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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Intelligence Suggests More Terrorism Imminent With U.S. Allies Possible Targets; Saudi Officials OK Second Team of U.S. Investigators

Aired May 16, 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.


KATE SNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Kate Snow in for Aaron Brown. We began the week with bulletins about a terror attack, images of destruction. We end the week the same way, a different place, different target, same horrible goal.
Of course it's far too early to know whether the attacks Monday in Saudi Arabia are in any way related to attacks tonight in Morocco. What connects them at this point is simple and brutal, innocent people have been killed by terror.

And, we begin the whip with the latest on that terror attack in Morocco tonight. David Ensor is following the story for us, David the headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, there have been four explosions in Casablanca. At least 22 people have been killed. This is a country where al Qaeda people were arrested just last year for trying to blow up ships in the Gibraltar Straits.

SNOW: On to the White House now and any late reaction to the attacks in Morocco. Suzanne Malveaux is there for us, Suzanne the headline.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, White House officials are saying tonight that it is too soon to tell whether or not these bombers were going after Americans or westerners but the question, the big concern that they have whether or not these terrorists are now targeting U.S. allies.

SNOW: The latest on the investigation into the Saudi Arabia attack, Sheila MacVicar is in Riyadh for us, Sheila the headline from there.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Warnings of possible new terror attacks here in Saudi Arabia making some westerners jittery enough to think about heading for home.

SNOW: A very different story now, the latest on the Laci Peterson case, Rusty Dornin is on that tonight from Richmond, California, Rusty the headline please.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More than a month after Laci Peterson and her son's body washed ashore here searchers are back out on the bay looking for what some investigators say could be the smoking gun.

SNOW: Back with all of that in a moment, also coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight a dirty bomb explosion, a plane crash, a bioterror attack. Thankfully these acts of terror were only simulated. We'll look at how this week's terror drill went and we'll talk with our former colleague, Frank Sesno, about his intriguing role in the exercise.

And, we'll look at a shakeup in the Palestinian leadership ahead of a crucial weekend in the search for peace in the Middle East. Kelly Wallace tonight on where the roadmap seems to be leading.

(BREAKING NEWS)

All that coming up later in the show but we begin in Casablanca. Here's what we know now. At around 6:00 p.m. Eastern time, 10:00 p.m. in Casablanca, four bombs went off nearly simultaneously at locations in the center of Morocco's largest city. Among the sites the Belgian consulate and a Spanish social club. There are reports too of explosions at a hotel and a Jewish nightclub.

Morocco's official news agency is reporting at least 22 people have been killed. No one has yet claimed responsibility but there are reports, again from the Moroccan news agency, that three people have been arrested in connection with these bombings.

For a better sense of what's happening right now, we're joined on the phone from Casablanca by Mustapha Kelu of Moroccan television. Mr. Kelu, what are you seeing, what are you hearing, what do you know?

MUSTAPHA KELU, MOROCCO TV (via telephone): We are seeing a lot of casualties in the Hotel Farah (ph) in the downtown of Casablanca, which was attacked by (unintelligible) and there's a lot of injuries and a lot of casualties.

SNOW: How many different sites are we talking about?

KELU: There is five places in Casablanca which have been attacked but this one was the Hotel Farah in the downtown and a restaurant in the downtown too. The restaurant is really very, very close to the Belgian embassy. There is a Jewish club, a Spanish club, and a cemetery, Jewish cemetery, where five people were killed there.

SNOW: CNN just learning now that the Moroccan foreign ministry is confirming 20 dead in Morocco in those five explosions. What else can you tell us about the area that we're talking about? Are all five explosions right in the central part of the town?

KELU: Yes, all of them are either downtown and the ministry of interior (unintelligible) accused the international terrorists are behind this attack and he repeated that Morocco is a stable country and there is not any problem with any other countries and this attack is the first one since '94. The last one was in '94 in Marrakech.

SNOW: Can you confirm that anyone has been taken into custody at this point?

KELU: We heard that there is at least two people arrested, at least two people, yes.

SNOW: And what about the method. Tell us a little bit more if you know about were these all car bombs or what were the cause of these explosions?

KELU: There is a (unintelligible) a car bomb and bombs which were (unintelligible) at the Jewish (unintelligible).

SNOW: Had there been any warnings? Had there been news lately in Morocco about the terrorist threat?

KELU: No, people - today is the (unintelligible) the anniversary of the creation of the security forces in Morocco. A lot of tourists are on vacation. The terrorists chose this day because they know that there is a little bit more freedom to act.

SNOW: Can you just one last time describe the scene where you are? We're seeing some pictures here on CNN but describe what you're seeing there on the ground.

KELU: I told you there is a lot of people outside on the streets and there is a lot of security forces. The hospitals are really, really crowded with people and I think people are very shocked. The first bomb attack in Casablanca, first terrorist attack in Casablanca. The last one was in Marrakech seven years ago and this one is really the first one in Casablanca. It's the biggest town in Morocco which is very important for Moroccan economy. There is at least five million people who live here in Casablanca.

SNOW: Mustapha Kelu of Moroccan television joining us from Casablanca on the television, appreciate the information this evening, more to come as well. As Mustapha Kelu said this was not the first act of terror in the region. It's safe to say it won't be the last.

CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor has some background on how we got to this point. David, give us some perspective here. This is a part of the world where terror threats and terrorism is not new.

ENSOR: Well, that's right, Kate, and since Tuesday, the day after the attack in Riyadh that killed so many there, U.S. officials have been warning that they're seeing intelligence leading them to believe that there could be al Qaeda terrorism anywhere in the Middle East and anywhere in north - in East Africa and also in Southeast Asia.

So, there's a great deal of concern. There's a good deal of intelligence chatter among al Qaeda suspects about possible plots to attack various sites. Morocco was not one of the countries that was mentioned on a daily basis but it was definitely in the area that they were concerned about.

Now, you'll recall that last year three Saudis were arrested in Morocco and accused of plotting to attack British and/or American warships in the Gibraltar Straits that are in between Morocco and Spain.

So, there has also been an al Qaeda presence in Morocco in the past, but it must be very disturbing to a country like that that's had so little terrorism up to this point and depends so heavily on tourism to have this happen tonight.

SNOW: Absolutely. David Ensor thanks. We'll get back to you in a moment on another story.

But for now let's go back to the White House and CNN's Suzanne Malveaux with some late reaction there tonight - Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Well, Kate, I spoke with several U.S. officials, administration officials this evening who say that they received the reports. They are monitoring the situation that it's too soon to comment. They're being very cautious about what it is they say.

As you know, on Monday when they had that Saudi bombing, it took about 12 hours before they actually got a statement together because they're really waiting for more information to come from there. But a senior administration official saying that, yes, there is a U.S. consulate in Casablanca.

There is no evidence so far, they say, too soon to tell whether or not westerners or Americans were targeted in this attack but there is a big question and a big concern whether or not there are U.S. allies that were targeted this evening.

As I mentioned before, some of those targets, those bombs that went off outside of a Belgian consulate as well as an Israeli social club, a Spanish nightclub. As you know, Spain, Israel, as well as Belgium all staunch U.S. allies when it comes to the war with Iraq. That is the big concern. That's the big question.

Earlier today we heard from President Bush who said that half of al Qaeda's operatives have been brought to justice but he says that the other half is very much alive - Kate.

SNOW: Suzanne Malveaux at the White House tonight and we will certainly continue to monitor everything out of Morocco and the White House reaction here in Washington.

Before tonight's bombing, David Ensor was working the Saudi story, specifically the al Qaeda connection, so let's go back to him now and pick up that thread - David.

ENSOR: Well, clearly investigators and intelligence officers who are trying to get to the bottom of this are trying to figure out who was the mastermind in this case. Where did the orders come from? How far up in they presume al Qaeda did the first order, did the plan come from? So, that's been the key focus of the investigation up to this point.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ENSOR (voice-over): Well placed U.S. sources say there is evidence the terrorists who attacked three sites in Riyadh Monday night believed they had orders to do so from the top al Qaeda leadership. The working assumption of U.S. investigators therefore is that the orders may have come from Osama bin Laden himself but U.S. officials warn they do not have any evidence in hand so far that bin Laden himself gave a go signal for the attacks.

With some reports questioning whether the Saudis responded to American requests for better security, the Saudi government held a news conference in Washington Friday to express sorrow and resolve.

ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADVISER: Have we failed, yes. On Monday we failed and we will learn from this mistake. We will ensure that it doesn't happen again and if anything these tragic events of Monday have been a massive jolt to Saudi Arabia, to the United States, to all peace-loving people around the world.

ENSOR: There is new information suggesting this man, Saif al- Adel, al Qaeda's operations chief, may have played a role in planning the Riyadh attacks. One senior U.S. officials says Adel "may have been a major player." U.S. officials believe he is in Iran.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: There are still countries that are harboring terrorists. I mean we know there are senior al Qaeda in Iran, for example, presumably not an ungoverned area.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Now whether that's with the sanction of the Iranian government or not that's a very difficult question to answer. It may not be. Iran's a large place and the government is - there are almost two governments there, one the more sort of anti-western and one that's trying to reach out to the west.

ENSOR: For their part, Iranian officials have consistently denied harboring any al Qaeda leaders.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: There is also information suggesting terrorists may be plotting attacks in Southeast Asia and some other Middle Eastern countries, obviously Morocco perhaps being one of them, and East Africa. The State Department has also now authorized non-essential U.S. personnel to leave Kenya as well as any U.S. families that might want to do so, saying that that is a prudent step given the intelligence information they have about possible risks in that country - Kate.

SNOW: David, with that list of countries it just makes you think they must - they're everywhere. They're still out there. Is that the sense that you get in talking to officials that there is still quite a threat out there and that the other shoe is waiting to drop?

ENSOR: There's certainly a sense that al Qaeda wants to strike in a lot of places if it can at this time. There's also a sense, though, that when they made, for example, an attack in Saudi Arabia there's an element of desperation to that because you're hitting the country where many of your supporters and much of your financial support has come in the past.

To do so will turn the government and many of the people perhaps against you. So, at the same time as al Qaeda seems to be swinging out in all directions, officials do believe there's an element of desperation to that - Kate.

SNOW: CNN's David Ensor thanks for your double duty tonight.

More now from Riyadh. Sources tell CNN that Saudi authorities have agreed to allow a second team of American investigators into the country. With a look at what they'll find when they get there, here's CNN's Sheila MacVicar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR (voice-over): At the (unintelligible) compound, the bulldozer was at work scraping away the debris from Monday night's attack and scraping away evidence too. FBI investigators have been in Saudi Arabia for little more than 24 hours but there's not much of a crime scene left for them to examine here, a few bullet holes in the guard tower, damaged homes in the compound, eerily quiet streets, and very jittery workers.

MOHAMMED ZUBEIR, COMPOUND WORKER: In the daylight when it's all clear we feel safe, but in the night when night comes, when it's dark and people spread all these kind of rumors you feel a little unsafe especially in the western compound.

MACVICAR (on camera): It was just a few miles from here on May the 6th that Saudi authorities discovered that huge cache of weapons and explosives and shortly after that announced that they were looking for 19 men who they said they believed were preparing to imminently carry out terrorist attacks. What residents in this compound say they can not understand is why security here was not strengthened then.

(voice-over): On guard today, Saudi Air Force guards with a heavy machinegun. They were not here on Monday night even though the U.S. ambassador had specifically told Saudi officials this compound could be a target days before the attack.

In Washington, a Saudi advisor tried to explain why, in spite of the warnings from the U.S., in spite of the discovery of the weapons and explosives, more was not done to protect (unintelligible) and the other compounds.

AL-JUBEIR: I think the security at the time was thought to be adequate but it turns out it was not.

MACVICAR: With warnings of more possible attacks and a belief that western civilians here are now seen as legitimate targets in this terrorist war, many here say off camera they are thinking about packing up, going home, and taking their expertise with them and that's perhaps exactly what the terror bombers had in mind.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MACVICAR (via telephone): And, Kate, if enough westerners did decide that if they were no longer feeling safe or comfortable here in Riyadh decided that they wanted to go home now, that could be another devastating blow to Saudi Arabia - Kate.

SNOW: Sheila the Saudis are emphatic that they've raised the level of security now. What's it like on the streets there? Can you notice a difference?

MACVICAR: There is a big difference. There are roadblocks throughout the city of Riyadh. There are constant checks of vehicles and their drivers. Some people are being asked to get out of their cars. Vehicles are being examined. At the hotel, for example, where we are staying in downtown Riyadh there is security at the front where there is a constant awareness now.

And outside the compound, as I've pointed out, there is now a level of security which was not present before Monday night's attack. It's also important to note as Saudi officials have said when talking about why security at those compounds was not improved before Monday night, there literally are thousands of places like that throughout Saudi Arabia.

It is very difficult, they say, to assess the security at each and every one of them, very difficult to provide additional security to all of them. Those are big issues and things that are of very great concern, not only to westerners but also to the Saudis who live in some of these compounds - Kate.

SNOW: CNN's Sheila MacVicar in Riyadh tonight. Thank you Sheila.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT on this Friday, a week full of terror drills are complete, so what did we learn? We'll talk with Frank Sesno who played a role in the drill about what he experienced in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: In the middle of dealing with this week's carnage in Saudi Arabia and now Morocco, much of the country was training for something even worse. Here at home, Operation Topoff 2 is the largest terror simulation ever conducted. The exercise wrapped up today and even though the attacks weren't real, the problems they uncovered potentially are.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a week of horrendous events, the detonation of a dirty bomb, an epidemic of plague, a plane crash, all of it fiction, all intended to find holes in homeland security and find them they did.

In Chicago, where 5,000 were afflicted with simulated pneumonic plague, a realization that public health nurses alone could never handle the flood of people needing drugs.

ROBERT SCHILLERSTROM: One of those common sense things that we really hadn't thought about.

MESERVE: There were other lessons too. In Seattle, one observer says first responders left some of the injured untreated for so long they would have died in a real dirty bomb attack.

Other sources say authorities were slow to track the fictional plume of radiation and tell the public what to do. Problems of communication and coordination were found up and down the line at every venue.

Finding flaws is exactly what the exercise is supposed to do. The political reflex is to minimize them but experts say the after action report must spell out the lessons bad and good.

CHIEF EL PLAUGHTER, FIRE DEPARTMENT, ARLINGTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA: The lessons from Topoff 2 need to be in every mayor's office in the United States. They need to be in every county council in the United States.

MESERVE: Some experts complain the value of the drill was diminished because the scenarios were laid out ahead of time. So, was it worth $16 million?

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I know some people have questioned that cost but let me just remind you that this country spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year to train and prepare the men and women of our armed forces.

MESERVE: And even more to equip them. Sixteen million dollars would buy just one Apache helicopter, but slice the money another way and it could purchase 20,000 Level A hazardous material suits for first responders.

But many say the exercise was worth every penny because it forced some officials at the local, state, and federal level to grapple with tough decisions that may have to be made in the event of a real attack.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: For all the criticism the simulation wasn't real enough, planners were especially to take a count of the media's role in modern disasters. They created a fictitious cable news network called VNN and the face of the apocalypse so to speak is a familiar one to us. Frank Sesno is a former CNN correspondent, anchor, and I should say my old boss, and we are very pleased that he could join us tonight. Thanks.

FRANK SESNO, ANCHOR, VNN, TOPOFF 2: Apocalyptic, huh?

SNOW: Yes, the face of it. Did it feel real? SESNO: Yes, up to a point. I mean the fact of the matter is that you can't ever simulate something as massive as this because it would literally shut down the country and it would certainly shut down virtually every aspect of life. You can't simulate civil disturbance. You can't simulate unpredictable human behavior. You can't literally shut down a city completely that's trying to operate at normal even when you're trying to simulate a disaster.

SNOW: How much did you know going in?

SESNO: Oh, I knew the broad basics of it all but, in fact, I said to the folks who I was working with I don't want to know everything, every twist and turn throughout the day because I need to be able to react as I would be reacting if I were at an anchor desk because that's the communication that's going out, not only to the public, but to the first responders and others as well.

SNOW: You were telling me earlier that it was you and explain how it was set up, two other people?

SESNO: VNN, Virtual News Network.

SNOW: Right.

SESNO: VNN had an anchor set, a main studio here in Washington and then field operations in both Seattle and Chicago. There was a very small sort of newsgathering operation. They were talking to a master control. They were involved in actually putting on the simulation as well as getting in unpredictable, unforeseen things and then they were throwing it at us.

SNOW: And the only people watching this feed, this television station, were the people involved in the exercise obviously.

SESNO: It was for the internal, yes.

SNOW: Only one media source though, only VNN involved in this exercise and some have criticized this whole thing wasn't real enough. In reality there would be a bazillion reporters trying to get information.

SESNO: Well, in reality, and this is one of the interesting things, the first invasion that takes place after something like this is the media invasion. The media are there before the first responders, in fact, media are first responders now.

And so, one of the things that officials need to do is they need to be able to cope with a flood of cameras and microphones because they're communicating not only to the community but to the whole world. But, you know, how far do you go in simulating? I think this was pretty good. I think it was pretty convincing.

SNOW: Tell us the lessons that you learned. What did you see, failures in communication anywhere along the line?

SESNO: I think probably the most notable thing, and one of the things I've heard about, is the time between information coming in and authoritative confirmation going out and that creates that dangerous vacuum in the media world that you and I know very well as speculation.

SNOW: Right.

SESNO: And that's where bad information or wrong information can go out, and in a situation like this that can lead to a big, big problem among the public and those who are trying to help them.

SNOW: This was $16 million, 8,500 people. It was massive. Do you think it was worth it for the responders?

SESNO: Well, I'm not going to be your cost benefit efficiency analyst on this but I do think that the notion of these kinds of drills and practice are very important. You know in Topoff 1, the top officials really weren't involved. In this one, what was impressive, and what you didn't see, what the public didn't see, we did, were the mock news conferences and the interviews and the time that was spent by the governors of Washington and Illinois, by Canadian officials, by Tom Ridge who went out to Illinois to be with those who were dealing with the catastrophe.

SNOW: Is there a danger that this all gets written up into some glossy binder and put on everyone's desk, you know, in offices all over the country and never looked at again?

SESNO: You bet but I don't think anybody's going to do that and I think that's one of the messages of the buy-in that came from the top here and that is this matters and you better pay attention. And, if they gloss over the problems that Jeanne Meserve reported, then they should put it on a shelf someplace and not look at it.

I don't think that's going to happen. They understand and I think something like this brings you face-to-face with just what's at stake. I mean let's remember in this mock exercise there were almost 1,100 people killed.

I mean by the time we went off the air this plague wrapped around the world and it spread across the United States. Just imagine what that would mean for human suffering and economic dislocation. I mean it's huge. So, you better practice. You better be ready.

SNOW: Frank Sesno, very good of you to join us tonight.

SESNO: Great to see you.

SNOW: You'll be part of Topoff 3 and 4 and 5.

SESNO: At some point, I'll check out and start building things, you know. We'll see.

SNOW: Thank you, Frank Sesno joining us involved with the Topoff 2 exercise.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, developments in the Laci Peterson case as police go back to San Francisco Bay to search for more clues about her death.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: More now on the case of Laci Peterson. It was weeks ago that Peterson and her unborn son were remembered by thousands at a church in Modesto, California, but the guest book on Lacipeterson.com continues to get countless messages. Today, there was on from as far away as New Zealand. The mourning continues.

And something else as well, the hunt for new evidence in the case against Laci's husband. That hunt has brought investigators to back to where the bodies were found last month. The story from CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (voice-over): A search not yet over. The answers to what happened may still lie at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. Laci Peterson and the body of her baby, Connor, washed up in mid-April along this beach in Richmond, California.

Today, divers were back in the bay, looking for what may have been left behind. Divers, boats and equipment for police agencies throughout Northern California joined the Coast Guard and a special FBI dive team from New York. The team specializes in underwater evidence retrieval using remote devices.

Scott Peterson told police he went fishing here, a place known as Brooks Island, the day his wife disappeared.

In mid-march, sonar experts discovered an object in the shipping channel just north of Brooks Island. Then the weather turned bad. When they returned a few days later the object was gone. A few weeks after that, the bodies floated ashore. So where are the anchors or weights?

A source close to the investigation told CNN the makings of concrete anchors were found in Scott Peterson's warehouse. If those makings are made from the same batch of cement, with evidence of Laci Peterson's remains attached, it could be the smoking gun in this case.

This search was conducted a few miles south of the island after a U.S.-G.S. science calculated the spot by looking at the direction in the wind the weeks before the body was discovered and worked backwards. Search crews say they've committed boats and manpower to continue to the operation for at least the next three days.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: It's such a huge area in San Francisco Bay, where they are searching, it doesn't seem possible they would be able to complete it in three days. But they are use the side-scanning sonar. And apparently if they do know what they're looking for even if it is small objects, it is very accurate. So investigators are hoping to bring something up from the bottom -- Kate.

SNOW: Rusty Dornin in Richmond, California, thanks. We will continue our look at the Laci Peterson case in just a moment. We will talk with lawyer Mickey Sherman about strategies prosecutors and defense attorneys may use in the trial of Scott Peterson.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: In a moment, well-known defense lawyer Mickey Sherman talks about the pending trial of Scott Peterson. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: We wanted to talk more about the Laci Peterson case with one of the best-known criminal defense attorneys in the nation. Mickey Sherman, who represented Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel. He's in Old Greenwich, Connecticut tonight.

Thanks for being with us tonight.

MICKEY SHERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: My pleasure. Thank you.

SNOW: Divers searching the San Francisco Bay today. We just saw the report from Rusty Dornin. How important is it that they turn up something that may be they uncovered the anchors used to weigh down the bodies?

SHERMAN: Kate, they need something. They need something physical other than the innuendo and other than the mountains of bad character evidence and the slime factor.

The fact that Scott Peterson had a girlfriend; that he just was not, apparently, a nice person. They need something physical. Something forensic to connect him, to build the bridge between the murder and his body, Scott Peterson. They need more than suspicion.

SNOW: Prosecutors and the defense team made some news when they agreed to keep the autopsy results sealed. Why would both sides agree to that?

SHERMAN: Because once something like that gets out, it becomes father for people like myself and other pundits, and other people who are opine endlessly as to what this means and what that means. And only thing that really make a difference is what happens in that courtroom.

And when that evidence comes in, before the jury, at the appropriate time, it'll be spun or interpreted by medical examiners and by other experts. And that's the time it should happen, not now, not when we their is too much potential for people like us, the media, and other people to, you know, spin it -- not badly -- but perhaps erroneously and perhaps poison the prospective jury pool.

SNOW: But yet what you got, instead, is strange stories coming out. Things that seem to be leak out. This week's story suggesting that perhaps she was targeted by a satanic cult. There have been stories suggesting that the body was somehow mutilated.

What's going on here? Is this all leaked on purpose by the defense team?

SHERMAN: Well, certainly -- much of this, as I understand it, from the reports I've read were leaked by sources close to the prosecution, quote/unquote, police reports said this and said that. I am not saying the state attorneys did this themselves. But it could have been an investigator, it could have been a media person, could have been a nobody. It could have someone just inventing this to get a one-day story out of this.

Kate, this comes with the big case, whether it's Laci Peterson, O.J., or something else, everyone wants a part of this. Everyone wants to be the source of some imaginative story. Today's headlines will be a non-story tomorrow.

SNOW: You certainly know all about the big case. You represented Skakel, of course, one of the best-known clients probably in the country. And he of course got 20 years to life in prison for killing a neighbor. What did you learn from that, though, in terms of how who to handle a high-profile, well-known defendant like, like Scott Peterson?

SHERMAN: It's a good question, and it is one that I really haven't answered publicly, but I will. You learn the press and the media are not your friends. You are there to serve your client and not to try and spend your time working with them or working against them.

There are a condition of the case and you just have to live within that environment. You just have to learn not to ignore it but to kind of deal with it in the most professional way, and not let it control what you are doing in court. A case is won not by media spin, but by good lawyering inside of that courtroom, Kate.

SNOW: So if you were defending Scott Peterson, put yourself in their shoes for a moment, as that defense attorney, somebody who obviously not gotten a lot of very good press. What's your next move?

SHERMAN: Well, I think he's doing the right thing. I'm not going to be his shill 100 percent of the time. If he says or does something wrong, I will make whatever observation I feel is appropriate.

But what he did, right from the get-go, which I thought was good, was he got Scott Peterson out of that orange jump suit, so he didn't look like a dangerous person. He may be a dangerous person, but at least he look like that.

And the next thing he did is the best to keep the reports under seal. And he did well with that. And I don't know what he's doing now, I would bet that right now he's doing some jury questionnaires of the public in the Modesto area. So, he will make a very effective motion for change of venue.

SNOW: Does he need to get this case out of Modesto?

SHERMAN: He does. It's a must. I mean, you have 3,000 people show up when Scott Peterson was brought in. Something akin to a lynch mob. And you can understand it, they all played a part in the search. These people were in a communal shock. The problem is, it is such a shallow win. If he gets it out of Modesto, he's not going to get it to the planet Jupiter, it is going to be some place in California. It's like getting a window seat on the Hindenburg, it's not going to make it home.

SNOW: Yeah. We are all watching, all over the nation. Thank you. Mickey Sherman, criminal defense attorney, thanks for joining us tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an update on the Chicago area hazing story. Then we'll look ahead to Mideast peace talks, as a key negotiator resigns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Just two days after the bodies of 17 immigrants were found inside an abandoned trailer, authorities along the same stretch of highway in south Texas intercepted another truck. This time, 18 immigrants were board, thirsty, but still alive. They were turned over to U.S. Immigration.

Meantime, the driver in the fatal case was in court today to get a new lawyer. Tyrone Williams is facing federal smuggling and conspiracy charges.

The Texas 51 are back in Austin; 51 Democratic lawmakers who fled to Oklahoma so that a Republican redistricting bill would not pass, they won. The bill died last night. But the governor has the option of calling a special legislative session and reviving it.

And 15 students accused of that brutal hazing at a Chicago area high school have been charged with misdemeanor battery. A dozen girls and three boys, all of them seniors, were charged as adults. The school has already suspended 32 students for taking part.

Former President Ford went home from the hospital this evening. Mr. Ford suffered dizzy spells during a round of golf this morning near his home in Palm Springs, California. It was 96 degrees out. The former president is 89-years-old.

You might not know the face but you know the faces he helped make famous.

Mark McCormack was the very model of a modern sports agent. He died today in New York, at the age of 72. Starting with Arnold Palmer in 1960, McCormack pioneered the concept that athletes were brand names. He built an agency that now has 80 offices and in 32 countries and represents Tiger Woods, Jennifer Capriati, actors, musicians and more.

Onto the summit meeting this weekend, between the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers. When Ariel Sharon sits down with Mahmoud Abbas, a key figure in past negotiations will be out of the picture. Saeb Erakat stepped down today as the chief Palestinian negotiator. That's the what, the why is less than clear. But the circumstances say a lot about the changing face of Palestinian politics. With that and a preview of the talks to come, here is CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What changed? After all, Saeb Erakat was all smiles Sunday during the U.S. secretary of State's meeting with the new Palestinian government.

Erakat was tight-lipped, telling CNN his decision to design was based on, "a lot of things". Dismissing as "nonsense", reports he was enraged, that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas plans to bring along two advisers, but not Erakat to his landmark Saturday meeting with Israel's Ariel Sharon.

But Palestinian observers think Erakat, a Yasser Arafat loyalist, feels slighted.

MAHDI ABDUL HADI, PALESTINIAN ANALYST: I don't feel this resignation as final. It's somebody defending his job description and wants to maintain his role within the system.

WALLACE: Taking center stage this weekend, Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon. The two men have met before, but this will be their first meeting in their roles as prime minister, and the first summit since the latest conflicts began 31 months ago.

It is significant that two sides are talking, but conservative Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg agrees with what many Mideast observers are saying.

GERALD STEINBERG, ISRAELI ANALYST: Substantively we can expect very little. Both leaders know that very little will come out of this process.

WALLACE: Both leaders will be armed with different agendas. Palestinian sources say Abbas will tell Sharon, until Israel accepts and implements the so-called Mideast road map, Palestinians should not be expected to carry out their side of the bargain, cracking down on radical Palestinian groups responsible for suicide attacks against Israel.

Sharon will say to Abbas, Israeli sources say, that until the Palestinians take real action to, "dismantle and disarm" groups like Hamas, Israel will not take other steps, such as pulling troops out of Palestinian towns.

WALLACE (on camera): One possible outcome from Saturday's session, both sides say, could be a meeting soon of Israeli and Palestinian security officials. Beyond that, though, both sides agree the next step will likely depend on what happens in Washington Tuesday, that's when Prime Minister Sharon sits down with U.S. President Bush.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: As NEWSNIGHT continues, heroism after combat. We will take a look at the Devil Docs with our own Sanjay Gupta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: It's an extraordinary job description, must be a highly skilled doctor, comfortable in working in a very dangerous environment, and comfortable treating someone who may be viewed as an enemy, such is the job for American battlefield doctors known as the Devil Docs.

Our own doctor, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, spent six weeks in Iraq with the Devil Docs in Marine Company Bravo, where the most important hour of their day is the most important hour of an injured person's life, the golden hour. Right after they're hurt, when they need help the most. Here is a bit from this weekend's "CNN Presents", Sanjay's hour- long look at the Devil Docs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the history of medicine on the battlefield, this is a pivotal moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we have to do is to do an amputation.

GUPTA: A mobile operating room called the Forward Resuscitative Surgical System, is being used for the first time ever, in the war in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is actually the OR. And --

GUPTA (on camera): Not like your OR back home, is it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not at all! However, it does function and functions well.

GUPTA (voice-over): Captain H.R. Bohman (ph) is on of the Devil Docs; he's also the surgeon who helped design this, an operating room in the middle of the desert. The tents, operating lights, oxygen compressors and X-ray cases can be broken down in one hour and loaded onto trucks by the Devil Docs themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, listen up, as we are very flexible, we are moving north.

GUPTA: This mobile unit can be set up in two hours and is designed to travel forward with the front line troops.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now from Atlanta. Just a little bit of a preview there, Sanjay.

Why so important to put these mobile operating rooms outs in the field? Why do they decide to do that rather than just bringing patients out?

GUPTA: That's right. You know, there were some valuable lessons learned from the Gulf War. What they found 12 years ago, was that it was taking too long to get the injured from the front lines to the rear. And they talk about this golden hour, really, that's more than just a name.

As the statistics will show, if you can get someone treated within those first 60 minutes, the survival rates increase dramatically. What they found was that it was taking too long to get people to the rear, so a simple but brilliant idea, is bring some of this rare definitive care to the front. And that is exactly why these mobile surgically units sort of piggybacking their way through the desert of Iraq to try and get that care quicker for the injured.

SNOW: Did you see it work a lot? Did you see that hour of time, you know, and lives being saved quite a bit?

GUPTA: Yeah. They kept really careful measurements. When patients came back, they'd measure exactly how long it was since the injury to the time they are actually getting their care. And they were finding that a great majority of the patients there, at the front, Forward Resuscitative Surgical System, which is profiled there, were getting their care within an hour.

Now, about 10 to 15 percent of all war casualties fall into this category. Meaning, that they need to get to a very forward unit in order to get their lives saved. And we saw it work very well, Kate, it appears a lot of lives were saved. We're going to have to look at the numbers later on down the road, but it seemed to work well.

SNOW: What kind are injuries are we talking about?

GUPTA: You know, that was sort of interesting. I think what people expected to see were mainly orthopedic injuries, significant orthopedic injuries. And that was because of the Kevlar vests and helmets, they thought the limbs would be the most exposed. Of course, a couple of interesting things were that the Iraqis, those civilians and soldiers didn't have the same protective gear. So, they were seeing mainly chest and abdominal gunshot wounds and shrapnel wounds, along with head injuries. So, you know, a different profile.

SNOW: You were telling me that a lot of the patients were not U.S. troops. They were Iraqi civilians or --

GUPTA: That's right. Fully 80 percent of the particular surgical company we worked with 80 percent of the patients were Iraqi. Yes, that was pretty high, although somewhat reflective of what they saw there in the Gulf War, as well.

SNOW: Is it going to be hard for these doctors now to come back? I know a lot of them are doctors back here at home. They work in healthcare at home. Is it going to be hard on them? They have seen a lot.

GUPTA: You know, that's an excellent question. And it speaks to the images that these doctors saw out in the desert. Certainly a lot of these doctors work in urban centers. They have seen gunshot wounds and knife wounds and things like that. But this was totally different, Kate.

First of all, the conditions were different but also the types of injuries; a .50-caliber machine gun, rocket-propelled grenades. We saw images out there, Kate, of children who lost their face, adults who lost their extremities, and these are the sorts of images that these doctors have seen as well. So, I think that's going to take some time when the adrenaline surge goes away, a lot of these image, a lot of these memories will start flooding back. And a lot of these images are things we show in the documentary as well.

SNOW: Do they have some kind of program set up for all of these Devil Docs when they get back to the U.S.? And when do they come back?

GUPTA: Yes, well we don't know when they come back. I will tell you most of them are still out there. We have heard that most of them should come back sometime in June although that has been sort of a floating date.

There are some psychological counseling programs available to basically handle what is known as this post-traumatic shock. And obviously for the doctors and the nurses and the medics all of them are going to have some different issues.

Kate, they didn't have the luxury of looking the other way during some of these things. So I think it's really these image that are going to be the most difficult for them. And there are some programs in place. It could probably always be better in terms of the psychological counseling available, but are there some programs in place.

SNOW: You were a reporter over there, Sanjay, but I know you also -- you got called into service?

GUPTA: Yes, you know, it was a -- it was an interesting situation. Certainly, I went there to cover the story, not be the story. But I was asked, the doctors over there knew I was a neurosurgeon. They didn't have neurosurgeons, with the particular surgical units. So I was asked to perform operations, five in total as it turned out. But that was sort of another interesting story as well. Another story that we cover in the documentary.

SNOW: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, fascinating stuff, and really good work by you. Congratulations.

GUPTA: Thank you. Appreciate that.

SNOW: Look for the complete documentary on the "Devil Docs" on "CNN Presents", Sunday evening 8 p.m. Eastern, that's here on CNN.

Next on NEWSNIGHT, what happens when wounded soldiers come home? We will go to Walter Reed Hospital and meet some old soldiers as they travel the long road to a recovery. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: A few minutes ago, we spoke about that golden hour after someone gets hurt in war, those crucial few moments in the battle zone that can mean the difference between living and dying.

And what about the days, weeks, months, and years after that golden hour? The hard and painful work of recovery comes then.

CNN's Beth Nissen recently met some of those recovering after being injured in the war in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Specialist Jason Blakemore of the 101st Airborne has injuries typical of those suffered by U.S. troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

SPEC. JASON BLAKEMORE, 101ST AIRBORNE: A grenade was thrown over the wall and exploded, between five and eight meters from me. I counted 47 pieces of shrapnel that had actually entered my body. And most of them were very small, about the size of a BB, no bigger than a dime.

NISSEN: Yet large enough to do serious damage.

BLAKEMORE: One of the pieces came down and nicked an artery in my -- under my clavicle and punctured my lung.

NISSEN: He was lucky. Medics got him into a helicopter, into a field hospital, in less than an hour.

Surgeons in the field and at military hospitals in the U.S. say the war wounded fell into two groups, those with internal injuries and those with fractured limbs.

LT. COL. WILLIAM DOUKAS, M.D., CHIEF OF ORTHOPEDICS, WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER: We've seen everything from blast injuries to gunshot wounds to motor vehicle accidents.

NISSEN: That's how Private First Class Richard Michael was hurt. His Humvee slammed into another military truck on an Iraqi road at night.

PFC RICHARD MICHAEL, U.S. ARMY: I broke my humerus, which also damaged the radial nerve. And I ruptured my spleen, and they also took it out. I got a compound fracture of my femur and a compound fracture of my tib-fib.

NISSEN: Like Private Michael, many of those injured in Iraq have needed multiple surgeries to pin fractured bones, repair major organs and arteries.

Recovery time varies. Many of those injured seriously enough to be sent back to U.S. hospitals are facing months of rehab. MICHAEL: They said they could take up to a year, year and a half, to fully recover. And I -- they don't even know if it will fully actually recover. I'll get most of it back, but I don't know if it'll ever be the same.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, breathe.

COL. CRAIG SHRIVER, M.D., CHIEF OF GENERAL SURGERY, WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER: These patients will have some discomfort and pains that come up furalong (ph) down the line, probably throughout the rest of their lives. And every time that occurs, it will bring back the memories of why this happened and the battles and so forth.

NISSEN: The medical staff at Walter Reed is deeply concerned about injury-related psychological trauma and works with every patient to reduce depression, flashbacks.

Private Michael has been spared those. Like Private Jessica Lynch, he has no memory of the moment of injury.

MICHAEL: So that helps a lot, you know, I won't have that actual terrifying memory, you know, in my mind.

NISSEN: Private Blakemore does. He keenly remembers those first eternal minutes of terror after the grenade blast.

BLAKEMORE: It's very scary not knowing if you're going to get to see your family again, not knowing if you're only going to have one arm, or if you're only going to have one leg or one foot. It's very scary.

DOUKAS: They have psychological hurdles to overcome, and they are in a fight for their own destiny if -- in that regard.

NISSEN: The combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, but surgeons, physical therapists, and trauma counselors say injured soldiers are still fighting.

SHRIVER: They're fighting for physical recovery. They're fighting for mental recovery. But they are fighting every day. It's not over for them.

NISSEN: And may not be for many years.

Beth Nissen, CNN, Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: On now to the story of bringing law and order to Iraq, and the question, can someone who made Times Square safer do the same thing for central Baghdad? That someone is former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik (ph), who is heading to Iraq to do what he does best, help clean up the streets.

Ordinary Iraqis surely welcome any help they can get in cracking down on the lawlessness there. In the meantime, many are taking their security into their own hands.

The story from CNN's John Vause in Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bassam Abdul Illa (ph) never owned a gun before. Now he has two, a double-barreled shotgun and Nakarov (ph) Russian-made pistol. He bought them to protect his family from the armed gangs which now roam this city.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are being killed and loot -- their homes are looted. So we can't take any chances, you know. We should defend ourselves.

VAUSE: With his younger brother, Bassam spends his nights keeping watch on the roof of his house, the pistol under his pillow, the shotgun by his side.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not used to this life, this kind of life. So we are terrified, actually.

VAUSE: Like a growing number of ordinary Iraqis, Mussa Hassan (ph) is now armed and terrified. He bought his AK-47 for $60 U.S. The last time he handled a weapon was during his days in the army 10 years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This whole neighborhood is armed. I was the only one who didn't own a weapon, so I had to buy a gun, since I was afraid for my children and family.

VAUSE: Just two weeks ago at the Al Salaam (ph) Gun Market, an AK-47 sold for about $15 U.S. But demand has forced prices up, way up. Now they're asking close to $90. This dealer will throw in an antiaircraft round for free. But an Italian-made submachine gun will cost more than $1,000.

Need ammunition? Buy it from the children.

(on camera): Baghdad is literally awash with weapons, and an announcement by U.S. officials here demanding that all firearms be handed in seems almost laughable. Most Iraqis believe that they have the right to bear arms, especially while the Americans are doing little to guarantee their safety.

John Vause, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: There have been shocking stories of looting in Iraq, but this one is surely one of the most shocking, the looting at the country's biggest nuclear research facility. Now, in the weeks that have followed, some Iraqis in the area are getting sick. It's troubling to think what the impact might be in the years that follow.

That story from CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amah (ph) doesn't go out much these days. He says he's been sick ever since he drank water from a plastic barrel looted from nearby al-Tuwaitha, Saddam's biggest nuclear research complex.

U.N. experts who monitored this site before the war say low-grade radioactive material may have been stored in the drums.

"My skin itches. I can't breathe well. And my nose bleeds at least four times a day." He says he only drank water from the barrel once, just after he and his father bought it from a man in the street.

No more soccer, no more school. He's even cut himself off from his old friends, even though doctors say his illness isn't contagious.

"My best friend came only once, but I told him not to come too close. I was scared he might get infected."

At the nearest hospital, Dr. Jaafar Nasser says he's seen six people in just two days with similar symptoms, breathlessness, rashes, frequent nosebleeds, and vomiting. His diagnosis is clear.

DR. JAAFAR NASSER, AL-MDENA HOSPITAL: This is called acute radiation syndrome.

PENHAUL: Several weeks after this nuclear complex was looted, it's now guarded by U.S. troops. But there's apparently no coordinated effort to track down items that may have been stolen.

(on camera): And local doctors are only just beginning to keep detailed case studies on patients they suspect may have been affected by radiation sickness.

(voice-over): This man still has one of the drums and has had diarrhea and vomiting since he broke into al-Tuwaitha. Other items looted from the nuclear complex have just been dumped in the street of this nearby town as fears of radiation spread.

One of the few visitors Amah still has is Iklas (ph). She doesn't have much to say these days since she drank from another water barrel, also looted from al-Tuwaitha. She says her eyesight has faded, and now she only sees dark shadows.

"I can't see," she tells us.

Dr. Jaafar says he suspects she's also suffering radiation sickness. But until experts conduct a detailed medical study, there's little chance of pinpointing the precise causes, much less of predicting the lasting consequences.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, al-Tuwaitha, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the attacks on Saudi Arabia and whether the Saudi government did enough to prevent them. We'll talk with a representative of the Saudi government.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: We want to update you now on our top story tonight, the bombings in Morocco. They happened around 9:30 local time in the seaside city of Casablanca, five explosions, including three car bombs, in locations throughout the downtown area. The bombs went off nearly simultaneously, three near the Belgian consulate, one at a Spanish social club, one near a hotel and a Jewish nightclub.

At least 20 people were killed. Dozens have been injured. This according to the Moroccan interior ministry. So far there has been no claim of responsibility, but the Moroccan government calls the bombings "an act of international terrorism." Three people have been arrested. No word yet who they may be, no word either of American casualties. The White House and State Department are monitoring developments tonight.

Earlier on in the program, we got a taste of the official Saudi reaction to the bombings in Riyadh on Monday, a mix of the old defensiveness, but also the recognition that, yes, the kingdom has a real problem.

Adel al-Jubeir is the man delivering the message to the West. He's a foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. We spoke with him late this afternoon, before the bombings in Casablanca.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Well-placed U.S. sources are telling CNN that there's evidence that the terrorists who led these attacks in Saudi Arabia this week believed that they were working on orders from the highest levels. How is it possible that someone at the highest levels, maybe even Osama bin Laden, is able to communicate with terrorists inside your country?

ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADVISER: We have to find out. We have to see how they communicate. We've made great strides in that direction. We know how they communicate. I don't know what they mean by the highest level. We need to sit down and go over the assessments.

We know that Osama bin Laden -- we have not found him, we assume he's alive. We know that the network that he set up is still operating, we will (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

SNOW: Al Qaeda is operating inside in your country.

AL-JUBEIR: Yes, as well as in other countries. You have busted cells in Buffalo, New York, in the West Coast of America, in the deep South, and all over the world.

SNOW: The U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia says that you had warning, that there were intelligence reports that residential compounds in Riyadh might be targeted, housing Westerners, might be targeted. And he says that yet you did nothing to increase security. AL-JUBEIR: Well, he is correct in terms of the warnings. We have tried to act on the warnings. The most recent warning we received was there days before the attack. We assumed that the one compound that they were worried about had adequate security, and it was the only compound that the terrorists could not penetrate.

But that's not important. What's important is that at the end of the day, we failed to protect our citizens and our residents. And we need to do a better job in the future, and we need to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

SNOW: Was there additional security in place before Monday?

AL-JUBEIR: Absolutely. There was additional security put in place throughout Saudi Arabia after September 11. It turns out that in these cases, the security was not adequate. The ambassador himself had said that if the recommendations that they had offered were implemented, it would not have made a difference, because the terrorist attack was so well planned, and the firepower they used was so devastating.

SNOW: State Department now warning that there could be similar attacks, there's some evidence, unconfirmed reports, that there could be target, targets in Jeddah, in the western part of your country. What are you doing there to make sure that this doesn't happen again?

AL-JUBEIR: Yes, what we have done is, we have been on a heightened level of alert for the past six weeks. We have, after the attack on Monday, shifted a lot of resources from our special forces in the military to the counterterrorism effort.

We are redoubling our efforts. We are looking for help from friends around the world. The United States has sent a team to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) us with the investigation that arrived in Saudi Arabia, I believe, yesterday or today.

And this evening, there will be another team sent from the United States to help us in this counterterrorism effort.

SNOW: And where does that stand, the investigation into Monday's attacks?

AL-JUBEIR: We will find -- we will leave no stone unturned. We will find out how it was done. We will find out who was responsible for it. We will bring them to justice. And we will punish them harshly. There will be no mercy in this case.

SNOW: Are you any closer at this stage? It's been a -- it's been several days.

AL-JUBEIR: It -- all the indications are that this was an al Qaeda operation. It has all the earmarks of an al Qaeda operation, simultaneous attacks done at the same time, the individuals who participated in it, those that we were able to link to an al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia.

So it sort of -- that's where the trail is leading.

SNOW: This isn't the first time, of course, that Saudi Arabia's gotten bad press in the United States. Do big changes need to be made in your government? Is it an image problem? Or do you need some structural changes in your government?

AL-JUBEIR: I think it's more of a -- it's a perception problem. We have done more in the war on terrorism than any other country, I believe, in the world, outside of the United States. We have cooperated closer with the United States than, I believe, any other country.

We have not spoken about it, we have not talked about what we did in the war against terrorism, and that led to the perception that we hadn't done enough. That we need to change.

Just like we talked more openly about what we did to cut off the finances of terrorism, we have now to talk more openly about what we do to apprehend and bring terrorists to justice.

I think that's what will change the perception.

SNOW: Adel al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, thanks for being with us this evening.

AL-JUBEIR: Thank you. My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Mr. al-Jubeir spoke with me prior to the bombings in Casablanca earlier.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a look at "The Exonerated," an off- Broadway play ripped from the headlines. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Finally from us, the Tony Award nominations were announced this week, with the musical "Hairspray" getting more than a dozen, including one for best musical.

There's one category you won't find among the Tonys, though, most relevant to current headlines. And in that category, there's a play off-Broadway that would clearly grab a nomination. It's called "The Exonerated," and the text is taken straight from the mouths of former death row inmates who were later found to be innocent.

And last weekend, life and art truly collided. Thirty-four former inmates were gathered together in New York by the Innocence Project. All had been found innocent, mostly through a fresh look at DNA evidence. And they went to see "The Exonerated."

We recently saw "The Exonerated" ourselves with the show's director as our guide.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BOB BALABAN, DIRECTOR: Eric Jentsen (ph) and Jessica Blank (ph) been going around the country speaking to people who had been on death row who were innocent who had been exonerated. And they came to me with just very simple testimony, and we threw it up on stage.

DELBERT TIBBS, EXONERATED FROM DEATH ROW: Jessica said, said, What we're going to do is, we're going to talk to you and other people, and we're going to try and put together a dramatic piece, and we're going to stage it in New York. And I decided to do it, to give the interview, and to let it all hang out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do we the people get out of this hole? What's the way to fight?

BALABAN: This isn't a play that we have here. Really what we have is, we've found through hunt-and-peck and luck and having brilliant people around us and great actors, we found a way to tell you the stories of six people who have gone through the controversy that we're hearing on television.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They find (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And the prosecution says, But this will put the final nail and carry him (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We will finally show the world that he murdered that girl.

Well, then the results came back, and it did just the opposite, you know. It took the nail out of our coffin. Told the world the truth, that that Professor Whitfield killed that girl. And he's still out. And everyone (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He has been walking around a free man, laughing at the system for 22 years. Twenty-two years.

BALABAN: Every word that you hear on the stage was said by the person who was supposedly saying it. It's not suggested by, you're actually seeing real life happening on stage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As I sometimes tell people, if you are accused of a sex crime in the South, and you're black, you probably should have done it, because your ass going to be guilty. And they found me guilty.

BALABAN: The six people in our play, for instance, that are -- whose words are presented by these wonderful actors every night, none of them would be here if their death penalty had been executed quickly and effectively.

Sonny Jacobs was in for 17 years. And when her husband was executed, somebody had already confessed to the crime.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The chair malfunctioned. They had to pull the switch three times. And he didn't die. It took -- it took 13 1/2 minutes for Jesse to die.

Why did we do that?

BALABAN: It's not just, Should there be a death penalty or shouldn't there be a death penalty? It's very much about the judicial process and the unfairness of it, the randomness of it. And the tendency, or the possibility, anyway, of false convictions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not easy to be a poet here. Yet I sing. We sing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): In the name of Jesus, I command this rain to stop.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: NEWSNIGHT producer Katherine (ph) Mitchell went to see "The Exonerated."

And that's NEWSNIGHT for tonight. I'm Kate Snow. Aaron returns on Monday. Thank you for watching. Have a good night.

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





Allies Possible Targets; Saudi Officials OK Second Team of U.S. Investigators>


Aired May 16, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KATE SNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Kate Snow in for Aaron Brown. We began the week with bulletins about a terror attack, images of destruction. We end the week the same way, a different place, different target, same horrible goal.
Of course it's far too early to know whether the attacks Monday in Saudi Arabia are in any way related to attacks tonight in Morocco. What connects them at this point is simple and brutal, innocent people have been killed by terror.

And, we begin the whip with the latest on that terror attack in Morocco tonight. David Ensor is following the story for us, David the headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, there have been four explosions in Casablanca. At least 22 people have been killed. This is a country where al Qaeda people were arrested just last year for trying to blow up ships in the Gibraltar Straits.

SNOW: On to the White House now and any late reaction to the attacks in Morocco. Suzanne Malveaux is there for us, Suzanne the headline.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, White House officials are saying tonight that it is too soon to tell whether or not these bombers were going after Americans or westerners but the question, the big concern that they have whether or not these terrorists are now targeting U.S. allies.

SNOW: The latest on the investigation into the Saudi Arabia attack, Sheila MacVicar is in Riyadh for us, Sheila the headline from there.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Warnings of possible new terror attacks here in Saudi Arabia making some westerners jittery enough to think about heading for home.

SNOW: A very different story now, the latest on the Laci Peterson case, Rusty Dornin is on that tonight from Richmond, California, Rusty the headline please.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More than a month after Laci Peterson and her son's body washed ashore here searchers are back out on the bay looking for what some investigators say could be the smoking gun.

SNOW: Back with all of that in a moment, also coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight a dirty bomb explosion, a plane crash, a bioterror attack. Thankfully these acts of terror were only simulated. We'll look at how this week's terror drill went and we'll talk with our former colleague, Frank Sesno, about his intriguing role in the exercise.

And, we'll look at a shakeup in the Palestinian leadership ahead of a crucial weekend in the search for peace in the Middle East. Kelly Wallace tonight on where the roadmap seems to be leading.

(BREAKING NEWS)

All that coming up later in the show but we begin in Casablanca. Here's what we know now. At around 6:00 p.m. Eastern time, 10:00 p.m. in Casablanca, four bombs went off nearly simultaneously at locations in the center of Morocco's largest city. Among the sites the Belgian consulate and a Spanish social club. There are reports too of explosions at a hotel and a Jewish nightclub.

Morocco's official news agency is reporting at least 22 people have been killed. No one has yet claimed responsibility but there are reports, again from the Moroccan news agency, that three people have been arrested in connection with these bombings.

For a better sense of what's happening right now, we're joined on the phone from Casablanca by Mustapha Kelu of Moroccan television. Mr. Kelu, what are you seeing, what are you hearing, what do you know?

MUSTAPHA KELU, MOROCCO TV (via telephone): We are seeing a lot of casualties in the Hotel Farah (ph) in the downtown of Casablanca, which was attacked by (unintelligible) and there's a lot of injuries and a lot of casualties.

SNOW: How many different sites are we talking about?

KELU: There is five places in Casablanca which have been attacked but this one was the Hotel Farah in the downtown and a restaurant in the downtown too. The restaurant is really very, very close to the Belgian embassy. There is a Jewish club, a Spanish club, and a cemetery, Jewish cemetery, where five people were killed there.

SNOW: CNN just learning now that the Moroccan foreign ministry is confirming 20 dead in Morocco in those five explosions. What else can you tell us about the area that we're talking about? Are all five explosions right in the central part of the town?

KELU: Yes, all of them are either downtown and the ministry of interior (unintelligible) accused the international terrorists are behind this attack and he repeated that Morocco is a stable country and there is not any problem with any other countries and this attack is the first one since '94. The last one was in '94 in Marrakech.

SNOW: Can you confirm that anyone has been taken into custody at this point?

KELU: We heard that there is at least two people arrested, at least two people, yes.

SNOW: And what about the method. Tell us a little bit more if you know about were these all car bombs or what were the cause of these explosions?

KELU: There is a (unintelligible) a car bomb and bombs which were (unintelligible) at the Jewish (unintelligible).

SNOW: Had there been any warnings? Had there been news lately in Morocco about the terrorist threat?

KELU: No, people - today is the (unintelligible) the anniversary of the creation of the security forces in Morocco. A lot of tourists are on vacation. The terrorists chose this day because they know that there is a little bit more freedom to act.

SNOW: Can you just one last time describe the scene where you are? We're seeing some pictures here on CNN but describe what you're seeing there on the ground.

KELU: I told you there is a lot of people outside on the streets and there is a lot of security forces. The hospitals are really, really crowded with people and I think people are very shocked. The first bomb attack in Casablanca, first terrorist attack in Casablanca. The last one was in Marrakech seven years ago and this one is really the first one in Casablanca. It's the biggest town in Morocco which is very important for Moroccan economy. There is at least five million people who live here in Casablanca.

SNOW: Mustapha Kelu of Moroccan television joining us from Casablanca on the television, appreciate the information this evening, more to come as well. As Mustapha Kelu said this was not the first act of terror in the region. It's safe to say it won't be the last.

CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor has some background on how we got to this point. David, give us some perspective here. This is a part of the world where terror threats and terrorism is not new.

ENSOR: Well, that's right, Kate, and since Tuesday, the day after the attack in Riyadh that killed so many there, U.S. officials have been warning that they're seeing intelligence leading them to believe that there could be al Qaeda terrorism anywhere in the Middle East and anywhere in north - in East Africa and also in Southeast Asia.

So, there's a great deal of concern. There's a good deal of intelligence chatter among al Qaeda suspects about possible plots to attack various sites. Morocco was not one of the countries that was mentioned on a daily basis but it was definitely in the area that they were concerned about.

Now, you'll recall that last year three Saudis were arrested in Morocco and accused of plotting to attack British and/or American warships in the Gibraltar Straits that are in between Morocco and Spain.

So, there has also been an al Qaeda presence in Morocco in the past, but it must be very disturbing to a country like that that's had so little terrorism up to this point and depends so heavily on tourism to have this happen tonight.

SNOW: Absolutely. David Ensor thanks. We'll get back to you in a moment on another story.

But for now let's go back to the White House and CNN's Suzanne Malveaux with some late reaction there tonight - Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Well, Kate, I spoke with several U.S. officials, administration officials this evening who say that they received the reports. They are monitoring the situation that it's too soon to comment. They're being very cautious about what it is they say.

As you know, on Monday when they had that Saudi bombing, it took about 12 hours before they actually got a statement together because they're really waiting for more information to come from there. But a senior administration official saying that, yes, there is a U.S. consulate in Casablanca.

There is no evidence so far, they say, too soon to tell whether or not westerners or Americans were targeted in this attack but there is a big question and a big concern whether or not there are U.S. allies that were targeted this evening.

As I mentioned before, some of those targets, those bombs that went off outside of a Belgian consulate as well as an Israeli social club, a Spanish nightclub. As you know, Spain, Israel, as well as Belgium all staunch U.S. allies when it comes to the war with Iraq. That is the big concern. That's the big question.

Earlier today we heard from President Bush who said that half of al Qaeda's operatives have been brought to justice but he says that the other half is very much alive - Kate.

SNOW: Suzanne Malveaux at the White House tonight and we will certainly continue to monitor everything out of Morocco and the White House reaction here in Washington.

Before tonight's bombing, David Ensor was working the Saudi story, specifically the al Qaeda connection, so let's go back to him now and pick up that thread - David.

ENSOR: Well, clearly investigators and intelligence officers who are trying to get to the bottom of this are trying to figure out who was the mastermind in this case. Where did the orders come from? How far up in they presume al Qaeda did the first order, did the plan come from? So, that's been the key focus of the investigation up to this point.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ENSOR (voice-over): Well placed U.S. sources say there is evidence the terrorists who attacked three sites in Riyadh Monday night believed they had orders to do so from the top al Qaeda leadership. The working assumption of U.S. investigators therefore is that the orders may have come from Osama bin Laden himself but U.S. officials warn they do not have any evidence in hand so far that bin Laden himself gave a go signal for the attacks.

With some reports questioning whether the Saudis responded to American requests for better security, the Saudi government held a news conference in Washington Friday to express sorrow and resolve.

ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADVISER: Have we failed, yes. On Monday we failed and we will learn from this mistake. We will ensure that it doesn't happen again and if anything these tragic events of Monday have been a massive jolt to Saudi Arabia, to the United States, to all peace-loving people around the world.

ENSOR: There is new information suggesting this man, Saif al- Adel, al Qaeda's operations chief, may have played a role in planning the Riyadh attacks. One senior U.S. officials says Adel "may have been a major player." U.S. officials believe he is in Iran.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: There are still countries that are harboring terrorists. I mean we know there are senior al Qaeda in Iran, for example, presumably not an ungoverned area.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Now whether that's with the sanction of the Iranian government or not that's a very difficult question to answer. It may not be. Iran's a large place and the government is - there are almost two governments there, one the more sort of anti-western and one that's trying to reach out to the west.

ENSOR: For their part, Iranian officials have consistently denied harboring any al Qaeda leaders.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: There is also information suggesting terrorists may be plotting attacks in Southeast Asia and some other Middle Eastern countries, obviously Morocco perhaps being one of them, and East Africa. The State Department has also now authorized non-essential U.S. personnel to leave Kenya as well as any U.S. families that might want to do so, saying that that is a prudent step given the intelligence information they have about possible risks in that country - Kate.

SNOW: David, with that list of countries it just makes you think they must - they're everywhere. They're still out there. Is that the sense that you get in talking to officials that there is still quite a threat out there and that the other shoe is waiting to drop?

ENSOR: There's certainly a sense that al Qaeda wants to strike in a lot of places if it can at this time. There's also a sense, though, that when they made, for example, an attack in Saudi Arabia there's an element of desperation to that because you're hitting the country where many of your supporters and much of your financial support has come in the past.

To do so will turn the government and many of the people perhaps against you. So, at the same time as al Qaeda seems to be swinging out in all directions, officials do believe there's an element of desperation to that - Kate.

SNOW: CNN's David Ensor thanks for your double duty tonight.

More now from Riyadh. Sources tell CNN that Saudi authorities have agreed to allow a second team of American investigators into the country. With a look at what they'll find when they get there, here's CNN's Sheila MacVicar.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACVICAR (voice-over): At the (unintelligible) compound, the bulldozer was at work scraping away the debris from Monday night's attack and scraping away evidence too. FBI investigators have been in Saudi Arabia for little more than 24 hours but there's not much of a crime scene left for them to examine here, a few bullet holes in the guard tower, damaged homes in the compound, eerily quiet streets, and very jittery workers.

MOHAMMED ZUBEIR, COMPOUND WORKER: In the daylight when it's all clear we feel safe, but in the night when night comes, when it's dark and people spread all these kind of rumors you feel a little unsafe especially in the western compound.

MACVICAR (on camera): It was just a few miles from here on May the 6th that Saudi authorities discovered that huge cache of weapons and explosives and shortly after that announced that they were looking for 19 men who they said they believed were preparing to imminently carry out terrorist attacks. What residents in this compound say they can not understand is why security here was not strengthened then.

(voice-over): On guard today, Saudi Air Force guards with a heavy machinegun. They were not here on Monday night even though the U.S. ambassador had specifically told Saudi officials this compound could be a target days before the attack.

In Washington, a Saudi advisor tried to explain why, in spite of the warnings from the U.S., in spite of the discovery of the weapons and explosives, more was not done to protect (unintelligible) and the other compounds.

AL-JUBEIR: I think the security at the time was thought to be adequate but it turns out it was not.

MACVICAR: With warnings of more possible attacks and a belief that western civilians here are now seen as legitimate targets in this terrorist war, many here say off camera they are thinking about packing up, going home, and taking their expertise with them and that's perhaps exactly what the terror bombers had in mind.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MACVICAR (via telephone): And, Kate, if enough westerners did decide that if they were no longer feeling safe or comfortable here in Riyadh decided that they wanted to go home now, that could be another devastating blow to Saudi Arabia - Kate.

SNOW: Sheila the Saudis are emphatic that they've raised the level of security now. What's it like on the streets there? Can you notice a difference?

MACVICAR: There is a big difference. There are roadblocks throughout the city of Riyadh. There are constant checks of vehicles and their drivers. Some people are being asked to get out of their cars. Vehicles are being examined. At the hotel, for example, where we are staying in downtown Riyadh there is security at the front where there is a constant awareness now.

And outside the compound, as I've pointed out, there is now a level of security which was not present before Monday night's attack. It's also important to note as Saudi officials have said when talking about why security at those compounds was not improved before Monday night, there literally are thousands of places like that throughout Saudi Arabia.

It is very difficult, they say, to assess the security at each and every one of them, very difficult to provide additional security to all of them. Those are big issues and things that are of very great concern, not only to westerners but also to the Saudis who live in some of these compounds - Kate.

SNOW: CNN's Sheila MacVicar in Riyadh tonight. Thank you Sheila.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT on this Friday, a week full of terror drills are complete, so what did we learn? We'll talk with Frank Sesno who played a role in the drill about what he experienced in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: In the middle of dealing with this week's carnage in Saudi Arabia and now Morocco, much of the country was training for something even worse. Here at home, Operation Topoff 2 is the largest terror simulation ever conducted. The exercise wrapped up today and even though the attacks weren't real, the problems they uncovered potentially are.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a week of horrendous events, the detonation of a dirty bomb, an epidemic of plague, a plane crash, all of it fiction, all intended to find holes in homeland security and find them they did.

In Chicago, where 5,000 were afflicted with simulated pneumonic plague, a realization that public health nurses alone could never handle the flood of people needing drugs.

ROBERT SCHILLERSTROM: One of those common sense things that we really hadn't thought about.

MESERVE: There were other lessons too. In Seattle, one observer says first responders left some of the injured untreated for so long they would have died in a real dirty bomb attack.

Other sources say authorities were slow to track the fictional plume of radiation and tell the public what to do. Problems of communication and coordination were found up and down the line at every venue.

Finding flaws is exactly what the exercise is supposed to do. The political reflex is to minimize them but experts say the after action report must spell out the lessons bad and good.

CHIEF EL PLAUGHTER, FIRE DEPARTMENT, ARLINGTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA: The lessons from Topoff 2 need to be in every mayor's office in the United States. They need to be in every county council in the United States.

MESERVE: Some experts complain the value of the drill was diminished because the scenarios were laid out ahead of time. So, was it worth $16 million?

TOM RIDGE, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I know some people have questioned that cost but let me just remind you that this country spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year to train and prepare the men and women of our armed forces.

MESERVE: And even more to equip them. Sixteen million dollars would buy just one Apache helicopter, but slice the money another way and it could purchase 20,000 Level A hazardous material suits for first responders.

But many say the exercise was worth every penny because it forced some officials at the local, state, and federal level to grapple with tough decisions that may have to be made in the event of a real attack.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: For all the criticism the simulation wasn't real enough, planners were especially to take a count of the media's role in modern disasters. They created a fictitious cable news network called VNN and the face of the apocalypse so to speak is a familiar one to us. Frank Sesno is a former CNN correspondent, anchor, and I should say my old boss, and we are very pleased that he could join us tonight. Thanks.

FRANK SESNO, ANCHOR, VNN, TOPOFF 2: Apocalyptic, huh?

SNOW: Yes, the face of it. Did it feel real? SESNO: Yes, up to a point. I mean the fact of the matter is that you can't ever simulate something as massive as this because it would literally shut down the country and it would certainly shut down virtually every aspect of life. You can't simulate civil disturbance. You can't simulate unpredictable human behavior. You can't literally shut down a city completely that's trying to operate at normal even when you're trying to simulate a disaster.

SNOW: How much did you know going in?

SESNO: Oh, I knew the broad basics of it all but, in fact, I said to the folks who I was working with I don't want to know everything, every twist and turn throughout the day because I need to be able to react as I would be reacting if I were at an anchor desk because that's the communication that's going out, not only to the public, but to the first responders and others as well.

SNOW: You were telling me earlier that it was you and explain how it was set up, two other people?

SESNO: VNN, Virtual News Network.

SNOW: Right.

SESNO: VNN had an anchor set, a main studio here in Washington and then field operations in both Seattle and Chicago. There was a very small sort of newsgathering operation. They were talking to a master control. They were involved in actually putting on the simulation as well as getting in unpredictable, unforeseen things and then they were throwing it at us.

SNOW: And the only people watching this feed, this television station, were the people involved in the exercise obviously.

SESNO: It was for the internal, yes.

SNOW: Only one media source though, only VNN involved in this exercise and some have criticized this whole thing wasn't real enough. In reality there would be a bazillion reporters trying to get information.

SESNO: Well, in reality, and this is one of the interesting things, the first invasion that takes place after something like this is the media invasion. The media are there before the first responders, in fact, media are first responders now.

And so, one of the things that officials need to do is they need to be able to cope with a flood of cameras and microphones because they're communicating not only to the community but to the whole world. But, you know, how far do you go in simulating? I think this was pretty good. I think it was pretty convincing.

SNOW: Tell us the lessons that you learned. What did you see, failures in communication anywhere along the line?

SESNO: I think probably the most notable thing, and one of the things I've heard about, is the time between information coming in and authoritative confirmation going out and that creates that dangerous vacuum in the media world that you and I know very well as speculation.

SNOW: Right.

SESNO: And that's where bad information or wrong information can go out, and in a situation like this that can lead to a big, big problem among the public and those who are trying to help them.

SNOW: This was $16 million, 8,500 people. It was massive. Do you think it was worth it for the responders?

SESNO: Well, I'm not going to be your cost benefit efficiency analyst on this but I do think that the notion of these kinds of drills and practice are very important. You know in Topoff 1, the top officials really weren't involved. In this one, what was impressive, and what you didn't see, what the public didn't see, we did, were the mock news conferences and the interviews and the time that was spent by the governors of Washington and Illinois, by Canadian officials, by Tom Ridge who went out to Illinois to be with those who were dealing with the catastrophe.

SNOW: Is there a danger that this all gets written up into some glossy binder and put on everyone's desk, you know, in offices all over the country and never looked at again?

SESNO: You bet but I don't think anybody's going to do that and I think that's one of the messages of the buy-in that came from the top here and that is this matters and you better pay attention. And, if they gloss over the problems that Jeanne Meserve reported, then they should put it on a shelf someplace and not look at it.

I don't think that's going to happen. They understand and I think something like this brings you face-to-face with just what's at stake. I mean let's remember in this mock exercise there were almost 1,100 people killed.

I mean by the time we went off the air this plague wrapped around the world and it spread across the United States. Just imagine what that would mean for human suffering and economic dislocation. I mean it's huge. So, you better practice. You better be ready.

SNOW: Frank Sesno, very good of you to join us tonight.

SESNO: Great to see you.

SNOW: You'll be part of Topoff 3 and 4 and 5.

SESNO: At some point, I'll check out and start building things, you know. We'll see.

SNOW: Thank you, Frank Sesno joining us involved with the Topoff 2 exercise.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, developments in the Laci Peterson case as police go back to San Francisco Bay to search for more clues about her death.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: More now on the case of Laci Peterson. It was weeks ago that Peterson and her unborn son were remembered by thousands at a church in Modesto, California, but the guest book on Lacipeterson.com continues to get countless messages. Today, there was on from as far away as New Zealand. The mourning continues.

And something else as well, the hunt for new evidence in the case against Laci's husband. That hunt has brought investigators to back to where the bodies were found last month. The story from CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (voice-over): A search not yet over. The answers to what happened may still lie at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. Laci Peterson and the body of her baby, Connor, washed up in mid-April along this beach in Richmond, California.

Today, divers were back in the bay, looking for what may have been left behind. Divers, boats and equipment for police agencies throughout Northern California joined the Coast Guard and a special FBI dive team from New York. The team specializes in underwater evidence retrieval using remote devices.

Scott Peterson told police he went fishing here, a place known as Brooks Island, the day his wife disappeared.

In mid-march, sonar experts discovered an object in the shipping channel just north of Brooks Island. Then the weather turned bad. When they returned a few days later the object was gone. A few weeks after that, the bodies floated ashore. So where are the anchors or weights?

A source close to the investigation told CNN the makings of concrete anchors were found in Scott Peterson's warehouse. If those makings are made from the same batch of cement, with evidence of Laci Peterson's remains attached, it could be the smoking gun in this case.

This search was conducted a few miles south of the island after a U.S.-G.S. science calculated the spot by looking at the direction in the wind the weeks before the body was discovered and worked backwards. Search crews say they've committed boats and manpower to continue to the operation for at least the next three days.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: It's such a huge area in San Francisco Bay, where they are searching, it doesn't seem possible they would be able to complete it in three days. But they are use the side-scanning sonar. And apparently if they do know what they're looking for even if it is small objects, it is very accurate. So investigators are hoping to bring something up from the bottom -- Kate.

SNOW: Rusty Dornin in Richmond, California, thanks. We will continue our look at the Laci Peterson case in just a moment. We will talk with lawyer Mickey Sherman about strategies prosecutors and defense attorneys may use in the trial of Scott Peterson.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: In a moment, well-known defense lawyer Mickey Sherman talks about the pending trial of Scott Peterson. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: We wanted to talk more about the Laci Peterson case with one of the best-known criminal defense attorneys in the nation. Mickey Sherman, who represented Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel. He's in Old Greenwich, Connecticut tonight.

Thanks for being with us tonight.

MICKEY SHERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: My pleasure. Thank you.

SNOW: Divers searching the San Francisco Bay today. We just saw the report from Rusty Dornin. How important is it that they turn up something that may be they uncovered the anchors used to weigh down the bodies?

SHERMAN: Kate, they need something. They need something physical other than the innuendo and other than the mountains of bad character evidence and the slime factor.

The fact that Scott Peterson had a girlfriend; that he just was not, apparently, a nice person. They need something physical. Something forensic to connect him, to build the bridge between the murder and his body, Scott Peterson. They need more than suspicion.

SNOW: Prosecutors and the defense team made some news when they agreed to keep the autopsy results sealed. Why would both sides agree to that?

SHERMAN: Because once something like that gets out, it becomes father for people like myself and other pundits, and other people who are opine endlessly as to what this means and what that means. And only thing that really make a difference is what happens in that courtroom.

And when that evidence comes in, before the jury, at the appropriate time, it'll be spun or interpreted by medical examiners and by other experts. And that's the time it should happen, not now, not when we their is too much potential for people like us, the media, and other people to, you know, spin it -- not badly -- but perhaps erroneously and perhaps poison the prospective jury pool.

SNOW: But yet what you got, instead, is strange stories coming out. Things that seem to be leak out. This week's story suggesting that perhaps she was targeted by a satanic cult. There have been stories suggesting that the body was somehow mutilated.

What's going on here? Is this all leaked on purpose by the defense team?

SHERMAN: Well, certainly -- much of this, as I understand it, from the reports I've read were leaked by sources close to the prosecution, quote/unquote, police reports said this and said that. I am not saying the state attorneys did this themselves. But it could have been an investigator, it could have been a media person, could have been a nobody. It could have someone just inventing this to get a one-day story out of this.

Kate, this comes with the big case, whether it's Laci Peterson, O.J., or something else, everyone wants a part of this. Everyone wants to be the source of some imaginative story. Today's headlines will be a non-story tomorrow.

SNOW: You certainly know all about the big case. You represented Skakel, of course, one of the best-known clients probably in the country. And he of course got 20 years to life in prison for killing a neighbor. What did you learn from that, though, in terms of how who to handle a high-profile, well-known defendant like, like Scott Peterson?

SHERMAN: It's a good question, and it is one that I really haven't answered publicly, but I will. You learn the press and the media are not your friends. You are there to serve your client and not to try and spend your time working with them or working against them.

There are a condition of the case and you just have to live within that environment. You just have to learn not to ignore it but to kind of deal with it in the most professional way, and not let it control what you are doing in court. A case is won not by media spin, but by good lawyering inside of that courtroom, Kate.

SNOW: So if you were defending Scott Peterson, put yourself in their shoes for a moment, as that defense attorney, somebody who obviously not gotten a lot of very good press. What's your next move?

SHERMAN: Well, I think he's doing the right thing. I'm not going to be his shill 100 percent of the time. If he says or does something wrong, I will make whatever observation I feel is appropriate.

But what he did, right from the get-go, which I thought was good, was he got Scott Peterson out of that orange jump suit, so he didn't look like a dangerous person. He may be a dangerous person, but at least he look like that.

And the next thing he did is the best to keep the reports under seal. And he did well with that. And I don't know what he's doing now, I would bet that right now he's doing some jury questionnaires of the public in the Modesto area. So, he will make a very effective motion for change of venue.

SNOW: Does he need to get this case out of Modesto?

SHERMAN: He does. It's a must. I mean, you have 3,000 people show up when Scott Peterson was brought in. Something akin to a lynch mob. And you can understand it, they all played a part in the search. These people were in a communal shock. The problem is, it is such a shallow win. If he gets it out of Modesto, he's not going to get it to the planet Jupiter, it is going to be some place in California. It's like getting a window seat on the Hindenburg, it's not going to make it home.

SNOW: Yeah. We are all watching, all over the nation. Thank you. Mickey Sherman, criminal defense attorney, thanks for joining us tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an update on the Chicago area hazing story. Then we'll look ahead to Mideast peace talks, as a key negotiator resigns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Just two days after the bodies of 17 immigrants were found inside an abandoned trailer, authorities along the same stretch of highway in south Texas intercepted another truck. This time, 18 immigrants were board, thirsty, but still alive. They were turned over to U.S. Immigration.

Meantime, the driver in the fatal case was in court today to get a new lawyer. Tyrone Williams is facing federal smuggling and conspiracy charges.

The Texas 51 are back in Austin; 51 Democratic lawmakers who fled to Oklahoma so that a Republican redistricting bill would not pass, they won. The bill died last night. But the governor has the option of calling a special legislative session and reviving it.

And 15 students accused of that brutal hazing at a Chicago area high school have been charged with misdemeanor battery. A dozen girls and three boys, all of them seniors, were charged as adults. The school has already suspended 32 students for taking part.

Former President Ford went home from the hospital this evening. Mr. Ford suffered dizzy spells during a round of golf this morning near his home in Palm Springs, California. It was 96 degrees out. The former president is 89-years-old.

You might not know the face but you know the faces he helped make famous.

Mark McCormack was the very model of a modern sports agent. He died today in New York, at the age of 72. Starting with Arnold Palmer in 1960, McCormack pioneered the concept that athletes were brand names. He built an agency that now has 80 offices and in 32 countries and represents Tiger Woods, Jennifer Capriati, actors, musicians and more.

Onto the summit meeting this weekend, between the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers. When Ariel Sharon sits down with Mahmoud Abbas, a key figure in past negotiations will be out of the picture. Saeb Erakat stepped down today as the chief Palestinian negotiator. That's the what, the why is less than clear. But the circumstances say a lot about the changing face of Palestinian politics. With that and a preview of the talks to come, here is CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What changed? After all, Saeb Erakat was all smiles Sunday during the U.S. secretary of State's meeting with the new Palestinian government.

Erakat was tight-lipped, telling CNN his decision to design was based on, "a lot of things". Dismissing as "nonsense", reports he was enraged, that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas plans to bring along two advisers, but not Erakat to his landmark Saturday meeting with Israel's Ariel Sharon.

But Palestinian observers think Erakat, a Yasser Arafat loyalist, feels slighted.

MAHDI ABDUL HADI, PALESTINIAN ANALYST: I don't feel this resignation as final. It's somebody defending his job description and wants to maintain his role within the system.

WALLACE: Taking center stage this weekend, Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon. The two men have met before, but this will be their first meeting in their roles as prime minister, and the first summit since the latest conflicts began 31 months ago.

It is significant that two sides are talking, but conservative Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg agrees with what many Mideast observers are saying.

GERALD STEINBERG, ISRAELI ANALYST: Substantively we can expect very little. Both leaders know that very little will come out of this process.

WALLACE: Both leaders will be armed with different agendas. Palestinian sources say Abbas will tell Sharon, until Israel accepts and implements the so-called Mideast road map, Palestinians should not be expected to carry out their side of the bargain, cracking down on radical Palestinian groups responsible for suicide attacks against Israel.

Sharon will say to Abbas, Israeli sources say, that until the Palestinians take real action to, "dismantle and disarm" groups like Hamas, Israel will not take other steps, such as pulling troops out of Palestinian towns.

WALLACE (on camera): One possible outcome from Saturday's session, both sides say, could be a meeting soon of Israeli and Palestinian security officials. Beyond that, though, both sides agree the next step will likely depend on what happens in Washington Tuesday, that's when Prime Minister Sharon sits down with U.S. President Bush.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: As NEWSNIGHT continues, heroism after combat. We will take a look at the Devil Docs with our own Sanjay Gupta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: It's an extraordinary job description, must be a highly skilled doctor, comfortable in working in a very dangerous environment, and comfortable treating someone who may be viewed as an enemy, such is the job for American battlefield doctors known as the Devil Docs.

Our own doctor, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, spent six weeks in Iraq with the Devil Docs in Marine Company Bravo, where the most important hour of their day is the most important hour of an injured person's life, the golden hour. Right after they're hurt, when they need help the most. Here is a bit from this weekend's "CNN Presents", Sanjay's hour- long look at the Devil Docs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the history of medicine on the battlefield, this is a pivotal moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we have to do is to do an amputation.

GUPTA: A mobile operating room called the Forward Resuscitative Surgical System, is being used for the first time ever, in the war in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is actually the OR. And --

GUPTA (on camera): Not like your OR back home, is it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not at all! However, it does function and functions well.

GUPTA (voice-over): Captain H.R. Bohman (ph) is on of the Devil Docs; he's also the surgeon who helped design this, an operating room in the middle of the desert. The tents, operating lights, oxygen compressors and X-ray cases can be broken down in one hour and loaded onto trucks by the Devil Docs themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, listen up, as we are very flexible, we are moving north.

GUPTA: This mobile unit can be set up in two hours and is designed to travel forward with the front line troops.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: And Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now from Atlanta. Just a little bit of a preview there, Sanjay.

Why so important to put these mobile operating rooms outs in the field? Why do they decide to do that rather than just bringing patients out?

GUPTA: That's right. You know, there were some valuable lessons learned from the Gulf War. What they found 12 years ago, was that it was taking too long to get the injured from the front lines to the rear. And they talk about this golden hour, really, that's more than just a name.

As the statistics will show, if you can get someone treated within those first 60 minutes, the survival rates increase dramatically. What they found was that it was taking too long to get people to the rear, so a simple but brilliant idea, is bring some of this rare definitive care to the front. And that is exactly why these mobile surgically units sort of piggybacking their way through the desert of Iraq to try and get that care quicker for the injured.

SNOW: Did you see it work a lot? Did you see that hour of time, you know, and lives being saved quite a bit?

GUPTA: Yeah. They kept really careful measurements. When patients came back, they'd measure exactly how long it was since the injury to the time they are actually getting their care. And they were finding that a great majority of the patients there, at the front, Forward Resuscitative Surgical System, which is profiled there, were getting their care within an hour.

Now, about 10 to 15 percent of all war casualties fall into this category. Meaning, that they need to get to a very forward unit in order to get their lives saved. And we saw it work very well, Kate, it appears a lot of lives were saved. We're going to have to look at the numbers later on down the road, but it seemed to work well.

SNOW: What kind are injuries are we talking about?

GUPTA: You know, that was sort of interesting. I think what people expected to see were mainly orthopedic injuries, significant orthopedic injuries. And that was because of the Kevlar vests and helmets, they thought the limbs would be the most exposed. Of course, a couple of interesting things were that the Iraqis, those civilians and soldiers didn't have the same protective gear. So, they were seeing mainly chest and abdominal gunshot wounds and shrapnel wounds, along with head injuries. So, you know, a different profile.

SNOW: You were telling me that a lot of the patients were not U.S. troops. They were Iraqi civilians or --

GUPTA: That's right. Fully 80 percent of the particular surgical company we worked with 80 percent of the patients were Iraqi. Yes, that was pretty high, although somewhat reflective of what they saw there in the Gulf War, as well.

SNOW: Is it going to be hard for these doctors now to come back? I know a lot of them are doctors back here at home. They work in healthcare at home. Is it going to be hard on them? They have seen a lot.

GUPTA: You know, that's an excellent question. And it speaks to the images that these doctors saw out in the desert. Certainly a lot of these doctors work in urban centers. They have seen gunshot wounds and knife wounds and things like that. But this was totally different, Kate.

First of all, the conditions were different but also the types of injuries; a .50-caliber machine gun, rocket-propelled grenades. We saw images out there, Kate, of children who lost their face, adults who lost their extremities, and these are the sorts of images that these doctors have seen as well. So, I think that's going to take some time when the adrenaline surge goes away, a lot of these image, a lot of these memories will start flooding back. And a lot of these images are things we show in the documentary as well.

SNOW: Do they have some kind of program set up for all of these Devil Docs when they get back to the U.S.? And when do they come back?

GUPTA: Yes, well we don't know when they come back. I will tell you most of them are still out there. We have heard that most of them should come back sometime in June although that has been sort of a floating date.

There are some psychological counseling programs available to basically handle what is known as this post-traumatic shock. And obviously for the doctors and the nurses and the medics all of them are going to have some different issues.

Kate, they didn't have the luxury of looking the other way during some of these things. So I think it's really these image that are going to be the most difficult for them. And there are some programs in place. It could probably always be better in terms of the psychological counseling available, but are there some programs in place.

SNOW: You were a reporter over there, Sanjay, but I know you also -- you got called into service?

GUPTA: Yes, you know, it was a -- it was an interesting situation. Certainly, I went there to cover the story, not be the story. But I was asked, the doctors over there knew I was a neurosurgeon. They didn't have neurosurgeons, with the particular surgical units. So I was asked to perform operations, five in total as it turned out. But that was sort of another interesting story as well. Another story that we cover in the documentary.

SNOW: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, fascinating stuff, and really good work by you. Congratulations.

GUPTA: Thank you. Appreciate that.

SNOW: Look for the complete documentary on the "Devil Docs" on "CNN Presents", Sunday evening 8 p.m. Eastern, that's here on CNN.

Next on NEWSNIGHT, what happens when wounded soldiers come home? We will go to Walter Reed Hospital and meet some old soldiers as they travel the long road to a recovery. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: A few minutes ago, we spoke about that golden hour after someone gets hurt in war, those crucial few moments in the battle zone that can mean the difference between living and dying.

And what about the days, weeks, months, and years after that golden hour? The hard and painful work of recovery comes then.

CNN's Beth Nissen recently met some of those recovering after being injured in the war in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Specialist Jason Blakemore of the 101st Airborne has injuries typical of those suffered by U.S. troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

SPEC. JASON BLAKEMORE, 101ST AIRBORNE: A grenade was thrown over the wall and exploded, between five and eight meters from me. I counted 47 pieces of shrapnel that had actually entered my body. And most of them were very small, about the size of a BB, no bigger than a dime.

NISSEN: Yet large enough to do serious damage.

BLAKEMORE: One of the pieces came down and nicked an artery in my -- under my clavicle and punctured my lung.

NISSEN: He was lucky. Medics got him into a helicopter, into a field hospital, in less than an hour.

Surgeons in the field and at military hospitals in the U.S. say the war wounded fell into two groups, those with internal injuries and those with fractured limbs.

LT. COL. WILLIAM DOUKAS, M.D., CHIEF OF ORTHOPEDICS, WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER: We've seen everything from blast injuries to gunshot wounds to motor vehicle accidents.

NISSEN: That's how Private First Class Richard Michael was hurt. His Humvee slammed into another military truck on an Iraqi road at night.

PFC RICHARD MICHAEL, U.S. ARMY: I broke my humerus, which also damaged the radial nerve. And I ruptured my spleen, and they also took it out. I got a compound fracture of my femur and a compound fracture of my tib-fib.

NISSEN: Like Private Michael, many of those injured in Iraq have needed multiple surgeries to pin fractured bones, repair major organs and arteries.

Recovery time varies. Many of those injured seriously enough to be sent back to U.S. hospitals are facing months of rehab. MICHAEL: They said they could take up to a year, year and a half, to fully recover. And I -- they don't even know if it will fully actually recover. I'll get most of it back, but I don't know if it'll ever be the same.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, breathe.

COL. CRAIG SHRIVER, M.D., CHIEF OF GENERAL SURGERY, WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER: These patients will have some discomfort and pains that come up furalong (ph) down the line, probably throughout the rest of their lives. And every time that occurs, it will bring back the memories of why this happened and the battles and so forth.

NISSEN: The medical staff at Walter Reed is deeply concerned about injury-related psychological trauma and works with every patient to reduce depression, flashbacks.

Private Michael has been spared those. Like Private Jessica Lynch, he has no memory of the moment of injury.

MICHAEL: So that helps a lot, you know, I won't have that actual terrifying memory, you know, in my mind.

NISSEN: Private Blakemore does. He keenly remembers those first eternal minutes of terror after the grenade blast.

BLAKEMORE: It's very scary not knowing if you're going to get to see your family again, not knowing if you're only going to have one arm, or if you're only going to have one leg or one foot. It's very scary.

DOUKAS: They have psychological hurdles to overcome, and they are in a fight for their own destiny if -- in that regard.

NISSEN: The combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, but surgeons, physical therapists, and trauma counselors say injured soldiers are still fighting.

SHRIVER: They're fighting for physical recovery. They're fighting for mental recovery. But they are fighting every day. It's not over for them.

NISSEN: And may not be for many years.

Beth Nissen, CNN, Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: On now to the story of bringing law and order to Iraq, and the question, can someone who made Times Square safer do the same thing for central Baghdad? That someone is former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik (ph), who is heading to Iraq to do what he does best, help clean up the streets.

Ordinary Iraqis surely welcome any help they can get in cracking down on the lawlessness there. In the meantime, many are taking their security into their own hands.

The story from CNN's John Vause in Baghdad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bassam Abdul Illa (ph) never owned a gun before. Now he has two, a double-barreled shotgun and Nakarov (ph) Russian-made pistol. He bought them to protect his family from the armed gangs which now roam this city.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are being killed and loot -- their homes are looted. So we can't take any chances, you know. We should defend ourselves.

VAUSE: With his younger brother, Bassam spends his nights keeping watch on the roof of his house, the pistol under his pillow, the shotgun by his side.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not used to this life, this kind of life. So we are terrified, actually.

VAUSE: Like a growing number of ordinary Iraqis, Mussa Hassan (ph) is now armed and terrified. He bought his AK-47 for $60 U.S. The last time he handled a weapon was during his days in the army 10 years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This whole neighborhood is armed. I was the only one who didn't own a weapon, so I had to buy a gun, since I was afraid for my children and family.

VAUSE: Just two weeks ago at the Al Salaam (ph) Gun Market, an AK-47 sold for about $15 U.S. But demand has forced prices up, way up. Now they're asking close to $90. This dealer will throw in an antiaircraft round for free. But an Italian-made submachine gun will cost more than $1,000.

Need ammunition? Buy it from the children.

(on camera): Baghdad is literally awash with weapons, and an announcement by U.S. officials here demanding that all firearms be handed in seems almost laughable. Most Iraqis believe that they have the right to bear arms, especially while the Americans are doing little to guarantee their safety.

John Vause, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: There have been shocking stories of looting in Iraq, but this one is surely one of the most shocking, the looting at the country's biggest nuclear research facility. Now, in the weeks that have followed, some Iraqis in the area are getting sick. It's troubling to think what the impact might be in the years that follow.

That story from CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amah (ph) doesn't go out much these days. He says he's been sick ever since he drank water from a plastic barrel looted from nearby al-Tuwaitha, Saddam's biggest nuclear research complex.

U.N. experts who monitored this site before the war say low-grade radioactive material may have been stored in the drums.

"My skin itches. I can't breathe well. And my nose bleeds at least four times a day." He says he only drank water from the barrel once, just after he and his father bought it from a man in the street.

No more soccer, no more school. He's even cut himself off from his old friends, even though doctors say his illness isn't contagious.

"My best friend came only once, but I told him not to come too close. I was scared he might get infected."

At the nearest hospital, Dr. Jaafar Nasser says he's seen six people in just two days with similar symptoms, breathlessness, rashes, frequent nosebleeds, and vomiting. His diagnosis is clear.

DR. JAAFAR NASSER, AL-MDENA HOSPITAL: This is called acute radiation syndrome.

PENHAUL: Several weeks after this nuclear complex was looted, it's now guarded by U.S. troops. But there's apparently no coordinated effort to track down items that may have been stolen.

(on camera): And local doctors are only just beginning to keep detailed case studies on patients they suspect may have been affected by radiation sickness.

(voice-over): This man still has one of the drums and has had diarrhea and vomiting since he broke into al-Tuwaitha. Other items looted from the nuclear complex have just been dumped in the street of this nearby town as fears of radiation spread.

One of the few visitors Amah still has is Iklas (ph). She doesn't have much to say these days since she drank from another water barrel, also looted from al-Tuwaitha. She says her eyesight has faded, and now she only sees dark shadows.

"I can't see," she tells us.

Dr. Jaafar says he suspects she's also suffering radiation sickness. But until experts conduct a detailed medical study, there's little chance of pinpointing the precise causes, much less of predicting the lasting consequences.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, al-Tuwaitha, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the attacks on Saudi Arabia and whether the Saudi government did enough to prevent them. We'll talk with a representative of the Saudi government.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: We want to update you now on our top story tonight, the bombings in Morocco. They happened around 9:30 local time in the seaside city of Casablanca, five explosions, including three car bombs, in locations throughout the downtown area. The bombs went off nearly simultaneously, three near the Belgian consulate, one at a Spanish social club, one near a hotel and a Jewish nightclub.

At least 20 people were killed. Dozens have been injured. This according to the Moroccan interior ministry. So far there has been no claim of responsibility, but the Moroccan government calls the bombings "an act of international terrorism." Three people have been arrested. No word yet who they may be, no word either of American casualties. The White House and State Department are monitoring developments tonight.

Earlier on in the program, we got a taste of the official Saudi reaction to the bombings in Riyadh on Monday, a mix of the old defensiveness, but also the recognition that, yes, the kingdom has a real problem.

Adel al-Jubeir is the man delivering the message to the West. He's a foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. We spoke with him late this afternoon, before the bombings in Casablanca.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Well-placed U.S. sources are telling CNN that there's evidence that the terrorists who led these attacks in Saudi Arabia this week believed that they were working on orders from the highest levels. How is it possible that someone at the highest levels, maybe even Osama bin Laden, is able to communicate with terrorists inside your country?

ADEL AL-JUBEIR, SAUDI FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADVISER: We have to find out. We have to see how they communicate. We've made great strides in that direction. We know how they communicate. I don't know what they mean by the highest level. We need to sit down and go over the assessments.

We know that Osama bin Laden -- we have not found him, we assume he's alive. We know that the network that he set up is still operating, we will (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

SNOW: Al Qaeda is operating inside in your country.

AL-JUBEIR: Yes, as well as in other countries. You have busted cells in Buffalo, New York, in the West Coast of America, in the deep South, and all over the world.

SNOW: The U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia says that you had warning, that there were intelligence reports that residential compounds in Riyadh might be targeted, housing Westerners, might be targeted. And he says that yet you did nothing to increase security. AL-JUBEIR: Well, he is correct in terms of the warnings. We have tried to act on the warnings. The most recent warning we received was there days before the attack. We assumed that the one compound that they were worried about had adequate security, and it was the only compound that the terrorists could not penetrate.

But that's not important. What's important is that at the end of the day, we failed to protect our citizens and our residents. And we need to do a better job in the future, and we need to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

SNOW: Was there additional security in place before Monday?

AL-JUBEIR: Absolutely. There was additional security put in place throughout Saudi Arabia after September 11. It turns out that in these cases, the security was not adequate. The ambassador himself had said that if the recommendations that they had offered were implemented, it would not have made a difference, because the terrorist attack was so well planned, and the firepower they used was so devastating.

SNOW: State Department now warning that there could be similar attacks, there's some evidence, unconfirmed reports, that there could be target, targets in Jeddah, in the western part of your country. What are you doing there to make sure that this doesn't happen again?

AL-JUBEIR: Yes, what we have done is, we have been on a heightened level of alert for the past six weeks. We have, after the attack on Monday, shifted a lot of resources from our special forces in the military to the counterterrorism effort.

We are redoubling our efforts. We are looking for help from friends around the world. The United States has sent a team to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) us with the investigation that arrived in Saudi Arabia, I believe, yesterday or today.

And this evening, there will be another team sent from the United States to help us in this counterterrorism effort.

SNOW: And where does that stand, the investigation into Monday's attacks?

AL-JUBEIR: We will find -- we will leave no stone unturned. We will find out how it was done. We will find out who was responsible for it. We will bring them to justice. And we will punish them harshly. There will be no mercy in this case.

SNOW: Are you any closer at this stage? It's been a -- it's been several days.

AL-JUBEIR: It -- all the indications are that this was an al Qaeda operation. It has all the earmarks of an al Qaeda operation, simultaneous attacks done at the same time, the individuals who participated in it, those that we were able to link to an al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia.

So it sort of -- that's where the trail is leading.

SNOW: This isn't the first time, of course, that Saudi Arabia's gotten bad press in the United States. Do big changes need to be made in your government? Is it an image problem? Or do you need some structural changes in your government?

AL-JUBEIR: I think it's more of a -- it's a perception problem. We have done more in the war on terrorism than any other country, I believe, in the world, outside of the United States. We have cooperated closer with the United States than, I believe, any other country.

We have not spoken about it, we have not talked about what we did in the war against terrorism, and that led to the perception that we hadn't done enough. That we need to change.

Just like we talked more openly about what we did to cut off the finances of terrorism, we have now to talk more openly about what we do to apprehend and bring terrorists to justice.

I think that's what will change the perception.

SNOW: Adel al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, thanks for being with us this evening.

AL-JUBEIR: Thank you. My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Mr. al-Jubeir spoke with me prior to the bombings in Casablanca earlier.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a look at "The Exonerated," an off- Broadway play ripped from the headlines. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Finally from us, the Tony Award nominations were announced this week, with the musical "Hairspray" getting more than a dozen, including one for best musical.

There's one category you won't find among the Tonys, though, most relevant to current headlines. And in that category, there's a play off-Broadway that would clearly grab a nomination. It's called "The Exonerated," and the text is taken straight from the mouths of former death row inmates who were later found to be innocent.

And last weekend, life and art truly collided. Thirty-four former inmates were gathered together in New York by the Innocence Project. All had been found innocent, mostly through a fresh look at DNA evidence. And they went to see "The Exonerated."

We recently saw "The Exonerated" ourselves with the show's director as our guide.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BOB BALABAN, DIRECTOR: Eric Jentsen (ph) and Jessica Blank (ph) been going around the country speaking to people who had been on death row who were innocent who had been exonerated. And they came to me with just very simple testimony, and we threw it up on stage.

DELBERT TIBBS, EXONERATED FROM DEATH ROW: Jessica said, said, What we're going to do is, we're going to talk to you and other people, and we're going to try and put together a dramatic piece, and we're going to stage it in New York. And I decided to do it, to give the interview, and to let it all hang out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do we the people get out of this hole? What's the way to fight?

BALABAN: This isn't a play that we have here. Really what we have is, we've found through hunt-and-peck and luck and having brilliant people around us and great actors, we found a way to tell you the stories of six people who have gone through the controversy that we're hearing on television.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They find (UNINTELLIGIBLE). And the prosecution says, But this will put the final nail and carry him (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We will finally show the world that he murdered that girl.

Well, then the results came back, and it did just the opposite, you know. It took the nail out of our coffin. Told the world the truth, that that Professor Whitfield killed that girl. And he's still out. And everyone (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He has been walking around a free man, laughing at the system for 22 years. Twenty-two years.

BALABAN: Every word that you hear on the stage was said by the person who was supposedly saying it. It's not suggested by, you're actually seeing real life happening on stage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As I sometimes tell people, if you are accused of a sex crime in the South, and you're black, you probably should have done it, because your ass going to be guilty. And they found me guilty.

BALABAN: The six people in our play, for instance, that are -- whose words are presented by these wonderful actors every night, none of them would be here if their death penalty had been executed quickly and effectively.

Sonny Jacobs was in for 17 years. And when her husband was executed, somebody had already confessed to the crime.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The chair malfunctioned. They had to pull the switch three times. And he didn't die. It took -- it took 13 1/2 minutes for Jesse to die.

Why did we do that?

BALABAN: It's not just, Should there be a death penalty or shouldn't there be a death penalty? It's very much about the judicial process and the unfairness of it, the randomness of it. And the tendency, or the possibility, anyway, of false convictions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not easy to be a poet here. Yet I sing. We sing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): In the name of Jesus, I command this rain to stop.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: NEWSNIGHT producer Katherine (ph) Mitchell went to see "The Exonerated."

And that's NEWSNIGHT for tonight. I'm Kate Snow. Aaron returns on Monday. Thank you for watching. Have a good night.

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Allies Possible Targets; Saudi Officials OK Second Team of U.S. Investigators>