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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Young Transplant Patient Gets New Chance at Life

Aired February 20, 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.
There's a memorial service tonight for Danny Pearl. It was a year ago tomorrow when we found out that he had been killed while chasing a story in Pakistan. It seems especially timely to talk about this tonight, because many of our colleagues and friends, hundreds of them, are right now finding out what units they'll be covering and living with should there be a war with Iraq.

There are some critics of the Pentagon's policy, including Bernard Shaw, who said military commanders will have too much control over reporters, over where they go, what they see, and what stories they can file. And we admit, that is one important part of the argument.

The other is this: given the complete lack of access during the war with Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf War, it is an improvement. And in our view, an improvement that will help the soldiers, not harm them. But we're also not naive. We know war is not a pretty business.

Sometimes soldiers cross lines, sometimes there are defeats. There are always casualties, and that will all be reported as well, as it should be. If the system in place works, we will be able to file in a timely manner and may sometimes, for better or worse, be able to cover the fighting live. I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

It's something we've all been talking about for years. Now we'll be able to do it and likely will. If it comes down to war, as it seems destined to, it will be a war literally different from any you have seen before, for better or for worse. More on that later.

On to "The Whip" now, and the latest on a young girl who was the victim of a horrible medical mistake and who got a second chance today. Elizabeth Cohen in Durham North Carolina.

Elizabeth, a headline from you tonight.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, behind me 17- year-old Jesica Santillan is in the pediatric intensive care unit after having her second heart-lung transplant in two weeks. Duke University admits the first time around they gave her organs that did not match her blood tape.

BROWN: Elizabeth, back to you at the top tonight. A fascinating case today in the war on terror. The United States going after people it says are involved in Palestinian terror. Mike Brooks on that.

Mike, a headline.

MIKE BROOKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. The FBI charges a south Florida professor with terrorist activities, and seven others are also charged in an indictment handed down by a Tampa federal grand jury -- Aaron.

BROWN: Mike, thank you. Back to you shortly.

On to Iraq now and the American struggle to get Turkey on board, which could be very expensive. Andrea Koppel covering a part of that store tonight for us from the State Department. Andrea, a headline.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Aaron. Building a broad-based coalition isn't just time consuming, it is expensive, $32 billion. That's how much Turkey wants. But U.S. dollar diplomacy doesn't end there.

BROWN: Thank you, Andrea.

Now, how the press will cover the war with Iraq. It will not look much like 1991, that's for sure. Jamie McIntyre on that from the Pentagon. Jamie, a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Aaron, a lot of journalists believe that the Vietnam War was the last one they got real access to U.S. troops on the front lines. The Pentagon insists it has a plan to make it happen again if it works -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's always the "if." Thank you, Jamie. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight, we'll talk with a legendary journalist who covered Vietnam and won a Pulitzer prize for it. David Halberstam is here to talk about the Pentagon's plan for the media. Whether reporters will get the freedom they need.

Also, a Middle East expert, Ken Pollack, joins us to talk more about the diplomatic poker game going on with Turkey. And Jeff Greenfield tonight on the last of the greats in broadcast news, the folks who literally sat still while telling you the news. That's the way it was; apparently still is around here. "Segment 7" tonight.

All of that to come in the hour ahead. But we begin with the story that doesn't have the grand sweep of say the war on terror or a possible war with Iraq with thousands of lives on the line. Here there's just one life on the line, one family's drama, and it's utterly compelling.

A young girl clinging to life after a truly staggering medical mistake by the hospital treating her. And with maybe just hours to live, she gets the kind of thing you usually find only in the movies. She get as second chance. No happy Hollywood ending just yet, but tonight at least there is that possibility. Once again, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (voice-over): For the people who love Jesica Santillan, it was a day of hope and a day of anger. Hope because her new heart and lungs are working, although she still in critical condition at Duke University Medical Center. And according to her family, on dialysis and a respirator. The odds are about 50-50 that she'll live through the next year.

And here's the anger from Jessica's mother via a translator.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She thanks the media, the press, the newspapers, the radio shows, everybody. Because if they wouldn't have gotten the word out, that she felt that the hospital would have let her baby die.

COHEN: Duke says they've done everything in their power to save Jessica's life.

DR. WILLIAM FULKERSON, CEO, DUKE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: This has been a very difficult and a heart wrenching time for many people here at Duke.

COHEN: Duke admits that two weeks ago they gave Jesica organs that were type A, when she's type O. Duke says they figured out what went wrong. Doctors, after receiving notice from the organ bank of a match, assumed the blood types matched and never double-checked.

FULKERSON: We have put in place additional procedures in order to prevent these kind of errors from ever happening again in the future.

COHEN: Duke hasn't said whether they'll pay for the second procedure to correct the problem. Family friends say they'd better.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Duke says that this time around, with the second transplant, that they had not one, not two, but three doctors confirm that the blood types matched -- Aaron.

BROWN: Tell us all you can about the child's chances and the problems that she faces now. Where are we?

COHEN: Statistically speaking, as I said, she's got about a 50- 50 chance of making it through the next year. We asked when will she be out of the woods? And one doctor not related to the case said she's out of the woods when she walks out of that hospital.

She's got a lot of work to do unfortunately. She was born with this heart deformity that went unchecked in Mexico. And then she had this one operation, had to live for two weeks with organs that her body was trying to reject and has now had this second operation. So, as you can guess, her body is not in the strongest shape.

BROWN: No, that's a lot of trauma for anybody to go through. Elizabeth, thank you. I think everybody is watching and rooting for her down there in North Carolina tonight. Thank you.

On to other things. There came today a dramatic reminder that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are not the only violent plotters in the world, or in the United States, for that matter. In Tampa, Florida earlier this morning, authorities arrested a native Kuwaiti who has lived and taught college in this country for a long time.

A 50-count indictment, an allegation of course, not proven facts. Charges that he and seven others, three of whom are in custody and three others at large overseas, make up the leadership of a group called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the government says is responsible over the years for more than 100 deaths in Israel and in the occupied territories. Reporting for us, CNN's Mike Brooks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKS (voice-over): The Justice Department says this suicide attack which killed 20 people last June in Haifa, Israel, was among a string of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror operations in the Middle East. Financial support for those operations the government says came from a cell operating from south Florida.

Four members of that cell, the government says, have been arrested, including this man, Sami Amin Al-Arian, a suspended professor at the University of South Florida. The Justice Department says he's the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States and its chief fundraiser.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We make no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance, manage or supervise terrorist organizations. We will bring justice to the full network of terror.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We intend to vigorously fight these charges.

BROOKS: Al-Arian attorney called the charges a work of fiction. Al-Arian first drew the attention of U.S. authorities in 1995, when he founded an Islamic think tank at his university. His partner was Ramadan Shala (ph), who is not the current worldwide leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Shala (ph), also indicted, is not in custody.

Law enforcement sources say he is believed to be in Syria. Al- Arian has been a high-profile figure in Florida campaigning among Arab-Americans for George W. Bush's presidential bid. And he has been in a battle with the University of South Florida to keep his job after this tape became public showing him shouting "Death to Israel" in Arabic. In an interview with CNN, he voiced strong support for the Palestinian cause, but...

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I don't support a suicide bombings. I don't support the targeting of any civilian of any nationality background or religion. I'm deeply against it.

BROOKS: That's now how the Justice Department sees it. Sources say newly relaxed rules allowing law enforcement use of intelligence intercepts helped make the case that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was involved in a criminal racketeering enterprise to support the terrorist operations.

ASHCROFT: A very substantial and important aspect of this case is the facilitation that comes between the intelligence effort and the law enforcement effort, which previously had been forbidden.

BROOKS: Alissa Flatow (ph), an American, was among those killed in a 1995 suicide bombing in Gaza. That attack, too, blamed on Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Her father applauded the indictment.

STEVEN FLATOW, VICTIM'S FATHER: There's a small sense of satisfaction. Nothing will ever bring Alissa (ph) or any other terror victims back, but there is a sense of knowing that your government is out there fighting for you that makes you feel as good as you can feel in a situation like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKS: The attorney general conceded it's unlikely these indictments will impair Palestinian Islamic Jihad's operations. Al- Arian's attorney says his client plans a hunger strike to protest his arrest and detention -- Aaron.

BROWN: Mike, we have a pretty fair sense here of what the allegation is. I'm not sure that we have much sense of what the evidence is. Do you know anything about what precisely the government says the evidence in the case is?

BROOKS: Well, they say it's a RICO charge. And reading from the indictment, it says it's under RICO, with operating a racketeering enterprise from 1984 until present, that engaged in a number of violent activities. Those specific violent activities were not named in the indictment, Aaron.

But they have been working on this from 1984. But they really came into the FBI's radar around 1995, when he and Ramadan Shala (ph) started up this think tank. So there is a lot of evidence right now. I'm sure we'll hear more at the detention hearing to be held next Tuesday -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you. Allegations are one thing, evidence is another. And we need to hear the evidence. Thank you, Mike. Mike Brooks in Atlanta tonight.

Iraq now on the crucial question on whether the United States will win the help of Turkey. Strip away the diplomatic niceties, something we like to do around here, and you have a fierce game of who wants it more. The U.S. wants the real estate to invade Iraq from the North. Turkey wants dollars and a good excuse for backing a war.

Most Turks, about 80 percent of Turks, do not want. To be more specific, Turkey wants $32 billion. The United States is offering $26 billion. Now $26 billion is a big number, and the U.S. wants a decision now. In the balance, not if the United States goes to war, but certainly how and perhaps when.

Here's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN INSTANBUL BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's not quite going according to schedule. The American schedule, that is. U.S. ships with supplies and 3,500 military personnel to prepare Turkish bases have already arrived after being approved by Turkey's parliament. But the Turkish delay to approve U.S. combat troops now waiting offshore may force the Pentagon to rewrite its war plans.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Turkey is a democracy and it's a democracy in a region where there are relatively few democracies. And they are going through a democratic process, which is a healthy thing.

ARRAF: And in Turkey right now, democracy is particularly complicated. The U.S. has courted Turkish political leader (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as their vision of a Muslim pro-western leader, seemingly convinced they had an ally in their plans against Iraq. They've made less headway with the Turkish population. Some polls say more than 90 percent of the population here opposes the war, mostly because they believe it would bring economic ruin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are trying to live and trying to survive their life. And they worry about earning money.

ARRAF: With so much uncertainty over what would happen during and after any war with Iraq, Turkey's military also worries that if the Kurds in northern Iraq could become more independent, it could spark unrest among its own Kurdish minority.

(on camera): Turkey and the United States clearly need each other. The U.S. needs Turkey's military bases and its world weight as the only Muslim member of NATO and Iraq's neighbor. Turkey needs U.S. economic and political support. But what officials here say they don't need is the perception that they're jumping into a U.S.-led war.

(voice-over): Perhaps even more important than the amount of compensation is Turkey's need to be seen working for peace in the region.

MURAT YETKIN: There is such a picture we have now is that U.S. is very generous and Turkey is resisting to that.

ARRAF: Although Turkey could very well end up approving the U.S. combat troops by doing on its own schedule, it's making the point that it's certainly not the country's first choice.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Ankara.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: OK. A little context here. The $26 billion the administration has offered Turkey, even by government standards, is a lot of cash. The Department of Homeland Security spent just $2 billion more than that last year.

EPA spent only $8 billion on the environment, and the entire Justice Department, the FBI, the drug enforcement administration, all the courts, the whole Justice Department, spent $22 billion last year. So $26 billion is hardly chump change. If you gave it to the Education Department, it would be an almost 50 percent increase in the federal government's commitment to schools.

And, of course, Turkey isn't the only country with its hand out. Here's CNN's Andrea Koppel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL (voice-over): Secretary of State Powell told reporters U.S. plans to stage thousands of American troops in Turkey are still up in the air. The main sticking point, money. Turkey pushing for $32 billion in grants and loan guarantees, the U.S. insisting its final offer stands at $26 billion.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There may be some other creative things that we can do, but the level was our ceiling. And I know that they are in consultation now within their government.

KOPPEL: Privately, senior U.S. officials tell CNN Turkey's motives for wanting more money are unclear. Either high stakes hard bargaining, or a gentler way of saying no without saying no. Whatever the reason, the U.S. maintains any U.S. aid package would not be a quid pro quo, but rather compensation for collateral damage in the event of war.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: There may be economic costs. There may be economic consequences. And we are prepared to help Turkey as a friend and an ally with those economic costs and consequences.

KOPPEL: As plans for possible war with Iraq shift into high gear, U.S. dollar diplomacy to secure a coalition of the willing is not limited to Turkey. Jordan, Iraq's neighbor to the west, and another key frontline state has received $250 million in economic assistance. With an additional $145 million in grants in the pipeline.

The U.S. has also provided Jordan with six F-16 fighter jets with 12 more on the way.

DOV WEISSGLAS, CHIEF OF STAFF TO ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We are in the process now of the negotiation and dialogue.

KOPPEL: And senior Israeli officials were at the State Department Thursday to talk about an aid package worth $8 billion in loan guarantees and $4 billion in military aid over the next several years. Russia, too, has had its hat out and already received a U.S. pledge to consider Moscow's economic interest in a post-Saddam Iraq totaling billions to classify three Chechen rebel groups as terrorist organizations, and to look the other way if Russia goes after Chechen rebels in Georgia's (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(on camera): But for now, U.S. diplomacy is focused like a laser on winning Turkey's support. Frustrated U.S. officials privately say they must have an answer from Turkey within the next couple of days. Secretary of State Powell said he expected an answer by day's end Thursday, but that answer never came.

Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And from us on NEWSNIGHT, we'll continue to sort through the situation with Turkey, other countries, too, as we approach a possible war. We'll be joined by Ken Pollack from the Brookings Institution about whether each side will get what it wants here.

Later, we'll talk with David Halberstam about the Pentagon's new plan for handling reporters during a war. That and more as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: More on Iraq now. We like the way someone put it today: We're on a diplomatic nice edge. Not the questions precisely how and when to float another U.N. resolution involving Iraq and, oh, yes, what is it they'll say that's still up in the air tonight, by the way. The nice edge refers to this crazy stalemate with Turkey, which some fear could throw a mammoth wrench into the U.S. war plan. At least force a change in it if it's not resolved.

A lot to talk about with Middle East expert, CNN analyst Kenneth Pollack, who is here tonight. It's nice to see you. Can I tell you just that it's -- I think it's unseemly a bit, this bargaining going on. You have the Turks asking for this, and the Israelis over, and the Russians saying give us that. But this is sort of normal the way it's done, right?

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Unfortunately it is. It's a painful process, but for the Turks this is a tough hurdle to get over. And they do have some real economic stakes involved. By the same token, I don't think that we should quite paint this as apocalyptic as some people have suggested.

I mean, after all, the U.S. offer is for $26 billion. It's going to be very hard for the Turks to walk away from that. They may wanted $32 billion, but given a choice between $26 or nothing, and given the fact that the U.S. seems pretty committed to going to war with Iraq anyway, it's going to be hard for Turkey to walk away from that kind of money.

BROWN: So they don't want to be seen as kissing on the first date. POLLACK: Absolutely. They have to demonstrate that they're showing some resistance, because their people aren't terribly (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They have to convince their people that they are really getting the best deal possible from the United States. But by the same token, they don't want to be seen as being split off from the United States. I mean I think we tend to forget...

BROWN: It's an interesting dilemma, isn't it? On the one hand, you don't want to be seem as too close. And on the other hand, you don't want to be too distant.

POLLACK: Absolutely. I don't want to push this dating metaphor too far, but the Turks do need to play a little bit hard to get here. But at the end of the day, they know the United States is their closest bilateral relationship. The U.S. is their most important ally, especially over the last few years, when they've been trying desperately to get into the EU, and none of the Europeans want them in.

And we're the ones who have been the greatest assets to the Turks in trying to push them. So the Turks have a lot at stake with the U.S. relationship. They understand that a war with Iraq is George Bush's highest priority. And as I said, the U.S. is being very generous about the kind of aid that it's offering Turkey.

The Turks are holding out for a little bit more. I mean, after all, this is the Middle East and it's always the bizarre.

BROWN: When last we talked, it was last Friday, and we talked about sort of whether there had been any sort of seismic shift after the Blix report. And then there was the weekend demonstrations. Give me a sense of what you thought the administration needed to do in the days ahead. How have they done?

POLLACK: I actually think they're not doing badly. I've been very pleased with how they've been picking up on the public diplomacy campaign. In particular, I thought things like Colin Powell going out and talking to teenagers and fielding their questions and explaining why this is important, that's exactly the kind of thing the administration needs to be doing and needs to be doing more of.

Taking these kind of questions seriously, talking to the American people, talking to as many publics as they possibly can to make the case. And then what we're seeing is they're also starting to do the backroom diplomacy, which they need to do. Lining up Turkey, lining up Jordan, lining up Israel to be in the right place. And also going out to the different U.N. Security Council members.

And the fact that they've come out today and said we're going to put a resolution on the table suggests that the administration is pretty confident that at the very least they'll have a majority of Security Council members on board. That's not to say they'll get the French and the Chinese and the Russians, but they'll -- they think they'll have a majority.

BROWN: And this resolution, we've talked about this resolution endlessly, honestly. Firm dates and actions that have to take place, is that what's going to happen?

POLLACK: That seems to be what's in the offing. But the administration is debating exactly how long a deadline. They want it to be short. And they're very nervous about getting into a debate with the French over how long the deadline should be. They don't want to have a four-week debate over whether the deadline should be two weeks or 10 weeks

And beyond that, they have to define what those tasks are. It has to be more than things like allowing the U-2 to fly. That's an easy one for the Iraqis to give up. They have to be big, meaningful tests.

BROWN: So give me a big, meaningful test that the Iraqis will blink on or not blink on.

POLLACK: Account for 30,000 tons of -- 30,000 chemical munitions or warfare munitions. Account for thousands of tons of precursor chemicals of VX. Account for all of that. That would be a meaningful test.

BROWN: And if they say, well, we can't do that, but we destroyed it all, that's just lying?

POLLACK: Right. That's just not good enough. There's always physical evidence. And, in fact, in the past the Iraqis did unilaterally destroy some things and they were able to come forward with some of the stuff. The problem for the Iraqis is that when they did that, they had come forward with a bunch of scud missiles they unilaterally destroyed, we found VX on those skid missiles, one of the smoking guns.

BROWN: Well it's good to see you here in New York.

POLLACK: I look forward to it.

BROWN: Not for a while, I expect. Thank you, Ken Pollack.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT: we'll check the latest stories from around the world and around the country. A couple of those coming up, including the conviction of a man for spying for Iraq and for China. My goodness.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A look now at a few stories from around the world, beginning with a troop deployment. Not to the Persian Gulf, but to the Philippines. Pentagon said today that the first of some 1,700 troops will be leaving shortly to fight alongside Philippine forces in a mission to -- quote -- "disrupt and defeat" the remaining Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern island of Jolo. The American troops will include special forces and Marines. They will stay, the Pentagon says, for as long as it takes. In Iran today, mountain climbers were enlisted to help in the search for the remains of 302 people, air, crew and soldiers of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard who were aboard a Russian-built aircraft that crashed into a mountainside yesterday. The death toll makes this one of the worst aviation disasters in history.

And, finally, from around the world, it was the town that wasn't there, at least according to the map-makers of Britain, who kept leaving the eight-house village of Tiddleywink -- you got, Tiddleywink -- out of the official atlas. But the Tiddleywinkers, or the Tiddleywinkites, mounted a successful campaign to be put on the map and now have a sign of their own. And there it is. Travelers cannot unwittingly jump right over Tiddleywink. Get it?

Some stories from around the country now, starting with a verdict in a spy case.

Even the crew is shaking their heads. My goodness.

A federal jury convicted Brian Patrick Regan of trying to sell U.S. secrets to Iraq and China. The former U.S. Air Force master sergeant was acquitted of attempting to spy for Libya. Jurors return Monday to decide whether he could be eligible for the death penalty.

And the board looking into the Columbia shuttle disaster is paying close attention to the way the foam insulation was applied to the fuel tanks. We're back at that again. The question is whether some of the insulation or the material underneath it may have damaged the shuttle on takeoff when it fell off. Investigators say they'll take a second look at the techniques and the safeguards used to apply that insulation.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight: the press and the Pentagon and new plans for press coverage during wartime. Will it work and is it a good idea for both sides? David Halberstam joins us, too.

This is NEWSNIGHT around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we look at how the press will cover a war, if there is a war. David Halberstam joins us to talk about it, too.

NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Reporters wore helmets in the Second World War and in Vietnam as well. They had to. They were as close to the fighting as the soldiers were, in many cases.

But that changed a decade ago in the Persian Gulf. By and large, journalists were kept so far away from the action, they would have been safe wearing baseball caps. And those of us in this business had reason to worry that that would be the plan all over again in the event of another war, this one with Iraq: keep the media penned up.

But the military seems to have gone back to a much older model instead with a new word added, embed, for a reporter embedded in a military unit. And that's the way it's going to be. It's a victory for journalists for sure, who will need their helmets again, and we think for truth.

Here's our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): For war correspondents, it's always been about access.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think the new pressure here...

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep rolling.

MCINTYRE: Vietnam, a low point for the U.S. military, was, it turns out, a high point for journalists like Joe Galloway, co-author of "We Were Soldiers Once and Won."

JOE GALLOWAY, KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS: The Vietnam War was the most openly covered war in the history of our country.

MCINTYRE: And CNN's Bruce Morton, then with CBS.

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The military was, by and large back then, glad to see us. If you were out in the field, if you were out with the troops, that's where the story was. And they let us do that.

MCINTYRE: Still smarting from how that open coverage undercut public support, the Pentagon tightly controlled the media during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, limiting where reporters could go and often restricting access to small groups of pool reporters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there some way you can explain the discrepancy...

MCINTYRE: U.S. journalists bristled at covering the war by attending briefings in hotels and have lobbied in every war since for more access to the front lines.

The Pentagon argued that wasn't practical in Afghanistan, which was fought initially with only small numbers of elite special forces on the ground. This time, the Pentagon is doing an about-face. After running more than 230 journalists through media boot camps, the Pentagon is inviting more than 500 media representatives to accompany U.S. combat units to war. And that includes roughly 100 journalists from other countries, including the Arab television network Al- Jazeera. That change of heart is in part is to counter anti-U.S. propaganda expected from Saddam Hussein. DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: At least there might be some people on the ground who might take the time to see what's actually happening and might report it accurately, whether from this country or other countries. And that, in my view, is to our benefit.

MCINTYRE: The big question: Will it work? Will reporters be able to file their stories live from the battlefield without jeopardizing the military's mission and putting lives at risk?

GALLOWAY: They declare that they have no intention of preventing the reporting of bad news or news that's unfavorable to the American forces. And I have to take them at their word. But, as you say, the devil is always in the details.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon's written guidance to commanders says: "The primary safeguard will be to brief media in advance about what information is sensitive, but also states that access to some operations may be granted only "if the reporter agrees to a security review of the story before it's transmitted." The Pentagon insists it's not censorship, just common-sense ground rules.

BRYAN WHITMAN, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: I've never met -- maybe there is one, but I have never met a journalist that willingly wants to compromise the success of any operation out there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Now, Pentagon officials admit, to some extent, this plan is an experiment to see if the theory of embedding U.S. media with U.S. troops can survive the reality of the battlefield, especially when both sides are under extreme pressure and lives are at risk -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, the orders are going out pretty quickly, aren't they?

MCINTYRE: This week, news organizations were due to tell the Pentagon if they accepted the invitation for their reporters. And next week, military units around the country were going to be told which reporters they'd be getting. And it will probably be a week or two before they make it to the battlefield. And that might give you an idea of the timeframe for the start of the war.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

With us here in New York: David Halberstam. David won a Pulitzer for his work reporting the Vietnam War and is one of the country's more interesting and most prolific writers as well.

Nice to have you.

DAVID HALBERSTAM, JOURNALIST: Nice to be with you again.

BROWN: Do you think this is an improvement?

HALBERSTAM: A drastic improvement, I think.

BROWN: Do you think this is a terrific idea or just a pretty good one?

HALBERSTAM: Well, we don't know how it's going to work out, but it's theoretically a vast improvement. The rules during the Persian Gulf War were Draconian and I think limiting and in fact insulting to the patriotism and the honor of American journalists.

This is an interesting idea. It will depend on the personality of the reporter, the personality of the unit leader. I think it will encourage a serious responsibility on the part of reporters. I mean, it will work against feather merchants who parachute in for only a day and talk to maybe one grunt and go with something. And I think there will be a sense of obligation to the unit. I think it's not unlike the way reporters worked in World War II.

BROWN: In Vietnam, you could pretty much hitch a ride anywhere, if they would take you.

HALBERSTAM: Well, not in the beginning.

I was there in the very early days. And it was quite controlled. They had a list to get on, a helicopter to go somewhere in those old CH-21s. It encouraged people like Neil Sheehan and me to drive down to My Tho in the day. At night, it was V.C.-controlled. And the 7th Division, the 7th Division was there, where I happened to meet one of my great sources, a John Vann.

They kept trying to control it. And then a friend of mine, the first armed helicopter company in American history, came in, Ivan Slavich. I think he started as a major and was a lieutenant colonel. He wanted to sell Army aviation. So he said, come on out and get on my helicopters any time you want, the first Hueys, those new modern helicopters.

And with that, the ability to control us was lost. And then we could go anywhere. And one of the very best bits, pieces of reporting in the entire Vietnam War was a great reporter for CBS, Jack Laurence, who went up and did Charlie Company, which was in effect being embedded in a unit. So it can be done.

BROWN: Just on this question that I think viewers ask and reporters are quite dismissive of, to be honest, which is that reporters will give away something important, that they will put at risk the lives of American soldiers.

HALBERSTAM: No, that was never an issue. And reporters, I think, are very careful. I don't want to be dismissive. I can imagine how someone who has never been in a zone like that might worry about it.

The tension was over politics. The push-pull between the reporters, and not the people in the field, but the people in Washington and in headquarters and Saigon, was about the pessimistic tone of the reporting, which came from the people in the field. It was never about giving away secrets. I believe one reporter for UPI had his credentials lifted for about two days and that -- and in a very long war, that was it. It was never about giving away secrets.

BROWN: All right, let me go back to the beginning here.

Look, I guess, sometimes, you take what you get. But if the commanding officer has control over when you can file, isn't that giving them an awful lot of control?

HALBERSTAM: Well, I don't know if he's going to -- how much control. You go out with his unit. Can you file each day? I would think -- we don't know, as I say, what the details are, but I would think there would be an ability to file pretty regularly. We have instantaneous communications in this era.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: The print guys, send out an e-mail and your story is in the paper. We need a satellite dish and pictures and the rest.

HALBERSTAM: The power this gives to the Pentagon, if you embed a reporter, is the power of peers, of a reporter not wanting to offend the people that he has spent the day with, and, therefore, trying to...

BROWN: That's the brilliance of this, in many ways.

HALBERSTAM: Yes. You try and reflect the reality of that squad, that company, that platoon. And that's very important. And that is a check on -- among other things, it's a check on careless reporting.

BROWN: Ten seconds, no more.

Is there a part of you that would like to cover one more?

HALBERSTAM: No, I'm too old for that. Let younger men and women do it. I had a great run. I'm still working. No, I don't desire -- I think these young people today cover -- working in Africa and the Middle East are working in much more difficult and dangerous situations. And I admire them greatly, under very difficult conditions.

BROWN: And we admire you greatly. It's always nice to see you, David.

HALBERSTAM: Nice to see you.

BROWN: David Halberstam with us tonight.

When we come back, we'll check morning papers, see what will be landing on your doorstep tomorrow, or your neighbor's.

And segment seven tonight: Sitting worked for years, so why are anchors suddenly standing up? I've been wondering that, too.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And when we come back: morning papers from around the country, around the world.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A year ago tomorrow, the world learned that a young reporter for "The Wall Street Journal" who had been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, was in fact, as we all feared, dead. Tonight, in Los Angeles, Danny Pearl remembered in a service at the Museum of Tolerance. There will be other memorials over the next several days, Jerusalem, New York, Toronto, among others, but this one in L.A. tonight, where his family lived and continues to live. It's hard to believe it's been a year -- Danny Pearl memorial.

All right, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, some of the pictures in those papers.

"Chicago Sun-Times" first: They've managed to find a local story on the terrorist arrest, the allegations of a local link to the Mideast terror. The story I like is up at the top there. Jane Pauley, who I love -- But everyone does, don't they? -- retires at 52. She walks away from a big deal -- that's a lot of money -- at NBC. And it would be great if she came on the program and talked about it or anything she wants to, because we like her a lot.

We showed yesterday this picture of the chickens in Kuwait. They are going to be used -- there we go. They're going to be used to detect chemical weapons and the like. So, this is how "The Australian," which, of course, is a newspaper of Australia, wrote the story: "Chemical War Fear Puts a Chook in Every Foxhole." I'd never heard that word before, but that's chicken in Australian, for those of you who don't speak that language.

"USA Today": I don't know, it's just a lot of color, but that's "USA Today." Here it is. How the war would unfold with Iraq is their big story tomorrow.

A couple of pictures: first, the duct tape picture, OK? Duct tape is the hot product right now. And here is a guy who is actually doing it, putting them together, rolls of duct tape. Duct tape sales are up 40 percent, if you can believe it.

And one more paper and one more story, OK? Paper first, "Detroit Free Press." Sort of the usual stuff on the front page, except down here, a story. This is a very cool idea. They are doing profiles of individual soldiers, a couple of reporters at "The Detroit Free Press," on guard for 171 years. And that's a really neat idea. And I'm glad they're doing it.

Show me the picture of New York. It got like spring in New York today, after the snow the other day. So this picture was taken from a puddle up town by Radio City looking back up. And there a lot of puddles in town. And then it's supposed to rain here really hard over the weekend, which means all that snow is going to melt and we'll probably be telling you about floods in the East next week.

When we come back, segment seven looks at the trend in anchoring. Oh, my -- Jeff Greenfield on why everyone is standing up to deliver the news. There must be a good reason.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, we paid for this fancy set, so we wanted you to see the whole thing.

But, in truth, even with these fancy new digs, I'm an old- fashioned guy, in TV news terms. The way you can tell that I'm an old-fashioned guy is that I am sitting down. If I really were a with- it, cutting-edge, post-modern kind of anchor, I'd give the desk and chair the old heave-ho, or so Jeff Greenfield tells me and is about to tell you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: The drama of today's news today.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Anchors they were called and anchored they were -- to their seats: John Cameron Swayze.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN CAMERON SWAYZE, NEWS ANCHOR: The death of Albert Einstein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: And Edward R. Murrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD R. MURROW, NEWS ANCHOR: Of thermonuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: And Huntley and Brinkley and Cronkite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALTER CRONKITE, ANCHOR: The world is appalled!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: It was as if the weight of the world was on their shoulders, bearing them down as they dispensed news like kings and judges might dispense the law from a thrown. But we live in more aerobic times now. While ABC's Jennings sits, NBC's Brokaw begins and ends his broadcasts on his feet. And so do the other NBC anchors. Here at CNN, there are some who sit, while others stand and serve. But it's at the local level where the anchors have become increasingly vertical. This is WKRC in Cincinnati, no, not the sitcom. This is a real station. Here's WHDH in Boston. While the 4:00 p.m. anchors may sit and others stand, 5:00 p.m. anchor Catarina Bandini is here, then here as she plugs her 5:00 p.m. newscast. At New York's Channel 9, the anchors begin here, but they're on their feet a few minutes later. And by the end of the show, the group shot is something out of a snapshot in a company's annual report.

But, for the sheer explosion of kinetic energy, check out New York's WNYW. The anchors are sitting. Now they're standing over here. Hold it. They've moved again. She's here. He's there. The weatherman is at his map, but now he's walking and he's sitting. But the sports guy is standing. Now he's moved. Now he's back. And, finally, they all come to rest.

(on camera): What's the point of all this standing and sitting and walking and jumping? It's about energy. It's about involvement. It's about us proving to you, the viewer, that we news people are fired up, relentlessly prowling about for every scrap of information we can find, even after we've gone on the air.

If this keeps up much longer, you won't need a journalism degree to do the news, provided you can give the stock market numbers while you're doing 50 pushups.

Jeff Greenfield, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, here I am. I want my chair back and I want my desk back.

That's our report for tonight. I'm Aaron Brown in New York. Good night for all us at NEWSNIGHT.

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Aired February 20, 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.
There's a memorial service tonight for Danny Pearl. It was a year ago tomorrow when we found out that he had been killed while chasing a story in Pakistan. It seems especially timely to talk about this tonight, because many of our colleagues and friends, hundreds of them, are right now finding out what units they'll be covering and living with should there be a war with Iraq.

There are some critics of the Pentagon's policy, including Bernard Shaw, who said military commanders will have too much control over reporters, over where they go, what they see, and what stories they can file. And we admit, that is one important part of the argument.

The other is this: given the complete lack of access during the war with Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf War, it is an improvement. And in our view, an improvement that will help the soldiers, not harm them. But we're also not naive. We know war is not a pretty business.

Sometimes soldiers cross lines, sometimes there are defeats. There are always casualties, and that will all be reported as well, as it should be. If the system in place works, we will be able to file in a timely manner and may sometimes, for better or worse, be able to cover the fighting live. I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

It's something we've all been talking about for years. Now we'll be able to do it and likely will. If it comes down to war, as it seems destined to, it will be a war literally different from any you have seen before, for better or for worse. More on that later.

On to "The Whip" now, and the latest on a young girl who was the victim of a horrible medical mistake and who got a second chance today. Elizabeth Cohen in Durham North Carolina.

Elizabeth, a headline from you tonight.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, behind me 17- year-old Jesica Santillan is in the pediatric intensive care unit after having her second heart-lung transplant in two weeks. Duke University admits the first time around they gave her organs that did not match her blood tape.

BROWN: Elizabeth, back to you at the top tonight. A fascinating case today in the war on terror. The United States going after people it says are involved in Palestinian terror. Mike Brooks on that.

Mike, a headline.

MIKE BROOKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. The FBI charges a south Florida professor with terrorist activities, and seven others are also charged in an indictment handed down by a Tampa federal grand jury -- Aaron.

BROWN: Mike, thank you. Back to you shortly.

On to Iraq now and the American struggle to get Turkey on board, which could be very expensive. Andrea Koppel covering a part of that store tonight for us from the State Department. Andrea, a headline.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Aaron. Building a broad-based coalition isn't just time consuming, it is expensive, $32 billion. That's how much Turkey wants. But U.S. dollar diplomacy doesn't end there.

BROWN: Thank you, Andrea.

Now, how the press will cover the war with Iraq. It will not look much like 1991, that's for sure. Jamie McIntyre on that from the Pentagon. Jamie, a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Aaron, a lot of journalists believe that the Vietnam War was the last one they got real access to U.S. troops on the front lines. The Pentagon insists it has a plan to make it happen again if it works -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's always the "if." Thank you, Jamie. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight, we'll talk with a legendary journalist who covered Vietnam and won a Pulitzer prize for it. David Halberstam is here to talk about the Pentagon's plan for the media. Whether reporters will get the freedom they need.

Also, a Middle East expert, Ken Pollack, joins us to talk more about the diplomatic poker game going on with Turkey. And Jeff Greenfield tonight on the last of the greats in broadcast news, the folks who literally sat still while telling you the news. That's the way it was; apparently still is around here. "Segment 7" tonight.

All of that to come in the hour ahead. But we begin with the story that doesn't have the grand sweep of say the war on terror or a possible war with Iraq with thousands of lives on the line. Here there's just one life on the line, one family's drama, and it's utterly compelling.

A young girl clinging to life after a truly staggering medical mistake by the hospital treating her. And with maybe just hours to live, she gets the kind of thing you usually find only in the movies. She get as second chance. No happy Hollywood ending just yet, but tonight at least there is that possibility. Once again, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (voice-over): For the people who love Jesica Santillan, it was a day of hope and a day of anger. Hope because her new heart and lungs are working, although she still in critical condition at Duke University Medical Center. And according to her family, on dialysis and a respirator. The odds are about 50-50 that she'll live through the next year.

And here's the anger from Jessica's mother via a translator.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She thanks the media, the press, the newspapers, the radio shows, everybody. Because if they wouldn't have gotten the word out, that she felt that the hospital would have let her baby die.

COHEN: Duke says they've done everything in their power to save Jessica's life.

DR. WILLIAM FULKERSON, CEO, DUKE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: This has been a very difficult and a heart wrenching time for many people here at Duke.

COHEN: Duke admits that two weeks ago they gave Jesica organs that were type A, when she's type O. Duke says they figured out what went wrong. Doctors, after receiving notice from the organ bank of a match, assumed the blood types matched and never double-checked.

FULKERSON: We have put in place additional procedures in order to prevent these kind of errors from ever happening again in the future.

COHEN: Duke hasn't said whether they'll pay for the second procedure to correct the problem. Family friends say they'd better.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Duke says that this time around, with the second transplant, that they had not one, not two, but three doctors confirm that the blood types matched -- Aaron.

BROWN: Tell us all you can about the child's chances and the problems that she faces now. Where are we?

COHEN: Statistically speaking, as I said, she's got about a 50- 50 chance of making it through the next year. We asked when will she be out of the woods? And one doctor not related to the case said she's out of the woods when she walks out of that hospital.

She's got a lot of work to do unfortunately. She was born with this heart deformity that went unchecked in Mexico. And then she had this one operation, had to live for two weeks with organs that her body was trying to reject and has now had this second operation. So, as you can guess, her body is not in the strongest shape.

BROWN: No, that's a lot of trauma for anybody to go through. Elizabeth, thank you. I think everybody is watching and rooting for her down there in North Carolina tonight. Thank you.

On to other things. There came today a dramatic reminder that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are not the only violent plotters in the world, or in the United States, for that matter. In Tampa, Florida earlier this morning, authorities arrested a native Kuwaiti who has lived and taught college in this country for a long time.

A 50-count indictment, an allegation of course, not proven facts. Charges that he and seven others, three of whom are in custody and three others at large overseas, make up the leadership of a group called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the government says is responsible over the years for more than 100 deaths in Israel and in the occupied territories. Reporting for us, CNN's Mike Brooks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKS (voice-over): The Justice Department says this suicide attack which killed 20 people last June in Haifa, Israel, was among a string of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror operations in the Middle East. Financial support for those operations the government says came from a cell operating from south Florida.

Four members of that cell, the government says, have been arrested, including this man, Sami Amin Al-Arian, a suspended professor at the University of South Florida. The Justice Department says he's the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States and its chief fundraiser.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We make no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance, manage or supervise terrorist organizations. We will bring justice to the full network of terror.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We intend to vigorously fight these charges.

BROOKS: Al-Arian attorney called the charges a work of fiction. Al-Arian first drew the attention of U.S. authorities in 1995, when he founded an Islamic think tank at his university. His partner was Ramadan Shala (ph), who is not the current worldwide leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Shala (ph), also indicted, is not in custody.

Law enforcement sources say he is believed to be in Syria. Al- Arian has been a high-profile figure in Florida campaigning among Arab-Americans for George W. Bush's presidential bid. And he has been in a battle with the University of South Florida to keep his job after this tape became public showing him shouting "Death to Israel" in Arabic. In an interview with CNN, he voiced strong support for the Palestinian cause, but...

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I don't support a suicide bombings. I don't support the targeting of any civilian of any nationality background or religion. I'm deeply against it.

BROOKS: That's now how the Justice Department sees it. Sources say newly relaxed rules allowing law enforcement use of intelligence intercepts helped make the case that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad was involved in a criminal racketeering enterprise to support the terrorist operations.

ASHCROFT: A very substantial and important aspect of this case is the facilitation that comes between the intelligence effort and the law enforcement effort, which previously had been forbidden.

BROOKS: Alissa Flatow (ph), an American, was among those killed in a 1995 suicide bombing in Gaza. That attack, too, blamed on Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Her father applauded the indictment.

STEVEN FLATOW, VICTIM'S FATHER: There's a small sense of satisfaction. Nothing will ever bring Alissa (ph) or any other terror victims back, but there is a sense of knowing that your government is out there fighting for you that makes you feel as good as you can feel in a situation like this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKS: The attorney general conceded it's unlikely these indictments will impair Palestinian Islamic Jihad's operations. Al- Arian's attorney says his client plans a hunger strike to protest his arrest and detention -- Aaron.

BROWN: Mike, we have a pretty fair sense here of what the allegation is. I'm not sure that we have much sense of what the evidence is. Do you know anything about what precisely the government says the evidence in the case is?

BROOKS: Well, they say it's a RICO charge. And reading from the indictment, it says it's under RICO, with operating a racketeering enterprise from 1984 until present, that engaged in a number of violent activities. Those specific violent activities were not named in the indictment, Aaron.

But they have been working on this from 1984. But they really came into the FBI's radar around 1995, when he and Ramadan Shala (ph) started up this think tank. So there is a lot of evidence right now. I'm sure we'll hear more at the detention hearing to be held next Tuesday -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you. Allegations are one thing, evidence is another. And we need to hear the evidence. Thank you, Mike. Mike Brooks in Atlanta tonight.

Iraq now on the crucial question on whether the United States will win the help of Turkey. Strip away the diplomatic niceties, something we like to do around here, and you have a fierce game of who wants it more. The U.S. wants the real estate to invade Iraq from the North. Turkey wants dollars and a good excuse for backing a war.

Most Turks, about 80 percent of Turks, do not want. To be more specific, Turkey wants $32 billion. The United States is offering $26 billion. Now $26 billion is a big number, and the U.S. wants a decision now. In the balance, not if the United States goes to war, but certainly how and perhaps when.

Here's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN INSTANBUL BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's not quite going according to schedule. The American schedule, that is. U.S. ships with supplies and 3,500 military personnel to prepare Turkish bases have already arrived after being approved by Turkey's parliament. But the Turkish delay to approve U.S. combat troops now waiting offshore may force the Pentagon to rewrite its war plans.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Turkey is a democracy and it's a democracy in a region where there are relatively few democracies. And they are going through a democratic process, which is a healthy thing.

ARRAF: And in Turkey right now, democracy is particularly complicated. The U.S. has courted Turkish political leader (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as their vision of a Muslim pro-western leader, seemingly convinced they had an ally in their plans against Iraq. They've made less headway with the Turkish population. Some polls say more than 90 percent of the population here opposes the war, mostly because they believe it would bring economic ruin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are trying to live and trying to survive their life. And they worry about earning money.

ARRAF: With so much uncertainty over what would happen during and after any war with Iraq, Turkey's military also worries that if the Kurds in northern Iraq could become more independent, it could spark unrest among its own Kurdish minority.

(on camera): Turkey and the United States clearly need each other. The U.S. needs Turkey's military bases and its world weight as the only Muslim member of NATO and Iraq's neighbor. Turkey needs U.S. economic and political support. But what officials here say they don't need is the perception that they're jumping into a U.S.-led war.

(voice-over): Perhaps even more important than the amount of compensation is Turkey's need to be seen working for peace in the region.

MURAT YETKIN: There is such a picture we have now is that U.S. is very generous and Turkey is resisting to that.

ARRAF: Although Turkey could very well end up approving the U.S. combat troops by doing on its own schedule, it's making the point that it's certainly not the country's first choice.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Ankara.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: OK. A little context here. The $26 billion the administration has offered Turkey, even by government standards, is a lot of cash. The Department of Homeland Security spent just $2 billion more than that last year.

EPA spent only $8 billion on the environment, and the entire Justice Department, the FBI, the drug enforcement administration, all the courts, the whole Justice Department, spent $22 billion last year. So $26 billion is hardly chump change. If you gave it to the Education Department, it would be an almost 50 percent increase in the federal government's commitment to schools.

And, of course, Turkey isn't the only country with its hand out. Here's CNN's Andrea Koppel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOPPEL (voice-over): Secretary of State Powell told reporters U.S. plans to stage thousands of American troops in Turkey are still up in the air. The main sticking point, money. Turkey pushing for $32 billion in grants and loan guarantees, the U.S. insisting its final offer stands at $26 billion.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: There may be some other creative things that we can do, but the level was our ceiling. And I know that they are in consultation now within their government.

KOPPEL: Privately, senior U.S. officials tell CNN Turkey's motives for wanting more money are unclear. Either high stakes hard bargaining, or a gentler way of saying no without saying no. Whatever the reason, the U.S. maintains any U.S. aid package would not be a quid pro quo, but rather compensation for collateral damage in the event of war.

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: There may be economic costs. There may be economic consequences. And we are prepared to help Turkey as a friend and an ally with those economic costs and consequences.

KOPPEL: As plans for possible war with Iraq shift into high gear, U.S. dollar diplomacy to secure a coalition of the willing is not limited to Turkey. Jordan, Iraq's neighbor to the west, and another key frontline state has received $250 million in economic assistance. With an additional $145 million in grants in the pipeline.

The U.S. has also provided Jordan with six F-16 fighter jets with 12 more on the way.

DOV WEISSGLAS, CHIEF OF STAFF TO ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We are in the process now of the negotiation and dialogue.

KOPPEL: And senior Israeli officials were at the State Department Thursday to talk about an aid package worth $8 billion in loan guarantees and $4 billion in military aid over the next several years. Russia, too, has had its hat out and already received a U.S. pledge to consider Moscow's economic interest in a post-Saddam Iraq totaling billions to classify three Chechen rebel groups as terrorist organizations, and to look the other way if Russia goes after Chechen rebels in Georgia's (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

(on camera): But for now, U.S. diplomacy is focused like a laser on winning Turkey's support. Frustrated U.S. officials privately say they must have an answer from Turkey within the next couple of days. Secretary of State Powell said he expected an answer by day's end Thursday, but that answer never came.

Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And from us on NEWSNIGHT, we'll continue to sort through the situation with Turkey, other countries, too, as we approach a possible war. We'll be joined by Ken Pollack from the Brookings Institution about whether each side will get what it wants here.

Later, we'll talk with David Halberstam about the Pentagon's new plan for handling reporters during a war. That and more as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: More on Iraq now. We like the way someone put it today: We're on a diplomatic nice edge. Not the questions precisely how and when to float another U.N. resolution involving Iraq and, oh, yes, what is it they'll say that's still up in the air tonight, by the way. The nice edge refers to this crazy stalemate with Turkey, which some fear could throw a mammoth wrench into the U.S. war plan. At least force a change in it if it's not resolved.

A lot to talk about with Middle East expert, CNN analyst Kenneth Pollack, who is here tonight. It's nice to see you. Can I tell you just that it's -- I think it's unseemly a bit, this bargaining going on. You have the Turks asking for this, and the Israelis over, and the Russians saying give us that. But this is sort of normal the way it's done, right?

KENNETH POLLACK, CNN ANALYST: Unfortunately it is. It's a painful process, but for the Turks this is a tough hurdle to get over. And they do have some real economic stakes involved. By the same token, I don't think that we should quite paint this as apocalyptic as some people have suggested.

I mean, after all, the U.S. offer is for $26 billion. It's going to be very hard for the Turks to walk away from that. They may wanted $32 billion, but given a choice between $26 or nothing, and given the fact that the U.S. seems pretty committed to going to war with Iraq anyway, it's going to be hard for Turkey to walk away from that kind of money.

BROWN: So they don't want to be seen as kissing on the first date. POLLACK: Absolutely. They have to demonstrate that they're showing some resistance, because their people aren't terribly (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They have to convince their people that they are really getting the best deal possible from the United States. But by the same token, they don't want to be seen as being split off from the United States. I mean I think we tend to forget...

BROWN: It's an interesting dilemma, isn't it? On the one hand, you don't want to be seem as too close. And on the other hand, you don't want to be too distant.

POLLACK: Absolutely. I don't want to push this dating metaphor too far, but the Turks do need to play a little bit hard to get here. But at the end of the day, they know the United States is their closest bilateral relationship. The U.S. is their most important ally, especially over the last few years, when they've been trying desperately to get into the EU, and none of the Europeans want them in.

And we're the ones who have been the greatest assets to the Turks in trying to push them. So the Turks have a lot at stake with the U.S. relationship. They understand that a war with Iraq is George Bush's highest priority. And as I said, the U.S. is being very generous about the kind of aid that it's offering Turkey.

The Turks are holding out for a little bit more. I mean, after all, this is the Middle East and it's always the bizarre.

BROWN: When last we talked, it was last Friday, and we talked about sort of whether there had been any sort of seismic shift after the Blix report. And then there was the weekend demonstrations. Give me a sense of what you thought the administration needed to do in the days ahead. How have they done?

POLLACK: I actually think they're not doing badly. I've been very pleased with how they've been picking up on the public diplomacy campaign. In particular, I thought things like Colin Powell going out and talking to teenagers and fielding their questions and explaining why this is important, that's exactly the kind of thing the administration needs to be doing and needs to be doing more of.

Taking these kind of questions seriously, talking to the American people, talking to as many publics as they possibly can to make the case. And then what we're seeing is they're also starting to do the backroom diplomacy, which they need to do. Lining up Turkey, lining up Jordan, lining up Israel to be in the right place. And also going out to the different U.N. Security Council members.

And the fact that they've come out today and said we're going to put a resolution on the table suggests that the administration is pretty confident that at the very least they'll have a majority of Security Council members on board. That's not to say they'll get the French and the Chinese and the Russians, but they'll -- they think they'll have a majority.

BROWN: And this resolution, we've talked about this resolution endlessly, honestly. Firm dates and actions that have to take place, is that what's going to happen?

POLLACK: That seems to be what's in the offing. But the administration is debating exactly how long a deadline. They want it to be short. And they're very nervous about getting into a debate with the French over how long the deadline should be. They don't want to have a four-week debate over whether the deadline should be two weeks or 10 weeks

And beyond that, they have to define what those tasks are. It has to be more than things like allowing the U-2 to fly. That's an easy one for the Iraqis to give up. They have to be big, meaningful tests.

BROWN: So give me a big, meaningful test that the Iraqis will blink on or not blink on.

POLLACK: Account for 30,000 tons of -- 30,000 chemical munitions or warfare munitions. Account for thousands of tons of precursor chemicals of VX. Account for all of that. That would be a meaningful test.

BROWN: And if they say, well, we can't do that, but we destroyed it all, that's just lying?

POLLACK: Right. That's just not good enough. There's always physical evidence. And, in fact, in the past the Iraqis did unilaterally destroy some things and they were able to come forward with some of the stuff. The problem for the Iraqis is that when they did that, they had come forward with a bunch of scud missiles they unilaterally destroyed, we found VX on those skid missiles, one of the smoking guns.

BROWN: Well it's good to see you here in New York.

POLLACK: I look forward to it.

BROWN: Not for a while, I expect. Thank you, Ken Pollack.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT: we'll check the latest stories from around the world and around the country. A couple of those coming up, including the conviction of a man for spying for Iraq and for China. My goodness.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A look now at a few stories from around the world, beginning with a troop deployment. Not to the Persian Gulf, but to the Philippines. Pentagon said today that the first of some 1,700 troops will be leaving shortly to fight alongside Philippine forces in a mission to -- quote -- "disrupt and defeat" the remaining Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern island of Jolo. The American troops will include special forces and Marines. They will stay, the Pentagon says, for as long as it takes. In Iran today, mountain climbers were enlisted to help in the search for the remains of 302 people, air, crew and soldiers of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard who were aboard a Russian-built aircraft that crashed into a mountainside yesterday. The death toll makes this one of the worst aviation disasters in history.

And, finally, from around the world, it was the town that wasn't there, at least according to the map-makers of Britain, who kept leaving the eight-house village of Tiddleywink -- you got, Tiddleywink -- out of the official atlas. But the Tiddleywinkers, or the Tiddleywinkites, mounted a successful campaign to be put on the map and now have a sign of their own. And there it is. Travelers cannot unwittingly jump right over Tiddleywink. Get it?

Some stories from around the country now, starting with a verdict in a spy case.

Even the crew is shaking their heads. My goodness.

A federal jury convicted Brian Patrick Regan of trying to sell U.S. secrets to Iraq and China. The former U.S. Air Force master sergeant was acquitted of attempting to spy for Libya. Jurors return Monday to decide whether he could be eligible for the death penalty.

And the board looking into the Columbia shuttle disaster is paying close attention to the way the foam insulation was applied to the fuel tanks. We're back at that again. The question is whether some of the insulation or the material underneath it may have damaged the shuttle on takeoff when it fell off. Investigators say they'll take a second look at the techniques and the safeguards used to apply that insulation.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight: the press and the Pentagon and new plans for press coverage during wartime. Will it work and is it a good idea for both sides? David Halberstam joins us, too.

This is NEWSNIGHT around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we look at how the press will cover a war, if there is a war. David Halberstam joins us to talk about it, too.

NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Reporters wore helmets in the Second World War and in Vietnam as well. They had to. They were as close to the fighting as the soldiers were, in many cases.

But that changed a decade ago in the Persian Gulf. By and large, journalists were kept so far away from the action, they would have been safe wearing baseball caps. And those of us in this business had reason to worry that that would be the plan all over again in the event of another war, this one with Iraq: keep the media penned up.

But the military seems to have gone back to a much older model instead with a new word added, embed, for a reporter embedded in a military unit. And that's the way it's going to be. It's a victory for journalists for sure, who will need their helmets again, and we think for truth.

Here's our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): For war correspondents, it's always been about access.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think the new pressure here...

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep rolling.

MCINTYRE: Vietnam, a low point for the U.S. military, was, it turns out, a high point for journalists like Joe Galloway, co-author of "We Were Soldiers Once and Won."

JOE GALLOWAY, KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS: The Vietnam War was the most openly covered war in the history of our country.

MCINTYRE: And CNN's Bruce Morton, then with CBS.

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The military was, by and large back then, glad to see us. If you were out in the field, if you were out with the troops, that's where the story was. And they let us do that.

MCINTYRE: Still smarting from how that open coverage undercut public support, the Pentagon tightly controlled the media during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, limiting where reporters could go and often restricting access to small groups of pool reporters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there some way you can explain the discrepancy...

MCINTYRE: U.S. journalists bristled at covering the war by attending briefings in hotels and have lobbied in every war since for more access to the front lines.

The Pentagon argued that wasn't practical in Afghanistan, which was fought initially with only small numbers of elite special forces on the ground. This time, the Pentagon is doing an about-face. After running more than 230 journalists through media boot camps, the Pentagon is inviting more than 500 media representatives to accompany U.S. combat units to war. And that includes roughly 100 journalists from other countries, including the Arab television network Al- Jazeera. That change of heart is in part is to counter anti-U.S. propaganda expected from Saddam Hussein. DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: At least there might be some people on the ground who might take the time to see what's actually happening and might report it accurately, whether from this country or other countries. And that, in my view, is to our benefit.

MCINTYRE: The big question: Will it work? Will reporters be able to file their stories live from the battlefield without jeopardizing the military's mission and putting lives at risk?

GALLOWAY: They declare that they have no intention of preventing the reporting of bad news or news that's unfavorable to the American forces. And I have to take them at their word. But, as you say, the devil is always in the details.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon's written guidance to commanders says: "The primary safeguard will be to brief media in advance about what information is sensitive, but also states that access to some operations may be granted only "if the reporter agrees to a security review of the story before it's transmitted." The Pentagon insists it's not censorship, just common-sense ground rules.

BRYAN WHITMAN, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: I've never met -- maybe there is one, but I have never met a journalist that willingly wants to compromise the success of any operation out there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Now, Pentagon officials admit, to some extent, this plan is an experiment to see if the theory of embedding U.S. media with U.S. troops can survive the reality of the battlefield, especially when both sides are under extreme pressure and lives are at risk -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, the orders are going out pretty quickly, aren't they?

MCINTYRE: This week, news organizations were due to tell the Pentagon if they accepted the invitation for their reporters. And next week, military units around the country were going to be told which reporters they'd be getting. And it will probably be a week or two before they make it to the battlefield. And that might give you an idea of the timeframe for the start of the war.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

With us here in New York: David Halberstam. David won a Pulitzer for his work reporting the Vietnam War and is one of the country's more interesting and most prolific writers as well.

Nice to have you.

DAVID HALBERSTAM, JOURNALIST: Nice to be with you again.

BROWN: Do you think this is an improvement?

HALBERSTAM: A drastic improvement, I think.

BROWN: Do you think this is a terrific idea or just a pretty good one?

HALBERSTAM: Well, we don't know how it's going to work out, but it's theoretically a vast improvement. The rules during the Persian Gulf War were Draconian and I think limiting and in fact insulting to the patriotism and the honor of American journalists.

This is an interesting idea. It will depend on the personality of the reporter, the personality of the unit leader. I think it will encourage a serious responsibility on the part of reporters. I mean, it will work against feather merchants who parachute in for only a day and talk to maybe one grunt and go with something. And I think there will be a sense of obligation to the unit. I think it's not unlike the way reporters worked in World War II.

BROWN: In Vietnam, you could pretty much hitch a ride anywhere, if they would take you.

HALBERSTAM: Well, not in the beginning.

I was there in the very early days. And it was quite controlled. They had a list to get on, a helicopter to go somewhere in those old CH-21s. It encouraged people like Neil Sheehan and me to drive down to My Tho in the day. At night, it was V.C.-controlled. And the 7th Division, the 7th Division was there, where I happened to meet one of my great sources, a John Vann.

They kept trying to control it. And then a friend of mine, the first armed helicopter company in American history, came in, Ivan Slavich. I think he started as a major and was a lieutenant colonel. He wanted to sell Army aviation. So he said, come on out and get on my helicopters any time you want, the first Hueys, those new modern helicopters.

And with that, the ability to control us was lost. And then we could go anywhere. And one of the very best bits, pieces of reporting in the entire Vietnam War was a great reporter for CBS, Jack Laurence, who went up and did Charlie Company, which was in effect being embedded in a unit. So it can be done.

BROWN: Just on this question that I think viewers ask and reporters are quite dismissive of, to be honest, which is that reporters will give away something important, that they will put at risk the lives of American soldiers.

HALBERSTAM: No, that was never an issue. And reporters, I think, are very careful. I don't want to be dismissive. I can imagine how someone who has never been in a zone like that might worry about it.

The tension was over politics. The push-pull between the reporters, and not the people in the field, but the people in Washington and in headquarters and Saigon, was about the pessimistic tone of the reporting, which came from the people in the field. It was never about giving away secrets. I believe one reporter for UPI had his credentials lifted for about two days and that -- and in a very long war, that was it. It was never about giving away secrets.

BROWN: All right, let me go back to the beginning here.

Look, I guess, sometimes, you take what you get. But if the commanding officer has control over when you can file, isn't that giving them an awful lot of control?

HALBERSTAM: Well, I don't know if he's going to -- how much control. You go out with his unit. Can you file each day? I would think -- we don't know, as I say, what the details are, but I would think there would be an ability to file pretty regularly. We have instantaneous communications in this era.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: The print guys, send out an e-mail and your story is in the paper. We need a satellite dish and pictures and the rest.

HALBERSTAM: The power this gives to the Pentagon, if you embed a reporter, is the power of peers, of a reporter not wanting to offend the people that he has spent the day with, and, therefore, trying to...

BROWN: That's the brilliance of this, in many ways.

HALBERSTAM: Yes. You try and reflect the reality of that squad, that company, that platoon. And that's very important. And that is a check on -- among other things, it's a check on careless reporting.

BROWN: Ten seconds, no more.

Is there a part of you that would like to cover one more?

HALBERSTAM: No, I'm too old for that. Let younger men and women do it. I had a great run. I'm still working. No, I don't desire -- I think these young people today cover -- working in Africa and the Middle East are working in much more difficult and dangerous situations. And I admire them greatly, under very difficult conditions.

BROWN: And we admire you greatly. It's always nice to see you, David.

HALBERSTAM: Nice to see you.

BROWN: David Halberstam with us tonight.

When we come back, we'll check morning papers, see what will be landing on your doorstep tomorrow, or your neighbor's.

And segment seven tonight: Sitting worked for years, so why are anchors suddenly standing up? I've been wondering that, too.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And when we come back: morning papers from around the country, around the world.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A year ago tomorrow, the world learned that a young reporter for "The Wall Street Journal" who had been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, was in fact, as we all feared, dead. Tonight, in Los Angeles, Danny Pearl remembered in a service at the Museum of Tolerance. There will be other memorials over the next several days, Jerusalem, New York, Toronto, among others, but this one in L.A. tonight, where his family lived and continues to live. It's hard to believe it's been a year -- Danny Pearl memorial.

All right, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, some of the pictures in those papers.

"Chicago Sun-Times" first: They've managed to find a local story on the terrorist arrest, the allegations of a local link to the Mideast terror. The story I like is up at the top there. Jane Pauley, who I love -- But everyone does, don't they? -- retires at 52. She walks away from a big deal -- that's a lot of money -- at NBC. And it would be great if she came on the program and talked about it or anything she wants to, because we like her a lot.

We showed yesterday this picture of the chickens in Kuwait. They are going to be used -- there we go. They're going to be used to detect chemical weapons and the like. So, this is how "The Australian," which, of course, is a newspaper of Australia, wrote the story: "Chemical War Fear Puts a Chook in Every Foxhole." I'd never heard that word before, but that's chicken in Australian, for those of you who don't speak that language.

"USA Today": I don't know, it's just a lot of color, but that's "USA Today." Here it is. How the war would unfold with Iraq is their big story tomorrow.

A couple of pictures: first, the duct tape picture, OK? Duct tape is the hot product right now. And here is a guy who is actually doing it, putting them together, rolls of duct tape. Duct tape sales are up 40 percent, if you can believe it.

And one more paper and one more story, OK? Paper first, "Detroit Free Press." Sort of the usual stuff on the front page, except down here, a story. This is a very cool idea. They are doing profiles of individual soldiers, a couple of reporters at "The Detroit Free Press," on guard for 171 years. And that's a really neat idea. And I'm glad they're doing it.

Show me the picture of New York. It got like spring in New York today, after the snow the other day. So this picture was taken from a puddle up town by Radio City looking back up. And there a lot of puddles in town. And then it's supposed to rain here really hard over the weekend, which means all that snow is going to melt and we'll probably be telling you about floods in the East next week.

When we come back, segment seven looks at the trend in anchoring. Oh, my -- Jeff Greenfield on why everyone is standing up to deliver the news. There must be a good reason.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, we paid for this fancy set, so we wanted you to see the whole thing.

But, in truth, even with these fancy new digs, I'm an old- fashioned guy, in TV news terms. The way you can tell that I'm an old-fashioned guy is that I am sitting down. If I really were a with- it, cutting-edge, post-modern kind of anchor, I'd give the desk and chair the old heave-ho, or so Jeff Greenfield tells me and is about to tell you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: The drama of today's news today.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Anchors they were called and anchored they were -- to their seats: John Cameron Swayze.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN CAMERON SWAYZE, NEWS ANCHOR: The death of Albert Einstein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: And Edward R. Murrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD R. MURROW, NEWS ANCHOR: Of thermonuclear weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: And Huntley and Brinkley and Cronkite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALTER CRONKITE, ANCHOR: The world is appalled!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: It was as if the weight of the world was on their shoulders, bearing them down as they dispensed news like kings and judges might dispense the law from a thrown. But we live in more aerobic times now. While ABC's Jennings sits, NBC's Brokaw begins and ends his broadcasts on his feet. And so do the other NBC anchors. Here at CNN, there are some who sit, while others stand and serve. But it's at the local level where the anchors have become increasingly vertical. This is WKRC in Cincinnati, no, not the sitcom. This is a real station. Here's WHDH in Boston. While the 4:00 p.m. anchors may sit and others stand, 5:00 p.m. anchor Catarina Bandini is here, then here as she plugs her 5:00 p.m. newscast. At New York's Channel 9, the anchors begin here, but they're on their feet a few minutes later. And by the end of the show, the group shot is something out of a snapshot in a company's annual report.

But, for the sheer explosion of kinetic energy, check out New York's WNYW. The anchors are sitting. Now they're standing over here. Hold it. They've moved again. She's here. He's there. The weatherman is at his map, but now he's walking and he's sitting. But the sports guy is standing. Now he's moved. Now he's back. And, finally, they all come to rest.

(on camera): What's the point of all this standing and sitting and walking and jumping? It's about energy. It's about involvement. It's about us proving to you, the viewer, that we news people are fired up, relentlessly prowling about for every scrap of information we can find, even after we've gone on the air.

If this keeps up much longer, you won't need a journalism degree to do the news, provided you can give the stock market numbers while you're doing 50 pushups.

Jeff Greenfield, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, here I am. I want my chair back and I want my desk back.

That's our report for tonight. I'm Aaron Brown in New York. Good night for all us at NEWSNIGHT.

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