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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

International Flights Canceled for Security Reasons; Democrats Continue New Hampshire Campaign

Aired January 02, 2004 - 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.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Anderson Cooper in for Aaron Brown tonight.
The New Year arrived without a terrorist attack in this country but that has not ended all the anxiety or the high security for that matter. At least nine international flights have been either canceled or delayed for security reasons since New Year's Eve day, primarily flights involving British Airways, all of this raising the obvious question what has British Airways and the others so worried?

So, we begin tonight in Washington where Kelli Arena is keeping tabs on all the flight cancellations, Kelli a headline please.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: British Airways Flight 223 was canceled for the second time today, Anderson. Intelligence officials insist that such moves only come when there is "specific intelligence" of a possible attack.

COOPER: More on that in a moment.

Next, to Dan Lothian who's been following Democratic candidates around New Hampshire, Dan a headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, it's less than a month to go before the New Hampshire primaries. Many of the candidates were in the Granite State today. We saw a combination of candidates going door to door, one candidate playing hockey and, of course, plenty of town hall meetings as they try to win over the voters, especially the undecideds -- Anderson.

COOPER: The pressure is growing. All right, back to you shortly.

Finally, to Miles O'Brien in Pasadena, California where scientists are counting down to a Mars landing. A headline please, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the countdown is about all they can count on right now. They do know this. Twenty- five and a half hours from now the Spirit rover will have an encounter with Mars. The question is will it be a happy landing or a train wreck?

COOPER: Well, fasten your seatbelts. It is going to be a bumpy ride. We're back to you, back to all of you in a moment. First a look at some other stories we have for you tonight. In Iraq a disturbing new development in an ambush on American troops, this time the attackers posed as press.

Plus what mad cow disease looks like in humans and how the only living person in America with the disease is coping with the illness. You'll hear her story.

And we've shown you countless pictures of what Bam, Iran looks like now after the earthquake that killed 30,000 people but what did it look like before? Tonight, we'll show you what the ancient city used to be and how much was lost, all that ahead in the next hour.

We begin with flight cancellations and fears in the air. When the national terror threat level was raised to orange before Christmas, security officials said they were concerned that al Qaeda may try to use planes on international flights in possible attacks against the U.S.

Tonight, of course, the holiday is over but the concern remains. CNN's Kelli Arena is working the story for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Officials tell CNN intelligence from an informant and other sources regarding British Airways Flight 223 is what led to its cancellation for the second straight day. Sources say the information had nothing to do with the passenger list but, instead, focused on the flight number.

ASA HUTCHINSON, HOMELAND SECURITY UNDERSECRETARY: I think the public understands that there's always a general threat but you don't take action to inconvenience passengers to cancel a flight unless there is specific and credible information that relates to that flight.

ARENA: There remains some question as to the credibility of the information. Still, officials say they simply cannot take any chances. Two Aeromexico flights headed to Los Angeles were also canceled this week and at least one other was escorted by military fighter jets. The military also accompanied at least one Air France flight into the United States. There were other flights that were not canceled but which underwent intense scrutiny.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we waited about two hours, two and a half hours on the plane while U.S. authorities checked out the passenger list and verified documents.

ARENA: Officials admit the moves are extraordinary considering the repercussions but they're not ruling out more cancellations.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: It's very important to be more cautious rather than less cautious and, though I know it is inconvenient for many passengers, nevertheless I would rather err on the side of caution to make sure that we don't have an accident that we could have prevented. ARENA: Sources tell CNN the one major problem with the intelligence is that it is not time specific. There was information regarding a possible threat on New Year's Eve but that date passed without incident.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Still information continues to suggest that al Qaeda may be in the operational stages of an attack -- Anderson.

COOPER: So, Kelli, with these flight cancellations how does it work? I mean the passengers for the most part are onboard the aircraft. They're interviewed. Has anyone been arrested? Is it all just a case of mistaken identity, the wrong name showing up on the list?

ARENA: Well, in some cases where there are hits on the terror watch list sometimes the names have been very similar. Sometimes the person has the same name but obviously if it's a 6-year-old boy, for example, not likely that that's a terrorist.

But in the case of 223, Anderson, it had nothing to do with that passenger list. It was information, intelligence that had come in regarding that flight number on that airline.

And in other situations it had to do with the U.S. feeling that proper screening wasn't done, for example. So, many different reasons at play here, not all just, you know, related to the flight manifest.

COOPER: All right, Kelli Arena thanks very much for that tonight.

ARENA: You're welcome.

COOPER: U.S. counter terrorism officials have said al Qaeda wants to launch an attack more spectacular than those on September 11. The question is, of course, when, how, and where exactly?

We'll add another question. Should we feel any safer having made it through this holiday season? Joining us now from Washington is Jeff Beatty, a security consultant and president of Totalsecurity.us. We're glad to have him back here on NEWSNIGHT. Jeff, thanks very much for being with us.

JEFF BEATTY, PRESIDENT, TOTALSECURITY.US: You're welcome.

COOPER: Should we feel more secure now that we've made it through this holiday season?

BEATTY: Well, yes we should but you have to remember that the holidays, a New Year's Eve type event is a very, very difficult target for a terrorist to go after because the security that he has to plan to go up against is really only in place for a few hours.

When you go up against a fixed site to check its security you often go up in advance and rattle the fence to check people's reaction to see what the security folks are going to be doing and we know that al Qaeda spends months, if not years, in planning their operations.

So, on New Year's, for example, they only got a couple of hours to see what kind of security preparations were in place on the ground in New York, on the ground in Las Vegas and elsewhere and that's why when you have an event such as that threats that can bypass the 40,000 police officers, the metal detectors on the ground, et cetera, threats that could bypass those, such as aircraft, become popular choices because it makes it much easier for the terrorist to use that weapon.

COOPER: I want to talk about the aircraft for a moment but I just want to go back to this idea of rattling the fence. So, in a sense what you're saying is that something like an event like New Year's Eve, the terrorists really don't have much time, really don't have any information about what the security situation is going to be like but they were basically maybe casing the joint is what you're indicating to see that, oh next New Year's they'll kind of have a general idea of where the security lies.

BEATTY: You're absolutely right next year or the year after. I mean we had done a prediction on the Atlanta Olympics saying there was going to be a successful attack. It was also a temporary event. We said it was going to be after the fifth day because we felt that they needed that much time to do the casing and the rehearsals to be certain their attack would succeed.

There weren't five days of New Year's Eve. There's 12 days of Christmas but there's not five days of New Year's Eve and so, you know, a year from now, two years from now will they have had enough information to try a ground attack, maybe so.

You know you can throw the parallel to the World Trade Center. After the ground attack the security on the ground at the World Trade Center meant no vehicle bomb was going to get in there. What had to happen?

They had to come by air, same thing for the New Year's Eve type celebrations. So, you're right. It's going to take them more time to gather enough information to mount a successful attack if they come by ground.

COOPER: All right. Let's talk about these air flights, these international flights which have been grounded. Some have had fighter jet escorts into airports here in the U.S.

Is it a good sign that they are stopping these things on the tarmac sometimes when the passengers have already boarded? I guess that's one way to look at it that the security is working.

I guess maybe the other pessimistic way to look at it is shouldn't this be screened much sooner? I mean it seems almost a defensive mode rather than a proactive mode if you already have passengers onboard the plane. Shouldn't this be -- shouldn't the information, the intelligence be gotten sooner?

BEATTY: Yes, it should, and my understanding from talking to government officials is in many cases, you know, there's supposed to be a one hour rule where these foreign carriers provide the manifest information to the U.S. for clearance an hour before they push back from the gates.

In many cases that hasn't happened. Many of the nine flights you talked about that hasn't happened. The United States is getting the information 30 minutes before and it's just not enough time to do the proper security screening of those aircraft.

But, you know, airlines are worried about on time schedules. They want to push back from the gate on time, so I've got to tell you, you know, they're asking for it if they push back early and they haven't played the game. We told them what the rules are. They have to play the game.

COOPER: Well, it doesn't sound like it's just the airline carriers though. I read an article in the "Wall Street Journal" talking about some of these French cancellations of the flights and it sounded like, if I remember it correctly, that U.S. agencies are working off like 12 different, I think what they described as sort of archaic databases of potential threats. Why isn't there one single base, I mean one single list by now?

BEATTY: That's a good question and people are moving towards that but it's a behemoth. It's like trying to turn a super tanker. It doesn't turn on a dime. We need to get there. We haven't gotten there.

Somebody mentioned earlier something though that's subtle and is often used in intelligence operations, minor misspellings of names, you know, are designed to throw people off. I'm aware of incidents where people have gotten on airplanes, made travel arrangements just with a small misspelling to try to avoid things.

Part of the complication, Anderson, now is that the databases that we're searching, the thoroughness we're trying to have even takes into account that little typographic error. So, when someone shows up to check in for a flight they can say, oh, well someone clearly made a small mistake. It's just one or two letters off here.

COOPER: If your timeline is correct you said two to three years al Qaeda usually takes to plan an attack, carry out an attack. If 2001 was the last major attack inside the U.S. by al Qaeda, by your estimation we're due for another one soon.

BEATTY: Well that's right and I've got to say we've been pretty good on the defense. I mean the other way if you want to get out of the box a little bit and look at this differently is these things that are happening could be good.

I mean we've got credible enough information for people to act. Nobody wants to act and inconvenience people. These can be possible successes and maybe a year or two from now when we uncover something in a cave somewhere we'll find out they were.

But you're right about the timeline and I'm proud to say that in the past couple of years a lot of good work has been done on defense. We've hardened targets. People are being trained on what casing detection is.

I'm aware of in the last 60 days actually finding somebody doing some casing and now we're orienting on him, sticking to him like flypaper. But eventually in this war you have to win on offense. You can't win on defense. You hold the line but we have to continue to take the fight to them or they're going to take the fight to us.

COOPER: All right. We'll end it there. Jeff Beatty appreciate you joining us. It was really interesting. Thank you.

BEATTY: Thank you.

COOPER: On to Iraq now where the new year is bringing more of the same, Iraqi insurgents attacking U.S. troops U.S. raids targeting suspected insurgents and possibly a new tactic as well.

Listen to this insurgents masquerading as journalists, more from CNN's Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division secure a crash site near Fallujah, a hotbed of anti-American sentiment west of Baghdad.

A U.S. Army scout helicopter was brought down by enemy fire Friday killing one pilot, wounding the other then a sneak attack by insurgents masquerading as news reporters according the U.S. military.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: Five enemy personnel pulled up to the crash site driving black and dark blue Mercedes. They were wearing black press jackets with press clearly written in English. The enemy personnel fired upon U.S. forces with small arms and rocket- propelled grenades.

MCINTYRE: No U.S. troops were hit and later four suspects were detained. It was a one-two punch tactic that was also employed in an earlier attack on a U.S. convoy. A 5,000 gallon fuel truck was set ablaze by RPG and small arms fire after first a roadside bomb stopped the convoy.

Overall the number of attacks against U.S. troops is down from about 50 a day two months ago to about 20 a day now but the enemies of the U.S. continue to refine their methods.

KIMMITT: We are seeing a small up tick in the capability of the enemy. They are getting a little more complex and for what reason we don't know but they are getting a little more sophisticated of late.

MCINTYRE: There's no let up in the U.S. counter insurgency operations. In the last 24 hours the U.S. conducted more than 1,500 patrols, launched 28 offensive operations and captured 88 anti- coalition suspects.

These weapons and bomb-making equipment were seized from a mosque in Baghdad but afterward an angry crowd appeared more upset by a claim that U.S. troops tore a page from a sacred Quran, a charge the U.S. denies.

(on camera): Pentagon officials say the report that Iraqi insurgents are posing as press underscores how the tactics of Saddam loyalists are once again putting innocent civilians at greater risk.

The U.S. military is not changing its rules of engagement which call for restraint when assessing threats from what should be neutral parties but reporters in Iraq will have to be aware that U.S. troops will be very suspicious of journalists until their status is verified.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, in an ideal world of course soldiers would never have any reason to storm a house of worship but then in an ideal world neither would a house of worship be used as a storage depot for explosives and machine guns.

CNN's Satinder Bindra reports from Baghdad where both those things happened and the result, predictably, is indignation on both sides.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Villagers' passions run high outside Baghdad's (unintelligible) mosque. The Sunni Muslims who worship here every Friday are incensed after U.S. forces raided their mosque Thursday.

"America is the enemy of God" they chant. These worshipers say U.S. tanks tore down the mosque's main gate and their presence desecrated holy territory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We say to America don't be against Sunnis. By God, every Sunni will be a missile.

BINDRA: U.S. forces say the raid was conducted here in conjunction with Iraqi security forces.

KIMMITT: This mosque was being used for purposes other than free religious expression.

BINDRA: At a news conference, U.S. forces displayed pictures of a large arsenal of weapons, sticks of explosives, TNT, grenades, grenade launchers, AK-47s and magazines that they say were uncovered there.

Thirty-two people, including the (unintelligible) mosque's top religious leader Imam (unintelligible) have been taken into custody. The U.S. says it appears some of those in custody are "foreigners."

Crying out for a holy war against the Americans these protesters deny the mosque was used for terrorist activities. They say it was raided because clerics here had just set up a council to politically mobilize Iraq's Sunnis. (on camera): These protesters want the Americans to immediately release Imam (unintelligible) and his supporters; otherwise, they warn they'll launch a movement to resist the American occupation here.

(voice-over): Invited by senior Sunni leaders, I went inside the mosque. Here I was shown broken doors, offices that had been turned upside down and safes that had been pried open but this is what has inflamed religious passions most. I'm shown a Quran, which religious leaders allege was torn by U.S. troops.

KIMMITT: We are aware that there were some allegations that coalition forces in fact tore open a Quran. There is no evidence to support that.

BINDRA: These Sunni leaders remain adamant the Americans were insensitive. They point to half eaten American meals littered around the mosque grounds as evidence of the U.S. soldiers' behavior.

KIMMITT: The greatest care was taken by coalition forces to uphold the sanctity of the mosque and to use the minimal amount of force necessary to conduct the operation.

BINDRA: U.S. forces say they came here only after reliable intelligence to notch another victory in their fight against terrorism.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the trip was canceled before it was even planned, why Elizabeth Dole will not be going to Iran, at least not yet.

And, she went to jail because her dog's killed a neighbor, now Marjorie Knoller goes free.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, it is hard to know what words to use about the situation in Bam in Iran. With tens of thousands dead and the ancient city itself all but gone the most that can be said is that people are doing what they can. Under the circumstances that is saying a lot.

We have an update now from Kasra Naji in Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KASRA NAJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A week after the devastating earthquake here hopes of rescue are forgotten, attention is turning to improving the lives of the survivors.

Bulldozers are still clearing the way in alleyways. New tents are still going up. Throughout the day, food and other essentials are distributed from the back of trucks. After the chaos of the first few days of the disaster few are now going hungry.

Iranians throughout the country and the international community have been quick with their help. Registration of the occupants of tents has begun in order to issue them ration books but the authorities are now alarmed by the sudden increase in the number of people with diarrheal diseases and common cold. Tens of thousands are spending the nights out in freezing temperatures and poor sanitary conditions.

(on camera): So, aid is getting through but the question on many minds here is how long are they going to stay in tents and that's an issue the government hasn't addressed yet.

(voice-over): This family survived but lost their home. They were away from Bam when the earthquake struck eight days ago but what to do now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If my government made here I stay here for family.

NAJI: But at least they are alive.

On the other side of town, work continues to recover more bodies. Some 30,000 people have died in this earthquake and they are still counting. Here they found three more bodies, two laborers from Afghanistan and their child.

But whatever help has arrived, Bam may not recover from this catastrophe so complete is the destruction.

Kasra Naji, CNN, Bam, southern Iran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Some 80,000 people still homeless there every night.

We're going to talk later on with a man who visited and took pictures of Bam before the terrible quake there, his images of what was not so long ago compared to what now remains. They are simply astonishing and heartbreaking.

Still on the subject of Iran, the U.S. was prepared to lend a hand there. The hand, in fact, of the woman who used to run the Red Cross here in this country but the government of Iran evidently is not yet prepared to reach quite as far out as that.

Here with more is CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Bush administration offered to send Senator Elizabeth Dole, former president of the American Red Cross, to Iran to head a high level humanitarian mission to aid the earthquake victims but Iran said no thank you. ADAM ERELL, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Given the current situation in Bam and all that is going on there now it would be preferable to hold such a visit in abeyance.

MALVEAUX: U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte contacted Iran's U.N. representative last Tuesday to propose the mission. A green light would have made Dole the first public U.S. official to visit Iran since the 1979 hostage crisis. An unidentified member of the Bush family would have also been part of any potential delegation. U.S. officials say Iran's denial was not political.

ERELL: The offer was not made for political reasons and we don't see the rejection as a -- or we don't see the response as political either.

MALVEAUX: Tehran's decision underscores the mutual suspicions between the two nations whose diplomatic ties were severed nearly 25 years ago. On New Year's Day, President Bush warned...

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Iranian government must listen to the voices of those who long for freedom, must turn over al Qaeda that are in their custody and must abandon their nuclear weapons program.

MALVEAUX: Since the quake the White House has sent relief and eased aid restrictions to Iran, both welcomed by the Islamic republic signaling U.S.-Iran relations are improving.

RAY TAKEYH, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY: Everyone in Iran and in the United States in both Washington and Tehran are beginning to look at this earthquake as potentially establishing a blueprint for a better relationship between the two countries.

MALVEAUX (on camera): But the debate within the administration continues as to how far or how fast relations with Iran can improve.

Suzanne Malveaux CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Two other stories of note concerning two more nations various U.S. administrations have seen as adversaries, first Libya. In an interview with the "New York Times" the country's prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, said the United States should act quickly to reward Libya for giving up its secret weapons program, a move it announced just last month.

The U.S. has enforced sanctions on Libya since 1986. Mr. Ghanem said unless the U.S. lifts them by May 12 his country will not be bound to honor remaining payments to families of victims killed on Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Each family is due $6 million.

Libya isn't the only one changing its tune on the weapons front. North Korea may welcome a U.S. delegation next week to visit its Yongbyon nuclear facility which the U.S. suspects is being used for nuclear weapons production. It would be a private delegation not an official government mission but it would be the first such visit since North Korea expelled the U.N. monitors. That was back in late 2002.

On to mad cow now, the search for cows from the so-called index herd continues. Eleven of 82 have now been found and a third cattle herd in Washington State has been quarantined as a result.

As investigators try to unravel the hows and the whys of mad cow's arrival in the U.S., most health officials say the risk of people getting the human form of the disease remains very low, minuscule in fact. That is the message we've been hearing for more than a week now.

For one family in Florida the statistics bring no comfort. The odds did not go their way. Here's CNN's Holly Firfer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOLLY FIRFER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This young woman should be finishing up her Master's degree or planning her future. Instead, she's become a statistic. Twenty-four-year-old Charlene, whose parents don't want us to use their last name, is the only person living in the United States suffering from the human form of mad cow disease.

This is what Charlene looked like when CNN brought you these exclusive pictures over a year ago. Then doctors told her parents she had just about three months to live.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Unintelligible.)

FIRFER: And yet Charlene is still alive today. Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are sure Charlene contracted the disease in the United Kingdom not in the United States.

Charlene lived in England until she was 13 before moving to Florida 11 years ago. So far 143 people in Britain have contracted the Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or VCJD, also known as the human form of mad cow. Six of them are still alive.

A statement from the British Health Department illustrates how much is still unknown about the VCJD.

"It is likely to be some years before we are able to make soundly-based predictions about the future course of the disease."

Twenty-first century medicine has found no cure yet but Charlene's family will not give up. They bathe and feed her, care for her around the clock.

PATRICK, CHARLENE'S FATHER: How Charlene's mom does it I don't know. We don't know. I'm amazed every day.

FIRFER: A neurologist who saw our original report on Charlene's condition was willing to try something new. He offered to give Charlene hyperbaric treatments, pumping pure oxygen into her lungs which may help the brain function better.

DR. RICHARD NEUBAUER, OCEANIC HYPERBARIC NEUROLOGIC CENTER: After 192 treatments she's not only alive but she's begun to try to talk. She's responsive and follows simple commands, still a long ways to go.

FIRFER: So what was the family's reaction to the announcement by U.S. officials that a cow in Washington State had tested positive for mad cow disease and that it's still safe to eat beef?

SHARON, CHARLENE'S AUNT: I was very upset. I was very upset. I was very upset that lessons have not yet been learned.

PATRICK: It's like being in England all over again and reliving this (unintelligible) thing and being told that the meat is safe to eat.

FIRFER: Both Charlene's father and aunt say they are not against the beef industry but they do worry that another parent's child could fall victim to vCJD.

Holly Firfer, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, seven months and 303 million miles down, one crash landing to go. NASA Spirit heads for Mars.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, NASA is starting the New Year with a huge bet on a spacecraft the size of a golf cart. The unmanned rover is barreling towards Mars where tomorrow it will try to land, a feat some describe is akin to making a hole in one while traveling more than 10,000 miles per hour. Try that.

NASA's last attempt to nail a landing on Mars failed. The British spacecraft Beagle 2 tried more than a week ago and has not been heard from since. It is the riskiest part of the $820 million Mars mission. And there is a lot at stake beyond the money.

Here's CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two, one, engines start and liftoff.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seven months and 303 million miles after leaving Earth, NASA's roving robot geology lab is knocking on Mars' door. And the team that built it is bracing for the fateful final minutes of its journey.

ED WEILER, NASA ASSOCIATION ADMINISTRATOR: It's going to be six minutes from hell. It's going to be high anxiety. We've been working on this thing for three to four years.

O'BRIEN: It's an intricate sequence of events that will slow Spirit from 12,000 miles an hour to zero in that short span. A parachute must unfurl at the right moment. A heat shield drops. The lander then dangles from a bridle.

A radar aims towards the surface, air bags inflate, rockets fire. Then, 30 feet above the ground, the bridle is cut and Spirit, nestled inside what looks like a bunch of grapes, hits the red planet.

PETER THEISINGER, MARS MISSION PROJECT MANAGER: It will bounce about a four-story-building height, we believe, and will roll somewhere between one and two kilometers, we believe.

O'BRIEN: Spirit is headed for a crater that appears to be a dry lake bed. Scientists are hoping it will find signs of water, past or present, an essential ingredient for life. The 384-pound golf-cart size rover is equipped with four pairs of stereo cameras for navigation and to send back some far-flung postcards. It also has an arm that can auger into rocks, analyze them, and then phone the results home.

CHARLES ELACHI, JPL DIRECTOR: I think we have done everything we know what to do to assure that this mission will be a success.

O'BRIEN: NASA's last attempt to land on Mars was anything but a success. Four years ago, the Mars Polar Lander plummeted to the surface after its rocket shut off too early.

This time around, the space agency tripled the budget and built a twin rover called Opportunity, slated to land January 24.

WEILER: If we don't hear from Spirit by late Sunday night, it's a high probably we do not have a success. It doesn't mean it's 100 percent, but we will probably declare that we again have a high probably of having a failure and we have to move on and get ready for Opportunity.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, there's every opportunity that everything will work perfectly on Spirit and Mars will throw the curveball. Just a sharp rock or sudden gust of wind would be enough to ruin the day.

Over the years, Anderson, one in three Mars missions has succeeded, only one in three. Scientists jokingly call it the death planet, a bit ironic, given the fact they think it's the most likely place we'll find extraterrestrial life.

COOPER: And I guess the most successful along these lines was 1997, the Pathfinder mission. And is right that the same team that sort of developed the Pathfinder is the team behind this?

O'BRIEN: Yes, lots of the same players are here.

And, of course, let's not forget the Viking missions in the mid- '70s, which came out of Jet Propulsion Lab as well. But what's interesting about Pathfinder and this is, it's a very similar approach to Mars, using those air bags and bouncing off the surface. It was very successful back then. They sort of beefed up the air bags. They got a bigger spacecraft in this case. And they're hoping they will have a similar outcome.

COOPER: Well, the animation you showed was the coolest thing I've seen all week. So let's hope this thing works. Miles O'Brien, thanks very much.

O'BRIEN: All right.

COOPER: The Mars mission and whether the planet could have once supported life is the focus of a "Nova" program this weekend. Steve Squyres, the mission's principal scientific investigator and a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, is featured in the program. We have some clips from it.

And we're glad he could join us from Pasadena tonight.

Thanks very much for being with us, Steven.

How is this going to work? It was described as six minutes of hell, that entry into Mars. Describe what has to happen and at exactly the right moment.

STEVEN SQUYRES, MARS EXPLORATION ROVER PROJECT: Yes, it's a very complicated moment.

We hit the top of the atmosphere going about 25 times the speed of sound. In a matter of just minutes, we decelerate to Mach 2, twice the speed of sound. At that point, we pop out a supersonic parachute. We descend on the chute. The radar picks up the ground. The spacecraft gets lowered down on a long cord, or a bridle. And then these air bags, sort of similar to the air bags in your car, in concept, but much more complicated in execution, they inflate around the vehicle.

And then, a short distance above the surface, we cut the cord and the air bags fall down to the surface. And they can bounce and roll for a considerable distance. It sounds like a crazy way to land on Mars, but it is actually tried and tested.

COOPER: And, as you said, if a gust of wind goes wrong or it lands on a sharp rock, this thing could all just get destroyed. But assuming that that does not happen, assuming it lands where it is supposed to and the air bags are deployed as they're supposed to and this thing is out there and working, how is it going to do its job? What does it have on board and what are we going to learn?

SQUYRES: Well, the purpose of the mission is to determine whether or not Mars was ever a place that could have supported life.

It's a cold, dry miserable place today. But we have got these tantalizing clues that, in the past, it used to be warmer and wetter. So you can think of these vehicles as being robot field geologists. A field geologist is like a detective at the scene of a crime. They go to a place where something happened long ago and they try to read the clues.

In this case, the clues are the rocks. And so we've equipped the rovers with 20/20 vision, with the ability to look off in the distance in infrared wavelengths and tell what rocks are made of, the ability to drive around and go from rock outcrop to rock outcrop, and then this amazing arm the size of a human arm that can reach out to grind an opening into the rocks and then look at the interior of the rocks with spectrometers, with a microscope, and really tell us in detail how these rocks formed and what happened at these places long ago.

COOPER: So it's not really picking up anything along the way. It's sort of photographing things, testing things. And how does it send the information back to you?

SQUYRES: We have several ways of getting the data back. On the back of the rover, there is a dish antenna about this big, so it looks like a big lollipop. That can transmit data directly to Earth.

And then there are also two wonderful spacecraft in orbit around Mars right now, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey. Both of those act as communications satellites, comsats for us. They fly overheard. We can squirt some data up to those things. And then they relay data back to Earth. So we've got three different ways for getting pictures, spectra, scientific information down to the ground so we can look at it.

COOPER: Now, the mission already had been difficult. This thing was almost scuttled, I think, more than once before it even took off.

SQUYRES: Yes, it's been a tough road.

The hardest thing was our schedule. We first sort of conceived this mission and got the go-ahead from NASA to fly it only about 3 1/2 years ago. And that's a very, very short period of time to do something this complex. But the team -- the team of engineers that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has put on this project is just the best I've ever seen. They're an amazing group of people.

And we have got two very high-quality spacecraft closing in on Mars right now.

COOPER: Now, is Opportunity, regardless of the success of Spirit, is it going to be deployed, or if Spirit sends back everything you want, is there no need to drop Opportunity several months later?

SQUYRES: Oh, no. Both vehicles are going in.

Opportunity is only three weeks after Spirit. They're going to two fundamentally different places. Spirit is going to this place called Gusev Crater, great big hole in the ground with a dried-up riverbed flowing into it. We think there was a lake there. Opportunity is going to some place totally different.

The place where Opportunity is landing is a place where we see a mineral called hematite, gray hematite, on the surface of Mars. That's a mineral that, on Earth, usually forms as a result of liquid water being around. And so we have got two totally different kinds of clues. In one case, it's the land forms. And in the other case, it's the chemistry of the surface that tell us that water was there. So we can double up the science by going to two different places.

COOPER: You mentioned the importance of whether there was ever water there. Why is that -- explain to me. I'm a science idiot. Why is that so important? What do we learn if we learn that there was once water on Mars?

SQUYRES: Well, the water is the key to whether or not it was a suitable place for life.

The things that we know you have to have life -- have to have for life to take hold are some kind of source of energy. Sunlight works just fine. You need to have the basic building blocks, carbon, hydrogen, and so forth. Those things, we expect to be on Mars in some abundance. But the third thing, the critical ingredient, is liquid water.

And when you look at Mars today, you don't see that. You don't see liquid water. You don't see lakes on the surface. You don't see rivers on the surface. But you see these clues that they used to be there in the past. And so what we're trying to ask with this mission is, did Mars really once have what it takes to support life? Because, if it did, then what we could do is, we can go back to places like Gusev Crater, for example, or the other landing site, Meridiani Planum, and we can get samples and bring them back to laboratories on Earth and really analyze them carefully.

This mission is about finding the right stuff on the surface of Mars.

COOPER: Steven, I wish you had been my astronomy professor in college, because you're fascinating to listen to. And it was really enjoyable.

Steven Squyres, thank you very much. And good luck on the mission.

SQUYRES: Thanks very much. I appreciate that.

COOPER: All right.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, running for New Hampshire. With only weeks left to go until the primary, Democratic candidates, they are going all out. We'll take a look.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, if they were a baseball team, the nine Democratic hopefuls would be relaxing someplace warm by now. As it is, the hopefuls are mostly up north these days out in the cold, still playing hardball and maybe a little hockey as well.

CNN's Dan Lothian has been watching all the fun.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): As the second half of the presidential campaign got under way, Senator John Kerry faced off against a different kind of opponent in New Hampshire, taking shots not from Democratic contenders, but from supporters on ice. Kerry focused on winning the game and the race.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're rolling. We've got great energy.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hi. How are you?

LOTHIAN: Senator John Edwards took his campaign to the streets as part of a statewide tour. He called for a change from the -- quote -- "negative tone" of the race.

EDWARDS: I think this daily sniping that goes on between one candidate and another is below the level of what this discussion should be.

LOTHIAN: Some voters fear unusually harsh negative attacks may weaken the candidacy of the eventual Democratic nominee. Howard Dean heard that from one of his supporters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your opponents are taking a scorched-earth thank? Do you think there will be much left of the Democratic Party by the time they're finished?

(CROSSTALK)

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There will if I win.

LOTHIAN: Joe Lieberman, who began his day at a diner hoping for the luck of the seat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four years ago, George W. sat in here with me.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No kidding?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he got to be president.

LIEBERMAN: This is a good -- I didn't even know that.

LOTHIAN: Says Democrats, we'll survive this campaign battle.

LIEBERMAN: In the end, we're going to unite, because we have a common gold.

LOTHIAN (on camera): Political strategists say, the Democratic candidates also have something else to contend with, seemingly endless good news for the Bush administration, like the improving economy or the capture of Saddam.

(voice-over): But the Democrats say, voters won't be fooled. At a town hall meeting, retired General Wesley Clark made his case for the White House.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not running to bash George Bush. I'm running to replace him.

LOTHIAN: Clark is about to unveil a new TV ad here. Kerry just released another one. The all-out push is under way in an attempt to catch Dean, who, according to the most recent poll in New Hampshire, leads 41 percent to Kerry's 17, Clark's 13, and the rest of the pack in single digits.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: Now, Anderson, Howard Dean continued to defend remarks that he made after Saddam Hussein was captured, when he said the capture of Saddam Hussein didn't mean America was any safer.

Today, he said, in essence, that he was vindicated because he pointed out that the nation has been on high alert, that more troops are still being killed over in Iraq, and that F-16s have to escort foreign passenger planes. No doubt, the Democratic race has really heated up at this point and the Democrats are trying to do whatever they can to win over the voters, especially those undecideds -- Anderson.

COOPER: Well, Dan, less than a month to go before the primary. Two months ago, they were talking about Iraq. They were talking about the economy. Both of those seem to be going pretty well for President Bush right now. What are they talking about? Are they still focusing on those two issues?

LOTHIAN: Those are still the issues.

And one of the things, any time you point out to the Democrats or you ask them about, well, what about the Bush administration, they're doing apparently well in this area or that area, they'll say, well, that's not really what's going on. Look behind it. You look at Saddam Hussein. Yes, he's behind bars. But, as I pointed out, Howard Dean saying that things are still not safer.

And then they have lots of other issues, such as health care and education. Those are the issues that you'll be hearing much more about as we go down to the wire.

COOPER: All right, Dan Lothian, thanks very much.

More still ahead tonight. But, as we go to break, a look at what some of the candidates are up to this weekend.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, you must remember the awful case of the young woman in San Francisco who was literally torn to death by a dog being looked after by a married couple of neighbors, both of whom went to prison after the attack. Well, as of yesterday, they are now both out of prison.

Here's an update from CNN's Charles Feldman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marjorie Knoller was released from a central California woman's prison New Year's Day and taken to Southern California, rather than her home in San Francisco, to serve out her three-year parole. From the time of her arrest, Knoller has been behind bars for 33 months.

In 2001, Knoller was handling two presa canario dogs for a friend when one attacked and killed 33-year-old Diane Whipple in a San Francisco apartment building.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her face was -- the victim, she was completely naked. There was an EMT working on her, but she appeared to me to be dead. There was blood soaked in the hallway approximately 20 to 30 feet in the carpet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We, the jury, in the above titled action, find the defendant, Marjorie Knoller, guilty of the crime of murder.

FELDMAN: Knoller was originally found guilty of second degree murder, but a judge threw that out. The state is appealing.

The case got a lot of media attention and had to be moved to L. A. Knoller's husband, already out on parole, told a local TV station...

ROBERT NOEL, MARJORIE KNOLLER'S HUSBAND: I'm happy beyond words and absolutely relieved that she's out.

FELDMAN: Not so happy, says one of the prosecutors, is the victim's former domestic partner.

JAMES HAMMER, PROSECUTOR: They had Marjorie Knoller walk out after only two years, and it was very upsetting to her. And that really hit home for me.

FELDMAN (on camera): Knoller is apparently also unhappy, telling a Bay Area TV station she doesn't know what she is going to do here in Southern California.

Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, a few stories now from around the country, beginning in Washington, where Ralph Hall, the most senior member of Texas's delegation, reportedly has decided to switch party allegiances from Democrat to Republican. This, of course, tips the balance further in the GOP's direction, 229-204, with one independent and one seat currently vacant.

In Modesto, California, prosecutors in the murder trial of Scott Peterson today filed their arguments to keep the proceedings where they are, saying that the defense -- quote -- "has failed to prove that jurors in any other county would view this case differently." Mark Geragos, Peterson's attorney, made a motion for a change of venue a month ago, citing widespread and pervasive -- that is what they call it -- publicity, publicity the prosecution said the defense itself was responsible for.

Finally, some folks in California got more of a train ride than they bargained for when bad weather caused was derailment some 40 miles west of Truckee yesterday. No one was hurt, but 300 passengers sat and sat and sat some more, sat, in fact for 14 hours, until their Amtrak train finally got moving again early this morning. No doubt, they were not happy.

A couple of business stories before we go to break. The country's No. 3 bank may be headed for trouble. The securities arm of Bank of America said today it may face civil action from the SEC relating to trading activity in the unit's San Francisco office. The company said the allegations include improperly storing documents relevant to an inquiry and not producing requested documents in a timely matter.

In North Carolina, Norman and Deanna Shue are starting the new year as multimillionaires. Not a bad way to begin. They woke up New Year's Day to learn they had won half of Wednesday's $220 million Powerball jackpot. They bought their ticket in South Carolina, claimed their prize today. The other winning ticket was sold outside York, Pennsylvania. That multimillionaire hasn't come forward yet.

And the new year stock rally fizzled today. The Dow and the S&P 500 were down a bit at the day's close. The Nasdaq was up a tad. All three major indices finished the week modestly higher.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, it was one of the oldest and largest structures of its kind in the world. Now Bam, Iran, is a wasteland -- what the historic city used to be next on NEWSNIGHT

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: We're about to talk with Ali Afkhami, who visited and photographed Bam, Iran, before its virtual disappearance eight days ago.

Is disappearance saying too much, do you think? Take a look at these satellite images. This is a satellite picture of Bam as it was before the earthquake, as it was and had been by then, some of it, for a millennium. Much of the 1,000-year-old city was made of earth, baked mud, earth which was violently reclaimed by the earth in a matter of minutes. Look at this. This is Bam as it is now, the great fortress and so much else leveled, the way so many sand castles would be after the coming of a wave, so many lives lost, so much history lost as well.

Mr. Afkhami, thanks very much for joining us. We appreciate you being with us.

ALI AFKHAMI, IRANIAN FILMMAKER: Thank you.

COOPER: You went to Iran really on your own, filming various parts of the country, because that's where you were from originally and you wanted to see it.

AFKHAMI: Absolutely. I just wanted to educate myself with the variety and the culture of the country.

COOPER: Well, educate a little bit about the city of Bam, because, historically, it has a great importance to Iran.

AFKHAMI: It does, indeed.

It's a city that dates back over 2,000 years. And it was very much an inherent part of the silk road. And so it developed into a big trading city. And in fact, Bam -- the citadel that no longer exists, was the center of that.

COOPER: And the citadel -- we're about to show these pictures, which are -- these are the images you took. That is the citadel right there.

AFKHAMI: Correct. That's -- as we see, we're entering -- that's the main entrance of the fortress.

COOPER: This, of course, no longer there, but this an enormous structure. This, in fact, in the world, it's the largest mud fortress.

AFKHAMI: Precisely. And that was part of its claim to fame, if you like. And it sort of evolved over the centuries. A large portion was built during the Safavid Dynasty, which was dated between 1500 to 1700.

COOPER: And it's hard to get a sense of how big this is. I was reading it's like 2.5 square miles, the citadel.

AFKHAMI: That's right.

Completely -- if you look at images there now, it's completely made of mud. And the image we're seeing now is the main basic area, where the people converted and traded and the main sort of trade center. And, afterwards, we move on to the inner city, where the troops of the king were kept. He was -- where the cavalry was maintained. And, again, we have a pan, obviously, of the citadel. And then, finally, the peak was where the ruler resided and oversaw his whole, like, fiefdom from the very highest point of the citadel. COOPER: We're also going to show now a now picture, an after picture, after the earthquake, what this area looks like. There is the citadel there, as you can see, and all that is destroyed in front of it.

AFKHAMI: Yes.

COOPER: As you look at these pictures as it is now, what do you think?

AFKHAMI: I am filled really with a mixture of sorrow and disbelief, because, obviously, the ramifications of it are very deep, because this is not simply a part of Iranian or Persian history. This is a part of world history that has been eradicated forever. And it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy that...

COOPER: And for a country which has, in their own way, been wanting tourists to come to the country, the citadel was a major tourist attraction. I think a few tens of thousands of people went to it each year, which may not sound like a lot for America. But, in Iran, that is a lot of tourists.

AFKHAMI: Absolutely.

I think Persepolis, which is where the Persian empire was founded, this must be, if not the first or the second largest tourist attraction in Iran. And the ramifications, again, are enormous, because the government, as you said, is very seen on encouraging that sort of activity. And now, well, you know...

COOPER: There have been some who have said, look, they're going to rebuild the citadel. Not only is it a tourist attraction. It's a culturally important symbol. And I guess, before this, the U.N. had even considered it making it a world historic site. Do you think they will rebuild?

AFKHAMI: I can't really speak on behalf of a government that has made a number of promises in the past and has yet to deliver.

I will say this much, though, that the priority should be on focusing to, if you like, repopulate the area and put people back on their feet. I mean, certainly the citadel is of great importance, but the more important thing is the human life issue.

COOPER: Certainly.

AFKHAMI: And the more important thing is the children.

As you reported yourself, a lot of children have now been rendered homeless and are orphans. And I think the world focus should be on giving this issue a priority. And then we'll worry about building and all the rest of it, which can be done. There's no doubt about it.

COOPER: It's remarkable. The numbers are staggering and sort of impossible to comprehend, some 30,000 people dead, 80,000 people homeless right now, living on the streets. And they are very cold streets, indeed.

AFKHAMI: Indeed.

To complicate matters, if you like, to aggravate the situation, apparently, the nighttime temperature has been a record low. It was never -- it was unprecedented. We're talking about a warm part of the country that's near the Persian Gulf. And the temperature there is pretty steady. At nights, it gets cold, but not as cold as it has been.

So people are extremely -- my understanding, speaking to relatives and obviously getting the news from the local news...

(CROSSTALK)

AFKHAMI: ... is that people are just dumbfounded. It's almost like they don't know why.

COOPER: Yes.

AFKHAMI: And it's quite sad, really. It really is.

COOPER: It's interesting. I appreciate you bringing in the pictures of what it looked like before, something to keep in mind about what, perhaps, the city may look like once again.

Ali Afkhami, thank you very much.

AFKHAMI: Thank you very much.

COOPER: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a check of our top story, as well as a look at what we'll have for you on Monday.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: A recap of our top story: high anxiety in the air in the new year. British airlines canceled more flights today. And a top U.S. official said such steps are taken only if there is specific intelligence indicating a possible attack.

Monday on NEWSNIGHT, Aaron Brown is back, a recap of tomorrow's Mars mission, a little armchair quarterbacking from 300 million miles away. Did it have the right stuff? We'll see.

Good night.

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Democrats Continue New Hampshire Campaign>


Aired January 2, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Anderson Cooper in for Aaron Brown tonight.
The New Year arrived without a terrorist attack in this country but that has not ended all the anxiety or the high security for that matter. At least nine international flights have been either canceled or delayed for security reasons since New Year's Eve day, primarily flights involving British Airways, all of this raising the obvious question what has British Airways and the others so worried?

So, we begin tonight in Washington where Kelli Arena is keeping tabs on all the flight cancellations, Kelli a headline please.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: British Airways Flight 223 was canceled for the second time today, Anderson. Intelligence officials insist that such moves only come when there is "specific intelligence" of a possible attack.

COOPER: More on that in a moment.

Next, to Dan Lothian who's been following Democratic candidates around New Hampshire, Dan a headline.

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, it's less than a month to go before the New Hampshire primaries. Many of the candidates were in the Granite State today. We saw a combination of candidates going door to door, one candidate playing hockey and, of course, plenty of town hall meetings as they try to win over the voters, especially the undecideds -- Anderson.

COOPER: The pressure is growing. All right, back to you shortly.

Finally, to Miles O'Brien in Pasadena, California where scientists are counting down to a Mars landing. A headline please, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the countdown is about all they can count on right now. They do know this. Twenty- five and a half hours from now the Spirit rover will have an encounter with Mars. The question is will it be a happy landing or a train wreck?

COOPER: Well, fasten your seatbelts. It is going to be a bumpy ride. We're back to you, back to all of you in a moment. First a look at some other stories we have for you tonight. In Iraq a disturbing new development in an ambush on American troops, this time the attackers posed as press.

Plus what mad cow disease looks like in humans and how the only living person in America with the disease is coping with the illness. You'll hear her story.

And we've shown you countless pictures of what Bam, Iran looks like now after the earthquake that killed 30,000 people but what did it look like before? Tonight, we'll show you what the ancient city used to be and how much was lost, all that ahead in the next hour.

We begin with flight cancellations and fears in the air. When the national terror threat level was raised to orange before Christmas, security officials said they were concerned that al Qaeda may try to use planes on international flights in possible attacks against the U.S.

Tonight, of course, the holiday is over but the concern remains. CNN's Kelli Arena is working the story for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Officials tell CNN intelligence from an informant and other sources regarding British Airways Flight 223 is what led to its cancellation for the second straight day. Sources say the information had nothing to do with the passenger list but, instead, focused on the flight number.

ASA HUTCHINSON, HOMELAND SECURITY UNDERSECRETARY: I think the public understands that there's always a general threat but you don't take action to inconvenience passengers to cancel a flight unless there is specific and credible information that relates to that flight.

ARENA: There remains some question as to the credibility of the information. Still, officials say they simply cannot take any chances. Two Aeromexico flights headed to Los Angeles were also canceled this week and at least one other was escorted by military fighter jets. The military also accompanied at least one Air France flight into the United States. There were other flights that were not canceled but which underwent intense scrutiny.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we waited about two hours, two and a half hours on the plane while U.S. authorities checked out the passenger list and verified documents.

ARENA: Officials admit the moves are extraordinary considering the repercussions but they're not ruling out more cancellations.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: It's very important to be more cautious rather than less cautious and, though I know it is inconvenient for many passengers, nevertheless I would rather err on the side of caution to make sure that we don't have an accident that we could have prevented. ARENA: Sources tell CNN the one major problem with the intelligence is that it is not time specific. There was information regarding a possible threat on New Year's Eve but that date passed without incident.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: Still information continues to suggest that al Qaeda may be in the operational stages of an attack -- Anderson.

COOPER: So, Kelli, with these flight cancellations how does it work? I mean the passengers for the most part are onboard the aircraft. They're interviewed. Has anyone been arrested? Is it all just a case of mistaken identity, the wrong name showing up on the list?

ARENA: Well, in some cases where there are hits on the terror watch list sometimes the names have been very similar. Sometimes the person has the same name but obviously if it's a 6-year-old boy, for example, not likely that that's a terrorist.

But in the case of 223, Anderson, it had nothing to do with that passenger list. It was information, intelligence that had come in regarding that flight number on that airline.

And in other situations it had to do with the U.S. feeling that proper screening wasn't done, for example. So, many different reasons at play here, not all just, you know, related to the flight manifest.

COOPER: All right, Kelli Arena thanks very much for that tonight.

ARENA: You're welcome.

COOPER: U.S. counter terrorism officials have said al Qaeda wants to launch an attack more spectacular than those on September 11. The question is, of course, when, how, and where exactly?

We'll add another question. Should we feel any safer having made it through this holiday season? Joining us now from Washington is Jeff Beatty, a security consultant and president of Totalsecurity.us. We're glad to have him back here on NEWSNIGHT. Jeff, thanks very much for being with us.

JEFF BEATTY, PRESIDENT, TOTALSECURITY.US: You're welcome.

COOPER: Should we feel more secure now that we've made it through this holiday season?

BEATTY: Well, yes we should but you have to remember that the holidays, a New Year's Eve type event is a very, very difficult target for a terrorist to go after because the security that he has to plan to go up against is really only in place for a few hours.

When you go up against a fixed site to check its security you often go up in advance and rattle the fence to check people's reaction to see what the security folks are going to be doing and we know that al Qaeda spends months, if not years, in planning their operations.

So, on New Year's, for example, they only got a couple of hours to see what kind of security preparations were in place on the ground in New York, on the ground in Las Vegas and elsewhere and that's why when you have an event such as that threats that can bypass the 40,000 police officers, the metal detectors on the ground, et cetera, threats that could bypass those, such as aircraft, become popular choices because it makes it much easier for the terrorist to use that weapon.

COOPER: I want to talk about the aircraft for a moment but I just want to go back to this idea of rattling the fence. So, in a sense what you're saying is that something like an event like New Year's Eve, the terrorists really don't have much time, really don't have any information about what the security situation is going to be like but they were basically maybe casing the joint is what you're indicating to see that, oh next New Year's they'll kind of have a general idea of where the security lies.

BEATTY: You're absolutely right next year or the year after. I mean we had done a prediction on the Atlanta Olympics saying there was going to be a successful attack. It was also a temporary event. We said it was going to be after the fifth day because we felt that they needed that much time to do the casing and the rehearsals to be certain their attack would succeed.

There weren't five days of New Year's Eve. There's 12 days of Christmas but there's not five days of New Year's Eve and so, you know, a year from now, two years from now will they have had enough information to try a ground attack, maybe so.

You know you can throw the parallel to the World Trade Center. After the ground attack the security on the ground at the World Trade Center meant no vehicle bomb was going to get in there. What had to happen?

They had to come by air, same thing for the New Year's Eve type celebrations. So, you're right. It's going to take them more time to gather enough information to mount a successful attack if they come by ground.

COOPER: All right. Let's talk about these air flights, these international flights which have been grounded. Some have had fighter jet escorts into airports here in the U.S.

Is it a good sign that they are stopping these things on the tarmac sometimes when the passengers have already boarded? I guess that's one way to look at it that the security is working.

I guess maybe the other pessimistic way to look at it is shouldn't this be screened much sooner? I mean it seems almost a defensive mode rather than a proactive mode if you already have passengers onboard the plane. Shouldn't this be -- shouldn't the information, the intelligence be gotten sooner?

BEATTY: Yes, it should, and my understanding from talking to government officials is in many cases, you know, there's supposed to be a one hour rule where these foreign carriers provide the manifest information to the U.S. for clearance an hour before they push back from the gates.

In many cases that hasn't happened. Many of the nine flights you talked about that hasn't happened. The United States is getting the information 30 minutes before and it's just not enough time to do the proper security screening of those aircraft.

But, you know, airlines are worried about on time schedules. They want to push back from the gate on time, so I've got to tell you, you know, they're asking for it if they push back early and they haven't played the game. We told them what the rules are. They have to play the game.

COOPER: Well, it doesn't sound like it's just the airline carriers though. I read an article in the "Wall Street Journal" talking about some of these French cancellations of the flights and it sounded like, if I remember it correctly, that U.S. agencies are working off like 12 different, I think what they described as sort of archaic databases of potential threats. Why isn't there one single base, I mean one single list by now?

BEATTY: That's a good question and people are moving towards that but it's a behemoth. It's like trying to turn a super tanker. It doesn't turn on a dime. We need to get there. We haven't gotten there.

Somebody mentioned earlier something though that's subtle and is often used in intelligence operations, minor misspellings of names, you know, are designed to throw people off. I'm aware of incidents where people have gotten on airplanes, made travel arrangements just with a small misspelling to try to avoid things.

Part of the complication, Anderson, now is that the databases that we're searching, the thoroughness we're trying to have even takes into account that little typographic error. So, when someone shows up to check in for a flight they can say, oh, well someone clearly made a small mistake. It's just one or two letters off here.

COOPER: If your timeline is correct you said two to three years al Qaeda usually takes to plan an attack, carry out an attack. If 2001 was the last major attack inside the U.S. by al Qaeda, by your estimation we're due for another one soon.

BEATTY: Well that's right and I've got to say we've been pretty good on the defense. I mean the other way if you want to get out of the box a little bit and look at this differently is these things that are happening could be good.

I mean we've got credible enough information for people to act. Nobody wants to act and inconvenience people. These can be possible successes and maybe a year or two from now when we uncover something in a cave somewhere we'll find out they were.

But you're right about the timeline and I'm proud to say that in the past couple of years a lot of good work has been done on defense. We've hardened targets. People are being trained on what casing detection is.

I'm aware of in the last 60 days actually finding somebody doing some casing and now we're orienting on him, sticking to him like flypaper. But eventually in this war you have to win on offense. You can't win on defense. You hold the line but we have to continue to take the fight to them or they're going to take the fight to us.

COOPER: All right. We'll end it there. Jeff Beatty appreciate you joining us. It was really interesting. Thank you.

BEATTY: Thank you.

COOPER: On to Iraq now where the new year is bringing more of the same, Iraqi insurgents attacking U.S. troops U.S. raids targeting suspected insurgents and possibly a new tactic as well.

Listen to this insurgents masquerading as journalists, more from CNN's Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division secure a crash site near Fallujah, a hotbed of anti-American sentiment west of Baghdad.

A U.S. Army scout helicopter was brought down by enemy fire Friday killing one pilot, wounding the other then a sneak attack by insurgents masquerading as news reporters according the U.S. military.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: Five enemy personnel pulled up to the crash site driving black and dark blue Mercedes. They were wearing black press jackets with press clearly written in English. The enemy personnel fired upon U.S. forces with small arms and rocket- propelled grenades.

MCINTYRE: No U.S. troops were hit and later four suspects were detained. It was a one-two punch tactic that was also employed in an earlier attack on a U.S. convoy. A 5,000 gallon fuel truck was set ablaze by RPG and small arms fire after first a roadside bomb stopped the convoy.

Overall the number of attacks against U.S. troops is down from about 50 a day two months ago to about 20 a day now but the enemies of the U.S. continue to refine their methods.

KIMMITT: We are seeing a small up tick in the capability of the enemy. They are getting a little more complex and for what reason we don't know but they are getting a little more sophisticated of late.

MCINTYRE: There's no let up in the U.S. counter insurgency operations. In the last 24 hours the U.S. conducted more than 1,500 patrols, launched 28 offensive operations and captured 88 anti- coalition suspects.

These weapons and bomb-making equipment were seized from a mosque in Baghdad but afterward an angry crowd appeared more upset by a claim that U.S. troops tore a page from a sacred Quran, a charge the U.S. denies.

(on camera): Pentagon officials say the report that Iraqi insurgents are posing as press underscores how the tactics of Saddam loyalists are once again putting innocent civilians at greater risk.

The U.S. military is not changing its rules of engagement which call for restraint when assessing threats from what should be neutral parties but reporters in Iraq will have to be aware that U.S. troops will be very suspicious of journalists until their status is verified.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, in an ideal world of course soldiers would never have any reason to storm a house of worship but then in an ideal world neither would a house of worship be used as a storage depot for explosives and machine guns.

CNN's Satinder Bindra reports from Baghdad where both those things happened and the result, predictably, is indignation on both sides.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Villagers' passions run high outside Baghdad's (unintelligible) mosque. The Sunni Muslims who worship here every Friday are incensed after U.S. forces raided their mosque Thursday.

"America is the enemy of God" they chant. These worshipers say U.S. tanks tore down the mosque's main gate and their presence desecrated holy territory.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We say to America don't be against Sunnis. By God, every Sunni will be a missile.

BINDRA: U.S. forces say the raid was conducted here in conjunction with Iraqi security forces.

KIMMITT: This mosque was being used for purposes other than free religious expression.

BINDRA: At a news conference, U.S. forces displayed pictures of a large arsenal of weapons, sticks of explosives, TNT, grenades, grenade launchers, AK-47s and magazines that they say were uncovered there.

Thirty-two people, including the (unintelligible) mosque's top religious leader Imam (unintelligible) have been taken into custody. The U.S. says it appears some of those in custody are "foreigners."

Crying out for a holy war against the Americans these protesters deny the mosque was used for terrorist activities. They say it was raided because clerics here had just set up a council to politically mobilize Iraq's Sunnis. (on camera): These protesters want the Americans to immediately release Imam (unintelligible) and his supporters; otherwise, they warn they'll launch a movement to resist the American occupation here.

(voice-over): Invited by senior Sunni leaders, I went inside the mosque. Here I was shown broken doors, offices that had been turned upside down and safes that had been pried open but this is what has inflamed religious passions most. I'm shown a Quran, which religious leaders allege was torn by U.S. troops.

KIMMITT: We are aware that there were some allegations that coalition forces in fact tore open a Quran. There is no evidence to support that.

BINDRA: These Sunni leaders remain adamant the Americans were insensitive. They point to half eaten American meals littered around the mosque grounds as evidence of the U.S. soldiers' behavior.

KIMMITT: The greatest care was taken by coalition forces to uphold the sanctity of the mosque and to use the minimal amount of force necessary to conduct the operation.

BINDRA: U.S. forces say they came here only after reliable intelligence to notch another victory in their fight against terrorism.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the trip was canceled before it was even planned, why Elizabeth Dole will not be going to Iran, at least not yet.

And, she went to jail because her dog's killed a neighbor, now Marjorie Knoller goes free.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, it is hard to know what words to use about the situation in Bam in Iran. With tens of thousands dead and the ancient city itself all but gone the most that can be said is that people are doing what they can. Under the circumstances that is saying a lot.

We have an update now from Kasra Naji in Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KASRA NAJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A week after the devastating earthquake here hopes of rescue are forgotten, attention is turning to improving the lives of the survivors.

Bulldozers are still clearing the way in alleyways. New tents are still going up. Throughout the day, food and other essentials are distributed from the back of trucks. After the chaos of the first few days of the disaster few are now going hungry.

Iranians throughout the country and the international community have been quick with their help. Registration of the occupants of tents has begun in order to issue them ration books but the authorities are now alarmed by the sudden increase in the number of people with diarrheal diseases and common cold. Tens of thousands are spending the nights out in freezing temperatures and poor sanitary conditions.

(on camera): So, aid is getting through but the question on many minds here is how long are they going to stay in tents and that's an issue the government hasn't addressed yet.

(voice-over): This family survived but lost their home. They were away from Bam when the earthquake struck eight days ago but what to do now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If my government made here I stay here for family.

NAJI: But at least they are alive.

On the other side of town, work continues to recover more bodies. Some 30,000 people have died in this earthquake and they are still counting. Here they found three more bodies, two laborers from Afghanistan and their child.

But whatever help has arrived, Bam may not recover from this catastrophe so complete is the destruction.

Kasra Naji, CNN, Bam, southern Iran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Some 80,000 people still homeless there every night.

We're going to talk later on with a man who visited and took pictures of Bam before the terrible quake there, his images of what was not so long ago compared to what now remains. They are simply astonishing and heartbreaking.

Still on the subject of Iran, the U.S. was prepared to lend a hand there. The hand, in fact, of the woman who used to run the Red Cross here in this country but the government of Iran evidently is not yet prepared to reach quite as far out as that.

Here with more is CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Bush administration offered to send Senator Elizabeth Dole, former president of the American Red Cross, to Iran to head a high level humanitarian mission to aid the earthquake victims but Iran said no thank you. ADAM ERELL, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Given the current situation in Bam and all that is going on there now it would be preferable to hold such a visit in abeyance.

MALVEAUX: U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte contacted Iran's U.N. representative last Tuesday to propose the mission. A green light would have made Dole the first public U.S. official to visit Iran since the 1979 hostage crisis. An unidentified member of the Bush family would have also been part of any potential delegation. U.S. officials say Iran's denial was not political.

ERELL: The offer was not made for political reasons and we don't see the rejection as a -- or we don't see the response as political either.

MALVEAUX: Tehran's decision underscores the mutual suspicions between the two nations whose diplomatic ties were severed nearly 25 years ago. On New Year's Day, President Bush warned...

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Iranian government must listen to the voices of those who long for freedom, must turn over al Qaeda that are in their custody and must abandon their nuclear weapons program.

MALVEAUX: Since the quake the White House has sent relief and eased aid restrictions to Iran, both welcomed by the Islamic republic signaling U.S.-Iran relations are improving.

RAY TAKEYH, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY: Everyone in Iran and in the United States in both Washington and Tehran are beginning to look at this earthquake as potentially establishing a blueprint for a better relationship between the two countries.

MALVEAUX (on camera): But the debate within the administration continues as to how far or how fast relations with Iran can improve.

Suzanne Malveaux CNN, Crawford, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Two other stories of note concerning two more nations various U.S. administrations have seen as adversaries, first Libya. In an interview with the "New York Times" the country's prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, said the United States should act quickly to reward Libya for giving up its secret weapons program, a move it announced just last month.

The U.S. has enforced sanctions on Libya since 1986. Mr. Ghanem said unless the U.S. lifts them by May 12 his country will not be bound to honor remaining payments to families of victims killed on Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Each family is due $6 million.

Libya isn't the only one changing its tune on the weapons front. North Korea may welcome a U.S. delegation next week to visit its Yongbyon nuclear facility which the U.S. suspects is being used for nuclear weapons production. It would be a private delegation not an official government mission but it would be the first such visit since North Korea expelled the U.N. monitors. That was back in late 2002.

On to mad cow now, the search for cows from the so-called index herd continues. Eleven of 82 have now been found and a third cattle herd in Washington State has been quarantined as a result.

As investigators try to unravel the hows and the whys of mad cow's arrival in the U.S., most health officials say the risk of people getting the human form of the disease remains very low, minuscule in fact. That is the message we've been hearing for more than a week now.

For one family in Florida the statistics bring no comfort. The odds did not go their way. Here's CNN's Holly Firfer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOLLY FIRFER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This young woman should be finishing up her Master's degree or planning her future. Instead, she's become a statistic. Twenty-four-year-old Charlene, whose parents don't want us to use their last name, is the only person living in the United States suffering from the human form of mad cow disease.

This is what Charlene looked like when CNN brought you these exclusive pictures over a year ago. Then doctors told her parents she had just about three months to live.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Unintelligible.)

FIRFER: And yet Charlene is still alive today. Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are sure Charlene contracted the disease in the United Kingdom not in the United States.

Charlene lived in England until she was 13 before moving to Florida 11 years ago. So far 143 people in Britain have contracted the Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or VCJD, also known as the human form of mad cow. Six of them are still alive.

A statement from the British Health Department illustrates how much is still unknown about the VCJD.

"It is likely to be some years before we are able to make soundly-based predictions about the future course of the disease."

Twenty-first century medicine has found no cure yet but Charlene's family will not give up. They bathe and feed her, care for her around the clock.

PATRICK, CHARLENE'S FATHER: How Charlene's mom does it I don't know. We don't know. I'm amazed every day.

FIRFER: A neurologist who saw our original report on Charlene's condition was willing to try something new. He offered to give Charlene hyperbaric treatments, pumping pure oxygen into her lungs which may help the brain function better.

DR. RICHARD NEUBAUER, OCEANIC HYPERBARIC NEUROLOGIC CENTER: After 192 treatments she's not only alive but she's begun to try to talk. She's responsive and follows simple commands, still a long ways to go.

FIRFER: So what was the family's reaction to the announcement by U.S. officials that a cow in Washington State had tested positive for mad cow disease and that it's still safe to eat beef?

SHARON, CHARLENE'S AUNT: I was very upset. I was very upset. I was very upset that lessons have not yet been learned.

PATRICK: It's like being in England all over again and reliving this (unintelligible) thing and being told that the meat is safe to eat.

FIRFER: Both Charlene's father and aunt say they are not against the beef industry but they do worry that another parent's child could fall victim to vCJD.

Holly Firfer, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, seven months and 303 million miles down, one crash landing to go. NASA Spirit heads for Mars.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, NASA is starting the New Year with a huge bet on a spacecraft the size of a golf cart. The unmanned rover is barreling towards Mars where tomorrow it will try to land, a feat some describe is akin to making a hole in one while traveling more than 10,000 miles per hour. Try that.

NASA's last attempt to nail a landing on Mars failed. The British spacecraft Beagle 2 tried more than a week ago and has not been heard from since. It is the riskiest part of the $820 million Mars mission. And there is a lot at stake beyond the money.

Here's CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two, one, engines start and liftoff.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seven months and 303 million miles after leaving Earth, NASA's roving robot geology lab is knocking on Mars' door. And the team that built it is bracing for the fateful final minutes of its journey.

ED WEILER, NASA ASSOCIATION ADMINISTRATOR: It's going to be six minutes from hell. It's going to be high anxiety. We've been working on this thing for three to four years.

O'BRIEN: It's an intricate sequence of events that will slow Spirit from 12,000 miles an hour to zero in that short span. A parachute must unfurl at the right moment. A heat shield drops. The lander then dangles from a bridle.

A radar aims towards the surface, air bags inflate, rockets fire. Then, 30 feet above the ground, the bridle is cut and Spirit, nestled inside what looks like a bunch of grapes, hits the red planet.

PETER THEISINGER, MARS MISSION PROJECT MANAGER: It will bounce about a four-story-building height, we believe, and will roll somewhere between one and two kilometers, we believe.

O'BRIEN: Spirit is headed for a crater that appears to be a dry lake bed. Scientists are hoping it will find signs of water, past or present, an essential ingredient for life. The 384-pound golf-cart size rover is equipped with four pairs of stereo cameras for navigation and to send back some far-flung postcards. It also has an arm that can auger into rocks, analyze them, and then phone the results home.

CHARLES ELACHI, JPL DIRECTOR: I think we have done everything we know what to do to assure that this mission will be a success.

O'BRIEN: NASA's last attempt to land on Mars was anything but a success. Four years ago, the Mars Polar Lander plummeted to the surface after its rocket shut off too early.

This time around, the space agency tripled the budget and built a twin rover called Opportunity, slated to land January 24.

WEILER: If we don't hear from Spirit by late Sunday night, it's a high probably we do not have a success. It doesn't mean it's 100 percent, but we will probably declare that we again have a high probably of having a failure and we have to move on and get ready for Opportunity.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Now, there's every opportunity that everything will work perfectly on Spirit and Mars will throw the curveball. Just a sharp rock or sudden gust of wind would be enough to ruin the day.

Over the years, Anderson, one in three Mars missions has succeeded, only one in three. Scientists jokingly call it the death planet, a bit ironic, given the fact they think it's the most likely place we'll find extraterrestrial life.

COOPER: And I guess the most successful along these lines was 1997, the Pathfinder mission. And is right that the same team that sort of developed the Pathfinder is the team behind this?

O'BRIEN: Yes, lots of the same players are here.

And, of course, let's not forget the Viking missions in the mid- '70s, which came out of Jet Propulsion Lab as well. But what's interesting about Pathfinder and this is, it's a very similar approach to Mars, using those air bags and bouncing off the surface. It was very successful back then. They sort of beefed up the air bags. They got a bigger spacecraft in this case. And they're hoping they will have a similar outcome.

COOPER: Well, the animation you showed was the coolest thing I've seen all week. So let's hope this thing works. Miles O'Brien, thanks very much.

O'BRIEN: All right.

COOPER: The Mars mission and whether the planet could have once supported life is the focus of a "Nova" program this weekend. Steve Squyres, the mission's principal scientific investigator and a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, is featured in the program. We have some clips from it.

And we're glad he could join us from Pasadena tonight.

Thanks very much for being with us, Steven.

How is this going to work? It was described as six minutes of hell, that entry into Mars. Describe what has to happen and at exactly the right moment.

STEVEN SQUYRES, MARS EXPLORATION ROVER PROJECT: Yes, it's a very complicated moment.

We hit the top of the atmosphere going about 25 times the speed of sound. In a matter of just minutes, we decelerate to Mach 2, twice the speed of sound. At that point, we pop out a supersonic parachute. We descend on the chute. The radar picks up the ground. The spacecraft gets lowered down on a long cord, or a bridle. And then these air bags, sort of similar to the air bags in your car, in concept, but much more complicated in execution, they inflate around the vehicle.

And then, a short distance above the surface, we cut the cord and the air bags fall down to the surface. And they can bounce and roll for a considerable distance. It sounds like a crazy way to land on Mars, but it is actually tried and tested.

COOPER: And, as you said, if a gust of wind goes wrong or it lands on a sharp rock, this thing could all just get destroyed. But assuming that that does not happen, assuming it lands where it is supposed to and the air bags are deployed as they're supposed to and this thing is out there and working, how is it going to do its job? What does it have on board and what are we going to learn?

SQUYRES: Well, the purpose of the mission is to determine whether or not Mars was ever a place that could have supported life.

It's a cold, dry miserable place today. But we have got these tantalizing clues that, in the past, it used to be warmer and wetter. So you can think of these vehicles as being robot field geologists. A field geologist is like a detective at the scene of a crime. They go to a place where something happened long ago and they try to read the clues.

In this case, the clues are the rocks. And so we've equipped the rovers with 20/20 vision, with the ability to look off in the distance in infrared wavelengths and tell what rocks are made of, the ability to drive around and go from rock outcrop to rock outcrop, and then this amazing arm the size of a human arm that can reach out to grind an opening into the rocks and then look at the interior of the rocks with spectrometers, with a microscope, and really tell us in detail how these rocks formed and what happened at these places long ago.

COOPER: So it's not really picking up anything along the way. It's sort of photographing things, testing things. And how does it send the information back to you?

SQUYRES: We have several ways of getting the data back. On the back of the rover, there is a dish antenna about this big, so it looks like a big lollipop. That can transmit data directly to Earth.

And then there are also two wonderful spacecraft in orbit around Mars right now, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey. Both of those act as communications satellites, comsats for us. They fly overheard. We can squirt some data up to those things. And then they relay data back to Earth. So we've got three different ways for getting pictures, spectra, scientific information down to the ground so we can look at it.

COOPER: Now, the mission already had been difficult. This thing was almost scuttled, I think, more than once before it even took off.

SQUYRES: Yes, it's been a tough road.

The hardest thing was our schedule. We first sort of conceived this mission and got the go-ahead from NASA to fly it only about 3 1/2 years ago. And that's a very, very short period of time to do something this complex. But the team -- the team of engineers that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has put on this project is just the best I've ever seen. They're an amazing group of people.

And we have got two very high-quality spacecraft closing in on Mars right now.

COOPER: Now, is Opportunity, regardless of the success of Spirit, is it going to be deployed, or if Spirit sends back everything you want, is there no need to drop Opportunity several months later?

SQUYRES: Oh, no. Both vehicles are going in.

Opportunity is only three weeks after Spirit. They're going to two fundamentally different places. Spirit is going to this place called Gusev Crater, great big hole in the ground with a dried-up riverbed flowing into it. We think there was a lake there. Opportunity is going to some place totally different.

The place where Opportunity is landing is a place where we see a mineral called hematite, gray hematite, on the surface of Mars. That's a mineral that, on Earth, usually forms as a result of liquid water being around. And so we have got two totally different kinds of clues. In one case, it's the land forms. And in the other case, it's the chemistry of the surface that tell us that water was there. So we can double up the science by going to two different places.

COOPER: You mentioned the importance of whether there was ever water there. Why is that -- explain to me. I'm a science idiot. Why is that so important? What do we learn if we learn that there was once water on Mars?

SQUYRES: Well, the water is the key to whether or not it was a suitable place for life.

The things that we know you have to have life -- have to have for life to take hold are some kind of source of energy. Sunlight works just fine. You need to have the basic building blocks, carbon, hydrogen, and so forth. Those things, we expect to be on Mars in some abundance. But the third thing, the critical ingredient, is liquid water.

And when you look at Mars today, you don't see that. You don't see liquid water. You don't see lakes on the surface. You don't see rivers on the surface. But you see these clues that they used to be there in the past. And so what we're trying to ask with this mission is, did Mars really once have what it takes to support life? Because, if it did, then what we could do is, we can go back to places like Gusev Crater, for example, or the other landing site, Meridiani Planum, and we can get samples and bring them back to laboratories on Earth and really analyze them carefully.

This mission is about finding the right stuff on the surface of Mars.

COOPER: Steven, I wish you had been my astronomy professor in college, because you're fascinating to listen to. And it was really enjoyable.

Steven Squyres, thank you very much. And good luck on the mission.

SQUYRES: Thanks very much. I appreciate that.

COOPER: All right.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, running for New Hampshire. With only weeks left to go until the primary, Democratic candidates, they are going all out. We'll take a look.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, if they were a baseball team, the nine Democratic hopefuls would be relaxing someplace warm by now. As it is, the hopefuls are mostly up north these days out in the cold, still playing hardball and maybe a little hockey as well.

CNN's Dan Lothian has been watching all the fun.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): As the second half of the presidential campaign got under way, Senator John Kerry faced off against a different kind of opponent in New Hampshire, taking shots not from Democratic contenders, but from supporters on ice. Kerry focused on winning the game and the race.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're rolling. We've got great energy.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hi. How are you?

LOTHIAN: Senator John Edwards took his campaign to the streets as part of a statewide tour. He called for a change from the -- quote -- "negative tone" of the race.

EDWARDS: I think this daily sniping that goes on between one candidate and another is below the level of what this discussion should be.

LOTHIAN: Some voters fear unusually harsh negative attacks may weaken the candidacy of the eventual Democratic nominee. Howard Dean heard that from one of his supporters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your opponents are taking a scorched-earth thank? Do you think there will be much left of the Democratic Party by the time they're finished?

(CROSSTALK)

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There will if I win.

LOTHIAN: Joe Lieberman, who began his day at a diner hoping for the luck of the seat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four years ago, George W. sat in here with me.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No kidding?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he got to be president.

LIEBERMAN: This is a good -- I didn't even know that.

LOTHIAN: Says Democrats, we'll survive this campaign battle.

LIEBERMAN: In the end, we're going to unite, because we have a common gold.

LOTHIAN (on camera): Political strategists say, the Democratic candidates also have something else to contend with, seemingly endless good news for the Bush administration, like the improving economy or the capture of Saddam.

(voice-over): But the Democrats say, voters won't be fooled. At a town hall meeting, retired General Wesley Clark made his case for the White House.

WESLEY CLARK (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not running to bash George Bush. I'm running to replace him.

LOTHIAN: Clark is about to unveil a new TV ad here. Kerry just released another one. The all-out push is under way in an attempt to catch Dean, who, according to the most recent poll in New Hampshire, leads 41 percent to Kerry's 17, Clark's 13, and the rest of the pack in single digits.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LOTHIAN: Now, Anderson, Howard Dean continued to defend remarks that he made after Saddam Hussein was captured, when he said the capture of Saddam Hussein didn't mean America was any safer.

Today, he said, in essence, that he was vindicated because he pointed out that the nation has been on high alert, that more troops are still being killed over in Iraq, and that F-16s have to escort foreign passenger planes. No doubt, the Democratic race has really heated up at this point and the Democrats are trying to do whatever they can to win over the voters, especially those undecideds -- Anderson.

COOPER: Well, Dan, less than a month to go before the primary. Two months ago, they were talking about Iraq. They were talking about the economy. Both of those seem to be going pretty well for President Bush right now. What are they talking about? Are they still focusing on those two issues?

LOTHIAN: Those are still the issues.

And one of the things, any time you point out to the Democrats or you ask them about, well, what about the Bush administration, they're doing apparently well in this area or that area, they'll say, well, that's not really what's going on. Look behind it. You look at Saddam Hussein. Yes, he's behind bars. But, as I pointed out, Howard Dean saying that things are still not safer.

And then they have lots of other issues, such as health care and education. Those are the issues that you'll be hearing much more about as we go down to the wire.

COOPER: All right, Dan Lothian, thanks very much.

More still ahead tonight. But, as we go to break, a look at what some of the candidates are up to this weekend.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, you must remember the awful case of the young woman in San Francisco who was literally torn to death by a dog being looked after by a married couple of neighbors, both of whom went to prison after the attack. Well, as of yesterday, they are now both out of prison.

Here's an update from CNN's Charles Feldman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marjorie Knoller was released from a central California woman's prison New Year's Day and taken to Southern California, rather than her home in San Francisco, to serve out her three-year parole. From the time of her arrest, Knoller has been behind bars for 33 months.

In 2001, Knoller was handling two presa canario dogs for a friend when one attacked and killed 33-year-old Diane Whipple in a San Francisco apartment building.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her face was -- the victim, she was completely naked. There was an EMT working on her, but she appeared to me to be dead. There was blood soaked in the hallway approximately 20 to 30 feet in the carpet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We, the jury, in the above titled action, find the defendant, Marjorie Knoller, guilty of the crime of murder.

FELDMAN: Knoller was originally found guilty of second degree murder, but a judge threw that out. The state is appealing.

The case got a lot of media attention and had to be moved to L. A. Knoller's husband, already out on parole, told a local TV station...

ROBERT NOEL, MARJORIE KNOLLER'S HUSBAND: I'm happy beyond words and absolutely relieved that she's out.

FELDMAN: Not so happy, says one of the prosecutors, is the victim's former domestic partner.

JAMES HAMMER, PROSECUTOR: They had Marjorie Knoller walk out after only two years, and it was very upsetting to her. And that really hit home for me.

FELDMAN (on camera): Knoller is apparently also unhappy, telling a Bay Area TV station she doesn't know what she is going to do here in Southern California.

Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, a few stories now from around the country, beginning in Washington, where Ralph Hall, the most senior member of Texas's delegation, reportedly has decided to switch party allegiances from Democrat to Republican. This, of course, tips the balance further in the GOP's direction, 229-204, with one independent and one seat currently vacant.

In Modesto, California, prosecutors in the murder trial of Scott Peterson today filed their arguments to keep the proceedings where they are, saying that the defense -- quote -- "has failed to prove that jurors in any other county would view this case differently." Mark Geragos, Peterson's attorney, made a motion for a change of venue a month ago, citing widespread and pervasive -- that is what they call it -- publicity, publicity the prosecution said the defense itself was responsible for.

Finally, some folks in California got more of a train ride than they bargained for when bad weather caused was derailment some 40 miles west of Truckee yesterday. No one was hurt, but 300 passengers sat and sat and sat some more, sat, in fact for 14 hours, until their Amtrak train finally got moving again early this morning. No doubt, they were not happy.

A couple of business stories before we go to break. The country's No. 3 bank may be headed for trouble. The securities arm of Bank of America said today it may face civil action from the SEC relating to trading activity in the unit's San Francisco office. The company said the allegations include improperly storing documents relevant to an inquiry and not producing requested documents in a timely matter.

In North Carolina, Norman and Deanna Shue are starting the new year as multimillionaires. Not a bad way to begin. They woke up New Year's Day to learn they had won half of Wednesday's $220 million Powerball jackpot. They bought their ticket in South Carolina, claimed their prize today. The other winning ticket was sold outside York, Pennsylvania. That multimillionaire hasn't come forward yet.

And the new year stock rally fizzled today. The Dow and the S&P 500 were down a bit at the day's close. The Nasdaq was up a tad. All three major indices finished the week modestly higher.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, it was one of the oldest and largest structures of its kind in the world. Now Bam, Iran, is a wasteland -- what the historic city used to be next on NEWSNIGHT

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: We're about to talk with Ali Afkhami, who visited and photographed Bam, Iran, before its virtual disappearance eight days ago.

Is disappearance saying too much, do you think? Take a look at these satellite images. This is a satellite picture of Bam as it was before the earthquake, as it was and had been by then, some of it, for a millennium. Much of the 1,000-year-old city was made of earth, baked mud, earth which was violently reclaimed by the earth in a matter of minutes. Look at this. This is Bam as it is now, the great fortress and so much else leveled, the way so many sand castles would be after the coming of a wave, so many lives lost, so much history lost as well.

Mr. Afkhami, thanks very much for joining us. We appreciate you being with us.

ALI AFKHAMI, IRANIAN FILMMAKER: Thank you.

COOPER: You went to Iran really on your own, filming various parts of the country, because that's where you were from originally and you wanted to see it.

AFKHAMI: Absolutely. I just wanted to educate myself with the variety and the culture of the country.

COOPER: Well, educate a little bit about the city of Bam, because, historically, it has a great importance to Iran.

AFKHAMI: It does, indeed.

It's a city that dates back over 2,000 years. And it was very much an inherent part of the silk road. And so it developed into a big trading city. And in fact, Bam -- the citadel that no longer exists, was the center of that.

COOPER: And the citadel -- we're about to show these pictures, which are -- these are the images you took. That is the citadel right there.

AFKHAMI: Correct. That's -- as we see, we're entering -- that's the main entrance of the fortress.

COOPER: This, of course, no longer there, but this an enormous structure. This, in fact, in the world, it's the largest mud fortress.

AFKHAMI: Precisely. And that was part of its claim to fame, if you like. And it sort of evolved over the centuries. A large portion was built during the Safavid Dynasty, which was dated between 1500 to 1700.

COOPER: And it's hard to get a sense of how big this is. I was reading it's like 2.5 square miles, the citadel.

AFKHAMI: That's right.

Completely -- if you look at images there now, it's completely made of mud. And the image we're seeing now is the main basic area, where the people converted and traded and the main sort of trade center. And, afterwards, we move on to the inner city, where the troops of the king were kept. He was -- where the cavalry was maintained. And, again, we have a pan, obviously, of the citadel. And then, finally, the peak was where the ruler resided and oversaw his whole, like, fiefdom from the very highest point of the citadel. COOPER: We're also going to show now a now picture, an after picture, after the earthquake, what this area looks like. There is the citadel there, as you can see, and all that is destroyed in front of it.

AFKHAMI: Yes.

COOPER: As you look at these pictures as it is now, what do you think?

AFKHAMI: I am filled really with a mixture of sorrow and disbelief, because, obviously, the ramifications of it are very deep, because this is not simply a part of Iranian or Persian history. This is a part of world history that has been eradicated forever. And it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy that...

COOPER: And for a country which has, in their own way, been wanting tourists to come to the country, the citadel was a major tourist attraction. I think a few tens of thousands of people went to it each year, which may not sound like a lot for America. But, in Iran, that is a lot of tourists.

AFKHAMI: Absolutely.

I think Persepolis, which is where the Persian empire was founded, this must be, if not the first or the second largest tourist attraction in Iran. And the ramifications, again, are enormous, because the government, as you said, is very seen on encouraging that sort of activity. And now, well, you know...

COOPER: There have been some who have said, look, they're going to rebuild the citadel. Not only is it a tourist attraction. It's a culturally important symbol. And I guess, before this, the U.N. had even considered it making it a world historic site. Do you think they will rebuild?

AFKHAMI: I can't really speak on behalf of a government that has made a number of promises in the past and has yet to deliver.

I will say this much, though, that the priority should be on focusing to, if you like, repopulate the area and put people back on their feet. I mean, certainly the citadel is of great importance, but the more important thing is the human life issue.

COOPER: Certainly.

AFKHAMI: And the more important thing is the children.

As you reported yourself, a lot of children have now been rendered homeless and are orphans. And I think the world focus should be on giving this issue a priority. And then we'll worry about building and all the rest of it, which can be done. There's no doubt about it.

COOPER: It's remarkable. The numbers are staggering and sort of impossible to comprehend, some 30,000 people dead, 80,000 people homeless right now, living on the streets. And they are very cold streets, indeed.

AFKHAMI: Indeed.

To complicate matters, if you like, to aggravate the situation, apparently, the nighttime temperature has been a record low. It was never -- it was unprecedented. We're talking about a warm part of the country that's near the Persian Gulf. And the temperature there is pretty steady. At nights, it gets cold, but not as cold as it has been.

So people are extremely -- my understanding, speaking to relatives and obviously getting the news from the local news...

(CROSSTALK)

AFKHAMI: ... is that people are just dumbfounded. It's almost like they don't know why.

COOPER: Yes.

AFKHAMI: And it's quite sad, really. It really is.

COOPER: It's interesting. I appreciate you bringing in the pictures of what it looked like before, something to keep in mind about what, perhaps, the city may look like once again.

Ali Afkhami, thank you very much.

AFKHAMI: Thank you very much.

COOPER: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a check of our top story, as well as a look at what we'll have for you on Monday.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: A recap of our top story: high anxiety in the air in the new year. British airlines canceled more flights today. And a top U.S. official said such steps are taken only if there is specific intelligence indicating a possible attack.

Monday on NEWSNIGHT, Aaron Brown is back, a recap of tomorrow's Mars mission, a little armchair quarterbacking from 300 million miles away. Did it have the right stuff? We'll see.

Good night.

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