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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Department of Homeland Security Unveils New Education Campaign; Gephardt to Seek Democratic Nomination for President in 2004

Aired February 19, 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: And good evening again, everyone. This will be brief tonight. We've got a lot of program to do. But I want to sell you on a story at the top; a wonderful piece of work by NEWSNIGHT producer Catherine Mitchell that will run later.
This is a fine line for us. Sell too hard, oversell in the way sometimes we can do this business -- imagine that in television -- and the piece loses the battle between expectation and reality. But I want to sell you on the piece just the same. It is a story about some kids in Houston who have had the most miserable of lives and will continue to have the most miserable of lives in the future, we suspect, were it not for one woman and one extraordinary program.

Every one of these kids has a parent in prison. Some have both parents in prison. Some have been abused, some have tried suicide, all know the trauma of a broken home. Some have been told that what they have to look forward to in their lives is a life just like their parents, behind bars. Or maybe they'll end up in an early grave.

But if all of this sounds depressing, it is not. These kids will teach you a lot tonight if you let them. Not the least of which is how little it takes to bring hope into someone's life. So stay with us tonight; stay through both parts of the story. It runs in two segments.

Let it build, get to know these kids, listen to them, and you will love them and you will believe when it's over, if you doubt it now, that one person, any one person has the incredible power to change lives. So stay with us tonight, then go hug your kids, your own kids, if you can. You probably will anyway. That's later in the program.

We begin with the news of the day and the latest on the diplomacy involving Iraq. Suzanne Malveaux on that for us at the White House, where news of made. Suzanne, a headline, please.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke by phone for 30 minutes, strategizing on how to present a second U.N. Security Council resolution. A resolution that White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called a last chance. That's a last chance for the U.N., that is, to prove that they mean what it says and that it will enforce disarming Saddam Hussein.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Back to you at the top. On to the terror threat and the new nationwide campaign unveiled by the homeland security chief today. Jeanne Meserve covered and joins us tonight. Jeanne, the headline.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The secretary of homeland security says Americans have a choice when it comes to the threat of another terrorist attack. They can be afraid or they can be ready. He wants them ready, and this campaign is one step in that direction -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeanne.

A crowd of contenders in the race for 2004 got a little bigger today. Candy Crowley covering the political story. Candy, your headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Richard Gephardt, a congressman from Missouri, is definitely in this race, hitting three states today, Aaron. He has more than -- almost 30 years experience on Capitol Hill. The question is whether that's a plus or a minus.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT for Wednesday, the 19th of February, a journalist who has done what many have tried do before and failed: infiltrate the world of terror. We'll look at how he did it and the story he came out with.

And as promised, the kids determined not to make the mistakes of their parents and the woman helping to give them a future. It is "Segment 7" and it runs in two segments. All of that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in Washington, with signs of patience wearing thin on Iraq, and there wasn't much patience to begin with. Today the White House gave what it calls a final offer of aid to Turkey in exchange for access to Turkish military bases on the northern border with Iraq. The president agreed to send a final resolution to the Security Council, which the allies are demanding. But if you listen to a spokesman, the resolution is aimed less at appeasing the allies than holding their feet to the fire.

And with few signs of any give from the allies, President Bush today worked the phones and met with the head of NATO at the White House, where CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins us once again. Good evening to you.

MALVEAUX: Hello, Aaron. President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke by phone about strategizing how to put forward the second U.N. Security Council resolution, one they say would be simple. One that would say that Iraq is in material breach. They're hoping for the support of nine out of 15 members that would be required. Plus no veto. But of course there is no guarantees with that. A lot of diplomacy ahead. President Bush also today met with the secretary general of NATO, George Robertson. He thanked him for his support to push through the defensive aid to Turkey. This is something that had been hard fought and actually had been won. But it became very clear afterwards, all of these good words, that there's still a huge gulf between NATO's position, allies and the administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You represent our nation's most important alliance, NATO. Today this alliance is providing equipment to Turkey to help protect our Turkish ally from a potential attack from Iraq.

GEORGE ROBERTSON, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Well if Saddam Hussein complies with Resolution 1441, then there will be no need for any military action of any type. And he's still got some time to do that. So nobody needs to contemplate a talk about military action if he's going to comply and he's going to heed the demand of the whole international community. But NATO at the present moment is only dealing with the deployment to deter and to defend against threats to Turkey, one member of the alliance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Aaron, Robertson saying that really now is not even the time to contemplate or even to talk about the possibility of war with Iraq. The administration taking the position that the president has yet to make up his mind, but certainly saying that that is an option that is on the table.

One unanswered question this evening is what is Turkey going to do. It has yet to actually clear the way for U.S. troops to be based there on Turkish soil. The administration has offered a multi-billion dollar aid package to Turkey, but Turkey says it want more money. The White House saying that it has its final offer on the table, and it's now time for Turkey to make a decision -- Aaron.

BROWN: This is such an odd negotiation, at least from where we sit. Is all of this money being promised to Turkey money that's used in the defense of Turkey? Or is this a broader economic aid package to Turkey?

MALVEAUX: Well, it's definitely a broader economic aid package. As you know, in the Gulf War, Turkey lost a lot of money. They are really trying to jump-start their economy. They had a lot of difficulties with that. They say that they were not even paid properly after that war, that they really feel that they lost out quite a bit not only politically but also economically. They want to make sure that does not happen again.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Suzanne Malveaux outside the White House tonight.

On now to the United Nations. Last night, a former diplomat, something of a hard-liner, was asked about this second Security Council resolution which is now in the works. "We're looking at this the wrong way," he said. "This isn't the second resolution, it's the 18th."

And if you go back to the end of the Gulf War, he's right. On one level, President Bush agrees. He's called another resolution unnecessary more than once, but for one reason or another in diplomacy things that seem unnecessary are often indispensable. So in a few days the diplomats will have another decision to make.

Here's CNN's Richard Roth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is the opening act before the real diplomatic drama. A final chance for U.N. member countries to tell the Security Council how they feel about a war with Iraq. Most stated the U.N. is not at that point yet.

PAUL HEINBECKER, CANADIAN AMBASSADOR TO. U.N.: The government and people of Canada are fully prepared to accept the judgments of the inspectors and the decisions of this council.

FAWZI BIN ABDUL MAJEED SHOBOKSHI, SAUDI ARABIAN AMBASSADOR TO U.N. (through translator): War is a serious issue. If it solves one problem, it may bring many others with destructive consequences.

ROTH: When this debate fades, it will be the turn of the Council to focus on a second resolution proposed by the U.S. and Britain. The British ambassador said it might come with a deadline on Iraq to comply on disarmament.

JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Explicitly or implicitly, yes, I do expect that. Because time will, I'm afraid, run out, as time always does.

ROTH: The resolution is not ready for primetime since the wording will have to be artfully drafted to get the necessary support in the Security Council.

RICHARD BOUCHER, U.S. STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: It's a safe assumption that any resolution that we will work with and support would do what the president said it needed to do, and that's to make clear that the Security Council was standing by its demands in its previous resolution.

ROTH: The U.S. will need to use all its diplomatic skills to get the required nine votes in favor of a resolution without any vetoes from permanent members such as France, Russia and China. Those nations like the threat of more inspections instead of the threat of war.

JEAN-MARC DE LA SABLIERE, FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: You have to continue the inspections and making some pressure -- more pressure on Iraq, and you'll have more results.

ROTH: Iraq insists the inspectors shouldn't worry.

MOHAMMED ALDOURI, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.N. (through translator): We are confident that no one will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because there are none.

ROTH (on camera): Iraq will be getting a letter from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix. The letter will direct Baghdad to destroy missiles test fired beyond an allowed 93-mile range. Whether Baghdad complies will determine how the Security Council feels about a new resolution.

Richard Roth, CNN, United Nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We said at the top of the program the hard sell can sometimes backfire. There's a fine line to walk, even more so as the stakes get higher. This is precisely what the administration has been grappling with, how to keep the country prepared for a terrorist attack but not terrified. How to sound the alarm without being seen as always crying wolf.

Today, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled a new educational campaign; no doubt it will not please everybody. The government has a hit-and-miss record on these things. But for now it's what millions of Americans will be watching, reading and ultimately, we suspect, shopping for. Here again, CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Every family in America should prepare itself for a terrorist attack.

MESERVE (voice-over): This public service announcement just one piece of a massive education campaign to get Americans ready. Television, radio, print ads, billboards, a Web site, even inserts in the yellow pages recommend the basics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like a communication plan, how to get in touch with each other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'll have a radio, you'll have a flashlight, you'll have batteries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make sure you have enough water and food.

MESERVE: And something else, said the secretary of homeland security.

RIDGE: Oh, and yes, I have to say, stash away the duct tape. Don't use it, stash it away and that premeasured plastic sheeting for future. And I emphasize future use.

MESERVE: Cincinnati, Ohio was the site of the unveiling, but Mayor Charlie Luken wasn't on stage. He later issued a statement saying, "We don't need duct tape or Web sites. We need money if we're going to fight terrorism effectively."

ANNOUNCER: If you have been exposed to gas vapors, remove all outer clothing outside the house, including shoes. This avoids spreading the gas inside.

MESERVE: There are echoes of the Cold War's civil defense films. But the new announcements were crafted over a year's time using a modern tool, the focus group, to make sure the message will get through. The long day irked some experts who believe public preparedness is key to avoiding panic, but most applaud the campaign as a good first step in what they hope is a sustained and detailed long-term educational effort.

PHIL ANDERSON, CSIS: In this new environment, the public's weapon of choice has to be knowledge. It's not plastic sheeting or duct tape, it's knowledge. It's an understanding of why duct tape and plastic sheeting is important.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: A grant is underwriting the Web site. The Ad Council and an ad agency donated their time. Space on billboards, print and broadcast stations will be free, too. The bottom line cost to the American taxpayer, absolutely nothing -- Aaron.

BROWN: Wow. Except perhaps a fair amount of anxiety. The timing of this is interesting given the mess of last week. Was there any talk about delaying it, putting a little distance between last week and this?

MESERVE: We asked a lot of questions about the timing and whether it was pure coincidence that this should happen at this time. What we were told by homeland security officials is that this has been in the works for more than a year and that for some time they had scheduled to release this in mid February. They say it is purely a coincidence that it came so shortly after the whole furor over duct tape and plastic sheeting. Also a coincidence that it came during a time of orange threat alert.

BROWN: Which answers actually the second question, which is, we're still at level orange. And any talk about that being changed up or down, I suppose, but changed any time soon?

MESERVE: A lot of talk about it. When they put us to threat level orange, they said one of the reasons was that they feared there might be an attack during the Hajj. That is now over; that factor clearly eliminated. But Ridge said that was only one of many factors they were looking at when they raised the level.

They are still looking at them now. And he says they want to have an assessment over a several-day period to figure out whether the intelligence really justifies bringing it down again. He did say he wants to bring it down. He realizes this is a great strain on private industry and state and local governments.

This is clearly being looked at. But the only thing I can say with confidence is it's not coming down tonight.

BROWN: Buy that. Thank you. Jeanne Meserve in Washington, thank you.

Another sign of the times to report. The Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, today announced a tentative plan to arm airline pilots. Nothing final. The details may change between now and next Tuesday, which is the deadline Congress set for coming up with the plan.

But for now, here's the gist of it. Pilots would wear .40 caliber pistols, but only in the cockpit, not the cabin. After flying, the guns will be kept in a lock box. About a week's worth of training would be provided, along with psychological screening to make sure that if the time ever comes, the pilot could pull the trigger. Welcome again to the new normal.

Something to consider now in the rush to pile on France and Germany. France has been out front in arresting terror suspects. And today, the first verdict in a 9/11-related terror case came not in the United States but in Germany. A court in Hamburg convicted a Moroccan student of charges that he was an accessory to more than 3,000 murders. And then the court gave him the max for what he did, though the max may not seem like the max you might wish for.

Here's CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mounir el Motassadeq, bearded and thin, appeared in the Hamburg court flanked by his lawyers. His sentence, 15 years, the maximum for his crimes under German law. His lawyers say they will appeal, but already this case is a legal first.

As well as belonging to a terrorist organization, Motassadeq was also found guilty of being an accessory to murder of 3,066 people killed in the 9/11 attacks. The court's uncompromising message may open the way to further prosecutions. Motassedeq has always admitted close links with the 9/11 pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi. He was a signed witness on Atta's last will and testament and had power of attorney on Al-Shehhi's bank account, which he used to pay Al-Shehhi's bills.

MOUNIR EL MOTASSADEQ, CONVICTED 9/11 CONSPIRATOR (through translator): This is true. It's normal and common to help others. When he was traveling home, I was taking care of payments for his apartment, tuition for university.

CHANCE: In an exclusive CNN interview before his arrest, Motassedeq said he only knew the would-be hijackers as Muslim friends in Hamburg. It later emerged he trained in Afghanistan in camps Atta and others passed through.

Motassedeq still denied any prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks. But prosecutors successfully argued Motassedeq played a key role in supporting the Hamburg al Qaeda cell, never intending to take part in the actual hijackings but making sure their rent and tuition fees were paid in Germany. A (UNINTELLIGIBLE), in other words, without which the 9/11 killing machine may have been unable to run.

(on camera): In passing down his sentence, the German judge said Motassedeq was part of a group that regarded the United States as its enemy. And that Motassedeq himself had prior knowledge of a plot to strike at America's political and economic heart.

But the true significance of this trial stretches well beyond a single sentence. For the families of the victims of 9/11, justice in courts around the world has finally begun.

(voice-over): But in the United States, not all families are satisfied with the outcome of the trial.

STEVEN PUSH, VICTIMS OF 9/11 FAMILIES ORGANIZATION: People who are willing to participate in a plot to murder thousands of people should spend their life in prison.

CHANCE (on camera): Still, under German law the maximum sentence for an accessory to murder is the same. It doesn't matter here how many people finally died.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Germany.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, another candidate for president. Congressman Dick Gephardt is throwing his hat in the ring, as they say. And later, the story of a filmmaker who went undercover with Islamic terrorists.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We assume the bumper stickers will not read "Been there, done that." But they could. Congressman Dick Gephardt formally announced that he'll seek the Democratic nomination for president in '04. The Missouri congressman has lots of experience in Congress, a quarter of a century, has made the White House run before, and has one of the best rolodexes in the business.

But can he win the nomination, let alone the election? Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): If you're a Washington insider and want to run for president, the first thing you have to do is leave town. Richard Gephardt went home to St. Louis.

GEPHARDT: Here in the home of my values, here at the heart of the American dream, I announce my candidacy fort presidency of the United States. CROWLEY: He is a product of the Midwest, son of a milk truck driver and a secretary. His private life is said to be exemplary. He has been married for 36 years. The couple has three grown children. His speech is peppered with references to them.

He is invariably described as a good listener, unfailingly polite, incredibly decent. But the guy once called Dickey Doright (ph) can land a punch. Here is his critique of the president.

GEPHARDT: I have I to hand it to him. Never has so much been done in so little time to help so few.

CROWLEY: The congressman from Missouri supports the president on Iraq, but that's about it. His maiden campaign speech was littered with one-line barbs.

GEPHARDT: This administration's idea of alternative fuel is Exxon instead of Texaco.

CROWLEY: Gephardt has served Missouri's third district for almost 30 years, been house Democratic leader for eight, worked on all the major issues. He has the most Washington experience of any candidate now in the field. The rap is he's last century's news, a leader unable to win back majority status in the house, stale in a party that needs a fresh look.

GEPHARDT: I'm not going to say what's fashionable in our politics, that I'm a Washington outsider, that I couldn't find the nation's capital on a map, that I have no experience at the highest levels of government. I do. And I think experience matters.

CROWLEY: He wants to be the candidate of the working class. It's where he came from, it's where much of his support has been. He's a long time faithful friend of organized labor, credited with giving him a win in Iowa the first time he ran for president in 1988. And it is why his first official campaign stop in Iowa was before a union group.

GEPHARDT: The labor union's fight for working families to succeed and be able to raise their children and have a good life. That's where I am, that's where I've always been, and that's where I always will be.

CROWLEY: Gephardt's 1977 Iowa caucus victory may not be ancient history but it's been a while. Long enough for the unions, the party and the state to change enough to make 2004 a whole new ball game.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: In fact, Gephardt's 1988 Iowa caucus win may prove to be quite a burden. Already politicals are saying if Gephardt can't win here in 2004, New Hampshire looks pretty bad -- Aaron.

BROWN: Tough business if they handicap when you first arrive in the state. All the major and expected players now in the game, right? CROWLEY: Well, you know, we've still got a couple out there. As you know, Senator Graham of Florida has said that he would like to run, but he's recovering from heart surgery. We've heard noises from Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. So we may get some more.

BROWN: You'll be busy then.

CROWLEY: Hate to scare you.

BROWN: You'll never get out of Iowa. Thank you. And Iowa is not a bad place to be at all. Candy Crowley from Des Moines, Iowa tonight.

A few stories from around the country, beginning with an update on a notorious case from the 1970's. Ronny Zamora saw his sentence reduced today by seven years. The Florida parole commission doing that. Zamora was 15 when he murdered a neighbor. His lawyer argued he had been driven insane by years of watching violent TV. Ronny Zamora will get out of prison in June of '05.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg got his smallpox vaccine shot today. A sign of the times. And the kickoff of the city's voluntary program to inoculate key workers.

And it's been the anthem for fed up workers every day, "Take this job and shove it." Now Johnny Paycheck, the country singer who made it a hit, has died. He was 64.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, undercover with Islamic militants. The story of a journalist who risked his life to capture a story. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When the latest bin Laden tapes surfaced, we heard a familiar criticism. Why can't we get inside the terrorist world? As if it were like joining the Elks Club. The challenges here are simply enormous.

You need to look the part, speak the language, know the cultural traps, understand the religion and the sympathies implicitly. This is a story about someone who did, who did get inside and had all of this going for him. Plus something else a CIA agent probably doesn't have, a personal connection. If he had been a spy, we probably never would have heard about this coup, but he's a journalist, and his coup is what we call in the business the scoop of a lifetime.

It's reported by CNN's Sheila MacVicar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The encounter began in Paris last October outside a courtroom. On trial, Islamic militants accused of carrying out a bombing campaign in France of 1995. Watching the trial, a heavyset man named Karim Bourti, a man convicted in 1998 of terrorist association, and an Algerian journalist named Mohamed Sifaoui.

MOHAMED SIFAOUI, JOURNALIST (through translator): Karim recognized me and realized we had gone to high school together in Algeria.

MACVICAR: That chance meeting led to a three-month journey. In the company of Bourti, using an assumed name and often a hidden camera, Mohamed Sifaoui penetrated the ranks of Islamist extremists in France and Britain, some linked to al Qaeda. They knew he was a journalist, even knew he was working on this documentary for the television channel France Two. And they thought he was a believer, just like them.

SIFAOUI (through translator): I constructed a new identity. It wasn't me, anti-Islamist, anti-fascist, anti-extremist, but someone who was like them.

MACVICAR: Staying with them, he says, in immigrant neighborhoods in Paris, watching as they raised money on the streets, praying with them, listening to them, Sifaoui says he learned they were recruiting young men to go off to fight jihad, holy war, in Chechnya.

SIFAOUI (through translator): Where there is war, they incite. They encourage young people who don't have a great deal of knowledge, indoctrinate them, incite them to send them off to battle fronts.

MACVICAR: Gilles Leclair, who coordinates anti-terrorist actions for the French government, says that Sifaoui describes matches the findings of police investigations.

GILLES LECLAIR, FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTRY: They try to convince the people to become terrorists or to become more -- stronger than the normal believers. It's true that they are recruiting in the jails. They recruit in the mosques.

MACVICAR: And Sifaoui says he found more, connecting Bourti and the people around him to what judicial officials say were chemical weapons plots thwarted by arrests in the suburbs of Paris.

SIFAOUI (through translator): I knew that he knew the people who had been arrested. I became certain that he and his group were not simply people whose role it was to incite. These people were actively involved in acts of terror.

MACVICAR: Karim Bourti is now under arrest, suspected by French police of involvement in the beating of a Muslim cleric and of involvement in a terrorist organization. Mohamed Sifaoui has published a book about what he learned in the months he spent getting close to Bourti.

(on camera): Were there times when you thought that you were truly in danger?

SIFAOUI (through translator): Every day, there were tension. I worked under terrible pressure. I was afraid that, at any moment, I might come face to face with someone who knew me, who knew my real name.

MACVICAR (voice-over): Now he lives with death threats and faces a decision about whether or not to testify against Bourti and others. He has not forgotten, he says, that the men who called him brother were prepared to kill at any price.

Sheila MacVicar, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A plane crash in Iran begins our look at some other stories form around the world tonight: The Russian-made military transport went in bad weather in the mountains of southeastern Iran just short of its intended destination. All 203 people on board died. With the exception of the crew, all were members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

And they buried their dead today in Gaza. The mourners came equipped with banners and assault rifles and promises of revenge for 11 people killed in Israeli incursions. At least seven of the dead belonged to Hamas or Palestinian police forces. But the Palestinians say a number of civilians died as well.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, we'll check out some of the morning papers coming you way -- that may be coming you way; and, later, a special segment seven on a program that tries to keep the children of convicts from following in their parents' footsteps.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll take a look at morning papers and some of the pictures in those papers from around the globe.

A short break. We're right back. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, two minutes to look at the morning papers and some pictures.

First of all: "The Boston Herald." The big headline in "The Boston Herald" is "Meltdown." Yes, it got warm in the East today and kind of messy.

"The Korean Herald," the English-language paper in Seoul: A couple things we liked here, first, a story down here: "U.S. Urged to Rule Out Military Option." It has nothing to do with Iraq. This is North Korea. The South Koreans are worried about it. But see if you get a shot of the picture here. This is a picture taken from the subway the other day as the fire and the smoke started to fill it up. And to our eye, people looked incredibly calm. It's a fabulous picture taken by someone, obviously, on board.

"Chicago Tribune" -- or, I'm sorry -- "Chicago Sun-Times." Sorry, Jim Warren, you'll have to send us "The Tribune" -- "Club Owner Speaks" still the big story. A story we looked: "Happy Hour," Wheaton College. That's Billy Graham's college, actually, his alma mater. Wheaton Students can dance. Staff may drink and smoke, a Christian school loosening things up a bit, a sign of the times there.

A couple of pictures. Let me see the chickens, if you will. There we go. OK, what are these chickens, you ask? These are the canaries in the coal mine, if you will. These chickens in Kuwait will be used to detect poison gases, chemical gases, should it come to war. How sobering is that?

And while we're looking at pictures, show me the other one, too. You think this is just a shot of an SUV, right, a Border Patrol? No, it's not. This is how the drug dealers -- how smart they are -- well, they weren't that smart, because they got caught. But they painted a car to look like a U.S. Border Patrol jeep, tried to smuggle drugs into the country.

How much? Thirty? Here we go, "The Boston" -- "Detroit Free Press" -- sorry, you guys -- a sign of the times here, too: "State Colleges to Feel the Heavy Impact of Budget Cuts" there, lot of states having economic problems.

And "The Times of London": What really happens when you meet the queen, the pope, the dalai lama and Elizabeth Taylor? And the answer to that is, ask Larry King. He's probably talked to all of those people.

A quick look at the morning papers from around the world.

We'll take a short break and segment seven when we come back. Stay with us. This is a terrific piece of work.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Segment seven comes in two parts tonight. We gave you the pitch at the top of the program. We'll get right to this: kids with everything against them and the woman who believes their lives can be better, believes what should be entirely obvious, but may not be to them, that they are precious.

And precious is a word you're going to hear a lot. It's her wish that, in a world of crime and stolen innocence, that there be no more victims.

This is the work of NEWSNIGHT producer Catherine Mitchell, who also reports it tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHERINE MITCHELL, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): M.B. Smiley High School in Houston, Texas, is in one of the roughest, poorest schools in the nation. Administrators estimate that half of the close to 1,600 students have a parent in prison. Students say that number is even higher.

(on camera): How many of you have a parent in prison right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd say it's like 90 percent of the kids in here that have parents incarcerated or going through some type of problem at home, whether they're getting molested, beat, or whatever.

MITCHELL (voice-over): These are the most at-risk kids, the students of class 1066. Every student has at least one parent in prison.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This group teaches us how to fight back.

MITCHELL: For 50 minutes a day, these student meet to share a common ground: broken families, abuse, attempted suicide and rape, the painful pillars of their young lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All my life, my grandmother always told me, you are going to be just like your daddy. You are going to end up in jail. Or she told me, you're going to be just like your mama, die at an early age.

So, I always thought, well, I might as well help you out and just kill myself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it weren't for this group, I think I'd be dead at this very moment, because I had nothing to look up to growing up as a child. My mama was always working two and three jobs. I had to take care of my sister. I had to cook for her. I bathed her. I clothed her and everything. So, I didn't really have a childhood.

MITCHELL: But these children might be considered the lucky ones. Unlike most of the estimated 1.5 million children with a parent in jail, they have somewhere to turn.

MARILYN GAMBRELL, FOUNDER, NO MORE VICTIMS: So, I think she's showing some wisdom with dealing with something that's making her really uncomfortable.

MITCHELL: The class is called No More Victims, the idea of former parole officer Marilyn Gambrell.

GAMBRELL: Children of incarcerated parents, that number of children, this most in-need population, is a national epidemic. It can't be put off anymore.

MITCHELL: Gambrell realized that the children of her parolees were under the radar. There were a lot of them and they were in danger. So, she decided to do something about it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Gambrell tells us every day that we're precious, that she loves us, and we can make it. We're going to be something. And most of us, we ain't never had nobody tell us that.

MITCHELL: The concept behind the group is simple, but the results are powerful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It allowed me to cope with what was going on at home.

MITCHELL: They're reversing a dangerous cycle that makes these children five times more likely to end up behind bars. Since the class started two years ago, only a handful of the 300 students have gone to jail.

GAMBRELL: What is you all's message to people that make those statements that, you're going to prison anyway, so why should we do anything? What do you all to say to America about that?

Tam? (ph)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To all those people who believe that, I want to let you know, we are precious. We will not follow our parents' ways. And we are going to do something with our life.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Despite the odds, these students are getting diplomas instead of doing time. This year, all 15 seniors are expected to graduate.

ED WALKER, SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH FOREST SCHOOL DISTRICT: These kids are going to college. That would have been unheard of with any of these children without this program.

MITCHELL: Brandon is one of the success stories. He has left the violence behind and plans to get a college education. Brandon's father has been in and out of jail and in and out of his son's life for years.

BRANDON O'NEAL, 12TH GRADER: He left us on Christmas Eve, you know what I'm saying? Of all days you could have left, he left us on Christmas Eve. And it hurt me more than anything could everybody do to me. I felt like I could just die right there.

MITCHELL: Like many of the students in the class, Brandon has tried to commit suicide several times. He says, without the group, he might have been successful.

O'NEAL: It is, because, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. I'd be dead or in jail, honestly.

MITCHELL: Saving lives is what keeps Gambrell going, but she won't stop there.

GAMBRELL: Now, do we want to get it right? Do we want to sprinkle water on a forest fire or do we really want to start putting the doggone thing out?

Well, I'm for attacking it from the land, the air and the sea, because I don't want our children and our fathers and mothers dying. And we're doing that at a very steady pace. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): I told the storm to pass, the storm, you can't last. Go away. I command you to move today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, you'll see what Marilyn Gambrell means by attacking this problem from land, sea and air. Some of the students head to prison and confront the inmates.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Final part now of our look at some of the kids at M.B. Smiley High School in Houston, Texas, their efforts to let people inside prison know what it's like for kids left behind outside.

Here again: NEWSNIGHT's Catherine Mitchell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GAMBRELL: We're going to get through all this together, support each other, and make this one of the most powerful days on this earth coming out of Houston, Texas, downtown Houston, Texas, at Joe Kegans State Jail.

MITCHELL (voice-over): Marilyn Gambrell takes the healing process beyond the doors of room 1066, straight to the root of the problem: parents behind bars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have never had a daddy.

MITCHELL: This is an opportunity these kids may never get with their own parents: a chance to let other parent in prison understand the pain they cause.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's ain't never told me he loved me. And I'm 18, never, not once in my life. That's all I want to hear is that he loved me, but he's never told me that. When I was raped, I told him I was raped. "You're lying. Shut up."

MITCHELL: Tequila Woods (ph) got her diploma from Smiley last year. But, at one point, she was closer to dying than graduating. She would come to school with razors in her pocket determined to end her own life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I came to school and I'm like, man, today is going to be the day Quila (ph) dies.

MITCHELL: Thanks to the group, she's now heading to college, but still makes time to tell prisoners her sad story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You all sitting up in here. And even though you know your daddy or your mama did it to you and you know how they hurt and you know how you felt, why would you put your kids through the same stuff? I think that's ignorant. I really do. And whoever do it, I'm telling you all, you're all ignorant and I'm telling you all to you all face, because I'm not one to bite my tongue.

MITCHELL: The message is powerful and the kids know it. They can bring grown men to their knees with the unspeakable horrors that they have endured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as, like, us, Will, take the path. You all are the future. By you all taking the step, I pray to God that we take the step that could walk behind you.

JAMES KAVANAUGH HILL, INMATE, JOE KEGANS STATE PRISON: Listening to those kids speak of their problems and how they have been abused and raped at their age, it really made me cry. It's a hurting feeling to be here speaking today and not being a father out there for my kids today, knowing what might be happening to them.

MICHAEL HORN, 12TH GRADER: I kind of put myself into where, when they look at me, they're looking at their own kid.

I don't need you. I'm grown up.

MITCHELL: Michael's list of troubles is long. With no parents around, he started selling drugs to support his 15 younger siblings. Since joining the group, Michael has gone from drug dealer to star football player, with the hopes of getting a college football scholarship. Michael hopes his story will help these prisoners become better parents.

HORN: When you all get out, don't just expect your child to just be all, "Oh, daddy, daddy, daddy." No, no, no. It's going to take a while, man. It's going to take a while for your all child to just gain their trust back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have five kids and I never realized the pain until I seen this girl.

MITCHELL: The effect on the prisoners is palpable, but, ultimately, the children are the ones who benefit the most.

GAMBRELL: Our children, it's so healthy for them, because they can vent. And they may never get to tell their own parents, but at least they're telling somebody, and somebody in a setting that's as close as they can get to sharing with their own parents. And it has an unbelievable impact.

MITCHELL: Even more difficult than confronting a sea of prisoners, the group works to reconnect children and parents, many of whom barely know each other.

MICHELLE WALKER, MOTHER OF ANTENIECIA WALKER: Without No More Victims, I wouldn't know my kids. Without No More Victims, I don't think I would be sitting here. I wouldn't even be here today. I believe I'd be somewhere getting high.

MITCHELL: Michelle Walker had Anteniecia at 13. Addicted to drugs, she ended up on the streets and then jail. Now she is one of a handful of parents who is working to repair the damage.

GAMBRELL: Both parents have been incarcerated.

MITCHELL: Anteniecia, who barely spoke before joining the group, is finding a voice no one knew she had.

GAMBRELL: This child was completely quiet and really was uncomfortable in talking. She's here.

ANTENIECIA WALKER, 12TH GRADER: Hi, my name is Anteniecia Walker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi.

A. WALKER: And, as she said, I'm a 12th grader, graduating this year. And I plan on going to college.

MITCHELL: For the children and parents of No More Victims, lives that once felt worthless enough to end now have hope.

O'NEAL: If it could change this school, imagine the turnaround it had here and imagine what it would do around other schools, because people always stand up and tell us, kids are our future. Now that we have something positive, we can actually sit up and say that we can be the future.

MITCHELL: A job well done, some might say. But for Gambrell, it's not enough. She won't stop until she's accomplished her goal: to make America notice the other 1.5 million children suffering in prisons of silence and shame.

GAMBRELL: In America, children don't have to, are not doomed to go to prison just because their parents did. But we have a responsibility in that role. Now, once we get on board with that, we're going to change this entire nation. I have proof. I have proof.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): With God on our side, we'll find strength in each tear we cry.

MITCHELL: Catherine Mitchell, CNN, Houston, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: People say all the time -- and they're often correct -- we don't report enough good news. There's two segments worth for tonight.

If you want more information on the program, check out their Web site, www.NoMoreVictimsInc -- that's one word -- NoMoreVictimsInc.org. Take a look. Send them an e-mail. Tell them you love them. They're doing great.

That's our report for tonight. If you would like an e-mail from us, go to our Web site, CNN.com/NEWSNIGHT. Sign up for the daily e- mail. We'll send it out to you. It gives you a preview of the program and a look what's on our minds as we go through the day.

And we'll see you all tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time.

Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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Campaign; Gephardt to Seek Democratic Nomination for President in 2004>


Aired February 19, 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: And good evening again, everyone. This will be brief tonight. We've got a lot of program to do. But I want to sell you on a story at the top; a wonderful piece of work by NEWSNIGHT producer Catherine Mitchell that will run later.
This is a fine line for us. Sell too hard, oversell in the way sometimes we can do this business -- imagine that in television -- and the piece loses the battle between expectation and reality. But I want to sell you on the piece just the same. It is a story about some kids in Houston who have had the most miserable of lives and will continue to have the most miserable of lives in the future, we suspect, were it not for one woman and one extraordinary program.

Every one of these kids has a parent in prison. Some have both parents in prison. Some have been abused, some have tried suicide, all know the trauma of a broken home. Some have been told that what they have to look forward to in their lives is a life just like their parents, behind bars. Or maybe they'll end up in an early grave.

But if all of this sounds depressing, it is not. These kids will teach you a lot tonight if you let them. Not the least of which is how little it takes to bring hope into someone's life. So stay with us tonight; stay through both parts of the story. It runs in two segments.

Let it build, get to know these kids, listen to them, and you will love them and you will believe when it's over, if you doubt it now, that one person, any one person has the incredible power to change lives. So stay with us tonight, then go hug your kids, your own kids, if you can. You probably will anyway. That's later in the program.

We begin with the news of the day and the latest on the diplomacy involving Iraq. Suzanne Malveaux on that for us at the White House, where news of made. Suzanne, a headline, please.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke by phone for 30 minutes, strategizing on how to present a second U.N. Security Council resolution. A resolution that White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called a last chance. That's a last chance for the U.N., that is, to prove that they mean what it says and that it will enforce disarming Saddam Hussein.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Back to you at the top. On to the terror threat and the new nationwide campaign unveiled by the homeland security chief today. Jeanne Meserve covered and joins us tonight. Jeanne, the headline.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The secretary of homeland security says Americans have a choice when it comes to the threat of another terrorist attack. They can be afraid or they can be ready. He wants them ready, and this campaign is one step in that direction -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeanne.

A crowd of contenders in the race for 2004 got a little bigger today. Candy Crowley covering the political story. Candy, your headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Richard Gephardt, a congressman from Missouri, is definitely in this race, hitting three states today, Aaron. He has more than -- almost 30 years experience on Capitol Hill. The question is whether that's a plus or a minus.

BROWN: Candy, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT for Wednesday, the 19th of February, a journalist who has done what many have tried do before and failed: infiltrate the world of terror. We'll look at how he did it and the story he came out with.

And as promised, the kids determined not to make the mistakes of their parents and the woman helping to give them a future. It is "Segment 7" and it runs in two segments. All of that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in Washington, with signs of patience wearing thin on Iraq, and there wasn't much patience to begin with. Today the White House gave what it calls a final offer of aid to Turkey in exchange for access to Turkish military bases on the northern border with Iraq. The president agreed to send a final resolution to the Security Council, which the allies are demanding. But if you listen to a spokesman, the resolution is aimed less at appeasing the allies than holding their feet to the fire.

And with few signs of any give from the allies, President Bush today worked the phones and met with the head of NATO at the White House, where CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins us once again. Good evening to you.

MALVEAUX: Hello, Aaron. President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke by phone about strategizing how to put forward the second U.N. Security Council resolution, one they say would be simple. One that would say that Iraq is in material breach. They're hoping for the support of nine out of 15 members that would be required. Plus no veto. But of course there is no guarantees with that. A lot of diplomacy ahead. President Bush also today met with the secretary general of NATO, George Robertson. He thanked him for his support to push through the defensive aid to Turkey. This is something that had been hard fought and actually had been won. But it became very clear afterwards, all of these good words, that there's still a huge gulf between NATO's position, allies and the administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You represent our nation's most important alliance, NATO. Today this alliance is providing equipment to Turkey to help protect our Turkish ally from a potential attack from Iraq.

GEORGE ROBERTSON, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Well if Saddam Hussein complies with Resolution 1441, then there will be no need for any military action of any type. And he's still got some time to do that. So nobody needs to contemplate a talk about military action if he's going to comply and he's going to heed the demand of the whole international community. But NATO at the present moment is only dealing with the deployment to deter and to defend against threats to Turkey, one member of the alliance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, Aaron, Robertson saying that really now is not even the time to contemplate or even to talk about the possibility of war with Iraq. The administration taking the position that the president has yet to make up his mind, but certainly saying that that is an option that is on the table.

One unanswered question this evening is what is Turkey going to do. It has yet to actually clear the way for U.S. troops to be based there on Turkish soil. The administration has offered a multi-billion dollar aid package to Turkey, but Turkey says it want more money. The White House saying that it has its final offer on the table, and it's now time for Turkey to make a decision -- Aaron.

BROWN: This is such an odd negotiation, at least from where we sit. Is all of this money being promised to Turkey money that's used in the defense of Turkey? Or is this a broader economic aid package to Turkey?

MALVEAUX: Well, it's definitely a broader economic aid package. As you know, in the Gulf War, Turkey lost a lot of money. They are really trying to jump-start their economy. They had a lot of difficulties with that. They say that they were not even paid properly after that war, that they really feel that they lost out quite a bit not only politically but also economically. They want to make sure that does not happen again.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Suzanne Malveaux outside the White House tonight.

On now to the United Nations. Last night, a former diplomat, something of a hard-liner, was asked about this second Security Council resolution which is now in the works. "We're looking at this the wrong way," he said. "This isn't the second resolution, it's the 18th."

And if you go back to the end of the Gulf War, he's right. On one level, President Bush agrees. He's called another resolution unnecessary more than once, but for one reason or another in diplomacy things that seem unnecessary are often indispensable. So in a few days the diplomats will have another decision to make.

Here's CNN's Richard Roth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is the opening act before the real diplomatic drama. A final chance for U.N. member countries to tell the Security Council how they feel about a war with Iraq. Most stated the U.N. is not at that point yet.

PAUL HEINBECKER, CANADIAN AMBASSADOR TO. U.N.: The government and people of Canada are fully prepared to accept the judgments of the inspectors and the decisions of this council.

FAWZI BIN ABDUL MAJEED SHOBOKSHI, SAUDI ARABIAN AMBASSADOR TO U.N. (through translator): War is a serious issue. If it solves one problem, it may bring many others with destructive consequences.

ROTH: When this debate fades, it will be the turn of the Council to focus on a second resolution proposed by the U.S. and Britain. The British ambassador said it might come with a deadline on Iraq to comply on disarmament.

JEREMY GREENSTOCK, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: Explicitly or implicitly, yes, I do expect that. Because time will, I'm afraid, run out, as time always does.

ROTH: The resolution is not ready for primetime since the wording will have to be artfully drafted to get the necessary support in the Security Council.

RICHARD BOUCHER, U.S. STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: It's a safe assumption that any resolution that we will work with and support would do what the president said it needed to do, and that's to make clear that the Security Council was standing by its demands in its previous resolution.

ROTH: The U.S. will need to use all its diplomatic skills to get the required nine votes in favor of a resolution without any vetoes from permanent members such as France, Russia and China. Those nations like the threat of more inspections instead of the threat of war.

JEAN-MARC DE LA SABLIERE, FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: You have to continue the inspections and making some pressure -- more pressure on Iraq, and you'll have more results.

ROTH: Iraq insists the inspectors shouldn't worry.

MOHAMMED ALDOURI, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.N. (through translator): We are confident that no one will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because there are none.

ROTH (on camera): Iraq will be getting a letter from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix. The letter will direct Baghdad to destroy missiles test fired beyond an allowed 93-mile range. Whether Baghdad complies will determine how the Security Council feels about a new resolution.

Richard Roth, CNN, United Nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We said at the top of the program the hard sell can sometimes backfire. There's a fine line to walk, even more so as the stakes get higher. This is precisely what the administration has been grappling with, how to keep the country prepared for a terrorist attack but not terrified. How to sound the alarm without being seen as always crying wolf.

Today, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled a new educational campaign; no doubt it will not please everybody. The government has a hit-and-miss record on these things. But for now it's what millions of Americans will be watching, reading and ultimately, we suspect, shopping for. Here again, CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Every family in America should prepare itself for a terrorist attack.

MESERVE (voice-over): This public service announcement just one piece of a massive education campaign to get Americans ready. Television, radio, print ads, billboards, a Web site, even inserts in the yellow pages recommend the basics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like a communication plan, how to get in touch with each other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You'll have a radio, you'll have a flashlight, you'll have batteries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make sure you have enough water and food.

MESERVE: And something else, said the secretary of homeland security.

RIDGE: Oh, and yes, I have to say, stash away the duct tape. Don't use it, stash it away and that premeasured plastic sheeting for future. And I emphasize future use.

MESERVE: Cincinnati, Ohio was the site of the unveiling, but Mayor Charlie Luken wasn't on stage. He later issued a statement saying, "We don't need duct tape or Web sites. We need money if we're going to fight terrorism effectively."

ANNOUNCER: If you have been exposed to gas vapors, remove all outer clothing outside the house, including shoes. This avoids spreading the gas inside.

MESERVE: There are echoes of the Cold War's civil defense films. But the new announcements were crafted over a year's time using a modern tool, the focus group, to make sure the message will get through. The long day irked some experts who believe public preparedness is key to avoiding panic, but most applaud the campaign as a good first step in what they hope is a sustained and detailed long-term educational effort.

PHIL ANDERSON, CSIS: In this new environment, the public's weapon of choice has to be knowledge. It's not plastic sheeting or duct tape, it's knowledge. It's an understanding of why duct tape and plastic sheeting is important.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MESERVE: A grant is underwriting the Web site. The Ad Council and an ad agency donated their time. Space on billboards, print and broadcast stations will be free, too. The bottom line cost to the American taxpayer, absolutely nothing -- Aaron.

BROWN: Wow. Except perhaps a fair amount of anxiety. The timing of this is interesting given the mess of last week. Was there any talk about delaying it, putting a little distance between last week and this?

MESERVE: We asked a lot of questions about the timing and whether it was pure coincidence that this should happen at this time. What we were told by homeland security officials is that this has been in the works for more than a year and that for some time they had scheduled to release this in mid February. They say it is purely a coincidence that it came so shortly after the whole furor over duct tape and plastic sheeting. Also a coincidence that it came during a time of orange threat alert.

BROWN: Which answers actually the second question, which is, we're still at level orange. And any talk about that being changed up or down, I suppose, but changed any time soon?

MESERVE: A lot of talk about it. When they put us to threat level orange, they said one of the reasons was that they feared there might be an attack during the Hajj. That is now over; that factor clearly eliminated. But Ridge said that was only one of many factors they were looking at when they raised the level.

They are still looking at them now. And he says they want to have an assessment over a several-day period to figure out whether the intelligence really justifies bringing it down again. He did say he wants to bring it down. He realizes this is a great strain on private industry and state and local governments.

This is clearly being looked at. But the only thing I can say with confidence is it's not coming down tonight.

BROWN: Buy that. Thank you. Jeanne Meserve in Washington, thank you.

Another sign of the times to report. The Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, today announced a tentative plan to arm airline pilots. Nothing final. The details may change between now and next Tuesday, which is the deadline Congress set for coming up with the plan.

But for now, here's the gist of it. Pilots would wear .40 caliber pistols, but only in the cockpit, not the cabin. After flying, the guns will be kept in a lock box. About a week's worth of training would be provided, along with psychological screening to make sure that if the time ever comes, the pilot could pull the trigger. Welcome again to the new normal.

Something to consider now in the rush to pile on France and Germany. France has been out front in arresting terror suspects. And today, the first verdict in a 9/11-related terror case came not in the United States but in Germany. A court in Hamburg convicted a Moroccan student of charges that he was an accessory to more than 3,000 murders. And then the court gave him the max for what he did, though the max may not seem like the max you might wish for.

Here's CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mounir el Motassadeq, bearded and thin, appeared in the Hamburg court flanked by his lawyers. His sentence, 15 years, the maximum for his crimes under German law. His lawyers say they will appeal, but already this case is a legal first.

As well as belonging to a terrorist organization, Motassadeq was also found guilty of being an accessory to murder of 3,066 people killed in the 9/11 attacks. The court's uncompromising message may open the way to further prosecutions. Motassedeq has always admitted close links with the 9/11 pilots Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi. He was a signed witness on Atta's last will and testament and had power of attorney on Al-Shehhi's bank account, which he used to pay Al-Shehhi's bills.

MOUNIR EL MOTASSADEQ, CONVICTED 9/11 CONSPIRATOR (through translator): This is true. It's normal and common to help others. When he was traveling home, I was taking care of payments for his apartment, tuition for university.

CHANCE: In an exclusive CNN interview before his arrest, Motassedeq said he only knew the would-be hijackers as Muslim friends in Hamburg. It later emerged he trained in Afghanistan in camps Atta and others passed through.

Motassedeq still denied any prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks. But prosecutors successfully argued Motassedeq played a key role in supporting the Hamburg al Qaeda cell, never intending to take part in the actual hijackings but making sure their rent and tuition fees were paid in Germany. A (UNINTELLIGIBLE), in other words, without which the 9/11 killing machine may have been unable to run.

(on camera): In passing down his sentence, the German judge said Motassedeq was part of a group that regarded the United States as its enemy. And that Motassedeq himself had prior knowledge of a plot to strike at America's political and economic heart.

But the true significance of this trial stretches well beyond a single sentence. For the families of the victims of 9/11, justice in courts around the world has finally begun.

(voice-over): But in the United States, not all families are satisfied with the outcome of the trial.

STEVEN PUSH, VICTIMS OF 9/11 FAMILIES ORGANIZATION: People who are willing to participate in a plot to murder thousands of people should spend their life in prison.

CHANCE (on camera): Still, under German law the maximum sentence for an accessory to murder is the same. It doesn't matter here how many people finally died.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Germany.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, another candidate for president. Congressman Dick Gephardt is throwing his hat in the ring, as they say. And later, the story of a filmmaker who went undercover with Islamic terrorists.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We assume the bumper stickers will not read "Been there, done that." But they could. Congressman Dick Gephardt formally announced that he'll seek the Democratic nomination for president in '04. The Missouri congressman has lots of experience in Congress, a quarter of a century, has made the White House run before, and has one of the best rolodexes in the business.

But can he win the nomination, let alone the election? Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): If you're a Washington insider and want to run for president, the first thing you have to do is leave town. Richard Gephardt went home to St. Louis.

GEPHARDT: Here in the home of my values, here at the heart of the American dream, I announce my candidacy fort presidency of the United States. CROWLEY: He is a product of the Midwest, son of a milk truck driver and a secretary. His private life is said to be exemplary. He has been married for 36 years. The couple has three grown children. His speech is peppered with references to them.

He is invariably described as a good listener, unfailingly polite, incredibly decent. But the guy once called Dickey Doright (ph) can land a punch. Here is his critique of the president.

GEPHARDT: I have I to hand it to him. Never has so much been done in so little time to help so few.

CROWLEY: The congressman from Missouri supports the president on Iraq, but that's about it. His maiden campaign speech was littered with one-line barbs.

GEPHARDT: This administration's idea of alternative fuel is Exxon instead of Texaco.

CROWLEY: Gephardt has served Missouri's third district for almost 30 years, been house Democratic leader for eight, worked on all the major issues. He has the most Washington experience of any candidate now in the field. The rap is he's last century's news, a leader unable to win back majority status in the house, stale in a party that needs a fresh look.

GEPHARDT: I'm not going to say what's fashionable in our politics, that I'm a Washington outsider, that I couldn't find the nation's capital on a map, that I have no experience at the highest levels of government. I do. And I think experience matters.

CROWLEY: He wants to be the candidate of the working class. It's where he came from, it's where much of his support has been. He's a long time faithful friend of organized labor, credited with giving him a win in Iowa the first time he ran for president in 1988. And it is why his first official campaign stop in Iowa was before a union group.

GEPHARDT: The labor union's fight for working families to succeed and be able to raise their children and have a good life. That's where I am, that's where I've always been, and that's where I always will be.

CROWLEY: Gephardt's 1977 Iowa caucus victory may not be ancient history but it's been a while. Long enough for the unions, the party and the state to change enough to make 2004 a whole new ball game.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: In fact, Gephardt's 1988 Iowa caucus win may prove to be quite a burden. Already politicals are saying if Gephardt can't win here in 2004, New Hampshire looks pretty bad -- Aaron.

BROWN: Tough business if they handicap when you first arrive in the state. All the major and expected players now in the game, right? CROWLEY: Well, you know, we've still got a couple out there. As you know, Senator Graham of Florida has said that he would like to run, but he's recovering from heart surgery. We've heard noises from Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. So we may get some more.

BROWN: You'll be busy then.

CROWLEY: Hate to scare you.

BROWN: You'll never get out of Iowa. Thank you. And Iowa is not a bad place to be at all. Candy Crowley from Des Moines, Iowa tonight.

A few stories from around the country, beginning with an update on a notorious case from the 1970's. Ronny Zamora saw his sentence reduced today by seven years. The Florida parole commission doing that. Zamora was 15 when he murdered a neighbor. His lawyer argued he had been driven insane by years of watching violent TV. Ronny Zamora will get out of prison in June of '05.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg got his smallpox vaccine shot today. A sign of the times. And the kickoff of the city's voluntary program to inoculate key workers.

And it's been the anthem for fed up workers every day, "Take this job and shove it." Now Johnny Paycheck, the country singer who made it a hit, has died. He was 64.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, undercover with Islamic militants. The story of a journalist who risked his life to capture a story. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When the latest bin Laden tapes surfaced, we heard a familiar criticism. Why can't we get inside the terrorist world? As if it were like joining the Elks Club. The challenges here are simply enormous.

You need to look the part, speak the language, know the cultural traps, understand the religion and the sympathies implicitly. This is a story about someone who did, who did get inside and had all of this going for him. Plus something else a CIA agent probably doesn't have, a personal connection. If he had been a spy, we probably never would have heard about this coup, but he's a journalist, and his coup is what we call in the business the scoop of a lifetime.

It's reported by CNN's Sheila MacVicar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The encounter began in Paris last October outside a courtroom. On trial, Islamic militants accused of carrying out a bombing campaign in France of 1995. Watching the trial, a heavyset man named Karim Bourti, a man convicted in 1998 of terrorist association, and an Algerian journalist named Mohamed Sifaoui.

MOHAMED SIFAOUI, JOURNALIST (through translator): Karim recognized me and realized we had gone to high school together in Algeria.

MACVICAR: That chance meeting led to a three-month journey. In the company of Bourti, using an assumed name and often a hidden camera, Mohamed Sifaoui penetrated the ranks of Islamist extremists in France and Britain, some linked to al Qaeda. They knew he was a journalist, even knew he was working on this documentary for the television channel France Two. And they thought he was a believer, just like them.

SIFAOUI (through translator): I constructed a new identity. It wasn't me, anti-Islamist, anti-fascist, anti-extremist, but someone who was like them.

MACVICAR: Staying with them, he says, in immigrant neighborhoods in Paris, watching as they raised money on the streets, praying with them, listening to them, Sifaoui says he learned they were recruiting young men to go off to fight jihad, holy war, in Chechnya.

SIFAOUI (through translator): Where there is war, they incite. They encourage young people who don't have a great deal of knowledge, indoctrinate them, incite them to send them off to battle fronts.

MACVICAR: Gilles Leclair, who coordinates anti-terrorist actions for the French government, says that Sifaoui describes matches the findings of police investigations.

GILLES LECLAIR, FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTRY: They try to convince the people to become terrorists or to become more -- stronger than the normal believers. It's true that they are recruiting in the jails. They recruit in the mosques.

MACVICAR: And Sifaoui says he found more, connecting Bourti and the people around him to what judicial officials say were chemical weapons plots thwarted by arrests in the suburbs of Paris.

SIFAOUI (through translator): I knew that he knew the people who had been arrested. I became certain that he and his group were not simply people whose role it was to incite. These people were actively involved in acts of terror.

MACVICAR: Karim Bourti is now under arrest, suspected by French police of involvement in the beating of a Muslim cleric and of involvement in a terrorist organization. Mohamed Sifaoui has published a book about what he learned in the months he spent getting close to Bourti.

(on camera): Were there times when you thought that you were truly in danger?

SIFAOUI (through translator): Every day, there were tension. I worked under terrible pressure. I was afraid that, at any moment, I might come face to face with someone who knew me, who knew my real name.

MACVICAR (voice-over): Now he lives with death threats and faces a decision about whether or not to testify against Bourti and others. He has not forgotten, he says, that the men who called him brother were prepared to kill at any price.

Sheila MacVicar, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A plane crash in Iran begins our look at some other stories form around the world tonight: The Russian-made military transport went in bad weather in the mountains of southeastern Iran just short of its intended destination. All 203 people on board died. With the exception of the crew, all were members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

And they buried their dead today in Gaza. The mourners came equipped with banners and assault rifles and promises of revenge for 11 people killed in Israeli incursions. At least seven of the dead belonged to Hamas or Palestinian police forces. But the Palestinians say a number of civilians died as well.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, we'll check out some of the morning papers coming you way -- that may be coming you way; and, later, a special segment seven on a program that tries to keep the children of convicts from following in their parents' footsteps.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll take a look at morning papers and some of the pictures in those papers from around the globe.

A short break. We're right back. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, two minutes to look at the morning papers and some pictures.

First of all: "The Boston Herald." The big headline in "The Boston Herald" is "Meltdown." Yes, it got warm in the East today and kind of messy.

"The Korean Herald," the English-language paper in Seoul: A couple things we liked here, first, a story down here: "U.S. Urged to Rule Out Military Option." It has nothing to do with Iraq. This is North Korea. The South Koreans are worried about it. But see if you get a shot of the picture here. This is a picture taken from the subway the other day as the fire and the smoke started to fill it up. And to our eye, people looked incredibly calm. It's a fabulous picture taken by someone, obviously, on board.

"Chicago Tribune" -- or, I'm sorry -- "Chicago Sun-Times." Sorry, Jim Warren, you'll have to send us "The Tribune" -- "Club Owner Speaks" still the big story. A story we looked: "Happy Hour," Wheaton College. That's Billy Graham's college, actually, his alma mater. Wheaton Students can dance. Staff may drink and smoke, a Christian school loosening things up a bit, a sign of the times there.

A couple of pictures. Let me see the chickens, if you will. There we go. OK, what are these chickens, you ask? These are the canaries in the coal mine, if you will. These chickens in Kuwait will be used to detect poison gases, chemical gases, should it come to war. How sobering is that?

And while we're looking at pictures, show me the other one, too. You think this is just a shot of an SUV, right, a Border Patrol? No, it's not. This is how the drug dealers -- how smart they are -- well, they weren't that smart, because they got caught. But they painted a car to look like a U.S. Border Patrol jeep, tried to smuggle drugs into the country.

How much? Thirty? Here we go, "The Boston" -- "Detroit Free Press" -- sorry, you guys -- a sign of the times here, too: "State Colleges to Feel the Heavy Impact of Budget Cuts" there, lot of states having economic problems.

And "The Times of London": What really happens when you meet the queen, the pope, the dalai lama and Elizabeth Taylor? And the answer to that is, ask Larry King. He's probably talked to all of those people.

A quick look at the morning papers from around the world.

We'll take a short break and segment seven when we come back. Stay with us. This is a terrific piece of work.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Segment seven comes in two parts tonight. We gave you the pitch at the top of the program. We'll get right to this: kids with everything against them and the woman who believes their lives can be better, believes what should be entirely obvious, but may not be to them, that they are precious.

And precious is a word you're going to hear a lot. It's her wish that, in a world of crime and stolen innocence, that there be no more victims.

This is the work of NEWSNIGHT producer Catherine Mitchell, who also reports it tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHERINE MITCHELL, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): M.B. Smiley High School in Houston, Texas, is in one of the roughest, poorest schools in the nation. Administrators estimate that half of the close to 1,600 students have a parent in prison. Students say that number is even higher.

(on camera): How many of you have a parent in prison right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd say it's like 90 percent of the kids in here that have parents incarcerated or going through some type of problem at home, whether they're getting molested, beat, or whatever.

MITCHELL (voice-over): These are the most at-risk kids, the students of class 1066. Every student has at least one parent in prison.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This group teaches us how to fight back.

MITCHELL: For 50 minutes a day, these student meet to share a common ground: broken families, abuse, attempted suicide and rape, the painful pillars of their young lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All my life, my grandmother always told me, you are going to be just like your daddy. You are going to end up in jail. Or she told me, you're going to be just like your mama, die at an early age.

So, I always thought, well, I might as well help you out and just kill myself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it weren't for this group, I think I'd be dead at this very moment, because I had nothing to look up to growing up as a child. My mama was always working two and three jobs. I had to take care of my sister. I had to cook for her. I bathed her. I clothed her and everything. So, I didn't really have a childhood.

MITCHELL: But these children might be considered the lucky ones. Unlike most of the estimated 1.5 million children with a parent in jail, they have somewhere to turn.

MARILYN GAMBRELL, FOUNDER, NO MORE VICTIMS: So, I think she's showing some wisdom with dealing with something that's making her really uncomfortable.

MITCHELL: The class is called No More Victims, the idea of former parole officer Marilyn Gambrell.

GAMBRELL: Children of incarcerated parents, that number of children, this most in-need population, is a national epidemic. It can't be put off anymore.

MITCHELL: Gambrell realized that the children of her parolees were under the radar. There were a lot of them and they were in danger. So, she decided to do something about it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Gambrell tells us every day that we're precious, that she loves us, and we can make it. We're going to be something. And most of us, we ain't never had nobody tell us that.

MITCHELL: The concept behind the group is simple, but the results are powerful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It allowed me to cope with what was going on at home.

MITCHELL: They're reversing a dangerous cycle that makes these children five times more likely to end up behind bars. Since the class started two years ago, only a handful of the 300 students have gone to jail.

GAMBRELL: What is you all's message to people that make those statements that, you're going to prison anyway, so why should we do anything? What do you all to say to America about that?

Tam? (ph)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To all those people who believe that, I want to let you know, we are precious. We will not follow our parents' ways. And we are going to do something with our life.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Despite the odds, these students are getting diplomas instead of doing time. This year, all 15 seniors are expected to graduate.

ED WALKER, SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH FOREST SCHOOL DISTRICT: These kids are going to college. That would have been unheard of with any of these children without this program.

MITCHELL: Brandon is one of the success stories. He has left the violence behind and plans to get a college education. Brandon's father has been in and out of jail and in and out of his son's life for years.

BRANDON O'NEAL, 12TH GRADER: He left us on Christmas Eve, you know what I'm saying? Of all days you could have left, he left us on Christmas Eve. And it hurt me more than anything could everybody do to me. I felt like I could just die right there.

MITCHELL: Like many of the students in the class, Brandon has tried to commit suicide several times. He says, without the group, he might have been successful.

O'NEAL: It is, because, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. I'd be dead or in jail, honestly.

MITCHELL: Saving lives is what keeps Gambrell going, but she won't stop there.

GAMBRELL: Now, do we want to get it right? Do we want to sprinkle water on a forest fire or do we really want to start putting the doggone thing out?

Well, I'm for attacking it from the land, the air and the sea, because I don't want our children and our fathers and mothers dying. And we're doing that at a very steady pace. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): I told the storm to pass, the storm, you can't last. Go away. I command you to move today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, you'll see what Marilyn Gambrell means by attacking this problem from land, sea and air. Some of the students head to prison and confront the inmates.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Final part now of our look at some of the kids at M.B. Smiley High School in Houston, Texas, their efforts to let people inside prison know what it's like for kids left behind outside.

Here again: NEWSNIGHT's Catherine Mitchell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GAMBRELL: We're going to get through all this together, support each other, and make this one of the most powerful days on this earth coming out of Houston, Texas, downtown Houston, Texas, at Joe Kegans State Jail.

MITCHELL (voice-over): Marilyn Gambrell takes the healing process beyond the doors of room 1066, straight to the root of the problem: parents behind bars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have never had a daddy.

MITCHELL: This is an opportunity these kids may never get with their own parents: a chance to let other parent in prison understand the pain they cause.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's ain't never told me he loved me. And I'm 18, never, not once in my life. That's all I want to hear is that he loved me, but he's never told me that. When I was raped, I told him I was raped. "You're lying. Shut up."

MITCHELL: Tequila Woods (ph) got her diploma from Smiley last year. But, at one point, she was closer to dying than graduating. She would come to school with razors in her pocket determined to end her own life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I came to school and I'm like, man, today is going to be the day Quila (ph) dies.

MITCHELL: Thanks to the group, she's now heading to college, but still makes time to tell prisoners her sad story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You all sitting up in here. And even though you know your daddy or your mama did it to you and you know how they hurt and you know how you felt, why would you put your kids through the same stuff? I think that's ignorant. I really do. And whoever do it, I'm telling you all, you're all ignorant and I'm telling you all to you all face, because I'm not one to bite my tongue.

MITCHELL: The message is powerful and the kids know it. They can bring grown men to their knees with the unspeakable horrors that they have endured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as, like, us, Will, take the path. You all are the future. By you all taking the step, I pray to God that we take the step that could walk behind you.

JAMES KAVANAUGH HILL, INMATE, JOE KEGANS STATE PRISON: Listening to those kids speak of their problems and how they have been abused and raped at their age, it really made me cry. It's a hurting feeling to be here speaking today and not being a father out there for my kids today, knowing what might be happening to them.

MICHAEL HORN, 12TH GRADER: I kind of put myself into where, when they look at me, they're looking at their own kid.

I don't need you. I'm grown up.

MITCHELL: Michael's list of troubles is long. With no parents around, he started selling drugs to support his 15 younger siblings. Since joining the group, Michael has gone from drug dealer to star football player, with the hopes of getting a college football scholarship. Michael hopes his story will help these prisoners become better parents.

HORN: When you all get out, don't just expect your child to just be all, "Oh, daddy, daddy, daddy." No, no, no. It's going to take a while, man. It's going to take a while for your all child to just gain their trust back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have five kids and I never realized the pain until I seen this girl.

MITCHELL: The effect on the prisoners is palpable, but, ultimately, the children are the ones who benefit the most.

GAMBRELL: Our children, it's so healthy for them, because they can vent. And they may never get to tell their own parents, but at least they're telling somebody, and somebody in a setting that's as close as they can get to sharing with their own parents. And it has an unbelievable impact.

MITCHELL: Even more difficult than confronting a sea of prisoners, the group works to reconnect children and parents, many of whom barely know each other.

MICHELLE WALKER, MOTHER OF ANTENIECIA WALKER: Without No More Victims, I wouldn't know my kids. Without No More Victims, I don't think I would be sitting here. I wouldn't even be here today. I believe I'd be somewhere getting high.

MITCHELL: Michelle Walker had Anteniecia at 13. Addicted to drugs, she ended up on the streets and then jail. Now she is one of a handful of parents who is working to repair the damage.

GAMBRELL: Both parents have been incarcerated.

MITCHELL: Anteniecia, who barely spoke before joining the group, is finding a voice no one knew she had.

GAMBRELL: This child was completely quiet and really was uncomfortable in talking. She's here.

ANTENIECIA WALKER, 12TH GRADER: Hi, my name is Anteniecia Walker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi.

A. WALKER: And, as she said, I'm a 12th grader, graduating this year. And I plan on going to college.

MITCHELL: For the children and parents of No More Victims, lives that once felt worthless enough to end now have hope.

O'NEAL: If it could change this school, imagine the turnaround it had here and imagine what it would do around other schools, because people always stand up and tell us, kids are our future. Now that we have something positive, we can actually sit up and say that we can be the future.

MITCHELL: A job well done, some might say. But for Gambrell, it's not enough. She won't stop until she's accomplished her goal: to make America notice the other 1.5 million children suffering in prisons of silence and shame.

GAMBRELL: In America, children don't have to, are not doomed to go to prison just because their parents did. But we have a responsibility in that role. Now, once we get on board with that, we're going to change this entire nation. I have proof. I have proof.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): With God on our side, we'll find strength in each tear we cry.

MITCHELL: Catherine Mitchell, CNN, Houston, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: People say all the time -- and they're often correct -- we don't report enough good news. There's two segments worth for tonight.

If you want more information on the program, check out their Web site, www.NoMoreVictimsInc -- that's one word -- NoMoreVictimsInc.org. Take a look. Send them an e-mail. Tell them you love them. They're doing great.

That's our report for tonight. If you would like an e-mail from us, go to our Web site, CNN.com/NEWSNIGHT. Sign up for the daily e- mail. We'll send it out to you. It gives you a preview of the program and a look what's on our minds as we go through the day.

And we'll see you all tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time.

Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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Campaign; Gephardt to Seek Democratic Nomination for President in 2004>