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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Hijazi Captured; Fallout From Aziz's Arrest Continues; 3 More Die of SARS in Canada

Aired April 25, 2003 - 22:00   ET

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

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


AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone.
There may be only one good thing about going off to war, and that's coming home from war. Today, after nine months and one war, the sailors on the USS Shiloh and the USS Mobile Bay returned home to the West Coast. Not the biggest story of the day involving the war in Iraq, but the best story of the day. And we'll show you the reunions as we go along tonight.

But the whip begins, as always, with the most important news of the day, and we start out with the latest high-profile Iraqi to fall into American hands.

David Ensor following that for us tonight. So, David, a headline from you, please.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: He wasn't in the Pentagon's most-wanted deck of cards, Aaron, but Farouk Hijazi could turn out to be among the most useful Iraqi officials to be captured, because, if there was an Iraqi connection with al Qaeda, he's the most likely to know about it. He's also wanted for possible involvement in plot to kill the president's father.

BROWN: David, thank you.

The reaction in Baghdad after a week of important captures.

Nic Robertson still there for us. So Nic, a headline.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the fallout from Tariq Aziz's arrest continuing. The family saying -- his family now saying they're afraid to go out on the streets. Tariq Aziz's neighbor saying he was a nice man but a bad politician. And on the other side of Baghdad, people calling for Tariq Aziz to be hanged 60 times over, Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you.

The latest on SARS in Canada, where the prime minister spoke out today.

Jason Carroll is in Toronto once again for us. So Jason, a headline.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, three more SARS-related deaths in Ontario. Even so, Canadian health officials are still hoping a travel advisory will be lifted as early as next week, Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you.

And a fascinating story being played out in Cuba tonight.

Lucia Newman is in Havana. Lucia, the headline.

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Aaron. Well, President Fidel Castro has just finished speaking for four hours in a row, trying to convince Cubans and the world that his decision to imprison 75 dissidents and execute three men who hijacked a ferry but who killed no one was really in self-defense and the fault of the United States.

BROWN: Lucia, thank you.

Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming on NEWSNIGHT tonight, we hope to bring you live the first manned space launch since the "Columbia" disaster. A Russian Soyuz rocket is bound for the International Space Station. An American astronaut on board wearing a badge from the "Columbia" mission. Liftoff scheduled just before midnight Eastern time. And we hope you'll be around for that as well.

Also tonight, the story of a Cuban-American and the spy who loved her. Or didn't love her, is more like it. She is getting revenge on the Cuban government as a victim of a sham marriage.

And a remembrance of two lives well lived, the story of a singer and the pastor.

All that to come in the two hours ahead.

We begin with the capture of another Iraqi fugitive. This time, you won't recognize the face, not from smiling television appearances, not from playing cards either. The man who was caught last night at the Syrian border spent much of his career behind the scenes or in the shadows. So not a familiar face, but a very good get.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Farouk Hijazi was Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and then to Tunisia, but before that, he was number three in Iraqi intelligence, chief of espionage operations for Saddam Hussein.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: He is significant. We think he could be interesting.

ENSOR: "Interesting" may be an understatement. There is evidence, U.S. officials say, that Hijazi traveled to Afghanistan in 1998, and may have met there with Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. There were also unconfirmed reports he may have met bin Laden in Sudan in the early '90s. JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: It's a big catch, and this man was involved, we know, in a number of contacts with al Qaeda. So this would be a very, very interesting development, the biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've gotten.

ENSOR: In the unsuccessful plot to kill former President George Bush, the 41st president, during a visit to Kuwait in 1993, Farouk Hijazi is a suspect. In fact, U.S. officials say, he may have directed the operation.

Hijazi will also know, officials say, whether the Iraqi embassies in Ankara and Tunis, where he served, were used by Iraqi intelligence as bases for operations to, for example, obtain items needed to construct weapons of mass destruction.

Hijazi was taken into U.S. custody Thursday in Iraq near the Syrian border, after U.S. officials had complained to Damascus that they knew he'd flown there from Tunis, and was being sheltered by the Syrians. Apparently, Syria got the message.

U.S. officials are also pleased to be talking with Tariq Aziz, the regime's deputy prime minister, who turned himself in Baghdad Thursday. They are hoping he might know where other senior officials may be, and whether Saddam Hussein survived the air strikes.

RUMSFELD: He clearly is a very senior person, and was in that regime. And we intend to discuss with him whatever it is he is willing to discuss with us.

ENSOR: Rumsfeld said he does not favor sending Iraqi prisoners to Guantanamo, where al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners already are.

(on camera): Will captured senior Iraqis being treated as prisoners of war with rights under the Geneva Convention? Or will some of them possibly be treated as war criminals? Rumsfeld said that is still being worked out by U.S. lawyers. But he did make clear that people like Aziz and Hijazi are being asked for much more than name, rank, and serial number.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So we go to Baghdad next, and how people there view Tariq Aziz, who's now in American custody, as David mentioned. As you might imagine, feelings run the gamut. We've chosen two perspective, one public and one family.

Here again, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Tariq Aziz' son, Zyab (ph), looks worried. He's willing to talk with us, but not be interviewed. As he explains how his father negotiated his surrender to U.S. forces, he plays with his son, Tariq Jr. He says his father's nighttime handover was dignified, that U.S. forces offered medical support for his father's heart condition that has caused two heart attacks recently.

They don't know when to expect him back, and have been told he faces lots of questions.

Outside, U.S. troops provide occasional protection. Nearby, Siyadh (ph), a neighbor, hopes all will be well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Americans should follow the rules. And I think there is a law which protect this process.

ROBERTSON: Saleh (ph), also a neighbor, comes to our car to give his opinion. "He was a normal person," he says, "a good neighbor, but a bad politician."

At their nearby store, Talal (ph) and Yahi (ph) prepare to open for their first day's business since the war.

"Aziz was a politician," says Talal. "It's Saddam and the others Americans have problems with."

"Maybe he gives us information about the missing people," says Yahi, "and perhaps Saddam Hussein."

Further down the road, Yusef (ph) and Mufan (ph) wait for a ride. Neither have anything bad to say about Aziz. "We call him Mr. Aziz, and I'm proud of him," says Mufan, a former traffic cop. "He was cultured, and I wish someone like him rules us." His friend Yusef adds, "If all the leaders stayed in Baghdad, then the Americans will catch them."

Across town, in a less-affluent neighborhood, reactions to a Aziz's arrest are profoundly different. "I didn't hear about it," explains Jassim (ph), the egg seller, "because we didn't have electricity."

When we explained the news to the crowd, Hisham (ph), a bystander, steps forward. "America is playing a trick on us," he says. "Where is our government and our security?"

At the pickle store, passions are inflamed by the lack of services. "Aziz is a war criminal," says Ahmed. "He should get the death penalty, just like Saddam, 60 times over."

"We give Mr. Bush six months to get things right," says Abbas, going on to explain, "If not, we will fight the Americans."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: The biggest problem, the biggest problem that Tariq Aziz's family say they now face, now that Mr. Aziz is safely in U.S. hands, is, are they safe to go out on the streets, Aaron?

BROWN: Well, are they safe to go out on the streets, do you think? Are any of these -- the family members of these former Ba'ath Party officials safe out there?

ROBERTSON: I think if people knew who they were and the houses that they'd come from, they'd chase them down and loot their houses. That would certainly be the opinion of a lot of people in Baghdad. Perhaps in that particular neighborhood, the Aziz family, where they lived, would get a little more respect. But there are certainly a lot of people out there who would not want to see them prosper in this new situation, Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson in Baghdad, early on a Saturday morning there.

Talk a little bit more about what the United States government might get from all of these gets, and also what it says about Syrian cooperation. Number of other things as well. It's Friday night. We are joined in Washington by CNN analyst and Brookings fellow Ken Pollack.

Ken, good to have you with us.

Of the two, Aziz and Hijazi, one is clearly more important, or at least has more interesting information than the other, right?

KENNETH POLLACK, DIRECTOR, SABAN CENTER, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Absolutely. And I think for most American viewers, they'll be surprised to hear that the one who is much more interesting is, in fact, Farouk Hijazi. That's not to say that Tariq Aziz is unimportant. He is important, in his own way.

There are certainly things that Tariq Aziz will know about. He will know about Iraq's diplomatic dealings. He may know about some under-the-table Iraqi dealings with foreign governments and financial resources that they have out there. He may also know something about the Iraqi government.

But in truth, Tariq Aziz, while an important politician in Iraq and a longtime member of the Ba'ath Party, was not part of the innermost circle of Saddam's advisers. He was not somebody who was terribly important in the formulation of Iraqi policy. And it's just unclear if he has the kind of information that we're looking for, about weapons of mass destruction and other things.

BROWN: Now, on that last point, on weapons of mass destruction, is Hijazi likely to know anything about that? Or is his value in other areas, where Iraqi agents might be, what those agents are up to, al Qaeda, and the rest?

POLLACK: Yes. Hijazi may know something about weapons of mass destruction. And obviously U.S. and British interrogators are going to try on to find out what, if anything, he does know.

But in truth, Aaron, you're really getting at the key issue for Hijazi, which is, he brings a tremendous amount of knowledge about Iraq's dealings with the outside world in terms of intelligence operations, Iraq's involvement in terrorism, its involvement with al Qaeda, to the extent there is such an involvement, its operations worldwide against the United States, against other countries, its involvement with other government intelligence agencies. Did Iraq have liaison relationships with other intelligence services?

Beyond that, he probably will have a very good understanding of the procurement network that Iraq used overseas to smuggle goods into Iraq, other financial dealings, where Iraq is hiding its money. Hijazi also probably knows quite a bit about where the bodies are buried, perhaps even literally, inside Iraq, because the Mukhabarat, Iraq's premier intelligence service, of which he was the number three man, also had a very important internal security role.

BROWN: The -- neither of these guys, and none of those taken so far, are, you know, 19-year-old Taliban fighters or al Qaeda fighters. They are reasonably sophisticated people. Do you expect what's going on here is a negotiation?

POLLACK: Well, I think that in the case of Tariq Aziz, yes, that was clearly the case, that they negotiated his surrender. And I think what's important about Tariq Aziz is that he was clearly hiding in Baghdad, which suggests that other key leaders, maybe even Saddam Hussein and his sons, may also be in Baghdad.

But he also recognized, he had no place to go. The Americans were closing in on him, and the best thing that he could do was to negotiate the terms of his surrender, rather than letting U.S. special forces bust in on his sister's home in the middle of the night.

BROWN: But at this point -- I understand the negotiation that led to his surrender -- are they -- I guess what I want to know is, is this bright lights and sleep deprivation that's going on, or is this a sort of sophisticated negotiation, where Aziz or Hijazi or any of these other people will say, Look, here's what I know, and I will tell you this, but I want to be let go, or I want free passage somewhere? Do you have any sense of how you deal with people at this level?

POLLACK: Well, certainly, Aaron, they're going to come in with that latter approach. This is exactly what they're looking for. They want a deal, and they will probably agree to provide some level of information in return for some level of service and guarantees from the United States, on the other hand.

My guess is, and obviously I'm not part of the decision-making process on this, and the Bush administration might decide to do otherwise, but my guess is that the United States is going to be very reluctant to agree to any of those deals. And instead, they will begin a prolonged process of interrogation rather than trying to cut a deal with any of these guys, who may very well become war criminals.

BROWN: Are they -- do they have any protection under the Geneva Convention?

POLLACK: That's an issue which I am absolutely unqualified to talk to, Aaron, because this is going to be a legal issue. You've heard the administration say that they've not yet determined what their status is going to be. So I think we have to wait for the administration to make a ruling on that.

BROWN: Ken, thank you, as always. Ken Pollack, who helps us understand these Iraqi issues every week, and sometimes more.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, SARS just across the border. We will have the latest from Toronto, where officials are dealing not just with the disease, but also with the World Health Organization warning about travel to Toronto.

And we'll talk with one of the Canadian officials dealing with the crisis, Dr. Paul Gully of Health Canada.

We'll take a break first. Then NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: An early wire service report on Fidel Castro's speech. The Cuban people tonight gave details of the first hour and a half of it. That was just after 6:00 p.m. The speech ran four hours, a good portion of it a rant of outside agitators, namely, the United States.

It comes in the middle of an especially bloody crackdown on dissent in Cuba.

CNN's Lucia Newman was covering the speech and the crackdown, and she joins us once again from Havana -- Lucia.

NEWMAN: Good evening, Aaron.

Well, as you know, for the past 43 years, President Castro has been pointing the finger at Washington, blaming it for most of the things that go wrong in this country. Well, tonight, he went the extra mile. As you also know, both Cubans and most of the world were shocked when the government here announced the execution of three men who had hijacked a passenger ferry in Havana Bay, but who had not killed anyone.

Now, Mr. Castro says that this was all done in self-defense to thwart a U.S. conspiracy aimed at somehow provoking an immigration crisis, a flood of illegal immigration and hijackings to the United States that would, in turn, be seen by Washington as a national security issue, and, therefore, would be -- that would justify an invasion or some kind of military action against Cuba.

Now, Aaron, a lot of people here aren't buying that argument. They are saying that it's precisely the executions, and particularly the imprisonment of 75 dissidents, that could provoke a backlash. The Cuban government calls these dissidents, of course, mercenaries in the pay of the United States.

But outside of Cuba, and many people here, in fact, see them as prisoners of conscience, people who now are being sent, in many cases, to the other side of Cuba to pull out their sentences.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NEWMAN (voice-over): The wives of two Cuban dissidents go to the nearest interstate bus agency to see if they can reserve a bus seat to go visit their husbands, who've just been sentenced up to 25 years in prison.

They're told to try again tomorrow. The wives are outraged. Their husbands have now been transferred to high-security prisoners in other provinces, some as far away as Guantanamo, 1,000 kilometers, or 600 miles, away from Havana, or Siego de Avila (ph), only a little closer.

"I'm furious," says Blanca Reyes (ph), wife of dissident journalist Raul Rivero (ph). "This is their way of punishing us, the wives, for speaking out. But if that's our punishment, so be it. I'll walk to Siego de Avila if I have to, but I will take Raul his food."

In Cuba, prison conditions are appalling at best, and prisoners depend on food and personal hygiene products brought by relatives on visiting day.

Human rights activists say the fact that most of the 75 recently sentenced dissidents are being exiled to prisons in remote provinces inflicts an additional punishment.

"There are prisons in Havana they could have been sent to," says Gisella Delgado (ph). "But what they're doing is punishing the family too, sentencing us."

U.S. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin wrapped a center of Havana Thursday, saying he told Cuban officials everyone in Washington condemns the dissident crackdown. But...

SEN. TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: It is clear to me that the best course of action now is moderation, not escalation, engagement, and not isolation.

NEWMAN: So far, all pleas for the dissidents to be released are falling on deaf ears.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWMAN: Now, Cuban officials are saying that the five Cuban spies that were sentenced to up to two life sentences in U.S. prisons and were being kept in solitary confinement are suffering a far worse fate than the dissidents here. Human rights advocates, though, say that that's irrelevant, that an injustice is an injustice wherever it occurs, Aaron.

BROWN: Lucia, thank you. Lucia Newman, who's in Havana tonight.

The story of a -- of Cuban dissent is one of terror lately, but over the years, also stories of romance, intrigue, and betrayal.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Catherine Mitchell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHERINE MITCHELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This little yellow Cuban biplane opened a diplomatic Pandora's box when it touched down at the Key West airport last November. Rather than return the plane and its eight fleeing passengers, as Cuba insisted, the defectors were granted asylum, and the plane was auctioned off to a very unlikely buyer.

ANA MARGARITA MARTINEZ: No, really I would like to fly it at least once.

MITCHELL: Ana Margarita Martinez bought the plane for $7,000, using the credit from a $27 million judgment she won against Cuba for her sham marriage to Juan Pablo Roque, the man she thought was Mr. Right, but who turned out to be a Cuban spy.

Since acquiring the plane, Martinez has laid claim to two more Cuban planes, both hijacked from Cuba within weeks of each other.

MARTINEZ: This one was taken in November.

MITCHELL: Martinez's story began in 1992, when she met her former husband in Miami just after his supposed defection from Cuba.

MARTINEZ: I met him at church, ironically, on a Sunday morning.

MITCHELL: Roque courted the twice-divorced mother of two persistently for three years and married her in 1995, on, of all days, April Fools' Day.

MARTINEZ: We gave him the appearance that he was here to stay, that he was a family man, that he was not a spy on a mission. So we were a good cover.

MITCHELL: Under this ruse, Roque became a fixture in the Cuban exile community. An outspoken opponent of Castro, he began flying with the Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group that helps defectors navigate the waters between Cuba and Miami.

Then, in 1996, the fairy tale came to an abrupt end. Roque left town for a supposed business trip. The following day, two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by Cuban MiGs, killing four pilots. Roque was conspicuously missing.

MARTINEZ: The FBI was at my house. They searched. They took all kinds of things. And then suddenly, I -- you know, I was told by one of the reporters that was outside, and he said, Turn on CNN. And when I do that, I see Juan Pablo walking down from an Aquana la Aliacion (ph) airplane in Havana.

MITCHELL: Roque announced on television that he was a Cuban spy and denounced Brothers to the Rescue as a terrorist organization, part of an alleged plot by the Castro regime to infiltrate the group, a claim he would later deny in an interview with CNN's Lucia Newman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, February 28, 1996) NEWMAN: I would like to ask you very bluntly, were you a spy for the Cuban government?

JUAN PABLO ROQUE (through translator): Yes, I left Cuba. I am no state security agent. Whoever says that, should stop that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MITCHELL: Roque was indicted in absentia for being part of a Cuban spy ring.

MARTINEZ: I trusted this man 100 percent, and the rug was pulled up from under my feet.

MITCHELL: It took Martinez years of therapy, but her life began to turn around when she met attorney Fernando Zulueta in 1999.

FERNANDO ZULUETA, ATTORNEY, LEEDS COLBY PARIS: I decided to bring a case of rape against the Cuban government. The reason was that Juan Pablo Roque, the spy, while, deceived Ana into marrying him, and into having marital relations with him. Under Florida law, that's rape.

MITCHELL: Martinez made her claim to the three Cuban planes using that $27 million judgment. Under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, people with judgments against a designated terrorist party may move to keep blocked assets, an action that both the Cuban government and the U.S. State Department take issue with.

Martinez, however, is not easily deterred.

MARTINEZ: You know, I'm hoping that they send some MiGs my way, so I can take them too. That would be fun.

MITCHELL: Catherine Mitchell, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: OK. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, SARS across the border. We will have the latest from Toronto, where officials are dealing not just with the disease, but the World Health Organization warning about travel there. We will talk with a top Canadian health official as well.

We'll take a break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: And still to come on NEWSNIGHT: SARS in Canada. We'll look at what the government's doing to fight the disease and to fight the fear.

A short break first and then we're right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: These are strange times when, saying you'll visit a town and stay in a hotel, it sounds like some sort of act of bravery. But Canada's prime minister says he will visit Toronto next week, and it isn't about bravery. He wants to show that SARS is not really a threat to travelers or prime ministers, no matter what World Health Organization says.

With more from Toronto tonight, CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new development in Canada's battle against SARS, three more people died, bringing the total number of SARS deaths in Ontario to 19. But there was encouraging news as well. Canadian health officials say the number of hospital patients has gone down by 30 this past week. And after participating in a conference call with the World Health Organization, Ontario's health minister said he's hopeful that the WHO might lift the travel advisory soon.

DR. COLIN D'CUNHA, ONTARIO COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC HEALTH: It was my understanding when I left the call that a new risk assessment incorporating all the current data is to be presented to senior management and the director general on Tuesday. And I can assume that some sort of review will be made and the data will speak for itself.

CARROLL: The WHO says it constantly examines the latest data. To date, more than 650 people in Ontario have been quarantined, SARS having not only a medical impact on Canada, but also an economic one.

KYLE RAE, TORONTO CITY COUNCIL: People are reading newspapers overstating what's happening in Toronto and they're not going out to the theaters, not going out to the restaurants.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're working so hard and they've contained this. And the numbers are going down, even though they were never that bad compared to other diseases. And I hope people will come and visit in Toronto, because it's a beautiful place and it's a safe place.

CARROLL: Hotel occupancy is down. Conventions continue to be canceled. The Canadian prime minister talked about what he would do to try to restore confidence.

JEAN CHRETIEN, CANDIDATE PRIME MINISTER: To demonstrate, in a very public way, our commitment to the people of Toronto, I am announcing today that the Cabinet will meet on Tuesday in Toronto instead of Ottawa.

(APPLAUSE)

CHRETIEN: And I will be staying at a Toronto hotel on Monday night and I will sleep very, very, very well.

(LAUGHTER) CARROLL: At the first home game since the travel advisory was issued, the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays spoke about how players are reacting.

CARLOS TOSCA, MANAGER, TORONTO BLUE JAYS: We should move forward with business as usual. There's some precautions that we have to take about where we go and keeping our hands clean and that type of stuff.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And attendance at tonight's game was slightly above normal. And perhaps that's somewhat of an encouraging sign.

The real tourism season will begin this summer. And the city of Toronto is embarking on a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to try to win tourists back to the city -- Aaron.

BROWN: You've been in the city now for a little bit longer than a day. When you walk around, is the fear of SARS what people are talking about, or are people talking about the WHO and the fact that the city is safe? Or is it somewhere in between?

CARROLL: It's somewhere in between. They're talking about all of the above.

What you really get a sense of here, Aaron, is the anger among a lot of the people here. You really get the sense that people are angry with the WHO and also, to be quite honest, angry with the media. A number of people that we talked to feel as though this story has been overblown in some ways -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you very much -- Jason Carroll in Toronto.

For more on the SARS threat, what's fact, what's fiction, did the World Health Organization go too far with its travel advisory, we're joined from Ottawa tonight by Dr. Paul Gully, a Canadian official helping to lead the fight against SARS.

Doctor Gully, good to have you with us.

What did the WHO miss?

DR. PAUL GULLY, HEALTH CANADA: To be honest, it's a mystery, because they had all the information they needed.

We had a video conference with them today. They had the information that is on our Web site, freely available, which is the most up-to-date information. It seems as, though, for some reason, they've interpreted it in a way which, two or three weeks ago, we probably wouldn't have been too surprised. But now, now that the last case in the community occurred on April 14, it's a real surprise to us.

BROWN: When you talk about the last case in the community, you mean the last time someone was diagnosed with it or the last time someone left the hospital OK? GULLY: No, the last time someone was diagnosed with it was April 14. Since then, we have a few health care workers that are being investigated. And Health could has had some assistance from CDC to do that. But that's in a very close situation in a hospital.

BROWN: Are hospitals safe right now, by the way?

GULLY: Absolutely. And the major hospitals that were affected by this, which were closed -- and that was a dramatic move -- the first one is reopening and I think the second one will be reopening again soon.

BROWN: Do you believe the media has overplayed the story or misunderstood the story and that that has contributed to the WHO decision?

GULLY: I don't believe so.

I think that the media coverage is bound to have been different. Different people have different views about how well we have done. But, in general, I think the media has been good in terms of how it's reported. And, certainly, from the federal government point of view and the provincial point of view, there's been a lot of information out there. No, I don't believe so.

I might say, though, that, in terms of the communication strategy from the World Health Organization, that has been confusing to us, because the messages we're getting back from them have not always been straightforward.

BROWN: Now, you have this conference call today. And there is some sense that WHO's going to look at the data today, perhaps reevaluate the data again. What is it that you want them to focus most on?

GULLY: They have three criteria which they're using. One is the number of cases. And, certainly -- and they're classifying the ones that are still in the hospital -- whether there is local transmission. And we've explained very precisely what's happening in Canada, where they have full reports of what's going on.

The third most sticky point seems to be this issue of exportation of cases. And they list five cases, three to Australia, one to Philadelphia, and one to the Philippines, which our clinicians who looked at those doubt whether they are SARS cases. Even if they are, they happened more than two weeks ago.

So what we want them to do is to take the data very seriously. I have a great regard for my colleagues in WHO. So that's why it's a mystery that they have made that announcement. But they said today that they would look at it again -- we're having another video conference with them on Monday -- they would look at it again. And, hopefully, then they will see things differently on Tuesday.

BROWN: And let's assume for a second, just hypothetically, that they change their minds, they lift the advisory. How is it that people will feel confident that they are doing that on the facts and not under the pressure, political pressure or otherwise, that has been exerted over the last 48 hours or so?

GULLY: Well, the question where -- certainly, I think the pressure that's come from politicians at all levels has been pressure to say, look at the information . Look at what's happening in Toronto. Look at what's happening in Canada. Look at what we have done over the last six weeks. We have been successful -- not political pressure, but to actually look at the facts carefully.

BROWN: Dr. Gully, good to talk to you. Thank you.

GULLY: Thank you.

BROWN: And best of luck.

GULLY: Thanks.

BROWN: We will check back next week, see how it works out. Thank you.

Next on NEWSNIGHT: the anti-French backlash. And has it gone too far when even having a French name can be a negative?

A short break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT: anti-French feeling. Has the country gone overboard? We will talk with "Washington Post" columnist E.J. Dionne after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, the thing about bandwagons is, they are so easy to jump on and so tough to stop. Easier to join the crowd than to say, enough is enough, which is what syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne is trying to do, calling for an end to the French-bashing, not for the sake of the French government, which can probably take care of itself, but because it's become so ugly, politically and otherwise and, in some cases, just plain silly.

Monsieur Dionne joins us tonight from Washington.

Good to have you with us, as it always is.

E.J. DIONNE, "THE WASHINGTON POST": (SPEAKING IN FRENCH), Aaron.

BROWN: Yes. Well, we should say, you have a personal interest in all of this, don't you?

DIONNE: Right.

Well, I grew up in one of those mill towns in Massachusetts, a place called Fall River, where there were a lot of French-Canadians. I had an uncle -- I note in the column that I wrote for today that the Club For Growth has started to use the term Franco-Republican. And I actually had a cousin of my dad's who was actually a Republican candidate on the state ticket in Massachusetts who died a heart attack giving a political speech.

So he was a Franco-Republican who gave his life for his party. So, yes, it is personal for me.

BROWN: What's the big deal if we call them freedom fries and freedom toast and anything else? What's the problem here?

DIONNE: Well, some of it's silly. I had a friend who called me up and said: From now on, will you call yourself a freedom Canadian?

(LAUGHTER)

DIONNE: But I was struck when a Bush adviser was quoted in "The New York Times" saying of John Kerry, "He looks French."

Now, imagine any other ethnic group in that slot where the word French is, he looks something else, and there would an outcry against bigotry. It's one thing to have a fight with President Chirac of France and say we don't like French foreign policy. That's a perfectly legitimate thing to do. But what's starting to happen is that using French as an epithet, it's not guilt by association. It's guilt of being French by association.

The Club For Growth's ad against Senators Snowe and Voinovich begins by saying, President Bush fought for freedom. The French didn't go along with him. Now these two senators are standing up to Bush on the tax cut. And there's this French flag flying next to them. And so, suddenly, if you call somebody French, it's almost like calling somebody an ally of the Soviet Union back in the 1940s or '50s.

BROWN: There were pretty harsh ads, but politics, as played these days, is a pretty tough business.

DIONNE: Well, I agree politics is tough. And these are surely not the only negative ads we've ever seen.

But I think, when you get into the business of challenging somebody's patriotism because they oppose a president on a particular policy, that doesn't look American to me. It's very dangerous to do that. People can -- I mean, what distinguishes us from Iraq is that you can disagree with the leader of the country and still support the country and still be considered American.

And then when you sort of freight that with this extra little bit of ethnic prejudice, I think it becomes particularly explosive. Sometimes, it's just silly. But I think, taken all together, it becomes dangerous when you say people are not loyal to the United States.

BROWN: I guess -- I'm sure we have both gotten mail like this. I think everybody who does this sort of work ultimately gets mail like this. In the post-9/11 period, the term unpatriotic is thrown around pretty easily these days, and for sometimes almost nothing. Opposing a tax cut can hardly be seen as unpatriotic.

DIONNE: Right.

And this ad is clever, because it doesn't specifically say that they are unpatriotic. It just says, President Bush courageously led the forces of freedom and some so-called allies like France got in way. Now, the ad says, he's proposed bold job-creating tax cuts, but some so-called Republicans get in the way.

Again, it's not a direct accusation, but you sure can't miss the point. And I think that, in a democracy, you just have to be very careful to preserve the freedom to dissent, including on war. I mean, Abraham Lincoln opposed the Mexican War back in the 1840s and we sure look at him as a patriot.

BROWN: Well, we are both old enough. We went through Vietnam and we saw the same thing in Vietnam. And in the post-9/11 period, we see it again. So it's not that it's surprising to me -- I'll answer my own question here -- it's just that it's troubling.

DIONNE: Right.

And why should it trouble us? It should trouble us partly because there are a lot of double standards in play here. Back when President Clinton sent troops into action over in Kosovo, the bombing of Kosovo, a lot of Republicans, Tom DeLay and others, were very, very, very critical of President Clinton. They had the right to be critical, because we're a democracy.

I think it's inappropriate for them to turn around later and say, well, it's perfectly patriotic to question one president's foreign policy, but it's unpatriotic to question another president's foreign policy. If that isn't a double standard, I don't know what is a double standard.

BROWN: Consistency in politics, we will talk about that next time.

DIONNE: Yes, it's a long discussion.

BROWN: If we ever again have a French-Canadian on the program, I don't know. We will have to see

DIONNE: If you don't get a boycott against you. Thanks a lot, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Dionne, very much, Monsieur.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT: notable lives, the passing of singer Nina Simone and pastor Eric Butterworth and their connections.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We are firm believers here that, if you want to read something uplifting, something life-affirming, go right to the obituary page. It may sound strange, but it's not. The obits are not about death. They're about life in all its complexity and joy, sometimes pain. This week, we saw all of that: one page, two amazing lives, the singer and the pastor.

Here's CNN's Michael Schulder.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They found their final resting place side by side on the obituary page this week, a singer and a pastor with nothing in common, except the needs of their audience.

NINA SIMONE, MUSICIAN (singing): If I should lose you, the stars would fall from the sky.

SCHULDER: Her name was Nina Simone. And she dreamed of being a classical concert pianist. When she got one of her first jobs at a bar in Atlantic City, the manager told her: We don't need a pianist. We need a singer. And so she sang.

SIMONE (singing): Don't let them handle me with his hot hands.

SCHULDER: Nina Simone was not just about romantic ballads. She had a lot of anger inside her, rooted partly in her early observations of segregation in the South.

SIMONE (singing): You don't have to live next to me. Just give me my equality, because everybody knows everybody knows about Mississippi goddam, Mississippi goddam.

SCHULDER: Simone seemed to channel some of that anger into songs about love that disappoints.

SIMONE (singing): Stick to the promise, man, that you made me, that you'd stay away from Rosalie.

SCHULDER: You could not ask for a more different tone than the one struck by the Unity Church and the church's man in New York, Eric Butterworth.

ERIC BUTTERWORTH, PASTOR: This is Eric Butterworth. You can change your life by owning your thoughts.

SCHULDER: Reverend Butterworth's pulpit was New York's Lincoln Center, where several thousand people from all walks of life, including a Nina Simone fan or two, would flock every Sunday to hear his message of the power of positive thinking.

BUTTERWORTH: If someone comes into the office in the morning singing a happy song, with a smiling face, he's looked at with almost suspicion. And people say, what's the matter with him? What does he have to be so happy about?

But you see, you don't have to have something to be happy about. You can be happy at any time you want if you simply want to be happy, for the joy potential is a vital and supportive force within you and is, as Emerson says, the continuation of the divine effort that made you in the first place.

SCHULDER: Nina Simone, who was buried today in her adopted country of France, rarely sang about happiness.

"I feel what my audience feel," she once said, "and people who listen to me know that. And it makes them feel like they are not alone." Nina Simone and Eric Butterworth, a voice that provided comfort and a voice that offered hope.

SIMONE (singing): If I lost you.

SCHULDER: Michael Schulder, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's the first hour of NEWSNIGHT, another one to go one last time, including an exciting day in San Diego for Navy families who haven't seen their sailors in nine months and the first manned space launch since the Columbia tragedy. We'll go to Kazakhstan for the story -- that and more after a break, a check of the headlines.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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More Die of SARS in Canada>


Aired April 25, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone.
There may be only one good thing about going off to war, and that's coming home from war. Today, after nine months and one war, the sailors on the USS Shiloh and the USS Mobile Bay returned home to the West Coast. Not the biggest story of the day involving the war in Iraq, but the best story of the day. And we'll show you the reunions as we go along tonight.

But the whip begins, as always, with the most important news of the day, and we start out with the latest high-profile Iraqi to fall into American hands.

David Ensor following that for us tonight. So, David, a headline from you, please.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: He wasn't in the Pentagon's most-wanted deck of cards, Aaron, but Farouk Hijazi could turn out to be among the most useful Iraqi officials to be captured, because, if there was an Iraqi connection with al Qaeda, he's the most likely to know about it. He's also wanted for possible involvement in plot to kill the president's father.

BROWN: David, thank you.

The reaction in Baghdad after a week of important captures.

Nic Robertson still there for us. So Nic, a headline.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the fallout from Tariq Aziz's arrest continuing. The family saying -- his family now saying they're afraid to go out on the streets. Tariq Aziz's neighbor saying he was a nice man but a bad politician. And on the other side of Baghdad, people calling for Tariq Aziz to be hanged 60 times over, Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you.

The latest on SARS in Canada, where the prime minister spoke out today.

Jason Carroll is in Toronto once again for us. So Jason, a headline.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, three more SARS-related deaths in Ontario. Even so, Canadian health officials are still hoping a travel advisory will be lifted as early as next week, Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you.

And a fascinating story being played out in Cuba tonight.

Lucia Newman is in Havana. Lucia, the headline.

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Aaron. Well, President Fidel Castro has just finished speaking for four hours in a row, trying to convince Cubans and the world that his decision to imprison 75 dissidents and execute three men who hijacked a ferry but who killed no one was really in self-defense and the fault of the United States.

BROWN: Lucia, thank you.

Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming on NEWSNIGHT tonight, we hope to bring you live the first manned space launch since the "Columbia" disaster. A Russian Soyuz rocket is bound for the International Space Station. An American astronaut on board wearing a badge from the "Columbia" mission. Liftoff scheduled just before midnight Eastern time. And we hope you'll be around for that as well.

Also tonight, the story of a Cuban-American and the spy who loved her. Or didn't love her, is more like it. She is getting revenge on the Cuban government as a victim of a sham marriage.

And a remembrance of two lives well lived, the story of a singer and the pastor.

All that to come in the two hours ahead.

We begin with the capture of another Iraqi fugitive. This time, you won't recognize the face, not from smiling television appearances, not from playing cards either. The man who was caught last night at the Syrian border spent much of his career behind the scenes or in the shadows. So not a familiar face, but a very good get.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Farouk Hijazi was Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and then to Tunisia, but before that, he was number three in Iraqi intelligence, chief of espionage operations for Saddam Hussein.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: He is significant. We think he could be interesting.

ENSOR: "Interesting" may be an understatement. There is evidence, U.S. officials say, that Hijazi traveled to Afghanistan in 1998, and may have met there with Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. There were also unconfirmed reports he may have met bin Laden in Sudan in the early '90s. JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: It's a big catch, and this man was involved, we know, in a number of contacts with al Qaeda. So this would be a very, very interesting development, the biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've gotten.

ENSOR: In the unsuccessful plot to kill former President George Bush, the 41st president, during a visit to Kuwait in 1993, Farouk Hijazi is a suspect. In fact, U.S. officials say, he may have directed the operation.

Hijazi will also know, officials say, whether the Iraqi embassies in Ankara and Tunis, where he served, were used by Iraqi intelligence as bases for operations to, for example, obtain items needed to construct weapons of mass destruction.

Hijazi was taken into U.S. custody Thursday in Iraq near the Syrian border, after U.S. officials had complained to Damascus that they knew he'd flown there from Tunis, and was being sheltered by the Syrians. Apparently, Syria got the message.

U.S. officials are also pleased to be talking with Tariq Aziz, the regime's deputy prime minister, who turned himself in Baghdad Thursday. They are hoping he might know where other senior officials may be, and whether Saddam Hussein survived the air strikes.

RUMSFELD: He clearly is a very senior person, and was in that regime. And we intend to discuss with him whatever it is he is willing to discuss with us.

ENSOR: Rumsfeld said he does not favor sending Iraqi prisoners to Guantanamo, where al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners already are.

(on camera): Will captured senior Iraqis being treated as prisoners of war with rights under the Geneva Convention? Or will some of them possibly be treated as war criminals? Rumsfeld said that is still being worked out by U.S. lawyers. But he did make clear that people like Aziz and Hijazi are being asked for much more than name, rank, and serial number.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So we go to Baghdad next, and how people there view Tariq Aziz, who's now in American custody, as David mentioned. As you might imagine, feelings run the gamut. We've chosen two perspective, one public and one family.

Here again, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Tariq Aziz' son, Zyab (ph), looks worried. He's willing to talk with us, but not be interviewed. As he explains how his father negotiated his surrender to U.S. forces, he plays with his son, Tariq Jr. He says his father's nighttime handover was dignified, that U.S. forces offered medical support for his father's heart condition that has caused two heart attacks recently.

They don't know when to expect him back, and have been told he faces lots of questions.

Outside, U.S. troops provide occasional protection. Nearby, Siyadh (ph), a neighbor, hopes all will be well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Americans should follow the rules. And I think there is a law which protect this process.

ROBERTSON: Saleh (ph), also a neighbor, comes to our car to give his opinion. "He was a normal person," he says, "a good neighbor, but a bad politician."

At their nearby store, Talal (ph) and Yahi (ph) prepare to open for their first day's business since the war.

"Aziz was a politician," says Talal. "It's Saddam and the others Americans have problems with."

"Maybe he gives us information about the missing people," says Yahi, "and perhaps Saddam Hussein."

Further down the road, Yusef (ph) and Mufan (ph) wait for a ride. Neither have anything bad to say about Aziz. "We call him Mr. Aziz, and I'm proud of him," says Mufan, a former traffic cop. "He was cultured, and I wish someone like him rules us." His friend Yusef adds, "If all the leaders stayed in Baghdad, then the Americans will catch them."

Across town, in a less-affluent neighborhood, reactions to a Aziz's arrest are profoundly different. "I didn't hear about it," explains Jassim (ph), the egg seller, "because we didn't have electricity."

When we explained the news to the crowd, Hisham (ph), a bystander, steps forward. "America is playing a trick on us," he says. "Where is our government and our security?"

At the pickle store, passions are inflamed by the lack of services. "Aziz is a war criminal," says Ahmed. "He should get the death penalty, just like Saddam, 60 times over."

"We give Mr. Bush six months to get things right," says Abbas, going on to explain, "If not, we will fight the Americans."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: The biggest problem, the biggest problem that Tariq Aziz's family say they now face, now that Mr. Aziz is safely in U.S. hands, is, are they safe to go out on the streets, Aaron?

BROWN: Well, are they safe to go out on the streets, do you think? Are any of these -- the family members of these former Ba'ath Party officials safe out there?

ROBERTSON: I think if people knew who they were and the houses that they'd come from, they'd chase them down and loot their houses. That would certainly be the opinion of a lot of people in Baghdad. Perhaps in that particular neighborhood, the Aziz family, where they lived, would get a little more respect. But there are certainly a lot of people out there who would not want to see them prosper in this new situation, Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson in Baghdad, early on a Saturday morning there.

Talk a little bit more about what the United States government might get from all of these gets, and also what it says about Syrian cooperation. Number of other things as well. It's Friday night. We are joined in Washington by CNN analyst and Brookings fellow Ken Pollack.

Ken, good to have you with us.

Of the two, Aziz and Hijazi, one is clearly more important, or at least has more interesting information than the other, right?

KENNETH POLLACK, DIRECTOR, SABAN CENTER, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Absolutely. And I think for most American viewers, they'll be surprised to hear that the one who is much more interesting is, in fact, Farouk Hijazi. That's not to say that Tariq Aziz is unimportant. He is important, in his own way.

There are certainly things that Tariq Aziz will know about. He will know about Iraq's diplomatic dealings. He may know about some under-the-table Iraqi dealings with foreign governments and financial resources that they have out there. He may also know something about the Iraqi government.

But in truth, Tariq Aziz, while an important politician in Iraq and a longtime member of the Ba'ath Party, was not part of the innermost circle of Saddam's advisers. He was not somebody who was terribly important in the formulation of Iraqi policy. And it's just unclear if he has the kind of information that we're looking for, about weapons of mass destruction and other things.

BROWN: Now, on that last point, on weapons of mass destruction, is Hijazi likely to know anything about that? Or is his value in other areas, where Iraqi agents might be, what those agents are up to, al Qaeda, and the rest?

POLLACK: Yes. Hijazi may know something about weapons of mass destruction. And obviously U.S. and British interrogators are going to try on to find out what, if anything, he does know.

But in truth, Aaron, you're really getting at the key issue for Hijazi, which is, he brings a tremendous amount of knowledge about Iraq's dealings with the outside world in terms of intelligence operations, Iraq's involvement in terrorism, its involvement with al Qaeda, to the extent there is such an involvement, its operations worldwide against the United States, against other countries, its involvement with other government intelligence agencies. Did Iraq have liaison relationships with other intelligence services?

Beyond that, he probably will have a very good understanding of the procurement network that Iraq used overseas to smuggle goods into Iraq, other financial dealings, where Iraq is hiding its money. Hijazi also probably knows quite a bit about where the bodies are buried, perhaps even literally, inside Iraq, because the Mukhabarat, Iraq's premier intelligence service, of which he was the number three man, also had a very important internal security role.

BROWN: The -- neither of these guys, and none of those taken so far, are, you know, 19-year-old Taliban fighters or al Qaeda fighters. They are reasonably sophisticated people. Do you expect what's going on here is a negotiation?

POLLACK: Well, I think that in the case of Tariq Aziz, yes, that was clearly the case, that they negotiated his surrender. And I think what's important about Tariq Aziz is that he was clearly hiding in Baghdad, which suggests that other key leaders, maybe even Saddam Hussein and his sons, may also be in Baghdad.

But he also recognized, he had no place to go. The Americans were closing in on him, and the best thing that he could do was to negotiate the terms of his surrender, rather than letting U.S. special forces bust in on his sister's home in the middle of the night.

BROWN: But at this point -- I understand the negotiation that led to his surrender -- are they -- I guess what I want to know is, is this bright lights and sleep deprivation that's going on, or is this a sort of sophisticated negotiation, where Aziz or Hijazi or any of these other people will say, Look, here's what I know, and I will tell you this, but I want to be let go, or I want free passage somewhere? Do you have any sense of how you deal with people at this level?

POLLACK: Well, certainly, Aaron, they're going to come in with that latter approach. This is exactly what they're looking for. They want a deal, and they will probably agree to provide some level of information in return for some level of service and guarantees from the United States, on the other hand.

My guess is, and obviously I'm not part of the decision-making process on this, and the Bush administration might decide to do otherwise, but my guess is that the United States is going to be very reluctant to agree to any of those deals. And instead, they will begin a prolonged process of interrogation rather than trying to cut a deal with any of these guys, who may very well become war criminals.

BROWN: Are they -- do they have any protection under the Geneva Convention?

POLLACK: That's an issue which I am absolutely unqualified to talk to, Aaron, because this is going to be a legal issue. You've heard the administration say that they've not yet determined what their status is going to be. So I think we have to wait for the administration to make a ruling on that.

BROWN: Ken, thank you, as always. Ken Pollack, who helps us understand these Iraqi issues every week, and sometimes more.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, SARS just across the border. We will have the latest from Toronto, where officials are dealing not just with the disease, but also with the World Health Organization warning about travel to Toronto.

And we'll talk with one of the Canadian officials dealing with the crisis, Dr. Paul Gully of Health Canada.

We'll take a break first. Then NEWSNIGHT continues on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: An early wire service report on Fidel Castro's speech. The Cuban people tonight gave details of the first hour and a half of it. That was just after 6:00 p.m. The speech ran four hours, a good portion of it a rant of outside agitators, namely, the United States.

It comes in the middle of an especially bloody crackdown on dissent in Cuba.

CNN's Lucia Newman was covering the speech and the crackdown, and she joins us once again from Havana -- Lucia.

NEWMAN: Good evening, Aaron.

Well, as you know, for the past 43 years, President Castro has been pointing the finger at Washington, blaming it for most of the things that go wrong in this country. Well, tonight, he went the extra mile. As you also know, both Cubans and most of the world were shocked when the government here announced the execution of three men who had hijacked a passenger ferry in Havana Bay, but who had not killed anyone.

Now, Mr. Castro says that this was all done in self-defense to thwart a U.S. conspiracy aimed at somehow provoking an immigration crisis, a flood of illegal immigration and hijackings to the United States that would, in turn, be seen by Washington as a national security issue, and, therefore, would be -- that would justify an invasion or some kind of military action against Cuba.

Now, Aaron, a lot of people here aren't buying that argument. They are saying that it's precisely the executions, and particularly the imprisonment of 75 dissidents, that could provoke a backlash. The Cuban government calls these dissidents, of course, mercenaries in the pay of the United States.

But outside of Cuba, and many people here, in fact, see them as prisoners of conscience, people who now are being sent, in many cases, to the other side of Cuba to pull out their sentences.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NEWMAN (voice-over): The wives of two Cuban dissidents go to the nearest interstate bus agency to see if they can reserve a bus seat to go visit their husbands, who've just been sentenced up to 25 years in prison.

They're told to try again tomorrow. The wives are outraged. Their husbands have now been transferred to high-security prisoners in other provinces, some as far away as Guantanamo, 1,000 kilometers, or 600 miles, away from Havana, or Siego de Avila (ph), only a little closer.

"I'm furious," says Blanca Reyes (ph), wife of dissident journalist Raul Rivero (ph). "This is their way of punishing us, the wives, for speaking out. But if that's our punishment, so be it. I'll walk to Siego de Avila if I have to, but I will take Raul his food."

In Cuba, prison conditions are appalling at best, and prisoners depend on food and personal hygiene products brought by relatives on visiting day.

Human rights activists say the fact that most of the 75 recently sentenced dissidents are being exiled to prisons in remote provinces inflicts an additional punishment.

"There are prisons in Havana they could have been sent to," says Gisella Delgado (ph). "But what they're doing is punishing the family too, sentencing us."

U.S. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin wrapped a center of Havana Thursday, saying he told Cuban officials everyone in Washington condemns the dissident crackdown. But...

SEN. TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: It is clear to me that the best course of action now is moderation, not escalation, engagement, and not isolation.

NEWMAN: So far, all pleas for the dissidents to be released are falling on deaf ears.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NEWMAN: Now, Cuban officials are saying that the five Cuban spies that were sentenced to up to two life sentences in U.S. prisons and were being kept in solitary confinement are suffering a far worse fate than the dissidents here. Human rights advocates, though, say that that's irrelevant, that an injustice is an injustice wherever it occurs, Aaron.

BROWN: Lucia, thank you. Lucia Newman, who's in Havana tonight.

The story of a -- of Cuban dissent is one of terror lately, but over the years, also stories of romance, intrigue, and betrayal.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Catherine Mitchell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHERINE MITCHELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This little yellow Cuban biplane opened a diplomatic Pandora's box when it touched down at the Key West airport last November. Rather than return the plane and its eight fleeing passengers, as Cuba insisted, the defectors were granted asylum, and the plane was auctioned off to a very unlikely buyer.

ANA MARGARITA MARTINEZ: No, really I would like to fly it at least once.

MITCHELL: Ana Margarita Martinez bought the plane for $7,000, using the credit from a $27 million judgment she won against Cuba for her sham marriage to Juan Pablo Roque, the man she thought was Mr. Right, but who turned out to be a Cuban spy.

Since acquiring the plane, Martinez has laid claim to two more Cuban planes, both hijacked from Cuba within weeks of each other.

MARTINEZ: This one was taken in November.

MITCHELL: Martinez's story began in 1992, when she met her former husband in Miami just after his supposed defection from Cuba.

MARTINEZ: I met him at church, ironically, on a Sunday morning.

MITCHELL: Roque courted the twice-divorced mother of two persistently for three years and married her in 1995, on, of all days, April Fools' Day.

MARTINEZ: We gave him the appearance that he was here to stay, that he was a family man, that he was not a spy on a mission. So we were a good cover.

MITCHELL: Under this ruse, Roque became a fixture in the Cuban exile community. An outspoken opponent of Castro, he began flying with the Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group that helps defectors navigate the waters between Cuba and Miami.

Then, in 1996, the fairy tale came to an abrupt end. Roque left town for a supposed business trip. The following day, two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by Cuban MiGs, killing four pilots. Roque was conspicuously missing.

MARTINEZ: The FBI was at my house. They searched. They took all kinds of things. And then suddenly, I -- you know, I was told by one of the reporters that was outside, and he said, Turn on CNN. And when I do that, I see Juan Pablo walking down from an Aquana la Aliacion (ph) airplane in Havana.

MITCHELL: Roque announced on television that he was a Cuban spy and denounced Brothers to the Rescue as a terrorist organization, part of an alleged plot by the Castro regime to infiltrate the group, a claim he would later deny in an interview with CNN's Lucia Newman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, February 28, 1996) NEWMAN: I would like to ask you very bluntly, were you a spy for the Cuban government?

JUAN PABLO ROQUE (through translator): Yes, I left Cuba. I am no state security agent. Whoever says that, should stop that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MITCHELL: Roque was indicted in absentia for being part of a Cuban spy ring.

MARTINEZ: I trusted this man 100 percent, and the rug was pulled up from under my feet.

MITCHELL: It took Martinez years of therapy, but her life began to turn around when she met attorney Fernando Zulueta in 1999.

FERNANDO ZULUETA, ATTORNEY, LEEDS COLBY PARIS: I decided to bring a case of rape against the Cuban government. The reason was that Juan Pablo Roque, the spy, while, deceived Ana into marrying him, and into having marital relations with him. Under Florida law, that's rape.

MITCHELL: Martinez made her claim to the three Cuban planes using that $27 million judgment. Under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, people with judgments against a designated terrorist party may move to keep blocked assets, an action that both the Cuban government and the U.S. State Department take issue with.

Martinez, however, is not easily deterred.

MARTINEZ: You know, I'm hoping that they send some MiGs my way, so I can take them too. That would be fun.

MITCHELL: Catherine Mitchell, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: OK. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, SARS across the border. We will have the latest from Toronto, where officials are dealing not just with the disease, but the World Health Organization warning about travel there. We will talk with a top Canadian health official as well.

We'll take a break first. Our coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: And still to come on NEWSNIGHT: SARS in Canada. We'll look at what the government's doing to fight the disease and to fight the fear.

A short break first and then we're right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: These are strange times when, saying you'll visit a town and stay in a hotel, it sounds like some sort of act of bravery. But Canada's prime minister says he will visit Toronto next week, and it isn't about bravery. He wants to show that SARS is not really a threat to travelers or prime ministers, no matter what World Health Organization says.

With more from Toronto tonight, CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new development in Canada's battle against SARS, three more people died, bringing the total number of SARS deaths in Ontario to 19. But there was encouraging news as well. Canadian health officials say the number of hospital patients has gone down by 30 this past week. And after participating in a conference call with the World Health Organization, Ontario's health minister said he's hopeful that the WHO might lift the travel advisory soon.

DR. COLIN D'CUNHA, ONTARIO COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC HEALTH: It was my understanding when I left the call that a new risk assessment incorporating all the current data is to be presented to senior management and the director general on Tuesday. And I can assume that some sort of review will be made and the data will speak for itself.

CARROLL: The WHO says it constantly examines the latest data. To date, more than 650 people in Ontario have been quarantined, SARS having not only a medical impact on Canada, but also an economic one.

KYLE RAE, TORONTO CITY COUNCIL: People are reading newspapers overstating what's happening in Toronto and they're not going out to the theaters, not going out to the restaurants.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're working so hard and they've contained this. And the numbers are going down, even though they were never that bad compared to other diseases. And I hope people will come and visit in Toronto, because it's a beautiful place and it's a safe place.

CARROLL: Hotel occupancy is down. Conventions continue to be canceled. The Canadian prime minister talked about what he would do to try to restore confidence.

JEAN CHRETIEN, CANDIDATE PRIME MINISTER: To demonstrate, in a very public way, our commitment to the people of Toronto, I am announcing today that the Cabinet will meet on Tuesday in Toronto instead of Ottawa.

(APPLAUSE)

CHRETIEN: And I will be staying at a Toronto hotel on Monday night and I will sleep very, very, very well.

(LAUGHTER) CARROLL: At the first home game since the travel advisory was issued, the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays spoke about how players are reacting.

CARLOS TOSCA, MANAGER, TORONTO BLUE JAYS: We should move forward with business as usual. There's some precautions that we have to take about where we go and keeping our hands clean and that type of stuff.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And attendance at tonight's game was slightly above normal. And perhaps that's somewhat of an encouraging sign.

The real tourism season will begin this summer. And the city of Toronto is embarking on a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to try to win tourists back to the city -- Aaron.

BROWN: You've been in the city now for a little bit longer than a day. When you walk around, is the fear of SARS what people are talking about, or are people talking about the WHO and the fact that the city is safe? Or is it somewhere in between?

CARROLL: It's somewhere in between. They're talking about all of the above.

What you really get a sense of here, Aaron, is the anger among a lot of the people here. You really get the sense that people are angry with the WHO and also, to be quite honest, angry with the media. A number of people that we talked to feel as though this story has been overblown in some ways -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jason, thank you very much -- Jason Carroll in Toronto.

For more on the SARS threat, what's fact, what's fiction, did the World Health Organization go too far with its travel advisory, we're joined from Ottawa tonight by Dr. Paul Gully, a Canadian official helping to lead the fight against SARS.

Doctor Gully, good to have you with us.

What did the WHO miss?

DR. PAUL GULLY, HEALTH CANADA: To be honest, it's a mystery, because they had all the information they needed.

We had a video conference with them today. They had the information that is on our Web site, freely available, which is the most up-to-date information. It seems as, though, for some reason, they've interpreted it in a way which, two or three weeks ago, we probably wouldn't have been too surprised. But now, now that the last case in the community occurred on April 14, it's a real surprise to us.

BROWN: When you talk about the last case in the community, you mean the last time someone was diagnosed with it or the last time someone left the hospital OK? GULLY: No, the last time someone was diagnosed with it was April 14. Since then, we have a few health care workers that are being investigated. And Health could has had some assistance from CDC to do that. But that's in a very close situation in a hospital.

BROWN: Are hospitals safe right now, by the way?

GULLY: Absolutely. And the major hospitals that were affected by this, which were closed -- and that was a dramatic move -- the first one is reopening and I think the second one will be reopening again soon.

BROWN: Do you believe the media has overplayed the story or misunderstood the story and that that has contributed to the WHO decision?

GULLY: I don't believe so.

I think that the media coverage is bound to have been different. Different people have different views about how well we have done. But, in general, I think the media has been good in terms of how it's reported. And, certainly, from the federal government point of view and the provincial point of view, there's been a lot of information out there. No, I don't believe so.

I might say, though, that, in terms of the communication strategy from the World Health Organization, that has been confusing to us, because the messages we're getting back from them have not always been straightforward.

BROWN: Now, you have this conference call today. And there is some sense that WHO's going to look at the data today, perhaps reevaluate the data again. What is it that you want them to focus most on?

GULLY: They have three criteria which they're using. One is the number of cases. And, certainly -- and they're classifying the ones that are still in the hospital -- whether there is local transmission. And we've explained very precisely what's happening in Canada, where they have full reports of what's going on.

The third most sticky point seems to be this issue of exportation of cases. And they list five cases, three to Australia, one to Philadelphia, and one to the Philippines, which our clinicians who looked at those doubt whether they are SARS cases. Even if they are, they happened more than two weeks ago.

So what we want them to do is to take the data very seriously. I have a great regard for my colleagues in WHO. So that's why it's a mystery that they have made that announcement. But they said today that they would look at it again -- we're having another video conference with them on Monday -- they would look at it again. And, hopefully, then they will see things differently on Tuesday.

BROWN: And let's assume for a second, just hypothetically, that they change their minds, they lift the advisory. How is it that people will feel confident that they are doing that on the facts and not under the pressure, political pressure or otherwise, that has been exerted over the last 48 hours or so?

GULLY: Well, the question where -- certainly, I think the pressure that's come from politicians at all levels has been pressure to say, look at the information . Look at what's happening in Toronto. Look at what's happening in Canada. Look at what we have done over the last six weeks. We have been successful -- not political pressure, but to actually look at the facts carefully.

BROWN: Dr. Gully, good to talk to you. Thank you.

GULLY: Thank you.

BROWN: And best of luck.

GULLY: Thanks.

BROWN: We will check back next week, see how it works out. Thank you.

Next on NEWSNIGHT: the anti-French backlash. And has it gone too far when even having a French name can be a negative?

A short break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT: anti-French feeling. Has the country gone overboard? We will talk with "Washington Post" columnist E.J. Dionne after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, the thing about bandwagons is, they are so easy to jump on and so tough to stop. Easier to join the crowd than to say, enough is enough, which is what syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne is trying to do, calling for an end to the French-bashing, not for the sake of the French government, which can probably take care of itself, but because it's become so ugly, politically and otherwise and, in some cases, just plain silly.

Monsieur Dionne joins us tonight from Washington.

Good to have you with us, as it always is.

E.J. DIONNE, "THE WASHINGTON POST": (SPEAKING IN FRENCH), Aaron.

BROWN: Yes. Well, we should say, you have a personal interest in all of this, don't you?

DIONNE: Right.

Well, I grew up in one of those mill towns in Massachusetts, a place called Fall River, where there were a lot of French-Canadians. I had an uncle -- I note in the column that I wrote for today that the Club For Growth has started to use the term Franco-Republican. And I actually had a cousin of my dad's who was actually a Republican candidate on the state ticket in Massachusetts who died a heart attack giving a political speech.

So he was a Franco-Republican who gave his life for his party. So, yes, it is personal for me.

BROWN: What's the big deal if we call them freedom fries and freedom toast and anything else? What's the problem here?

DIONNE: Well, some of it's silly. I had a friend who called me up and said: From now on, will you call yourself a freedom Canadian?

(LAUGHTER)

DIONNE: But I was struck when a Bush adviser was quoted in "The New York Times" saying of John Kerry, "He looks French."

Now, imagine any other ethnic group in that slot where the word French is, he looks something else, and there would an outcry against bigotry. It's one thing to have a fight with President Chirac of France and say we don't like French foreign policy. That's a perfectly legitimate thing to do. But what's starting to happen is that using French as an epithet, it's not guilt by association. It's guilt of being French by association.

The Club For Growth's ad against Senators Snowe and Voinovich begins by saying, President Bush fought for freedom. The French didn't go along with him. Now these two senators are standing up to Bush on the tax cut. And there's this French flag flying next to them. And so, suddenly, if you call somebody French, it's almost like calling somebody an ally of the Soviet Union back in the 1940s or '50s.

BROWN: There were pretty harsh ads, but politics, as played these days, is a pretty tough business.

DIONNE: Well, I agree politics is tough. And these are surely not the only negative ads we've ever seen.

But I think, when you get into the business of challenging somebody's patriotism because they oppose a president on a particular policy, that doesn't look American to me. It's very dangerous to do that. People can -- I mean, what distinguishes us from Iraq is that you can disagree with the leader of the country and still support the country and still be considered American.

And then when you sort of freight that with this extra little bit of ethnic prejudice, I think it becomes particularly explosive. Sometimes, it's just silly. But I think, taken all together, it becomes dangerous when you say people are not loyal to the United States.

BROWN: I guess -- I'm sure we have both gotten mail like this. I think everybody who does this sort of work ultimately gets mail like this. In the post-9/11 period, the term unpatriotic is thrown around pretty easily these days, and for sometimes almost nothing. Opposing a tax cut can hardly be seen as unpatriotic.

DIONNE: Right.

And this ad is clever, because it doesn't specifically say that they are unpatriotic. It just says, President Bush courageously led the forces of freedom and some so-called allies like France got in way. Now, the ad says, he's proposed bold job-creating tax cuts, but some so-called Republicans get in the way.

Again, it's not a direct accusation, but you sure can't miss the point. And I think that, in a democracy, you just have to be very careful to preserve the freedom to dissent, including on war. I mean, Abraham Lincoln opposed the Mexican War back in the 1840s and we sure look at him as a patriot.

BROWN: Well, we are both old enough. We went through Vietnam and we saw the same thing in Vietnam. And in the post-9/11 period, we see it again. So it's not that it's surprising to me -- I'll answer my own question here -- it's just that it's troubling.

DIONNE: Right.

And why should it trouble us? It should trouble us partly because there are a lot of double standards in play here. Back when President Clinton sent troops into action over in Kosovo, the bombing of Kosovo, a lot of Republicans, Tom DeLay and others, were very, very, very critical of President Clinton. They had the right to be critical, because we're a democracy.

I think it's inappropriate for them to turn around later and say, well, it's perfectly patriotic to question one president's foreign policy, but it's unpatriotic to question another president's foreign policy. If that isn't a double standard, I don't know what is a double standard.

BROWN: Consistency in politics, we will talk about that next time.

DIONNE: Yes, it's a long discussion.

BROWN: If we ever again have a French-Canadian on the program, I don't know. We will have to see

DIONNE: If you don't get a boycott against you. Thanks a lot, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Dionne, very much, Monsieur.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT: notable lives, the passing of singer Nina Simone and pastor Eric Butterworth and their connections.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We are firm believers here that, if you want to read something uplifting, something life-affirming, go right to the obituary page. It may sound strange, but it's not. The obits are not about death. They're about life in all its complexity and joy, sometimes pain. This week, we saw all of that: one page, two amazing lives, the singer and the pastor.

Here's CNN's Michael Schulder.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL SCHULDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They found their final resting place side by side on the obituary page this week, a singer and a pastor with nothing in common, except the needs of their audience.

NINA SIMONE, MUSICIAN (singing): If I should lose you, the stars would fall from the sky.

SCHULDER: Her name was Nina Simone. And she dreamed of being a classical concert pianist. When she got one of her first jobs at a bar in Atlantic City, the manager told her: We don't need a pianist. We need a singer. And so she sang.

SIMONE (singing): Don't let them handle me with his hot hands.

SCHULDER: Nina Simone was not just about romantic ballads. She had a lot of anger inside her, rooted partly in her early observations of segregation in the South.

SIMONE (singing): You don't have to live next to me. Just give me my equality, because everybody knows everybody knows about Mississippi goddam, Mississippi goddam.

SCHULDER: Simone seemed to channel some of that anger into songs about love that disappoints.

SIMONE (singing): Stick to the promise, man, that you made me, that you'd stay away from Rosalie.

SCHULDER: You could not ask for a more different tone than the one struck by the Unity Church and the church's man in New York, Eric Butterworth.

ERIC BUTTERWORTH, PASTOR: This is Eric Butterworth. You can change your life by owning your thoughts.

SCHULDER: Reverend Butterworth's pulpit was New York's Lincoln Center, where several thousand people from all walks of life, including a Nina Simone fan or two, would flock every Sunday to hear his message of the power of positive thinking.

BUTTERWORTH: If someone comes into the office in the morning singing a happy song, with a smiling face, he's looked at with almost suspicion. And people say, what's the matter with him? What does he have to be so happy about?

But you see, you don't have to have something to be happy about. You can be happy at any time you want if you simply want to be happy, for the joy potential is a vital and supportive force within you and is, as Emerson says, the continuation of the divine effort that made you in the first place.

SCHULDER: Nina Simone, who was buried today in her adopted country of France, rarely sang about happiness.

"I feel what my audience feel," she once said, "and people who listen to me know that. And it makes them feel like they are not alone." Nina Simone and Eric Butterworth, a voice that provided comfort and a voice that offered hope.

SIMONE (singing): If I lost you.

SCHULDER: Michael Schulder, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's the first hour of NEWSNIGHT, another one to go one last time, including an exciting day in San Diego for Navy families who haven't seen their sailors in nine months and the first manned space launch since the Columbia tragedy. We'll go to Kazakhstan for the story -- that and more after a break, a check of the headlines.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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