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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Two Top al Qaeda Prisoners Say Group has no Relationship With Iraqi Regime; U.S. Soldiers Continue to Face a Tough Time in Iraq

Aired June 09, 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, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
It was always a bit troubling that a majority of Americans believed Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks, troubling because there was never any evidence of that.

The connection between al Qaeda and Saddam was one of the arguments the administration used in the selling of the war, and while it was never the main argument, it may have been the one with the most resonance, and now that argument is being questioned.

One more set of questions to pile on the questions already in the air on weapons of mass destruction and it's where we begin the whip tonight.

David Ensor looking at what some al Qaeda figures are saying about Iraq and whether the statements have credibility. David, start us off with a headline please.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, these two top prisoners are telling their interrogators that al Qaeda has had no relationship with the Iraqi regime but are they telling the truth? It would seem that the president doesn't think so.

BROWN: David, thank you and we'll get back to you at the top tonight.

To Iraq next and the continuing struggle for U.S. troops trying to keep the peace and stay alive, Jane Arraf on that tonight, Jane a headline.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, U.S. soldiers continue to face a tough time in the city of Fallujah and in other places in Iraq. They say they don't know who is behind these attacks, whether they're coordinated, but they'll continue to fight them until the attackers, as they put it, run out of steam.

BROWN: Jane, thank you.

And, back to the United States and the story of terror, the terror of a small child, a young girl kidnapped and now thankfully found, Dan Lothian on that from San Jose, California, Dan a headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, it was a dramatic kidnapping happening in the daytime, caught on surveillance tape. Tonight, a young girl is back home. A suspect is behind bars and a mother has a warning for other parents -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, Patty Davis on a new weapon that may be added to the arsenal onboard airliners one that wouldn't necessarily be confined to the cockpit either, the weapon stun guns.

And, the great unsolved mystery of who was behind the deadly anthrax attacks. We'll look at why the FBI keeps going back to a pond in Maryland and is now literally getting to the bottom of it.

Also tonight, a little more on Senator Clinton's book. Joe Klein joins us.

Plus, a new disease, an old team, and one of the fastest women in the world who's really just a kid.

All that and more to come tonight but we begin with questions of credibility, the question of two al Qaeda operatives and the credibility of the president. It is a case of he-said, they-said.

The real questions now being asked by serious people -- whom to believe -- reporting for us tonight CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden did not conspire together or so say two senior al Qaeda prisoners of the U.S. according to knowledgeable sources.

Both Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed have told their CIA interrogators that they knew of no such connection, the officials say. Abu Zubaydah has even said bin Laden rejected the idea because he did not want to owe anything to Saddam Hussein.

(on camera): But knowledgeable U.S. officials say they do not necessarily believe the two al Qaeda lieutenants, that both men have been proven in the past to have lied at times to their interrogators, and that even if there a link with Iraq these two men might not know about it.

(voice-over): Word that the two prisoners are denying ties to Iraq, first reported in "The New York Times," prompted a testy response from the president.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I guess the people that wrote that article forgot about al-Zarqawi's network inside of Baghdad that ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen named Foley.

ENSOR: Mr. Bush spoke of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi., a suspected terrorist associated with al Qaeda, though not a member, who U.S. officials say spent time in Baghdad and got his injured leg amputated there after the Afghan war. His group is accused of killing American diplomat Lawrence Foley in his car in Amman, Jordan.

But it is the prewar intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that is prompting the most persistent questions. Why haven't U.S. forces found anything yet? Was U.S. intelligence distorted for political ends?

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I do think there's evidence that the CIA did shade and embellish this information in a number of areas.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Now, we're beating up on the intelligence community. We have a lot of people with a tad bit of politics involved blaming the president for virtually every car bomb and every suicide bomber.

BUSH: I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program.

ENSOR: The president is convinced. He used it as his primary case for war. After all, the Iraqi regime never accounted for over 8,000 liters of anthrax and several tons of VX gas that they admitted in the '90s to having produced.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: The criticisms and the questions will likely continue, though, and they may accelerate until and unless something is found -- Aaron.

BROWN: Let's go back to the top of this. Do you know in what areas the two al Qaeda operatives are believed to have told the truth and in what areas they are believed to have lied which may or may not give us some indication of which they are doing in this case?

ENSOR: I know that they talked about a number of different kinds of plots, sometimes in general terms, sometimes with specific detail and that some of these plots have turned out to be real and some of them have turned out to be entirely fictitious, so it varies.

These are two very wily customers, according to officials that I've spoken to who obviously had planned ahead to put falsehoods into what they were saying to their interrogators in the event they were caught.

BROWN: Do the people who argue that they are not telling the truth on Iraq have an explanation for why they would lie about Iraq?

ENSOR: Well, they say that these two individuals don't want the United States to get to the bottom of what this terrorism is all about. So, if Iraq was involved, if, and nobody is saying that it definitely was, then that would be something that top operatives of al Qaeda would want to conceal. That's the theory in any case for lying.

BROWN: David, thank you, David Ensor on a story that we suspect has more chapters yet to be written. Safe to say the justification for going to war wouldn't be getting quite as much scrutiny if the war's aftermath weren't quite so messy or costly to American lives and it's both.

Another case in point today, an American soldier killed at a checkpoint on Iraq's western border with Syria. It is the latest in a string of attacks centered mostly in the central and western parts of the country, the hottest spot continuing to be the city of Fallujah where in addition to all the other reasons for unrest there's a history and a grudge dating back a dozen years.

Here again, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): Another victim in the troubled city of Fallujah. This man was shot on the street in daylight, the circumstances like the source of much of the violence in the city is unclear.

In the same hospital a victim of the April incident that still has townspeople furious. At least 15 Iraqis were killed and dozens more wounded when U.S. troops fired on what they thought was a dangerous demonstration. The violence hasn't stopped since.

(on camera): The United States has an unfortunate history in Fallujah. This is called the Martyr's Market. In the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. accidentally bombed this street, killing more than 100 people.

(voice-over): This looting in a burned police station where a U.S. soldier was killed last week has become a gathering spot for disgruntled young people.

"We don't need Saddam or America. We have Islam. We can rule ourselves" says Majid Patid (ph).

They watch passing soldiers. They're not Americans they're Israelis some of them insist. Instead of going home after the war, almost 3,000 troops from the 3rd Infantry Division were sent here to Fallujah doubling the presence because of the continued attacks against U.S. forces. They say they don't know what organization the attackers belong to and it doesn't really matter.

LT. COLONEL ERIC SHWARTZ: I believe these small pockets will start to exhaust themselves. They will get caught when they continue to attack. Every night that they've attacked they've been caught. They've been either killed or detained. They are a small group and I don't think they've got a lot of steam left.

ARRAF: But the show of force has increased Iraqi casualties and resentment. Haqi Ismail (ph) says he sent his family to Baghdad Saturday for safety. Late Friday night, U.S. troops fired on his building. They said gunmen in the building had shot at them first.

There were 20 families inside, including Haqi, his wife and children who were sleeping on the floor.

"The second time I heard firing the glass started to break" he says. "I stood up and the wall starting cracking and falling down on us."

At the mayor's office, people come to complain about Americans searching their homes, offending their wives, and sometimes killing their relatives. They don't have much else to do but complain.

Under Saddam Hussein people in the Sunni Muslim stronghold had jobs. Now they have nothing and they say it's not clear that pouring more soldiers into the troubled city is the answer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: Now, U.S. officials say that in Baghdad things are getting better and safer every day. They're not making the same claim in Fallujah and some other places.

And worryingly for U.S. forces these attacks seem to have taken a different turn, some of them in Fallujah coming from near mosques, and in the city of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as you referred to, Aaron, someone opening fire after asking for urgent medical help at a checkpoint, all of these very difficult for U.S. forces to deal with -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, is it possible to say in a town like Fallujah roughly what percentage of the population there is truly anti- American, anti-U.S. soldier, and what percentage are just wanting to get on their lives?

ARRAF: That's really interesting and not a terribly easy question to answer but one that we really do try to get to the bottom of it. It's tempting to think that when you go into the streets and people come up to you, as they do always in Fallujah and in other places and they're very, very angry that that is the sentiment, but we have tried to explore it more and get beneath the surface.

And there are a lot of people who say that they wouldn't mind the Americans staying if they caught thieves, if they made things safer but indisputably there is a very broad segment of that population in that city that really does not like the American forces there.

And, it's been suggested by some people there that the reason isn't really that they truly believe, as they say, that the soldiers are looking at their wives through night scopes, for instance. It's that they have been left out of this equation in this new Iraq.

They look around and the Shi'as are getting power. There are Kurds in Baghdad. Everyone seems to be getting power except for them. This was a Sunni stronghold.

There were a lot of Ba'ath Party people there, a lot of people who depended on the system and now they really don't have anything. They have been deliberately cut out and there's been nothing in its place to replace it, so the anti-American sentiment is fairly strong -- Aaron. BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf in Baghdad tonight.

Next to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we go. Two Palestinians shot dead tonight by Israeli forces reportedly while trying to infiltrate an Israeli settlement near the Gaza Strip, this the day after four Israeli soldiers were killed.

It didn't take long after the summit in Jordan for the killing to start again. Nobody attending the summit expected the violence to end completely. The real question was and is how would the two sides handle it? Would Israeli forces retaliate or not? Would the Palestinian prime minister, would he get tough with the terrorists? Tonight, the answers are not yet, and not quite.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Facing a coordinated challenge from all three major Palestinian factions, the embattled Palestinian prime minister went on the offensive condemning Sunday's attack which left four Israeli soldiers dead, and renewing his call for an end to all attacks against Israelis.

"We insist on a dialog, but in the end we will not force anyone to resume talks" Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said.

But it is a tough sell with radical Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, breaking off cease fire talks last week accusing the Palestinian prime minister of demanding too little of Israel in his speech last week in Aqaba, Jordan, and so, Prime Minister Abbas tried to do some damage control.

"Now there was a misunderstanding regarding the statement at Aqaba," the prime minister said. "And we clarify to you now and to the public."

And he took on issues he had not publicly in Jordan, such as the plight of Palestinian prisoners like Abu Suqa (ph) who until his release last week was the longest serving Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail.

(on camera): Complicating Mahmoud Abbas' efforts, his lack of political support on the streets, he has only a single digit popularity waiting and his speech in Aqaba did not seem to bolster his standing here.

"We do not agree with this speech because he neglected everything we want," said Mohammed Samata (ph), who told us he faces tougher travel restrictions now than he did before the summit.

Still, many Palestinians say Mr. Abbas should be given a chance, like Naja Taya (ph) who splits his time between Brooklyn, New York and Ramallah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wouldn't have the support and, believe me, if you ask all the people one by one, 99 percent they want the peace.

WALLACE: The Palestinian prime minister now faces the biggest test since the smiles of Aqaba, achieving a cease fire and winning Israeli concessions, crucial not just for the road map but perhaps for his political future.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Ramallah.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the story of a girl kidnapped from her home in California and her safe return.

Also tonight, another possible weapon in the cockpit, stun guns this time.

And, the search for an anthrax killer continues as authorities try to get the bottom literally.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A time may come, and it isn't far off, when little Johnny or Janie will look up in the sky and tell the folks that he wants to become an airline pilot because airline pilots get all the cool guns. Today in a report to Congress, the Transportation Security Administration OK'd the idea of pilots, and others, carrying stun guns or Tasers.

Here's CNN's Patty Davis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATTY DAVIS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some pilots already have firearms. Now another layer of security for the cockpit, the Transportation Security Administration says it's convinced, "Stun guns could serve as a beneficial deterrent to acts of terrorism on a plane" and approved the idea.

But the agency stopped short of giving airlines the go ahead that puts the less than lethal weapons in pilots' hands for now saying it needs time to work out details, including pilot training, weapon storage, and whether flight attendants could use them too.

Both United Airlines and Mesa Airlines say they want stun guns for their pilots; in fact, United has already trained 8,300 pilots and bought more than 1,000 stun guns, but are they effective? Some security experts say no.

LARRY JOHNSON, TERRORISM ANALYST: If someone is coming through the door, to hit him with the stun gun, they can keep coming at you. If you hit them with a 9mm bullet they're going to be down on the ground.

DAVIS: In our demonstration last year with a Taser M26, the same stun gun United has trained its pilots to use, none of the seven police officers shot was brought down by the weapon.

(on camera): Taser says the weapons are effective 93 percent of the time. An official with United says the airline expects a final decision on stun guns for pilots within a matter of weeks.

Patty Davis CNN, Reagan National Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Not far from Washington tonight there's an engineering project getting started, a strange on by any measure, hardly the Hoover Dam, in fact just the opposite. It involves a pond in Maryland, the anthrax story, and getting to the bottom of each.

Here's CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One investigator called it a shot in the dark. Another described it as an obvious next step in finding out who the anthrax killer is. Approximately 50,000 gallons of water will be drained out of this one- acre pond in Frederick, Maryland into a nearby pond, a process to take several weeks.

In a statement, the FBI says, "The purpose of these searches is to locate and collect items of evidence related to the anthrax attacks."

STEVE POMERANTZ, FORMER FBI OFFICIAL: They clearly have a reason to do it. They clearly think there's a possibility, it may not be a good possibility, but a possibility of recovering additional evidence and I don't think they feel in a case of this magnitude they can afford to overlook something even if it's just a remote possibility.

ARENA: The FBI's interest in this state park dates back to December. Officials got a tip back then that someone may have dumped equipment into one of the park's ponds.

Officials say they found the tip significant because the park is about ten miles from Fort Detrick where the army has experimented with anthrax.

According to government sources, agents in December found in the pond a large plastic enclosed container with two openings in the side, similar to those used to limit exposure during scientific tests. Several vials were also found.

Sources say testing on those items, and others, continues. But still, officials say, there is no evidence connecting anything found in the park to the anthrax attacks nor is there any evidence linking any individual to the deadly anthrax letters.

That includes Stephen Hatfill, a former researcher at Fort Detrick, described by the attorney general as a person of interest. Hatfill has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence and his spokesman says the FBI is welcome to drain every pond in Maryland.

PAT CLAWSON, HATFILL SPOKESMAN: Anything that can be done to clear Steve Hatfill right now he welcomes and he knows that the search of the pond in Frederick is not going to lead to anything tying him into the anthrax case because he had nothing to do with the anthrax case.

ARENA (on camera): By some estimates draining the pond will cost about $250,000 with absolutely no guarantee of finding anything significant.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, a nine-year-old girl tonight is back where nine- year-old girls belong in the safety of her family after a terrifying ordeal. She was found yesterday after being kidnapped on Friday, a crime witnessed not only by the mother and the brother who tried to fight off her abductor, but also by another watchful eye, an electronic one that caught what happened through a neighbor's surveillance camera, all of which helped put the suspect tonight where he belongs as well, in police custody.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): Tears run down Rosalie Tamayo swollen face, the mother injured trying to fight off her daughter's kidnapper relieved that her three day nightmare is over and that a suspect, David Montiel Cruz is behind bars.

Her words in Spanish flowing without pause, "When you feel you lose a child" she says, "it is like the feeling of dying."

MAYOR RON GONZALES, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: Her family has been through a great deal of pain. Her neighborhood has been through a great deal of pain.

LOTHIAN: The nine-year-old victim who police say may have been sexually assaulted turned up at this convenience store Sunday night, more than 20 miles from her San Jose home where she was abducted on Friday.

The store's owner called 9-1-1 after questioning the frightened fourth grader who had asked to use the phone.

ISA YASIN, STORE OWNER: I asked her how old are you? She said nine, so right away I figured out she's the one missing from San Jose.

LOTHIAN: From the street where a neighbor's surveillance tape captured the bold daytime crime, the nine-year-old returns from school and encounters the waiting attacker. Her mother and brother show up a few minutes later and become victims too. The suspect, who had pulled his car into the family's garage, speeds off with the young girl. The FBI, 150 local police, and search and rescue teams from seven counties launch a massive manhunt. The surveillance tape is released, along with this sketch of the suspect. Late last night the first big break, the young girl is found at this store shaken but safe.

CHIEF WILLIAM LANSDOWNE, SAN JOSE POLICE: I have never seen such a courageous little girl.

LOTHIAN: Early this morning a few blocks from the crime scene, police arrest the suspect and find crucial evidence.

LANSDOWNE: The physical injuries that he has on his person match the circumstances of this situation.

LOTHIAN: The nine-year-old's mother is now warning other parents to be more vigilant so they won't ever have to walk in her shoes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: One interesting note, police were able to track down the suspect because of the help they got from the young victim. She was able to provide them with information leading them to a home. They found him in an attic. He refused to come down, and according to authorities put up a pretty tough fight. They were finally able to corner him with the help of a police dog -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do we know of any relationship between the suspect and the family?

LOTHIAN: The only relationship right now that authorities are telling us is that the suspect apparently knew a former classmate of the young victim, as to the motive though no information on that.

BROWN: Dan, thank you very much, Dan Lothian in California tonight.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, "Living History," Hillary Clinton's book hits the shelves. We'll talk with Joe Klein about it and the fuss about it as NEWSNIGHT continues around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As one journalist wrote today it's got to be a pretty frustrating time to be one of the Democrats running for president. The Democrat who's got all the buzz is on the cover of "TIME," who had Barbara Walters on the edge of her seat, is the one who isn't running for president, at least for now she isn't.

We're talking, of course, about Senator Hillary Clinton whose book was officially released today. Being a Clinton, the Senator is much loved and much hated. That's not always a plus in politics but in publishing it could be a bonanza.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The $8 million smile with the kind of fanfare politicians, even some presidential candidates, only dream about, Hillary Clinton unveiled her new book in Midtown Manhattan.

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, AUTHOR, "LIVING HISTORY": These were obviously personal and private moments that unfortunately were made public for partisan political purposes.

KARL: Exhibit A, White House intern Monica Lewinsky, thanks to Books on CD, you can hear Mrs. Clinton's reaction to learning the truth from the president after his months of lies.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

VOICE OF HILLARY CLINTON: Up until now, I only thought that he'd been foolish for paying attention to the young woman and I was convinced that he was being railroaded. I couldn't believe he would do anything to endanger our marriage and our family. I was dumbfounded, heartbroken, and outraged that I'd believed him at all.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

KARL: But apparently Mrs. Clinton still believes her husband's denials when it comes to the Jennifer Flowers scandal which nearly derailed Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.

She calls Flowers' story of a 12-year affair with Mr. Clinton a "whale of a tale," but does not tell her reaction when her husband later acknowledged having a sexual relationship with Flowers.

Regarding Lewinsky, Mrs. Clinton says she wanted to "wring Bill's neck" but one can only imagine what she'd want to do to independent counsel Ken Starr who she blames for her husband's impeachment.

(BEGIN AUDIO TAPE)

VOICE OF HILLARY CLINTON: No matter what he had done, I did not think any person deserved the abusive treatment he had received. His privacy, my privacy, Monica Lewinsky's privacy, and the privacy of our families had been invaded in a cruel and gratuitous manner.

(END AUDIO TAPE)

KARL: Aside from the vivid description of her side of the Lewinsky scandal, Mrs. Clinton's book is not a tell all. There is no mention of the controversy involving the last minute pardons granted by President Clinton, for example, a controversy that included accusations against her own brother.

The Hillary media blitz includes interviews with ABC's Barbara Walters, NBC's Katie Couric and CNN's Larry King and a "TIME" magazine cover story. With all the attention, Clinton's friends and her foes alike say that she has laid the groundwork for a possible future run for the White House. SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL, FORMER CLINTON ADVISER: Democrats like her. She's very popular within the Democratic Party. They also remember the Clinton years and the Clinton legacy and she stands for that and represents that.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: I think they'll looking long-term and they're saying that if she's going win nationally, they have to start now to repair her public image. And this, I think, is a part of that.

KARL (on camera): Senator Clinton categorically rules out a run for president in 2004. As for 2008, she says that she has no intention of running, but she does not rule out, and, she says, it may be time for a woman president.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Joe Klein reviewed the senator's book for "TIME" magazine and Joe joins us now.

OK. There's about a thousand things, and in the end, to me, it comes down to, What is all of the fuss here, in a sense. What does it matter when she actually found out or what words were used? Why is this important?

JOE KLEIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, it's not important. But it's fun.

I mean, the marriage was the great mystery of the Clinton administration, and this book promises to tell a little bit about the marriage. It doesn't tell all that much. But people are curious about that.

BROWN: I wrote down at one point, this is not so much a tell all as a tell how much you have to.

KLEIN: Yes. Yes, I think so. I was really disappointed because I really wanted to find out what she was thinking about when she came up with that health insurance plan and she doesn't even describe it in the book.

But then I'm a policy wonk. I mean, you know, it's hopeless.

BROWN: OK. Do you -- why did she write the book? I mean is it the...

KLEIN: Well, there are about eight million reasons, I think.

BROWN: And that -- is that such a terrible thing?

KLEIN: No, it's not a terrible thing at all.

BROWN: You've done it yourself.

KLEIN: I believe in the highest possible advances for all authors.

BROWN: Is it as simple as that?

KLEIN: It's a matter of moral principle.

BROWN: Do you think -- well, I know what you think because we have talked about this but I'll ask like I don't know what you think. Do you think she will someday run for president?

KLEIN: You know, I think I have changed my mind about that since we last talked.

BROWN: Really?

KLEIN: I don't think she will. I mean, when you read this book, the anguish involved in being in the midst of this was so great, you can't imagine her doing it again.

I mean, the interesting thing here is that Bill Clinton is this larger than life figure, and she says, he sailed through these things, you know, like they were nothing. She is a regulation human being.

BROWN: Yes.

KLEIN: And as a regulation human being, she was in an utterly ridiculous situation. With all of these, you know, scandals and scandalettes and women and this and that coming at her like one these video games and, you know, to watch a regulation human being going through that, it's kind of --it's kind of -- it's like kind of watching a traffic accident and what did was, she denied a lot of it.

BROWN: Yes.

KLEIN: And she demonized her opponents, both of which are entirely understandable. But I don't know why she would want to go through all of that again.

BROWN: Well, people would say, I think, people who are her harshest critic and perhaps in some respects her biggest supporters too would say, they would use slightly different words, because she wants to be president. She believes in herself. She is a woman of great intellect and ambition.

KLEIN: She's a woman of fine intellect and perhaps great ambition. But I think that she knows the minute she declares, it's going to be the ugliest campaign we have ever seen, and even if she wins, an unlikely event given the fact that 45 percent of the people in the country just can't stand her...

BROWN: Yes.

KLEIN: Even if she wins she will have done it on her husband's coattails and that's not the way for the first woman president to be elected.

BROWN: Do you think she sees that? KLEIN: I think she has reservations about it, because one of the things that you learn in this book is her utter discomfort with the role she had to play. She was never very happy being first lady because -- I mean, just think of the title. It's this little dainty antiquated title, first lady. She's a woman.

BROWN: The -- There's a part of me who has always thought about her that no matter what she couldn't win. That if she succumbed to her ambition then she was not the appropriate first lady. And if she was good wife, then she was denying what everyone knew, which was her ambition. That in an odd way, it would set up so that -- I don't mean set up by some outsider, it was just kharma.

KLEIN: A job description.

BROWN: Yes, it was just set up in such a way that she was going to lose.

KLEIN: Well, interesting thing. She spends, Oh, I don't know, hundreds of pages discussing her trips overseas. And those were her happiest times as first lady.

I went with her to South Asia. It was the best trip I have ever taken with a politician. She loosened up. Chelsea was there. She got a chance to promote programs for women and children that she really cared about. They were really good programs. And I think that she always wondered why Washington couldn't be like that. Washington can't be like that.

BROWN: And won't be like that. It's nice to see you.

KLEIN: Good to see you, too.

BROWN: Thank you.

When we come -- oh, wait, one more little bit of business here. Mrs. Clinton, Senator Clinton will be on "LARRY KING" tomorrow. Her first live interview as opposed, I guess, to the first taped interviews. But she's with Larry tomorrow and nobody doesn't like Larry -- 9:00 eastern time here on CNN.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, some of the other stories that made news today. Later, we'll introduce you to a young woman who has the world at her feet. Her really, really quick feet.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll check some of the other important stories of the day, including North Korea's threat to build nuclear weapons stockpiles to deter U.S. aggression. That's what they say.

We have more. We'll take a short break first. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, it sounds like the mouse that roared, but it's a threat. It's certainly playing like one. Our look at some of the other stories making news around the world starts in North Korea. The North Korean government today for the first time explicitly threatened to build a nuclear arsenal. This goes beyond the earlier threats to start turning spent reactor fuel into weapon's grade plutonium. Are you following all of this? It came in a statement blaming the American nuclear threats for escalating the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Liberia next, West Africa. Americans there have the French to thank for their safety. French army helicopters swooping in today to save them and other foreigners from rebels closing in on the capitol of Monrovia. Civil war of one sort or another has been the rule in the country since 1989. Much of fighting and dying taking place in the capital during that time.

And onto Luxor, Egypt and a familiar face, or so say the experts. Today a British egyptologist announced it's the face of King Nefertiti, King Tut's stepmom. Clue number one? The mummy in question wore two earrings in one ear. That would have tipped us all off, wouldn't it? Clue number two, her bent arm holding a royal specter -- scepter. That and jewelry found inside the mummy's chest made it pretty certain. There's also a birth certificate. No, there wasn't.

Before we go to break, a few more items making news around the country, starting in Washington.

A rare tie in the Supreme Court Justices deadlocking 4, 4 on whether victims of agent orange who missed out on the class action class settlement can still sue. These tie boats are rare but though not unheard of. This one came about because Justice Paul Stevens (UNINTELLIGIBLE) himself.

Authorities of Florida's panhandle are warning people to stay out of the ocean. Heavy rain and high winds causing severe rip tides. Five people died over the weekend, including, Larry Lamont, (ph) former CNN correspondent. A sixth person nearly drowned today.

And the Devils and the Ducks at the Meadowlands. This is how the final goal was scored. Jeff Freisen scoring twice including that final goal. The Devils win Lord Stanley's cup. They won 3-0 today. They win the series 4-3 over the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Big doings over in the Meadowlands, the sport's capital of the university.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, when is DNA evidence not reliable?

That's the question being asked in Houston where a crime lab has been closed. Hundreds of criminal cases thrown into question. We will tell you why. We will take a break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Seems to be one thing we can all agree on when it comes to the death penalty, if the state puts people to death, the state has to be right about who the bad guys are. So it's troubling to learn about another case of a crime laboratory, allegedly riddled with incompetence or worse. This time in a state that executes more than any other, Texas. The question there is not only whether innocent people might have been convicted, but also how to fairly investigate what has happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It has happened in other places, questions about the reliability of crime labs. But since no place is as tough on crime or sent as many people to death row as Houston. The questions there are especially serious. And while some of the questions are merely uncomfortable, sloppy record keeping, others are deeply disturbing. With scientific data deliberately misrepresented to juries to secure convictions, and send men to prison or worse. Now the lab is being investigated by the Texas legislate, the Houston police department, the district attorney, and two grand juries. The lab's work was also analyzed by forensic scientific Elizabeth Johnson for Houston TV station KHOU.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are the worst that I have ever seen.

BROWN: But it was something more sinister than incompetence? the grand jurys are looking into possible criminal misconduct at the lab and conflict of interests by the prosecutors who relied on potentially tainted evidence. The grand jurors want to operate independently from the D.A.'s investigation. In fact, they want to interrogate the district attorney. They want to question the responsibility and maybe the culpability of the prosecutors in Houston. Charles Rosenthal, the district attorney in Harris County, that's Houston, has been asked by 22 criminal court judges and by the grand jury to recuse himself from the investigation. So far, he has refused.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Joining us now from Houston, the reporter from KHOU in Houston who's broken much of this story. Anna Werner, we're glad to have you with us.

ANNA WERNER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER KHOU-TV: Thanks, Aaron.

Where are we now?

Are there individuals who have been identified as clearly in trouble?

WERNER: Yes, there are nine people in the Houston police department crime lab who, this week, we are expected to hear more about exactly what kind of trouble they're in. Whether that's going to be disciplinary action within the police department itself as a result of their internal investigation, or also possibly criminal charges on this. BROWN: And the criminal charges, if it were to come to that, would be what?

WERNER: Well, there's a question of testimony. With some of the testimony false and misleading?

Were there any results that were deliberately faked?

Was it just gross incompetence as many of our experts have suggested?

That it was that or worse is what they suggested to us at least. I think there's a lot of questions about why simple these results wound up so grossly wrong.

BROWN: Can you give me an example of that?

WERNER: Well, for instance, you have the case of Josia Sutton (ph), who initially when we had our experts -- we did a series in November, and investigative producer David and I put together a number of different case. Did series in November. And as a result of that a woman named Carol Betty (ph) examined about her son, Josia Sutton, who was sent away for a rape conviction for 25 years.

He'd been in prison for four and a half years at this point. She was convinced he was innocent. He had been researching DNA in prison himself. Said it couldn't have been him, it wasn't his DNA. Our experts looked at the crime lab documents on his case and said, well, wait a minute here! They said, and they told the jury that this was his DNA. Our experts said, there statistics were way off. The crime lab people had said that it was his DNA to the tune of one in 694,000 people. Our experts said, actually not so, 1 in 16 people with the circumstances of the cases they stood. That could have been thousands of other young black men in Houston.

Here's a kid who went to prison at the age of 17. Was arrested at 16. Was in prison by 17. Now, he's 21. He's been sitting there for four and a half years. So as a result of our reports on his case, the Houston Police Department volunteered to do a DNA retest on the evidence in this case. Lo and behold not only are the statistics way off, but actually he's excluded. He could not have committed the rape he was convicted of. He's now been freed from prison and their trying, and his lawyers are trying very hard to get him a pardon. Which he is encountering resist from the districts attorney's office on yet still, even though experts say that he is innocent

BROWN: And the d.a.'s office is resisting that because...

WERNER: Now want to do another evidence test. We've had at least three, four experts who say that is just ridiculous.

BROWN: Couple of other questions. Do you know a grand jury are hard to cover. They are inherently secret. At what point, do you know, did this grand jury become a runaway jury?

WERNER: From the very beginning apparently. The judge, Judge Ted Poe of this particular court, told us from the very beginning told us that the grand jury did not want the involvement of the district attorney's office. And the reason for that evidently appears to be because they believe there may be some questions about prosecutor's conduct in some of these cases and they are in fact going to have Chuck Rosenthal, the district attorney. He's expected to testify in front of the grand jury on Thursday of this week.

BROWN: I read a quote from Mr. Rosenthal, I will paraphrase it was look, our experts tell us it's so and so's DNA, we believe it's so and so's DNA. We are just a prisoner in a sense of our experts.

Is that their argument basically?

WERNER: Yes. And one of our experts Bill Thompson, a well-known DNA evidence expert from the University of California, Irvine, is very skeptical as to that. He says when you're a prosecutor, he says as a lawyer himself he says you've got to know the evidence, you've got to know what the evidence means. He's highly skeptical that these prosecutors could have not known at least some of what this evidence meant.

BROWN: And, we've talked about the nine people. Is there any sense that Mr. Rosenthal, it seems to me that he's been there for a while now, has serious problems that may, may cost him?

WERNER: Well, I think the question is why resist an independent investigation? I mean you know he said that he doesn't believe that he has to recuse himself even now that he's going to testify that was he doesn't believe that's a conflict of interest.

I think people are saying why resist? Why not let an independent investigation go forward? If he would recuse himself, you would have a special prosecutor who would come in and conduct an investigation in front of the grand jury.

Right now they are functioning on their own because without a district attorney, and without the district attorney recusing himself, they can't get somebody to sort of lead them through this process. So what you've got is a group of citizens to sort of find their way through evidently. The best we have been able to glean. And many of the experts have said, why doesn't he just recuse himself?

But then again, he's up for re-election in fall of 2004. Actually the person who put more people on death row than any other was his predecessor Johnny Holmes (ph). Rosenthal's fairly new in the DA's office although working there incredibly long time, first time as DA.

BROWN: You and your team terrific work. Nicely done. And thank you and thank you for joining us tonight. Anna Warner from KHOU TV in Houston, Texas.

Still ahead tonight, a woman fast becoming a superstar because she's fast. "Segment 7" in a moment. We take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When seniors in high school look back at their accomplishments, they might think of that "A" they got in trig or maybe the bang up score they got on their SAT. High school senior Allyson Felix may well have accomplished all of that but will admit the stat that's bowled us over wasn't an SAT, it was her time in the 200 meter. She's the girl who just in a few seconds became one of the fastest women in the world. Here is CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The runner lacing up happens to be the fattest woman in the world this year in the 200- meter sprint. And Allyson Felix is all of 17-years-old.

(on camera): Tell me what it feels like to be as fast as you are?

ALLYSON FELIX, SPRINTER: It feels good, but I always feel like there is stuff to improve. So for the moment it felt good and now I am back to working hard again.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): This is what felt good, she says, setting a world record for juniors in Mexico City last month. She ran the 200 in 22:11. It was also the fastest time in the world this year for any female. It put her on the front page of "Sport's Pages" and now she's compared to the late legendary Florence Griffith Joyner, and another female, phenom Marion Jones.

(on camera): What's that like?

FELIX: It's a good compliment. I mean, I definitely look up to them. I admire them, and I'm also trying to be something different from them.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): At the moment, she's just trying to finish her senior year in high school at Los Angeles Baptist. And while Allyson appears to be on the threshold of super stardom, her coach says she is still a humble and polite teenager who is just one of the girls.

JONATHAN PATTON, L.A. BAPTIST SPRINT COACH: There couldn't be a better diplomat or ambassador for the sport of track and field right now than Allyson.

BUCKLEY: Track observers say Allyson could turn pro right now.

(on camera): What's the worst part of this part of your life?

FELIX: This? Probably all of the decisions you have to make. I'm not -- I don't really enjoy making decisions. So, you know, it's difficult.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): But Allyson has her parents, Paul and Marlene Felix, and her brother, Wes, also a top sprinter at USC for support. PAUL FELIX, ALLYSON'S DAD: I'm a dad first. So I keep an eye on my daughter, make sure the wrong people aren't talking to her.

BUCKLEY: We were lucky enough to talk to Allyson Felix just as she was hitting her stride.

(on camera): If I talk to you in ten years, what will you be telling me about what the past ten years have been like?

FELIX: Well, hopefully I'd been in a couple of Olympics and hopefully have some medals, and hopefully get experiences.

PATTON: That's what she's going to do. She's going to stand on the highest podium with the goldest medal, and it's going to happen sooner than later.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): Frank Buckley, CNN, Northridge, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thirty more bonus minutes of NEWSNIGHT still on come, including the flap over one senator preventing hundreds of promotions in the Air Force.

And another illness jumps from animals to humans. The story of monkeypox an more. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The struggle to bring peace and security to Iraq has a name, many names, actually, like Staff Sergeant Michael Quinn, or Specialist Jose Perez, or the name of the young American killed to in an attack at a checkpoint near the western border.

American troops are facing the peril of postwar Iraq largely on their own. And according to the defense secretary, manpower from other countries is still a ways away.

Our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, is traveling with Secretary Rumsfeld in Europe and filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put your arms down, on the ground.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While U.S. soldiers continue to conduct sweeps through the pro-Saddam Hussein stronghold of Fallujah, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded the escalating attacks on U.S. forces appear to be fueled to some extent by Saddam Hussein, or at least the belief he may still be alive.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It might give heart to the Ba'athists, who may want to hope that they can take back that country, which they're not going to succeed in doing. So I think to some extent that's a fair comment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any more you can do at this point?

RUMSFELD: Well, we just keep looking for him. We'll find him.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. has built up to nearly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, while coalition forces have been progressively dwindling. There are now only about 14,000 troops from coalition countries, the majority of those from Britain, which is steadily withdrawing its forces.

The U.S. is in talks with some 40 nations about helping out in Iraq, of which between six and eight have indicated a willingness to send troops. But while U.S. soldiers are locked in guerrilla warfare with resistance fighters, help is at least three months away.

RUMSFELD: We're hopeful that we'll get a sizable set of forces in Iraq. The first ones, I would think, would likely be sometime maybe in September, and then others could be added over time.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld says the attacks against U.S. troops are a result of a large number of regime supporters in the north who were never defeated on the battlefield. But he insists it is not a, quote, "well-organized, nationally directed campaign."

And he remains convinced that finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is just a matter of time.

RUMSFELD: All of our intelligence agencies were in broad agreement. There were differences, of course, but they were all shown and elevated in the national intelligence estimates. Any indication or allegation that the intelligence was in any way politicized, of course, is just false on its face.

MCINTYRE: As for whether the intelligence could have been wrong, given that no banned weapons have been located in two months, Rumsfeld repeated what is becoming a familiar refrain.

RUMSFELD: We haven't found Saddam Hussein either, but no one's doubting that he was there.

MCINTYRE (on camera): Rumsfeld begins his consultations here in Portugal. He goes to Albania and Germany next before attending a NATO defense ministerial in Brussels. Rumsfeld insists he's not here so much to pressure U.S. allies to do more, but mostly to thank them for what they've already done.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, Lisbon, Portugal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On the Web site of Idaho Senator Larry Craig, there is a spot that tells you how you can support U.S. troops, by signing America's thank you card. Some critics say Senator Craig is sending a message that shows anything but gratitude to some of those troops, those in the Air Force, all because he isn't getting his way. The story from congressional correspondent Kate Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fighter pilots just back from Iraq, young majors, high-ranking generals, all in limbo, because one man, one U.S. senator, isn't getting what he wants.

SEN. LARRY CRAIG (R), IDAHO: Well, for 18 months, I've been working with the Air Force to try to bring stability to an Air Guard mission in the state of Idaho. And during that 18-month period, long before Iraqi Freedom, they've really refused to work with us.

SNOW: Idaho Senator Larry Craig says the Air Force promised to move four brand-new C-130 cargo planes to Gowan (ph) Field in Boise. If the Air Force won't keep its word, he won't let the Senate promote Air Force officers.

CRAIG: You use the opportunity at hand to get the attention of the Air Force. The Air Force has brought this on themselves.

SNOW (on camera): It happens all the time in the Senate, where one senator can bring things to a screeching halt. In a tradition that dates back to the '60s, a senator can secretly put a hold on a bill, threatening to filibuster the measure if it comes up for a vote.

RICHARD BAKER, SENATE HISTORIAN: They're saying to the leader, Don't move this on to passage, because if you do, I'll object. And if I object, that could then trigger a filibuster, and if we trigger a filibuster, then all of a sudden you've lost control, Mr. Leader, of the floor, because you can't -- you can no longer predict the schedule.

SNOW (voice-over): It used to be more common to hold up one single nominee. Gay rights activist James Hormel, for example, nominated by President Clinton to be ambassador to Luxembourg, held up for nearly two years.

But senators have placed blanket holds too. In the mid-'80s, under President Reagan, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd held up thousands of military promotions to make a point. Critics say the practice has gotten out of control in the past 10 years.

NORM ORNSTEIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Senators have been very happy to have an anonymous process where they can take a hostage, hold up a nomination, hold up a bill, and use it as a bludgeon against an administration, usually, to get their way on something completely unrelated.

SNOW: In this case, Republican Senator John McCain says Air Force generals are caught in the crossfire. "It is completely inappropriate to place a hold on the promotion of scores of service men and women who play no role whatsoever in establishing Air Force policy," McCain said in a statement. Senator Craig says he strongly supports those men and women. He'd be happy to give deserving pilots promotions. All the Air Force has to do is send Idaho four new planes.

Kate Snow, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On a day when anthrax is back in the headlines, I'm reminded of something a guest said during the height of the panic. Thank God, he said, it wasn't smallpox.

Today we expect doctors in the Midwest share the sentiment, having seen patients come in with fever and rashes and other symptoms chillingly like smallpox, which it wasn't, though close. The disease they're seeing is monkeypox. Officials confirmed four cases tonight. They're watching 29 others. The disease comes from Africa. Mostly it affects monkeys and rodents.

And in this country, at least, apparently made the jump to humans at the pet store.

Here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are newborn pet rats in Milwaukee, now under quarantine along with dozens of other small animals as officials seek to stop the spread of a disease they first thought was smallpox.

(on camera): Had you ever heard of this before, monkeypox?

MIKE HOFFER, HOFFER'S TROPIC LIFE PETS: No, no, no.

FLOCK (voice-over): Mike Hoffer, who runs one of the biggest pet stores in America, never heard of it because monkeypox never appeared in the Western hemisphere before. But Hoffer sold pet prairie dogs that were carrying the disease, which is actually more akin to chickenpox. And it has now apparently jumped to more than 30 humans.

DR. STEVE OSTROFF, CDC DEPUTY DIRECTOR: There have been no fatalities. Patients are in various stages of recovery.

FLOCK: The Centers for Disease Control believe the prairie dogs came from here, a store called Phil's Pocket Pets outside Chicago. That's where they think they came into contact with a giant Gambian rat that was infected.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as I understand, I could be the first person to contract it in the U.S.

FLOCK: This man worked at Phil's Pocket Pets. He's already recovered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like a little scar. Nothing serious. I got maybe a dozen, or a little more than that. But was less severe than chickenpox.

FLOCK: Health officials say the disease has spread to Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, but a doctor at a Milwaukee hospital that has treated seven cases says there is no reason to panic.

DR. CHARLES EDMISTON, FROEDTERT HOSPITAL: The fact that you have neighbors who have prairie dogs, who've had them for years, does not suggest that you are at risk.

FLOCK: But health officials are taking no chances.

(on camera): In addition to prairie dogs, right now you can't even buy any of these rats or gerbils or hamsters, any furry animals here, even though they didn't come into contact with the sick prairie dogs.

(voice-over): The store is now trying to trace all its prairie dog sales.

(on camera): Have you ever had any problems with any kind of disease with prairie dogs.

HOPPER: No, no.

FLOCK: Before? Nothing?

HOPPER: No. And I've been carrying them for about 10 years.

FLOCK (voice-over): And, CDC officials add, there is no evidence that those infected are spreading the disease to other humans.

I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Milwaukee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined now by Dr. Lawrence Altman, the medical columnist for "The New York Times." Good to see you again, though we rarely see you on a day when there's terrific news. I must say, one of these days you'll come and tell us about a cure.

When did you first hear about this?

DR. LAWRENCE ALTMAN, MEDICAL COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I guess over the weekend.

BROWN: How did it, how did it come to you? Just reporter's story, I guess.

ALTMAN: Reporter's story, I turned on my e-mail, and there was a notice from CDC that they had had a teleconference earlier in the evening. This was around midnight, and I didn't know about it, because nobody had left a phone message here.

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) so it was too late to do anything for -- that was Saturday night. For Sunday's paper...

BROWN: For Sunday's paper.

ALTMAN: ... so I got up and started working Sunday morning.

BROWN: And you're -- did you know what it was when you first heard about it, had you heard of it before?

ALTMAN: Oh, monkeypox, yes.

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: I had worked with smallpox in the eradication program, on the beginning of it, in West Africa. And monkeypox got recognized out of that, because it had just been considered part of smallpox. But as smallpox began to be eradicated, monkeypox was left. And there was a concern in West Africa and Central Africa.

BROWN: So you knew what it was, and you also knew what it was not.

ALTMAN: Yes.

BROWN: And both sides of that equation, strikes me, in this sort of story, matter.

ALTMAN: Monkeypox is a zoonosis, it's a disease that occurs in animals and accidentally infects humans. There are a lot of other zoonoses, rabies, for example. But they're -- and there are a host of human diseases, tularemia, plague, that occasionally infect humans. But in the case of monkeypox, it generally doesn't transmit from wave to wave or generation to generation, as someone infects another person. It dies out in the course of human transmission.

That's not a guarantee (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BROWN: Right.

ALTMAN: ... but that's the way it seems to behave in West Africa, unlike smallpox when it existed, which went in an endless chain of transmission until it was eradicated in about 1980.

BROWN: Did there seem? Well. Is it a fact that, because it does seem this way, is it a fact that there are more of these diseases that are jumping from animals to humans?

ALTMAN: Well, we've had a number of these examples recently, but we don't really know how many occurred in decades, centuries past. So we don't have a perspective that way, because it isn't measured. I mean, at some point in the history of mankind, a new disease was a new disease. We take them all as old diseases now.

BROWN: But we didn't know where it came from, but...

ALTMAN: We didn't know where it came from. But now that we're observing lots of travel, we're moving into remote areas, we impinge on the areas where a lot of animals and other critters live, we're pressing that, and we're being exposed to more.

And with jet travel, something that took a long time to travel from one continent to another can go in a matter of hours.

So we have a lot of reasons why these are occurring, but I don't think we're getting any truly new ones. We're just getting the movement of -- for the most part, they're movement of the old ones to a new area.

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to new geographic areas or from animals to humans, when you say new areas, which do you mean there?

ALTMAN: Well, I meant...

BROWN: Or both?

ALTMAN: ... new (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- it could be both, but...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... new geographic areas, because monkeypox is a well- known disease in West and Central Africa.

BROWN: Right.

ALTMAN: It had never occurred in the Americas.

BROWN: Did you surprise you to find out it occurred in Americas?

ALTMAN: Oh, that was a big surprise to everybody...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... that it popped up over here, and why, and that the answer to that is not clear yet.

BROWN: In about a minute, it -- How concerned ought we be about the specifics of this and more generally this sense that there are these jumpover or however you want to describe them diseases out there?

ALTMAN: We should always be concerned about them, because if they become endemic, if monkeypox became a permanent part of the disease picture in the United States, it's just one more thing that aggravates the health care system, that affects animals. And we don't want that to happen.

In terms of what it will do for humans, it's not a good thing. It's not a disease you want to get. But it -- there can be diseases that are harder to transmit. You know, chickenpox is spread a lot more easily than, say, monkeypox is.

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) chickenpox.

It's nice to see you again. Thank you. Come back again.

ALTMAN: OK, thank you.

BROWN: Dr. Lawrence Altman...

ALTMAN: Thank you very much.

BROWN: ... of "The New York Times."

When we -- oh, from monkeypox to monkey see, monkey do. Always forget one thing in the program, it was this page tonight.

A new study published in the British medical journal "Lancet" on teen smoking, authors found that American teenagers are three times more likely to smoke cigarettes if they watch movies in which the actors smoke.

What's more, the researchers concluded that 52 percent of the kids started smoking entirely because of the movies, which calls for a few grains of salt, according to other researchers, who say it's impossible to attribute the decision to start smoking to any single factor.

It makes good copy, though, doesn't it?

As NEWSNIGHT continues, the story of deep friendships, bonds that lasted decade after decade. We'll talk with a favorite of ours, David Halberstam, about his new book, "The Teammates." Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: What an eclectic mix that.

I've known our next guest, David Halberstam, for almost 15 years, and what I'm about to say, I say as a friend and as an admirer. When I received a copy of his latest book, "Teammates," I wondered, what happened to the other 500 pages?

Now, David would say he never wrote one more word than absolutely necessary in his many books, big, hefty, long books. And who am I to quarrel with a Pulitzer Prize winner?

"Teammates" is a slim, 203 delightful pages, not a baseball story exactly, though baseball is part of it, not the story of a season, though the '64 Sox are at the center. "Teammates" is about something far more universal.

We're glad to have Mr. Halberstam with us tonight, as we always are...

DAVID HALBERSTAM, JOURNALIST: Nice to be back with you.

BROWN: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE), nice to see you.

HALBERSTAM: Nice to have you back in New York.

BROWN: Nice to be back. It's a book about...

HALBERSTAM: Friendship, about (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's about another area in baseball, four guys who grow up on the West Coast roughly the same time, much poorer America, come to one team for their whole careers, although John Pesky (ph) did cameo appearances in Washington and Detroit.

But -- and, you know, become lifelong friends and care about each other. Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Door (ph).

And it begins with a moment, a trip that Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky and a television personality in Boston named Dick Flavin (ph) take because in the fall of 2001, Ted Williams, their great friend, is dying.

And then it's a reflection on friendship turning into love, growing old in America, and the purpose of a life. What is a life? What do you get out of life? Is it just winning games? Is it about the interior things you get out of association, friendship, or is it about salaries? Because none of these guys -- I mean, players today make in one day what these guys got for a whole season.

So that's what it's about.

BROWN: Want to come back to some of that. Let me ask a -- what I think is a practical question. How do you take a book like this and convince people who could care not a whit about baseball, and who barely know who Ted Williams is, that this is, and, in fact it is, this is a story they will love?

HALBERSTAM: Well, I think the reviews have been good. There's an excerpt in "Vanity Fair," which helped, long chunk of that. Going on (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... I mean, I think telling people the story, the story is intensely human. These men are sort of icons. Their names do resonate through because it's the radio era, and they sort of -- the names last, and then there's a lot of families where Williams, DiMaggio, Pesky, Door (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I mean, that's Red Sox nation...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... which exists, by the way, all over the country, not just in Boston...

BROWN: Of course.

HALBERSTAM: ... and New England. But I think, you know, "Tuesdays With Morrie," who knew of a little sociologist at Brandeis, I think it was...

BROWN: Yes. HALBERSTAM: ... who had this wonderful view on life? And what it is, when I had the idea for the book, my job was really to stay out of the way of these men, all of whom are purposeful, intelligent, hard-working, articulate, to stay out of their way as they reminisced about each other and about a beloved friend who was -- who had just died. By then, he had died.

BROWN: Mr. Williams, Ted Williams, was in this universe a star of -- amongst...

HALBERSTAM: Yes, he's...

BROWN: ... of -- a different magnitude.

HALBERSTAM: Yes, he was -- I mean, Bobby Door is in the Hall of Fame. Dominick (ph) had a very -- some -- there's a great debate whether Dominick, seven-time all-star, should be in the hall. Johnny Pesky probably a notch under in baseball judgment.

Ted was, along with Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial, one of the three great hitters of an era. He was, in Johnny Pesky's phrase, the star that drew all the rest of us together. And he called them "my guys." And he was big and loud and cantankerous...

BROWN: Yes, he was quite cantankerous.

HALBERSTAM: ... and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- and contentious. And exuberant and generous. He was all these things, and he -- you know, he had a volatile relationship with a very tough press corps.

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: He had for, when he was young, a volatile relationship with the fans. But he was a great player, and he had a passion to be the best.

BROWN: In, in, didn't this -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE), there's so much here. There's -- there is in this, also, the story of a season, or the end of a season, the '64 season for the Red Sox.

HALBERSTAM: Forty-six.

BROWN: Oh, '46, I'm sorry.

HALBERSTAM: Forty-six. Yes, it's the season they'd all come back from the war, and they all hit their stride. I mean, they -- it was as if they'd never been away, they -- at one point late in the season, I think they were 15 or 16 games ahead of the hated, dreaded Yankees who had dominated them for years. And they're younger, on an average of about five years than the Yankees.

And they seemed to have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) finally some good young pitchers. And they go into the World Series against the veteran Cardinal team. It goes down to the seventh game, and then there's a moment where, with Enos Slaughter, ferocious ball player, on first, there's a kind of dinky hit to left center field. And allegedly Johnny Pesky holds the ball.

He doesn't. And they go into this in great detail, with Domenick DiMaggio, who should have been in center field but had pulled a hamstring, and was the best defensive center...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... along with his brother, of the era, come, is replaced by a guy named Leon Culberson (ph). And Culberson does not play the ball with the intensity of Dominick. And Slaughter comes all the way around from first on what is effectively a single, a single, even though it's ruled a double.

And the Red Sox lose the series. And it's a famous play, and Pesky held the ball, even though he didn't hold the ball.

And they think, well, that's OK, but there'll be many years after, we're young, we're ascending, we've got all this talent.

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: And then their two best young pitchers come up with sore arms. And the team never quite gets into the World Series again.

BROWN: "The Teammates" is the book. David Halberstam (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's always great to see you.

HALBERSTAM: You know, it's going to outsell, I think, any book I've ever done. It's going to number two on...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... "The New York Times" list.

BROWN: Two hundred and three pages...

HALBERSTAM: That's -- well, that's maybe the reason.

BROWN: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) write them shorter...

HALBERSTAM: The next one will be, the next one will be, the next will be...

BROWN: ... they'll sell more.

HALBERSTAM: ... the next will be 46 pages.

BROWN: There you go. Thank you, my friend.

HALBERSTAM: Thank you.

BROWN: Good luck.

Morning papers coming up. We'll check tomorrow's news tonight, because we're that good. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okey dokey, time to check morning papers. You have no idea the stress level around here, I mean, right here, in that last break when I take my first look at the papers and try and figure out how we're going to fill the next two minutes. Here we go.

"The New York Times," all the news that's fit to print. There's a bunch of good stories in "The Times," but this one take note of. "White House Says It Will Support Same Drug Benefit, Bow to Political Reality." So now whether you join an HMO or you stay in traditional Medicare, there'll be some drug, prescription drug benefit. That's one of many stories in "The New York Times."

"The Cincinnati Enquirer," big in Cincinnati, Ohio, I think I'm now saying it just to irritate that one guy -- "Tablets Removed Amid Protest, Dozens Delay Judge's Order in Ten Commandments Case." Yet another church-state case. And that's the lead story in Cincinnati.

The lead story in "The Atlanta Journal Constitution," "Monkeypox Worries CDC." The CDC, as many of you know, perhaps even most, based in Atlanta.

Down to 30 seconds, OK. This picture of Senator Clinton will be in lots of newspapers, if not all, the headline, "The Chicago Sun Times," "Monkeypox Outbreak No Cause for Alarm," ha-ha-ha. Weather in Chicago, "Snarky."

And how we doing on time? Like 10 seconds, right, 15.

"Antispam Battle Saps Businesses." Why is it that all those pop- ups that you get on your computer are selling things to eliminate pop- ups? That's the other thing.

That's morning papers. And just an odd thought thrown in for the heck of it.

We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. 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





With Iraqi Regime; U.S. Soldiers Continue to Face a Tough Time in Iraq>


Aired June 9, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
It was always a bit troubling that a majority of Americans believed Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks, troubling because there was never any evidence of that.

The connection between al Qaeda and Saddam was one of the arguments the administration used in the selling of the war, and while it was never the main argument, it may have been the one with the most resonance, and now that argument is being questioned.

One more set of questions to pile on the questions already in the air on weapons of mass destruction and it's where we begin the whip tonight.

David Ensor looking at what some al Qaeda figures are saying about Iraq and whether the statements have credibility. David, start us off with a headline please.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, these two top prisoners are telling their interrogators that al Qaeda has had no relationship with the Iraqi regime but are they telling the truth? It would seem that the president doesn't think so.

BROWN: David, thank you and we'll get back to you at the top tonight.

To Iraq next and the continuing struggle for U.S. troops trying to keep the peace and stay alive, Jane Arraf on that tonight, Jane a headline.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, U.S. soldiers continue to face a tough time in the city of Fallujah and in other places in Iraq. They say they don't know who is behind these attacks, whether they're coordinated, but they'll continue to fight them until the attackers, as they put it, run out of steam.

BROWN: Jane, thank you.

And, back to the United States and the story of terror, the terror of a small child, a young girl kidnapped and now thankfully found, Dan Lothian on that from San Jose, California, Dan a headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, it was a dramatic kidnapping happening in the daytime, caught on surveillance tape. Tonight, a young girl is back home. A suspect is behind bars and a mother has a warning for other parents -- Aaron.

BROWN: Dan, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, Patty Davis on a new weapon that may be added to the arsenal onboard airliners one that wouldn't necessarily be confined to the cockpit either, the weapon stun guns.

And, the great unsolved mystery of who was behind the deadly anthrax attacks. We'll look at why the FBI keeps going back to a pond in Maryland and is now literally getting to the bottom of it.

Also tonight, a little more on Senator Clinton's book. Joe Klein joins us.

Plus, a new disease, an old team, and one of the fastest women in the world who's really just a kid.

All that and more to come tonight but we begin with questions of credibility, the question of two al Qaeda operatives and the credibility of the president. It is a case of he-said, they-said.

The real questions now being asked by serious people -- whom to believe -- reporting for us tonight CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden did not conspire together or so say two senior al Qaeda prisoners of the U.S. according to knowledgeable sources.

Both Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed have told their CIA interrogators that they knew of no such connection, the officials say. Abu Zubaydah has even said bin Laden rejected the idea because he did not want to owe anything to Saddam Hussein.

(on camera): But knowledgeable U.S. officials say they do not necessarily believe the two al Qaeda lieutenants, that both men have been proven in the past to have lied at times to their interrogators, and that even if there a link with Iraq these two men might not know about it.

(voice-over): Word that the two prisoners are denying ties to Iraq, first reported in "The New York Times," prompted a testy response from the president.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I guess the people that wrote that article forgot about al-Zarqawi's network inside of Baghdad that ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen named Foley.

ENSOR: Mr. Bush spoke of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi., a suspected terrorist associated with al Qaeda, though not a member, who U.S. officials say spent time in Baghdad and got his injured leg amputated there after the Afghan war. His group is accused of killing American diplomat Lawrence Foley in his car in Amman, Jordan.

But it is the prewar intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that is prompting the most persistent questions. Why haven't U.S. forces found anything yet? Was U.S. intelligence distorted for political ends?

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I do think there's evidence that the CIA did shade and embellish this information in a number of areas.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Now, we're beating up on the intelligence community. We have a lot of people with a tad bit of politics involved blaming the president for virtually every car bomb and every suicide bomber.

BUSH: I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program.

ENSOR: The president is convinced. He used it as his primary case for war. After all, the Iraqi regime never accounted for over 8,000 liters of anthrax and several tons of VX gas that they admitted in the '90s to having produced.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: The criticisms and the questions will likely continue, though, and they may accelerate until and unless something is found -- Aaron.

BROWN: Let's go back to the top of this. Do you know in what areas the two al Qaeda operatives are believed to have told the truth and in what areas they are believed to have lied which may or may not give us some indication of which they are doing in this case?

ENSOR: I know that they talked about a number of different kinds of plots, sometimes in general terms, sometimes with specific detail and that some of these plots have turned out to be real and some of them have turned out to be entirely fictitious, so it varies.

These are two very wily customers, according to officials that I've spoken to who obviously had planned ahead to put falsehoods into what they were saying to their interrogators in the event they were caught.

BROWN: Do the people who argue that they are not telling the truth on Iraq have an explanation for why they would lie about Iraq?

ENSOR: Well, they say that these two individuals don't want the United States to get to the bottom of what this terrorism is all about. So, if Iraq was involved, if, and nobody is saying that it definitely was, then that would be something that top operatives of al Qaeda would want to conceal. That's the theory in any case for lying.

BROWN: David, thank you, David Ensor on a story that we suspect has more chapters yet to be written. Safe to say the justification for going to war wouldn't be getting quite as much scrutiny if the war's aftermath weren't quite so messy or costly to American lives and it's both.

Another case in point today, an American soldier killed at a checkpoint on Iraq's western border with Syria. It is the latest in a string of attacks centered mostly in the central and western parts of the country, the hottest spot continuing to be the city of Fallujah where in addition to all the other reasons for unrest there's a history and a grudge dating back a dozen years.

Here again, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): Another victim in the troubled city of Fallujah. This man was shot on the street in daylight, the circumstances like the source of much of the violence in the city is unclear.

In the same hospital a victim of the April incident that still has townspeople furious. At least 15 Iraqis were killed and dozens more wounded when U.S. troops fired on what they thought was a dangerous demonstration. The violence hasn't stopped since.

(on camera): The United States has an unfortunate history in Fallujah. This is called the Martyr's Market. In the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. accidentally bombed this street, killing more than 100 people.

(voice-over): This looting in a burned police station where a U.S. soldier was killed last week has become a gathering spot for disgruntled young people.

"We don't need Saddam or America. We have Islam. We can rule ourselves" says Majid Patid (ph).

They watch passing soldiers. They're not Americans they're Israelis some of them insist. Instead of going home after the war, almost 3,000 troops from the 3rd Infantry Division were sent here to Fallujah doubling the presence because of the continued attacks against U.S. forces. They say they don't know what organization the attackers belong to and it doesn't really matter.

LT. COLONEL ERIC SHWARTZ: I believe these small pockets will start to exhaust themselves. They will get caught when they continue to attack. Every night that they've attacked they've been caught. They've been either killed or detained. They are a small group and I don't think they've got a lot of steam left.

ARRAF: But the show of force has increased Iraqi casualties and resentment. Haqi Ismail (ph) says he sent his family to Baghdad Saturday for safety. Late Friday night, U.S. troops fired on his building. They said gunmen in the building had shot at them first.

There were 20 families inside, including Haqi, his wife and children who were sleeping on the floor.

"The second time I heard firing the glass started to break" he says. "I stood up and the wall starting cracking and falling down on us."

At the mayor's office, people come to complain about Americans searching their homes, offending their wives, and sometimes killing their relatives. They don't have much else to do but complain.

Under Saddam Hussein people in the Sunni Muslim stronghold had jobs. Now they have nothing and they say it's not clear that pouring more soldiers into the troubled city is the answer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: Now, U.S. officials say that in Baghdad things are getting better and safer every day. They're not making the same claim in Fallujah and some other places.

And worryingly for U.S. forces these attacks seem to have taken a different turn, some of them in Fallujah coming from near mosques, and in the city of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as you referred to, Aaron, someone opening fire after asking for urgent medical help at a checkpoint, all of these very difficult for U.S. forces to deal with -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, is it possible to say in a town like Fallujah roughly what percentage of the population there is truly anti- American, anti-U.S. soldier, and what percentage are just wanting to get on their lives?

ARRAF: That's really interesting and not a terribly easy question to answer but one that we really do try to get to the bottom of it. It's tempting to think that when you go into the streets and people come up to you, as they do always in Fallujah and in other places and they're very, very angry that that is the sentiment, but we have tried to explore it more and get beneath the surface.

And there are a lot of people who say that they wouldn't mind the Americans staying if they caught thieves, if they made things safer but indisputably there is a very broad segment of that population in that city that really does not like the American forces there.

And, it's been suggested by some people there that the reason isn't really that they truly believe, as they say, that the soldiers are looking at their wives through night scopes, for instance. It's that they have been left out of this equation in this new Iraq.

They look around and the Shi'as are getting power. There are Kurds in Baghdad. Everyone seems to be getting power except for them. This was a Sunni stronghold.

There were a lot of Ba'ath Party people there, a lot of people who depended on the system and now they really don't have anything. They have been deliberately cut out and there's been nothing in its place to replace it, so the anti-American sentiment is fairly strong -- Aaron. BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf in Baghdad tonight.

Next to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we go. Two Palestinians shot dead tonight by Israeli forces reportedly while trying to infiltrate an Israeli settlement near the Gaza Strip, this the day after four Israeli soldiers were killed.

It didn't take long after the summit in Jordan for the killing to start again. Nobody attending the summit expected the violence to end completely. The real question was and is how would the two sides handle it? Would Israeli forces retaliate or not? Would the Palestinian prime minister, would he get tough with the terrorists? Tonight, the answers are not yet, and not quite.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Facing a coordinated challenge from all three major Palestinian factions, the embattled Palestinian prime minister went on the offensive condemning Sunday's attack which left four Israeli soldiers dead, and renewing his call for an end to all attacks against Israelis.

"We insist on a dialog, but in the end we will not force anyone to resume talks" Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said.

But it is a tough sell with radical Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, breaking off cease fire talks last week accusing the Palestinian prime minister of demanding too little of Israel in his speech last week in Aqaba, Jordan, and so, Prime Minister Abbas tried to do some damage control.

"Now there was a misunderstanding regarding the statement at Aqaba," the prime minister said. "And we clarify to you now and to the public."

And he took on issues he had not publicly in Jordan, such as the plight of Palestinian prisoners like Abu Suqa (ph) who until his release last week was the longest serving Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail.

(on camera): Complicating Mahmoud Abbas' efforts, his lack of political support on the streets, he has only a single digit popularity waiting and his speech in Aqaba did not seem to bolster his standing here.

"We do not agree with this speech because he neglected everything we want," said Mohammed Samata (ph), who told us he faces tougher travel restrictions now than he did before the summit.

Still, many Palestinians say Mr. Abbas should be given a chance, like Naja Taya (ph) who splits his time between Brooklyn, New York and Ramallah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wouldn't have the support and, believe me, if you ask all the people one by one, 99 percent they want the peace.

WALLACE: The Palestinian prime minister now faces the biggest test since the smiles of Aqaba, achieving a cease fire and winning Israeli concessions, crucial not just for the road map but perhaps for his political future.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, Ramallah.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, more on the story of a girl kidnapped from her home in California and her safe return.

Also tonight, another possible weapon in the cockpit, stun guns this time.

And, the search for an anthrax killer continues as authorities try to get the bottom literally.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A time may come, and it isn't far off, when little Johnny or Janie will look up in the sky and tell the folks that he wants to become an airline pilot because airline pilots get all the cool guns. Today in a report to Congress, the Transportation Security Administration OK'd the idea of pilots, and others, carrying stun guns or Tasers.

Here's CNN's Patty Davis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PATTY DAVIS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some pilots already have firearms. Now another layer of security for the cockpit, the Transportation Security Administration says it's convinced, "Stun guns could serve as a beneficial deterrent to acts of terrorism on a plane" and approved the idea.

But the agency stopped short of giving airlines the go ahead that puts the less than lethal weapons in pilots' hands for now saying it needs time to work out details, including pilot training, weapon storage, and whether flight attendants could use them too.

Both United Airlines and Mesa Airlines say they want stun guns for their pilots; in fact, United has already trained 8,300 pilots and bought more than 1,000 stun guns, but are they effective? Some security experts say no.

LARRY JOHNSON, TERRORISM ANALYST: If someone is coming through the door, to hit him with the stun gun, they can keep coming at you. If you hit them with a 9mm bullet they're going to be down on the ground.

DAVIS: In our demonstration last year with a Taser M26, the same stun gun United has trained its pilots to use, none of the seven police officers shot was brought down by the weapon.

(on camera): Taser says the weapons are effective 93 percent of the time. An official with United says the airline expects a final decision on stun guns for pilots within a matter of weeks.

Patty Davis CNN, Reagan National Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Not far from Washington tonight there's an engineering project getting started, a strange on by any measure, hardly the Hoover Dam, in fact just the opposite. It involves a pond in Maryland, the anthrax story, and getting to the bottom of each.

Here's CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One investigator called it a shot in the dark. Another described it as an obvious next step in finding out who the anthrax killer is. Approximately 50,000 gallons of water will be drained out of this one- acre pond in Frederick, Maryland into a nearby pond, a process to take several weeks.

In a statement, the FBI says, "The purpose of these searches is to locate and collect items of evidence related to the anthrax attacks."

STEVE POMERANTZ, FORMER FBI OFFICIAL: They clearly have a reason to do it. They clearly think there's a possibility, it may not be a good possibility, but a possibility of recovering additional evidence and I don't think they feel in a case of this magnitude they can afford to overlook something even if it's just a remote possibility.

ARENA: The FBI's interest in this state park dates back to December. Officials got a tip back then that someone may have dumped equipment into one of the park's ponds.

Officials say they found the tip significant because the park is about ten miles from Fort Detrick where the army has experimented with anthrax.

According to government sources, agents in December found in the pond a large plastic enclosed container with two openings in the side, similar to those used to limit exposure during scientific tests. Several vials were also found.

Sources say testing on those items, and others, continues. But still, officials say, there is no evidence connecting anything found in the park to the anthrax attacks nor is there any evidence linking any individual to the deadly anthrax letters.

That includes Stephen Hatfill, a former researcher at Fort Detrick, described by the attorney general as a person of interest. Hatfill has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence and his spokesman says the FBI is welcome to drain every pond in Maryland.

PAT CLAWSON, HATFILL SPOKESMAN: Anything that can be done to clear Steve Hatfill right now he welcomes and he knows that the search of the pond in Frederick is not going to lead to anything tying him into the anthrax case because he had nothing to do with the anthrax case.

ARENA (on camera): By some estimates draining the pond will cost about $250,000 with absolutely no guarantee of finding anything significant.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, a nine-year-old girl tonight is back where nine- year-old girls belong in the safety of her family after a terrifying ordeal. She was found yesterday after being kidnapped on Friday, a crime witnessed not only by the mother and the brother who tried to fight off her abductor, but also by another watchful eye, an electronic one that caught what happened through a neighbor's surveillance camera, all of which helped put the suspect tonight where he belongs as well, in police custody.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN (voice-over): Tears run down Rosalie Tamayo swollen face, the mother injured trying to fight off her daughter's kidnapper relieved that her three day nightmare is over and that a suspect, David Montiel Cruz is behind bars.

Her words in Spanish flowing without pause, "When you feel you lose a child" she says, "it is like the feeling of dying."

MAYOR RON GONZALES, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: Her family has been through a great deal of pain. Her neighborhood has been through a great deal of pain.

LOTHIAN: The nine-year-old victim who police say may have been sexually assaulted turned up at this convenience store Sunday night, more than 20 miles from her San Jose home where she was abducted on Friday.

The store's owner called 9-1-1 after questioning the frightened fourth grader who had asked to use the phone.

ISA YASIN, STORE OWNER: I asked her how old are you? She said nine, so right away I figured out she's the one missing from San Jose.

LOTHIAN: From the street where a neighbor's surveillance tape captured the bold daytime crime, the nine-year-old returns from school and encounters the waiting attacker. Her mother and brother show up a few minutes later and become victims too. The suspect, who had pulled his car into the family's garage, speeds off with the young girl. The FBI, 150 local police, and search and rescue teams from seven counties launch a massive manhunt. The surveillance tape is released, along with this sketch of the suspect. Late last night the first big break, the young girl is found at this store shaken but safe.

CHIEF WILLIAM LANSDOWNE, SAN JOSE POLICE: I have never seen such a courageous little girl.

LOTHIAN: Early this morning a few blocks from the crime scene, police arrest the suspect and find crucial evidence.

LANSDOWNE: The physical injuries that he has on his person match the circumstances of this situation.

LOTHIAN: The nine-year-old's mother is now warning other parents to be more vigilant so they won't ever have to walk in her shoes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: One interesting note, police were able to track down the suspect because of the help they got from the young victim. She was able to provide them with information leading them to a home. They found him in an attic. He refused to come down, and according to authorities put up a pretty tough fight. They were finally able to corner him with the help of a police dog -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do we know of any relationship between the suspect and the family?

LOTHIAN: The only relationship right now that authorities are telling us is that the suspect apparently knew a former classmate of the young victim, as to the motive though no information on that.

BROWN: Dan, thank you very much, Dan Lothian in California tonight.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, "Living History," Hillary Clinton's book hits the shelves. We'll talk with Joe Klein about it and the fuss about it as NEWSNIGHT continues around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As one journalist wrote today it's got to be a pretty frustrating time to be one of the Democrats running for president. The Democrat who's got all the buzz is on the cover of "TIME," who had Barbara Walters on the edge of her seat, is the one who isn't running for president, at least for now she isn't.

We're talking, of course, about Senator Hillary Clinton whose book was officially released today. Being a Clinton, the Senator is much loved and much hated. That's not always a plus in politics but in publishing it could be a bonanza.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The $8 million smile with the kind of fanfare politicians, even some presidential candidates, only dream about, Hillary Clinton unveiled her new book in Midtown Manhattan.

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, AUTHOR, "LIVING HISTORY": These were obviously personal and private moments that unfortunately were made public for partisan political purposes.

KARL: Exhibit A, White House intern Monica Lewinsky, thanks to Books on CD, you can hear Mrs. Clinton's reaction to learning the truth from the president after his months of lies.

(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)

VOICE OF HILLARY CLINTON: Up until now, I only thought that he'd been foolish for paying attention to the young woman and I was convinced that he was being railroaded. I couldn't believe he would do anything to endanger our marriage and our family. I was dumbfounded, heartbroken, and outraged that I'd believed him at all.

(END AUDIOTAPE)

KARL: But apparently Mrs. Clinton still believes her husband's denials when it comes to the Jennifer Flowers scandal which nearly derailed Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.

She calls Flowers' story of a 12-year affair with Mr. Clinton a "whale of a tale," but does not tell her reaction when her husband later acknowledged having a sexual relationship with Flowers.

Regarding Lewinsky, Mrs. Clinton says she wanted to "wring Bill's neck" but one can only imagine what she'd want to do to independent counsel Ken Starr who she blames for her husband's impeachment.

(BEGIN AUDIO TAPE)

VOICE OF HILLARY CLINTON: No matter what he had done, I did not think any person deserved the abusive treatment he had received. His privacy, my privacy, Monica Lewinsky's privacy, and the privacy of our families had been invaded in a cruel and gratuitous manner.

(END AUDIO TAPE)

KARL: Aside from the vivid description of her side of the Lewinsky scandal, Mrs. Clinton's book is not a tell all. There is no mention of the controversy involving the last minute pardons granted by President Clinton, for example, a controversy that included accusations against her own brother.

The Hillary media blitz includes interviews with ABC's Barbara Walters, NBC's Katie Couric and CNN's Larry King and a "TIME" magazine cover story. With all the attention, Clinton's friends and her foes alike say that she has laid the groundwork for a possible future run for the White House. SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL, FORMER CLINTON ADVISER: Democrats like her. She's very popular within the Democratic Party. They also remember the Clinton years and the Clinton legacy and she stands for that and represents that.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: I think they'll looking long-term and they're saying that if she's going win nationally, they have to start now to repair her public image. And this, I think, is a part of that.

KARL (on camera): Senator Clinton categorically rules out a run for president in 2004. As for 2008, she says that she has no intention of running, but she does not rule out, and, she says, it may be time for a woman president.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Joe Klein reviewed the senator's book for "TIME" magazine and Joe joins us now.

OK. There's about a thousand things, and in the end, to me, it comes down to, What is all of the fuss here, in a sense. What does it matter when she actually found out or what words were used? Why is this important?

JOE KLEIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, it's not important. But it's fun.

I mean, the marriage was the great mystery of the Clinton administration, and this book promises to tell a little bit about the marriage. It doesn't tell all that much. But people are curious about that.

BROWN: I wrote down at one point, this is not so much a tell all as a tell how much you have to.

KLEIN: Yes. Yes, I think so. I was really disappointed because I really wanted to find out what she was thinking about when she came up with that health insurance plan and she doesn't even describe it in the book.

But then I'm a policy wonk. I mean, you know, it's hopeless.

BROWN: OK. Do you -- why did she write the book? I mean is it the...

KLEIN: Well, there are about eight million reasons, I think.

BROWN: And that -- is that such a terrible thing?

KLEIN: No, it's not a terrible thing at all.

BROWN: You've done it yourself.

KLEIN: I believe in the highest possible advances for all authors.

BROWN: Is it as simple as that?

KLEIN: It's a matter of moral principle.

BROWN: Do you think -- well, I know what you think because we have talked about this but I'll ask like I don't know what you think. Do you think she will someday run for president?

KLEIN: You know, I think I have changed my mind about that since we last talked.

BROWN: Really?

KLEIN: I don't think she will. I mean, when you read this book, the anguish involved in being in the midst of this was so great, you can't imagine her doing it again.

I mean, the interesting thing here is that Bill Clinton is this larger than life figure, and she says, he sailed through these things, you know, like they were nothing. She is a regulation human being.

BROWN: Yes.

KLEIN: And as a regulation human being, she was in an utterly ridiculous situation. With all of these, you know, scandals and scandalettes and women and this and that coming at her like one these video games and, you know, to watch a regulation human being going through that, it's kind of --it's kind of -- it's like kind of watching a traffic accident and what did was, she denied a lot of it.

BROWN: Yes.

KLEIN: And she demonized her opponents, both of which are entirely understandable. But I don't know why she would want to go through all of that again.

BROWN: Well, people would say, I think, people who are her harshest critic and perhaps in some respects her biggest supporters too would say, they would use slightly different words, because she wants to be president. She believes in herself. She is a woman of great intellect and ambition.

KLEIN: She's a woman of fine intellect and perhaps great ambition. But I think that she knows the minute she declares, it's going to be the ugliest campaign we have ever seen, and even if she wins, an unlikely event given the fact that 45 percent of the people in the country just can't stand her...

BROWN: Yes.

KLEIN: Even if she wins she will have done it on her husband's coattails and that's not the way for the first woman president to be elected.

BROWN: Do you think she sees that? KLEIN: I think she has reservations about it, because one of the things that you learn in this book is her utter discomfort with the role she had to play. She was never very happy being first lady because -- I mean, just think of the title. It's this little dainty antiquated title, first lady. She's a woman.

BROWN: The -- There's a part of me who has always thought about her that no matter what she couldn't win. That if she succumbed to her ambition then she was not the appropriate first lady. And if she was good wife, then she was denying what everyone knew, which was her ambition. That in an odd way, it would set up so that -- I don't mean set up by some outsider, it was just kharma.

KLEIN: A job description.

BROWN: Yes, it was just set up in such a way that she was going to lose.

KLEIN: Well, interesting thing. She spends, Oh, I don't know, hundreds of pages discussing her trips overseas. And those were her happiest times as first lady.

I went with her to South Asia. It was the best trip I have ever taken with a politician. She loosened up. Chelsea was there. She got a chance to promote programs for women and children that she really cared about. They were really good programs. And I think that she always wondered why Washington couldn't be like that. Washington can't be like that.

BROWN: And won't be like that. It's nice to see you.

KLEIN: Good to see you, too.

BROWN: Thank you.

When we come -- oh, wait, one more little bit of business here. Mrs. Clinton, Senator Clinton will be on "LARRY KING" tomorrow. Her first live interview as opposed, I guess, to the first taped interviews. But she's with Larry tomorrow and nobody doesn't like Larry -- 9:00 eastern time here on CNN.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, some of the other stories that made news today. Later, we'll introduce you to a young woman who has the world at her feet. Her really, really quick feet.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, we'll check some of the other important stories of the day, including North Korea's threat to build nuclear weapons stockpiles to deter U.S. aggression. That's what they say.

We have more. We'll take a short break first. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, it sounds like the mouse that roared, but it's a threat. It's certainly playing like one. Our look at some of the other stories making news around the world starts in North Korea. The North Korean government today for the first time explicitly threatened to build a nuclear arsenal. This goes beyond the earlier threats to start turning spent reactor fuel into weapon's grade plutonium. Are you following all of this? It came in a statement blaming the American nuclear threats for escalating the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Liberia next, West Africa. Americans there have the French to thank for their safety. French army helicopters swooping in today to save them and other foreigners from rebels closing in on the capitol of Monrovia. Civil war of one sort or another has been the rule in the country since 1989. Much of fighting and dying taking place in the capital during that time.

And onto Luxor, Egypt and a familiar face, or so say the experts. Today a British egyptologist announced it's the face of King Nefertiti, King Tut's stepmom. Clue number one? The mummy in question wore two earrings in one ear. That would have tipped us all off, wouldn't it? Clue number two, her bent arm holding a royal specter -- scepter. That and jewelry found inside the mummy's chest made it pretty certain. There's also a birth certificate. No, there wasn't.

Before we go to break, a few more items making news around the country, starting in Washington.

A rare tie in the Supreme Court Justices deadlocking 4, 4 on whether victims of agent orange who missed out on the class action class settlement can still sue. These tie boats are rare but though not unheard of. This one came about because Justice Paul Stevens (UNINTELLIGIBLE) himself.

Authorities of Florida's panhandle are warning people to stay out of the ocean. Heavy rain and high winds causing severe rip tides. Five people died over the weekend, including, Larry Lamont, (ph) former CNN correspondent. A sixth person nearly drowned today.

And the Devils and the Ducks at the Meadowlands. This is how the final goal was scored. Jeff Freisen scoring twice including that final goal. The Devils win Lord Stanley's cup. They won 3-0 today. They win the series 4-3 over the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Big doings over in the Meadowlands, the sport's capital of the university.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, when is DNA evidence not reliable?

That's the question being asked in Houston where a crime lab has been closed. Hundreds of criminal cases thrown into question. We will tell you why. We will take a break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Seems to be one thing we can all agree on when it comes to the death penalty, if the state puts people to death, the state has to be right about who the bad guys are. So it's troubling to learn about another case of a crime laboratory, allegedly riddled with incompetence or worse. This time in a state that executes more than any other, Texas. The question there is not only whether innocent people might have been convicted, but also how to fairly investigate what has happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It has happened in other places, questions about the reliability of crime labs. But since no place is as tough on crime or sent as many people to death row as Houston. The questions there are especially serious. And while some of the questions are merely uncomfortable, sloppy record keeping, others are deeply disturbing. With scientific data deliberately misrepresented to juries to secure convictions, and send men to prison or worse. Now the lab is being investigated by the Texas legislate, the Houston police department, the district attorney, and two grand juries. The lab's work was also analyzed by forensic scientific Elizabeth Johnson for Houston TV station KHOU.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are the worst that I have ever seen.

BROWN: But it was something more sinister than incompetence? the grand jurys are looking into possible criminal misconduct at the lab and conflict of interests by the prosecutors who relied on potentially tainted evidence. The grand jurors want to operate independently from the D.A.'s investigation. In fact, they want to interrogate the district attorney. They want to question the responsibility and maybe the culpability of the prosecutors in Houston. Charles Rosenthal, the district attorney in Harris County, that's Houston, has been asked by 22 criminal court judges and by the grand jury to recuse himself from the investigation. So far, he has refused.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Joining us now from Houston, the reporter from KHOU in Houston who's broken much of this story. Anna Werner, we're glad to have you with us.

ANNA WERNER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER KHOU-TV: Thanks, Aaron.

Where are we now?

Are there individuals who have been identified as clearly in trouble?

WERNER: Yes, there are nine people in the Houston police department crime lab who, this week, we are expected to hear more about exactly what kind of trouble they're in. Whether that's going to be disciplinary action within the police department itself as a result of their internal investigation, or also possibly criminal charges on this. BROWN: And the criminal charges, if it were to come to that, would be what?

WERNER: Well, there's a question of testimony. With some of the testimony false and misleading?

Were there any results that were deliberately faked?

Was it just gross incompetence as many of our experts have suggested?

That it was that or worse is what they suggested to us at least. I think there's a lot of questions about why simple these results wound up so grossly wrong.

BROWN: Can you give me an example of that?

WERNER: Well, for instance, you have the case of Josia Sutton (ph), who initially when we had our experts -- we did a series in November, and investigative producer David and I put together a number of different case. Did series in November. And as a result of that a woman named Carol Betty (ph) examined about her son, Josia Sutton, who was sent away for a rape conviction for 25 years.

He'd been in prison for four and a half years at this point. She was convinced he was innocent. He had been researching DNA in prison himself. Said it couldn't have been him, it wasn't his DNA. Our experts looked at the crime lab documents on his case and said, well, wait a minute here! They said, and they told the jury that this was his DNA. Our experts said, there statistics were way off. The crime lab people had said that it was his DNA to the tune of one in 694,000 people. Our experts said, actually not so, 1 in 16 people with the circumstances of the cases they stood. That could have been thousands of other young black men in Houston.

Here's a kid who went to prison at the age of 17. Was arrested at 16. Was in prison by 17. Now, he's 21. He's been sitting there for four and a half years. So as a result of our reports on his case, the Houston Police Department volunteered to do a DNA retest on the evidence in this case. Lo and behold not only are the statistics way off, but actually he's excluded. He could not have committed the rape he was convicted of. He's now been freed from prison and their trying, and his lawyers are trying very hard to get him a pardon. Which he is encountering resist from the districts attorney's office on yet still, even though experts say that he is innocent

BROWN: And the d.a.'s office is resisting that because...

WERNER: Now want to do another evidence test. We've had at least three, four experts who say that is just ridiculous.

BROWN: Couple of other questions. Do you know a grand jury are hard to cover. They are inherently secret. At what point, do you know, did this grand jury become a runaway jury?

WERNER: From the very beginning apparently. The judge, Judge Ted Poe of this particular court, told us from the very beginning told us that the grand jury did not want the involvement of the district attorney's office. And the reason for that evidently appears to be because they believe there may be some questions about prosecutor's conduct in some of these cases and they are in fact going to have Chuck Rosenthal, the district attorney. He's expected to testify in front of the grand jury on Thursday of this week.

BROWN: I read a quote from Mr. Rosenthal, I will paraphrase it was look, our experts tell us it's so and so's DNA, we believe it's so and so's DNA. We are just a prisoner in a sense of our experts.

Is that their argument basically?

WERNER: Yes. And one of our experts Bill Thompson, a well-known DNA evidence expert from the University of California, Irvine, is very skeptical as to that. He says when you're a prosecutor, he says as a lawyer himself he says you've got to know the evidence, you've got to know what the evidence means. He's highly skeptical that these prosecutors could have not known at least some of what this evidence meant.

BROWN: And, we've talked about the nine people. Is there any sense that Mr. Rosenthal, it seems to me that he's been there for a while now, has serious problems that may, may cost him?

WERNER: Well, I think the question is why resist an independent investigation? I mean you know he said that he doesn't believe that he has to recuse himself even now that he's going to testify that was he doesn't believe that's a conflict of interest.

I think people are saying why resist? Why not let an independent investigation go forward? If he would recuse himself, you would have a special prosecutor who would come in and conduct an investigation in front of the grand jury.

Right now they are functioning on their own because without a district attorney, and without the district attorney recusing himself, they can't get somebody to sort of lead them through this process. So what you've got is a group of citizens to sort of find their way through evidently. The best we have been able to glean. And many of the experts have said, why doesn't he just recuse himself?

But then again, he's up for re-election in fall of 2004. Actually the person who put more people on death row than any other was his predecessor Johnny Holmes (ph). Rosenthal's fairly new in the DA's office although working there incredibly long time, first time as DA.

BROWN: You and your team terrific work. Nicely done. And thank you and thank you for joining us tonight. Anna Warner from KHOU TV in Houston, Texas.

Still ahead tonight, a woman fast becoming a superstar because she's fast. "Segment 7" in a moment. We take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When seniors in high school look back at their accomplishments, they might think of that "A" they got in trig or maybe the bang up score they got on their SAT. High school senior Allyson Felix may well have accomplished all of that but will admit the stat that's bowled us over wasn't an SAT, it was her time in the 200 meter. She's the girl who just in a few seconds became one of the fastest women in the world. Here is CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The runner lacing up happens to be the fattest woman in the world this year in the 200- meter sprint. And Allyson Felix is all of 17-years-old.

(on camera): Tell me what it feels like to be as fast as you are?

ALLYSON FELIX, SPRINTER: It feels good, but I always feel like there is stuff to improve. So for the moment it felt good and now I am back to working hard again.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): This is what felt good, she says, setting a world record for juniors in Mexico City last month. She ran the 200 in 22:11. It was also the fastest time in the world this year for any female. It put her on the front page of "Sport's Pages" and now she's compared to the late legendary Florence Griffith Joyner, and another female, phenom Marion Jones.

(on camera): What's that like?

FELIX: It's a good compliment. I mean, I definitely look up to them. I admire them, and I'm also trying to be something different from them.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): At the moment, she's just trying to finish her senior year in high school at Los Angeles Baptist. And while Allyson appears to be on the threshold of super stardom, her coach says she is still a humble and polite teenager who is just one of the girls.

JONATHAN PATTON, L.A. BAPTIST SPRINT COACH: There couldn't be a better diplomat or ambassador for the sport of track and field right now than Allyson.

BUCKLEY: Track observers say Allyson could turn pro right now.

(on camera): What's the worst part of this part of your life?

FELIX: This? Probably all of the decisions you have to make. I'm not -- I don't really enjoy making decisions. So, you know, it's difficult.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): But Allyson has her parents, Paul and Marlene Felix, and her brother, Wes, also a top sprinter at USC for support. PAUL FELIX, ALLYSON'S DAD: I'm a dad first. So I keep an eye on my daughter, make sure the wrong people aren't talking to her.

BUCKLEY: We were lucky enough to talk to Allyson Felix just as she was hitting her stride.

(on camera): If I talk to you in ten years, what will you be telling me about what the past ten years have been like?

FELIX: Well, hopefully I'd been in a couple of Olympics and hopefully have some medals, and hopefully get experiences.

PATTON: That's what she's going to do. She's going to stand on the highest podium with the goldest medal, and it's going to happen sooner than later.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): Frank Buckley, CNN, Northridge, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thirty more bonus minutes of NEWSNIGHT still on come, including the flap over one senator preventing hundreds of promotions in the Air Force.

And another illness jumps from animals to humans. The story of monkeypox an more. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The struggle to bring peace and security to Iraq has a name, many names, actually, like Staff Sergeant Michael Quinn, or Specialist Jose Perez, or the name of the young American killed to in an attack at a checkpoint near the western border.

American troops are facing the peril of postwar Iraq largely on their own. And according to the defense secretary, manpower from other countries is still a ways away.

Our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre, is traveling with Secretary Rumsfeld in Europe and filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put your arms down, on the ground.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While U.S. soldiers continue to conduct sweeps through the pro-Saddam Hussein stronghold of Fallujah, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded the escalating attacks on U.S. forces appear to be fueled to some extent by Saddam Hussein, or at least the belief he may still be alive.

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It might give heart to the Ba'athists, who may want to hope that they can take back that country, which they're not going to succeed in doing. So I think to some extent that's a fair comment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any more you can do at this point?

RUMSFELD: Well, we just keep looking for him. We'll find him.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. has built up to nearly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, while coalition forces have been progressively dwindling. There are now only about 14,000 troops from coalition countries, the majority of those from Britain, which is steadily withdrawing its forces.

The U.S. is in talks with some 40 nations about helping out in Iraq, of which between six and eight have indicated a willingness to send troops. But while U.S. soldiers are locked in guerrilla warfare with resistance fighters, help is at least three months away.

RUMSFELD: We're hopeful that we'll get a sizable set of forces in Iraq. The first ones, I would think, would likely be sometime maybe in September, and then others could be added over time.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld says the attacks against U.S. troops are a result of a large number of regime supporters in the north who were never defeated on the battlefield. But he insists it is not a, quote, "well-organized, nationally directed campaign."

And he remains convinced that finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is just a matter of time.

RUMSFELD: All of our intelligence agencies were in broad agreement. There were differences, of course, but they were all shown and elevated in the national intelligence estimates. Any indication or allegation that the intelligence was in any way politicized, of course, is just false on its face.

MCINTYRE: As for whether the intelligence could have been wrong, given that no banned weapons have been located in two months, Rumsfeld repeated what is becoming a familiar refrain.

RUMSFELD: We haven't found Saddam Hussein either, but no one's doubting that he was there.

MCINTYRE (on camera): Rumsfeld begins his consultations here in Portugal. He goes to Albania and Germany next before attending a NATO defense ministerial in Brussels. Rumsfeld insists he's not here so much to pressure U.S. allies to do more, but mostly to thank them for what they've already done.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, Lisbon, Portugal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On the Web site of Idaho Senator Larry Craig, there is a spot that tells you how you can support U.S. troops, by signing America's thank you card. Some critics say Senator Craig is sending a message that shows anything but gratitude to some of those troops, those in the Air Force, all because he isn't getting his way. The story from congressional correspondent Kate Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fighter pilots just back from Iraq, young majors, high-ranking generals, all in limbo, because one man, one U.S. senator, isn't getting what he wants.

SEN. LARRY CRAIG (R), IDAHO: Well, for 18 months, I've been working with the Air Force to try to bring stability to an Air Guard mission in the state of Idaho. And during that 18-month period, long before Iraqi Freedom, they've really refused to work with us.

SNOW: Idaho Senator Larry Craig says the Air Force promised to move four brand-new C-130 cargo planes to Gowan (ph) Field in Boise. If the Air Force won't keep its word, he won't let the Senate promote Air Force officers.

CRAIG: You use the opportunity at hand to get the attention of the Air Force. The Air Force has brought this on themselves.

SNOW (on camera): It happens all the time in the Senate, where one senator can bring things to a screeching halt. In a tradition that dates back to the '60s, a senator can secretly put a hold on a bill, threatening to filibuster the measure if it comes up for a vote.

RICHARD BAKER, SENATE HISTORIAN: They're saying to the leader, Don't move this on to passage, because if you do, I'll object. And if I object, that could then trigger a filibuster, and if we trigger a filibuster, then all of a sudden you've lost control, Mr. Leader, of the floor, because you can't -- you can no longer predict the schedule.

SNOW (voice-over): It used to be more common to hold up one single nominee. Gay rights activist James Hormel, for example, nominated by President Clinton to be ambassador to Luxembourg, held up for nearly two years.

But senators have placed blanket holds too. In the mid-'80s, under President Reagan, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd held up thousands of military promotions to make a point. Critics say the practice has gotten out of control in the past 10 years.

NORM ORNSTEIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Senators have been very happy to have an anonymous process where they can take a hostage, hold up a nomination, hold up a bill, and use it as a bludgeon against an administration, usually, to get their way on something completely unrelated.

SNOW: In this case, Republican Senator John McCain says Air Force generals are caught in the crossfire. "It is completely inappropriate to place a hold on the promotion of scores of service men and women who play no role whatsoever in establishing Air Force policy," McCain said in a statement. Senator Craig says he strongly supports those men and women. He'd be happy to give deserving pilots promotions. All the Air Force has to do is send Idaho four new planes.

Kate Snow, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On a day when anthrax is back in the headlines, I'm reminded of something a guest said during the height of the panic. Thank God, he said, it wasn't smallpox.

Today we expect doctors in the Midwest share the sentiment, having seen patients come in with fever and rashes and other symptoms chillingly like smallpox, which it wasn't, though close. The disease they're seeing is monkeypox. Officials confirmed four cases tonight. They're watching 29 others. The disease comes from Africa. Mostly it affects monkeys and rodents.

And in this country, at least, apparently made the jump to humans at the pet store.

Here's CNN's Jeff Flock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are newborn pet rats in Milwaukee, now under quarantine along with dozens of other small animals as officials seek to stop the spread of a disease they first thought was smallpox.

(on camera): Had you ever heard of this before, monkeypox?

MIKE HOFFER, HOFFER'S TROPIC LIFE PETS: No, no, no.

FLOCK (voice-over): Mike Hoffer, who runs one of the biggest pet stores in America, never heard of it because monkeypox never appeared in the Western hemisphere before. But Hoffer sold pet prairie dogs that were carrying the disease, which is actually more akin to chickenpox. And it has now apparently jumped to more than 30 humans.

DR. STEVE OSTROFF, CDC DEPUTY DIRECTOR: There have been no fatalities. Patients are in various stages of recovery.

FLOCK: The Centers for Disease Control believe the prairie dogs came from here, a store called Phil's Pocket Pets outside Chicago. That's where they think they came into contact with a giant Gambian rat that was infected.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as I understand, I could be the first person to contract it in the U.S.

FLOCK: This man worked at Phil's Pocket Pets. He's already recovered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like a little scar. Nothing serious. I got maybe a dozen, or a little more than that. But was less severe than chickenpox.

FLOCK: Health officials say the disease has spread to Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, but a doctor at a Milwaukee hospital that has treated seven cases says there is no reason to panic.

DR. CHARLES EDMISTON, FROEDTERT HOSPITAL: The fact that you have neighbors who have prairie dogs, who've had them for years, does not suggest that you are at risk.

FLOCK: But health officials are taking no chances.

(on camera): In addition to prairie dogs, right now you can't even buy any of these rats or gerbils or hamsters, any furry animals here, even though they didn't come into contact with the sick prairie dogs.

(voice-over): The store is now trying to trace all its prairie dog sales.

(on camera): Have you ever had any problems with any kind of disease with prairie dogs.

HOPPER: No, no.

FLOCK: Before? Nothing?

HOPPER: No. And I've been carrying them for about 10 years.

FLOCK (voice-over): And, CDC officials add, there is no evidence that those infected are spreading the disease to other humans.

I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, Milwaukee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined now by Dr. Lawrence Altman, the medical columnist for "The New York Times." Good to see you again, though we rarely see you on a day when there's terrific news. I must say, one of these days you'll come and tell us about a cure.

When did you first hear about this?

DR. LAWRENCE ALTMAN, MEDICAL COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I guess over the weekend.

BROWN: How did it, how did it come to you? Just reporter's story, I guess.

ALTMAN: Reporter's story, I turned on my e-mail, and there was a notice from CDC that they had had a teleconference earlier in the evening. This was around midnight, and I didn't know about it, because nobody had left a phone message here.

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) so it was too late to do anything for -- that was Saturday night. For Sunday's paper...

BROWN: For Sunday's paper.

ALTMAN: ... so I got up and started working Sunday morning.

BROWN: And you're -- did you know what it was when you first heard about it, had you heard of it before?

ALTMAN: Oh, monkeypox, yes.

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: I had worked with smallpox in the eradication program, on the beginning of it, in West Africa. And monkeypox got recognized out of that, because it had just been considered part of smallpox. But as smallpox began to be eradicated, monkeypox was left. And there was a concern in West Africa and Central Africa.

BROWN: So you knew what it was, and you also knew what it was not.

ALTMAN: Yes.

BROWN: And both sides of that equation, strikes me, in this sort of story, matter.

ALTMAN: Monkeypox is a zoonosis, it's a disease that occurs in animals and accidentally infects humans. There are a lot of other zoonoses, rabies, for example. But they're -- and there are a host of human diseases, tularemia, plague, that occasionally infect humans. But in the case of monkeypox, it generally doesn't transmit from wave to wave or generation to generation, as someone infects another person. It dies out in the course of human transmission.

That's not a guarantee (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BROWN: Right.

ALTMAN: ... but that's the way it seems to behave in West Africa, unlike smallpox when it existed, which went in an endless chain of transmission until it was eradicated in about 1980.

BROWN: Did there seem? Well. Is it a fact that, because it does seem this way, is it a fact that there are more of these diseases that are jumping from animals to humans?

ALTMAN: Well, we've had a number of these examples recently, but we don't really know how many occurred in decades, centuries past. So we don't have a perspective that way, because it isn't measured. I mean, at some point in the history of mankind, a new disease was a new disease. We take them all as old diseases now.

BROWN: But we didn't know where it came from, but...

ALTMAN: We didn't know where it came from. But now that we're observing lots of travel, we're moving into remote areas, we impinge on the areas where a lot of animals and other critters live, we're pressing that, and we're being exposed to more.

And with jet travel, something that took a long time to travel from one continent to another can go in a matter of hours.

So we have a lot of reasons why these are occurring, but I don't think we're getting any truly new ones. We're just getting the movement of -- for the most part, they're movement of the old ones to a new area.

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to new geographic areas or from animals to humans, when you say new areas, which do you mean there?

ALTMAN: Well, I meant...

BROWN: Or both?

ALTMAN: ... new (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- it could be both, but...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... new geographic areas, because monkeypox is a well- known disease in West and Central Africa.

BROWN: Right.

ALTMAN: It had never occurred in the Americas.

BROWN: Did you surprise you to find out it occurred in Americas?

ALTMAN: Oh, that was a big surprise to everybody...

BROWN: Yes.

ALTMAN: ... that it popped up over here, and why, and that the answer to that is not clear yet.

BROWN: In about a minute, it -- How concerned ought we be about the specifics of this and more generally this sense that there are these jumpover or however you want to describe them diseases out there?

ALTMAN: We should always be concerned about them, because if they become endemic, if monkeypox became a permanent part of the disease picture in the United States, it's just one more thing that aggravates the health care system, that affects animals. And we don't want that to happen.

In terms of what it will do for humans, it's not a good thing. It's not a disease you want to get. But it -- there can be diseases that are harder to transmit. You know, chickenpox is spread a lot more easily than, say, monkeypox is.

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) chickenpox.

It's nice to see you again. Thank you. Come back again.

ALTMAN: OK, thank you.

BROWN: Dr. Lawrence Altman...

ALTMAN: Thank you very much.

BROWN: ... of "The New York Times."

When we -- oh, from monkeypox to monkey see, monkey do. Always forget one thing in the program, it was this page tonight.

A new study published in the British medical journal "Lancet" on teen smoking, authors found that American teenagers are three times more likely to smoke cigarettes if they watch movies in which the actors smoke.

What's more, the researchers concluded that 52 percent of the kids started smoking entirely because of the movies, which calls for a few grains of salt, according to other researchers, who say it's impossible to attribute the decision to start smoking to any single factor.

It makes good copy, though, doesn't it?

As NEWSNIGHT continues, the story of deep friendships, bonds that lasted decade after decade. We'll talk with a favorite of ours, David Halberstam, about his new book, "The Teammates." Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: What an eclectic mix that.

I've known our next guest, David Halberstam, for almost 15 years, and what I'm about to say, I say as a friend and as an admirer. When I received a copy of his latest book, "Teammates," I wondered, what happened to the other 500 pages?

Now, David would say he never wrote one more word than absolutely necessary in his many books, big, hefty, long books. And who am I to quarrel with a Pulitzer Prize winner?

"Teammates" is a slim, 203 delightful pages, not a baseball story exactly, though baseball is part of it, not the story of a season, though the '64 Sox are at the center. "Teammates" is about something far more universal.

We're glad to have Mr. Halberstam with us tonight, as we always are...

DAVID HALBERSTAM, JOURNALIST: Nice to be back with you.

BROWN: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE), nice to see you.

HALBERSTAM: Nice to have you back in New York.

BROWN: Nice to be back. It's a book about...

HALBERSTAM: Friendship, about (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's about another area in baseball, four guys who grow up on the West Coast roughly the same time, much poorer America, come to one team for their whole careers, although John Pesky (ph) did cameo appearances in Washington and Detroit.

But -- and, you know, become lifelong friends and care about each other. Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Door (ph).

And it begins with a moment, a trip that Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky and a television personality in Boston named Dick Flavin (ph) take because in the fall of 2001, Ted Williams, their great friend, is dying.

And then it's a reflection on friendship turning into love, growing old in America, and the purpose of a life. What is a life? What do you get out of life? Is it just winning games? Is it about the interior things you get out of association, friendship, or is it about salaries? Because none of these guys -- I mean, players today make in one day what these guys got for a whole season.

So that's what it's about.

BROWN: Want to come back to some of that. Let me ask a -- what I think is a practical question. How do you take a book like this and convince people who could care not a whit about baseball, and who barely know who Ted Williams is, that this is, and, in fact it is, this is a story they will love?

HALBERSTAM: Well, I think the reviews have been good. There's an excerpt in "Vanity Fair," which helped, long chunk of that. Going on (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... I mean, I think telling people the story, the story is intensely human. These men are sort of icons. Their names do resonate through because it's the radio era, and they sort of -- the names last, and then there's a lot of families where Williams, DiMaggio, Pesky, Door (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I mean, that's Red Sox nation...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... which exists, by the way, all over the country, not just in Boston...

BROWN: Of course.

HALBERSTAM: ... and New England. But I think, you know, "Tuesdays With Morrie," who knew of a little sociologist at Brandeis, I think it was...

BROWN: Yes. HALBERSTAM: ... who had this wonderful view on life? And what it is, when I had the idea for the book, my job was really to stay out of the way of these men, all of whom are purposeful, intelligent, hard-working, articulate, to stay out of their way as they reminisced about each other and about a beloved friend who was -- who had just died. By then, he had died.

BROWN: Mr. Williams, Ted Williams, was in this universe a star of -- amongst...

HALBERSTAM: Yes, he's...

BROWN: ... of -- a different magnitude.

HALBERSTAM: Yes, he was -- I mean, Bobby Door is in the Hall of Fame. Dominick (ph) had a very -- some -- there's a great debate whether Dominick, seven-time all-star, should be in the hall. Johnny Pesky probably a notch under in baseball judgment.

Ted was, along with Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial, one of the three great hitters of an era. He was, in Johnny Pesky's phrase, the star that drew all the rest of us together. And he called them "my guys." And he was big and loud and cantankerous...

BROWN: Yes, he was quite cantankerous.

HALBERSTAM: ... and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- and contentious. And exuberant and generous. He was all these things, and he -- you know, he had a volatile relationship with a very tough press corps.

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: He had for, when he was young, a volatile relationship with the fans. But he was a great player, and he had a passion to be the best.

BROWN: In, in, didn't this -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE), there's so much here. There's -- there is in this, also, the story of a season, or the end of a season, the '64 season for the Red Sox.

HALBERSTAM: Forty-six.

BROWN: Oh, '46, I'm sorry.

HALBERSTAM: Forty-six. Yes, it's the season they'd all come back from the war, and they all hit their stride. I mean, they -- it was as if they'd never been away, they -- at one point late in the season, I think they were 15 or 16 games ahead of the hated, dreaded Yankees who had dominated them for years. And they're younger, on an average of about five years than the Yankees.

And they seemed to have (UNINTELLIGIBLE) finally some good young pitchers. And they go into the World Series against the veteran Cardinal team. It goes down to the seventh game, and then there's a moment where, with Enos Slaughter, ferocious ball player, on first, there's a kind of dinky hit to left center field. And allegedly Johnny Pesky holds the ball.

He doesn't. And they go into this in great detail, with Domenick DiMaggio, who should have been in center field but had pulled a hamstring, and was the best defensive center...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... along with his brother, of the era, come, is replaced by a guy named Leon Culberson (ph). And Culberson does not play the ball with the intensity of Dominick. And Slaughter comes all the way around from first on what is effectively a single, a single, even though it's ruled a double.

And the Red Sox lose the series. And it's a famous play, and Pesky held the ball, even though he didn't hold the ball.

And they think, well, that's OK, but there'll be many years after, we're young, we're ascending, we've got all this talent.

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: And then their two best young pitchers come up with sore arms. And the team never quite gets into the World Series again.

BROWN: "The Teammates" is the book. David Halberstam (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's always great to see you.

HALBERSTAM: You know, it's going to outsell, I think, any book I've ever done. It's going to number two on...

BROWN: Yes.

HALBERSTAM: ... "The New York Times" list.

BROWN: Two hundred and three pages...

HALBERSTAM: That's -- well, that's maybe the reason.

BROWN: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) write them shorter...

HALBERSTAM: The next one will be, the next one will be, the next will be...

BROWN: ... they'll sell more.

HALBERSTAM: ... the next will be 46 pages.

BROWN: There you go. Thank you, my friend.

HALBERSTAM: Thank you.

BROWN: Good luck.

Morning papers coming up. We'll check tomorrow's news tonight, because we're that good. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okey dokey, time to check morning papers. You have no idea the stress level around here, I mean, right here, in that last break when I take my first look at the papers and try and figure out how we're going to fill the next two minutes. Here we go.

"The New York Times," all the news that's fit to print. There's a bunch of good stories in "The Times," but this one take note of. "White House Says It Will Support Same Drug Benefit, Bow to Political Reality." So now whether you join an HMO or you stay in traditional Medicare, there'll be some drug, prescription drug benefit. That's one of many stories in "The New York Times."

"The Cincinnati Enquirer," big in Cincinnati, Ohio, I think I'm now saying it just to irritate that one guy -- "Tablets Removed Amid Protest, Dozens Delay Judge's Order in Ten Commandments Case." Yet another church-state case. And that's the lead story in Cincinnati.

The lead story in "The Atlanta Journal Constitution," "Monkeypox Worries CDC." The CDC, as many of you know, perhaps even most, based in Atlanta.

Down to 30 seconds, OK. This picture of Senator Clinton will be in lots of newspapers, if not all, the headline, "The Chicago Sun Times," "Monkeypox Outbreak No Cause for Alarm," ha-ha-ha. Weather in Chicago, "Snarky."

And how we doing on time? Like 10 seconds, right, 15.

"Antispam Battle Saps Businesses." Why is it that all those pop- ups that you get on your computer are selling things to eliminate pop- ups? That's the other thing.

That's morning papers. And just an odd thought thrown in for the heck of it.

We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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