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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Wildfires Cause Evacuation in Southern California; NIC Speaks on Intelligence Regarding Iraq

Aired October 24, 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.


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening from Washington, I'm Wolf Blitzer. Aaron is in California interviewing the former President Gerald Ford for an upcoming special on the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination.
He left me to fill the spot for him, fit some of the special rhythms and tones of NEWSNIGHT into our program. Fortunately tonight there's no shortage of stories, a full plate in front of us, so stand by for hard news.

The whip starts right now and it starts with the fires in Southern California, fast-moving flames, a crucial battle for firefighters. CNN's Miguel Marquez is there, Miguel a headline please.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, fire officials say that three homes, several homes actually have been destroyed so far. There have been eight injuries most of those to firefighters, most of them not so serious but what firefighters are taking very seriously are the winds, wondering whether or not those high Santa Ana winds will blow that fire back from the top of the mountain toward the city -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Miguel, we'll be getting back to you.

Hot stuff meanwhile in Langley, Virginia, that's just outside where we are in Washington, D.C., what some are calling a blistering report on what the CIA did and didn't know in advance of the war in Iraq, CNN's David Ensor on that story, David the headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well Senate sources, Wolf, said today and yesterday that they expect an as yet unwritten report by the Senate Intelligence Committee to have some scathing things to say about the quality of U.S. intelligence prior to the Iraq war but today a senior U.S. intelligence official, a CIA veteran of 30 years, came out swinging in an exclusive interview responding to that story here on CNN. I'll have more.

BLITZER: All right, David we'll be back to you on that.

In New Jersey, the post office, the anthrax and the belated cleanup, CNN's Michael Okwu is joining us from there, a headline from you Michael.

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, two years after the anthrax scare that riveted most of, if not all of, this country the mail processing center where some contaminated letters were processed in New Jersey is finally, finally being decontaminated -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Michael, we'll get back to you.

Finally, CNN's Ryan Chilcote he's in Russia where there's a race against time and the deadly forces of nature, lives on the line deep inside the earth, Ryan your headline.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, 46 miners still remain some seven football fields beneath me trapped where they've been for 35 hours now ever since at seven o'clock local time here on Thursday water started pouring into their mine from a nearby underwater lake -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Ryan, we'll be back to you, back to everyone. That's coming up shortly.

Also coming up on the program tonight between General Boykin and the memo an especially eventful week for the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; CNN's Barbara Starr on that for us tonight.

And with Congress working on Medicare reform and prescription drug coverage. We'll look at the state of play and talk to the seniors who may be called on to pay more in exchange for getting more.

And, if you've got caviar wishes and champagne dreams you'd better find another way to fly. The mach 2 mega expensive ticket called the Concorde has flown its last flight and CNN's Richard Quest was on it, so two sonic booms for all of us tonight.

All that's coming up in the hour ahead we start off tonight in Southern California, smoky Southern California, a number of wildfires burning right now one of them threatening hundreds of homes forcing the evacuation of thousands of people. That one is burning in the San Bernardino National Forest. That's near Rancho Cucamonga east of Los Angeles.

Here again, CNN's Miguel Marquez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ (voice-over): It is a fire fed by wind threatening thousands of brand new suburban homes east of Los Angeles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was so much smoke in the house it was burning our eyes and stuff. We left.

MARQUEZ: The fast-moving fire burned right up to Greg Tom's (ph) backyard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For hours I was trying to think of what I was going to take but then when the time actually came, like I say most of the fire was burned out. I just asked the kids what they wanted and my five-year-old grabbed the pumpkin that she got at a pumpkin patch yesterday and that was it. MARQUEZ: What to take as the fire approached, normal tranquil suburbia, it was a question asked and answered by thousands of residents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I took all my clothes, CDs and my laptop and just left.

MARQUEZ: For evacuees it was a harrowing 24 hours of waiting, waiting to find out if anything was left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know when you've got everything you worked for all your life and you're looking back at it, it's like is it going to be here or not when you come back?

MARQUEZ: Officials say thousands of residents were forced from their homes but by nightfall some of them began to sneak back in. Fueled by winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour the fire grew from 4,000 acres to 12,000 from early Friday morning until evening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fire just came so fast we were just lucky enough to have hose in there and put water on the fire as it was coming and the houses just got lucky.

MARQUEZ: At least 1,400 firefighters have been working this wildfire and firefighters were feeling the heat. A chopper set down for mechanical problems but the flames got to it before the mechanics could.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Now, in addition to those 1,400 firefighters that were on the scene today another 1,400 have been put on alert. They are all now waiting for the wind to see if it will bring that fire back down toward the city in the next couple of days, all of this to fight a fire that investigators say is arson -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Miguel, I know you've been speaking to residents who live there. How are they coping? What are some of the personal stories you're hearing from them?

MARQUEZ: Well, there's a lot of frustration obviously. They want to be in their homes. A lot of these are brand new communities. They've worked their lives to be in these homes and they had to leave them without knowing exactly whether or not they're going to come back to anything.

The frustration right now I think is wanting to get back in their homes. We talked to a lot of people today who seem to be sneaking back into their homes. I'm not sure what fire officials will think of that -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right Miguel Marquez he's on the story for us in Southern California. Thanks Miguel very much.

Let's get another new view right now from the fire lines. Peter Bryan is the battalion chief of the Ranch Cucamonga Fire Department. He and his men and women have been working around the clock. We're pleased you could take a few moments to speak with us. Thanks very much. Give us your sense, sir, of how the crews are bearing up right now.

PETER BRYAN, BATTALION CHIEF, RANCHO CUCAMONGA FIRE DEPARTMENT: Well certainly, Wolf, this has been a very difficult day. Crews have put in a lot of hard, long hours not just today but several days in a row trying to control this fire. Crews are resting this evening, either on the scene or back at base camp where they can get a couple minutes of rest and get some food and get ready for either late tonight, early tomorrow and certainly for the weekend.

BLITZER: Does it look like the worst of it is over with or could it get even worse than it is right now?

BRYAN: No, I don't think nor do the meteorologists think that the worst is over. We're anticipating some heavier winds to develop tomorrow and on into Sunday so we may see more of that same firestorm and maybe even tougher more firestorm in the next couple of days.

BLITZER: The winds are clearly playing a significant role. How do you see that situation unfolding in the hours and day or two to come?

BRYAN: Well, just as it is now we've essentially got one or two or three-mile-an-hour winds. It's very calm and so the fire is having a tendency to burn down the slope but that's what it was doing last night and then all of a sudden the down canyon winds and the Santa Anas speed that down the hill and we are right at the base of those mountains and the next thing you have is vegetation and homes intermixed and that's where you get the problem.

BLITZER: Give us a sense of the size of this. We know you're not all that far from Los Angeles, from Hollywood, 30, 40 miles but you can sense the smoke. You can smell it clearly in a wide, wide area. How big of an area?

BRYAN: Well, our city is about 40-some square miles but the smoke covered a major portion of the city today and certainly now it's rising and it's gone but we're anticipating we're going to have that same problem. We have about five to ten miles of foothill interfaced and that five to ten miles means there's a large area that that fire can burn down in to the city.

BLITZER: And is it your sense that you have enough equipment, enough firefighters on the scene to deal with this?

BRYAN: Well, certainly you never quite know until that moment but there's over 200 pieces or units including air tankers and helicopters and engines, the water tenders and hand crews, nearly 1,400 or 1,500 personnel. You order up enough to where you think you can be prepared for the next operational period and then you hope you can deploy them quick enough and get them in in front of the fire to do the best good.

BLITZER: Peter Bryan, the battalion chief out there in Rancho Cucamonga, good luck to you, good luck to all the men and women, good luck to all the residents who are suffering through these wildfires, appreciate it very much.

BRYAN: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's move now to another very important story we're covering the question of intelligence. What did the United States know about Iraq weapons of mass destruction? Who had the facts? Did anyone get it right?

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing what it's expecting to be, at least many officials expecting it to be a blistering indictment of the CIA that some say, in effect, the agency overstated the case against Saddam Hussein.

Once again here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): George Tenet, the head of U.S. intelligence, finds himself in the hot seat amidst reports the Senate Intelligence Committee is working on what could be a scathing report about U.S. intelligence on Iraq before the war.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS, CHAIRMAN, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: In some cases, as I'd indicated before with the Niger incident, it's sloppy.

STUART COHEN, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL: It was quickly prepared but certainly not sloppily.

ENSOR: Under fire, U.S. intelligence fired back granting CNN an exclusive interview with the man who led the team that wrote the document the furor is all about.

Does it surprise you then that weapons of mass destruction have not yet been found in Iraq?

COHEN: It does not surprise me at all.

ENSOR: Cohen said David Kay, the CIA man in charge of the hunt for Iraqi weapons, needs much more time to search the California-size nation of Iraq.

COHEN: In certain areas he's barely scratched the surface and chemical weapons is one area in particular.

ENSOR: At a hearing, Senate Democrats said they want to broaden the inquiry into the inquiry into the use of intelligence before the war.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It appears to me that there's a very, very clear effort being made to blame everything on the intelligence community and steer by all means away from anything that has anything to do with anybody in the administration at higher up levels or elsewhere. ENSOR: Higher-ups like Vice President Cheney who went over to the CIA more than once before the war to talk to analysts directly and to look at raw intelligence.

VINCE CANNISTRARO, FORMER CIA OFFICIAL: It's sitting down and debating with junior level analysts and pushing them to find support for something he personally believes that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium. That to me is pressure and that's intimidation.

COHEN: This is one of the most insidious of allegations that are out there. I am proud of the fact that a vice president will take him time and come out to this agency to talk to analysts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: As for George Tenet, does he fear being made the fall guy? At this point, senior intelligence officials tell me that Tenet is not worried that he's lost the president's confidence; in fact, far from it -- Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, David, you and I have been around Washington a long time. The fact that the CIA allows Stuart Cohen who wrote that national intelligence estimate to come out, sit down with you over at Langley at CIA headquarter that says that the career officials over there, they're pretty angry right now.

ENSOR: They are and they were expecting to have a pretty rough day and they had one after what they saw in the newspaper in the morning so they felt that they wanted to get their version out somewhere. They decided to go with CNN.

BLITZER: Good for them. Thanks very much for that David Ensor, good reporting, solid reporting as usual.

An important report, crucial questions, we'll take a closer look a bit later on the program, this entire question of intelligence, who knew what and when, when I speak with Senator Evan Bayh. He's a key member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He'll be joining us. That's coming up.

First though, a story that might start you wondering. Two years after the anthrax scare here in the United States one of the contaminated post offices, the facility at Hamilton, New Jersey, is only now getting a cleanup.

Why is that, the report tonight from CNN's Michael Okwu.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OKWU (voice-over): Government contractors began pumping chlorine dioxide behind these sealed doors and covered windows, a massive cleanup aimed at destroying the anthrax spores inside and finally erasing a scare that started after contaminated letters were processed here. It's taken them two years and some area residents have said for two years they've been much too uneasy. BILL LEWIS, NEW JERSEY POSTAL UNION PRESIDENT: I heard residents say to me that should be burned down the building. It should be torn down and closed but that's not going to happen.

TOM DAY, ENGINEERING VICE PRESIDENT, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE: I agree it's taken us a great deal of time. I wish we could have done it quicker but our point throughout this process is to do it right and to do it safe.

OKWU: Postal officials say it is a complex engineering process that the technology just plain didn't exist before the anthrax attacks in 2001. They argue they had to decontaminate the Hart Senate Building, the 700,000-square-foot Brentwood facility and then had to transport the equipment to New Jersey.

DAY: We also went through extensive testing to make sure that everything worked.

OKWU: Gina D'Ambrosia works across the street. She says that's fine with her.

GINA D'AMBROSIA, HAMILTON TOWNSHIP RESIDENT: I'd rather have them take their time and get it all done than, you know, to rush it and have possible contamination of more letter and stuff like that, more people getting sick and everything. So, really, you know, I'd rather them take their time.

OKWU: Former postal employee Jyostna Patel doesn't care to know what happens with the building. Patel was one of two former Hamilton employees who suffered from inhalation anthrax.

JYOSTYNA PATEL, ANTHRAX POSTAL VICTIM: We go now by the road and I'm in a car with my husband and (unintelligible) when post office coming nearby I just go like this. I'm still so scared.

OKWU: Patel says she is taking antidepressants and she says her doctors can't explain her persistent symptoms.

PATEL: Fatigue.

OKWU: Fatigue.

PATEL: Fatigue, my memory loss, my joint pain.

OKWU: A cleanup begins. The casualties linger. A handful of other postal workers say two years after coming into contact with anthrax they are still suffering.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKWU: Now postal officials say that the gases will reach every inch, every corner of the 282,000-square-foot building that this cleanup process will last through much of the weekend ending at some point on Sunday but even after Sunday, Wolf, officials tell us do not look for things to get back to normal anytime soon. They say that there will be a refurbishing process after that and it could take up to a year before postal employees are let back into that building -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Michael, what about the other postal employees who were there? Are they suffering from symptoms a year, two years now afterwards? I know all of them were taking Cipro, Ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic for a long time but what about now?

OKWU: Well, as far as we know that process is over, Wolf. There's only a specific time that you should be taking that Cipro but we do understand from again a handful of employees who had come into contact with anthrax that even to this day they are still suffering from some symptoms and, of course, this is something that doctors have not seen a lot of so they say just sit tight, continue to rest and to relax.

Most of these employees that we understand that have been affected are no longer working in the facility. It's an awfully sad story, Wolf. They say that they are experiencing a whole range of symptoms and many of them are suffering from depression as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Doctors and other medical experts are beginning only now to learn a lot about anthrax they simply did not know and certainly they're learning more each day. Michael Okwu thanks very much for that report.

Just ahead a tough week for Donald Rumsfeld in part because of this one word "slog," that's spelled S-L-O-G. We'll tell you what I mean; and, finally, the Concorde's final flight.

From Washington, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

To talk some more now about that report on the CIA being prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee we're joined in Indianapolis by a key member of the committee, the Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. He's a Democrat. Senator Bayh, welcome to NEWSNIGHT. Thanks very much for joining us.

You and I used to speak all the time before the war. You were convinced the intelligence was solid about the weapons of mass destruction. You voted for the resolution. What went wrong?

SEN. EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: Well, Wolf, I looked George Tenet directly in the eye and said literally Mr. Director if your life depended on it would you say that there were chemical and biological weapons in Iraq and the answer was an unequivocal yes.

This goes to show just how inexact a science intelligence work is how ambiguous much of the information is. They have to draw conclusions and deductions based upon sometimes contradictory facts and sometimes they just get it wrong.

But in their defense, Wolf, it's important to remember that the British, the French, the Germans, many other intelligence services had reached the same conclusions and now we're in the business of getting to the bottom of what happened here.

BLITZER: Are you convinced, Senator Bayh, that it might turn out to be right that some day David Kay and the other CIA officials together with the U.S. military will, in fact, find the chemical and the biological weapons?

BAYH: I think that's quite likely, Wolf, but it's only one of several possibilities. I think it's going to take another six months for Dr. Kay and his team to really scour the country, as David Ensor pointed out. It is the size of California.

But there are some other possibilities as well. Some of the materials may have been sent to another country. Syria would be the most likely suspect there. Perhaps he never had the materials to begin with. He was lied to by his people who were afraid to tell him that they didn't have the capability that he wanted them to have and we were fooled in the process.

Or, perhaps, I think another likely outcome, Wolf, would be that the ability to produce the chemical and biological weapons was broken down, hidden away so that it could be quickly reassembled once international attention had gone somewhere else. I think all those are possibilities but if I had to rank them in order I think the chances of us still finding something are relatively high.

BLITZER: As you know, the political season is heating up here in the United States, presidential politics obviously going to play a role in a lot of this but the Republicans, at least some of the Republican members of your Intelligence Committee seem to be blaming George Tenet, the professionals in the intelligence community for any mistakes that might have been made.

A lot of the Democrats, though, are looking at the Vice President Dick Cheney, the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and some of the political leaders for forcing the intelligence analysts to come up with conclusions that they might not necessarily have been justified in reaching. Where do you stand?

BAYH: Well, I'm not prepared to point the finger of blame at anybody just yet. I think we need to get to the bottom of the facts here. I think, again, this is an inexact science and we need to find out, first let a little more time go by to see whether something does turn up in Iraq and if it doesn't then ask ourselves were these reasonable judgments that just turned out to be wrong or was there ineptitude here or perhaps something worse?

So, I think two things are important to keep in mind, Wolf. Everything changed on 9/11. Following that the intelligence services had a much greater self-imposed pressure to come up with conclusions, to reach judgments about conflicting facts where previously they might have been a little more qualified in their assessments.

You combine that with the administration's zealous desire to take action here to make the most aggressive case, to put the most aggressive spin on a certain set of facts and you put those two things together and I think perhaps some conclusions were reached that in a different environment might not have been.

BLITZER: Bottom line this committee, the Intelligence Committee, as you well know, has a history of not being partisan, of being nonpartisan, is it going to split in this politically active election year?

BAYH: Well, I hope not. This is much too important for that. We went to war on the basis of intelligence assessments. If there were errors made we need to get to the bottom of why to make sure that they are not made again and that we don't make that kind of mistake again.

But, obviously, if it spills over into next year I guess my best answer to you, Wolf, would be there will be political consequences even if there are not political motives behind the investigation that takes place.

BLITZER: Senator Bayh, thanks very much for joining us.

BAYH: Good to be with you.

BLITZER: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has had more than one hot potato to juggle this week. First the private memo he wrote leaked in the press in which he said this country was in for a long, hard, slog in Iraq and then a subordinate of his, a Pentagon general publicly said some very provocative things about Islam; more now on the secretary of defense's tough week from CNN's Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hundreds of phone calls to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office all day Friday after a conservative Christian group posted his phone number on the Internet all urging him not to fire Lieutenant General William Boykin despite his controversial remarks about Islam and the war on terrorism. It was a tough week for the secretary who is so expert at staying on message.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: It's a naturally difficult time, probably the low point of his tenure as secretary of defense. That means that his political capital is not as high and, in fact, many Republicans are going to start to ask if he's even a net benefit to the president.

STARR: One reason for that analysts say a leaked Rumsfeld memo to top aides questioning progress in the war on terrorism, his surprise appearance in the press room to defend it saying he was challenging aides to think creatively not privately offering a gloomy assessment of Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans have questions about the memo but support Rumsfeld's thinking.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I think that memo was a challenge to his subordinates and I understand that. There was a line in there that's a little disturbing and that is we don't have the matrix to judge whether we're succeeding or not.

STARR: It is the Boykin controversy that has clearly strained relations with powerful Capitol Hill allies. Rumsfeld is determined to keep Boykin in place as an intelligence aide but one powerful Republican still says Boykin has to go.

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), CHAIRMAN, SENATE ARMED SERVICES: I'm recommending, not calling for, not demanding but recommending having spent some time in the Department of Defense myself that without any prejudice that this officer be detailed from his present position.

STARR: Warner acknowledged the chill after meeting with Rumsfeld Friday at the Pentagon issuing a statement conceding we have our differences but that they continue to work closely together.

(on camera): But no indication that President Bush is unhappy with the secretary and around here that's the only vote that really counts.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: To help us understand what exactly all this means we're joined now by "USA Today" reporter Tom Squitieri. He's one of the reporters who broke the story of the Rumsfeld memo in your newspaper. Tom, thanks very much for joining us.

TOM SQUITIERI, "USA TODAY": Pleased to be with you.

BLITZER: You're obviously not going to tell us who leaked, who gave you that memo, how you got it but can you tell us if it was someone who was sympathetic to the defense secretary or a critic of the defense secretary?

SQUITIERI: This is not going to surprise you but the individual who made this available to us was not Secretary Rumsfeld first of all as some have suggested. It was somebody who was just actually concerned that the information about what was going on in the Pentagon and the real view of the Pentagon got out.

It wasn't necessarily a pro-Rumsfeld or an anti-Rumsfeld leak. It was a pro-reader leak if you want to take it from that stance. This was not the message we were hearing here in the media or out there. Everything was going good. Everything was going good. This new PR campaign to sell the virtues of how things were going in Iraq, there was a concern that hard questions had to be out there in public.

BLITZER: Because the impression we got, and I read your bombshell in "USA Today" and a lot of reporters followed up on it obviously, great story but the impression was that Rumsfeld was conceding in effect defeat, not projecting the optimism he had been projecting for so many months.

SQUITIERI: That's correct and that's the impression the memo does leave. Now to be fair to the secretary he does like to ask provocative questions, as Barbara Starr has pointed out in her reports and others have. But the candor in which Rumsfeld identified the challenges ahead is what is vastly different than what the White House and the Defense Department has been saying.

BLITZER: What's your sense of how he handled this whole uproar involving General Boykin who said these words that many have interpreted as being anti-Islam?

SQUITIERI: That's hurt him on the Hill. He sort of ignored a letter that Senator Warner and others had sent to him. He said oh it's somewhere here around the building. Well, anyone who knows Rumsfeld knows nothing goes in and out of that building without him being aware of it.

That hurt him a lot and it's a lingering thing now and now it's building up the momentum of what to do with the general. Will he be eased out in the future or not? It was an issue that should have been solved sooner and now it's left to linger.

BLITZER: If the president is reelected will Rumsfeld stay on as defense secretary?

SQUITIERI: If nothing changes from today I would say yes. Right now, President Bush really does support the secretary and, as Barbara said, that's the only vote that counts.

BLITZER: And these reports that there has been this tension between the Pentagon and the State Department, for example, and let's put it in the focus of people, between Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Are they exaggerated or is there this tension?

SQUITIERI: No, they're not exaggerated but the tension really does exist below the secretary level and the deputy secretary level. The staffs really do have a tension and visceral dislike of each other and that actually matriculates up.

BLITZER: The president's got to get a handle on this and clearly he hates all these kinds of leaks but he also hates the division that seems to be out there.

SQUITIERI: He does and the one time that Rumsfeld did hurt himself with the White House was a few weeks ago when he had that sort of less than flattering comments about Condoleezza Rice. That irritated the White House much more than the leak of the memo this week.

BLITZER: Oh, he felt blindsided by this reorganization, in which she would sort of adjudicate these battles.

SQUITIERI: Yes. Right. And he wants to be the adjudicator.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: Well, that's not always possible.

Tom Squitieri, you and your partner at "USA Today" did some excellent reporting.

SQUITIERI: Thank you very much.

BLITZER: Good work. Thanks very much.

Coming up tonight, a mining disaster that seems all too familiar. What will happen to 46 Russian miners? They're trapped half-a-mile beneath the surface of the earth.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to NEWSNIGHT. I'm Wolf Blitzer, sitting in tonight for Aaron Brown.

It's the miners' nightmare, the worst that can happen, the thing they and their families most dread. And while there's still hope for the 46 men trapped underground in a deep shaft 600 miles south of Moscow, that hope grows fainter as time wears on and the water rises.

More now from CNN's Ryan Chilcote.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is difficult to imagine a more complex rescue operation where man and machine are so squarely pitted against the forces of nature. Bulldozers here move earth and concrete round the clock, fill a shaft from which water has been flooding other parts of the mine since Thursday. Meanwhile, workers measured the distance left to go.

(on camera): But this is the simplest part of the operation, football fields beneath me. Teams of engineers are frantically digging tunnels in a desperate effort to reach the miners trapped below.

(voice-over): Quietly, families await information on their loved ones. But it could take days before there is any real news.

LEV STRYKOVSKI, MINE COMPANY OFFICIAL (through translator): I believe it will take about two days to drill a tunnel into this mine where we think the trapped miners are.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator) Everything that is possible is being done. We have doubled our efforts. You can see it for yourselves. We hope to rescue our people alive.

CHILCOTE: Without any communication with the miners, though, it is impossible to know if they're even still alive or how much air they may still have down there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHILCOTE: Wolf, two things going on right now, 35 1/2 hours after this rescue effort began. First, they're continuing to dump earth and concrete blocks into one of the shafts that the water is still pumping into the mine from. They want to clog up, if you will, the source of the water. Also, from two different directions, from nearby abandoned mines, they are digging tunnels. But that work, too, is going very slowly, a lot slower than they would like. I am told they are able to dig about one swimming pool's length a day. That's about 25 yards a day. They still have got 50 yards to go, so slow-moving there.

Lastly, in the next couple hours here, they're hoping to send a team of scouts down into the mine inside a diving cage with their scuba gear on hand to take their first look at what it looks like inside the mine. This would be the first scouting group to go inside. Eventually, as early as tomorrow, they hope to send frogmen, they hope to send scuba divers with boats into those tunnels and perhaps down from above, through that -- through some of the available shaft to try and get to those miners -- Wolf.

BLITZER: CNN's Ryan Chilcote, dramatic developments there, Ryan. We'll be staying in touch with you. Thanks very much. Good luck to all those men in Russia.

In London today, the usually reticent sons of the late Princess Diana did something very rare indeed. Princes William and Harry issued a public statement, decrying what they called the betrayal of their mother by her onetime better Paul Burrell.

Here's more now from CNN's Gaven Morris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GAVEN MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Princess Diana's butler had vowed to her sons he would always be faithful.

PAUL BURRELL, FORMER ROYAL BUTLER: I want to shake William firmly by the hand one day and say, I will never betray you or your mother.

MORRIS: But betray he has, according to Prince William, Princess Diana's rock now a royal rat.

In a tell-all book serialized in a British tabloid, Paul Burrell has revealed dozens of Diana's private letters, her relations with other senior royals, her love affairs, her fears she was going to be killed. Now, from an outraged Prince William, a statement, also on behalf of his brother: "We cannot believe that Paul, who was entrusted with so much, could abuse his position in such a cold and overt betrayal. It would mortify our mother if she were alive today."

Royal watchers say such a public rebuke from heirs to the throne is stunning.

LADY COLIN CAMPBELL, ROYAL BIOGRAPHER: It's absolutely unprecedented. And it makes it absolutely clear to the world, as well as to Burrell, that they want him to keep his trap shut.

MORRIS: Far from silencing him, the prince's statement has Burrell speaking out.

BURRELL: I'm convinced that, when the princes and everyone else reads this book in its entirety, they will think differently. My only intention in writing this book was to defend the princess and stand in her corner.

MORRIS: Prince William, like everybody else, can buy the book Monday. And this royal row has guaranteed the publishers need not pay for publicity.

Gaven Morris, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: A couple of stories now from around the world and elsewhere tonight. There was wild weather around the sun today, causing a gigantic geomagnetic storm here on Earth. Airline navigation systems and satellite phones, among many other high-tech gizmos, still are being affected. We'll see if we can get through the night without a solar glitch.

And in Madrid, the bottom line at a U.S.-sponsored meeting of nations and organizations asked to pledge for the rebuilding of Iraq came, according to the White House, to some $13 billion. This, the administration says, exceeded its expectations, though the figure the White House earlier said would be needed was nearly three times as large.

This important note: Colin Powell attended the conference in Madrid. He'll be among my guests this weekend on "LATE EDITION," the last word in Sunday talk. You can see the interview right here on CNN Sunday, noon Eastern. I hope you'll join me then.

Still to come: four days of testimony, countless twists and turns in the sniper trial, a look the this week's dramatic developments next.

For a Friday, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: And our deepest condolences to the families of those men.

The trial of John Allen Muhammad has wrapped up until Monday. It will take quite a week next week to top the one gone by, a week that saw the sniper suspect fire his lawyers, take up his own defense, interrogate people he's accused of trying to kill, then step down and rehire his legal team, a topsy-turvy week indeed, punctuated by a power outage yesterday.

But today it was back to business. And CNN's Jeanne Meserve was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The slaying of a South Korean immigrant outside a Baton Rouge, Louisiana beauty supply store; another shooting prosecutors are attempting to link to John Muhammad. In court Friday, the sister of Hong Im Ballenger broke down when asked to look at a photo of the scene.

But it was the use of autopsy photos that raised the ire of Muhammad's attorneys, who said they were unnecessary and prejudicial. Family members were asked if the use of photos of relatives alive and dead was difficult.

PRINCESS HARPER, SISTER OF SNIPER VICTIM: The photograph of her being alive, that was mine. That was what she'd given me anyway. And the other one, yes, yes.

MESERVE: In other testimony, Montgomery, Alabama police officer James Graboys said he felt -- quote -- "sick in the pit of my stomach" when he saw a photo of Lee Malvo on television and realized he was the person he'd almost caught after a chase from a liquor store shooting scene a month before. Two women were struck in that incident, one fatally.

A medical examiner said their wounds were consistent with a high velocity rifle, the Bushmaster, prosecutors say. But it was a 22 caliber handgun that was later recovered near the scene. That handgun, prosecutors say, has been linked ballistically with two earlier shootings. Witnesses have placed Malvo at both. Prosecutors are expected to contend that the presence of two weapons in Montgomery establishes that John Muhammad was there with Malvo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just not saying anything.

MESERVE: It was the conclusion of a tumultuous week that saw John Muhammad fire his defense team and act as his own lawyer for two days, before reversing his decision.

JONATHAN SHAPIRO, ATTORNEY FOR MUHAMMAD: You don't know how emotional it is for a lawyer, with death on the table, to be sidelined in deference to a defendant's right to represent himself.

MESERVE: Lee Malvo appeared in court multiple times to be identified by sometimes emotional witnesses. And one victim had the otherworldly experience of being questioned by Muhammad.

Then, as if the week hadn't been unusual enough, a power outage shut down court for a day.

(on camera): More emotional testimony lies ahead as prosecutors begin laying out the evidence in the Washington area sniper shootings next week.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And a few more items now from around the country before we take a break.

Let's start in Southern California, where Kobe Bryant last night made his preseason debut with the Lakers. It happened three days after a judge ordered him to stand trial on rape charges. Despite that, the crowd still gave him a standing ovation. The Lakers, by the way, lost to the Clippers 107-101, preseason game.

In New York, a mistrial declared in the federal case against Wall Street's Frank Quattrone, the judge making his decision after jurors were unable to make theirs. They deadlocked on two counts of obstruction of justice and one of witness-tampering -- no decision yet on whether the government will try again.

And in a Dallas hospital today, two Egyptian twins, formerly conjoined twins, got their first chance to visit with each other. Doctors said the boys were delighted, not having seen each other since their operation two weeks ago. Their condition, by the way, was upgraded today from critical to serious. Good luck to both of them and their families.

When we come back: making the wealthy pay a little bit more, means testing, a new idea for Medicare that not everyone is happy about.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Segment seven now and the difficult and complex subject of prescription drugs for the elderly, which is being debated at the moment in Congress and among the elderly as well -- yes, debated.

It turns out that those who stand to benefit are themselves of several minds about how much help from the government they should get. We said this was complicated.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sylvia Blajwas will be the first to tell you she has enough money for a comfortable retirement, but she spends a lot of it on prescription drugs.

SYLVIA BLAJWAS, SENIOR CITIZEN: The Ramadex (ph) ran me $596.57. And I think it's three months.

KARL: As Congress considers a plan to help Sylvia pay for those drugs, they're also considering a plan to make her pay more for the Medicare benefits she already receives. And she doesn't seem to mind.

BLAJWAS: I feel that those of us who can give a little more should help those that are in need.

KARL: But the idea of charging well-off seniors like Sylvia and her friends in this upscale Maryland retirement community more for Medicare, a concept called means testing, is explosively controversial in Congress.

Supporters say it's necessary to control Medicare's escalating costs, but the AARP, one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in America, opposes it. And when it came up last summer, Ted Kennedy, a longtime Medicare champion, was outraged, saying the plan would destroy Medicare status as a universal program that serves all seniors equally.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: That is effectively what we would be doing is changing what is effectively an insurance system into a welfare system. There is no really question about that.

KARL: Currently, all seniors pay $59 a month for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor's visits. The plan now under consideration would require seniors with $80,000 or more in income to pay $82 a month. At the top end of the sliding scale, those with incomes of more than $200,000 would pay $211 a month. All told, 3 percent of seniors would face higher premiums because they have $80,000 or more in annual income.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting our exercise, aren't we?

KARL: Alfred and Kathleen (ph) Bridy have been married 62 years. They say they understand Kennedy's concern, but they, too, are willing to pay more.

ALFRED BRIDY, SENIOR CITIZEN: Yes, I think people should pay a little more if -- in other words, the more you make, the more you should pay. And it seems to me that's the good old American system.

KARL: For these seniors, anyway, the price of higher premiums today is worth it, if it means Medicare will still be around tomorrow for their grandchildren.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And still ahead, this time, the final boarding call was for real. The world says farewell to the fastest ever commercial plane from New York to London at twice the speed of sound.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Finally tonight, the airliner of the future, nearly 30 years ago, it was. And, in many ways, it still is. But tonight, it is history, a relic of a time when fuel was cheap, air travel was glamorous, and airline executives thought people would pay extra to get there at twice the speed of sound.

CNN's Richard Quest now on the last flight of the Concorde.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the picture the world saw as Concorde left New York. And this is how I saw it on board the plane, rattling down the runway at more than 200 miles an hour.

(on camera): So a picture-perfect liftoff for the last time from Kennedy Airport. And many good wishes, not only from the airport workers, but from the other planes waiting for their turn to get into the sky.

(voice-over): The well-known on board were happy to play along with spot the celeb. But the chairman of British Airways, Lord Marshall, is hardly hip. Ah, Joan Collins, that's more like it. She's always happy to give you a smile.

JOAN COLLINS, ACTRESS: CNN, yes.

QUEST: With so many journalists on board, it was inevitable things would be cramped, as we tried to get the most out of our supersonic trip. It would be equally churlish to turn down the goodies on offer.

(on camera): A special menu has been created for today's final flight, including smoked salmon, caviar, lobster and eggs with wild mushroom and truffles.

(voice-over): If all this looked like watering the horses, it was over too soon. London called. We gave a warm welcome.

Andy Warhol called it the 15 minutes of fame. Count my time on the red carpet in seconds. Hey, Concorde, champagne, and celebs, a perfect day.

Richard Quest, CNN, with the Concorde.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Looks like a fun flight.

That's our report for tonight. Thanks very much for joining us. Aaron is back on Monday, reporting from right here in Washington, D.C. He'll see you then.

I'll see you Sunday on "LATE EDITION," Sunday noon Eastern, with Colin Powell.

Until then, 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





Speaks on Intelligence Regarding Iraq>


Aired October 24, 2003 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening from Washington, I'm Wolf Blitzer. Aaron is in California interviewing the former President Gerald Ford for an upcoming special on the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination.
He left me to fill the spot for him, fit some of the special rhythms and tones of NEWSNIGHT into our program. Fortunately tonight there's no shortage of stories, a full plate in front of us, so stand by for hard news.

The whip starts right now and it starts with the fires in Southern California, fast-moving flames, a crucial battle for firefighters. CNN's Miguel Marquez is there, Miguel a headline please.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, fire officials say that three homes, several homes actually have been destroyed so far. There have been eight injuries most of those to firefighters, most of them not so serious but what firefighters are taking very seriously are the winds, wondering whether or not those high Santa Ana winds will blow that fire back from the top of the mountain toward the city -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Miguel, we'll be getting back to you.

Hot stuff meanwhile in Langley, Virginia, that's just outside where we are in Washington, D.C., what some are calling a blistering report on what the CIA did and didn't know in advance of the war in Iraq, CNN's David Ensor on that story, David the headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well Senate sources, Wolf, said today and yesterday that they expect an as yet unwritten report by the Senate Intelligence Committee to have some scathing things to say about the quality of U.S. intelligence prior to the Iraq war but today a senior U.S. intelligence official, a CIA veteran of 30 years, came out swinging in an exclusive interview responding to that story here on CNN. I'll have more.

BLITZER: All right, David we'll be back to you on that.

In New Jersey, the post office, the anthrax and the belated cleanup, CNN's Michael Okwu is joining us from there, a headline from you Michael.

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, two years after the anthrax scare that riveted most of, if not all of, this country the mail processing center where some contaminated letters were processed in New Jersey is finally, finally being decontaminated -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Michael, we'll get back to you.

Finally, CNN's Ryan Chilcote he's in Russia where there's a race against time and the deadly forces of nature, lives on the line deep inside the earth, Ryan your headline.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, 46 miners still remain some seven football fields beneath me trapped where they've been for 35 hours now ever since at seven o'clock local time here on Thursday water started pouring into their mine from a nearby underwater lake -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Ryan, we'll be back to you, back to everyone. That's coming up shortly.

Also coming up on the program tonight between General Boykin and the memo an especially eventful week for the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; CNN's Barbara Starr on that for us tonight.

And with Congress working on Medicare reform and prescription drug coverage. We'll look at the state of play and talk to the seniors who may be called on to pay more in exchange for getting more.

And, if you've got caviar wishes and champagne dreams you'd better find another way to fly. The mach 2 mega expensive ticket called the Concorde has flown its last flight and CNN's Richard Quest was on it, so two sonic booms for all of us tonight.

All that's coming up in the hour ahead we start off tonight in Southern California, smoky Southern California, a number of wildfires burning right now one of them threatening hundreds of homes forcing the evacuation of thousands of people. That one is burning in the San Bernardino National Forest. That's near Rancho Cucamonga east of Los Angeles.

Here again, CNN's Miguel Marquez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ (voice-over): It is a fire fed by wind threatening thousands of brand new suburban homes east of Los Angeles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was so much smoke in the house it was burning our eyes and stuff. We left.

MARQUEZ: The fast-moving fire burned right up to Greg Tom's (ph) backyard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For hours I was trying to think of what I was going to take but then when the time actually came, like I say most of the fire was burned out. I just asked the kids what they wanted and my five-year-old grabbed the pumpkin that she got at a pumpkin patch yesterday and that was it. MARQUEZ: What to take as the fire approached, normal tranquil suburbia, it was a question asked and answered by thousands of residents.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I took all my clothes, CDs and my laptop and just left.

MARQUEZ: For evacuees it was a harrowing 24 hours of waiting, waiting to find out if anything was left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know when you've got everything you worked for all your life and you're looking back at it, it's like is it going to be here or not when you come back?

MARQUEZ: Officials say thousands of residents were forced from their homes but by nightfall some of them began to sneak back in. Fueled by winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour the fire grew from 4,000 acres to 12,000 from early Friday morning until evening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fire just came so fast we were just lucky enough to have hose in there and put water on the fire as it was coming and the houses just got lucky.

MARQUEZ: At least 1,400 firefighters have been working this wildfire and firefighters were feeling the heat. A chopper set down for mechanical problems but the flames got to it before the mechanics could.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Now, in addition to those 1,400 firefighters that were on the scene today another 1,400 have been put on alert. They are all now waiting for the wind to see if it will bring that fire back down toward the city in the next couple of days, all of this to fight a fire that investigators say is arson -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Miguel, I know you've been speaking to residents who live there. How are they coping? What are some of the personal stories you're hearing from them?

MARQUEZ: Well, there's a lot of frustration obviously. They want to be in their homes. A lot of these are brand new communities. They've worked their lives to be in these homes and they had to leave them without knowing exactly whether or not they're going to come back to anything.

The frustration right now I think is wanting to get back in their homes. We talked to a lot of people today who seem to be sneaking back into their homes. I'm not sure what fire officials will think of that -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right Miguel Marquez he's on the story for us in Southern California. Thanks Miguel very much.

Let's get another new view right now from the fire lines. Peter Bryan is the battalion chief of the Ranch Cucamonga Fire Department. He and his men and women have been working around the clock. We're pleased you could take a few moments to speak with us. Thanks very much. Give us your sense, sir, of how the crews are bearing up right now.

PETER BRYAN, BATTALION CHIEF, RANCHO CUCAMONGA FIRE DEPARTMENT: Well certainly, Wolf, this has been a very difficult day. Crews have put in a lot of hard, long hours not just today but several days in a row trying to control this fire. Crews are resting this evening, either on the scene or back at base camp where they can get a couple minutes of rest and get some food and get ready for either late tonight, early tomorrow and certainly for the weekend.

BLITZER: Does it look like the worst of it is over with or could it get even worse than it is right now?

BRYAN: No, I don't think nor do the meteorologists think that the worst is over. We're anticipating some heavier winds to develop tomorrow and on into Sunday so we may see more of that same firestorm and maybe even tougher more firestorm in the next couple of days.

BLITZER: The winds are clearly playing a significant role. How do you see that situation unfolding in the hours and day or two to come?

BRYAN: Well, just as it is now we've essentially got one or two or three-mile-an-hour winds. It's very calm and so the fire is having a tendency to burn down the slope but that's what it was doing last night and then all of a sudden the down canyon winds and the Santa Anas speed that down the hill and we are right at the base of those mountains and the next thing you have is vegetation and homes intermixed and that's where you get the problem.

BLITZER: Give us a sense of the size of this. We know you're not all that far from Los Angeles, from Hollywood, 30, 40 miles but you can sense the smoke. You can smell it clearly in a wide, wide area. How big of an area?

BRYAN: Well, our city is about 40-some square miles but the smoke covered a major portion of the city today and certainly now it's rising and it's gone but we're anticipating we're going to have that same problem. We have about five to ten miles of foothill interfaced and that five to ten miles means there's a large area that that fire can burn down in to the city.

BLITZER: And is it your sense that you have enough equipment, enough firefighters on the scene to deal with this?

BRYAN: Well, certainly you never quite know until that moment but there's over 200 pieces or units including air tankers and helicopters and engines, the water tenders and hand crews, nearly 1,400 or 1,500 personnel. You order up enough to where you think you can be prepared for the next operational period and then you hope you can deploy them quick enough and get them in in front of the fire to do the best good.

BLITZER: Peter Bryan, the battalion chief out there in Rancho Cucamonga, good luck to you, good luck to all the men and women, good luck to all the residents who are suffering through these wildfires, appreciate it very much.

BRYAN: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's move now to another very important story we're covering the question of intelligence. What did the United States know about Iraq weapons of mass destruction? Who had the facts? Did anyone get it right?

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing what it's expecting to be, at least many officials expecting it to be a blistering indictment of the CIA that some say, in effect, the agency overstated the case against Saddam Hussein.

Once again here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): George Tenet, the head of U.S. intelligence, finds himself in the hot seat amidst reports the Senate Intelligence Committee is working on what could be a scathing report about U.S. intelligence on Iraq before the war.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS, CHAIRMAN, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: In some cases, as I'd indicated before with the Niger incident, it's sloppy.

STUART COHEN, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL: It was quickly prepared but certainly not sloppily.

ENSOR: Under fire, U.S. intelligence fired back granting CNN an exclusive interview with the man who led the team that wrote the document the furor is all about.

Does it surprise you then that weapons of mass destruction have not yet been found in Iraq?

COHEN: It does not surprise me at all.

ENSOR: Cohen said David Kay, the CIA man in charge of the hunt for Iraqi weapons, needs much more time to search the California-size nation of Iraq.

COHEN: In certain areas he's barely scratched the surface and chemical weapons is one area in particular.

ENSOR: At a hearing, Senate Democrats said they want to broaden the inquiry into the inquiry into the use of intelligence before the war.

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: It appears to me that there's a very, very clear effort being made to blame everything on the intelligence community and steer by all means away from anything that has anything to do with anybody in the administration at higher up levels or elsewhere. ENSOR: Higher-ups like Vice President Cheney who went over to the CIA more than once before the war to talk to analysts directly and to look at raw intelligence.

VINCE CANNISTRARO, FORMER CIA OFFICIAL: It's sitting down and debating with junior level analysts and pushing them to find support for something he personally believes that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium. That to me is pressure and that's intimidation.

COHEN: This is one of the most insidious of allegations that are out there. I am proud of the fact that a vice president will take him time and come out to this agency to talk to analysts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: As for George Tenet, does he fear being made the fall guy? At this point, senior intelligence officials tell me that Tenet is not worried that he's lost the president's confidence; in fact, far from it -- Wolf.

BLITZER: You know, David, you and I have been around Washington a long time. The fact that the CIA allows Stuart Cohen who wrote that national intelligence estimate to come out, sit down with you over at Langley at CIA headquarter that says that the career officials over there, they're pretty angry right now.

ENSOR: They are and they were expecting to have a pretty rough day and they had one after what they saw in the newspaper in the morning so they felt that they wanted to get their version out somewhere. They decided to go with CNN.

BLITZER: Good for them. Thanks very much for that David Ensor, good reporting, solid reporting as usual.

An important report, crucial questions, we'll take a closer look a bit later on the program, this entire question of intelligence, who knew what and when, when I speak with Senator Evan Bayh. He's a key member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He'll be joining us. That's coming up.

First though, a story that might start you wondering. Two years after the anthrax scare here in the United States one of the contaminated post offices, the facility at Hamilton, New Jersey, is only now getting a cleanup.

Why is that, the report tonight from CNN's Michael Okwu.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OKWU (voice-over): Government contractors began pumping chlorine dioxide behind these sealed doors and covered windows, a massive cleanup aimed at destroying the anthrax spores inside and finally erasing a scare that started after contaminated letters were processed here. It's taken them two years and some area residents have said for two years they've been much too uneasy. BILL LEWIS, NEW JERSEY POSTAL UNION PRESIDENT: I heard residents say to me that should be burned down the building. It should be torn down and closed but that's not going to happen.

TOM DAY, ENGINEERING VICE PRESIDENT, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE: I agree it's taken us a great deal of time. I wish we could have done it quicker but our point throughout this process is to do it right and to do it safe.

OKWU: Postal officials say it is a complex engineering process that the technology just plain didn't exist before the anthrax attacks in 2001. They argue they had to decontaminate the Hart Senate Building, the 700,000-square-foot Brentwood facility and then had to transport the equipment to New Jersey.

DAY: We also went through extensive testing to make sure that everything worked.

OKWU: Gina D'Ambrosia works across the street. She says that's fine with her.

GINA D'AMBROSIA, HAMILTON TOWNSHIP RESIDENT: I'd rather have them take their time and get it all done than, you know, to rush it and have possible contamination of more letter and stuff like that, more people getting sick and everything. So, really, you know, I'd rather them take their time.

OKWU: Former postal employee Jyostna Patel doesn't care to know what happens with the building. Patel was one of two former Hamilton employees who suffered from inhalation anthrax.

JYOSTYNA PATEL, ANTHRAX POSTAL VICTIM: We go now by the road and I'm in a car with my husband and (unintelligible) when post office coming nearby I just go like this. I'm still so scared.

OKWU: Patel says she is taking antidepressants and she says her doctors can't explain her persistent symptoms.

PATEL: Fatigue.

OKWU: Fatigue.

PATEL: Fatigue, my memory loss, my joint pain.

OKWU: A cleanup begins. The casualties linger. A handful of other postal workers say two years after coming into contact with anthrax they are still suffering.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKWU: Now postal officials say that the gases will reach every inch, every corner of the 282,000-square-foot building that this cleanup process will last through much of the weekend ending at some point on Sunday but even after Sunday, Wolf, officials tell us do not look for things to get back to normal anytime soon. They say that there will be a refurbishing process after that and it could take up to a year before postal employees are let back into that building -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Michael, what about the other postal employees who were there? Are they suffering from symptoms a year, two years now afterwards? I know all of them were taking Cipro, Ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic for a long time but what about now?

OKWU: Well, as far as we know that process is over, Wolf. There's only a specific time that you should be taking that Cipro but we do understand from again a handful of employees who had come into contact with anthrax that even to this day they are still suffering from some symptoms and, of course, this is something that doctors have not seen a lot of so they say just sit tight, continue to rest and to relax.

Most of these employees that we understand that have been affected are no longer working in the facility. It's an awfully sad story, Wolf. They say that they are experiencing a whole range of symptoms and many of them are suffering from depression as well -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Doctors and other medical experts are beginning only now to learn a lot about anthrax they simply did not know and certainly they're learning more each day. Michael Okwu thanks very much for that report.

Just ahead a tough week for Donald Rumsfeld in part because of this one word "slog," that's spelled S-L-O-G. We'll tell you what I mean; and, finally, the Concorde's final flight.

From Washington, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

To talk some more now about that report on the CIA being prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee we're joined in Indianapolis by a key member of the committee, the Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. He's a Democrat. Senator Bayh, welcome to NEWSNIGHT. Thanks very much for joining us.

You and I used to speak all the time before the war. You were convinced the intelligence was solid about the weapons of mass destruction. You voted for the resolution. What went wrong?

SEN. EVAN BAYH (D), INDIANA: Well, Wolf, I looked George Tenet directly in the eye and said literally Mr. Director if your life depended on it would you say that there were chemical and biological weapons in Iraq and the answer was an unequivocal yes.

This goes to show just how inexact a science intelligence work is how ambiguous much of the information is. They have to draw conclusions and deductions based upon sometimes contradictory facts and sometimes they just get it wrong.

But in their defense, Wolf, it's important to remember that the British, the French, the Germans, many other intelligence services had reached the same conclusions and now we're in the business of getting to the bottom of what happened here.

BLITZER: Are you convinced, Senator Bayh, that it might turn out to be right that some day David Kay and the other CIA officials together with the U.S. military will, in fact, find the chemical and the biological weapons?

BAYH: I think that's quite likely, Wolf, but it's only one of several possibilities. I think it's going to take another six months for Dr. Kay and his team to really scour the country, as David Ensor pointed out. It is the size of California.

But there are some other possibilities as well. Some of the materials may have been sent to another country. Syria would be the most likely suspect there. Perhaps he never had the materials to begin with. He was lied to by his people who were afraid to tell him that they didn't have the capability that he wanted them to have and we were fooled in the process.

Or, perhaps, I think another likely outcome, Wolf, would be that the ability to produce the chemical and biological weapons was broken down, hidden away so that it could be quickly reassembled once international attention had gone somewhere else. I think all those are possibilities but if I had to rank them in order I think the chances of us still finding something are relatively high.

BLITZER: As you know, the political season is heating up here in the United States, presidential politics obviously going to play a role in a lot of this but the Republicans, at least some of the Republican members of your Intelligence Committee seem to be blaming George Tenet, the professionals in the intelligence community for any mistakes that might have been made.

A lot of the Democrats, though, are looking at the Vice President Dick Cheney, the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and some of the political leaders for forcing the intelligence analysts to come up with conclusions that they might not necessarily have been justified in reaching. Where do you stand?

BAYH: Well, I'm not prepared to point the finger of blame at anybody just yet. I think we need to get to the bottom of the facts here. I think, again, this is an inexact science and we need to find out, first let a little more time go by to see whether something does turn up in Iraq and if it doesn't then ask ourselves were these reasonable judgments that just turned out to be wrong or was there ineptitude here or perhaps something worse?

So, I think two things are important to keep in mind, Wolf. Everything changed on 9/11. Following that the intelligence services had a much greater self-imposed pressure to come up with conclusions, to reach judgments about conflicting facts where previously they might have been a little more qualified in their assessments.

You combine that with the administration's zealous desire to take action here to make the most aggressive case, to put the most aggressive spin on a certain set of facts and you put those two things together and I think perhaps some conclusions were reached that in a different environment might not have been.

BLITZER: Bottom line this committee, the Intelligence Committee, as you well know, has a history of not being partisan, of being nonpartisan, is it going to split in this politically active election year?

BAYH: Well, I hope not. This is much too important for that. We went to war on the basis of intelligence assessments. If there were errors made we need to get to the bottom of why to make sure that they are not made again and that we don't make that kind of mistake again.

But, obviously, if it spills over into next year I guess my best answer to you, Wolf, would be there will be political consequences even if there are not political motives behind the investigation that takes place.

BLITZER: Senator Bayh, thanks very much for joining us.

BAYH: Good to be with you.

BLITZER: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has had more than one hot potato to juggle this week. First the private memo he wrote leaked in the press in which he said this country was in for a long, hard, slog in Iraq and then a subordinate of his, a Pentagon general publicly said some very provocative things about Islam; more now on the secretary of defense's tough week from CNN's Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hundreds of phone calls to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office all day Friday after a conservative Christian group posted his phone number on the Internet all urging him not to fire Lieutenant General William Boykin despite his controversial remarks about Islam and the war on terrorism. It was a tough week for the secretary who is so expert at staying on message.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: It's a naturally difficult time, probably the low point of his tenure as secretary of defense. That means that his political capital is not as high and, in fact, many Republicans are going to start to ask if he's even a net benefit to the president.

STARR: One reason for that analysts say a leaked Rumsfeld memo to top aides questioning progress in the war on terrorism, his surprise appearance in the press room to defend it saying he was challenging aides to think creatively not privately offering a gloomy assessment of Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans have questions about the memo but support Rumsfeld's thinking.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I think that memo was a challenge to his subordinates and I understand that. There was a line in there that's a little disturbing and that is we don't have the matrix to judge whether we're succeeding or not.

STARR: It is the Boykin controversy that has clearly strained relations with powerful Capitol Hill allies. Rumsfeld is determined to keep Boykin in place as an intelligence aide but one powerful Republican still says Boykin has to go.

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), CHAIRMAN, SENATE ARMED SERVICES: I'm recommending, not calling for, not demanding but recommending having spent some time in the Department of Defense myself that without any prejudice that this officer be detailed from his present position.

STARR: Warner acknowledged the chill after meeting with Rumsfeld Friday at the Pentagon issuing a statement conceding we have our differences but that they continue to work closely together.

(on camera): But no indication that President Bush is unhappy with the secretary and around here that's the only vote that really counts.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: To help us understand what exactly all this means we're joined now by "USA Today" reporter Tom Squitieri. He's one of the reporters who broke the story of the Rumsfeld memo in your newspaper. Tom, thanks very much for joining us.

TOM SQUITIERI, "USA TODAY": Pleased to be with you.

BLITZER: You're obviously not going to tell us who leaked, who gave you that memo, how you got it but can you tell us if it was someone who was sympathetic to the defense secretary or a critic of the defense secretary?

SQUITIERI: This is not going to surprise you but the individual who made this available to us was not Secretary Rumsfeld first of all as some have suggested. It was somebody who was just actually concerned that the information about what was going on in the Pentagon and the real view of the Pentagon got out.

It wasn't necessarily a pro-Rumsfeld or an anti-Rumsfeld leak. It was a pro-reader leak if you want to take it from that stance. This was not the message we were hearing here in the media or out there. Everything was going good. Everything was going good. This new PR campaign to sell the virtues of how things were going in Iraq, there was a concern that hard questions had to be out there in public.

BLITZER: Because the impression we got, and I read your bombshell in "USA Today" and a lot of reporters followed up on it obviously, great story but the impression was that Rumsfeld was conceding in effect defeat, not projecting the optimism he had been projecting for so many months.

SQUITIERI: That's correct and that's the impression the memo does leave. Now to be fair to the secretary he does like to ask provocative questions, as Barbara Starr has pointed out in her reports and others have. But the candor in which Rumsfeld identified the challenges ahead is what is vastly different than what the White House and the Defense Department has been saying.

BLITZER: What's your sense of how he handled this whole uproar involving General Boykin who said these words that many have interpreted as being anti-Islam?

SQUITIERI: That's hurt him on the Hill. He sort of ignored a letter that Senator Warner and others had sent to him. He said oh it's somewhere here around the building. Well, anyone who knows Rumsfeld knows nothing goes in and out of that building without him being aware of it.

That hurt him a lot and it's a lingering thing now and now it's building up the momentum of what to do with the general. Will he be eased out in the future or not? It was an issue that should have been solved sooner and now it's left to linger.

BLITZER: If the president is reelected will Rumsfeld stay on as defense secretary?

SQUITIERI: If nothing changes from today I would say yes. Right now, President Bush really does support the secretary and, as Barbara said, that's the only vote that counts.

BLITZER: And these reports that there has been this tension between the Pentagon and the State Department, for example, and let's put it in the focus of people, between Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Are they exaggerated or is there this tension?

SQUITIERI: No, they're not exaggerated but the tension really does exist below the secretary level and the deputy secretary level. The staffs really do have a tension and visceral dislike of each other and that actually matriculates up.

BLITZER: The president's got to get a handle on this and clearly he hates all these kinds of leaks but he also hates the division that seems to be out there.

SQUITIERI: He does and the one time that Rumsfeld did hurt himself with the White House was a few weeks ago when he had that sort of less than flattering comments about Condoleezza Rice. That irritated the White House much more than the leak of the memo this week.

BLITZER: Oh, he felt blindsided by this reorganization, in which she would sort of adjudicate these battles.

SQUITIERI: Yes. Right. And he wants to be the adjudicator.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: Well, that's not always possible.

Tom Squitieri, you and your partner at "USA Today" did some excellent reporting.

SQUITIERI: Thank you very much.

BLITZER: Good work. Thanks very much.

Coming up tonight, a mining disaster that seems all too familiar. What will happen to 46 Russian miners? They're trapped half-a-mile beneath the surface of the earth.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to NEWSNIGHT. I'm Wolf Blitzer, sitting in tonight for Aaron Brown.

It's the miners' nightmare, the worst that can happen, the thing they and their families most dread. And while there's still hope for the 46 men trapped underground in a deep shaft 600 miles south of Moscow, that hope grows fainter as time wears on and the water rises.

More now from CNN's Ryan Chilcote.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is difficult to imagine a more complex rescue operation where man and machine are so squarely pitted against the forces of nature. Bulldozers here move earth and concrete round the clock, fill a shaft from which water has been flooding other parts of the mine since Thursday. Meanwhile, workers measured the distance left to go.

(on camera): But this is the simplest part of the operation, football fields beneath me. Teams of engineers are frantically digging tunnels in a desperate effort to reach the miners trapped below.

(voice-over): Quietly, families await information on their loved ones. But it could take days before there is any real news.

LEV STRYKOVSKI, MINE COMPANY OFFICIAL (through translator): I believe it will take about two days to drill a tunnel into this mine where we think the trapped miners are.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator) Everything that is possible is being done. We have doubled our efforts. You can see it for yourselves. We hope to rescue our people alive.

CHILCOTE: Without any communication with the miners, though, it is impossible to know if they're even still alive or how much air they may still have down there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHILCOTE: Wolf, two things going on right now, 35 1/2 hours after this rescue effort began. First, they're continuing to dump earth and concrete blocks into one of the shafts that the water is still pumping into the mine from. They want to clog up, if you will, the source of the water. Also, from two different directions, from nearby abandoned mines, they are digging tunnels. But that work, too, is going very slowly, a lot slower than they would like. I am told they are able to dig about one swimming pool's length a day. That's about 25 yards a day. They still have got 50 yards to go, so slow-moving there.

Lastly, in the next couple hours here, they're hoping to send a team of scouts down into the mine inside a diving cage with their scuba gear on hand to take their first look at what it looks like inside the mine. This would be the first scouting group to go inside. Eventually, as early as tomorrow, they hope to send frogmen, they hope to send scuba divers with boats into those tunnels and perhaps down from above, through that -- through some of the available shaft to try and get to those miners -- Wolf.

BLITZER: CNN's Ryan Chilcote, dramatic developments there, Ryan. We'll be staying in touch with you. Thanks very much. Good luck to all those men in Russia.

In London today, the usually reticent sons of the late Princess Diana did something very rare indeed. Princes William and Harry issued a public statement, decrying what they called the betrayal of their mother by her onetime better Paul Burrell.

Here's more now from CNN's Gaven Morris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GAVEN MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Princess Diana's butler had vowed to her sons he would always be faithful.

PAUL BURRELL, FORMER ROYAL BUTLER: I want to shake William firmly by the hand one day and say, I will never betray you or your mother.

MORRIS: But betray he has, according to Prince William, Princess Diana's rock now a royal rat.

In a tell-all book serialized in a British tabloid, Paul Burrell has revealed dozens of Diana's private letters, her relations with other senior royals, her love affairs, her fears she was going to be killed. Now, from an outraged Prince William, a statement, also on behalf of his brother: "We cannot believe that Paul, who was entrusted with so much, could abuse his position in such a cold and overt betrayal. It would mortify our mother if she were alive today."

Royal watchers say such a public rebuke from heirs to the throne is stunning.

LADY COLIN CAMPBELL, ROYAL BIOGRAPHER: It's absolutely unprecedented. And it makes it absolutely clear to the world, as well as to Burrell, that they want him to keep his trap shut.

MORRIS: Far from silencing him, the prince's statement has Burrell speaking out.

BURRELL: I'm convinced that, when the princes and everyone else reads this book in its entirety, they will think differently. My only intention in writing this book was to defend the princess and stand in her corner.

MORRIS: Prince William, like everybody else, can buy the book Monday. And this royal row has guaranteed the publishers need not pay for publicity.

Gaven Morris, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: A couple of stories now from around the world and elsewhere tonight. There was wild weather around the sun today, causing a gigantic geomagnetic storm here on Earth. Airline navigation systems and satellite phones, among many other high-tech gizmos, still are being affected. We'll see if we can get through the night without a solar glitch.

And in Madrid, the bottom line at a U.S.-sponsored meeting of nations and organizations asked to pledge for the rebuilding of Iraq came, according to the White House, to some $13 billion. This, the administration says, exceeded its expectations, though the figure the White House earlier said would be needed was nearly three times as large.

This important note: Colin Powell attended the conference in Madrid. He'll be among my guests this weekend on "LATE EDITION," the last word in Sunday talk. You can see the interview right here on CNN Sunday, noon Eastern. I hope you'll join me then.

Still to come: four days of testimony, countless twists and turns in the sniper trial, a look the this week's dramatic developments next.

For a Friday, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: And our deepest condolences to the families of those men.

The trial of John Allen Muhammad has wrapped up until Monday. It will take quite a week next week to top the one gone by, a week that saw the sniper suspect fire his lawyers, take up his own defense, interrogate people he's accused of trying to kill, then step down and rehire his legal team, a topsy-turvy week indeed, punctuated by a power outage yesterday.

But today it was back to business. And CNN's Jeanne Meserve was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The slaying of a South Korean immigrant outside a Baton Rouge, Louisiana beauty supply store; another shooting prosecutors are attempting to link to John Muhammad. In court Friday, the sister of Hong Im Ballenger broke down when asked to look at a photo of the scene.

But it was the use of autopsy photos that raised the ire of Muhammad's attorneys, who said they were unnecessary and prejudicial. Family members were asked if the use of photos of relatives alive and dead was difficult.

PRINCESS HARPER, SISTER OF SNIPER VICTIM: The photograph of her being alive, that was mine. That was what she'd given me anyway. And the other one, yes, yes.

MESERVE: In other testimony, Montgomery, Alabama police officer James Graboys said he felt -- quote -- "sick in the pit of my stomach" when he saw a photo of Lee Malvo on television and realized he was the person he'd almost caught after a chase from a liquor store shooting scene a month before. Two women were struck in that incident, one fatally.

A medical examiner said their wounds were consistent with a high velocity rifle, the Bushmaster, prosecutors say. But it was a 22 caliber handgun that was later recovered near the scene. That handgun, prosecutors say, has been linked ballistically with two earlier shootings. Witnesses have placed Malvo at both. Prosecutors are expected to contend that the presence of two weapons in Montgomery establishes that John Muhammad was there with Malvo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just not saying anything.

MESERVE: It was the conclusion of a tumultuous week that saw John Muhammad fire his defense team and act as his own lawyer for two days, before reversing his decision.

JONATHAN SHAPIRO, ATTORNEY FOR MUHAMMAD: You don't know how emotional it is for a lawyer, with death on the table, to be sidelined in deference to a defendant's right to represent himself.

MESERVE: Lee Malvo appeared in court multiple times to be identified by sometimes emotional witnesses. And one victim had the otherworldly experience of being questioned by Muhammad.

Then, as if the week hadn't been unusual enough, a power outage shut down court for a day.

(on camera): More emotional testimony lies ahead as prosecutors begin laying out the evidence in the Washington area sniper shootings next week.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And a few more items now from around the country before we take a break.

Let's start in Southern California, where Kobe Bryant last night made his preseason debut with the Lakers. It happened three days after a judge ordered him to stand trial on rape charges. Despite that, the crowd still gave him a standing ovation. The Lakers, by the way, lost to the Clippers 107-101, preseason game.

In New York, a mistrial declared in the federal case against Wall Street's Frank Quattrone, the judge making his decision after jurors were unable to make theirs. They deadlocked on two counts of obstruction of justice and one of witness-tampering -- no decision yet on whether the government will try again.

And in a Dallas hospital today, two Egyptian twins, formerly conjoined twins, got their first chance to visit with each other. Doctors said the boys were delighted, not having seen each other since their operation two weeks ago. Their condition, by the way, was upgraded today from critical to serious. Good luck to both of them and their families.

When we come back: making the wealthy pay a little bit more, means testing, a new idea for Medicare that not everyone is happy about.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Segment seven now and the difficult and complex subject of prescription drugs for the elderly, which is being debated at the moment in Congress and among the elderly as well -- yes, debated.

It turns out that those who stand to benefit are themselves of several minds about how much help from the government they should get. We said this was complicated.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sylvia Blajwas will be the first to tell you she has enough money for a comfortable retirement, but she spends a lot of it on prescription drugs.

SYLVIA BLAJWAS, SENIOR CITIZEN: The Ramadex (ph) ran me $596.57. And I think it's three months.

KARL: As Congress considers a plan to help Sylvia pay for those drugs, they're also considering a plan to make her pay more for the Medicare benefits she already receives. And she doesn't seem to mind.

BLAJWAS: I feel that those of us who can give a little more should help those that are in need.

KARL: But the idea of charging well-off seniors like Sylvia and her friends in this upscale Maryland retirement community more for Medicare, a concept called means testing, is explosively controversial in Congress.

Supporters say it's necessary to control Medicare's escalating costs, but the AARP, one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in America, opposes it. And when it came up last summer, Ted Kennedy, a longtime Medicare champion, was outraged, saying the plan would destroy Medicare status as a universal program that serves all seniors equally.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: That is effectively what we would be doing is changing what is effectively an insurance system into a welfare system. There is no really question about that.

KARL: Currently, all seniors pay $59 a month for Medicare Part B, which covers doctor's visits. The plan now under consideration would require seniors with $80,000 or more in income to pay $82 a month. At the top end of the sliding scale, those with incomes of more than $200,000 would pay $211 a month. All told, 3 percent of seniors would face higher premiums because they have $80,000 or more in annual income.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting our exercise, aren't we?

KARL: Alfred and Kathleen (ph) Bridy have been married 62 years. They say they understand Kennedy's concern, but they, too, are willing to pay more.

ALFRED BRIDY, SENIOR CITIZEN: Yes, I think people should pay a little more if -- in other words, the more you make, the more you should pay. And it seems to me that's the good old American system.

KARL: For these seniors, anyway, the price of higher premiums today is worth it, if it means Medicare will still be around tomorrow for their grandchildren.

Jonathan Karl, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And still ahead, this time, the final boarding call was for real. The world says farewell to the fastest ever commercial plane from New York to London at twice the speed of sound.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Finally tonight, the airliner of the future, nearly 30 years ago, it was. And, in many ways, it still is. But tonight, it is history, a relic of a time when fuel was cheap, air travel was glamorous, and airline executives thought people would pay extra to get there at twice the speed of sound.

CNN's Richard Quest now on the last flight of the Concorde.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the picture the world saw as Concorde left New York. And this is how I saw it on board the plane, rattling down the runway at more than 200 miles an hour.

(on camera): So a picture-perfect liftoff for the last time from Kennedy Airport. And many good wishes, not only from the airport workers, but from the other planes waiting for their turn to get into the sky.

(voice-over): The well-known on board were happy to play along with spot the celeb. But the chairman of British Airways, Lord Marshall, is hardly hip. Ah, Joan Collins, that's more like it. She's always happy to give you a smile.

JOAN COLLINS, ACTRESS: CNN, yes.

QUEST: With so many journalists on board, it was inevitable things would be cramped, as we tried to get the most out of our supersonic trip. It would be equally churlish to turn down the goodies on offer.

(on camera): A special menu has been created for today's final flight, including smoked salmon, caviar, lobster and eggs with wild mushroom and truffles.

(voice-over): If all this looked like watering the horses, it was over too soon. London called. We gave a warm welcome.

Andy Warhol called it the 15 minutes of fame. Count my time on the red carpet in seconds. Hey, Concorde, champagne, and celebs, a perfect day.

Richard Quest, CNN, with the Concorde.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Looks like a fun flight.

That's our report for tonight. Thanks very much for joining us. Aaron is back on Monday, reporting from right here in Washington, D.C. He'll see you then.

I'll see you Sunday on "LATE EDITION," Sunday noon Eastern, with Colin Powell.

Until then, good night.

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Speaks on Intelligence Regarding Iraq>