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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Bush Lays Out Ambitious Picture of Post-War, Post-Saddam Iraq; NASA Releases E-mails Revealing Concerns Over Safety Issues With Columbia

Aired February 26, 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. We're in Atlanta, which is the center of something, but we haven't figured out what yet.
New York has decided on a plan for rebuilding ground zero. And we'll tell you more about that as we go along tonight.

But for a moment, something on the past. When we think back to the first person who died in the World Trade Center, we tend remember Mycael Judge, the fire department chaplain named victim number one by the city's medical examiner. In truth, our memory fails us.

Six people came before Father Judge and long before 9/11. They died 10 years ago today, the victims of the first attack on the World Trade Center. The families gathered today, as they have every year since 1993, in lower Manhattan, close to where the towers once stood.

It seems to us that these families have suffered an especially cruel fate. Their story was already fading from view when 9/11 happened. Just a small fragment of granite, a memorial from that first attack survived the 9/11 attack. And, since then, the families say they feel invisible. They saw a sea of flags and wished the same for their loved ones.

They see families of 9/11 getting compensation and wonder why they're not part of it. As one of them says, "September 11 began on February 26, 1993." Of course, it's not really about the flags or the money. It's the fear that somehow their husband, daughter, father or brother mattered less than those who died on 9/11.

This madness began 10 years ago today. And when we think of those who died in the war on terrorism, we ought not forget the first people to fall.

We begin tonight with the news of the day. And the news of the day begins with Iraq. A lot of talk today about what would come after a war, if there is a war. How much that war would cost. Senior White House correspondent John King starts us off. John, a headline from you?

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, initial estimates are $60 billion, perhaps $100 billion in costs just for the war and its immediate aftermath. And in a speech tonight, the president laid out an ambitious picture of how he sees a post-war, post-Saddam Iraq. Some say Mr. Bush is naive, but he says it can be a flourishing democracy that helps promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.

BROWN: John, thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

An intriguing development in the Shuttle Columbia investigation. Miles O'Brien covering that for us, of course. So, Miles, a headline from you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, NASA releases some e-mails, which appear to presage the entire Columbia disaster. They're haunting, they're prophetic. But some NASA engineers tell us, wait a minute, it's a case of what-iffing.

BROWN: Miles, thank you.

A grand jury investigation underway now surrounding the tragedy in Rhode Island. Bob Franken back there tonight. So, Bob, a headline.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, it's been less than a week since the calamitous tragedy here at the nightclub. But the investigation is revving up amid some legal maneuvering and an implied threat.

BROWN: Bob, thank you.

And, as we said, a design concept has now been chosen for lower Manhattan. Jason Carroll followed that story for us. So, Jason, a headline.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Aaron, the winning design calls for building sky gardens on what would be the tallest building in the world. Much of ground zero would be left exposed in the new plan. The winning architect, studio architect Daniel Libeskind. A name we're going to be hearing a lot about in the coming days.

BROWN: Jason, thank you. Back to all of you in a moment.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT on Wednesday, the 26th of February, who's killing the great chefs of Europe? This is a story of a French chef who killed himself, and his friends who insist he really was killed by criticism. We'll talk about the pressures of being a star chef with someone who knows it well, Anthony Bordane (ph) a little later.

And the debate over Iraq blissfully free of shouting, insults, and bad behavior. Civilized talk at 10 Downing Street today. That will be "Segment 7." A long way to go before then.

It all begins with Iraq and the bottom line. Tonight, the president laid out an ambitious vision of Iraq's future and the future of the entire region. A liberated Iraq would lead the way for democracy all over the Middle East. It is fair to say that not everyone agrees with that. What every does seem to agree on is that this war, if it comes, will not be cheap, and the occupation after the war will not be cheap either. At a time when budgets are tight and deficits are growing, it raises questions about tradeoffs involved. What, if anything, does the country give up to pay for a war that seems closer every day? We begin with our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president sees a post-war post-Saddam Iraq as a down payment on democracy and perhaps peace in the Middle East.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.

KING: This speech left no doubt the goals of war would go well beyond disarmament and even beyond regime nation. The nation building that would require a costly and controversial long-term U.S. occupation in a country and region highly suspicious of American power.

BUSH: We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before.

KING: Administration sources say the White House could soon ask Congress for as much as $95 billion to pay for war in Iraq. Though some in the White House prefer a leaner request of about $60 billion.

Where would the money go? Two months of war would cost as much as $40 billion. A peacekeeping force in Iraq would cost at least $6 billion a year. Humanitarian supplies are being moved to deal with as many as two million refugees in and around Iraq, and the administration is planning billions more in aid to Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and perhaps Egypt and others.

A shorter war would mean less spending. But the costs could be higher if Iraq used chemical or biological weapons on U.S. troops, or if it set fire to oilfields, as it did in Kuwait in the last Gulf War.

BUSH: Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet, that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's torture chambers and poison labs in operation.

KING: Mr. Bush promised to protect Iraq's oilfields from sabotage. U.S. plans call for using that oil to pay for Iraq's post- war reconstruction, but not for the war itself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And the president said with a democracy in Iraq, the threat of terrorism in the region would be dramatically reduced. The president said, at such a moment, the United States could make clear it will no longer tolerate expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and could demand from the Israelis and the Palestinians a fresh commitment to peace talks -- Aaron.

BROWN: This vision the president has will get debated a fair amount tomorrow, we suspect. Let's leave that aside. There's an enormous difference between $60 billion and $90 billion, the two choices you laid out. Explain the gap there.

KING: One of the questions is: How much does the Pentagon ask for in terms of replacing ammunition that would be lost in any war? One question that no one can answer right now, because the war, if there is a war, has not begun -- is how long would it be? That would dramatically affect the cost whether it's two weeks or two months or more.

And the Pentagon is also thinking, since this will be a bill with a lot of money in it making its way through the Congress, of asking for money for the broader war on terrorism, not specifically targeted to war in Iraq, but efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere. That is the ongoing debate.

BROWN: John, thank you. John King at the White House tonight.

Tonight's program, in many ways, seems all about choices. For Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, the choice has been going with the prevailing political currents or doing what he believes is the right thing on Iraq. He's paid dearly for it already, mostly within his own party and his own country.

But today he won a vote, though in the end, that victory may turn hollow. For not in a century have so many members of the prime minister's own party turned against their leader. Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a testy parliament at the start of a debate and vote on his Iraq policy. Blair acknowledged his troubles from the outset.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: In fact, we're not voting actually on the issue of war tonight. We're voting on the issue of the government's strategy. And I have to say I'm well aware of the fact that many people want a second resolution. That's exactly what I want. I can assure them I'm working flat out in order to achieve it.

AMANPOUR: That's because Blair needs U.N. cover to appease his own public opinion and shore up international support for any war in Iraq. But one of his own former cabinet ministers leading the worst rebellion of Blair's premiership, says he's standing too close to President Bush on Iraq.

CHRIS SMITH: There may well be a time when it becomes necessary. But, at the moment, the timetable appears to be determined by the decisions of the president of the United States and not by the logic of events. AMANPOUR: At the same time, a similar debate was underway in the French parliament. The French prime minister giving an impassioned plea for more time, 120 days more for inspections to continue. Saying that war, before exhausting all peaceful means, would be illegitimate.

The international community is now deeply split, with France leading the anti-war camp and showing no sign of backing down. But in Westminster, Jack Straw dismissed the call for more time.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER: Why does he need 120 days for? To have a look for the weapons he says he hasn't got?

AMANPOUR: He also ridiculed Iraq's latest disclosure to the U.N. about finding a possible biological weapons device.

STRAW: They said they found a bomb. Iraq has found a bomb containing biological agents. Just popped up from some (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

AMANPOUR: There were hours of feisty give and take.

(on camera): Tony Blair had promised parliament that this would not be their last vote and that he is not yet asking for a mandate for military action. That, he said, would come in another vote at a later date. Christiane Amanpour, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On now to the shuttle investigation. Today, NASA released a series of e-mails with a chilling thread running through them. Conversations between shuttle engineers, their concerns about what might happen, seemingly to bear an eerie resemblance to what actually did happen. Again, CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): The flight controllers who first saw the signs of trouble on board Columbia on the morning of February 1st...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FYI. I just lost four separate temperature (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the left side of the vehicle.

O'BRIEN: ... spent several days before the orbiters returned to Earth and engaged in a raging e-mail exchange that seems to show a lot of alarm about possible damage to the shuttle. Specifically, whether pieces of foam that fell off the shuttle's external fuel tank 82 seconds after launch caused serious damage to Columbia's heat shielding tiles.

On January 28, landing gear expert Bob Dougherty, based at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, who sparked the colloquy, asked a Houston-based colleague, "Any more activity today on the tile damage, or are people just relegated to just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best?"

Three days later, January 31, landing day eve, flight controller Jeff Kling offers his take on possible damage to the wheel well area and whether it might force the crew to bail out or ditch the spacecraft. "If there was hot plasma sneaking into the wheel wells," he writes, "we could see increases in our landing gear temperatures and likely our tire pressures. Ultimately, our recommendation in that case is going to be set up for a bailout, assuming the wing doesn't burn off before we can get the crew out."

Kling held a teleconference with reporters hours after NASA released this batch of seemingly prophetic e-mails. He said the entire team had complete faith in the analysis done by Boeing engineers, but concluded the foam did not conflict a fatal blow.

JEFF KLING, MECHANICAL FLIGHT ENGINEER: There were mid-level managers in there. And it did not go up to any upper level area, because, again, it was more of an exercise within our group to talk about these things. And it's -- on entry day, things are very busy.

When we know that we have a good vehicle and we're going to go through a normal entry, we don't send these things around to cause distractions. It just was within our group.

O'BRIEN: Kling says he and his team had no concerns about the health of the vehicle when he sat down at the console on February 1. But one engineer from shuttle contractor United Space Alliance weighs in with this: "Why are we talking about this on the day before landing and not the day after launch?"

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: We asked the engineers why the what-iffing wasn't shared with the upper management of the shuttle. They said, well, you have to be very clear-cut and have concrete evidence before you do that. But interestingly, in the midst of all this, the Air Force offered to aim one of its telescope to the shuttle to see if it could spot any sort of damage. NASA waved them off that effort. So -- partially because in the past, they hadn't had much luck with that type of effort.

BROWN: So, at the end of this day, what do we know? We know that these engineers had these concerns and that these concerns didn't get to the people at the top. Do we know if it would have made any difference?

O'BRIEN: Well, that is the $64 million dollar question. But, the fact is, they still -- if you look at those e-mails, they were trying to come up with a scenario that would make it safe for the shuttle to come back home if that were the case in this what-iffing. They couldn't come up with one. So, you're right, it gets back to that whole issue of a moot issue.

BROWN: Thank you. Miles O'Brien on the shuttle story.

On to the Rhode Island fire and something that has gotten a bit lost in the coverage. As the community remembers 97 people lost, keep another number in mind. The number is 36. That is the number of people still in critical condition fighting for their lives tonight. The most painful kind of recovery. Recovery from burns. Dozens more still recovering in the hospital. And, today, a grand jury began the hunt for accountability. Something that, when all is said and done, could take years. But that will undoubtedly seem short to the survivors who will have their scars for a lifetime. Here, now, CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): Arriving the first day were the surviving members of the band Great White. Still, they say, living a nightmare.

JACK RUSSELL, GREAT WHITE BAND MEMBER: The most horrible experience of my life. The most horrible experience of my life. You know? That's all I can say. There's nothing else I can say.

FRANKEN: The state's attorney general has repeatedly said the musicians have cooperated with investigators. In contrast, he contends to the club owners, who have now retained an additional lawyer, former state Attorney General Jeffrey Pine. Pine explains that police had already told his client that he was a target of the investigation.

JEFFREY PINE, DERDERIAN LAWYER: So on the one hand, you have the cops saying we expect you to be charged, and nobody in their right mind is just going to walk into the attorney general's office after the police officer has already named them as a target.

FRANKEN: The attorney general responded with the word he has not used publicly before: arrest.

PATRICK LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL, RHODE ISLAND: We forge ahead, and at some point, through whatever process I deem appropriate, in concert with the hard working men and women in uniform, whether it is a grand jury, complaint, warrant of arrest, if they are appropriate, I will indicate that as quickly as possible.

FRANKEN: Even as families and loved ones begin to bury the victims, the search goes on to make sure that no others are still buried undetected in the rubble. Dogs were brought in Monday from Connecticut for a final search. Officials are still going through the debris.

GOV. DON CARCIERI (R), RHODE ISLAND: Other than some personal effects that were uncovered and collected, we found no other victims.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: Even before the ordeal of mourning the tragedy is completed, the investigation grinds on. There is a common feeling that the punishing of those responsible will be essential to the mourning process -- Aaron.

BROWN: Bob, thank you. Bob Franken in Rhode Island tonight.

And ahead on NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta, the cost of the war in Iraq and the aftermath. What stays, what goes. We'll talk with the Congressman Duncan Hunter of California -- he's chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- about that.

And a plan selected to rebuild ground zero. We'll show you the plan and the man behind it. Ways to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Iraq again. Developments today on a couple of fronts. Neither one make or break, but both clearly helpful to President Bush in his position. With thousands of American troops waiting in the harbor, Turkey's parliament tomorrow is expected to debate a deal granting them access to bases to the north of Iraq. In exchange, Turkey would get about $24 billion in grants and loan guarantees; perhaps more.

Saudi Arabia today agreed to give U.S. forces complete access to the Prince Sultan Air Base to run an air war from there if so desired. In addition, the Saudis will take American tankers and surveillance aircraft to operate out of Saudi airfields.

No price tag yet on that one, but both clearly are big line items in any possible war. Want to pick up now on where we left off at the top of the program and take up the question of the cost of the war (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with the chairman of the House Arms Services Committee, Congressman Duncan Hunter joins us tonight. He's the congressman from the state of california.

Congressman, thanks for being with us. The $90 billion price tag seem about right to you?

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, if you look at the last war, that cost about $53 billion. And we're spending about $1.6 billion a month right now, basically waging a war against terror and what I would call staging in the Iraq theater. So we could easily go that high, and in these types of situations, you want to have plenty. Because once you're engaged and you're moving fuel and ammunition and all the other things that it takes, and bringing reserves in, you want to have lots of money as you go into this type of operation.

BROWN: Where is the money coming from?

HUNTER: Well, if you look at the defense budget, it's been undefended. This budget this year is about $68 billion less than Ronald Reagan's defense budget in 1985 in real dollars. So we've saved $120 billion a year since 1985 in the fall of the Russian empire.

So this country hasn't been spending too much on defense. We have been spending about 2.3 percent of GDP, gross domestic product, on defense, much lower than Ronald Reagan, much lower than John Kennedy. So this will be a spike, there's no doubt about that -- this $90 billion or so. On the other hand, one thing we learned after 9/11 is that disasters, security disasters, can cost us hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. BROWN: Let's just, for purposes of discussion, accept not only the $90 billion figure, but also a more broad increase in the defense spending that I know you would like to see and others. The question, though, stays the same: Where does it come from? Do we have to sacrifice some things to get other things?

HUNTER: The answer actually is no. If you look at this from a historic perspective, John Kennedy spent nine percent of the gross domestic product of this country on national security. Ronald Reagan spent six percent of GDP on national security. And we are spending a little over 3.4 percent lower than we've ever spent since Pearl Harbor.

So even if you take the cost of this war into consideration over the next five years or so, the defense budget, as planned, would be a little bit under four percent of gross domestic product, which is historically low. And a part of that is because of the fact that the Soviet empire has come down. So the direct answer to your question is, it's a function of government.

Probably the main function of government. That is to protect its people. And over the last 15 years, we've been saving a ton of money on defense because we dissolved the Soviet empire.

BROWN: I don't quarrel with any of that. That all seems fine to me. But I'm not sure, respectfully, that it's an honestly an answer to the question in this respect. We're running a $300 billion deficit. Times are tough. The president wants a tax increase.

And if you go back to Vietnam, the last time we tried to have guns and butter at the same time, it paved the way for very difficult high inflationary time that both you and I remember. So let me ask it again. Not can we, of course we can. But do we have to find either more revenue out there somewhere or do we have to cut domestic spending to make up the difference?

HUNTER: Well, of course. You're painting yourself into a corner, I guess, because you want to. Because I come at it from the perspective that the first thing you spend on is national security. Just like if you were a community, the first thing you spend on is your fire department.

I've given you the perspective that, historically, we saved a ton of money on defense. Now people that didn't like defense spending didn't hold press conferences announcing that defense spending had saved them $100 billion, $200 billion a year all during the '90s and the first part of the century. They simply pocketed the money.

But we spend, again, about four percent, or we will go to about four percent even with this war. And I think that's where you go first. Now, that leaves a domestic discretionary spending, since defense is about half of domestic discretionary spending. I think that should go first.

And the rest of domestic discretionary spending should take second place behind defense. And, of course, the direct answer to your question, as you know, is that you achieve your revenues through taxes. But historically speaking, the defense function over the last 15 years has gone downhill.

All of the other expenditures have gone uphill. The social expenditures have risen fairly steadily. Only defense has gone down.

BROWN: And, on that, we absolutely agree. Thank you, Congressman. Congressman Duncan Hunter of California, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Good to have you with us tonight.

Still to come on the program, a plan for ground zero. Take a look at the plan and meet the architect in a moment. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There is one thing we can definitely say about the design for rebuilding lower Manhattan that was chosen today. Someone is going to complain about it. From the beginning, designers have had to juggle so many competing interests. The family members, city and state officials concerned about the economy and tax dollars on that valuable piece of land.

Average New Yorkers with an opinion on just about everything. Nothing could ever make everyone happy, but that shouldn't detract from appreciating the design that was chosen today. Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): Daniel Libeskind is a man with a vision of New York's future. But for inspiration, he looks to the past, and the first time he saw the city when he was 13 years old.

DANIEL LIBESKIND, ARCHITECT: I never forgot the skyline and what it means to an immigrant, an American. It's not just a symbol. It's just not something up in the air. It's about the values that we all share.

CARROLL: Libeskind was born in communist Poland in 1946. His parents were Holocaust survivors.

LIBESKIND: My father is the only (UNINTELLIGIBLE) out of 11 brothers and sisters.

CARROLL: The surviving family emigrated to the United States and found happiness in the Bronx. Libeskind grew up loving music, but being a musician gave way to dreams of designing buildings. Libeskind believes good architecture, like good music, is lyrical. It touches and tells a story.

LIBESKIND: It's a communicative art. It's not just the art of building. It's the art of communicating through material to people.

CARROLL: A philosophy visible at Libeskind's Imperial War Museum in England, the soon-to-be built extension to the Denver Art Museum, and his signature design, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, where his firm is based, a modern structure of steel and concrete.

LIBESKIND: It's angled because it's following certain topographies.

CARROLL: At its certain, a place to remember what happened in the Holocaust.

LIBESKIND: I wanted to make this lively museum have at the center this moment of reflection.

CARROLL: Libeskind's plan for the World Trade Center site includes a similar place for reflection.

LIBESKIND: I was very moved when I saw those extraordinary foundations.

CARROLL: Much of ground zero's foundation would be left untouched.

LIBESKIND: I kept those walls. I think I want to expose them. I want to show partly to the public that not everything was destroyed, that, at the bedrock level, New York stands as vital as ever before and more so.

CARROLL: Libeskind would build the world's tallest building, a spire standing 1,776 feet, honoring the date of American independence. Elaborate gardens would be housed near the top. Libeskind hopes his design will tell what happened here, a terrible attack and life rising from it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: The decision to choose Libeskind's design was a unanimous one. The decision was made by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. That is the group that is responsible for overseeing the rebuilding process. Both Governor Pataki and New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, signed off on the plan in late meetings today.

Libeskind's design was chosen not just for its aesthetics, but also because it allowed the maximum flexibility for some sort of memorial to be built at a later date -- Aaron.

BROWN: And let's just -- since it is New York, though I think this would occur at almost any place, where does the process go now? What's the next step here?

CARROLL: Well, the next step tomorrow is, the leaders of the architectural team will put forth their plan again. They'll make some sort of a ground announcement, explaining some more of the details, because this is going to be a process that will evolve. The final plan that we end up with here will probably, most likely, be drastically different than what we just saw in the plans there. There could be more open space. There could be less. There could be more office space. There could be less. Perhaps the tower will not end up standing 1,776 feet tall. Maybe they will bring it down just a little bit. So, it's a process that will evolve. It's a process that will begin tomorrow with Studio Daniel Libeskind unveiling their plan for the public to see.

BROWN: So, we know -- thank you -- we know a bit more about who, but perhaps not precisely yet what.

Thank you, Jason Carroll in New York tonight.

A few stories from around the country, beginning in Hartford, Connecticut: a terrible fire this morning at a nursing home there, 10 people dead. Investigators call the fire suspicious and are detaining one resident of the home, a woman in her early 20s. The facility was home to both the elderly and young psychiatric patients.

A big Supreme Court victory today for anti-abortion protesters and free-speech advocates, we would guess. The court ruled that federal racketeering extortion laws had been unfairly used to punish aggressive demonstrators. That includes protesters who block clinic doors. The ruling applies, of course, to all kinds of protests on all kinds of issues.

The University of South Florida today fired a professor who was named by the U.S. government as the head of an Islamic militant group. Sami Al-Arian was arrested last week on charges he helped finance suicide bombings by the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. The university says he was dismissed because he had abused his position, not because of the charges against him.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles have started laying out their case against Robert Blake. The actor is accused of killing his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, as she sat in a car outside a California restaurant. This is not the trial. It is a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to go forward with the trial.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: the French in an uproar over food critics after one of the country's top chefs commits suicide after less-than-stellar reviews.

This is NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with Anthony Bourdain about the raging controversy surrounding the death of one of France's greatest chefs.

From Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A quick look now at some stories from around the world. We begin with nukes in North Korea. U.S. officials say North Koreans have restarted the reactor at Yongbyon, bad news, but not the worst possible news. The same officials say the plant that turns spent fuel into plutonium for bombs, that one remains inactive.

Afghanistan's president was on Capitol Hill today in Washington. Hamid Karzai told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Iraq must not become a distraction from the work still to be done in Afghanistan. The fight against terrorism is not complete, he said. When asked his position on Iraq, Mr. Karzai said, the United States is a friend of Afghanistan and the Afghan people do not leave their friends alone in a time of need.

Another day of snow in parts of the Middle East, another day for children to act like children and grownups to have a day off from work and war. Streets were abandoned again today. It may not last much longer, but everyone seems grateful for the break.

No such luck around Mexico's most famous volcano, Mount Popo, as they call it, rumbling again. Authorities have dusted off evacuation plans in case these eruptions gets worse, the volcano about 30 miles to the southeast of Mexico City.

Let's get this much straight. The critics did not kill French celebrity chef Bernard Loiseau. He did that himself on Monday with a rifle. But his fellow chefs blame the critics, nonetheless. A top French guide recently downgraded one of the chef's restaurants. French chefs do indeed take these things very seriously. The best- known chef of the 17th century killed himself after bungling a meal for the king. Legend has it the fish arrived a bit late.

These days, it's the critics who are king, truer in France and in New York, too, where star chef Anthony Bourdain hangs his oven mitt. He doesn't do much cooking anymore. He does a TV program on the Food Channel. We're delighted to see him, nevertheless.

What's your take on this, by the way? And then we'll pick around it a little.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, AUTHOR, "KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL": I hesitate to blame the critics. I think that's -- it's an easy shot.

I did not know Chef Loiseau. I haven't eaten his food. I know of him -- of him and his career -- only by reputation. But I know a number of three-star chefs, chefs who operate at that level, and can tell you that, historically, first of all, it attracts a very emotional, particular type of a person and that it is an incredibly difficult, high-pressure environment already to be a chef.

And to want to be among the best chefs, particularly in France, the pressure must have been both financial, personal. Prestige-wise, the pressure must have been enormous.

BROWN: If you lose a star or you lose a couple of rating points -- there are competing rating groups in France on this -- is it just devastating for the business? BOURDAIN: Particularly in this case, where his restaurant was in an area far from a railhead, not in a major city. It was a destination restaurant, meaning people would read the guides and presumably decide, on the basis of those guides, to make the long trip specifically for that restaurant.

Understand, also, it's not just losing the points. It's not just -- particularly in France, your whole identity, everything you are is wrapped up completely in every plate of food you put out. And when you're looking to hang onto three stars, one messed-up plate is a total disaster. That's the pitch and the kind of focus which chefs on that level operate. And, as I understand it, he was under tremendous financial pressure.

BROWN: I was going to say, this guy was not just a chef. He was an enterprise. He had all manner of businesses. And, in that regard, the chef can't watch every meal in three or four restaurants come out of the kitchen.

BOURDAIN: Well, I think he had to become an enterprise.

It is a very expensive, prohibitively expensive, ridiculously prohibitively expensive proposition to run a three-star Michelin in France right now. They don't pay for themselves, by and large. As he, the chef, himself said, he had to be full every night and had to operate a hotel, which also had to be full every night just to support all of the glassware, the naperies, the high level of service, the expensive ingredients. It's a very -- much more rigorous criteria for Michelin stars and Gault Millau points over there than it is here.

BROWN: That's where I want to go now. Compare the two. I mean, you ran a restaurant. You ran restaurants in New York. You live in this food community. Are New York chefs or chefs in L.A., or San Francisco, Chicago, Des Moines, wherever, are they under, if not exactly the same pressures, are they working under considerable pressures?

BOURDAIN: I would say you're already under considerable pressure just keeping all of those balls in the air at the same time. But if you're looking to be the best, to be like a three-star, four-star "New York Times" chef, of course, you want to get those stars. You want to hang onto them. If you lose one, it's a crushing blow, but it is not a devastating financial blow, necessarily.

We're much more forgiving in this country of lack of success, loss of a star. You can pull up stakes, move elsewhere and still hit the heights. I think it's a more rigorous, less forgiving system in France, where food has traditionally been so much part of their culture. And what those two books say are kind of the embleme.

BROWN: Tony, it's good to talk to you again. Thank you.

And for people who just want a good read or have an interest in the restaurant business, "Kitchen Confidential" is a terrific read.

It's good to have you on the program tonight. BOURDAIN: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we take a look at the morning papers from around the country and around the world.

And segment seven tonight is a fascinating exchange between the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and some of his country men and women opposed to his position on Iraq.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll take a look at morning papers from around the country, around the world, and maybe even beyond that.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from everywhere.

"USA Today," if you're traveling tomorrow -- I guess some people get it at home. I don't know. Anyway, if you're traveling tomorrow, here is the headline in "USA Today." And I know that will make you feel great. "Fuel For Nuclear Weapons is More Widely Available." Can you see that up at the top? That's "USA Today." And it's always a colorful look. There was a time when only "USA Today" had color, but no more.

The "Miami Herald," mostly predictable stories, good stories, but predictable: Iraq at the top, the space shuttle. Down in the corner, if you can see this one, yes, you got it. "Airport" -- yes, you were there -- "Airport" -- I have to read it -- "Safety Puts Jackrabbits in the Crosshairs." They have got 500 jackrabbits at the airport in Miami and they don't know how to get rid of them. And when they don't know how to get rid of them, you know what they do. Right.

"Boston Herald": "Mitt Talks Chop," Mitt being the governor -- yes, the governor -- of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. And "chop" is his plan for the state budget.

"The Chicago Sun Times" today, the lead is Saddam and the president. But what we liked here is this picture. If you can get a close-up there, it's a young couple having their baby baptized. The baby is being baptized early, because the mom is a U.S. Marine. And her reserve unit has been called up. And so they decided to move the baptism up, which leads us to the next picture, if you will, same story, different verse.

This is a young woman in Iowa, I believe -- yes -- Julie Hahn (ph), and her 1-year-old daughter -- who is a beauty, isn't she? -- Alexis, saying goodbye. Julie's unit has been called up. She's in the Army -- lots of that going on. How we doing on time here? OK. "Jerusalem Post" trying to make sense of the goings-on in the government there, but, basically, they have a government. But the story that caught our eye is right over there: "Unemployment Drops to 10.1 Percent." You don't think that what's going on in the Middle East is clobbering the Israeli economy?

That's a look at morning papers from everywhere.

Next on NEWSNIGHT: a remarkable moment, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair confronted by voters who disagree with his position on Iraq, a civil exchange in a mostly civil place.

This is NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, safe to say stressful times don't always bring out the best in us. The fight over Iraq has brought a lot of ugliness, cattiness on both sides. That's why a meeting today between Tony Blair and opponents of the war with Iraq was a breath of fresh air, talk filled with sincerity and civility, something we could use more of.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, how can we ever justify making the first attack? I think, if we retaliate, that's a whole different ball game. But to make the first move is something, I think, inexcusable.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Supposing, though, I mean, I -- I had said in August of 2001, in other words, a month before September the 11th, that there was a terrorist network operating out of Afghanistan and we had to take action against it. If we thought that they were going to take action against us, don't you think we should, in those circumstances, be prepared to act?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I'd just like to butt in there, in a sense, because my son was killed on September 11. And I personally would say, no, that I wouldn't have wanted to go to war in this way before then. I would of far preferred if somehow the -- I don't know -- somebody who knew that there were things going with terrorism would have actually protected my son.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are alternative possibilities being tabled at the U.N. at the moment. France, China, Russia all oppose your path. Why are you ignoring them?

BLAIR: We're not ignoring them.

But what they're saying is, yes, we agree he must be disarmed. We agree he's not doing it voluntarily. But let's give him some more time. And my point about this is, look, we gave him 12 years. Last November, we said there should be a final opportunity. And he's still not complying.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said that you know that he has weapons of mass destruction, because he had them and he hasn't gotten rid of them. If you know he's got them, do you know where they are?

BLAIR: No, we don't.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you don't know where they are and you do attack, what are you going to attack? What are you, President Bush, whoever, what are the forces going to attack?

BLAIR: If he won't disarm voluntarily -- and we don't know where they are. And what he's supposed to do is tell the inspectors where they are, as other countries have done when they've been disarmed by U.N. inspectors. And then they can be disarmed. If they don't, then our purpose would be to remove the regime that is refusing to cooperate with the inspectors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, are you trying to tell us that the Iraqi regime has to be changed?

BLAIR: No. I'm saying, even now -- look, all I'm saying is something very, very simple. The whole of the international community has said this regime must disarm itself of these weapons. It's spoken. It's said, look, this regime is a threat with these weapons. They have to disarm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you still prepared to risk all the good work that you've done on this one issue? Because I think that's what a lot of people I speak to feel.

BLAIR: I understand that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That it's such a shame you're prepared to risk everything for this.

BLAIR: But perhaps that should give you some indication that I'm doing it because I believe in it and because I believe it really is important and because I believe that, if I was the prime minister, faced with what I know and with the threat I genuinely perceive, that if what I did was the easy thing now, it might be fine in the short term for me.

It might even be better than me. It probably would be, given the difficulties that I've got in persuading people. But I've no doubt at all it would be -- it would actually -- it would not just be the wrong thing for me to do. I think it would betray the security of future generations. Now, that's what I believe. I don't pretend I've got a monopoly on wisdom. I really don't. I may be wrong.

But it's what I believe. And I believe it for the reasons that I've given. And what I will and try, even now, in the next few weeks, is to get this resolved without a conflict. But I think the one thing we know, particularly in this country, from our history is, if you come to the point where you have confronted a threat and you back away from it, you very seldom get rid of that threat. It just comes back in a more visible and more powerful form.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prime Minister, I suspect this conversation could go on all night. But we thank you for your time. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, a pretty good job on both sides of the argument there. That was on ITN in Britain today.

Good to have you with us. We'll try and get home back to New York tomorrow. We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern.

Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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





Iraq; NASA Releases E-mails Revealing Concerns Over Safety Issues With Columbia>


Aired February 26, 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. We're in Atlanta, which is the center of something, but we haven't figured out what yet.
New York has decided on a plan for rebuilding ground zero. And we'll tell you more about that as we go along tonight.

But for a moment, something on the past. When we think back to the first person who died in the World Trade Center, we tend remember Mycael Judge, the fire department chaplain named victim number one by the city's medical examiner. In truth, our memory fails us.

Six people came before Father Judge and long before 9/11. They died 10 years ago today, the victims of the first attack on the World Trade Center. The families gathered today, as they have every year since 1993, in lower Manhattan, close to where the towers once stood.

It seems to us that these families have suffered an especially cruel fate. Their story was already fading from view when 9/11 happened. Just a small fragment of granite, a memorial from that first attack survived the 9/11 attack. And, since then, the families say they feel invisible. They saw a sea of flags and wished the same for their loved ones.

They see families of 9/11 getting compensation and wonder why they're not part of it. As one of them says, "September 11 began on February 26, 1993." Of course, it's not really about the flags or the money. It's the fear that somehow their husband, daughter, father or brother mattered less than those who died on 9/11.

This madness began 10 years ago today. And when we think of those who died in the war on terrorism, we ought not forget the first people to fall.

We begin tonight with the news of the day. And the news of the day begins with Iraq. A lot of talk today about what would come after a war, if there is a war. How much that war would cost. Senior White House correspondent John King starts us off. John, a headline from you?

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, initial estimates are $60 billion, perhaps $100 billion in costs just for the war and its immediate aftermath. And in a speech tonight, the president laid out an ambitious picture of how he sees a post-war, post-Saddam Iraq. Some say Mr. Bush is naive, but he says it can be a flourishing democracy that helps promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.

BROWN: John, thank you. Back to you at the top tonight.

An intriguing development in the Shuttle Columbia investigation. Miles O'Brien covering that for us, of course. So, Miles, a headline from you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, NASA releases some e-mails, which appear to presage the entire Columbia disaster. They're haunting, they're prophetic. But some NASA engineers tell us, wait a minute, it's a case of what-iffing.

BROWN: Miles, thank you.

A grand jury investigation underway now surrounding the tragedy in Rhode Island. Bob Franken back there tonight. So, Bob, a headline.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, it's been less than a week since the calamitous tragedy here at the nightclub. But the investigation is revving up amid some legal maneuvering and an implied threat.

BROWN: Bob, thank you.

And, as we said, a design concept has now been chosen for lower Manhattan. Jason Carroll followed that story for us. So, Jason, a headline.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Aaron, the winning design calls for building sky gardens on what would be the tallest building in the world. Much of ground zero would be left exposed in the new plan. The winning architect, studio architect Daniel Libeskind. A name we're going to be hearing a lot about in the coming days.

BROWN: Jason, thank you. Back to all of you in a moment.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT on Wednesday, the 26th of February, who's killing the great chefs of Europe? This is a story of a French chef who killed himself, and his friends who insist he really was killed by criticism. We'll talk about the pressures of being a star chef with someone who knows it well, Anthony Bordane (ph) a little later.

And the debate over Iraq blissfully free of shouting, insults, and bad behavior. Civilized talk at 10 Downing Street today. That will be "Segment 7." A long way to go before then.

It all begins with Iraq and the bottom line. Tonight, the president laid out an ambitious vision of Iraq's future and the future of the entire region. A liberated Iraq would lead the way for democracy all over the Middle East. It is fair to say that not everyone agrees with that. What every does seem to agree on is that this war, if it comes, will not be cheap, and the occupation after the war will not be cheap either. At a time when budgets are tight and deficits are growing, it raises questions about tradeoffs involved. What, if anything, does the country give up to pay for a war that seems closer every day? We begin with our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president sees a post-war post-Saddam Iraq as a down payment on democracy and perhaps peace in the Middle East.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.

KING: This speech left no doubt the goals of war would go well beyond disarmament and even beyond regime nation. The nation building that would require a costly and controversial long-term U.S. occupation in a country and region highly suspicious of American power.

BUSH: We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before.

KING: Administration sources say the White House could soon ask Congress for as much as $95 billion to pay for war in Iraq. Though some in the White House prefer a leaner request of about $60 billion.

Where would the money go? Two months of war would cost as much as $40 billion. A peacekeeping force in Iraq would cost at least $6 billion a year. Humanitarian supplies are being moved to deal with as many as two million refugees in and around Iraq, and the administration is planning billions more in aid to Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and perhaps Egypt and others.

A shorter war would mean less spending. But the costs could be higher if Iraq used chemical or biological weapons on U.S. troops, or if it set fire to oilfields, as it did in Kuwait in the last Gulf War.

BUSH: Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet, that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's torture chambers and poison labs in operation.

KING: Mr. Bush promised to protect Iraq's oilfields from sabotage. U.S. plans call for using that oil to pay for Iraq's post- war reconstruction, but not for the war itself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And the president said with a democracy in Iraq, the threat of terrorism in the region would be dramatically reduced. The president said, at such a moment, the United States could make clear it will no longer tolerate expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and could demand from the Israelis and the Palestinians a fresh commitment to peace talks -- Aaron.

BROWN: This vision the president has will get debated a fair amount tomorrow, we suspect. Let's leave that aside. There's an enormous difference between $60 billion and $90 billion, the two choices you laid out. Explain the gap there.

KING: One of the questions is: How much does the Pentagon ask for in terms of replacing ammunition that would be lost in any war? One question that no one can answer right now, because the war, if there is a war, has not begun -- is how long would it be? That would dramatically affect the cost whether it's two weeks or two months or more.

And the Pentagon is also thinking, since this will be a bill with a lot of money in it making its way through the Congress, of asking for money for the broader war on terrorism, not specifically targeted to war in Iraq, but efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere. That is the ongoing debate.

BROWN: John, thank you. John King at the White House tonight.

Tonight's program, in many ways, seems all about choices. For Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, the choice has been going with the prevailing political currents or doing what he believes is the right thing on Iraq. He's paid dearly for it already, mostly within his own party and his own country.

But today he won a vote, though in the end, that victory may turn hollow. For not in a century have so many members of the prime minister's own party turned against their leader. Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a testy parliament at the start of a debate and vote on his Iraq policy. Blair acknowledged his troubles from the outset.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: In fact, we're not voting actually on the issue of war tonight. We're voting on the issue of the government's strategy. And I have to say I'm well aware of the fact that many people want a second resolution. That's exactly what I want. I can assure them I'm working flat out in order to achieve it.

AMANPOUR: That's because Blair needs U.N. cover to appease his own public opinion and shore up international support for any war in Iraq. But one of his own former cabinet ministers leading the worst rebellion of Blair's premiership, says he's standing too close to President Bush on Iraq.

CHRIS SMITH: There may well be a time when it becomes necessary. But, at the moment, the timetable appears to be determined by the decisions of the president of the United States and not by the logic of events. AMANPOUR: At the same time, a similar debate was underway in the French parliament. The French prime minister giving an impassioned plea for more time, 120 days more for inspections to continue. Saying that war, before exhausting all peaceful means, would be illegitimate.

The international community is now deeply split, with France leading the anti-war camp and showing no sign of backing down. But in Westminster, Jack Straw dismissed the call for more time.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER: Why does he need 120 days for? To have a look for the weapons he says he hasn't got?

AMANPOUR: He also ridiculed Iraq's latest disclosure to the U.N. about finding a possible biological weapons device.

STRAW: They said they found a bomb. Iraq has found a bomb containing biological agents. Just popped up from some (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

AMANPOUR: There were hours of feisty give and take.

(on camera): Tony Blair had promised parliament that this would not be their last vote and that he is not yet asking for a mandate for military action. That, he said, would come in another vote at a later date. Christiane Amanpour, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On now to the shuttle investigation. Today, NASA released a series of e-mails with a chilling thread running through them. Conversations between shuttle engineers, their concerns about what might happen, seemingly to bear an eerie resemblance to what actually did happen. Again, CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): The flight controllers who first saw the signs of trouble on board Columbia on the morning of February 1st...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FYI. I just lost four separate temperature (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on the left side of the vehicle.

O'BRIEN: ... spent several days before the orbiters returned to Earth and engaged in a raging e-mail exchange that seems to show a lot of alarm about possible damage to the shuttle. Specifically, whether pieces of foam that fell off the shuttle's external fuel tank 82 seconds after launch caused serious damage to Columbia's heat shielding tiles.

On January 28, landing gear expert Bob Dougherty, based at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, who sparked the colloquy, asked a Houston-based colleague, "Any more activity today on the tile damage, or are people just relegated to just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best?"

Three days later, January 31, landing day eve, flight controller Jeff Kling offers his take on possible damage to the wheel well area and whether it might force the crew to bail out or ditch the spacecraft. "If there was hot plasma sneaking into the wheel wells," he writes, "we could see increases in our landing gear temperatures and likely our tire pressures. Ultimately, our recommendation in that case is going to be set up for a bailout, assuming the wing doesn't burn off before we can get the crew out."

Kling held a teleconference with reporters hours after NASA released this batch of seemingly prophetic e-mails. He said the entire team had complete faith in the analysis done by Boeing engineers, but concluded the foam did not conflict a fatal blow.

JEFF KLING, MECHANICAL FLIGHT ENGINEER: There were mid-level managers in there. And it did not go up to any upper level area, because, again, it was more of an exercise within our group to talk about these things. And it's -- on entry day, things are very busy.

When we know that we have a good vehicle and we're going to go through a normal entry, we don't send these things around to cause distractions. It just was within our group.

O'BRIEN: Kling says he and his team had no concerns about the health of the vehicle when he sat down at the console on February 1. But one engineer from shuttle contractor United Space Alliance weighs in with this: "Why are we talking about this on the day before landing and not the day after launch?"

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: We asked the engineers why the what-iffing wasn't shared with the upper management of the shuttle. They said, well, you have to be very clear-cut and have concrete evidence before you do that. But interestingly, in the midst of all this, the Air Force offered to aim one of its telescope to the shuttle to see if it could spot any sort of damage. NASA waved them off that effort. So -- partially because in the past, they hadn't had much luck with that type of effort.

BROWN: So, at the end of this day, what do we know? We know that these engineers had these concerns and that these concerns didn't get to the people at the top. Do we know if it would have made any difference?

O'BRIEN: Well, that is the $64 million dollar question. But, the fact is, they still -- if you look at those e-mails, they were trying to come up with a scenario that would make it safe for the shuttle to come back home if that were the case in this what-iffing. They couldn't come up with one. So, you're right, it gets back to that whole issue of a moot issue.

BROWN: Thank you. Miles O'Brien on the shuttle story.

On to the Rhode Island fire and something that has gotten a bit lost in the coverage. As the community remembers 97 people lost, keep another number in mind. The number is 36. That is the number of people still in critical condition fighting for their lives tonight. The most painful kind of recovery. Recovery from burns. Dozens more still recovering in the hospital. And, today, a grand jury began the hunt for accountability. Something that, when all is said and done, could take years. But that will undoubtedly seem short to the survivors who will have their scars for a lifetime. Here, now, CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): Arriving the first day were the surviving members of the band Great White. Still, they say, living a nightmare.

JACK RUSSELL, GREAT WHITE BAND MEMBER: The most horrible experience of my life. The most horrible experience of my life. You know? That's all I can say. There's nothing else I can say.

FRANKEN: The state's attorney general has repeatedly said the musicians have cooperated with investigators. In contrast, he contends to the club owners, who have now retained an additional lawyer, former state Attorney General Jeffrey Pine. Pine explains that police had already told his client that he was a target of the investigation.

JEFFREY PINE, DERDERIAN LAWYER: So on the one hand, you have the cops saying we expect you to be charged, and nobody in their right mind is just going to walk into the attorney general's office after the police officer has already named them as a target.

FRANKEN: The attorney general responded with the word he has not used publicly before: arrest.

PATRICK LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL, RHODE ISLAND: We forge ahead, and at some point, through whatever process I deem appropriate, in concert with the hard working men and women in uniform, whether it is a grand jury, complaint, warrant of arrest, if they are appropriate, I will indicate that as quickly as possible.

FRANKEN: Even as families and loved ones begin to bury the victims, the search goes on to make sure that no others are still buried undetected in the rubble. Dogs were brought in Monday from Connecticut for a final search. Officials are still going through the debris.

GOV. DON CARCIERI (R), RHODE ISLAND: Other than some personal effects that were uncovered and collected, we found no other victims.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: Even before the ordeal of mourning the tragedy is completed, the investigation grinds on. There is a common feeling that the punishing of those responsible will be essential to the mourning process -- Aaron.

BROWN: Bob, thank you. Bob Franken in Rhode Island tonight.

And ahead on NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta, the cost of the war in Iraq and the aftermath. What stays, what goes. We'll talk with the Congressman Duncan Hunter of California -- he's chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- about that.

And a plan selected to rebuild ground zero. We'll show you the plan and the man behind it. Ways to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Iraq again. Developments today on a couple of fronts. Neither one make or break, but both clearly helpful to President Bush in his position. With thousands of American troops waiting in the harbor, Turkey's parliament tomorrow is expected to debate a deal granting them access to bases to the north of Iraq. In exchange, Turkey would get about $24 billion in grants and loan guarantees; perhaps more.

Saudi Arabia today agreed to give U.S. forces complete access to the Prince Sultan Air Base to run an air war from there if so desired. In addition, the Saudis will take American tankers and surveillance aircraft to operate out of Saudi airfields.

No price tag yet on that one, but both clearly are big line items in any possible war. Want to pick up now on where we left off at the top of the program and take up the question of the cost of the war (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with the chairman of the House Arms Services Committee, Congressman Duncan Hunter joins us tonight. He's the congressman from the state of california.

Congressman, thanks for being with us. The $90 billion price tag seem about right to you?

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, if you look at the last war, that cost about $53 billion. And we're spending about $1.6 billion a month right now, basically waging a war against terror and what I would call staging in the Iraq theater. So we could easily go that high, and in these types of situations, you want to have plenty. Because once you're engaged and you're moving fuel and ammunition and all the other things that it takes, and bringing reserves in, you want to have lots of money as you go into this type of operation.

BROWN: Where is the money coming from?

HUNTER: Well, if you look at the defense budget, it's been undefended. This budget this year is about $68 billion less than Ronald Reagan's defense budget in 1985 in real dollars. So we've saved $120 billion a year since 1985 in the fall of the Russian empire.

So this country hasn't been spending too much on defense. We have been spending about 2.3 percent of GDP, gross domestic product, on defense, much lower than Ronald Reagan, much lower than John Kennedy. So this will be a spike, there's no doubt about that -- this $90 billion or so. On the other hand, one thing we learned after 9/11 is that disasters, security disasters, can cost us hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. BROWN: Let's just, for purposes of discussion, accept not only the $90 billion figure, but also a more broad increase in the defense spending that I know you would like to see and others. The question, though, stays the same: Where does it come from? Do we have to sacrifice some things to get other things?

HUNTER: The answer actually is no. If you look at this from a historic perspective, John Kennedy spent nine percent of the gross domestic product of this country on national security. Ronald Reagan spent six percent of GDP on national security. And we are spending a little over 3.4 percent lower than we've ever spent since Pearl Harbor.

So even if you take the cost of this war into consideration over the next five years or so, the defense budget, as planned, would be a little bit under four percent of gross domestic product, which is historically low. And a part of that is because of the fact that the Soviet empire has come down. So the direct answer to your question is, it's a function of government.

Probably the main function of government. That is to protect its people. And over the last 15 years, we've been saving a ton of money on defense because we dissolved the Soviet empire.

BROWN: I don't quarrel with any of that. That all seems fine to me. But I'm not sure, respectfully, that it's an honestly an answer to the question in this respect. We're running a $300 billion deficit. Times are tough. The president wants a tax increase.

And if you go back to Vietnam, the last time we tried to have guns and butter at the same time, it paved the way for very difficult high inflationary time that both you and I remember. So let me ask it again. Not can we, of course we can. But do we have to find either more revenue out there somewhere or do we have to cut domestic spending to make up the difference?

HUNTER: Well, of course. You're painting yourself into a corner, I guess, because you want to. Because I come at it from the perspective that the first thing you spend on is national security. Just like if you were a community, the first thing you spend on is your fire department.

I've given you the perspective that, historically, we saved a ton of money on defense. Now people that didn't like defense spending didn't hold press conferences announcing that defense spending had saved them $100 billion, $200 billion a year all during the '90s and the first part of the century. They simply pocketed the money.

But we spend, again, about four percent, or we will go to about four percent even with this war. And I think that's where you go first. Now, that leaves a domestic discretionary spending, since defense is about half of domestic discretionary spending. I think that should go first.

And the rest of domestic discretionary spending should take second place behind defense. And, of course, the direct answer to your question, as you know, is that you achieve your revenues through taxes. But historically speaking, the defense function over the last 15 years has gone downhill.

All of the other expenditures have gone uphill. The social expenditures have risen fairly steadily. Only defense has gone down.

BROWN: And, on that, we absolutely agree. Thank you, Congressman. Congressman Duncan Hunter of California, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Good to have you with us tonight.

Still to come on the program, a plan for ground zero. Take a look at the plan and meet the architect in a moment. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There is one thing we can definitely say about the design for rebuilding lower Manhattan that was chosen today. Someone is going to complain about it. From the beginning, designers have had to juggle so many competing interests. The family members, city and state officials concerned about the economy and tax dollars on that valuable piece of land.

Average New Yorkers with an opinion on just about everything. Nothing could ever make everyone happy, but that shouldn't detract from appreciating the design that was chosen today. Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): Daniel Libeskind is a man with a vision of New York's future. But for inspiration, he looks to the past, and the first time he saw the city when he was 13 years old.

DANIEL LIBESKIND, ARCHITECT: I never forgot the skyline and what it means to an immigrant, an American. It's not just a symbol. It's just not something up in the air. It's about the values that we all share.

CARROLL: Libeskind was born in communist Poland in 1946. His parents were Holocaust survivors.

LIBESKIND: My father is the only (UNINTELLIGIBLE) out of 11 brothers and sisters.

CARROLL: The surviving family emigrated to the United States and found happiness in the Bronx. Libeskind grew up loving music, but being a musician gave way to dreams of designing buildings. Libeskind believes good architecture, like good music, is lyrical. It touches and tells a story.

LIBESKIND: It's a communicative art. It's not just the art of building. It's the art of communicating through material to people.

CARROLL: A philosophy visible at Libeskind's Imperial War Museum in England, the soon-to-be built extension to the Denver Art Museum, and his signature design, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, where his firm is based, a modern structure of steel and concrete.

LIBESKIND: It's angled because it's following certain topographies.

CARROLL: At its certain, a place to remember what happened in the Holocaust.

LIBESKIND: I wanted to make this lively museum have at the center this moment of reflection.

CARROLL: Libeskind's plan for the World Trade Center site includes a similar place for reflection.

LIBESKIND: I was very moved when I saw those extraordinary foundations.

CARROLL: Much of ground zero's foundation would be left untouched.

LIBESKIND: I kept those walls. I think I want to expose them. I want to show partly to the public that not everything was destroyed, that, at the bedrock level, New York stands as vital as ever before and more so.

CARROLL: Libeskind would build the world's tallest building, a spire standing 1,776 feet, honoring the date of American independence. Elaborate gardens would be housed near the top. Libeskind hopes his design will tell what happened here, a terrible attack and life rising from it.

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CARROLL: The decision to choose Libeskind's design was a unanimous one. The decision was made by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. That is the group that is responsible for overseeing the rebuilding process. Both Governor Pataki and New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, signed off on the plan in late meetings today.

Libeskind's design was chosen not just for its aesthetics, but also because it allowed the maximum flexibility for some sort of memorial to be built at a later date -- Aaron.

BROWN: And let's just -- since it is New York, though I think this would occur at almost any place, where does the process go now? What's the next step here?

CARROLL: Well, the next step tomorrow is, the leaders of the architectural team will put forth their plan again. They'll make some sort of a ground announcement, explaining some more of the details, because this is going to be a process that will evolve. The final plan that we end up with here will probably, most likely, be drastically different than what we just saw in the plans there. There could be more open space. There could be less. There could be more office space. There could be less. Perhaps the tower will not end up standing 1,776 feet tall. Maybe they will bring it down just a little bit. So, it's a process that will evolve. It's a process that will begin tomorrow with Studio Daniel Libeskind unveiling their plan for the public to see.

BROWN: So, we know -- thank you -- we know a bit more about who, but perhaps not precisely yet what.

Thank you, Jason Carroll in New York tonight.

A few stories from around the country, beginning in Hartford, Connecticut: a terrible fire this morning at a nursing home there, 10 people dead. Investigators call the fire suspicious and are detaining one resident of the home, a woman in her early 20s. The facility was home to both the elderly and young psychiatric patients.

A big Supreme Court victory today for anti-abortion protesters and free-speech advocates, we would guess. The court ruled that federal racketeering extortion laws had been unfairly used to punish aggressive demonstrators. That includes protesters who block clinic doors. The ruling applies, of course, to all kinds of protests on all kinds of issues.

The University of South Florida today fired a professor who was named by the U.S. government as the head of an Islamic militant group. Sami Al-Arian was arrested last week on charges he helped finance suicide bombings by the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. The university says he was dismissed because he had abused his position, not because of the charges against him.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles have started laying out their case against Robert Blake. The actor is accused of killing his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, as she sat in a car outside a California restaurant. This is not the trial. It is a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to go forward with the trial.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT: the French in an uproar over food critics after one of the country's top chefs commits suicide after less-than-stellar reviews.

This is NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta.

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BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with Anthony Bourdain about the raging controversy surrounding the death of one of France's greatest chefs.

From Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT.

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BROWN: A quick look now at some stories from around the world. We begin with nukes in North Korea. U.S. officials say North Koreans have restarted the reactor at Yongbyon, bad news, but not the worst possible news. The same officials say the plant that turns spent fuel into plutonium for bombs, that one remains inactive.

Afghanistan's president was on Capitol Hill today in Washington. Hamid Karzai told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Iraq must not become a distraction from the work still to be done in Afghanistan. The fight against terrorism is not complete, he said. When asked his position on Iraq, Mr. Karzai said, the United States is a friend of Afghanistan and the Afghan people do not leave their friends alone in a time of need.

Another day of snow in parts of the Middle East, another day for children to act like children and grownups to have a day off from work and war. Streets were abandoned again today. It may not last much longer, but everyone seems grateful for the break.

No such luck around Mexico's most famous volcano, Mount Popo, as they call it, rumbling again. Authorities have dusted off evacuation plans in case these eruptions gets worse, the volcano about 30 miles to the southeast of Mexico City.

Let's get this much straight. The critics did not kill French celebrity chef Bernard Loiseau. He did that himself on Monday with a rifle. But his fellow chefs blame the critics, nonetheless. A top French guide recently downgraded one of the chef's restaurants. French chefs do indeed take these things very seriously. The best- known chef of the 17th century killed himself after bungling a meal for the king. Legend has it the fish arrived a bit late.

These days, it's the critics who are king, truer in France and in New York, too, where star chef Anthony Bourdain hangs his oven mitt. He doesn't do much cooking anymore. He does a TV program on the Food Channel. We're delighted to see him, nevertheless.

What's your take on this, by the way? And then we'll pick around it a little.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, AUTHOR, "KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL": I hesitate to blame the critics. I think that's -- it's an easy shot.

I did not know Chef Loiseau. I haven't eaten his food. I know of him -- of him and his career -- only by reputation. But I know a number of three-star chefs, chefs who operate at that level, and can tell you that, historically, first of all, it attracts a very emotional, particular type of a person and that it is an incredibly difficult, high-pressure environment already to be a chef.

And to want to be among the best chefs, particularly in France, the pressure must have been both financial, personal. Prestige-wise, the pressure must have been enormous.

BROWN: If you lose a star or you lose a couple of rating points -- there are competing rating groups in France on this -- is it just devastating for the business? BOURDAIN: Particularly in this case, where his restaurant was in an area far from a railhead, not in a major city. It was a destination restaurant, meaning people would read the guides and presumably decide, on the basis of those guides, to make the long trip specifically for that restaurant.

Understand, also, it's not just losing the points. It's not just -- particularly in France, your whole identity, everything you are is wrapped up completely in every plate of food you put out. And when you're looking to hang onto three stars, one messed-up plate is a total disaster. That's the pitch and the kind of focus which chefs on that level operate. And, as I understand it, he was under tremendous financial pressure.

BROWN: I was going to say, this guy was not just a chef. He was an enterprise. He had all manner of businesses. And, in that regard, the chef can't watch every meal in three or four restaurants come out of the kitchen.

BOURDAIN: Well, I think he had to become an enterprise.

It is a very expensive, prohibitively expensive, ridiculously prohibitively expensive proposition to run a three-star Michelin in France right now. They don't pay for themselves, by and large. As he, the chef, himself said, he had to be full every night and had to operate a hotel, which also had to be full every night just to support all of the glassware, the naperies, the high level of service, the expensive ingredients. It's a very -- much more rigorous criteria for Michelin stars and Gault Millau points over there than it is here.

BROWN: That's where I want to go now. Compare the two. I mean, you ran a restaurant. You ran restaurants in New York. You live in this food community. Are New York chefs or chefs in L.A., or San Francisco, Chicago, Des Moines, wherever, are they under, if not exactly the same pressures, are they working under considerable pressures?

BOURDAIN: I would say you're already under considerable pressure just keeping all of those balls in the air at the same time. But if you're looking to be the best, to be like a three-star, four-star "New York Times" chef, of course, you want to get those stars. You want to hang onto them. If you lose one, it's a crushing blow, but it is not a devastating financial blow, necessarily.

We're much more forgiving in this country of lack of success, loss of a star. You can pull up stakes, move elsewhere and still hit the heights. I think it's a more rigorous, less forgiving system in France, where food has traditionally been so much part of their culture. And what those two books say are kind of the embleme.

BROWN: Tony, it's good to talk to you again. Thank you.

And for people who just want a good read or have an interest in the restaurant business, "Kitchen Confidential" is a terrific read.

It's good to have you on the program tonight. BOURDAIN: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we take a look at the morning papers from around the country and around the world.

And segment seven tonight is a fascinating exchange between the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and some of his country men and women opposed to his position on Iraq.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

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BROWN: Next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll take a look at morning papers from around the country, around the world, and maybe even beyond that.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

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BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from everywhere.

"USA Today," if you're traveling tomorrow -- I guess some people get it at home. I don't know. Anyway, if you're traveling tomorrow, here is the headline in "USA Today." And I know that will make you feel great. "Fuel For Nuclear Weapons is More Widely Available." Can you see that up at the top? That's "USA Today." And it's always a colorful look. There was a time when only "USA Today" had color, but no more.

The "Miami Herald," mostly predictable stories, good stories, but predictable: Iraq at the top, the space shuttle. Down in the corner, if you can see this one, yes, you got it. "Airport" -- yes, you were there -- "Airport" -- I have to read it -- "Safety Puts Jackrabbits in the Crosshairs." They have got 500 jackrabbits at the airport in Miami and they don't know how to get rid of them. And when they don't know how to get rid of them, you know what they do. Right.

"Boston Herald": "Mitt Talks Chop," Mitt being the governor -- yes, the governor -- of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. And "chop" is his plan for the state budget.

"The Chicago Sun Times" today, the lead is Saddam and the president. But what we liked here is this picture. If you can get a close-up there, it's a young couple having their baby baptized. The baby is being baptized early, because the mom is a U.S. Marine. And her reserve unit has been called up. And so they decided to move the baptism up, which leads us to the next picture, if you will, same story, different verse.

This is a young woman in Iowa, I believe -- yes -- Julie Hahn (ph), and her 1-year-old daughter -- who is a beauty, isn't she? -- Alexis, saying goodbye. Julie's unit has been called up. She's in the Army -- lots of that going on. How we doing on time here? OK. "Jerusalem Post" trying to make sense of the goings-on in the government there, but, basically, they have a government. But the story that caught our eye is right over there: "Unemployment Drops to 10.1 Percent." You don't think that what's going on in the Middle East is clobbering the Israeli economy?

That's a look at morning papers from everywhere.

Next on NEWSNIGHT: a remarkable moment, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair confronted by voters who disagree with his position on Iraq, a civil exchange in a mostly civil place.

This is NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta.

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BROWN: Finally from us tonight, safe to say stressful times don't always bring out the best in us. The fight over Iraq has brought a lot of ugliness, cattiness on both sides. That's why a meeting today between Tony Blair and opponents of the war with Iraq was a breath of fresh air, talk filled with sincerity and civility, something we could use more of.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, how can we ever justify making the first attack? I think, if we retaliate, that's a whole different ball game. But to make the first move is something, I think, inexcusable.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Supposing, though, I mean, I -- I had said in August of 2001, in other words, a month before September the 11th, that there was a terrorist network operating out of Afghanistan and we had to take action against it. If we thought that they were going to take action against us, don't you think we should, in those circumstances, be prepared to act?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I'd just like to butt in there, in a sense, because my son was killed on September 11. And I personally would say, no, that I wouldn't have wanted to go to war in this way before then. I would of far preferred if somehow the -- I don't know -- somebody who knew that there were things going with terrorism would have actually protected my son.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are alternative possibilities being tabled at the U.N. at the moment. France, China, Russia all oppose your path. Why are you ignoring them?

BLAIR: We're not ignoring them.

But what they're saying is, yes, we agree he must be disarmed. We agree he's not doing it voluntarily. But let's give him some more time. And my point about this is, look, we gave him 12 years. Last November, we said there should be a final opportunity. And he's still not complying.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said that you know that he has weapons of mass destruction, because he had them and he hasn't gotten rid of them. If you know he's got them, do you know where they are?

BLAIR: No, we don't.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you don't know where they are and you do attack, what are you going to attack? What are you, President Bush, whoever, what are the forces going to attack?

BLAIR: If he won't disarm voluntarily -- and we don't know where they are. And what he's supposed to do is tell the inspectors where they are, as other countries have done when they've been disarmed by U.N. inspectors. And then they can be disarmed. If they don't, then our purpose would be to remove the regime that is refusing to cooperate with the inspectors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, are you trying to tell us that the Iraqi regime has to be changed?

BLAIR: No. I'm saying, even now -- look, all I'm saying is something very, very simple. The whole of the international community has said this regime must disarm itself of these weapons. It's spoken. It's said, look, this regime is a threat with these weapons. They have to disarm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you still prepared to risk all the good work that you've done on this one issue? Because I think that's what a lot of people I speak to feel.

BLAIR: I understand that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That it's such a shame you're prepared to risk everything for this.

BLAIR: But perhaps that should give you some indication that I'm doing it because I believe in it and because I believe it really is important and because I believe that, if I was the prime minister, faced with what I know and with the threat I genuinely perceive, that if what I did was the easy thing now, it might be fine in the short term for me.

It might even be better than me. It probably would be, given the difficulties that I've got in persuading people. But I've no doubt at all it would be -- it would actually -- it would not just be the wrong thing for me to do. I think it would betray the security of future generations. Now, that's what I believe. I don't pretend I've got a monopoly on wisdom. I really don't. I may be wrong.

But it's what I believe. And I believe it for the reasons that I've given. And what I will and try, even now, in the next few weeks, is to get this resolved without a conflict. But I think the one thing we know, particularly in this country, from our history is, if you come to the point where you have confronted a threat and you back away from it, you very seldom get rid of that threat. It just comes back in a more visible and more powerful form.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prime Minister, I suspect this conversation could go on all night. But we thank you for your time. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, a pretty good job on both sides of the argument there. That was on ITN in Britain today.

Good to have you with us. We'll try and get home back to New York tomorrow. We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern.

Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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Iraq; NASA Releases E-mails Revealing Concerns Over Safety Issues With Columbia>