CNN.com - Transcripts

Transcript Providers

Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Israel retaliates to Suicide Bombing in Jerusalem; Civil Rights Not a Priority for the Kennedy Administration; Despair Spreads in Middle East; Perle Advocates Strike on North Korean Reactor If Diplomacy Fails

Aired June 11, 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.
In the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it seems doubt is starting to seep in. We heard it on this program more than a week ago from Ken Adleman, a hawk's hawk.

And, we heard it again the other day from Bill Kristol, the conservative writer who also championed the war in part because he said the threat from Iraq was imminent.

Perhaps, said Mr. Kristol the other day, misstatements were made where weapons of mass destruction were concerned. In fairness, he also said it didn't change his view that the war was just, just did change the notion that the threat was imminent.

It is again the search for weapons of mass destruction that begins the whip tonight. David Ensor again on the story for us so, David, start us off with a headline.

DAVIS ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the CIA is bringing in a veteran professional to help them look for weapons of mass destruction even as Republicans and Democrats on the Hill are beginning to spar about just how much of an investigation to do into whether the intelligence backed up the administration's claims prior to war.

BROWN: David, thank you.

On to a terribly bloody day in the Middle East, Kelly Wallace first in Gaza, Kelly your headline.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, two Israeli air strikes in the span of a few hours leaves nine people dead and sent angry Palestinians to the streets. Israel says it's targeting groups such as Hamas but Palestinians say Israel is sabotaging the peace process - Aaron.

BROWN: And, on the other side, Jerrold Kessel in Jerusalem where a suicide bomber struck a bus, Jerrold the headline from you.

JERROLD KESSELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sixteen people killed there, Aaron, and if 24 hours ago the prospects for the peace initiative launched with such fanfare only a week ago seemed bleak, now given this vortex of violence, through that vortex of violence it seems difficult to see how in any way the peace initiative can be saved.

BROWN: Jerrold, thank you, back to you in a moment.

It's one of the questions we'll talk about tonight.

Also coming up, a very influential voice supporting the White House has pushed war. We'll hear what Richard Perle has now to say about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, and what the United States should do with North Korea as well.

Fighting words from the chief U.N. weapons inspector for the people in the U.S. government he says smeared him, less than diplomatic language tonight from Swedish diplomat Hans Blix.

One year after Catholic Church leaders met in Dallas, the priest abuse scandal continues to play out. We'll look at an enormous settlement in Louisville, Kentucky, and a controversial decision by the New York Archdiocese. We'll talk with Leon Panetta who's been working with the lay group monitoring the reform.

Also tonight, a Cuban pop musician defects, gay couples rush to the altar in Toronto, and we'll look back at two speeches on one remarkable day in the history of the civil rights movement 40 years ago today, all that and more as we begin NEWSNIGHT for a Wednesday.

We begin with the lingering and some would say widening gap between the administration's pre-war rhetoric on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the post-war reality.

The rhetoric left little room for doubt, the reality much murkier. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been calling for a full investigation into the intelligence that went into the decision to launch the war and, while there will be hearings, there is debate over whether they'll be complete.

And tonight, a startling development as well, we turn first to CNN's David Ensor.

ENSOR: Aaron, the United States is going to get some more outside professional help in its search of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. CIA Director George Tenet has appointed veteran U.N. Weapons Inspector David Kay as a special adviser in the search.

Kay is an American citizen but he'll be based in Iraq and he'll work with the some 1,400 experts who are going to start looking for signs of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs, this as the administration faces growing questions both abroad and here in Washington about why no weapons have been found so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Republicans say they will hold closed hearings next week but they reject Democratic calls for a full investigation. SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: In my view, some of the attacks have been simply politics and for political gain.

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), VIRGINIA: The evidence that I have examined does not rise to give the presumption that anyone in this administration has hyped or cooked or embellished such evidence to a particular purpose.

ENSOR: Leading Democrats said a review is not good enough.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: I'm not satisfied with the way we're proceeding, in fact, we're not proceeding.

ENSOR: Rockefeller said Congress should formally investigate whether intelligence was manipulated to make the case for war.

ROCKEFELLER: We need to have public hearings and we need to be able to call witnesses, the witnesses who don't agree. We'll work with intelligence agencies who don't agree. Witnesses have said well we were pressured and they have said it.

ENSOR: Questions for the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees include why did the president cite Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Nijar during his State of the Union Address when the documents in the case were later found to be obvious forgeries?

What evidence did the vice president have to back up his claim that Saddam Hussein "has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons"? Was it based on evidence of Iraqi attempts to buy aluminum tubes even though U.S. intelligence officials still don't agree on whether those tubes were really meant for weapons production?

Why did the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's, Washington's close ally, say that Iraq had chemical weapons deployed for use within 45 minutes of an order, though no such weapons were used by the Iraqis nor have any been found to date?

Bush administration officials are keenly aware that the best way to make this damaging debate go away is to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: More experts are going in and I think one should be careful about making judgments as to what was hyped or not hyped until the exploitation is finished. Thank you.

ENSOR: While Republicans Warner and Roberts are in no hurry to hold open hearings, Warner says they will do so eventually.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: With Democrats questioning the president's primary stated case for war, the political stakes of any investigation on Capitol Hill could be very high indeed and they'll be heading into next year's presidential election - Aaron.

BROWN: Let's go back to the top here and the Kay appointment to go into Iraq. Doesn't that give some credibility to those in the international community who favor the idea of U.N. weapons inspectors going back in simply because they have the expertise?

ENSOR: Well, the United States is hiring some of that expertise, as you say. David Kay is a veteran arms inspector. He was in the IAEA and then in UNSCOM, so he's both looked for nuclear and looked for biological and chemical weapons. He's been there. He's done that. He has a lot of knowledge about Iraq, so yes they're hiring a professional and it does suggest that they realize they need somebody who knows his way around.

BROWN: David, thank you for your work tonight, David Ensor in Washington.

It is fair to say during the run-up to the war, few people bedeviled the Bush administration in the way that Hans Blix did. There were complaints and leaks aplenty about the chief U.N. weapons inspector, mostly to the effect that he was simply too darn diplomatic, too much on the one hand, on the other hand.

Tonight, Dr. Blix is about to become the former chief U.N. weapons inspector and as such is a bit less diplomatic but he's still even handed. He says the Iraqis tried to discredit him, spreading rumors about his sexuality and the Americans tried to smear him in other ways too, reporting for us tonight CNN's Richard Roth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANS BLIX, CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: And then we have the presidential sites.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Satellite photographs on his office wall are the only way Hans Blix can see Iraq these days. The chief weapons inspector and his international searchers are shut out of Iraq by the U.S.

But in his final days on the job, Blix is speaking out more, angry over how he feels he was treated by some in the U.S. government. In an interview in "The Guardian" newspaper, Blix said:

"I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much."

BLIX: Well, I said it vexes me if I have what I regard as totally unjustified accusations but I don't lose sleep over it and I have certainly continued my job here.

ROTH (on camera): You used a word beginning with a "B".

BLIX: Ah, yes, yes. Well, I wasn't sure that would be printed. I don't think it will be printed in America.

ROTH: So, do you think they were, to use the word printed, bastards?

BLIX: Well, I certainly thought, had a low opinion about these detractors but it's not really worth much time.

ROTH (voice-over): Blix in print said some elements of the Pentagon were behind a smear campaign against him.

POWELL: No smear campaign that I'm aware of. I have high regard for Dr. Blix. I worked very closely with Dr. Blix over the last eight or nine months. I know that the president had confidence in him as well and what we're doing now is looking forward not looking backwards.

ROTH: Secretary Powell's briefing to the Security Council has yet to bear fruit on the ground. Blix says he received little intelligence during his time in Iraq his teams could ever confirm. The U.S. has hundreds of people now looking for weapons. If they can't find anything Blix is not seeking any apologies.

BLIX: You do not get apologies in politics. My conscience is entirely clean and I think that we demonstrated that you can have independent and effective international inspection.

ROTH: And the former Swedish foreign minister had this warning for the future.

BLIX: I think one has to be cautious in making use of the armed force on flimsy or shaky grounds.

ROTH (on camera): Hans Blix may have even more to say. He's expected to write a book. Secretary-General Annan defended the chief inspector, adding we haven't heard the last of him.

Richard Roth, CNN, United Nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Earlier today we spoke with a close adviser to the Pentagon and something of a hawk on many questions. Richard Perle is urbane and well spoken on many subjects. We talked primarily about two, North Korea and Iraq, and I don't think he would agree the evidence was flimsy or shaky.

Here's a bit of what he had to say about weapons of mass destruction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD PERLE, FELLOW AT AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: I believe things remain hidden and will not be uncovered until the people who know precisely where they are give us precise instructions. It's like those treasure hunts we went on when we were kids. You had to know it was ten paces to the left of the oak tree and if you started digging anywhere else you'd ruin your mother's lawn but you certainly wouldn't find what was hidden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: We talked more about weapons of mass destruction and Mr. Perle had some startling things to say about North Korea as well. You'll hear that interview a little bit later in the program.

On now to the Middle East and a very Old Testament sort of day it was an eye for an eye. First, a Palestinian suicide bombing, then a pair of Israeli missile attacks. At some point an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind or dead or without much hope for peace let alone a normal life.

Tonight, both sides seem to be getting there. We have two reports beginning first with CNN's Jerrold Kessel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KESSEL (voice-over): The attack that so many had feared came suddenly and at the height of the evening rush hour. A Palestinian disguised as a religious Jew climbed aboard Bus 14 in the bustling thoroughfare of Jaffa (ph) Road and detonated an explosive device.

Thirteen people died on the scene. Others died of their wounds in hospital. Over 100 people were injured in the massive blast. Some remain in critical condition.

The claim of responsibility for the carnage came from the armed wing of the Hamas movement, the attack it said in response to the attempted Israeli assassination of a Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi in Gaza City Tuesday.

ISMAIL ABU SHANAB, HAMAS SPOKESMAN: I think if the Israelis continue killing Palestinian civilians the Palestinians have no other choice except to continue their resistance.

KESSEL: But Israel says its actions against those, it says, of planning terror attacks can not be compared to the ongoing actions of the suicide bombers.

RA'ANAN GISSIN, SHARON SPOKESMAN: What we're talking about is deliberate, premeditated campaign at murdering innocent Israelis.

KESSEL: From the Palestinian prime minister a strong condemnation of the Jerusalem killings and of the Israeli action in Gaza and from Yasser Arafat a call for an immediate ceasefire and the deployment of outside observers to enforce it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KESSEL: But Hamas is rejecting those calls and Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is saying there's no point and he's not interested in trying to get a ceasefire with the militant groups.

And while, Aaron, these political security and strategic positions take or don't take hold on Israel streets, people are saying that however many bombings they've been through, and there have been all too many, they can't get used to it. At the same time many people however are saying they also believe that they'll have to live with it for some time to come - Aaron.

BROWN: It's a question we're going to ask several times more tonight, is it the view there from what you can tell that the peace process so new has been severely damaged?

KESSEL: It may be even more than severely damaged, maybe even mortally wounded. There is a strategic fault line emerging here. Ariel Sharon seems to be saying we cannot accept that the Palestinian Authority, even as good intentioned as Mahmoud Abbas the new Palestinian prime minister is should be trying to work out a ceasefire with the Palestinian militants, the terror groups as Mr. Sharon calls them, even though the president, President Bush, has said that that's the way the peace road can take off that there can be a ceasefire put in place that Mr. Abbas can get the militants in check.

Mr. Sharon is saying no, no way, no way to deal with the militants and that leaves, as I say, a strategic fault line on this peace initiative. It could be mortally wounded and it could be mortally wounded by more bombings.

BROWN: Jerrold, thank you very much, Jerrold Kessel.

Next to the Israeli side and two attacks today aimed at the leadership of Hamas, both apparently part of the policy of eliminating what Israel refers to as targets of opportunity even when the opportunity presents itself at a time and place where a lot of civilians are nearby, reporting again, CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice-over): Israeli helicopters were in the air over Gaza City about an hour after the Jerusalem suicide bus bombing. It seemed to be immediate retaliation by Israel but Israeli security sources say the timing was purely coincidental.

The helicopter gun ships fired on a car in a crowded neighborhood killing three members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and four bystanders, according to Palestinian sources.

Amel Dalul (ph) says his two sisters were killed, his daughter and his wife among the 40 Palestinians who were injured.

"This is the biggest crime in Gaza and the West Bank" he said. "My sisters who were killed what is their fault?"

Hours later another Israeli air strike killed two members of Hamas who Israeli security sources say were on their way to fire homemade rockets at Israel. The four Israeli attacks in Gaza in two days sent more angry Palestinians to the streets, the outrage building after Israel's failed attempt Tuesday to kill the public face of Hamas in Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Hamas vowed to retaliate in a big way.

SHANAB: It is our (unintelligible) to protect ourself against Israelis atrocities, Israeli savageness and brutality against our people.

WALLACE: And later, Hamas took responsibility for the Jerusalem bloodshed. In the West Bank, condemnation of the bus bombing and Israel's air strikes from Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and President Yasser Arafat. "The evil, vicious cycle of military operations for all parties must stop" President Arafat said.

Wednesday's attacks by Israel came despite rare and blunt criticism from the White House, a sign Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will continue to pursue Palestinian militants, in his words, to the end.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Palestinians say Mr. Sharon's actions are undermining the Palestinian prime minister and one aide to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas put it this way. He says this is a last chance for the Palestinian prime minister. Either he makes some progress soon on that Mid East roadmap and delivers a ceasefire or this aide is saying the new Palestinian government could possibly fail - Aaron.

BROWN: Kelly, thank you, Kelly Wallace. You've had a long day, get some rest. Thank you very much.

Stephen Cohen is with us. We'll talk more with Mr. Cohen a little bit later in the program. We wanted to get a quick take from him now. Stephen, you talked to all sides on this. In your conversations with the Palestinian side, is there a concern there that this government, the Palestinian government could fall apart as Kelly just mentioned?

STEPHEN COHEN, INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT: I find that there's a remarkable amount of commitment on the part of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to stay with it, to stay with his program, not to give in, not to give in.

I think that what we have to have here is an attitude of deeply mourning the dead, mourning all the dead, and then we have to have an attitude of intensification of American monitoring, making the monitoring mechanism into a prevention of war mechanism, and I will explain that more later.

BROWN: Great and we look forward to that and we've got a number of other questions for you. Thank you, Stephen. Stephen Cohen (unintelligible) talks to. He's one of the very few people really in the region who is able to talk with both the Palestinians and the Israeli side and is respected by both and we'll have him back a little bit later in the program.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT still fighting over taxes with Republicans on both sides and moms if you will caught in the middle.

Also tonight, a Cuban heartthrob defects to the United States trying to make music for a whole new audience.

Lots more ahead, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On now to a political fight that seems to just keep going over some low-income families left out of getting an increase in the child tax credit, a tax cut if you will in the big tax bill the president signed.

The White House has made it clear they want this issue to go away. They want the House to pass the Senate bill that wouldn't leave these families out anymore and coincidentally would also take some political pressure off the president.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is not bending that easy. They don't call him "the hammer" after all for nothing. Today, he felt the hammer of another force, one beyond the White House, the stroller brigade.

Here's CNN Congressional Correspondent Kate Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A made for TV rally orchestrated by the Children's Defense Fund, the focus by Democratic speakers on extending the child tax credit increase to millions of lower income Americans.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D), WASHINGTON: Tom DeLay says it ain't going to happen. I stand here with you today and say it is going to happen on the power and the importance of the people of America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Families with strollers up this way, up this way.

SNOW: Following organizers moms and dad, kids in strollers walked for blocks past the Supreme Court headed to Majority Leader DeLay's office. Most of the families CNN talked to didn't know why DeLay was targeted, didn't know the details of the partisan battle over the child tax credit and most of these moms are getting a check this summer for the $400 increase in the child tax credit signed into law by President Bush.

Colleen McChrystal (ph), a lawyer from the Capitol Hill neighborhood brought eight-week-old David out. She says she doesn't need a tax break.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seems like everything we've done for tax breaks in the last year or two is about the wealthiest top percent and frankly people probably like me who really don't need it and to keep taking from the folks who we are supposed to be here to help. The government, that's what it's supposed to be about is helping those who have a whole lot less.

SNOW: As the moms pass through security, House Republicans were just wrapping up a meeting upstairs. Tom DeLay, who rarely works out of this building avoided the cameras but Republicans can do political theater too.

When the crowd reached DeLay's door they were greeted by Press Secretary Stuart Roy holding his two-year-old daughter Hallie (ph).

STUART ROY, PRESS SECRETARY: We want to extend this $1,000 per child tax credit for years to come and not let it end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why didn't you do that in the earlier tax bill and we can do that next year. But meanwhile, why don't (unintelligible) now.

ROY: We would have loved to extend the $1,000 per child tax credit and made it permanent but it was people like you and the Democrats that wouldn't allow us to (unintelligible).

SNOW: House Republicans argue the tax bill already did a lot for low-income Americans but with the White House pushing to get this issue off the television screens, the House will vote Thursday on a bill to expand the child tax credit even further, a bill more expensive than many Democrats would like.

Kate Snow, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: To a very different story now, a story about a young musician with boy band looks, a loyal following in his home country, and a new CD to sell. Today, he became an international star in the news at least because this young man is from Cuba and his new chosen home is Miami.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A few days ago Carlos Manuel and his band were performing a concert in Mexico City. After the show, they were supposed to board a jet back to Cuba but Manuel had another journey in mind. He caught a different plane and flew to Monterey, Mexico.

From there, he jumped into a taxicab and drove straight north to the U.S.-Mexico border. Manuel walked across the bridge and asked federal agents in Brownsville, Texas for asylum, a life-altering journey which has brought Manuel to Miami where his agent put the experience into simple words.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're finally home.

LAVANDERA: Carlos Manuel says Cuba's communist government would never allow him to have a successful musical career.

"I don't agree with the regime" he says. "I'm tired of being a hypocrite. I always had the hope that Cuba would change but every day it keeps taking steps backwards."

(on camera): Carlos Manuel's arrival might be getting a lot of fanfare in the U.S., especially in Miami, but that's not the case in Cuba. Fidel Castro's regime hasn't responded publicly to this high profile defection but word is spreading on Havanna streets and most people say they're shocked by the news. (voice-over): A Cuban radio station recently declared Manuel's band the most popular salsa group on the island. Manuel's defection follows a long line of musicians that have escaped from Cuba, including jazz musician Arturo Sandoval who defected in 1990.

He says, "I love my country but I want to send my people a message. I love my island but I'm going to keep working and one day you'll get to see the way the world is," all in the hopes of not just finding artistic freedom but more importantly personal freedom.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, a massive payment for past abuse, the Diocese of Louisville pays victims of some priests.

Also, we'll talk with Leon Panetta who is part of the group monitoring how the American Catholic Church is dealing with these questions of abuse.

Take a break first, around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Now to something we haven't talked on in a while, the priest abuse scandal. And words that struck us from one longtime priest in Louisville, Kentucky. During a deposition he was asked to assess his work has a priest. And he said, quote, "I did a very excellent job except for the damn abuse." Reverend Lewis Miller will spend the next two decades in prison for the view he seems to view as mere footnote to his career. And his archdiocese is paying one of the largest settlements yet to compensate the victims and the victims of his dozen of colleagues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Not in an especially large archdiocese, around 200,000 Roman Catholics in all. But the settlement terms were staggering. Nearly $26 million to be paid out to 243 people, men and women, who said they were abused over a 50-year period. The archbishop speaking directly to the victims.

THOMAS KELLY, ARCHBISHOP, LOUISVILLE: No child should ever have to have had to experience what happened to you. I promise that we're doing everything we can to prevent child abuse in the church.

BROWN: The agreement was reached in only five days and is the second largest ever resulting from abuse cases in the Catholic church. Only a $30 million settlement in Dallas in 1998 is larger.

BRIAN REYNOLDS, CHANCELLOR, ARCHDIOCESE: The impact on the archdiocese will be real and significant, we do not know yet the details. But we so far have already done a significant process of reducing our expenditures for the coming year. We've already reduced our work force by 12 percent. BROWN: More than 200 individual lawsuits have been filed against the Louisville Archdiocese. Many singling out just one priest of the Reverend Louis Miller. He is retired and sentenced last month to 20 years in prison for child abuse. Many of those who will receive money remain bitter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whatever money that I'm getting, I deserve a penny of it and you know. And I'm sure whatever I am getting is a whole lot less than what I should deserve.

BROWN: Insurance will not cover the settlement, which is to be paid out within a month. And a key word will never again be used, says the victim's principle attorney, when the church in Louisville talks about what happened.

WILLIAM MCMURRY, LEAD ATTORNEY: Archdiocese of Louisville has agreed in writing to never again refer to these 243 brave men and women as alleged victims.

BROWN: As for the archbishop himself, no word on whether Thomas C. Kelly will resign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And it was news today beyond Louisville, Kentucky, it was reported that the New York archdiocese will not release the results of its own investigation of 13 priests. Prosecutors decided not to charge 12 of them. Either because of a lack of evidence or because the statue of limitations had expired. One victim advocate said this, here we are again, same old secrecy. Supporters say the archdiocese is simply trying to protect innocent priests. So a year after church leaders met in Dallas to address the scandal, there is still a lot of issues to contend with.

We're joined tonight from Monterey, California, by Leon Panetta a former Clinton chief of staff. A member of Congress, but now a key member in the Lay Group Catholic National Review Board.

Mr. Panetta, good evening to you.

Take a couple of second it is and describe the board, the board's function, and who's the board's boss?

LEON PANETTA, CATHOLIC NATIONAL REVIEW BOARD: Well, a year ago, as you described, the bishops gathered together in Dallas and they developed, what are called now the Dallas accords. And in that Dallas agreement, they called for the creation of a national lay review committee, which is the one that I'm a part of. They called for the establishment of an office for child and youth protection. And they also called for studies to determine the scope and extent of the abuses that had taken place in the various diocese. And the review of the context and the causes for the abuses.

BROWN: On the subject of those studies, this is a lengthy and somewhat complexed questionnaire sent out to 190 diocese in the country. And about a third have not returned them would suggest an unwillingness to be helpful?

PANETTA: Well, actually, we've heard from about 134 of the 194 diocese have responded in some way to the study that was sent out. So we have gotten pretty good cooperation from most of the diocese. There are some that have raised legal concerns. Their attorneys have raised concerns about just exactly what information will be protected. They're worried about lawsuits. They are worried about the laws that apply to them in particular states and there are some that have outright refused to cooperate at all. So overall, we're getting pretty good cooperation, but still some resistance.

BROWN: What power, if any, does the board have to deal about those bishop, these are the decision makers here, who have decided for whatever reasons not to be cooperative?

Any power at all?

PANETTA: Well, ultimately, look, bishops have to respond to the pope and the pope can tell them what to do. But the fact is that the bishops themselves came together in Dallas. They said they were establishing a zero tolerance policy. They said they were going to put in place steps to try to deal with the serious scandal that's affected the church. I mean, I think they all recognized that this is -- this has done serious damage to the trust and credibility, particularly of the hierarchy and the leadership of the church to the faithful. And ultimately if they are going to repair that, they have to assess the nature of this problem. How many of these abuses took place, and what are they doing to deal with it so it never happens again.

BROWN: Is there -- do you think there is some resentment on the part of -- parts of the leadership in the church that they have to deal with a lay group at all?

PANETTA: Well, of course, you know, these diocese in many ways are feed into themselves. The bishops have basically controlled and determined what happens within each diocese. But at the same time, I think the bishops themselves recognize they've got a serious problem here. And it has to be confronted. I think to their credit, they established this review committee, to their credit, they established this office of child protection. And to their credit, they really do want to assess what the nature of this problem is throughout this country. And so they have committed themselves to doing this. And I think if they reverse themselves or if they are not cooperative, I think it will just further damage their credibility.

BROWN: Mr. Panetta, we appreciate your time. Nice to see you again, sir. Leon Panetta from Monterey, California.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the uproar in the Canadian government over a courting approving gay marriage. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: June, of course, is a big month for weddings, but this June day in particular will surely be remembered as an especially joyous day for one group of people. Dozens of couples, gay couples applied for marriage licenses in Toronto, after a court there ruled that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

But while it's brought joy to these couples it's still a matter of fierce debate among politicians in Canada. The story from Susan Bonner of the CBC.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN BONNER, CBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Ottawa's city hall, a quick response to yesterday's court ruling. Renay Solvet (ph) and Tracy Braun (ph) get a marriage license, and then get married, one day after an Ontario appeals court ruled the law preventing them from doing so was unconstitutional.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty exciting. I would say we were not really planning on it.

BONNER: On Parliament Hill, no quick response. Just more intense debate. Should the government appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, or accept the five recent court rulings and allow same-sex marriages?

NIC DISCEPOLA, QUEBEC LIBERAL MP: I think that enough courts in various provinces have spoken. Obviously if you take a look also at the mood in Canada, it's open. And I firmly, to paraphrase a former prime minister, I think what people do in their own bedrooms is their own business.

JOE FONTANA, ONTARIO LIBERAL MP: We should appeal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

FONTANA: Well, because I personally don't believe in same sex marriages. Same sex benefits have already been approved. There's nothing wrong with common law relationships.

BONNER: Some liberals say Ottawa should allow civil marriages and let religious organizations make their own rules.

MARIA MINNA, ONTARIO LIBERAL MP: People talk about marriage as being a sanctity. With respect to religion, when it's civil union, the charter is (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BONNER: Others say they'd fight even a Supreme Court ruling, with a constitutional hammer if it came to it.

PAT O'BRIEN, ONTARIO LIBERAL MP: If the Supreme Court of Canada was to order Parliament to redefine something as fundamental as marriage, I would be the first person going to the mic to call for the minister to use a notwithstanding clause.

BONNER: The minister says the government is listening to all the views, still deciding what to do.

MARTIN CAUCHON, MINISTER OF JUSTICE: We're looking at the file seriously. We want to make sure that we're going to have a national solution to that question. And having said that, I'm not in a position today to give you the official government position.

BONNER (on camera): Until the government decides if it will appeal, same-sex marriages will go ahead and will be legal. At least in Ontario. The reference to the need to find a national solution indicates just how much confusion there is out there now about the state of the law across the country.

Susan Bonner, CBC News, Ottawa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll check some of the day's other top stories, here and around the world. And later, a confrontation over segregation as it played out on the steps of the University of Alabama and on national television as well, 40 years ago today. Break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time for the roundup. A few more stories making news around the world today. Starting in old Europe, as they say. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was there, in part to mend fences over the war. And he did sort of, suggesting that Western European lacked vision on Iraq. OK, that wasn't fence mending, but he also said transatlantic friendships are strong enough to withstand occasional disagreements here and there.

In southern Germany, six people died when two trains collided. No word yet of what caused the crash. But one of trains had been running late, putting it at the wrong place at the wrong time may have figured in the accident.

And aboard the International Space Station, there's plenty in the pantry tonight. An unmanned Russian supply ship paid a visit this morning. It's out there somewhere. Carrying about two tons of food, equipment and other supplies.

And here are a few items from around this country tonight. Beginning with the story of a man accused of kidnapping a 9-year-old California girl late last week. Enrique Alvarez was arraigned today on multiple felony counts of kidnap rape. His public defender asked for more time to revierw the case, and no formal plea will be entered until next month. Mr. Alvarez was arrested on Monday; 9-year-old was found safe Sunday at a convenience store not far from her home in San Jose. She had been kidnapped on Friday.

The latest on a hazing case in suburban Chicago caught on tape. A Cook County judge today ordered the teens charged in the incident to avoid any contact with the victims. Fifteen teens are charged with misdemeanor battery. Another teen and two parents are accused of supplying alcohol, which apparently fueled this madness. And it's been nearly a half a century since it happened. A no- hitter against the New York Yankees. This one at the hands of six pitchers for the Houston Astros. The Astros win it 8-0. The last team to keep the Yankees' hit list was Baltimore, September 20, 1958. The boss, Mr. Steinbrenner, is not going to be happy. Is he? Oh, my.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, 40 years ago, the tide of desegregation hits the University of Alabama, as President Kennedy addresses the nation to ask its support for civil rights. A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's often the case that events sweep up people who never intended to make history. Forty years ago today, Vivian Malone and James Hood were just two young people trying to get an education. What set them on a collision course with history was the color of their skin, and the fact they lived in the state of Alabama.

Today the battles over race in this country seemed less monumental than they did two generations ago. They are still there. They are still being fought. But while they are no less important, they are less stark than the battle that took place four decades ago today, a day that began with a confrontation at a schoolhouse door and ended with an address to the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Forty years ago today, two young men who will occupy very different pages of American history were joined in an early and important battle in the civil rights movement.

George Corley Wallace, the governor of Alabama, made good on his promise to stand in the doorway at the University of Alabama to prevent integration.

GOV. GEORGE WALLACE (D), ALABAMA: I seek to preserve and maintain the peace and dignity of this state and the individual's freedoms of the citizen thereof and hereby denounce and forbid this illegal and unworded action by the central government.

BROWN: It was, of course, a losing proposition. The federal government, at President Kennedy's, order had sent in the national guard to integrate the university. And two young black students, names now mostly forgotten, James Hood and Vivian Malone, also found their place in history that day, when the federal government insured their enrollment at their state's university. And George Wallace turned the day's defeat into a political career that included two runs for the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He stood in the university door, but he stepped aside when federal marshals confronted him with a court order. Alabama thus became the last state of the union to end total segregation.

BROWN: It is not that the day invented civil rights. But that day 40 years ago, seemed to change the debate, as the young president with some eloquence spoke to the country.

JOHN F. KENNEDY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities; whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public; if he cannot send his children to the best public school available; if he cannot vote for the public people who represent him; if in short he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, north and south, where legal remedies are not at hand, redress is sought in the street, in demonstrations, parades and protests, which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives. My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all in every city of the North as well as the South. Today there are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites, and adequate education, moving into large cities, unable to find work, young people particularly out of work, without hope, denied their equal rights, denied to the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or a lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right decent education, denied almost today a state university, even though qualified.

It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely presidents or Congressman or governors, but every citizen of the United States. This is one country. It has become one country, because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can't have that right. Your children can't have the chance to develop whatever talents they have, that the only way that they're going to get their right is to go into the street and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.

This is what we're talking about. And this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for. And in meeting it, I ask the support of all of our citizens. Thank you very much.

BROWN: A year later, after the president's murder, the Congress passed the landmark '64 Civil Rights Bill. And in many ways, many people still believe the country struggles to live up to the president's words and the bill's promise.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll continue to look at the events 40 years ago in a moment. Pulitzer Prizewinner Diane McWhorter joins us, as does Jeff Greenfield.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: More now on the story behind the events in Alabama and in Washington 40 years ago tonight.

We're joined by Diane McWhorter, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Carry Me Home" was about growing up in Birmingham in the '60s. And by Jeff Greenfield as well.

I asked you this before we went back on the air. Do you remember that day? Did it seem like a huge and important day to a white child in Alabama?

DIANA MCWHORTER, AUTHOR, "CARRY ME HOME": Well, my friends and my family and I were very embarrassed by Wallace, so this was just another thing he had done in a long line of embarrassing things to us, even though morally we weren't opposed to what he was doing. He was just doing it in sort of a crass and bigoted, you know, too -- crude way that we didn't appreciate.

BROWN: As occasionally we have to do when we sit here, do you actually remember the day? We'll just ask the question again.

MCWHORTER: No, I don't.

BROWN: OK.

MCWHORTER: Yes.

BROWN: But, I mean, the -- that's telling in its own way, that while we -- I'm not sure, Jeff, was it a huge national event? You're a little bit older than I. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: It was, because it had followed the weeks of demonstrations in Birmingham that was really the first tremendously televised event. Martin Luther King had vowed to fill the jails of Birmingham. Bull Connor, the public safety commissioner, had unleashed the police dogs and fire hoses. That had become a worldwide phenomenon in which television, network television, really played a dramatic role.

So this was a big deal leading up to the desegregation.

BROWN: One of the problems with all of this stuff is, for me, is that you've seen it so many times since, you're not exactly whether you saw it at the time.

The president, fair to say the president was in some respects pulled, as opposed to willingly entered, the arena of civil rights?

GREENFIELD: Very fair. The Kennedy administration had a really mediocre, at best, civil rights record. It wasn't on their -- it wasn't a priority. Congress was dominated by Southern Democrats. They had to do the bidding of those committee chairs to get the other legislative programs through.

It was an embarrassment because of the cold war frame, in which demonstrations and protests and police beatings looked bad in the third world. But it wasn't until Birmingham erupted, it wasn't until that became unavoidable, that they -- that John and Robert Kennedy both moved -- and I think Robert Kennedy helped push his brother -- to say, No, this is a moral issue here. This is more than just an embarrassment.

MCWHORTER: Yes, that was a big, that was a huge change for them to do that, because he was usually so dry and ironic, and he wasn't comfortable with that sort of evangelical language, even though the delivery was quite dry.

BROWN: Yes.

MCWHORTER: This was a sea change. He had been meeting with businessmen across the nation, saying, You need to do this because it's the smart thing to do. He hadn't really gone publicly and said, It's the right thing to do. And...

GREENFIELD: No president had. First time a president said flatly, This is a moral issue.

BROWN: Was President Kennedy 40 years ago.

GREENFIELD: Yes, but I'm saying he was the first (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BROWN: So when Ike sent the troops into Little Rock, to integrate Central High School there, he was merely enforcing the court, the law.

GREENFIELD: He thought that the Brown versus Board of Education, Eisenhower, was the worst -- one of the worst decisions the court ever did. He has said appointing Warren was the worst mistake he ever made.

MCWHORTER: And the University of Alabama had been desegregated in 1956, and he refused, and a mob overtook the university, kicked out Autherine Lucy (ph), and Eisenhower refused to send troops in to enforce the court order. And so he was sort of forced into it at Little Rock.

That's why Faubus, or, you know, the governor of Arkansas, dared to defy the court order.

BROWN: When you think about it now, when you look back at the way you were brought up in that city, in that time, does it seem surreal, the things that you believed?

MCWHORTER: Yes, yes, sure it does. Although one of the important lessons of the schoolhouse door thing, though, is that the very cagey thing Wallace did was, he made the federal government the enemy, because in the South, we referred to our beloved colored people. And the Kennedy administration had decided they were not going to expose Vivian Lauren (ph) and James Hood (ph) to the insults and this governor, so that they were going to, you know, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) handle the confrontation.

What that meant (UNINTELLIGIBLE), they're playing into Wallace -- played into Wallace's hands, because now he says he's fighting the big bad federal government, instead of our dear colored people...

BROWN: Yes.

MCWHORTER: ... that, you know, he, you know, bought sandwiches for.

GREENFIELD: And as you point out, Wallace, by the way, made four runs at the presidency, not two, four, and the civil rights helped turn the South from Democrat to Republican, as Lyndon Johnson said when he signed the Civil Rights Act.

So there was a certain ironic consequence of this great movement. It was one of the most important political movements because it reshaped both parties.

BROWN: An unknowable, we're less than a minute here. Do you think the '64 (UNINTELLIGIBLE), Jeff, the '64 civil rights bill would have passed had the president not been assassinated?

GREENFIELD: Would have been very tough. It finally passed because of the power of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and that Ev Dirksen, the Republican leader, said, This is an idea whose time has come. Very dicey that they would have done that without the...

BROWN: It was Republican votes that mattered a lot to pass that bill.

GREENFIELD: Yes. Absolutely.

BROWN: And at what point did you look at your life and go, This has been crazy?

MCWHORTER: Well, I mean, I know that when I was 15, when Dr. King was assassinated, and even though I, you know, mourned his death, I thought the South's problems were going to be over. So even at that late date, in 1968, I didn't get it.

And then the counterculture changed me. And I...

BROWN: Yes.

MCWHORTER: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) college, and that was it.

BROWN: Countercultural changed us all.

Nice to see you again. Thanks for coming in to see you. Thank you both.

NEWSNIGHT continues. We'll go back to the Middle East, find out what leaders on both sides are saying about whether there's a way out of this latest cycle of violence.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are times, we imagine, when the bully pulpit a president enjoys can seem awfully small, especially when it comes to the Middle East. Barring the sending of troops or cutting off aid, there is little any president has ever done when the killing starts, beyond condemning both sides and wishing for the best.

Which is what President Bush did today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace, the people who want to kill in order to make sure that the desires of Israel to live in secure and peace don't happen, who kill to make sure the desires of the prime minister from the Palestinian Authority and others of a peaceful state living side by side with Israel do not happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So what to make of the job for the president and both prime ministers after a day like this, which followed another day not much different?

We're joined again by Stephen Cohen. Mr. Cohen, as we've mentioned earlier, is one of the very few people who talks for both sides on this, respected by both sides. And we respect him as well.

Stephen, how much damage has been done to the road map in the last three or four days?

STEPHEN COHEN, INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT: It's a very heavy moment. And there's going to be a lot of despair that's going to spread very fast. And the question is whether or not the president's determination is going to be able to be strong enough to overcome that spreading despair.

I listened carefully to his voice in making that announcement. The sighs are the real sound of the sadness. And I hope, I hope that that sadness is the recognition by the president that he has entered into one of the great moral struggles of our time.

This conflict is a great challenge to the history of American diplomacy. Every president in the postwar period, post-World War II period, has struggled with this. And each one in turn has been deeply affected by it.

I believe that President Bush has the right platform to make a real difference. That platform is that the United States has now been forced into an awareness of the Middle East of a much deeper kind than it's ever faced before. What we faced since September 11 is a crashing awareness that the Middle East problem is not a local disturbance that we can tut-tut about, but rather a world problem that spreads across its borders and does damage and destruction everywhere.

And...

BROWN: Stephen...

COHEN: ... we can't just let this go on.

BROWN: Let me, let me try and get a couple of things in here before we have to finish. You make it seem as if the principal player in all of this isn't the Palestinian prime minister, is not the Israeli prime minister, but is the president of the United States.

COHEN: No, I think that the president has to be listening to the voices of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people, even beyond their leaders. Their deepest desires to have this over, to be able to walk in their own streets, and to be able to go to their jobs and to have their children go to school, that's what he has to be hearing more than anything else.

I believe that he spoke to that when he went to Aqaba. I believe that he has to take very strong action to make it happen.

I believe that with the road map, he has the first elements of awareness of what is necessary. He knows that he has to take away from them the weapons of destruction that they use against each other, the terrorism, the violence, the occupation, the settlements, which give Palestinians such anger and despair.

We know that these things are on the road map list right at the beginning. The president has to move the monitoring mechanism, which is a mechanism that looks backward to what has already been done, into a preventive mechanism, which becomes the world's statement and the American people's statement that this time, we are determined to make sure that we do everything we can to try to hear that voice of the people which wants this to end.

I want to tell you, Aaron, I have been in Israel, I have been with the Palestinians, I have been in Egypt.

And everywhere people are despair -- in despair, but they are hoping against hope that maybe this time something can move, that with all of what has changed in the Middle East since September 11, since the American war in Iraq, with all of this violence that we've experienced here between the Israelis and Palestinians in the last two and a half years, that maybe the world community will simply assert, Enough is enough, we're going to stop this.

BROWN: Stephen, thank you for your time. Have a safe journey over there, and we'll talk to you when you get back.

Stephen Cohen in the Middle East again for us. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the search for weapons of mass destruction. We'll talk with Richard Perle, influential in the Bush administration, or with people in the Bush administration, about his views on Iraq, and some controversial thoughts about North Korea as well. Mr. Perle in a moment.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For a private citizen, Richard Perle has a way of finding himself in the thick of public policy, and frequently the headlines too. And today, if some hawks are less certain about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction than they were before the war, Mr. Perle is not among them.

And he has a pretty clear view of what he thinks the United States ought to do in North Korea as well.

We talked about both subjects earlier today.

Mr. Perle, I want to talk about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but before we get there, you're quoted today in a Reuters story dealing with North Korea and the nuclear reactor there, and the gist of it is that it may be necessary, in your view, for the United States to take out that North Korean nuclear reactor, because that's the basis, theoretically, at least, of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

Is that in fact your view?

RICHARD PERLE, FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, I would hope that it would not come to that, that we would succeed politically, diplomatically, in persuading the North Koreans that it's not in their interest to become a vendor of nuclear weapons to the world.

But if they continue down the path of building nuclear weapons, and we are unable to deal with this politically and diplomatically, we cannot exclude direct action. It would be foolish to exclude it at this point.

BROWN: You say in this piece that it is -- would- it is simply -- I'm paraphrasing here -- unacceptable to allow the North Koreans to have these weapons, correct?

PERLE: That's correct. The North Koreans, first of all, have acquired this nuclear material by violating all of their commitments under a variety of international agreements. They have indicated a willingness to sell weapons almost to anyone who will pay for them, and we have to assume that they would do the same with nuclear weapons if they had a stockpile from which to deal.

So this is a threat of such a magnitude that we simply cannot allow them to involve themselves in serial production of nuclear weapons. BROWN: Talk to me for a minute about if it were to come to this, the implications of it. Certainly it would be -- they would consider this an act of war. Would this not for example, put the city of Seoul, South Korea, in considerable danger if the United States were to launch even a surgical strike on North Korea?

PERLE: Well of course, the North Koreans have said that almost anything would be an act of war, including nonviolent means of trying to contain their behavior. There is -- at any time the North Koreans could, if they chose to do so, attack the city of Seoul, which unfortunately is very close to massed North Korean artillery.

Whether they would do that or not -- it would surely be suicidal from the point of view of the North Korean regime -- no one can say. So we're not talking about certainties, we're talking at most about risks.

These are not risks that should be taken lightly. And I believe it's premature to come to any conclusion about the future, because we are trying through political and diplomatic means to achieve a result, and the result is an end to this North Korean program of building nuclear weapons and possibly offering them on the world market.

BROWN: Let's move on to Iraq now. Obviously there is a -- there is a -- some considerable concern over the inability to this point of finding these stores of weapons of mass destruction. Do you think it is now reasonable that there is less there than the administration suggested, implied, or outright said?

PERLE: What the administration said was that the United Nations inspectors, who left the country in 1998, left behind a detailed accounting of what had been produced by North Korea, minus what it was known had been destroyed. And the balance was assumed to have been hidden by the North -- by Saddam Hussein.

It was assumed to have been hidden by him, in part, because we knew he had created an organization for the precise purpose of hiding those things. And as Colin Powell exhibited at the United Nations, we even heard them talking from time to time about moving things before inspectors could arrive.

So that was the evidentiary basis for our conclusion about Saddam's holdings. He simply never offered convincing evidence that those stockpiles had been destroyed. To this day, we don't know what the disposition of those stockpiles was. I believe things remain hidden and will not be uncovered until the people who know precisely where they are give us precise instructions.

It's like those treasure hunts we went on when we were kids. You had to know it was 10 paces to the left of the oak tree, and if you started digging anywhere else, you'd ruin your mother's lawn, but you certainly wouldn't find what was hidden.

BROWN: Well, why do you think they haven't given it up to this point? PERLE: Well, we have to make contact with, gain the confidence of, those individuals who have knowledge. And I have no doubt that will happen in due course. We've already been made aware of elements of their program by people who have talked to us. And we should not underestimate the importance of having found, after having been alerted to the existence of, those mobile facilities that I think were clearly intended for the production of weapons.

And the people who put us onto that may well have provided other leads.

But it takes time, in a country the size of Iraq, you cannot make random searches, and you cannot go back to known sites, which is what the U.N. inspectors did prior to the war. We will only find things when people with precise knowledge come forward and tell us, and they have to know they can do that safe for the remnant of Saddam's regime, and probably safe from prosecution as well.

BROWN: Let me, just as a final question here, what do you think, if you think, the implications would be if it turns out that there is, in fact, less here than the administration implied? Does that damage American credibility around the world?

PERLE: Well, it shouldn't, if there were a fair appraisal of the information that was available before the war alongside what we may come to know when we have a fuller picture. I am quite sure that eventually we will be able to reconstruct most of what Saddam did with weapons of mass destruction, what was produced, how it was ultimately disposed of, or where it remains hidden.

And, you know, people don't realize, but the quantities of anthrax necessary to destroy tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are, in volume terms, very small. A standard-sized trash can could hold enough nerve agent or biological agent to kill very large numbers of people.

So we're talking about, in volume terms, small quantities of extremely lethal materials that are easy to hide and have almost certainly been hidden.

BROWN: Mr. Perle, we know you're a busy man. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you very much.

PERLE: Always a pleasure. All the best.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

Richard Perle earlier today.

Coming up next, tomorrow's news, check the morning papers. Break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time to check morning papers, newspapers from around the country and around the world. It's been a little tense here on the set, a dispute between the producer and the stage manager. The stage manager is always right.

Here's why you have to buy both newspapers in Detroit if you live in Detroit. You barely tell it's in the same city, based on the headlines.

"The Detroit Free Press" first. I love this story. "Farmer Jack Fights Back." I don't -- look, I'm not sure why this is a front-page story. "Detroit-Based Grocery Chain Is Changing to a Daily Discount Plan." OK.

Anyway, that's a big story. They put the Middle East on the front page. But down at the bottom, "DNA Clears Man Jailed for Rape." Of course, there's an auto story, it's the 100th anniversary of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of Ford. OK, that's "The Detroit Free Press."

"The Detroit News," same city, different paper. None of those stories appear. They've got a big -- well, the Mideast story does. A big "Detroit News" exclusive about the police department there and the mayor, it's a very messy situation there, sort of thing we love.

Anyway, two good papers, and buy them both. It sets you back a buck. It's not a bad deal.

How much time? Thank you.

"The Oregonian," out there in Portland, Oregon. This story down in the corner here, "Study Puts Face on Patients in Assisted Suicide." Assisted suicide is legal in the state of Oregon, and they looked at why people do it, not so much because they can't manage the pain, but because they want their independence. That's a terrific story from "The Oregonian."

That's our report for tonight. We're back tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us then. 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

Rights Not a Priority for the Kennedy Administration; Despair Spreads in Middle East; Perle Advocates Strike on North Korean Reactor If Diplomacy Fails>

Aired June 11, 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.
In the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it seems doubt is starting to seep in. We heard it on this program more than a week ago from Ken Adleman, a hawk's hawk.

And, we heard it again the other day from Bill Kristol, the conservative writer who also championed the war in part because he said the threat from Iraq was imminent.

Perhaps, said Mr. Kristol the other day, misstatements were made where weapons of mass destruction were concerned. In fairness, he also said it didn't change his view that the war was just, just did change the notion that the threat was imminent.

It is again the search for weapons of mass destruction that begins the whip tonight. David Ensor again on the story for us so, David, start us off with a headline.

DAVIS ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the CIA is bringing in a veteran professional to help them look for weapons of mass destruction even as Republicans and Democrats on the Hill are beginning to spar about just how much of an investigation to do into whether the intelligence backed up the administration's claims prior to war.

BROWN: David, thank you.

On to a terribly bloody day in the Middle East, Kelly Wallace first in Gaza, Kelly your headline.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, two Israeli air strikes in the span of a few hours leaves nine people dead and sent angry Palestinians to the streets. Israel says it's targeting groups such as Hamas but Palestinians say Israel is sabotaging the peace process - Aaron.

BROWN: And, on the other side, Jerrold Kessel in Jerusalem where a suicide bomber struck a bus, Jerrold the headline from you.

JERROLD KESSELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sixteen people killed there, Aaron, and if 24 hours ago the prospects for the peace initiative launched with such fanfare only a week ago seemed bleak, now given this vortex of violence, through that vortex of violence it seems difficult to see how in any way the peace initiative can be saved.

BROWN: Jerrold, thank you, back to you in a moment.

It's one of the questions we'll talk about tonight.

Also coming up, a very influential voice supporting the White House has pushed war. We'll hear what Richard Perle has now to say about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, and what the United States should do with North Korea as well.

Fighting words from the chief U.N. weapons inspector for the people in the U.S. government he says smeared him, less than diplomatic language tonight from Swedish diplomat Hans Blix.

One year after Catholic Church leaders met in Dallas, the priest abuse scandal continues to play out. We'll look at an enormous settlement in Louisville, Kentucky, and a controversial decision by the New York Archdiocese. We'll talk with Leon Panetta who's been working with the lay group monitoring the reform.

Also tonight, a Cuban pop musician defects, gay couples rush to the altar in Toronto, and we'll look back at two speeches on one remarkable day in the history of the civil rights movement 40 years ago today, all that and more as we begin NEWSNIGHT for a Wednesday.

We begin with the lingering and some would say widening gap between the administration's pre-war rhetoric on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the post-war reality.

The rhetoric left little room for doubt, the reality much murkier. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been calling for a full investigation into the intelligence that went into the decision to launch the war and, while there will be hearings, there is debate over whether they'll be complete.

And tonight, a startling development as well, we turn first to CNN's David Ensor.

ENSOR: Aaron, the United States is going to get some more outside professional help in its search of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. CIA Director George Tenet has appointed veteran U.N. Weapons Inspector David Kay as a special adviser in the search.

Kay is an American citizen but he'll be based in Iraq and he'll work with the some 1,400 experts who are going to start looking for signs of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs, this as the administration faces growing questions both abroad and here in Washington about why no weapons have been found so far.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Republicans say they will hold closed hearings next week but they reject Democratic calls for a full investigation. SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: In my view, some of the attacks have been simply politics and for political gain.

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), VIRGINIA: The evidence that I have examined does not rise to give the presumption that anyone in this administration has hyped or cooked or embellished such evidence to a particular purpose.

ENSOR: Leading Democrats said a review is not good enough.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: I'm not satisfied with the way we're proceeding, in fact, we're not proceeding.

ENSOR: Rockefeller said Congress should formally investigate whether intelligence was manipulated to make the case for war.

ROCKEFELLER: We need to have public hearings and we need to be able to call witnesses, the witnesses who don't agree. We'll work with intelligence agencies who don't agree. Witnesses have said well we were pressured and they have said it.

ENSOR: Questions for the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees include why did the president cite Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Nijar during his State of the Union Address when the documents in the case were later found to be obvious forgeries?

What evidence did the vice president have to back up his claim that Saddam Hussein "has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons"? Was it based on evidence of Iraqi attempts to buy aluminum tubes even though U.S. intelligence officials still don't agree on whether those tubes were really meant for weapons production?

Why did the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's, Washington's close ally, say that Iraq had chemical weapons deployed for use within 45 minutes of an order, though no such weapons were used by the Iraqis nor have any been found to date?

Bush administration officials are keenly aware that the best way to make this damaging debate go away is to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: More experts are going in and I think one should be careful about making judgments as to what was hyped or not hyped until the exploitation is finished. Thank you.

ENSOR: While Republicans Warner and Roberts are in no hurry to hold open hearings, Warner says they will do so eventually.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: With Democrats questioning the president's primary stated case for war, the political stakes of any investigation on Capitol Hill could be very high indeed and they'll be heading into next year's presidential election - Aaron.

BROWN: Let's go back to the top here and the Kay appointment to go into Iraq. Doesn't that give some credibility to those in the international community who favor the idea of U.N. weapons inspectors going back in simply because they have the expertise?

ENSOR: Well, the United States is hiring some of that expertise, as you say. David Kay is a veteran arms inspector. He was in the IAEA and then in UNSCOM, so he's both looked for nuclear and looked for biological and chemical weapons. He's been there. He's done that. He has a lot of knowledge about Iraq, so yes they're hiring a professional and it does suggest that they realize they need somebody who knows his way around.

BROWN: David, thank you for your work tonight, David Ensor in Washington.

It is fair to say during the run-up to the war, few people bedeviled the Bush administration in the way that Hans Blix did. There were complaints and leaks aplenty about the chief U.N. weapons inspector, mostly to the effect that he was simply too darn diplomatic, too much on the one hand, on the other hand.

Tonight, Dr. Blix is about to become the former chief U.N. weapons inspector and as such is a bit less diplomatic but he's still even handed. He says the Iraqis tried to discredit him, spreading rumors about his sexuality and the Americans tried to smear him in other ways too, reporting for us tonight CNN's Richard Roth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANS BLIX, CHIEF U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: And then we have the presidential sites.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Satellite photographs on his office wall are the only way Hans Blix can see Iraq these days. The chief weapons inspector and his international searchers are shut out of Iraq by the U.S.

But in his final days on the job, Blix is speaking out more, angry over how he feels he was treated by some in the U.S. government. In an interview in "The Guardian" newspaper, Blix said:

"I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much."

BLIX: Well, I said it vexes me if I have what I regard as totally unjustified accusations but I don't lose sleep over it and I have certainly continued my job here.

ROTH (on camera): You used a word beginning with a "B".

BLIX: Ah, yes, yes. Well, I wasn't sure that would be printed. I don't think it will be printed in America.

ROTH: So, do you think they were, to use the word printed, bastards?

BLIX: Well, I certainly thought, had a low opinion about these detractors but it's not really worth much time.

ROTH (voice-over): Blix in print said some elements of the Pentagon were behind a smear campaign against him.

POWELL: No smear campaign that I'm aware of. I have high regard for Dr. Blix. I worked very closely with Dr. Blix over the last eight or nine months. I know that the president had confidence in him as well and what we're doing now is looking forward not looking backwards.

ROTH: Secretary Powell's briefing to the Security Council has yet to bear fruit on the ground. Blix says he received little intelligence during his time in Iraq his teams could ever confirm. The U.S. has hundreds of people now looking for weapons. If they can't find anything Blix is not seeking any apologies.

BLIX: You do not get apologies in politics. My conscience is entirely clean and I think that we demonstrated that you can have independent and effective international inspection.

ROTH: And the former Swedish foreign minister had this warning for the future.

BLIX: I think one has to be cautious in making use of the armed force on flimsy or shaky grounds.

ROTH (on camera): Hans Blix may have even more to say. He's expected to write a book. Secretary-General Annan defended the chief inspector, adding we haven't heard the last of him.

Richard Roth, CNN, United Nations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Earlier today we spoke with a close adviser to the Pentagon and something of a hawk on many questions. Richard Perle is urbane and well spoken on many subjects. We talked primarily about two, North Korea and Iraq, and I don't think he would agree the evidence was flimsy or shaky.

Here's a bit of what he had to say about weapons of mass destruction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD PERLE, FELLOW AT AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: I believe things remain hidden and will not be uncovered until the people who know precisely where they are give us precise instructions. It's like those treasure hunts we went on when we were kids. You had to know it was ten paces to the left of the oak tree and if you started digging anywhere else you'd ruin your mother's lawn but you certainly wouldn't find what was hidden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: We talked more about weapons of mass destruction and Mr. Perle had some startling things to say about North Korea as well. You'll hear that interview a little bit later in the program.

On now to the Middle East and a very Old Testament sort of day it was an eye for an eye. First, a Palestinian suicide bombing, then a pair of Israeli missile attacks. At some point an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind or dead or without much hope for peace let alone a normal life.

Tonight, both sides seem to be getting there. We have two reports beginning first with CNN's Jerrold Kessel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KESSEL (voice-over): The attack that so many had feared came suddenly and at the height of the evening rush hour. A Palestinian disguised as a religious Jew climbed aboard Bus 14 in the bustling thoroughfare of Jaffa (ph) Road and detonated an explosive device.

Thirteen people died on the scene. Others died of their wounds in hospital. Over 100 people were injured in the massive blast. Some remain in critical condition.

The claim of responsibility for the carnage came from the armed wing of the Hamas movement, the attack it said in response to the attempted Israeli assassination of a Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi in Gaza City Tuesday.

ISMAIL ABU SHANAB, HAMAS SPOKESMAN: I think if the Israelis continue killing Palestinian civilians the Palestinians have no other choice except to continue their resistance.

KESSEL: But Israel says its actions against those, it says, of planning terror attacks can not be compared to the ongoing actions of the suicide bombers.

RA'ANAN GISSIN, SHARON SPOKESMAN: What we're talking about is deliberate, premeditated campaign at murdering innocent Israelis.

KESSEL: From the Palestinian prime minister a strong condemnation of the Jerusalem killings and of the Israeli action in Gaza and from Yasser Arafat a call for an immediate ceasefire and the deployment of outside observers to enforce it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KESSEL: But Hamas is rejecting those calls and Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is saying there's no point and he's not interested in trying to get a ceasefire with the militant groups.

And while, Aaron, these political security and strategic positions take or don't take hold on Israel streets, people are saying that however many bombings they've been through, and there have been all too many, they can't get used to it. At the same time many people however are saying they also believe that they'll have to live with it for some time to come - Aaron.

BROWN: It's a question we're going to ask several times more tonight, is it the view there from what you can tell that the peace process so new has been severely damaged?

KESSEL: It may be even more than severely damaged, maybe even mortally wounded. There is a strategic fault line emerging here. Ariel Sharon seems to be saying we cannot accept that the Palestinian Authority, even as good intentioned as Mahmoud Abbas the new Palestinian prime minister is should be trying to work out a ceasefire with the Palestinian militants, the terror groups as Mr. Sharon calls them, even though the president, President Bush, has said that that's the way the peace road can take off that there can be a ceasefire put in place that Mr. Abbas can get the militants in check.

Mr. Sharon is saying no, no way, no way to deal with the militants and that leaves, as I say, a strategic fault line on this peace initiative. It could be mortally wounded and it could be mortally wounded by more bombings.

BROWN: Jerrold, thank you very much, Jerrold Kessel.

Next to the Israeli side and two attacks today aimed at the leadership of Hamas, both apparently part of the policy of eliminating what Israel refers to as targets of opportunity even when the opportunity presents itself at a time and place where a lot of civilians are nearby, reporting again, CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice-over): Israeli helicopters were in the air over Gaza City about an hour after the Jerusalem suicide bus bombing. It seemed to be immediate retaliation by Israel but Israeli security sources say the timing was purely coincidental.

The helicopter gun ships fired on a car in a crowded neighborhood killing three members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and four bystanders, according to Palestinian sources.

Amel Dalul (ph) says his two sisters were killed, his daughter and his wife among the 40 Palestinians who were injured.

"This is the biggest crime in Gaza and the West Bank" he said. "My sisters who were killed what is their fault?"

Hours later another Israeli air strike killed two members of Hamas who Israeli security sources say were on their way to fire homemade rockets at Israel. The four Israeli attacks in Gaza in two days sent more angry Palestinians to the streets, the outrage building after Israel's failed attempt Tuesday to kill the public face of Hamas in Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Hamas vowed to retaliate in a big way.

SHANAB: It is our (unintelligible) to protect ourself against Israelis atrocities, Israeli savageness and brutality against our people.

WALLACE: And later, Hamas took responsibility for the Jerusalem bloodshed. In the West Bank, condemnation of the bus bombing and Israel's air strikes from Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and President Yasser Arafat. "The evil, vicious cycle of military operations for all parties must stop" President Arafat said.

Wednesday's attacks by Israel came despite rare and blunt criticism from the White House, a sign Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will continue to pursue Palestinian militants, in his words, to the end.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Palestinians say Mr. Sharon's actions are undermining the Palestinian prime minister and one aide to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas put it this way. He says this is a last chance for the Palestinian prime minister. Either he makes some progress soon on that Mid East roadmap and delivers a ceasefire or this aide is saying the new Palestinian government could possibly fail - Aaron.

BROWN: Kelly, thank you, Kelly Wallace. You've had a long day, get some rest. Thank you very much.

Stephen Cohen is with us. We'll talk more with Mr. Cohen a little bit later in the program. We wanted to get a quick take from him now. Stephen, you talked to all sides on this. In your conversations with the Palestinian side, is there a concern there that this government, the Palestinian government could fall apart as Kelly just mentioned?

STEPHEN COHEN, INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT: I find that there's a remarkable amount of commitment on the part of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to stay with it, to stay with his program, not to give in, not to give in.

I think that what we have to have here is an attitude of deeply mourning the dead, mourning all the dead, and then we have to have an attitude of intensification of American monitoring, making the monitoring mechanism into a prevention of war mechanism, and I will explain that more later.

BROWN: Great and we look forward to that and we've got a number of other questions for you. Thank you, Stephen. Stephen Cohen (unintelligible) talks to. He's one of the very few people really in the region who is able to talk with both the Palestinians and the Israeli side and is respected by both and we'll have him back a little bit later in the program.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT still fighting over taxes with Republicans on both sides and moms if you will caught in the middle.

Also tonight, a Cuban heartthrob defects to the United States trying to make music for a whole new audience.

Lots more ahead, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On now to a political fight that seems to just keep going over some low-income families left out of getting an increase in the child tax credit, a tax cut if you will in the big tax bill the president signed.

The White House has made it clear they want this issue to go away. They want the House to pass the Senate bill that wouldn't leave these families out anymore and coincidentally would also take some political pressure off the president.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is not bending that easy. They don't call him "the hammer" after all for nothing. Today, he felt the hammer of another force, one beyond the White House, the stroller brigade.

Here's CNN Congressional Correspondent Kate Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A made for TV rally orchestrated by the Children's Defense Fund, the focus by Democratic speakers on extending the child tax credit increase to millions of lower income Americans.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D), WASHINGTON: Tom DeLay says it ain't going to happen. I stand here with you today and say it is going to happen on the power and the importance of the people of America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Families with strollers up this way, up this way.

SNOW: Following organizers moms and dad, kids in strollers walked for blocks past the Supreme Court headed to Majority Leader DeLay's office. Most of the families CNN talked to didn't know why DeLay was targeted, didn't know the details of the partisan battle over the child tax credit and most of these moms are getting a check this summer for the $400 increase in the child tax credit signed into law by President Bush.

Colleen McChrystal (ph), a lawyer from the Capitol Hill neighborhood brought eight-week-old David out. She says she doesn't need a tax break.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seems like everything we've done for tax breaks in the last year or two is about the wealthiest top percent and frankly people probably like me who really don't need it and to keep taking from the folks who we are supposed to be here to help. The government, that's what it's supposed to be about is helping those who have a whole lot less.

SNOW: As the moms pass through security, House Republicans were just wrapping up a meeting upstairs. Tom DeLay, who rarely works out of this building avoided the cameras but Republicans can do political theater too.

When the crowd reached DeLay's door they were greeted by Press Secretary Stuart Roy holding his two-year-old daughter Hallie (ph).

STUART ROY, PRESS SECRETARY: We want to extend this $1,000 per child tax credit for years to come and not let it end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why didn't you do that in the earlier tax bill and we can do that next year. But meanwhile, why don't (unintelligible) now.

ROY: We would have loved to extend the $1,000 per child tax credit and made it permanent but it was people like you and the Democrats that wouldn't allow us to (unintelligible).

SNOW: House Republicans argue the tax bill already did a lot for low-income Americans but with the White House pushing to get this issue off the television screens, the House will vote Thursday on a bill to expand the child tax credit even further, a bill more expensive than many Democrats would like.

Kate Snow, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: To a very different story now, a story about a young musician with boy band looks, a loyal following in his home country, and a new CD to sell. Today, he became an international star in the news at least because this young man is from Cuba and his new chosen home is Miami.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A few days ago Carlos Manuel and his band were performing a concert in Mexico City. After the show, they were supposed to board a jet back to Cuba but Manuel had another journey in mind. He caught a different plane and flew to Monterey, Mexico.

From there, he jumped into a taxicab and drove straight north to the U.S.-Mexico border. Manuel walked across the bridge and asked federal agents in Brownsville, Texas for asylum, a life-altering journey which has brought Manuel to Miami where his agent put the experience into simple words.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're finally home.

LAVANDERA: Carlos Manuel says Cuba's communist government would never allow him to have a successful musical career.

"I don't agree with the regime" he says. "I'm tired of being a hypocrite. I always had the hope that Cuba would change but every day it keeps taking steps backwards."

(on camera): Carlos Manuel's arrival might be getting a lot of fanfare in the U.S., especially in Miami, but that's not the case in Cuba. Fidel Castro's regime hasn't responded publicly to this high profile defection but word is spreading on Havanna streets and most people say they're shocked by the news. (voice-over): A Cuban radio station recently declared Manuel's band the most popular salsa group on the island. Manuel's defection follows a long line of musicians that have escaped from Cuba, including jazz musician Arturo Sandoval who defected in 1990.

He says, "I love my country but I want to send my people a message. I love my island but I'm going to keep working and one day you'll get to see the way the world is," all in the hopes of not just finding artistic freedom but more importantly personal freedom.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, a massive payment for past abuse, the Diocese of Louisville pays victims of some priests.

Also, we'll talk with Leon Panetta who is part of the group monitoring how the American Catholic Church is dealing with these questions of abuse.

Take a break first, around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Now to something we haven't talked on in a while, the priest abuse scandal. And words that struck us from one longtime priest in Louisville, Kentucky. During a deposition he was asked to assess his work has a priest. And he said, quote, "I did a very excellent job except for the damn abuse." Reverend Lewis Miller will spend the next two decades in prison for the view he seems to view as mere footnote to his career. And his archdiocese is paying one of the largest settlements yet to compensate the victims and the victims of his dozen of colleagues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Not in an especially large archdiocese, around 200,000 Roman Catholics in all. But the settlement terms were staggering. Nearly $26 million to be paid out to 243 people, men and women, who said they were abused over a 50-year period. The archbishop speaking directly to the victims.

THOMAS KELLY, ARCHBISHOP, LOUISVILLE: No child should ever have to have had to experience what happened to you. I promise that we're doing everything we can to prevent child abuse in the church.

BROWN: The agreement was reached in only five days and is the second largest ever resulting from abuse cases in the Catholic church. Only a $30 million settlement in Dallas in 1998 is larger.

BRIAN REYNOLDS, CHANCELLOR, ARCHDIOCESE: The impact on the archdiocese will be real and significant, we do not know yet the details. But we so far have already done a significant process of reducing our expenditures for the coming year. We've already reduced our work force by 12 percent. BROWN: More than 200 individual lawsuits have been filed against the Louisville Archdiocese. Many singling out just one priest of the Reverend Louis Miller. He is retired and sentenced last month to 20 years in prison for child abuse. Many of those who will receive money remain bitter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whatever money that I'm getting, I deserve a penny of it and you know. And I'm sure whatever I am getting is a whole lot less than what I should deserve.

BROWN: Insurance will not cover the settlement, which is to be paid out within a month. And a key word will never again be used, says the victim's principle attorney, when the church in Louisville talks about what happened.

WILLIAM MCMURRY, LEAD ATTORNEY: Archdiocese of Louisville has agreed in writing to never again refer to these 243 brave men and women as alleged victims.

BROWN: As for the archbishop himself, no word on whether Thomas C. Kelly will resign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And it was news today beyond Louisville, Kentucky, it was reported that the New York archdiocese will not release the results of its own investigation of 13 priests. Prosecutors decided not to charge 12 of them. Either because of a lack of evidence or because the statue of limitations had expired. One victim advocate said this, here we are again, same old secrecy. Supporters say the archdiocese is simply trying to protect innocent priests. So a year after church leaders met in Dallas to address the scandal, there is still a lot of issues to contend with.

We're joined tonight from Monterey, California, by Leon Panetta a former Clinton chief of staff. A member of Congress, but now a key member in the Lay Group Catholic National Review Board.

Mr. Panetta, good evening to you.

Take a couple of second it is and describe the board, the board's function, and who's the board's boss?

LEON PANETTA, CATHOLIC NATIONAL REVIEW BOARD: Well, a year ago, as you described, the bishops gathered together in Dallas and they developed, what are called now the Dallas accords. And in that Dallas agreement, they called for the creation of a national lay review committee, which is the one that I'm a part of. They called for the establishment of an office for child and youth protection. And they also called for studies to determine the scope and extent of the abuses that had taken place in the various diocese. And the review of the context and the causes for the abuses.

BROWN: On the subject of those studies, this is a lengthy and somewhat complexed questionnaire sent out to 190 diocese in the country. And about a third have not returned them would suggest an unwillingness to be helpful?

PANETTA: Well, actually, we've heard from about 134 of the 194 diocese have responded in some way to the study that was sent out. So we have gotten pretty good cooperation from most of the diocese. There are some that have raised legal concerns. Their attorneys have raised concerns about just exactly what information will be protected. They're worried about lawsuits. They are worried about the laws that apply to them in particular states and there are some that have outright refused to cooperate at all. So overall, we're getting pretty good cooperation, but still some resistance.

BROWN: What power, if any, does the board have to deal about those bishop, these are the decision makers here, who have decided for whatever reasons not to be cooperative?

Any power at all?

PANETTA: Well, ultimately, look, bishops have to respond to the pope and the pope can tell them what to do. But the fact is that the bishops themselves came together in Dallas. They said they were establishing a zero tolerance policy. They said they were going to put in place steps to try to deal with the serious scandal that's affected the church. I mean, I think they all recognized that this is -- this has done serious damage to the trust and credibility, particularly of the hierarchy and the leadership of the church to the faithful. And ultimately if they are going to repair that, they have to assess the nature of this problem. How many of these abuses took place, and what are they doing to deal with it so it never happens again.

BROWN: Is there -- do you think there is some resentment on the part of -- parts of the leadership in the church that they have to deal with a lay group at all?

PANETTA: Well, of course, you know, these diocese in many ways are feed into themselves. The bishops have basically controlled and determined what happens within each diocese. But at the same time, I think the bishops themselves recognize they've got a serious problem here. And it has to be confronted. I think to their credit, they established this review committee, to their credit, they established this office of child protection. And to their credit, they really do want to assess what the nature of this problem is throughout this country. And so they have committed themselves to doing this. And I think if they reverse themselves or if they are not cooperative, I think it will just further damage their credibility.

BROWN: Mr. Panetta, we appreciate your time. Nice to see you again, sir. Leon Panetta from Monterey, California.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the uproar in the Canadian government over a courting approving gay marriage. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: June, of course, is a big month for weddings, but this June day in particular will surely be remembered as an especially joyous day for one group of people. Dozens of couples, gay couples applied for marriage licenses in Toronto, after a court there ruled that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

But while it's brought joy to these couples it's still a matter of fierce debate among politicians in Canada. The story from Susan Bonner of the CBC.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN BONNER, CBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Ottawa's city hall, a quick response to yesterday's court ruling. Renay Solvet (ph) and Tracy Braun (ph) get a marriage license, and then get married, one day after an Ontario appeals court ruled the law preventing them from doing so was unconstitutional.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty exciting. I would say we were not really planning on it.

BONNER: On Parliament Hill, no quick response. Just more intense debate. Should the government appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, or accept the five recent court rulings and allow same-sex marriages?

NIC DISCEPOLA, QUEBEC LIBERAL MP: I think that enough courts in various provinces have spoken. Obviously if you take a look also at the mood in Canada, it's open. And I firmly, to paraphrase a former prime minister, I think what people do in their own bedrooms is their own business.

JOE FONTANA, ONTARIO LIBERAL MP: We should appeal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

FONTANA: Well, because I personally don't believe in same sex marriages. Same sex benefits have already been approved. There's nothing wrong with common law relationships.

BONNER: Some liberals say Ottawa should allow civil marriages and let religious organizations make their own rules.

MARIA MINNA, ONTARIO LIBERAL MP: People talk about marriage as being a sanctity. With respect to religion, when it's civil union, the charter is (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BONNER: Others say they'd fight even a Supreme Court ruling, with a constitutional hammer if it came to it.

PAT O'BRIEN, ONTARIO LIBERAL MP: If the Supreme Court of Canada was to order Parliament to redefine something as fundamental as marriage, I would be the first person going to the mic to call for the minister to use a notwithstanding clause.

BONNER: The minister says the government is listening to all the views, still deciding what to do.

MARTIN CAUCHON, MINISTER OF JUSTICE: We're looking at the file seriously. We want to make sure that we're going to have a national solution to that question. And having said that, I'm not in a position today to give you the official government position.

BONNER (on camera): Until the government decides if it will appeal, same-sex marriages will go ahead and will be legal. At least in Ontario. The reference to the need to find a national solution indicates just how much confusion there is out there now about the state of the law across the country.

Susan Bonner, CBC News, Ottawa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we'll check some of the day's other top stories, here and around the world. And later, a confrontation over segregation as it played out on the steps of the University of Alabama and on national television as well, 40 years ago today. Break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time for the roundup. A few more stories making news around the world today. Starting in old Europe, as they say. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was there, in part to mend fences over the war. And he did sort of, suggesting that Western European lacked vision on Iraq. OK, that wasn't fence mending, but he also said transatlantic friendships are strong enough to withstand occasional disagreements here and there.

In southern Germany, six people died when two trains collided. No word yet of what caused the crash. But one of trains had been running late, putting it at the wrong place at the wrong time may have figured in the accident.

And aboard the International Space Station, there's plenty in the pantry tonight. An unmanned Russian supply ship paid a visit this morning. It's out there somewhere. Carrying about two tons of food, equipment and other supplies.

And here are a few items from around this country tonight. Beginning with the story of a man accused of kidnapping a 9-year-old California girl late last week. Enrique Alvarez was arraigned today on multiple felony counts of kidnap rape. His public defender asked for more time to revierw the case, and no formal plea will be entered until next month. Mr. Alvarez was arrested on Monday; 9-year-old was found safe Sunday at a convenience store not far from her home in San Jose. She had been kidnapped on Friday.

The latest on a hazing case in suburban Chicago caught on tape. A Cook County judge today ordered the teens charged in the incident to avoid any contact with the victims. Fifteen teens are charged with misdemeanor battery. Another teen and two parents are accused of supplying alcohol, which apparently fueled this madness. And it's been nearly a half a century since it happened. A no- hitter against the New York Yankees. This one at the hands of six pitchers for the Houston Astros. The Astros win it 8-0. The last team to keep the Yankees' hit list was Baltimore, September 20, 1958. The boss, Mr. Steinbrenner, is not going to be happy. Is he? Oh, my.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, 40 years ago, the tide of desegregation hits the University of Alabama, as President Kennedy addresses the nation to ask its support for civil rights. A break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's often the case that events sweep up people who never intended to make history. Forty years ago today, Vivian Malone and James Hood were just two young people trying to get an education. What set them on a collision course with history was the color of their skin, and the fact they lived in the state of Alabama.

Today the battles over race in this country seemed less monumental than they did two generations ago. They are still there. They are still being fought. But while they are no less important, they are less stark than the battle that took place four decades ago today, a day that began with a confrontation at a schoolhouse door and ended with an address to the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Forty years ago today, two young men who will occupy very different pages of American history were joined in an early and important battle in the civil rights movement.

George Corley Wallace, the governor of Alabama, made good on his promise to stand in the doorway at the University of Alabama to prevent integration.

GOV. GEORGE WALLACE (D), ALABAMA: I seek to preserve and maintain the peace and dignity of this state and the individual's freedoms of the citizen thereof and hereby denounce and forbid this illegal and unworded action by the central government.

BROWN: It was, of course, a losing proposition. The federal government, at President Kennedy's, order had sent in the national guard to integrate the university. And two young black students, names now mostly forgotten, James Hood and Vivian Malone, also found their place in history that day, when the federal government insured their enrollment at their state's university. And George Wallace turned the day's defeat into a political career that included two runs for the White House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He stood in the university door, but he stepped aside when federal marshals confronted him with a court order. Alabama thus became the last state of the union to end total segregation.

BROWN: It is not that the day invented civil rights. But that day 40 years ago, seemed to change the debate, as the young president with some eloquence spoke to the country.

JOHN F. KENNEDY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities; whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public; if he cannot send his children to the best public school available; if he cannot vote for the public people who represent him; if in short he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, north and south, where legal remedies are not at hand, redress is sought in the street, in demonstrations, parades and protests, which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives. My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all in every city of the North as well as the South. Today there are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites, and adequate education, moving into large cities, unable to find work, young people particularly out of work, without hope, denied their equal rights, denied to the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or a lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right decent education, denied almost today a state university, even though qualified.

It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely presidents or Congressman or governors, but every citizen of the United States. This is one country. It has become one country, because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can't have that right. Your children can't have the chance to develop whatever talents they have, that the only way that they're going to get their right is to go into the street and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.

This is what we're talking about. And this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for. And in meeting it, I ask the support of all of our citizens. Thank you very much.

BROWN: A year later, after the president's murder, the Congress passed the landmark '64 Civil Rights Bill. And in many ways, many people still believe the country struggles to live up to the president's words and the bill's promise.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll continue to look at the events 40 years ago in a moment. Pulitzer Prizewinner Diane McWhorter joins us, as does Jeff Greenfield.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: More now on the story behind the events in Alabama and in Washington 40 years ago tonight.

We're joined by Diane McWhorter, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Carry Me Home" was about growing up in Birmingham in the '60s. And by Jeff Greenfield as well.

I asked you this before we went back on the air. Do you remember that day? Did it seem like a huge and important day to a white child in Alabama?

DIANA MCWHORTER, AUTHOR, "CARRY ME HOME": Well, my friends and my family and I were very embarrassed by Wallace, so this was just another thing he had done in a long line of embarrassing things to us, even though morally we weren't opposed to what he was doing. He was just doing it in sort of a crass and bigoted, you know, too -- crude way that we didn't appreciate.

BROWN: As occasionally we have to do when we sit here, do you actually remember the day? We'll just ask the question again.

MCWHORTER: No, I don't.

BROWN: OK.

MCWHORTER: Yes.

BROWN: But, I mean, the -- that's telling in its own way, that while we -- I'm not sure, Jeff, was it a huge national event? You're a little bit older than I. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: It was, because it had followed the weeks of demonstrations in Birmingham that was really the first tremendously televised event. Martin Luther King had vowed to fill the jails of Birmingham. Bull Connor, the public safety commissioner, had unleashed the police dogs and fire hoses. That had become a worldwide phenomenon in which television, network television, really played a dramatic role.

So this was a big deal leading up to the desegregation.

BROWN: One of the problems with all of this stuff is, for me, is that you've seen it so many times since, you're not exactly whether you saw it at the time.

The president, fair to say the president was in some respects pulled, as opposed to willingly entered, the arena of civil rights?

GREENFIELD: Very fair. The Kennedy administration had a really mediocre, at best, civil rights record. It wasn't on their -- it wasn't a priority. Congress was dominated by Southern Democrats. They had to do the bidding of those committee chairs to get the other legislative programs through.

It was an embarrassment because of the cold war frame, in which demonstrations and protests and police beatings looked bad in the third world. But it wasn't until Birmingham erupted, it wasn't until that became unavoidable, that they -- that John and Robert Kennedy both moved -- and I think Robert Kennedy helped push his brother -- to say, No, this is a moral issue here. This is more than just an embarrassment.

MCWHORTER: Yes, that was a big, that was a huge change for them to do that, because he was usually so dry and ironic, and he wasn't comfortable with that sort of evangelical language, even though the delivery was quite dry.

BROWN: Yes.

MCWHORTER: This was a sea change. He had been meeting with businessmen across the nation, saying, You need to do this because it's the smart thing to do. He hadn't really gone publicly and said, It's the right thing to do. And...

GREENFIELD: No president had. First time a president said flatly, This is a moral issue.

BROWN: Was President Kennedy 40 years ago.

GREENFIELD: Yes, but I'm saying he was the first (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

BROWN: So when Ike sent the troops into Little Rock, to integrate Central High School there, he was merely enforcing the court, the law.

GREENFIELD: He thought that the Brown versus Board of Education, Eisenhower, was the worst -- one of the worst decisions the court ever did. He has said appointing Warren was the worst mistake he ever made.

MCWHORTER: And the University of Alabama had been desegregated in 1956, and he refused, and a mob overtook the university, kicked out Autherine Lucy (ph), and Eisenhower refused to send troops in to enforce the court order. And so he was sort of forced into it at Little Rock.

That's why Faubus, or, you know, the governor of Arkansas, dared to defy the court order.

BROWN: When you think about it now, when you look back at the way you were brought up in that city, in that time, does it seem surreal, the things that you believed?

MCWHORTER: Yes, yes, sure it does. Although one of the important lessons of the schoolhouse door thing, though, is that the very cagey thing Wallace did was, he made the federal government the enemy, because in the South, we referred to our beloved colored people. And the Kennedy administration had decided they were not going to expose Vivian Lauren (ph) and James Hood (ph) to the insults and this governor, so that they were going to, you know, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) handle the confrontation.

What that meant (UNINTELLIGIBLE), they're playing into Wallace -- played into Wallace's hands, because now he says he's fighting the big bad federal government, instead of our dear colored people...

BROWN: Yes.

MCWHORTER: ... that, you know, he, you know, bought sandwiches for.

GREENFIELD: And as you point out, Wallace, by the way, made four runs at the presidency, not two, four, and the civil rights helped turn the South from Democrat to Republican, as Lyndon Johnson said when he signed the Civil Rights Act.

So there was a certain ironic consequence of this great movement. It was one of the most important political movements because it reshaped both parties.

BROWN: An unknowable, we're less than a minute here. Do you think the '64 (UNINTELLIGIBLE), Jeff, the '64 civil rights bill would have passed had the president not been assassinated?

GREENFIELD: Would have been very tough. It finally passed because of the power of the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and that Ev Dirksen, the Republican leader, said, This is an idea whose time has come. Very dicey that they would have done that without the...

BROWN: It was Republican votes that mattered a lot to pass that bill.

GREENFIELD: Yes. Absolutely.

BROWN: And at what point did you look at your life and go, This has been crazy?

MCWHORTER: Well, I mean, I know that when I was 15, when Dr. King was assassinated, and even though I, you know, mourned his death, I thought the South's problems were going to be over. So even at that late date, in 1968, I didn't get it.

And then the counterculture changed me. And I...

BROWN: Yes.

MCWHORTER: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) college, and that was it.

BROWN: Countercultural changed us all.

Nice to see you again. Thanks for coming in to see you. Thank you both.

NEWSNIGHT continues. We'll go back to the Middle East, find out what leaders on both sides are saying about whether there's a way out of this latest cycle of violence.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are times, we imagine, when the bully pulpit a president enjoys can seem awfully small, especially when it comes to the Middle East. Barring the sending of troops or cutting off aid, there is little any president has ever done when the killing starts, beyond condemning both sides and wishing for the best.

Which is what President Bush did today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace, the people who want to kill in order to make sure that the desires of Israel to live in secure and peace don't happen, who kill to make sure the desires of the prime minister from the Palestinian Authority and others of a peaceful state living side by side with Israel do not happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So what to make of the job for the president and both prime ministers after a day like this, which followed another day not much different?

We're joined again by Stephen Cohen. Mr. Cohen, as we've mentioned earlier, is one of the very few people who talks for both sides on this, respected by both sides. And we respect him as well.

Stephen, how much damage has been done to the road map in the last three or four days?

STEPHEN COHEN, INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT: It's a very heavy moment. And there's going to be a lot of despair that's going to spread very fast. And the question is whether or not the president's determination is going to be able to be strong enough to overcome that spreading despair.

I listened carefully to his voice in making that announcement. The sighs are the real sound of the sadness. And I hope, I hope that that sadness is the recognition by the president that he has entered into one of the great moral struggles of our time.

This conflict is a great challenge to the history of American diplomacy. Every president in the postwar period, post-World War II period, has struggled with this. And each one in turn has been deeply affected by it.

I believe that President Bush has the right platform to make a real difference. That platform is that the United States has now been forced into an awareness of the Middle East of a much deeper kind than it's ever faced before. What we faced since September 11 is a crashing awareness that the Middle East problem is not a local disturbance that we can tut-tut about, but rather a world problem that spreads across its borders and does damage and destruction everywhere.

And...

BROWN: Stephen...

COHEN: ... we can't just let this go on.

BROWN: Let me, let me try and get a couple of things in here before we have to finish. You make it seem as if the principal player in all of this isn't the Palestinian prime minister, is not the Israeli prime minister, but is the president of the United States.

COHEN: No, I think that the president has to be listening to the voices of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people, even beyond their leaders. Their deepest desires to have this over, to be able to walk in their own streets, and to be able to go to their jobs and to have their children go to school, that's what he has to be hearing more than anything else.

I believe that he spoke to that when he went to Aqaba. I believe that he has to take very strong action to make it happen.

I believe that with the road map, he has the first elements of awareness of what is necessary. He knows that he has to take away from them the weapons of destruction that they use against each other, the terrorism, the violence, the occupation, the settlements, which give Palestinians such anger and despair.

We know that these things are on the road map list right at the beginning. The president has to move the monitoring mechanism, which is a mechanism that looks backward to what has already been done, into a preventive mechanism, which becomes the world's statement and the American people's statement that this time, we are determined to make sure that we do everything we can to try to hear that voice of the people which wants this to end.

I want to tell you, Aaron, I have been in Israel, I have been with the Palestinians, I have been in Egypt.

And everywhere people are despair -- in despair, but they are hoping against hope that maybe this time something can move, that with all of what has changed in the Middle East since September 11, since the American war in Iraq, with all of this violence that we've experienced here between the Israelis and Palestinians in the last two and a half years, that maybe the world community will simply assert, Enough is enough, we're going to stop this.

BROWN: Stephen, thank you for your time. Have a safe journey over there, and we'll talk to you when you get back.

Stephen Cohen in the Middle East again for us. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the search for weapons of mass destruction. We'll talk with Richard Perle, influential in the Bush administration, or with people in the Bush administration, about his views on Iraq, and some controversial thoughts about North Korea as well. Mr. Perle in a moment.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For a private citizen, Richard Perle has a way of finding himself in the thick of public policy, and frequently the headlines too. And today, if some hawks are less certain about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction than they were before the war, Mr. Perle is not among them.

And he has a pretty clear view of what he thinks the United States ought to do in North Korea as well.

We talked about both subjects earlier today.

Mr. Perle, I want to talk about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but before we get there, you're quoted today in a Reuters story dealing with North Korea and the nuclear reactor there, and the gist of it is that it may be necessary, in your view, for the United States to take out that North Korean nuclear reactor, because that's the basis, theoretically, at least, of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

Is that in fact your view?

RICHARD PERLE, FELLOW, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Well, I would hope that it would not come to that, that we would succeed politically, diplomatically, in persuading the North Koreans that it's not in their interest to become a vendor of nuclear weapons to the world.

But if they continue down the path of building nuclear weapons, and we are unable to deal with this politically and diplomatically, we cannot exclude direct action. It would be foolish to exclude it at this point.

BROWN: You say in this piece that it is -- would- it is simply -- I'm paraphrasing here -- unacceptable to allow the North Koreans to have these weapons, correct?

PERLE: That's correct. The North Koreans, first of all, have acquired this nuclear material by violating all of their commitments under a variety of international agreements. They have indicated a willingness to sell weapons almost to anyone who will pay for them, and we have to assume that they would do the same with nuclear weapons if they had a stockpile from which to deal.

So this is a threat of such a magnitude that we simply cannot allow them to involve themselves in serial production of nuclear weapons. BROWN: Talk to me for a minute about if it were to come to this, the implications of it. Certainly it would be -- they would consider this an act of war. Would this not for example, put the city of Seoul, South Korea, in considerable danger if the United States were to launch even a surgical strike on North Korea?

PERLE: Well of course, the North Koreans have said that almost anything would be an act of war, including nonviolent means of trying to contain their behavior. There is -- at any time the North Koreans could, if they chose to do so, attack the city of Seoul, which unfortunately is very close to massed North Korean artillery.

Whether they would do that or not -- it would surely be suicidal from the point of view of the North Korean regime -- no one can say. So we're not talking about certainties, we're talking at most about risks.

These are not risks that should be taken lightly. And I believe it's premature to come to any conclusion about the future, because we are trying through political and diplomatic means to achieve a result, and the result is an end to this North Korean program of building nuclear weapons and possibly offering them on the world market.

BROWN: Let's move on to Iraq now. Obviously there is a -- there is a -- some considerable concern over the inability to this point of finding these stores of weapons of mass destruction. Do you think it is now reasonable that there is less there than the administration suggested, implied, or outright said?

PERLE: What the administration said was that the United Nations inspectors, who left the country in 1998, left behind a detailed accounting of what had been produced by North Korea, minus what it was known had been destroyed. And the balance was assumed to have been hidden by the North -- by Saddam Hussein.

It was assumed to have been hidden by him, in part, because we knew he had created an organization for the precise purpose of hiding those things. And as Colin Powell exhibited at the United Nations, we even heard them talking from time to time about moving things before inspectors could arrive.

So that was the evidentiary basis for our conclusion about Saddam's holdings. He simply never offered convincing evidence that those stockpiles had been destroyed. To this day, we don't know what the disposition of those stockpiles was. I believe things remain hidden and will not be uncovered until the people who know precisely where they are give us precise instructions.

It's like those treasure hunts we went on when we were kids. You had to know it was 10 paces to the left of the oak tree, and if you started digging anywhere else, you'd ruin your mother's lawn, but you certainly wouldn't find what was hidden.

BROWN: Well, why do you think they haven't given it up to this point? PERLE: Well, we have to make contact with, gain the confidence of, those individuals who have knowledge. And I have no doubt that will happen in due course. We've already been made aware of elements of their program by people who have talked to us. And we should not underestimate the importance of having found, after having been alerted to the existence of, those mobile facilities that I think were clearly intended for the production of weapons.

And the people who put us onto that may well have provided other leads.

But it takes time, in a country the size of Iraq, you cannot make random searches, and you cannot go back to known sites, which is what the U.N. inspectors did prior to the war. We will only find things when people with precise knowledge come forward and tell us, and they have to know they can do that safe for the remnant of Saddam's regime, and probably safe from prosecution as well.

BROWN: Let me, just as a final question here, what do you think, if you think, the implications would be if it turns out that there is, in fact, less here than the administration implied? Does that damage American credibility around the world?

PERLE: Well, it shouldn't, if there were a fair appraisal of the information that was available before the war alongside what we may come to know when we have a fuller picture. I am quite sure that eventually we will be able to reconstruct most of what Saddam did with weapons of mass destruction, what was produced, how it was ultimately disposed of, or where it remains hidden.

And, you know, people don't realize, but the quantities of anthrax necessary to destroy tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are, in volume terms, very small. A standard-sized trash can could hold enough nerve agent or biological agent to kill very large numbers of people.

So we're talking about, in volume terms, small quantities of extremely lethal materials that are easy to hide and have almost certainly been hidden.

BROWN: Mr. Perle, we know you're a busy man. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you very much.

PERLE: Always a pleasure. All the best.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

Richard Perle earlier today.

Coming up next, tomorrow's news, check the morning papers. Break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Time to check morning papers, newspapers from around the country and around the world. It's been a little tense here on the set, a dispute between the producer and the stage manager. The stage manager is always right.

Here's why you have to buy both newspapers in Detroit if you live in Detroit. You barely tell it's in the same city, based on the headlines.

"The Detroit Free Press" first. I love this story. "Farmer Jack Fights Back." I don't -- look, I'm not sure why this is a front-page story. "Detroit-Based Grocery Chain Is Changing to a Daily Discount Plan." OK.

Anyway, that's a big story. They put the Middle East on the front page. But down at the bottom, "DNA Clears Man Jailed for Rape." Of course, there's an auto story, it's the 100th anniversary of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of Ford. OK, that's "The Detroit Free Press."

"The Detroit News," same city, different paper. None of those stories appear. They've got a big -- well, the Mideast story does. A big "Detroit News" exclusive about the police department there and the mayor, it's a very messy situation there, sort of thing we love.

Anyway, two good papers, and buy them both. It sets you back a buck. It's not a bad deal.

How much time? Thank you.

"The Oregonian," out there in Portland, Oregon. This story down in the corner here, "Study Puts Face on Patients in Assisted Suicide." Assisted suicide is legal in the state of Oregon, and they looked at why people do it, not so much because they can't manage the pain, but because they want their independence. That's a terrific story from "The Oregonian."

That's our report for tonight. We're back tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us then. 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

Rights Not a Priority for the Kennedy Administration; Despair Spreads in Middle East; Perle Advocates Strike on North Korean Reactor If Diplomacy Fails>