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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Violent Incidents Underline Fragility of Israeli-Palestinian Ceasefire; Dennehy Investigation at Apparent Standstill
Aired July 03, 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.
DARYN KAGAN, HOST: Good evening, I'm Daryn Kagan in for Aaron Brown tonight. It is the kind of scene that the U.S. might welcome, people oppressed at hands of a brutal leader who has been accused of war crimes for stirring up deadly trouble with neighboring countries. People waving American flags and yelling out "We want Bush!" The U.S. may welcome that kind of outpouring if we were talking about grateful Iraqis, but we're talking about desperate Liberians exhausted by civil war. Their pleas and others from around the world have left the U.S. with an extremely difficult decision. Of whether to risk American lives in another dangerous military operation.
So we begin with the "The Whip" with the latest on Liberia and what U.S. might do to help.
White House correspondent Dana Bash is on that for us tonight.
Dana, a headline, please.
DANA BASH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, for the third day in a row, the president huddled with his national security team to talk about potentially sending U.S. peacekeeping troops into Liberia. But the president also made clear that step one is removing Charles Taylor that country's president, from their country, and also make clear that diplomatic's efforts are under way to do just that -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Now go to Liberia itself, the capital, Monrovia.
Jeff Koinange is on the videophone.
Jeff, a headline from you.
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, to leave or not leave?
An ultimatum issued Thursday by the U.S. department says President Charles Taylor of Liberia must leave town in 48 hours -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And there's another tactic next hunt for Saddam Hussein, the promise of a very big reward.
Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is on that tonight.
Jamie, your headline please?
JAMIE MCINTYRE, SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: How badly does the United States want Saddam Hussein? Would you believe $25 million is the price they put on his head, plus $15 million for either of his two sons. And a group of senators who have just returned from Iraq who says Saddam Hussein is the key of restoring peace and finding weapons of mass destruction -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And there was a terrible incident at a mosque in Fallujah in Iraq, as the escalating tension over who or what caused that?
Nic Robertson on that tonight from Baghdad.
Nic, the headline.
NIC ROBERTSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, a day when 10 U.S. more soldiers injured in three separate attacks. And U.S. officials in Fallujah do their best to calm a volatile situation there explaining they were not involved in the explosion in a mosque that killed at least seven Iraqis three days ago -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Back with all of you in just a moment. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT as well Matthew Chance in Gaza on what's threatening the fragile situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Also tonight, the latest on the case of a missing Baylor University basketball player. Jeanne Meserve rides along the people who are fighting the war on terror and may be over your head right now literally on board for a combat air patrol in the skies somewhere in the U.S.
And one man's very personal response is 9/11. A handmade memento for America's falling servicemen and women. We'll get to all that over the hour.
But first tonight, though, the growing possibility of sending American troops to Liberia, but only it appears if Liberia's president steps down first. President Bush himself has yet to come out and publicly issue the ultimatum. But today, he did reiterate his desire to see the dictator gone.
The question now, how to get there and what happens if he doesn't budge and the fighting goes on?
We have two reports for you tonight. The first from CNN's Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): The president, out on the links for a pre- holiday round of golf, after a third day in a row of meetings with his top national security team about plans for sending U.S. peacekeeping troops into Liberia. Mr. Bush insists he's not made up his mind and will not be rushed, and called once again on Liberian President Charles Taylor to leave the country.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to look at all of the options. Determine how best to bring peace and stability. But one thing has to happen, Mr. Taylor needs to leave. BASH: The White House is hoping continued public pressure from the president and intense diplomatic negotiations led by Secretary of State Colin Powell will force Taylor out, making the climate on the ground right for U.S. troops.
And if Taylor doesn't leave ...
BUSH: First of all, I refuse to accept the negative. I understand it's your job to try to put that forth. I'll believe he will listen, and until he doesn't listen, then we can come back and talk about the issue. In other words, I hope he does listen and I'm convinced he will listen.
BASH: The president and his top aides will not publicly concede Taylor's exit is a precondition for U.S. troops entering Liberia, but they do not deny it is what they are waiting for. As a candidate, Mr. Bush questioned whether Africa even fit into U.S. national interest. Aides now say there is concern for U.S. diplomats in the region, a growing humanitarian crisis, and...
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I think we've also recognized since 9/11, that one wants to be careful about permitting conditions of failed states to create conditions in which there is so much instability that you begin to see greater sources of terrorism.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And the president said that the U.S. Has a unique relationship with Liberia. That country was settled more than 150 years ago by former U.S. slaves, and that relationship raises expectations for potential U.S. military involvement there. And those expectations are heightened on the eve of President Bush's first trip to Africa -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And, Dana, let's talk a little bit about that trip. Five countries in five days. A whirlwind trip, and yet Mr. Bush in Africa, a lot of people really don't see the connection there. Certainly was not something that was on the top of his list as he was a candidate?
BASH: Well, actually, the president was going to Africa in January. That trip was canceled because it was during the lead-up to the war in Iraq. But what White House is making clear, and the president himself is actually making clear is that, what they want to do with this trip is to make sure that the world sees that the U.S. isn't just about war. He said actually in an interview earlier today that people around the world equate "war" with America. So their hoping that this trip helps to show the softer side of U.S. foreign policy. You can expect to hear the president talking about his $15 billion initiative to help countries in Africa with their AIDS problem. That is something you will hear the president talking a lot about during those five days.
KAGAN: CNN will be covering that. Dana Bash at the White House. Dana, thank you for that.
Move onto now in Monrovia and the situation right now as Liberians wait for answers. Many of them are hoping the answer will be yes. We have already seen jubilation as the mere rumors that Americans were coming back.
Let's go back to CNN's Jeff Koinange on his take on things tonight from Liberia.
Jeff, hello.
KOINANGE: I can tell you, Daryn, there is a lot excitement in the air right now. Feeling almost euphoria. Liberians do want the Americans in, they do want peacekeepers in. They want law and order restored in the streets of the capital. There's been so many years of struggling, so many years of war. So many child soldiers and militants and rebels out there with guns. They want them all disarmed by the Americans, by the peacekeepers. They want their lives to go back to what they used to be -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Jeff, tell me a little bit about this ultimatum that was issued today. Forty-eight hours for President Charles Taylor to get out of town.
KOINANGE: That's right. It was the senior source inside the executive mansion right here in Monrovia, telling CNN late Thursday that an ultimatum had been issued by the United States, telling President Taylor to leave in 48 hours. No, Daryn, 48 hours mean President Bush's flight will be somewhere over African skies. It is hoped by many here that by the time President Bush touches down on African soil that President Taylor will have either been out of office or better yet will have left town -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And if he does leave country, where would he go?
Are than any offers out there for him -- Jeff.
KOINANGE: Absolutely, Daryn. There's one office so far, the government of Nigeria. They offered Mr. Taylor, asylum two days ago. Mr. Taylor, apparently, initially rejected that offer. Apparent on Friday, this same team returns to Monrovia. They will come with a new offer, hopefully now Mr. Taylor will rethink the offer. See if he can take this offer because, in the words of many people here, time is literally running out -- Daryn.
KAGAN: It might sound more and more attractive as the time does tick away. Jeff Koinange in Monrovia, Liberia, thank you for that report.
Well, we are shy of three month it is since the big statute of Saddam Hussein came down in central Baghdad. Still, no sign of man himself and not much sign of peace either. So today, the government put a $25 million price on Saddam's head. The hope being to solve the Saddam problem and a chunk of the peace problem, all for one low price.
Here again, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MCINTYRE: What's left of a U.S. army Humvee smolders on a Baghdad street. The latest evidence of the increasingly bold attacks that are inflicting daily casualties on U.S. forces.
LT. COL. JOSE ROBLEZ, U.S. ARMY: We believe someone fired a rocket-propelled grenade or some other kind of explosive device was launched against the third vehicle in the military convoy, and it consumed the vehicle.
MCINTYRE: The attack took place in broad daylight, midmorning, and drew a large crowd of civilians, who appear to attacked the damaged Humvee. Three wounded U.S. soldiers were taken to a military hospital and an Iraqi bystander was killed. Convince the commonly- held belief that Saddam Hussein may still be alive is fueling the guerrilla warfare. The U.S. has now put a $25 million bounty Saddam's head. And is offering $15 million for either of his sons. U.S. Senators just back from Iraq are unanimous. That getting Saddam is the key to restoring peace.
SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), VIRGINIA: Believe me. He's not 10 feet tall. He's damn near 10 feet in the ground.
MCINTYRE: Despite the inability of the U.S. military to quash the resistance so far, the commander of U.S. forces insists more troops is not the answer.
LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, U.S. ARMY: In terms of needing any more forces. I don't need any more forces.
MCINTYRE: But fresh troops are needed to relieve the battle- weary forces, especially non-American troops, says one of the senators.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: First we must end the feud with Germany and France and with the U.N., and we must speak the help of those countries. We must seek the support, the participation of NATO and the U.N.
MCINTYRE: The senators toured Iraq for three days and got classified briefings from U.S. and British commanders.
SEN. MARK DAYTON (D), MINNESOTA: We were told that the next 60 to 90 days would be crucial, and that while it will take time, time is not on our side.
SEN. JOHN ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: There is an organized resistance to the American presence and they're getting smarter about the way they do it.
SEN. JACK REED (D), RHODE ISLAND: One fear is that these three groups will somehow find common cause against us, and that would be a significant problem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: These group of senators -- of key senators came back with some sobering insights into how things are going in Iraq, and one made this prediction, -- that the United States would be in Iraq with a large number of troops for a long time -- Daryn.
KAGAN: When they say long time, Jamie, do they put a number on that? Five years? Two years? Ten years?
MCINTYRE: Well, nobody's putting a nob that at this point. But privately in the Pentagon, people have been speculating that they could easily be the -- the U.S. military easily in Iraq five or 10 years, and they point to, for instance, just how long the United States has been in Kosovo and in Bosnia and the fact that the U.S. has more troops in Afghanistan now than they had at the height of the fighting in that war -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Let's talk about some other numbers here. This price tag on Saddam's head, $25 million leading to his capture or his death -- $15 million for one of his sons. How do they come up with those numbers? Do you know, Jamie?
MCINTYRE: Well, the $25 million is the same number they put on the head of Osama bin Laden. And it's a little bit more complicated than that, if you were going to try to collect the reward, because they have to -- the United States has to judge how much a role your information played in either tracking down Saddam Hussein or proving that he was dead. So you don't automatically get $25 million.
You know, and one of things they are also saying is that, while in Afghanistan, maybe some people didn't really how grasp how big a number that in Iraq, they're pretty used to these big sums of numbers. And they're hopeful that putting a price on a head like that will prompt somebody who knows something to come forward.
KAGAN: And then a question from your piece. We heard the military representative talk about, saying he doesn't believe they need more troops. You point out in the piece, they might need fresh troops. But is that the pervasive feeling at the Pentagon, that really they don't need more troops or is that they don't have more troops given how stretched the U.S. military is around the world?
MCINTYRE: Well, there aren't a lot of fresh troops to send and what they're hoping to send is troops that will rotate with the troops there. The 3rd Infantry Division -- some of those troops have already been told they will be coming home. A couple of other brigades of the 3rd Infantry are waiting to hear -- General Abouzaid, who takes over as the U.S. central commander on Monday will make a recommendation.
The thinking is probably the number will stay about the same, but they'll be able to give the troops there a much clearer idea of when they're going home. And a lot of them say they could take it going through -- without the uncertainty of when they were going home. If they actually knew when their end date was, it would make it easier to go through the mission.
KAGAN: Understandable. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you for that report tonight. Well, it certainly goes without saying that the trouble that Americans are have, can't be laid solely at the feet of Saddam Hussein, dead or alive. Iraq is seething with resentment and religious intrigue. It may also may be teaming with former Mujahideen and it's certainly packed to the rafter with weapons. So when the mosque blew up in Fallujah this week, fingers were pointed and voices were raised.
Things have not cooled off much since then. Our Nic Robertson visited the mosque and filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: Hard at work, laborers are already rebuilding the Al Hassan mosque compound. At least seven people died here, including the mosque's religious leader, in an explosion late Monday that many blame on the U.S.
SHEIK AHMAD ABDULLAH AZIZ, FORMER AL HASSAN IMAM (through translator): The Americans, with God's grace, will see death here. We have to avenge our martyred brothers.
SGT. JOSEPH ROBSKY, 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION: The wall structure, the blocked walls, were not reinforced.
ROBERTSON: Rhetoric U.S. officials are working hard to diffuse, explaining their investigation results to journalists.
ROBSKY: It's not consistent with a typical missile, rocket, or artillery strike by the U.S.
ROBERTSON: The damage, consistent they say, with an explosion inside the building that blew out the walls, collapsing the roof, reasoning apparently accepted by community leaders who are still awaiting their own investigation results.
SHEIK ABDUL SATTAR, SENIOR IMAM (through translator): It does not occur in our minds that coalition forces attacked the mosque or any other mosque.
ROBERTSON: U.S. foot patrols speak to troubled times, but not open hostility from the town's residents.
Troubling, however, that the U.S.offices here, that on the day they try hard to diffuse tensions in the town through conciliatory talks, U.S. central command blames a bomb-making class inside the mosque compound for the explosion.
COL. JOSEPH DISALVO, 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION: CENTCOM station is addressing a particular audience. My particular target is working hand-in-hand with the mayor for his execution of the investigation.
ROBERTSON: Back at the Al Hassan mosque, the boundary wall is now repaired and the new religious leader, when asked if he will preach tolerance, replies, "I apologize, but I won't answer this question." (END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: Now, the offices there in Fallujah tell us that they don't believe getting their message across is going to be particularly easy. They also don't expect everyone to believe everything that they tell them. But they do say unless they get that good level of understanding there, their work inside Fallujah is just going to be made that much harder, Daryn.
KAGAN: And Nic, I'm interested in this forensic team that the Americans say that they're sending in. It would seem to me no matter what they find, as you were mentioning, credibility is going to be a huge problem for them even if they get to the truth of what happened at that mosque.
ROBERTSON: The closer you are to the mosque in Fallujah, the more hardline view is, if you will. And if you move away, perhaps a couple of miles, then there are people there who are willing to believe perhaps that it wasn't the United States that was involved, perhaps it wasn't the imam, the religious leader in the mosque that wasn't responsible for the explosion, but perhaps a third party, they say.
But the views around the mosque where this incident happened, where those people died, they came from that very community close to the mosque. The views there are very set, and the -- particularly the preachers there now say they will not be preaching a message of tolerance to the people. So the views there are going to be very, very difficult to change right at that time, Daryn.
KAGAN: Nic Robertson, reporting to us tonight from Iraq. Thank you for that.
NEWSNIGHT continues on this Thursday -- projecting American power. Should the U.S. be in places like Liberia?
And later, one man's plan to honor America's war dead.
This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: During the campaign, candidate George Bush promised to make, more or less, to remake American foreign policy as Gary Cooper, the United States would be the strong silent type. Careful about foreign entanglements and humble towards the rest of world. Well instead critics say, the administration is building an empire, big stick, sharp elbows and all, to which CNN's Jeff Greenfield, says, hey, wait a minute here, is this really anything new?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the core of the fireworks and the celebrations, is one dominant theme, how the United States forged a new nation by fighting its way free of a world empire. And even as the nation grew, buying the vast Louisiana territory, annexing Texas, resting Cuba and the Philippines from Spain, building a mighty Navy, Teddy Roosevelt's great white fleet. The United States has always told the world what Secretary Rumsfeld told al-Jazeera just this spring, we don't seek empires, we're not imperialist, we never have been.
Historically, that's debatable. United States occupied Germany and Japan for years after world war II. And in just the last decade and a half, ousted governments in Panama and Haiti, went into the Balkans, now controls Afghanistan and Iraq. Of the 495,000 troops in the United States army, for example, 370,000 are now deployed around the world.
So the question isn't whether the United States wields power around the world, of course it does. The real question is whether that power, imperial or not, is a contradiction of American values or the embodiment of them.
(voice-over) Again and again, before...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The day of your liberation.
GREENFIELD: ... during...
BUSH: Iraq's liberation.
GREENFIELD: After the war in Iraq...
BUSH: American soldiers as liberators.
GREENFIELD: President Bush asserted that the United States was a liberator, not a conqueror. Over and over, the same president who in his campaign, shunned nation building, pledged to stay in Iraq for the long haul.
In this view, embodied in last year's national security statement, American power is to be used not just to protect the nation from outside threats, but to support nonnegotiable universal values, human rights for example, religious tolerance. It is in this sense, an extension of what happened in Germany and Japan. When the United States occupation ended with those nations evolving into stable, economically powerful democracies.
Vietnam, of course, was and is the template for another view of power. Destructive force used for ends either unclear or unworthy and for many on the liberal left spectrum that remains the fundamental view of American power. But it's not a simple left/right debate. Commentator and sometimes candidate Pat Buchanan, for example, long held the view that the United States has extended its reach far beyond what is prudent and from the left comes this view from author Paul Berman, who warns that Vietnam experience has led some into wrongly concluding that the use of American power must always be wrong.
PAUL BERMAN, AUTHOR: It really ought to be possible to look at people in Afghanistan and feel thrilled that something as monstrous as the Taliban was overthrown and to do the same in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, and feel ecstatic that a regime as despotic as totalitarian is this is finally, at least been overthrown.
GREENFIELD: More than 180 years ago, John Quincy Adams said that America goes not abroad in search of monster to destroy. Well, the United States in fact has been going about the world for decades and after 9/11 it's pretty hard to believe there are not monstrous forces out there that wish the United States ill. The irony is even as the United States is engaged in just about every corner of the world, it is engaged at home in an ongoing debate about when and how to use that power. Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: With us now to talk a little bit more about American power and how it plays in the world is "TIME" magazine's Rick Stangel. Between Iraq, Liberia and the rest, a lot to talk about tonight.
RICK STANGEL, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Yes absolutely.
KAGAN: Thanks for stopping in here, appreciate it.
Now let's start where Jeff's piece stops off, and that is, with the debate of where you get involved and don't get involved. Liberia is at the top of list right now. Do you think the U.S. will send troops?
STANGEL: I think they will send some troops. I mean, Kofi Annan wants us to send some to a peacekeeping force...
KAGAN: But what Kofi Annan wants necessarily isn't what U.S. does.
STANGEL: Well it's also what secretary of state wants and Bush wants to project this kind of moderate image selling compassion abroad not just at home. It does seem kind of like a peculiar thing. I mean Liberia certainly not a strategic interest of the U.S. in any way, shape or form. And certainly, the Bush foreign policy of focusing on places that are really in our interest, Liberia is not in that calculation at all.
KAGAN: I think most of Americans, when the topic of Liberia comes up, first thing you do you go to the map, Where? Who? What are we talking about and even why? What is it besides the fact that this is a place that some former slaves went back into the 1800s that is really drawing this U.S. interest?
STANGEL: well I hate to sound cynical, but it's on the eve of his trip to Africa. He doesn't want to go to every place in Africa, south Africa, Senegal, and get asked about Liberia, and why haven't you done anything.
KAGAN: It's going to happen, though.
STANGEL: Well if he's doing something, though, they'll say, oh, good for you. And plus there's the $15 billion AIDS initiative. He's got to show some leg on that as well, as though he's interested in it. So a there's a whole careful calculation here.
KAGAN: What about, even to take a step back from this, the idea of President Bush going to Africa in the first place and his fascination with this continent. This seems to have developed and grown...
STANGEL: Where did you find that his fascination with the continent, where does that come from.
KAGAN: Well he's going. He's going. There's that.
STANGEL: He might rather be playing golf. Hey, look, he never mentioned it, you know, when he was campaigning. He's never before.
KAGAN: He hasn't been anywhere before he was president. So if you are going to start with he hasn't been...
STANGEL: Exactly, so why go there first? I mean, Colin Powell's interest is important, the AIDS initiative is important. As Condi Rice said today, after 9/11 everyplace, in way, is an area of strategic interest. The some sense -- some say, fact Liberia is a source of what they call conflict diamonds that may be funding al Qaeda, that hasn't come up, but it may come up. So, I mean, every place now is dangerous because every place could harbor someone who could do us harm.
KAGAN: Well let's go to what is one of the most dangerous places to the U.S. right now, and that is Iraq as we see more and more soldiers lose their lives. The White House doing backtracking for the president today as he uttered the words. "bring 'em on.", in response to people want to give the U.S. military some trouble. They're saying he didn't mean it. That he shoots from the hip. But those were not the best chosen words of this president.
STANGEL: Yes, I think he probably regrets it but on the other hand those are words, the kind of words, that we associate with him. That's dove tails with his personality. I mean, you know, he is the cowboy president in a way and people like that about him. I think he was showing American confidence. He was projecting American confidence. I think it was probably a little ill chosen. I think the mothers of servicemen there probably don't think it's so great and I think the guys who were there probably don't think it is so great.
KAGAN: Probably not.
STANGEL: But at least it's kind of a projection of American confidence.
KAGAN: But you had two messages going out in the same day. On the one hand, you have the U.S. president saying bring it on, and then you have the U.S. announcing, hey anyone out there know where Saddam is? We will give you $25 million. I mean it's it sounds kind of desperate.
STANGEL: Well it's a little Old West, both ways, a reward..
KAGAN: A bounty, yes.
STANGEL: But it's a difficult situation because they don't want to seem like they are in over their head that this is something that will tick, tick, tick out all throughout the election. Whether we should send more forces there, to bolster the people that are there. It's a very tricky issue. Remember, just a few months, General Shinseki the former chief of staff of the army said, hey we're going need 200,000 people there and everyone booed and hollered and said we were crazy, well he was right.
KAGAN: As we heard in Jamie Mcintyre's report, they are kind of tapped out.
STANGEL: Yes, and there's no end game. I mean, there's no, you go there and when you are going to go home, what's going to happen? I mean, it's a difficult situation.
KAGAN: It is indeed and we'll be tracking it here at CNN. "TIME" magazine I am sure will as well. Rick Stengel, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank for the conversation.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to head to the Mideast. That's where it's a hurry up and wait for peace to set in.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Nobody ever said the path to peace in the Middle East runs in a straight line. There's two steps forward, one step back, three sideways. It's kind of more of a how it ends up working out, even on a good week. And if weeks ran Monday through Wednesday, well, we've had a pretty good one so far. But they don't.
So today the euphoria lifted a bit, and a measure of reality set in.
Here is CNN's Matthew Chance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is meant to be the road that symbolizes the benefits of peace for ordinary Palestinians. Israeli checkpoints that make travel for the many here so difficult were meant to have gone.
Some believed this gridlock would be forgotten. Their hopes were shortlived. "This is just a show," says Bassam (ph). "They still control the whole area. As long as we can see them, it's not right," he says.
"Whatever happened to the Israelis last night, it's not our fault, is it?" says Mohammed (ph). "So why are they back?"
Israel says its blockade, which has now been lifted, was in response to this rocket attack overnight on the Jewish settlement of Kafardarom (ph), nestled in the Gaza Strip. A number of injuries were reported.
Himself visiting Gaza, the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, was quick to condemn the actions of renegade militants opposed to the current truce with Israel.
"These are acts of sabotage," he said, "and we do not accept them."
But support among Palestinians for a truce some see as one-sided may be wearing thin. In the West Bank town of Qalkillia (ph), thousands attended the funeral of Mahmoud Shawa (ph), a commander of the militant al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, shot dead by Israeli troops during an operation to arrest militants.
Al Aqsa, which has been ambiguous towards the ceasefire all along, says it will respond.
The coming days could pose more challenges for those set on Israeli-Palestinian peace.
(on camera): These latest incidents underline just how fragile is the progress that's been made between the two sides in recent days. Hopes are still with Israel and the Palestinians living up to their commitments, but doubts loom large the U.S.-backed road map peace plan can survive even its first step.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Gaza.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: And before we take a break, a few more items from here and there.
Let's start in Saudi Arabia. Authorities say that a key suspect in the bombings in Riyadh this spring was killed this morning, along with three others, in a shootout with security forces. Turkey Nasser al-Dandani (ph) and the others died when the law stormed the home of a preacher where he was staying. It happened somewhere in the northern part of the country. Police are not saying exactly where.
Paul Bremer, the top American in Iraq, paid a visit today at the soon-to-reopen Baghdad Museum. Looters hit the place shortly after American troops rolled in. As it happened, far fewer antiquities were taken than first suspected. Most of the treasures are still on hand, including gold jewelry dating back 3,000 years.
And on the coast of Chile, the mystery of the blob goes on. It washed up on the beach about a week ago, 40-odd feet of the blob. Is it the remains of a giant octopus, a monster squid, or just a chunk of whale blubber? Nobody really knows at this point, so researchers plan to send chunks of the blob to labs around the world and hope that somebody can solve the mystery.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the continuing challenge of protecting America. We're going to have an exclusive look at the combat air patrols that are still flying over some U.S. cities. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS: I'm Susan Lisovicz with this MONEYLINE update. Stocks fell today. The Dow industrials lost 73 points, the Nasdaq dropped 15, the S&P down 8. The unemployment rate spiked to 6.4 percent in June. That's a nine-year high. Thirty thousand jobs were also lost last month.
Watch LOU DOBBS TONIGHT weeknights at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.
Now, back to NEWSNIGHT with Daryn Kagan.
KAGAN: And later on NEWSNIGHT, we'll have the story of one man trying to make a difference for American families who lost someone in the war on terror.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: We're getting a little jump-start on the holiday there. Those were pictures from Chicago, from our affiliate WFLD, Grant Park on the shore of Lake Michigan. Pretty pictures there.
Well, we go from those fireworks to the worst kind of Fourth of July story, accidents involving fireworks. And there was another one today in Kilgore, Texas. Six people were hurt, three are missing after a fireworks company blew up in Kilgore. That's about two hours east of Dallas. The explosion happened around 6:00 p.m. Eastern, and it blew out the windows of nearby businesses. A five-block area around the site was evacuated.
The latest now on what prosecutors are calling a Virginia jihad network. Eight men pleaded not guilty in federal court today. They are accused of trying to wage terror overseas. Defense lawyers accused the Justice Department of singling out Muslims who just happen to like playing paintball.
The government says the men are connected with a group directing violence at India in its standoff with Pakistan over the land of Kashmir. The judge has set a trial date for November 17.
On to another story now involving the war on terror. It is a look on board a fully loaded fighter jet, one of thousands of sorties flown not over the skies over Afghanistan or some other far-flung spot, more like the sky over your own Fourth of July barbecue.
And that story comes now from our Jeanne Meserve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are weapons of war, fighter aircraft armed with missiles. And they're flying somewhere over the U.S. every day.
KID, NORTH DAKOTA AIR NATIONAL GUARD: Surprising and surreal, I would call it. And I just didn't expect that I would ever be over my own city with a live weapon on an airplane, so. MESERVE: "Kid" of the of North Dakota Air National Guard has flown about 100 combat air patrols, known as KAPs. He took CNN along on an F-16 to take a look.
During the more than 30,000 KAPs sorties since 9/11, there have been 396 interceptions of suspicious aircraft. None of them turned out to pose a terrorist threat, but what if one did?
KID: If it doesn't respond and it's really, truly a threat, then they're going to decide, you know, on the ground that it's not acceptable, and, you know, they're going to have us engage a target.
MESERVE: Ninety-five percent of the time, Kid says, the flying is boring. Boring, but critical.
KID: The consequences of failing at this are large and very visible. And deadly, that's the bottom line, then.
MESERVE: Because the patrols don't allow pilots to practice the difficult tactical maneuvers needed for combat, a recent General Accounting Office report says they could eventually erode military readiness. The KAPs wear out equipment and personnel, and they are not cheap, $4,000 to $9,000 per hour on flight time, depending on the aircraft.
The number of KAPs has been cut back. They now fly irregularly. When and where is determined at the headquarters for the continental U.S. NORAD region in Tindall (ph), Florida, based on threat and intelligence information.
MAJ. GEN. CRAIG MCKINLEY, COMMANDER, 1ST AIR FORCE: We randomly pick cities, critical infrastructure, population centers, where we think they are most vulnerable.
MESERVE: Since these patrols were first scrambled on 9/11, there have not been any more attacks. But we will most likely never know if that's because of security measures on the ground or in the air.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, somewhere over the eastern U.S.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to check out the Waco mystery. It's a new search, but still there is no sign of a missing college basketball player. The latest from Texas just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: And on to another story now that's getting a lot of interest. It is the latest in the case of that missing Baylor University basketball player, Patrick Dennehy. A mystery that seemed only to deepen this week in Waco, Texas.
There still is no sign of Dennehy. He has been missing now for weeks. Today, investigators returned to the field, where an informer's tip said that Dennehy was shot last month. But again, they found no clues.
More now on the story with someone who has been following Dennehy since he was in high school. He was recruited by the University of New Mexico, where he played before he moved to Baylor.
Mark Smith is a staff writer for "The Albuquerque Journal," and he is in Waco tonight and joins us from there.
Mark, good evening.
MARK SMITH, "ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL": Good evening, Daryn. It's a little cooler and nice out here for a change.
KAGAN: What more can you tell us about this field that investigators keep going back to?
SMITH: Well, that's the 50-acre site that supposedly the body was at, according to that affidavit. But they keep going out there, and nothing's showing up. They even went out this morning with a helicopter that was able to detect heat. They went out early in the morning. So it was used so that if there was any kind of heat on the ground, in the form of a body, they could find it.
But nothing turned up again. They've searched it numerous times. Right now, the police kind of at a standstill. They're waiting for more tips to help them out.
That farm area, very interesting, because it's now come out that a couple of people who live out there say that, yes, Patrick Dennehy and Carlton Doson did shoot guns out there, just messing around. They hunted and fished and things like that. But they said those two were practicing their guns shooting because they were scared, because someone was after them.
And we keep hearing that more and more and more. People are saying that both Dotson and Dennehy were scared of someone else.
KAGAN: Well, I want to backtrack on a couple of things. First of all, you say the body -- technically, there is no body. This is still a missing persons case, right?
SMITH: Correct. Correct. The police have said, you know, at first it was a homicide investigation, and then it turned back into a missing persons, and now they're saying that it's a missing persons with a homicide investigation along top of that.
KAGAN: And as the mystery deepens on this story, it seems like the lines keep getting blurred over who might down the line be a potential suspect, and who, perhaps, might be an additional victim.
SMITH: Well, right now, you know, we have no suspects. We have persons of interest, which, of course, Dotson is, but, you know, of course he's a person of interest, because he was in the affidavit, for one, and for two, he's got a lot of information, if it's true that he and Dennehy were running from someone else, well, he's the guy you need to go to to find out. Now, he's not saying much. His lawyer's not saying much. That's going to be the key right now. But I think what's happening is, the investigators are working very closely with Dotson, and they don't want to tip their hand right now.
But we're expecting something to have to come out here pretty soon. Right now, you look around, and the media has pretty much taken off from here. The print guys are all gone from the law school, where there were probably 100 earlier this week. Most of the TV crews have packed up and left, because there's just not a lot to report at this point.
KAGAN: Well, that's probably a relief to the Baylor community, they've probably seen enough of us media. But let me ask you this about, the spotlight's attention going on other teammates, other Baylor teammates.
SMITH: Well, we asked the police yesterday, as Steve Anderson, the spokesperson. He said that there are no other Baylor current players of interest. And, you know, whether there will be any down the road, he didn't say.
We're still waiting to see. I think they're just being extremely tight-lipped, because, you know, what probably happened, Daryn, is, they called that press conference a week ago, last Friday is when they called the press conference for Monday. Well, all of a sudden, they canceled the press conference on Monday. Then they reschedule it, and everyone's wondering what is going on.
Well, what probably happened was that they had that information from the affidavit. They went out to search for the body on Friday. They unlikely -- or probably expected to find the body out there between Friday and Sunday, and then they would have the press conference on Monday.
Well, no body turned up, and so here we're here left with this complete mystery. We've had a long, real strange week out here, and not a lot of questions have been answered. In fact, a lot more questions are out there now than there were on Monday.
KAGAN: Well, and on that note, Mark, before we let you go here, let me ask you if there is some kind of timeline involved here. Is it a certain point where police, and maybe they're not even close to this, but a certain point where they're going to take this file and just put it in the unsolved missing person cases file?
SMITH: I think that would be a ways off. Right now, I think there's too much evidence -- well, they're saying that's not evidence -- they don't -- they won't say what their evidence is. But there's too much, at least, speculation that there's a possible homicide.
So I think we're a ways from that. I think what might end up happening is, the FBI might end up coming in and taking over. We've asked a few times, Steve Anderson, if that's ready to happen. He said not yet. But I think that could be close next week. KAGAN: All right, you'll be tracking it. Mark Smith with "The Albuquerque Journal," thank you for bringing the latest from Waco tonight. We appreciate it.
Still more ahead on NEWSNIGHT, including honoring service members who gave their lives for America. It is one man's attempt to make a difference.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Paul Stern got busier this week, and that's a tragedy. More Americans were killed in Iraq, and that means more work honoring America's fallen with something he makes with his own hands and his heart.
More now from CNN's Catherine Mitchell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CATHERINE MITCHELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Since September 11, Paul Stern has been counting and commemorating casualties in the war on terror in the best way he knows how, with his hands.
PAUL STERN: These people have given their lives for their country, and if their family will let me do something for them, I want to do it.
MITCHELL: Stern, an Air Force veteran, has turned his garage into a wood shop to make memorial, flag, and medal cases for the families of fallen soldiers.
STERN: I'm doing a part to let them know that, you know, someone here in West Virginia knows that their son died or their daughter died.
MITCHELL: Such cases are a longstanding military tradition. Stern made his first when his father, a World War II veteran, died in 1997. Then in 2001, Stern made a case for the first American soldier to die in Afghanistan. Since then, he's made 36 cases, about 180 hours of work in his spare time.
STERN: At first I was just -- you know, I thought I'd send out a couple, and once I got rolling a little bit and got into it, then I thought maybe I'd do 20 of them. And when I got to 20, I decided to go to 30, and when I got to 30, I thought 50 would be a good place to stop. But it's not looking reasonable.
MITCHELL: Stern makes the cases for free. But he's received plenty of donations to keep him going.
He says the hardest part is finding the addresses.
STERN: Never found any contact information.
MITCHELL: A task that he and his wife, Karen, tackle together. 1ST LT. JENNIFER KAYLOR, HUSBAND KILLED IN IRAQ: This is what Paul had sent to me.
MITCHELL: Jenna Kaylor had never heard of Paul Stern until she received one of his letters asking for the honor of making a memorial case for her husband, Lieutenant Jeffrey Kaylor.
Jenna, also a lieutenant at Fort Stewart in Hinesville (ph), Georgia, was serving in Kuwait when she learned that her husband had been killed in Iraq.
KAYLOR: It's nice to know that other people appreciate what Jeff did, and what all of us do who serve in the military. And he took that appreciation to a whole level of actually doing something and producing something that I'll always have.
That's Jeff's military career. I was there to pin his wings on, and I was there for all that stuff. There's a whole bunch of memories attached to his career, which are inside that box.
MITCHELL: Memories that Stern has helped make a little more tangible.
STERN: OK, this here is a list of all the e-mail addresses.
MITCHELL: But he's also given a very intangible gift. In the process of finding addresses, Stern began bringing the families he's met together.
STERN: You know, just letting them get together and communicate with one anothers. You know, I know it's really beneficial to them. I get a lot of pride out of knowing that I have helped to make that happen.
MITCHELL: As the death toll from Iraq and Afghanistan continues to climb, Paul Stern says he'll continue building cases to honor those who give their lives, and building bridges among the loved ones they leave behind.
Catherine Mitchell, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: And that is NEWSNIGHT for tonight. I am Daryn Kagan. Thanks for watching. Good night.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Palestinian Ceasefire; Dennehy Investigation at Apparent Standstill>
Aired July 3, 2003 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, HOST: Good evening, I'm Daryn Kagan in for Aaron Brown tonight. It is the kind of scene that the U.S. might welcome, people oppressed at hands of a brutal leader who has been accused of war crimes for stirring up deadly trouble with neighboring countries. People waving American flags and yelling out "We want Bush!" The U.S. may welcome that kind of outpouring if we were talking about grateful Iraqis, but we're talking about desperate Liberians exhausted by civil war. Their pleas and others from around the world have left the U.S. with an extremely difficult decision. Of whether to risk American lives in another dangerous military operation.
So we begin with the "The Whip" with the latest on Liberia and what U.S. might do to help.
White House correspondent Dana Bash is on that for us tonight.
Dana, a headline, please.
DANA BASH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, for the third day in a row, the president huddled with his national security team to talk about potentially sending U.S. peacekeeping troops into Liberia. But the president also made clear that step one is removing Charles Taylor that country's president, from their country, and also make clear that diplomatic's efforts are under way to do just that -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Now go to Liberia itself, the capital, Monrovia.
Jeff Koinange is on the videophone.
Jeff, a headline from you.
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, to leave or not leave?
An ultimatum issued Thursday by the U.S. department says President Charles Taylor of Liberia must leave town in 48 hours -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And there's another tactic next hunt for Saddam Hussein, the promise of a very big reward.
Senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre is on that tonight.
Jamie, your headline please?
JAMIE MCINTYRE, SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: How badly does the United States want Saddam Hussein? Would you believe $25 million is the price they put on his head, plus $15 million for either of his two sons. And a group of senators who have just returned from Iraq who says Saddam Hussein is the key of restoring peace and finding weapons of mass destruction -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And there was a terrible incident at a mosque in Fallujah in Iraq, as the escalating tension over who or what caused that?
Nic Robertson on that tonight from Baghdad.
Nic, the headline.
NIC ROBERTSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Daryn, a day when 10 U.S. more soldiers injured in three separate attacks. And U.S. officials in Fallujah do their best to calm a volatile situation there explaining they were not involved in the explosion in a mosque that killed at least seven Iraqis three days ago -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Back with all of you in just a moment. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT as well Matthew Chance in Gaza on what's threatening the fragile situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Also tonight, the latest on the case of a missing Baylor University basketball player. Jeanne Meserve rides along the people who are fighting the war on terror and may be over your head right now literally on board for a combat air patrol in the skies somewhere in the U.S.
And one man's very personal response is 9/11. A handmade memento for America's falling servicemen and women. We'll get to all that over the hour.
But first tonight, though, the growing possibility of sending American troops to Liberia, but only it appears if Liberia's president steps down first. President Bush himself has yet to come out and publicly issue the ultimatum. But today, he did reiterate his desire to see the dictator gone.
The question now, how to get there and what happens if he doesn't budge and the fighting goes on?
We have two reports for you tonight. The first from CNN's Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): The president, out on the links for a pre- holiday round of golf, after a third day in a row of meetings with his top national security team about plans for sending U.S. peacekeeping troops into Liberia. Mr. Bush insists he's not made up his mind and will not be rushed, and called once again on Liberian President Charles Taylor to leave the country.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to look at all of the options. Determine how best to bring peace and stability. But one thing has to happen, Mr. Taylor needs to leave. BASH: The White House is hoping continued public pressure from the president and intense diplomatic negotiations led by Secretary of State Colin Powell will force Taylor out, making the climate on the ground right for U.S. troops.
And if Taylor doesn't leave ...
BUSH: First of all, I refuse to accept the negative. I understand it's your job to try to put that forth. I'll believe he will listen, and until he doesn't listen, then we can come back and talk about the issue. In other words, I hope he does listen and I'm convinced he will listen.
BASH: The president and his top aides will not publicly concede Taylor's exit is a precondition for U.S. troops entering Liberia, but they do not deny it is what they are waiting for. As a candidate, Mr. Bush questioned whether Africa even fit into U.S. national interest. Aides now say there is concern for U.S. diplomats in the region, a growing humanitarian crisis, and...
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I think we've also recognized since 9/11, that one wants to be careful about permitting conditions of failed states to create conditions in which there is so much instability that you begin to see greater sources of terrorism.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And the president said that the U.S. Has a unique relationship with Liberia. That country was settled more than 150 years ago by former U.S. slaves, and that relationship raises expectations for potential U.S. military involvement there. And those expectations are heightened on the eve of President Bush's first trip to Africa -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And, Dana, let's talk a little bit about that trip. Five countries in five days. A whirlwind trip, and yet Mr. Bush in Africa, a lot of people really don't see the connection there. Certainly was not something that was on the top of his list as he was a candidate?
BASH: Well, actually, the president was going to Africa in January. That trip was canceled because it was during the lead-up to the war in Iraq. But what White House is making clear, and the president himself is actually making clear is that, what they want to do with this trip is to make sure that the world sees that the U.S. isn't just about war. He said actually in an interview earlier today that people around the world equate "war" with America. So their hoping that this trip helps to show the softer side of U.S. foreign policy. You can expect to hear the president talking about his $15 billion initiative to help countries in Africa with their AIDS problem. That is something you will hear the president talking a lot about during those five days.
KAGAN: CNN will be covering that. Dana Bash at the White House. Dana, thank you for that.
Move onto now in Monrovia and the situation right now as Liberians wait for answers. Many of them are hoping the answer will be yes. We have already seen jubilation as the mere rumors that Americans were coming back.
Let's go back to CNN's Jeff Koinange on his take on things tonight from Liberia.
Jeff, hello.
KOINANGE: I can tell you, Daryn, there is a lot excitement in the air right now. Feeling almost euphoria. Liberians do want the Americans in, they do want peacekeepers in. They want law and order restored in the streets of the capital. There's been so many years of struggling, so many years of war. So many child soldiers and militants and rebels out there with guns. They want them all disarmed by the Americans, by the peacekeepers. They want their lives to go back to what they used to be -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Jeff, tell me a little bit about this ultimatum that was issued today. Forty-eight hours for President Charles Taylor to get out of town.
KOINANGE: That's right. It was the senior source inside the executive mansion right here in Monrovia, telling CNN late Thursday that an ultimatum had been issued by the United States, telling President Taylor to leave in 48 hours. No, Daryn, 48 hours mean President Bush's flight will be somewhere over African skies. It is hoped by many here that by the time President Bush touches down on African soil that President Taylor will have either been out of office or better yet will have left town -- Daryn.
KAGAN: And if he does leave country, where would he go?
Are than any offers out there for him -- Jeff.
KOINANGE: Absolutely, Daryn. There's one office so far, the government of Nigeria. They offered Mr. Taylor, asylum two days ago. Mr. Taylor, apparently, initially rejected that offer. Apparent on Friday, this same team returns to Monrovia. They will come with a new offer, hopefully now Mr. Taylor will rethink the offer. See if he can take this offer because, in the words of many people here, time is literally running out -- Daryn.
KAGAN: It might sound more and more attractive as the time does tick away. Jeff Koinange in Monrovia, Liberia, thank you for that report.
Well, we are shy of three month it is since the big statute of Saddam Hussein came down in central Baghdad. Still, no sign of man himself and not much sign of peace either. So today, the government put a $25 million price on Saddam's head. The hope being to solve the Saddam problem and a chunk of the peace problem, all for one low price.
Here again, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MCINTYRE: What's left of a U.S. army Humvee smolders on a Baghdad street. The latest evidence of the increasingly bold attacks that are inflicting daily casualties on U.S. forces.
LT. COL. JOSE ROBLEZ, U.S. ARMY: We believe someone fired a rocket-propelled grenade or some other kind of explosive device was launched against the third vehicle in the military convoy, and it consumed the vehicle.
MCINTYRE: The attack took place in broad daylight, midmorning, and drew a large crowd of civilians, who appear to attacked the damaged Humvee. Three wounded U.S. soldiers were taken to a military hospital and an Iraqi bystander was killed. Convince the commonly- held belief that Saddam Hussein may still be alive is fueling the guerrilla warfare. The U.S. has now put a $25 million bounty Saddam's head. And is offering $15 million for either of his sons. U.S. Senators just back from Iraq are unanimous. That getting Saddam is the key to restoring peace.
SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), VIRGINIA: Believe me. He's not 10 feet tall. He's damn near 10 feet in the ground.
MCINTYRE: Despite the inability of the U.S. military to quash the resistance so far, the commander of U.S. forces insists more troops is not the answer.
LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, U.S. ARMY: In terms of needing any more forces. I don't need any more forces.
MCINTYRE: But fresh troops are needed to relieve the battle- weary forces, especially non-American troops, says one of the senators.
SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: First we must end the feud with Germany and France and with the U.N., and we must speak the help of those countries. We must seek the support, the participation of NATO and the U.N.
MCINTYRE: The senators toured Iraq for three days and got classified briefings from U.S. and British commanders.
SEN. MARK DAYTON (D), MINNESOTA: We were told that the next 60 to 90 days would be crucial, and that while it will take time, time is not on our side.
SEN. JOHN ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: There is an organized resistance to the American presence and they're getting smarter about the way they do it.
SEN. JACK REED (D), RHODE ISLAND: One fear is that these three groups will somehow find common cause against us, and that would be a significant problem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: These group of senators -- of key senators came back with some sobering insights into how things are going in Iraq, and one made this prediction, -- that the United States would be in Iraq with a large number of troops for a long time -- Daryn.
KAGAN: When they say long time, Jamie, do they put a number on that? Five years? Two years? Ten years?
MCINTYRE: Well, nobody's putting a nob that at this point. But privately in the Pentagon, people have been speculating that they could easily be the -- the U.S. military easily in Iraq five or 10 years, and they point to, for instance, just how long the United States has been in Kosovo and in Bosnia and the fact that the U.S. has more troops in Afghanistan now than they had at the height of the fighting in that war -- Daryn.
KAGAN: Let's talk about some other numbers here. This price tag on Saddam's head, $25 million leading to his capture or his death -- $15 million for one of his sons. How do they come up with those numbers? Do you know, Jamie?
MCINTYRE: Well, the $25 million is the same number they put on the head of Osama bin Laden. And it's a little bit more complicated than that, if you were going to try to collect the reward, because they have to -- the United States has to judge how much a role your information played in either tracking down Saddam Hussein or proving that he was dead. So you don't automatically get $25 million.
You know, and one of things they are also saying is that, while in Afghanistan, maybe some people didn't really how grasp how big a number that in Iraq, they're pretty used to these big sums of numbers. And they're hopeful that putting a price on a head like that will prompt somebody who knows something to come forward.
KAGAN: And then a question from your piece. We heard the military representative talk about, saying he doesn't believe they need more troops. You point out in the piece, they might need fresh troops. But is that the pervasive feeling at the Pentagon, that really they don't need more troops or is that they don't have more troops given how stretched the U.S. military is around the world?
MCINTYRE: Well, there aren't a lot of fresh troops to send and what they're hoping to send is troops that will rotate with the troops there. The 3rd Infantry Division -- some of those troops have already been told they will be coming home. A couple of other brigades of the 3rd Infantry are waiting to hear -- General Abouzaid, who takes over as the U.S. central commander on Monday will make a recommendation.
The thinking is probably the number will stay about the same, but they'll be able to give the troops there a much clearer idea of when they're going home. And a lot of them say they could take it going through -- without the uncertainty of when they were going home. If they actually knew when their end date was, it would make it easier to go through the mission.
KAGAN: Understandable. Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon, thank you for that report tonight. Well, it certainly goes without saying that the trouble that Americans are have, can't be laid solely at the feet of Saddam Hussein, dead or alive. Iraq is seething with resentment and religious intrigue. It may also may be teaming with former Mujahideen and it's certainly packed to the rafter with weapons. So when the mosque blew up in Fallujah this week, fingers were pointed and voices were raised.
Things have not cooled off much since then. Our Nic Robertson visited the mosque and filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: Hard at work, laborers are already rebuilding the Al Hassan mosque compound. At least seven people died here, including the mosque's religious leader, in an explosion late Monday that many blame on the U.S.
SHEIK AHMAD ABDULLAH AZIZ, FORMER AL HASSAN IMAM (through translator): The Americans, with God's grace, will see death here. We have to avenge our martyred brothers.
SGT. JOSEPH ROBSKY, 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION: The wall structure, the blocked walls, were not reinforced.
ROBERTSON: Rhetoric U.S. officials are working hard to diffuse, explaining their investigation results to journalists.
ROBSKY: It's not consistent with a typical missile, rocket, or artillery strike by the U.S.
ROBERTSON: The damage, consistent they say, with an explosion inside the building that blew out the walls, collapsing the roof, reasoning apparently accepted by community leaders who are still awaiting their own investigation results.
SHEIK ABDUL SATTAR, SENIOR IMAM (through translator): It does not occur in our minds that coalition forces attacked the mosque or any other mosque.
ROBERTSON: U.S. foot patrols speak to troubled times, but not open hostility from the town's residents.
Troubling, however, that the U.S.offices here, that on the day they try hard to diffuse tensions in the town through conciliatory talks, U.S. central command blames a bomb-making class inside the mosque compound for the explosion.
COL. JOSEPH DISALVO, 3RD INFANTRY DIVISION: CENTCOM station is addressing a particular audience. My particular target is working hand-in-hand with the mayor for his execution of the investigation.
ROBERTSON: Back at the Al Hassan mosque, the boundary wall is now repaired and the new religious leader, when asked if he will preach tolerance, replies, "I apologize, but I won't answer this question." (END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: Now, the offices there in Fallujah tell us that they don't believe getting their message across is going to be particularly easy. They also don't expect everyone to believe everything that they tell them. But they do say unless they get that good level of understanding there, their work inside Fallujah is just going to be made that much harder, Daryn.
KAGAN: And Nic, I'm interested in this forensic team that the Americans say that they're sending in. It would seem to me no matter what they find, as you were mentioning, credibility is going to be a huge problem for them even if they get to the truth of what happened at that mosque.
ROBERTSON: The closer you are to the mosque in Fallujah, the more hardline view is, if you will. And if you move away, perhaps a couple of miles, then there are people there who are willing to believe perhaps that it wasn't the United States that was involved, perhaps it wasn't the imam, the religious leader in the mosque that wasn't responsible for the explosion, but perhaps a third party, they say.
But the views around the mosque where this incident happened, where those people died, they came from that very community close to the mosque. The views there are very set, and the -- particularly the preachers there now say they will not be preaching a message of tolerance to the people. So the views there are going to be very, very difficult to change right at that time, Daryn.
KAGAN: Nic Robertson, reporting to us tonight from Iraq. Thank you for that.
NEWSNIGHT continues on this Thursday -- projecting American power. Should the U.S. be in places like Liberia?
And later, one man's plan to honor America's war dead.
This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: During the campaign, candidate George Bush promised to make, more or less, to remake American foreign policy as Gary Cooper, the United States would be the strong silent type. Careful about foreign entanglements and humble towards the rest of world. Well instead critics say, the administration is building an empire, big stick, sharp elbows and all, to which CNN's Jeff Greenfield, says, hey, wait a minute here, is this really anything new?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the core of the fireworks and the celebrations, is one dominant theme, how the United States forged a new nation by fighting its way free of a world empire. And even as the nation grew, buying the vast Louisiana territory, annexing Texas, resting Cuba and the Philippines from Spain, building a mighty Navy, Teddy Roosevelt's great white fleet. The United States has always told the world what Secretary Rumsfeld told al-Jazeera just this spring, we don't seek empires, we're not imperialist, we never have been.
Historically, that's debatable. United States occupied Germany and Japan for years after world war II. And in just the last decade and a half, ousted governments in Panama and Haiti, went into the Balkans, now controls Afghanistan and Iraq. Of the 495,000 troops in the United States army, for example, 370,000 are now deployed around the world.
So the question isn't whether the United States wields power around the world, of course it does. The real question is whether that power, imperial or not, is a contradiction of American values or the embodiment of them.
(voice-over) Again and again, before...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The day of your liberation.
GREENFIELD: ... during...
BUSH: Iraq's liberation.
GREENFIELD: After the war in Iraq...
BUSH: American soldiers as liberators.
GREENFIELD: President Bush asserted that the United States was a liberator, not a conqueror. Over and over, the same president who in his campaign, shunned nation building, pledged to stay in Iraq for the long haul.
In this view, embodied in last year's national security statement, American power is to be used not just to protect the nation from outside threats, but to support nonnegotiable universal values, human rights for example, religious tolerance. It is in this sense, an extension of what happened in Germany and Japan. When the United States occupation ended with those nations evolving into stable, economically powerful democracies.
Vietnam, of course, was and is the template for another view of power. Destructive force used for ends either unclear or unworthy and for many on the liberal left spectrum that remains the fundamental view of American power. But it's not a simple left/right debate. Commentator and sometimes candidate Pat Buchanan, for example, long held the view that the United States has extended its reach far beyond what is prudent and from the left comes this view from author Paul Berman, who warns that Vietnam experience has led some into wrongly concluding that the use of American power must always be wrong.
PAUL BERMAN, AUTHOR: It really ought to be possible to look at people in Afghanistan and feel thrilled that something as monstrous as the Taliban was overthrown and to do the same in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, and feel ecstatic that a regime as despotic as totalitarian is this is finally, at least been overthrown.
GREENFIELD: More than 180 years ago, John Quincy Adams said that America goes not abroad in search of monster to destroy. Well, the United States in fact has been going about the world for decades and after 9/11 it's pretty hard to believe there are not monstrous forces out there that wish the United States ill. The irony is even as the United States is engaged in just about every corner of the world, it is engaged at home in an ongoing debate about when and how to use that power. Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: With us now to talk a little bit more about American power and how it plays in the world is "TIME" magazine's Rick Stangel. Between Iraq, Liberia and the rest, a lot to talk about tonight.
RICK STANGEL, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Yes absolutely.
KAGAN: Thanks for stopping in here, appreciate it.
Now let's start where Jeff's piece stops off, and that is, with the debate of where you get involved and don't get involved. Liberia is at the top of list right now. Do you think the U.S. will send troops?
STANGEL: I think they will send some troops. I mean, Kofi Annan wants us to send some to a peacekeeping force...
KAGAN: But what Kofi Annan wants necessarily isn't what U.S. does.
STANGEL: Well it's also what secretary of state wants and Bush wants to project this kind of moderate image selling compassion abroad not just at home. It does seem kind of like a peculiar thing. I mean Liberia certainly not a strategic interest of the U.S. in any way, shape or form. And certainly, the Bush foreign policy of focusing on places that are really in our interest, Liberia is not in that calculation at all.
KAGAN: I think most of Americans, when the topic of Liberia comes up, first thing you do you go to the map, Where? Who? What are we talking about and even why? What is it besides the fact that this is a place that some former slaves went back into the 1800s that is really drawing this U.S. interest?
STANGEL: well I hate to sound cynical, but it's on the eve of his trip to Africa. He doesn't want to go to every place in Africa, south Africa, Senegal, and get asked about Liberia, and why haven't you done anything.
KAGAN: It's going to happen, though.
STANGEL: Well if he's doing something, though, they'll say, oh, good for you. And plus there's the $15 billion AIDS initiative. He's got to show some leg on that as well, as though he's interested in it. So a there's a whole careful calculation here.
KAGAN: What about, even to take a step back from this, the idea of President Bush going to Africa in the first place and his fascination with this continent. This seems to have developed and grown...
STANGEL: Where did you find that his fascination with the continent, where does that come from.
KAGAN: Well he's going. He's going. There's that.
STANGEL: He might rather be playing golf. Hey, look, he never mentioned it, you know, when he was campaigning. He's never before.
KAGAN: He hasn't been anywhere before he was president. So if you are going to start with he hasn't been...
STANGEL: Exactly, so why go there first? I mean, Colin Powell's interest is important, the AIDS initiative is important. As Condi Rice said today, after 9/11 everyplace, in way, is an area of strategic interest. The some sense -- some say, fact Liberia is a source of what they call conflict diamonds that may be funding al Qaeda, that hasn't come up, but it may come up. So, I mean, every place now is dangerous because every place could harbor someone who could do us harm.
KAGAN: Well let's go to what is one of the most dangerous places to the U.S. right now, and that is Iraq as we see more and more soldiers lose their lives. The White House doing backtracking for the president today as he uttered the words. "bring 'em on.", in response to people want to give the U.S. military some trouble. They're saying he didn't mean it. That he shoots from the hip. But those were not the best chosen words of this president.
STANGEL: Yes, I think he probably regrets it but on the other hand those are words, the kind of words, that we associate with him. That's dove tails with his personality. I mean, you know, he is the cowboy president in a way and people like that about him. I think he was showing American confidence. He was projecting American confidence. I think it was probably a little ill chosen. I think the mothers of servicemen there probably don't think it's so great and I think the guys who were there probably don't think it is so great.
KAGAN: Probably not.
STANGEL: But at least it's kind of a projection of American confidence.
KAGAN: But you had two messages going out in the same day. On the one hand, you have the U.S. president saying bring it on, and then you have the U.S. announcing, hey anyone out there know where Saddam is? We will give you $25 million. I mean it's it sounds kind of desperate.
STANGEL: Well it's a little Old West, both ways, a reward..
KAGAN: A bounty, yes.
STANGEL: But it's a difficult situation because they don't want to seem like they are in over their head that this is something that will tick, tick, tick out all throughout the election. Whether we should send more forces there, to bolster the people that are there. It's a very tricky issue. Remember, just a few months, General Shinseki the former chief of staff of the army said, hey we're going need 200,000 people there and everyone booed and hollered and said we were crazy, well he was right.
KAGAN: As we heard in Jamie Mcintyre's report, they are kind of tapped out.
STANGEL: Yes, and there's no end game. I mean, there's no, you go there and when you are going to go home, what's going to happen? I mean, it's a difficult situation.
KAGAN: It is indeed and we'll be tracking it here at CNN. "TIME" magazine I am sure will as well. Rick Stengel, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank for the conversation.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to head to the Mideast. That's where it's a hurry up and wait for peace to set in.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Nobody ever said the path to peace in the Middle East runs in a straight line. There's two steps forward, one step back, three sideways. It's kind of more of a how it ends up working out, even on a good week. And if weeks ran Monday through Wednesday, well, we've had a pretty good one so far. But they don't.
So today the euphoria lifted a bit, and a measure of reality set in.
Here is CNN's Matthew Chance.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is meant to be the road that symbolizes the benefits of peace for ordinary Palestinians. Israeli checkpoints that make travel for the many here so difficult were meant to have gone.
Some believed this gridlock would be forgotten. Their hopes were shortlived. "This is just a show," says Bassam (ph). "They still control the whole area. As long as we can see them, it's not right," he says.
"Whatever happened to the Israelis last night, it's not our fault, is it?" says Mohammed (ph). "So why are they back?"
Israel says its blockade, which has now been lifted, was in response to this rocket attack overnight on the Jewish settlement of Kafardarom (ph), nestled in the Gaza Strip. A number of injuries were reported.
Himself visiting Gaza, the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, was quick to condemn the actions of renegade militants opposed to the current truce with Israel.
"These are acts of sabotage," he said, "and we do not accept them."
But support among Palestinians for a truce some see as one-sided may be wearing thin. In the West Bank town of Qalkillia (ph), thousands attended the funeral of Mahmoud Shawa (ph), a commander of the militant al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, shot dead by Israeli troops during an operation to arrest militants.
Al Aqsa, which has been ambiguous towards the ceasefire all along, says it will respond.
The coming days could pose more challenges for those set on Israeli-Palestinian peace.
(on camera): These latest incidents underline just how fragile is the progress that's been made between the two sides in recent days. Hopes are still with Israel and the Palestinians living up to their commitments, but doubts loom large the U.S.-backed road map peace plan can survive even its first step.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Gaza.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: And before we take a break, a few more items from here and there.
Let's start in Saudi Arabia. Authorities say that a key suspect in the bombings in Riyadh this spring was killed this morning, along with three others, in a shootout with security forces. Turkey Nasser al-Dandani (ph) and the others died when the law stormed the home of a preacher where he was staying. It happened somewhere in the northern part of the country. Police are not saying exactly where.
Paul Bremer, the top American in Iraq, paid a visit today at the soon-to-reopen Baghdad Museum. Looters hit the place shortly after American troops rolled in. As it happened, far fewer antiquities were taken than first suspected. Most of the treasures are still on hand, including gold jewelry dating back 3,000 years.
And on the coast of Chile, the mystery of the blob goes on. It washed up on the beach about a week ago, 40-odd feet of the blob. Is it the remains of a giant octopus, a monster squid, or just a chunk of whale blubber? Nobody really knows at this point, so researchers plan to send chunks of the blob to labs around the world and hope that somebody can solve the mystery.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the continuing challenge of protecting America. We're going to have an exclusive look at the combat air patrols that are still flying over some U.S. cities. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS: I'm Susan Lisovicz with this MONEYLINE update. Stocks fell today. The Dow industrials lost 73 points, the Nasdaq dropped 15, the S&P down 8. The unemployment rate spiked to 6.4 percent in June. That's a nine-year high. Thirty thousand jobs were also lost last month.
Watch LOU DOBBS TONIGHT weeknights at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN.
Now, back to NEWSNIGHT with Daryn Kagan.
KAGAN: And later on NEWSNIGHT, we'll have the story of one man trying to make a difference for American families who lost someone in the war on terror.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: We're getting a little jump-start on the holiday there. Those were pictures from Chicago, from our affiliate WFLD, Grant Park on the shore of Lake Michigan. Pretty pictures there.
Well, we go from those fireworks to the worst kind of Fourth of July story, accidents involving fireworks. And there was another one today in Kilgore, Texas. Six people were hurt, three are missing after a fireworks company blew up in Kilgore. That's about two hours east of Dallas. The explosion happened around 6:00 p.m. Eastern, and it blew out the windows of nearby businesses. A five-block area around the site was evacuated.
The latest now on what prosecutors are calling a Virginia jihad network. Eight men pleaded not guilty in federal court today. They are accused of trying to wage terror overseas. Defense lawyers accused the Justice Department of singling out Muslims who just happen to like playing paintball.
The government says the men are connected with a group directing violence at India in its standoff with Pakistan over the land of Kashmir. The judge has set a trial date for November 17.
On to another story now involving the war on terror. It is a look on board a fully loaded fighter jet, one of thousands of sorties flown not over the skies over Afghanistan or some other far-flung spot, more like the sky over your own Fourth of July barbecue.
And that story comes now from our Jeanne Meserve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are weapons of war, fighter aircraft armed with missiles. And they're flying somewhere over the U.S. every day.
KID, NORTH DAKOTA AIR NATIONAL GUARD: Surprising and surreal, I would call it. And I just didn't expect that I would ever be over my own city with a live weapon on an airplane, so. MESERVE: "Kid" of the of North Dakota Air National Guard has flown about 100 combat air patrols, known as KAPs. He took CNN along on an F-16 to take a look.
During the more than 30,000 KAPs sorties since 9/11, there have been 396 interceptions of suspicious aircraft. None of them turned out to pose a terrorist threat, but what if one did?
KID: If it doesn't respond and it's really, truly a threat, then they're going to decide, you know, on the ground that it's not acceptable, and, you know, they're going to have us engage a target.
MESERVE: Ninety-five percent of the time, Kid says, the flying is boring. Boring, but critical.
KID: The consequences of failing at this are large and very visible. And deadly, that's the bottom line, then.
MESERVE: Because the patrols don't allow pilots to practice the difficult tactical maneuvers needed for combat, a recent General Accounting Office report says they could eventually erode military readiness. The KAPs wear out equipment and personnel, and they are not cheap, $4,000 to $9,000 per hour on flight time, depending on the aircraft.
The number of KAPs has been cut back. They now fly irregularly. When and where is determined at the headquarters for the continental U.S. NORAD region in Tindall (ph), Florida, based on threat and intelligence information.
MAJ. GEN. CRAIG MCKINLEY, COMMANDER, 1ST AIR FORCE: We randomly pick cities, critical infrastructure, population centers, where we think they are most vulnerable.
MESERVE: Since these patrols were first scrambled on 9/11, there have not been any more attacks. But we will most likely never know if that's because of security measures on the ground or in the air.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, somewhere over the eastern U.S.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to check out the Waco mystery. It's a new search, but still there is no sign of a missing college basketball player. The latest from Texas just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: And on to another story now that's getting a lot of interest. It is the latest in the case of that missing Baylor University basketball player, Patrick Dennehy. A mystery that seemed only to deepen this week in Waco, Texas.
There still is no sign of Dennehy. He has been missing now for weeks. Today, investigators returned to the field, where an informer's tip said that Dennehy was shot last month. But again, they found no clues.
More now on the story with someone who has been following Dennehy since he was in high school. He was recruited by the University of New Mexico, where he played before he moved to Baylor.
Mark Smith is a staff writer for "The Albuquerque Journal," and he is in Waco tonight and joins us from there.
Mark, good evening.
MARK SMITH, "ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL": Good evening, Daryn. It's a little cooler and nice out here for a change.
KAGAN: What more can you tell us about this field that investigators keep going back to?
SMITH: Well, that's the 50-acre site that supposedly the body was at, according to that affidavit. But they keep going out there, and nothing's showing up. They even went out this morning with a helicopter that was able to detect heat. They went out early in the morning. So it was used so that if there was any kind of heat on the ground, in the form of a body, they could find it.
But nothing turned up again. They've searched it numerous times. Right now, the police kind of at a standstill. They're waiting for more tips to help them out.
That farm area, very interesting, because it's now come out that a couple of people who live out there say that, yes, Patrick Dennehy and Carlton Doson did shoot guns out there, just messing around. They hunted and fished and things like that. But they said those two were practicing their guns shooting because they were scared, because someone was after them.
And we keep hearing that more and more and more. People are saying that both Dotson and Dennehy were scared of someone else.
KAGAN: Well, I want to backtrack on a couple of things. First of all, you say the body -- technically, there is no body. This is still a missing persons case, right?
SMITH: Correct. Correct. The police have said, you know, at first it was a homicide investigation, and then it turned back into a missing persons, and now they're saying that it's a missing persons with a homicide investigation along top of that.
KAGAN: And as the mystery deepens on this story, it seems like the lines keep getting blurred over who might down the line be a potential suspect, and who, perhaps, might be an additional victim.
SMITH: Well, right now, you know, we have no suspects. We have persons of interest, which, of course, Dotson is, but, you know, of course he's a person of interest, because he was in the affidavit, for one, and for two, he's got a lot of information, if it's true that he and Dennehy were running from someone else, well, he's the guy you need to go to to find out. Now, he's not saying much. His lawyer's not saying much. That's going to be the key right now. But I think what's happening is, the investigators are working very closely with Dotson, and they don't want to tip their hand right now.
But we're expecting something to have to come out here pretty soon. Right now, you look around, and the media has pretty much taken off from here. The print guys are all gone from the law school, where there were probably 100 earlier this week. Most of the TV crews have packed up and left, because there's just not a lot to report at this point.
KAGAN: Well, that's probably a relief to the Baylor community, they've probably seen enough of us media. But let me ask you this about, the spotlight's attention going on other teammates, other Baylor teammates.
SMITH: Well, we asked the police yesterday, as Steve Anderson, the spokesperson. He said that there are no other Baylor current players of interest. And, you know, whether there will be any down the road, he didn't say.
We're still waiting to see. I think they're just being extremely tight-lipped, because, you know, what probably happened, Daryn, is, they called that press conference a week ago, last Friday is when they called the press conference for Monday. Well, all of a sudden, they canceled the press conference on Monday. Then they reschedule it, and everyone's wondering what is going on.
Well, what probably happened was that they had that information from the affidavit. They went out to search for the body on Friday. They unlikely -- or probably expected to find the body out there between Friday and Sunday, and then they would have the press conference on Monday.
Well, no body turned up, and so here we're here left with this complete mystery. We've had a long, real strange week out here, and not a lot of questions have been answered. In fact, a lot more questions are out there now than there were on Monday.
KAGAN: Well, and on that note, Mark, before we let you go here, let me ask you if there is some kind of timeline involved here. Is it a certain point where police, and maybe they're not even close to this, but a certain point where they're going to take this file and just put it in the unsolved missing person cases file?
SMITH: I think that would be a ways off. Right now, I think there's too much evidence -- well, they're saying that's not evidence -- they don't -- they won't say what their evidence is. But there's too much, at least, speculation that there's a possible homicide.
So I think we're a ways from that. I think what might end up happening is, the FBI might end up coming in and taking over. We've asked a few times, Steve Anderson, if that's ready to happen. He said not yet. But I think that could be close next week. KAGAN: All right, you'll be tracking it. Mark Smith with "The Albuquerque Journal," thank you for bringing the latest from Waco tonight. We appreciate it.
Still more ahead on NEWSNIGHT, including honoring service members who gave their lives for America. It is one man's attempt to make a difference.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Paul Stern got busier this week, and that's a tragedy. More Americans were killed in Iraq, and that means more work honoring America's fallen with something he makes with his own hands and his heart.
More now from CNN's Catherine Mitchell.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CATHERINE MITCHELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Since September 11, Paul Stern has been counting and commemorating casualties in the war on terror in the best way he knows how, with his hands.
PAUL STERN: These people have given their lives for their country, and if their family will let me do something for them, I want to do it.
MITCHELL: Stern, an Air Force veteran, has turned his garage into a wood shop to make memorial, flag, and medal cases for the families of fallen soldiers.
STERN: I'm doing a part to let them know that, you know, someone here in West Virginia knows that their son died or their daughter died.
MITCHELL: Such cases are a longstanding military tradition. Stern made his first when his father, a World War II veteran, died in 1997. Then in 2001, Stern made a case for the first American soldier to die in Afghanistan. Since then, he's made 36 cases, about 180 hours of work in his spare time.
STERN: At first I was just -- you know, I thought I'd send out a couple, and once I got rolling a little bit and got into it, then I thought maybe I'd do 20 of them. And when I got to 20, I decided to go to 30, and when I got to 30, I thought 50 would be a good place to stop. But it's not looking reasonable.
MITCHELL: Stern makes the cases for free. But he's received plenty of donations to keep him going.
He says the hardest part is finding the addresses.
STERN: Never found any contact information.
MITCHELL: A task that he and his wife, Karen, tackle together. 1ST LT. JENNIFER KAYLOR, HUSBAND KILLED IN IRAQ: This is what Paul had sent to me.
MITCHELL: Jenna Kaylor had never heard of Paul Stern until she received one of his letters asking for the honor of making a memorial case for her husband, Lieutenant Jeffrey Kaylor.
Jenna, also a lieutenant at Fort Stewart in Hinesville (ph), Georgia, was serving in Kuwait when she learned that her husband had been killed in Iraq.
KAYLOR: It's nice to know that other people appreciate what Jeff did, and what all of us do who serve in the military. And he took that appreciation to a whole level of actually doing something and producing something that I'll always have.
That's Jeff's military career. I was there to pin his wings on, and I was there for all that stuff. There's a whole bunch of memories attached to his career, which are inside that box.
MITCHELL: Memories that Stern has helped make a little more tangible.
STERN: OK, this here is a list of all the e-mail addresses.
MITCHELL: But he's also given a very intangible gift. In the process of finding addresses, Stern began bringing the families he's met together.
STERN: You know, just letting them get together and communicate with one anothers. You know, I know it's really beneficial to them. I get a lot of pride out of knowing that I have helped to make that happen.
MITCHELL: As the death toll from Iraq and Afghanistan continues to climb, Paul Stern says he'll continue building cases to honor those who give their lives, and building bridges among the loved ones they leave behind.
Catherine Mitchell, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: And that is NEWSNIGHT for tonight. I am Daryn Kagan. Thanks for watching. Good night.
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Palestinian Ceasefire; Dennehy Investigation at Apparent Standstill>
