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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Iraqi Protesters Killed in Fallujah; New Political Parties Emerge From Basra; Mercy Corps En Route to Iraq to Provide Aid to Iraqis; Interviews with John Burns, Steven Brill, Margret Larson, Martin Indyx

Aired April 30, 2003 - 22:00   ET

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

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


AARON BROWN, HOST: And good evening again, everyone.
Word came today that President Bush tomorrow will formally declare the end of combat in Iraq. Not expected to say the war has been won, partly because Iraq is still a very dangerous place. We would add it may be many years before we can say the war has been won, if winning means a real government, not hand-picked, real elections with real political parties.

But tonight's we'll show you the beginning of both. A few baby steps in Iraq on the road to democracy.

But we begin "The Whip" at the white house with the road to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Senior White House correspondent John King with us tonight. John, a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, tomorrow, the president will say the challenge in Iraq is to win the peace. Today, his focus was on setting the Israelis and the Palestinians on a path of peace. Trust me. Here at the White House, they view the two issues as closely connected and a chance for this president to reshape the politics of the Middle East -- Aaron.

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

On to Baghdad now and a visit from the defense secretary. If this wasn't officially a victory lap, well, it had the look of one.

Nic Robertson there for us. Nic, a headline.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was a trip of two parts. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld congratulating the troops. He also made a taped radio and television address to the Iraqi people telling them they would run the country, that the United States would take care of their security. However, for most people in Baghdad, it seemed the best way to see Donald Rumsfeld was via international news services on satellite television -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. Back home now. Ft. Stewart, Georgia. Sad news there. Memorial service for some killed in Iraq.

Brian Cabell for us. Brian, a headline.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, during the war, we heard a lot about the 3rd Infantry Division, about its fighting, about its dead, about its wounded. Well, today here at their home at Ft. Stewart, soldiers and families gathered to say goodbye to the dead, 34 of them -- Aaron.

BROWN: Brian, thank you.

And among the most intriguing stories in the week, the latest now on a little boy missing for more than two years and the hope that he's been found. Hope.

Jeff Flock in Chicago tonight. Jeff, a headline.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, the headline is that hope may be fading a bit tonight. What a first appeared to be perhaps a miracle and to one sad case, may, in fact -- may turn out to be a second sad case. We'll tell you why.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeff. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, a big get. Not in Iraq, but in the war on terror. We'll have more on arrest in Pakistan of a top al Qaeda operative.

And a visit to the White House today for Elizabeth Smart to mark the signing of something her father fought so hard for, a nationwide Amber Alert system. That and much more in the 90 minutes ahead.

We begin with a roadmap. In short, a step-by-step recipe for Israeli security and Palestinian statehood all by the year 2005. We've seen already that getting through just the early days, let alone the next two years, won't be easy. The roadmap comes with a firm commitment from the Bush administration, but the world, Europe, and the Middle East particularly, will look for deeds and not just words from the White House.

Still, after 2,700 casualties, two ruined economies, one new government and a war in Iraq, the hope is the region is ripe for change.

Here is our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president says there is a lesson from the Iraq war that should help him enforce the new roadmap for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those who harbor terrorists, fund terrorists, or harbor weapons of mass destruction will be held to account. That in itself helps create the conditions to move peace forward.

KING: That was a blunt message to Syria and Iran, long accused by the White House of backing Palestinian militants. The roadmap was delivered only after Mahmoud Abbas was confirmed as the new Palestinian prime minister. Mr. Bush never tried to hide his contempt for Yasser Arafat and says in Abbas there is finally a Palestinian leader he can trust.

BUSH: He's a man I can work with and I look forward to working with him and will work with him for the sake of peace and for the sake of security.

KING: The roadmap envisions a provisional Palestinian state by early next year and a final agreement creating an independent Palestine by 2005. But to achieve that historic ending, the Israelis and Palestinians would need to set aside decades of violence and mistrust and meet the roadmap's key interim benchmarks: an immediate ceasefire, a crackdown on Hamas and other Palestinian militias, a dismantling of Jewish settlements created since February 2001 and direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

BUSH: Israel is going to have to make some sacrifices in order to move the peace process forward.

KING: The administration's effort to enforce the roadmap is likely to require frequent shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Powell, hours of personal diplomacy by the president and direct pressure on Israel to halt settlement activities.

GEORGE MITCHELL, FMR. U.S. SENATOR, FMR. MIDDLE EAST ENVOY: There's no way that this can be done without active and sustained American leadership at the highest level and I think a great deal of patience and perseverance because there are going to be setback.

KING: The effort begins with a Powell trip to the region next week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now the president is promising to prove wrong those who question his commitment and Mr. Bush is telling aides that combined with the post war effort in Iraq, his administration has a historic opportunity to reshape the politics and the direction of the Middle East -- Aaron.

BROWN: We are on the edge of a campaign year and Israeli politics in the United States is always a complicated political issue. So even in a campaign year the president tends to dive into this.

KING: He says he will and he says he is prepared to pressure Israel and the White House says it is receiving word both in public and private from the Sharon government that the prime minister is willing to give the new Palestinian prime minister a chance.

But that, of course, is the big question down the road. Everyone knows there will be a problem, whether it is tomorrow or next week or next month, whether it be Yasser Arafat undermining Mahmoud Abbas or Ariel Sharon not having the support in his very conservative coalition to pull back the settlements. The problem will come. There are many skeptics who believe Mr. Bush at that point will not apply the muscle necessary. He insisted today he will.

BROWN: Well, the world will wait, as we said earlier, for deeds, not just words and we'll see how it plays out. It's a fascinating moment.

John, thank you. John King at the White House.

It did not take long for Hamas to reject the roadmap today. The group promised more acts of terror, taking responsibility for the bombing in Tel Aviv last night.

It also didn't take long for another Palestinian to die, a 55- year-old woman shot and killed by an Israeli soldier as she herded sheep in Gaza not far from an Israeli settlement. Nobody said this was going to be easy.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Presentations, diplomats hope, will be about more than symbolism. The newly sworn-in Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, receives a copy of the internationally backed peace plan called the roadmap.

Ninety minutes earlier, the U.S. ambassador to Israel drives to Prime Minister Sharon's Jerusalem residence to give him his copy.

The goal of the three-year, three-phase plan is a democratic Palestinian state by 2005 and a guarantee of Israel's security.

Getting there won't be easy. Both sides must take steps they have long resisted and are already expressing different interpretations about what should happen next. The Palestinians say the roadmap should be implemented immediately without any changes.

NABIL SHA'ATH, PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: The road map cannot succeed unless people see that as we are implementing Israel is also implementing.

WALLACE: But Israelis say they want to see more than a dozen changes made and say there should be an end to Palestinian terror attacks before any other steps are taken.

GIDEON MEIR, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: There's a sequence in the roadmap and the sequence is calling first and foremost a stop to terror.

WALLACE: Attacks such as the early morning suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv cafe which left three innocent civilians dead. Two radical Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility.

A leader of one of those groups, the military wing of Hamas, said Wednesday that Hamas rejects the roadmap and will not disarm.

(on camera): So many observers say the biggest challenge facing Abbas is whether he can rein in these radical Palestinian groups and the biggest challenge facing Israel, whether it will pull out of Palestinian towns and free settlements. The answers will determine if this roadmap ultimately can map a road to peace.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll have more on the roadmap a little bit later in this hour.

But, first, other news of the day. Another big catch in the war on terrorism. Police in Pakistan have arrested six suspected members of al Qaeda. One of them, a man with connections to 9/11, it is said, as well as the bombing of the USS Cole and possibly to acts of terrorism still in the planning stages.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was the mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and U.S. officials are calling "extremely significant" the capture on Tuesday by Pakistani authorities of Whalid ba Attash, also known as Kahlad (ph) or Toufik (ph)

BUSH: He's a killer. He was one of the top al Qaeda operatives. He was right below Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on the organizational chart of al Qaeda. He is one less person that people who love freedom have to worry about.

ENSOR: Attash was Osama bin Laden's chief bodyguard for some years, a trusted lieutenant who lost one foot during fighting in Afghanistan. Like bin Laden, he is a Saudi national of Yemeni origin.

MATT LEVITT, FORMER FBI TERRORISM ANALYST: The odds are that Toufik al Attash (ph) at any given time was planning at least one attack. So his capture is significant not only in terms of grilling him about his past activities, but grilling him about current activities and his current contacts.

ENSOR: Along with five other suspected al Qaeda members, Attash was captured in the teaming city of Karachi, the same place another al Qaeda leader, Ramzi Binalsheibh was caught after a gun battle. Two former al Qaeda operations chiefs, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaida, were also captured in Pakistani cities. And U.S. officials say most of al Qaeda's remaining leadership may well be in Pakistani cities, to. Though the top two leaders, bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, are believed to be in the remote area of the Pakistani- Afghan border.

Attash also met with two of the 9/11 hijackers in Malaysia in January of 2000. And Officials say he was the intermediary between them and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind.

The State Department released an annual report minutes after the news of the capture broke on CNN. A report showing a 44 percent drop in terrorist attacks in 2002.

COFER BLACK, COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM: A large number of terrorist suspects were not able to launch an attack last year because they are in prison. More than 3,000 of them are al Qaeda terrorists and they were arrested over 100 countries.

ENSOR (on camera): U.S. officials say there's evidence Attash was planning additional attacks, possibly a attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi. He and the others were captured along with a quantity of explosives and weapons.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: An Arab language newspaper in London today ran a letter today says it was written by Saddam Hussein, dated on Monday, Saddam's birthday. The letter urges Iraqis to rise up against the occupation. Reporters who know Saddam's handwriting says it does not look familiar, but the paper says that sources close to Saddam confirm its authenticity.

American officials tonight say they have their doubts. But if true, think about this. There's at least an outside chance, perhaps way outside, that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld might have run into Saddam during his victory tour of Baghdad today. It didn't happen. Mr. Rumsfeld spent very little time on the streets and spoke to very few people not wearing American uniforms. From Baghdad tonight, here's CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I think it's a complicated question.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): The best way for Iraqis to see Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad: on TV. Satellite TV, once banned by Saddam Hussein, now big business.

Store owner Hussan (ph): "We don't like occupation," he says, "but every honorable Iraqi citizen says thank you to Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld."

Although Rumsfeld recorded a message for Iraqis, none we talked to had heard it, most in this store thinking it's smart he didn't deliver it in person.

"He couldn't go out on the street now," says Ahmed (ph). "Maybe in the future, when there's more TV and people get the message about America's intentions."

Rumsfeld's promise of security likely popular though. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are waiting to see what they are going to do for us, and the first thing is the security we need.

ROBERTSON: At fuel stations, where lines are so long, street traders are setting up stands. Patience with Rumsfeld is in shorter supply.

"The greater the delay, the more violence," he says. "We'll start blowing up their tanks ourselves."

Across town in the ruins of Baghdad's telephone exchange, destroyed by coalition missiles, looters continue their scavenging, attitudes toward Rumsfeld more practical.

Outside the nearby stores, also damaged by the same missiles, a sense Rumsfeld is responsible.

"They should rebuild Iraq," says Hassan, "rebuild what they have destroyed, and we are waiting for that."

Storekeeper Ahmed, who used to sell stationary here, agrees, but fears what such involvement may lead to.

"No man occupies another's country," said Ahmed, "without their own interests at heart."

In conversation, however, clear all here believe if the U.S. is serious, a balance between reconstruction and exploitation can be found.

For engineer Jasan (ph) memories of past cooperation still fresh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will not work with the government, any government. I wait for American companies to work with them because they know how to work and they know that people who work it good, they help them.

ROBERTSON: As we talk, the scavenging continues unabated, looters unfazed by our camera, triggering Jassan to remember what's needed most.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I don't feel safe. Not me or for family. Not only me. All of these here.

ROBERTSON (on camera): The last time Donald Rumsfeld came to Baghdad, he met with Saddam Hussein. Possibly little wonder then while people here are hopeful, they're waiting to see what actions follow his words.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Back home today at an Army base in Georgia, there was a reminder of who made the sacrifice. So Jassan could be grateful and Hussan could doubt. And with any luck at all, so we could all, all of us sleep a little safer. Here again is CNN's Brian Cabell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (voice-over): Thirty-four helmet, 23 pairs of boots, 34 dog tags.

That's the toll so far from the 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart. Thirty-four soldiers killed in the fighting in Iraq.

COL. GERALD POLTRAX, FORT STEWART COMMANDER: Throughout the fight, the values of our soldiers and our nation showed brightly. They fought for freedom and showed compassion to the vanquished.

CABELL: The 3rd Division led the charge up the center of Iraq from Kuwait to Baghdad, And that's why the casualties were so high. Almost one-fourth of the American dead came from this division.

And Now, to honor them, 34 trees, Eastern Red Buds, freshly planted, forming what Fort Stewart calls "Warriors Walk." They'll bloom gloriously in the springtime, experts say, appropriate because that's when the men died. Consolation perhaps for the families who come to say goodbye.

And talk to them, the families, and many will tell you they have few regrets about the career choices their soldiers made.

DENISE MARSHALL, WIDOW: I could sit here, you know, stand around all day and question his choice to do what he did. But I respect them for his choice.

CABELL: Was it worth it? Dying on a battlefield in Iraq? For the father of Sergeant Eugene Williams who's still pained by his loss, maybe it was.

ULYSSES WILLIAMS, FATHER: One day, I was watching TV and when I saw them guys jumping up and hollering saying, we free, we free, I knew my son didn't die for nothing.

CABELL: It's the cost of war. Soldiers know that. So do their families. And sometimes there's nothing they can take home with them, except a dog tag and with a loved one's name on it, some cherished memories. Tears that will be slow to dry. And cried for a soldier who did his duty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL: After the ceremony, we talked to the wife of one of the soldiers, the widow. She said she was really happy with these trees because her husband, she says, is buried up in Arlington National Cemetery, she lives down here. She says whenever her daughters get sad or lonely, they can come down here, sit down next to his tree, his plaque and talk with him and be with him -- Aaron.

BROWN: Brian, thank you very much. Brian Cabell at Fort Stewart tonight. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, will the road map for Middle East peace really lead anywhere? We'll talk with former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk ahead about that.

And kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart goes to Washington to witness the signing of the national Amber Alert Bill. That and much more. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Wanting to be a Middle East watcher has to say something about hope in the face of experience. By that measure, Martin Indyk is a world class optimism mist. Former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Currently director at the Laban Center at the Brookings Institute the ambassador joins us tonight from Washington. It's nice to have you with us as always.

Thank you. I'm a worried optimist.

MARTIN INDYX, DIRECTOR OF THE LABAN CENTER AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: You can't do the work that you've done and be a complete optimist.

BROWN: Is this an optimistic moment or is this simply a moment of possibility?

INDYX: Well, I'd say a window of opportunity has opened. And it comes from a combination of factors. The toppling of Saddam Hussein has shifted the balance of moderation in the favor of the United States. The president of the United States wields tremendous influence now in the Arab-Israeli arena. Secondly, I think there's an exhaustion factor on both the Palestinian and Israel side.

The people have had it and the economies on both sides are in dreadful condition. And they would like a way out of it on both sides. And you have a new prime minister on the Palestinian side in Abu Mazen. And his appointment seems to have intrigued the president enough for him to get off his high perch of disengagement, which is where he's been for the last two years, and actually talk quite strongly about he's going to get personally involved. So all of those factors I think create a positive environment.

But you still have the terrorists out there making very clear at the moment of hope yesterday when Abu Mazen was sworn in, this explosion terrorist bombing in downtown Tel Aviv, in the heart of Tel Aviv next to the U.S. Embassy is, I think, a clear signal that the terrorists are not about to give up here. And that is going to be a problem. Secondly, Aaron, there is this question of how the secretary of state is actually going to do this. You know, the road map has been published, promulgated today. The secretary is about to go out on a trip to the Middle East, but he's not going to Israel or the Palestinian areas.

Why, well, they say that because we don't want to be seen to be embracing Abu Mazen too quickly, but he's going out a few days later, supposedly. So it doesn't make a lot of sense. The real reason, I believe, is that Abu Mazen isn't able to see Colin Powell in a situation where Colin Powell isn't going to see Arafat. Arafat has managed to insert himself back in the process center stage, that picture yesterday, I think told it all.

BROWN: Yes.

INDYK: There is a real problem of practical matter how we're actually going to engage with Abu Mazen.

BROWN: Let me try and run a couple of things by you quickly here.

Do you believe there are -- there are in place right now on each side people who have both the power and the willingness to make peace on both sides?

INDYK: I think it's a critical question. The leadership is what counts here in a situation where the environment is more positive than it's been in the past. Each of the leaders, Abu Mazen, Ariel Sharon, George Bush are constrained in one way or another. Abu Mazen by the fact that Arafat is out there determined to undermine him, and doesn't want him to succeed. And by the terrorists are there to thwart him. Ariel Sharon with a right wing coalition and the settlers uptight about things he has said about his willingness to evacuate settlements. And George Bush, of course, heading into an election here and worried about the context in which he might have to pressure both sides, and that could create problems with the Christian right, with Jewish community and Congress.

BROWN: Lets try to get two things done. The president, at least my understanding, the road map originally was that each side would in parallel take steps. The president seemed to indicate that he expected the Palestinian side to make the first significant step, which was to somehow end all of the violence or at least crack down on all of the violence. I don't think anybody actually believes you could end all of the violence, but to make some good faith effort to stop it.

INDYK: Certainly, the president's official statement today, the words he used indicated exactly what you just said, Aaron. That the first thing that has to happen, immediately, an end to the violence and terrorism. That seems to put the onus on the Palestinians. What they've said privately, I understand, to both sides is, look, use the road map as a guide.

Let's not get hung up about the exact steps or the timing of each step. You, Palestinians, have got to move against the terrorists. You the Israelis, have to help Abu Mazen, it's in your interest to see him succeed, after all, he's saying there is no military solution. And the violence has caused great damage to Palestinian cause. So you, the Israelis, should some take steps now. stop the targeted assassinations to relieve the pressure, ease the Israel military presence, take off some of the checkpoints and give them more revenues.

There are steps that both sides can take informally that would help each other. I think that both Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon want to succeed in this process. So there is a chance. But we are going to have to be down there on the ground working with each of them and encouraging them to move forward in this process.

BROWN: Mr. ambassador, good to have you with us again. Come back as we go through these stages and help us keep track of progress and setbacks as we go. And there's bound to be both. Thank you, sir.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, national AMBER alert law, and it is law signed today at the White House with the family of Elizabeth Smart in attendance. That and more as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: And up next on NEWSNIGHT, as we just mentioned: the new Amber Alert law; as well as the continuing mystery of a missing North Carolina boy. Is he the same boy who turned up in Chicago two years later?

That and more as NEWSNIGHT continues around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: After Elizabeth Smart was found earlier this year, it seemed there was only one thing that could take the ear-to-ear grin off her father's face: Bring up the fact that Congress had yet to approve a nationwide Amber Alert system to help find other missing kids. Congress got the message. And, today, Ed Smart attended a Rose Garden ceremony, his smile back and his daughter at his side.

Here is CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Surrounded by families who have gone through the anguish of having a child abducted, President Bush signed a new law expanding the Amber Alert system, aimed at helping find kidnapped children, on hand, Elizabeth Smart in her first national public appearance since being returned to her family last month.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No child should ever have to experience the terror of abduction, or worse. No family should ever have to endure the nightmare of losing a child.

ARENA: Amber Alerts exist in 41 states. They provide information on highway signs and over radio and television when a child goes missing. The system is credited with saving the lives of 64 children. The new legislation provides federal matching grants to states and communities for equipment and training to create a uniform network nationwide.

When it looked like the bill was stalled in Congress, Elizabeth Smart's father, Ed, pleaded for action. ED SMART, FATHER OF ELIZABETH SMART: That it is not something that can wait one more day. Lives are lost, and the blood of those children is on someone's head. And when something can be done, something should be done.

ARENA: Critics say child kidnappings by strangers are not as common as they may seem and that the $25 million going to enhance the Amber Alert system could be put to better use.

BARRY GLASSNER, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: You have many more children who die each year from bicycle accidents, from common accidents in their homes. So why don't we put some money into those kinds of protections, dangers that students and young children face at school, on playgrounds?

ARENA: While the Amber Alert provision has gained the most attention, it is part of a wide-ranging package of child safety laws.

ERNIE ALLEN, NATL. CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN: It enhances penalties for those who abduct or murder children. It provides for extended supervision for convicted sex offenders when they're released from prison. It attacks the whole issue of virtual child pornography.

ARENA (on camera): Under the bill signed by the president, obscene images of children created by computer technology will now be illegal. It is the one provision that is expected to draw fire from free speech advocates.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There's a woman in North Carolina named Donna Myers whose greatest wish is to follow in the footsteps of the Smart family. She knows, as the Smarts do, the terror of losing a child and she wants to know, as the Smarts do now, the joy of finding that child after a long time missing. She will know that joy if a little boy called Eli is her nephew Buddy, gone now for years. But it is tonight a very big if.

Here is CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUESTION: Is he your son?

RICKY QUICK, BUDDY'S ALLEGED STEPFATHER: Yes.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Ricky Quick says this little boy he brought to this hospital outside Chicago in February is his son and his name is Eli. Raven Myers, who has seen pictures of the boy, says she thinks he's her son and his real name is Buddy.

RAVEN MYERS, MOTHER OF BUDDY: I'm really excited. I really hope it's him.

FLOCK: With comparisons of blood, fingerprints and dental records inconclusive, it's apparently going to take a DNA test to sort out whether Eli is Buddy.

Tristen Buddy Myers was 4 when he went missing two years ago from the North Carolina home he shared with his great aunt. Eli Quick was dirty and uncommunicative when the man who says he's his father brought him to the hospital, complaining of his aggressive behavior.

QUESTION: Did she die of an overdose?

QUICK: Yes.

FLOCK: Quick now says Eli was the product of a relationship he had with a Chicago woman who later died of a drug overdose. At least one person in the Northwest Side Chicago neighborhood, where Quick now lives with his mother, says she knew Eli since he was a baby. Though both Quick and Raven Myers apparently lived nearby once in Louisiana, they both say they've never seen each other before.

MYERS: I would remember a face like that.

FLOCK: Myers tells CNN's Gary Tuchman, if Eli does turn out to be Buddy, she will fight her aunt for custody. Though she is a topless dancer currently living in a motel, she says the best place for her son is with her.

R. MYERS: But I will fight for Tristen not to go back into that home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLOCK: So, Aaron, we are left with the question, is Eli Buddy -- is this two sad tragic young lives or perhaps one incredibly sad tragic young life? At this point, the DNA tests are expected perhaps by the end of this week -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is this story getting enormous play in Chicago, by the way?

FLOCK: It's getting a fair bit of attention. I think it's almost getting more in North Carolina, because, of course, that's where the search for Buddy has been centered.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeff -- Jeff Flock in Chicago tonight.

On to other matters: These have to be at least some of the scariest words in the English language: Erin Brockovich is on the line. If you hear those six words, you do know you have got a major league fight on your hands. And the latest to hear those six words are people running the Beverly Hills School District, facing her legal wrath, not for anything they are teaching, but for what's on the grounds of one very, very famous high school.

Reporting for us tonight: CNN's Charles Feldman. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's been called an environmental sleuth, Erin Brockovich, whose battle with an industrial giant made a hit movie that starred Julia Roberts in the title role.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "ERIN BROCKOVICH")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I'm just a guy with a small private firm!

JULIA ROBERTS, ACTRESS: Who happens to know they poisoned people and lied about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FELDMAN: The real-life Brockovich and the lawyer she works for, Ed Masry, are now taking aim at Beverly Hills High. They say the school that helped educate everyone from Richard Dreyfuss to Monica Lewinsky has also given hundreds of its students and faculty cancer.

ERIN BROCKOVICH, MASRY & VITITOE: In the 12 years that I've been with Masry & Vititoe, I've investigated toxic cases, a lot of them. And I'm telling you, we have never had a case -- ever -- where we've had 300 confirmed individuals with cancer. I've never seen it.

FELDMAN: The problem, says Brockovich, is 15 active oil and natural gas wells and some abandoned ones that the school was built around years ago. The wells generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for the city of Beverly Hills and its school district.

Brockovich and her law firm have filed a number of complaints with the city of Beverly Hills on behalf of people like Lori Moss, a 1992 graduate of the school.

LORI MOSS, BEVERLY HILLS HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE: I've had Hodgkin's and I've had thyroid cancer. I'm 28 years old, battled two cancers. I've been robbed of my 20s. It makes me angry.

FELDMAN: On behalf of the alleged victims, Brockovich's firm says it plans to sue the city, the school district and several oil companies. And we spoke with one of them.

MICHAEL EDWARDS, VICE PRESIDENT, VENOCO INC.: But the tests, according to their quality management district, which is charged with policing the air for the public, has shown there's not an air quality problem at the high school.

FELDMAN: But Brockovich charges cover-up, saying tests done by a private firm for the school district show a problem. The problem with that, though, is, the company that did the tests for the district tells CNN it found no cause for health concerns. It did find chemicals like benzine and formaldehyde, but at EPA-acceptable levels.

Both the school district and the city of Beverly Hills say they are viewing the whole thing, but stick by a separate state report that did not give a failing grade to the air at Beverly Hills High.

Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: the view from Baghdad from "New York Times" correspondent John Burns, who there was for the entire run of the war. He joins us in a moment.

We're right back after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with "New York Times" correspondent John Burns about the war in Baghdad -- he covered it for "The Times" -- and the peace there as well.

Quick break first. Right back.

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BROWN: Well, it's safe to say that, when "New York Times" correspondent John Burns first set off to Baghdad, he went in search of stories for his paper and his readers, not stories to tell his grandchildren. He ended up with both, including death threats from the Iraqi authorities and a rare underground perspective on a city at war. John Burns is with us tonight from Baghdad.

It's good to see you.

The last time we talked to you, John, it was very early in the war, before such conversations were no longer allowed by the Iraqi government with CNN. How did conditions change in Baghdad in terms of your ability to do your work as the war started to go progressively more badly for the Iraqis?

JOHN BURNS, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, it was quite predictable that the hard men of the regime would take over in the sphere in which we were operating. We never knew just how hard and how unpleasant those people would be. In my case, fortunately, I never really found out. They came for me. They arrested me. I went on the run. I survived. I'm here to tell the tale.

Reporting was difficult. It was always difficult under Saddam Hussein. The physical conditions were difficult. And it was difficult to get at the truth. Under the war circumstances, one advantage we had was, where we're standing right now was very close to ground zero. We were able to see the hard realities of war firsthand, even if the Iraqi information minister, as I'm sure your viewers know...

BROWN: Yes.

BURNS: ... known to the British tabloids as Comical Ali, standing on this deck, never did see those realities. BROWN: Through the course of the time you were in Iraq, not just the war, but before as well, were you able to report completely everything you knew about the regime?

BURNS: Anybody who told you that he was able to tell everything without restraint would not be telling you the truth. All of us wanted to be here for the war. Nobody wants to come in, have one trip for 10 days and never come back.

On the other hand, I think the parameters, what was possible, were considerably wider than some reporters chose. Some of those people from some parts of the world, the Arab world in particular, I think came never really willing to tell the truth. There was a required truth for them, too. I think people who came from our world had to find their own balance. And we all found it in different places.

I think, retrospectively, there could have been a little bit more forthrightness in this, I have to say that, both in the print and in the broadcast media. The dominant feature of this society for 23 years was fear and terror. I don't think that there was any society on Earth by the spring of this year that compared with it, except possibly North Korea, about which we know very little. I think that too much of the reporting reflected that very little.

BROWN: Do you think -- are you surprised at all at the depths of the terror and the violence of the regime as it has unfolded since the war and people have come forward? Or is it pretty much what you thought it would be?

BURNS: Well, I had a lot of arguments in the preceding months with my colleagues about this, some of whom accused me of overstating the case, particularly after we got into the Abu Ghraib prison in October and saw for ourselves the heart of darkness, the very center of Saddam's gulag. At that time, I said, I think we can be sure of one thing -- and I was projecting somewhat from 30 years of working in unpleasant places -- that whatever truth we can perceive now, the truth we will find come the fall of this regime will be much, much worse.

And so far, I would say that that is an incontrovertible truth. Every day, in our reporting -- and I mean not just "The New York Times," but I think most other major Western media -- we uncover things which are so terrible, so far beyond the imagination, that even to those of us who felt we knew a good deal about this country, it's entirely shocking.

BROWN: A couple more before we let you go.

People in Baghdad that you talk to believe Saddam is alive? Do you believe Saddam is alive?

BURNS: I do. I think Saddam is alive. And my guess is that he's not more than five miles from where I'm standing right now.

BROWN: It's just your instinct or do you have a little more to work with?

BURNS: No. We know there are pockets of Sunni Muslim and Baath Party support in this city. We've got good reason to think that the message that he released on the occasion of his birthday is real.

We know this man is the great survivor, getting away just ahead of the bomb, escaping, just, any number, countless assassination attempts. I think he's alive, but I think the United States forces will get him, because I don't think he'll risk crossing the desert. And I don't think that he's brave enough to stand up and die. I think that he will be found and he will be found alive. Whether the world wants Saddam Hussein in the dock of a war crimes trial like Milosevic is another matter.

BROWN: John, again, I think you did some of the most extraordinary work in the paper. It was really something to read every morning. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you again.

BURNS: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, John Burns of "The New York Times," who was centered in Baghdad through the course of the war, would write the lead story out of Baghdad through the course of the war that would appear not just in "The Times," but in many newspapers around the country.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll look at life after September 11. We'll be joined by author Steven Brill, whose new book looks at how some prominent and not-so-prominent Americans have dealt with what we have come to call the new normal.

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

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BROWN: It was a troubling report. It showed that names on a terror watch list sometimes weren't getting circulated because federal agencies kept separate lists and weren't communicating enough. We wish we could say this report came out in the summer of 2001, one of those overlooked warning signs of what was to come. It came out today, another indication of just how tough it is to try to make the United States safe from terror.

The struggle and the tradeoffs in fighting terror: the focus of a new book by the founder of Court TV and a slew of other things. Steven Brill is the author of "After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era."

It's nice to have you back with us.

STEVEN BRILL, AUTHOR, "AFTER: HOW AMERICA CONFRONTED THE SEPTEMBER 12 ERA": Hi, Aaron.

BROWN: Do reports like that today surprise you, that there are still...

BRILL: Well, not that one.

In fact, on page 10 or 11 of the book, there's a more specific report, which is that there was a watch list that the FBI and the CIA had put together six months before September 11 and sent to the FAA. And they had been having meetings about whose letterhead they were going to distribute this watch list to. And they distributed it the night of September 11. And on that list were two of the hijackers, which hadn't been reported.

But there's all kinds of terrible stuff like that. And what this book is, is, it's really the story of how the country, the bureaucracy, the leaders, the people on the ground unwind themselves from that and I think, ultimately, do a pretty good job, although there are lots of frustrations. There are some really infuriating things in there and there are some hilarious things. But it ends up that this country was a little stronger than I think we thought.

BROWN: Let's go two different shucks. Let's start with people first.

The book has good and -- as all good books should, I think -- good and interesting characters in it, heroes and some who are not quite so successful in their endeavors. Who do you especially like out there? Who, in your view, did great in the post-September 11 period?

BRILL: Well, I'll give you one person.

There's a civil servant, a longtime civil servant, who ends up with the job, by happenstance, of having to supervise the recruitment and training and hiring of all of the 41,000 new inspectors that we now see at the airports. And she just keeps her head down and does the work. The press is saying: They're never going to make their deadlines. They're never going to make their deadlines. Everybody is making fun of this new agency, the Transportation Security Agency.

And you know what? She makes the deadlines. And I think most people in this country would agree that the people that they now see at the checkpoints at the airports are a lot better than what they saw on the morning of September 11. So she is sort of an unsung hero.

But I have a lot of admiration for Tom Ridge, a lot of admiration for the executive director of the ACLU, who pushes back on John Ashcroft. I think I tell a very fair story about John Ashcroft, too.

BROWN: Yes, perhaps not -- well, we'll let people judge for themselves, actually. But I like how -- that the book is drawn around characters and it is drawn around issues.

BRILL: It's the only way to tell a story. It's the only way to tell those issues, is through the eyes of the people who agonized over them, who lived them during that period.

BROWN: Let's talk about just one of many possible issues. I think it was Senator Schumer who said that, in the wake of 9/11, we needed to -- and I think his word was recalibrate the individual liberty national security pendulum, if you will. And that's happened.

BRILL: It's happened for a lot us. It happened in a lot of our institutions.

BROWN: Has it changed the character of the country?

BRILL: I don't think so.

I think one of the conclusions I come to -- and I didn't know I would get there until I got there -- is that the country has remained fundamentally the same, even if it's changed a bit. Even if we've recalibrated, we haven't really changed the scale. We're still looking at the same things. We're changing the balance a little bit. And we have to, because, for the first time in our lives, we're really at jeopardy and we know the jeopardy comes from people who can be living quietly among us and not breaking the law until they attack.

I mean, that's just a reality. And we have to deal with that. And that means that the bedrock of our government, which really used to be -- the notion is, leave people alone. That's what America is about, the government leaves you alone.

BROWN: Right.

BRILL: We have to deal with that balance. It's very tough. And the people in this book agonize over it. They fight over it. And they come to some place in the middle.

BROWN: It's a nice look at how lots of people with big jobs and not-so-big jobs handled the post-9/11 period.

It's nice to see you. Good luck with the book.

BRILL: It's good to see you. Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you, sir -- Steven Brill with us.

In our next half-hour here on NEWSNIGHT, we'll go back to the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where tensions continue to run high after another shooting incident involving U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians; and to Beijing, too, where even more drastic measures are being taken to stop the spread of SARS -- all that and more.

We'll take a break, then the latest headlines, too.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

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(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: And we begin the hour with another dust up in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. Again, townspeople clashed with American soldiers. Again, townspeople died.

And again, the troops and the townspeople told two entirely different stories, but one soldier, you'll hear from him in a moment, had this to say about the general climate. "I don't know if you noticed it," he says, "but there are guns everywhere around here.

Here's CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iraqi protesters, American armor, beaten back by taunts and sandals thrown by the crowd. On the streets of Fallujah the death toll keeps rising, 17 civilians killed in clashes with U.S. soldiers in less than 48 hours, 65 others wounded. The most recent shooting was outside this U.S. Army compound Wednesday morning. Each side accuses the other of firing first.

"The United States has killed children. The United States has killed people in their own homes" he says. "The United States is a terrorist country."

A coffin makes its final journey through the streets of Fallujah, one of two demonstrators shot dead Wednesday. He was in the throng that had gone to protest the deaths of 15 of his townsfolk in a separate demonstration Monday.

Wednesday's second casualty was dead on arrival at the general hospital, his fresh blood on this Iraqi flag. Kasa Abdul Hadi (ph) survived. A bullet shattered his leg.

"A convoy of four or five American vehicles passed by the peaceful demonstration" he says. "One soldier from the convoy fired a shot which provoked the other soldiers in the compound to fire at us." Captain Mike Redenmuller (ph), the commander of the unit in the compound, tells a different story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't fire first. Somebody in part of the crowd took a weapon, fired at one of the soft skin vehicles, shot it and hit it. At that point, we fired two warning shots from this compound. What happened from there, from the convoy, I know they returned fire and that's all I know.

PENHAUL: The U.S. Army has pledged to investigate the deaths but for now soldiers who came to free Iraq of Saddam Hussein can only hunker down and watch the mood go sour.

(on camera): U.S. military commanders say it's more minorities trying to stir up anti-American sentiment in Fallujah. Community leaders say Muslim Friday prayers could serve as a rallying point and provide an indication of how widespread that sentiment really is.

(voice-over): Those leaders say they've asked U.S. troops to withdraw from residential areas but until that happens, this man pleads with the crowd to back off or still more could die.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Fallujah.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: We're trying to imagine what it was like to vote in an Iraqi election. People could choose from the Ba'ath Party or the Ba'ath Party or maybe the Ba'ath Party. Saddam Hussein would get 100 percent of the vote, what's next 110?

There was always something faintly comical about it until you remember just how awful one party rule really was and that defiance could mean death. The Iraqis are now getting their revenge in a way. The parties, plural, are flourishing for the first time in a generation.

Here's CNN's John Vause reporting from Basra.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's freedom in the air in Basra, freedom to destroy the symbols of the past like these young men systematically tearing down the 99 statues that commemorate the Iraqi-Iran War. It was not their way, they say. These are not their martyrs and there is freedom to think about the future.

It's been a generation since the hammer and sickle fluttered in the Iraqi breeze. Under Saddam's rule, the communists went underground, but a week ago they decided that Saddam was almost certainly gone and now the time had come to set up shop.

ABDUL KARIM ABDUL SADA, IRAQI COMMUNIST PARTY (through translator): The aims of the communist party are to have a democratic federal government. We want to abolish all the establishments of the old regime.

VAUSE: Just as the Ba'ath Party headquarters in Basra was smashed by coalition firepower, so too was its monopoly on political ideology. By some accounts there are now a dozen new parties in Basra alone, among them the Islamic Invitation Party. They'd like a Shia dominated Islamic government and want the U.S. to leave now.

Don't confuse them with the High Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, although they pretty much have the same goals. The coalition of Iraqi National Unity supports the coalition but notably that's written in English, not Arabic.

There's the Iraqi Coordination Movement which has taken over one of Chemical Ali's houses. It's hard to know whom they support because on our three visits no one was ever there. Then there is the Iraq National Party. Five days ago they moved into the old holding cells at the city's police station.

HASSAN MAHOOD ALI, IRAQI NATIONAL PARTY (through translator): We are asking for a democratic society with human rights, especially for women. We are walking together as one supporting Dr. Ahmed Chalabi.

VAUSE: Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, that's his picture out front, but he's leader of the once exiled Iraqi National Congress. (on camera): And all of the parties are vying for a say in Iraq's political future. It is shaping up to be a very noisy and long discussion.

John Vause, CNN, Basra.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Take a look at something now that's been a bit overlooked over the last week or so and that's the humanitarian situation in Iraq. There's been a lot of focus on the politics there, but whether in fact there is a humanitarian crisis depends a lot on how you define the word. It's enough to say that after a dozen years of sanctions and weeks of war there is great need.

Margaret Larson is with the group Mercy Corps. She's about to travel into Iraq, tomorrow I think, to help look at the situation, deliver the goods. She is in Kuwait tonight and it is very nice to see you. What do you expect to find? Where are the problems?

MARGARET LARSON, MERCY CORPS: Well, I think you've really hit the nail on the head. It has to do with the definition. We have not seen a humanitarian crisis in the way that we saw, for example, in Kosovo with a mass movement of people, people on the brink of starvation or rampant disease.

But what we do see inside Iraq is a great deal of need. Everything that you and I, Aaron, take for granted as part of every day life, to have power, clean water, running water, shoes for our children, supplies and schools, medicines in hospital, all of that is lacking. I'm headed up to the city of Al Kut and I'm going to be doing a great deal of videotaping over the next four days to try to document exactly what that need is.

BROWN: How is Mercy Corps different from any or all of the other groups that are in, UNICEF and the rest? What is it that makes your mission different?

LARSON: Well, I think that Mercy Corps has, since it's already been operating in the north of Iraq and been operating in the Middle East for about 20 years, has a great deal of experience in this region. We're launching new programs in the south with food and water and basic health.

But one of our specialties is civil society building. What we do with our longer term programs is help people to mitigate conflict without violence, to teach people about democratic principles and the inclusion of all religious and ethnic and political groups in their decision making within communities.

Obviously, any time post conflict those skills are really going to be needed, and in a place like Iraq with no real history of that, those skills are particularly important to impart.

BROWN: How many people do you send in to do that sort of work? LARSON: Well, we do a number of things. We send in an original team of expatriates that are primarily, in this case, American and British, about eight or ten people who then do regional hiring, as many as 100 people, who get involved in this and our programs are both relief, which is short term, and in development as we were just discussing, which could be, you know, many months or perhaps even many years.

So, we make an investment in the community and we stay. We've been in Afghanistan, for example, since the mid-'80s and we plan to stay in Iraq for as long as we can be useful.

BROWN: You and I have talked about this trip you're about to make for a while now. You're about to go in there. Are you excited to be going in? This is work you've really wanted to do. You made some sacrifices in your life to do it.

LARSON: Absolutely.

BROWN: I'm dying to know how you're feeling tonight.

LARSON: Well, we're leaving actually in about 45 minutes and I can't wait to go. I mean jus as in my prior career as a journalist, this work has to do with watching history unfold but without that level of detachment that you have as a journalist, or at least that observational level of work that I did as a journalist.

This is much more involved with people and with that threat of humanity that connects us all, all over the world. And so, to be able to go and witness this and to talk to people about their lives and about the things that we have in common, because there's much more that we as human beings have in common than that separates us, is a great pleasure for me and a real benefit and advantage in my education and in the work that we do at Mercy Corps which is, you know, obviously very important to me.

BROWN: Margaret, God bless you, be safe there and we'll talk to you when you come out, OK?

LARSON: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you Margaret Larson.

LARSON: Thanks a lot.

BROWN: Thank you. We'll talk to her when she comes out. It will be an interesting experience and Mercy Corps does a great job. We'll see how it goes.

To Beijing next where there seems to be an emerging effort among average citizens to take back the streets, only the villain here isn't the neighborhood criminal, of course, it is a deadly virus.

Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Jaime Florcruz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Neighborhood volunteers set out to work, taking the anti-SARS campaign to the streets. They are educating and mobilizing residents to fight the spreading disease.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I keep a lot of disinfectant at home and sweep the floor three times a day. I take a bath more frequently.

FLORCRUZ: Beijing's neighborhoods have been ordered to police their own turf as the Beijing mayor raises the alarm.

WANG QISHAN, ACTING BEIJING MAYOR (through translator): The situation in Beijing remains severe for SARS prevention and treatment. Infections have not yet been cut off.

FLORCRUZ: City authorities have imposed tough quarantine measures. Schools, entertainment venues, and public areas have been temporarily closed. SARS patients are being moved to designated hospitals for quarantine and treatment. Beijing plans to accommodate an expected overflow of SARS patients in the city suburbs.

(on camera): Call this Camp SARS where 7,000 people are working day and night to finish this brand new quarantine area.

(voice-over): Workers from six major construction companies are building the 1,000-bed facility. Rooms will be equipped with respirator, cable TV, and telephones.

The hospital will be partly staffed by military doctors, dispatched by the central authorities to assist Beijing. Just ten days in the job, the mayor admits the city is overwhelmed.

QISHAN (through translator): We find that we are ill prepared in terms of the ability of doctors and nurses and of medical facilities. Only 4,000 or 4.3 percent of our health workers are knowledgeable about respiratory diseases.

FLORCRUZ: In Beijing suburbs, villagers have been ordered to set up checkpoints, to turn away strangers, and to disinfect the belongings of returning residents. The goal, they say, is to cut off the chain of infections. So far, so good, not a single SARS case has been reported in the rural areas.

Jaime Florcruz, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, morning papers, tomorrow morning's papers. We get tomorrow's news tonight. Man it could not get better than that. We'll take a break first. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time for morning papers, the check of newspapers around the country and around the world, though we generally don't get around the world. I can't explain that. If there's a pattern to today's papers, I can not figure it out, but here we go.

"The New York Times" understandably and predictably the shooting in Fallujah again in the center of the front page, and a neat story actually right below it that perhaps less was taken at the Iraqi National Museum than was first thought.

But the best story, come in tight if you can, arsenic poisonings at church mystify small town in Maine. This is in New Sweden, Maine, and maybe somebody was putting, this is like an Agatha Christie thing, maybe somebody was putting arsenic in the coffee at the church social. In any case, one person has died, 15 people in the town are hospitalized, and it's a terrific mystery story, and that's "The New York Times," all the news that's fit to print.

We'll set that aside for a second or longer perhaps. The "San Francisco Chronicle" Mid East peace is their big story on the front page and Fallujah is a big story on the front page. Come down here now if you can. I've seen this on nobody's front page. It's a very good story.

U.S. works to weaken global tobacco treaty. Bush administration opposes worldwide ban on advertising. One hundred sixty nations, I think, are involved in this very complicated treaty to try and get people to stop smoking and try and reduce the appeal of cigarettes around the world. Phillip Morris not very happy with that, and the Bush administration working to weaken that according to this report in the "San Francisco Chronicle."

The "Times Herald-Record" which is upstate New York, Hudson Valley and the Catskills, "The Choice" you can vote. How good a front page is that? It's a ballot. Legislators say the two legislative leaders want to raise taxes in the state. The governor says -- the state has an enormous budget deficit, the governor says cut education statewide and other cuts too, and you can vote if you're living up there. Anyway, we like this paper, the "Times Herald-Record."

OK, cool, 30 seconds. The "Chicago Sun Times," Daley scolds top cops, Mayor Daley, for rash of murders. Gang violence in Chicago is what that's about. Elizabeth Smart's on the front page. The North Carolina missing boy story is on the front page.

But here's the story I like, forked tongue, Reverend Meeks wants law to prevent tongue splitting and I live in fear of such things in my house, OK, and the weather tomorrow in Chicago is nefarious, if you're keeping track. That's a look at morning papers around the country.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, Segment 7 (unintelligible). That's what it's going to be with a question if economists - just watch it. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: From us tonight, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan spent the day on Capitol Hill answering questions from members of the House Financial Services Committee. They wanted to know in a word when he expects the economy to pick up. In a word, he answered it depends, which, of course, is two words, but who's counting. We're talking about economics here, not rocket science. Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Now, this is what science is supposed to look like. Guys in white coats, test tubes bubbling over. And most important, findings that everyone accepts.

There is no argument: Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. There is no argument an object dropped from a height will fall, and at a predictable speed.

(on camera): That's what science is supposed to do, to substitute facts for an opinion. Except when it comes to the dismal science, economics. Dismal, yes. Science?

(voice-over): For instance, right now there is a big debate about tax cuts.

BUSH: Reducing income tax rates is money...

GREENFIELD: The president says they will mean jobs and growth. See that sign behind him?

REP. DICK GEPHARDT (D), MISSOURI: Killing the economy right before our eyes.

GREENFIELD: Democrats say no, they'll explode the deficit and mortgage our future.

BUSH: I hear a lot of talk in Washington about...

GREENFIELD: OK, a lot of this is politics or ideology. But if you turn to the so-called experts, the answer to some very basic questions comes back, well, it all depends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must go forward with a tax relief package.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: In 1981, after Ronald Reagan cut taxes, there was a lot of economic growth and huge deficits. Did the tax cuts cause both? Either? Neither? There is no agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Seventy percent of the new taxes I'll propose...

(END VIDEO CLIP) GREENFIELD: After Bill Clinton increased taxes in 1993, America saw big economic growth and huge budget surpluses. Did it happen because of the taxes? Despite them? Did the tax increases make no difference? It all depends who you ask.

And you don't need to crack open a history book to find some serious head scratching about economic issues. Just try to find out about the state of today's economy. You'd think the Federal Reserve Board would know, but "The Wall Street Journal" reports that officials there disagree on why the economy has been listless. It's the war, some say. No, no, it's excess capacity, or the collapse of the stock market.

How about the impact of deficits on interest rates? Most economists know there is an impact, but right now, in the face of looming mega deficits, interest rates are historically low.

"New Yorker" economics writer Jim Surowiecki.

JIM SUROWIECKI, NEW YORKER: From a public policy perspective, it can be frustrating, especially because it's clear that economics and ideology are so wrapped up with each other, and so it's hard to say whether someone is actually making a principled economic argument, or rather just sort of making a kind of self-serving ideological argument.

GREENFIELD (on camera): Perhaps this is why President Truman is fondly remembered for asking for a one-armed economist. When asked why, he said, "because they're always saying on the one hand this, on the other hand that." And maybe that's also why it's hard to take the whole idea of economics as a science all that seriously. Perhaps in his next congressional appearance, Fed Chairman Greenspan could chalk the pin-striped suits for a crisp white lab coat.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Good to see you again, and we'll see you again tomorrow, we hope. 10:00 Eastern time. Join us then. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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





Emerge From Basra; Mercy Corps En Route to Iraq to Provide Aid to Iraqis; Interviews with John Burns, Steven Brill, Margret Larson, Martin Indyx>


Aired April 30, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: And good evening again, everyone.
Word came today that President Bush tomorrow will formally declare the end of combat in Iraq. Not expected to say the war has been won, partly because Iraq is still a very dangerous place. We would add it may be many years before we can say the war has been won, if winning means a real government, not hand-picked, real elections with real political parties.

But tonight's we'll show you the beginning of both. A few baby steps in Iraq on the road to democracy.

But we begin "The Whip" at the white house with the road to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Senior White House correspondent John King with us tonight. John, a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, tomorrow, the president will say the challenge in Iraq is to win the peace. Today, his focus was on setting the Israelis and the Palestinians on a path of peace. Trust me. Here at the White House, they view the two issues as closely connected and a chance for this president to reshape the politics of the Middle East -- Aaron.

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

On to Baghdad now and a visit from the defense secretary. If this wasn't officially a victory lap, well, it had the look of one.

Nic Robertson there for us. Nic, a headline.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was a trip of two parts. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld congratulating the troops. He also made a taped radio and television address to the Iraqi people telling them they would run the country, that the United States would take care of their security. However, for most people in Baghdad, it seemed the best way to see Donald Rumsfeld was via international news services on satellite television -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. Back home now. Ft. Stewart, Georgia. Sad news there. Memorial service for some killed in Iraq.

Brian Cabell for us. Brian, a headline.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, during the war, we heard a lot about the 3rd Infantry Division, about its fighting, about its dead, about its wounded. Well, today here at their home at Ft. Stewart, soldiers and families gathered to say goodbye to the dead, 34 of them -- Aaron.

BROWN: Brian, thank you.

And among the most intriguing stories in the week, the latest now on a little boy missing for more than two years and the hope that he's been found. Hope.

Jeff Flock in Chicago tonight. Jeff, a headline.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, the headline is that hope may be fading a bit tonight. What a first appeared to be perhaps a miracle and to one sad case, may, in fact -- may turn out to be a second sad case. We'll tell you why.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeff. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, a big get. Not in Iraq, but in the war on terror. We'll have more on arrest in Pakistan of a top al Qaeda operative.

And a visit to the White House today for Elizabeth Smart to mark the signing of something her father fought so hard for, a nationwide Amber Alert system. That and much more in the 90 minutes ahead.

We begin with a roadmap. In short, a step-by-step recipe for Israeli security and Palestinian statehood all by the year 2005. We've seen already that getting through just the early days, let alone the next two years, won't be easy. The roadmap comes with a firm commitment from the Bush administration, but the world, Europe, and the Middle East particularly, will look for deeds and not just words from the White House.

Still, after 2,700 casualties, two ruined economies, one new government and a war in Iraq, the hope is the region is ripe for change.

Here is our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president says there is a lesson from the Iraq war that should help him enforce the new roadmap for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those who harbor terrorists, fund terrorists, or harbor weapons of mass destruction will be held to account. That in itself helps create the conditions to move peace forward.

KING: That was a blunt message to Syria and Iran, long accused by the White House of backing Palestinian militants. The roadmap was delivered only after Mahmoud Abbas was confirmed as the new Palestinian prime minister. Mr. Bush never tried to hide his contempt for Yasser Arafat and says in Abbas there is finally a Palestinian leader he can trust.

BUSH: He's a man I can work with and I look forward to working with him and will work with him for the sake of peace and for the sake of security.

KING: The roadmap envisions a provisional Palestinian state by early next year and a final agreement creating an independent Palestine by 2005. But to achieve that historic ending, the Israelis and Palestinians would need to set aside decades of violence and mistrust and meet the roadmap's key interim benchmarks: an immediate ceasefire, a crackdown on Hamas and other Palestinian militias, a dismantling of Jewish settlements created since February 2001 and direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

BUSH: Israel is going to have to make some sacrifices in order to move the peace process forward.

KING: The administration's effort to enforce the roadmap is likely to require frequent shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Powell, hours of personal diplomacy by the president and direct pressure on Israel to halt settlement activities.

GEORGE MITCHELL, FMR. U.S. SENATOR, FMR. MIDDLE EAST ENVOY: There's no way that this can be done without active and sustained American leadership at the highest level and I think a great deal of patience and perseverance because there are going to be setback.

KING: The effort begins with a Powell trip to the region next week.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Now the president is promising to prove wrong those who question his commitment and Mr. Bush is telling aides that combined with the post war effort in Iraq, his administration has a historic opportunity to reshape the politics and the direction of the Middle East -- Aaron.

BROWN: We are on the edge of a campaign year and Israeli politics in the United States is always a complicated political issue. So even in a campaign year the president tends to dive into this.

KING: He says he will and he says he is prepared to pressure Israel and the White House says it is receiving word both in public and private from the Sharon government that the prime minister is willing to give the new Palestinian prime minister a chance.

But that, of course, is the big question down the road. Everyone knows there will be a problem, whether it is tomorrow or next week or next month, whether it be Yasser Arafat undermining Mahmoud Abbas or Ariel Sharon not having the support in his very conservative coalition to pull back the settlements. The problem will come. There are many skeptics who believe Mr. Bush at that point will not apply the muscle necessary. He insisted today he will.

BROWN: Well, the world will wait, as we said earlier, for deeds, not just words and we'll see how it plays out. It's a fascinating moment.

John, thank you. John King at the White House.

It did not take long for Hamas to reject the roadmap today. The group promised more acts of terror, taking responsibility for the bombing in Tel Aviv last night.

It also didn't take long for another Palestinian to die, a 55- year-old woman shot and killed by an Israeli soldier as she herded sheep in Gaza not far from an Israeli settlement. Nobody said this was going to be easy.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Presentations, diplomats hope, will be about more than symbolism. The newly sworn-in Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, receives a copy of the internationally backed peace plan called the roadmap.

Ninety minutes earlier, the U.S. ambassador to Israel drives to Prime Minister Sharon's Jerusalem residence to give him his copy.

The goal of the three-year, three-phase plan is a democratic Palestinian state by 2005 and a guarantee of Israel's security.

Getting there won't be easy. Both sides must take steps they have long resisted and are already expressing different interpretations about what should happen next. The Palestinians say the roadmap should be implemented immediately without any changes.

NABIL SHA'ATH, PALESTINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: The road map cannot succeed unless people see that as we are implementing Israel is also implementing.

WALLACE: But Israelis say they want to see more than a dozen changes made and say there should be an end to Palestinian terror attacks before any other steps are taken.

GIDEON MEIR, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: There's a sequence in the roadmap and the sequence is calling first and foremost a stop to terror.

WALLACE: Attacks such as the early morning suicide bombing outside a Tel Aviv cafe which left three innocent civilians dead. Two radical Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility.

A leader of one of those groups, the military wing of Hamas, said Wednesday that Hamas rejects the roadmap and will not disarm.

(on camera): So many observers say the biggest challenge facing Abbas is whether he can rein in these radical Palestinian groups and the biggest challenge facing Israel, whether it will pull out of Palestinian towns and free settlements. The answers will determine if this roadmap ultimately can map a road to peace.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll have more on the roadmap a little bit later in this hour.

But, first, other news of the day. Another big catch in the war on terrorism. Police in Pakistan have arrested six suspected members of al Qaeda. One of them, a man with connections to 9/11, it is said, as well as the bombing of the USS Cole and possibly to acts of terrorism still in the planning stages.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was the mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and U.S. officials are calling "extremely significant" the capture on Tuesday by Pakistani authorities of Whalid ba Attash, also known as Kahlad (ph) or Toufik (ph)

BUSH: He's a killer. He was one of the top al Qaeda operatives. He was right below Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on the organizational chart of al Qaeda. He is one less person that people who love freedom have to worry about.

ENSOR: Attash was Osama bin Laden's chief bodyguard for some years, a trusted lieutenant who lost one foot during fighting in Afghanistan. Like bin Laden, he is a Saudi national of Yemeni origin.

MATT LEVITT, FORMER FBI TERRORISM ANALYST: The odds are that Toufik al Attash (ph) at any given time was planning at least one attack. So his capture is significant not only in terms of grilling him about his past activities, but grilling him about current activities and his current contacts.

ENSOR: Along with five other suspected al Qaeda members, Attash was captured in the teaming city of Karachi, the same place another al Qaeda leader, Ramzi Binalsheibh was caught after a gun battle. Two former al Qaeda operations chiefs, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Abu Zubaida, were also captured in Pakistani cities. And U.S. officials say most of al Qaeda's remaining leadership may well be in Pakistani cities, to. Though the top two leaders, bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, are believed to be in the remote area of the Pakistani- Afghan border.

Attash also met with two of the 9/11 hijackers in Malaysia in January of 2000. And Officials say he was the intermediary between them and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind.

The State Department released an annual report minutes after the news of the capture broke on CNN. A report showing a 44 percent drop in terrorist attacks in 2002.

COFER BLACK, COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM: A large number of terrorist suspects were not able to launch an attack last year because they are in prison. More than 3,000 of them are al Qaeda terrorists and they were arrested over 100 countries.

ENSOR (on camera): U.S. officials say there's evidence Attash was planning additional attacks, possibly a attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi. He and the others were captured along with a quantity of explosives and weapons.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: An Arab language newspaper in London today ran a letter today says it was written by Saddam Hussein, dated on Monday, Saddam's birthday. The letter urges Iraqis to rise up against the occupation. Reporters who know Saddam's handwriting says it does not look familiar, but the paper says that sources close to Saddam confirm its authenticity.

American officials tonight say they have their doubts. But if true, think about this. There's at least an outside chance, perhaps way outside, that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld might have run into Saddam during his victory tour of Baghdad today. It didn't happen. Mr. Rumsfeld spent very little time on the streets and spoke to very few people not wearing American uniforms. From Baghdad tonight, here's CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I think it's a complicated question.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): The best way for Iraqis to see Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad: on TV. Satellite TV, once banned by Saddam Hussein, now big business.

Store owner Hussan (ph): "We don't like occupation," he says, "but every honorable Iraqi citizen says thank you to Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld."

Although Rumsfeld recorded a message for Iraqis, none we talked to had heard it, most in this store thinking it's smart he didn't deliver it in person.

"He couldn't go out on the street now," says Ahmed (ph). "Maybe in the future, when there's more TV and people get the message about America's intentions."

Rumsfeld's promise of security likely popular though. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are waiting to see what they are going to do for us, and the first thing is the security we need.

ROBERTSON: At fuel stations, where lines are so long, street traders are setting up stands. Patience with Rumsfeld is in shorter supply.

"The greater the delay, the more violence," he says. "We'll start blowing up their tanks ourselves."

Across town in the ruins of Baghdad's telephone exchange, destroyed by coalition missiles, looters continue their scavenging, attitudes toward Rumsfeld more practical.

Outside the nearby stores, also damaged by the same missiles, a sense Rumsfeld is responsible.

"They should rebuild Iraq," says Hassan, "rebuild what they have destroyed, and we are waiting for that."

Storekeeper Ahmed, who used to sell stationary here, agrees, but fears what such involvement may lead to.

"No man occupies another's country," said Ahmed, "without their own interests at heart."

In conversation, however, clear all here believe if the U.S. is serious, a balance between reconstruction and exploitation can be found.

For engineer Jasan (ph) memories of past cooperation still fresh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will not work with the government, any government. I wait for American companies to work with them because they know how to work and they know that people who work it good, they help them.

ROBERTSON: As we talk, the scavenging continues unabated, looters unfazed by our camera, triggering Jassan to remember what's needed most.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I don't feel safe. Not me or for family. Not only me. All of these here.

ROBERTSON (on camera): The last time Donald Rumsfeld came to Baghdad, he met with Saddam Hussein. Possibly little wonder then while people here are hopeful, they're waiting to see what actions follow his words.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Back home today at an Army base in Georgia, there was a reminder of who made the sacrifice. So Jassan could be grateful and Hussan could doubt. And with any luck at all, so we could all, all of us sleep a little safer. Here again is CNN's Brian Cabell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL (voice-over): Thirty-four helmet, 23 pairs of boots, 34 dog tags.

That's the toll so far from the 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart. Thirty-four soldiers killed in the fighting in Iraq.

COL. GERALD POLTRAX, FORT STEWART COMMANDER: Throughout the fight, the values of our soldiers and our nation showed brightly. They fought for freedom and showed compassion to the vanquished.

CABELL: The 3rd Division led the charge up the center of Iraq from Kuwait to Baghdad, And that's why the casualties were so high. Almost one-fourth of the American dead came from this division.

And Now, to honor them, 34 trees, Eastern Red Buds, freshly planted, forming what Fort Stewart calls "Warriors Walk." They'll bloom gloriously in the springtime, experts say, appropriate because that's when the men died. Consolation perhaps for the families who come to say goodbye.

And talk to them, the families, and many will tell you they have few regrets about the career choices their soldiers made.

DENISE MARSHALL, WIDOW: I could sit here, you know, stand around all day and question his choice to do what he did. But I respect them for his choice.

CABELL: Was it worth it? Dying on a battlefield in Iraq? For the father of Sergeant Eugene Williams who's still pained by his loss, maybe it was.

ULYSSES WILLIAMS, FATHER: One day, I was watching TV and when I saw them guys jumping up and hollering saying, we free, we free, I knew my son didn't die for nothing.

CABELL: It's the cost of war. Soldiers know that. So do their families. And sometimes there's nothing they can take home with them, except a dog tag and with a loved one's name on it, some cherished memories. Tears that will be slow to dry. And cried for a soldier who did his duty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABELL: After the ceremony, we talked to the wife of one of the soldiers, the widow. She said she was really happy with these trees because her husband, she says, is buried up in Arlington National Cemetery, she lives down here. She says whenever her daughters get sad or lonely, they can come down here, sit down next to his tree, his plaque and talk with him and be with him -- Aaron.

BROWN: Brian, thank you very much. Brian Cabell at Fort Stewart tonight. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, will the road map for Middle East peace really lead anywhere? We'll talk with former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk ahead about that.

And kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart goes to Washington to witness the signing of the national Amber Alert Bill. That and much more. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Wanting to be a Middle East watcher has to say something about hope in the face of experience. By that measure, Martin Indyk is a world class optimism mist. Former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Currently director at the Laban Center at the Brookings Institute the ambassador joins us tonight from Washington. It's nice to have you with us as always.

Thank you. I'm a worried optimist.

MARTIN INDYX, DIRECTOR OF THE LABAN CENTER AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: You can't do the work that you've done and be a complete optimist.

BROWN: Is this an optimistic moment or is this simply a moment of possibility?

INDYX: Well, I'd say a window of opportunity has opened. And it comes from a combination of factors. The toppling of Saddam Hussein has shifted the balance of moderation in the favor of the United States. The president of the United States wields tremendous influence now in the Arab-Israeli arena. Secondly, I think there's an exhaustion factor on both the Palestinian and Israel side.

The people have had it and the economies on both sides are in dreadful condition. And they would like a way out of it on both sides. And you have a new prime minister on the Palestinian side in Abu Mazen. And his appointment seems to have intrigued the president enough for him to get off his high perch of disengagement, which is where he's been for the last two years, and actually talk quite strongly about he's going to get personally involved. So all of those factors I think create a positive environment.

But you still have the terrorists out there making very clear at the moment of hope yesterday when Abu Mazen was sworn in, this explosion terrorist bombing in downtown Tel Aviv, in the heart of Tel Aviv next to the U.S. Embassy is, I think, a clear signal that the terrorists are not about to give up here. And that is going to be a problem. Secondly, Aaron, there is this question of how the secretary of state is actually going to do this. You know, the road map has been published, promulgated today. The secretary is about to go out on a trip to the Middle East, but he's not going to Israel or the Palestinian areas.

Why, well, they say that because we don't want to be seen to be embracing Abu Mazen too quickly, but he's going out a few days later, supposedly. So it doesn't make a lot of sense. The real reason, I believe, is that Abu Mazen isn't able to see Colin Powell in a situation where Colin Powell isn't going to see Arafat. Arafat has managed to insert himself back in the process center stage, that picture yesterday, I think told it all.

BROWN: Yes.

INDYK: There is a real problem of practical matter how we're actually going to engage with Abu Mazen.

BROWN: Let me try and run a couple of things by you quickly here.

Do you believe there are -- there are in place right now on each side people who have both the power and the willingness to make peace on both sides?

INDYK: I think it's a critical question. The leadership is what counts here in a situation where the environment is more positive than it's been in the past. Each of the leaders, Abu Mazen, Ariel Sharon, George Bush are constrained in one way or another. Abu Mazen by the fact that Arafat is out there determined to undermine him, and doesn't want him to succeed. And by the terrorists are there to thwart him. Ariel Sharon with a right wing coalition and the settlers uptight about things he has said about his willingness to evacuate settlements. And George Bush, of course, heading into an election here and worried about the context in which he might have to pressure both sides, and that could create problems with the Christian right, with Jewish community and Congress.

BROWN: Lets try to get two things done. The president, at least my understanding, the road map originally was that each side would in parallel take steps. The president seemed to indicate that he expected the Palestinian side to make the first significant step, which was to somehow end all of the violence or at least crack down on all of the violence. I don't think anybody actually believes you could end all of the violence, but to make some good faith effort to stop it.

INDYK: Certainly, the president's official statement today, the words he used indicated exactly what you just said, Aaron. That the first thing that has to happen, immediately, an end to the violence and terrorism. That seems to put the onus on the Palestinians. What they've said privately, I understand, to both sides is, look, use the road map as a guide.

Let's not get hung up about the exact steps or the timing of each step. You, Palestinians, have got to move against the terrorists. You the Israelis, have to help Abu Mazen, it's in your interest to see him succeed, after all, he's saying there is no military solution. And the violence has caused great damage to Palestinian cause. So you, the Israelis, should some take steps now. stop the targeted assassinations to relieve the pressure, ease the Israel military presence, take off some of the checkpoints and give them more revenues.

There are steps that both sides can take informally that would help each other. I think that both Abu Mazen and Ariel Sharon want to succeed in this process. So there is a chance. But we are going to have to be down there on the ground working with each of them and encouraging them to move forward in this process.

BROWN: Mr. ambassador, good to have you with us again. Come back as we go through these stages and help us keep track of progress and setbacks as we go. And there's bound to be both. Thank you, sir.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, national AMBER alert law, and it is law signed today at the White House with the family of Elizabeth Smart in attendance. That and more as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

BROWN: And up next on NEWSNIGHT, as we just mentioned: the new Amber Alert law; as well as the continuing mystery of a missing North Carolina boy. Is he the same boy who turned up in Chicago two years later?

That and more as NEWSNIGHT continues around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: After Elizabeth Smart was found earlier this year, it seemed there was only one thing that could take the ear-to-ear grin off her father's face: Bring up the fact that Congress had yet to approve a nationwide Amber Alert system to help find other missing kids. Congress got the message. And, today, Ed Smart attended a Rose Garden ceremony, his smile back and his daughter at his side.

Here is CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Surrounded by families who have gone through the anguish of having a child abducted, President Bush signed a new law expanding the Amber Alert system, aimed at helping find kidnapped children, on hand, Elizabeth Smart in her first national public appearance since being returned to her family last month.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No child should ever have to experience the terror of abduction, or worse. No family should ever have to endure the nightmare of losing a child.

ARENA: Amber Alerts exist in 41 states. They provide information on highway signs and over radio and television when a child goes missing. The system is credited with saving the lives of 64 children. The new legislation provides federal matching grants to states and communities for equipment and training to create a uniform network nationwide.

When it looked like the bill was stalled in Congress, Elizabeth Smart's father, Ed, pleaded for action. ED SMART, FATHER OF ELIZABETH SMART: That it is not something that can wait one more day. Lives are lost, and the blood of those children is on someone's head. And when something can be done, something should be done.

ARENA: Critics say child kidnappings by strangers are not as common as they may seem and that the $25 million going to enhance the Amber Alert system could be put to better use.

BARRY GLASSNER, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: You have many more children who die each year from bicycle accidents, from common accidents in their homes. So why don't we put some money into those kinds of protections, dangers that students and young children face at school, on playgrounds?

ARENA: While the Amber Alert provision has gained the most attention, it is part of a wide-ranging package of child safety laws.

ERNIE ALLEN, NATL. CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN: It enhances penalties for those who abduct or murder children. It provides for extended supervision for convicted sex offenders when they're released from prison. It attacks the whole issue of virtual child pornography.

ARENA (on camera): Under the bill signed by the president, obscene images of children created by computer technology will now be illegal. It is the one provision that is expected to draw fire from free speech advocates.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There's a woman in North Carolina named Donna Myers whose greatest wish is to follow in the footsteps of the Smart family. She knows, as the Smarts do, the terror of losing a child and she wants to know, as the Smarts do now, the joy of finding that child after a long time missing. She will know that joy if a little boy called Eli is her nephew Buddy, gone now for years. But it is tonight a very big if.

Here is CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

QUESTION: Is he your son?

RICKY QUICK, BUDDY'S ALLEGED STEPFATHER: Yes.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Ricky Quick says this little boy he brought to this hospital outside Chicago in February is his son and his name is Eli. Raven Myers, who has seen pictures of the boy, says she thinks he's her son and his real name is Buddy.

RAVEN MYERS, MOTHER OF BUDDY: I'm really excited. I really hope it's him.

FLOCK: With comparisons of blood, fingerprints and dental records inconclusive, it's apparently going to take a DNA test to sort out whether Eli is Buddy.

Tristen Buddy Myers was 4 when he went missing two years ago from the North Carolina home he shared with his great aunt. Eli Quick was dirty and uncommunicative when the man who says he's his father brought him to the hospital, complaining of his aggressive behavior.

QUESTION: Did she die of an overdose?

QUICK: Yes.

FLOCK: Quick now says Eli was the product of a relationship he had with a Chicago woman who later died of a drug overdose. At least one person in the Northwest Side Chicago neighborhood, where Quick now lives with his mother, says she knew Eli since he was a baby. Though both Quick and Raven Myers apparently lived nearby once in Louisiana, they both say they've never seen each other before.

MYERS: I would remember a face like that.

FLOCK: Myers tells CNN's Gary Tuchman, if Eli does turn out to be Buddy, she will fight her aunt for custody. Though she is a topless dancer currently living in a motel, she says the best place for her son is with her.

R. MYERS: But I will fight for Tristen not to go back into that home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLOCK: So, Aaron, we are left with the question, is Eli Buddy -- is this two sad tragic young lives or perhaps one incredibly sad tragic young life? At this point, the DNA tests are expected perhaps by the end of this week -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is this story getting enormous play in Chicago, by the way?

FLOCK: It's getting a fair bit of attention. I think it's almost getting more in North Carolina, because, of course, that's where the search for Buddy has been centered.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeff -- Jeff Flock in Chicago tonight.

On to other matters: These have to be at least some of the scariest words in the English language: Erin Brockovich is on the line. If you hear those six words, you do know you have got a major league fight on your hands. And the latest to hear those six words are people running the Beverly Hills School District, facing her legal wrath, not for anything they are teaching, but for what's on the grounds of one very, very famous high school.

Reporting for us tonight: CNN's Charles Feldman. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's been called an environmental sleuth, Erin Brockovich, whose battle with an industrial giant made a hit movie that starred Julia Roberts in the title role.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "ERIN BROCKOVICH")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I'm just a guy with a small private firm!

JULIA ROBERTS, ACTRESS: Who happens to know they poisoned people and lied about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FELDMAN: The real-life Brockovich and the lawyer she works for, Ed Masry, are now taking aim at Beverly Hills High. They say the school that helped educate everyone from Richard Dreyfuss to Monica Lewinsky has also given hundreds of its students and faculty cancer.

ERIN BROCKOVICH, MASRY & VITITOE: In the 12 years that I've been with Masry & Vititoe, I've investigated toxic cases, a lot of them. And I'm telling you, we have never had a case -- ever -- where we've had 300 confirmed individuals with cancer. I've never seen it.

FELDMAN: The problem, says Brockovich, is 15 active oil and natural gas wells and some abandoned ones that the school was built around years ago. The wells generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for the city of Beverly Hills and its school district.

Brockovich and her law firm have filed a number of complaints with the city of Beverly Hills on behalf of people like Lori Moss, a 1992 graduate of the school.

LORI MOSS, BEVERLY HILLS HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE: I've had Hodgkin's and I've had thyroid cancer. I'm 28 years old, battled two cancers. I've been robbed of my 20s. It makes me angry.

FELDMAN: On behalf of the alleged victims, Brockovich's firm says it plans to sue the city, the school district and several oil companies. And we spoke with one of them.

MICHAEL EDWARDS, VICE PRESIDENT, VENOCO INC.: But the tests, according to their quality management district, which is charged with policing the air for the public, has shown there's not an air quality problem at the high school.

FELDMAN: But Brockovich charges cover-up, saying tests done by a private firm for the school district show a problem. The problem with that, though, is, the company that did the tests for the district tells CNN it found no cause for health concerns. It did find chemicals like benzine and formaldehyde, but at EPA-acceptable levels.

Both the school district and the city of Beverly Hills say they are viewing the whole thing, but stick by a separate state report that did not give a failing grade to the air at Beverly Hills High.

Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT: the view from Baghdad from "New York Times" correspondent John Burns, who there was for the entire run of the war. He joins us in a moment.

We're right back after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with "New York Times" correspondent John Burns about the war in Baghdad -- he covered it for "The Times" -- and the peace there as well.

Quick break first. Right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, it's safe to say that, when "New York Times" correspondent John Burns first set off to Baghdad, he went in search of stories for his paper and his readers, not stories to tell his grandchildren. He ended up with both, including death threats from the Iraqi authorities and a rare underground perspective on a city at war. John Burns is with us tonight from Baghdad.

It's good to see you.

The last time we talked to you, John, it was very early in the war, before such conversations were no longer allowed by the Iraqi government with CNN. How did conditions change in Baghdad in terms of your ability to do your work as the war started to go progressively more badly for the Iraqis?

JOHN BURNS, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Well, it was quite predictable that the hard men of the regime would take over in the sphere in which we were operating. We never knew just how hard and how unpleasant those people would be. In my case, fortunately, I never really found out. They came for me. They arrested me. I went on the run. I survived. I'm here to tell the tale.

Reporting was difficult. It was always difficult under Saddam Hussein. The physical conditions were difficult. And it was difficult to get at the truth. Under the war circumstances, one advantage we had was, where we're standing right now was very close to ground zero. We were able to see the hard realities of war firsthand, even if the Iraqi information minister, as I'm sure your viewers know...

BROWN: Yes.

BURNS: ... known to the British tabloids as Comical Ali, standing on this deck, never did see those realities. BROWN: Through the course of the time you were in Iraq, not just the war, but before as well, were you able to report completely everything you knew about the regime?

BURNS: Anybody who told you that he was able to tell everything without restraint would not be telling you the truth. All of us wanted to be here for the war. Nobody wants to come in, have one trip for 10 days and never come back.

On the other hand, I think the parameters, what was possible, were considerably wider than some reporters chose. Some of those people from some parts of the world, the Arab world in particular, I think came never really willing to tell the truth. There was a required truth for them, too. I think people who came from our world had to find their own balance. And we all found it in different places.

I think, retrospectively, there could have been a little bit more forthrightness in this, I have to say that, both in the print and in the broadcast media. The dominant feature of this society for 23 years was fear and terror. I don't think that there was any society on Earth by the spring of this year that compared with it, except possibly North Korea, about which we know very little. I think that too much of the reporting reflected that very little.

BROWN: Do you think -- are you surprised at all at the depths of the terror and the violence of the regime as it has unfolded since the war and people have come forward? Or is it pretty much what you thought it would be?

BURNS: Well, I had a lot of arguments in the preceding months with my colleagues about this, some of whom accused me of overstating the case, particularly after we got into the Abu Ghraib prison in October and saw for ourselves the heart of darkness, the very center of Saddam's gulag. At that time, I said, I think we can be sure of one thing -- and I was projecting somewhat from 30 years of working in unpleasant places -- that whatever truth we can perceive now, the truth we will find come the fall of this regime will be much, much worse.

And so far, I would say that that is an incontrovertible truth. Every day, in our reporting -- and I mean not just "The New York Times," but I think most other major Western media -- we uncover things which are so terrible, so far beyond the imagination, that even to those of us who felt we knew a good deal about this country, it's entirely shocking.

BROWN: A couple more before we let you go.

People in Baghdad that you talk to believe Saddam is alive? Do you believe Saddam is alive?

BURNS: I do. I think Saddam is alive. And my guess is that he's not more than five miles from where I'm standing right now.

BROWN: It's just your instinct or do you have a little more to work with?

BURNS: No. We know there are pockets of Sunni Muslim and Baath Party support in this city. We've got good reason to think that the message that he released on the occasion of his birthday is real.

We know this man is the great survivor, getting away just ahead of the bomb, escaping, just, any number, countless assassination attempts. I think he's alive, but I think the United States forces will get him, because I don't think he'll risk crossing the desert. And I don't think that he's brave enough to stand up and die. I think that he will be found and he will be found alive. Whether the world wants Saddam Hussein in the dock of a war crimes trial like Milosevic is another matter.

BROWN: John, again, I think you did some of the most extraordinary work in the paper. It was really something to read every morning. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you again.

BURNS: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, John Burns of "The New York Times," who was centered in Baghdad through the course of the war, would write the lead story out of Baghdad through the course of the war that would appear not just in "The Times," but in many newspapers around the country.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll look at life after September 11. We'll be joined by author Steven Brill, whose new book looks at how some prominent and not-so-prominent Americans have dealt with what we have come to call the new normal.

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

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BROWN: It was a troubling report. It showed that names on a terror watch list sometimes weren't getting circulated because federal agencies kept separate lists and weren't communicating enough. We wish we could say this report came out in the summer of 2001, one of those overlooked warning signs of what was to come. It came out today, another indication of just how tough it is to try to make the United States safe from terror.

The struggle and the tradeoffs in fighting terror: the focus of a new book by the founder of Court TV and a slew of other things. Steven Brill is the author of "After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era."

It's nice to have you back with us.

STEVEN BRILL, AUTHOR, "AFTER: HOW AMERICA CONFRONTED THE SEPTEMBER 12 ERA": Hi, Aaron.

BROWN: Do reports like that today surprise you, that there are still...

BRILL: Well, not that one.

In fact, on page 10 or 11 of the book, there's a more specific report, which is that there was a watch list that the FBI and the CIA had put together six months before September 11 and sent to the FAA. And they had been having meetings about whose letterhead they were going to distribute this watch list to. And they distributed it the night of September 11. And on that list were two of the hijackers, which hadn't been reported.

But there's all kinds of terrible stuff like that. And what this book is, is, it's really the story of how the country, the bureaucracy, the leaders, the people on the ground unwind themselves from that and I think, ultimately, do a pretty good job, although there are lots of frustrations. There are some really infuriating things in there and there are some hilarious things. But it ends up that this country was a little stronger than I think we thought.

BROWN: Let's go two different shucks. Let's start with people first.

The book has good and -- as all good books should, I think -- good and interesting characters in it, heroes and some who are not quite so successful in their endeavors. Who do you especially like out there? Who, in your view, did great in the post-September 11 period?

BRILL: Well, I'll give you one person.

There's a civil servant, a longtime civil servant, who ends up with the job, by happenstance, of having to supervise the recruitment and training and hiring of all of the 41,000 new inspectors that we now see at the airports. And she just keeps her head down and does the work. The press is saying: They're never going to make their deadlines. They're never going to make their deadlines. Everybody is making fun of this new agency, the Transportation Security Agency.

And you know what? She makes the deadlines. And I think most people in this country would agree that the people that they now see at the checkpoints at the airports are a lot better than what they saw on the morning of September 11. So she is sort of an unsung hero.

But I have a lot of admiration for Tom Ridge, a lot of admiration for the executive director of the ACLU, who pushes back on John Ashcroft. I think I tell a very fair story about John Ashcroft, too.

BROWN: Yes, perhaps not -- well, we'll let people judge for themselves, actually. But I like how -- that the book is drawn around characters and it is drawn around issues.

BRILL: It's the only way to tell a story. It's the only way to tell those issues, is through the eyes of the people who agonized over them, who lived them during that period.

BROWN: Let's talk about just one of many possible issues. I think it was Senator Schumer who said that, in the wake of 9/11, we needed to -- and I think his word was recalibrate the individual liberty national security pendulum, if you will. And that's happened.

BRILL: It's happened for a lot us. It happened in a lot of our institutions.

BROWN: Has it changed the character of the country?

BRILL: I don't think so.

I think one of the conclusions I come to -- and I didn't know I would get there until I got there -- is that the country has remained fundamentally the same, even if it's changed a bit. Even if we've recalibrated, we haven't really changed the scale. We're still looking at the same things. We're changing the balance a little bit. And we have to, because, for the first time in our lives, we're really at jeopardy and we know the jeopardy comes from people who can be living quietly among us and not breaking the law until they attack.

I mean, that's just a reality. And we have to deal with that. And that means that the bedrock of our government, which really used to be -- the notion is, leave people alone. That's what America is about, the government leaves you alone.

BROWN: Right.

BRILL: We have to deal with that balance. It's very tough. And the people in this book agonize over it. They fight over it. And they come to some place in the middle.

BROWN: It's a nice look at how lots of people with big jobs and not-so-big jobs handled the post-9/11 period.

It's nice to see you. Good luck with the book.

BRILL: It's good to see you. Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you, sir -- Steven Brill with us.

In our next half-hour here on NEWSNIGHT, we'll go back to the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where tensions continue to run high after another shooting incident involving U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians; and to Beijing, too, where even more drastic measures are being taken to stop the spread of SARS -- all that and more.

We'll take a break, then the latest headlines, too.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: And we begin the hour with another dust up in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. Again, townspeople clashed with American soldiers. Again, townspeople died.

And again, the troops and the townspeople told two entirely different stories, but one soldier, you'll hear from him in a moment, had this to say about the general climate. "I don't know if you noticed it," he says, "but there are guns everywhere around here.

Here's CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iraqi protesters, American armor, beaten back by taunts and sandals thrown by the crowd. On the streets of Fallujah the death toll keeps rising, 17 civilians killed in clashes with U.S. soldiers in less than 48 hours, 65 others wounded. The most recent shooting was outside this U.S. Army compound Wednesday morning. Each side accuses the other of firing first.

"The United States has killed children. The United States has killed people in their own homes" he says. "The United States is a terrorist country."

A coffin makes its final journey through the streets of Fallujah, one of two demonstrators shot dead Wednesday. He was in the throng that had gone to protest the deaths of 15 of his townsfolk in a separate demonstration Monday.

Wednesday's second casualty was dead on arrival at the general hospital, his fresh blood on this Iraqi flag. Kasa Abdul Hadi (ph) survived. A bullet shattered his leg.

"A convoy of four or five American vehicles passed by the peaceful demonstration" he says. "One soldier from the convoy fired a shot which provoked the other soldiers in the compound to fire at us." Captain Mike Redenmuller (ph), the commander of the unit in the compound, tells a different story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't fire first. Somebody in part of the crowd took a weapon, fired at one of the soft skin vehicles, shot it and hit it. At that point, we fired two warning shots from this compound. What happened from there, from the convoy, I know they returned fire and that's all I know.

PENHAUL: The U.S. Army has pledged to investigate the deaths but for now soldiers who came to free Iraq of Saddam Hussein can only hunker down and watch the mood go sour.

(on camera): U.S. military commanders say it's more minorities trying to stir up anti-American sentiment in Fallujah. Community leaders say Muslim Friday prayers could serve as a rallying point and provide an indication of how widespread that sentiment really is.

(voice-over): Those leaders say they've asked U.S. troops to withdraw from residential areas but until that happens, this man pleads with the crowd to back off or still more could die.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Fallujah.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: We're trying to imagine what it was like to vote in an Iraqi election. People could choose from the Ba'ath Party or the Ba'ath Party or maybe the Ba'ath Party. Saddam Hussein would get 100 percent of the vote, what's next 110?

There was always something faintly comical about it until you remember just how awful one party rule really was and that defiance could mean death. The Iraqis are now getting their revenge in a way. The parties, plural, are flourishing for the first time in a generation.

Here's CNN's John Vause reporting from Basra.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's freedom in the air in Basra, freedom to destroy the symbols of the past like these young men systematically tearing down the 99 statues that commemorate the Iraqi-Iran War. It was not their way, they say. These are not their martyrs and there is freedom to think about the future.

It's been a generation since the hammer and sickle fluttered in the Iraqi breeze. Under Saddam's rule, the communists went underground, but a week ago they decided that Saddam was almost certainly gone and now the time had come to set up shop.

ABDUL KARIM ABDUL SADA, IRAQI COMMUNIST PARTY (through translator): The aims of the communist party are to have a democratic federal government. We want to abolish all the establishments of the old regime.

VAUSE: Just as the Ba'ath Party headquarters in Basra was smashed by coalition firepower, so too was its monopoly on political ideology. By some accounts there are now a dozen new parties in Basra alone, among them the Islamic Invitation Party. They'd like a Shia dominated Islamic government and want the U.S. to leave now.

Don't confuse them with the High Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, although they pretty much have the same goals. The coalition of Iraqi National Unity supports the coalition but notably that's written in English, not Arabic.

There's the Iraqi Coordination Movement which has taken over one of Chemical Ali's houses. It's hard to know whom they support because on our three visits no one was ever there. Then there is the Iraq National Party. Five days ago they moved into the old holding cells at the city's police station.

HASSAN MAHOOD ALI, IRAQI NATIONAL PARTY (through translator): We are asking for a democratic society with human rights, especially for women. We are walking together as one supporting Dr. Ahmed Chalabi.

VAUSE: Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, that's his picture out front, but he's leader of the once exiled Iraqi National Congress. (on camera): And all of the parties are vying for a say in Iraq's political future. It is shaping up to be a very noisy and long discussion.

John Vause, CNN, Basra.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Take a look at something now that's been a bit overlooked over the last week or so and that's the humanitarian situation in Iraq. There's been a lot of focus on the politics there, but whether in fact there is a humanitarian crisis depends a lot on how you define the word. It's enough to say that after a dozen years of sanctions and weeks of war there is great need.

Margaret Larson is with the group Mercy Corps. She's about to travel into Iraq, tomorrow I think, to help look at the situation, deliver the goods. She is in Kuwait tonight and it is very nice to see you. What do you expect to find? Where are the problems?

MARGARET LARSON, MERCY CORPS: Well, I think you've really hit the nail on the head. It has to do with the definition. We have not seen a humanitarian crisis in the way that we saw, for example, in Kosovo with a mass movement of people, people on the brink of starvation or rampant disease.

But what we do see inside Iraq is a great deal of need. Everything that you and I, Aaron, take for granted as part of every day life, to have power, clean water, running water, shoes for our children, supplies and schools, medicines in hospital, all of that is lacking. I'm headed up to the city of Al Kut and I'm going to be doing a great deal of videotaping over the next four days to try to document exactly what that need is.

BROWN: How is Mercy Corps different from any or all of the other groups that are in, UNICEF and the rest? What is it that makes your mission different?

LARSON: Well, I think that Mercy Corps has, since it's already been operating in the north of Iraq and been operating in the Middle East for about 20 years, has a great deal of experience in this region. We're launching new programs in the south with food and water and basic health.

But one of our specialties is civil society building. What we do with our longer term programs is help people to mitigate conflict without violence, to teach people about democratic principles and the inclusion of all religious and ethnic and political groups in their decision making within communities.

Obviously, any time post conflict those skills are really going to be needed, and in a place like Iraq with no real history of that, those skills are particularly important to impart.

BROWN: How many people do you send in to do that sort of work? LARSON: Well, we do a number of things. We send in an original team of expatriates that are primarily, in this case, American and British, about eight or ten people who then do regional hiring, as many as 100 people, who get involved in this and our programs are both relief, which is short term, and in development as we were just discussing, which could be, you know, many months or perhaps even many years.

So, we make an investment in the community and we stay. We've been in Afghanistan, for example, since the mid-'80s and we plan to stay in Iraq for as long as we can be useful.

BROWN: You and I have talked about this trip you're about to make for a while now. You're about to go in there. Are you excited to be going in? This is work you've really wanted to do. You made some sacrifices in your life to do it.

LARSON: Absolutely.

BROWN: I'm dying to know how you're feeling tonight.

LARSON: Well, we're leaving actually in about 45 minutes and I can't wait to go. I mean jus as in my prior career as a journalist, this work has to do with watching history unfold but without that level of detachment that you have as a journalist, or at least that observational level of work that I did as a journalist.

This is much more involved with people and with that threat of humanity that connects us all, all over the world. And so, to be able to go and witness this and to talk to people about their lives and about the things that we have in common, because there's much more that we as human beings have in common than that separates us, is a great pleasure for me and a real benefit and advantage in my education and in the work that we do at Mercy Corps which is, you know, obviously very important to me.

BROWN: Margaret, God bless you, be safe there and we'll talk to you when you come out, OK?

LARSON: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you Margaret Larson.

LARSON: Thanks a lot.

BROWN: Thank you. We'll talk to her when she comes out. It will be an interesting experience and Mercy Corps does a great job. We'll see how it goes.

To Beijing next where there seems to be an emerging effort among average citizens to take back the streets, only the villain here isn't the neighborhood criminal, of course, it is a deadly virus.

Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Jaime Florcruz.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Neighborhood volunteers set out to work, taking the anti-SARS campaign to the streets. They are educating and mobilizing residents to fight the spreading disease.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I keep a lot of disinfectant at home and sweep the floor three times a day. I take a bath more frequently.

FLORCRUZ: Beijing's neighborhoods have been ordered to police their own turf as the Beijing mayor raises the alarm.

WANG QISHAN, ACTING BEIJING MAYOR (through translator): The situation in Beijing remains severe for SARS prevention and treatment. Infections have not yet been cut off.

FLORCRUZ: City authorities have imposed tough quarantine measures. Schools, entertainment venues, and public areas have been temporarily closed. SARS patients are being moved to designated hospitals for quarantine and treatment. Beijing plans to accommodate an expected overflow of SARS patients in the city suburbs.

(on camera): Call this Camp SARS where 7,000 people are working day and night to finish this brand new quarantine area.

(voice-over): Workers from six major construction companies are building the 1,000-bed facility. Rooms will be equipped with respirator, cable TV, and telephones.

The hospital will be partly staffed by military doctors, dispatched by the central authorities to assist Beijing. Just ten days in the job, the mayor admits the city is overwhelmed.

QISHAN (through translator): We find that we are ill prepared in terms of the ability of doctors and nurses and of medical facilities. Only 4,000 or 4.3 percent of our health workers are knowledgeable about respiratory diseases.

FLORCRUZ: In Beijing suburbs, villagers have been ordered to set up checkpoints, to turn away strangers, and to disinfect the belongings of returning residents. The goal, they say, is to cut off the chain of infections. So far, so good, not a single SARS case has been reported in the rural areas.

Jaime Florcruz, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, morning papers, tomorrow morning's papers. We get tomorrow's news tonight. Man it could not get better than that. We'll take a break first. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time for morning papers, the check of newspapers around the country and around the world, though we generally don't get around the world. I can't explain that. If there's a pattern to today's papers, I can not figure it out, but here we go.

"The New York Times" understandably and predictably the shooting in Fallujah again in the center of the front page, and a neat story actually right below it that perhaps less was taken at the Iraqi National Museum than was first thought.

But the best story, come in tight if you can, arsenic poisonings at church mystify small town in Maine. This is in New Sweden, Maine, and maybe somebody was putting, this is like an Agatha Christie thing, maybe somebody was putting arsenic in the coffee at the church social. In any case, one person has died, 15 people in the town are hospitalized, and it's a terrific mystery story, and that's "The New York Times," all the news that's fit to print.

We'll set that aside for a second or longer perhaps. The "San Francisco Chronicle" Mid East peace is their big story on the front page and Fallujah is a big story on the front page. Come down here now if you can. I've seen this on nobody's front page. It's a very good story.

U.S. works to weaken global tobacco treaty. Bush administration opposes worldwide ban on advertising. One hundred sixty nations, I think, are involved in this very complicated treaty to try and get people to stop smoking and try and reduce the appeal of cigarettes around the world. Phillip Morris not very happy with that, and the Bush administration working to weaken that according to this report in the "San Francisco Chronicle."

The "Times Herald-Record" which is upstate New York, Hudson Valley and the Catskills, "The Choice" you can vote. How good a front page is that? It's a ballot. Legislators say the two legislative leaders want to raise taxes in the state. The governor says -- the state has an enormous budget deficit, the governor says cut education statewide and other cuts too, and you can vote if you're living up there. Anyway, we like this paper, the "Times Herald-Record."

OK, cool, 30 seconds. The "Chicago Sun Times," Daley scolds top cops, Mayor Daley, for rash of murders. Gang violence in Chicago is what that's about. Elizabeth Smart's on the front page. The North Carolina missing boy story is on the front page.

But here's the story I like, forked tongue, Reverend Meeks wants law to prevent tongue splitting and I live in fear of such things in my house, OK, and the weather tomorrow in Chicago is nefarious, if you're keeping track. That's a look at morning papers around the country.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, Segment 7 (unintelligible). That's what it's going to be with a question if economists - just watch it. We'll be right back.

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BROWN: From us tonight, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan spent the day on Capitol Hill answering questions from members of the House Financial Services Committee. They wanted to know in a word when he expects the economy to pick up. In a word, he answered it depends, which, of course, is two words, but who's counting. We're talking about economics here, not rocket science. Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Now, this is what science is supposed to look like. Guys in white coats, test tubes bubbling over. And most important, findings that everyone accepts.

There is no argument: Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. There is no argument an object dropped from a height will fall, and at a predictable speed.

(on camera): That's what science is supposed to do, to substitute facts for an opinion. Except when it comes to the dismal science, economics. Dismal, yes. Science?

(voice-over): For instance, right now there is a big debate about tax cuts.

BUSH: Reducing income tax rates is money...

GREENFIELD: The president says they will mean jobs and growth. See that sign behind him?

REP. DICK GEPHARDT (D), MISSOURI: Killing the economy right before our eyes.

GREENFIELD: Democrats say no, they'll explode the deficit and mortgage our future.

BUSH: I hear a lot of talk in Washington about...

GREENFIELD: OK, a lot of this is politics or ideology. But if you turn to the so-called experts, the answer to some very basic questions comes back, well, it all depends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We must go forward with a tax relief package.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: In 1981, after Ronald Reagan cut taxes, there was a lot of economic growth and huge deficits. Did the tax cuts cause both? Either? Neither? There is no agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Seventy percent of the new taxes I'll propose...

(END VIDEO CLIP) GREENFIELD: After Bill Clinton increased taxes in 1993, America saw big economic growth and huge budget surpluses. Did it happen because of the taxes? Despite them? Did the tax increases make no difference? It all depends who you ask.

And you don't need to crack open a history book to find some serious head scratching about economic issues. Just try to find out about the state of today's economy. You'd think the Federal Reserve Board would know, but "The Wall Street Journal" reports that officials there disagree on why the economy has been listless. It's the war, some say. No, no, it's excess capacity, or the collapse of the stock market.

How about the impact of deficits on interest rates? Most economists know there is an impact, but right now, in the face of looming mega deficits, interest rates are historically low.

"New Yorker" economics writer Jim Surowiecki.

JIM SUROWIECKI, NEW YORKER: From a public policy perspective, it can be frustrating, especially because it's clear that economics and ideology are so wrapped up with each other, and so it's hard to say whether someone is actually making a principled economic argument, or rather just sort of making a kind of self-serving ideological argument.

GREENFIELD (on camera): Perhaps this is why President Truman is fondly remembered for asking for a one-armed economist. When asked why, he said, "because they're always saying on the one hand this, on the other hand that." And maybe that's also why it's hard to take the whole idea of economics as a science all that seriously. Perhaps in his next congressional appearance, Fed Chairman Greenspan could chalk the pin-striped suits for a crisp white lab coat.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Good to see you again, and we'll see you again tomorrow, we hope. 10:00 Eastern time. Join us then. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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





Emerge From Basra; Mercy Corps En Route to Iraq to Provide Aid to Iraqis; Interviews with John Burns, Steven Brill, Margret Larson, Martin Indyx>