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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
A Look at Hunt for Weapons in Iraq
Aired May 01, 2003 - 23:00 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: Another half-hour to go on this edition of NEWSNIGHT, a chance to take a deeper look at one important story, a story certainly not easily told in a minute and a half. Tonight, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In short, none has been found, at least not yet. Some have argued it doesn't matter, that the discoveries of torture chambers and mass graves and battered skulls are plenty justification for war, but the fact is that the threat of those weapons was the key reason to go to war. There are big issues of American credibility to worry about if they are never found.
Tonight, Nic Robertson follows the intelligence trail, which has so far -- so far -- led only to frustration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When U.N. inspectors, acting on British intelligence, raided the home of Iraqi nuclear scientist Dr. Falih Hassan in January, they discovered missing nuclear research documents.
For the first time, the new U.N. inspection regime had unearthed something unexpected, triggering suspicions Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, secrets were finally on the verge of being exposed.
Iraqi authorities held a news conference with Falih. He gave the impression he was fighting for his life.
FALIH HASSAN, IRAQI NUCLEAR SCIENTIST: My name is Dr. Falih Hassan, whose home was inspected yesterday by the...
ROBERTSON: Now free from the pressure he admits he felt from Iraqi authorities, he says he was telling the truth.
HASSAN: I said in my press conference and I'm saying now and they could make sure I told you, this is belong to a nuclear assess center. It was a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) core, and the UNMOVIC or the UNSCOM didn't ask for such reports. It was a personal document. I didn't hide anything, and I didn't hide any work. We were very fair. We were very transparent in our declaration.
ROBERTSON: Falih is not the only Iraqi WMD scientist to say he didn't lie to U.N. inspectors. Saddam Hussein's scientific adviser, Amer al-Saadi, stuck to his original story that Iraq had no WMD programs when he handed himself in to U.S. officials recently. We tracked down Dr. Nassir Hindawi, the U.S.-trained former head of Iraq's biowarfare program, who said in the past he had lied until his cover was blown in the mid-1990s. Since then, he says, he's been telling the truth.
DR. NASSIR HINDAWI, FORMER HEAD, IRAQ BIOWEAPONS PROGRAM: For biological weapons, I don't think there is any truth, even think about it, because as I said, the toxins is degenerating. The bacillus and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) spores went non-viable by now because of the long storage.
ROBERTSON: What stops Hindawi from turning himself in to the U.S. troops who look for him, he says, is fear of retribution against him and his family from Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.
HINDAWI: In every city there are members of the Ba'ath Socialist Party that are probably hoping and dreaming of getting power again. They have weapons and the arms. And so nobody knows how the country is going to turn to be in the future.
ROBERTSON: According to U.N. inspectors, Iraq had several thousand scientists and engineers like Hindawi who were involved in Iraq's WMD programs. What's happening with them is raising concerns about post-war efforts to control what may be left of Iraq's weapons programs.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Any weapons of mass destruction or the equipment to make them is unprotected. And given the looting, you have to assume that some of it's been taken away.
These scientists have to worry about their future, and they may opt to leave Iraq, looking for a better future. There may be some scientists who have a deep grudge against the United States, who knows, that are going to try to find some way to get revenge.
ROBERTSON: But it's not just the slow pace of picking up the scientists that bothers Albright.
ALBRIGHT: If no weapons of mass destruction are found, then the fundamental justification for this war is not there, and there's going to have to be some real answers of why we went to war and how did the United States make such a huge mistake about the weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq.
ROBERTSON (on camera): In October last year, the United States put pressure on the world and Iraq to accept an aggressive U.N. weapons inspection program. President Bush delivered a speech in Cincinnati. He used a satellite picture of this site to show what he said was the rebuilding of a past nuclear weapons facility, an indication, he said, that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
(voice-over) At the time, Iraqi officials rushed hundreds of journalists to Al-Farrat (ph) to show they had nothing to hide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See that one? ROBERTSON: It was the same when inspectors visited on their third day of work in Iraq. Journalists were allowed back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't have anything here at Al-Farrat (ph). (UNINTELLIGIBLE) We don't have anything to hide.
ROBERTSON: Inspectors came back several more times to the suspect Al-Farrat (ph) nuclear site.
(on camera) But now, following widespread looting, where even the door frames have been taken, the little that is left here does seem to support Iraqi government claims that this site was nothing more than a radio frequency testing and repair facility.
(voice-over) Just 12 days before the war, U.N. nuclear weapons chief Mohamed ElBaradei delivered his verdict on claims Iraq had an ongoing nuclear weapons program.
MOHAMED ELBARADEI, IAEA DIRECTOR GENERAL: There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998. Nor any indication of nuclear related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
ROBERTSON (on camera): Al-Farrat (ph) wasn't the only site where the U.S. and British governments alleged Iraq was reconstituting its weapons of mass destruction programs.
This site, the Al Dura (ph) Foot and Mouth Disease Institute, was another. Once a key hub in Iraq's biological warfare program, its equipment had been destroyed by U.N. inspectors in 1996.
But so seriously did the returning inspection teams take allegations about this site that they visited it on their second day after returning to work in Iraq.
(voice-over) They found two mixers missing but quickly tracked them down. Iraqi officials denied WMD work had been restarted there.
Today plant director Montasar Al-Ani is happy to show journalists how the site was disabled by U.N. inspectors back in 1996. But still claims he was not aware of a weapons program.
(on camera) Before 1994, what about biological warfare program before you came here?
DR. MONTASAR AL-ANI, DIRECTOR OF FOOT AND MOUTH INSTITUTE: I am not responsible for that. I am here from '94.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Despite further visits by inspectors to this and other sites flagged by the U.S. and British, the U.N. failed to substantiate any restarted WMD programs.
Privately, inspectors told reporters they were frustrated by the bad intelligence information the U.S. government provided. The U.N. weapons chief, Hans Blix, hinted as much to the U.N. Security Council. HANS BLIX, U.N. CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR: We must realize that there are limitations and that misinterpretations can occur.
ROBERTSON: Since Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed, more has been learned about intelligence gathering in Iraq.
Mohammed Mohsen Zubaydi, the self-appointed mayor of Baghdad, now in U.S. custody after Iraqis accused him of receiving funds from looted Baghdad banks, has been revealed by the Iraqi National Congress, which itself has close ties with the Pentagon, to have been one of the INC's top intelligence gathering officials in Iraq.
ALBRIGHT: The problem isn't that he's -- that the INC was dishonest, per se. What it is is that they were willing to believe anything bad about Saddam Hussein that could help their cause of regime change. And I think the Pentagon people, particularly the hard-liners, suspended their -- their analytical judgments in order to adopt some of these points of view and informations.
ROBERTSON: U.S. officials, however, believe Iraqi scientists will open up, and leaders in custody may hold vital information.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are finding out that the capabilities were even more dispersed and disguised than we had thought. The evidence of Saddam Hussein's programs is likely to be spread across many hundreds, even possibly thousands of sites in Iraq. It is going to take us months to find this material, but find it we will.
ROBERTSON: Hampering those efforts are many false positives or contradictory results from the U.S. military's various WMD teams.
A recent case, Baji, north of Baghdad. The 1st of the 10th Cavalry detected nerve and blister agent in these 55-gallon drums. Another team got the same test results. Yet a third, more senior team could not substantiate the earlier results.
The failure to find WMDs so far raises bigger concerns. Former inspector David Albright.
ALBRIGHT: One of the questions about whether the U.S. government or officials lied is -- if the U.S. believed its own story there were so many weapons of mass destruction, you would expect them to be completely panicked right now. Because they are not protected. And they could go easily missing and get into the hands of terrorists. And yet, they're not panicked.
So you do have to start to wonder whether the main -- the people who believe these stories really were the American people and not the U.S. government.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's be clear here today, and I'm extraordinarily confident that Iraq had those capabilities.
ROBERTSON: The question is, will the U.S. and Britain be able to prove it and bolster their international credibility? Or were the Iraqis telling the truth? And did the United States and Britain, perhaps, fall victim to overly enthusiastic intelligence operatives on the ground?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Nic, nice piece of reporting. Let's talk a little bit about some of it. There was a report, I believe it was "The New York Times" that some Iraqi scientists are saying, or were saying, that whatever cache of weapons of mass destruction may have had were destroyed just before the war.
Any evidence of that that you found, anyone on the ground there prepared to say that to you?
ROBERTSON: Not that we've found so far. Some of the scientists here are reluctant to come forward. I think what we're going to see here in the coming days and weeks are us, the journalists, getting access to more and more scientists who will begin, perhaps, to see a movement towards turning themselves in, a movement towards explaining their past activities and a belief on their part that perhaps if they talk to journalists first, it puts them on the record with what they want to say and that perhaps they won't disappear into the clutches of the United States interrogators, never to be seen again by their families.
They have very real concerns how long, if they go in for questioning, will they stay? What will happen to their families in the meantime? How will they be able to feed them?
So I think there is a movement now for more scientists to begin to feel out the situation, move forward, come to talk with journalists, come to talk with U.S. officials. And maybe then we're going to get some better insights, Aaron, into what's been going on all these years.
BROWN: And just as briefly as you can, the president in a speech tonight talked of hundreds of possible sites. Going back to what David Albright said, to what extent are those sites now being protected? Do you know?
ROBERTSON: Al-Tawafa (ph), a nuclear site on the edge of Baghdad, is being protected but not before local residents had got in, looted some of the barrels, barrels that contained radioactive material.
There are lots of other sites that don't get the same protection. For example, the 101st Airborne was based at that Al-Farrat (ph) site. When we talked to them, they didn't know the connection that this site had had with the weapons of mass destruction programs. They were not aware that this was a site that had been focused in President Bush's speech about weapons of mass destruction.
So there are some disconnects here on the ground. The fact is, the forces here are stretched doing other jobs related to the war, related to the conflict. And they just cannot get to all the different sites they need to -- Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, thank you very much. Nic Robertson in Baghdad tonight.
One more item out of Baghdad. The latest now on our series of still lifes from Iraq. Still photographers capturing images of the war and the aftermath. Tonight, Peter Haley of the "New Tribune" of Tacoma, Washington. He's with the 62nd Medical Brigade at Fort Lewis, which is not far from Tacoma.
They were supposed to enter Iraq from the north with the 4th Infantry. But when Turkey didn't play ball, they were left outside Iraq for the war. But they're inside now, and they have much work to do. Maybe even busier after the war than they would have been during it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER HALEY, NEWS PHOTOGRAPHER: I'm Peter Haley. I'm a news photographer for the "News Tribune" in Tacoma. I spend most of my time with the 62nd Medical Brigade. We got into Iraq pretty much after the main part of the war was over.
And we have now convoyed up for a couple of days to near Mosul, where we will be doing medical support. Took us over a week to work our way up here with all the vehicles and hardware we have to move and people we have to organize.
That was the drama of going through the border area, where there are people who run along, looking to see if they can steal things off the forward moving vehicle. And two different guys got a fix on my camera and lunged for it at the same time. I didn't lose it, but I had to fight them off.
There's a bunch of ambulances parked together and some of them are being worked on. All of them are being -- about to be inspected. Repairs are routine. These vehicles get very heavy use under very bad conditions and so a mechanist comes along and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) go along.
This conference is being held at a former military hospital, Al- Luvar (ph) Hospital, which now the locals want to make into a hospital for the general public. And this is the first meeting between the group of physicians who want to run the hospital and our Colonel Harmon (ph), who is the head of the 52nd Medical Brigade.
And these Iraqi men are apparently fascinated by the idea of female soldiers. They're passing time while Colonel Harmon (ph) is meeting with the physicians inside. These men wanted to spend as much time as they could, apparently, talking with the soldiers.
Everywhere we go, there are kids saying hello and waving and smiling and reaching out and wanting things. Sergeant Black, who was the driver of that vehicle, decided to hand them a bottle of water and he was reaching for it. They are already reaching inside to see who could be the one to receive it.
I had a look of the city from the air, and driving around the city, things looked like an utterly normal third world city. There's lots of excitement and when people see Americans, we get lots of thumbs-up and V-signs and waves and cheers. I think Iraq will have a bright future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Pete Haley of the Tacoma "News-Tribune," the "News- Tribune" of Tacoma, Washington.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, he changed tone quite a bit. We'll talk with one of the country's premiere writers of comedy. Carl Reiner joins us. We'll take a quick break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Hard to know how to introduce Carl Reiner, virtually the inventor of comedy on TV or 2,000-year-old straight man, a real son of the Bronx. It's all true, along with the books, the Emmys and the uncanny way he has of upstaging Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, all in the same movie.
Mr. Reiner has written a new book of old stories, "My Anecdotal Life." We're very pleased to have him for three and a half or four minutes.
Welcome to the program.
CARL REINER, AUTHOR, "MY ANECDOTAL LIFE:" You know, I wanted to take just a second of that three and a half minutes to say this is the first program I've ever been on where the host allowed the guest to sit a little higher than he does. This chair is higher than yours.
BROWN: Yes. Well, it won't last tomorrow.
REINER: I pointed it out to you. Now it goes right down, right?
BROWN: On the -- welcome. One the -- on your income tax form...
REINER: Yes.
BROWN: ... where it says "occupation," what do you write?
REINER: You know, I've been writing "writer." I would write author, but then I remember there are people like Steinbeck and so I feel, why not -- I'm a writer/author. I write that now.
BROWN: So all the things you do, it is writing that you value most?
REINER: I think so, because it is entertainment. I'm in the entertainment business, but to entertain with motion pictures and television, you need a lot of help, a lot of collaboration. You need a makeup man, you need an actor, director, a lighting man, a man to build sets, to get your words across. An actor who said the words better than you wrote them.
With a book which I'm holding up, I commend this to you because that's the way I looked in 1960 and this is the way I look now. They're still coming and taking pictures while I'm working. Anyway.
So with a novel, or a book, you're using just your own head and that's all. You don't need any help. Well, you need a publisher. You need somebody physically to print it. But you and the gentle reader make a connection that is -- you're not around and you don't get the applause that you're -- the instant gratification, the gratification of somebody saying, "I read that. It was so sweet. I cried, or I laughed." That is the best.
BROWN: One more book question. I want to talk about a couple of other things. How -- in a lifetime of writing and performing and directing and producing and all that other stuff, how'd you decide what to include?
REINER: Whatever popped into my head, I have no notes in my house. I had nothing -- I never write anything down and said, I'm going to use that someday. It's like a popcorn machine. You sit there quietly, and all of a sudden you think of something and you start writing, and it leads to someplace else. And you keep surprising yourself. And then it's -- it's like telling a story, which I'm doing now, "Oh, but before that -- oh, and this." It all interstices.
And John Steinbeck, when Fred Allen wrote a book and said, "I don't know how to write" and he asked John Steinbeck, "How do you write a book?" The day I wrote my first novel -- this is synchronicity -- I happened to pick up "All About Me," which is Fred Allen's work. In it was Steinbeck's advice, "Put it all down, everything you remember about a situation, the smell, the thing, everything you thought, all the description. Don't worry about it organizing; it will organize itself."
And those lines stuck in my head. And I wrote "Enter Laughing" with that little thing in my head, just write it all down. It was a reminiscence of my days as an actor. These are just reminiscences. They keep bubbling up.
BROWN: A minute. Here we go. Who makes you laugh these days?
REINER: Mel Brooks, he still makes me laugh. He still makes -- we had dinner last night. He's just being himself; makes me laugh.
BROWN: Can you introduce me to him someday?
REINER: Are you kidding?
BROWN: I shouldn't have said that on TV.
REINER: No, no. All you've got to do is ask him to come on. He's got a show called "The Producers," and you mention "The Producers," he'll be here.
BROWN: All right. I'd like to meet him.
Anything you haven't accomplished in your life you wished you had? REINER: Yes, I've never sung at the Met and I would love -- I would love to sing on your show.
Never sang opera because I go off-key.
BROWN: Not on this program. Sounded great.
Still work every day?
REINER: Yes. Every day. As a matter of fact, this morning I woke up. This took a year, year and a half. And now in the next two or three weeks, I've got to get people to come and read it. And then this morning I said, this is gone, what am I doing next?
And I have a book stuck in my -- really stuck. I painted myself in a corner in my computer. And this morning, lying in bed, I said, "I know how to get back to it. I know how to get out of that corner." And I didn't make a note. I said, "I better put it down." I said, "No." If it's worthwhile, it will bubble up again. And I'm going back to that.
BROWN: And can I ask you how old you are?
REINER: I'm 81.
BROWN: You look great.
REINER: I look 80, right?
BROWN: You -- no, you look fabulous. That's unbelievable. Thank you.
REINER: Thank you for having me.
BROWN: It's a pleasure to meet you.
REINER: And I'm going to just -- I'm going to do this again because I wanted to impress itself in your face. Go get it. No, this is yours. This is yours.
BROWN: Thank you. It's really cool to meet you.
We'll check morning papers in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Very quickly, let's do morning papers. Wasn't that cool, though, with Carl Reiner? Yes, it was.
"New York Times." All the things you'd expect in "The New York Times." "Bush Declares One Victory in War on Terror." A couple of really good analysis pieces, or at least as much as I've had a chance to read.
The story I like best in the "Times" is down in the corner. "Birmingham Recalls a Time When Children Led the Fight." It looked back at the civil rights era in Birmingham, Alabama. Very cool piece in tomorrow's "New York Times."
"USA Today," if you're traveling, "Bush Hails Win and Looks Ahead," their lead. And then they take a look at the ship, the Abraham Lincoln. It's a nice idea for a story.
The "Atlanta Constitution," "Chicks Play Dixie." Get it? OK. That's on the front page. Good for them. And "Difficult Work Ahead," the president as well.
And in that picture everywhere. I want to get one more thing in quickly. "Detroit News," OK, this is an auto story. The big front page story is a hockey story, because it's hockey town. "Yzerman to Stay for Run to Cup" or "At Cup." And we think that's good because we like him. He's a good hockey player.
And that's all the time we've got. We'll see you tomorrow, 10 p.m. Eastern time. If I put my glasses on, I will see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us on NEWSNIGHT.
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Aired May 1, 2003 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Another half-hour to go on this edition of NEWSNIGHT, a chance to take a deeper look at one important story, a story certainly not easily told in a minute and a half. Tonight, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In short, none has been found, at least not yet. Some have argued it doesn't matter, that the discoveries of torture chambers and mass graves and battered skulls are plenty justification for war, but the fact is that the threat of those weapons was the key reason to go to war. There are big issues of American credibility to worry about if they are never found.
Tonight, Nic Robertson follows the intelligence trail, which has so far -- so far -- led only to frustration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When U.N. inspectors, acting on British intelligence, raided the home of Iraqi nuclear scientist Dr. Falih Hassan in January, they discovered missing nuclear research documents.
For the first time, the new U.N. inspection regime had unearthed something unexpected, triggering suspicions Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, secrets were finally on the verge of being exposed.
Iraqi authorities held a news conference with Falih. He gave the impression he was fighting for his life.
FALIH HASSAN, IRAQI NUCLEAR SCIENTIST: My name is Dr. Falih Hassan, whose home was inspected yesterday by the...
ROBERTSON: Now free from the pressure he admits he felt from Iraqi authorities, he says he was telling the truth.
HASSAN: I said in my press conference and I'm saying now and they could make sure I told you, this is belong to a nuclear assess center. It was a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) core, and the UNMOVIC or the UNSCOM didn't ask for such reports. It was a personal document. I didn't hide anything, and I didn't hide any work. We were very fair. We were very transparent in our declaration.
ROBERTSON: Falih is not the only Iraqi WMD scientist to say he didn't lie to U.N. inspectors. Saddam Hussein's scientific adviser, Amer al-Saadi, stuck to his original story that Iraq had no WMD programs when he handed himself in to U.S. officials recently. We tracked down Dr. Nassir Hindawi, the U.S.-trained former head of Iraq's biowarfare program, who said in the past he had lied until his cover was blown in the mid-1990s. Since then, he says, he's been telling the truth.
DR. NASSIR HINDAWI, FORMER HEAD, IRAQ BIOWEAPONS PROGRAM: For biological weapons, I don't think there is any truth, even think about it, because as I said, the toxins is degenerating. The bacillus and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) spores went non-viable by now because of the long storage.
ROBERTSON: What stops Hindawi from turning himself in to the U.S. troops who look for him, he says, is fear of retribution against him and his family from Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.
HINDAWI: In every city there are members of the Ba'ath Socialist Party that are probably hoping and dreaming of getting power again. They have weapons and the arms. And so nobody knows how the country is going to turn to be in the future.
ROBERTSON: According to U.N. inspectors, Iraq had several thousand scientists and engineers like Hindawi who were involved in Iraq's WMD programs. What's happening with them is raising concerns about post-war efforts to control what may be left of Iraq's weapons programs.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, FORMER WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Any weapons of mass destruction or the equipment to make them is unprotected. And given the looting, you have to assume that some of it's been taken away.
These scientists have to worry about their future, and they may opt to leave Iraq, looking for a better future. There may be some scientists who have a deep grudge against the United States, who knows, that are going to try to find some way to get revenge.
ROBERTSON: But it's not just the slow pace of picking up the scientists that bothers Albright.
ALBRIGHT: If no weapons of mass destruction are found, then the fundamental justification for this war is not there, and there's going to have to be some real answers of why we went to war and how did the United States make such a huge mistake about the weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq.
ROBERTSON (on camera): In October last year, the United States put pressure on the world and Iraq to accept an aggressive U.N. weapons inspection program. President Bush delivered a speech in Cincinnati. He used a satellite picture of this site to show what he said was the rebuilding of a past nuclear weapons facility, an indication, he said, that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
(voice-over) At the time, Iraqi officials rushed hundreds of journalists to Al-Farrat (ph) to show they had nothing to hide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See that one? ROBERTSON: It was the same when inspectors visited on their third day of work in Iraq. Journalists were allowed back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't have anything here at Al-Farrat (ph). (UNINTELLIGIBLE) We don't have anything to hide.
ROBERTSON: Inspectors came back several more times to the suspect Al-Farrat (ph) nuclear site.
(on camera) But now, following widespread looting, where even the door frames have been taken, the little that is left here does seem to support Iraqi government claims that this site was nothing more than a radio frequency testing and repair facility.
(voice-over) Just 12 days before the war, U.N. nuclear weapons chief Mohamed ElBaradei delivered his verdict on claims Iraq had an ongoing nuclear weapons program.
MOHAMED ELBARADEI, IAEA DIRECTOR GENERAL: There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998. Nor any indication of nuclear related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
ROBERTSON (on camera): Al-Farrat (ph) wasn't the only site where the U.S. and British governments alleged Iraq was reconstituting its weapons of mass destruction programs.
This site, the Al Dura (ph) Foot and Mouth Disease Institute, was another. Once a key hub in Iraq's biological warfare program, its equipment had been destroyed by U.N. inspectors in 1996.
But so seriously did the returning inspection teams take allegations about this site that they visited it on their second day after returning to work in Iraq.
(voice-over) They found two mixers missing but quickly tracked them down. Iraqi officials denied WMD work had been restarted there.
Today plant director Montasar Al-Ani is happy to show journalists how the site was disabled by U.N. inspectors back in 1996. But still claims he was not aware of a weapons program.
(on camera) Before 1994, what about biological warfare program before you came here?
DR. MONTASAR AL-ANI, DIRECTOR OF FOOT AND MOUTH INSTITUTE: I am not responsible for that. I am here from '94.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Despite further visits by inspectors to this and other sites flagged by the U.S. and British, the U.N. failed to substantiate any restarted WMD programs.
Privately, inspectors told reporters they were frustrated by the bad intelligence information the U.S. government provided. The U.N. weapons chief, Hans Blix, hinted as much to the U.N. Security Council. HANS BLIX, U.N. CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR: We must realize that there are limitations and that misinterpretations can occur.
ROBERTSON: Since Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed, more has been learned about intelligence gathering in Iraq.
Mohammed Mohsen Zubaydi, the self-appointed mayor of Baghdad, now in U.S. custody after Iraqis accused him of receiving funds from looted Baghdad banks, has been revealed by the Iraqi National Congress, which itself has close ties with the Pentagon, to have been one of the INC's top intelligence gathering officials in Iraq.
ALBRIGHT: The problem isn't that he's -- that the INC was dishonest, per se. What it is is that they were willing to believe anything bad about Saddam Hussein that could help their cause of regime change. And I think the Pentagon people, particularly the hard-liners, suspended their -- their analytical judgments in order to adopt some of these points of view and informations.
ROBERTSON: U.S. officials, however, believe Iraqi scientists will open up, and leaders in custody may hold vital information.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are finding out that the capabilities were even more dispersed and disguised than we had thought. The evidence of Saddam Hussein's programs is likely to be spread across many hundreds, even possibly thousands of sites in Iraq. It is going to take us months to find this material, but find it we will.
ROBERTSON: Hampering those efforts are many false positives or contradictory results from the U.S. military's various WMD teams.
A recent case, Baji, north of Baghdad. The 1st of the 10th Cavalry detected nerve and blister agent in these 55-gallon drums. Another team got the same test results. Yet a third, more senior team could not substantiate the earlier results.
The failure to find WMDs so far raises bigger concerns. Former inspector David Albright.
ALBRIGHT: One of the questions about whether the U.S. government or officials lied is -- if the U.S. believed its own story there were so many weapons of mass destruction, you would expect them to be completely panicked right now. Because they are not protected. And they could go easily missing and get into the hands of terrorists. And yet, they're not panicked.
So you do have to start to wonder whether the main -- the people who believe these stories really were the American people and not the U.S. government.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's be clear here today, and I'm extraordinarily confident that Iraq had those capabilities.
ROBERTSON: The question is, will the U.S. and Britain be able to prove it and bolster their international credibility? Or were the Iraqis telling the truth? And did the United States and Britain, perhaps, fall victim to overly enthusiastic intelligence operatives on the ground?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Nic, nice piece of reporting. Let's talk a little bit about some of it. There was a report, I believe it was "The New York Times" that some Iraqi scientists are saying, or were saying, that whatever cache of weapons of mass destruction may have had were destroyed just before the war.
Any evidence of that that you found, anyone on the ground there prepared to say that to you?
ROBERTSON: Not that we've found so far. Some of the scientists here are reluctant to come forward. I think what we're going to see here in the coming days and weeks are us, the journalists, getting access to more and more scientists who will begin, perhaps, to see a movement towards turning themselves in, a movement towards explaining their past activities and a belief on their part that perhaps if they talk to journalists first, it puts them on the record with what they want to say and that perhaps they won't disappear into the clutches of the United States interrogators, never to be seen again by their families.
They have very real concerns how long, if they go in for questioning, will they stay? What will happen to their families in the meantime? How will they be able to feed them?
So I think there is a movement now for more scientists to begin to feel out the situation, move forward, come to talk with journalists, come to talk with U.S. officials. And maybe then we're going to get some better insights, Aaron, into what's been going on all these years.
BROWN: And just as briefly as you can, the president in a speech tonight talked of hundreds of possible sites. Going back to what David Albright said, to what extent are those sites now being protected? Do you know?
ROBERTSON: Al-Tawafa (ph), a nuclear site on the edge of Baghdad, is being protected but not before local residents had got in, looted some of the barrels, barrels that contained radioactive material.
There are lots of other sites that don't get the same protection. For example, the 101st Airborne was based at that Al-Farrat (ph) site. When we talked to them, they didn't know the connection that this site had had with the weapons of mass destruction programs. They were not aware that this was a site that had been focused in President Bush's speech about weapons of mass destruction.
So there are some disconnects here on the ground. The fact is, the forces here are stretched doing other jobs related to the war, related to the conflict. And they just cannot get to all the different sites they need to -- Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, thank you very much. Nic Robertson in Baghdad tonight.
One more item out of Baghdad. The latest now on our series of still lifes from Iraq. Still photographers capturing images of the war and the aftermath. Tonight, Peter Haley of the "New Tribune" of Tacoma, Washington. He's with the 62nd Medical Brigade at Fort Lewis, which is not far from Tacoma.
They were supposed to enter Iraq from the north with the 4th Infantry. But when Turkey didn't play ball, they were left outside Iraq for the war. But they're inside now, and they have much work to do. Maybe even busier after the war than they would have been during it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER HALEY, NEWS PHOTOGRAPHER: I'm Peter Haley. I'm a news photographer for the "News Tribune" in Tacoma. I spend most of my time with the 62nd Medical Brigade. We got into Iraq pretty much after the main part of the war was over.
And we have now convoyed up for a couple of days to near Mosul, where we will be doing medical support. Took us over a week to work our way up here with all the vehicles and hardware we have to move and people we have to organize.
That was the drama of going through the border area, where there are people who run along, looking to see if they can steal things off the forward moving vehicle. And two different guys got a fix on my camera and lunged for it at the same time. I didn't lose it, but I had to fight them off.
There's a bunch of ambulances parked together and some of them are being worked on. All of them are being -- about to be inspected. Repairs are routine. These vehicles get very heavy use under very bad conditions and so a mechanist comes along and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) go along.
This conference is being held at a former military hospital, Al- Luvar (ph) Hospital, which now the locals want to make into a hospital for the general public. And this is the first meeting between the group of physicians who want to run the hospital and our Colonel Harmon (ph), who is the head of the 52nd Medical Brigade.
And these Iraqi men are apparently fascinated by the idea of female soldiers. They're passing time while Colonel Harmon (ph) is meeting with the physicians inside. These men wanted to spend as much time as they could, apparently, talking with the soldiers.
Everywhere we go, there are kids saying hello and waving and smiling and reaching out and wanting things. Sergeant Black, who was the driver of that vehicle, decided to hand them a bottle of water and he was reaching for it. They are already reaching inside to see who could be the one to receive it.
I had a look of the city from the air, and driving around the city, things looked like an utterly normal third world city. There's lots of excitement and when people see Americans, we get lots of thumbs-up and V-signs and waves and cheers. I think Iraq will have a bright future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Pete Haley of the Tacoma "News-Tribune," the "News- Tribune" of Tacoma, Washington.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, he changed tone quite a bit. We'll talk with one of the country's premiere writers of comedy. Carl Reiner joins us. We'll take a quick break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Hard to know how to introduce Carl Reiner, virtually the inventor of comedy on TV or 2,000-year-old straight man, a real son of the Bronx. It's all true, along with the books, the Emmys and the uncanny way he has of upstaging Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, all in the same movie.
Mr. Reiner has written a new book of old stories, "My Anecdotal Life." We're very pleased to have him for three and a half or four minutes.
Welcome to the program.
CARL REINER, AUTHOR, "MY ANECDOTAL LIFE:" You know, I wanted to take just a second of that three and a half minutes to say this is the first program I've ever been on where the host allowed the guest to sit a little higher than he does. This chair is higher than yours.
BROWN: Yes. Well, it won't last tomorrow.
REINER: I pointed it out to you. Now it goes right down, right?
BROWN: On the -- welcome. One the -- on your income tax form...
REINER: Yes.
BROWN: ... where it says "occupation," what do you write?
REINER: You know, I've been writing "writer." I would write author, but then I remember there are people like Steinbeck and so I feel, why not -- I'm a writer/author. I write that now.
BROWN: So all the things you do, it is writing that you value most?
REINER: I think so, because it is entertainment. I'm in the entertainment business, but to entertain with motion pictures and television, you need a lot of help, a lot of collaboration. You need a makeup man, you need an actor, director, a lighting man, a man to build sets, to get your words across. An actor who said the words better than you wrote them.
With a book which I'm holding up, I commend this to you because that's the way I looked in 1960 and this is the way I look now. They're still coming and taking pictures while I'm working. Anyway.
So with a novel, or a book, you're using just your own head and that's all. You don't need any help. Well, you need a publisher. You need somebody physically to print it. But you and the gentle reader make a connection that is -- you're not around and you don't get the applause that you're -- the instant gratification, the gratification of somebody saying, "I read that. It was so sweet. I cried, or I laughed." That is the best.
BROWN: One more book question. I want to talk about a couple of other things. How -- in a lifetime of writing and performing and directing and producing and all that other stuff, how'd you decide what to include?
REINER: Whatever popped into my head, I have no notes in my house. I had nothing -- I never write anything down and said, I'm going to use that someday. It's like a popcorn machine. You sit there quietly, and all of a sudden you think of something and you start writing, and it leads to someplace else. And you keep surprising yourself. And then it's -- it's like telling a story, which I'm doing now, "Oh, but before that -- oh, and this." It all interstices.
And John Steinbeck, when Fred Allen wrote a book and said, "I don't know how to write" and he asked John Steinbeck, "How do you write a book?" The day I wrote my first novel -- this is synchronicity -- I happened to pick up "All About Me," which is Fred Allen's work. In it was Steinbeck's advice, "Put it all down, everything you remember about a situation, the smell, the thing, everything you thought, all the description. Don't worry about it organizing; it will organize itself."
And those lines stuck in my head. And I wrote "Enter Laughing" with that little thing in my head, just write it all down. It was a reminiscence of my days as an actor. These are just reminiscences. They keep bubbling up.
BROWN: A minute. Here we go. Who makes you laugh these days?
REINER: Mel Brooks, he still makes me laugh. He still makes -- we had dinner last night. He's just being himself; makes me laugh.
BROWN: Can you introduce me to him someday?
REINER: Are you kidding?
BROWN: I shouldn't have said that on TV.
REINER: No, no. All you've got to do is ask him to come on. He's got a show called "The Producers," and you mention "The Producers," he'll be here.
BROWN: All right. I'd like to meet him.
Anything you haven't accomplished in your life you wished you had? REINER: Yes, I've never sung at the Met and I would love -- I would love to sing on your show.
Never sang opera because I go off-key.
BROWN: Not on this program. Sounded great.
Still work every day?
REINER: Yes. Every day. As a matter of fact, this morning I woke up. This took a year, year and a half. And now in the next two or three weeks, I've got to get people to come and read it. And then this morning I said, this is gone, what am I doing next?
And I have a book stuck in my -- really stuck. I painted myself in a corner in my computer. And this morning, lying in bed, I said, "I know how to get back to it. I know how to get out of that corner." And I didn't make a note. I said, "I better put it down." I said, "No." If it's worthwhile, it will bubble up again. And I'm going back to that.
BROWN: And can I ask you how old you are?
REINER: I'm 81.
BROWN: You look great.
REINER: I look 80, right?
BROWN: You -- no, you look fabulous. That's unbelievable. Thank you.
REINER: Thank you for having me.
BROWN: It's a pleasure to meet you.
REINER: And I'm going to just -- I'm going to do this again because I wanted to impress itself in your face. Go get it. No, this is yours. This is yours.
BROWN: Thank you. It's really cool to meet you.
We'll check morning papers in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Very quickly, let's do morning papers. Wasn't that cool, though, with Carl Reiner? Yes, it was.
"New York Times." All the things you'd expect in "The New York Times." "Bush Declares One Victory in War on Terror." A couple of really good analysis pieces, or at least as much as I've had a chance to read.
The story I like best in the "Times" is down in the corner. "Birmingham Recalls a Time When Children Led the Fight." It looked back at the civil rights era in Birmingham, Alabama. Very cool piece in tomorrow's "New York Times."
"USA Today," if you're traveling, "Bush Hails Win and Looks Ahead," their lead. And then they take a look at the ship, the Abraham Lincoln. It's a nice idea for a story.
The "Atlanta Constitution," "Chicks Play Dixie." Get it? OK. That's on the front page. Good for them. And "Difficult Work Ahead," the president as well.
And in that picture everywhere. I want to get one more thing in quickly. "Detroit News," OK, this is an auto story. The big front page story is a hockey story, because it's hockey town. "Yzerman to Stay for Run to Cup" or "At Cup." And we think that's good because we like him. He's a good hockey player.
And that's all the time we've got. We'll see you tomorrow, 10 p.m. Eastern time. If I put my glasses on, I will see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us on NEWSNIGHT.
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