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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Bush Plans to Meet With Sharon, Abbas; Situation in Iraq Not Secure; Derrick Todd Lee Charged
Aired May 28, 2003 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone. It is nice to be back.
As candidate, George W. Bush criticized the Clinton administration for being too involved in the Middle East, but times change even if the conflict remains very much the same and the president now seems to acknowledge that only American involvement will make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians possible.
It's where we begin the whip tonight, a Mideast summit full of risk and at least some possibility. We begin with Chris Burns at the White House. Chris, a headline please.
CHRIS BURNS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. This is the first time President Bush plans to meet with both the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian leader at the same time in Jordan on June 4 and the effort is to keep this road map toward peace rolling along. However, the White House has a very big caveat, conditions permitting.
BROWN: Chris, thank you, get back to you at the top tonight.
There have been dangerous and deadly days for Americans in Iraq. Matthew Chance has the latest from Baghdad, Matt a headline from you.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, thank you. Repeated attacks, as you say, against U.S. forces in various areas across Iraq raising the question about whether there is now organized resistance against the U.S. Army presence in this country. Certainly, the violence is underlining just how insecure the security situation remains here.
BROWN: Matthew, thank you.
And, back to the United States now where a suspected serial killer was brought back to Louisiana to face justice. Ed Lavandera is with us from Baton Rouge, Ed a headline.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. Derrick Todd Lee is back in Baton Rouge. Charges against him have been filed. Investigators are fighting back at their critics, and with all this, there's an overwhelming sense of relief here in Baton Rouge -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ed, thank you very much, back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, David Ensor has the latest on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the things needed to make them.
John Vause dispels the old cliche that good fences make good neighbors. That's because this fence cuts through the tumultuous landscape that is the West Bank.
The latest on the scrutiny and some say scandal at "The New York Times" after the mess surrounding the journalistic fraud committed by Jayson Blair. We'll talk with Howard Kurtz of the "Washington Post" and Seth Mnookin of "NEWSWEEK" magazine.
And all sorts of teenagers who put adults to shame -- tonight teenage athletes getting huge endorsement deals.
And, the kids of the National Spelling Bee, you don't need an endorsement from anyone if you can spell some of the ten dollar words, all of that and more coming up tonight.
We begin with the president's summit in Jordan a week from today conditions permitting. A fairly big if given that conditions in the Middle East usually change and rarely change for the better. That's the reality. The hope is different. With American power at its peak and both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders taking positive steps, the hope is a presidential visit can keep the momentum going.
For more on the trip we go back to the White House, CNN's Chris Burns -- Chris.
BURNS: Hello, Aaron. This will come on the heels of President Bush's visit to Europe to meet with the G-8 summit leaders, but the main focus of this trip is going to be to the Middle East, his trip to Egypt to meet with Arab leaders, and to Jordan for his first face-to- face with the new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, and a three-way summit with him as well as Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister.
The White House is being very, very careful about this; however, they do say the time is right according to Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I think that the president believes that the reason that this is the time to go is that the Arab leaders with whom he will meet are all telling him that this is a historic opportunity for peace and that historic opportunity for peace is only going to be delivered if there is on the part of all parties desire to take up their responsibilities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: Now, there are a number of factors here that have encouraged the president to get personally involved in this. One, the White House says, is that Saddam Hussein has been toppled. He was a major perceived threat by the Israelis.
Two, you have a new Palestinian leader who has now taken the place of Yasser Arafat. And, three, you have sort of a general -- you have the acceptance by the Israelis of this road map for peace, a road map aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
All these together provide that critical mass that the White House believes is there to push things along, but they also say conditions permitting, that being that if things do change between now and a week from now, which they very well could, there could be another wave of militant bombings.
There could be perhaps a breakdown in the initial efforts by the Israelis to perhaps start lifting the restrictions on the Palestinians on the Palestinian side to start trying to reign in the militants. So there are very delicate days ahead that could determine whether this meeting does go ahead -- Aaron.
BROWN: I have a couple questions. In trying to understand these conditions, is all the pressure now on a Palestinian leadership? Is that leadership going to be held responsible for any and every incident that happens in Israel?
BURNS: White House officials say that what they want to see especially is a 100 percent effort by Mahmoud Abbas. They want to give him some time. They think he should be given the time to try to reconstitute his security forces so that they can take on the militants and to be able to talk to the militants.
And what was hoped and believed was that by in the process of getting Ariel Sharon and his government to accept the road plan, the road map for peace, that that would empower, directly empower Mahmoud Abbas to go to the militants and say look, we have a serious commitment by the Israelis. I am empowered to try to reconstitute my government and this seen as a process, as a next step forward.
The White House is looking at small steps. They're saying, even today Condoleezza Rice was saying this is a very long process. This is only the latest step. It could be a very, very long road.
BROWN: Chris, thank you, Chris Burns at the White House.
This is a story that obviously over the next week will demand much time. It staggers the mind the number of issues that ultimately would have to be resolved to create a Palestinian state, here are a couple.
Israeli settlements and the efforts to stop terrorism have re- drawn the map of the West Bank in particular into a maze of competing interests and claims. It is one thing to consider that map from afar. It's another to be living that messy reality on the ground.
A look at what happened in just one spot on the West Bank from CNN's John Vause.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is the Israeli checkpoint to the west and now the brand new shiny razor wire to the north, south, and also the east, Israel's answer to the suicide bombers.
But for the 8,000 residents of the village of Baka al Sakir (ph) there's fear that in just a few weeks when construction of this part of the security wall is finished, they'll be in no man's land cut off from Israel and also the West Bank.
The villagers just don't know if the only road to the West Bank will stay open. Will there be a gate? If so, who can come and go? Will they need permits? For now, some of the residents joke. If they're fenced in, they say, they'll declare an independent republic. But Youssef Bawaqni a member of the local council isn't laughing.
YOUSSEF BAWAQNI, LOCAL COUNCIL (through translator): This is more than a prison. It is to force us off our land. When they cut us off from the Palestinian people who we belong to and they cut us off from Israel, they're besieging us economically and socially.
VAUSE: The village council lost a legal challenge to try and change the path of the fence. Israel says security determines where it's being built and so here that meant thousands of olive trees were cut down, hothouses destroyed, and hundreds of acres of land confiscated.
(on camera): In Baka al Sakir is not alone. By the time the Israelis finish constructing their security fence, the Palestinian Authority estimates as many as 27 villages will be totally isolated.
(voice-over): And because Israel hasn't declared the wall's final path, no one knows how much land will eventually be taken. But in the small village of Raffa (ph), Najah Mustafa Abbass knows how much she's already lost. That's where she once found cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives, and that's the barbed wire and electrified fence stopping her from getting there.
NAJAH MUSTAFA ABBASS, RESIDENT (through translator): We can't live normally here I'm worried about my kids that they would be shot every time a soldier or a settler passes by.
VAUSE: Whether Najah's fears are real or imagined, there is no mistaking that most Palestinians believe the wall has more to do with taking land than it does with security. If good fences make good neighbors, then this fence they say is only making relations worse.
John Vause, CNN, Baka al Sakir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A ring of razor wire isn't the answer in Iraq. For American forces to do their job, they must be out and about and recently that's meant venturing into neighborhoods where remnants of the Ba'ath Party have set up resistance. How organized a resistance, how widespread, is something to be debated but no one disputes the danger. Soldiers have come under attack a number of times in a number of places since the weekend.
Today we learn of another ambush and so we turn once again to CNN's Matthew Chance who is in Baghdad -- Matthew.
CHANCE: Thank you, Aaron, and that's right, U.S. forces have come under repeated hit and run attack over the course of the last three or four days or so in various parts of the country.
In the latest confirmed incident, I can tell you a grenade was thrown, according to U.S. forces, at troops guarding a police station in the west of this city of Baghdad injuring two soldiers along with an Iraqi child who was apparently hanging out with them.
Also in the city, the Pentagon says a U.S. Army convoy was attacked by attackers firing a rocket-propelled grenade injuring another three of their soldiers, all this of course following the deadly attacks against U.S. forces first of all in the town of Fallujah to the west of Baghdad. Before that in the town of Hadifa (ph) in the north there have been a catalog of incidents, similar incidents, up and down the country over the course of the last 48 hours or so.
The U.S. military, though, denies this is a trend, says that the trend is very much in the other direction that they are, you know, making headway in imposing security on the ground, but clearly this upsurge in fighting, this upsurge in attacks against U.S. forces demonstrates just how difficult it is providing security, imposing security on this territory, and bringing peace and stability in the areas they now control -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, I guess the first question is to what extent does the military think any of this is organized?
CHANCE: It's very difficult to say. They say, in fact, that there is no evidence at this stage that this is a campaign of coordinated, organized resistance to their presence here in Iraq, but clearly that is a possibility.
They do say that there are still many, many remnants, sympathizers of the former regime of Saddam Hussein who are out there causing trouble, organizing at least in their own little pockets, in their own little individual units, some kind of attack against them.
But they're saying that they don't believe that this is a concerted effort. They don't believe there are, you know, relations between the various opposition elements in this country, sort of organizing a campaign of resistance against them. A lot of these things are just hit and run attacks, opportunistic attacks, and they say they don't sort of bear the hallmarks of an organized campaign at this stage.
BROWN: And then to what end are the attacks? What is the point of them? CHANCE: Well, as I say, clearly there are a lot of people out there with sympathy still to the regime of Saddam Hussein. These are perhaps the people who are at this stage carrying out the attacks.
But, you know, it all comes against a backdrop of, let's face it, growing resentment against U.S. forces here in Iraq from just ordinary Iraqis because many Iraqis are angry that, you know, they don't have the kind of security that they were used to. They don't have the kind of, you know, essential services that they were used to, electricity and water.
Many have lost their jobs as a result of the regime of Saddam Hussein being toppled and they say the U.S. has not done enough to compensate them for that and to provide them with a way of making their living. And so, it's in that context of resentment that these attacks are taking place.
BROWN: Matthew, thank you, Matthew Chance in Baghdad tonight.
Saudi Arabia next, authorities there announcing five more arrests today in connection with the bombings in Riyadh a little more than two weeks ago. At the time of the bombings, the Saudis promised to get tough and what critics have always maintained is a homegrown problem. Today, they provided five more reasons to believe them.
CNN's Walter Rodgers back on the job working the story from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he joins us now on the phone -- Walter.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Aaron. In the last 36 hours, the Saudis claim to have arrested 11 more men thought to be connected with the May 12 bombings in Riyadh that targeted residential compounds here where westerners lived.
One of those arrested was Ali Abed al-Rahman al-Fakaziz al-Hamdi (ph), thought to be the mastermind of the Riyadh bombings that killed 34 people including eight Americans and some of the bombers themselves.
Al-Hamdi is believed to be a top al Qaeda figure here and one of the most wanted fugitives in Saudi Arabia. The most recent arrest came in Medina (ph) and despite Saudi government claims that the arrests were carried out without a single shot being fired, other unofficial sources here reported running gun battles in Medina.
Three of the 11 arrested, according to the Saudi interior minister, was said to be clerics, Muslim preachers who allegedly abetted the Islamist militants. The clerics had reportedly been urging the Saudi people not to cooperate with the government's investigation of the May 12th bombings.
Since then, some Saudis have seen that wave of terrorist attacks as a kind of national wakeup call to religious extremism here in the kingdom. Robert Jordan, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, suggested despite the arrests more terror attacks could be expected here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT JORDAN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA: We are continuing to treat the threat level here as an elevated threat level. There is no indication that this was a one-time effort, a one-time attack, and that these terrorists are satisfied that they have made some sort of point.
Instead, we believe that there is reason to be very concerned about future attacks here in the kingdom on western American interests and I think obviously now even Saudi interests and Saudi civilians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RODGERS: Ambassador Jordan also suggested there may be more al Qaeda terrorist cells operating here than previously acknowledged, and unlike earlier investigations of attacks against westerners here in the kingdom, this time the American ambassador is reporting excellent cooperation with Saudi officials in tracking down the perpetrators -- Aaron.
BROWN: How much support do the terrorists or the radicals have on the streets in Saudi Arabia?
RODGERS: I think there's a substantial swath of the Saudi population which is at least theologically compatible with some of the terrorists. It's difficult to quantify, perhaps 20 percent, perhaps as high as 30 percent, but remember this is essentially a xenophobic population, a very strongly Wahhabist-Muslim population which does not exactly welcome foreigners into the kingdom.
And so, I think at least emotionally and sentimentally, as well as theologically, there is substantial support if not for terrorism than for the xenophobia that the terrorists seem to manifest -- Aaron.
BROWN: Walt, thank you very much, Walter Rodgers in Saudi Arabia tonight.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT on this Wednesday, the suspect in the Louisiana serial killings sent back there to Baton Rouge after his arrest in Georgia.
And, a major Colombian drug lord convicted in this country.
From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Derrick Todd Lee is in jail tonight in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Louisiana capital is sleeping better for it. Lee is the suspect in a series of murders there, perhaps the serial killer that has stalked the city, though we are a long way from a trial and a verdict. What we have tonight is a picture, a sketch of a man who some describe as a real charmer, and who police suspect is a real killer perhaps five times over.
Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Derrick Todd Lee did not fight extradition from Georgia Wednesday morning. He was privately escorted back to Baton Rouge on a government jet Wednesday afternoon.
CHARLES CUNNINGHAM, FBI: This is truly a great moment for the state of Louisiana and for the United States. This is a serial killer that is off the streets now.
LAVANDERA: Prosecutors will now begin compiling evidence collected by the task force over the past ten months so it can be presented to a grand jury. That's expected to take up to three weeks.
Lee didn't appear on the serial killer investigation radar until Sunday when his DNA was matched with DNA taken from the five serial killer crime scenes. Ten months of investigative work came down to a two-day manhunt.
CUNNINGHAM: We had a jigsaw puzzle but didn't know what the picture looked like until this weekend and it took us two days to get him. That's outstanding. It's extraordinary.
LAVANDERA: Investigators believe Lee murdered five women in the Baton Rouge area starting in September of 2001, but they believe he could be involved in a string of other crimes including several other murders dating back to 1992. So, investigators are working on building a complex timeline tracking all of Derrick Lee's movements for the last ten years.
Victims' family members are celebrating the news of Lee's capture but they're weary of what lies ahead.
STERLING COLOMB, VICTIM'S FATHER: We still have a long way to go until this guy goes to trial and I hope it's not too long. I hope it's not a lengthy trial because if they go back in the cases what this guy did, his record, he should not have been on the streets to start off with.
LAVANDERA: As a sign of unity, all the members of the Baton Rouge Serial Killer Task Force appeared on stage to celebrate Lee's arrest. There were pictures and smiles among the group. There were also sharp words for the people who criticized how the task force handled this investigation.
MAYOR BOBBY SIMPSON, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA: Everything that can be done and should be done in an investigation of this type has been done. Yes, I think they were truly unduly criticized.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: Derrick Todd Lee was brought back to this Baton Rouge prison where he is spending the night after being questioned by investigators for more than five hours today after arriving here in Baton Rouge. He now faces 12 criminal charges, the most severe of which include five counts of first degree murder and five counts of aggravated rape -- Aaron.
BROWN: He was questioned for five hours, does he have a lawyer?
LAVANDERA: As far as we know, he hasn't made a court appearance so we're not privy as to if that's been established yet, but he's expected to make a brief courtroom appearance. The way they do it here in Baton Rouge, he'll appear by teleconference with the judge tomorrow we understand and perhaps that will be lined out then, but so far we don't know of one.
BROWN: And so obviously, I mean in a case like this no question he's been read his Miranda rights. Do they give you any indication he is in fact talking?
LAVANDERA: No. We tried to gather as much of that as possible tonight and we just haven't been able to but authorities in Atlanta made clear, very clear last night that his rights had been read to him.
BROWN: No doubt about that. I guess we'll find out more about that tomorrow in his court appearance when we see him in Baton Rouge. Ed, thank you very much, Ed Lavandera.
Finally, what police claim now is a DNA match is central to this case. There are critics who say the match could have and should have been found much earlier.
Ray Wickenheiser is the director of the Acadiana, I hope we got that right, Criminalistic Laboratory down in Louisiana and he joins us tonight to talk about the case. I just heard the mayor say everything that could have been done was done. Do you agree, everything that could have been done was done?
RAY WICKENHEISER, DIRECTOR OF THE ACADIANA CRIMINALISTIC LABORATORY: Well, I think certainly from our perspective everyone I was involved with, both on the task force and at the forensic lab worked extremely hard on this case of course, with DNA we have a lot of demand.
So we're certainly always having to prioritize our cases but we spent an incredible amount of time and effort on this case and I'm certainly proud of all the staff at the lab and certainly all of the task force I was involved with did a great job from my perspective.
BROWN: OK. If the allegations prove out and if there was this DNA match and if it was, as I understood it, at least an expedited testing went into place, what exactly is your concern generally then about the DNA system in Louisiana and elsewhere?
WICKENHEISER: Well, I certainly think that any time something like this happens there's always going to be learning experiences. Part of the big one for me is looking at what could have been in that we've known about what DNA can do for some time and the way the databases can work.
We do have fairly aggressive legislation in Louisiana in terms of arrestee sampling capabilities and also convicted offender capabilities, and looking at this individual we can see that he has had an extensive record, including arrests and convictions.
And, of course, hindsight is 20/20 but we can see that if those laws were in place at the time when he was arrested and at the time he was convicted, we certainly could have saved at least four out of five of these women's lives.
BROWN: OK. I think you're a couple steps ahead of most of us here so let me draw you back a little bit. What I think you're arguing here is that every time someone is arrested in Louisiana, or every time someone is convicted, or both, a DNA swab is taken and that's the -- that goes into the database you're talking about, am I right on that?
WICKENHEISER: Right. What I'm talking about is we do have laws that provide for that but the actual implementation and the funding of that is considerably behind where the laws are. So, when we sort of look in hindsight as in looking at this particular case, this is certainly one that if those laws were in place, were in place at the time, we would have had known samples from this individual, had it in a database.
And of course the big manhunt that people are concerned about, why wasn't he caught more quickly, we had those DNA samples from those crime scenes in a very quick time frame. What they're concerned about is why did it take so long to develop this individual as a suspect?
And, in hindsight we can see that he was arrested, again before the laws really went into place and before DNA was being collected on a routine basis. But even today we're only collecting DNA samples from one of the parishes in Louisiana, as opposed to statewide.
So, we really have a long, long ways to go but what this case illustrates is what that potential is in terms of crime solving. Certainly, we could have solved this case a lot quicker had we had that in place. So, I think what it points out for me is that we have a tremendous amount of potential but a lot we have to do in terms of preventing this from ever happening again.
BROWN: Quickly, two points, generally speaking in Louisiana and elsewhere, and in Louisiana because you know it best, are crime lab under funded?
WICKENHEISER: I think I could probably talk for almost every crime lab nationwide, certainly they are. When you look at the tremendous potential of what DNA is in terms of an investment in terms of crime solving and public safety, it is a tremendous payout.
It's an expensive process but right now the sampling from convicted offenders, if you can do them en masse, is somewhere below $50 a piece and at crime scenes it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$500. In the grand scheme of investigation that is expensive but from what it can actually save it's a tremendous investment.
BROWN: OK. WICKENHEISER: And, speaking on behalf of all of the crime labs, we could use a lot more funding, yes.
BROWN: OK, let me -- if in fact these labs are under funded, what confidence can juries have that the testing that's done is, in fact, accurate testing because this is a pretty sophisticated science we're talking about here?
WICKENHEISER: Yes, it is and all of the labs, the great majority of the labs, but certainly the ones that are doing DNA testing meet a very, very high standard. We must all be accredited which involves proficiency testing and we are very, very careful in what we do.
So, what I'm saying is the technology is there but what we really could use is a great number of additional people, resources, equipment, and building space basically to take that existing technology and apply it to all crimes as opposed to sort of the select few that we're concentrating on right now.
BROWN: Mr. Wickenheiser thanks for your time tonight. Good luck down there in Louisiana. Thank you.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, we'll update some of the other stories that made news around the world today including the story of a former Colombian drug lord facing major jail time in this country.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Quick look at a number of stories made news today, starting with the recent string of bombings in Casablanca. Today Moroccan authorities say the key suspect has died in detention. Circumstances unknown. An official telling Moroccan television -- and we quote now -- "his health unfortunately did not allow investigators to finish all elements of the probe." Thirty-one people died in the explosion, which Moroccan officials believed to be the work of homegrown terrorists who may have trained abroad.
In Nepal, a helicopter crashed near a base camp 17,000 feet up Mount Everest. Two people died, six more hurt. All of this happened on the eve of the anniversary of the first conquest in the mountain 50 years ago.
And Canadian officials reported another case of SARS today, bringing the total to a dozen probable and 23 suspected cases in the Toronto area. Two others died of the disease today. Also today, suburban Toronto school was closed, 1700 students and staffers quarantined after a student showed signs of SARS.
We live in a cynical world so one of the most notorious drug lords of all times says he is going straight -- well, you take it with a couple of kilos of salt. Fabio Ochoa said just that after doing a six-year stretch in a Colombian prisoners back in the '90s. American authorities didn't believe him then. Today in Miami, a jury didn't believe him either. Here's CNN Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fabio Ochoa crossed himself and dropped to his knees when the guilty verdicts were read according to those in the courtroom.
RICHARD GREGORIE, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: I think Mr. Ochoa realizes that he is facing a very long time in jail.
CANDIOTTI: Authorities have long called him one of the founders of Colombia's notorious Medellin cartel. Ochoa was convicted of two drug counts that could potentially put him behind bars for life.
The case against him, shipping upwards of 30 tons a month of cocaine into the U.S., came at a time when Ochoa insisted he was out of the drug business, as authorities photographed him going to and from meetings with a stream of other traffickers.
Prosecutors called that type of evidence key to their case.
GREGORIE: Mr. Ochoa cannot get away from the fact that he didn't come just to have lunch with the 11 big dope traffickers of the world and say that he was doing nothing while he was there. That defense was preposterous.
CANDIOTTI: Over the years, authorities say, he and his family, along with the late Pablo Escobar and others, saturated the U.S. with tons of cocaine. Ochoa did six years in a Colombian jail and then insisted he was immune of facing extradition to the U.S.
In September 2001, he was proven wrong.
During this month's trial and even now, jurors' names were a secret. U.S. Marshals kept them on a short leash. Ochoa's defense wondered allowed whether that and the cartel's history influenced their verdict.
ROY BLACK, OCHOA'S ATTORNEY: What I fear is he was convicted because of that, not because of the charges in the indictment.
CANDIOTTI: But is Ochoa's conviction expected to stem the tide of drugs? Hardly, experts say. Yet the E.A. hopes extraditing a big fish like Ochoa, and Carlos later before him, is a deterrent.
TOM FAFFANELLO, DEA SUPERVISOR: The thing that moth Colombian traffickers feared was being tried and incarcerated in the United States.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): Ochoa will be sentenced August 19 and yes, there will be an appeal.
Finally, some authorities privately acknowledge they're relieved about this one. It would have been a huge embarrassment if the U.S. lost and Ochoa went home. Susan Candiotti, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And as NEWSNIGHT continues, the man many Democrats wish were in the presidential race and how he can still stir a partisan crowd.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And up next on NEWSNIGHT, still seems to have it. Many Democrats wish he could still use it. Candy Crowley on former President Bill Clinton's continuing appeal.
A short break. We're right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Heaven knows it isn't easy being a Democratic presidential candidate these days. It's hard to get attention for one thing and it was even harder, we imagine, on this day. For in addition of facing a popular president in the White House, there was also that other president to measure up against.
Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): On the eve of what would have been President John Kennedy's 86th birthday, the stage at the JFK Library oozed Democratic nostalgia for two eras gone by.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: He started here and I sort of muscled my way up and made sure I got to shake hands with the president.
CROWLEY: Bill Clinton was a teenager the first and only time he saw John F. Kennedy, a moment now enshrined at the library.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ask not what your country can do for you...
CROWLEY: What else would do on this day but a JFK quote to take on the Bush tax cut?
CLINTON: We have not ask what we could do for our country, we have said, "Give me mine now. My government is bad. And I am good and entitled."
CROWLEY: They skirted the obvious: a new JFK biography revealing an affair with a 19-year-old intern. Clinton did say that the private lives of presidents are fair game in due time, a long time. CLINTON: There's a lot of difference in writing the story about some body that has been in the case of Grant, you know, dead over 100 years. And basically just every day trying to turn a public person into a private pinata.
CROWLEY: It was classic Clinton. He was late and went on too long. He was passionate, but relaxed. A millionaire now that he's out of public life, but he still feels your pain.
CLINTON: Most scandalous of all, this last tax cut is proposed to be paid for by kicking 500,000 poor children out of their afterschool programs. Oh, it's regrettable but I got to have this tax cut, man. That dividend cut, I need that really bad.
CROWLEY: After a while, you begin to understand why core Democrats miss him so much, and he admits to missing the White House, but there is no more comeback for the comeback kid. A president can only serve two terms.
CLINTON: The 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime, because we're all living longer.
CROWLEY: Message to the '04 field, take all the tips you want from the maestro, but stay off of the stage with him. Nobody does it better.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Boston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: On now to the incumbent and taxes. President Bush today signing a tax cut bill he once referred to as "little bitty." Today you can call it law, $350 billion in tax breaks spread over 10 years. Third largest tax cut in history. It provides tax credits for child care, income tax reductions and lower taxes on dividends and capital gains. The president also signed another measure today, this one with considerably less fanfare, the bill raising the federal debt ceiling by $984 billion.
The standoff is over at a post office just outside San Diego, California. Just before we went on the air, a gunman gave himself up, this after holding two hostages about three hours. He surrendered after a police delivered him a six-pack of soda. No shots fired, no one hurt. No word yet on who the man is, but authorities say he may have been upset over a traffic accident involving his car and a postal vehicle.
Up north to Washington state, the rugged mountains of the Gifford Pincho (ph) National Forest. It took a helicopter to do it, but six stranded hikers are safe. They failed to return from a day trip on Monday. They lost their way, but managed to stay safe and warm by building a shelter and two fires, one of which was a signal fire that caught the eye of their rescuers.
And he says age is but a number. In this case, a pretty big number. Tomorrow, Bob Hope turns 100. The famous golfer got his start as an entertainer. That was long before you were born. He made his radio debut 71 years ago, and his first movie in 1934. He hasn't stopped with the one-liners either. He had one today. "I'm so old," he said, "they have canceled my blood type."
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the continuing bloodletting at the "New York Times." Is it a case of correcting errors or getting even? We will talk about that in a moment. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: No surprise "The New York Times" is taking a tough accounting of its reporters, what they're reporting and how they're reporting it. The paper itself called the discovery of a rogue reporter in its midst "a low point in its 152-year history." That reporter, Jayson Blair, is now gone and some say he has unleashed what a few in the media are referring to as a Blair witch-hunt within the "Times." Latest byline to come under scrutiny is that of Rick Bragg. He was suspended over a feature story in which a freelancer did most of the reporting and didn't get a byline. Mr. Bragg has now resigned.
We are joined tonight by Howard Kurtz, who has been leading the reporting on this story for the "Washington Post," where he writes about media. He is also the host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES." And here in New York, Seth Mnookin, who has been writing about the Bragg suspension and other matters for "Newsweek." It's good to have you both.
Howie, let me start with you because I think we need to do a little explaining on Mr. Bragg. What is it that he did that was so terrible, if in fact it was terrible?
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, CNN'S "RELIABLE SOURCES": Well, it certainly wasn't in Jayson Blair's category.
BROWN: Right.
KURTZ: But Rick Bragg, colorful chronicler of southern tales, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and author quite openly defended to me in a lengthy interview this week that he uses stringers and interns and researchers and assistants to do some of his reporting. He was rapped on the knuckles over one story where he sent an intern out on an oyster boat for a few days and then wrote up the story himself. This idea that he should have credited the intern is interesting, because the "Times" almost never credits interns and stringers.
But larger issue is, are we being misled by lots of people at "The Times" and elsewhere if unseen other unseen minions do a lot of the scout work and the star reporters come in and put their names on it and fly someplace quickly to get a dateline, as Mr. Bragg told me that he sometimes did.
BROWN: All right, one more question on this, and then I want to step back a second. The fact is that all news organizations that I know of in one way, shape or form do exactly this. So what is -- is the problem here that this was not a breaking news story in 50 different places, or and that it was a feature? Is that why this was a problem? Because certainly Patrick Tyler wasn't all over the country of Iraq writing the lead piece in "New York Times" for a month.
KURTZ: No, it would be physically impossible to put out a newspaper without relying on other reporters, other newspapers, researchers, interns and so forth. The difference here is whether you're leveling with the reader. When Rick Bragg puts his byline on the story from Apalachicola, Florida, the question is, did he do a substantial amount of the reporting? Now, he was very aggressive in saying to me that this was a system that was not only tolerated by the "New York Times," that is using stringers and interns, but approved by the top editors, and he doesn't understand why he was being singled out.
His comments in turn have caused an uproar among other "Times" reporters who say they don't rely very much on stringers and interns, and they are mad at Rick Bragg for what they see as impugning their hard work.
BROWN: And Seth, this sort of falling into your reporting lap. You did a lot of reporting on this today. There is this anger within "The Times" in part at Rick, but also it seems to me at a star system within the paper.
SETH MNOOKIN, NEWSWEEK: Well, really two things that came out today. One, the national correspondents of "The Times" were incredibly upset by what they saw as Rick's incorrect characterization of how reporting is done. And the point they made again and again is, as you pointed out, if there is a tornado, a big crime scene, a national political story, obviously you're going to need to have more than one body on the ground. The story that Rick was -- got in trouble for was a feature story. There was -- there didn't seem to be any reason that he couldn't have been on that oyster boat. And in fact, that's the kind of story that he specializes in, is these feature stories.
So I think that's where the other reporters at "The Times" got so upset, because they felt like their work habits were being mischaracterized.
BROWN: In reading I think it was a piece today, may have been yesterday's, an old buddy of mine, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), made the argument that there were sort of two classes of people at "The Times."
MNOOKIN: Right. And that's a very good point. The other thing that has come out here is a lot of built-up resentment over a perceived star system at "The Times," over the sense that the national staff has been understaffed for a long time and sort of underappreciated, that some of them are running ragged and Rick in particular was allowed to stay in New Orleans and not be cycled around, and he only filed 24 stories in the last year. So a lot of these other resentments about the current administration I think bubbled up once this story hit the news.
BROWN: To both of you, but Seth, since you're in front of me, I will start with you. How messy is it over at "The Times" right now?
MNOOKIN: It's pretty messy right now. I think the fact that all of this dirty laundry is being aired in public, both in stories like the one I wrote today and on different Internet sites. There are a lot of angry reporters writing in. Creates sort of very upsetting culture at "The Times." And there's sort of two things, two strains of emotions going on at same time. The reporters want to move forward, but they want some reforms to be put in place. They want to be able to say that we've learned lessons from this, and we're going to put something positive in place that we can move forward from.
BROWN: Howie, do you see in "The Times" any evidence that this is affecting the product?
KURTZ: No, you know, it's a big newspaper with a large staff and they're putting out a great paper every day despite all of this internal angst.
But people there are really angry. They're angry at top editors for what you call the star system. I would call it almost a caste system because I have talked to the stringers and interns who say they work very hard and never get any credit and never get a byline unlike the practice at some other papers.
There's anger at the way the Jayson Blair story was mishandled. The Jayson Blair scandal or debacle mishandled. Why wasn't this guy caught before he committed so many serial fabrications? And there's sort of a split camp. Some people think Rick Bragg is being treated unfairly hung out to dry and for doing what lots of reporters do, maybe in a little bit more extreme fashion. And others think that he was tolerated and given a special deal as epitomized by this feature one story where he didn't get on the oyster boat.
BROWN: In 30 seconds, Howie, why does it matter to people who -- well, not just who read "The Times" because "The Times" material ends up in a lot of places. Why does this matter?
KURTZ: It comes down internal the politics and the fingerpointing, Aaron, to a question of trust. When you see a reporters on a story and that's got date line, did he go there? Did he do substantial reporting? Is he the person who is responsible for interviewing the people quoted in the first place?
All those things kind of add up to questions of credibility. And "The Times" itself now in the wake of Jayson Blair is examining all of these things and so are lots of other newsrooms in the country because of the Blair fallout to figure to out how can we do a better job of leveling with readers, being honest and making sure when somebody puts their name on that story that they did the reporting? That's an important thing in journalism.
BROWN: Mr. Kurtz, thank you. Seth, good to see you again. Thank you both. Keep an eye on this.
As NEWSNIGHT continues, the best of the best. The National Spelling Bee and the story of the ammatures who made the Oscar nominated film about it. We take a break first. This s NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Today began the Super Bowl of spelling in Washington. The Scripts Howard National Spelling Bee, more than 250 of America's best teenaged spellers are now down to 84. The final's tomorrow. The annual bee is the focus of a new documentary that has as much drama as "The Matrix." A look at eight kids with amazing intensity who have a will to learn and a will to win.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cephalalgia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cephalalgia?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pain in the head.
SEAN WELCH, FILMMAKER: "Spellbound" is a film about eight highly intelligent, gifted kids who prepare for and then compete in the 1999 National Spelling Bee contest. We had always felt that it was a thrilling competition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All we did was try to win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I wanted to beat her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They would be like oh, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), we are going to go out there and beat you. We will try so, so hard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had this little tactic. She acted like she was not nervous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He got the word "mongrel" and suddenly he blanked out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I spelled it M-O-N-G-R-O-L. I don't know -- I guess I was pretty nervous.
JEFF BLITZ, FILMMAKER: I was watching some relatively boring sporting event. This is back in 1997. And when that sporting event stopped and the National Spelling Bee started, and it was one of the most thrilling things that I had ever seen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Darjeeling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this is a noun?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A noun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you pronounce the word again, please?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Darjeeling.
WELCH: I think there's something so incredible about seeing these kids spell words that if most adults had to spell them, they would without question get them wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you say that word again please?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cybozu.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chateau Briand.
BLITZ: Sean likes to say that everything that has happened with "Spellbound" has gone exactly according to plan. But of course when you make a documentary about a spelling bee you never anticipate that it will be playing in theaters. You never anticipate it's going to be up for any kind of award much less the Oscar.
WELCH: It was difficult to make in general and certainly since we decided to fund it almost entirely ourselves, that was a real obstacle. A real hurdle for us. And neither Jeff nor I had operated this equipment before. When we started this film, we thought that there was a very realistic possibility that it might be the two of us and maybe our families at best that would get to see this. Obviously that's changed a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wheedle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: W-H-E-E-D-L-E.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes!
WELCH: I think we are better spellers than we were four years ago, but I still use spellcheck.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Greatest invention of century.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) of NEWSNIGHT to come including a report that says human rights are suffering because of the war on terror. And what the CIA thinks the Iraqis were up to with some of the mobile labs that had been found. A half hour to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) * BROWN: Each year, Amnesty International publishes a report detailing human rights abuses around the globe. This year's list holds dozens of countries accountable, and its list of atrocities includes government-sanctioned torture, violent repression of political opponents, killing unarmed civilians.
It also includes accusations of ignoring some wars and purposely focusing on others for political gain. The country Amnesty is targeting here is the United States in its prosecution of the war on terror.
Here's CNN's Andrea Koppel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The U.S. may have won the war in Iraq, but Amnesty International says in 2002, the U.S. lost the battle for human rights.
WILLIAM SCHULZ, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: The Bush administration, while it was occupied spending billions to dethrone Saddam Hussein, failed to condemn or thwart other dictators and rebels who wreaked havoc on millions.
RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We reject any criticism, any allegations that our human rights efforts have diminished...
KOPPEL: As proof of U.S. neglect, the Amnesty report cites a number of what it calls forgotten conflicts, in Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, and the Ivory Coast. In the Ivory Coast, Amnesty alleges that despite abductions, assassinations, rape, torture, and the displacement of thousands of people, the U.S. played politics.
SCHULZ: In what can only be characterized as petulance, the Bush administration vented its displeasure with France for its opposition to military action in Iraq by opposing an increase in the level of the French-led U.N. peacekeeping effort in Ivory Coast.
KOPPEL: On the flip side, the report also suggests the U.S. has rewarded some countries that Amnesty claims have spotty human rights records, like the Philippines, because they did support the war in Iraq. Just last week, President Bush announced the U.S. plans to provide Manila $95 million in military aid.
Another Amnesty allegation, using the war on terror as camouflage, the U.S. has turned a blind eye to human rights abuses abroad in places like Chechnya, where Russia is fighting a civil war, and at home, where thousands of Arabs and Muslims were forced to register with the INS, and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where more than 600 detainees from the war in Afghanistan continue to be held without charge or legal representation.
The White House rejected the criticism out of hand.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Prisoners in Guantanamo are being treated humanely. They're receiving medical care, they're receiving food, they're receiving far better treatment than they received in the life that they were living previously...
KOPPEL (on camera): The bottom line, according to Amnesty International, the U.S.-led war on terror, far from making the world safer, has made it a more dangerous place by compromising human rights around the world.
Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: On now to another long-standing bone of contention, the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, if there were weapons of mass destruction. The strongest evidence so far come sin the shape of two mobile laboratories designed for making something.
Today we learn the government now strongly believes that something could only be germ weapons.
Here's CNN's David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While U.S. forces still haven't found any weapons of mass destruction, the new CIA-Pentagon report says officials are now confident the mysterious trucks filled with high-tech equipment found in Iraq are indeed mobile biological weapons production facilities, just as Secretary of State Powell predicted and presented to the United Nations before the war.
BOUCHER: It's very important to recognize that programs that we had existed do exist.
ENSOR: Though no trace of biological toxin was found in the trucks, U.S. intelligence officials say they have largely eliminated any other possible use for the fermenters and other equipment.
Not everyone is convinced.
JONATHAN TUCKER, FORMER U.N. BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS INSPECTOR, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE: They could very well be biological weapons production facilities, but I don't think the intelligence community has made an open-and-shut case.
ENSOR: The CIA-Pentagon report admits the trucks were not an efficient way to produce biological weapons, but officials argue the point for the Iraqis was to produce some, and not to be caught doing it.
TUCKER: This was clearly a very inefficient way to produce anthrax, and the question is, why did they invest such resources in a mobile facility if they could have simply hidden a fixed production facility at -- in a very difficult-to-find location?
ENSOR: Some outside experts also argue that it is simply a mistake for the administration to have the U.S. military and the CIA doing the searching, since, like it or not, the U.S. is not trusted on the matter by many around the world.
AMY SMITHSON, CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS EXPERT, STIMSON CENTER: I have strongly urged in the past and will continue to urge this administration to include in this evaluation in the hunt international inspectors.
ENSOR: The administration is urging patience, saying finding weapons of mass destruction is likely to take time. Officials declined comment to reporters on whether any of the high-profile Iraqi weapons officials are talking, people like Huda Amash, known as Mrs. Anthrax.
SMITHSON: The people that were genuinely involved in this program are still probably scared out of their wits, not just for their own safety but the safety of their families.
ENSOR (on camera): U.S. intelligence officials say the trucks contain ingeniously simple bioweapons production facilities that were either cleaned up or never used. Critics say that does nothing to prove what the Bush administration claimed before the war, that at least 100 metric tons of weaponized chemical or biological agents would be found inside Iraq.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: It may seem hard to fathom that one of the deadliest periods for U.S troops in Iraq would come after the war, but that appears to be what's happening. There's been this string of attacks in recent days that have left at least four dead.
While President Bush said early this month that the U.S. military could be proud of a job well done in Iraq, the troops on the ground are still coping with a job unfinished, and a dangerous one at that.
Today retired Army intelligence officer Ralph Peters warned in an op-ed piece that the United States should not underestimate the importance of these attacks or the threat they pose to winning the peace.
We spoke with him earlier tonight.
Well, let's start here. Did -- in the buildup to the war, and in selling the notion that the country needed to go war with Iraq, did the administration publicly underestimate the complexity of what postwar Iraq would be?
RALPH PETERS, AUTHOR, "BEYOND TERROR": Well, I think they did, to a degree. There were some voices saying this is going to be tough, it's going to take a long time. I myself wrote that we're not going to know for 10 years what the real outcome is. But nonetheless, to be fair to the administration, it's impossible to fully predict it. They did fall short in the number of troops on the ground for the occupation, for presence.
But that said, in World War II, we had several years to build up to the occupation of Germany and Japan, and a month or two after the fall of Berlin and Tokyo, I can guarantee you it looked a lot worse than Iraq does today.
BROWN: Let's look ahead. The administration had always said that it saw a democratic and unified Iraq. You've made the argument that democratic matters, but maybe unified does not.
PETERS: Yes, and democratic may not give us all the results we like, certainly. There's a chance the Shi'ites will vote for a theocracy in the south. We'll see.
But the word that worries me, Aaron, is "unified." Now, on a practical level, certainly it's better for the near term if Iraq stays together. But in Yugoslavia, the Europeans and the U.S., the world community, tried to hold that country together.
And we are in an age of dissolution and breakdown. And if you're on the wrong side of history, if you're trying to force people to stay together who hate each other, who want to be apart, you're going to lose.
So it's great if Iraq stays together. But while we aim for that, we need to have plan B. We need to be thinking hard and honestly about what happens if Iraq will not stay together, if, for instance, there's going to be an independent Kurdistan in the north, an independent Shi'ite area in the south.
BROWN: And what in the middle?
PETERS: Well, the middle's the problem. And that's the problem we're having right now with the violence against U.S. troops. The problem is, the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq has always, since Iraq's been independent, ruled everyone else. They've (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it over the Kurds, over the Shi'ites in the south, often very brutally.
Now, they're unhappy, or many Sunni Arabs are unhappy with our presence, because their privileges are gone. Saddam favored them. In Fallujah, for instance, there was a town, a community, very much favored by Saddam Hussein.
And we have to be -- keep our perspective and beware an obsession with fairness. You have -- you can't always be fair to your enemies. And certainly the Kurds fought beside us in this war. The Shi'ites suffered badly, not least in 1991 when we let them down.
And so if we overplay trying to be fair to the Sunnis in the middle, for the irreconcilable elements among the Sunnis, we're going to lose.
BROWN: That's a really interesting notion, because again, I would put forward the notion that the administration made the argument that this war was never about any specific group of people in Iraq, it was a war against a specific regime.
What you're talking about is essentially punishing the Sunnis for having benefited by -- during the time of Saddam.
PETERS: Well, certainly we don't want to punish the Sunnis if the Sunnis come into line and behave and want to be equal participants in a democratic rule-of-law Iraq. But if the Sunnis -- Sunni Arabs prove irreconcilable in the middle, if they keep killing American troops, well, then, there's certainly not much sense in favening (ph) them.
In Iraq, what we really need are -- is a two-track approach. For those who cooperate, who try to build a healthy, democratic rule-of- law Iraq, the velvet glove. But for those who kill Americans, you need the iron fist. And you can't have one or the other. It must be a judicious, ever-changing balance of both.
BROWN: Just a final question. If -- how exactly would this confederation that you've talked about come to be?
PETERS: Well, we don't know the details. And it may not be a confederation. Certainly the ideal is a unified Iraq. Next, a confederation. But we may wind up seeing an independent Kurdistan. It may be time. We don't know that yet.
And so, Aaron, I would never try to prescribe the future. But I'm afraid that some people in Washington may be trying to do that. And what we have to do is be open to the dynamic forces we've unleashed within Iraq. We can try to shape them, but we also have to recognize when we hit a point of diminishing returns, when there -- if the country is not going to hold together.
And you can shed a lot more blood, innocent blood, trying to force people to live together than you can by facilitating them coming apart. And I think, again, I go back to Yugoslavia as the example of how not to do it.
BROWN: Ralph, always good to have you on the program, good to talk to you. Thank you.
PETERS: Great talking to you, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ralph Peters. We talked with him earlier tonight.
More now on the ethnic difficulties left in the wake of the war. When we think of ethnic cleansing, Bosnia, of course, comes to mind, Kosovo, Slobodan Milosevic. But the truth is, Saddam Hussein was fully his equal, in the south with the marsh Arabs, in the north with the Kurds. When he wasn't gassing them, Saddam was encouraging ethnic Arabs to move in and drive the Kurds out.
Now that the war is over, some are returning. This is not exactly a happy homecoming.
Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's hard to keep everything clean when your front yard is a putrid, stagnant swamp. And that's just one of the daily problems facing Kurdish returnees squatting in Kirkuk's sports stadium.
Its toilet is home to an extended family of 12. They've scrubbed it clean but say it's hard to wash away the idea you're living in what, until recently, was a public restroom. "We have no other place to live," says Rozhan Abdelrahmen. "What else can we do?"
(on camera): Around 150 families have moved to this stadium since Saddam's regime fell. Most of these Kurdish families were expelled from their homes during the 1970s and '80s as part of Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaign, an attempt to change the ethnic composition of this oil-rich area in favor of the Arabs.
(voice-over): Many of those Arabs have left Kirkuk, but these Kurds are the poorest of the poor here. Earning their daily bread has always been a struggle. They never owned any homes to return to, so now they wait for someone, somehow, to find them a better place to live.
Hassan Muhammad was forced by the Iraqi regime to leave his village outside Kirkuk and resettle in the southern part of the country. "Things are bad," he says. "We have no money. We can't find work in town."
It's not as bad as it looks, according to Fahima Ahmed. "Here we don't have to pay rent," she says, "so we can spend more money on food."
A stadium does have plenty of room to play in. On a hot day like this, it's hard to keep the kids out of the water, even murky green water with garbage floating on top.
It's not much compared to Saddam's palaces, but this stadium is, at least, a roof over one's head.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Kirkuk, northern Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, last week it was an 18-year- old, this week it's a 13-year-old with a shoe contract. Things never happen to me.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: His name is Freddy Adu, and Nike is betting that given a little time, he will hardly need an introduction. In fact, they're hoping that one day soon you'll be positively fed up hearing about how your soccer-playing child has to look and dress just like their hero, Freddy.
He's the latest teenage phenomenon to reportedly win a big deal from the company Nike. We'll hear from his agent in a moment. But first, the background.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): At 13, he is already something of a soccer legend, the youngest member of the U.S. under-17 soccer academy, Freddy Adu has been impressing those who know soccer since he came to this country from Ghana five years ago. He is essentially a Pele in waiting.
Nike is betting an estimated million bucks on Freddy, who is already five-eight and a slim 140 pounds, a goal-scoring machine.
FREDDY ADU: I just play for fun, and, you know, that's how it's going to be. I'm just going to keep playing for fun, never forget why I'm playing this sport, not get too caught up in all this hype.
BROWN: Now, a million bucks is not the same as 90 million, what Nike is paying high school basketball star LeBron James. But, after all, James is nearly a high school graduate, and Freddy is just in middle school.
And, of course, soccer is not basketball. In most of the world, it is far bigger, but not in the United States. So at 13, Freddy will have to get by with just a million, a down payment for a young man who could become the world's next most celebrated athlete.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More now on the Freddy phenomenon. We're joined by his agent, Rich Motzkin, who joins us from Los Angeles.
This is a nice deal. Is he a good kid?
RICH MOTZKIN, SPORTS AGENT: Yes. First, thanks for having me on. And Freddy's really -- he's really -- he's a wonderful kid. He's obviously a talented soccer player. But he's, as he said himself right there earlier in the piece, he's very focused on just playing soccer, having fun, and continuing with his education.
BROWN: Well, I know, but honestly, everyone says that, and it's just my theory that a million bucks will probably change him, change his family, and maybe change him for the better. There's no reason to presuppose that it changed him for the worse.
What sort of family is it?
MOTZKIN: It's actually -- it's a wonderful family. Freddy came over here with his family from Ghana when he was 8 years old, and his mother, Amelia, is a wonderful person who is actually a little bit embarrassed by all this attention, because she has raised Freddy and his brother, Froh (ph), in a wonderful way to have great values and be concerned with education.
And this isn't really going to change them, because Freddy's going to be able to continue playing soccer and continue with his education.
BROWN: Now, obviously this means that he's not going to play high school soccer, and he's not going to play college soccer, he's a pro. He's a pro the moment he takes the money. Well, he's a pro the moment he hires the agent. MOTZKIN: No, that's true, and those were not easy decisions for the family to come by. But again, at some level, this provides him with a level of insurance to continue doing what he's been doing, which is to play with the under-17 national team, to continue his education, and to have some level of protection.
BROWN: How important do you think -- I mean, you're his agent, and we all understand, I mean, you're going to put the best spin on this possible. But give me your most honest answer here, if you can. How important do you think this kid's going to be to the growth of soccer in the United States?
MOTZKIN: Well, that's really what I think this story is all about. I think that what it demonstrates is with the recent success of the World Cup team last year and the growth of soccer in this country that here's a young talent who has a lot of potential.
U.S. soccer has done a great job with their under-17 program and having the top young players in this country be in a -- the Bollettieri Academy down in Brathington, and I think it speaks well for the future of soccer in this country, as well as for our U.S. national teams.
BROWN: Is it not true that some of the best, the most elite American soccer players end up playing in Europe or abroad?
MOTZKIN: Yes, and those are decisions right now that, you know, Freddy doesn't have to concern himself with. He's, again, going to be playing with the under-17 team, continuing with his education, and make that decision later on down the road.
But the nice thing is, we've got a good professional league here in the United States in major league soccer, which is in its eighth year, and, you know, those are decisions that, fortunately for young soccer players, are going to be hopefully be ones that they can make down the road.
BROWN: Why do you think it is that this is one of those questions probably been asked a million times, publicly and privately? Why it is that this sport that really does own the world, it is the one true global sport, I think, really has struggled to find a foothold not among kids who play it, but among fans to watch it in the states?
MOTZKIN: Well, I think it's a great question, and I think that what we're seeing now, with Nike supporter Freddy, in particular, but just with the growth of the sport in the country and the success of the national teams in major league soccer is that professional soccer is really becoming a fifth major professional sport in this country, and it's going to become part of the mainstream.
And so I think it's a question of time. But I think we're getting there and we're making positive steps.
BROWN: Well, we're watching. This is a great story, to have a 13-year-old who everybody agrees is just a terrific athlete, and we'll see how he does.
Nice to talk to you, Rich, thank you.
MOTZKIN: Thank you.
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the moment you've been waiting for. Right, you've been sitting (UNINTELLIGIBLE) saying, When is he going to do tomorrow's papers tonight? The answer is, right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers, newspapers from around the country and around the world. Did anybody remember how we do this? It's been a while.
"USA Today" puts a big travel story on the front page. They like big travel stories. "Airline to Sell Food on Flights," US Airways, to sell food. I don't under -- I've never understood why this is a big deal. Why not? I mean, what's the argument against selling food on flights? If you don't want to buy the $10 lunch, the sandwich, then don't.
Also on -- you don't care what I think, do you? "Ten-Year Tax Cut Signed into Law" is the big front-page story. OK, that's a big story, right, the tax cut? It leads "The Cincinnati Enquirer" in Cincinnati, Ohio, again, a note from someone who said, You don't have to tell people that Cincinnati's in Ohio, they know that.
"Tax Cut" -- I thought it was a little picky. "Tax Cut Cash Is on the Way," says the headline in "The Enquirer."
Here's why "The New York Times" is a great newspaper, ladies and gentlemen, because they actually read the tax cut bill, don't you know? "Tax Law Bars Child Credit for Some Families." It turns out people that make about the minimum wage, between $10,500 and $20,000, actually don't get a child tax credit in the bill.
The other story I liked in "The New York Times" -- let me take off my glasses to do this -- can you see this one down here? "Video Game Killing Builds Visual Skills, Researchers Report." Turns out that kids who play these shoot-'em-up video games become much more aware of things all around them.
Just to prove a point, there's always an auto story in a Detroit newspaper. "Apologetic GM Tries to Sell Newfound Quality," "The Detroit News." And I wish I had time for that, but I don't.
The weather in -- tomorrow in Chicago, by the way, is "Ideal."
It's ideal to see you all again, and now I can. We'll see you again tomorrow. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Not Secure; Derrick Todd Lee Charged>
Aired May 28, 2003 - 22:00 Â ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again, everyone. It is nice to be back.
As candidate, George W. Bush criticized the Clinton administration for being too involved in the Middle East, but times change even if the conflict remains very much the same and the president now seems to acknowledge that only American involvement will make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians possible.
It's where we begin the whip tonight, a Mideast summit full of risk and at least some possibility. We begin with Chris Burns at the White House. Chris, a headline please.
CHRIS BURNS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. This is the first time President Bush plans to meet with both the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian leader at the same time in Jordan on June 4 and the effort is to keep this road map toward peace rolling along. However, the White House has a very big caveat, conditions permitting.
BROWN: Chris, thank you, get back to you at the top tonight.
There have been dangerous and deadly days for Americans in Iraq. Matthew Chance has the latest from Baghdad, Matt a headline from you.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, thank you. Repeated attacks, as you say, against U.S. forces in various areas across Iraq raising the question about whether there is now organized resistance against the U.S. Army presence in this country. Certainly, the violence is underlining just how insecure the security situation remains here.
BROWN: Matthew, thank you.
And, back to the United States now where a suspected serial killer was brought back to Louisiana to face justice. Ed Lavandera is with us from Baton Rouge, Ed a headline.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. Derrick Todd Lee is back in Baton Rouge. Charges against him have been filed. Investigators are fighting back at their critics, and with all this, there's an overwhelming sense of relief here in Baton Rouge -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ed, thank you very much, back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, David Ensor has the latest on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the things needed to make them.
John Vause dispels the old cliche that good fences make good neighbors. That's because this fence cuts through the tumultuous landscape that is the West Bank.
The latest on the scrutiny and some say scandal at "The New York Times" after the mess surrounding the journalistic fraud committed by Jayson Blair. We'll talk with Howard Kurtz of the "Washington Post" and Seth Mnookin of "NEWSWEEK" magazine.
And all sorts of teenagers who put adults to shame -- tonight teenage athletes getting huge endorsement deals.
And, the kids of the National Spelling Bee, you don't need an endorsement from anyone if you can spell some of the ten dollar words, all of that and more coming up tonight.
We begin with the president's summit in Jordan a week from today conditions permitting. A fairly big if given that conditions in the Middle East usually change and rarely change for the better. That's the reality. The hope is different. With American power at its peak and both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders taking positive steps, the hope is a presidential visit can keep the momentum going.
For more on the trip we go back to the White House, CNN's Chris Burns -- Chris.
BURNS: Hello, Aaron. This will come on the heels of President Bush's visit to Europe to meet with the G-8 summit leaders, but the main focus of this trip is going to be to the Middle East, his trip to Egypt to meet with Arab leaders, and to Jordan for his first face-to- face with the new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, and a three-way summit with him as well as Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister.
The White House is being very, very careful about this; however, they do say the time is right according to Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I think that the president believes that the reason that this is the time to go is that the Arab leaders with whom he will meet are all telling him that this is a historic opportunity for peace and that historic opportunity for peace is only going to be delivered if there is on the part of all parties desire to take up their responsibilities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: Now, there are a number of factors here that have encouraged the president to get personally involved in this. One, the White House says, is that Saddam Hussein has been toppled. He was a major perceived threat by the Israelis.
Two, you have a new Palestinian leader who has now taken the place of Yasser Arafat. And, three, you have sort of a general -- you have the acceptance by the Israelis of this road map for peace, a road map aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
All these together provide that critical mass that the White House believes is there to push things along, but they also say conditions permitting, that being that if things do change between now and a week from now, which they very well could, there could be another wave of militant bombings.
There could be perhaps a breakdown in the initial efforts by the Israelis to perhaps start lifting the restrictions on the Palestinians on the Palestinian side to start trying to reign in the militants. So there are very delicate days ahead that could determine whether this meeting does go ahead -- Aaron.
BROWN: I have a couple questions. In trying to understand these conditions, is all the pressure now on a Palestinian leadership? Is that leadership going to be held responsible for any and every incident that happens in Israel?
BURNS: White House officials say that what they want to see especially is a 100 percent effort by Mahmoud Abbas. They want to give him some time. They think he should be given the time to try to reconstitute his security forces so that they can take on the militants and to be able to talk to the militants.
And what was hoped and believed was that by in the process of getting Ariel Sharon and his government to accept the road plan, the road map for peace, that that would empower, directly empower Mahmoud Abbas to go to the militants and say look, we have a serious commitment by the Israelis. I am empowered to try to reconstitute my government and this seen as a process, as a next step forward.
The White House is looking at small steps. They're saying, even today Condoleezza Rice was saying this is a very long process. This is only the latest step. It could be a very, very long road.
BROWN: Chris, thank you, Chris Burns at the White House.
This is a story that obviously over the next week will demand much time. It staggers the mind the number of issues that ultimately would have to be resolved to create a Palestinian state, here are a couple.
Israeli settlements and the efforts to stop terrorism have re- drawn the map of the West Bank in particular into a maze of competing interests and claims. It is one thing to consider that map from afar. It's another to be living that messy reality on the ground.
A look at what happened in just one spot on the West Bank from CNN's John Vause.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is the Israeli checkpoint to the west and now the brand new shiny razor wire to the north, south, and also the east, Israel's answer to the suicide bombers.
But for the 8,000 residents of the village of Baka al Sakir (ph) there's fear that in just a few weeks when construction of this part of the security wall is finished, they'll be in no man's land cut off from Israel and also the West Bank.
The villagers just don't know if the only road to the West Bank will stay open. Will there be a gate? If so, who can come and go? Will they need permits? For now, some of the residents joke. If they're fenced in, they say, they'll declare an independent republic. But Youssef Bawaqni a member of the local council isn't laughing.
YOUSSEF BAWAQNI, LOCAL COUNCIL (through translator): This is more than a prison. It is to force us off our land. When they cut us off from the Palestinian people who we belong to and they cut us off from Israel, they're besieging us economically and socially.
VAUSE: The village council lost a legal challenge to try and change the path of the fence. Israel says security determines where it's being built and so here that meant thousands of olive trees were cut down, hothouses destroyed, and hundreds of acres of land confiscated.
(on camera): In Baka al Sakir is not alone. By the time the Israelis finish constructing their security fence, the Palestinian Authority estimates as many as 27 villages will be totally isolated.
(voice-over): And because Israel hasn't declared the wall's final path, no one knows how much land will eventually be taken. But in the small village of Raffa (ph), Najah Mustafa Abbass knows how much she's already lost. That's where she once found cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives, and that's the barbed wire and electrified fence stopping her from getting there.
NAJAH MUSTAFA ABBASS, RESIDENT (through translator): We can't live normally here I'm worried about my kids that they would be shot every time a soldier or a settler passes by.
VAUSE: Whether Najah's fears are real or imagined, there is no mistaking that most Palestinians believe the wall has more to do with taking land than it does with security. If good fences make good neighbors, then this fence they say is only making relations worse.
John Vause, CNN, Baka al Sakir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A ring of razor wire isn't the answer in Iraq. For American forces to do their job, they must be out and about and recently that's meant venturing into neighborhoods where remnants of the Ba'ath Party have set up resistance. How organized a resistance, how widespread, is something to be debated but no one disputes the danger. Soldiers have come under attack a number of times in a number of places since the weekend.
Today we learn of another ambush and so we turn once again to CNN's Matthew Chance who is in Baghdad -- Matthew.
CHANCE: Thank you, Aaron, and that's right, U.S. forces have come under repeated hit and run attack over the course of the last three or four days or so in various parts of the country.
In the latest confirmed incident, I can tell you a grenade was thrown, according to U.S. forces, at troops guarding a police station in the west of this city of Baghdad injuring two soldiers along with an Iraqi child who was apparently hanging out with them.
Also in the city, the Pentagon says a U.S. Army convoy was attacked by attackers firing a rocket-propelled grenade injuring another three of their soldiers, all this of course following the deadly attacks against U.S. forces first of all in the town of Fallujah to the west of Baghdad. Before that in the town of Hadifa (ph) in the north there have been a catalog of incidents, similar incidents, up and down the country over the course of the last 48 hours or so.
The U.S. military, though, denies this is a trend, says that the trend is very much in the other direction that they are, you know, making headway in imposing security on the ground, but clearly this upsurge in fighting, this upsurge in attacks against U.S. forces demonstrates just how difficult it is providing security, imposing security on this territory, and bringing peace and stability in the areas they now control -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, I guess the first question is to what extent does the military think any of this is organized?
CHANCE: It's very difficult to say. They say, in fact, that there is no evidence at this stage that this is a campaign of coordinated, organized resistance to their presence here in Iraq, but clearly that is a possibility.
They do say that there are still many, many remnants, sympathizers of the former regime of Saddam Hussein who are out there causing trouble, organizing at least in their own little pockets, in their own little individual units, some kind of attack against them.
But they're saying that they don't believe that this is a concerted effort. They don't believe there are, you know, relations between the various opposition elements in this country, sort of organizing a campaign of resistance against them. A lot of these things are just hit and run attacks, opportunistic attacks, and they say they don't sort of bear the hallmarks of an organized campaign at this stage.
BROWN: And then to what end are the attacks? What is the point of them? CHANCE: Well, as I say, clearly there are a lot of people out there with sympathy still to the regime of Saddam Hussein. These are perhaps the people who are at this stage carrying out the attacks.
But, you know, it all comes against a backdrop of, let's face it, growing resentment against U.S. forces here in Iraq from just ordinary Iraqis because many Iraqis are angry that, you know, they don't have the kind of security that they were used to. They don't have the kind of, you know, essential services that they were used to, electricity and water.
Many have lost their jobs as a result of the regime of Saddam Hussein being toppled and they say the U.S. has not done enough to compensate them for that and to provide them with a way of making their living. And so, it's in that context of resentment that these attacks are taking place.
BROWN: Matthew, thank you, Matthew Chance in Baghdad tonight.
Saudi Arabia next, authorities there announcing five more arrests today in connection with the bombings in Riyadh a little more than two weeks ago. At the time of the bombings, the Saudis promised to get tough and what critics have always maintained is a homegrown problem. Today, they provided five more reasons to believe them.
CNN's Walter Rodgers back on the job working the story from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, he joins us now on the phone -- Walter.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Aaron. In the last 36 hours, the Saudis claim to have arrested 11 more men thought to be connected with the May 12 bombings in Riyadh that targeted residential compounds here where westerners lived.
One of those arrested was Ali Abed al-Rahman al-Fakaziz al-Hamdi (ph), thought to be the mastermind of the Riyadh bombings that killed 34 people including eight Americans and some of the bombers themselves.
Al-Hamdi is believed to be a top al Qaeda figure here and one of the most wanted fugitives in Saudi Arabia. The most recent arrest came in Medina (ph) and despite Saudi government claims that the arrests were carried out without a single shot being fired, other unofficial sources here reported running gun battles in Medina.
Three of the 11 arrested, according to the Saudi interior minister, was said to be clerics, Muslim preachers who allegedly abetted the Islamist militants. The clerics had reportedly been urging the Saudi people not to cooperate with the government's investigation of the May 12th bombings.
Since then, some Saudis have seen that wave of terrorist attacks as a kind of national wakeup call to religious extremism here in the kingdom. Robert Jordan, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, suggested despite the arrests more terror attacks could be expected here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT JORDAN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA: We are continuing to treat the threat level here as an elevated threat level. There is no indication that this was a one-time effort, a one-time attack, and that these terrorists are satisfied that they have made some sort of point.
Instead, we believe that there is reason to be very concerned about future attacks here in the kingdom on western American interests and I think obviously now even Saudi interests and Saudi civilians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RODGERS: Ambassador Jordan also suggested there may be more al Qaeda terrorist cells operating here than previously acknowledged, and unlike earlier investigations of attacks against westerners here in the kingdom, this time the American ambassador is reporting excellent cooperation with Saudi officials in tracking down the perpetrators -- Aaron.
BROWN: How much support do the terrorists or the radicals have on the streets in Saudi Arabia?
RODGERS: I think there's a substantial swath of the Saudi population which is at least theologically compatible with some of the terrorists. It's difficult to quantify, perhaps 20 percent, perhaps as high as 30 percent, but remember this is essentially a xenophobic population, a very strongly Wahhabist-Muslim population which does not exactly welcome foreigners into the kingdom.
And so, I think at least emotionally and sentimentally, as well as theologically, there is substantial support if not for terrorism than for the xenophobia that the terrorists seem to manifest -- Aaron.
BROWN: Walt, thank you very much, Walter Rodgers in Saudi Arabia tonight.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT on this Wednesday, the suspect in the Louisiana serial killings sent back there to Baton Rouge after his arrest in Georgia.
And, a major Colombian drug lord convicted in this country.
From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Derrick Todd Lee is in jail tonight in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Louisiana capital is sleeping better for it. Lee is the suspect in a series of murders there, perhaps the serial killer that has stalked the city, though we are a long way from a trial and a verdict. What we have tonight is a picture, a sketch of a man who some describe as a real charmer, and who police suspect is a real killer perhaps five times over.
Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Derrick Todd Lee did not fight extradition from Georgia Wednesday morning. He was privately escorted back to Baton Rouge on a government jet Wednesday afternoon.
CHARLES CUNNINGHAM, FBI: This is truly a great moment for the state of Louisiana and for the United States. This is a serial killer that is off the streets now.
LAVANDERA: Prosecutors will now begin compiling evidence collected by the task force over the past ten months so it can be presented to a grand jury. That's expected to take up to three weeks.
Lee didn't appear on the serial killer investigation radar until Sunday when his DNA was matched with DNA taken from the five serial killer crime scenes. Ten months of investigative work came down to a two-day manhunt.
CUNNINGHAM: We had a jigsaw puzzle but didn't know what the picture looked like until this weekend and it took us two days to get him. That's outstanding. It's extraordinary.
LAVANDERA: Investigators believe Lee murdered five women in the Baton Rouge area starting in September of 2001, but they believe he could be involved in a string of other crimes including several other murders dating back to 1992. So, investigators are working on building a complex timeline tracking all of Derrick Lee's movements for the last ten years.
Victims' family members are celebrating the news of Lee's capture but they're weary of what lies ahead.
STERLING COLOMB, VICTIM'S FATHER: We still have a long way to go until this guy goes to trial and I hope it's not too long. I hope it's not a lengthy trial because if they go back in the cases what this guy did, his record, he should not have been on the streets to start off with.
LAVANDERA: As a sign of unity, all the members of the Baton Rouge Serial Killer Task Force appeared on stage to celebrate Lee's arrest. There were pictures and smiles among the group. There were also sharp words for the people who criticized how the task force handled this investigation.
MAYOR BOBBY SIMPSON, BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA: Everything that can be done and should be done in an investigation of this type has been done. Yes, I think they were truly unduly criticized.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: Derrick Todd Lee was brought back to this Baton Rouge prison where he is spending the night after being questioned by investigators for more than five hours today after arriving here in Baton Rouge. He now faces 12 criminal charges, the most severe of which include five counts of first degree murder and five counts of aggravated rape -- Aaron.
BROWN: He was questioned for five hours, does he have a lawyer?
LAVANDERA: As far as we know, he hasn't made a court appearance so we're not privy as to if that's been established yet, but he's expected to make a brief courtroom appearance. The way they do it here in Baton Rouge, he'll appear by teleconference with the judge tomorrow we understand and perhaps that will be lined out then, but so far we don't know of one.
BROWN: And so obviously, I mean in a case like this no question he's been read his Miranda rights. Do they give you any indication he is in fact talking?
LAVANDERA: No. We tried to gather as much of that as possible tonight and we just haven't been able to but authorities in Atlanta made clear, very clear last night that his rights had been read to him.
BROWN: No doubt about that. I guess we'll find out more about that tomorrow in his court appearance when we see him in Baton Rouge. Ed, thank you very much, Ed Lavandera.
Finally, what police claim now is a DNA match is central to this case. There are critics who say the match could have and should have been found much earlier.
Ray Wickenheiser is the director of the Acadiana, I hope we got that right, Criminalistic Laboratory down in Louisiana and he joins us tonight to talk about the case. I just heard the mayor say everything that could have been done was done. Do you agree, everything that could have been done was done?
RAY WICKENHEISER, DIRECTOR OF THE ACADIANA CRIMINALISTIC LABORATORY: Well, I think certainly from our perspective everyone I was involved with, both on the task force and at the forensic lab worked extremely hard on this case of course, with DNA we have a lot of demand.
So we're certainly always having to prioritize our cases but we spent an incredible amount of time and effort on this case and I'm certainly proud of all the staff at the lab and certainly all of the task force I was involved with did a great job from my perspective.
BROWN: OK. If the allegations prove out and if there was this DNA match and if it was, as I understood it, at least an expedited testing went into place, what exactly is your concern generally then about the DNA system in Louisiana and elsewhere?
WICKENHEISER: Well, I certainly think that any time something like this happens there's always going to be learning experiences. Part of the big one for me is looking at what could have been in that we've known about what DNA can do for some time and the way the databases can work.
We do have fairly aggressive legislation in Louisiana in terms of arrestee sampling capabilities and also convicted offender capabilities, and looking at this individual we can see that he has had an extensive record, including arrests and convictions.
And, of course, hindsight is 20/20 but we can see that if those laws were in place at the time when he was arrested and at the time he was convicted, we certainly could have saved at least four out of five of these women's lives.
BROWN: OK. I think you're a couple steps ahead of most of us here so let me draw you back a little bit. What I think you're arguing here is that every time someone is arrested in Louisiana, or every time someone is convicted, or both, a DNA swab is taken and that's the -- that goes into the database you're talking about, am I right on that?
WICKENHEISER: Right. What I'm talking about is we do have laws that provide for that but the actual implementation and the funding of that is considerably behind where the laws are. So, when we sort of look in hindsight as in looking at this particular case, this is certainly one that if those laws were in place, were in place at the time, we would have had known samples from this individual, had it in a database.
And of course the big manhunt that people are concerned about, why wasn't he caught more quickly, we had those DNA samples from those crime scenes in a very quick time frame. What they're concerned about is why did it take so long to develop this individual as a suspect?
And, in hindsight we can see that he was arrested, again before the laws really went into place and before DNA was being collected on a routine basis. But even today we're only collecting DNA samples from one of the parishes in Louisiana, as opposed to statewide.
So, we really have a long, long ways to go but what this case illustrates is what that potential is in terms of crime solving. Certainly, we could have solved this case a lot quicker had we had that in place. So, I think what it points out for me is that we have a tremendous amount of potential but a lot we have to do in terms of preventing this from ever happening again.
BROWN: Quickly, two points, generally speaking in Louisiana and elsewhere, and in Louisiana because you know it best, are crime lab under funded?
WICKENHEISER: I think I could probably talk for almost every crime lab nationwide, certainly they are. When you look at the tremendous potential of what DNA is in terms of an investment in terms of crime solving and public safety, it is a tremendous payout.
It's an expensive process but right now the sampling from convicted offenders, if you can do them en masse, is somewhere below $50 a piece and at crime scenes it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$500. In the grand scheme of investigation that is expensive but from what it can actually save it's a tremendous investment.
BROWN: OK. WICKENHEISER: And, speaking on behalf of all of the crime labs, we could use a lot more funding, yes.
BROWN: OK, let me -- if in fact these labs are under funded, what confidence can juries have that the testing that's done is, in fact, accurate testing because this is a pretty sophisticated science we're talking about here?
WICKENHEISER: Yes, it is and all of the labs, the great majority of the labs, but certainly the ones that are doing DNA testing meet a very, very high standard. We must all be accredited which involves proficiency testing and we are very, very careful in what we do.
So, what I'm saying is the technology is there but what we really could use is a great number of additional people, resources, equipment, and building space basically to take that existing technology and apply it to all crimes as opposed to sort of the select few that we're concentrating on right now.
BROWN: Mr. Wickenheiser thanks for your time tonight. Good luck down there in Louisiana. Thank you.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, we'll update some of the other stories that made news around the world today including the story of a former Colombian drug lord facing major jail time in this country.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Quick look at a number of stories made news today, starting with the recent string of bombings in Casablanca. Today Moroccan authorities say the key suspect has died in detention. Circumstances unknown. An official telling Moroccan television -- and we quote now -- "his health unfortunately did not allow investigators to finish all elements of the probe." Thirty-one people died in the explosion, which Moroccan officials believed to be the work of homegrown terrorists who may have trained abroad.
In Nepal, a helicopter crashed near a base camp 17,000 feet up Mount Everest. Two people died, six more hurt. All of this happened on the eve of the anniversary of the first conquest in the mountain 50 years ago.
And Canadian officials reported another case of SARS today, bringing the total to a dozen probable and 23 suspected cases in the Toronto area. Two others died of the disease today. Also today, suburban Toronto school was closed, 1700 students and staffers quarantined after a student showed signs of SARS.
We live in a cynical world so one of the most notorious drug lords of all times says he is going straight -- well, you take it with a couple of kilos of salt. Fabio Ochoa said just that after doing a six-year stretch in a Colombian prisoners back in the '90s. American authorities didn't believe him then. Today in Miami, a jury didn't believe him either. Here's CNN Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fabio Ochoa crossed himself and dropped to his knees when the guilty verdicts were read according to those in the courtroom.
RICHARD GREGORIE, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: I think Mr. Ochoa realizes that he is facing a very long time in jail.
CANDIOTTI: Authorities have long called him one of the founders of Colombia's notorious Medellin cartel. Ochoa was convicted of two drug counts that could potentially put him behind bars for life.
The case against him, shipping upwards of 30 tons a month of cocaine into the U.S., came at a time when Ochoa insisted he was out of the drug business, as authorities photographed him going to and from meetings with a stream of other traffickers.
Prosecutors called that type of evidence key to their case.
GREGORIE: Mr. Ochoa cannot get away from the fact that he didn't come just to have lunch with the 11 big dope traffickers of the world and say that he was doing nothing while he was there. That defense was preposterous.
CANDIOTTI: Over the years, authorities say, he and his family, along with the late Pablo Escobar and others, saturated the U.S. with tons of cocaine. Ochoa did six years in a Colombian jail and then insisted he was immune of facing extradition to the U.S.
In September 2001, he was proven wrong.
During this month's trial and even now, jurors' names were a secret. U.S. Marshals kept them on a short leash. Ochoa's defense wondered allowed whether that and the cartel's history influenced their verdict.
ROY BLACK, OCHOA'S ATTORNEY: What I fear is he was convicted because of that, not because of the charges in the indictment.
CANDIOTTI: But is Ochoa's conviction expected to stem the tide of drugs? Hardly, experts say. Yet the E.A. hopes extraditing a big fish like Ochoa, and Carlos later before him, is a deterrent.
TOM FAFFANELLO, DEA SUPERVISOR: The thing that moth Colombian traffickers feared was being tried and incarcerated in the United States.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): Ochoa will be sentenced August 19 and yes, there will be an appeal.
Finally, some authorities privately acknowledge they're relieved about this one. It would have been a huge embarrassment if the U.S. lost and Ochoa went home. Susan Candiotti, CNN, Miami.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And as NEWSNIGHT continues, the man many Democrats wish were in the presidential race and how he can still stir a partisan crowd.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: And up next on NEWSNIGHT, still seems to have it. Many Democrats wish he could still use it. Candy Crowley on former President Bill Clinton's continuing appeal.
A short break. We're right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Heaven knows it isn't easy being a Democratic presidential candidate these days. It's hard to get attention for one thing and it was even harder, we imagine, on this day. For in addition of facing a popular president in the White House, there was also that other president to measure up against.
Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): On the eve of what would have been President John Kennedy's 86th birthday, the stage at the JFK Library oozed Democratic nostalgia for two eras gone by.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: He started here and I sort of muscled my way up and made sure I got to shake hands with the president.
CROWLEY: Bill Clinton was a teenager the first and only time he saw John F. Kennedy, a moment now enshrined at the library.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ask not what your country can do for you...
CROWLEY: What else would do on this day but a JFK quote to take on the Bush tax cut?
CLINTON: We have not ask what we could do for our country, we have said, "Give me mine now. My government is bad. And I am good and entitled."
CROWLEY: They skirted the obvious: a new JFK biography revealing an affair with a 19-year-old intern. Clinton did say that the private lives of presidents are fair game in due time, a long time. CLINTON: There's a lot of difference in writing the story about some body that has been in the case of Grant, you know, dead over 100 years. And basically just every day trying to turn a public person into a private pinata.
CROWLEY: It was classic Clinton. He was late and went on too long. He was passionate, but relaxed. A millionaire now that he's out of public life, but he still feels your pain.
CLINTON: Most scandalous of all, this last tax cut is proposed to be paid for by kicking 500,000 poor children out of their afterschool programs. Oh, it's regrettable but I got to have this tax cut, man. That dividend cut, I need that really bad.
CROWLEY: After a while, you begin to understand why core Democrats miss him so much, and he admits to missing the White House, but there is no more comeback for the comeback kid. A president can only serve two terms.
CLINTON: The 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime, because we're all living longer.
CROWLEY: Message to the '04 field, take all the tips you want from the maestro, but stay off of the stage with him. Nobody does it better.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Boston.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: On now to the incumbent and taxes. President Bush today signing a tax cut bill he once referred to as "little bitty." Today you can call it law, $350 billion in tax breaks spread over 10 years. Third largest tax cut in history. It provides tax credits for child care, income tax reductions and lower taxes on dividends and capital gains. The president also signed another measure today, this one with considerably less fanfare, the bill raising the federal debt ceiling by $984 billion.
The standoff is over at a post office just outside San Diego, California. Just before we went on the air, a gunman gave himself up, this after holding two hostages about three hours. He surrendered after a police delivered him a six-pack of soda. No shots fired, no one hurt. No word yet on who the man is, but authorities say he may have been upset over a traffic accident involving his car and a postal vehicle.
Up north to Washington state, the rugged mountains of the Gifford Pincho (ph) National Forest. It took a helicopter to do it, but six stranded hikers are safe. They failed to return from a day trip on Monday. They lost their way, but managed to stay safe and warm by building a shelter and two fires, one of which was a signal fire that caught the eye of their rescuers.
And he says age is but a number. In this case, a pretty big number. Tomorrow, Bob Hope turns 100. The famous golfer got his start as an entertainer. That was long before you were born. He made his radio debut 71 years ago, and his first movie in 1934. He hasn't stopped with the one-liners either. He had one today. "I'm so old," he said, "they have canceled my blood type."
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the continuing bloodletting at the "New York Times." Is it a case of correcting errors or getting even? We will talk about that in a moment. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: No surprise "The New York Times" is taking a tough accounting of its reporters, what they're reporting and how they're reporting it. The paper itself called the discovery of a rogue reporter in its midst "a low point in its 152-year history." That reporter, Jayson Blair, is now gone and some say he has unleashed what a few in the media are referring to as a Blair witch-hunt within the "Times." Latest byline to come under scrutiny is that of Rick Bragg. He was suspended over a feature story in which a freelancer did most of the reporting and didn't get a byline. Mr. Bragg has now resigned.
We are joined tonight by Howard Kurtz, who has been leading the reporting on this story for the "Washington Post," where he writes about media. He is also the host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES." And here in New York, Seth Mnookin, who has been writing about the Bragg suspension and other matters for "Newsweek." It's good to have you both.
Howie, let me start with you because I think we need to do a little explaining on Mr. Bragg. What is it that he did that was so terrible, if in fact it was terrible?
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, CNN'S "RELIABLE SOURCES": Well, it certainly wasn't in Jayson Blair's category.
BROWN: Right.
KURTZ: But Rick Bragg, colorful chronicler of southern tales, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and author quite openly defended to me in a lengthy interview this week that he uses stringers and interns and researchers and assistants to do some of his reporting. He was rapped on the knuckles over one story where he sent an intern out on an oyster boat for a few days and then wrote up the story himself. This idea that he should have credited the intern is interesting, because the "Times" almost never credits interns and stringers.
But larger issue is, are we being misled by lots of people at "The Times" and elsewhere if unseen other unseen minions do a lot of the scout work and the star reporters come in and put their names on it and fly someplace quickly to get a dateline, as Mr. Bragg told me that he sometimes did.
BROWN: All right, one more question on this, and then I want to step back a second. The fact is that all news organizations that I know of in one way, shape or form do exactly this. So what is -- is the problem here that this was not a breaking news story in 50 different places, or and that it was a feature? Is that why this was a problem? Because certainly Patrick Tyler wasn't all over the country of Iraq writing the lead piece in "New York Times" for a month.
KURTZ: No, it would be physically impossible to put out a newspaper without relying on other reporters, other newspapers, researchers, interns and so forth. The difference here is whether you're leveling with the reader. When Rick Bragg puts his byline on the story from Apalachicola, Florida, the question is, did he do a substantial amount of the reporting? Now, he was very aggressive in saying to me that this was a system that was not only tolerated by the "New York Times," that is using stringers and interns, but approved by the top editors, and he doesn't understand why he was being singled out.
His comments in turn have caused an uproar among other "Times" reporters who say they don't rely very much on stringers and interns, and they are mad at Rick Bragg for what they see as impugning their hard work.
BROWN: And Seth, this sort of falling into your reporting lap. You did a lot of reporting on this today. There is this anger within "The Times" in part at Rick, but also it seems to me at a star system within the paper.
SETH MNOOKIN, NEWSWEEK: Well, really two things that came out today. One, the national correspondents of "The Times" were incredibly upset by what they saw as Rick's incorrect characterization of how reporting is done. And the point they made again and again is, as you pointed out, if there is a tornado, a big crime scene, a national political story, obviously you're going to need to have more than one body on the ground. The story that Rick was -- got in trouble for was a feature story. There was -- there didn't seem to be any reason that he couldn't have been on that oyster boat. And in fact, that's the kind of story that he specializes in, is these feature stories.
So I think that's where the other reporters at "The Times" got so upset, because they felt like their work habits were being mischaracterized.
BROWN: In reading I think it was a piece today, may have been yesterday's, an old buddy of mine, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), made the argument that there were sort of two classes of people at "The Times."
MNOOKIN: Right. And that's a very good point. The other thing that has come out here is a lot of built-up resentment over a perceived star system at "The Times," over the sense that the national staff has been understaffed for a long time and sort of underappreciated, that some of them are running ragged and Rick in particular was allowed to stay in New Orleans and not be cycled around, and he only filed 24 stories in the last year. So a lot of these other resentments about the current administration I think bubbled up once this story hit the news.
BROWN: To both of you, but Seth, since you're in front of me, I will start with you. How messy is it over at "The Times" right now?
MNOOKIN: It's pretty messy right now. I think the fact that all of this dirty laundry is being aired in public, both in stories like the one I wrote today and on different Internet sites. There are a lot of angry reporters writing in. Creates sort of very upsetting culture at "The Times." And there's sort of two things, two strains of emotions going on at same time. The reporters want to move forward, but they want some reforms to be put in place. They want to be able to say that we've learned lessons from this, and we're going to put something positive in place that we can move forward from.
BROWN: Howie, do you see in "The Times" any evidence that this is affecting the product?
KURTZ: No, you know, it's a big newspaper with a large staff and they're putting out a great paper every day despite all of this internal angst.
But people there are really angry. They're angry at top editors for what you call the star system. I would call it almost a caste system because I have talked to the stringers and interns who say they work very hard and never get any credit and never get a byline unlike the practice at some other papers.
There's anger at the way the Jayson Blair story was mishandled. The Jayson Blair scandal or debacle mishandled. Why wasn't this guy caught before he committed so many serial fabrications? And there's sort of a split camp. Some people think Rick Bragg is being treated unfairly hung out to dry and for doing what lots of reporters do, maybe in a little bit more extreme fashion. And others think that he was tolerated and given a special deal as epitomized by this feature one story where he didn't get on the oyster boat.
BROWN: In 30 seconds, Howie, why does it matter to people who -- well, not just who read "The Times" because "The Times" material ends up in a lot of places. Why does this matter?
KURTZ: It comes down internal the politics and the fingerpointing, Aaron, to a question of trust. When you see a reporters on a story and that's got date line, did he go there? Did he do substantial reporting? Is he the person who is responsible for interviewing the people quoted in the first place?
All those things kind of add up to questions of credibility. And "The Times" itself now in the wake of Jayson Blair is examining all of these things and so are lots of other newsrooms in the country because of the Blair fallout to figure to out how can we do a better job of leveling with readers, being honest and making sure when somebody puts their name on that story that they did the reporting? That's an important thing in journalism.
BROWN: Mr. Kurtz, thank you. Seth, good to see you again. Thank you both. Keep an eye on this.
As NEWSNIGHT continues, the best of the best. The National Spelling Bee and the story of the ammatures who made the Oscar nominated film about it. We take a break first. This s NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Today began the Super Bowl of spelling in Washington. The Scripts Howard National Spelling Bee, more than 250 of America's best teenaged spellers are now down to 84. The final's tomorrow. The annual bee is the focus of a new documentary that has as much drama as "The Matrix." A look at eight kids with amazing intensity who have a will to learn and a will to win.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cephalalgia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cephalalgia?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pain in the head.
SEAN WELCH, FILMMAKER: "Spellbound" is a film about eight highly intelligent, gifted kids who prepare for and then compete in the 1999 National Spelling Bee contest. We had always felt that it was a thrilling competition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All we did was try to win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I wanted to beat her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They would be like oh, (UNINTELLIGIBLE), we are going to go out there and beat you. We will try so, so hard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had this little tactic. She acted like she was not nervous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He got the word "mongrel" and suddenly he blanked out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I spelled it M-O-N-G-R-O-L. I don't know -- I guess I was pretty nervous.
JEFF BLITZ, FILMMAKER: I was watching some relatively boring sporting event. This is back in 1997. And when that sporting event stopped and the National Spelling Bee started, and it was one of the most thrilling things that I had ever seen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Darjeeling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this is a noun?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A noun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you pronounce the word again, please?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Darjeeling.
WELCH: I think there's something so incredible about seeing these kids spell words that if most adults had to spell them, they would without question get them wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you say that word again please?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cybozu.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chateau Briand.
BLITZ: Sean likes to say that everything that has happened with "Spellbound" has gone exactly according to plan. But of course when you make a documentary about a spelling bee you never anticipate that it will be playing in theaters. You never anticipate it's going to be up for any kind of award much less the Oscar.
WELCH: It was difficult to make in general and certainly since we decided to fund it almost entirely ourselves, that was a real obstacle. A real hurdle for us. And neither Jeff nor I had operated this equipment before. When we started this film, we thought that there was a very realistic possibility that it might be the two of us and maybe our families at best that would get to see this. Obviously that's changed a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wheedle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: W-H-E-E-D-L-E.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes!
WELCH: I think we are better spellers than we were four years ago, but I still use spellcheck.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Greatest invention of century.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) of NEWSNIGHT to come including a report that says human rights are suffering because of the war on terror. And what the CIA thinks the Iraqis were up to with some of the mobile labs that had been found. A half hour to go. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) * BROWN: Each year, Amnesty International publishes a report detailing human rights abuses around the globe. This year's list holds dozens of countries accountable, and its list of atrocities includes government-sanctioned torture, violent repression of political opponents, killing unarmed civilians.
It also includes accusations of ignoring some wars and purposely focusing on others for political gain. The country Amnesty is targeting here is the United States in its prosecution of the war on terror.
Here's CNN's Andrea Koppel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The U.S. may have won the war in Iraq, but Amnesty International says in 2002, the U.S. lost the battle for human rights.
WILLIAM SCHULZ, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: The Bush administration, while it was occupied spending billions to dethrone Saddam Hussein, failed to condemn or thwart other dictators and rebels who wreaked havoc on millions.
RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We reject any criticism, any allegations that our human rights efforts have diminished...
KOPPEL: As proof of U.S. neglect, the Amnesty report cites a number of what it calls forgotten conflicts, in Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, and the Ivory Coast. In the Ivory Coast, Amnesty alleges that despite abductions, assassinations, rape, torture, and the displacement of thousands of people, the U.S. played politics.
SCHULZ: In what can only be characterized as petulance, the Bush administration vented its displeasure with France for its opposition to military action in Iraq by opposing an increase in the level of the French-led U.N. peacekeeping effort in Ivory Coast.
KOPPEL: On the flip side, the report also suggests the U.S. has rewarded some countries that Amnesty claims have spotty human rights records, like the Philippines, because they did support the war in Iraq. Just last week, President Bush announced the U.S. plans to provide Manila $95 million in military aid.
Another Amnesty allegation, using the war on terror as camouflage, the U.S. has turned a blind eye to human rights abuses abroad in places like Chechnya, where Russia is fighting a civil war, and at home, where thousands of Arabs and Muslims were forced to register with the INS, and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where more than 600 detainees from the war in Afghanistan continue to be held without charge or legal representation.
The White House rejected the criticism out of hand.
ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Prisoners in Guantanamo are being treated humanely. They're receiving medical care, they're receiving food, they're receiving far better treatment than they received in the life that they were living previously...
KOPPEL (on camera): The bottom line, according to Amnesty International, the U.S.-led war on terror, far from making the world safer, has made it a more dangerous place by compromising human rights around the world.
Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: On now to another long-standing bone of contention, the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, if there were weapons of mass destruction. The strongest evidence so far come sin the shape of two mobile laboratories designed for making something.
Today we learn the government now strongly believes that something could only be germ weapons.
Here's CNN's David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While U.S. forces still haven't found any weapons of mass destruction, the new CIA-Pentagon report says officials are now confident the mysterious trucks filled with high-tech equipment found in Iraq are indeed mobile biological weapons production facilities, just as Secretary of State Powell predicted and presented to the United Nations before the war.
BOUCHER: It's very important to recognize that programs that we had existed do exist.
ENSOR: Though no trace of biological toxin was found in the trucks, U.S. intelligence officials say they have largely eliminated any other possible use for the fermenters and other equipment.
Not everyone is convinced.
JONATHAN TUCKER, FORMER U.N. BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS INSPECTOR, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE: They could very well be biological weapons production facilities, but I don't think the intelligence community has made an open-and-shut case.
ENSOR: The CIA-Pentagon report admits the trucks were not an efficient way to produce biological weapons, but officials argue the point for the Iraqis was to produce some, and not to be caught doing it.
TUCKER: This was clearly a very inefficient way to produce anthrax, and the question is, why did they invest such resources in a mobile facility if they could have simply hidden a fixed production facility at -- in a very difficult-to-find location?
ENSOR: Some outside experts also argue that it is simply a mistake for the administration to have the U.S. military and the CIA doing the searching, since, like it or not, the U.S. is not trusted on the matter by many around the world.
AMY SMITHSON, CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS EXPERT, STIMSON CENTER: I have strongly urged in the past and will continue to urge this administration to include in this evaluation in the hunt international inspectors.
ENSOR: The administration is urging patience, saying finding weapons of mass destruction is likely to take time. Officials declined comment to reporters on whether any of the high-profile Iraqi weapons officials are talking, people like Huda Amash, known as Mrs. Anthrax.
SMITHSON: The people that were genuinely involved in this program are still probably scared out of their wits, not just for their own safety but the safety of their families.
ENSOR (on camera): U.S. intelligence officials say the trucks contain ingeniously simple bioweapons production facilities that were either cleaned up or never used. Critics say that does nothing to prove what the Bush administration claimed before the war, that at least 100 metric tons of weaponized chemical or biological agents would be found inside Iraq.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: It may seem hard to fathom that one of the deadliest periods for U.S troops in Iraq would come after the war, but that appears to be what's happening. There's been this string of attacks in recent days that have left at least four dead.
While President Bush said early this month that the U.S. military could be proud of a job well done in Iraq, the troops on the ground are still coping with a job unfinished, and a dangerous one at that.
Today retired Army intelligence officer Ralph Peters warned in an op-ed piece that the United States should not underestimate the importance of these attacks or the threat they pose to winning the peace.
We spoke with him earlier tonight.
Well, let's start here. Did -- in the buildup to the war, and in selling the notion that the country needed to go war with Iraq, did the administration publicly underestimate the complexity of what postwar Iraq would be?
RALPH PETERS, AUTHOR, "BEYOND TERROR": Well, I think they did, to a degree. There were some voices saying this is going to be tough, it's going to take a long time. I myself wrote that we're not going to know for 10 years what the real outcome is. But nonetheless, to be fair to the administration, it's impossible to fully predict it. They did fall short in the number of troops on the ground for the occupation, for presence.
But that said, in World War II, we had several years to build up to the occupation of Germany and Japan, and a month or two after the fall of Berlin and Tokyo, I can guarantee you it looked a lot worse than Iraq does today.
BROWN: Let's look ahead. The administration had always said that it saw a democratic and unified Iraq. You've made the argument that democratic matters, but maybe unified does not.
PETERS: Yes, and democratic may not give us all the results we like, certainly. There's a chance the Shi'ites will vote for a theocracy in the south. We'll see.
But the word that worries me, Aaron, is "unified." Now, on a practical level, certainly it's better for the near term if Iraq stays together. But in Yugoslavia, the Europeans and the U.S., the world community, tried to hold that country together.
And we are in an age of dissolution and breakdown. And if you're on the wrong side of history, if you're trying to force people to stay together who hate each other, who want to be apart, you're going to lose.
So it's great if Iraq stays together. But while we aim for that, we need to have plan B. We need to be thinking hard and honestly about what happens if Iraq will not stay together, if, for instance, there's going to be an independent Kurdistan in the north, an independent Shi'ite area in the south.
BROWN: And what in the middle?
PETERS: Well, the middle's the problem. And that's the problem we're having right now with the violence against U.S. troops. The problem is, the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq has always, since Iraq's been independent, ruled everyone else. They've (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it over the Kurds, over the Shi'ites in the south, often very brutally.
Now, they're unhappy, or many Sunni Arabs are unhappy with our presence, because their privileges are gone. Saddam favored them. In Fallujah, for instance, there was a town, a community, very much favored by Saddam Hussein.
And we have to be -- keep our perspective and beware an obsession with fairness. You have -- you can't always be fair to your enemies. And certainly the Kurds fought beside us in this war. The Shi'ites suffered badly, not least in 1991 when we let them down.
And so if we overplay trying to be fair to the Sunnis in the middle, for the irreconcilable elements among the Sunnis, we're going to lose.
BROWN: That's a really interesting notion, because again, I would put forward the notion that the administration made the argument that this war was never about any specific group of people in Iraq, it was a war against a specific regime.
What you're talking about is essentially punishing the Sunnis for having benefited by -- during the time of Saddam.
PETERS: Well, certainly we don't want to punish the Sunnis if the Sunnis come into line and behave and want to be equal participants in a democratic rule-of-law Iraq. But if the Sunnis -- Sunni Arabs prove irreconcilable in the middle, if they keep killing American troops, well, then, there's certainly not much sense in favening (ph) them.
In Iraq, what we really need are -- is a two-track approach. For those who cooperate, who try to build a healthy, democratic rule-of- law Iraq, the velvet glove. But for those who kill Americans, you need the iron fist. And you can't have one or the other. It must be a judicious, ever-changing balance of both.
BROWN: Just a final question. If -- how exactly would this confederation that you've talked about come to be?
PETERS: Well, we don't know the details. And it may not be a confederation. Certainly the ideal is a unified Iraq. Next, a confederation. But we may wind up seeing an independent Kurdistan. It may be time. We don't know that yet.
And so, Aaron, I would never try to prescribe the future. But I'm afraid that some people in Washington may be trying to do that. And what we have to do is be open to the dynamic forces we've unleashed within Iraq. We can try to shape them, but we also have to recognize when we hit a point of diminishing returns, when there -- if the country is not going to hold together.
And you can shed a lot more blood, innocent blood, trying to force people to live together than you can by facilitating them coming apart. And I think, again, I go back to Yugoslavia as the example of how not to do it.
BROWN: Ralph, always good to have you on the program, good to talk to you. Thank you.
PETERS: Great talking to you, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ralph Peters. We talked with him earlier tonight.
More now on the ethnic difficulties left in the wake of the war. When we think of ethnic cleansing, Bosnia, of course, comes to mind, Kosovo, Slobodan Milosevic. But the truth is, Saddam Hussein was fully his equal, in the south with the marsh Arabs, in the north with the Kurds. When he wasn't gassing them, Saddam was encouraging ethnic Arabs to move in and drive the Kurds out.
Now that the war is over, some are returning. This is not exactly a happy homecoming.
Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's hard to keep everything clean when your front yard is a putrid, stagnant swamp. And that's just one of the daily problems facing Kurdish returnees squatting in Kirkuk's sports stadium.
Its toilet is home to an extended family of 12. They've scrubbed it clean but say it's hard to wash away the idea you're living in what, until recently, was a public restroom. "We have no other place to live," says Rozhan Abdelrahmen. "What else can we do?"
(on camera): Around 150 families have moved to this stadium since Saddam's regime fell. Most of these Kurdish families were expelled from their homes during the 1970s and '80s as part of Saddam Hussein's Arabization campaign, an attempt to change the ethnic composition of this oil-rich area in favor of the Arabs.
(voice-over): Many of those Arabs have left Kirkuk, but these Kurds are the poorest of the poor here. Earning their daily bread has always been a struggle. They never owned any homes to return to, so now they wait for someone, somehow, to find them a better place to live.
Hassan Muhammad was forced by the Iraqi regime to leave his village outside Kirkuk and resettle in the southern part of the country. "Things are bad," he says. "We have no money. We can't find work in town."
It's not as bad as it looks, according to Fahima Ahmed. "Here we don't have to pay rent," she says, "so we can spend more money on food."
A stadium does have plenty of room to play in. On a hot day like this, it's hard to keep the kids out of the water, even murky green water with garbage floating on top.
It's not much compared to Saddam's palaces, but this stadium is, at least, a roof over one's head.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Kirkuk, northern Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, last week it was an 18-year- old, this week it's a 13-year-old with a shoe contract. Things never happen to me.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: His name is Freddy Adu, and Nike is betting that given a little time, he will hardly need an introduction. In fact, they're hoping that one day soon you'll be positively fed up hearing about how your soccer-playing child has to look and dress just like their hero, Freddy.
He's the latest teenage phenomenon to reportedly win a big deal from the company Nike. We'll hear from his agent in a moment. But first, the background.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): At 13, he is already something of a soccer legend, the youngest member of the U.S. under-17 soccer academy, Freddy Adu has been impressing those who know soccer since he came to this country from Ghana five years ago. He is essentially a Pele in waiting.
Nike is betting an estimated million bucks on Freddy, who is already five-eight and a slim 140 pounds, a goal-scoring machine.
FREDDY ADU: I just play for fun, and, you know, that's how it's going to be. I'm just going to keep playing for fun, never forget why I'm playing this sport, not get too caught up in all this hype.
BROWN: Now, a million bucks is not the same as 90 million, what Nike is paying high school basketball star LeBron James. But, after all, James is nearly a high school graduate, and Freddy is just in middle school.
And, of course, soccer is not basketball. In most of the world, it is far bigger, but not in the United States. So at 13, Freddy will have to get by with just a million, a down payment for a young man who could become the world's next most celebrated athlete.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: More now on the Freddy phenomenon. We're joined by his agent, Rich Motzkin, who joins us from Los Angeles.
This is a nice deal. Is he a good kid?
RICH MOTZKIN, SPORTS AGENT: Yes. First, thanks for having me on. And Freddy's really -- he's really -- he's a wonderful kid. He's obviously a talented soccer player. But he's, as he said himself right there earlier in the piece, he's very focused on just playing soccer, having fun, and continuing with his education.
BROWN: Well, I know, but honestly, everyone says that, and it's just my theory that a million bucks will probably change him, change his family, and maybe change him for the better. There's no reason to presuppose that it changed him for the worse.
What sort of family is it?
MOTZKIN: It's actually -- it's a wonderful family. Freddy came over here with his family from Ghana when he was 8 years old, and his mother, Amelia, is a wonderful person who is actually a little bit embarrassed by all this attention, because she has raised Freddy and his brother, Froh (ph), in a wonderful way to have great values and be concerned with education.
And this isn't really going to change them, because Freddy's going to be able to continue playing soccer and continue with his education.
BROWN: Now, obviously this means that he's not going to play high school soccer, and he's not going to play college soccer, he's a pro. He's a pro the moment he takes the money. Well, he's a pro the moment he hires the agent. MOTZKIN: No, that's true, and those were not easy decisions for the family to come by. But again, at some level, this provides him with a level of insurance to continue doing what he's been doing, which is to play with the under-17 national team, to continue his education, and to have some level of protection.
BROWN: How important do you think -- I mean, you're his agent, and we all understand, I mean, you're going to put the best spin on this possible. But give me your most honest answer here, if you can. How important do you think this kid's going to be to the growth of soccer in the United States?
MOTZKIN: Well, that's really what I think this story is all about. I think that what it demonstrates is with the recent success of the World Cup team last year and the growth of soccer in this country that here's a young talent who has a lot of potential.
U.S. soccer has done a great job with their under-17 program and having the top young players in this country be in a -- the Bollettieri Academy down in Brathington, and I think it speaks well for the future of soccer in this country, as well as for our U.S. national teams.
BROWN: Is it not true that some of the best, the most elite American soccer players end up playing in Europe or abroad?
MOTZKIN: Yes, and those are decisions right now that, you know, Freddy doesn't have to concern himself with. He's, again, going to be playing with the under-17 team, continuing with his education, and make that decision later on down the road.
But the nice thing is, we've got a good professional league here in the United States in major league soccer, which is in its eighth year, and, you know, those are decisions that, fortunately for young soccer players, are going to be hopefully be ones that they can make down the road.
BROWN: Why do you think it is that this is one of those questions probably been asked a million times, publicly and privately? Why it is that this sport that really does own the world, it is the one true global sport, I think, really has struggled to find a foothold not among kids who play it, but among fans to watch it in the states?
MOTZKIN: Well, I think it's a great question, and I think that what we're seeing now, with Nike supporter Freddy, in particular, but just with the growth of the sport in the country and the success of the national teams in major league soccer is that professional soccer is really becoming a fifth major professional sport in this country, and it's going to become part of the mainstream.
And so I think it's a question of time. But I think we're getting there and we're making positive steps.
BROWN: Well, we're watching. This is a great story, to have a 13-year-old who everybody agrees is just a terrific athlete, and we'll see how he does.
Nice to talk to you, Rich, thank you.
MOTZKIN: Thank you.
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the moment you've been waiting for. Right, you've been sitting (UNINTELLIGIBLE) saying, When is he going to do tomorrow's papers tonight? The answer is, right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers, newspapers from around the country and around the world. Did anybody remember how we do this? It's been a while.
"USA Today" puts a big travel story on the front page. They like big travel stories. "Airline to Sell Food on Flights," US Airways, to sell food. I don't under -- I've never understood why this is a big deal. Why not? I mean, what's the argument against selling food on flights? If you don't want to buy the $10 lunch, the sandwich, then don't.
Also on -- you don't care what I think, do you? "Ten-Year Tax Cut Signed into Law" is the big front-page story. OK, that's a big story, right, the tax cut? It leads "The Cincinnati Enquirer" in Cincinnati, Ohio, again, a note from someone who said, You don't have to tell people that Cincinnati's in Ohio, they know that.
"Tax Cut" -- I thought it was a little picky. "Tax Cut Cash Is on the Way," says the headline in "The Enquirer."
Here's why "The New York Times" is a great newspaper, ladies and gentlemen, because they actually read the tax cut bill, don't you know? "Tax Law Bars Child Credit for Some Families." It turns out people that make about the minimum wage, between $10,500 and $20,000, actually don't get a child tax credit in the bill.
The other story I liked in "The New York Times" -- let me take off my glasses to do this -- can you see this one down here? "Video Game Killing Builds Visual Skills, Researchers Report." Turns out that kids who play these shoot-'em-up video games become much more aware of things all around them.
Just to prove a point, there's always an auto story in a Detroit newspaper. "Apologetic GM Tries to Sell Newfound Quality," "The Detroit News." And I wish I had time for that, but I don't.
The weather in -- tomorrow in Chicago, by the way, is "Ideal."
It's ideal to see you all again, and now I can. We'll see you again tomorrow. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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