCK: With Ajani Pollard gone not yet a year, this is all her mother has left, Ajani's braid and death certificate and her own grief and guilt.

NLEBIRZYDOWSKI: I was her mommy. I was supposed to protect her and I feel like I didn't do it. I didn't.

FLOCK: no one, it seems, has been able to protect Detroit's children. It may take a village to save a child, but only a single bullet to kill one.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLOCK: Aaron, so many of the people we talked to, when we were in Detroit said that we hear so much about the terrorist threat from without. What they want to know about the terrorists within, the terrorists here at home -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, is there -- did these killings -- many of them, most of them, have anything in common? Are they drug related, are they -- I mean, is there a common denominator here?

FLOCK: There is such a randomness to it. Only three of the 23 were young people involved in themselves committing crime. So the other 20 really cases of kids being in the wrong place at the wrong time or having a parent kill them, stab them. A father shot at a mother in one case and the bullet instead hit the child. No pattern unfortunately.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you. That's a tough story to report. Thank you. Jeff Flock tonight. A few more items from around the country before we go to break, beginning with politics. The Reverend Al Sharpton says he's running for president. He'll file the papers on the 21st of the month. Reverend Sharpton says he wants to bring the Democratic party back to its roots and despite having never held elective office, says he's more qualified to lead the country than his opponents.

It wasn't exactly you won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore, but it wasn't exactly Minnesota nice either. Jesse Ventura held his last news conference today as the governor of Minnesota. He told the gathering -- quote -- "somebody ought to shine a mirror back on the media." And said, "As of Monday, will you fear me." Sounds like a guy about to get a talk show.

And an illegal Mexican immigrant who wound up working at the White House has been indicted. The charges against Salvador Martinez Gonzalez were unsealed today in Houston, Texas. They include illegal re-entry into the United States and possession of false documents. Mr. Gonzalez allegedly posed as a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico to get his White House job.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, new controversy over America's missile defense system and whether or not it will actually work. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Next on NEWSNIGHT, missile defense, is it fact or fantasy and are we being told the truth about it? This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our next story features a nearly stock character, the lone scientist with some inconvenient facts in his possession. For years Professor Theodore Postol has believed those facts expose the flaws at the heart of the technology designed to defend the country from enemy missile attacks. He has crossed swords with the government and his own university, MIT.

This week his higher-ups announced an investigation. Do the university's top laboratories lie to cover up problems with the Bush administration's proposed anti-missile defense system? You'll hear from the professor in a moment. Some background first.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): When Patriot missiles seemed to be destroying Iraqi Scuds with routine precision during the first Gulf War, the Army, most of the Pentagon establishment and Raytheon, the missiles' manufacturer were all thrilled.

But Ted Postol was not. After reviewing videotapes of the Patriot missile batteries in action, the professor said they made few, if any, direct hits. That the Patriot success was one of the great myths of the Gulf War. It took a decade before Defense Secretary William Cohen just days before leaving office agreed the professor was probably right.

For the past year and a half, the professor has been on a somewhat similar mission. His own university, the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, he says has been covering up serious problems in the administration's proposed new anti-missile defense system, a system that is scheduled to be deployed in very expensive stages over the next several years, even though the testing of it at best has been mixed.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I like the feeling, the idea of beginning or putting something in the ground or in the air or at sea and getting comfortable with it and using it and testing it and learning from that.

BROWN: Ted Postol believes there's a lot more to be learned. And what he calls the fraud at MIT could be, quote, "the most serious we've seen at a great American university."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And Dr. Postal joins us tonight from Utah. It's good to see you, sir. Fraud is a serious charge so we ought to start there, I guess. Obviously there's a difference between a different interpretation and the same set of facts and fraud. Why do you use the term fraud?

THEODORE POSTOL, PHYSICIST, MIT: It's not error is the point -- and I think it needs to be explained.

What happened at MIT was there were -- MIT has a laboratory known as Lincoln Laboratory, it and is what's called the federally funded research and development center. Laboratories like this were created at the end of World War II in order to provide the government with impartial and independent advice on matters related to the particular laboratory's expertise. So their role is to provide the government with accurate information.

The Department of Justice came to Lincoln Laboratory in 1998 with very strong evidence that fraud had occurred at TRW. Lincoln Laboratory was asked to evaluate the information that the Department of Justice and Department of Defense investigators had collected.

What Lincoln did is they concealed information that would have indicated that fraud absolutely must have occurred. That is, Lincoln Laboratory knew that the sensor in this experiment, this little telescope that was trying to observe objects at long range had failed to operate as designed and that the data that was collected was meaningless.

Lincoln Laboratory knew this, we know that Lincoln Laboratory had internal reports that had reached this conclusion. We know that they reviewed external documents that provided information that should have been, if they reviewed these reports as they claimed, they would have known that the sensor was not operating properly. And...

BROWN: I'm sorry. Why would they engage in this fraud? POSTOL: Well, I can only guess. I can tell you that fraud occurred and I can prove it.

But I think the best explanation, which I believe is probably true is that Lincoln Laboratory gets a very large sum of money every year from the Missile Defense Agency, which has a vested interest in covering this thing up. The Missile Defense Agency would not like it exposed that hundreds of millions of dollars of charges were made to the government when the Missile Defense Agency had failed to monitor TRW.

In addition, the particular fraud at issue relates to whether or not this system can ever work. So it's not a matter of improving technology, it's a matter of whether it can ever work under any conditions of advanced technology.

BROWN: The system here we're talking about is the Missile Defense System. And, if I understand this, this is dangerous ground for me, at its core is its ability to discriminate between what is real and what is not?

POSTOL: Yes. And I think it's a very easy way to understand that. If you'll bear with me, I can give you the analogy.

Imagine that -- well, first of all, let's look at how the missile defense discriminates. It has a kill vehicle and the kill vehicle is maybe five and a half feet high, maybe weighs 120, 130 pounds and it's launched at a very high speed by rocket boosters. And it's closing on the complex of targets, the decoys and war heads at speeds of 10 to 15 kilo kilometers per second.

So when the kill vehicle requires targets, let's say at 500 kilometers range, it's only 50 seconds from actually having to maneuver and hit the right target. So when it's looking at such a large range, it can only see points of light and it tries to tell which is which by looking at the brightness of one object relative to another, which is easily altered by an adversary and maybe the fluctuation of the brightness.

BROWN: And literally, sir, as briefly as can you, you question right now whether, at least, that can ever work. Is that correct?

POSTOL: Right. Let me give you the analogy.

BROWN: No. I just want to understand that that's in fact what you're arguing is that you're not at all persuaded that the evidence supports the knows that it can ever work. Correct?

POSTOL: There is no science that supports it, yes.

BROWN: Dr. Postol, thanks. It's complicated stuff, we appreciate the effort. And I wish we had more time tonight. Thank you.

That's tough. We need to do this again.

Pete Hamill joins us. And that a treat. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, we'd like to end the broadcast with a treat, especially true on Fridays. Usually the treat is something on tape, a story we think you might like, but the treat tonight is better even than that. Not a story on tape, but a storyteller in the flesh. Pete Hamill is a newspaperman, an essayist, a novelist, a really, really good writer whose new book is about a man who has been a New Yorker even longer than Mr. Hamill himself, since 1740 in this case. It's nice to see him. Mr. Hamill, good to see you, sir.

Take 20 seconds and lay the premise of the book out.

PETE HAMILL, AUTHOR, "FOREVER": A young man arrives in New York in 1740 to find the man who killed his father. Almost mythic quest. He arrives from Ireland. He finds the killer. But he finds a whole big complicated story laid out before him, a rebellion in 1741 involving blacks and Irishmen against the British crown. As a consequence of what he does there, he's granted through a shaman, through what they called a babalao (ph), the gift of eternal life, provided he only stays on the island of Manhattan. And he stays. And he's still here in 2001, and through that device I'm able to tell the story, this whole amazing story of this place, this city.

BROWN: The book is called "Forever." Now I want to talk about some things. You finished the book on the day before September 11, which calling it September 10 somehow doesn't sound right to me, so the day before September 11.

HAMILL: At 20 after 11 at night.

BROWN: You had to rewrite. Did you have to rewrite?

HAMILL: I had to rewrite. I didn't have to rewrite the whole book, because parts of it were in there. He lived within view of the World Trade Center. The woman in the book, in the present tense of the book, worked in the North Tower on the 84th floor. He had lived in the 19th century on Cortland Street, which is one of the streets that was removed in order to build the World Trade Center. And most of his life has been spent downtown, because that's where most of New York City's life was until the turn of the 20th century, had been lived downtown. That was where we all came from.

And so in rewriting it, I knew I had to put September 11 in. I couldn't avoid it. It was like painting a mural about a city's history and not having the most terrible calamity in its history as part of that mural. It had to be in there. But I was so wary, for reasons that are obvious, Aaron. You know that the last thing you wanted to do was either a journalistic tack-on, or exploit somehow the horror of what had happened that day. So I had a very difficult task in doing that.

BROWN: We'll let readers figure out how you did it. Let me ask you two quick things. Is the fact that you're writing -- this is so indelicate, I apologize. Does the fact that you're writing about a guy who lives forever mean that you are thinking these days more and more about mortality as in yours?

HAMILL: Oh, absolutely. The origins of the novel, I've been working on it for four years, it's still in my brain, began when I turned 60. And I had this sense that, God, I'm not going to have the time. All the things I thought I could do in my life when I was 18, there's just not going to be enough time. I won't have time to read all those books, I won't have time to see all those paintings, I won't be able to learn to play the piano, I won't write the books that I would love to write. And that sense of impending actual mortality made me say, God, I wish I could live forever.

BROWN: In 20 seconds, that's all I have, do you really wish could you live forever?

HAMILL: No, it's a curse.

BROWN: I would think it's a curse.

HAMILL: It's a curse because you bury everybody you love. You bury the women you love, you bury your children, you bury your dogs, you bury everything that you loved in the world, and it would be a curse. And that's one of the things my guy learns in the course of a long life.

BROWN: The book is called "Forever" and I'd read anything that you wrote. I've known you a while. It's always a treat to see you. The book is on the bookstands and Pete Hamill is with us tonight.

Best of luck to you. You look terrific.

HAMILL: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thank you, sir, very much.

Good to you have with us. We'll see you all on Monday. That would be the next time we show up, wouldn't it? Have a wonderful weekend. Hope you're out of New York, where it's very sloppy right now. Happy new year to you all. Good night for all of us at "Newsweek" -- no, NEWSNIGHT. NEWSNIGHT. That's the second time I've done that.

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Detroit's Children Being Murdered?; David Westerfield Sentenced to Death>