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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Bush: Major Combat in Iraq Over; U.S. Troops Will Remain for Security, Reconstruction

Aired May 01, 2003 - 22:00   ET

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

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


AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone. The speech was billed as a moment to declare the combat over in speech but had a far bigger sweep than the weeks of war.
At the root of it what was happened, as he said, that terrible morning 19 months ago. The speech was politics and policy rolled into one and it is, of course, where we begin the whip tonight.

Our senior White House correspondent John King starts us off. John, a headline from you, please.

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, tonight the president did say major combat in Iraq is over but he says U.S. troops will be there for security and reconstruction for some time to come and in a much broader message and the platform said it all, the deck of an aircraft carrier, the president said he believed there's much more to be done in the global war on terrorism -- Aaron.

BROWN: John, thank you. Back to you at the top for a recap of the president's speech.

What does it mean to the troops still on the ground in Iraq? And there are many of them. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight. Jamie, a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, Pentagon officials say that under the best-case scenario, U.S. troops would not be out of Iraq for at least two years.

But privately, they concede they expect U.S. forces to be in Iraq in substantial numbers for many years longer than that -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you.

Frank Buckley was aboard the USS Lincoln, where the president spoke, all day. So Frank, a headline from you.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the headlines in the newspapers tomorrow morning will likely quote from the president's speech tonight. But it may be the pictures of the president that everyone will be talking about.

The president arriving in dramatic fashion aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln today. We'll show you those pictures in just a bit. BROWN: Frank, thank you.

And a side bar to the war, if you will. The uproar surrounding the Dixie Chicks. Their world tour knocked -- kicked off, rather, today in Greenville, South Carolina. David Mattingly is there. So David, a headline.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, can a group of country music performers critical of the president and the war take the heat and win back their audience?

Tonight, the Dixie Chicks find their answer.

BROWN: David, thank you. Back to you and the rest coming up tonight.

Also coming up tonight, another grim reminder that while the combat may be over, the danger is still around in Iraq. The latest bloody incident in Faluja again.

Jeff Greenfield joins us tonight on the speech and how it compares with the speech a dozen years ago by the first President Bush after the first war in Iraq.

Also, Howard Kurtz joins us to critique the media's coverage of the war.

And we mentioned the Dixie Chicks.

We'll take a look at that controversy and Carl Winer join us later just because. No, just because he has a memoir out. All that and more in the 90 minutes ahead.

We begin with what this president had to say tonight aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. His speech tonight signaling an end to the war in Iraq without formally saying so.

Fitting, perhaps, for a war in which the enemy never surrendered. The leadership simply melted away, and the shooting still goes on. Fitting, also, for a president who sees Iraq as just one part of a larger war and said so tonight.

We have a number of reports this evening. We begin with CNN's John King, who joins us once again from the White House. John, good evening.

KING: Good evening again, Aaron. The speech ran about 25 minutes. The biggest cheer came when Mr. Bush reminded the more than 5,000 sailors on board that aircraft carrier that they soon would be home. That was the biggest cheer.

But the biggest message from this president was that in his view, winning the peace in Iraq will take some time and that the broader war on terrorism is far from over.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KING (voice-over): The day's every move was designed as a show of strength, from the F-18s in formation, to this fly-by, commander- in-chief in the co-pilot seat, making history as Navy One caught the wire and made Mr. Bush the first president to land on a carrier the hard way.

And then, a prime time address to declare major combat operations in Iraq are over, from a stage meant to remind the world this president will not shy away from using force as an instrument of foreign policy.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any outlaw regime with ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a great danger to the civilized world and will be confronted.

KING: Mr. Bush chose his words carefully for a reason. From a military standpoint, declaring the war over would require the Pentagon to release Iraqi prisoners of war and significantly restrict the military's rights to round up members of the former regime.

And despite this, some key missions have not been accomplished.

BUSH: We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons. And already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated.

KING: And from a political standpoint, Mr. Bush is walking a careful line, eager to salute the troops and claim progress in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism, but also mindful that he must make the case for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for perhaps two years or more, at an estimated cost of $2 billion a month.

BUSH: The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done.

KING: The former Air National Guard pilot took the stick for about a third of the flight and was all smiles as he shook hands and posed for pictures. Democrats back in Washington called it a stunt but cringed at the power of the pictures. A commander-in-chief just months from a re-election campaign.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: No dispute here at the White House tonight about the power here at home, the political power of those pictures, the commander-in- chief being so welcomed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. But they insist the main reason the president chose that stage for this speech was to send a message to the world that he is 2-0 on terrorism, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and not afraid to use force again if necessary -- Aaron.

BROWN: So, where Iraq is concerned, what worries them at the White House? KING: Well, what worries them politically here at home is that you saw the cheer from those sailors. The president himself said more than 150 of the men aboard that ship had children when they were at sea.

What worries the White House is the American people will see these pictures when this ship comes home and others follow it in the days ahead and think the war is over and then there will be some violent operation, not combat, but some policing operation where Americans get killed and the American people will say I thought the war is over. That is what they worry from in a domestic political environment.

What worries them long term, trying to assemble a democracy in a country that doesn't know what a democracy is. It has competing rival and ethnic factions. It is going to take months if not years. They know that at the White House. They question the patience of the American people and the patience of the Iraqi people.

BROWN: Are they at all surprised by what they've seen when the statue fell, the protests, some of the violence, the shootings of the last three days? Any of that surprising?

KING: They insist, no, that you could not say this specific thing will happen in the days ahead but that you knew there would be problems. They insist that here at the White House. They say they didn't know the looting would be as bad as it was but they knew there would be some psychological, if you will, outpouring, blowing off steam by the Iraqi people.

They insist, as they insisted in the early days of the war, that they are seeing about what they expected. They also say they knew when the war began that it would be months and years before you had a stable Iraq to look back on and say whether or not the post-war effort is successful.

BROWN: John, thank you. A long day for you, our senior White House correspondent, John King, tonight.

After a war that began with a rolling start, this has all the makings, as John indicated, of a rolling stop.

To look at who goes, who stays, what tonight's speech will mean to the troops, we turn to our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, good evening.

MCINTYRE: Well, good evening, Aaron. There are roughly about 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the moment and there's no prospect there'll be any significantly fewer number of troops there any time soon.

Pentagon officials say that while there's no timetable for bringing the troops out, there is a conservative estimate that it could be done in as little as two years if all the pieces fell into place. At this point, there's no indication that that optimistic scenario will take place. In fact, privately, Pentagon officials suggest that the U.S. will likely be in Iraq for perhaps over five, as many as 10 years, of some sort of military presence in Iraq.

And as an example, they point to Afghanistan, a country where Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today also declared that the major combat operations were over. But a year and a half after the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. has now more troops on the ground than at the beginning of the war. They've got about 9,000. There was about 7,000 special forces on the ground in Afghanistan at the height of the conflict.

And the country, while fairly stable, is still unsettled and the hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda remnants remains, especially along the border region with Pakistan. And in Afghanistan, there is a government in place.

So, if you take that example and apply it to Iraq and look at the many, many challenges that have to be confronted in Iraq, Pentagon officials are saying privately they believe the U.S. will be in Iraq for years to come -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do you recall in the build-up to the war, in the months of build-up to the war, a single Pentagon official publicly saying that he or she believed that American troops would be there in significant numbers a decade later?

MCINTYRE: Well, they're still not officially saying it. They're still saying that they won't stay any longer they have to and they'll leave as soon as they can. And if you ask them how long that will be, if you ask Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, he'll use his favorite refrain, it's unknowable.

But no, they didn't say they were going to be there in any significant number. In fact, when the Army chief of staff, General Shinseki, who's sort of on the outs with Secretary Rumsfeld, suggested in Congressional testimony that it might take two or even 300,000 troops to keep the peace in Iraq, that was quickly down played by the Pentagon, saying that that number was much inflated.

Of course, the Pentagon's projection counts on other countries to contribute peacekeeping forces to Iraq and so far, they're not getting many takers when it comes to volunteering troops to take the place of U.S. troops in Iraq -- Aaron.

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

President touched on it, but as if we needed another reminder of the difficulties remaining in Iraq, whether you call it a war or combat or not, there was another incident today. The third in as many days.

Covering for us again, CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. soldiers barricade themselves from prying eyes after a grenade attack. Seven of their comrades were lightly wounded by the blast late Wednesday. Flown out for treatment.

LT. CHRIS HAGGARD, U.S. ARMY: Unknown persons through a grenade over the wall back behind us here. Grenade landed right about here where this crater is. Exploded. You can see this Bradley here. It's the same damage. Got peppered here.

PENHAUL: Hagert (ph) was asleep in this Humvee.

HAGGARD: He was pretty lucky. The Bradley was much closer to the Humvee and it blocked the vast majority of the blast. So the Bradley pretty much saved him.

PENHAUL: Within hours of the attack, more demonstrators outside the compound. The demands, quite clear.

So far this week, 17 Iraqi civilians have been killed and some 70 others wounded after U.S. troops opened fire on similar demonstrations. Each side blames the other for firing first.

U.S. commanders suspect former officials of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party are stoking the discontent.

COL. TOBY GREEN, 3RD ARMORED CAVALRY REG: I'm concerned about anti-coalition sentiment. Because I believe it is -- it's the product of misinformation by a few and it's not indicative of the feelings of the overwhelming majority of the population.

PENHAUL (on camera): U.S. military commanders met for fresh talks with the city mayor to discuss ways of diffusing the tension but there was no sign the Army was about to bow to the demands of local residents sand withdraw from the town completely.

(voice-over) Their foray on foot into the streets close the military compound. Their mission, hunt down those responsible for the grenade attack and maybe try to win over the locals.

(on camera) You don't know who they were?

(voice-over) But tempers are still running high. And these soldiers move on without information and without making new friends.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Falujah, Iraq.

BROWN: Whatever the mood in Iraq, it's hard to generalize, there's hope that it improves when the power comes back, when the phones start ringing, when people go back to work, start get paid.

Getting there means rebuilding in the physical sense and in ways far more challenging than that. Progress report tonight from CNN Jim Clancy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN BAGHDAD CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One look and you know why the phones aren't working. There isn't much left of the telecommunications tower in Baghdad and what is left is being carted away piece by piece.

Everywhere in the capital city, there's ample evidence U.S. air and missile strikes were incredibly accurate and devastating.

Even as U.S. troops were entering Baghdad, reconstruction plans were already on the drawing board.

MAJ. GEN. BUFORD BLOUNT, U.S. ARMY: I think there's a lot of opportunity here for very quick improvement but some things are -- the infrastructure is old and needs to be redone. We can patch it, put a Band-aid on it, but sometimes it's going to be better to start from scratch and rebuild.

CLANCY: Jay Garner, the post-war administrator for reconstruction, says work is well underway. Iraqi construction engineers say they have the manpower but need technology to speed the process.

SAAD SALIM, CONSTRUCTION ENGINEER: If they use their existing technology, it will be slowly but we use an advanced technology, I think it will be faster.

CLANCY: France helped build this telecommunications tower but given U.S. control over the process right now, it is likely a U.S. company will be awarded a contract to rebuild.

Iraq's media, all state-owned before the fall of Saddam Hussein, were also hard hit.

(on camera) At the offices of Iraq's old state-run television, they're sure of a few things. They're sure they want their jobs back. There's going to be a lot of change. And they're going to have to rebuild from the ground up.

(voice-over) Iraqi TV suffered a direct hit. Studios were destroyed and even the mobile transmitters were knocked out in air strikes. Outside, a reluctant anchorman declined an interview but said he thought he should get his job back. After all, he says, I just read what I was told to.

Already new media outlets are starting up but most represent a narrow point of view. Some have ties with the old regime. All may be suffering from post-Saddam stress syndrome.

BLOUNT: We've had a gentleman come in a couple of days ago here and said he wanted to start a newspaper, and said, you know, who has to approve that? And we told him, no one. He says, well, who has to approve my script? You know, when I get it prepared, who's going to approve it? And I said, you know what, that's part of freedom.

CLANCY: The change in attitudes may take as long as the reconstruction of Iraq.

Real reconstruction is going to cost far more than just replacing buildings bombed during the war. In the short term, the U.S. has almost a billion dollars in contracts for rebuilding roads, schools, bridges and other infrastructure items. Oil, expected to be the most lucrative area of investment, is in a world all its own.

As the U.S. And others pour money into Iraq, the reconstruction will lift the broader economy. Analysts say it will also make Iraqis partners with people and companies from all over the world. And especially the U.S.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the president's speech. Jeff Greenfield joins us to take a look at how it compares with the president's father's speech at the end of the first Gulf War.

And later in the program, the mystery of the poisoning at a little church in Maine. Was it an accident? Or was it murder?

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Whoever first said history repeats itself probably didn't mean it quite so literally as two Gulf Wars, two speeches, two economic downturns and two President Bushes.

CNN's Jeff Greenfield has been looking into what this president shares with his father, what he might not. Always good to have him on the program.

Jeff, good evening.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And don't forget Powell and Cheney.

BROWN: That, too.

GREENFIELD: What's really striking, I think, is you compare the two speeches, the first President Bush's and the second and you really see how the world has changed.

In March of 1991, when President Bush the elder went before a joint session of Congress to declare victory, almost the first words out of his mouth were about diplomacy and the breadth of the coalition. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a victory for every country in the coalition, for the United Nations, a victory for unprecedented international cooperation and diplomacy, so well led by our Secretary of State James Baker. It is a victory for the rule of law and for what is right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: Now, this speech could not really claim it as a victory for diplomacy because diplomacy didn't work. Instead, you have the president on an aircraft carrier surrounded by 5,000 people in fighting gear saying over and over again saying we're going to use our force if we have to. That's a radical difference.

Second thing, the first President Bush immediately turned to the most vexing problem any president faces in that region, and that is what do you do about the Arab-Israeli mess. Just take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GHW BUSH: We must do all that we can to close the gap between Israel and the Arab states and between Israelis and Palestinians. The tactics of terror lead absolutely nowhere. There can be no substitute for diplomacy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: By contrast, Aaron, in this speech except for a single half sentence about a peaceful Palestine, he decided I'm going to punt on this for awhile. But he knows he has to turn back.

And lastly, what have we all said ad nauseum about the president? He must avoid the fate of the first -- of his father, who didn't pay attention to the economy. Guess what? Listen to what President Bush the elder said at the end of the first Gulf War speech about just that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GHW BUSH: Our first priority is to get this economy rolling again.

The fear and uncertainty caused by the Gulf crisis were understandable. But now that the war is over, oil prices are down. Interest rates are down. And confidence is rightly coming back. Americans can move forward to lend, spend, and invest in this, the strongest economy on earth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: So, Aaron, I use that point to show that contrary to what many of us with short attention spans have said, it isn't that the President Bush and his folks didn't know the economy was important, it just didn't work out.

You have to wonder as the president goes to the Silicon Valley tomorrow and will begin turn to this, how much is the public going to say, well, what we want you to do is to be engaged and how much are they going to say, no, fix it?

BROWN: Well, right. Ultimately, it is results that count. The first President Bush was thought to be disengaged, didn't pay enough attention, didn't know the price of bread or didn't understand what a scanner was.

GREENFIELD: Right.

BROWN: But in the end, it is results for both of these men.

GREENFIELD: I would point out one other thing, however. After the Gulf War of '91 ended, foreign policy fell off the table. For the first time in 50 years, it wasn't a presidential issue in '92 or '96 or 2000.

After September 11, I'm not sure we can say confidently that the country will forget this national security stuff as it came so close to home.

BROWN: Well, certainly, Bill Clinton, the former president, believes that unless the Democrats find a credible message on national security, they're destined to lose again and again.

GREENFIELD: Look, the last time a Democrat won a national security focused election was 1964 when Johnson beat Goldwater. That is a very long time.

The only two Democrats who have won since then we Carter and Clinton when national security and foreign policy didn't matter and it's going to matter next year, I think. I mean...

BROWN: It's going to matter a lot. Thank you. Come back any time. Always welcome.

On NEWSNIGHT next, the Enron investigation goes on. Remember that? New indictments and new indictees as well.

It's NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been a big week for cracking down on corporate skullduggery, a word we don't use often. Prosecutors on Monday reached a $1 billion settlement with Wall Street firms for years was of pushing stocks on mom and pop they knew were dogs. More damning e- mails came out, showing the massive deceit and a rare voice of protest. One broker asking, is there an honest person left?

And today in Houston, new charges filed against the former chief financial officer of Enron, Andrew Fastow, and not just Mr. Fastow, but Mrs. Fastow, as well.

Here's CNN financial correspondent Jan Hopkins.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAN HOPKINS, CNNfn CORRESPONDENT: Andrew Fastow came to the federal building in Houston to drop off his wife, Lee, a former assistant treasurer at Enron. She was charged in connection with the scheme the government says produced profits for them from Enron's wind farms.

Former Enron corporate treasurer Ben Glisson (ph) and former finance executive Dan Boyle (ph) were charged with insider trading, falsification of Enron's accounting records, tax fraud and self- dealing. They allegedly worked with Fastow to make the company appear for successful than it was.

LARRY THOMPSON, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Today's indictments are a significant milestone in our determined efforts to expose and punish the vast array of criminal conduct related to the collapse of Enron corporation.

HOPKINS: The grand jury also returned a 218-count superseding indictment, expanding charges in Enron's Internet division. Five more executives were charged with profiting from $186 million in sales of Enron stock when they knew the broadband business wasn't making money.

LINDA THOMSEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: These defendants played roles in perpetuating the fairy tale that Enron was capable of spinning straw or more appropriately, fiber, into gold.

HOPKINS: The top guys at Enron, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling have not been indicted yet, but the investigation isn't over.

ANDREW WEISSMANN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ENRON TASK FORCE: The Enron task force is continuing to sift diligently through the rubble that was Enron piece by piece, scheme by scheme, and lie by lie.

HOPKINS: but investigators don't have access to thousands of documents held by Wall Street rating firms S&P and Moody's. S&P's lawyer, Floyd Abrams, is fighting subpoenas for documents on First Amendment grounds. The amendment protects journalists from producing materials gathered during research.

Jan Hopkins, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Crime of a different sort, it's a speck of a town in the far northeast corner of the United States, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. And you're not really a native unless your grandparents, well, better yet your great-grandparents were born there.

Where someone saying, did you hear so and so passed qualifies as big news and that is the big news this week in New Sweden, Maine. But what makes it news to us is someone died and dozens of others got very sick after Sunday coffee at church.

The mystery now of New Sweden, Maine, from Christine Young of CNN affiliate WMTW.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRISTINE YOUNG, WMTW CORRESPONDENT: New Sweden, Maine, rolling hills, potato farms, and a lovely old church dating back to 1871, about the time the town was settled by Swedes. Their descendents still live in New Sweden, about 600 of them, and they all know and trust one another like family.

SARA ANDERSON, STORE OWNER: If you don't know one of the people that are sick in the hospital, you know their parents or their children or their brother or sister or their grandparents. It's a community where in one way or another, it affects everybody.

YOUNG: The idea that someone within this tight-knit community would deliberately poison their neighbors is unthinkable here.

ANDERSON: No one, no one local anyway, has even brought up the thought that they think this could be done intentionally. That is by far the furthest thing from anybody's mind at this point.

YOUNG: But somehow, after Sunday services, 13 members of the Gustaf Adolf (ph) congregation took in so much arsenic that they had to be hospitalized.

Walter Reed Morrel (ph), a golf lover with recent heart problems, died 12 hours later. Two others remain in critical condition. Some locals are spooked.

JUNE GREEN, NEW SWEDEN RESIDENT: You never know. If they'll do that to -- in God's house, what would they do outside?

YOUNG: The town's wells and ground water have been ruled out as possible sources of the toxins, but something in the church -- police won't say what -- tested positive for arsenic.

LT. DENNIS APPLETON, MAINE STATE POLICE: But we have not identified how the arsenic arrived in this building.

YOUNG: There are eight state police detectives, two supervisors and a lieutenant trying to find that out. There are theories suggesting an accident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And many people use different chemicals to clean their sinks or toilets or coffee pots, anything at all, because of such high contents of rust and other minerals in the water.

YOUNG: Police are also investigating the possibility of something much more sinister.

APPLETON: Hopefully, if there is a conflict, we'll find the person who's willing to step forward and tell us that, if there happens to be one.

YOUNG: And while police haven't called this a crime, the church is looking an awful lot like a crime scene.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: And we should add that Maine police are now considering that death in New Sweden, Maine, to be a homicide. They say the arsenic was put in the coffee deliberately; among the churchgoers still being treated, five in serious to critical condition.

Still ahead tonight on NEWSNIGHT: The fighting's over, but how was it covered? We'll talk with Howard Kurtz of "The Washington Post" about how the media did in an extraordinary living room war.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT: covering the war. How did the media do?

A quick break first, then Howard Kurtz joins us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Now that the president has declared combat over in Iraq, it seemed like a good time to take a look at how the media did in covering this war. Howard Kurtz, who writes of such things, for "The Washington Post," thinks the coverage was generally good, but -- there's always a but, isn't there? -- he says the big picture of the war wasn't always sharply drawn, there were too many mood swings -- the war was a cakewalk one day, a quagmire the next -- that Iraq coverage faded too fast, and more.

Mr. Kurtz, who does a program here on CNN as well, joins us tonight from Washington.

It's nice to have you here with us.

HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Thank you.

BROWN: You said that -- and this is a terribly brief paraphrase -- but that you weren't always sure that viewers and readers comprehended the big picture. What was it they were missing?

KURTZ: Well, it's just that the greatest strength of television, which is, it took us to the front lines -- you could see the bombs bursting in air; you could hear the bullets whizzing overhead -- also, in a way, is its weakness, because, as we got those close-up glimpses of the war, Aaron, if the units were taking casualties, if the reporters were under attack, you got the impression that this was going really badly, especially after all the Shock and Awe hype that I think the media bought into in the buildup to the war.

BROWN: Is it possible, Howie, that, no matter how many times we said to viewers, this is a snapshot, this is a small picture of a very large puzzle, that the power of the picture itself overwhelms everything else?

KURTZ: I think that's exactly what happened in many instances. And, yes, there was a great struggle. You could see it every day on the air and you could see in the daily newspapers, of journalists trying to provide the big picture, trying to provide some perspective. Now, it's hard. The fog of war can be very thick. But, at the same time, I think all the correspondents out there were brave and did as good a job as they could do.

We got way too negative. A week into the war, there were these quagmire stories. My own newspaper ran a headline that said: "War Could Last Months, Officers Say." It's absurd, based on these fragmentary reports that we were getting, to try to assess how the entire war effort was going after such a short period of time.

BROWN: But -- I'm arguing and I try not to do that here -- but if a senior military official says to you -- and you're a reporter, and a very good one -- this war could drag on for months or, as someone said to "The New York Times," this isn't quite what we war- gamed against, certainly you report it?

KURTZ: Absolutely.

But there were also a lot of unnamed sources, unnamed Pentagon officials, who perhaps didn't like Donald Rumsfeld's approach to war. They got a lot of play as well. And I just think, even beyond some of these talking heads, there was a sense, because it was six, seven or eight days and we hadn't -- we weren't marching into Baghdad yet, that somehow things had gone seriously off track.

And I just think the media, which should be skeptical, should be aggressive, should ask questions, got a little too wrapped up into the idea that this would just be a miniseries. And so it took all of three weeks. And when you look back at some of those stories, some of them, at least, look a little bit embarrassing.

BROWN: Two or three other things in a couple of minutes.

Was there, I would assume, an enormous difference in television coverage and newspaper coverage? Did they complement each other or did they conflict, or neither?

KURTZ: Well, it was largely a television war, but I think newspapers did serve a good function in trying to provide some sort of daily digest, daily assessment of where things were. I also think some of the embedded print reporters were able to do things that their television colleagues couldn't.

Two quick examples: "The New York Times"' Dexter Filkins reporting when an Iraqi civilian was shot, quoting the soldier as saying, "The chick just got in the way"; and Bill Branigin of "The Washington Post," when 10 civilians were killed, reported on an officer yelling at the soldier who shot at this car, saying, "You didn't fire a warning shot fast enough." That, I think, put to rest the notion that all the embedded reporters would just become part of a Pentagon propaganda machine.

BROWN: What do you think, now that you've seen it, of the whole idea of being able to cover a war on television live?

KURTZ: I think we're never going back. I think the technology that enables this is a good thing. It's a hell of a lot better, Aaron, than covering it from a briefing room, as we did during the first Gulf War. But, at the same time, I think we all learned lessons about the difficulty of reaching larger conclusions.

But I do think, despite this enormous videophone, mobile satellite dish, technological capability that we have now, that there was some sanitizing of the war on air, not a lot of dead bodies. In fact, CNN's Walter Rodgers told me on "RELIABLE SOURCES" this week that when he showed a single dead Iraqi soldier, the switchboard at CNN lit up and network executives suggested that he stay away from doing that sort of thing.

And I think that leads to a legitimate complaint that we are sometimes a little bit hesitant about showing the uglier face of war as well.

BROWN: Well, I was sitting here that night and I remember the shot. And we were on the shot for a long time. And we absolutely got a lot of mail about the shot.

But did you think, on balance, that people came away with a sense that this was a video game, that this was a television reality show, or did they come away with a sense that this was war?

KURTZ: I think they undoubtedly came away with a sense that this is war because of embedded correspondents and because we could see, not only tragically, in some cases, reporters who had been killed, but we could see them coming under attack.

I just think, when it came to the sensitive question of dead soldiers and civilian casualties, that there were a lot of sensitivities in the television coverage.

The other thing, briefly, that amazed me, Aaron, is how quickly, how almost instantaneously, the war has faded, to some degree, from the media map, not necessarily from your show.

But after three days, cable was back to worrying about the Laci Peterson murder case and Iraq seemed very five minutes ago. I think that's a mistake, because the rebuilding of a shattered country is as important a story as the actual war, even if the pictures are not as dramatic.

BROWN: We actually agree on a lot of this. And there's no single issue we agree on than more than that. We could sit and talk about this for a long time. I wish I could. It's good to see you, Howie.

KURTZ: Have me back.

BROWN: You got a deal, any time.

KURTZ: OK. BROWN: Howard Kurtz of "The Washington Post" and CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES."

Still ahead: Segment seven turns to talk about the Dixie Chicks and other celebrities and whether their vocal opposition to the president and the war cost them in their pocketbook.

A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If you want to feel some good old-fashioned American pride, look no further than the uproar over the Dixie Chicks, in this case, free speech in full bloom. One of the Chicks is free to criticize the president. Their fans are free not to buy their albums and they are, of course, free to complain to their radio stations not to play their songs.

And with the Chicks beginning their world tour tonight in potential enemy territory, if you will, South Carolina, we were absolutely free to assign David Mattingly to the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): It's enough to make a young Dixie Chicks fan want to sing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): Because if I thought you're going down with me, you're going down with me, baby, if I fall.

MATTINGLY: Tickets for the Dixie Chicks concert went on sale months ago and sold out in a matter of minutes. Now the wait is over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband loves Natalie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I love the Dixie Chicks, you know? Everybody does -- makes mistakes.

MATTINGLY: But these South Carolina fans had no idea that the show they were paying to see would end up becoming much more than a concert.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I think everybody has the right to their opinion. So even though they're in the spotlight, why shouldn't they?

MATTINGLY: Outside the arena, the unusual sight of a small group of protesters. More than country music, the show is now also about free speech and patriotism and the 12 now-infamous words uttered by the lead singer Natalie Maines on behalf of the group in London -- quote -- "We're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How they could say, I'm ashamed that the president is from Texas, come on, man. That's crazy. That's just not right. MATTINGLY: After the remarks, there were some angry protests. Irate listeners prompted radio stations to pull the Chicks off the air. Their new single dropped off the charts. Their No. 1 album, however dropped to No. 3, but then bounced back to the top spot, leaving observers to wonder just how angry Chicks fans really were.

WADE JESSEN, "BILLBOARD": If we didn't look at what was happening with the controversy and we plugged our ears and closed our eyes to the controversy, the sales erosion that they saw might have just been taken in stride.

MATTINGLY: In Greenville, talk radio personalities urged Chick ticket holders to skip the show go to a veterans benefit concert in nearby Spartanburg. The anti-Chick event, as it was promoted, prompted only a few dozen Chick fans to exchange their tickets.

MIKE GALLAGHER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: We're going to raise tens of thousands of dollars with a sold-out concert tonight for American military families. That's what this has been all about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, of course, everyone anxious to find out here what happens when the Dixie Chicks go before a live audience for the first time. When the lights came down, here's exactly what happened. The crowd was on its feet and cheering loudly. Several songs lately, lead singer Natalie Maines told the crowd -- quote -- "They said you might not come, but we knew you'd come."

At one point, she also said that they're very much supportive of free speech. So gave the crowd 15 seconds to boo them if they needed to. Of course, during that 15 seconds, everyone was cheering so loudly that, if anyone was booing, Aaron, you couldn't hear them.

BROWN: Well, David, tough assignment today for you. Thank you -- David Mattingly in Greenville, South Carolina.

As we suggested, we didn't necessarily think the question of the Dixie Chicks was one for Justice Rehnquist, more like Mo Rocca, the venerable sage of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central.

It's nice to have you with us.

MO ROCCA, "THE DAILY SHOW": Yes.

BROWN: What was this about?

ROCCA: Well, look, the Dixie Chicks are experienced at grabbing the spotlight. They have for a long time.

This time, I think, though, that their patented blend of bluegrass, country, pop rock and hate speech really went too far. I think it was -- now, this isn't the first time we've seen them from them. Their last song, "Landslide," a lot of people believe that it's just a glorification of a natural disaster that kills millions, some say up to a billion every year. I think they went too far. They've been castigated and I think they've righted themselves.

BROWN: Why did they go too far? What is it that was too far?

ROCCA: I think they didn't understand their constituency. I think their constituency is a more conservative constituency.

BROWN: So it wasn't that they -- it wasn't that they went too far. It wasn't anything she said. You're not making the argument that anything she said was wrong or inappropriate. You're saying that she's the wrong demographic to say it? She's placed the wrong audience to say it?

ROCCA: Perhaps.

I mean, I think part of this may be perceived as a backlash also against celebrities speaking out. I disagree with that, because I think it was just the way in which she did it. I think, in general, celebrities speaking out is a popular thing these days. This war, we've seen great strides made by celebrities. As you know, long ago, you'd have to be an Oscar winner to mouth off about politics. But now we have Oscar winners. We have Emmy winners, Grammy winners. We have this gorgeous mosaic of celebrities.

BROWN: Some of them have never won anything.

ROCCA: Absolutely. And I think that what Reverend Winthrop was talking about when we spoke about the city on the hill was the hill with the Hollywood sign in back.

I just think this Dixie Chick, if you want to call her that, did it in an impolitic way, perhaps.

BROWN: Do you think it mattered that she said it overseas?

ROCCA: I think that didn't help. Of course, she was saying it in one of the coalition partner's countries. I don't know if she was touring in Poland, because she would have had to have gone there to hit any of the other partners, I'm afraid.

BROWN: Well, or Australia.

ROCCA: Right. That's right.

BROWN: I don't know if their music works in Australia there at all.

There was a lot -- seriously, there was a lot of talk about celebrities and things they said and whether they should say and whether they should have a forum. Do you think, in the post-9/11 period, entertainers are more sensitive to their political comments than they were before 9/11?

ROCCA: Perhaps they are. It depends what arena, which area in pop culture they're in. Country stars obviously have to be more sensitive. There's talk of the Dixie Chicks maybe moving into adult contemporary, maybe abandoning country music now. Celine Dion is an adult contemporary star. She's Canadian and she's used to being an outcast. So maybe, if the Dixie Chicks needed to move there, they'd find some refuge.

BROWN: In Canada?

ROCCA: Well, in the Vegas act. They would be great pyrotechnicians for Celine's show.

BROWN: That might work.

ROCCA: I think that could work.

BROWN: Do you think your show is more sensitive? Is Jon more sensitive to the tension in the country than he would have been -- than he used to be?

ROCCA: He's more sensitive to the audience, not so much the staff. He still hits me very hard and I bruise like a grape.

BROWN: Yes.

ROCCA: But to the audience at large, he is -- no. I mean, there was a difference between the Afghanistan conflict and the Iraq conflict. And, in Afghanistan, there was almost -- there was near unanimity in the effort we made over there. So I think we spent more time making fun of the coverage of events.

In Iraq, there was real dissension. And so we could actually make fun of the events themselves. There were sides to take. We sort of jumped back and forth, I think, depending on where the best jokes

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Do your viewers ever scold you for political comments, for satire? Or do they just accept that that's the business you're in, which it is?

ROCCA: They scold us if we're not funny. And then we deserve it. And then we deserve a real good ass-whooping, the kind that Natalie deserves from the president, because, when he talks about the battle won, but not the war, I think what he's saying, in a very real, metaphorical sense -- and I mean this literally and figuratively -- is that the Dixie Chicks cell, if you will, is one of those obstacles that need be overcome.

I think they're Dixie whores. And I'm sorry to use that language on your show.

BROWN: Not sorry enough, though, as it turns out.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: There's a delay on this, right, even though it's live?

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Thank you for coming in.

ROCCA: Sure.

BROWN: Nice to have you here.

ROCCA: Yes.

BROWN: See you soon.

We'll be right back.

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





for Security, Reconstruction>


Aired May 1, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone. The speech was billed as a moment to declare the combat over in speech but had a far bigger sweep than the weeks of war.
At the root of it what was happened, as he said, that terrible morning 19 months ago. The speech was politics and policy rolled into one and it is, of course, where we begin the whip tonight.

Our senior White House correspondent John King starts us off. John, a headline from you, please.

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, tonight the president did say major combat in Iraq is over but he says U.S. troops will be there for security and reconstruction for some time to come and in a much broader message and the platform said it all, the deck of an aircraft carrier, the president said he believed there's much more to be done in the global war on terrorism -- Aaron.

BROWN: John, thank you. Back to you at the top for a recap of the president's speech.

What does it mean to the troops still on the ground in Iraq? And there are many of them. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight. Jamie, a headline.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, Pentagon officials say that under the best-case scenario, U.S. troops would not be out of Iraq for at least two years.

But privately, they concede they expect U.S. forces to be in Iraq in substantial numbers for many years longer than that -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you.

Frank Buckley was aboard the USS Lincoln, where the president spoke, all day. So Frank, a headline from you.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the headlines in the newspapers tomorrow morning will likely quote from the president's speech tonight. But it may be the pictures of the president that everyone will be talking about.

The president arriving in dramatic fashion aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln today. We'll show you those pictures in just a bit. BROWN: Frank, thank you.

And a side bar to the war, if you will. The uproar surrounding the Dixie Chicks. Their world tour knocked -- kicked off, rather, today in Greenville, South Carolina. David Mattingly is there. So David, a headline.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, can a group of country music performers critical of the president and the war take the heat and win back their audience?

Tonight, the Dixie Chicks find their answer.

BROWN: David, thank you. Back to you and the rest coming up tonight.

Also coming up tonight, another grim reminder that while the combat may be over, the danger is still around in Iraq. The latest bloody incident in Faluja again.

Jeff Greenfield joins us tonight on the speech and how it compares with the speech a dozen years ago by the first President Bush after the first war in Iraq.

Also, Howard Kurtz joins us to critique the media's coverage of the war.

And we mentioned the Dixie Chicks.

We'll take a look at that controversy and Carl Winer join us later just because. No, just because he has a memoir out. All that and more in the 90 minutes ahead.

We begin with what this president had to say tonight aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. His speech tonight signaling an end to the war in Iraq without formally saying so.

Fitting, perhaps, for a war in which the enemy never surrendered. The leadership simply melted away, and the shooting still goes on. Fitting, also, for a president who sees Iraq as just one part of a larger war and said so tonight.

We have a number of reports this evening. We begin with CNN's John King, who joins us once again from the White House. John, good evening.

KING: Good evening again, Aaron. The speech ran about 25 minutes. The biggest cheer came when Mr. Bush reminded the more than 5,000 sailors on board that aircraft carrier that they soon would be home. That was the biggest cheer.

But the biggest message from this president was that in his view, winning the peace in Iraq will take some time and that the broader war on terrorism is far from over.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KING (voice-over): The day's every move was designed as a show of strength, from the F-18s in formation, to this fly-by, commander- in-chief in the co-pilot seat, making history as Navy One caught the wire and made Mr. Bush the first president to land on a carrier the hard way.

And then, a prime time address to declare major combat operations in Iraq are over, from a stage meant to remind the world this president will not shy away from using force as an instrument of foreign policy.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any outlaw regime with ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a great danger to the civilized world and will be confronted.

KING: Mr. Bush chose his words carefully for a reason. From a military standpoint, declaring the war over would require the Pentagon to release Iraqi prisoners of war and significantly restrict the military's rights to round up members of the former regime.

And despite this, some key missions have not been accomplished.

BUSH: We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons. And already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated.

KING: And from a political standpoint, Mr. Bush is walking a careful line, eager to salute the troops and claim progress in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism, but also mindful that he must make the case for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for perhaps two years or more, at an estimated cost of $2 billion a month.

BUSH: The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done.

KING: The former Air National Guard pilot took the stick for about a third of the flight and was all smiles as he shook hands and posed for pictures. Democrats back in Washington called it a stunt but cringed at the power of the pictures. A commander-in-chief just months from a re-election campaign.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: No dispute here at the White House tonight about the power here at home, the political power of those pictures, the commander-in- chief being so welcomed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. But they insist the main reason the president chose that stage for this speech was to send a message to the world that he is 2-0 on terrorism, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and not afraid to use force again if necessary -- Aaron.

BROWN: So, where Iraq is concerned, what worries them at the White House? KING: Well, what worries them politically here at home is that you saw the cheer from those sailors. The president himself said more than 150 of the men aboard that ship had children when they were at sea.

What worries the White House is the American people will see these pictures when this ship comes home and others follow it in the days ahead and think the war is over and then there will be some violent operation, not combat, but some policing operation where Americans get killed and the American people will say I thought the war is over. That is what they worry from in a domestic political environment.

What worries them long term, trying to assemble a democracy in a country that doesn't know what a democracy is. It has competing rival and ethnic factions. It is going to take months if not years. They know that at the White House. They question the patience of the American people and the patience of the Iraqi people.

BROWN: Are they at all surprised by what they've seen when the statue fell, the protests, some of the violence, the shootings of the last three days? Any of that surprising?

KING: They insist, no, that you could not say this specific thing will happen in the days ahead but that you knew there would be problems. They insist that here at the White House. They say they didn't know the looting would be as bad as it was but they knew there would be some psychological, if you will, outpouring, blowing off steam by the Iraqi people.

They insist, as they insisted in the early days of the war, that they are seeing about what they expected. They also say they knew when the war began that it would be months and years before you had a stable Iraq to look back on and say whether or not the post-war effort is successful.

BROWN: John, thank you. A long day for you, our senior White House correspondent, John King, tonight.

After a war that began with a rolling start, this has all the makings, as John indicated, of a rolling stop.

To look at who goes, who stays, what tonight's speech will mean to the troops, we turn to our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, good evening.

MCINTYRE: Well, good evening, Aaron. There are roughly about 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the moment and there's no prospect there'll be any significantly fewer number of troops there any time soon.

Pentagon officials say that while there's no timetable for bringing the troops out, there is a conservative estimate that it could be done in as little as two years if all the pieces fell into place. At this point, there's no indication that that optimistic scenario will take place. In fact, privately, Pentagon officials suggest that the U.S. will likely be in Iraq for perhaps over five, as many as 10 years, of some sort of military presence in Iraq.

And as an example, they point to Afghanistan, a country where Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today also declared that the major combat operations were over. But a year and a half after the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. has now more troops on the ground than at the beginning of the war. They've got about 9,000. There was about 7,000 special forces on the ground in Afghanistan at the height of the conflict.

And the country, while fairly stable, is still unsettled and the hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda remnants remains, especially along the border region with Pakistan. And in Afghanistan, there is a government in place.

So, if you take that example and apply it to Iraq and look at the many, many challenges that have to be confronted in Iraq, Pentagon officials are saying privately they believe the U.S. will be in Iraq for years to come -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do you recall in the build-up to the war, in the months of build-up to the war, a single Pentagon official publicly saying that he or she believed that American troops would be there in significant numbers a decade later?

MCINTYRE: Well, they're still not officially saying it. They're still saying that they won't stay any longer they have to and they'll leave as soon as they can. And if you ask them how long that will be, if you ask Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, he'll use his favorite refrain, it's unknowable.

But no, they didn't say they were going to be there in any significant number. In fact, when the Army chief of staff, General Shinseki, who's sort of on the outs with Secretary Rumsfeld, suggested in Congressional testimony that it might take two or even 300,000 troops to keep the peace in Iraq, that was quickly down played by the Pentagon, saying that that number was much inflated.

Of course, the Pentagon's projection counts on other countries to contribute peacekeeping forces to Iraq and so far, they're not getting many takers when it comes to volunteering troops to take the place of U.S. troops in Iraq -- Aaron.

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

President touched on it, but as if we needed another reminder of the difficulties remaining in Iraq, whether you call it a war or combat or not, there was another incident today. The third in as many days.

Covering for us again, CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. soldiers barricade themselves from prying eyes after a grenade attack. Seven of their comrades were lightly wounded by the blast late Wednesday. Flown out for treatment.

LT. CHRIS HAGGARD, U.S. ARMY: Unknown persons through a grenade over the wall back behind us here. Grenade landed right about here where this crater is. Exploded. You can see this Bradley here. It's the same damage. Got peppered here.

PENHAUL: Hagert (ph) was asleep in this Humvee.

HAGGARD: He was pretty lucky. The Bradley was much closer to the Humvee and it blocked the vast majority of the blast. So the Bradley pretty much saved him.

PENHAUL: Within hours of the attack, more demonstrators outside the compound. The demands, quite clear.

So far this week, 17 Iraqi civilians have been killed and some 70 others wounded after U.S. troops opened fire on similar demonstrations. Each side blames the other for firing first.

U.S. commanders suspect former officials of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party are stoking the discontent.

COL. TOBY GREEN, 3RD ARMORED CAVALRY REG: I'm concerned about anti-coalition sentiment. Because I believe it is -- it's the product of misinformation by a few and it's not indicative of the feelings of the overwhelming majority of the population.

PENHAUL (on camera): U.S. military commanders met for fresh talks with the city mayor to discuss ways of diffusing the tension but there was no sign the Army was about to bow to the demands of local residents sand withdraw from the town completely.

(voice-over) Their foray on foot into the streets close the military compound. Their mission, hunt down those responsible for the grenade attack and maybe try to win over the locals.

(on camera) You don't know who they were?

(voice-over) But tempers are still running high. And these soldiers move on without information and without making new friends.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Falujah, Iraq.

BROWN: Whatever the mood in Iraq, it's hard to generalize, there's hope that it improves when the power comes back, when the phones start ringing, when people go back to work, start get paid.

Getting there means rebuilding in the physical sense and in ways far more challenging than that. Progress report tonight from CNN Jim Clancy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN BAGHDAD CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One look and you know why the phones aren't working. There isn't much left of the telecommunications tower in Baghdad and what is left is being carted away piece by piece.

Everywhere in the capital city, there's ample evidence U.S. air and missile strikes were incredibly accurate and devastating.

Even as U.S. troops were entering Baghdad, reconstruction plans were already on the drawing board.

MAJ. GEN. BUFORD BLOUNT, U.S. ARMY: I think there's a lot of opportunity here for very quick improvement but some things are -- the infrastructure is old and needs to be redone. We can patch it, put a Band-aid on it, but sometimes it's going to be better to start from scratch and rebuild.

CLANCY: Jay Garner, the post-war administrator for reconstruction, says work is well underway. Iraqi construction engineers say they have the manpower but need technology to speed the process.

SAAD SALIM, CONSTRUCTION ENGINEER: If they use their existing technology, it will be slowly but we use an advanced technology, I think it will be faster.

CLANCY: France helped build this telecommunications tower but given U.S. control over the process right now, it is likely a U.S. company will be awarded a contract to rebuild.

Iraq's media, all state-owned before the fall of Saddam Hussein, were also hard hit.

(on camera) At the offices of Iraq's old state-run television, they're sure of a few things. They're sure they want their jobs back. There's going to be a lot of change. And they're going to have to rebuild from the ground up.

(voice-over) Iraqi TV suffered a direct hit. Studios were destroyed and even the mobile transmitters were knocked out in air strikes. Outside, a reluctant anchorman declined an interview but said he thought he should get his job back. After all, he says, I just read what I was told to.

Already new media outlets are starting up but most represent a narrow point of view. Some have ties with the old regime. All may be suffering from post-Saddam stress syndrome.

BLOUNT: We've had a gentleman come in a couple of days ago here and said he wanted to start a newspaper, and said, you know, who has to approve that? And we told him, no one. He says, well, who has to approve my script? You know, when I get it prepared, who's going to approve it? And I said, you know what, that's part of freedom.

CLANCY: The change in attitudes may take as long as the reconstruction of Iraq.

Real reconstruction is going to cost far more than just replacing buildings bombed during the war. In the short term, the U.S. has almost a billion dollars in contracts for rebuilding roads, schools, bridges and other infrastructure items. Oil, expected to be the most lucrative area of investment, is in a world all its own.

As the U.S. And others pour money into Iraq, the reconstruction will lift the broader economy. Analysts say it will also make Iraqis partners with people and companies from all over the world. And especially the U.S.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the president's speech. Jeff Greenfield joins us to take a look at how it compares with the president's father's speech at the end of the first Gulf War.

And later in the program, the mystery of the poisoning at a little church in Maine. Was it an accident? Or was it murder?

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Whoever first said history repeats itself probably didn't mean it quite so literally as two Gulf Wars, two speeches, two economic downturns and two President Bushes.

CNN's Jeff Greenfield has been looking into what this president shares with his father, what he might not. Always good to have him on the program.

Jeff, good evening.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And don't forget Powell and Cheney.

BROWN: That, too.

GREENFIELD: What's really striking, I think, is you compare the two speeches, the first President Bush's and the second and you really see how the world has changed.

In March of 1991, when President Bush the elder went before a joint session of Congress to declare victory, almost the first words out of his mouth were about diplomacy and the breadth of the coalition. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a victory for every country in the coalition, for the United Nations, a victory for unprecedented international cooperation and diplomacy, so well led by our Secretary of State James Baker. It is a victory for the rule of law and for what is right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: Now, this speech could not really claim it as a victory for diplomacy because diplomacy didn't work. Instead, you have the president on an aircraft carrier surrounded by 5,000 people in fighting gear saying over and over again saying we're going to use our force if we have to. That's a radical difference.

Second thing, the first President Bush immediately turned to the most vexing problem any president faces in that region, and that is what do you do about the Arab-Israeli mess. Just take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GHW BUSH: We must do all that we can to close the gap between Israel and the Arab states and between Israelis and Palestinians. The tactics of terror lead absolutely nowhere. There can be no substitute for diplomacy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: By contrast, Aaron, in this speech except for a single half sentence about a peaceful Palestine, he decided I'm going to punt on this for awhile. But he knows he has to turn back.

And lastly, what have we all said ad nauseum about the president? He must avoid the fate of the first -- of his father, who didn't pay attention to the economy. Guess what? Listen to what President Bush the elder said at the end of the first Gulf War speech about just that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GHW BUSH: Our first priority is to get this economy rolling again.

The fear and uncertainty caused by the Gulf crisis were understandable. But now that the war is over, oil prices are down. Interest rates are down. And confidence is rightly coming back. Americans can move forward to lend, spend, and invest in this, the strongest economy on earth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREENFIELD: So, Aaron, I use that point to show that contrary to what many of us with short attention spans have said, it isn't that the President Bush and his folks didn't know the economy was important, it just didn't work out.

You have to wonder as the president goes to the Silicon Valley tomorrow and will begin turn to this, how much is the public going to say, well, what we want you to do is to be engaged and how much are they going to say, no, fix it?

BROWN: Well, right. Ultimately, it is results that count. The first President Bush was thought to be disengaged, didn't pay enough attention, didn't know the price of bread or didn't understand what a scanner was.

GREENFIELD: Right.

BROWN: But in the end, it is results for both of these men.

GREENFIELD: I would point out one other thing, however. After the Gulf War of '91 ended, foreign policy fell off the table. For the first time in 50 years, it wasn't a presidential issue in '92 or '96 or 2000.

After September 11, I'm not sure we can say confidently that the country will forget this national security stuff as it came so close to home.

BROWN: Well, certainly, Bill Clinton, the former president, believes that unless the Democrats find a credible message on national security, they're destined to lose again and again.

GREENFIELD: Look, the last time a Democrat won a national security focused election was 1964 when Johnson beat Goldwater. That is a very long time.

The only two Democrats who have won since then we Carter and Clinton when national security and foreign policy didn't matter and it's going to matter next year, I think. I mean...

BROWN: It's going to matter a lot. Thank you. Come back any time. Always welcome.

On NEWSNIGHT next, the Enron investigation goes on. Remember that? New indictments and new indictees as well.

It's NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been a big week for cracking down on corporate skullduggery, a word we don't use often. Prosecutors on Monday reached a $1 billion settlement with Wall Street firms for years was of pushing stocks on mom and pop they knew were dogs. More damning e- mails came out, showing the massive deceit and a rare voice of protest. One broker asking, is there an honest person left?

And today in Houston, new charges filed against the former chief financial officer of Enron, Andrew Fastow, and not just Mr. Fastow, but Mrs. Fastow, as well.

Here's CNN financial correspondent Jan Hopkins.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAN HOPKINS, CNNfn CORRESPONDENT: Andrew Fastow came to the federal building in Houston to drop off his wife, Lee, a former assistant treasurer at Enron. She was charged in connection with the scheme the government says produced profits for them from Enron's wind farms.

Former Enron corporate treasurer Ben Glisson (ph) and former finance executive Dan Boyle (ph) were charged with insider trading, falsification of Enron's accounting records, tax fraud and self- dealing. They allegedly worked with Fastow to make the company appear for successful than it was.

LARRY THOMPSON, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Today's indictments are a significant milestone in our determined efforts to expose and punish the vast array of criminal conduct related to the collapse of Enron corporation.

HOPKINS: The grand jury also returned a 218-count superseding indictment, expanding charges in Enron's Internet division. Five more executives were charged with profiting from $186 million in sales of Enron stock when they knew the broadband business wasn't making money.

LINDA THOMSEN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT: These defendants played roles in perpetuating the fairy tale that Enron was capable of spinning straw or more appropriately, fiber, into gold.

HOPKINS: The top guys at Enron, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling have not been indicted yet, but the investigation isn't over.

ANDREW WEISSMANN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ENRON TASK FORCE: The Enron task force is continuing to sift diligently through the rubble that was Enron piece by piece, scheme by scheme, and lie by lie.

HOPKINS: but investigators don't have access to thousands of documents held by Wall Street rating firms S&P and Moody's. S&P's lawyer, Floyd Abrams, is fighting subpoenas for documents on First Amendment grounds. The amendment protects journalists from producing materials gathered during research.

Jan Hopkins, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Crime of a different sort, it's a speck of a town in the far northeast corner of the United States, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. And you're not really a native unless your grandparents, well, better yet your great-grandparents were born there.

Where someone saying, did you hear so and so passed qualifies as big news and that is the big news this week in New Sweden, Maine. But what makes it news to us is someone died and dozens of others got very sick after Sunday coffee at church.

The mystery now of New Sweden, Maine, from Christine Young of CNN affiliate WMTW.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRISTINE YOUNG, WMTW CORRESPONDENT: New Sweden, Maine, rolling hills, potato farms, and a lovely old church dating back to 1871, about the time the town was settled by Swedes. Their descendents still live in New Sweden, about 600 of them, and they all know and trust one another like family.

SARA ANDERSON, STORE OWNER: If you don't know one of the people that are sick in the hospital, you know their parents or their children or their brother or sister or their grandparents. It's a community where in one way or another, it affects everybody.

YOUNG: The idea that someone within this tight-knit community would deliberately poison their neighbors is unthinkable here.

ANDERSON: No one, no one local anyway, has even brought up the thought that they think this could be done intentionally. That is by far the furthest thing from anybody's mind at this point.

YOUNG: But somehow, after Sunday services, 13 members of the Gustaf Adolf (ph) congregation took in so much arsenic that they had to be hospitalized.

Walter Reed Morrel (ph), a golf lover with recent heart problems, died 12 hours later. Two others remain in critical condition. Some locals are spooked.

JUNE GREEN, NEW SWEDEN RESIDENT: You never know. If they'll do that to -- in God's house, what would they do outside?

YOUNG: The town's wells and ground water have been ruled out as possible sources of the toxins, but something in the church -- police won't say what -- tested positive for arsenic.

LT. DENNIS APPLETON, MAINE STATE POLICE: But we have not identified how the arsenic arrived in this building.

YOUNG: There are eight state police detectives, two supervisors and a lieutenant trying to find that out. There are theories suggesting an accident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And many people use different chemicals to clean their sinks or toilets or coffee pots, anything at all, because of such high contents of rust and other minerals in the water.

YOUNG: Police are also investigating the possibility of something much more sinister.

APPLETON: Hopefully, if there is a conflict, we'll find the person who's willing to step forward and tell us that, if there happens to be one.

YOUNG: And while police haven't called this a crime, the church is looking an awful lot like a crime scene.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: And we should add that Maine police are now considering that death in New Sweden, Maine, to be a homicide. They say the arsenic was put in the coffee deliberately; among the churchgoers still being treated, five in serious to critical condition.

Still ahead tonight on NEWSNIGHT: The fighting's over, but how was it covered? We'll talk with Howard Kurtz of "The Washington Post" about how the media did in an extraordinary living room war.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT: covering the war. How did the media do?

A quick break first, then Howard Kurtz joins us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Now that the president has declared combat over in Iraq, it seemed like a good time to take a look at how the media did in covering this war. Howard Kurtz, who writes of such things, for "The Washington Post," thinks the coverage was generally good, but -- there's always a but, isn't there? -- he says the big picture of the war wasn't always sharply drawn, there were too many mood swings -- the war was a cakewalk one day, a quagmire the next -- that Iraq coverage faded too fast, and more.

Mr. Kurtz, who does a program here on CNN as well, joins us tonight from Washington.

It's nice to have you here with us.

HOWARD KURTZ, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Thank you.

BROWN: You said that -- and this is a terribly brief paraphrase -- but that you weren't always sure that viewers and readers comprehended the big picture. What was it they were missing?

KURTZ: Well, it's just that the greatest strength of television, which is, it took us to the front lines -- you could see the bombs bursting in air; you could hear the bullets whizzing overhead -- also, in a way, is its weakness, because, as we got those close-up glimpses of the war, Aaron, if the units were taking casualties, if the reporters were under attack, you got the impression that this was going really badly, especially after all the Shock and Awe hype that I think the media bought into in the buildup to the war.

BROWN: Is it possible, Howie, that, no matter how many times we said to viewers, this is a snapshot, this is a small picture of a very large puzzle, that the power of the picture itself overwhelms everything else?

KURTZ: I think that's exactly what happened in many instances. And, yes, there was a great struggle. You could see it every day on the air and you could see in the daily newspapers, of journalists trying to provide the big picture, trying to provide some perspective. Now, it's hard. The fog of war can be very thick. But, at the same time, I think all the correspondents out there were brave and did as good a job as they could do.

We got way too negative. A week into the war, there were these quagmire stories. My own newspaper ran a headline that said: "War Could Last Months, Officers Say." It's absurd, based on these fragmentary reports that we were getting, to try to assess how the entire war effort was going after such a short period of time.

BROWN: But -- I'm arguing and I try not to do that here -- but if a senior military official says to you -- and you're a reporter, and a very good one -- this war could drag on for months or, as someone said to "The New York Times," this isn't quite what we war- gamed against, certainly you report it?

KURTZ: Absolutely.

But there were also a lot of unnamed sources, unnamed Pentagon officials, who perhaps didn't like Donald Rumsfeld's approach to war. They got a lot of play as well. And I just think, even beyond some of these talking heads, there was a sense, because it was six, seven or eight days and we hadn't -- we weren't marching into Baghdad yet, that somehow things had gone seriously off track.

And I just think the media, which should be skeptical, should be aggressive, should ask questions, got a little too wrapped up into the idea that this would just be a miniseries. And so it took all of three weeks. And when you look back at some of those stories, some of them, at least, look a little bit embarrassing.

BROWN: Two or three other things in a couple of minutes.

Was there, I would assume, an enormous difference in television coverage and newspaper coverage? Did they complement each other or did they conflict, or neither?

KURTZ: Well, it was largely a television war, but I think newspapers did serve a good function in trying to provide some sort of daily digest, daily assessment of where things were. I also think some of the embedded print reporters were able to do things that their television colleagues couldn't.

Two quick examples: "The New York Times"' Dexter Filkins reporting when an Iraqi civilian was shot, quoting the soldier as saying, "The chick just got in the way"; and Bill Branigin of "The Washington Post," when 10 civilians were killed, reported on an officer yelling at the soldier who shot at this car, saying, "You didn't fire a warning shot fast enough." That, I think, put to rest the notion that all the embedded reporters would just become part of a Pentagon propaganda machine.

BROWN: What do you think, now that you've seen it, of the whole idea of being able to cover a war on television live?

KURTZ: I think we're never going back. I think the technology that enables this is a good thing. It's a hell of a lot better, Aaron, than covering it from a briefing room, as we did during the first Gulf War. But, at the same time, I think we all learned lessons about the difficulty of reaching larger conclusions.

But I do think, despite this enormous videophone, mobile satellite dish, technological capability that we have now, that there was some sanitizing of the war on air, not a lot of dead bodies. In fact, CNN's Walter Rodgers told me on "RELIABLE SOURCES" this week that when he showed a single dead Iraqi soldier, the switchboard at CNN lit up and network executives suggested that he stay away from doing that sort of thing.

And I think that leads to a legitimate complaint that we are sometimes a little bit hesitant about showing the uglier face of war as well.

BROWN: Well, I was sitting here that night and I remember the shot. And we were on the shot for a long time. And we absolutely got a lot of mail about the shot.

But did you think, on balance, that people came away with a sense that this was a video game, that this was a television reality show, or did they come away with a sense that this was war?

KURTZ: I think they undoubtedly came away with a sense that this is war because of embedded correspondents and because we could see, not only tragically, in some cases, reporters who had been killed, but we could see them coming under attack.

I just think, when it came to the sensitive question of dead soldiers and civilian casualties, that there were a lot of sensitivities in the television coverage.

The other thing, briefly, that amazed me, Aaron, is how quickly, how almost instantaneously, the war has faded, to some degree, from the media map, not necessarily from your show.

But after three days, cable was back to worrying about the Laci Peterson murder case and Iraq seemed very five minutes ago. I think that's a mistake, because the rebuilding of a shattered country is as important a story as the actual war, even if the pictures are not as dramatic.

BROWN: We actually agree on a lot of this. And there's no single issue we agree on than more than that. We could sit and talk about this for a long time. I wish I could. It's good to see you, Howie.

KURTZ: Have me back.

BROWN: You got a deal, any time.

KURTZ: OK. BROWN: Howard Kurtz of "The Washington Post" and CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES."

Still ahead: Segment seven turns to talk about the Dixie Chicks and other celebrities and whether their vocal opposition to the president and the war cost them in their pocketbook.

A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If you want to feel some good old-fashioned American pride, look no further than the uproar over the Dixie Chicks, in this case, free speech in full bloom. One of the Chicks is free to criticize the president. Their fans are free not to buy their albums and they are, of course, free to complain to their radio stations not to play their songs.

And with the Chicks beginning their world tour tonight in potential enemy territory, if you will, South Carolina, we were absolutely free to assign David Mattingly to the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): It's enough to make a young Dixie Chicks fan want to sing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): Because if I thought you're going down with me, you're going down with me, baby, if I fall.

MATTINGLY: Tickets for the Dixie Chicks concert went on sale months ago and sold out in a matter of minutes. Now the wait is over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband loves Natalie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I love the Dixie Chicks, you know? Everybody does -- makes mistakes.

MATTINGLY: But these South Carolina fans had no idea that the show they were paying to see would end up becoming much more than a concert.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I think everybody has the right to their opinion. So even though they're in the spotlight, why shouldn't they?

MATTINGLY: Outside the arena, the unusual sight of a small group of protesters. More than country music, the show is now also about free speech and patriotism and the 12 now-infamous words uttered by the lead singer Natalie Maines on behalf of the group in London -- quote -- "We're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How they could say, I'm ashamed that the president is from Texas, come on, man. That's crazy. That's just not right. MATTINGLY: After the remarks, there were some angry protests. Irate listeners prompted radio stations to pull the Chicks off the air. Their new single dropped off the charts. Their No. 1 album, however dropped to No. 3, but then bounced back to the top spot, leaving observers to wonder just how angry Chicks fans really were.

WADE JESSEN, "BILLBOARD": If we didn't look at what was happening with the controversy and we plugged our ears and closed our eyes to the controversy, the sales erosion that they saw might have just been taken in stride.

MATTINGLY: In Greenville, talk radio personalities urged Chick ticket holders to skip the show go to a veterans benefit concert in nearby Spartanburg. The anti-Chick event, as it was promoted, prompted only a few dozen Chick fans to exchange their tickets.

MIKE GALLAGHER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: We're going to raise tens of thousands of dollars with a sold-out concert tonight for American military families. That's what this has been all about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, of course, everyone anxious to find out here what happens when the Dixie Chicks go before a live audience for the first time. When the lights came down, here's exactly what happened. The crowd was on its feet and cheering loudly. Several songs lately, lead singer Natalie Maines told the crowd -- quote -- "They said you might not come, but we knew you'd come."

At one point, she also said that they're very much supportive of free speech. So gave the crowd 15 seconds to boo them if they needed to. Of course, during that 15 seconds, everyone was cheering so loudly that, if anyone was booing, Aaron, you couldn't hear them.

BROWN: Well, David, tough assignment today for you. Thank you -- David Mattingly in Greenville, South Carolina.

As we suggested, we didn't necessarily think the question of the Dixie Chicks was one for Justice Rehnquist, more like Mo Rocca, the venerable sage of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central.

It's nice to have you with us.

MO ROCCA, "THE DAILY SHOW": Yes.

BROWN: What was this about?

ROCCA: Well, look, the Dixie Chicks are experienced at grabbing the spotlight. They have for a long time.

This time, I think, though, that their patented blend of bluegrass, country, pop rock and hate speech really went too far. I think it was -- now, this isn't the first time we've seen them from them. Their last song, "Landslide," a lot of people believe that it's just a glorification of a natural disaster that kills millions, some say up to a billion every year. I think they went too far. They've been castigated and I think they've righted themselves.

BROWN: Why did they go too far? What is it that was too far?

ROCCA: I think they didn't understand their constituency. I think their constituency is a more conservative constituency.

BROWN: So it wasn't that they -- it wasn't that they went too far. It wasn't anything she said. You're not making the argument that anything she said was wrong or inappropriate. You're saying that she's the wrong demographic to say it? She's placed the wrong audience to say it?

ROCCA: Perhaps.

I mean, I think part of this may be perceived as a backlash also against celebrities speaking out. I disagree with that, because I think it was just the way in which she did it. I think, in general, celebrities speaking out is a popular thing these days. This war, we've seen great strides made by celebrities. As you know, long ago, you'd have to be an Oscar winner to mouth off about politics. But now we have Oscar winners. We have Emmy winners, Grammy winners. We have this gorgeous mosaic of celebrities.

BROWN: Some of them have never won anything.

ROCCA: Absolutely. And I think that what Reverend Winthrop was talking about when we spoke about the city on the hill was the hill with the Hollywood sign in back.

I just think this Dixie Chick, if you want to call her that, did it in an impolitic way, perhaps.

BROWN: Do you think it mattered that she said it overseas?

ROCCA: I think that didn't help. Of course, she was saying it in one of the coalition partner's countries. I don't know if she was touring in Poland, because she would have had to have gone there to hit any of the other partners, I'm afraid.

BROWN: Well, or Australia.

ROCCA: Right. That's right.

BROWN: I don't know if their music works in Australia there at all.

There was a lot -- seriously, there was a lot of talk about celebrities and things they said and whether they should say and whether they should have a forum. Do you think, in the post-9/11 period, entertainers are more sensitive to their political comments than they were before 9/11?

ROCCA: Perhaps they are. It depends what arena, which area in pop culture they're in. Country stars obviously have to be more sensitive. There's talk of the Dixie Chicks maybe moving into adult contemporary, maybe abandoning country music now. Celine Dion is an adult contemporary star. She's Canadian and she's used to being an outcast. So maybe, if the Dixie Chicks needed to move there, they'd find some refuge.

BROWN: In Canada?

ROCCA: Well, in the Vegas act. They would be great pyrotechnicians for Celine's show.

BROWN: That might work.

ROCCA: I think that could work.

BROWN: Do you think your show is more sensitive? Is Jon more sensitive to the tension in the country than he would have been -- than he used to be?

ROCCA: He's more sensitive to the audience, not so much the staff. He still hits me very hard and I bruise like a grape.

BROWN: Yes.

ROCCA: But to the audience at large, he is -- no. I mean, there was a difference between the Afghanistan conflict and the Iraq conflict. And, in Afghanistan, there was almost -- there was near unanimity in the effort we made over there. So I think we spent more time making fun of the coverage of events.

In Iraq, there was real dissension. And so we could actually make fun of the events themselves. There were sides to take. We sort of jumped back and forth, I think, depending on where the best jokes

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Do your viewers ever scold you for political comments, for satire? Or do they just accept that that's the business you're in, which it is?

ROCCA: They scold us if we're not funny. And then we deserve it. And then we deserve a real good ass-whooping, the kind that Natalie deserves from the president, because, when he talks about the battle won, but not the war, I think what he's saying, in a very real, metaphorical sense -- and I mean this literally and figuratively -- is that the Dixie Chicks cell, if you will, is one of those obstacles that need be overcome.

I think they're Dixie whores. And I'm sorry to use that language on your show.

BROWN: Not sorry enough, though, as it turns out.

(LAUGHTER)

ROCCA: There's a delay on this, right, even though it's live?

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Thank you for coming in.

ROCCA: Sure.

BROWN: Nice to have you here.

ROCCA: Yes.

BROWN: See you soon.

We'll be right back.

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