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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

What Now For Schwarzenegger?; Bush Administration Launches New Offensive to Promote Iraq Policy

Aired October 08, 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.
The page is short tonight. We have much to do in the next hour. And those who subscribe to our nightly e-mail know we struggled some tonight with just how to lead. Should it be California, which clearly is the big story of the day? Or should it be the latest White House P.R. offensive on Iraq, which, over the long term, touches far more lives and has far-reaching implications? OK, so I salted the argument some.

We'll lead with Iraq, get to California, and touch them both and more in "The Whip," which begins at the White House and our senior White House correspondent John King.

John, a headline from you tonight.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, that P.R. offensive involves more speeches from the president, the vice president and his top aides, more interviews from the president as well. The administration says it's not getting a fair shake, that its policy in Iraq is a smashing success. Critics don't buy it -- Aaron.

BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.

Next to California, where voters spoke loud and clear yesterday.

Kelly Wallace has been out West for a while now.

Kelly, a headline.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was a decisive victory for Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he received congratulatory calls throughout the day, including one from President Bush. But one aide put it this way: Now comes the hard part, delivering on all those campaign promises -- Aaron.

BROWN: Kelly, thank you. You'll be part of our coverage of the Schwarzenegger story.

Dallas, next, where signs of a split in the Episcopal Church seem more and more evident. Ed Lavandera covering for us.

So, Ed, a headline.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. Members of the American Anglican group meeting here in Dallas are speaking with a clear, strong voice tonight. They want the approval and the appointment of a gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions overturned. Anything less, they say, will force a major realignment in the Episcopal Church -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also tonight on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with the clergyman leading that conservative faction which is meeting outside of Dallas tonight.

Also, who put the bug in the office of the Philadelphia mayor, and why?

Later, we'll talk with best-selling author Scott Turow, whose new book deals with the death penalty. He served on the Illinois Death Penalty Commission. And he changes the argument somewhat.

And what NEWSNIGHT would be complete without a visit from the rooster and a check of morning papers? Probably a good one, but we'll do it anyway -- all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with the latest push in perhaps the longest- running, hardest-fought battle of the war, the administration's effort to justify it. It is an effort made more complicated not simply by the shaky security on the ground in Iraq, a problem that has many Americans rethinking the war, but also by the failure to find those weapons of mass destruction. Both have taken their toll on the president in the polls and both need to be addressed.

This new offensive is designed to solve those problems.

Again, our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): A made-for-TV moment five months ago, the message unmistakable, yet now an urgent administration effort to defend both the war and its postwar strategy.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: When you let a threat fester, you eventually pay a price for it. You either have an option of dealing with it now or dealing with it later. And this president decided to deal with it now.

KING: This Chicago speech by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is part of what the White House calls a new public relations offensive and critics call proof the president is very much on the defensive. The effort includes speeches around the country by senior officials, events staged with supporters of the president's policy, and bypassing national outlets and offering the president, vice president and other senior officials for local media interviews.

It is a strategy hardly unique to this administration. JOE LOCKHART, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's generally an admission that something has failed when you reorganize and you have a new P.R. offensive. This is not a story where you need a P.R. offensive. It is being well-covered. And, basically, that's their problem.

KING: A constant White House complaint is, progress, like reopening schools and hospitals, gets little attention.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And it's the responsibility of this administration to keep the American people informed about those successes.

KING: The new push coincides with a number of difficulties and setbacks: 91 Americans killed in action since Mr. Bush visited an aircraft carrier to declare mission accomplished; failure to win support for a new United Nations Security Council resolution backing its postwar Iraq policy; congressional criticism of the administration's $20 billion Iraq reconstruction proposal; and recent polls showing half the American people now say it was not worth going to war in Iraq.

RICE: This was an international outlaw who had been allowed to remain too long.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The president takes the lead in the offensive with a speech tomorrow. The vice president follows with a speech of his own on Friday. Then Mr. Bush will stage a series of regional television interviews on Monday, again, all part of this new White House P.R. offensive. The critics this. They say, don't change the sales pitch. Change the policy -- Aaron.

BROWN: What is there new to say?

KING: Well, that's an interesting question.

No. 1, they do say that there is progress on the ground, whether it be paving the roads, building the schools. They say that does not get enough coverage here. The president had a bunch of people who just back from the reconstruction the other day. They would like us to what they would say is to balance our coverage by more of the good stories.

But they also understand that they are heading now into a much more fierce political debate over the next two weeks over that $87 billion, especially the $20 billion reconstruction subset. And we're airing a debate tomorrow night, nine Democrats running for president, all now who believe this is an opening for them. So they are heading much more into a political environment. You're going to hear from them quite a bit more rebutting the critics.

BROWN: John, thank you very much, senior White House correspondent John King tonight. All of this comes hard on the heels of a shakeup that appears to put more control over the occupation and reconstruction in the hands of Dr. Rice and the White House. This touched off a bit of a donnybrook between the White House and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who first told a newspaper he'd been cut out of loop and then today seemed to put a different spin on the story, a little whiplash here, perhaps.

Our story comes from our chief Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At an informal meeting of NATO defense ministers in Colorado, where Iraq and Afghanistan top the agenda, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found himself answering questions about intrigue in the Bush Cabinet.

QUESTION: Do you not feel, sir, that perhaps the White House or others in the administration went behind your back to diminish your authority in Iraq?

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I just am really quite surprised about all of this frofaha (ph).

MCINTYRE: Pentagon sources say Rumsfeld was rankled by this story in Monday's "New York Times," which portrayed the creation of an Iraq stabilization group as an effort to assert more direct White House control over Iraq policy.

Rumsfeld has identified National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who heads the new Iraq group, as the source of the offending "Times" story, which Rumsfeld insists mischaracterizes routine NSC coordination as a White House takeover of the Iraq reconstruction effort.

But after Rumsfeld pointedly said he was informed only after the fact in a one-page memo from Rice, the White House backpedaled, supporting Rumsfeld's spin on the story.

MCCLELLAN: The Pentagon continues to be, has been and continues to be, the lead agency overseeing our efforts in Iraq.

MCINTYRE (on camera): The irony is, the whole flap over whether the Iraq mission needs better interagency coordination could have been avoided with some better interagency coordination.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, Colorado Springs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: More now on what the military is treating as a growing danger inside Iraq and perhaps beyond. In a country where people aim AK-47s in the air for celebration, it comes as no surprise, there are lots of guns and plenty of ammo around. But just how much of it, the sheer variety of it, staggers the imagination and stretches the troops who must secure it all.

Here is Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. soldiers in a secured ammunition dump. It's in Baghdad, but we agreed not to say exactly where. They troops handle thousands of pieces of ammunition, bullets, rocket-propelled grenades, part of Saddam Hussein's huge weapons arsenal left behind as his troops fled. But the abandoned weapons are now a major headache for the U.S. military in Iraq.

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, COMMANDER, COALITION GROUND FORCES: There are over 650,000 tons of ammunition in this country. And it is -- if you ask me, could some of that ammunition possibly have been used against my forces? Of course it's possible. And are they all guarded? No, they are not.

WHITBECK: Captain Brian Carlin and his men are working to clean up the dangerous mess. After months of scouring weapons dumps throughout the capital, they are now consolidating what they have found, moving to it secure U.S. military bases.

CAPT. BRIAN CARLIN, 1ST ARMORED DIVISION: Picked up over 100 caches and cleared the streets of Baghdad, making them safer for the Iraqis, as well as for coalition forces.

WHITBECK: Hundreds of truckloads.

(on camera): And that's a lot of live ammunition. In fact, the weight of what has been recovered just around Baghdad since last June is equivalent to that of 65 747s.

(voice-over): But coalition forces concede, there is much more still out there. And that includes surface-to-air missiles. We saw several captured SAMs stored at this ammunition dump. But for security reasons, we were not allowed to photograph them. Coalition officials say there is now a $500 reward for each one turned in.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The administration has wanted troops from other countries, especially Muslim countries, on the ground in Iraq. The theory is that it would not just add more boots on the ground, but help ease some of the tensions that the Americans face. The first and only country to sign on is Turkey, which has a history in Iraq, and not a friendly one. So, once again, we are faced with the law of unintended consequences.

Here is CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's clear who is running this show. With the simmering dispute between the U.S. and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, the top American official here has laid down the law over Turkish troops.

PAUL BREMER, IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATOR: I have stressed to the Governing Council that, under international law, the coalition is responsible for security here. And, in the end, we have to make our own decisions.

ARRAF: The decision to send thousands of Turkish soldiers to Iraq. Up to 10,000 of them could be deployed here, more even than the British. The Iraqi Governing Council has condemned the move.

SAMIR SUMAIEA'IE, IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL: It's very difficult for us to pronounce that we should invite Turkish or any other foreign troops into Iraq.

ARRAF: Iraq was once occupied by Turkey as part of the Ottoman Empire. Eight decades later, some Iraqis are still concerned Turkey will take advantage of Iraq's weakness.

(on camera): For most Iraqis, having American soldiers in the streets is bad enough. For some, the prospect of thousands of Turkish troops is even more unsettling.

(voice-over): "Turkey has been trying to claim ownership of Kirkuk and Mosul for years," says construction worker Sad Aziz Hamdan (ph). "Deploying the troops will cause a lot of problems. They should form an Iraqi army that will protect the Iraqis."

ARRAF: Turkey, a neighboring Muslim country, says all it wants to do is help.

OSMAN ALI FEYYAZ, TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Of course, it is not the aim of Turkey to come to Iraq as an occupying force. We want to be here as a friendly, stabilizing, contributing factor. And we see the sending of military force as just another way of helping.

ARRAF: With few other countries willing to contribute troops, it seems clear that, despite Iraqi doubts, Turkish soldiers will be coming.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Turning now to the FBI investigation into who in the Bush administration, if anyone, leaked the name of a CIA operative to the press and whether that leak was a crime.

The first part seems pretty straightforward, if you believe Bob Novak. The second is anything but simple, the law in question being what it is. Sources tell us first interviews of White House officials could come any day now.

Here is CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Government sources tell CNN, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, his wife, a covert CIA operative, and the reporter who revealed her identity have all been interviewed by the FBI. So, too, have several CIA officials, the next stop the White House.

MCCLELLAN: There are people inside and outside this administration that can help get to the bottom of this and if people have information they ought to talk to the Department of Justice about it.

ARENA: White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and lawyers in his office are busy sifting through documents provided by White House staff that could be relevant to the investigation and some of that information is expected to be handed over to the Justice Department by week's end.

MCCLELLAN: We're moving quickly. We want to rule out any information going to them very soon.

ARENA: Sources close to the investigation say the list of people who may have been the source of the leak keeps growing prompting the FBI's Washington field office to assign more agents to the investigation and one senior official tells CNN the FBI does not expect to complete the probe by year's end.

A former FBI official who used to head leak investigations says they are often unwieldy.

STEVE POMERANTZ, FORMER FBI OFFICIAL: Lots of times you start off these investigations with a belief that the universe of potential leakers is small only to be confronted early on with the reality that there are many, many more people that knew the information.

ARENA: And that's why almost all leak investigations are closed without ever naming a suspect.

REP. PORTER GOSS (R), INTELLIGENCE CHMN. : The success rate on finding people who leak is very, very, very small. Now, there's a difference between willful leakers, as we all know, and inadvertent leakers.

ARENA (on camera): While Republicans are suggesting that a crime may not even have been admitted, the Democrats are once again on the offensive, the Democratic National Committee urging activists to e- mail Republicans to demand that a special counsel be appointed to head up the investigation.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight: the morning after. California wakes up to a new governor and the same old problems.

And later: the looming split in the Episcopal Church in the country over a gay bishop and gay unions. We'll talk with one minister who is working toward such a split -- that and more, as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On to California.

In the end, there wasn't a great deal of suspense at all, was there? California voters did recall the incumbent governor, Gray Davis, and did instill an actor born in Austria to fill out the remaining three years of the current term. The electoral margins in both questions was decisive. As we said, no suspense.

But on the day after, plenty of drama and perhaps some answers to that famous question raised in the last scene of the great political movie "The Candidate." "What do we do now?" asked Robert Redford.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice-over): This was a first, Arnold Schwarzenegger going before the press not as a candidate, but as governor-elect.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR-ELECT: There will be no time for movies or anything else. I will pay full attention to the job. I take this job very seriously.

WALLACE: You could tell the campaign was over. There were questions on policy, not politics, such as how Schwarzenegger would balance the budget.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I campaigned that I will not raise taxes. And I say this again. I will not raise taxes.

WALLACE: Now comes the hard part for the moderate Republican, trying to deliver on those promises, especially with a Democratically- controlled legislature.

SCHWARZENEGGER: The legislators up there have gotten that message last night, that the people of California want change.

WALLACE: The honeymoon won't last long. Schwarzenegger knows that. But he showed some political savvy, calling the state's most popular Democrat before she called him.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Mr. Schwarzenegger has to be able to take office. He's got to be able to do what he said he would do. And everybody, we all ought to help that job get done.

WALLACE: There will be distractions, including allegations of sexual misconduct, which the superstar said he would discuss in detail after the election. But perhaps the biggest challenge, analysts say, not letting the people of California down.

ELIZABETH GARRETT, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: When it comes time to make budget tradeoffs, some people are going to lose and some people are going to win. And those are going to be very difficult problems for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And Schwarzenegger could be sworn in as early as a few weeks from now, first, though, the transition. His team will be announced on Thursday. It will be led by Republican congressman David Dreier, who turned into one of Schwarzenegger's fiercest defenders throughout the campaign -- Aaron.

BROWN: All right, two questions. We need to be a little quick here. Is it not written in state law anywhere how long this transition takes?

WALLACE: It is written in state law; 39 days, the secretary of state's office has to certify the election; 10 days after that, the candidate, governor-elect, must be sworn in.

BROWN: OK. OK. So, within a month and a half minimum, he takes office.

WALLACE: Month and a half maximum, exactly.

BROWN: Maximum, I'm sorry.

WALLACE: Yes.

BROWN: And one of the things he said is that he would repeal the car registration tax and he would repeal the driver's license for illegal immigrants. Does the governor, in fact, have that power or that is legislative power?

WALLACE: Well, his advisers are looking into both.

First, on the repealing the car tax and also repealing the driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, he was asked about that today. He said his advisers are looking into it. But I do believe he has to get the support of the legislature. If he can't, he could put it before voters in terms of a ballot initiative as early as March of next year.

BROWN: Well, it's California. That wouldn't be surprising. Kelly, thank you very much -- Kelly Wallace in Los Angeles.

More political realities in California. Nowhere are the aftershocks of what happened yesterday more real than in the state Capitol of Sacramento, not just for the governor. Hundreds of men and women serve in state jobs at the direct pleasure of that governor, who, as of next month or so, will not be Gray Davis.

CNN's Rusty Dornin tonight on their future.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE MAVIGLIO, DAVIS PRESS SECRETARY: This table used to be filled with legislation.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The day after, a grim day for many in the halls of the state Capitol.

MAVIGLIO: This is called the horseshoe, the governor's sort of inner circle. There's about 100 people or so. We have legislative deputies, appointments, our energy person, our communications person.

DORNIN (on camera): And all these people are going to lose their jobs.

MAVIGLIO: All these people that serve at the will of the governor would be expected to leave.

DORNIN (voice-over): But the governor is not leaving yet. Right up to recall, Gray Davis was busy signing bills. After the recall, the same.

MAVIGLIO: There is business to be done. We still have many bills to sign. We have people to appoint to positions.

(CROSSTALK)

DORNIN (on camera): Even though Schwarzenegger doesn't want you to appoint anyone?

MAVIGLIO: Well, Governor Davis is still the governor. And he was elected to serve until somebody else gets that certificate of election.

DORNIN (voice-over): Arnold Schwarzenegger won't get that certificate until every vote is counted in 58 counties. And that probably won't happen until mid-November.

KEVIN SHELLEY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Dating to 1973, 33 statewide elections, they have 39 days to do it in. And they've invariably taken the 39 days, regardless of whether an election is close.

DORNIN: For the old administration, transition means losing jobs three years early. No hard feelings, right?

MAVIGLIO: We haven't taken the S's off the keyboard.

DORNIN (on camera): No such shenanigans, say staff aides. They've been asked by their governor to keep this transition smooth. As for Gray Davis?

(voice-over): No word yet on future plans, but aides say privately their boss, a lifelong politician, may never run for political office again.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, Sacramento, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: For all of California's presence on the world stage -- and it is, after all, the equivalent of a good-size country -- it's a safe bet that nobody in, well, let's say, Krakow paid much attention to the last governor's race and or even knew Gray Davis from Bill Simon from Adam. But they do know Arnold, as an actor, at least, as a person, perhaps. And it is fascinating to hear what they are saying now about Arnold the governor.

Here is CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His rise to political office holds much of the world in fascination. How the muscle-bound hero of countless Hollywood blockbusters got elected is beyond many, at least on the street's of Britain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America continues to surprise me. It's just a bit scary, actually, that people like that can get such power.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a bad actor. He's going to be a bad governor. He should stick with building up his muscles. It's pathetic.

CHANCE: In Schwarzenegger's Austrian hometown, locals eagerly watched the election result, celebrating their own former bodybuilder's win.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's a wonderful result and it means for Arnold Schwarzenegger that he has wanted and it means that we can be proud that one of us is at the top.

CHANCE: There's been support too from a more unlikely corner, in this Baghdad gym. The "Terminator" has long been an iron-pumping icon with the kind of credibility here many other U.S. policy-makers might envy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Arnold is a sportsman and a man with great knowledge of life. He is a good politician as a result. God willing, he will lead his state and bring peace to Iraq.

CHANCE: Brining money to California may be his first goal, but with so much international appeal, who knows what else this bodybuilder turned action hero turned politician can achieve.

Matthew Chance, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT: the controversy over the bug in the Philadelphia mayor's office.

And up next: the continuing fallout from the selection of a gay Episcopal bishop and a split that seems more likely than ever in the church. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Ever since Martin Luther took up hammer and parchment, the story Christianity has been, in no small measure, the story of dissent, people who differ in basic ways from the larger body and their struggle to be heard, to be accommodated or, in the end, to go their own way.

For members of Episcopal Church in the United States, today, that battle is being fought over the very divisive question of homosexuality. Should the church recognize civil unions? Should it ordain gay ministers and make some of them bishops?

For the broader church, the answer is yes. For a large group of more conservative Episcopalians, however, the answer is no. Two months after the church named an openly gay bishop, the dissenters have gathered in Dallas.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): In a Dallas convention hall the length of a football field, 2,700 conservative Episcopalians proclaim their mission to save their church's soul.

REV. DAVID ANDERSON, AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL: We need a safe place, theologically and spiritually for our people, a place where we're free from the kind of harassment that we live with day in and day out in the Episcopal Church.

LAVANDERA: When this Reverend David Anderson says harassment, he's talking about the Episcopal Church's approval of Gene Robinson as an openly gay bishop and the blessings of same-sex unions. This group says church leaders who voted for those decisions are like boat captains blindly driving their ship into a fog.

REV. BILL ATWOOD, AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL: It's pretty evident from all of the people that are here, there are a lot of folks not willing to follow full speed ahead into the fog bank, where the icebergs are.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That failure would come at the price of a wrenching split.

LAVANDERA: These church members see a split in the American Episcopal Church as unavoidable. Next week, the highest-ranking Episcopal church leaders will be meeting in England. This group will ask for control of the American church, arguing that they represent the mainstream view.

ANDERSON: The time of discussion ended when they voted for Gene Robinson and passed same-sex blessing. Conversation is over. We've been in dialogue and conversation for a long time. LAVANDERA: At this meeting, it's clear the time for talk is over. To attend, members were asked to sign a statement of faith which proclaims that sexuality is part of God's creation intended between men and women.

Susan Russell is the president of a group called Integrity, representing gay and lesbian church members. She refused to sign the statement and is not allowed in the meetings.

REV. SUSAN RUSSELL, INTEGRITY: This is nothing other than an exclusivist bunch of people who want to draw up the drawbridge and want a church. Their criteria for being included is being agreed with.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: This meeting will conclude tomorrow. The members of this group are working on a resolution that will be presented to the archbishop's meeting in England next week. The group is still working on the final wording of that resolution. After that, all eyes will be on England next week, as they watch and see what the archbishops will do next week.

We did speak with a spokesperson for Gene Robinson earlier today. And we were told by that spokesperson that Gene Robinson wouldn't have any comment until after the archbishops meet in England next week -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just help me a little bit on sort of the theological hierarchy. Does the church in England have a kind of absolute authority to decide who is in charge in the United States?

LAVANDERA: I think, ultimately, they might. I think it's a very difficult question and one perhaps that the members of the church here in the U.S. are dealing with as well.

It's something they are calling for. And, essentially, what the group here in Dallas is saying, that they're going to leave it in the hands of the archbishop in Canterbury and let them decide.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much -- Ed Lavandera in Plano, Texas, tonight.

So, having set the stage, now we turn to one of the principals in this fight for the heart and soul, if you will, of the Episcopal Church. We're joined by the Reverend David Roseberry, who is the rector of Christ Church in Plano, which is just outside of Dallas.

Nice to see you, sir.

Let me throw just back a question I asked Ed. Does the church in England, or the archbishop, have a kind of absolute authority over who controls the church in the United States?

REV. DAVID ROSEBERRY, RECTOR, CHRIST CHURCH OF PLANO: Not of the kind that, for example, the pope would have in the Roman Catholic Church.

BROWN: OK.

ROSEBERRY: But what the archbishop have, the archbishop of Canterbury does have is incredible influence and authority in that regard.

BROWN: OK, that helps me understand that. Let's move on a little bit.

Do you believe, Reverend, that your group represents the majority of Americans in the Episcopal Church?

ROSEBERRY: Well, that's very hard to say. No one has done significant polling. What we do know is that we represent a vast majority of Anglicans all around the world that are part of one giant 77-million member family.

BROWN: Does it, in a sense, matter to you one way or another whether you represent a majority or a minority, given that what you are arguing here, essentially, is that theology is on your side?

ROSEBERRY: Well, you are exactly right.

Whether it's a minority or a majority in this country is immaterial to the point, because it is the truth. The Bible's very clear on this. It is the historic teaching of the church and has been for 2,000 years.

BROWN: How can you see something so clearly as the truth and they see something so clearly as the truth also? How can that be?

ROSEBERRY: Well, I think you would have to ask them how they can't see what has been the clear teaching of the church for 2,000 years. But, indeed, for so many of us here, it is as plain as the printed page in the Bible.

BROWN: Does the church not -- and perhaps this is true of every church, but, in this case, yours -- does the church not grow and change over time in some ways, as we learn more and come to understand more?

ROSEBERRY: I think we understand a lot more about human nature, a lot more about the way people relate to each other in terms of the modern sciences.

But, remember, one of the dominant symbols of the church is an anchor. And especially in a culture that is being blown around by every wind and every doctrine that we are in right now in the American church, the church needs an anchor. And the anchor is the clear teaching of scripture.

BROWN: The church went through something like this, and not perhaps quite as intense and perhaps not quite as bitter, but not unlike this in the '70s over women in the clergy. Do you see that as a -- in any sense similar, or, if not, how so dissimilar? ROSEBERRY: I think it's very unsimilar, very dissimilar, in the sense that the issue of women's ordination was in regard to faith and order.

This is about morals. And there is a clear teaching in the scripture about what morality should be.

BROWN: Back in the '70s, did people who were standing where you might be standing now make the argument that, no, this is clearly the word of the Bible, that this should be a male job?

ROSEBERRY: No, I don't think that statement was made widely.

I think many people understood that to be the teaching of the church. But when you look at the Bible, what you do find is that it honors and really uplifts the roll of women in ministry.

BROWN: Maybe this, sir, is an easy question for somebody who is not an Episcopalian to ask. But if, at the end day, your group goes its way and their group goes its way, what is really changed? Why does that matter, if in fact it matters?

ROSEBERRY: Well, I think that the church is called by God to not necessarily always bless the things of the culture or endorse the thing that the culture is advocating.

What makes it important is that people are looking to the church for a sense of vision for their life and purpose for their life. And the church has got to stand firm on biblical principles. Otherwise, it just becomes another voice in a sea of voices.

BROWN: We appreciate your time tonight. We know how busy you are down there and how important this work is.

ROSEBERRY: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

ROSEBERRY: Thank you.

BROWN: Appreciate it, Reverend David Roseberry, the rector of Christ Church in Plano, Texas.

Still to come, we'll talk with author Scott Turow. And up next, the uproar over the bug in the office of the mayor of Philadelphia.

We'll take a break first. And a reminder that, around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Much more NEWSNIGHT ahead tonight, including Scott Turow to talk about the death penalty, his work in Illinois, morning papers, of course; and, up next, the bug in the mayors's office.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If this had happened a couple of decades ago, the plot would have been the perfect Philadelphia story: wiretaps in the mayor's office, confirmation the FBI planted the bug, a terrific yarn. You could almost see Frank Rizzo smiling now. But old Mayor Rizzo is long gone and the new mayor is not, we presume, amused one bit at the disclosures of the last day or so.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Law enforcement officials and a senior government source confirm, the FBI planted a listening device in the office the Philadelphia Mayor John Street. And the mayor wants to know why. Police discovered the multipart device in the ceiling right above his desk on Tuesday during a routine security check and turned it over to the FBI.

JOHN STREET (D), MAYOR OF PHILADELPHIA: The timing is very suspicious.

CARROLL: Street, a Democrat, is in a tight race against Republican Sam Katz, the election now just four weeks away. Street's campaign spokesman suggested the bug may have been part of a GOP conspiracy. Street's supporters say the mayor was instrumental in getting out the Democratic vote in the last presidential election, helping Al Gore carry the state.

They suggest orders to plant the bug could have come from Republicans, who didn't want to see Street around during the next presidential election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republican Party, if you look back over the course of history, has not been -- has not been loathe to attempt dirty political tricks.

SAM KATZ (R), PHILADELPHIA MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Those charges are just totally an attempt to divert attention. I'm not interested in bringing attention to this.

CARROLL: The law enforcement officials and the senior government source would not say whether Street is the subject of an investigation. An FBI spokeswoman in Philadelphia did seem to rule out any connection to Katz.

LINDA VIZI, FBI SPOKESWOMAN: We have come to the conclusion that this is not associated with the election in any way.

CARROLL: Street's administration says it is cooperating with two investigations into alleged parking ticket fixing and the awarding of airport contracts.

STREET: I haven't done anything wrong and I don't know that anybody in my Cabinet or in my staff around me has done anything wrong.

CARROLL: The mayor and his rival agree, the FBI knows much more than it has been willing to say.

(on camera): The governor of Pennsylvania, a former mayor of Philadelphia, says the FBI owes the people of Philadelphia an explanation as to exactly what is going on.

Jason Carroll, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A few more items now form around the world before we go to break, starting in Bogota, Colombia, where a car bomb went off in a busy part of town known for black-market merchandise. At least six people died in the explosion, including two policemen. No one has yet claimed responsibility.

China next. Look up in the sky. OK, look really close now. The guy doing the climbing works without a net, without ropes, without much sense. By the looks of things, he made it to the top of China's tallest building.

Finally to Copenhagen, where Denmark's future king and his future bride met the media for the first time. Crown Prince Frederik is marrying an Aussie and a commoner, no less. And a certain Danish- speaking member of our staff was heartbroken at the news.

Still ahead tonight: dealing with the death penalty. We'll talk with author Scott Turow about his new book, which is not fiction.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We could talk about any number of things tonight with Scott Turow. And we just might. He's a best-selling author of both fiction and fact. He's also a defense lawyer with an interest in death penalty cases. He also happens to be from Chicago. Between killers, critics, and the Cubbies, there is a lot to got to. We'll keep this short, and he can go back to the ball game. His latest book is called "Ultimate Punishment." And we're always pleased to see him, respect his work a lot.

It's nice to have you here.

SCOTT TUROW, AUTHOR, "ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT": Thank you very much.

BROWN: The book is really an attempt not to debate the right and the wrong...

TUROW: Right.

BROWN: ... which we've been doing forever in the country, of capital punishment, but to force us to look at the issue differently.

TUROW: Right.

BROWN: How?

TUROW: Well, I think, speaking for myself, I sat on the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment. And I realized, I was asking myself for many years the wrong question, which is, is capital punishment right in this particular case, Timothy McVeigh, the Beltway sniper?

And, for me, ultimately, the question I should have been asking, I think, is not, can we construct a system that will reach those right cases, but, will we ever construct a system that will reach the right cases without also reaching the wrong cases, cases where the defendant is innocent? And we've seen that happen repeatedly.

BROWN: And we saw it happen a lot in your state, in Illinois.

TUROW: Yes.

BROWN: One of the things I read that you said -- I'm not sure I understand it -- is that, in some ways, the more heinous the case, the more likely it is we, societally, will screw it up.

TUROW: Yes. Right.

BROWN: Why is that?

TUROW: It's what I refer to as the paradox of capital punishment.

If we reserve capital punishment for the worst of the worst, that means that we will impose it or seek it only in those cases that are most heinous, most extravagantly evil. And these are the cases that upset us the most, that fill us with anxiety, dread, revulsion, that inspire the police and prosecutors to particularly zealous enforcement, that make it very hard for juries to respect the burden of proof, even hard for defense lawyers to like clients who are charged with those crimes.

And it's an environment rife with the possibility of error.

BROWN: I read the other day where the governor of Massachusetts...

TUROW: Mitt Romney.

BROWN: ... Governor Romney, is trying to fashion a law that is foolproof. Now, I'm not sure that we humans are capable of that. But assume -- is that even possible, in your view?

TUROW: I have contemplated this long and hard. And I've come to the conclusion that it's really not possible with the death penalty.

BROWN: Because?

TUROW: Because, A, you have innocence cases. You are particularly prone to convict the innocent in capital cases. And beyond that, the arbitrariness with which the death penalty gets applied is extraordinary. It's very hard to look through the death penalty jurisprudence and find the guiding hand of reason. There are cases like McVeigh. And we can all agree that that is a case that is on the outer bounds of what human beings can do.

But the problem is, we don't settle for having a death penalty for mass murderers. And the categories continue to expand. In Illinois, we started with seven eligibility categories. We now have 21. I call it the slippery slope of, "What about him?" And you add factors like race, poverty, geography...

BROWN: Do you think that people in the country are willing to accept that, on the margins, an innocent man may be executed?

TUROW: No, I don't think they are because of what Americans want from capital punishment. What they want is a moral statement.

And, frankly, it's one of the reasons that all of the innocence cases have eroded support for capital punishment, because I don't think they think about deterrence. And I don't think it is a deterrent. They don't think about money. They think about the death penalty as a statement that, for ultimate evil, there will be ultimate punishment.

And, therefore, if you execute the innocent, they don't think it's worth it. And I agree with that.

BROWN: I actually had someone argue that with me. He wanted to come on the program and argue capital punishment. He said, look, no system is foolproof. It will probably happen. It won't happen a lot, but it may happen. But should we eliminate this sanction because it might happen?

TUROW: Well, if you are getting something else out of it -- we have childhood inoculations that obviously kill a certain number of children every year, at the time that they save lots of lives.

BROWN: Yes.

TUROW: If we were doing that with the death penalty, it would be a different issue. But I'm convinced that what Americans want from it is, as I say, a statement of values. And when you are doing that, when you start executing the innocent or the wrong people, the people whose crimes are of much lesser gravity, then you undermine the moral message you are trying to send.

BROWN: It's a really interesting and thoughtful book. Good luck with it. It's nice to see you again.

TUROW: Thank you. I really appreciate it, too, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you. The Cubs are doing great tonight.

Morning papers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Alrighty, time to check morning papers from around the country. And really a mess tonight, because they just arrived. You know how that is when the newspaper arrives on your front step? That's what it is like around here, too. So we'll just do this in the order they arrived.

"San Antonio Express-News," San Antonio, Texas. "Light Appears at the End of Redistricting Tunnel." This is this endless and somewhat tedious, in my view, fight in Texas, as the Republicans try and redistrict the state. And also, Mr. Schwarzenegger, governor- elect Schwarzenegger, makes it on the front page. "California's Recall Could be a Warning. Voters in Golden State Aren't the Only Ones Who Are Angry." The picture is of a young soldier back in San Antonio, saying the war was worth it. It's a nice picture in "The San Antonio Express-News."

"The Oregonian" in Portland, Oregon, localized, as we say in the news business, the recall story. "Schwarzenegger Confident" the big, bold headline. But up top, "Oregon Has Natural Defenses Against Recall Fever." It's a look at the Oregon laws and that's it's a little bit more complicated to get a recall in that state just north of California. Well, you knew that. At least it's north. I don't know why I said that.

"FBI Revokes Its" -- it's how I live, folks. "FBI Revokes Its Service Award From Arab Leader. Dearborn Man Calls Baseless Questions He Condoned Terror." This is a very good local story and a pretty good national story. We should probably get on that.

"The Detroit Free Press," which is in a bit of a flap, because the editor, who was a guest on the program on Friday, killed an unkind review of Mitch Albom's book. And he was on the program the other night. Anyway, quite a flap going on there.

How we doing on time? Thirty seconds. Let's move quickly. Well, let's take all 30 seconds.

"The Washington Times" leads with the White House strategy. "Rice Says Report on Saddam Validates Move to Wage War. U.N. Opposition Seen Linked to Lack of Evidence."

And "The Chicago Sun-Times." "Arnold's Agenda." "Rice Launches White House P.R. Blitz Here" -- here in Chicago -- "on Iraq War." And the weather, "perfect for a fish fry." Get it? The Marlins. Got it.

That's the report. We're all back here tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time. Please join us then.

And, 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




New Offensive to Promote Iraq Policy>


Aired October 8, 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.
The page is short tonight. We have much to do in the next hour. And those who subscribe to our nightly e-mail know we struggled some tonight with just how to lead. Should it be California, which clearly is the big story of the day? Or should it be the latest White House P.R. offensive on Iraq, which, over the long term, touches far more lives and has far-reaching implications? OK, so I salted the argument some.

We'll lead with Iraq, get to California, and touch them both and more in "The Whip," which begins at the White House and our senior White House correspondent John King.

John, a headline from you tonight.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, that P.R. offensive involves more speeches from the president, the vice president and his top aides, more interviews from the president as well. The administration says it's not getting a fair shake, that its policy in Iraq is a smashing success. Critics don't buy it -- Aaron.

BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.

Next to California, where voters spoke loud and clear yesterday.

Kelly Wallace has been out West for a while now.

Kelly, a headline.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was a decisive victory for Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he received congratulatory calls throughout the day, including one from President Bush. But one aide put it this way: Now comes the hard part, delivering on all those campaign promises -- Aaron.

BROWN: Kelly, thank you. You'll be part of our coverage of the Schwarzenegger story.

Dallas, next, where signs of a split in the Episcopal Church seem more and more evident. Ed Lavandera covering for us.

So, Ed, a headline.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Aaron. Members of the American Anglican group meeting here in Dallas are speaking with a clear, strong voice tonight. They want the approval and the appointment of a gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions overturned. Anything less, they say, will force a major realignment in the Episcopal Church -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also tonight on NEWSNIGHT, we'll talk with the clergyman leading that conservative faction which is meeting outside of Dallas tonight.

Also, who put the bug in the office of the Philadelphia mayor, and why?

Later, we'll talk with best-selling author Scott Turow, whose new book deals with the death penalty. He served on the Illinois Death Penalty Commission. And he changes the argument somewhat.

And what NEWSNIGHT would be complete without a visit from the rooster and a check of morning papers? Probably a good one, but we'll do it anyway -- all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with the latest push in perhaps the longest- running, hardest-fought battle of the war, the administration's effort to justify it. It is an effort made more complicated not simply by the shaky security on the ground in Iraq, a problem that has many Americans rethinking the war, but also by the failure to find those weapons of mass destruction. Both have taken their toll on the president in the polls and both need to be addressed.

This new offensive is designed to solve those problems.

Again, our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): A made-for-TV moment five months ago, the message unmistakable, yet now an urgent administration effort to defend both the war and its postwar strategy.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: When you let a threat fester, you eventually pay a price for it. You either have an option of dealing with it now or dealing with it later. And this president decided to deal with it now.

KING: This Chicago speech by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is part of what the White House calls a new public relations offensive and critics call proof the president is very much on the defensive. The effort includes speeches around the country by senior officials, events staged with supporters of the president's policy, and bypassing national outlets and offering the president, vice president and other senior officials for local media interviews.

It is a strategy hardly unique to this administration. JOE LOCKHART, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's generally an admission that something has failed when you reorganize and you have a new P.R. offensive. This is not a story where you need a P.R. offensive. It is being well-covered. And, basically, that's their problem.

KING: A constant White House complaint is, progress, like reopening schools and hospitals, gets little attention.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And it's the responsibility of this administration to keep the American people informed about those successes.

KING: The new push coincides with a number of difficulties and setbacks: 91 Americans killed in action since Mr. Bush visited an aircraft carrier to declare mission accomplished; failure to win support for a new United Nations Security Council resolution backing its postwar Iraq policy; congressional criticism of the administration's $20 billion Iraq reconstruction proposal; and recent polls showing half the American people now say it was not worth going to war in Iraq.

RICE: This was an international outlaw who had been allowed to remain too long.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The president takes the lead in the offensive with a speech tomorrow. The vice president follows with a speech of his own on Friday. Then Mr. Bush will stage a series of regional television interviews on Monday, again, all part of this new White House P.R. offensive. The critics this. They say, don't change the sales pitch. Change the policy -- Aaron.

BROWN: What is there new to say?

KING: Well, that's an interesting question.

No. 1, they do say that there is progress on the ground, whether it be paving the roads, building the schools. They say that does not get enough coverage here. The president had a bunch of people who just back from the reconstruction the other day. They would like us to what they would say is to balance our coverage by more of the good stories.

But they also understand that they are heading now into a much more fierce political debate over the next two weeks over that $87 billion, especially the $20 billion reconstruction subset. And we're airing a debate tomorrow night, nine Democrats running for president, all now who believe this is an opening for them. So they are heading much more into a political environment. You're going to hear from them quite a bit more rebutting the critics.

BROWN: John, thank you very much, senior White House correspondent John King tonight. All of this comes hard on the heels of a shakeup that appears to put more control over the occupation and reconstruction in the hands of Dr. Rice and the White House. This touched off a bit of a donnybrook between the White House and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who first told a newspaper he'd been cut out of loop and then today seemed to put a different spin on the story, a little whiplash here, perhaps.

Our story comes from our chief Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At an informal meeting of NATO defense ministers in Colorado, where Iraq and Afghanistan top the agenda, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found himself answering questions about intrigue in the Bush Cabinet.

QUESTION: Do you not feel, sir, that perhaps the White House or others in the administration went behind your back to diminish your authority in Iraq?

DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I just am really quite surprised about all of this frofaha (ph).

MCINTYRE: Pentagon sources say Rumsfeld was rankled by this story in Monday's "New York Times," which portrayed the creation of an Iraq stabilization group as an effort to assert more direct White House control over Iraq policy.

Rumsfeld has identified National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who heads the new Iraq group, as the source of the offending "Times" story, which Rumsfeld insists mischaracterizes routine NSC coordination as a White House takeover of the Iraq reconstruction effort.

But after Rumsfeld pointedly said he was informed only after the fact in a one-page memo from Rice, the White House backpedaled, supporting Rumsfeld's spin on the story.

MCCLELLAN: The Pentagon continues to be, has been and continues to be, the lead agency overseeing our efforts in Iraq.

MCINTYRE (on camera): The irony is, the whole flap over whether the Iraq mission needs better interagency coordination could have been avoided with some better interagency coordination.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, Colorado Springs.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: More now on what the military is treating as a growing danger inside Iraq and perhaps beyond. In a country where people aim AK-47s in the air for celebration, it comes as no surprise, there are lots of guns and plenty of ammo around. But just how much of it, the sheer variety of it, staggers the imagination and stretches the troops who must secure it all.

Here is Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. soldiers in a secured ammunition dump. It's in Baghdad, but we agreed not to say exactly where. They troops handle thousands of pieces of ammunition, bullets, rocket-propelled grenades, part of Saddam Hussein's huge weapons arsenal left behind as his troops fled. But the abandoned weapons are now a major headache for the U.S. military in Iraq.

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, COMMANDER, COALITION GROUND FORCES: There are over 650,000 tons of ammunition in this country. And it is -- if you ask me, could some of that ammunition possibly have been used against my forces? Of course it's possible. And are they all guarded? No, they are not.

WHITBECK: Captain Brian Carlin and his men are working to clean up the dangerous mess. After months of scouring weapons dumps throughout the capital, they are now consolidating what they have found, moving to it secure U.S. military bases.

CAPT. BRIAN CARLIN, 1ST ARMORED DIVISION: Picked up over 100 caches and cleared the streets of Baghdad, making them safer for the Iraqis, as well as for coalition forces.

WHITBECK: Hundreds of truckloads.

(on camera): And that's a lot of live ammunition. In fact, the weight of what has been recovered just around Baghdad since last June is equivalent to that of 65 747s.

(voice-over): But coalition forces concede, there is much more still out there. And that includes surface-to-air missiles. We saw several captured SAMs stored at this ammunition dump. But for security reasons, we were not allowed to photograph them. Coalition officials say there is now a $500 reward for each one turned in.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The administration has wanted troops from other countries, especially Muslim countries, on the ground in Iraq. The theory is that it would not just add more boots on the ground, but help ease some of the tensions that the Americans face. The first and only country to sign on is Turkey, which has a history in Iraq, and not a friendly one. So, once again, we are faced with the law of unintended consequences.

Here is CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's clear who is running this show. With the simmering dispute between the U.S. and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, the top American official here has laid down the law over Turkish troops.

PAUL BREMER, IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATOR: I have stressed to the Governing Council that, under international law, the coalition is responsible for security here. And, in the end, we have to make our own decisions.

ARRAF: The decision to send thousands of Turkish soldiers to Iraq. Up to 10,000 of them could be deployed here, more even than the British. The Iraqi Governing Council has condemned the move.

SAMIR SUMAIEA'IE, IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL: It's very difficult for us to pronounce that we should invite Turkish or any other foreign troops into Iraq.

ARRAF: Iraq was once occupied by Turkey as part of the Ottoman Empire. Eight decades later, some Iraqis are still concerned Turkey will take advantage of Iraq's weakness.

(on camera): For most Iraqis, having American soldiers in the streets is bad enough. For some, the prospect of thousands of Turkish troops is even more unsettling.

(voice-over): "Turkey has been trying to claim ownership of Kirkuk and Mosul for years," says construction worker Sad Aziz Hamdan (ph). "Deploying the troops will cause a lot of problems. They should form an Iraqi army that will protect the Iraqis."

ARRAF: Turkey, a neighboring Muslim country, says all it wants to do is help.

OSMAN ALI FEYYAZ, TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Of course, it is not the aim of Turkey to come to Iraq as an occupying force. We want to be here as a friendly, stabilizing, contributing factor. And we see the sending of military force as just another way of helping.

ARRAF: With few other countries willing to contribute troops, it seems clear that, despite Iraqi doubts, Turkish soldiers will be coming.

Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Turning now to the FBI investigation into who in the Bush administration, if anyone, leaked the name of a CIA operative to the press and whether that leak was a crime.

The first part seems pretty straightforward, if you believe Bob Novak. The second is anything but simple, the law in question being what it is. Sources tell us first interviews of White House officials could come any day now.

Here is CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Government sources tell CNN, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, his wife, a covert CIA operative, and the reporter who revealed her identity have all been interviewed by the FBI. So, too, have several CIA officials, the next stop the White House.

MCCLELLAN: There are people inside and outside this administration that can help get to the bottom of this and if people have information they ought to talk to the Department of Justice about it.

ARENA: White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and lawyers in his office are busy sifting through documents provided by White House staff that could be relevant to the investigation and some of that information is expected to be handed over to the Justice Department by week's end.

MCCLELLAN: We're moving quickly. We want to rule out any information going to them very soon.

ARENA: Sources close to the investigation say the list of people who may have been the source of the leak keeps growing prompting the FBI's Washington field office to assign more agents to the investigation and one senior official tells CNN the FBI does not expect to complete the probe by year's end.

A former FBI official who used to head leak investigations says they are often unwieldy.

STEVE POMERANTZ, FORMER FBI OFFICIAL: Lots of times you start off these investigations with a belief that the universe of potential leakers is small only to be confronted early on with the reality that there are many, many more people that knew the information.

ARENA: And that's why almost all leak investigations are closed without ever naming a suspect.

REP. PORTER GOSS (R), INTELLIGENCE CHMN. : The success rate on finding people who leak is very, very, very small. Now, there's a difference between willful leakers, as we all know, and inadvertent leakers.

ARENA (on camera): While Republicans are suggesting that a crime may not even have been admitted, the Democrats are once again on the offensive, the Democratic National Committee urging activists to e- mail Republicans to demand that a special counsel be appointed to head up the investigation.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight: the morning after. California wakes up to a new governor and the same old problems.

And later: the looming split in the Episcopal Church in the country over a gay bishop and gay unions. We'll talk with one minister who is working toward such a split -- that and more, as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On to California.

In the end, there wasn't a great deal of suspense at all, was there? California voters did recall the incumbent governor, Gray Davis, and did instill an actor born in Austria to fill out the remaining three years of the current term. The electoral margins in both questions was decisive. As we said, no suspense.

But on the day after, plenty of drama and perhaps some answers to that famous question raised in the last scene of the great political movie "The Candidate." "What do we do now?" asked Robert Redford.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice-over): This was a first, Arnold Schwarzenegger going before the press not as a candidate, but as governor-elect.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR-ELECT: There will be no time for movies or anything else. I will pay full attention to the job. I take this job very seriously.

WALLACE: You could tell the campaign was over. There were questions on policy, not politics, such as how Schwarzenegger would balance the budget.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I campaigned that I will not raise taxes. And I say this again. I will not raise taxes.

WALLACE: Now comes the hard part for the moderate Republican, trying to deliver on those promises, especially with a Democratically- controlled legislature.

SCHWARZENEGGER: The legislators up there have gotten that message last night, that the people of California want change.

WALLACE: The honeymoon won't last long. Schwarzenegger knows that. But he showed some political savvy, calling the state's most popular Democrat before she called him.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Mr. Schwarzenegger has to be able to take office. He's got to be able to do what he said he would do. And everybody, we all ought to help that job get done.

WALLACE: There will be distractions, including allegations of sexual misconduct, which the superstar said he would discuss in detail after the election. But perhaps the biggest challenge, analysts say, not letting the people of California down.

ELIZABETH GARRETT, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: When it comes time to make budget tradeoffs, some people are going to lose and some people are going to win. And those are going to be very difficult problems for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And Schwarzenegger could be sworn in as early as a few weeks from now, first, though, the transition. His team will be announced on Thursday. It will be led by Republican congressman David Dreier, who turned into one of Schwarzenegger's fiercest defenders throughout the campaign -- Aaron.

BROWN: All right, two questions. We need to be a little quick here. Is it not written in state law anywhere how long this transition takes?

WALLACE: It is written in state law; 39 days, the secretary of state's office has to certify the election; 10 days after that, the candidate, governor-elect, must be sworn in.

BROWN: OK. OK. So, within a month and a half minimum, he takes office.

WALLACE: Month and a half maximum, exactly.

BROWN: Maximum, I'm sorry.

WALLACE: Yes.

BROWN: And one of the things he said is that he would repeal the car registration tax and he would repeal the driver's license for illegal immigrants. Does the governor, in fact, have that power or that is legislative power?

WALLACE: Well, his advisers are looking into both.

First, on the repealing the car tax and also repealing the driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, he was asked about that today. He said his advisers are looking into it. But I do believe he has to get the support of the legislature. If he can't, he could put it before voters in terms of a ballot initiative as early as March of next year.

BROWN: Well, it's California. That wouldn't be surprising. Kelly, thank you very much -- Kelly Wallace in Los Angeles.

More political realities in California. Nowhere are the aftershocks of what happened yesterday more real than in the state Capitol of Sacramento, not just for the governor. Hundreds of men and women serve in state jobs at the direct pleasure of that governor, who, as of next month or so, will not be Gray Davis.

CNN's Rusty Dornin tonight on their future.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE MAVIGLIO, DAVIS PRESS SECRETARY: This table used to be filled with legislation.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The day after, a grim day for many in the halls of the state Capitol.

MAVIGLIO: This is called the horseshoe, the governor's sort of inner circle. There's about 100 people or so. We have legislative deputies, appointments, our energy person, our communications person.

DORNIN (on camera): And all these people are going to lose their jobs.

MAVIGLIO: All these people that serve at the will of the governor would be expected to leave.

DORNIN (voice-over): But the governor is not leaving yet. Right up to recall, Gray Davis was busy signing bills. After the recall, the same.

MAVIGLIO: There is business to be done. We still have many bills to sign. We have people to appoint to positions.

(CROSSTALK)

DORNIN (on camera): Even though Schwarzenegger doesn't want you to appoint anyone?

MAVIGLIO: Well, Governor Davis is still the governor. And he was elected to serve until somebody else gets that certificate of election.

DORNIN (voice-over): Arnold Schwarzenegger won't get that certificate until every vote is counted in 58 counties. And that probably won't happen until mid-November.

KEVIN SHELLEY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Dating to 1973, 33 statewide elections, they have 39 days to do it in. And they've invariably taken the 39 days, regardless of whether an election is close.

DORNIN: For the old administration, transition means losing jobs three years early. No hard feelings, right?

MAVIGLIO: We haven't taken the S's off the keyboard.

DORNIN (on camera): No such shenanigans, say staff aides. They've been asked by their governor to keep this transition smooth. As for Gray Davis?

(voice-over): No word yet on future plans, but aides say privately their boss, a lifelong politician, may never run for political office again.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, Sacramento, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: For all of California's presence on the world stage -- and it is, after all, the equivalent of a good-size country -- it's a safe bet that nobody in, well, let's say, Krakow paid much attention to the last governor's race and or even knew Gray Davis from Bill Simon from Adam. But they do know Arnold, as an actor, at least, as a person, perhaps. And it is fascinating to hear what they are saying now about Arnold the governor.

Here is CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His rise to political office holds much of the world in fascination. How the muscle-bound hero of countless Hollywood blockbusters got elected is beyond many, at least on the street's of Britain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America continues to surprise me. It's just a bit scary, actually, that people like that can get such power.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a bad actor. He's going to be a bad governor. He should stick with building up his muscles. It's pathetic.

CHANCE: In Schwarzenegger's Austrian hometown, locals eagerly watched the election result, celebrating their own former bodybuilder's win.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It's a wonderful result and it means for Arnold Schwarzenegger that he has wanted and it means that we can be proud that one of us is at the top.

CHANCE: There's been support too from a more unlikely corner, in this Baghdad gym. The "Terminator" has long been an iron-pumping icon with the kind of credibility here many other U.S. policy-makers might envy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Arnold is a sportsman and a man with great knowledge of life. He is a good politician as a result. God willing, he will lead his state and bring peace to Iraq.

CHANCE: Brining money to California may be his first goal, but with so much international appeal, who knows what else this bodybuilder turned action hero turned politician can achieve.

Matthew Chance, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT: the controversy over the bug in the Philadelphia mayor's office.

And up next: the continuing fallout from the selection of a gay Episcopal bishop and a split that seems more likely than ever in the church. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Ever since Martin Luther took up hammer and parchment, the story Christianity has been, in no small measure, the story of dissent, people who differ in basic ways from the larger body and their struggle to be heard, to be accommodated or, in the end, to go their own way.

For members of Episcopal Church in the United States, today, that battle is being fought over the very divisive question of homosexuality. Should the church recognize civil unions? Should it ordain gay ministers and make some of them bishops?

For the broader church, the answer is yes. For a large group of more conservative Episcopalians, however, the answer is no. Two months after the church named an openly gay bishop, the dissenters have gathered in Dallas.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): In a Dallas convention hall the length of a football field, 2,700 conservative Episcopalians proclaim their mission to save their church's soul.

REV. DAVID ANDERSON, AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL: We need a safe place, theologically and spiritually for our people, a place where we're free from the kind of harassment that we live with day in and day out in the Episcopal Church.

LAVANDERA: When this Reverend David Anderson says harassment, he's talking about the Episcopal Church's approval of Gene Robinson as an openly gay bishop and the blessings of same-sex unions. This group says church leaders who voted for those decisions are like boat captains blindly driving their ship into a fog.

REV. BILL ATWOOD, AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL: It's pretty evident from all of the people that are here, there are a lot of folks not willing to follow full speed ahead into the fog bank, where the icebergs are.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That failure would come at the price of a wrenching split.

LAVANDERA: These church members see a split in the American Episcopal Church as unavoidable. Next week, the highest-ranking Episcopal church leaders will be meeting in England. This group will ask for control of the American church, arguing that they represent the mainstream view.

ANDERSON: The time of discussion ended when they voted for Gene Robinson and passed same-sex blessing. Conversation is over. We've been in dialogue and conversation for a long time. LAVANDERA: At this meeting, it's clear the time for talk is over. To attend, members were asked to sign a statement of faith which proclaims that sexuality is part of God's creation intended between men and women.

Susan Russell is the president of a group called Integrity, representing gay and lesbian church members. She refused to sign the statement and is not allowed in the meetings.

REV. SUSAN RUSSELL, INTEGRITY: This is nothing other than an exclusivist bunch of people who want to draw up the drawbridge and want a church. Their criteria for being included is being agreed with.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: This meeting will conclude tomorrow. The members of this group are working on a resolution that will be presented to the archbishop's meeting in England next week. The group is still working on the final wording of that resolution. After that, all eyes will be on England next week, as they watch and see what the archbishops will do next week.

We did speak with a spokesperson for Gene Robinson earlier today. And we were told by that spokesperson that Gene Robinson wouldn't have any comment until after the archbishops meet in England next week -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just help me a little bit on sort of the theological hierarchy. Does the church in England have a kind of absolute authority to decide who is in charge in the United States?

LAVANDERA: I think, ultimately, they might. I think it's a very difficult question and one perhaps that the members of the church here in the U.S. are dealing with as well.

It's something they are calling for. And, essentially, what the group here in Dallas is saying, that they're going to leave it in the hands of the archbishop in Canterbury and let them decide.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much -- Ed Lavandera in Plano, Texas, tonight.

So, having set the stage, now we turn to one of the principals in this fight for the heart and soul, if you will, of the Episcopal Church. We're joined by the Reverend David Roseberry, who is the rector of Christ Church in Plano, which is just outside of Dallas.

Nice to see you, sir.

Let me throw just back a question I asked Ed. Does the church in England, or the archbishop, have a kind of absolute authority over who controls the church in the United States?

REV. DAVID ROSEBERRY, RECTOR, CHRIST CHURCH OF PLANO: Not of the kind that, for example, the pope would have in the Roman Catholic Church.

BROWN: OK.

ROSEBERRY: But what the archbishop have, the archbishop of Canterbury does have is incredible influence and authority in that regard.

BROWN: OK, that helps me understand that. Let's move on a little bit.

Do you believe, Reverend, that your group represents the majority of Americans in the Episcopal Church?

ROSEBERRY: Well, that's very hard to say. No one has done significant polling. What we do know is that we represent a vast majority of Anglicans all around the world that are part of one giant 77-million member family.

BROWN: Does it, in a sense, matter to you one way or another whether you represent a majority or a minority, given that what you are arguing here, essentially, is that theology is on your side?

ROSEBERRY: Well, you are exactly right.

Whether it's a minority or a majority in this country is immaterial to the point, because it is the truth. The Bible's very clear on this. It is the historic teaching of the church and has been for 2,000 years.

BROWN: How can you see something so clearly as the truth and they see something so clearly as the truth also? How can that be?

ROSEBERRY: Well, I think you would have to ask them how they can't see what has been the clear teaching of the church for 2,000 years. But, indeed, for so many of us here, it is as plain as the printed page in the Bible.

BROWN: Does the church not -- and perhaps this is true of every church, but, in this case, yours -- does the church not grow and change over time in some ways, as we learn more and come to understand more?

ROSEBERRY: I think we understand a lot more about human nature, a lot more about the way people relate to each other in terms of the modern sciences.

But, remember, one of the dominant symbols of the church is an anchor. And especially in a culture that is being blown around by every wind and every doctrine that we are in right now in the American church, the church needs an anchor. And the anchor is the clear teaching of scripture.

BROWN: The church went through something like this, and not perhaps quite as intense and perhaps not quite as bitter, but not unlike this in the '70s over women in the clergy. Do you see that as a -- in any sense similar, or, if not, how so dissimilar? ROSEBERRY: I think it's very unsimilar, very dissimilar, in the sense that the issue of women's ordination was in regard to faith and order.

This is about morals. And there is a clear teaching in the scripture about what morality should be.

BROWN: Back in the '70s, did people who were standing where you might be standing now make the argument that, no, this is clearly the word of the Bible, that this should be a male job?

ROSEBERRY: No, I don't think that statement was made widely.

I think many people understood that to be the teaching of the church. But when you look at the Bible, what you do find is that it honors and really uplifts the roll of women in ministry.

BROWN: Maybe this, sir, is an easy question for somebody who is not an Episcopalian to ask. But if, at the end day, your group goes its way and their group goes its way, what is really changed? Why does that matter, if in fact it matters?

ROSEBERRY: Well, I think that the church is called by God to not necessarily always bless the things of the culture or endorse the thing that the culture is advocating.

What makes it important is that people are looking to the church for a sense of vision for their life and purpose for their life. And the church has got to stand firm on biblical principles. Otherwise, it just becomes another voice in a sea of voices.

BROWN: We appreciate your time tonight. We know how busy you are down there and how important this work is.

ROSEBERRY: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

ROSEBERRY: Thank you.

BROWN: Appreciate it, Reverend David Roseberry, the rector of Christ Church in Plano, Texas.

Still to come, we'll talk with author Scott Turow. And up next, the uproar over the bug in the office of the mayor of Philadelphia.

We'll take a break first. And a reminder that, around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Much more NEWSNIGHT ahead tonight, including Scott Turow to talk about the death penalty, his work in Illinois, morning papers, of course; and, up next, the bug in the mayors's office.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If this had happened a couple of decades ago, the plot would have been the perfect Philadelphia story: wiretaps in the mayor's office, confirmation the FBI planted the bug, a terrific yarn. You could almost see Frank Rizzo smiling now. But old Mayor Rizzo is long gone and the new mayor is not, we presume, amused one bit at the disclosures of the last day or so.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Law enforcement officials and a senior government source confirm, the FBI planted a listening device in the office the Philadelphia Mayor John Street. And the mayor wants to know why. Police discovered the multipart device in the ceiling right above his desk on Tuesday during a routine security check and turned it over to the FBI.

JOHN STREET (D), MAYOR OF PHILADELPHIA: The timing is very suspicious.

CARROLL: Street, a Democrat, is in a tight race against Republican Sam Katz, the election now just four weeks away. Street's campaign spokesman suggested the bug may have been part of a GOP conspiracy. Street's supporters say the mayor was instrumental in getting out the Democratic vote in the last presidential election, helping Al Gore carry the state.

They suggest orders to plant the bug could have come from Republicans, who didn't want to see Street around during the next presidential election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republican Party, if you look back over the course of history, has not been -- has not been loathe to attempt dirty political tricks.

SAM KATZ (R), PHILADELPHIA MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Those charges are just totally an attempt to divert attention. I'm not interested in bringing attention to this.

CARROLL: The law enforcement officials and the senior government source would not say whether Street is the subject of an investigation. An FBI spokeswoman in Philadelphia did seem to rule out any connection to Katz.

LINDA VIZI, FBI SPOKESWOMAN: We have come to the conclusion that this is not associated with the election in any way.

CARROLL: Street's administration says it is cooperating with two investigations into alleged parking ticket fixing and the awarding of airport contracts.

STREET: I haven't done anything wrong and I don't know that anybody in my Cabinet or in my staff around me has done anything wrong.

CARROLL: The mayor and his rival agree, the FBI knows much more than it has been willing to say.

(on camera): The governor of Pennsylvania, a former mayor of Philadelphia, says the FBI owes the people of Philadelphia an explanation as to exactly what is going on.

Jason Carroll, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A few more items now form around the world before we go to break, starting in Bogota, Colombia, where a car bomb went off in a busy part of town known for black-market merchandise. At least six people died in the explosion, including two policemen. No one has yet claimed responsibility.

China next. Look up in the sky. OK, look really close now. The guy doing the climbing works without a net, without ropes, without much sense. By the looks of things, he made it to the top of China's tallest building.

Finally to Copenhagen, where Denmark's future king and his future bride met the media for the first time. Crown Prince Frederik is marrying an Aussie and a commoner, no less. And a certain Danish- speaking member of our staff was heartbroken at the news.

Still ahead tonight: dealing with the death penalty. We'll talk with author Scott Turow about his new book, which is not fiction.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We could talk about any number of things tonight with Scott Turow. And we just might. He's a best-selling author of both fiction and fact. He's also a defense lawyer with an interest in death penalty cases. He also happens to be from Chicago. Between killers, critics, and the Cubbies, there is a lot to got to. We'll keep this short, and he can go back to the ball game. His latest book is called "Ultimate Punishment." And we're always pleased to see him, respect his work a lot.

It's nice to have you here.

SCOTT TUROW, AUTHOR, "ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT": Thank you very much.

BROWN: The book is really an attempt not to debate the right and the wrong...

TUROW: Right.

BROWN: ... which we've been doing forever in the country, of capital punishment, but to force us to look at the issue differently.

TUROW: Right.

BROWN: How?

TUROW: Well, I think, speaking for myself, I sat on the Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment. And I realized, I was asking myself for many years the wrong question, which is, is capital punishment right in this particular case, Timothy McVeigh, the Beltway sniper?

And, for me, ultimately, the question I should have been asking, I think, is not, can we construct a system that will reach those right cases, but, will we ever construct a system that will reach the right cases without also reaching the wrong cases, cases where the defendant is innocent? And we've seen that happen repeatedly.

BROWN: And we saw it happen a lot in your state, in Illinois.

TUROW: Yes.

BROWN: One of the things I read that you said -- I'm not sure I understand it -- is that, in some ways, the more heinous the case, the more likely it is we, societally, will screw it up.

TUROW: Yes. Right.

BROWN: Why is that?

TUROW: It's what I refer to as the paradox of capital punishment.

If we reserve capital punishment for the worst of the worst, that means that we will impose it or seek it only in those cases that are most heinous, most extravagantly evil. And these are the cases that upset us the most, that fill us with anxiety, dread, revulsion, that inspire the police and prosecutors to particularly zealous enforcement, that make it very hard for juries to respect the burden of proof, even hard for defense lawyers to like clients who are charged with those crimes.

And it's an environment rife with the possibility of error.

BROWN: I read the other day where the governor of Massachusetts...

TUROW: Mitt Romney.

BROWN: ... Governor Romney, is trying to fashion a law that is foolproof. Now, I'm not sure that we humans are capable of that. But assume -- is that even possible, in your view?

TUROW: I have contemplated this long and hard. And I've come to the conclusion that it's really not possible with the death penalty.

BROWN: Because?

TUROW: Because, A, you have innocence cases. You are particularly prone to convict the innocent in capital cases. And beyond that, the arbitrariness with which the death penalty gets applied is extraordinary. It's very hard to look through the death penalty jurisprudence and find the guiding hand of reason. There are cases like McVeigh. And we can all agree that that is a case that is on the outer bounds of what human beings can do.

But the problem is, we don't settle for having a death penalty for mass murderers. And the categories continue to expand. In Illinois, we started with seven eligibility categories. We now have 21. I call it the slippery slope of, "What about him?" And you add factors like race, poverty, geography...

BROWN: Do you think that people in the country are willing to accept that, on the margins, an innocent man may be executed?

TUROW: No, I don't think they are because of what Americans want from capital punishment. What they want is a moral statement.

And, frankly, it's one of the reasons that all of the innocence cases have eroded support for capital punishment, because I don't think they think about deterrence. And I don't think it is a deterrent. They don't think about money. They think about the death penalty as a statement that, for ultimate evil, there will be ultimate punishment.

And, therefore, if you execute the innocent, they don't think it's worth it. And I agree with that.

BROWN: I actually had someone argue that with me. He wanted to come on the program and argue capital punishment. He said, look, no system is foolproof. It will probably happen. It won't happen a lot, but it may happen. But should we eliminate this sanction because it might happen?

TUROW: Well, if you are getting something else out of it -- we have childhood inoculations that obviously kill a certain number of children every year, at the time that they save lots of lives.

BROWN: Yes.

TUROW: If we were doing that with the death penalty, it would be a different issue. But I'm convinced that what Americans want from it is, as I say, a statement of values. And when you are doing that, when you start executing the innocent or the wrong people, the people whose crimes are of much lesser gravity, then you undermine the moral message you are trying to send.

BROWN: It's a really interesting and thoughtful book. Good luck with it. It's nice to see you again.

TUROW: Thank you. I really appreciate it, too, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you. The Cubs are doing great tonight.

Morning papers when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Alrighty, time to check morning papers from around the country. And really a mess tonight, because they just arrived. You know how that is when the newspaper arrives on your front step? That's what it is like around here, too. So we'll just do this in the order they arrived.

"San Antonio Express-News," San Antonio, Texas. "Light Appears at the End of Redistricting Tunnel." This is this endless and somewhat tedious, in my view, fight in Texas, as the Republicans try and redistrict the state. And also, Mr. Schwarzenegger, governor- elect Schwarzenegger, makes it on the front page. "California's Recall Could be a Warning. Voters in Golden State Aren't the Only Ones Who Are Angry." The picture is of a young soldier back in San Antonio, saying the war was worth it. It's a nice picture in "The San Antonio Express-News."

"The Oregonian" in Portland, Oregon, localized, as we say in the news business, the recall story. "Schwarzenegger Confident" the big, bold headline. But up top, "Oregon Has Natural Defenses Against Recall Fever." It's a look at the Oregon laws and that's it's a little bit more complicated to get a recall in that state just north of California. Well, you knew that. At least it's north. I don't know why I said that.

"FBI Revokes Its" -- it's how I live, folks. "FBI Revokes Its Service Award From Arab Leader. Dearborn Man Calls Baseless Questions He Condoned Terror." This is a very good local story and a pretty good national story. We should probably get on that.

"The Detroit Free Press," which is in a bit of a flap, because the editor, who was a guest on the program on Friday, killed an unkind review of Mitch Albom's book. And he was on the program the other night. Anyway, quite a flap going on there.

How we doing on time? Thirty seconds. Let's move quickly. Well, let's take all 30 seconds.

"The Washington Times" leads with the White House strategy. "Rice Says Report on Saddam Validates Move to Wage War. U.N. Opposition Seen Linked to Lack of Evidence."

And "The Chicago Sun-Times." "Arnold's Agenda." "Rice Launches White House P.R. Blitz Here" -- here in Chicago -- "on Iraq War." And the weather, "perfect for a fish fry." Get it? The Marlins. Got it.

That's the report. We're all back here tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern time. Please join us then.

And, until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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New Offensive to Promote Iraq Policy>