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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

50th U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq Since War Declared Over; Details About Lynch's Capture Emerge; Catholic Bishop Charged With Hit-and-Run

Aired June 17, 2003 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again everyone.
A milestone of sorts has been reached, and it's not a pleasant one at that. An American soldier was killed today in Iraq. He was the 50th American to die there since the war ended. We don't know his name yet.

The Army says it's still notifying next of kin but we do know the soldier belonged to the Army's 1st Armored Division and was killed this morning by a sniper on the streets of Baghdad. Maybe the war is over if war means big battles and huge bombs. Clearly, the dying is not over and tonight another family mourns.

It is again Iraq where we begin the whip and the effort to stop the lawlessness there. CNN's Jane Arraf is in Baghdad and, Jane, a headline from you.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, proving it's still a combat zone U.S. soldiers face continued attacks throughout the country. They're sweeping, looking for suspected attackers and setting up a court to try them once they find some of them.

BROWN: Jane, thank you, back to you early tonight.

Next to the emerging picture of how Private Jessica Lynch and her comrades wound up in enemy hands that first Sunday of the war. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with us for that. Barbara, a headline.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, new details about the ambush of the Army convoy carrying Private First Class Jessica Lynch in the opening days of the war and tales of heroism that haven't yet made the headlines.

BROWN: Barbara, thank you.

And now to Phoenix, Arizona and the anguish over the Roman Catholic bishop's second recent encounter with the law. CNN's Martin Savidge has the story, Marty a headline.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Aaron. This would be a tragic story anywhere involving anyone but it's the head of the Catholic Church here in Arizona that now stands charged with fleeing the site of a tragedy. Now the real question is it is not the first thing that he's been embroiled in, so what happens next? They're meeting tonight -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, thank you, back to you and the rest coming up.

Also in the hour ahead, California Governor Gray Davis and what the people want to make him ex-governor Gray Davis long before his current term runs out. We'll look at the recall.

Also tonight, Laci Peterson and the single question no one is asking about the story namely is it that much of a story? CNN's Jeff Greenfield weighs in on that.

Later in the program tonight getting the get, it took Special Forces to rescue Private Jessica Lynch, now an army of television bookers is trying to get her to come on their newscast and they're using what some might call weapons of mass seduction. We'll talk with producer Steve Friedman about whether any rules are being broken, journalism or otherwise.

Also tonight, retired General Wesley Clark with us to address the events in Iraq and a little news that he's been making on his own over the last few days, all of that to come in the hour ahead. We'll have a lot to ask General Clark, much of it about why keeping the peace is proving so much harder than winning the war, or at least so it seems.

We told you today began with news that a 50th American has died in Iraq since the end of the war. Clearly, the dying, the fighting, the peacekeeping continues.

It is work being carried out by about 200,000 men and a women, a good chunk of whom thought they'd be home by now. And, adding to their burden is this, because of the way the military now works long deployments far from home may be the shape of things to come.

Here's our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Soldiers of the 3rd ID instead of a ticket home have been assigned dangerous new combat duties in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was a little irritated, you know. It seems like there's plenty of other soldiers to do it. Why do we have to do it?

MCINTYRE: The answer is simply that because of ballooning global commitments the Army's fresh out of reinforcements. Most soldiers now in Iraq can expect a nine-month tour of duty, some having already served in Afghanistan.

At his retirement last week, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki, who infuriated the Pentagon with his prewar prediction it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq, delivered a parting shot. The Army, he charged, is stretched far too think.

GEN. ERIC SHINSEKI, U.S. ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF: And as we speak over 370,000 soldiers of our Army are deployed in forward station this day and every day, 120 countries.

MCINTYRE: In 1991, when the U.S. Army sent the equivalent of eight divisions to Iraq, it still had ten divisions left. Now, the Army has only ten divisions total and only one, the 1st Cavalry Division, in Fort Hood, Texas is complete and ready for deployment on short notice. The rest, with the exception of a few brigades are deployed or earmarked to replace soldiers in Afghanistan, Europe, Korea, and Iraq.

SHINSEKI: Beware the 12 division strategy for a ten division Army. Our soldiers and families bear the risk and hardship of carrying a mission load that exceeds what force capabilities we can sustain.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon insists the problem isn't that the Army is too small but rather than too many U.S. military personnel, 320,000 by one estimate, are doing jobs that should be done by civilians.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: They're not being done because of the way the rules and requirements are fashioned over a long period of time. That's not good. That's not right. We ought to fix these things.

MCINTYRE: Army officials complain privately that what really needs fixing is the U.S. national military strategy updated after September 11. It calls for hunting down terrorists and deposing dictators but critics say it doesn't include enough forces to sustain those missions without great individual sacrifice.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: From keeping order we move next to laying down the law. After decades in which there was plenty of the first and none of the second, establishing a true and fair criminal justice system in Iraq will not be easy. Today at a courthouse looted when Baghdad fell, America's man in charge took the first step.

Here again, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): One of the first steps on the long road to justice, the Chief U.S. Administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer opened Iraq's central criminal court and announced a committee to review judges.

PAUL BREMER, U.S. ADMINISTRATOR FOR IRAQ: We are now reviewing the criminal procedure law in order to ensure that human rights and due process are respected for the first time in Iraq. No longer will evidence be extracted by torture and no longer will defendants have to appear in court without defense lawyers.

ARRAF: On more immediate matters of law and order with attacks continuing on U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military continues to round up suspects and weapons. The forces fanned out in the capital and other cities and towns, including Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Isolated attacks of RPG fire, mortar fire, that's usually happening on a daily occurrence. We're finding a lot of caches of weapons, RPGs, mortars, AKs, 50 cals, but again that's from a very small population of -- very small portion of the population.

ARRAF: The searches and detentions of entire families have enraged many Iraqis. Some six weeks after the war ended the attempted attacks continue unnerving city residents and putting soldiers on edge. This was what's left of a car hit by a mine Monday on a main Baghdad road used by U.S. forces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are still a lot of people here that, you know, I don't know why they do it other than just to maybe prove that the Americans can't handle, you know, are trying to fail. There's people out there with that mission in mind, if they can prove that we can't prevent attacks then maybe they can get more support.

ARRAF: The attacks, officials say, are launched by a wide group of people, former fighters, die-hard Ba'athists, common criminals released in a prisoner amnesty before the war. They have one thing in common the desire to drive American forces out of Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: Now that latest shooting in which that unidentified soldier was shot in the back while he was sitting in an armored vehicle is an indication, Aaron, of just how hard it is to combat these sort of attacks and military officials say with these sweeps and detentions they're making progress but they really are incurring a lot of anger in a lot of these communities -- Aaron.

BROWN: Have they, Jane, to your knowledge arrested anyone they would classify as leader of this effort to kill Americans?

ARRAF: The really difficult thing is they're not classifying the effort itself as centrally organized which means they have to crack down and find a lot of different groups with perhaps a lot of different motives. Now, Bremer yesterday announced that they had captured two senior Ba'ath Party officials. One was the head of the secret police in Tikrit, another senior official in the Shia city of Karbala.

So, those are steps but they're not indication really that these particular people or others that they've captured in these sweeps were plotting a wide variety of attacks or even any attacks at all and that's the really difficult thing. That's what they're combating right now, trying to gather up a wide group of people who might have quite different motives -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf in Baghdad.

It's impossible to forget the feelings we had when we first saw American soldiers in the hands of the government of Iraq. Just a few days into the war we looked in the eyes of the members of the 507th Maintenance Company as they looked back at the camera. They were dazed and hurt and as much as they tried to hide it they were scared and who could blame them?

We have a better idea tonight what went on in the hours before we saw them that day; reporting for us CNN's Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): It was a series of wrong turns and mis- directions that led to the fatal 90-minute firefight with Iraqi forces outside the town of al-Nasiriya on March 23. The young soldiers tried to save each other and fight their way past the barricades piled in the road, all the while Iraqis attacking from close range.

That fatal ambush left 11 soldiers dead, five captured POWs, and the eventual world famous rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch, new details of what happened and heroism in hand-to-hand combat that have not made the headlines.

The 507th Maintenance Company was at the end of an 8,000 vehicle convoy moving towards Baghdad. As they approached al-Nasiriyah they failed to make a critical left turn and instead went north. No one is sure why. Instead, exhausted already with no sleep in 60 hours, the group continued north right into enemy territory.

By the time they realized they were lost and turned around back south, it was too late. Iraqi paramilitary forces were assembling firing on the convoy from nearby buildings, piling debris and vehicles in the road to entrap the Americans.

There were heroic efforts by soldiers equipped only with rifles. One soldier who survived is credited with attacking and killing half a dozen Iraqis firing from a nearby mortar position.

The senior enlisted man, Master Sergeant Robert Dowdy, kept the young soldiers together urging them to fight back. He was in a Humvee with Jessica Lynch when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. He died instantly.

The driver was Private First Class Lori Piestewa, Lynch's best friend. The young Native American was gravely wounded and taken to a hospital where she died. Nearby Marines arrived and helped rescue some of the soldiers.

CNN has learned that next week the Army plans to release its report on the details of the ambush of the 507th. The Army will conclude that the soldiers did their duty and fought to the best of their ability in the fog and friction of war.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There's another dimension to the story of Private Jessica Lynch and the 507th, nothing heroic here purely business, what's known as the booking wars. It has to do with the lengths to which television networks are going to get an interview with Private Lynch.

One network, CBS, has made her an offer that some people say went well beyond the pale. We'll talk about that with a veteran of the booking wars, former "Today Show" producer Steve Friedman a little bit later in the program.

First we want to pull rank and turn to Washington and to retired General Wesley Clark and now former CNN military analyst Wesley Clark. It's been a while since we talked to General Clark; in fact, when we last saw him he was sitting next to another news anchor on another network talking presidential politics and the possibility of entering the fray.

So, a lot to talk about, a two front interview I guess, and general it is very nice to see you. It's been a while.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Nice to be with you Aaron.

BROWN: Let's talk about Iraq first and we'll get to politics second. We've had 50 deaths since the war ended, not all of them combat deaths if you will but most of them. Is this a sign that the Pentagon was ill-prepared for the peace?

CLARK: In many respects it is a sign for that but there was going to be resistance anyway. I think it's deeper than that. I think it's the fact that the whole process of what it meant to take down a country wasn't thought through and properly resourced and staffed up front.

It started with some fault assumptions about the nature of the adversary and the popular will in Iraq, went through the capabilities of the United States Armed Forces, and it just -- we just didn't have it prepared for the follow-on in terms of understanding the requirements for legitimacy, order, justice, law, and reconstruction.

BROWN: Do you think that the administration downplayed the complexity of the post Iraq situation in part to sell the war or to make the war more palatable and that this downplaying went on even within the walls of the Pentagon itself?

CLARK: Yes, I do. That's just based on what I hear. It's the rumor mill. It's my experience with the planning process. We ground out this plan, we the United States of America, our armed forces ground out this plan over a period of more than a year and yet seven months into that process there was no plan for what happened afterwards and even when we got the plan we really didn't have it thought through beyond the idea of humanitarian assistance in the aftermath.

BROWN: Since we're talking about the selling of the war here did the administration in your view oversell the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

CLARK: I think we're going to have to wait the evidence on that. I do believe that there were weapons there. Aaron, I never believed that there was an imminent threat. I was prepared to believe it but I never saw the evidence when I was on active duty and was exposed to the intelligence.

It was never made public. Colin Powell never talked about it. The president never really made a convincing case to me in terms of an immediate threat and I think all of the discussion in the aftermath says there were a variety of reasons for going in. There were a lot of people who believed it would crack open the hard shell of Middle East autocracies.

There were people who believed that if we could put American forces on the ground the Israelis would be encouraged to seek peace. The Palestinians would be discouraged from fighting. Hamas would roll over and play dead and we'd have a peace agreement in the Middle East.

There were people who believed that it would send a signal to Osama bin Laden. There were all kinds of motivations but there was no single compelling reason to have gone in that I could put my finger on as a military man and I couldn't see the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction being directed against the United States.

BROWN: Let's move on here because a lot of people perhaps want to know why you're being so coy about this interest in running for president or not. Why not just -- if you're going to go, go, get in, let's go, and, if not, say so?

CLARK: Well, I'm not being coy. What I am is I'm a businessman. I'm a former general. I'm not a politician. I wrote a book. I've been a commentator on CNN. I'm speaking out. People are coming to me. They're talking about leadership. They're talking about the issues. They're asking me am I prepared to do this.

It's a huge step for someone who hasn't grown up in a political family, doesn't have an independent personal financial base and doesn't have the sort of political connections to move into something like this. And, remember, there's already nine candidates out there.

There's a full party process underway. There are a lot of people who have said well you never paid your dues in the political process. You've never been elected to office. What do you know about health care?

And a lot of these questions do come up, so for me it's a process of getting to know the country, people getting to know me, people in the Democratic Party and independent people and Republicans asking where do they stand today? What kind of leadership do they want? What do they see in the terms of the requirements for facing this nation's future? And, all of that is a very active process. It's not simply a matter of stepping up and sticking out your hand and saying donate money to me.

BROWN: A couple more questions. May I infer from this that you are a Democrat?

CLARK: Well, I've never officially stated a party affiliation. That's another bridge to cross. I've been non-partisan my entire life. I was in the Ford administration as a White House scholar. I worked in the Office of Management and Budget for a short time in the West Wing of the White House.

I had friends that were defense intellectuals on both sides. Obviously, as a general I was in the Pentagon at the time that a Democratic administration was in, so.

BROWN: Are you a registered Democrat in Arkansas though?

CLARK: No.

BROWN: No?

CLARK: No, I did vote in the Democratic primary. As far as I know I'm not registered as a Democrat.

BROWN: Let me try the question backwards then. Forget running, forget raising money all of that. Would you like to be president?

CLARK: I'd like to make a contribution to this country and I would like to get back into public service at some point and exactly when and how that remains to be seen. I have to ask myself how's the best way for me to make a contribution to the country and that's a lot of soul searching. I'm going to do that.

BROWN: General, when you decide will you pick up the phone and give me a call?

CLARK: It depends.

BROWN: I want to know.

CLARK: Thank you (unintelligible).

BROWN: It's good to talk to you, sir, a lot, General Wesley Clark.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT for a Tuesday, a Catholic bishop of Phoenix finds himself in court after a fatal hit and run accident, more problems with the law, more problems for the church.

And, why is the Laci and Scott Peterson story such an audience grabber? Jeff Greenfield wonders aloud what's going on.

Lots to do, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It speaks volumes and none of it good when the words bishop and crime come together on a wire service bulletin, but that's exactly how the Associated Press, AP, is slugging the news out of Phoenix, Arizona tonight about a fatal hit-and-run accident. And, the headline tonight, the troubling gap between the bishop's story and the facts of a 43-year-old man's death.

Here again, CNN's Martin Savidge. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): As the bells of St. Mary's basilica toll, the Arizona Catholic Church finds itself facing its second conflict of faith in a month. Sixty-seven-year-old Bishop Thomas O'Brien stands accused of running over a 43-year-old father of two last Saturday evening and leaving him dying in the street.

RICK ROMLEY, MARICOPA COUNTY ATTORNEY: I have authorized the filing of a direct complaint against Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien for leaving the scene of a serious or fatal accident.

SAVIDGE: Police say a witness spotted the bishop's car, noting the license plate, and passed it on to authorities. Reportedly, O'Brien did not mention the incident to police until they came to his home Monday morning almost 36 hours later.

The bishop is said to have told police he thought his car had hit a dog or had been struck by a rock. Investigators say O'Brien had attended several confirmations just hours before the tragedy. They can not say if drugs or alcohol played a role but they're investigating.

ROMLEY: That's always very difficult when such a long period of time has passed since the accident itself.

SAVIDGE: According to police, Jim Reed was jaywalking to catch a bus when he was hit. The force of the impact broke the car's windshield. A second unidentified car also hit Reed, both cars allegedly failed to stop.

Bishop O'Brien was arrested two weeks to the day after making an unprecedented agreement with local prosecutors sparing himself from indictment on obstruction charges for protecting priests accused of sexual abuse. This latest incident has only added to questions about the bishop's ability to lead the Arizona Catholic Church.

JOSEPH REAVES, "ARIZONA REPUBLIC" NEWSPAPER: Even some of his closest aides think that this can't last and that there will be a change. There's already some names being floated who might come in here and an administrator will probably be appointed in the next couple of weeks.

SAVIDGE: On the steps at St. Mary's, parishioners said they were praying for their bishop and for the victim's family, but reserving judgment to others.

Do you think he should resign?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's not for me to decide.

SAVIDGE: This latest tragedy revolving around Bishop O'Brien has clearly shaken the city of Phoenix but not the faith of the people he serves.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SAVIDGE: The leadership of the Catholic Diocese here in Phoenix, Arizona just a short while ago ended an evening meeting. There were no major announcements that came out. It was asked if the bishop has been asked to resign. There was no comment on that.

The bishop is now free on bond and he faces in this charge alone the prospect, a minimum of perhaps probation, or it could be a maximum of over three years in prison and authorities here say their investigation is not done. More serious charges could yet follow. There is no question that the faithful are being tested in Phoenix tonight -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, thank you, Martin Savidge in Phoenix, Arizona.

Some other stories making news around the country beginning in the nation's capital with a major fund-raising event for the president, $2,000 a person dinner, the latest in Mr. Bush's reelection effort. This month alone, Mr. Bush's campaign is expected to raise between $20 and $25 million about as much as all nine Democratic presidential challengers raised in the first three months of the year.

A story tonight at the intersection of science and politics, the American Medical Association today endorsed cloning for research purposes only. The measure does not support the highly controversial other form of cloning research into reproductive cloning.

The results from the first ever side impact crash test on vehicles released today. The organization that performed the test, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said that a majority of small sports utility vehicles that were tested rated poorly. Not surprisingly, vehicles that have side impact airbags fared much better than those that don't.

And finally, the guards did it at least that's the story. Police in New York today arrested four of their colleagues, prison guards at Rikers Island Jail in a heist of a drawing by the famed artist Salvador Dali.

Many of the prisons have priceless artwork hanging in the lobby. You knew that didn't you? Hum. The guards, it is alleged, staged a fake fire drill, this is great, during which they swapped the Dali with their own fake copy. The sketch has not been recovered.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT -- you can't make stuff up like this, right? Politics California style as the governor who just won reelection last fall faces a recall vote.

A break first, around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When he won reelection a year ago, California Governor Gray Davis was considered the least liked elected governor in the country by a good many people. If his Republican opponent had been an even average campaigner, these people say, Davis would have been hammered. He wasn't. He won. It was ugly but he won. But he may not see the finish line of his second term which is a story of money and politics as it's played in California.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): His approval ratings are in the basement. There's a budget deficit approaching $38 billion. And now, the governor of the nation's largest state has something else to worry about.

ANNOUNCER: Enough is enough. We must recall Gray Davis.

BROWN: In a state known for its voter driven initiatives and propositions on everything from smoking to property tax relief, there is a lot of momentum behind a recall election, one that might force Governor Gray Davis out of office.

* BROWN: In a state known for its vote-driven initiatives and proposition from everything from smoking to property tax relieve, there is a lot of momentum behind a recall election, one that might force Governor Gray Davis out of office as soon as late fall.

DAN TERRY, TAXPAYERS AGAINST THE RECALL: Almost seven million people voted in the last governor's race. So seven months later, we're now going to have 900,000 undo those result, that is not democracy, that is anarchy.

BROWN: Only last November did the governor celebrate a second- term victory over a well-financed Republican opponent. Now a second wealthy Republican, a Congressman named Darrell Issa is helping lead the recall effort.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: We are not only nearly at the amount of signatures we are going to need to qualify the recall, but we have the majority of California's likely voters believing that this governor should go.

BROWN: Organizers claim the governor lied about the enormous sides of the state deficit. Freely spending public money until he was reelected, something the governor says is nonsense. Under California law, if a recall does succeed, Congressman Issa could be a gubernatorial candidate. And so could this man, who's made no secret of fact that he too would like to be governor some day, and perhaps some day is fairly soon.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, ACTOR: I can feel the beginning of another people revolt. I can hear the multitude crying. We are mad as hell, and we can't take it any longer.

BROWN: For his part, Governor Davis usually unflappable is not amused.

GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: The recall movement is sponsored by bunch of losers. I won the election fair and square. They are trying to overthrow the will of the electorate.

BROWN: Californians have often used the recall against the sitting governor more than 30 times in fact, but no attempt has been successful. The California politics which has seen nearly everything has rarely seen anything like this.

SHERRY BEBITCH JEFFE, SENIOR SCHOLAR UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: We've got the ideological extremes in there. I mean, this is a perfect storm of destabilization of government, of the total wackiness of democracy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined from Los Angeles tonight, to talk about all of this from the woman you just heard from very briefly at the end of our story, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst, senior scholar at the University of Southern California.

Good to have you with us. Go from a nuisance to a serious threat to the governor?

JEFFE: At the point where, Darrell Issa stepped in and began to pump in money. You mentioned the 31 previous attempts that never really qualified from the ballot. The major difference between them and this one is money. A rich patron who signed checks. They are now up to about, what, $800,000 into a campaign. It cost the fortune simply to qualify an initiative in California. In the first two month, only about 200,000 signatures were gathered. The difference is money.

BROWN: Is there -- look, last November, honestly, the governor could only seem to win a popularity contest against Bill Simon. So is it that he is significantly less popular today than he was then.

JEFFE: He's at an historic low in his approval rating. What I find the most fascinating number is a set of numbers from a new poll from the public policy institute of California, among Democrats, George W. Bush -- Democrats in California, George W. Bush has an approval rating of 37 percent. Not surprising. Among Californian Democrat, Gray Davis has an approval rating of 38 percent. I think that tells you a lot about what's going on.

BROWN: But it doesn't tell us necessarily that, if a recall election were in fact held, he would lose, does it?

JEFFE: No, it doesn't. I mean, polling indicates that about a majority, 48 percent of Californians support the recall. 51 percent of likely voters support the recall. But recall isn't real yet. I mean, this is -- this is unchartered territory for us quite frankly. If this recall does qualify, we will never -- we have no paradigms. We have nothing by which to judge the way this will go. The way this ought to go. I mean, for political analyst like me, it's the candy store.

BROWN: I bet it is. Certainly no guarantee is there to a state like California given the political makeup of the state that the Republicans who have financed this would come away winners?

JEFFE: Exactly. That is absolutely the case. It is still a Democratic state, for one. And I think that there's a delicious irony in the fact that Darrell Issa who said he would be a candidate for governor has given this movement life, but right now, everyone is focusing on the gentleman that you focused on, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It would be quite interesting if Issa actually financed Arnold Schwarzenegger's entry into the gubernatorial race. And you know what, no matter who win, whether Governor Davis is retained or a new governor is sworn in, the grand prize is the same. The entire mess we're in today.

BROWN: Which is a, almost $40 billion state deficit.

JEFFE: That's right. State deficit and a rancorous nasty electorate, a very destabilized government. Political chaos in the state. You wonder why anyone would want to run to replace Governor Davis. And quite frankly, the Republicans may have out foxed themselves because right now they can beat up on a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature for everything that has gone wrong. If a Republican should win the governor's office, they can't say it's all the Democrats fault anymore.

BROWN: Good to have you on the program. We will follow this one. We like a good political dust up better than most. So thank you -- thank you for your time.

As NEWSNIGHT continue, pulling out all of the stops to get the get. The interview with Private Lynch. And an inside look at the booking wars in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, the Private Jessica Lynch story, and what some are trying to go to go to get the rights to tell it. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We learned bit more about what happened to Private Lynch the day she was captured. Barbara Starr's reported earlier in the program and also learning a whole lot more about the battle being waged to get an interview with Private Lynch by the network, especially the big ones.

Now, to be fair, everyone wants Private Lynch. Her story is a great one, and no one begrudges the network booker who sends pizza or some flowers over, but is a line being crossed when networks, now part of huge conglomerates, also suggest that besides an interview, hey, there might be book rights or movie rights or who knows what else, all of which pay a lot more than a news interview, which in theory pays nothing.

Steve Friedman has been involved in lots of booking wars as a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) producer for "The Today Show," twice and "The CBS Early Show." We are pleased to have him with us tonight.

OK, so the tradition of American journalism, American journalism is, we don't pay. But if you say to someone, I'll introduce you to the book publisher too, who is also part of our company, and over there at the WB, they're interested in making a movie and they'll pay you for the rights, isn't that in effect paying for the interview?

STEVE FRIEDMAN, FORMER EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, NBC "TODAY SHOW": Yes.

BROWN: Is it wrong?

FRIEDMAN: No.

BROWN: Why?

FRIEDMAN: Well, somebody's going to get the interview anyway.

BROWN: Of course.

FRIEDMAN: And what is wrong with the company saying, "hey, I'm going to use my advantages to help get that interview." Is it any worse or different than Simon & Schuster putting Hillary Clinton with Barbara Walters and doing all of that other stuff? You think Hillary Clinton wasn't paid? Where do you think that $8 million advance came from?

BROWN: Well, except isn't that exactly the opposite here?

FRIEDMAN: Same principle.

BROWN: Well, it's not the same principle. Here is why I think it's not the same principle. They signed Mrs. Clinton, they give her $8 million, and they say part of the deal here is you will do promotion for the book, you will go to book signings, you will be at Barnes & Noble. You will do an X number of sit-down interviews. That's part of the deal. But that's wholly different, isn't it, than ABC News saying, you do a Barbara Walters interview, and you'll get a book deal at Hyperion?

FRIEDMAN: Well, didn't they do that with the coal miners?

BROWN: Well, that's an interesting question, because there are those who would argue that that really was the point that the line was crossed, that the Pennsylvania coal miners got the rights to their story deal, and...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Yes. And ended up on TV, and maybe that was as mushy as this is.

FRIEDMAN: I'll tell you why I'm not worrying about this yet, because the driving figure, the principle of the thing -- say it's a book. If Time Warner Books signs Jessica Lynch, is she going to come on with you on CNN? Or is she going to go on with Barbara Walters or Katie Couric? Is she going to go on "American Morning," or is she going to go on "The Today Show?"

Still, commerce drives this, and commerce says if this is the driving principle, I'm going where the audience is. So I'm not too worried about this massive synergy gulping and eating it all up.

Jessica Lynch at least deserves some of this attention. We do this kind of stuff for convicted felons sometimes. I mean, you know? Get me that David Berkowitz. Get me...

BROWN: We should never watch the sausage being made. Should we -- well, then, why not just flat out pay them? Why not just, you know, they do this on a small scale in Britain, and they don't pay them a lot, but members of Parliament are paid a short fee to do interviews. Why not just tell viewers, we're paying Steve Friedman $100...

FRIEDMAN: I wish you were.

BROWN: I'm sure you do. That we are paying you 150 bucks to come on the program, and every other guest on the program gets roughly that, some get a little more, some less.

FRIEDMAN: Well, I think we have a subversive way around that. CBS, the biggest part of this story is because CBS is the only network yet left that has this holier-than-thou Edward R. Murrow philosophy, and this is a big deal there. This would not be a big deal anywhere else, but CBS bought Haldeman's home movies for $25,000 on "60 Minutes."

BROWN: Haldeman back in Watergate day.

FRIEDMAN: You know, when $25,000 was a lot of money.

BROWN: Still is.

FRIEDMAN: They said, oh, we didn't pay for the thing, but we gave him the money for the home movies. So it's always been murky. It would be cleaner if everybody was paid; it's just not that way here. But when you do go to Britain and you book a guest, no matter who it is, you have to pay them.

BROWN: On the other side of this, I suppose, but do you think if you start giving people money, they feel they have to earn it in what they give in the interview, and maybe that affects the truthfulness of the interview itself?

FRIEDMAN: I think that's a possibility. That, in other words, if I'm being paid, I got to give a good show. I got to get a good number, and I think that would be unfortunate, but most people who get involved in this, are only there for one story. And it's their story. It's about their life. And they don't lie too much about that, unless of course, they're being paid to lie.

BROWN: Nice to meet you.

FRIEDMAN: Good to be here. BROWN: Thanks for coming in. Steve Friedman.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the Peterson case. It's a kind of weird mix of things tonight. What makes it worth the endless coverage? If anything makes it worth the endless coverage?

FRIEDMAN: How much are you going to pay to get that?

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Don't pad your part. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: From time to time, the program takes a few moments to take a good look at our business, and this is one of those moments. The story in question is the murder of Laci Peterson and the arrest of her husband. A quick Nexus search turned up 564 mentions of Laci Peterson in print and on the air for this month alone. Was she a victim of a satanic cult? Should the attorneys be talking to the media? Why is her husband getting fan mail from hundreds of lonely women?

The stories cover just about every question you can imagine, except the one CNN's Jeff Greenfield came up with.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Peterson case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) were found.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tape recordings.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Some of you may have noticed that the cable news network, including CNN, have been spending a fair amount of time on the Laci Peterson case.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Under suspicion.

GREENFIELD: Many of the people who think about the news media for a living, have deplored all this coverage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Condition of the body.

GREENFIELD: They have argued that it's wildly out of the sync with the story's significance.

(on camera): Are they right? For my money, absolutely, and that's exactly why the story is so significant. Not for what it tells us about criminal justice or domestic violence, but for what it tells us about us.

(voice-over): Clearly, are there plenty of crime stories that are also real news stories.

When a celebrity is a victim, the kidnap-murder of the Lindbergh baby, for example. When a celebrity is the accused, O.J., obviously. When a crime touches a primal nerve of fear, the Columbine school shootings. But the Peterson case fits none of these categories. It is, in fact, a depressingly typical kind of case.

If it should turn out to fit the prosecution's allegation, that the husband did it, well, in 2001, there were 742 cases where a victim was murdered at the hands of a spouse. So why this level of coverage?

Look at when the story first broke.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Christmas Eve.

GREENFIELD: During Christmas week of 2002. Now, Christmas week is traditionally the slowest news cycle of the year. And 24-hour news networks in particular were desperate for stories. That meant this case filled the air waves, and within a week or two, it had achieved critical mass.

LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: Who killed Laci Peterson?

GREENFIELD: Like a satellite reaching orbit, the case had attracted enough attention so that a small percentage of viewers got hooked.

(CROSSTALK)

GREENFIELD: And here is the key -- in the cable news universe, that small percentage can mean a significant ratings boost.

KING: On "LARRY KING LIVE."

GREENFIELD: For instance, from late April through June 11, CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE" did at least a portion of 16 shows out of 33 about the Laci Peterson case. Those shows averaged about 300,000 more viewers than shows not covering the Peterson case.

Over on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren's "On the Record" devoted 22 shows to the case. Those shows gained an additional 175,000 new viewers.

And MSNBC is bringing back "The Dan Abrams Report," because as a spokesman said last week, quote, "we anticipate a lot of news in the Laci Peterson case over the course of June and July," unquote.

Now, remember, this is a nation with more than 106 million households with televisions. So, if just a tiny portion of that total TV audience is hungering for any scrap of news, or speculation...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened to Laci Peterson?

GREENFIELD: Or guesses, educated or otherwise, about what happened and who did it, there will be rating success in covering or smothering that story.

(on camera): Now, could the same kind of ratings spike be earned by a different kind of story? By say a relentless focus on the human disaster in the Congo or the future of Social Security or Medicare? Maybe, but news mongers have known ever since the birth of mass media, that it is easier, cheaper and safer to bet on the audience's appetite for crime.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead, we will take a look at tomorrow's news tonight. Morning papers coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okey-dokey. Time to check morning papers around the country and around the world. I confess to you, I'm a little perplexed -- I confess to you I am a little perplexed by the morning papers, I can't -- but perplexed or not, I have to do it. So glasses come off, here we go!

The "Miami Herald" leads with "Canada to Allow Gay Couples to Wed: New Marriage Law a Matter of Weeks." This all began with a court ruling that we reported on, what last week or the week before? Anyway, they'll become the third country, I think, Belgium and the Netherlands, something like that, to allow gay marriages.

Down here, this is a great story. "Truck Thieves Get First Dibs on Latest 'Harry Potter' Book." It was -- someone drove a truck up and stole a bunch of the books. Books are out Friday night at midnight, I guess.

And their center main paper, you sort of think I only have one paper tonight, don't you? "What Really Happened to Jessica Lynch?" This is, in fact, a "Washington Post" story that ran today but it's in the "Miami Herald" tomorrow. "The Miami Herald" is 100 years old. The century together.

"Chicago Sun-Times." "No Sweat" is the weather, by the way. "Sammy Says His Race Was Factor in Corked Bat Flap." I am not precisely sure how race played into that, since they saw the bat had cork in it, but that's what Sammy says.

The auto story for the day comes from "The Detroit News," of course. "UAW," United Auto Workers, "Won't Budge on Health Care." That's their big, above the fold story. Also, "Child Support Face Overhaul in the State of Michigan."

A couple of stories in the "Washington Times." Why don't we get the "Washington Post," the other paper in Washington, by the way? Down at the bottom, "Tough Times Shut Down Turner Philanthropy." That would be Turner as in Mr. Turner, our former guy. Having a little money problem and he is not giving away as much as he used to, it turns out.

That's a quick look at morning papers. That's a quick look at the program. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Details About Lynch's Capture Emerge; Catholic Bishop Charged With Hit-and-Run>


Aired June 17, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again everyone.
A milestone of sorts has been reached, and it's not a pleasant one at that. An American soldier was killed today in Iraq. He was the 50th American to die there since the war ended. We don't know his name yet.

The Army says it's still notifying next of kin but we do know the soldier belonged to the Army's 1st Armored Division and was killed this morning by a sniper on the streets of Baghdad. Maybe the war is over if war means big battles and huge bombs. Clearly, the dying is not over and tonight another family mourns.

It is again Iraq where we begin the whip and the effort to stop the lawlessness there. CNN's Jane Arraf is in Baghdad and, Jane, a headline from you.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, proving it's still a combat zone U.S. soldiers face continued attacks throughout the country. They're sweeping, looking for suspected attackers and setting up a court to try them once they find some of them.

BROWN: Jane, thank you, back to you early tonight.

Next to the emerging picture of how Private Jessica Lynch and her comrades wound up in enemy hands that first Sunday of the war. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with us for that. Barbara, a headline.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, new details about the ambush of the Army convoy carrying Private First Class Jessica Lynch in the opening days of the war and tales of heroism that haven't yet made the headlines.

BROWN: Barbara, thank you.

And now to Phoenix, Arizona and the anguish over the Roman Catholic bishop's second recent encounter with the law. CNN's Martin Savidge has the story, Marty a headline.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Aaron. This would be a tragic story anywhere involving anyone but it's the head of the Catholic Church here in Arizona that now stands charged with fleeing the site of a tragedy. Now the real question is it is not the first thing that he's been embroiled in, so what happens next? They're meeting tonight -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, thank you, back to you and the rest coming up.

Also in the hour ahead, California Governor Gray Davis and what the people want to make him ex-governor Gray Davis long before his current term runs out. We'll look at the recall.

Also tonight, Laci Peterson and the single question no one is asking about the story namely is it that much of a story? CNN's Jeff Greenfield weighs in on that.

Later in the program tonight getting the get, it took Special Forces to rescue Private Jessica Lynch, now an army of television bookers is trying to get her to come on their newscast and they're using what some might call weapons of mass seduction. We'll talk with producer Steve Friedman about whether any rules are being broken, journalism or otherwise.

Also tonight, retired General Wesley Clark with us to address the events in Iraq and a little news that he's been making on his own over the last few days, all of that to come in the hour ahead. We'll have a lot to ask General Clark, much of it about why keeping the peace is proving so much harder than winning the war, or at least so it seems.

We told you today began with news that a 50th American has died in Iraq since the end of the war. Clearly, the dying, the fighting, the peacekeeping continues.

It is work being carried out by about 200,000 men and a women, a good chunk of whom thought they'd be home by now. And, adding to their burden is this, because of the way the military now works long deployments far from home may be the shape of things to come.

Here's our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Soldiers of the 3rd ID instead of a ticket home have been assigned dangerous new combat duties in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was a little irritated, you know. It seems like there's plenty of other soldiers to do it. Why do we have to do it?

MCINTYRE: The answer is simply that because of ballooning global commitments the Army's fresh out of reinforcements. Most soldiers now in Iraq can expect a nine-month tour of duty, some having already served in Afghanistan.

At his retirement last week, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki, who infuriated the Pentagon with his prewar prediction it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq, delivered a parting shot. The Army, he charged, is stretched far too think.

GEN. ERIC SHINSEKI, U.S. ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF: And as we speak over 370,000 soldiers of our Army are deployed in forward station this day and every day, 120 countries.

MCINTYRE: In 1991, when the U.S. Army sent the equivalent of eight divisions to Iraq, it still had ten divisions left. Now, the Army has only ten divisions total and only one, the 1st Cavalry Division, in Fort Hood, Texas is complete and ready for deployment on short notice. The rest, with the exception of a few brigades are deployed or earmarked to replace soldiers in Afghanistan, Europe, Korea, and Iraq.

SHINSEKI: Beware the 12 division strategy for a ten division Army. Our soldiers and families bear the risk and hardship of carrying a mission load that exceeds what force capabilities we can sustain.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon insists the problem isn't that the Army is too small but rather than too many U.S. military personnel, 320,000 by one estimate, are doing jobs that should be done by civilians.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: They're not being done because of the way the rules and requirements are fashioned over a long period of time. That's not good. That's not right. We ought to fix these things.

MCINTYRE: Army officials complain privately that what really needs fixing is the U.S. national military strategy updated after September 11. It calls for hunting down terrorists and deposing dictators but critics say it doesn't include enough forces to sustain those missions without great individual sacrifice.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: From keeping order we move next to laying down the law. After decades in which there was plenty of the first and none of the second, establishing a true and fair criminal justice system in Iraq will not be easy. Today at a courthouse looted when Baghdad fell, America's man in charge took the first step.

Here again, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): One of the first steps on the long road to justice, the Chief U.S. Administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer opened Iraq's central criminal court and announced a committee to review judges.

PAUL BREMER, U.S. ADMINISTRATOR FOR IRAQ: We are now reviewing the criminal procedure law in order to ensure that human rights and due process are respected for the first time in Iraq. No longer will evidence be extracted by torture and no longer will defendants have to appear in court without defense lawyers.

ARRAF: On more immediate matters of law and order with attacks continuing on U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military continues to round up suspects and weapons. The forces fanned out in the capital and other cities and towns, including Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Isolated attacks of RPG fire, mortar fire, that's usually happening on a daily occurrence. We're finding a lot of caches of weapons, RPGs, mortars, AKs, 50 cals, but again that's from a very small population of -- very small portion of the population.

ARRAF: The searches and detentions of entire families have enraged many Iraqis. Some six weeks after the war ended the attempted attacks continue unnerving city residents and putting soldiers on edge. This was what's left of a car hit by a mine Monday on a main Baghdad road used by U.S. forces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are still a lot of people here that, you know, I don't know why they do it other than just to maybe prove that the Americans can't handle, you know, are trying to fail. There's people out there with that mission in mind, if they can prove that we can't prevent attacks then maybe they can get more support.

ARRAF: The attacks, officials say, are launched by a wide group of people, former fighters, die-hard Ba'athists, common criminals released in a prisoner amnesty before the war. They have one thing in common the desire to drive American forces out of Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: Now that latest shooting in which that unidentified soldier was shot in the back while he was sitting in an armored vehicle is an indication, Aaron, of just how hard it is to combat these sort of attacks and military officials say with these sweeps and detentions they're making progress but they really are incurring a lot of anger in a lot of these communities -- Aaron.

BROWN: Have they, Jane, to your knowledge arrested anyone they would classify as leader of this effort to kill Americans?

ARRAF: The really difficult thing is they're not classifying the effort itself as centrally organized which means they have to crack down and find a lot of different groups with perhaps a lot of different motives. Now, Bremer yesterday announced that they had captured two senior Ba'ath Party officials. One was the head of the secret police in Tikrit, another senior official in the Shia city of Karbala.

So, those are steps but they're not indication really that these particular people or others that they've captured in these sweeps were plotting a wide variety of attacks or even any attacks at all and that's the really difficult thing. That's what they're combating right now, trying to gather up a wide group of people who might have quite different motives -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf in Baghdad.

It's impossible to forget the feelings we had when we first saw American soldiers in the hands of the government of Iraq. Just a few days into the war we looked in the eyes of the members of the 507th Maintenance Company as they looked back at the camera. They were dazed and hurt and as much as they tried to hide it they were scared and who could blame them?

We have a better idea tonight what went on in the hours before we saw them that day; reporting for us CNN's Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): It was a series of wrong turns and mis- directions that led to the fatal 90-minute firefight with Iraqi forces outside the town of al-Nasiriya on March 23. The young soldiers tried to save each other and fight their way past the barricades piled in the road, all the while Iraqis attacking from close range.

That fatal ambush left 11 soldiers dead, five captured POWs, and the eventual world famous rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch, new details of what happened and heroism in hand-to-hand combat that have not made the headlines.

The 507th Maintenance Company was at the end of an 8,000 vehicle convoy moving towards Baghdad. As they approached al-Nasiriyah they failed to make a critical left turn and instead went north. No one is sure why. Instead, exhausted already with no sleep in 60 hours, the group continued north right into enemy territory.

By the time they realized they were lost and turned around back south, it was too late. Iraqi paramilitary forces were assembling firing on the convoy from nearby buildings, piling debris and vehicles in the road to entrap the Americans.

There were heroic efforts by soldiers equipped only with rifles. One soldier who survived is credited with attacking and killing half a dozen Iraqis firing from a nearby mortar position.

The senior enlisted man, Master Sergeant Robert Dowdy, kept the young soldiers together urging them to fight back. He was in a Humvee with Jessica Lynch when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. He died instantly.

The driver was Private First Class Lori Piestewa, Lynch's best friend. The young Native American was gravely wounded and taken to a hospital where she died. Nearby Marines arrived and helped rescue some of the soldiers.

CNN has learned that next week the Army plans to release its report on the details of the ambush of the 507th. The Army will conclude that the soldiers did their duty and fought to the best of their ability in the fog and friction of war.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There's another dimension to the story of Private Jessica Lynch and the 507th, nothing heroic here purely business, what's known as the booking wars. It has to do with the lengths to which television networks are going to get an interview with Private Lynch.

One network, CBS, has made her an offer that some people say went well beyond the pale. We'll talk about that with a veteran of the booking wars, former "Today Show" producer Steve Friedman a little bit later in the program.

First we want to pull rank and turn to Washington and to retired General Wesley Clark and now former CNN military analyst Wesley Clark. It's been a while since we talked to General Clark; in fact, when we last saw him he was sitting next to another news anchor on another network talking presidential politics and the possibility of entering the fray.

So, a lot to talk about, a two front interview I guess, and general it is very nice to see you. It's been a while.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Nice to be with you Aaron.

BROWN: Let's talk about Iraq first and we'll get to politics second. We've had 50 deaths since the war ended, not all of them combat deaths if you will but most of them. Is this a sign that the Pentagon was ill-prepared for the peace?

CLARK: In many respects it is a sign for that but there was going to be resistance anyway. I think it's deeper than that. I think it's the fact that the whole process of what it meant to take down a country wasn't thought through and properly resourced and staffed up front.

It started with some fault assumptions about the nature of the adversary and the popular will in Iraq, went through the capabilities of the United States Armed Forces, and it just -- we just didn't have it prepared for the follow-on in terms of understanding the requirements for legitimacy, order, justice, law, and reconstruction.

BROWN: Do you think that the administration downplayed the complexity of the post Iraq situation in part to sell the war or to make the war more palatable and that this downplaying went on even within the walls of the Pentagon itself?

CLARK: Yes, I do. That's just based on what I hear. It's the rumor mill. It's my experience with the planning process. We ground out this plan, we the United States of America, our armed forces ground out this plan over a period of more than a year and yet seven months into that process there was no plan for what happened afterwards and even when we got the plan we really didn't have it thought through beyond the idea of humanitarian assistance in the aftermath.

BROWN: Since we're talking about the selling of the war here did the administration in your view oversell the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

CLARK: I think we're going to have to wait the evidence on that. I do believe that there were weapons there. Aaron, I never believed that there was an imminent threat. I was prepared to believe it but I never saw the evidence when I was on active duty and was exposed to the intelligence.

It was never made public. Colin Powell never talked about it. The president never really made a convincing case to me in terms of an immediate threat and I think all of the discussion in the aftermath says there were a variety of reasons for going in. There were a lot of people who believed it would crack open the hard shell of Middle East autocracies.

There were people who believed that if we could put American forces on the ground the Israelis would be encouraged to seek peace. The Palestinians would be discouraged from fighting. Hamas would roll over and play dead and we'd have a peace agreement in the Middle East.

There were people who believed that it would send a signal to Osama bin Laden. There were all kinds of motivations but there was no single compelling reason to have gone in that I could put my finger on as a military man and I couldn't see the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction being directed against the United States.

BROWN: Let's move on here because a lot of people perhaps want to know why you're being so coy about this interest in running for president or not. Why not just -- if you're going to go, go, get in, let's go, and, if not, say so?

CLARK: Well, I'm not being coy. What I am is I'm a businessman. I'm a former general. I'm not a politician. I wrote a book. I've been a commentator on CNN. I'm speaking out. People are coming to me. They're talking about leadership. They're talking about the issues. They're asking me am I prepared to do this.

It's a huge step for someone who hasn't grown up in a political family, doesn't have an independent personal financial base and doesn't have the sort of political connections to move into something like this. And, remember, there's already nine candidates out there.

There's a full party process underway. There are a lot of people who have said well you never paid your dues in the political process. You've never been elected to office. What do you know about health care?

And a lot of these questions do come up, so for me it's a process of getting to know the country, people getting to know me, people in the Democratic Party and independent people and Republicans asking where do they stand today? What kind of leadership do they want? What do they see in the terms of the requirements for facing this nation's future? And, all of that is a very active process. It's not simply a matter of stepping up and sticking out your hand and saying donate money to me.

BROWN: A couple more questions. May I infer from this that you are a Democrat?

CLARK: Well, I've never officially stated a party affiliation. That's another bridge to cross. I've been non-partisan my entire life. I was in the Ford administration as a White House scholar. I worked in the Office of Management and Budget for a short time in the West Wing of the White House.

I had friends that were defense intellectuals on both sides. Obviously, as a general I was in the Pentagon at the time that a Democratic administration was in, so.

BROWN: Are you a registered Democrat in Arkansas though?

CLARK: No.

BROWN: No?

CLARK: No, I did vote in the Democratic primary. As far as I know I'm not registered as a Democrat.

BROWN: Let me try the question backwards then. Forget running, forget raising money all of that. Would you like to be president?

CLARK: I'd like to make a contribution to this country and I would like to get back into public service at some point and exactly when and how that remains to be seen. I have to ask myself how's the best way for me to make a contribution to the country and that's a lot of soul searching. I'm going to do that.

BROWN: General, when you decide will you pick up the phone and give me a call?

CLARK: It depends.

BROWN: I want to know.

CLARK: Thank you (unintelligible).

BROWN: It's good to talk to you, sir, a lot, General Wesley Clark.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT for a Tuesday, a Catholic bishop of Phoenix finds himself in court after a fatal hit and run accident, more problems with the law, more problems for the church.

And, why is the Laci and Scott Peterson story such an audience grabber? Jeff Greenfield wonders aloud what's going on.

Lots to do, this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It speaks volumes and none of it good when the words bishop and crime come together on a wire service bulletin, but that's exactly how the Associated Press, AP, is slugging the news out of Phoenix, Arizona tonight about a fatal hit-and-run accident. And, the headline tonight, the troubling gap between the bishop's story and the facts of a 43-year-old man's death.

Here again, CNN's Martin Savidge. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): As the bells of St. Mary's basilica toll, the Arizona Catholic Church finds itself facing its second conflict of faith in a month. Sixty-seven-year-old Bishop Thomas O'Brien stands accused of running over a 43-year-old father of two last Saturday evening and leaving him dying in the street.

RICK ROMLEY, MARICOPA COUNTY ATTORNEY: I have authorized the filing of a direct complaint against Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien for leaving the scene of a serious or fatal accident.

SAVIDGE: Police say a witness spotted the bishop's car, noting the license plate, and passed it on to authorities. Reportedly, O'Brien did not mention the incident to police until they came to his home Monday morning almost 36 hours later.

The bishop is said to have told police he thought his car had hit a dog or had been struck by a rock. Investigators say O'Brien had attended several confirmations just hours before the tragedy. They can not say if drugs or alcohol played a role but they're investigating.

ROMLEY: That's always very difficult when such a long period of time has passed since the accident itself.

SAVIDGE: According to police, Jim Reed was jaywalking to catch a bus when he was hit. The force of the impact broke the car's windshield. A second unidentified car also hit Reed, both cars allegedly failed to stop.

Bishop O'Brien was arrested two weeks to the day after making an unprecedented agreement with local prosecutors sparing himself from indictment on obstruction charges for protecting priests accused of sexual abuse. This latest incident has only added to questions about the bishop's ability to lead the Arizona Catholic Church.

JOSEPH REAVES, "ARIZONA REPUBLIC" NEWSPAPER: Even some of his closest aides think that this can't last and that there will be a change. There's already some names being floated who might come in here and an administrator will probably be appointed in the next couple of weeks.

SAVIDGE: On the steps at St. Mary's, parishioners said they were praying for their bishop and for the victim's family, but reserving judgment to others.

Do you think he should resign?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's not for me to decide.

SAVIDGE: This latest tragedy revolving around Bishop O'Brien has clearly shaken the city of Phoenix but not the faith of the people he serves.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SAVIDGE: The leadership of the Catholic Diocese here in Phoenix, Arizona just a short while ago ended an evening meeting. There were no major announcements that came out. It was asked if the bishop has been asked to resign. There was no comment on that.

The bishop is now free on bond and he faces in this charge alone the prospect, a minimum of perhaps probation, or it could be a maximum of over three years in prison and authorities here say their investigation is not done. More serious charges could yet follow. There is no question that the faithful are being tested in Phoenix tonight -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, thank you, Martin Savidge in Phoenix, Arizona.

Some other stories making news around the country beginning in the nation's capital with a major fund-raising event for the president, $2,000 a person dinner, the latest in Mr. Bush's reelection effort. This month alone, Mr. Bush's campaign is expected to raise between $20 and $25 million about as much as all nine Democratic presidential challengers raised in the first three months of the year.

A story tonight at the intersection of science and politics, the American Medical Association today endorsed cloning for research purposes only. The measure does not support the highly controversial other form of cloning research into reproductive cloning.

The results from the first ever side impact crash test on vehicles released today. The organization that performed the test, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said that a majority of small sports utility vehicles that were tested rated poorly. Not surprisingly, vehicles that have side impact airbags fared much better than those that don't.

And finally, the guards did it at least that's the story. Police in New York today arrested four of their colleagues, prison guards at Rikers Island Jail in a heist of a drawing by the famed artist Salvador Dali.

Many of the prisons have priceless artwork hanging in the lobby. You knew that didn't you? Hum. The guards, it is alleged, staged a fake fire drill, this is great, during which they swapped the Dali with their own fake copy. The sketch has not been recovered.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT -- you can't make stuff up like this, right? Politics California style as the governor who just won reelection last fall faces a recall vote.

A break first, around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When he won reelection a year ago, California Governor Gray Davis was considered the least liked elected governor in the country by a good many people. If his Republican opponent had been an even average campaigner, these people say, Davis would have been hammered. He wasn't. He won. It was ugly but he won. But he may not see the finish line of his second term which is a story of money and politics as it's played in California.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): His approval ratings are in the basement. There's a budget deficit approaching $38 billion. And now, the governor of the nation's largest state has something else to worry about.

ANNOUNCER: Enough is enough. We must recall Gray Davis.

BROWN: In a state known for its voter driven initiatives and propositions on everything from smoking to property tax relief, there is a lot of momentum behind a recall election, one that might force Governor Gray Davis out of office.

* BROWN: In a state known for its vote-driven initiatives and proposition from everything from smoking to property tax relieve, there is a lot of momentum behind a recall election, one that might force Governor Gray Davis out of office as soon as late fall.

DAN TERRY, TAXPAYERS AGAINST THE RECALL: Almost seven million people voted in the last governor's race. So seven months later, we're now going to have 900,000 undo those result, that is not democracy, that is anarchy.

BROWN: Only last November did the governor celebrate a second- term victory over a well-financed Republican opponent. Now a second wealthy Republican, a Congressman named Darrell Issa is helping lead the recall effort.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: We are not only nearly at the amount of signatures we are going to need to qualify the recall, but we have the majority of California's likely voters believing that this governor should go.

BROWN: Organizers claim the governor lied about the enormous sides of the state deficit. Freely spending public money until he was reelected, something the governor says is nonsense. Under California law, if a recall does succeed, Congressman Issa could be a gubernatorial candidate. And so could this man, who's made no secret of fact that he too would like to be governor some day, and perhaps some day is fairly soon.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, ACTOR: I can feel the beginning of another people revolt. I can hear the multitude crying. We are mad as hell, and we can't take it any longer.

BROWN: For his part, Governor Davis usually unflappable is not amused.

GOV. GRAY DAVIS (D), CALIFORNIA: The recall movement is sponsored by bunch of losers. I won the election fair and square. They are trying to overthrow the will of the electorate.

BROWN: Californians have often used the recall against the sitting governor more than 30 times in fact, but no attempt has been successful. The California politics which has seen nearly everything has rarely seen anything like this.

SHERRY BEBITCH JEFFE, SENIOR SCHOLAR UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: We've got the ideological extremes in there. I mean, this is a perfect storm of destabilization of government, of the total wackiness of democracy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We're joined from Los Angeles tonight, to talk about all of this from the woman you just heard from very briefly at the end of our story, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst, senior scholar at the University of Southern California.

Good to have you with us. Go from a nuisance to a serious threat to the governor?

JEFFE: At the point where, Darrell Issa stepped in and began to pump in money. You mentioned the 31 previous attempts that never really qualified from the ballot. The major difference between them and this one is money. A rich patron who signed checks. They are now up to about, what, $800,000 into a campaign. It cost the fortune simply to qualify an initiative in California. In the first two month, only about 200,000 signatures were gathered. The difference is money.

BROWN: Is there -- look, last November, honestly, the governor could only seem to win a popularity contest against Bill Simon. So is it that he is significantly less popular today than he was then.

JEFFE: He's at an historic low in his approval rating. What I find the most fascinating number is a set of numbers from a new poll from the public policy institute of California, among Democrats, George W. Bush -- Democrats in California, George W. Bush has an approval rating of 37 percent. Not surprising. Among Californian Democrat, Gray Davis has an approval rating of 38 percent. I think that tells you a lot about what's going on.

BROWN: But it doesn't tell us necessarily that, if a recall election were in fact held, he would lose, does it?

JEFFE: No, it doesn't. I mean, polling indicates that about a majority, 48 percent of Californians support the recall. 51 percent of likely voters support the recall. But recall isn't real yet. I mean, this is -- this is unchartered territory for us quite frankly. If this recall does qualify, we will never -- we have no paradigms. We have nothing by which to judge the way this will go. The way this ought to go. I mean, for political analyst like me, it's the candy store.

BROWN: I bet it is. Certainly no guarantee is there to a state like California given the political makeup of the state that the Republicans who have financed this would come away winners?

JEFFE: Exactly. That is absolutely the case. It is still a Democratic state, for one. And I think that there's a delicious irony in the fact that Darrell Issa who said he would be a candidate for governor has given this movement life, but right now, everyone is focusing on the gentleman that you focused on, Arnold Schwarzenegger. It would be quite interesting if Issa actually financed Arnold Schwarzenegger's entry into the gubernatorial race. And you know what, no matter who win, whether Governor Davis is retained or a new governor is sworn in, the grand prize is the same. The entire mess we're in today.

BROWN: Which is a, almost $40 billion state deficit.

JEFFE: That's right. State deficit and a rancorous nasty electorate, a very destabilized government. Political chaos in the state. You wonder why anyone would want to run to replace Governor Davis. And quite frankly, the Republicans may have out foxed themselves because right now they can beat up on a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature for everything that has gone wrong. If a Republican should win the governor's office, they can't say it's all the Democrats fault anymore.

BROWN: Good to have you on the program. We will follow this one. We like a good political dust up better than most. So thank you -- thank you for your time.

As NEWSNIGHT continue, pulling out all of the stops to get the get. The interview with Private Lynch. And an inside look at the booking wars in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: And next on NEWSNIGHT, the Private Jessica Lynch story, and what some are trying to go to go to get the rights to tell it. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We learned bit more about what happened to Private Lynch the day she was captured. Barbara Starr's reported earlier in the program and also learning a whole lot more about the battle being waged to get an interview with Private Lynch by the network, especially the big ones.

Now, to be fair, everyone wants Private Lynch. Her story is a great one, and no one begrudges the network booker who sends pizza or some flowers over, but is a line being crossed when networks, now part of huge conglomerates, also suggest that besides an interview, hey, there might be book rights or movie rights or who knows what else, all of which pay a lot more than a news interview, which in theory pays nothing.

Steve Friedman has been involved in lots of booking wars as a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) producer for "The Today Show," twice and "The CBS Early Show." We are pleased to have him with us tonight.

OK, so the tradition of American journalism, American journalism is, we don't pay. But if you say to someone, I'll introduce you to the book publisher too, who is also part of our company, and over there at the WB, they're interested in making a movie and they'll pay you for the rights, isn't that in effect paying for the interview?

STEVE FRIEDMAN, FORMER EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, NBC "TODAY SHOW": Yes.

BROWN: Is it wrong?

FRIEDMAN: No.

BROWN: Why?

FRIEDMAN: Well, somebody's going to get the interview anyway.

BROWN: Of course.

FRIEDMAN: And what is wrong with the company saying, "hey, I'm going to use my advantages to help get that interview." Is it any worse or different than Simon & Schuster putting Hillary Clinton with Barbara Walters and doing all of that other stuff? You think Hillary Clinton wasn't paid? Where do you think that $8 million advance came from?

BROWN: Well, except isn't that exactly the opposite here?

FRIEDMAN: Same principle.

BROWN: Well, it's not the same principle. Here is why I think it's not the same principle. They signed Mrs. Clinton, they give her $8 million, and they say part of the deal here is you will do promotion for the book, you will go to book signings, you will be at Barnes & Noble. You will do an X number of sit-down interviews. That's part of the deal. But that's wholly different, isn't it, than ABC News saying, you do a Barbara Walters interview, and you'll get a book deal at Hyperion?

FRIEDMAN: Well, didn't they do that with the coal miners?

BROWN: Well, that's an interesting question, because there are those who would argue that that really was the point that the line was crossed, that the Pennsylvania coal miners got the rights to their story deal, and...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Yes. And ended up on TV, and maybe that was as mushy as this is.

FRIEDMAN: I'll tell you why I'm not worrying about this yet, because the driving figure, the principle of the thing -- say it's a book. If Time Warner Books signs Jessica Lynch, is she going to come on with you on CNN? Or is she going to go on with Barbara Walters or Katie Couric? Is she going to go on "American Morning," or is she going to go on "The Today Show?"

Still, commerce drives this, and commerce says if this is the driving principle, I'm going where the audience is. So I'm not too worried about this massive synergy gulping and eating it all up.

Jessica Lynch at least deserves some of this attention. We do this kind of stuff for convicted felons sometimes. I mean, you know? Get me that David Berkowitz. Get me...

BROWN: We should never watch the sausage being made. Should we -- well, then, why not just flat out pay them? Why not just, you know, they do this on a small scale in Britain, and they don't pay them a lot, but members of Parliament are paid a short fee to do interviews. Why not just tell viewers, we're paying Steve Friedman $100...

FRIEDMAN: I wish you were.

BROWN: I'm sure you do. That we are paying you 150 bucks to come on the program, and every other guest on the program gets roughly that, some get a little more, some less.

FRIEDMAN: Well, I think we have a subversive way around that. CBS, the biggest part of this story is because CBS is the only network yet left that has this holier-than-thou Edward R. Murrow philosophy, and this is a big deal there. This would not be a big deal anywhere else, but CBS bought Haldeman's home movies for $25,000 on "60 Minutes."

BROWN: Haldeman back in Watergate day.

FRIEDMAN: You know, when $25,000 was a lot of money.

BROWN: Still is.

FRIEDMAN: They said, oh, we didn't pay for the thing, but we gave him the money for the home movies. So it's always been murky. It would be cleaner if everybody was paid; it's just not that way here. But when you do go to Britain and you book a guest, no matter who it is, you have to pay them.

BROWN: On the other side of this, I suppose, but do you think if you start giving people money, they feel they have to earn it in what they give in the interview, and maybe that affects the truthfulness of the interview itself?

FRIEDMAN: I think that's a possibility. That, in other words, if I'm being paid, I got to give a good show. I got to get a good number, and I think that would be unfortunate, but most people who get involved in this, are only there for one story. And it's their story. It's about their life. And they don't lie too much about that, unless of course, they're being paid to lie.

BROWN: Nice to meet you.

FRIEDMAN: Good to be here. BROWN: Thanks for coming in. Steve Friedman.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the Peterson case. It's a kind of weird mix of things tonight. What makes it worth the endless coverage? If anything makes it worth the endless coverage?

FRIEDMAN: How much are you going to pay to get that?

BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Don't pad your part. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: From time to time, the program takes a few moments to take a good look at our business, and this is one of those moments. The story in question is the murder of Laci Peterson and the arrest of her husband. A quick Nexus search turned up 564 mentions of Laci Peterson in print and on the air for this month alone. Was she a victim of a satanic cult? Should the attorneys be talking to the media? Why is her husband getting fan mail from hundreds of lonely women?

The stories cover just about every question you can imagine, except the one CNN's Jeff Greenfield came up with.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Peterson case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) were found.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tape recordings.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Some of you may have noticed that the cable news network, including CNN, have been spending a fair amount of time on the Laci Peterson case.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Under suspicion.

GREENFIELD: Many of the people who think about the news media for a living, have deplored all this coverage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Condition of the body.

GREENFIELD: They have argued that it's wildly out of the sync with the story's significance.

(on camera): Are they right? For my money, absolutely, and that's exactly why the story is so significant. Not for what it tells us about criminal justice or domestic violence, but for what it tells us about us.

(voice-over): Clearly, are there plenty of crime stories that are also real news stories.

When a celebrity is a victim, the kidnap-murder of the Lindbergh baby, for example. When a celebrity is the accused, O.J., obviously. When a crime touches a primal nerve of fear, the Columbine school shootings. But the Peterson case fits none of these categories. It is, in fact, a depressingly typical kind of case.

If it should turn out to fit the prosecution's allegation, that the husband did it, well, in 2001, there were 742 cases where a victim was murdered at the hands of a spouse. So why this level of coverage?

Look at when the story first broke.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Christmas Eve.

GREENFIELD: During Christmas week of 2002. Now, Christmas week is traditionally the slowest news cycle of the year. And 24-hour news networks in particular were desperate for stories. That meant this case filled the air waves, and within a week or two, it had achieved critical mass.

LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: Who killed Laci Peterson?

GREENFIELD: Like a satellite reaching orbit, the case had attracted enough attention so that a small percentage of viewers got hooked.

(CROSSTALK)

GREENFIELD: And here is the key -- in the cable news universe, that small percentage can mean a significant ratings boost.

KING: On "LARRY KING LIVE."

GREENFIELD: For instance, from late April through June 11, CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE" did at least a portion of 16 shows out of 33 about the Laci Peterson case. Those shows averaged about 300,000 more viewers than shows not covering the Peterson case.

Over on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren's "On the Record" devoted 22 shows to the case. Those shows gained an additional 175,000 new viewers.

And MSNBC is bringing back "The Dan Abrams Report," because as a spokesman said last week, quote, "we anticipate a lot of news in the Laci Peterson case over the course of June and July," unquote.

Now, remember, this is a nation with more than 106 million households with televisions. So, if just a tiny portion of that total TV audience is hungering for any scrap of news, or speculation...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened to Laci Peterson?

GREENFIELD: Or guesses, educated or otherwise, about what happened and who did it, there will be rating success in covering or smothering that story.

(on camera): Now, could the same kind of ratings spike be earned by a different kind of story? By say a relentless focus on the human disaster in the Congo or the future of Social Security or Medicare? Maybe, but news mongers have known ever since the birth of mass media, that it is easier, cheaper and safer to bet on the audience's appetite for crime.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead, we will take a look at tomorrow's news tonight. Morning papers coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okey-dokey. Time to check morning papers around the country and around the world. I confess to you, I'm a little perplexed -- I confess to you I am a little perplexed by the morning papers, I can't -- but perplexed or not, I have to do it. So glasses come off, here we go!

The "Miami Herald" leads with "Canada to Allow Gay Couples to Wed: New Marriage Law a Matter of Weeks." This all began with a court ruling that we reported on, what last week or the week before? Anyway, they'll become the third country, I think, Belgium and the Netherlands, something like that, to allow gay marriages.

Down here, this is a great story. "Truck Thieves Get First Dibs on Latest 'Harry Potter' Book." It was -- someone drove a truck up and stole a bunch of the books. Books are out Friday night at midnight, I guess.

And their center main paper, you sort of think I only have one paper tonight, don't you? "What Really Happened to Jessica Lynch?" This is, in fact, a "Washington Post" story that ran today but it's in the "Miami Herald" tomorrow. "The Miami Herald" is 100 years old. The century together.

"Chicago Sun-Times." "No Sweat" is the weather, by the way. "Sammy Says His Race Was Factor in Corked Bat Flap." I am not precisely sure how race played into that, since they saw the bat had cork in it, but that's what Sammy says.

The auto story for the day comes from "The Detroit News," of course. "UAW," United Auto Workers, "Won't Budge on Health Care." That's their big, above the fold story. Also, "Child Support Face Overhaul in the State of Michigan."

A couple of stories in the "Washington Times." Why don't we get the "Washington Post," the other paper in Washington, by the way? Down at the bottom, "Tough Times Shut Down Turner Philanthropy." That would be Turner as in Mr. Turner, our former guy. Having a little money problem and he is not giving away as much as he used to, it turns out.

That's a quick look at morning papers. That's a quick look at the program. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Details About Lynch's Capture Emerge; Catholic Bishop Charged With Hit-and-Run>