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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Middle East Cease-Fire to Be Announced Sunday; 11 Suspected Terrorists Indicted; Will Jobs Be Lost Because of Do-Not-Call List?

Aired June 27, 2003 - 22:00   ET

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

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


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, again everyone.
Seinfeld got a lot of laughs over the years but we remember clearly the huge applause he got with one about telemarketers. He gets a pesky call and he offers to call the telemarketer back later at home. You don't want me to call you at home? Now, you know how I feel.

We all know how Jerry feels. Three-quarters of a million people felt strongly enough to sign up today on the donotcall.gov, a list the government will give to most telemarketers saying, well, don't call or face a big fine.

A good little Friday story that a lot of people were talking about today that comes up later.

First, the bigger issues of the day and, as always, it begins with the whip and we begin the whip in Iraq again, and again another day of bloodshed and danger for U.S. troops. Nic Robertson is back in Baghdad, so Nic a headline from you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, two U.S. soldiers are still missing, feared kidnapped, after 48 hours of searches. An assassination attempt on another U.S. soldier, he was shot in the head in Baghdad and confirmation from U.S. officials another U.S. soldier died Thursday after being lured into an ambush, Aaron.

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

To Jerusalem now, the latest on the talks between the Israeli and Palestinian officials and the violence that has yet to stop. Matthew Chance on that tonight, so Matt a headline from you.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, despite the violence it could still be the best chance for peace in this region in 33 months of violence. Israelis and Palestinians moving closer to fulfilling their obligations under the U.S.-backed road map to peace. We'll have all the latest for you when we're back.

BROWN: Thank you, Matt.

And, 11 men indicted today in a federal terrorism case we talked about here earlier in the week. Bob Franken following the story, Bob the headline. BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, when does the government say, Aaron, that a war game is not a game, when the FBI arrests the players. We'll talk about that in a moment.

BROWN: We will indeed, back to all of you shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, lessons learned by the first official to try and bring law and order to Iraq. Retired General Jay Garner is known for speaking his mind and he did just that with our Barbara Starr.

And, we'll try to explain the story with a high glaze factor just how the new drug benefit for Medicare will actually work for millions of senior citizens.

Also tonight, the enormous response from people who want telemarketers to call elsewhere or nowhere. We'll hear from the industry which says two billion jobs could be lost because of this.

And, a story from London, the prime minister, the BBC, and the dossier.

And, our amazing Kreskin moment, a blending marvel, tomorrow's news tonight. How do we do that? It's our nightly run through the morning papers from around the country and around the world.

And, why it's been a very bad week to be a social conservative in America. We'll take a look at that as well.

Lots to do in the hour ahead and we begin with Iraq and the notion that two months after winning the kind of fight they could not lose, American and British forces are now caught up in something approaching a guerrilla war. The attacks are coming almost daily. Another soldier was shot today and even more troubling tonight, two soldiers who are still unaccounted for.

Here again, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): In Balad, 40 kilometers north of Baghdad, U.S. troops search for two comrades missing since Wednesday. Six Iraqis have so far been detained for questioning over the abduction of the soldiers from their isolated checkpoint.

MAJ. WILLIAM THURMOND, COALITION SPOKESMAN: The investigation does continue and we hope as a result of what we're finding we'll be able to recover our missing soldiers.

ROBERTSON: Meantime, in this Baghdad market, another U.S. soldier was attacked. According to a store holder, the soldier stopped to buy a DVD and was shot in the head at close range.

"I showed an American soldier this film" he says. "He took the U.S. dollars out of his pocket and as I looked at the money I heard a bang. He froze and then fell backwards." Two hours drive south of Baghdad, near Najaf, no sign on the road where a U.S. soldier was killed investigating a reported car theft on Thursday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We pushed probably a little bit further than we normally would and when they arrived there and the local police stopped, so did our military police and they were fired on. It looked like a coordinated ambush and they returned fire.

ROBERTSON: For the slain soldier's friends, his killing and the current state of attacks on coalition troops raises concerns with families back home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tried to explain before I came here that everything is going to be OK but now with this incident well they are so nervous and, you know, my mother is crying, my sister and all my family is crying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Since President Bush's May 1st declaration of an end to major conflict here, major combat, U.S. troops, 20 U.S. troops and six British soldiers have been killed in hostile action.

Now, over the last few weeks attacks against coalition forces appear to have become better organized causing an increase in coalition casualties. U.S. officials here say that this is not going to have an effect on the military mission here -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, it obviously -- I don't mean to argue this point but it has to have some effect. Resources are being spent searching for these people every day in lots of places that would have been spent otherwise, wouldn't it?

ROBERTSON: Well, certainly they say it's not going to affect their ability to do their work here; that is, it hasn't degraded the numbers of coalition troops here to such a significant level that it would affect the way they need to bring security here, ensure electricity, perform all the other functions, track down Saddam Hussein.

But perhaps, and one coalition commander put it this way, the two soldiers who were abducted on Wednesday were at a checkpoint that was out of visible contact with their comrades and he said perhaps for that reason now field commanders may want to keep troops closer together, may want to maintain that visible contact between soldiers in the field.

So, perhaps it will have an impact there but in the overall effects on the tasks that need to be done here that is what commanders are saying is not affected and will not be hampered by these attacks so far. But they are coming more regularly now and not only against U.S. service personnel.

There were attacks today on a civilian convoy. A Kuwaiti was abducted and a Saudi. The Kuwaiti has been returned. The Kuwaiti who was abducted fears that the Saudi may have been killed.

BROWN: Nic, one more question before we let you go. You were there before the war. You were there in the weeks after the war. Then you went home for a while and now you're back. Tell me, give me an impression of how the place has changed.

ROBERTSON: It hasn't changed hugely. Some more shops are open. Some shops remain closed. People are still anxious about security. Electricity is still out in many parts of Baghdad and other parts around the country and people are making the same demands they were making before, perhaps even more boisterously.

One man stopped at the side of the road to tell us today if the U.S. troops didn't perform their mission of bringing security by Christmas, by the end of the year, then there would be a popular uprising.

BROWN: Nic, thank you, good to see you again, Nic Robertson back in Baghdad for us tonight.

And on we go. The man chosen to replace General Tommy Franks got Senate stamp of approval today. Lawmakers confirming General John Abizaid by a voice vote. He takes over Central Command, CENTCOM, July the 7th.

The general speaks Arabic, has a degree in Mid East studies from Harvard, and once took classes at the University of Amman in Jordan so he knows whereof he speaks not to mention whereof he commands. He is the highest ranking Arab-American in the military.

Retired General Jay Garner no longer runs the show in Iraq. That job now belongs to the State Department's Paul Bremer. General Garner was replaced, it is fair to say, rather abruptly.

It is probably also fair to say he's been made something of a scapegoat for things gone wrong in Iraq after the war and he's been a pretty good soldier about it but when he sat down with CNN's Barbara Starr, he didn't mince words either.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Jay Garner, a 35-year Army veteran who saw the havoc created by Saddam Hussein when he served in Iraq 12 years ago, there was so much more to this war than weapons of mass destruction.

GEN. JAY GARNER, U.S. ARMY (RET.): It's there and eventually we'll find it but I don't care because if you were with me four and a half weeks ago in the killing fields down on al-Helo (ph) which is right next to the ancient city of Babylon and watched them dig up the bodies of those people he -- the genocide he practiced, that in itself was enough to take him out.

STARR (on camera): How bad was it?

GARNER: It was as bad as Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, absolutely, every bit that bad. I mean it's the same thing. I mean how do you kill millions of people, men, women, and children? The prisoners with the meat hooks and things that hang, I mean it's a horrible, horrible regime.

STARR (voice-over): After serving as the first post-war administrator in Iraq, Garner is back in the private sector reflecting, some of his views not necessarily adhering to those of the Pentagon. He believes the U.S. did not pay enough attention to complex religious and tribal issues in Iraq and gives this piece of advice.

GARNER: I think the lesson learned is that OK from now on if we get ready to do one of these. The first day we start planning for war is also the first day we start planning for post-war.

STARR: In Iraq, some of the rebuilding problems were greater than first understood, Garner says.

GARNER: Looting was greater than what you saw on TV. It wasn't just stealing stuff out of the buildings. It was ripping out all the wiring, taking out all the plumbing and then settings those buildings on fire.

STARR: And not much U.S. troops could do on the streets.

GARNER: Are you going to shoot a kid that's carrying a TV out of the store? Are you going to shoot women carrying stuff out or old men or whoever those are?

STARR: Most Iraqis told Jay Garner they believe Saddam Hussein is alive. Getting rid of him and his followers, he agrees, will be a longer process than anybody first thought and U.S. troops, he says, could face problems for sometime to come.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: With the president's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice preparing for talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, there is progress to report tonight.

Having exchanged an eye for an eye again and again, the two sides now appear to be groping their way back from the battlefield, and even with the formal cease-fire on the part of Hamas yet to formally materialize, all sides tonight have started acting as if it was there. That's the good news.

It is not, however, the only news. Here again, CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): Amid all the talk of peace, more lives have been lost in a conflict few in this region believe can soon be brought to an end. The killing by Israeli forces of four Palestinians in Gaza, including the son and the brother of a leading Hamas militant, themselves wanted by Israel offers the skeptics plenty of reason.

Explosions and a fierce gun battle around the now demolished house of reputed Hamas bomb maker Abman al-Houl (ph) also left an Israeli soldier dead as well as a 30-year-old Palestinian bystander. Another suspected Islamic Jihad militant was killed nearby.

Israel says it was acting on a tip off that an attack was imminent, a ticking bomb it had to diffuse. But out of the bloodshed has sprung what could be a real hope for peace, a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials has agreed to implement measures that have until now only been discussed.

Among the points agreed, the officials say a key road running north to south through the Gaza Strip will be permanently opened. Israeli forces will withdraw from Beit Hanoun and other areas in northern Gaza as well as from the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Palestinian men between the ages of 15 and 35, previously confined to Gaza, will be allowed to travel and tight restrictions on the Rafah border crossing from Gaza into Egypt will be eased.

In exchange, Palestinian security forces, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas and his deputies, will assume full responsibility for security. It is an important step on the U.S.-backed peace road map.

SILVAN SHALOM, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: I think the time has come for the Palestinians to attack this strategic decision and it means that any territory that will transfer to their responsibility there will be with a commitment from their side to put an end to terrorism and violence.

CHANCE: Much still depends, though, on Hamas and the other militant groups. Their representatives say a three-month cease-fire could be announced soon. Without it, Palestinian Authority officials say they're unable and unwilling to stop militant attacks on Israelis. The coming days could show if this initiative has any hope.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, Aaron, with Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. National Security Adviser arriving in the region on Saturday to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian officials, both sides, all sides indeed are trying to show that they're not going to be the ones to stand in the way of progress of the U.S.-backed road map. On the ground, though, we have yet to see any withdrawal from territory or indeed any end to Palestinian violence -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is there any doubt at all that this cease-fire, we can talk about whether it will be effective or not, but is there any doubt at all that the cease-fire will, in fact, be announced?

CHANCE: There always has to be doubt I think, Aaron, in a region like this. The cease-fire has apparently been agreed between the main militant Palestinian groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, but they're waiting for a later time before they officially give it the stamp of approval and announce it jointly. In the meantime, of course, a whole range of things could happen that could potentially derail any kind of announcement like that.

BROWN: Do we know why they're waiting?

CHANCE: They're waiting because they have leaders who are talking about exactly the terms of what the cease-fire is going to actually mean on the ground. They have leaders meeting in Arab states around the region.

In Cairo, there's expected to be an announcement from there where, of course, Egyptian officials have been meeting with Hamas leaders that are based outside of the Palestinian territories here.

They're meeting so they can all get together and make this, you know, a joint announcement. They don't want to do it independently on their own they say.

BROWN: Matthew, thank you very much, Matthew Chance tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT on this Friday, a round up of a group of alleged terrorists, was playing paintball a game or was it a way of training?

And later, the government's plan to crack down on telemarketers and what the telemarketers think about that. You can probably imagine.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When last we heard from Hammad Abdur-Raheem, the Gulf War veteran told CNN's Kelli Arena that given all that he's been through already being arrested would be a relief. That was on Wednesday.

Today he was arrested. The federal government unsealing Grand Jury indictments against him and ten other Muslim men accusing them of conspiring with terrorists.

Here again, CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): Hammad Abdur-Raheem, a U.S.-born father of two who lives in suburban Virginia was one of several young men who called a news conference to condemn the FBI investigation. They never showed up. Abdur-Raheem's father had to speak for him.

KING LYON, FATHER OF SUSPECT: At six o'clock this morning, the FBI knocked on my son's door with a thump that you could only imagine if you've read "Mein Kampf." I want to say that to you. You know who comes in the night with a thump. FRANKEN: All together, six were taken into custody in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Two others had been previously arrested. Eleven have been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Alexandria, Virginia.

PAUL MCNULTY, U.S. ATTORNEY: Right here in this community, ten miles from Capitol Hill in the streets of northern Virginia, American citizens allegedly met, plotted, and recruited for violent jihad.

FRANKEN: Earlier this week, CNN reported Abdur-Raheem was one of about a dozen me in the Washington, D.C. area under investigation for possible terrorist ties.

HAMMAD ABDUR-RAHEEM: We are not terrorists and we are not related to any terrorist group. We're Americans.

FRANKEN: A Muslim convert, he bitterly complained that commonplace activities, including participation in the popular combat simulation game called Paintball, were given sinister motives by over zealous investigators.

But prosecutors say Abdur-Raheem and the others bought and practiced firing real weapons, AK-47s, alleging they engaged in terrorist activities aimed at enemies of Islam overseas "with intent to serve in armed hostility against the United States."

No details were given except that operations were "to be carried on from the United States against the territory and dominion of foreign states, districts and peoples with whom the United States was at peace."

The indictment charges the 11 are part of a group called Lashka- E-Taiba, an organization dedicated to Kashmir independence. Several of the men allegedly trained at that group's camps in Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: It's a terrorist organization, says the government, one that considers the United States a bitter enemy -- Aaron.

BROWN: OK, we understand what they are charged with. Is there any clue in the indictment about what the supporting evidence is?

FRANKEN: It's a variety of stories woven together. It talks about their going to go to training camps overseas. It talks about discussions that they had after September 11. It talks about weapons that they brought back.

They have built up what amounts to a chain of circumstantial evidence. It's very similar to some of the other indictments that have come, particularly in the northern Virginia area in the wake of September 11.

BROWN: Bob, thank you very much, Bob Franken in Washington tonight. To other stories from around the country tonight beginning with the so-called windshield murder case in Fort Worth, Texas. A jury gave Chante Mallard 60 years in prison for murder and tampering with evidence. She was found guilty yesterday of hitting a man, driving home with the man in her windshield, and leaving him to die in the garage.

In Albuquerque, three teenagers charged today with arson accused of starting one of two wildfires that drove hundreds of people from their homes. Authorities say they were apparently playing with fireworks. Officials say the wildfire in Arizona this week was also caused by humans but they don't know yet if it was deliberate.

And, John G. Adams, best known for his confrontations with Senator Joseph McCarthy in the '50s has died. He was the chief legal adviser to the secretary of the army when McCarthy was going after parts of the army for alleged communist infiltration. Adams' detail of what McCarthy was doing in hearings that millions watched on TV added to the growing impression that the Wisconsin Senator was out of control. John Adams was 91.

Still ahead tonight on NEWSNIGHT, telemarketers, how you can block their calls and why they say you should not be able to.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Make a list of the unloved professions in this world and this one will rank right up there with mimes, except mimes don't interrupt your dinner. So, how unloved are telemarketers?

Today, when the federal government began taking names for a national do not call list, more than a half a million people signed up in the first few hours. The number is expected to hit two million by tomorrow.

President Bush, a pretty astute politician, formally launched the program this morning from the Rose Garden at the White House. The FTC starts enforcing the new rules come October and violators could be fined up to $11,000 per unwanted call, strong medicine for privacy advocates, a bitter pill for the telemarketing industry.

Tim Searcy is Executive Director of American Teleservices Association, the industry's lobbying group, and he joins us from Indianapolis, Indiana tonight, good to have you with us.

TIM SEARCY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN TELESERVICES ASSOCIATION: Good to be with you, Aaron.

BROWN: I've heard you say a number of times today this is not a simple issue so let me beg to differ. It's quite simple. People are saying leave me alone. We don't want you to call. Why is that complicated?

SEARCY: Well, the complication is the involvement of the federal government. The reality is, is that consumers for over a decade it had an unlimited number of ways to take their names off telemarketing lists.

They could ask the companies that are contacting them. They've had state lists. They've had a variety of other lists when someone calls them on a cold call basis, or they could use technology to simply have caller ID or privacy manager.

The involvement of the federal government is where this becomes complicated because now the federal government, through its exceptions, creates two classes of speech, those types of people they think you should be talking to and those they don't think you should be talking to.

BROWN: Except that the federal government is not saying to any citizen in this country you can't talk to telemarketers. It's only saying if you don't want to talk to telemarketers we'll help you.

SEARCY: Oh, I beg to differ. It's actually the reverse of the issue. It's not that they're not saying you can't talk to telemarketers. They're saying when you decide not to talk to telemarketers we're going to pick a list of people that you still must talk to. It's by the exception that they create the constitutional challenge.

But the bigger issue is about employment. We're talking about an industry that employs six and a half million people, two million of which will be unemployed literally within months and these are folks who are hard to employ. These are folks who need flexible schedules, those individuals who are single mothers, the physically disabled.

Over 60 percent of the people on the telephone are ethnic minorities who are going to be unfairly picked out in this unemployment effort on the part of the federal government.

BROWN: What does it tell you that a third -- I mean if your numbers are correct and I have no reason to believe they're not, if your numbers are correct what does it tell you that a third of the people you employ will be out of work soon about the business you're in and people's willingness to opt out?

SEARCY: Well, the question is not a matter of the image or the interest of the industry. Remember, $662 billion in sales are made every year by phone. On average, consumers make three purchases by phone every year. If this wasn't effective, if consumers weren't buying, if this wasn't a good means of communicating competitive messages, we wouldn't be in business.

The reality is the business is big and it continues to grow. It's larger than the airline industry, larger than the movie industry, and what's discouraging is the government instead of helping to preserve jobs is in the process of eliminating jobs.

BROWN: Come back if you will to what I still think is the core question. There are states that have these laws, I think 20 million people, some number like that have signed to opt out under state laws. I'm not sure how big your lists are of people who are saying do not call. So, this is just...

* BROWN: Just come back, if you will, to what I still think is the core question. There are states that have these laws, I think 20 million people, some number like that, have signed up to opt out under state laws. I'm not sure how big your lists are of people who are saying, Do not call. So this is just -- or why isn't this just a more efficient way to do what's already being done?

SEARCY: The government has a legitimate charge to curb fraud and abuse. But nowhere in the Federal Trade Commission or the FCC's activities do they indicate that fraud or abuse is the purpose for this law. That's the charter that was given to them under the original legislation.

Instead, this is about convenience. If you listen to Commissioner Copps from the FCC, he indicates that this is the first in a number of steps to curb what he considers to be commercial communication. Unfortunately, that crosses over the First Amendment rights and violates commercial speech.

BROWN: Going to sue?

SEARCY: I -- yes, we for the middle of a lawsuit right now with the Federal Trade Commission and have been for some time. We anticipate our day in court will be coming in the very near future. And the First Amendment arguments are extremely strong.

BROWN: We look forward to the case. Good to talk to you. Thank you. It's -- I know it's been a long and somewhat difficult day. And we probably didn't make it any easier, so we appreciate your time. Thank you.

SEARCY: Thank you for the opportunity.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

At about 2:30 this morning, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 215 to expand Medicare coverage to include prescription drugs. The vote came shortly after the Senate passed its own version of the bill, and they will be reconciled, presumably, in the coming weeks.

President says he'll sign on to what will be the largest expansion of Medicare since another president from Texas, a Democrat, helped create Medicare nearly 40 years ago.

He'll be signing a compromise. Any bill that had this kind of support, the support of Bill Frist and Ted Kennedy, is obviously a compromise. It's also complicated and enormously costly to the Treasury. And, as you'll see in a minute, also to many seniors, who still will have to pay more than they believe they can afford.

That in a moment. First, the politics, and CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the wee hours Friday morning, the House bill to help seniors pay for prescription drugs was in peril.

REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Medicare is too important for partisan politics. They...

KARL: But Tom DeLay's problem wasn't just partisan Democrats, it was also conservative Republicans dead set against passing a new entitlement without first limiting Medicare's costs.

REP. RICHARD BURR (R), NORTH CAROLINA: I will vote no on both proposals that come up.

KARL: At 2:30 a.m., with the outcome still in doubt, House leaders zeroed in on Republican Joanne Emerson, convincing her to switch her vote from no to yes, scoring a single-vote victory.

The president wants the differences between the House bill and one passed in the Senate resolved quickly.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I urge the Congress to reconcile their differences and to get a bill to my desk as quickly as possible.

KARL: Not so fast. The close House vote sets the stage for a potentially bitter and time-consuming showdown with the Senate, which passed a significantly different bill.

SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: We are not going to be held by any artificial deadlines to get the policy right.

KARL: One key difference, the House bill makes wealthy seniors pay more for their drug coverage, something strongly opposed by Senator Ted Kennedy and other Democrats. There are also major disagreements over the role private insurance companies should play in providing Medicare.

Despite the differences, there are similarities that will almost certainly be a part of any final deal. Both provide optional drug coverage for a $35 monthly premium. They have similar deductibles, $250 in the House version, $275 in the Senate.

For most seniors, the Senate covers 50 percent of drug costs, the House 80 percent. And both have gaps in coverage for those with high drug bills.

(on camera): Even if the differences are resolved and a bill is signed into law, prescription drug coverage for seniors will remain a hot political issue. With the sole exception of Joe Lieberman, the Democratic presidential candidates oppose the bills passed by the both the House and the Senate.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Well, whatever passes the Congress, and it seems likely something will, it is bound to be better for seniors than what exists now, which is essentially nothing. But these bills, as Jon indicated, are incredibly complicated. Few people really know all details. And so even in this historic moment, people are fraught with anxiety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SONI GREENMAN, MEDICARE MEMBER: I'm a mother of three, grandmother of four, and a great-grandmother of four.

Hello.

BROWN (voice-over): It is fairly simple. At 86, Soni Greenman can't afford the medicine she needs. It is no more complicated than that.

GREENMAN: And my only income right now is $800 a month Social Security. I have no other income.

I should be spending on prescription drugs, I'm going minimum, without any accidents, about $1,000 a month.

BROWN: She has no insurance for prescription drugs, so she cuts corners.

GREENMAN: Celebrex for arthritis, $167. I didn't fill the prescription. I've had a heart (UNINTELLIGIBLE) surgery. I've had a heart attack. I have type B diabetes. I have five degenerative discs, a herniated disc, sciatica, spinal stenosis, spondylitis. And I don't have to tell you that for all these things, I also have acid reflux.

BROWN: But not unlike most 86-year-olds, Soni has plenty of medical issues. And there is a lot in the two bills passed by the Congress that will help. But they won't solve Soni's drug problems, just help.

JOHN ROTHER, POLICY DIRECTOR, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS: There's a benefit hole, or a doughnut hole in the benefit, that forces people to pay 100 percent of the cost just at the time that their expenses are getting serious. And these are problems that really have to be addressed going forward.

BROWN: Under the House bill, Soni will pay 20 percent of her drug costs up to $2,000. After that, she'll pay it all until she's reached $3,700, when the coverage kicks in again at 100 percent. The Senate bill is similar.

GREENMAN: I'm over the line. I cannot apply for any kind of government help. And so prescription drugs are very important to me, because as I get older, I may need more and more. I may find that I'm going to outlive my money. And I'm frightened. And you can multiply me by several millions of seniors.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: All of whom, no doubt, will be watching what the Congress does in the weeks ahead.

Still on come on NEWSNIGHT, prime minister under fire, Tony Blair and the battle with the BBC.

Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS: I'm Susan Lisovicz with this MONEYLINE update. Stocks lost ground for the week. The Dow fell 90 points Friday to close below 9000. The Nasdaq lost 9. Nike shed 7 percent after it said U.S. orders fell.

Watch LOU DOBBS TONIGHT weeknights at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.

Now, back to NEWSNIGHT with Aaron Brown.

BROWN: And much more to come tonight, including Saturday morning's papers. But a break first. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The case of the dodgy dossier may sound like some old episode of "Rumpole of the Bailey," but it isn't a piece of fiction, it's a real fight, and an important one that goes to the heart of how Britain's prime minister argued the case for war in Iraq.

The story from CNN's Gaven Morris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GAVEN MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's Tony Blair's top strategist and king of spin. But the high-powered adviser, Alastair Campbell, normally keeps a low profile. But not so this week, as he stepped out of the shadows to testify to a parliamentary inquiry investigating claims Mr. Campbell and the prime minister's office sexed up an intelligence dossier to justify war in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the government ever receive any...

GAVEN: The government concedes the document was flawed, and it should never have been published. So Alastair Campbell came to say, Sorry, but he also came to say, the British Broadcasting Corporation went too far in its reporting on the dossier.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL, TONY BLAIR ADVISER: I simply say, in relation to the BBC story, it is a lie, it was a lie. It is a lie that is continually repeated. And until we get an apology for it, I will keep making sure that parliament, people like yourselves and the public, know that it was a lie.

GAVEN: The withering attack on the BBC, over its story that exposed what's now called the dodgy dossier, has sparked yet another controversy over Tony Blair's case for war. The BBC stands by its story, and while it refuses any apology, other members of the government are now joining the fray.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Friday even targeted the BBC journalist who reported the story.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: He made very specific charges, which are wrong. That's one reason why the BBC does need to apologize.

GAVEN: For now, the controversy is refusing to abate. For some observers, that's just what the government had in mind.

MARK STEPHENS, LAWYER: There's now this complete row going on, and it's sort of standard obfuscation tactics from the government. And that, I think, has got to get everybody's suspicions up.

GAVEN: The war in Iraq has been trouble for Tony Blair ever since unprecedented protests and political divisions met his decision to commit British forces. Now the failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and the death this week of six British soldiers in Iraq, have kept the controversy burning.

Opinion polls are increasingly worrying for Tony Blair. One has his Labour government behind the conservative opposition for just the second time in a decade.

A victory in Iraq, so far, has won few games for the Labour government at home.

Gaven Morris, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Few other stories from around the world tonight, beginning with criticism of the war in Iraq from the former South African president, Nelson Mandela. Mr. Mandela said the decision to go without U.N. backing is, quote, "something that must be condemned by everyone." He also praised the French president, Jacques Chirac, because, in Mr. Mandela's words, "France was in favor of peace."

Some talk that Mr. Mandela will not get President Bush when the president goes to Africa.

In Liberia, rebels declared their second cease-fire in 10 days, but few have real hopes it will last. Strike by rebels this week at the capital of Monrovia, and the forces of President Charles Taylor left hundreds of people dead. Demonstrators gathered at the U.S. embassy for a second day, asking for American intervention.

And in central and southwestern China, more than a dozen people have been killed by mudslides caused by the torrential rains there, 24 others missing. The floods have destroyed roads and power lines and knocked down 14,000 homes, washed out two dozen bridges.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, is the right under fire? And what will conservatives do after Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action and gay sex?

This is NEWSNIGHT.

BROWN: OK, let's take a look at the list. A sweeping decision striking down laws against gay sex, support for diversity in affirmative action, a ruling that limits the prosecution of some accused of molesting children years ago, a reprieve for a man facing the death penalty who didn't get an adequate defense.

This is not some history lesson about the famously liberal Warren Court from decades ago. This is the history made this week, decisions by the famously conservative Rehnquist Court.

One writer summed up the feeling among social conservatives, who expected a very different week -- "white-hot fury," he called it.

More on that from one social conservative, Curt Levy from the Center for Individual Rights. He joins us tonight from Washington.

Good to have you with us.

CURT LEVY, CENTER FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Thanks for having me on.

BROWN: Are you -- I understand you're disappointed in these rulings, particularly Michigan and the Texas gay sex ruling. Are you surprised?

LEVY: Well, I'm certainly surprised about the Michigan case. We represented the plaintiffs at the Center for Individual Rights. And we didn't know which way it would go, but we certainly didn't think the court would adopt the diversity rationale, in which it held that it's OK to discriminate against white, Asian, and Arab-American students in order to provide educational benefits to white students.

Now, regardless of whether you're for or against race-based admissions, that's not the real reason that people support affirmative action. And that's one of problems that we've seen with the court in the last month, is, it seems to be making things up. It just adopts fiction when it's convenient.

Yesterday decided that there's a constitutional right to sodomy. Now, I think the Texas law was a stupid law, but there's a difference between stupid and unconstitutional. There's never been anything in the Constitution that protected sodomy or, for that matter, protected homosexuals. But the court wanted there to be, so they made it up.

BROWN: Well, I mean, just perhaps a small point, it seemed to me in reading the decisions, the court made the argument that there's a constitutional right to privacy, not to sodomy.

LEVY: Right, but that constitutional right to privacy, on the first hand, was made up itself, and has never been fought. Just 17 years ago was -- this -- the court decided that it did not apply to sodomy. What's changed in those last 17 years? Politics may have changed, but not the text of the Constitution. And that's exactly my point. The court has become very, very political. They're acting more as politicians than as jurists. They're not really following any principles. They're not even being consistent.

For example, they hold -- they strike down a law that discriminates against homosexuals, when there is no prohibition against discrimination based on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sexual orientation in the Constitution, yet they OK a program that discriminates against whites, Asians, and Arab-Americans even though the Constitution expressly forbids racial discrimination.

They're just not following the text nor precedent. They're making it up like politicians are supposed to do, but not judges.

BROWN: I want to talk about where this is going. Let me ask you one more question about this week, though. Justice O'Connor, in the center of certainly the Michigan case, and to a lesser degree, I suppose, in the Texas case. Is she the biggest disappointment to you in this?

LEVY: Well, you know, it's hard. She's only one vote. So in both the sodomy decisions and in earlier decision that we were disappointed with, six of the liberal votes, of the six liberal votes, four were Republicans. So it's hard to pick on her.

BROWN: Yes.

LEVY: And you know what? It's really been disappointment all around. I mean, I'm even disappointed in the way schools have reacted to the Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court put limits on it. And the schools are already ignoring them.

So I guess my disappointment goes a lot further than Justice O'Connor or even just the Supreme Court.

BROWN: Just, I want to jump back to something you said a moment ago. You described the Texas law as a stupid law. Why would you then care if a stupid law was overturned?

LEVY: Because conservatives believe in the rule of law. Liberals, to be fair, most liberals have always thought the Constitution means what it ought to mean.

But conservatives believe in the rule of law. And they believe that sometimes you may want things to be a certain way, but precedent in the text of the Constitution go another way. And when the Constitution -- when the Supreme Court ignores 200 years of constitutional history, it's upsetting to people like myself, who do believe in the rule of law.

BROWN: Now, where does this go? What do you think the ramifications are for social conservatives in terms of the president's nominee? Should he get to make them for vacancies should they occur?

LEVY: Well, you know, it may very well help them, because there's been this myth that this is an incredibly conservative Supreme Court. But in one week, again, they approved reversed discrimination, they said sodomy was constitutionally protected.

It's going to be very hard for People for the American Way and other groups like that to scare the American people into thinking this is a reactionary court.

Now, as to where conservatives go, there's not much they can do about the sodomy ruling, but I can tell you, at the Center for Individual Rights, we're going to have to turn to the courts, to the ballot box, and to the legislature to get rid of racial preferences, to make this a color-blind society.

BROWN: Do you expect it will eliminate any particular judge from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court?

LEVY: Well, certainly a lot of focus has been on Judge Gonzalez, who's fairly liberal, certainly for a Republican, and people have said it doomed his chances. I don't want to speculate, though, on his particular chances.

But I do think that, again, it's going to be very hard for liberals to attack any conservative nominee as someone who's going to help pack the court, when four of the six liberal votes in these recent weeks have been Republicans.

The Republicans have been packing the court more with liberals than with conservatives.

BROWN: Curt, good for you to join us. But we...

LEVY: Thank you for having me on.

BROWN: ... we would in the future encourage you to speculate. We like that stuff around here. Thank you very much.

LEVY: Thank you.

BROWN: We'll take a break. Morning papers coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We have a viewer who wrote and said we should kill the rooster. We can't kill the rooster, for goodness' sakes. I'm joining that now.

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world -- or not.

The "Times Herald-Record," upstate New York, the Hudson Valley and the Catskills, I like that, that's not a bad headline, is it? "Moment of Truce," taking a look at the Middle East. And up top, "The Ripe Stuff," ha-ha, "What's Ready at Your Farmer's Market." It's cherry season, that's what I know.

"The Washington Times." We can't figure out a way to get that other paper in Washington. We need to continue working on that. Kind of a cool picture right there, isn't it, a coming-home picture, "Daddy's Home," like that. Down at the bottom, "Texas Schools Renew Call for Affirmative Action." The Texas University system stopped affirmative action after a court ruling, a mid-court ruling, appeals court ruling, and now they'll go back to what they were doing.

Well, I like this. There's context here that I'm sure is missing in "The Boston Herald," but "Pat Kennedy," saying, the representative Patrick Kennedy, right, from Rhode island, "I Never Worked a Day in My Life." Hey, some people don't think I have either.

"The Oregonian," the newspaper of Portland, Oregon, out West. They have an incredibly early deadline, thank goodness. "Court Refuses Abortion Case, Lets Stand $109 Million Jury Verdict," in a case that a lot of people paid attention to.

Twenty? Oh, my goodness. OK.

"The Guardian," we'll do one foreign paper. "Sound and Fury Over the BBC," the story we just told you. That's a huge story over there.

That's morning papers, that's the program for this week. We're all back Monday. We hope you are too. 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





Suspected Terrorists Indicted; Will Jobs Be Lost Because of Do-Not- Call List?>


Aired June 27, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, again everyone.
Seinfeld got a lot of laughs over the years but we remember clearly the huge applause he got with one about telemarketers. He gets a pesky call and he offers to call the telemarketer back later at home. You don't want me to call you at home? Now, you know how I feel.

We all know how Jerry feels. Three-quarters of a million people felt strongly enough to sign up today on the donotcall.gov, a list the government will give to most telemarketers saying, well, don't call or face a big fine.

A good little Friday story that a lot of people were talking about today that comes up later.

First, the bigger issues of the day and, as always, it begins with the whip and we begin the whip in Iraq again, and again another day of bloodshed and danger for U.S. troops. Nic Robertson is back in Baghdad, so Nic a headline from you.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, two U.S. soldiers are still missing, feared kidnapped, after 48 hours of searches. An assassination attempt on another U.S. soldier, he was shot in the head in Baghdad and confirmation from U.S. officials another U.S. soldier died Thursday after being lured into an ambush, Aaron.

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

To Jerusalem now, the latest on the talks between the Israeli and Palestinian officials and the violence that has yet to stop. Matthew Chance on that tonight, so Matt a headline from you.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, despite the violence it could still be the best chance for peace in this region in 33 months of violence. Israelis and Palestinians moving closer to fulfilling their obligations under the U.S.-backed road map to peace. We'll have all the latest for you when we're back.

BROWN: Thank you, Matt.

And, 11 men indicted today in a federal terrorism case we talked about here earlier in the week. Bob Franken following the story, Bob the headline. BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, when does the government say, Aaron, that a war game is not a game, when the FBI arrests the players. We'll talk about that in a moment.

BROWN: We will indeed, back to all of you shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT, lessons learned by the first official to try and bring law and order to Iraq. Retired General Jay Garner is known for speaking his mind and he did just that with our Barbara Starr.

And, we'll try to explain the story with a high glaze factor just how the new drug benefit for Medicare will actually work for millions of senior citizens.

Also tonight, the enormous response from people who want telemarketers to call elsewhere or nowhere. We'll hear from the industry which says two billion jobs could be lost because of this.

And, a story from London, the prime minister, the BBC, and the dossier.

And, our amazing Kreskin moment, a blending marvel, tomorrow's news tonight. How do we do that? It's our nightly run through the morning papers from around the country and around the world.

And, why it's been a very bad week to be a social conservative in America. We'll take a look at that as well.

Lots to do in the hour ahead and we begin with Iraq and the notion that two months after winning the kind of fight they could not lose, American and British forces are now caught up in something approaching a guerrilla war. The attacks are coming almost daily. Another soldier was shot today and even more troubling tonight, two soldiers who are still unaccounted for.

Here again, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): In Balad, 40 kilometers north of Baghdad, U.S. troops search for two comrades missing since Wednesday. Six Iraqis have so far been detained for questioning over the abduction of the soldiers from their isolated checkpoint.

MAJ. WILLIAM THURMOND, COALITION SPOKESMAN: The investigation does continue and we hope as a result of what we're finding we'll be able to recover our missing soldiers.

ROBERTSON: Meantime, in this Baghdad market, another U.S. soldier was attacked. According to a store holder, the soldier stopped to buy a DVD and was shot in the head at close range.

"I showed an American soldier this film" he says. "He took the U.S. dollars out of his pocket and as I looked at the money I heard a bang. He froze and then fell backwards." Two hours drive south of Baghdad, near Najaf, no sign on the road where a U.S. soldier was killed investigating a reported car theft on Thursday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We pushed probably a little bit further than we normally would and when they arrived there and the local police stopped, so did our military police and they were fired on. It looked like a coordinated ambush and they returned fire.

ROBERTSON: For the slain soldier's friends, his killing and the current state of attacks on coalition troops raises concerns with families back home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tried to explain before I came here that everything is going to be OK but now with this incident well they are so nervous and, you know, my mother is crying, my sister and all my family is crying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Since President Bush's May 1st declaration of an end to major conflict here, major combat, U.S. troops, 20 U.S. troops and six British soldiers have been killed in hostile action.

Now, over the last few weeks attacks against coalition forces appear to have become better organized causing an increase in coalition casualties. U.S. officials here say that this is not going to have an effect on the military mission here -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, it obviously -- I don't mean to argue this point but it has to have some effect. Resources are being spent searching for these people every day in lots of places that would have been spent otherwise, wouldn't it?

ROBERTSON: Well, certainly they say it's not going to affect their ability to do their work here; that is, it hasn't degraded the numbers of coalition troops here to such a significant level that it would affect the way they need to bring security here, ensure electricity, perform all the other functions, track down Saddam Hussein.

But perhaps, and one coalition commander put it this way, the two soldiers who were abducted on Wednesday were at a checkpoint that was out of visible contact with their comrades and he said perhaps for that reason now field commanders may want to keep troops closer together, may want to maintain that visible contact between soldiers in the field.

So, perhaps it will have an impact there but in the overall effects on the tasks that need to be done here that is what commanders are saying is not affected and will not be hampered by these attacks so far. But they are coming more regularly now and not only against U.S. service personnel.

There were attacks today on a civilian convoy. A Kuwaiti was abducted and a Saudi. The Kuwaiti has been returned. The Kuwaiti who was abducted fears that the Saudi may have been killed.

BROWN: Nic, one more question before we let you go. You were there before the war. You were there in the weeks after the war. Then you went home for a while and now you're back. Tell me, give me an impression of how the place has changed.

ROBERTSON: It hasn't changed hugely. Some more shops are open. Some shops remain closed. People are still anxious about security. Electricity is still out in many parts of Baghdad and other parts around the country and people are making the same demands they were making before, perhaps even more boisterously.

One man stopped at the side of the road to tell us today if the U.S. troops didn't perform their mission of bringing security by Christmas, by the end of the year, then there would be a popular uprising.

BROWN: Nic, thank you, good to see you again, Nic Robertson back in Baghdad for us tonight.

And on we go. The man chosen to replace General Tommy Franks got Senate stamp of approval today. Lawmakers confirming General John Abizaid by a voice vote. He takes over Central Command, CENTCOM, July the 7th.

The general speaks Arabic, has a degree in Mid East studies from Harvard, and once took classes at the University of Amman in Jordan so he knows whereof he speaks not to mention whereof he commands. He is the highest ranking Arab-American in the military.

Retired General Jay Garner no longer runs the show in Iraq. That job now belongs to the State Department's Paul Bremer. General Garner was replaced, it is fair to say, rather abruptly.

It is probably also fair to say he's been made something of a scapegoat for things gone wrong in Iraq after the war and he's been a pretty good soldier about it but when he sat down with CNN's Barbara Starr, he didn't mince words either.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Jay Garner, a 35-year Army veteran who saw the havoc created by Saddam Hussein when he served in Iraq 12 years ago, there was so much more to this war than weapons of mass destruction.

GEN. JAY GARNER, U.S. ARMY (RET.): It's there and eventually we'll find it but I don't care because if you were with me four and a half weeks ago in the killing fields down on al-Helo (ph) which is right next to the ancient city of Babylon and watched them dig up the bodies of those people he -- the genocide he practiced, that in itself was enough to take him out.

STARR (on camera): How bad was it?

GARNER: It was as bad as Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, absolutely, every bit that bad. I mean it's the same thing. I mean how do you kill millions of people, men, women, and children? The prisoners with the meat hooks and things that hang, I mean it's a horrible, horrible regime.

STARR (voice-over): After serving as the first post-war administrator in Iraq, Garner is back in the private sector reflecting, some of his views not necessarily adhering to those of the Pentagon. He believes the U.S. did not pay enough attention to complex religious and tribal issues in Iraq and gives this piece of advice.

GARNER: I think the lesson learned is that OK from now on if we get ready to do one of these. The first day we start planning for war is also the first day we start planning for post-war.

STARR: In Iraq, some of the rebuilding problems were greater than first understood, Garner says.

GARNER: Looting was greater than what you saw on TV. It wasn't just stealing stuff out of the buildings. It was ripping out all the wiring, taking out all the plumbing and then settings those buildings on fire.

STARR: And not much U.S. troops could do on the streets.

GARNER: Are you going to shoot a kid that's carrying a TV out of the store? Are you going to shoot women carrying stuff out or old men or whoever those are?

STARR: Most Iraqis told Jay Garner they believe Saddam Hussein is alive. Getting rid of him and his followers, he agrees, will be a longer process than anybody first thought and U.S. troops, he says, could face problems for sometime to come.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: With the president's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice preparing for talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, there is progress to report tonight.

Having exchanged an eye for an eye again and again, the two sides now appear to be groping their way back from the battlefield, and even with the formal cease-fire on the part of Hamas yet to formally materialize, all sides tonight have started acting as if it was there. That's the good news.

It is not, however, the only news. Here again, CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): Amid all the talk of peace, more lives have been lost in a conflict few in this region believe can soon be brought to an end. The killing by Israeli forces of four Palestinians in Gaza, including the son and the brother of a leading Hamas militant, themselves wanted by Israel offers the skeptics plenty of reason.

Explosions and a fierce gun battle around the now demolished house of reputed Hamas bomb maker Abman al-Houl (ph) also left an Israeli soldier dead as well as a 30-year-old Palestinian bystander. Another suspected Islamic Jihad militant was killed nearby.

Israel says it was acting on a tip off that an attack was imminent, a ticking bomb it had to diffuse. But out of the bloodshed has sprung what could be a real hope for peace, a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials has agreed to implement measures that have until now only been discussed.

Among the points agreed, the officials say a key road running north to south through the Gaza Strip will be permanently opened. Israeli forces will withdraw from Beit Hanoun and other areas in northern Gaza as well as from the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Palestinian men between the ages of 15 and 35, previously confined to Gaza, will be allowed to travel and tight restrictions on the Rafah border crossing from Gaza into Egypt will be eased.

In exchange, Palestinian security forces, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas and his deputies, will assume full responsibility for security. It is an important step on the U.S.-backed peace road map.

SILVAN SHALOM, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: I think the time has come for the Palestinians to attack this strategic decision and it means that any territory that will transfer to their responsibility there will be with a commitment from their side to put an end to terrorism and violence.

CHANCE: Much still depends, though, on Hamas and the other militant groups. Their representatives say a three-month cease-fire could be announced soon. Without it, Palestinian Authority officials say they're unable and unwilling to stop militant attacks on Israelis. The coming days could show if this initiative has any hope.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, Aaron, with Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. National Security Adviser arriving in the region on Saturday to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian officials, both sides, all sides indeed are trying to show that they're not going to be the ones to stand in the way of progress of the U.S.-backed road map. On the ground, though, we have yet to see any withdrawal from territory or indeed any end to Palestinian violence -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is there any doubt at all that this cease-fire, we can talk about whether it will be effective or not, but is there any doubt at all that the cease-fire will, in fact, be announced?

CHANCE: There always has to be doubt I think, Aaron, in a region like this. The cease-fire has apparently been agreed between the main militant Palestinian groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, but they're waiting for a later time before they officially give it the stamp of approval and announce it jointly. In the meantime, of course, a whole range of things could happen that could potentially derail any kind of announcement like that.

BROWN: Do we know why they're waiting?

CHANCE: They're waiting because they have leaders who are talking about exactly the terms of what the cease-fire is going to actually mean on the ground. They have leaders meeting in Arab states around the region.

In Cairo, there's expected to be an announcement from there where, of course, Egyptian officials have been meeting with Hamas leaders that are based outside of the Palestinian territories here.

They're meeting so they can all get together and make this, you know, a joint announcement. They don't want to do it independently on their own they say.

BROWN: Matthew, thank you very much, Matthew Chance tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT on this Friday, a round up of a group of alleged terrorists, was playing paintball a game or was it a way of training?

And later, the government's plan to crack down on telemarketers and what the telemarketers think about that. You can probably imagine.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When last we heard from Hammad Abdur-Raheem, the Gulf War veteran told CNN's Kelli Arena that given all that he's been through already being arrested would be a relief. That was on Wednesday.

Today he was arrested. The federal government unsealing Grand Jury indictments against him and ten other Muslim men accusing them of conspiring with terrorists.

Here again, CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN (voice-over): Hammad Abdur-Raheem, a U.S.-born father of two who lives in suburban Virginia was one of several young men who called a news conference to condemn the FBI investigation. They never showed up. Abdur-Raheem's father had to speak for him.

KING LYON, FATHER OF SUSPECT: At six o'clock this morning, the FBI knocked on my son's door with a thump that you could only imagine if you've read "Mein Kampf." I want to say that to you. You know who comes in the night with a thump. FRANKEN: All together, six were taken into custody in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Two others had been previously arrested. Eleven have been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Alexandria, Virginia.

PAUL MCNULTY, U.S. ATTORNEY: Right here in this community, ten miles from Capitol Hill in the streets of northern Virginia, American citizens allegedly met, plotted, and recruited for violent jihad.

FRANKEN: Earlier this week, CNN reported Abdur-Raheem was one of about a dozen me in the Washington, D.C. area under investigation for possible terrorist ties.

HAMMAD ABDUR-RAHEEM: We are not terrorists and we are not related to any terrorist group. We're Americans.

FRANKEN: A Muslim convert, he bitterly complained that commonplace activities, including participation in the popular combat simulation game called Paintball, were given sinister motives by over zealous investigators.

But prosecutors say Abdur-Raheem and the others bought and practiced firing real weapons, AK-47s, alleging they engaged in terrorist activities aimed at enemies of Islam overseas "with intent to serve in armed hostility against the United States."

No details were given except that operations were "to be carried on from the United States against the territory and dominion of foreign states, districts and peoples with whom the United States was at peace."

The indictment charges the 11 are part of a group called Lashka- E-Taiba, an organization dedicated to Kashmir independence. Several of the men allegedly trained at that group's camps in Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRANKEN: It's a terrorist organization, says the government, one that considers the United States a bitter enemy -- Aaron.

BROWN: OK, we understand what they are charged with. Is there any clue in the indictment about what the supporting evidence is?

FRANKEN: It's a variety of stories woven together. It talks about their going to go to training camps overseas. It talks about discussions that they had after September 11. It talks about weapons that they brought back.

They have built up what amounts to a chain of circumstantial evidence. It's very similar to some of the other indictments that have come, particularly in the northern Virginia area in the wake of September 11.

BROWN: Bob, thank you very much, Bob Franken in Washington tonight. To other stories from around the country tonight beginning with the so-called windshield murder case in Fort Worth, Texas. A jury gave Chante Mallard 60 years in prison for murder and tampering with evidence. She was found guilty yesterday of hitting a man, driving home with the man in her windshield, and leaving him to die in the garage.

In Albuquerque, three teenagers charged today with arson accused of starting one of two wildfires that drove hundreds of people from their homes. Authorities say they were apparently playing with fireworks. Officials say the wildfire in Arizona this week was also caused by humans but they don't know yet if it was deliberate.

And, John G. Adams, best known for his confrontations with Senator Joseph McCarthy in the '50s has died. He was the chief legal adviser to the secretary of the army when McCarthy was going after parts of the army for alleged communist infiltration. Adams' detail of what McCarthy was doing in hearings that millions watched on TV added to the growing impression that the Wisconsin Senator was out of control. John Adams was 91.

Still ahead tonight on NEWSNIGHT, telemarketers, how you can block their calls and why they say you should not be able to.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Make a list of the unloved professions in this world and this one will rank right up there with mimes, except mimes don't interrupt your dinner. So, how unloved are telemarketers?

Today, when the federal government began taking names for a national do not call list, more than a half a million people signed up in the first few hours. The number is expected to hit two million by tomorrow.

President Bush, a pretty astute politician, formally launched the program this morning from the Rose Garden at the White House. The FTC starts enforcing the new rules come October and violators could be fined up to $11,000 per unwanted call, strong medicine for privacy advocates, a bitter pill for the telemarketing industry.

Tim Searcy is Executive Director of American Teleservices Association, the industry's lobbying group, and he joins us from Indianapolis, Indiana tonight, good to have you with us.

TIM SEARCY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN TELESERVICES ASSOCIATION: Good to be with you, Aaron.

BROWN: I've heard you say a number of times today this is not a simple issue so let me beg to differ. It's quite simple. People are saying leave me alone. We don't want you to call. Why is that complicated?

SEARCY: Well, the complication is the involvement of the federal government. The reality is, is that consumers for over a decade it had an unlimited number of ways to take their names off telemarketing lists.

They could ask the companies that are contacting them. They've had state lists. They've had a variety of other lists when someone calls them on a cold call basis, or they could use technology to simply have caller ID or privacy manager.

The involvement of the federal government is where this becomes complicated because now the federal government, through its exceptions, creates two classes of speech, those types of people they think you should be talking to and those they don't think you should be talking to.

BROWN: Except that the federal government is not saying to any citizen in this country you can't talk to telemarketers. It's only saying if you don't want to talk to telemarketers we'll help you.

SEARCY: Oh, I beg to differ. It's actually the reverse of the issue. It's not that they're not saying you can't talk to telemarketers. They're saying when you decide not to talk to telemarketers we're going to pick a list of people that you still must talk to. It's by the exception that they create the constitutional challenge.

But the bigger issue is about employment. We're talking about an industry that employs six and a half million people, two million of which will be unemployed literally within months and these are folks who are hard to employ. These are folks who need flexible schedules, those individuals who are single mothers, the physically disabled.

Over 60 percent of the people on the telephone are ethnic minorities who are going to be unfairly picked out in this unemployment effort on the part of the federal government.

BROWN: What does it tell you that a third -- I mean if your numbers are correct and I have no reason to believe they're not, if your numbers are correct what does it tell you that a third of the people you employ will be out of work soon about the business you're in and people's willingness to opt out?

SEARCY: Well, the question is not a matter of the image or the interest of the industry. Remember, $662 billion in sales are made every year by phone. On average, consumers make three purchases by phone every year. If this wasn't effective, if consumers weren't buying, if this wasn't a good means of communicating competitive messages, we wouldn't be in business.

The reality is the business is big and it continues to grow. It's larger than the airline industry, larger than the movie industry, and what's discouraging is the government instead of helping to preserve jobs is in the process of eliminating jobs.

BROWN: Come back if you will to what I still think is the core question. There are states that have these laws, I think 20 million people, some number like that have signed to opt out under state laws. I'm not sure how big your lists are of people who are saying do not call. So, this is just...

* BROWN: Just come back, if you will, to what I still think is the core question. There are states that have these laws, I think 20 million people, some number like that, have signed up to opt out under state laws. I'm not sure how big your lists are of people who are saying, Do not call. So this is just -- or why isn't this just a more efficient way to do what's already being done?

SEARCY: The government has a legitimate charge to curb fraud and abuse. But nowhere in the Federal Trade Commission or the FCC's activities do they indicate that fraud or abuse is the purpose for this law. That's the charter that was given to them under the original legislation.

Instead, this is about convenience. If you listen to Commissioner Copps from the FCC, he indicates that this is the first in a number of steps to curb what he considers to be commercial communication. Unfortunately, that crosses over the First Amendment rights and violates commercial speech.

BROWN: Going to sue?

SEARCY: I -- yes, we for the middle of a lawsuit right now with the Federal Trade Commission and have been for some time. We anticipate our day in court will be coming in the very near future. And the First Amendment arguments are extremely strong.

BROWN: We look forward to the case. Good to talk to you. Thank you. It's -- I know it's been a long and somewhat difficult day. And we probably didn't make it any easier, so we appreciate your time. Thank you.

SEARCY: Thank you for the opportunity.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

At about 2:30 this morning, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 215 to expand Medicare coverage to include prescription drugs. The vote came shortly after the Senate passed its own version of the bill, and they will be reconciled, presumably, in the coming weeks.

President says he'll sign on to what will be the largest expansion of Medicare since another president from Texas, a Democrat, helped create Medicare nearly 40 years ago.

He'll be signing a compromise. Any bill that had this kind of support, the support of Bill Frist and Ted Kennedy, is obviously a compromise. It's also complicated and enormously costly to the Treasury. And, as you'll see in a minute, also to many seniors, who still will have to pay more than they believe they can afford.

That in a moment. First, the politics, and CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the wee hours Friday morning, the House bill to help seniors pay for prescription drugs was in peril.

REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Medicare is too important for partisan politics. They...

KARL: But Tom DeLay's problem wasn't just partisan Democrats, it was also conservative Republicans dead set against passing a new entitlement without first limiting Medicare's costs.

REP. RICHARD BURR (R), NORTH CAROLINA: I will vote no on both proposals that come up.

KARL: At 2:30 a.m., with the outcome still in doubt, House leaders zeroed in on Republican Joanne Emerson, convincing her to switch her vote from no to yes, scoring a single-vote victory.

The president wants the differences between the House bill and one passed in the Senate resolved quickly.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I urge the Congress to reconcile their differences and to get a bill to my desk as quickly as possible.

KARL: Not so fast. The close House vote sets the stage for a potentially bitter and time-consuming showdown with the Senate, which passed a significantly different bill.

SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: We are not going to be held by any artificial deadlines to get the policy right.

KARL: One key difference, the House bill makes wealthy seniors pay more for their drug coverage, something strongly opposed by Senator Ted Kennedy and other Democrats. There are also major disagreements over the role private insurance companies should play in providing Medicare.

Despite the differences, there are similarities that will almost certainly be a part of any final deal. Both provide optional drug coverage for a $35 monthly premium. They have similar deductibles, $250 in the House version, $275 in the Senate.

For most seniors, the Senate covers 50 percent of drug costs, the House 80 percent. And both have gaps in coverage for those with high drug bills.

(on camera): Even if the differences are resolved and a bill is signed into law, prescription drug coverage for seniors will remain a hot political issue. With the sole exception of Joe Lieberman, the Democratic presidential candidates oppose the bills passed by the both the House and the Senate.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Well, whatever passes the Congress, and it seems likely something will, it is bound to be better for seniors than what exists now, which is essentially nothing. But these bills, as Jon indicated, are incredibly complicated. Few people really know all details. And so even in this historic moment, people are fraught with anxiety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SONI GREENMAN, MEDICARE MEMBER: I'm a mother of three, grandmother of four, and a great-grandmother of four.

Hello.

BROWN (voice-over): It is fairly simple. At 86, Soni Greenman can't afford the medicine she needs. It is no more complicated than that.

GREENMAN: And my only income right now is $800 a month Social Security. I have no other income.

I should be spending on prescription drugs, I'm going minimum, without any accidents, about $1,000 a month.

BROWN: She has no insurance for prescription drugs, so she cuts corners.

GREENMAN: Celebrex for arthritis, $167. I didn't fill the prescription. I've had a heart (UNINTELLIGIBLE) surgery. I've had a heart attack. I have type B diabetes. I have five degenerative discs, a herniated disc, sciatica, spinal stenosis, spondylitis. And I don't have to tell you that for all these things, I also have acid reflux.

BROWN: But not unlike most 86-year-olds, Soni has plenty of medical issues. And there is a lot in the two bills passed by the Congress that will help. But they won't solve Soni's drug problems, just help.

JOHN ROTHER, POLICY DIRECTOR, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS: There's a benefit hole, or a doughnut hole in the benefit, that forces people to pay 100 percent of the cost just at the time that their expenses are getting serious. And these are problems that really have to be addressed going forward.

BROWN: Under the House bill, Soni will pay 20 percent of her drug costs up to $2,000. After that, she'll pay it all until she's reached $3,700, when the coverage kicks in again at 100 percent. The Senate bill is similar.

GREENMAN: I'm over the line. I cannot apply for any kind of government help. And so prescription drugs are very important to me, because as I get older, I may need more and more. I may find that I'm going to outlive my money. And I'm frightened. And you can multiply me by several millions of seniors.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: All of whom, no doubt, will be watching what the Congress does in the weeks ahead.

Still on come on NEWSNIGHT, prime minister under fire, Tony Blair and the battle with the BBC.

Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS: I'm Susan Lisovicz with this MONEYLINE update. Stocks lost ground for the week. The Dow fell 90 points Friday to close below 9000. The Nasdaq lost 9. Nike shed 7 percent after it said U.S. orders fell.

Watch LOU DOBBS TONIGHT weeknights at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.

Now, back to NEWSNIGHT with Aaron Brown.

BROWN: And much more to come tonight, including Saturday morning's papers. But a break first. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The case of the dodgy dossier may sound like some old episode of "Rumpole of the Bailey," but it isn't a piece of fiction, it's a real fight, and an important one that goes to the heart of how Britain's prime minister argued the case for war in Iraq.

The story from CNN's Gaven Morris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GAVEN MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's Tony Blair's top strategist and king of spin. But the high-powered adviser, Alastair Campbell, normally keeps a low profile. But not so this week, as he stepped out of the shadows to testify to a parliamentary inquiry investigating claims Mr. Campbell and the prime minister's office sexed up an intelligence dossier to justify war in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did the government ever receive any...

GAVEN: The government concedes the document was flawed, and it should never have been published. So Alastair Campbell came to say, Sorry, but he also came to say, the British Broadcasting Corporation went too far in its reporting on the dossier.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL, TONY BLAIR ADVISER: I simply say, in relation to the BBC story, it is a lie, it was a lie. It is a lie that is continually repeated. And until we get an apology for it, I will keep making sure that parliament, people like yourselves and the public, know that it was a lie.

GAVEN: The withering attack on the BBC, over its story that exposed what's now called the dodgy dossier, has sparked yet another controversy over Tony Blair's case for war. The BBC stands by its story, and while it refuses any apology, other members of the government are now joining the fray.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Friday even targeted the BBC journalist who reported the story.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: He made very specific charges, which are wrong. That's one reason why the BBC does need to apologize.

GAVEN: For now, the controversy is refusing to abate. For some observers, that's just what the government had in mind.

MARK STEPHENS, LAWYER: There's now this complete row going on, and it's sort of standard obfuscation tactics from the government. And that, I think, has got to get everybody's suspicions up.

GAVEN: The war in Iraq has been trouble for Tony Blair ever since unprecedented protests and political divisions met his decision to commit British forces. Now the failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and the death this week of six British soldiers in Iraq, have kept the controversy burning.

Opinion polls are increasingly worrying for Tony Blair. One has his Labour government behind the conservative opposition for just the second time in a decade.

A victory in Iraq, so far, has won few games for the Labour government at home.

Gaven Morris, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Few other stories from around the world tonight, beginning with criticism of the war in Iraq from the former South African president, Nelson Mandela. Mr. Mandela said the decision to go without U.N. backing is, quote, "something that must be condemned by everyone." He also praised the French president, Jacques Chirac, because, in Mr. Mandela's words, "France was in favor of peace."

Some talk that Mr. Mandela will not get President Bush when the president goes to Africa.

In Liberia, rebels declared their second cease-fire in 10 days, but few have real hopes it will last. Strike by rebels this week at the capital of Monrovia, and the forces of President Charles Taylor left hundreds of people dead. Demonstrators gathered at the U.S. embassy for a second day, asking for American intervention.

And in central and southwestern China, more than a dozen people have been killed by mudslides caused by the torrential rains there, 24 others missing. The floods have destroyed roads and power lines and knocked down 14,000 homes, washed out two dozen bridges.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, is the right under fire? And what will conservatives do after Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action and gay sex?

This is NEWSNIGHT.

BROWN: OK, let's take a look at the list. A sweeping decision striking down laws against gay sex, support for diversity in affirmative action, a ruling that limits the prosecution of some accused of molesting children years ago, a reprieve for a man facing the death penalty who didn't get an adequate defense.

This is not some history lesson about the famously liberal Warren Court from decades ago. This is the history made this week, decisions by the famously conservative Rehnquist Court.

One writer summed up the feeling among social conservatives, who expected a very different week -- "white-hot fury," he called it.

More on that from one social conservative, Curt Levy from the Center for Individual Rights. He joins us tonight from Washington.

Good to have you with us.

CURT LEVY, CENTER FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Thanks for having me on.

BROWN: Are you -- I understand you're disappointed in these rulings, particularly Michigan and the Texas gay sex ruling. Are you surprised?

LEVY: Well, I'm certainly surprised about the Michigan case. We represented the plaintiffs at the Center for Individual Rights. And we didn't know which way it would go, but we certainly didn't think the court would adopt the diversity rationale, in which it held that it's OK to discriminate against white, Asian, and Arab-American students in order to provide educational benefits to white students.

Now, regardless of whether you're for or against race-based admissions, that's not the real reason that people support affirmative action. And that's one of problems that we've seen with the court in the last month, is, it seems to be making things up. It just adopts fiction when it's convenient.

Yesterday decided that there's a constitutional right to sodomy. Now, I think the Texas law was a stupid law, but there's a difference between stupid and unconstitutional. There's never been anything in the Constitution that protected sodomy or, for that matter, protected homosexuals. But the court wanted there to be, so they made it up.

BROWN: Well, I mean, just perhaps a small point, it seemed to me in reading the decisions, the court made the argument that there's a constitutional right to privacy, not to sodomy.

LEVY: Right, but that constitutional right to privacy, on the first hand, was made up itself, and has never been fought. Just 17 years ago was -- this -- the court decided that it did not apply to sodomy. What's changed in those last 17 years? Politics may have changed, but not the text of the Constitution. And that's exactly my point. The court has become very, very political. They're acting more as politicians than as jurists. They're not really following any principles. They're not even being consistent.

For example, they hold -- they strike down a law that discriminates against homosexuals, when there is no prohibition against discrimination based on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sexual orientation in the Constitution, yet they OK a program that discriminates against whites, Asians, and Arab-Americans even though the Constitution expressly forbids racial discrimination.

They're just not following the text nor precedent. They're making it up like politicians are supposed to do, but not judges.

BROWN: I want to talk about where this is going. Let me ask you one more question about this week, though. Justice O'Connor, in the center of certainly the Michigan case, and to a lesser degree, I suppose, in the Texas case. Is she the biggest disappointment to you in this?

LEVY: Well, you know, it's hard. She's only one vote. So in both the sodomy decisions and in earlier decision that we were disappointed with, six of the liberal votes, of the six liberal votes, four were Republicans. So it's hard to pick on her.

BROWN: Yes.

LEVY: And you know what? It's really been disappointment all around. I mean, I'm even disappointed in the way schools have reacted to the Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court put limits on it. And the schools are already ignoring them.

So I guess my disappointment goes a lot further than Justice O'Connor or even just the Supreme Court.

BROWN: Just, I want to jump back to something you said a moment ago. You described the Texas law as a stupid law. Why would you then care if a stupid law was overturned?

LEVY: Because conservatives believe in the rule of law. Liberals, to be fair, most liberals have always thought the Constitution means what it ought to mean.

But conservatives believe in the rule of law. And they believe that sometimes you may want things to be a certain way, but precedent in the text of the Constitution go another way. And when the Constitution -- when the Supreme Court ignores 200 years of constitutional history, it's upsetting to people like myself, who do believe in the rule of law.

BROWN: Now, where does this go? What do you think the ramifications are for social conservatives in terms of the president's nominee? Should he get to make them for vacancies should they occur?

LEVY: Well, you know, it may very well help them, because there's been this myth that this is an incredibly conservative Supreme Court. But in one week, again, they approved reversed discrimination, they said sodomy was constitutionally protected.

It's going to be very hard for People for the American Way and other groups like that to scare the American people into thinking this is a reactionary court.

Now, as to where conservatives go, there's not much they can do about the sodomy ruling, but I can tell you, at the Center for Individual Rights, we're going to have to turn to the courts, to the ballot box, and to the legislature to get rid of racial preferences, to make this a color-blind society.

BROWN: Do you expect it will eliminate any particular judge from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court?

LEVY: Well, certainly a lot of focus has been on Judge Gonzalez, who's fairly liberal, certainly for a Republican, and people have said it doomed his chances. I don't want to speculate, though, on his particular chances.

But I do think that, again, it's going to be very hard for liberals to attack any conservative nominee as someone who's going to help pack the court, when four of the six liberal votes in these recent weeks have been Republicans.

The Republicans have been packing the court more with liberals than with conservatives.

BROWN: Curt, good for you to join us. But we...

LEVY: Thank you for having me on.

BROWN: ... we would in the future encourage you to speculate. We like that stuff around here. Thank you very much.

LEVY: Thank you.

BROWN: We'll take a break. Morning papers coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We have a viewer who wrote and said we should kill the rooster. We can't kill the rooster, for goodness' sakes. I'm joining that now.

Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world -- or not.

The "Times Herald-Record," upstate New York, the Hudson Valley and the Catskills, I like that, that's not a bad headline, is it? "Moment of Truce," taking a look at the Middle East. And up top, "The Ripe Stuff," ha-ha, "What's Ready at Your Farmer's Market." It's cherry season, that's what I know.

"The Washington Times." We can't figure out a way to get that other paper in Washington. We need to continue working on that. Kind of a cool picture right there, isn't it, a coming-home picture, "Daddy's Home," like that. Down at the bottom, "Texas Schools Renew Call for Affirmative Action." The Texas University system stopped affirmative action after a court ruling, a mid-court ruling, appeals court ruling, and now they'll go back to what they were doing.

Well, I like this. There's context here that I'm sure is missing in "The Boston Herald," but "Pat Kennedy," saying, the representative Patrick Kennedy, right, from Rhode island, "I Never Worked a Day in My Life." Hey, some people don't think I have either.

"The Oregonian," the newspaper of Portland, Oregon, out West. They have an incredibly early deadline, thank goodness. "Court Refuses Abortion Case, Lets Stand $109 Million Jury Verdict," in a case that a lot of people paid attention to.

Twenty? Oh, my goodness. OK.

"The Guardian," we'll do one foreign paper. "Sound and Fury Over the BBC," the story we just told you. That's a huge story over there.

That's morning papers, that's the program for this week. We're all back Monday. We hope you are too. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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Suspected Terrorists Indicted; Will Jobs Be Lost Because of Do-Not- Call List?>