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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

FBI To Aid in Recovery of Stolen Iraqi Antiquities

Aired April 17, 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, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. We've heard many phrases for where we are in terms of Iraq, that the military is mopping up, tying up loose ends, taking care of unfinished business and that's where we are as well, taking care of the unfinished business of the war and the new challenges in the region for much of the next two hours.
But, we'll also take some small steps towards a more normal NEWSNIGHT. That means we'll talk a bit about SARS, about Dr. Atkins, Michael Jordan even, and it means for the first time in I don't know how long, a month at least, we'll start off with "The Whip."

We begin in Baghdad, another day where the forces of order and disorder battled it out. Christiane Amanpour is there for us tonight, Christiane a headline please.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the U.S. did capture Saddam Hussein's half brother and that's considered to be a big catch for all the information that he potentially has about money, about where Saddam might be, and about the leadership.

On the other hand, we did run into the Iraqi equivalent of the CDC and there was a U.S. weapons of mass destruction specialist team there and right there they didn't find anything yet.

BROWN: Christiane thank you, back to you shortly.

Also tonight, the latest on something of a controversy going into the war, the FBI interviewing Iraqi and Iraqi-Americans, Kelli Arena has that so, Kelly, a headline from you tonight.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, FBI Director Robert Mueller defended those interviews saying that they helped coalition forces on the ground in Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you.

And, to Syria and the reaction to the latest reaction to the latest statements from Secretary of State Powell, Sheila MacVicar is back in Damascus so, Sheila, a headline from you.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, after days of high volume transatlantic megaphone diplomacy, the Syrians look forward to a return to more quieter and traditional channels when the secretary of state comes here sometime soon. But, Secretary Powell is promising what he calls a vigorous diplomatic discussion. Sounds like more high volume to me -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila thank you, good to have you with us, back to all of you shortly.

Also, coming up tonight in the next two hours, the latest on SARS, a key question does the fear match the threat to public health? We'll talk with Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

And, the latest in our series on still photographers, tonight it's someone whose title goes beyond photographer. He's sergeant first class as well, the war as seen through the eye of an Army photographer, all of that coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight.

We begin with something the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today. "I wish I could say that we're winding all this down, but I can't" he said. It's an acknowledgement that winning the peace continues to be messy and dangerous and the situation in Iraq was both today.

Tensions threatened to boil over in the north. Bandits hit another bank in Baghdad. Iraq's main health lab, a place where samples of polio and hepatitis are kept was ransacked.

The U.S. forces also scored a big get, the five of clubs in the Pentagon's deck of most wanted Iraqis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): He is one of the men pictured on that now famous deck of playing cards, a half brother of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Hassan al-Tikriti. He was captured according to the military in a bloodless raid on a home in Baghdad.

GEN. VINCENT BROOKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: There was information provided by some Iraqis in this case that facilitated the capture and we're currently asking a number of questions, of course treating him properly, but finding out whatever information we can as a result of this capture.

BROWN: At one time al-Tikriti was one of the most visible members of Saddam Hussein's government, an ambassador to Switzerland, head of the intelligence service. He is reputed to have helped hide billions of dollars for Saddam and his family outside of Iraq.

In the capital today more fires, this one caused by Marines who were blowing up tons of seized ammunition, more surface-to-air missiles discovered as well, and another attempted robbery at a Baghdad bank but the Marines were on hand today. They captured the thieves and recovered millions in U.S. dollars.

Outside of Baghdad Public Health Center, Marines stood guard as officials worried that vials containing some deadly viruses may have been stolen. As for the Iraqi National Museum, the FBI says it will send some of its agents to Iraq to assist in the recovery of stolen antiquities. More than 1,500 masked graves were discovered outside of Kirkuk in the north, stretching for more than a quarter of a mile, the remains of Kurds, their leader said, killed by the Iraqi regime.

In Mosul, there was still tension over the deaths of several Iraqis that occurred over the last two days in fighting with American troops, but Kurdish leaders took pains to point out that they had no long term designs on the city. They would not, they said, evict Arab homeowners from their property.

MASSOUD BARZAHI, KURDISH LEADER: Mosul is not a Kurdish city. Mosul is an Arab city.

BROWN: General Tommy Franks, the overall commander on the ground of American troops, was in Kuwait today back from his one day trip to Baghdad. Concerned about the looting, he said, but proud of the way the war was waged.

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: The way I would describe it is to say that I'm sad, but I don't have any regrets about the way the campaign was conducted. I think the campaign was conducted in a rather remarkable sort of way.

BROWN: In the capital itself, signs that the electricity is slowly being turned on. And, the man who said he was the new elected governor began giving interviews explaining how he got the job.

MOHAMMED AL ZUBEIDI, CHMN, EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF BAGHDAD: We've been elected by the public, by the religious leaders, the Muslims, and Christian and Shia and Sunni and the police officers and the military officers, the tribe leaders, professors, educated people.

BROWN: And some interesting pictures from the Arab television network Al-Jazeera today of a radio studio said to be where the Iraqi information minister Mohammed al-Sayaf worked, and what might have been Saddam Hussein's final stop in Baghdad, a blue background for his television statements and a now empty conference table.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's the big picture today. We'll spend much but not all, much of the next couple of hours putting those pieces into perspective.

We begin with this. We watched Iraqi looters, we have, cart away furniture and appliances in boxes. We've seen the pictures of a museum and palace halls stripped bare. It isn't new anymore that in a lawless city people will steal anything and everything.

Even so, when it gets to the bizarre level of theft, as CNN's Christiane Amanpour has been looking into, it is still shocking and frightening. She joins us again from Baghdad -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Well, Aaron, sadly the looting hasn't just been about stealing. It's been about destruction of all sorts of things, whether it be ministry or the national heritage. And, of course, also are some very, very serious medical equipment, medical history, and vaccines, and even as you mentioned cultures and samples from the Iraqi version of the CDC here.

We went to see what had happened there. There were great concerns by the Iraqi scientists that disease could spread into the community but also there was a special American team that came, not just to protect the place, but to see whether this place was part of a potential bioweapons lab.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): At Iraq's central public health lab, urgent hand-scrolled warnings on the gate, pollution, biohazard, danger. In the courtyard vials, syringes, and papers strewn around by looters. At first, Dr. Raja Alat (ph) gave alarming warnings of looted viruses. "Like AIDS, cholera, black fever, polio, and hepatitis she said.

But Alat is a chemist and later the lab's biologist came out to correct her saying they don't have AIDS or cholera or black fever but they were concerned about the following.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All your virus, Hepatitis A virus, Hepatitis C virus, Hepatitis D virus, Hepatitis E virus, all these viruses could create in our population and what we have -- what we are doing for many years, for maybe 40 years will go to be zero.

AMANPOUR: The lab was looted last week and the director has been calling for U.S. military protection, which finally turned up today, and along with it, a special task force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here to find signs of weapons of mass destruction.

AMANPOUR: Colonel Allison (ph) and his team donned gloves and protective boots. They did a survey, their conclusion...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a facility very similar to our Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. They do all of the analysis of blood work and diseases of people around Iraq. They bring it here to test it.

AMANPOUR: Indeed, over the years this facility had been surveyed by U.N. weapons inspectors.

(on camera): This task force pulled out saying it hadn't found anything that you wouldn't find in any public health and research lab anywhere in the world. There are four of these special scout teams scouring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. This one has inspected 15 sites and so far it says it's found no smoking gun, no evidence of chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons capability.

(voice-over): Just last week they were called in to examine what the U.S. Army had told reporters might be 11 mobile chemical and biological weapons labs in the town of Karbala. On closer inspection that proved not to be the case. Here at the public health center, it seems most of the vials and samples were dumped on the ground but researchers are worried that some left with the looters who took the refrigerators, computers, and equipment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, one of the things people are very concerned about is what is going to be the shape of a government and they do want that now because they see that one is gone and nothing has replaced it, and so there have been all these different things happening.

In one town, for instance, south of here a Muslim cleric has taken over the town and decided to run it. Here in Baghdad, there's a lot of Muslim community activists which are basically taking over law and order in their community.

And there's this man who has come up and said that he's now the mayor of Baghdad and says that he was elected, but there really hasn't been an election and so it's all a little bit confusing right now as to exactly where is the government, who is the government, and what eventually will form an official transitional authority here -- Aaron.

BROWN: Did the fellow who said he was the new government in Baghdad, did he seem to have the support of the U.S. troops on the ground there?

AMANPOUR: Seems to have, I mean they're not interfering with him, but he -- you know we've seen him, for instance, at the water treatment plant. We've seen him try to have meetings where he's tried to bring community civil administrators together. It's just hard to tell is it sanctioned? Is it an opportunistic grab for power?

You know obviously this man is Ahmed Chalabi's man and Ahmed Chalabi is supported by many people in the United States, particularly in the Pentagon, although the U.S. is saying Ahmed Chalabi is not their official candidate. So, you see there's a lot of confusion about exactly what's going on and people here are quite eager to see a formal government put in place at the moment.

BROWN: And just on one other thing, there was the arrest of yet another of Saddam's half brothers today. What do you know about the circumstances there?

AMANPOUR: Well, I'm not sure about the exact circumstances. He was arrested and people are saying that this is a very big catch. We've just been listening to an expert who knows the personalities around here and because of his position, not just as a half brother, but as the money man and then as an envoy in Europe on various issues that he might be able to tell a lot about, not only the way this regime was and where perhaps the money or other things are stashed, where perhaps personalities may be, but also how did Iraqi embassies abroad function, what kind of spying did they do, what was essentially that kind of infrastructure.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad. It's early Friday morning there.

Back here, the FBI has done a lot of things in its time. The G- men as they used to be called have gone after gangsters and bootleggers and conmen and bank robbers. Now, some agents of the FBI are going farther than they've ever gone before. They're going to Baghdad looking not for missing persons but for missing pieces of a distant past.

Here again, CNN's Kelli Arena -- Kelli.

ARENA: Aaron, FBI agents have much on their plates in Baghdad. Not only are they scouring evidence for any leads that could be useful in the war on terror, but they are also involved in an international hunt for Iraq's stolen treasures.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Helping to deflect criticism the U.S. military did not do enough to protect Iraq's antiquities FBI Director Robert Mueller says his agents are making an all-out effort to recover stolen art treasures.

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: These steps include sending FBI agents to Iraq to assist with criminal investigations, issuing Interpol alerts to all member nations regarding the potential sale of stolen Iraqi art and artifacts on both the open and the black markets, and then assisting with the recovery of any such stolen items.

ARENA: There are also 25 FBI agents on the ground in Iraq going through documents obtained from locations such as the Ansar al-Islam terrorist camp, looking for leads about future threats to the United States. Agents are also interrogating Iraqi prisoners.

The FBI also called attention to the role it played before the war in helping gather intelligence. Agents interviewed 10,000 Iraqis and Iraqi-Americans living in the United States.

MUELLER: As a result of these interviews, approximately 250 reports were provided to the United States military to assist in locating weapons production and storage facilities, underground bunkers, fiber optic networks, and Iraqi detention and interrogation facilities.

ARENA: Mueller says the interviews went well, resulting in only two official complaints from the Iraqi community. But some Arab- American groups say some Iraqi felt profiled.

NIHAD AWAD, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS: Ethnic profiling, religious profiling never served our country and I'm afraid that it will hinder the efforts of the government to build relations with a community like the Muslim community.

ARENA: That relationship is very important because of the unique help Muslim and Arab-Americans give the FBI in its fight against terror.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Now, on the terror front, officials say that al Qaeda remains a potent threat but they're also increasingly concerned about the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, that will lead us to a conversation about Syria in a moment or two.

Let's go back to the FBI for a second. Is there a theory that the museum attack, looting, was an inside job?

ARENA: It's something that the FBI is looking into, Aaron. There have been suggestions that the way it was pulled off that it had to be professionals who had thought about that, anticipated what the scenario would be and got in there and got out rather quickly.

That has not been proven. That's why you have agents that are on the ground there. They're bringing back evidence. They have evidence response teams in Iraq working a crime scene as they would anywhere, and so that is something that they are investigating but that no one is able to say with confidence at this time.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you. It's a pretty trampled crime scene at this point. Thank you.

ARENA: That's true.

BROWN: Kelli Arena in Washington.

On to the situation in Syria and the words from Secretary of State Powell that may have sent waves of alarm through much of the Arab world, two words, right now, as in there is no war plan on anyone's desk right now to march on Syria.

Secretary Powell said that earlier in the week and he said it again today in an interview with the "News Hour" with Jim Lehrer on PBS. He also laid out some of the Syrian policies that have long troubled the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Syria has sponsored terrorism over the years. It is considered one of the states that do sponsor terrorism and it's on our list of such states, and that's always been a concern to us, especially the support they provide to Hezbollah.

We have also stated clearly over the years that we believe Syria is developing weapons of mass destruction and we are concerned about especially their chemical weapons program.

I think what highlighted it at this particular point in time, however, is the changed situation in the region. We have been successful in Iraq. There's a new dynamic in that part of the world and we wanted to point out strongly to the Syrians that this is the time for you to take another look at your policies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, those are the secretary of state's words. How are they being heard in Damascus, the capital of Syria?

CNN's Sheila MacVicar is there for us again, Sheila good morning to you.

MACVICAR: Hello, Aaron. We'll point out strongly I think that there's no question that the secretary of state and all the other U.S. administration officials who are piling on there certainly got the attention of the Syrians, so much so that the Syrians at some point didn't even -- weren't even able to decipher what the message was.

All they knew is that they were getting a lot of high volume megaphone diplomacy, if you will, across the Atlantic and couldn't quite understand why they were being beaten up quite so publicly and quite so vocally, so much so that, when I sat down with the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa the other day for an interview, he felt obliged to reiterate some of the differences between Iraq and Syria, feeling that the two countries were becoming a little blurred in some of the administration's language, and to talk about the problems of what he felt was American short-term memory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR: Do you believe that the ultimate goal of the United States, of the U.S. administration in Syria is to effect regime change, perhaps by the same way in which they carried out regime change in Iraq.

FAROUK AL-SHARAA, SYRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Which regime change? There is a lot of difference. I mean if you want to ask what's the difference between the regime in Baghdad and Syria there is a lot of difference.

We have really so much difference that we stood against them when they invaded Iran in 1980. We stood against them when they invaded Kuwait in 1990. We even were part of the coalition in Kuwait against the Iraqi invasion. Either they don't have a memory or they have a short memory, or they have sinister plans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR: Syria's foreign minister there talking about the problems of American memory, the Syrians clearly feeling that although the Syrian-American relationship has been difficult, Syria obviously on the list of state sponsors of terrorists since the late 1970s when that list was first developed.

There has been dialogue between the United States and Syria, and the Syrians clearly feeling that there were other ways to deal with these issues. Some of these are issues that the Syrians and the U.S. have been talking about in private for some considerable time. Some of them are issues they thought they had resolved in private -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's been a lot of -- a lot of words over the last few days about whether or not President Assad in Syria in fact has control over his entire government and has control of the military, has control of intelligence, that things may be going on that he can't stop. What's your sense? Is he in charge? He's a young man early in his presidency succeeding his father.

MACVICAR: Well, he's also been president of Syria for longer than President Bush has been president of the United States and this is, as you know, a pretty difficult region in which to remain fully in control. So, I think you have to attribute some degree of deafness to him.

On the other hand, the question of whether or not he is fully in control, there is a view that some of these messages have been aimed not specifically at the Syrian presidency but at other instruments within the Syrian state, the Syrian military, the Syrian intelligence services.

And, one of the things that's not being talked about openly but is clearly a big concern to the United States is a fear that with thousands of U.S. troops right next door in Iraq if there are problems that develop in Iraq, if Syria feels threatened in some way that Syria might choose to act against U.S. forces in Iraq by proxy, say by using Hezbollah, by using another group that it has an association with as it once acted in Lebanon against U.S. forces, against the U.S. Embassy there.

Now, that's a real concern. The question of whether or not President Assad is fully in command of his country that's subtext for talking about these transfers of these sales of military equipment to Iraq in the pre-war period.

Now, that's a difficult issue to address but it would seem that given the nature of the state that the president is pretty much in command that obviously when Secretary of State Colin Powell comes here there will be two people that he will see, the foreign minister and, of course, the president, and because he is the president he is the one the U.S. will have to hold accountable for what happens or doesn't happen here in terms of making decisions and moving forward -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you, Sheila MacVicar in Damascus.

As NEWSNIGHT continues on a Thursday from New York, we'll talk with Robin Wright, the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times" not just about Syria but the whole Middle East.

And later a trip to the streets of Baghdad where the rumor mill is one thing that is working very well, around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Shortly before the war the president talked about a vision for remaking the entire Middle East, that Iraq would be a catalyst to the spread of democracy throughout the region.

We thought we'd spend a little time on that with Robin Wright who is the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times." She joins us tonight from Washington.

Robin, are they talking about -- well, let me try it this way. That doesn't necessarily mean a war across the Middle East. There are lots of ways to accomplish the goal if the goal could be accomplished.

ROBIN WRIGHT, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Absolutely, the administration is using the victory in Iraq as a launch pad for a much wider initiative throughout the Middle East 23 countries. It focuses, you know, for the moment on Syria but what the real interest is in jumpstarting the Arab-Israeli peace process.

And I think over the next week or two weeks we'll see the White House announce the outlines, the specifics of the roadmap, the agreement between the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia, over the terms, specific terms to establish a final peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

And, that Secretary Powell is going to Damascus as just one leg of a much more important trip that will try to jumpstart this process and also send a very important message throughout the region because there will be other stops where he will discuss the importance of other societies getting the message of Iraq and that is opening up politically and economically.

BROWN: And those include countries, there are countries in the region that are supportive of the United States, Saudi Arabia hardly a democracy, Egypt hardly a democracy, the list goes on and on. Does the administration have in its mind changing those governments to become more democratic and accepting the risks that might come with it?

WRIGHT: Oh, well I think the answer to the first part of the question is yes they want very much to push even some of the most autocratic allies, such as Saudi Arabia and some of the other Persian Gulf states and Egypt, which has steadily pushed away from democracy recently. But there is also a great deal of concern about the cost and I'm not sure that they're willing to come to grips with the realities of what that could end up meaning.

BROWN: And what could that end up meaning?

WRIGHT: Well, the kind of destabilization you see in Iraq. You open up these societies where there hasn't been any kind of political participation, you know, for decades and the reality is that many of them may face the kind of, you know, opening -- the kind of burst of reprisals, the kind of grab for power, the potential for Islamic parties to play, to emerge as major players. There are a lot of destabilizing factors that could happen if that region does open up.

BROWN: Is the feeling that if they somehow can get the Israeli- Palestinian problem, if not solved at least on track, then the risks of more democratic countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf nations will be lessened because anti-American feeling will be lessened?

WRIGHT: Great question. That in part but that is clearly the most important piece of the post-Iraq strategy. If they can finally get the Palestinian-Israeli process going toward a final, you know, this three-year framework for a final two state solution, that will then pave the way for dealing with the Syrian-Lebanon fronts, the last frontier on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and also ease the pressure on a lot of governments who have used enormous number, amount of their resources for defense and allow them to use them for economic openings. So, this is really the most important catalyst, arguably far more important even than Iraq.

BROWN: And, staying with the Israeli-Palestinian issue then they have a government in Israel that is going to be tough. I think everyone would agree on that, that this Israeli government is going to be tough to move and we'll see what the new Palestinian Authority is like, but we could be reasonably sure about the Sharon government.

WRIGHT: And I think it's going to be very difficult to see any movement frankly before the end of George Bush's term. They may see some initial steps but remember the three-year process will go beyond President Bush's term in office, first term anyway, and the United States always feels pressure, not to take the big steps on the eve of an election in this country. And, of course, the Florida vote will be, you know, a major factor and there's, you know, an important Jewish community there. So, there are a lot of domestic factors that will play in to this issue as well.

BROWN: Robin, thank you, Robin Wright, the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times." It's always good to have her with us once again tonight. Thank you.

As NEWSNIGHT continues, we'll update the latest headlines coming up and then we'll talk about SARS with Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, much to do yet on a Thursday night from New York. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: You can't imagine how much time we would have devoted to this story had it not been for the war with Iraq.

We're talking about SARS, the medical mystery that would be utterly fascinating if it were not so scary. Today brought some good news about SARS, in the United States, at least. The number of suspected cases has been lowered from more than 200 to 35 by the Centers for Disease Control, after the CDC narrowed the definition of the disease.

But there's still plenty of reason to be concerned and lots of questions about whether the fear is spreading faster than the disease itself.

We're joined in Washington tonight by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Good to see you.

Do we now how it's spread and how easily it is spread?

ANTHONY FAUCI, NATL. INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Well, yes, we certainly know how it's spread. It's spread through what we call respiratory contact, droplets of saliva or mucous that comes from the mouth. And generally at a distance of about 3 feet is the most common way that it's spread. We call it close face- to-face contact.

But there is some indication that, in some circumstances, it might be spread a little bit more easily by, for example, an aerosolized spray, which can go a little bit further distance than just the face-to-face contact. But, overwhelmingly, the most common way this is spread is through very close person-to-person contact.

BROWN: In the scheme of things, taking SARS and measles and mumps and whatever else you want to throw into it, is it easy to get it or not so easy to get it?

FAUCI: It's easy to get it in the sense of pretty easy transmissibility from person to person. The thing about SARS that's alarming is that, within a period of just a couple of months, it has now spread globally. It's in many countries throughout the world.

And, also, it has the capability of being a very serious disease. As you know, a number of people have died. The death rate is over 4 percent. The latest figures were 4.8 percent, which, the number of total deaths, relatively speaking, is small. But if you get a larger number of people infected, you have a real serious problem. So we're taking it very seriously.

Obviously, we're in what we call the evolution of an epidemic. We're not sure what direction it's going to go. But it has certain characteristics about it that is making public health officials throughout the world take this quite seriously.

BROWN: Is there any reason to believe it is not going to go in the direction of worse, as opposed to better?

FAUCI: No, Aaron, we really can't tell at this point in time. We really can't.

BROWN: We've learned -- we've learned -- you all have learned a good deal about what SARS is. Are we close to understanding how to at least treat it, if not prevent it?

FAUCI: Well, we know what the virus is. It's a brand new virus. It's a virus that is related to the common cold virus, but, obviously, much more serious than that.

Treatment, the only way we're going to do that is by what we're doing now: getting the virus grown up in culture in a test tube, establishing an animal model, like a monkey model, and screening a whole bunch of drugs. There are thousands of drugs that are on the shelf in industry and some of our own repositories that we're going try and see, if we get lucky, that, by screening for these drugs, we might find one that has activity. In fact, historically, that's how we found the first drug against HIV, when we screened a whole panel of drugs and came up with AZT. Hopefully, we'll get lucky in that.

BROWN: How does this happen that a new disease occurs?

FAUCI: That is a continual phenomenon of the interaction between microbes and the human species. We call it emerging and reemerging diseases.

We see it not infrequently. Sometimes, it's a little blip on the radar screen of public health. And sometimes, it has a very important impact, like HIV/AIDS or a new pandemic of influenza. We're not quite sure where SARS fits into that category, but it's certainly something that we have to take a close look at it.

One of the easy ways this can happen is that a microbe that is fundamentally in an animal model, be it a bird or a pig or what have you, like with influenza, and it jumps species. Namely, it's in an animal, maybe evolutionary, over centuries. Then it gets a mutation and goes from animal to human, which is a naive host and doesn't have any good defenses against it, and then you can have a serious disease.

BROWN: I did a program a few years back on the way we use antibiotics these days and the problems that that's created. Is this in any way related to that?

FAUCI: No, it isn't.

BROWN: OK.

FAUCI: Antibiotic-inappropriate usage can give you drug- resistant bacteria. This is a virus. So it really doesn't have anything to do with the inappropriate use of antibiotics.

BROWN: A vaccine out there still some years?

FAUCI: Yes, out there some years. But favorable news in this regard is that the virus is growing very well in culture, which means we can take a first generation cut at a vaccine by inactivating or killing the vaccine.

We know we can infect monkeys. We found that out just a few days ago. So, if you can cause the disease in monkeys, you can vaccinate monkeys and determine, when you challenge them with the SARS virus, if you can protect them. So the pathway to a vaccine, though it will take a while, is pretty clear.

BROWN: Can I just go back over that to make sure I understand that? You know that you can make somebody sick with it. Therefore, you know a vaccine, ultimately, if you can figure it out, will cure it or prevent it?

FAUCI: Well, no, it can prevent it.

BROWN: Prevent it. FAUCI: Well, one of the reasons why we have a pretty good idea that a vaccine can do some good is that 95 percent of the people who get infected with SARS and get sick actually fully recover.

And they fully recover because their own body's immune system is ultimately eliminating the virus, which means your body is telling you, the body of the human species, that it can handle, under most circumstances, the SARS virus. Given that, it is not unreasonable at all to assume that, if you vaccinate someone with a vaccine, that you will build up enough immunity that you can actually protect them from initially getting infected in the first place.

BROWN: Thank you. I feel like you walked me through SARS 101, as I've been -- and perhaps viewers have, too -- been focused on the war for the last month or so.

Doc, thank you very much.

FAUCI: You're quite welcome.

BROWN: Dr. Anthony Fauci with us.

Next on NEWSNIGHT: trying to recover Iraq's lost past. And the one thing that works very well these days in Baghdad: the rumor mill.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's Baghdad on a Friday morning, coming up towards 7:00 in the morning there, the sun rising. It is still a very nervous city, calmer than it's been, but nervous, a city where the rumor mill is working overtime. And we'll get to that in a moment.

And then later tonight, segment seven: another in our series of still photographer pieces -- all that and more as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been called one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history: the looting of priceless Iraqi artifacts dating back thousands of years. There has been intense focus on one question: Did the United States do enough to prevent the theft?

Today, experts from around the globe gathered in Paris to look at another question as well. Is there any way, any way at all, to get back the treasure?

The story from CNN's Jim Bittermann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are the pictures that shocked and angered historians and archaeologists around the world: a curator of the Baghdad Museum discovering that one of the most treasured collections of antiquities had been plundered under the very noses of U.S. troops. The curator and a TV crew even caught some of the looters red-handed. But on their own, they were unable to stop them.

The Baghdad Museum, located just a few hundred yards from Iraq's Information Ministry, contained a priceless collection of ancient sculptures, tablets and artifacts that chronicle thousands of years of history, dating back to ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.

Just five days after the looting took place, 30 experts from around the world gathered for an emergency one-day session at UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to demand steps be taken to salvage the situation, including an immediate worldwide ban on trade of Iraqi cultural items and an urgent fact-finding mission to determine what has been lost.

Some were furious with the United States for not protecting antiquities in Iraq and not preventing the arson and pillage of Baghdad's national library, which held one of the oldest copies of the Quran. An archaeologist from the University of Chicago said that, from January onward, he repeatedly warned U.S. State Department and Pentagon authorities that such looting was a real possibility and had urged them to take measures to safeguard the archaeological treasures.

MCGUIRE GIBSON, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: I was dreading it. I wasn't expecting it. I was dreading it. And when I saw it, of course, the first thing is just total -- you're totally devastated. And then I got very, very angry about the whole thing. It should not have happened. It need not have happened.

BITTERMANN: Coalition military officers insisted they were surprised by the looting.

(on camera): U.S. officials said their priorities were to win the war and minimize the loss of life. But critics here point out, there priorities also apparently included protecting hundreds of oil wells scattered across Iraq and the Oil Ministry building in Baghdad, ahead of protecting the Baghdad Museum and other cultural sites.

(voice-over): And several of the experts say now that, with the U.S. in charge in Iraq, it has full responsibility for the safekeeping of Iraq's cultural treasures. Any further damage, said one, would be totally inexcusable.

Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It was true after the attacks of 9/11 in this country. It's true now in post-war Iraq, that, in times of upheaval and destruction, there's one institution that keeps thriving. It's the rumor mill.

Some of the tall tales sweeping Iraq now from CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Baghdad, one of the hardest habits to break: smoking a traditional Arabic pipe, the ijami (ph), and gossiping with friends.

The weirdest rumor, says Walid (ph), a storekeeper, is that Saddam and his sons went to Syria, then Russia, then Britain. Ahmed (ph) the coffee shop owner disagrees: Saddam is with American intelligence, CNN or CII or whatever, he says, rumors to be mulled over, muddled, extended, and amplified.

"The Americans want our oil," he says, echoing Saddam Hussein's prewar mantra. But that propaganda pales in comparison with the latest stories.

"I saw it with my own eyes," he says. "The Americans opened the doors of the bank to let the thieves go in." Everyone around seems to agree. Another in the crowd desperate to get his voice heard shouts, "A Kuwaiti man with the Americans opened a safe in the bank."

(on camera): With little access to hard information and used to a regular diet of propaganda from the former government's radio and television services, people here appear to be filling the information vacuum now with fears, rather than facts.

(voice-over): In a more upscale neighborhood, where some normality is returning to the streets, those fears fan discontent.

"The Americans want the chaos here to continue," he says, "so we can't govern ourselves and they can justify their occupation." But that isn't all to this particular rumor.

"Saddam Hussein has been collaborating with the U.S. since 1963," Ackel (ph), a businessman says. "It's all a game to destroy the Arabs, to benefit Israel."

"Saddam is in Washington with Bush," adds Basam (ph). It's all a game.

Amidst the anger and frustration, though, the knowledge that good information is missing.

"We hear that the Americans want to destroy Iraq," says Hussan, a civil engineer. "We want the Americans to prove to us this is not true."

Perhaps carpenter Hafas (ph) has the attitude most in the West want to hear. "We don't care where Saddam is. All we are concerned about is the future of our country: electricity and water."

For now, however, in the absence of hard facts, Hafas and those like him seem to be in the minority.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A picture from the streets of Baghdad.

As NEWSNIGHT continues, segment seven arrives again, my goodness, with another in our series of still photographers; then, women covering the war.

A break first. NEWSNIGHT continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The latest now in our series of still photographers; tonight, someone who isn't embedded, as we've come to know the word. But he's as close to the soldiers and the commanders as you can get, because this photographer is also a sergeant 1st class shooting for the military.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID DISMUKES, ARMY PUBLIC AFFAIRS (voice-over): My name is Sergeant 1st Class David Dismukes. And I'm the coalition's forces land component command public affairs noncommissioned officer in charge, which allows me to do a number of things. I get an opportunity to go out and photograph soldiers, sailors or airmen and Marines from all aspects of the operation.

The night before an operation or a major operation were to take place, General McKiernan (ph) would go out to see those commanders that were about to go out into battle. And the way he kind of explained it around us is that he wanted to look that commander in the eye and just to understand and have that feeling that they were prepared.

Command Sergeant Major John Sparks (ph), who is really the soldier's link to the commander, he would go down and just walk up and sit down and talk to these soldiers. And he'll take a copy of "The Stars and Stripes" or the latest news he could find to give to them. Of course, all the soldiers, they wanted to know what's going on in the war and what's the American public saying, are they rallied behind the troops and are they supporting us.

The day after we arrived, there was a memorial ceremony held for six crew members that were killed in a Black Hawk helicopter. And after it was over, they filed by the different photos and different positions they had representing the soldiers that were killed. They paused and they stopped for a moment to reflect on a personal time, because so many of them were friends with these soldiers.

To see the people here in Iraq, to see the women and the children living and have been through what they lived through the past decades under this regime, the only way to understand it is to see it through the eyes of a soldier or someone that has been here.

This little girl, she was carrying this box of chocolate candy trying to sell to help her family out. The look in her eyes, you could just look there and see that this child has probably seen more than any of us ever will and probably isn't even old enough to enter kindergarten.

That was a meeting with some of our civil affairs people and some of our engineers that were working with some of the senior Iraqi electricians, figuring out what is the best plan to reestablish power to the capital city of Baghdad. Coming into this meeting, they didn't know what to expect. They didn't know if they were going to be held captive or what was going to happen. At the end of the meeting, they actually asked: May we leave now? And, of course, we were more than happy to escort them out to their bus that they came in on.

Just walking into the place, it's just enormous, with the detailed tiles in the ceiling and the huge chandeliers and the large pieces of marble.

When General Franks came in, he met with the senior combatant commanders, his top leaders that were involved in the war. I, along with every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine that I know that has worked alongside him, worked with him, would follow him anywhere.

We had one goal in mind, and we were able to accomplish it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still photographers.

In our next hour, we'll update the latest news, including the continuing search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- other matters, too. We'll look at the career of the late Dr. Robert Atkins, who remade America's obsession with dieting.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired April 17, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone. We've heard many phrases for where we are in terms of Iraq, that the military is mopping up, tying up loose ends, taking care of unfinished business and that's where we are as well, taking care of the unfinished business of the war and the new challenges in the region for much of the next two hours.
But, we'll also take some small steps towards a more normal NEWSNIGHT. That means we'll talk a bit about SARS, about Dr. Atkins, Michael Jordan even, and it means for the first time in I don't know how long, a month at least, we'll start off with "The Whip."

We begin in Baghdad, another day where the forces of order and disorder battled it out. Christiane Amanpour is there for us tonight, Christiane a headline please.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the U.S. did capture Saddam Hussein's half brother and that's considered to be a big catch for all the information that he potentially has about money, about where Saddam might be, and about the leadership.

On the other hand, we did run into the Iraqi equivalent of the CDC and there was a U.S. weapons of mass destruction specialist team there and right there they didn't find anything yet.

BROWN: Christiane thank you, back to you shortly.

Also tonight, the latest on something of a controversy going into the war, the FBI interviewing Iraqi and Iraqi-Americans, Kelli Arena has that so, Kelly, a headline from you tonight.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, FBI Director Robert Mueller defended those interviews saying that they helped coalition forces on the ground in Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you.

And, to Syria and the reaction to the latest reaction to the latest statements from Secretary of State Powell, Sheila MacVicar is back in Damascus so, Sheila, a headline from you.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, after days of high volume transatlantic megaphone diplomacy, the Syrians look forward to a return to more quieter and traditional channels when the secretary of state comes here sometime soon. But, Secretary Powell is promising what he calls a vigorous diplomatic discussion. Sounds like more high volume to me -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila thank you, good to have you with us, back to all of you shortly.

Also, coming up tonight in the next two hours, the latest on SARS, a key question does the fear match the threat to public health? We'll talk with Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

And, the latest in our series on still photographers, tonight it's someone whose title goes beyond photographer. He's sergeant first class as well, the war as seen through the eye of an Army photographer, all of that coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight.

We begin with something the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said today. "I wish I could say that we're winding all this down, but I can't" he said. It's an acknowledgement that winning the peace continues to be messy and dangerous and the situation in Iraq was both today.

Tensions threatened to boil over in the north. Bandits hit another bank in Baghdad. Iraq's main health lab, a place where samples of polio and hepatitis are kept was ransacked.

The U.S. forces also scored a big get, the five of clubs in the Pentagon's deck of most wanted Iraqis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): He is one of the men pictured on that now famous deck of playing cards, a half brother of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Hassan al-Tikriti. He was captured according to the military in a bloodless raid on a home in Baghdad.

GEN. VINCENT BROOKS, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: There was information provided by some Iraqis in this case that facilitated the capture and we're currently asking a number of questions, of course treating him properly, but finding out whatever information we can as a result of this capture.

BROWN: At one time al-Tikriti was one of the most visible members of Saddam Hussein's government, an ambassador to Switzerland, head of the intelligence service. He is reputed to have helped hide billions of dollars for Saddam and his family outside of Iraq.

In the capital today more fires, this one caused by Marines who were blowing up tons of seized ammunition, more surface-to-air missiles discovered as well, and another attempted robbery at a Baghdad bank but the Marines were on hand today. They captured the thieves and recovered millions in U.S. dollars.

Outside of Baghdad Public Health Center, Marines stood guard as officials worried that vials containing some deadly viruses may have been stolen. As for the Iraqi National Museum, the FBI says it will send some of its agents to Iraq to assist in the recovery of stolen antiquities. More than 1,500 masked graves were discovered outside of Kirkuk in the north, stretching for more than a quarter of a mile, the remains of Kurds, their leader said, killed by the Iraqi regime.

In Mosul, there was still tension over the deaths of several Iraqis that occurred over the last two days in fighting with American troops, but Kurdish leaders took pains to point out that they had no long term designs on the city. They would not, they said, evict Arab homeowners from their property.

MASSOUD BARZAHI, KURDISH LEADER: Mosul is not a Kurdish city. Mosul is an Arab city.

BROWN: General Tommy Franks, the overall commander on the ground of American troops, was in Kuwait today back from his one day trip to Baghdad. Concerned about the looting, he said, but proud of the way the war was waged.

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: The way I would describe it is to say that I'm sad, but I don't have any regrets about the way the campaign was conducted. I think the campaign was conducted in a rather remarkable sort of way.

BROWN: In the capital itself, signs that the electricity is slowly being turned on. And, the man who said he was the new elected governor began giving interviews explaining how he got the job.

MOHAMMED AL ZUBEIDI, CHMN, EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF BAGHDAD: We've been elected by the public, by the religious leaders, the Muslims, and Christian and Shia and Sunni and the police officers and the military officers, the tribe leaders, professors, educated people.

BROWN: And some interesting pictures from the Arab television network Al-Jazeera today of a radio studio said to be where the Iraqi information minister Mohammed al-Sayaf worked, and what might have been Saddam Hussein's final stop in Baghdad, a blue background for his television statements and a now empty conference table.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's the big picture today. We'll spend much but not all, much of the next couple of hours putting those pieces into perspective.

We begin with this. We watched Iraqi looters, we have, cart away furniture and appliances in boxes. We've seen the pictures of a museum and palace halls stripped bare. It isn't new anymore that in a lawless city people will steal anything and everything.

Even so, when it gets to the bizarre level of theft, as CNN's Christiane Amanpour has been looking into, it is still shocking and frightening. She joins us again from Baghdad -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Well, Aaron, sadly the looting hasn't just been about stealing. It's been about destruction of all sorts of things, whether it be ministry or the national heritage. And, of course, also are some very, very serious medical equipment, medical history, and vaccines, and even as you mentioned cultures and samples from the Iraqi version of the CDC here.

We went to see what had happened there. There were great concerns by the Iraqi scientists that disease could spread into the community but also there was a special American team that came, not just to protect the place, but to see whether this place was part of a potential bioweapons lab.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): At Iraq's central public health lab, urgent hand-scrolled warnings on the gate, pollution, biohazard, danger. In the courtyard vials, syringes, and papers strewn around by looters. At first, Dr. Raja Alat (ph) gave alarming warnings of looted viruses. "Like AIDS, cholera, black fever, polio, and hepatitis she said.

But Alat is a chemist and later the lab's biologist came out to correct her saying they don't have AIDS or cholera or black fever but they were concerned about the following.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All your virus, Hepatitis A virus, Hepatitis C virus, Hepatitis D virus, Hepatitis E virus, all these viruses could create in our population and what we have -- what we are doing for many years, for maybe 40 years will go to be zero.

AMANPOUR: The lab was looted last week and the director has been calling for U.S. military protection, which finally turned up today, and along with it, a special task force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here to find signs of weapons of mass destruction.

AMANPOUR: Colonel Allison (ph) and his team donned gloves and protective boots. They did a survey, their conclusion...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a facility very similar to our Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. They do all of the analysis of blood work and diseases of people around Iraq. They bring it here to test it.

AMANPOUR: Indeed, over the years this facility had been surveyed by U.N. weapons inspectors.

(on camera): This task force pulled out saying it hadn't found anything that you wouldn't find in any public health and research lab anywhere in the world. There are four of these special scout teams scouring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. This one has inspected 15 sites and so far it says it's found no smoking gun, no evidence of chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons capability.

(voice-over): Just last week they were called in to examine what the U.S. Army had told reporters might be 11 mobile chemical and biological weapons labs in the town of Karbala. On closer inspection that proved not to be the case. Here at the public health center, it seems most of the vials and samples were dumped on the ground but researchers are worried that some left with the looters who took the refrigerators, computers, and equipment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, one of the things people are very concerned about is what is going to be the shape of a government and they do want that now because they see that one is gone and nothing has replaced it, and so there have been all these different things happening.

In one town, for instance, south of here a Muslim cleric has taken over the town and decided to run it. Here in Baghdad, there's a lot of Muslim community activists which are basically taking over law and order in their community.

And there's this man who has come up and said that he's now the mayor of Baghdad and says that he was elected, but there really hasn't been an election and so it's all a little bit confusing right now as to exactly where is the government, who is the government, and what eventually will form an official transitional authority here -- Aaron.

BROWN: Did the fellow who said he was the new government in Baghdad, did he seem to have the support of the U.S. troops on the ground there?

AMANPOUR: Seems to have, I mean they're not interfering with him, but he -- you know we've seen him, for instance, at the water treatment plant. We've seen him try to have meetings where he's tried to bring community civil administrators together. It's just hard to tell is it sanctioned? Is it an opportunistic grab for power?

You know obviously this man is Ahmed Chalabi's man and Ahmed Chalabi is supported by many people in the United States, particularly in the Pentagon, although the U.S. is saying Ahmed Chalabi is not their official candidate. So, you see there's a lot of confusion about exactly what's going on and people here are quite eager to see a formal government put in place at the moment.

BROWN: And just on one other thing, there was the arrest of yet another of Saddam's half brothers today. What do you know about the circumstances there?

AMANPOUR: Well, I'm not sure about the exact circumstances. He was arrested and people are saying that this is a very big catch. We've just been listening to an expert who knows the personalities around here and because of his position, not just as a half brother, but as the money man and then as an envoy in Europe on various issues that he might be able to tell a lot about, not only the way this regime was and where perhaps the money or other things are stashed, where perhaps personalities may be, but also how did Iraqi embassies abroad function, what kind of spying did they do, what was essentially that kind of infrastructure.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad. It's early Friday morning there.

Back here, the FBI has done a lot of things in its time. The G- men as they used to be called have gone after gangsters and bootleggers and conmen and bank robbers. Now, some agents of the FBI are going farther than they've ever gone before. They're going to Baghdad looking not for missing persons but for missing pieces of a distant past.

Here again, CNN's Kelli Arena -- Kelli.

ARENA: Aaron, FBI agents have much on their plates in Baghdad. Not only are they scouring evidence for any leads that could be useful in the war on terror, but they are also involved in an international hunt for Iraq's stolen treasures.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Helping to deflect criticism the U.S. military did not do enough to protect Iraq's antiquities FBI Director Robert Mueller says his agents are making an all-out effort to recover stolen art treasures.

ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: These steps include sending FBI agents to Iraq to assist with criminal investigations, issuing Interpol alerts to all member nations regarding the potential sale of stolen Iraqi art and artifacts on both the open and the black markets, and then assisting with the recovery of any such stolen items.

ARENA: There are also 25 FBI agents on the ground in Iraq going through documents obtained from locations such as the Ansar al-Islam terrorist camp, looking for leads about future threats to the United States. Agents are also interrogating Iraqi prisoners.

The FBI also called attention to the role it played before the war in helping gather intelligence. Agents interviewed 10,000 Iraqis and Iraqi-Americans living in the United States.

MUELLER: As a result of these interviews, approximately 250 reports were provided to the United States military to assist in locating weapons production and storage facilities, underground bunkers, fiber optic networks, and Iraqi detention and interrogation facilities.

ARENA: Mueller says the interviews went well, resulting in only two official complaints from the Iraqi community. But some Arab- American groups say some Iraqi felt profiled.

NIHAD AWAD, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS: Ethnic profiling, religious profiling never served our country and I'm afraid that it will hinder the efforts of the government to build relations with a community like the Muslim community.

ARENA: That relationship is very important because of the unique help Muslim and Arab-Americans give the FBI in its fight against terror.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Now, on the terror front, officials say that al Qaeda remains a potent threat but they're also increasingly concerned about the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, that will lead us to a conversation about Syria in a moment or two.

Let's go back to the FBI for a second. Is there a theory that the museum attack, looting, was an inside job?

ARENA: It's something that the FBI is looking into, Aaron. There have been suggestions that the way it was pulled off that it had to be professionals who had thought about that, anticipated what the scenario would be and got in there and got out rather quickly.

That has not been proven. That's why you have agents that are on the ground there. They're bringing back evidence. They have evidence response teams in Iraq working a crime scene as they would anywhere, and so that is something that they are investigating but that no one is able to say with confidence at this time.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you. It's a pretty trampled crime scene at this point. Thank you.

ARENA: That's true.

BROWN: Kelli Arena in Washington.

On to the situation in Syria and the words from Secretary of State Powell that may have sent waves of alarm through much of the Arab world, two words, right now, as in there is no war plan on anyone's desk right now to march on Syria.

Secretary Powell said that earlier in the week and he said it again today in an interview with the "News Hour" with Jim Lehrer on PBS. He also laid out some of the Syrian policies that have long troubled the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Syria has sponsored terrorism over the years. It is considered one of the states that do sponsor terrorism and it's on our list of such states, and that's always been a concern to us, especially the support they provide to Hezbollah.

We have also stated clearly over the years that we believe Syria is developing weapons of mass destruction and we are concerned about especially their chemical weapons program.

I think what highlighted it at this particular point in time, however, is the changed situation in the region. We have been successful in Iraq. There's a new dynamic in that part of the world and we wanted to point out strongly to the Syrians that this is the time for you to take another look at your policies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, those are the secretary of state's words. How are they being heard in Damascus, the capital of Syria?

CNN's Sheila MacVicar is there for us again, Sheila good morning to you.

MACVICAR: Hello, Aaron. We'll point out strongly I think that there's no question that the secretary of state and all the other U.S. administration officials who are piling on there certainly got the attention of the Syrians, so much so that the Syrians at some point didn't even -- weren't even able to decipher what the message was.

All they knew is that they were getting a lot of high volume megaphone diplomacy, if you will, across the Atlantic and couldn't quite understand why they were being beaten up quite so publicly and quite so vocally, so much so that, when I sat down with the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa the other day for an interview, he felt obliged to reiterate some of the differences between Iraq and Syria, feeling that the two countries were becoming a little blurred in some of the administration's language, and to talk about the problems of what he felt was American short-term memory.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR: Do you believe that the ultimate goal of the United States, of the U.S. administration in Syria is to effect regime change, perhaps by the same way in which they carried out regime change in Iraq.

FAROUK AL-SHARAA, SYRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Which regime change? There is a lot of difference. I mean if you want to ask what's the difference between the regime in Baghdad and Syria there is a lot of difference.

We have really so much difference that we stood against them when they invaded Iran in 1980. We stood against them when they invaded Kuwait in 1990. We even were part of the coalition in Kuwait against the Iraqi invasion. Either they don't have a memory or they have a short memory, or they have sinister plans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR: Syria's foreign minister there talking about the problems of American memory, the Syrians clearly feeling that although the Syrian-American relationship has been difficult, Syria obviously on the list of state sponsors of terrorists since the late 1970s when that list was first developed.

There has been dialogue between the United States and Syria, and the Syrians clearly feeling that there were other ways to deal with these issues. Some of these are issues that the Syrians and the U.S. have been talking about in private for some considerable time. Some of them are issues they thought they had resolved in private -- Aaron.

BROWN: There's been a lot of -- a lot of words over the last few days about whether or not President Assad in Syria in fact has control over his entire government and has control of the military, has control of intelligence, that things may be going on that he can't stop. What's your sense? Is he in charge? He's a young man early in his presidency succeeding his father.

MACVICAR: Well, he's also been president of Syria for longer than President Bush has been president of the United States and this is, as you know, a pretty difficult region in which to remain fully in control. So, I think you have to attribute some degree of deafness to him.

On the other hand, the question of whether or not he is fully in control, there is a view that some of these messages have been aimed not specifically at the Syrian presidency but at other instruments within the Syrian state, the Syrian military, the Syrian intelligence services.

And, one of the things that's not being talked about openly but is clearly a big concern to the United States is a fear that with thousands of U.S. troops right next door in Iraq if there are problems that develop in Iraq, if Syria feels threatened in some way that Syria might choose to act against U.S. forces in Iraq by proxy, say by using Hezbollah, by using another group that it has an association with as it once acted in Lebanon against U.S. forces, against the U.S. Embassy there.

Now, that's a real concern. The question of whether or not President Assad is fully in command of his country that's subtext for talking about these transfers of these sales of military equipment to Iraq in the pre-war period.

Now, that's a difficult issue to address but it would seem that given the nature of the state that the president is pretty much in command that obviously when Secretary of State Colin Powell comes here there will be two people that he will see, the foreign minister and, of course, the president, and because he is the president he is the one the U.S. will have to hold accountable for what happens or doesn't happen here in terms of making decisions and moving forward -- Aaron.

BROWN: Sheila, thank you, Sheila MacVicar in Damascus.

As NEWSNIGHT continues on a Thursday from New York, we'll talk with Robin Wright, the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times" not just about Syria but the whole Middle East.

And later a trip to the streets of Baghdad where the rumor mill is one thing that is working very well, around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Shortly before the war the president talked about a vision for remaking the entire Middle East, that Iraq would be a catalyst to the spread of democracy throughout the region.

We thought we'd spend a little time on that with Robin Wright who is the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times." She joins us tonight from Washington.

Robin, are they talking about -- well, let me try it this way. That doesn't necessarily mean a war across the Middle East. There are lots of ways to accomplish the goal if the goal could be accomplished.

ROBIN WRIGHT, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Absolutely, the administration is using the victory in Iraq as a launch pad for a much wider initiative throughout the Middle East 23 countries. It focuses, you know, for the moment on Syria but what the real interest is in jumpstarting the Arab-Israeli peace process.

And I think over the next week or two weeks we'll see the White House announce the outlines, the specifics of the roadmap, the agreement between the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia, over the terms, specific terms to establish a final peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

And, that Secretary Powell is going to Damascus as just one leg of a much more important trip that will try to jumpstart this process and also send a very important message throughout the region because there will be other stops where he will discuss the importance of other societies getting the message of Iraq and that is opening up politically and economically.

BROWN: And those include countries, there are countries in the region that are supportive of the United States, Saudi Arabia hardly a democracy, Egypt hardly a democracy, the list goes on and on. Does the administration have in its mind changing those governments to become more democratic and accepting the risks that might come with it?

WRIGHT: Oh, well I think the answer to the first part of the question is yes they want very much to push even some of the most autocratic allies, such as Saudi Arabia and some of the other Persian Gulf states and Egypt, which has steadily pushed away from democracy recently. But there is also a great deal of concern about the cost and I'm not sure that they're willing to come to grips with the realities of what that could end up meaning.

BROWN: And what could that end up meaning?

WRIGHT: Well, the kind of destabilization you see in Iraq. You open up these societies where there hasn't been any kind of political participation, you know, for decades and the reality is that many of them may face the kind of, you know, opening -- the kind of burst of reprisals, the kind of grab for power, the potential for Islamic parties to play, to emerge as major players. There are a lot of destabilizing factors that could happen if that region does open up.

BROWN: Is the feeling that if they somehow can get the Israeli- Palestinian problem, if not solved at least on track, then the risks of more democratic countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf nations will be lessened because anti-American feeling will be lessened?

WRIGHT: Great question. That in part but that is clearly the most important piece of the post-Iraq strategy. If they can finally get the Palestinian-Israeli process going toward a final, you know, this three-year framework for a final two state solution, that will then pave the way for dealing with the Syrian-Lebanon fronts, the last frontier on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and also ease the pressure on a lot of governments who have used enormous number, amount of their resources for defense and allow them to use them for economic openings. So, this is really the most important catalyst, arguably far more important even than Iraq.

BROWN: And, staying with the Israeli-Palestinian issue then they have a government in Israel that is going to be tough. I think everyone would agree on that, that this Israeli government is going to be tough to move and we'll see what the new Palestinian Authority is like, but we could be reasonably sure about the Sharon government.

WRIGHT: And I think it's going to be very difficult to see any movement frankly before the end of George Bush's term. They may see some initial steps but remember the three-year process will go beyond President Bush's term in office, first term anyway, and the United States always feels pressure, not to take the big steps on the eve of an election in this country. And, of course, the Florida vote will be, you know, a major factor and there's, you know, an important Jewish community there. So, there are a lot of domestic factors that will play in to this issue as well.

BROWN: Robin, thank you, Robin Wright, the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for the "Los Angeles Times." It's always good to have her with us once again tonight. Thank you.

As NEWSNIGHT continues, we'll update the latest headlines coming up and then we'll talk about SARS with Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, much to do yet on a Thursday night from New York. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: You can't imagine how much time we would have devoted to this story had it not been for the war with Iraq.

We're talking about SARS, the medical mystery that would be utterly fascinating if it were not so scary. Today brought some good news about SARS, in the United States, at least. The number of suspected cases has been lowered from more than 200 to 35 by the Centers for Disease Control, after the CDC narrowed the definition of the disease.

But there's still plenty of reason to be concerned and lots of questions about whether the fear is spreading faster than the disease itself.

We're joined in Washington tonight by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Good to see you.

Do we now how it's spread and how easily it is spread?

ANTHONY FAUCI, NATL. INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Well, yes, we certainly know how it's spread. It's spread through what we call respiratory contact, droplets of saliva or mucous that comes from the mouth. And generally at a distance of about 3 feet is the most common way that it's spread. We call it close face- to-face contact.

But there is some indication that, in some circumstances, it might be spread a little bit more easily by, for example, an aerosolized spray, which can go a little bit further distance than just the face-to-face contact. But, overwhelmingly, the most common way this is spread is through very close person-to-person contact.

BROWN: In the scheme of things, taking SARS and measles and mumps and whatever else you want to throw into it, is it easy to get it or not so easy to get it?

FAUCI: It's easy to get it in the sense of pretty easy transmissibility from person to person. The thing about SARS that's alarming is that, within a period of just a couple of months, it has now spread globally. It's in many countries throughout the world.

And, also, it has the capability of being a very serious disease. As you know, a number of people have died. The death rate is over 4 percent. The latest figures were 4.8 percent, which, the number of total deaths, relatively speaking, is small. But if you get a larger number of people infected, you have a real serious problem. So we're taking it very seriously.

Obviously, we're in what we call the evolution of an epidemic. We're not sure what direction it's going to go. But it has certain characteristics about it that is making public health officials throughout the world take this quite seriously.

BROWN: Is there any reason to believe it is not going to go in the direction of worse, as opposed to better?

FAUCI: No, Aaron, we really can't tell at this point in time. We really can't.

BROWN: We've learned -- we've learned -- you all have learned a good deal about what SARS is. Are we close to understanding how to at least treat it, if not prevent it?

FAUCI: Well, we know what the virus is. It's a brand new virus. It's a virus that is related to the common cold virus, but, obviously, much more serious than that.

Treatment, the only way we're going to do that is by what we're doing now: getting the virus grown up in culture in a test tube, establishing an animal model, like a monkey model, and screening a whole bunch of drugs. There are thousands of drugs that are on the shelf in industry and some of our own repositories that we're going try and see, if we get lucky, that, by screening for these drugs, we might find one that has activity. In fact, historically, that's how we found the first drug against HIV, when we screened a whole panel of drugs and came up with AZT. Hopefully, we'll get lucky in that.

BROWN: How does this happen that a new disease occurs?

FAUCI: That is a continual phenomenon of the interaction between microbes and the human species. We call it emerging and reemerging diseases.

We see it not infrequently. Sometimes, it's a little blip on the radar screen of public health. And sometimes, it has a very important impact, like HIV/AIDS or a new pandemic of influenza. We're not quite sure where SARS fits into that category, but it's certainly something that we have to take a close look at it.

One of the easy ways this can happen is that a microbe that is fundamentally in an animal model, be it a bird or a pig or what have you, like with influenza, and it jumps species. Namely, it's in an animal, maybe evolutionary, over centuries. Then it gets a mutation and goes from animal to human, which is a naive host and doesn't have any good defenses against it, and then you can have a serious disease.

BROWN: I did a program a few years back on the way we use antibiotics these days and the problems that that's created. Is this in any way related to that?

FAUCI: No, it isn't.

BROWN: OK.

FAUCI: Antibiotic-inappropriate usage can give you drug- resistant bacteria. This is a virus. So it really doesn't have anything to do with the inappropriate use of antibiotics.

BROWN: A vaccine out there still some years?

FAUCI: Yes, out there some years. But favorable news in this regard is that the virus is growing very well in culture, which means we can take a first generation cut at a vaccine by inactivating or killing the vaccine.

We know we can infect monkeys. We found that out just a few days ago. So, if you can cause the disease in monkeys, you can vaccinate monkeys and determine, when you challenge them with the SARS virus, if you can protect them. So the pathway to a vaccine, though it will take a while, is pretty clear.

BROWN: Can I just go back over that to make sure I understand that? You know that you can make somebody sick with it. Therefore, you know a vaccine, ultimately, if you can figure it out, will cure it or prevent it?

FAUCI: Well, no, it can prevent it.

BROWN: Prevent it. FAUCI: Well, one of the reasons why we have a pretty good idea that a vaccine can do some good is that 95 percent of the people who get infected with SARS and get sick actually fully recover.

And they fully recover because their own body's immune system is ultimately eliminating the virus, which means your body is telling you, the body of the human species, that it can handle, under most circumstances, the SARS virus. Given that, it is not unreasonable at all to assume that, if you vaccinate someone with a vaccine, that you will build up enough immunity that you can actually protect them from initially getting infected in the first place.

BROWN: Thank you. I feel like you walked me through SARS 101, as I've been -- and perhaps viewers have, too -- been focused on the war for the last month or so.

Doc, thank you very much.

FAUCI: You're quite welcome.

BROWN: Dr. Anthony Fauci with us.

Next on NEWSNIGHT: trying to recover Iraq's lost past. And the one thing that works very well these days in Baghdad: the rumor mill.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's Baghdad on a Friday morning, coming up towards 7:00 in the morning there, the sun rising. It is still a very nervous city, calmer than it's been, but nervous, a city where the rumor mill is working overtime. And we'll get to that in a moment.

And then later tonight, segment seven: another in our series of still photographer pieces -- all that and more as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been called one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history: the looting of priceless Iraqi artifacts dating back thousands of years. There has been intense focus on one question: Did the United States do enough to prevent the theft?

Today, experts from around the globe gathered in Paris to look at another question as well. Is there any way, any way at all, to get back the treasure?

The story from CNN's Jim Bittermann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are the pictures that shocked and angered historians and archaeologists around the world: a curator of the Baghdad Museum discovering that one of the most treasured collections of antiquities had been plundered under the very noses of U.S. troops. The curator and a TV crew even caught some of the looters red-handed. But on their own, they were unable to stop them.

The Baghdad Museum, located just a few hundred yards from Iraq's Information Ministry, contained a priceless collection of ancient sculptures, tablets and artifacts that chronicle thousands of years of history, dating back to ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.

Just five days after the looting took place, 30 experts from around the world gathered for an emergency one-day session at UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to demand steps be taken to salvage the situation, including an immediate worldwide ban on trade of Iraqi cultural items and an urgent fact-finding mission to determine what has been lost.

Some were furious with the United States for not protecting antiquities in Iraq and not preventing the arson and pillage of Baghdad's national library, which held one of the oldest copies of the Quran. An archaeologist from the University of Chicago said that, from January onward, he repeatedly warned U.S. State Department and Pentagon authorities that such looting was a real possibility and had urged them to take measures to safeguard the archaeological treasures.

MCGUIRE GIBSON, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: I was dreading it. I wasn't expecting it. I was dreading it. And when I saw it, of course, the first thing is just total -- you're totally devastated. And then I got very, very angry about the whole thing. It should not have happened. It need not have happened.

BITTERMANN: Coalition military officers insisted they were surprised by the looting.

(on camera): U.S. officials said their priorities were to win the war and minimize the loss of life. But critics here point out, there priorities also apparently included protecting hundreds of oil wells scattered across Iraq and the Oil Ministry building in Baghdad, ahead of protecting the Baghdad Museum and other cultural sites.

(voice-over): And several of the experts say now that, with the U.S. in charge in Iraq, it has full responsibility for the safekeeping of Iraq's cultural treasures. Any further damage, said one, would be totally inexcusable.

Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It was true after the attacks of 9/11 in this country. It's true now in post-war Iraq, that, in times of upheaval and destruction, there's one institution that keeps thriving. It's the rumor mill.

Some of the tall tales sweeping Iraq now from CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Baghdad, one of the hardest habits to break: smoking a traditional Arabic pipe, the ijami (ph), and gossiping with friends.

The weirdest rumor, says Walid (ph), a storekeeper, is that Saddam and his sons went to Syria, then Russia, then Britain. Ahmed (ph) the coffee shop owner disagrees: Saddam is with American intelligence, CNN or CII or whatever, he says, rumors to be mulled over, muddled, extended, and amplified.

"The Americans want our oil," he says, echoing Saddam Hussein's prewar mantra. But that propaganda pales in comparison with the latest stories.

"I saw it with my own eyes," he says. "The Americans opened the doors of the bank to let the thieves go in." Everyone around seems to agree. Another in the crowd desperate to get his voice heard shouts, "A Kuwaiti man with the Americans opened a safe in the bank."

(on camera): With little access to hard information and used to a regular diet of propaganda from the former government's radio and television services, people here appear to be filling the information vacuum now with fears, rather than facts.

(voice-over): In a more upscale neighborhood, where some normality is returning to the streets, those fears fan discontent.

"The Americans want the chaos here to continue," he says, "so we can't govern ourselves and they can justify their occupation." But that isn't all to this particular rumor.

"Saddam Hussein has been collaborating with the U.S. since 1963," Ackel (ph), a businessman says. "It's all a game to destroy the Arabs, to benefit Israel."

"Saddam is in Washington with Bush," adds Basam (ph). It's all a game.

Amidst the anger and frustration, though, the knowledge that good information is missing.

"We hear that the Americans want to destroy Iraq," says Hussan, a civil engineer. "We want the Americans to prove to us this is not true."

Perhaps carpenter Hafas (ph) has the attitude most in the West want to hear. "We don't care where Saddam is. All we are concerned about is the future of our country: electricity and water."

For now, however, in the absence of hard facts, Hafas and those like him seem to be in the minority.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A picture from the streets of Baghdad.

As NEWSNIGHT continues, segment seven arrives again, my goodness, with another in our series of still photographers; then, women covering the war.

A break first. NEWSNIGHT continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The latest now in our series of still photographers; tonight, someone who isn't embedded, as we've come to know the word. But he's as close to the soldiers and the commanders as you can get, because this photographer is also a sergeant 1st class shooting for the military.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID DISMUKES, ARMY PUBLIC AFFAIRS (voice-over): My name is Sergeant 1st Class David Dismukes. And I'm the coalition's forces land component command public affairs noncommissioned officer in charge, which allows me to do a number of things. I get an opportunity to go out and photograph soldiers, sailors or airmen and Marines from all aspects of the operation.

The night before an operation or a major operation were to take place, General McKiernan (ph) would go out to see those commanders that were about to go out into battle. And the way he kind of explained it around us is that he wanted to look that commander in the eye and just to understand and have that feeling that they were prepared.

Command Sergeant Major John Sparks (ph), who is really the soldier's link to the commander, he would go down and just walk up and sit down and talk to these soldiers. And he'll take a copy of "The Stars and Stripes" or the latest news he could find to give to them. Of course, all the soldiers, they wanted to know what's going on in the war and what's the American public saying, are they rallied behind the troops and are they supporting us.

The day after we arrived, there was a memorial ceremony held for six crew members that were killed in a Black Hawk helicopter. And after it was over, they filed by the different photos and different positions they had representing the soldiers that were killed. They paused and they stopped for a moment to reflect on a personal time, because so many of them were friends with these soldiers.

To see the people here in Iraq, to see the women and the children living and have been through what they lived through the past decades under this regime, the only way to understand it is to see it through the eyes of a soldier or someone that has been here.

This little girl, she was carrying this box of chocolate candy trying to sell to help her family out. The look in her eyes, you could just look there and see that this child has probably seen more than any of us ever will and probably isn't even old enough to enter kindergarten.

That was a meeting with some of our civil affairs people and some of our engineers that were working with some of the senior Iraqi electricians, figuring out what is the best plan to reestablish power to the capital city of Baghdad. Coming into this meeting, they didn't know what to expect. They didn't know if they were going to be held captive or what was going to happen. At the end of the meeting, they actually asked: May we leave now? And, of course, we were more than happy to escort them out to their bus that they came in on.

Just walking into the place, it's just enormous, with the detailed tiles in the ceiling and the huge chandeliers and the large pieces of marble.

When General Franks came in, he met with the senior combatant commanders, his top leaders that were involved in the war. I, along with every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine that I know that has worked alongside him, worked with him, would follow him anywhere.

We had one goal in mind, and we were able to accomplish it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still photographers.

In our next hour, we'll update the latest news, including the continuing search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- other matters, too. We'll look at the career of the late Dr. Robert Atkins, who remade America's obsession with dieting.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

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