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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

New Details of Saddam Hussein's Capture

Aired December 15, 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.
Sometime after Saddam was captured and flown back to Baghdad for interrogation leaders of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council were brought in to identify him. They did more than that. They had a little chat.

Imagine for a moment what that must have been like. While his American interrogators want to know about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups these four men wanted something else. "Why did you kill so many and torture so many" they asked? "Why did you gas the Kurds," they wanted to know?

The former dictator was according to these men unremorseful, defiant, arrogant, hateful. The session ended when one asked him how he expected to face God some day. "I will face him with a calm heart" Saddam replied, said his interrogator "damn you. The Iraqi people will send you to hell." The question of the day seems to be what happens between now and hell? What kind of trial and when? It is one of the questions we look at tonight.

First stop Tikrit, though, CNN's Nic Robertson starts the whip off, Nic a headline from you tonight.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, new details from U.S. troops about Saddam Hussein's capture. When he was found he came out with his hands up, introduced himself as the president of Iraq and demanded negotiations -- Aaron.

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

Next to the White House where the president answered questions on the capture and started the discussion about what happens next. Our Senior White House Correspondent John King with the duty tonight, John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president says the Iraqis should take the lead in that trial whenever it is and he also says it must stand up to international scrutiny. As for when will it be U.S. officials believe they do not have the legal authority right now to turn Saddam Hussein over to the interim Iraqi government. They say he's likely to be in U.S. custody perhaps six months, maybe more.

BROWN: John, thank you. On to politics and the efforts of Democrats who'd like to be president to define themselves on foreign policy, CNN's Candy Crowley with that so Candy a headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, what does Saddam Hussein have to do with the presidential election of '04? Probably nothing if you're talking about next November but maybe something if you're talking about the primary season.

BROWN: Candy, thank you.

And finally to one of those stories that is probably more rare than it feels but it is chilling always. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has the details. Give us a headline first.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a chilling confession from an alleged serial killer, a nurse accused of targeting the patients in his care -- Aaron.

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

Also coming up tonight Strom Thurmond's love child, never imagined I'd say that, an African American woman born nearly 80 years ago.

Also tonight we'll meet a man who's trying to keep the memories alive of all the people Saddam had tortured or killed.

Segment 7 tonight the year in pictures, we'll look at some of the great photographs chosen by the photo editors of "Time" magazine.

And, of course, the rooster stops by with a check of your papers for Tuesday morning, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with post-Saddam Iraq, still a violent place. Two car bombs went off in Baghdad today, still a place of tremendous uncertainty and mixed emotions for many Iraqis. After seeing their former dictator surface on TV at the point of a tongue depressor he has once again vanished from view for interrogation at one of those undisclosed locations.

Officials tell us he remains defiant that interrogators are learning little from him but much from the documents found with him at the home near the hole where he was captured. Today the military gave reporters a look around.

Here again, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We promise we'll stay here long enough everybody will get their opportunity to get a shot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a wire here so watch your head and your cameras as you come through. ROBERTSON (voice-over): A coalition show and tell troops on the operation to capture Saddam Hussein explaining what happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then this rug was thrown over the top and then they moved it back, saw it and heard noises in the bottom. That's when Saddam put his hands up and they assisted him out.

ROBERTSON (on camera): This tiny hole is really small inside it. It's concrete and mud on the walls, a wooden (unintelligible) here, wood around the top of the frame. It's very difficult to get in and out of. It wouldn't have been easy.

When the soldiers discovered Saddam Hussein he came with his hands up. He said I'm Saddam Hussein. I'm the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate to which the troops, we are told, responded President Bush sends his regards. After that Saddam Hussein was whisked out of the hole, pulled up and taken away to a helicopter waiting in the field just across here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And with that point I absolutely must be clear this was a team effort.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Success, according to Colonel James Hickey whose battlefield command helped capture Hussein, down to timely intelligence and good luck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was zero illumination that night. Moon rise wouldn't happen for some hours. We were fortuitous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Special Operation Forces came down the road that you walked in on and then from there went out there on procedure to search this area.

ROBERTSON: Captain Desmond Bailey led the close-in security team.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wasn't the blaze of glory that we had expected, you know, but nonetheless.

ROBERTSON: Surprise of a different kind for his colleague Major Steve Pitt running the outer cordon of defense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's surprising. It's -- did not expect to find him where we found him.

ROBERTSON (on camera): This bridge leads down to the Tigris River. This is a pomegranate and orange orchard and this is a small compound Saddam Hussein was living in. This is the kitchen here, a sink over here, medicine, Mars bars, a flashlight, a cart, rotting bananas.

The place looks like a mess not the sort of place you would expect to see a former president living in, tins of Spam in the cupboard there and around this way walking around the corner behind the mud wall a box of oranges lying on the floor already beginning to rot, a pot of water here. The bedroom in here two beds and inside the bedroom a refrigerator, a heater. On the wall, posters, a Christian poster Noah's Ark, the bed crumpled bed clothing, fresh clean pair of boxer shorts unused still new, another bed, a box full of clothes, a few books.

On the bookcase here pictures, brand new frames but nothing in the frames, no pictures to be spoken of and down here a pair of shoes unused, some water, (unintelligible) just chaos, not the conditions you'd really expect the former Iraqi leader to be living in.

(voice-over): Surprise also for the lower ranks who didn't know that Hussein was their target.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The initial thought from the soldiers is, OK, we got his cook.

ROBERTSON: All ranks though happy many months tracking Hussein paid off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. It was on our day off. I'll take a day off like that any day.

ROBERTSON: A day off unlike any other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: The fact is, Aaron, for many of the soldiers here there really aren't many days off. They're kept pretty busy from what we can see -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just a couple quick things. Is it possible to tell, to know, to make an educated guess how long Saddam was living in that little house?

ROBERTSON: I would say at least a couple of days judging from the food there. There were some boxes of dates outside as well, the way that the sort of bed clothes and the amount of clothing in the room it looked like at least a couple of days. There was some partially eaten bits of food in the kitchen as well difficult to say if it was any longer than that though.

BROWN: Is it possible to say or make an educated guess on how long that hole or whatever we choose to call it had been there when it had been dug, reinforced, the electricity installed and the rest?

ROBERTSON: Well, the soil around it seemed fairly solid as if it was fairly well settled in. Coalition officials I've asked have said that they thought it was probably built after Saddam Hussein fell from power back in April. My assessment would be that it was fairly new.

Indeed, coalition troops we've talked to said that they'd actually been to this compound before, tried to return an AK-47 to a lady who lived there so perhaps within the last few months at least there had been other Iraqis other than Saddam Hussein living there, perhaps an indication that this was a new addition to that little -- those out buildings there -- Aaron.

BROWN: Was it weird being in there?

ROBERTSON: Weird, very weird, strange. I mean when you get in that hole and you see that's where a former president was living, a man who held a reign of terror over this country for so many years incredible. It's a tiny space.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. That's a reporter's day for you, Nic Robertson in Tikrit tonight.

On to Baghdad we go next. We're joined by Rod Nordland who's "Newsweek's" bureau chief there. We're always pleased to see him, good to see you now.

ROD NORDLAND, BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: Thanks.

BROWN: How is -- today how has Monday been different, how was Monday different from Sunday I guess?

NORDLAND: It was kind of the same really. I mean Sunday at first people were kind of reserved. They weren't sure if it was true. Then they saw the video. That started to sink in and there was some celebratory fire in the capital.

And then on Monday the same thing and we were kind of bracing ourselves for sort of a huge outpouring and lots of shooting in the air because when that happened before after Uday was killed it was almost impossible to go outside but that never quite materialized and there was some shooting. It was a little bit dangerous but it was pretty random and I think overall the mood, especially among Sunnis in the capital it was pretty subdued.

BROWN: The mood among Sunnis was what, I'm sorry?

NORDLAND: Subdued, sorry.

BROWN: Subdued. Was there a sense that they had been humiliated not just their former leader had been humiliated?

NORDLAND: Yes. I talked to people even who were glad to see him captured, who were enthusiastic about the fall of his regime all along but when they saw him getting lice picked out of his hair and a flashlight thrust in his mouth like any common prisoner I think they felt offended as Arabs and as Iraqis to see their former leader treated that way.

There were some small demonstrations on behalf of Saddam, especially in his hometown but more, it was more a thing of just the way he was handled and treated and kind of wounded pride.

BROWN: Am I right that there has been very little of the controversy about whether in fact this is Saddam compared to what broke out after his sons were killed?

NORDLAND: I think that's right, yes. People were so used to seeing Saddam on television and Saddam on every street corner and so on they had a good idea what he looked like and his mannerisms and everything else and I don't think anybody doubts that that was actually Saddam plus they know the Americans would have done a DNA test and there's not going to be any doubt about it.

BROWN: How do they see this people you've been talking to in the last 24 hours, how would they like this to play out from this point on where he's concerned?

NORDLAND: Well, what they really want, what all Iraqis want I think is to see Saddam Hussein tried by the Iraqis and they don't want to see an international tribunal in another country. They don't want to see the Americans keep him indefinitely while they interrogate him.

They would like to get onto a trial quickly and as a lot of them say frankly and then see him executed. There are even some of them saying why bother to try him. We all know what his crimes are and so on.

That may be a sticking point in the future because it's not at all clear that the Americans are going to turn him over quickly to the Iraqis. I mean they agree that there should be Iraqi justice for him.

But there's no government right now that would be able to put on a trial that would be regarded as anything other than a kangaroo trial plus the Americans want to interrogate him. They want to find out what he knows about WMD and the rest of the network of opposition against the Americans.

BROWN: But just back to the Iraqis for a second do they want this kind of detailed accounting of if not literally every killing, every torture, that kind of Nuremberg-esque litany?

NORDLAND: I think a lot of people do. I mean a lot of people are looking at this as a kind of final settling of accounts. I mean an awful lot of people lost their families, particularly in the Shiite community there's that strong feeling.

And then there's also a feeling I think, you know, among more thoughtful people in all the communities of Iraq that if they're going to live in peace with each other with Shiites and Sunnis and especially and the Kurds with the Sunnis that they have to place his blame on somebody and not on the Sunnis as a sect or as a group but on Saddam Hussein and the people around him and that can best be done through a trial.

BROWN: Rod, good to see you again. Thank you very much.

NORDLAND: My pleasure.

BROWN: Rod Nordland of "Newsweek" magazine in Baghdad tonight.

What happens next to Saddam was, as you might imagine, also the main topic of a presidential news conference today at the White House, an infrequent news conference. Without ever offering much in the way of detail the president reiterated that Iraqis will have a central role to play in what happens next. He also warned of trouble ahead and took a moment here or there to enjoy what was clearly a very big win.

Here again our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president says it is too soon to say exactly how and when Saddam Hussein will face trial but that Iraqis must take the lead.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He murdered him. He gassed them. He tortured them. He had rape rooms and they need to be very much involved in the process.

KING: His personal view of the capture.

BUSH: Good riddance.

KING: A clear hint but no direct answer when asked if he favors execution.

BUSH: I have my own personal views and this is a brutal dictator.

KING: Administration officials believe Saddam could be in U.S. custody for months until a new sovereign Iraqi government can legally take custody. The White House wants Iraqis to run the tribunal with U.S. help but is not ruling out some advisory role for the United Nations.

BUSH: Whatever justice is meted out needs to stand on international scrutiny.

KING: U.S. officials think the former Iraqi leader might have information about former generals involved in the insurgency against U.S. troops but the administration believes Saddam himself was isolated and not involved in directing the attacks.

There was no communication equipment at the site of his capture, no evidence of communicating through couriers and officials believe the $750,000 in cash Saddam had was to pay for his personal security not terrorist attacks.

The former Iraqi leader allegedly once ordered the assassination of the president's father and Mr. Bush recalled their telephone conversation as news of the capture broke.

BUSH: Just said congratulations. It's a great day for the country and I said it's a greater day for the Iraqi people.

KING: Mr. Bush warned of more attacks and more sacrifice in the days ahead but also included the capture of Saddam in testing an early reelection campaign theme. BUSH: In 2003, we have become a safer, more prosperous and better nation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The lawyers are just starting to look at this, Aaron, but it is that promise that any trial would withstand international scrutiny that is giving the administration pause. The United States appointed the Iraqi Governing Council in place right now.

Transferring Saddam Hussein to its custody would be like transferring custody from the United States to the United States in the view of White House lawyers so they think they might have Saddam Hussein in military custody for perhaps six months until the handover to the new Iraqi government takes place.

BROWN: Well, there are all sorts of little problems. If you bring the Europeans in or you bring the United Nations in then you have a death penalty issue.

KING: There is a death penalty issue. The president was crystal clear in his body language today that he believes, yes, it's up to the Iraqis but if he had a vote that he would put capital punishment on the table. Any United Nations tribunal would take capital punishment off the table so the president wants the framework to be set by the Iraqis.

Whether you then bring in the United Nations to help with say defense lawyers, to help with some sort of recommendations or just to be there to watch so that you know it is a fair process those are all the things now being worked out. Administration officials say their primary emphasis right now is on the interrogation. The lawyers will get to that in due time.

BROWN: John, thank you very much, John King at the White House tonight.

Now to a place where that outsized image of Saddam Hussein has fallen harder and farther than perhaps anywhere else, another corner of the Middle East, a different conflict, the same pictures though of a meek and haggard Saddam Hussein on their television screens.

Reporting the story CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is one of the few places in the world where the capture of Saddam Hussein is being openly mourned, a small number of Palestinians in Gaza for the second day showing their support for the fallen dictator. "With our blood and our soul we'll sacrifice our life for you Saddam" they chant. To many Palestinians he was a hero, a potential leader of the Arab world.

Saddam likened himself to Egypt's Jamal Abdul Nasser as the father of Arab nationalism. Even to Celandine (ph) who united the Muslims against the Crusaders but this is how his defiance ended with a whimper. For some Palestinians on the streets of East Jerusalem it is a painful and bitter reality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Saddam Hussein was a brave Arab leader. I don't know what happened with all those other Arab traitor leaders.

MAHDI ABDUL HADI, PALESTINIAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY: Is it a conspiracy? Is he the real Saddam? People don't want to believe it, don't want to accept the reality as it stands.

VAUSE: The Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei says the capture of Saddam is a matter solely for the Iraqi people.

(on camera): Some Palestinians say they just can't watch any more TV coverage of Saddam's humiliation and the editorials in two out of the three Palestinian newspapers here lament that the myth of the great and powerful Arab leader appears to be just that.

(voice-over): But for Israelis the news is only good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's pretty good, pretty good indeed. Next in line should be Yasser Arafat.

VAUSE: For now one less enemy and a warning they say to many others.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good for other dictators to know that one day they also can come into justice.

VAUSE: Saddam, Israelis say, is now a problem of the past.

AVI PAZNER, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: We hope that there will be a deepening realization within the Palestinian, not only authority, but within the Palestinian people that the ways of Saddam Hussein are wrong.

VAUSE: For both Israelis and Palestinians the world is now a different place but for very different reasons.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT the evidence of his wrongdoing. We'll meet a man trying to preserve the details of Saddam's death squads.

And later tonight a nurse who authorities in New Jersey believe may have killed as many as 40 of his patients.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In Iraq just as in Nazi Germany brutality and bureaucracy live side by side. For every massacre it seems there was a manila folder in triplicate in a filing cabinet somewhere every torture victim a line item. Kanan Makiya has been going through this horrible accounting. He's the founder of the Iraqi Memory Foundation and he joins us tonight from Washington, nice to have you with us. You've been working on this almost a decade. Where have you gotten the records? What have you been trying to learn?

KANAN MAKIYA, FOUNDER, IRAQ MEMORY FOUNDATION: Well, the initial records we got were captured by the Kurds during the uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War. I was the first person to enter Iraq and see those and ever since then I started a project at Harvard once the documents were transported out, which studied, analyzed, indexed, classified those documents.

The second treasure trove which we fell upon in the Iraq Memory Foundation following the war was an archive of some three million pages underneath the regional command headquarters of the Ba'ath Party in central Baghdad and underneath the tomb of Michel Aflaq the founder of the Ba'ath Party.

The kinds of material in this, in these documents are truly really quite extraordinary. For instance we have registers that list every school child with all the intimate details of his life and family particulars including the political positions of members of his family and so on.

We have files that collect rumors. It turns out that the Ba'ath Party was interested in, had special departments that collected rumors and these we have them by year. They are sourced and the type of rumor is detailed in it.

We have files of people who are forced to make confessions or sign pledges of allegiances. We have Ba'ath Party member files, something like 70,000, 80,000 of those, which contain affidavits by these party members talking about the number of people they've informed upon and this is, of course, presented as a way of getting promoted inside the party.

We have registers of the number of villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq. They list the village. They list the area, the dates of the elimination of the village, the map preferences and so on and so forth.

BROWN: Where does this all take you?

MAKIYA: Well, it seems to me that this is the fundamental evidentiary basis for any forthcoming trial of Saddam Hussein. I mean the single most important fact about what's happened in the last couple of days is that Saddam Hussein was caught alive and there is going to be a chance to try him.

Now it's very important to get a handle on what that means. A trial should be of the whole system that he crated and that is a system that has been in place for 30 years.

What we have here is some 300,000,000 pages of evidence. This is a regime that was absolutely obsessed with recording and documenting everything it did so this is the basis on which we should be trying him; therefore, this material needs to be very carefully gone through by professionals I might add, not by any Tom, Dick and Harry NGO that might come along and it is an extremely complex job.

There are certain -- very few countries in the world with experience in this kind of work. Germany comes to mind, the Stasi files for instance from East Germany were handled by the Gauck Commission. We need to establish something like the Gauck Commission in Iraq.

BROWN: I'm sorry, I've got a minute and I want to try to get two things in. One is fairly quick. Have the Americans been especially cooperative in turning over documents that they have recovered?

MAKIYA: Unfortunately not. The overwhelming bulk of the documents exist in the hands of the coalition allies. They're controlled by an organization called the ISG, the Iraq Survey Group. That group is a coalition of different intelligence agencies and not a single Iraqi or for that matter member of a CPA has been allowed inside to see what's in that material.

The U.S. government has combed that wealth of material, spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing it just looking for one thing, weapons of mass destruction.

We have been trying very hard to tell them that if had they worked with us one could have looked through five, six, seven, eight, nine different things and therefore made this material usable in all sort of different ways and unpredictable ways and not just a matter of weapons of mass destruction.

What the U.S. government now chooses to do with that collection of documents, that 300,000,000 pages, is going to be key and the way in which it transfers that to a responsible party, I stress professional and responsible party with international support and training and expertise is going to determine whether the archive has its integrity and is kept -- and is not something the people rifle through for use against other people and so on. This is dynamite material. People's lives are at stake here.

BROWN: Mr. Makiya we need to stay in touch and keep track of this to see how this plays out because this is history.

MAKIYA: Certainly.

BROWN: And we are fascinated by it. Thanks for your time tonight.

MAKIYA: Thank you for inviting me.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the political aftershocks of catching Saddam, Candy Crowley tonight looking at the effects on the Democratic presidential contest; a break first.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: You could argue the Democrats face a built-in disadvantage on foreign policy. A disadvantage that is tougher to shake against an incumbent president who has seen the country through two wars now and a terrorist attack.

Against that backdrop, the day after a big victory for the president, the Democrats who would defeat him were busy defining themselves again.

Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The capture of Saddam Hussein means double duty for Howard Dean, fending off rival Democrats who think they've found a soft spot and keeping up the case against George Bush and the war against Iraq.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The capture of Saddam has not made America safer.

CROWLEY: "That statement," responded Senator Joe Lieberman, "says to me that Howard Dean has climbed into his own spider hole of denial."

Make that a double from Max Cleland, a supporter of Senator John Kerry, who told reporters, Dean had a chance to learn about the military, but he decided to go skiing in Colorado.

Lieberman, the most hawkish of the '04 Democrats, and Kerry, a decorated war hero, both voted yes on the resolution to use force in Iraq. They have paid for it in faded fortunes during this decidedly anti-war Democratic primary season.

Howard Dean, with no foreign policy experience to speak of, has dominated the primary season with his anti-war stance. Saddam in cuffs doesn't change that.

DEAN: The difficulties and the tragedies which we have faced in Iraq show that the administration launched the war in a wrong way at the wrong time with inadequate planning, insufficient help, at the extraordinary cost so far of $166 billion.

CROWLEY: Still, Dean's rivals hope Saddam's capture and the glow it put around the White House will give Democrats pause.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think what this does is it says we need an experienced hand as the nominee of our party.

CROWLEY: In a foreign policy speech scheduled before Saddam's capture and designed to calm fears about his inexperience, Dean likened his credentials to candidate Bill Clinton. DEAN: I think that what molds my view is the personal friendships I developed with other people around the world, some of whom are now in leadership positions in countries around the world.

CROWLEY: Beyond the resume, Democrats worry that an anti-war candidate reinforces voter perceptions that Republicans are better able to handle national security and defense, another reason the anti- war candidate gave this speech.

DEAN: And as president, I will never hesitate to deploy our armed forces to defend our country and its allies and protect our allies and protect the national interests.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: As one non-Dean camp put it, "Will the country, if the war goes well, go for an anti-war candidate, and in this post-9/11 world does the country require something different from its candidates in terms of a resume" -- Aaron.

BROWN: You know, they say in so many things, timing is everything. And at best, it seems to me -- my view on this -- that this speech gets drowned out by events. Whatever he had to say gets drowned out by the picture of Saddam.

CROWLEY: Sure. And whatever he had to say that didn't have to do with Saddam goes nowhere.

I mean, this was an attempt -- and we'll see more as time goes on -- by Dean to sort of establish his foreign policy multilateralism, explain where he's going, on a variety of issues.

But you're right. I mean, as we said, this was scheduled long before the Saddam capture. And so what it comes down to is, how does he feel about Saddam? And it opened a little opportunity for those who have been trying to derail Dean for some time now, because they do think it's a soft spot.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much. Candy Crowley on the campaign. A break in a moment.

But first the "MONEYLINE" roundup, starting with a little cold water from Wal-mart. The giant retailer today predicting holiday sales will come out on the lower end of expectations, though still better than last year.

McDonald's is getting out of the pizza business, selling the Italian restaurant chain it owns, 182 restaurants in all. The company saying it wants to get back to basics, burgers, fries, that sort of thing.

Markets meantime finish down. So much for that big capturing Saddam boom. The market was up for most of the day, pretty much on the news of Iraq, but fell back at the end.

Still to come tonight: Strom Thurmond's love child with a twist. And the story of a New Jersey nurse allegedly ending patients' suffering by killing them.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It is the first commandment of medicine. First do no harm. An a central tenet of any helping profession is, after all, to help, not to hurt. Certainly not to kill, as a nurse in New Jersey now says he did, as many as 40 times.

Here is CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Investigators say Charles Cullen called the murders mercy killings, the former nurse allegedly targeting very sick patients to ease their pain and suffering.

CHARLES CULLEN, DEFENDANT: Your honor, I can only hope to be represented (UNINTELLIGIBLE) charges, pleading guilty.

FEYERICK: Cullen is charged with murder and attempted murder. One of his alleged victims, New Jersey Rev. Florian Gall. The Catholic vicar suffered cardiac arrest last June, an autopsy finding he died of a lethal level of the heart drug Digoxin.

DR. WILLIAM CORS, SOMERSET MEDICAL CENTER: Digoxin in very high doses can cause a slowing of the heart rate to a point that the heart would stop.

FEYERICK: For more than a year Cullen worked as a nurse at the Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, New Jersey.

The hospital suspected it had a problem in June after discovering what it called extremely high levels of Digoxin in two patients. Police investigators believe Cullen may have killed as many as 15 patients there and that he did it by using a hospital computer to get large doses of heart medication from an in-house supply.

WAYNE FORREST, SOMERSET COUNTY PROSECUTOR: He would access it, obtain the medication he was going to use, in that case, a medication called Digoxin. He would cancel the order after obtaining the medication to attempt to disguise his theft of the drugs. He would then administer the drugs.

FEYERICK: Prosecutors say he would access records to see how his alleged victims are doing.

Investigators are looking into as many as 40 deaths at ten different hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

FORREST: He asserted that his motive was to alleviate pain and suffering in these cases.

(END VIDEOTAPE) FEYERICK: Cullen, a divorced Navy veteran, worked as a nurse for 16 years. He was fired from Somerset Medical Center in October, the hospital says, for lying about past jobs.

He was arrested Friday. He had just finished eating dinner at a restaurant with an acquaintance -- Aaron.

BROWN: Where does this go next?

FEYERICK: Right now -- Well, the judge was stunned that he actually decided to plead guilty at a first appearance. And the judge cut him off, saying please go find a public defender. And he said he didn't want a public defender. We called their office, they said they had no such client. So we don't know whether he's going to get representation.

BROWN: Deb, thanks very much.

Now to a secret of a different sort.

The late Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina began his long and stormy political career as a diehard segregationist. He later worked to dispel that image. Times changed. He changed. The south changed.

And what would have been a scandal back then now is simply a chapter of family history, more or less, confirmed for us today.

The story from CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Considered for years to be a poorly kept secret, the family of former U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond confirms the one-time fiery segregationist fathered a child with an African-American housekeeper back in 1925.

JACK BASS, THURMOND BIOGRAPHER: They had an agreement that it would not be made public, that it would be just a family friendship.

MATTINGLY: Now 78 years old and a retired Los Angeles schoolteacher, Essie Mae Washington-Williams broke her lifetime of silence in an interview Sunday by the "Washington Post."

Williams' mother was a teenager working in the Thurmond family home, and the future senator was just 22 when she was born. She recounted how Thurmond visited her and provided financial support to her for decades. But she never said a word about being his daughter, even when confronted by reporters.

BASS: Part of it was she didn't want to jeopardize his -- she didn't want to jeopardize his political career, and she considered him a wonderful man.

MATTINGLY: Strom Thurmond died six months ago at the age of 100. According to Williams' attorney, she came forward now, seeking acknowledgement at the urging of her children.

And in a brief statement from the Thurmond family, she seems to find it. It reads, "As J. Strom Thurmond has passed away and cannot speak for himself, the Thurmond family acknowledges Ms. Essie Mae Washington-Williams' claims to her heritage. We hope this acknowledgment will bring closure for Ms. Williams."

Williams reportedly will not seek any money from the Thurmond estate. Satisfied, knowing that her chapter in the life of one of the nation's most storied politicians will now be part of history.

David Mattingly, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the year in pictures. We'll look at the best of the best, selected by the editors of "TIME" magazine.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If you watch the program regularly, you already know that we have a love affair with still photos. We are taken by all they can capture in a single frame, how the power of one shot can linger, sometimes for a lifetime. Every year produces great pictures. This year seems to have produced more than most.

These are "TIME" magazine's pictures of the year. In this week's edition which if you were with us last night know got a new cover at the last minute after Saddam Hussein was captured. But the pictures inside, the pictures stayed the same.

Mary Ann Golden is the magazine's photo editor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY ANN GOLDEN, "TIME" MAGAZINE PHOTO EDITOR: This year when we sat down to look at best photos of the year, we knew we had to start with Iraq, because it's been our major story for the country since the beginning of the year.

But the thing that we found so amazing about it was how intimate the photography was. The closeness of the photographers was so compelling.

And we had these images, you know, everything from the skittles sandstorm picture by James Hill, that was extraordinary, to the little boy with his hands up, you know, who's frightened by the soldiers.

There's this beautiful image of these mourning women, Shiah women from the south that Jim Altry (ph) photographed. And you can't see anybody. There's just a hand and this beautiful blue sky behind them, but you can feel their pain.

Stephanie Sinclair did this amazing image. And we didn't actually pick the U.N. bombing as much as her image really stood out. If you look at that, it's sort of the lone guy, the big machine. It's got echoes of things we've seen before.

And we realize there was all this really up close and personal coverage of this war, which allowed us, then, in the second half of the package to sort of pull back.

Michael Hamburg took the image that's on the top of the page. It's an image of someone brushing the dirt away from a child's face in a mass grave in Liberia.

And Liberia was a huge story. There was probably eight or ten photographers working there, but it was incredibly dangerous.

Liberia was tough. It's a rare breed of photographer, because you had to be incredibly brave to be working in Monrovia at that time.

SARS was such a huge story. Everyone was wearing these masks, but there's something about seeing all those, you know, innocent young girls even learning their steps in the ballet.

We also covered a terrible, terrible drought there was in India. And there's a very compelling image of people going for water in an area in India.

It's really interesting when you can see that the photography continues to be unique and original of events that happen over and over again, like a storm.

I love the photograph by the "Baltimore Sun" photographer of the little child with the arms outspread facing the wind of the hurricane that, of course, devastated the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The kiss page was to have fun, because this year there were all these kisses that got so much attention. You know, the one that -- the image that's my personal favorite is the one of Jacques Chirac kissing the hand of Laura Bush and her expression is just so sublime. And it's just a fabulous image, but it's truly fun.

It's a sort of an interesting, fun thing to look at how all these kisses made so much news this year.

Every year, I'm continually amazed that photography just keeps getting better and photojournalism certainly seems to be revitalized given so much news.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: This week's issue of "TIME" magazine. Their pictures of the year. Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK

BROWN: Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. A kind of leisurely stroll through what is making news tomorrow. That means we have a little more time than we thought. If you're traveling abroad tomorrow or if you're watching this program from overseas, as many of you are -- or at least a couple of you are, here's the "International Herald Tribune." This will arrive at your hotel if you're fortunate tomorrow.

The devil in the details, a piper (ph) betrays Saddam. John Burns' story, that will appear also in "The New York Times," on how they caught him. And also on the front page, "Bush to let the Iraqis decide fate of Saddam." That's the International Herald Tribune, which happens to be published by "The New York Times." Why don't we just get the "Times"?

"Jerusalem Post": "Saddam capture tainted by bombings." I just found that interesting. It's the only paper I could find out there in the last few days that had a slight downturn on the story. The "Jerusalem Post," a fairly conservative paper in Israel.

The "Hartford Currant." Forget the Saddam stuff for a second. "GOP rallies around Roland." That's the governor of the state.

The governor of the state, we mentioned this the other day -- this has been, by the way, terrific work by this newspaper on this story -- had some politically connected people who had business with the state do some free fix-up at his little cottage. Then he lied about it, and then he admitted it. And there's a call for him to resign. And he's a Republican. The GOP says, "No. Stay there."

"Minneapolis Star and Tribune." "Minneapolis Star Tribune." I put an "and" in there where it doesn't belong. I apologize.

Kind of a hometown newspaper, newspaper of the Twin Cities. "Good riddance, Bush says." And then they've got a picture of Saddam's bedroom. "Saddam denies Iraq had prohibited weapons."

Anything else there that I like? No. What's the weather tomorrow? Oh, it's a balmy 23 in Minneapolis tomorrow.

"The Oregonian," lots of good friends out there. "Saddam's fate hangs in the balance" is their major story -- actually two stories. "The president, Bush, says his personal views on the Iraqi dictator won't influence a fair trial. The intelligence of Saddam's capture already has led to the arrest of key insurgency figures."

"Inside the capture" is the way the "Philadelphia Inquirer" leads the story. But over here they put the nurse story that we just told you about on the front page, too. I would. "Nurse says he killed 30- 40." If that doesn't get you a front page, nothing does.

How are we doing on time, David. Forty seconds. Just enough that this is going to time out perfectly tonight.

The "Boston Herald," "Should he die? Weighing Saddam's fate." Have to go to page five to get it. I have no idea what's on pages two, three and four. But that's what's on page five, "Should he die?"

And let's -- Why don't we end it with the "Chicago Sun-Times" for a change? Twenty seconds? "Saddam arrest unleashes flood of intelligence." I don't know. That may be a little overstated. But it's the front page. It's a tease to get you to buy the paper. The -- maybe it has and we just don't know it.

Meant to mention this. Secretary of State Powell had prostate cancer surgery, and he's said to have come out of that pretty good, pretty well.

The weather tomorrow in Chicago is gloomy, but their spirits will be up. That's what we like about Chicagoans.

Take a break and update the night's top story, preview tomorrow in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We go for a recap of our top story. It isn't much, but it was home. The military today giving what has to be the strangest open house in recent memory. Reporters spent today popping in and out of the hole where troops found Saddam Hussein over the weekend, not far from Tikrit.

Tomorrow on this program, the Food and Drug Administration takes up the debate over the morning after pill and whether you should be able to buy it over the counter nationwide. More on that tomorrow on NEWSNIGHT.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next. Good night from all of us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 15, 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.
Sometime after Saddam was captured and flown back to Baghdad for interrogation leaders of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council were brought in to identify him. They did more than that. They had a little chat.

Imagine for a moment what that must have been like. While his American interrogators want to know about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist groups these four men wanted something else. "Why did you kill so many and torture so many" they asked? "Why did you gas the Kurds," they wanted to know?

The former dictator was according to these men unremorseful, defiant, arrogant, hateful. The session ended when one asked him how he expected to face God some day. "I will face him with a calm heart" Saddam replied, said his interrogator "damn you. The Iraqi people will send you to hell." The question of the day seems to be what happens between now and hell? What kind of trial and when? It is one of the questions we look at tonight.

First stop Tikrit, though, CNN's Nic Robertson starts the whip off, Nic a headline from you tonight.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, new details from U.S. troops about Saddam Hussein's capture. When he was found he came out with his hands up, introduced himself as the president of Iraq and demanded negotiations -- Aaron.

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

Next to the White House where the president answered questions on the capture and started the discussion about what happens next. Our Senior White House Correspondent John King with the duty tonight, John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president says the Iraqis should take the lead in that trial whenever it is and he also says it must stand up to international scrutiny. As for when will it be U.S. officials believe they do not have the legal authority right now to turn Saddam Hussein over to the interim Iraqi government. They say he's likely to be in U.S. custody perhaps six months, maybe more.

BROWN: John, thank you. On to politics and the efforts of Democrats who'd like to be president to define themselves on foreign policy, CNN's Candy Crowley with that so Candy a headline.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, what does Saddam Hussein have to do with the presidential election of '04? Probably nothing if you're talking about next November but maybe something if you're talking about the primary season.

BROWN: Candy, thank you.

And finally to one of those stories that is probably more rare than it feels but it is chilling always. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has the details. Give us a headline first.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a chilling confession from an alleged serial killer, a nurse accused of targeting the patients in his care -- Aaron.

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

Also coming up tonight Strom Thurmond's love child, never imagined I'd say that, an African American woman born nearly 80 years ago.

Also tonight we'll meet a man who's trying to keep the memories alive of all the people Saddam had tortured or killed.

Segment 7 tonight the year in pictures, we'll look at some of the great photographs chosen by the photo editors of "Time" magazine.

And, of course, the rooster stops by with a check of your papers for Tuesday morning, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with post-Saddam Iraq, still a violent place. Two car bombs went off in Baghdad today, still a place of tremendous uncertainty and mixed emotions for many Iraqis. After seeing their former dictator surface on TV at the point of a tongue depressor he has once again vanished from view for interrogation at one of those undisclosed locations.

Officials tell us he remains defiant that interrogators are learning little from him but much from the documents found with him at the home near the hole where he was captured. Today the military gave reporters a look around.

Here again, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We promise we'll stay here long enough everybody will get their opportunity to get a shot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a wire here so watch your head and your cameras as you come through. ROBERTSON (voice-over): A coalition show and tell troops on the operation to capture Saddam Hussein explaining what happened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then this rug was thrown over the top and then they moved it back, saw it and heard noises in the bottom. That's when Saddam put his hands up and they assisted him out.

ROBERTSON (on camera): This tiny hole is really small inside it. It's concrete and mud on the walls, a wooden (unintelligible) here, wood around the top of the frame. It's very difficult to get in and out of. It wouldn't have been easy.

When the soldiers discovered Saddam Hussein he came with his hands up. He said I'm Saddam Hussein. I'm the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate to which the troops, we are told, responded President Bush sends his regards. After that Saddam Hussein was whisked out of the hole, pulled up and taken away to a helicopter waiting in the field just across here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And with that point I absolutely must be clear this was a team effort.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Success, according to Colonel James Hickey whose battlefield command helped capture Hussein, down to timely intelligence and good luck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was zero illumination that night. Moon rise wouldn't happen for some hours. We were fortuitous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Special Operation Forces came down the road that you walked in on and then from there went out there on procedure to search this area.

ROBERTSON: Captain Desmond Bailey led the close-in security team.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It wasn't the blaze of glory that we had expected, you know, but nonetheless.

ROBERTSON: Surprise of a different kind for his colleague Major Steve Pitt running the outer cordon of defense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's surprising. It's -- did not expect to find him where we found him.

ROBERTSON (on camera): This bridge leads down to the Tigris River. This is a pomegranate and orange orchard and this is a small compound Saddam Hussein was living in. This is the kitchen here, a sink over here, medicine, Mars bars, a flashlight, a cart, rotting bananas.

The place looks like a mess not the sort of place you would expect to see a former president living in, tins of Spam in the cupboard there and around this way walking around the corner behind the mud wall a box of oranges lying on the floor already beginning to rot, a pot of water here. The bedroom in here two beds and inside the bedroom a refrigerator, a heater. On the wall, posters, a Christian poster Noah's Ark, the bed crumpled bed clothing, fresh clean pair of boxer shorts unused still new, another bed, a box full of clothes, a few books.

On the bookcase here pictures, brand new frames but nothing in the frames, no pictures to be spoken of and down here a pair of shoes unused, some water, (unintelligible) just chaos, not the conditions you'd really expect the former Iraqi leader to be living in.

(voice-over): Surprise also for the lower ranks who didn't know that Hussein was their target.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The initial thought from the soldiers is, OK, we got his cook.

ROBERTSON: All ranks though happy many months tracking Hussein paid off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes. It was on our day off. I'll take a day off like that any day.

ROBERTSON: A day off unlike any other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: The fact is, Aaron, for many of the soldiers here there really aren't many days off. They're kept pretty busy from what we can see -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just a couple quick things. Is it possible to tell, to know, to make an educated guess how long Saddam was living in that little house?

ROBERTSON: I would say at least a couple of days judging from the food there. There were some boxes of dates outside as well, the way that the sort of bed clothes and the amount of clothing in the room it looked like at least a couple of days. There was some partially eaten bits of food in the kitchen as well difficult to say if it was any longer than that though.

BROWN: Is it possible to say or make an educated guess on how long that hole or whatever we choose to call it had been there when it had been dug, reinforced, the electricity installed and the rest?

ROBERTSON: Well, the soil around it seemed fairly solid as if it was fairly well settled in. Coalition officials I've asked have said that they thought it was probably built after Saddam Hussein fell from power back in April. My assessment would be that it was fairly new.

Indeed, coalition troops we've talked to said that they'd actually been to this compound before, tried to return an AK-47 to a lady who lived there so perhaps within the last few months at least there had been other Iraqis other than Saddam Hussein living there, perhaps an indication that this was a new addition to that little -- those out buildings there -- Aaron.

BROWN: Was it weird being in there?

ROBERTSON: Weird, very weird, strange. I mean when you get in that hole and you see that's where a former president was living, a man who held a reign of terror over this country for so many years incredible. It's a tiny space.

BROWN: Nic, thank you. That's a reporter's day for you, Nic Robertson in Tikrit tonight.

On to Baghdad we go next. We're joined by Rod Nordland who's "Newsweek's" bureau chief there. We're always pleased to see him, good to see you now.

ROD NORDLAND, BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF, "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: Thanks.

BROWN: How is -- today how has Monday been different, how was Monday different from Sunday I guess?

NORDLAND: It was kind of the same really. I mean Sunday at first people were kind of reserved. They weren't sure if it was true. Then they saw the video. That started to sink in and there was some celebratory fire in the capital.

And then on Monday the same thing and we were kind of bracing ourselves for sort of a huge outpouring and lots of shooting in the air because when that happened before after Uday was killed it was almost impossible to go outside but that never quite materialized and there was some shooting. It was a little bit dangerous but it was pretty random and I think overall the mood, especially among Sunnis in the capital it was pretty subdued.

BROWN: The mood among Sunnis was what, I'm sorry?

NORDLAND: Subdued, sorry.

BROWN: Subdued. Was there a sense that they had been humiliated not just their former leader had been humiliated?

NORDLAND: Yes. I talked to people even who were glad to see him captured, who were enthusiastic about the fall of his regime all along but when they saw him getting lice picked out of his hair and a flashlight thrust in his mouth like any common prisoner I think they felt offended as Arabs and as Iraqis to see their former leader treated that way.

There were some small demonstrations on behalf of Saddam, especially in his hometown but more, it was more a thing of just the way he was handled and treated and kind of wounded pride.

BROWN: Am I right that there has been very little of the controversy about whether in fact this is Saddam compared to what broke out after his sons were killed?

NORDLAND: I think that's right, yes. People were so used to seeing Saddam on television and Saddam on every street corner and so on they had a good idea what he looked like and his mannerisms and everything else and I don't think anybody doubts that that was actually Saddam plus they know the Americans would have done a DNA test and there's not going to be any doubt about it.

BROWN: How do they see this people you've been talking to in the last 24 hours, how would they like this to play out from this point on where he's concerned?

NORDLAND: Well, what they really want, what all Iraqis want I think is to see Saddam Hussein tried by the Iraqis and they don't want to see an international tribunal in another country. They don't want to see the Americans keep him indefinitely while they interrogate him.

They would like to get onto a trial quickly and as a lot of them say frankly and then see him executed. There are even some of them saying why bother to try him. We all know what his crimes are and so on.

That may be a sticking point in the future because it's not at all clear that the Americans are going to turn him over quickly to the Iraqis. I mean they agree that there should be Iraqi justice for him.

But there's no government right now that would be able to put on a trial that would be regarded as anything other than a kangaroo trial plus the Americans want to interrogate him. They want to find out what he knows about WMD and the rest of the network of opposition against the Americans.

BROWN: But just back to the Iraqis for a second do they want this kind of detailed accounting of if not literally every killing, every torture, that kind of Nuremberg-esque litany?

NORDLAND: I think a lot of people do. I mean a lot of people are looking at this as a kind of final settling of accounts. I mean an awful lot of people lost their families, particularly in the Shiite community there's that strong feeling.

And then there's also a feeling I think, you know, among more thoughtful people in all the communities of Iraq that if they're going to live in peace with each other with Shiites and Sunnis and especially and the Kurds with the Sunnis that they have to place his blame on somebody and not on the Sunnis as a sect or as a group but on Saddam Hussein and the people around him and that can best be done through a trial.

BROWN: Rod, good to see you again. Thank you very much.

NORDLAND: My pleasure.

BROWN: Rod Nordland of "Newsweek" magazine in Baghdad tonight.

What happens next to Saddam was, as you might imagine, also the main topic of a presidential news conference today at the White House, an infrequent news conference. Without ever offering much in the way of detail the president reiterated that Iraqis will have a central role to play in what happens next. He also warned of trouble ahead and took a moment here or there to enjoy what was clearly a very big win.

Here again our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president says it is too soon to say exactly how and when Saddam Hussein will face trial but that Iraqis must take the lead.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He murdered him. He gassed them. He tortured them. He had rape rooms and they need to be very much involved in the process.

KING: His personal view of the capture.

BUSH: Good riddance.

KING: A clear hint but no direct answer when asked if he favors execution.

BUSH: I have my own personal views and this is a brutal dictator.

KING: Administration officials believe Saddam could be in U.S. custody for months until a new sovereign Iraqi government can legally take custody. The White House wants Iraqis to run the tribunal with U.S. help but is not ruling out some advisory role for the United Nations.

BUSH: Whatever justice is meted out needs to stand on international scrutiny.

KING: U.S. officials think the former Iraqi leader might have information about former generals involved in the insurgency against U.S. troops but the administration believes Saddam himself was isolated and not involved in directing the attacks.

There was no communication equipment at the site of his capture, no evidence of communicating through couriers and officials believe the $750,000 in cash Saddam had was to pay for his personal security not terrorist attacks.

The former Iraqi leader allegedly once ordered the assassination of the president's father and Mr. Bush recalled their telephone conversation as news of the capture broke.

BUSH: Just said congratulations. It's a great day for the country and I said it's a greater day for the Iraqi people.

KING: Mr. Bush warned of more attacks and more sacrifice in the days ahead but also included the capture of Saddam in testing an early reelection campaign theme. BUSH: In 2003, we have become a safer, more prosperous and better nation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The lawyers are just starting to look at this, Aaron, but it is that promise that any trial would withstand international scrutiny that is giving the administration pause. The United States appointed the Iraqi Governing Council in place right now.

Transferring Saddam Hussein to its custody would be like transferring custody from the United States to the United States in the view of White House lawyers so they think they might have Saddam Hussein in military custody for perhaps six months until the handover to the new Iraqi government takes place.

BROWN: Well, there are all sorts of little problems. If you bring the Europeans in or you bring the United Nations in then you have a death penalty issue.

KING: There is a death penalty issue. The president was crystal clear in his body language today that he believes, yes, it's up to the Iraqis but if he had a vote that he would put capital punishment on the table. Any United Nations tribunal would take capital punishment off the table so the president wants the framework to be set by the Iraqis.

Whether you then bring in the United Nations to help with say defense lawyers, to help with some sort of recommendations or just to be there to watch so that you know it is a fair process those are all the things now being worked out. Administration officials say their primary emphasis right now is on the interrogation. The lawyers will get to that in due time.

BROWN: John, thank you very much, John King at the White House tonight.

Now to a place where that outsized image of Saddam Hussein has fallen harder and farther than perhaps anywhere else, another corner of the Middle East, a different conflict, the same pictures though of a meek and haggard Saddam Hussein on their television screens.

Reporting the story CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is one of the few places in the world where the capture of Saddam Hussein is being openly mourned, a small number of Palestinians in Gaza for the second day showing their support for the fallen dictator. "With our blood and our soul we'll sacrifice our life for you Saddam" they chant. To many Palestinians he was a hero, a potential leader of the Arab world.

Saddam likened himself to Egypt's Jamal Abdul Nasser as the father of Arab nationalism. Even to Celandine (ph) who united the Muslims against the Crusaders but this is how his defiance ended with a whimper. For some Palestinians on the streets of East Jerusalem it is a painful and bitter reality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Saddam Hussein was a brave Arab leader. I don't know what happened with all those other Arab traitor leaders.

MAHDI ABDUL HADI, PALESTINIAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY: Is it a conspiracy? Is he the real Saddam? People don't want to believe it, don't want to accept the reality as it stands.

VAUSE: The Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei says the capture of Saddam is a matter solely for the Iraqi people.

(on camera): Some Palestinians say they just can't watch any more TV coverage of Saddam's humiliation and the editorials in two out of the three Palestinian newspapers here lament that the myth of the great and powerful Arab leader appears to be just that.

(voice-over): But for Israelis the news is only good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's pretty good, pretty good indeed. Next in line should be Yasser Arafat.

VAUSE: For now one less enemy and a warning they say to many others.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good for other dictators to know that one day they also can come into justice.

VAUSE: Saddam, Israelis say, is now a problem of the past.

AVI PAZNER, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: We hope that there will be a deepening realization within the Palestinian, not only authority, but within the Palestinian people that the ways of Saddam Hussein are wrong.

VAUSE: For both Israelis and Palestinians the world is now a different place but for very different reasons.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT the evidence of his wrongdoing. We'll meet a man trying to preserve the details of Saddam's death squads.

And later tonight a nurse who authorities in New Jersey believe may have killed as many as 40 of his patients.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In Iraq just as in Nazi Germany brutality and bureaucracy live side by side. For every massacre it seems there was a manila folder in triplicate in a filing cabinet somewhere every torture victim a line item. Kanan Makiya has been going through this horrible accounting. He's the founder of the Iraqi Memory Foundation and he joins us tonight from Washington, nice to have you with us. You've been working on this almost a decade. Where have you gotten the records? What have you been trying to learn?

KANAN MAKIYA, FOUNDER, IRAQ MEMORY FOUNDATION: Well, the initial records we got were captured by the Kurds during the uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War. I was the first person to enter Iraq and see those and ever since then I started a project at Harvard once the documents were transported out, which studied, analyzed, indexed, classified those documents.

The second treasure trove which we fell upon in the Iraq Memory Foundation following the war was an archive of some three million pages underneath the regional command headquarters of the Ba'ath Party in central Baghdad and underneath the tomb of Michel Aflaq the founder of the Ba'ath Party.

The kinds of material in this, in these documents are truly really quite extraordinary. For instance we have registers that list every school child with all the intimate details of his life and family particulars including the political positions of members of his family and so on.

We have files that collect rumors. It turns out that the Ba'ath Party was interested in, had special departments that collected rumors and these we have them by year. They are sourced and the type of rumor is detailed in it.

We have files of people who are forced to make confessions or sign pledges of allegiances. We have Ba'ath Party member files, something like 70,000, 80,000 of those, which contain affidavits by these party members talking about the number of people they've informed upon and this is, of course, presented as a way of getting promoted inside the party.

We have registers of the number of villages destroyed by Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq. They list the village. They list the area, the dates of the elimination of the village, the map preferences and so on and so forth.

BROWN: Where does this all take you?

MAKIYA: Well, it seems to me that this is the fundamental evidentiary basis for any forthcoming trial of Saddam Hussein. I mean the single most important fact about what's happened in the last couple of days is that Saddam Hussein was caught alive and there is going to be a chance to try him.

Now it's very important to get a handle on what that means. A trial should be of the whole system that he crated and that is a system that has been in place for 30 years.

What we have here is some 300,000,000 pages of evidence. This is a regime that was absolutely obsessed with recording and documenting everything it did so this is the basis on which we should be trying him; therefore, this material needs to be very carefully gone through by professionals I might add, not by any Tom, Dick and Harry NGO that might come along and it is an extremely complex job.

There are certain -- very few countries in the world with experience in this kind of work. Germany comes to mind, the Stasi files for instance from East Germany were handled by the Gauck Commission. We need to establish something like the Gauck Commission in Iraq.

BROWN: I'm sorry, I've got a minute and I want to try to get two things in. One is fairly quick. Have the Americans been especially cooperative in turning over documents that they have recovered?

MAKIYA: Unfortunately not. The overwhelming bulk of the documents exist in the hands of the coalition allies. They're controlled by an organization called the ISG, the Iraq Survey Group. That group is a coalition of different intelligence agencies and not a single Iraqi or for that matter member of a CPA has been allowed inside to see what's in that material.

The U.S. government has combed that wealth of material, spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing it just looking for one thing, weapons of mass destruction.

We have been trying very hard to tell them that if had they worked with us one could have looked through five, six, seven, eight, nine different things and therefore made this material usable in all sort of different ways and unpredictable ways and not just a matter of weapons of mass destruction.

What the U.S. government now chooses to do with that collection of documents, that 300,000,000 pages, is going to be key and the way in which it transfers that to a responsible party, I stress professional and responsible party with international support and training and expertise is going to determine whether the archive has its integrity and is kept -- and is not something the people rifle through for use against other people and so on. This is dynamite material. People's lives are at stake here.

BROWN: Mr. Makiya we need to stay in touch and keep track of this to see how this plays out because this is history.

MAKIYA: Certainly.

BROWN: And we are fascinated by it. Thanks for your time tonight.

MAKIYA: Thank you for inviting me.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the political aftershocks of catching Saddam, Candy Crowley tonight looking at the effects on the Democratic presidential contest; a break first.

On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: You could argue the Democrats face a built-in disadvantage on foreign policy. A disadvantage that is tougher to shake against an incumbent president who has seen the country through two wars now and a terrorist attack.

Against that backdrop, the day after a big victory for the president, the Democrats who would defeat him were busy defining themselves again.

Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The capture of Saddam Hussein means double duty for Howard Dean, fending off rival Democrats who think they've found a soft spot and keeping up the case against George Bush and the war against Iraq.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The capture of Saddam has not made America safer.

CROWLEY: "That statement," responded Senator Joe Lieberman, "says to me that Howard Dean has climbed into his own spider hole of denial."

Make that a double from Max Cleland, a supporter of Senator John Kerry, who told reporters, Dean had a chance to learn about the military, but he decided to go skiing in Colorado.

Lieberman, the most hawkish of the '04 Democrats, and Kerry, a decorated war hero, both voted yes on the resolution to use force in Iraq. They have paid for it in faded fortunes during this decidedly anti-war Democratic primary season.

Howard Dean, with no foreign policy experience to speak of, has dominated the primary season with his anti-war stance. Saddam in cuffs doesn't change that.

DEAN: The difficulties and the tragedies which we have faced in Iraq show that the administration launched the war in a wrong way at the wrong time with inadequate planning, insufficient help, at the extraordinary cost so far of $166 billion.

CROWLEY: Still, Dean's rivals hope Saddam's capture and the glow it put around the White House will give Democrats pause.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think what this does is it says we need an experienced hand as the nominee of our party.

CROWLEY: In a foreign policy speech scheduled before Saddam's capture and designed to calm fears about his inexperience, Dean likened his credentials to candidate Bill Clinton. DEAN: I think that what molds my view is the personal friendships I developed with other people around the world, some of whom are now in leadership positions in countries around the world.

CROWLEY: Beyond the resume, Democrats worry that an anti-war candidate reinforces voter perceptions that Republicans are better able to handle national security and defense, another reason the anti- war candidate gave this speech.

DEAN: And as president, I will never hesitate to deploy our armed forces to defend our country and its allies and protect our allies and protect the national interests.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: As one non-Dean camp put it, "Will the country, if the war goes well, go for an anti-war candidate, and in this post-9/11 world does the country require something different from its candidates in terms of a resume" -- Aaron.

BROWN: You know, they say in so many things, timing is everything. And at best, it seems to me -- my view on this -- that this speech gets drowned out by events. Whatever he had to say gets drowned out by the picture of Saddam.

CROWLEY: Sure. And whatever he had to say that didn't have to do with Saddam goes nowhere.

I mean, this was an attempt -- and we'll see more as time goes on -- by Dean to sort of establish his foreign policy multilateralism, explain where he's going, on a variety of issues.

But you're right. I mean, as we said, this was scheduled long before the Saddam capture. And so what it comes down to is, how does he feel about Saddam? And it opened a little opportunity for those who have been trying to derail Dean for some time now, because they do think it's a soft spot.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much. Candy Crowley on the campaign. A break in a moment.

But first the "MONEYLINE" roundup, starting with a little cold water from Wal-mart. The giant retailer today predicting holiday sales will come out on the lower end of expectations, though still better than last year.

McDonald's is getting out of the pizza business, selling the Italian restaurant chain it owns, 182 restaurants in all. The company saying it wants to get back to basics, burgers, fries, that sort of thing.

Markets meantime finish down. So much for that big capturing Saddam boom. The market was up for most of the day, pretty much on the news of Iraq, but fell back at the end.

Still to come tonight: Strom Thurmond's love child with a twist. And the story of a New Jersey nurse allegedly ending patients' suffering by killing them.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It is the first commandment of medicine. First do no harm. An a central tenet of any helping profession is, after all, to help, not to hurt. Certainly not to kill, as a nurse in New Jersey now says he did, as many as 40 times.

Here is CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Investigators say Charles Cullen called the murders mercy killings, the former nurse allegedly targeting very sick patients to ease their pain and suffering.

CHARLES CULLEN, DEFENDANT: Your honor, I can only hope to be represented (UNINTELLIGIBLE) charges, pleading guilty.

FEYERICK: Cullen is charged with murder and attempted murder. One of his alleged victims, New Jersey Rev. Florian Gall. The Catholic vicar suffered cardiac arrest last June, an autopsy finding he died of a lethal level of the heart drug Digoxin.

DR. WILLIAM CORS, SOMERSET MEDICAL CENTER: Digoxin in very high doses can cause a slowing of the heart rate to a point that the heart would stop.

FEYERICK: For more than a year Cullen worked as a nurse at the Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, New Jersey.

The hospital suspected it had a problem in June after discovering what it called extremely high levels of Digoxin in two patients. Police investigators believe Cullen may have killed as many as 15 patients there and that he did it by using a hospital computer to get large doses of heart medication from an in-house supply.

WAYNE FORREST, SOMERSET COUNTY PROSECUTOR: He would access it, obtain the medication he was going to use, in that case, a medication called Digoxin. He would cancel the order after obtaining the medication to attempt to disguise his theft of the drugs. He would then administer the drugs.

FEYERICK: Prosecutors say he would access records to see how his alleged victims are doing.

Investigators are looking into as many as 40 deaths at ten different hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

FORREST: He asserted that his motive was to alleviate pain and suffering in these cases.

(END VIDEOTAPE) FEYERICK: Cullen, a divorced Navy veteran, worked as a nurse for 16 years. He was fired from Somerset Medical Center in October, the hospital says, for lying about past jobs.

He was arrested Friday. He had just finished eating dinner at a restaurant with an acquaintance -- Aaron.

BROWN: Where does this go next?

FEYERICK: Right now -- Well, the judge was stunned that he actually decided to plead guilty at a first appearance. And the judge cut him off, saying please go find a public defender. And he said he didn't want a public defender. We called their office, they said they had no such client. So we don't know whether he's going to get representation.

BROWN: Deb, thanks very much.

Now to a secret of a different sort.

The late Senator Strom Thurmond from South Carolina began his long and stormy political career as a diehard segregationist. He later worked to dispel that image. Times changed. He changed. The south changed.

And what would have been a scandal back then now is simply a chapter of family history, more or less, confirmed for us today.

The story from CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Considered for years to be a poorly kept secret, the family of former U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond confirms the one-time fiery segregationist fathered a child with an African-American housekeeper back in 1925.

JACK BASS, THURMOND BIOGRAPHER: They had an agreement that it would not be made public, that it would be just a family friendship.

MATTINGLY: Now 78 years old and a retired Los Angeles schoolteacher, Essie Mae Washington-Williams broke her lifetime of silence in an interview Sunday by the "Washington Post."

Williams' mother was a teenager working in the Thurmond family home, and the future senator was just 22 when she was born. She recounted how Thurmond visited her and provided financial support to her for decades. But she never said a word about being his daughter, even when confronted by reporters.

BASS: Part of it was she didn't want to jeopardize his -- she didn't want to jeopardize his political career, and she considered him a wonderful man.

MATTINGLY: Strom Thurmond died six months ago at the age of 100. According to Williams' attorney, she came forward now, seeking acknowledgement at the urging of her children.

And in a brief statement from the Thurmond family, she seems to find it. It reads, "As J. Strom Thurmond has passed away and cannot speak for himself, the Thurmond family acknowledges Ms. Essie Mae Washington-Williams' claims to her heritage. We hope this acknowledgment will bring closure for Ms. Williams."

Williams reportedly will not seek any money from the Thurmond estate. Satisfied, knowing that her chapter in the life of one of the nation's most storied politicians will now be part of history.

David Mattingly, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the year in pictures. We'll look at the best of the best, selected by the editors of "TIME" magazine.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If you watch the program regularly, you already know that we have a love affair with still photos. We are taken by all they can capture in a single frame, how the power of one shot can linger, sometimes for a lifetime. Every year produces great pictures. This year seems to have produced more than most.

These are "TIME" magazine's pictures of the year. In this week's edition which if you were with us last night know got a new cover at the last minute after Saddam Hussein was captured. But the pictures inside, the pictures stayed the same.

Mary Ann Golden is the magazine's photo editor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY ANN GOLDEN, "TIME" MAGAZINE PHOTO EDITOR: This year when we sat down to look at best photos of the year, we knew we had to start with Iraq, because it's been our major story for the country since the beginning of the year.

But the thing that we found so amazing about it was how intimate the photography was. The closeness of the photographers was so compelling.

And we had these images, you know, everything from the skittles sandstorm picture by James Hill, that was extraordinary, to the little boy with his hands up, you know, who's frightened by the soldiers.

There's this beautiful image of these mourning women, Shiah women from the south that Jim Altry (ph) photographed. And you can't see anybody. There's just a hand and this beautiful blue sky behind them, but you can feel their pain.

Stephanie Sinclair did this amazing image. And we didn't actually pick the U.N. bombing as much as her image really stood out. If you look at that, it's sort of the lone guy, the big machine. It's got echoes of things we've seen before.

And we realize there was all this really up close and personal coverage of this war, which allowed us, then, in the second half of the package to sort of pull back.

Michael Hamburg took the image that's on the top of the page. It's an image of someone brushing the dirt away from a child's face in a mass grave in Liberia.

And Liberia was a huge story. There was probably eight or ten photographers working there, but it was incredibly dangerous.

Liberia was tough. It's a rare breed of photographer, because you had to be incredibly brave to be working in Monrovia at that time.

SARS was such a huge story. Everyone was wearing these masks, but there's something about seeing all those, you know, innocent young girls even learning their steps in the ballet.

We also covered a terrible, terrible drought there was in India. And there's a very compelling image of people going for water in an area in India.

It's really interesting when you can see that the photography continues to be unique and original of events that happen over and over again, like a storm.

I love the photograph by the "Baltimore Sun" photographer of the little child with the arms outspread facing the wind of the hurricane that, of course, devastated the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The kiss page was to have fun, because this year there were all these kisses that got so much attention. You know, the one that -- the image that's my personal favorite is the one of Jacques Chirac kissing the hand of Laura Bush and her expression is just so sublime. And it's just a fabulous image, but it's truly fun.

It's a sort of an interesting, fun thing to look at how all these kisses made so much news this year.

Every year, I'm continually amazed that photography just keeps getting better and photojournalism certainly seems to be revitalized given so much news.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: This week's issue of "TIME" magazine. Their pictures of the year. Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK

BROWN: Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. A kind of leisurely stroll through what is making news tomorrow. That means we have a little more time than we thought. If you're traveling abroad tomorrow or if you're watching this program from overseas, as many of you are -- or at least a couple of you are, here's the "International Herald Tribune." This will arrive at your hotel if you're fortunate tomorrow.

The devil in the details, a piper (ph) betrays Saddam. John Burns' story, that will appear also in "The New York Times," on how they caught him. And also on the front page, "Bush to let the Iraqis decide fate of Saddam." That's the International Herald Tribune, which happens to be published by "The New York Times." Why don't we just get the "Times"?

"Jerusalem Post": "Saddam capture tainted by bombings." I just found that interesting. It's the only paper I could find out there in the last few days that had a slight downturn on the story. The "Jerusalem Post," a fairly conservative paper in Israel.

The "Hartford Currant." Forget the Saddam stuff for a second. "GOP rallies around Roland." That's the governor of the state.

The governor of the state, we mentioned this the other day -- this has been, by the way, terrific work by this newspaper on this story -- had some politically connected people who had business with the state do some free fix-up at his little cottage. Then he lied about it, and then he admitted it. And there's a call for him to resign. And he's a Republican. The GOP says, "No. Stay there."

"Minneapolis Star and Tribune." "Minneapolis Star Tribune." I put an "and" in there where it doesn't belong. I apologize.

Kind of a hometown newspaper, newspaper of the Twin Cities. "Good riddance, Bush says." And then they've got a picture of Saddam's bedroom. "Saddam denies Iraq had prohibited weapons."

Anything else there that I like? No. What's the weather tomorrow? Oh, it's a balmy 23 in Minneapolis tomorrow.

"The Oregonian," lots of good friends out there. "Saddam's fate hangs in the balance" is their major story -- actually two stories. "The president, Bush, says his personal views on the Iraqi dictator won't influence a fair trial. The intelligence of Saddam's capture already has led to the arrest of key insurgency figures."

"Inside the capture" is the way the "Philadelphia Inquirer" leads the story. But over here they put the nurse story that we just told you about on the front page, too. I would. "Nurse says he killed 30- 40." If that doesn't get you a front page, nothing does.

How are we doing on time, David. Forty seconds. Just enough that this is going to time out perfectly tonight.

The "Boston Herald," "Should he die? Weighing Saddam's fate." Have to go to page five to get it. I have no idea what's on pages two, three and four. But that's what's on page five, "Should he die?"

And let's -- Why don't we end it with the "Chicago Sun-Times" for a change? Twenty seconds? "Saddam arrest unleashes flood of intelligence." I don't know. That may be a little overstated. But it's the front page. It's a tease to get you to buy the paper. The -- maybe it has and we just don't know it.

Meant to mention this. Secretary of State Powell had prostate cancer surgery, and he's said to have come out of that pretty good, pretty well.

The weather tomorrow in Chicago is gloomy, but their spirits will be up. That's what we like about Chicagoans.

Take a break and update the night's top story, preview tomorrow in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We go for a recap of our top story. It isn't much, but it was home. The military today giving what has to be the strangest open house in recent memory. Reporters spent today popping in and out of the hole where troops found Saddam Hussein over the weekend, not far from Tikrit.

Tomorrow on this program, the Food and Drug Administration takes up the debate over the morning after pill and whether you should be able to buy it over the counter nationwide. More on that tomorrow on NEWSNIGHT.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next. Good night from all of us.

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