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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

John Williams Jones Captured Off I-85; Iraqi Weapons Mostly On Paper; Presidential Advisor Says We Aren't Doing Enough Against Terrorists

Aired January 08, 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.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
We said before that sometimes the news is about big and important things, big and important in bold letters and sometimes it's about something else. The program tonight has plenty of those big, bold, important stories, more on the failed hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the administration's defense.

We have a hardliner's view of the war on terror and why this influential adviser to the president believes the country is not doing enough of the right things big, bold, important, life-changing stuff. We have that.

But we lead the program and the whip with importance of another sort, small importance if you will, not civilization but a family, a community devastated, destroyed, the tragedies of their lives played out all day for all the world to see.

We start at Calhoun, Georgia and CNN's Martin Savidge who has been reporting the story that ended tonight, Marty a headline.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Aaron. It was a day that started with horrendous tragedy, four bodies found including that of a small child. Then the discovery, three other children missing believed kidnapped by a desperate man now on the run. Tonight, authorities say a miracle. The children have been found alive and well.

BROWN: Marty, we'll get the details from you coming up.

Baghdad next at the end of a difficult and yet deadly day, CNN's Karl Penhaul with us again tonight, Karl a headline.

I'll take that on a sign we need to work on communications to Iraq.

We'll move on to Houston, the Enron case, the husband and wife who could be on the verge of breaking that case open. CNN's Jen Rogers has that, we'll see how we do in Houston, Jen a headline.

JEN RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Aaron. That's right. Andrew and Lea Fastow didn't even have to show up here at federal court in Houston today to be the talk of the town. The one time power couple is still trying to hammer out a deal with the government that many say could set the stage for even more big name indictments -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jen, thank you.

And on to Modesto, California where, as perhaps you have heard, Scott Peterson's trial will not take place. CNN's David Mattingly covered the developments there today so, David, a headline from you.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, because of all the pretrial publicity the judge in the Scott Peterson case decided that there's no way that a jury here could reach a verdict based entirely on what it hears in the courtroom. So, for that reason, this trial is moving -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT the nuts and bolts of the battle over abortion or should we say the hammer and nails, one man's effort to prevent a clinic from being built.

Later as we mentioned we'll talk with two influential advisers to the Bush administration on the war on terror, Richard Pearl (ph) and David From (ph) have a new book out about where we should go from here and some of the mistakes they believe the country is making.

We'll get a jump on Friday, of course, a check of your morning papers ushered in by a rooster, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the news that three young girls are safe tonight. It is good news, the best news imaginable but not by any stretch of the imagination a happy ending, only the least horrible outcome in a story that began and ended with unspeakable violence.

We begin with CNN's Martin Savidge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): A tip from a motorist, a highway chase, a crash and self-inflicted gunshot wound, three children alive and well. For authorities this wasn't the sort of ending that they had just hoped for but in this part of Georgia one they had prayed for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Georgia officers located him on I-75 heading north towards Chattanooga. They got in a chase with him. Several agencies joined into the chase. It went over into the Tennessee line.

He took the first exist, the Ringgold (ph) exit and then apparently had a traffic accident. But there was apparently a gunshot heard and we don't know any more than that. The kids apparently are fine but he apparently is in bad condition.

SAVIDGE: Jerry Jones was not only a wanted man in Georgia but by the end of the day had become the most desperately sought after man in America, wanted not only for the murders authorities alleged he committed but also for the three young children he reportedly had taken with him. It began late Wednesday night with a phone call that led police to this rural community in north Georgia and the discovery of the bodies of three adults and a 10-month-old infant.

A number of the victims had been shot several times, the infant apparently strangled and then the discovery, three other children, all girls, ten, four and three were missing and believed kidnapped by the suspect. An Amber Alert was issued across the region. Authorities were gravely concerned for the children's safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A statement was made if you notify the officers I will harm the children.

SAVIDGE: That statement was made by Melissa Peeler (ph) the mother of the three missing children estranged from Jones. She was the one that had called police from Oregon Wednesday evening saying that Jones had called her telling her what he had done. It was that phone call that led police to the gruesome discovery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not know where he is at. We do not know where he is headed to.

SAVIDGE: The dragnet for Jerry Jones not only spread across the southeast but then went across the nation. For the sheriff in the small community in Gordon County the murders were not just a terrible crime. They became personal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The way he's treated these people I want him bad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: And Sheriff Jerry Davis has his wish tonight, although it remains to be seen exactly how serious the condition is for the suspect right now. It is said that he is gravely wounded but, of course, it is the fact that the children have been recovered.

We mentioned at the beginning of the piece about how prayer is important in this part of Georgia. It should be noted that the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ended tonight by saying that the Lord was riding with police officers tonight and also riding with those three young children.

It is not a happy ending though, a bittersweet ending. There are still four bodies to be buried including a 10-month-old child -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do we know what this was about?

SAVIDGE: Authorities do not say on the record what this is about yet. They are still in the investigative stages trying to figure that out. Family members we've talked to say they believe that there was a falling out between the suspect and his estranged wife. He had threatened to kill family members if she ever left him. The breakup apparently occurred over the holidays -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, thank you, Martin Savidge in Georgia. Good work today.

On now to Iraq where the military aviation is often indispensable for getting around the country, getting people and supplies in and out of where they need to be. It is indispensable but it is never risk- free.

Today a giant Air Force transport plane was targeted by ground fire and an Army helicopter might have been, no one is saying for certain. The transport managed to land safely. The helicopter did not.

In Iraq today, CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL (voice-over): U.S. military helicopters circle a crash site the wreck of the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that went down just south of Fallujah.

GEN. MARK KIMMIT, U.S. ARMY: An Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on a routine mission carrying nine passengers crashed southeast of Fallujah. There were no survivors.

PENHAUL: He says all aboard were U.S. soldiers. One coalition official said the helicopter was on a medical evacuation mission. Kimmit's not specifying the cause only that the helicopter made an emergency landing but one Iraqi witness said the crash was the result of ground fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I saw a missile hit the helicopter. It went down over there. It had a red cross on it.

PENHAUL: This is the Sunni Triangle, heartland of the guerrilla war against coalition forces. Earlier this month a Kiowa observation helicopter was shot down in the same area and in November insurgents brought down a Chinook transport helicopter not far away.

The Black Hawk crash came hours after an attack on a U.S. base in the same region just west of Baghdad. A barrage of six mortars slammed into barracks at logistics base sites, home to the 541st Maintenance Battalion out of Fort Riley, Kansas, one soldier dead, 33 other soldiers and a civilian wounded. The Army says some of the injured have since returned to duty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL: As you say, Aaron, the risks to aviation here in Iraq very high not just in that Sunni Triangle but, as you mention, in Baghdad. Just hours before the Black Hawk went down one of these giant C-5 Galaxy transport planes comes under fire.

We don't yet know what brought the Black Hawk down, whether it was an accident or whether it was hostile fire but the Pentagon has told us that the Galaxy C-5 was hit in the engine compartment by a heat-seeking surface-to-air missile. That did though manage to turn around and return to Baghdad Airport safely from altitude of about 6,000 feet and all 63 passengers and crew onboard that aircraft are safe.

BROWN: Karl, thank you, Karl Penhaul in Baghdad.

This seems the week for exhaustive and obviously controversial reports about the administration's rationale for war with Iraq and the so far failed search for weapons of mass destruction.

Just a day after a major piece in the "Washington Post" detailing how little weapons inspectors have found so far and how little some now say they expect to find the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is out with a report on its own. It too provides little for the White House to like.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After six months of interviewing Iraqis and weapons inspectors and reviewing intelligence, the report's authors are scathing about the Bush administration's pre-war statements on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

JESSICA MATHEWS, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: The representations by senior administration officials show a fairly systematic misrepresentation of the facts over and above the intelligence failings with respect to chemical and biological weapons.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm confident of what I presented last year.

ENSOR: At a news conference Secretary of State Powell strongly defended his pre-war presentation to the United Nations of what was known about Iraq's weapons programs.

POWELL: And anything that we did not feel was solid and multi- sourced we did not use in that speech.

ENSOR: The Carnegie report says the threat was exaggerated and that war was not the best or only option. It calls for U.S. national security policy to drop the idea of unilateral preemptive war.

It says U.S. intelligence was unduly influenced by policymakers and recommends possibly making the post of director of Central Intelligence a career job not a presidential appointment to avoid the politicization of intelligence.

CIA officials from the top down have consistently said there is no need for that kind of change. It would not work and that they've always and will always tell it like it is.

STUART COHEN, CIA OFFICIAL: No reasonable person could have reached conclusions other than the ones that we reached.

ENSOR: The Carnegie report also says there remains no evidence of any connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. POWELL: I have not seen smoking gun concrete evidence about the connection but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.

ENSOR: The Carnegie report's authors have been critics of the Iraq war all along and include former officials in Democratic administrations. The report will likely be quoted this election year by whoever gets the Democratic Party's nomination for president.

(on camera): Some U.S. officials suspect that Iraqi scientists may have been lying to Saddam Hussein telling him they had weapons related capabilities that they did not really have and that even as the dictator was duped so was the rest of the world but for now that's only a theory.

David Ensor, CNN the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It is more than safe to say other people hold different views and few people defend those views better than Richard Pearl who has been a close adviser to the administration and David From, the president's former top speech writer.

They've collaborated on a new book and both join us a little bit later in the program to talk about their feelings about the war on terror and how the country is handling it.

On to corporate crime, it has been almost two years since we watched a gallery of suspected rogues testify before Congress following the spectacular collapse of Enron. Many of those former executives took the Fifth.

Andrew Fastow was one of them, Enron's former chief financial officer. He is considered key in this case, accused of devising the schemes that caused the company's downfall his wife charged with helping and that has given prosecutors some leverage. Both of the Fastow's have been negotiating plea deals, his and her pleas if you will, and today there was movement.

Here's CNN's Jen Rogers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROGERS (voice-over): After nearly two years of investigation the Enron Task Force may be close to its biggest breakthrough yet. A federal judge Thursday set a deadline of noon Friday for Lea Fastow's team to decide whether or not she wants to enter a new plea, a guilty plea that would be part of an agreement with the government to limit her jail sentence to five months.

Lea Fastow, wife of former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, the alleged mastermind behind the web of complex accounting deals that brought down the energy giant was charged in a six count indictment last May.

While it could be a big step forward there's a hitch. The judge didn't sign off on all the details of the deal expressing concern over the preliminary agreement.

So the ball is now in Mrs. Fastow's court her decision to change her plea and risk that the judge might up her sentence or stick with her not guilty plea and head to trial. Lea Fastow's attorney spoke earlier Thursday about his client's motivation for changing her plea.

MICHAEL DEGUERIN, LEA FASTOW ATTORNEY: You'd have to be a mother to fully understand. She has two children at home, five and eight and five months works. Anything more than that doesn't.

ROGERS: If Lea Fastow pleads guilty it is expected to set in motion a series of major announcements including a deal for her husband. Many would see that potential agreement as a huge victory for the government and a possible step towards turning up the heat on other former Enron officials including two men at the top of the Enron food chain, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.

DAVID BERG, TRIAL LAWYER: The government wants him desperately. He's the best key they've got to Skilling and Lay and potential indictments and convictions of those two men.

ROGERS: Mr. Skilling's attorney did not return calls for comment. Mr. Lay's attorney says as long as the Fastow's tell the truth his client won't be impacted at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROGERS: Now if Mrs. Fastow does not change her plea this case is headed to a trial and, in fact, jury selection was underway here today and a trial date of February 10 has been set for Mrs. Fastow, April 20 for Andrew Fastow -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jen, thank you very much.

Peter Elkind, a senior writer with "Fortune" magazine is with us. He's also the co-author of the book, "Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron," good to have you with us. Let's deal with Mrs. Fastow for a second.

PETER ELKIND, SENIOR WRITER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Sure.

BROWN: She is a minnow in this is she not?

ELKIND: Relatively speaking absolutely.

BROWN: So when people hear five months, which sounds like something you get for a serial shoplifting they ought to consider that she is not a major player at the very least.

ELKIND: No. She's a minor supporting actor but she played a part in managing the partnerships and taking some of the money.

BROWN: Now on the other hand her husband is considered a huge deal and the deal they are talking about, ten years, for white collar crime is serious stuff. ELKIND: Yes. No, by white collar crime standards that's a lot of time. Many of these cases end with two and three and four and five-year sentences. This is a lot. It doesn't sound like a lot when you see what drug dealers get in some cases and blue collar criminals get but in white collar crime this is a long sentence.

BROWN: And what if anything does that tell you?

ELKIND: Well, it tells you that Andy Fastow was an incredibly -- was a key player at the very center of the financial fraud involving Enron and he was involved in two ways.

One is he was the maestro of all the financial machinations that allowed Enron to defraud investors and, secondly, he was actually defrauding Enron at the same time. He was lining his own pocket and collected $60 million plus in income from the partnerships that he was running for the company.

BROWN: I think there is out there a frustration among some people that this case has moved in their view very slowly and that they really want, they want the big fish. They want Ken Lay and probably nothing short of Ken Lay. Has it been moving slowly or has it been moving in a kind of smart, methodical way?

ELKIND: It's been very classic. It's been absolutely methodical. It seems like it's been taking a long time because people want to see blood right away but this case is incredibly complicated.

There's a prosecutor who said that in the Martha Stewart case, for example, which moved forward very rapidly is like arithmetic, Enron's like calculus. That's very much the case.

BROWN: Just at the risk of spending the next ten minutes trying to answer this why is it so complicated?

ELKIND: Oh, well because Enron was engaged in all sorts of incredibly sophisticated cutting edge out there financial machinations. They were --

BROWN: Is it that -- in one person's view they were criminals and in another person's view they just made lousy business decisions and it's not always easy to tell the difference.

ELKIND: That's absolutely the defense. The defense says these guys just made some bad calls and they were doing things that got approved by accountants and they got approved by lawyers so what's the problem? How can you blame them for making some bad choices? In addition in business sometimes bad stuff happens.

BROWN: Yes.

ELKIND: That's one view obviously of the people that are under the gun at this point.

BROWN: Do you have a feel for where this is going? Will it get to Mr. Lay, for example? ELKIND: Well, I think it, you know, these indictments -- presuming all of this falls into place, which it likely will and for which everyone has a lot of motivation to make it happen it's aimed straight at Jeff Skilling and then Ken Lay.

BROWN: Good to see you.

ELKIND: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Thank you for coming in. Hope you'll come back as this one plays out. This is a great story isn't it? Thank you.

Ahead on the program tonight a ruling on a change of venue in the Scott Peterson case. We'll head out to California for that.

Plus, the fight over abortion making it an economic issue as well as a moral one, the battle over building a clinic in Texas.

And a new warning about the dangers of eating farm-raised salmon.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In our very wired world it's popular to say we are all connected, 24/7 news, being part of the glue that binds us together which makes an interesting backdrop for a decision today in the Scott Peterson murder trial.

A judge ruled that Mr. Peterson, who as you know is accused of killing his wife Laci and their unborn child, cannot get a fair trial in his hometown of Modesto, California. He will get a change of venue.

The case has been widely covered, endlessly some would say. One might argue and prosecutors did today that Modesto jurors might be no more tainted than anyone else. The judge disagreed.

Here's CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): It was a not-so-simple question posed to the Court, could Scott Peterson get a fair trial in his home county but one easily answered according to the judge by looking outside the courthouse. Eight thousand articles in print worldwide he says and uncounted hours of air time add up to too much pretrial publicity.

AL GIROLAMI, SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: As much as I regret the inconvenience and hardship that this will cause a large number of witnesses that are expected in this trial and the significant extra cost for the county and the state, the facts of this case require a different venue.

MATTINGLY: It's exactly what Scott Peterson wanted to hear. His attorney, Mark Geragos, described a lynch mob mentality in Stanislaus County citing the night Peterson was arrested when a crowd outside the jail jeered at his arrival, some calling him a murderer.

MARK GERAGOS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It's a very good day and obviously we're extremely pleased. The Court has taken the first step toward ensuring a fair trial in this case and I think that's what everybody is interested in doing except the prosecution.

MATTINGLY: Prosecutors, however, argued there was no need to move that jury pools all over California were subject to the same media coverage of this emotionally charged case, going so far to cite the trial of mass murdered Charles Manson, pointing out that sensational trial was not moved.

DAVID HARRIS, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: If you can have the horrendous facts in that case and not get a change of venue there's nothing in this case that's been made public. There's nothing that's been said or brought out that even comes close to that case.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: But the judge did not agree and now the trial is moving to someplace that can possible accommodate hundreds of potential witnesses and someplace where the jury pool hasn't been completely saturated by media coverage -- Aaron.

BROWN: And where might that be on planet earth?

MATTINGLY: Well, that's been the question that's been bandied about since Scott Peterson was arrested. Where can he go to get a fair trial? The judge has a short list of three counties, all of them in the San Francisco Bay area. Mark Geragos has an even shorter list. He would like to see it tried in Los Angeles.

But a lot of this will be up to a state board that will look in to find out which county can actually handle this case because it is a huge undertaking, one that could take six months before a jury goes to deliberate on this -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you, David Mattingly in Modesto tonight.

On to Texas and a new tactic in the abortion wars, anti-abortion activists have long targeted Planned Parenthood and its clinics, nothing new there. Now they are taking a preemptive strike. The idea is simple. Play hardball with the guys who build the clinics.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Chris Danze builds home foundations in the Texas hill country but the one foundation that hasn't been poured is the one he considers his masterpiece.

CHRIS DANZE, ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVIST: My intent was to stop, slow down or make the project more expensive.

LAVANDERA: Danze is an anti-abortion activist. His mission is to keep Planned Parenthood from opening a new clinic in Austin. In September, Planned Parenthood broke ground for a $6 million facility and Danze organized a boycott. He sent 750 letters urging contractors to walk away from the job. Six weeks after the groundbreaking the contractors quit and construction stopped.

DANZE: What I try to do is get behind the desk, get behind the facade, the business facade and get to the person behind the desk and try to reach their heart, reach their conscience, reach their soul.

LAVANDERA: But it's the second part of his mission that some say really made people listen.

DANZE: So, if we go to their heart if that doesn't work we go for the wallet.

LAVANDERA: What that means is Danze is putting together a list of everyone who agrees to work on the clinic. That list will be sent to area churches to keep them off future church construction projects, a not so subtle reminder that taking this job now will cost you in the future.

DANZE: When they go into an abortion chamber and rip the arms and legs and tear the head off these little boys and girls that's hardball, if you want to talk about hardball. That's hardball. What I'm doing is nothing compared to that.

LAVANDERA: Tom Hatch is the project's architect. He refuses to back out and says it's not fair to force contractors to choose sides in the abortion debate.

TOM HATCH, ARCHITECT: My sense is it's not a philosophical issue because they knew what the project was about to begin with. So, I think it's strictly financial.

LAVANDERA (on camera): A group that's known for trying to shut down Planned Parenthood clinics says that this idea of targeting contractors isn't new. It's been tried about six times in the last ten years but it's never been successful until now and Planned Parenthood admits that they never expected a one man mission to become this successful.

GLENDA PARKS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: We were caught knowing that something could happen but not what would happen. We know now what can happen.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Planned Parenthood still expects to finish the project next year about two months behind schedule but this time they'll be their own contractor and try to keep the list of workers private.

PARKS: So, as we begin the new process of construction we're going to protect our subcontractors. We're going to do a whole lot more to make sure that we are very cautious.

LAVANDERA: Chris Danze knows his one man mission probably won't be enough to stop this clinic from being finished but for now he finds inspiration in history books and compares this boycott to similar non- violent tactics used during the civil rights movement.

Ed Lavandera CNN, Austin, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight he may be no Meredith Wilson but Jeff Greenfield will do his best to explain why Iowa sticks stubbornly to its caucuses.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Ten days from now, the presidential primary season officially gets under way, but not with a primary, not exactly. Voters get their first chance to have their say, but not by voting, at least not exactly.

We're talking about the caucuses a week from Monday in Iowa, which, if we were being perfectly honest, we'll say we understand completely, just not exactly.

Fortunately, we have CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't talk it. I do it.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It sure looks like a primary campaign.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is about what kind of America you're going to have.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need a president....

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Are you ready for this fight?

GREENFIELD: And it sounds like a primary campaign.

DEAN: It's time for the truth.

GREENFIELD: But whatever it looks and sounds like, Iowa is not a primary campaign. This is a caucus state.

(on camera): So what? Here's what. It makes a huge difference that Iowans use caucuses to start the nominating process, huge differences in everything from who votes to how they vote.

(voice-over): In a primary election, voters show up at the polls anytime they choose and, in a few minutes, if they're lucky, they cast their ballots and they're on their way. But the Iowa caucuses are held during the evening, almost always a cold Midwest midwinter evening. And you have to be prepared to invest a few hours in the process.

The first consequence, almost nobody participates, at least compared with states that have primaries. For instance, back in 2000, when both parties had battles for the nomination, a total of 149,000 Iowans showed up for the caucuses. That is 6.8 percent of eligible Iowans. By contrast, more than 44 percent of New Hampshire voters cast votes in that state's two primaries.

Moreover, because of the investment of time and body heat, a caucus draws out the more intensely committed voters. Ballot boxes don't measure intensity, of course, but the caucuses do. That's why, in 1988, Reverend Pat Robertson actually out-polled Vice President George Bush at the Iowa caucuses.

Another huge difference, when you vote in a primary, you don't get to say who your second choice is. But in the Democratic caucuses, you sometimes can. If your candidate can't get 15 percent support from the people who go to your caucus, those supporters can join with another candidate. That means that tactical voting can play a big role.

For instance, if you're for John Edwards and he doesn't make the 15 percent threshold where you're caucusing, you and fellow Edwards supporters can figure out which other candidate might help Edwards' cause in later states.

(on camera): Now, you may wonder why Iowa chooses caucuses instead of a primary to choose their delegates. Well, here's one very good reason. It's the only reason Iowa gets to go before New Hampshire, the first primary state. And that adds up to millions and millions of reasons, millions and millions of dollars in TV and radio ads, hotel rooms, restaurants, car rentals, not to mention all the attention, or you might call it pandering, that candidates bring to it.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Anne Kornblut joins us now from Des Moines. She covers the caucuses and the campaign for "The Boston Globe." We're pleased to have her with us.

Have you talked to all 149,000 or 169,000 people that will show up for the caucuses yet?

ANNE KORNBLUT, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Not yet. I'm trying to get there.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: There was a story yesterday, a poll out yesterday, that did show the race kind of generally tightening. It showed some movement for General Clark in New Hampshire. Is there any sense in Iowa that things are shifting around at all?

KORNBLUT: Yes.

There's some more polls that have come out today that show a much tighter field, actually, depending on what you believe. A lot of people here, even though you see the sort of -- what we've seen is Dean sort of in the high 20s, followed by Gephardt in the low 20s, and Kerry and then Edwards somewhere behind that. It varies by a few points, depending on the poll.

But it's not clear whether you should even believe these polls, because the caucus is so different from the primary, like the piece just said.

BROWN: Is it a foregone conclusion, I guess, that Dean wins, and if that's the case, then is second place what the story becomes?

KORNBLUT: Well, the second-place spot has been the story for some time here. Nothing is a foregone conclusion, of course. Dean looks like he's ahead.

BROWN: Yes.

KORNBLUT: But the race for first, second, third, and fourth, actually, all of them are stories, because they will determine who drops out, who goes on to New Hampshire, who has got momentum, whatever that is, and so on.

BROWN: How much do the candidates in Iowa tailor their message to Iowans, as opposed to a kind of broad national message?

KORNBLUT: It's pretty tailored. You don't hear much talk about ethanol subsidies in New Hampshire, which is a big deal in Iowa. You hear a lot more about trade. Dick Gephardt has put trade ads on the air and is running a very anti-NAFTA campaign here. It works a lot better here than it does in New Hampshire.

But because there's so much national media here, they have to be careful not to say anything that would be directly opposed to what they'd say in the next state or in South Carolina or the primaries after that.

BROWN: And is Iraq -- does Iraq remain the kind of bubbling issue that seems to dominate all others?

KORNBLUT: It doesn't seem to dominate right now. It's still the litmus test or it's still the reason people broke for Dean or for Kerry or for Gephardt in the first place. And the people who are anti-war are very anti-war. Many of them are with Dennis Kucinich.

But other issues are really in the front. Tax cuts, in the last 24 or 48 hours have become a very big question and whether Dean would offer a tax cut.

BROWN: And Governor Dean's campaign yesterday seemed to suggest that it was rethinking its idea that it would repeal all of the Bush tax cuts.

KORNBLUT: Yes. And this has actually been sort of a rough 24 hours for Dean in that regard.

He said, as recently as, I guess, Tuesday or Sunday, that he'd repeal all the Bush tax cuts. That's something that he's said from the beginning. Some of his economic advisers, however, have talked about coming out with a middle-class tax cut plan.

The campaign at this point is saying it's not going to come out soon, but it's been a tough P.R. job for them in the last few days.

BROWN: Do you notice, just in the last minute, candidates growing or changing over the period of time that you've watched them in this process out there?

KORNBLUT: Well, the one I think we've seen change the most so far is General Clark, who seemed a little unsure of his footing at first. But all of them improve over time.

The other thing you notice, of course, is they all start getting sick or they start losing their voices or they lose weight or they gain weight. And we're certainly seeing variations on that with all of them.

BROWN: Anne, thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you soon again, I hope.

KORNBLUT: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still to come on the program tonight, what's left to eat? New concerns now about the dangers of farm-raised salmon, which is most of the salmon you eat. We'll explain that after the break.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, this is where we tell you that the food we've been told is good for you might actually be dangerous for you. We don't like these stories either. We find them confusing. Plus, it makes it harder to order.

Farm-raised salmon is the food in question tonight. Part of the problem is the food these salmon are fed, other fish ground into fish meal. Does this sound like the mad cow story, only with fish? We've been told for years that eating this particular fish, rich in omega 3 fatty acids, is good for our hearts. Now a new study suggests risks.

Here's CNN's Holly Firfer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOLLY FIRFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the largest study published in the journal "Science" done on farm-raised salmon, scientists found a significantly higher concentration of potentially cancer-causing continents such as PCBs and dioxins than in salmon caught in the wild.

Look at 700 farm-raised salmon from 16 large cities in North and South America and Europe, researchers found the dioxin level was 11 times higher than in salmon caught in the wild. They also found farm- raised salmon in Europe had the most continents. The least amount were found in the farm fish from Chile.

DR. DAVID CARPENTER, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY: Once should limit your consumption of farm salmon to probably on the average of not more than one farm salmon meal per month. However, we're not telling people not to eat farm salmon and we're certainly not telling people not to eat fish. Fish that is not contaminated is a very healthy food.

FIRFER: The FDA, however, disagrees that farm salmon is unsafe, citing, the levels of pollutants are too low for serious concern and add, it is safe to eat this farm fish.

DR. LESTER CRAWFORD, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, FDA: There is no health risk. It's just an element of concern. People should not stop eating fish of any kind as a result of this study.

FIRFER: While salmon in the wild eat a variety of things in the ocean, like krill and zooplankton, farm-raised salmon eat a high-fat feed primarily of other fish ground into fish meal, and, as a result, eat more of those toxins than fish in the wild, which end up building up in the fat tissue.

The trade group Salmon of the Americas says this study is based on research done two years ago and, since then, the industry has been making changes, like replacing the feed from fish oil with soybean or canola oil, and points to a National Academy of Sciences report that -- quote -- "recommends that the consumption of fish not be restricted to achieve reductions in PCBs in the total diet because of the increasing evidence of health benefits compared to unproven risks."

The authors of the study are recommending, farm-raised salmon be clearly labeled farm-raised and that the country of origin be clearly identified. They ad, if the label says fresh, it doesn't mean caught from the ocean. And almost any salmon labeled Atlantic in the U.S. is usually farmed. And health experts add, since we know contaminants tend to build up in the fatty tissue of the fish, remove as much visible fat as possible, as well as the skin.

Holly Firfer, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Moving on, the "MONEYLINE Roundup" begins tonight with the rest of the surf and turf, if you will.

New rules from the Agriculture Department aimed at stopping mad cow disease, they limit the use of advanced meat recovery systems. Those are machines that scrape every last bit of meat off the bones, which often includes the tissue thought to harbor the disease.

The FDA, in the meantime, has rejected one company's bid to get silicone breast implants back on the market. This was something of a surprise coming, as it did, after an FDA scientific advisory panel recommended lifting the 11-year-old ban. The agency said more research is needed to show that these implants are safe.

More headaches for Dick Grasso. The New York Stock Exchange, which he once ran, is asking state and federal regulators to help it recover about $140 million it paid Mr. Grasso, money it now calls unreasonable compensation.

Wall Street, in the meantime, had a boffo day today, didn't it? Good profit news from Alcoa and Nokia, among others, helped get the bulls running, the Dow industrials up 63, the Nasdaq again -- this is like the old days, isn't it? Buy some Internet stocks and really enjoy ourselves.

As NEWSNIGHT continues, the next steps in the war on terror. We'll hear what two influential Bush administration advisers think should be done now.

A break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, I think it's fair to say that, when Peter, Paul and Mary go on tour next, Richard Perle will not be on stage singing backup.

Over the years, people have called Mr. Perle's approach to international affairs hard-headed, cold-eyed, tough-minded. Whatever the adjective, he's been an influential voice in Washington to lots of people for a long time, more than two decades. He's written a book now, "An End to Evil: Strategies For Victory in the War on Terror." His co-author, David Frum, is credited with putting that last word, evil, in the president's public vocabulary.

David Frum and Richard Perle join us tonight from Washington, and it is good to see them both.

Mr. Perle, let's start with the news of today and then we'll move on to some of the things the book deals with.

Do you think that the failure to this point to find these caches of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are going to ultimately damage the country as it tries to persuade the rest of the world to adopt its strategies in the war on terror?

RICHARD PERLE, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I think we have a difficult task persuading countries that are not the targets of terror, as we are, that they should adopt the same robust approach that we think is vital for the United States under any circumstances.

So, clearly, our credibility would have been enhanced if we'd found the things that we expected to find. But it's worth recalling that it was the United Nations inspectors who had given us the inventories that Saddam Hussein never accounted for. And we had every reason to believe that those inventories were there. The simple logic was, if they were not there, he would have explained it and probably avoided the war.

BROWN: Let's talk about some of the things in the book. There are so many things, it's hard, honestly, to do it justice.

David, if you had to, in a sentence or two, tell Americans one thing they need to understand that either they don't or may have forgotten about the war on terror, what would it be?

DAVID FRUM, FORMER SPEECHWRITER FOR PRESIDENT BUSH: I think they need to understand that, in this war, the hardest line is the safest line.

This is a big war. This is not a bandit hunt. We're not looking for one or two or eight killers in the mountains of Afghanistan. We're dealing with a global threat to the United States. It's an ideology. It's connected to regimes. It's connected to many regimes that pretend to be our friends, like the regimes in Saudi Arabia, from which the money comes.

This is a big challenge and it demands a big answer. And it demands specific answers, which is what we lay out in the book.

BROWN: And, Mr. Perle, in the book, you both are particularly tough on the Saudis, it seems to me.

And one of the things you say essentially is, look, we as a country, or the government, the administration, the president, all of them, have got to stop pretending that the Saudis are helpful.

PERLE: That's right.

They've now, for years, been sending huge amounts of money, tens of billions of dollars, to extremist institutions all over the world. You find them in Brussels. You find them in Pakistan. You find them in London and in Virginia. And these institutions are teaching hatred of the West. They're preaching holy war.

And this is the fertile ground in which terrorists are created. We've got to get them to stop. You take the money away and you have a fringe element. But with the billions that they've made available, you have something much more dangerous than a fringe element.

BROWN: You gentlemen write about the need for regime changes in Syria and in Iran. And you don't necessarily suggest that we have to go to war with each and every country that's a problem. But do you expect that, before this is all done, there will be other wars, old- fashioned wars -- perhaps old-fashioned is not the right word here -- to be fought here?

FRUM: Look, we -- the United States needs to be ready to use power. But the very readiness to use power often eliminates the necessity to do it. I mean, maybe the biggest problem or one of the biggest problems out there is Iran, which not only sponsored Hezbollah terrorism, but is actually sheltering senior members of al Qaeda and members of bin Laden's family.

The United States is not going to need to use force against Iran, because its own people hate that regime as much as we do. We have a common enemy. But what is necessary is for the United States to make clear that it has the will, it has the determination, it will not be pushed. People sometimes suggest, well, why don't we try a soft response.

BROWN: Yes.

FRUM: We had a dozen years of that, of meeting terrorism with a gentle answer, with symbolic responses. And each of those weak responses caused the terrorists to try more and more bolder and bolder actions, culminating in the terrible atrocity of 9/11.

BROWN: Mr. Perle, let me give you the last word on all of this. There is, it seems to me, the suggestion that the administration certainly hasn't lost its will, but is less than robust, perhaps, these days, that it's not as edgy on this as it once was. Am I misreading it?

PERLE: No, I think the president is certainly every bit as robust as he was at the outset. At the outset, he made what I think is the single most important decision affecting this war, when he declared that we won't distinguish between the terrorists and the countries that harbor them.

That put us clearly in opposition to a number of regimes around the world. And I think his firmness is undiminished. But there are large bureaucratic institutions that have to implement these policies. And it's very hard to get them to share the president's vigor.

BROWN: "An End to Evil" is the book, Richard Perle and David Frum the authors.

It's good to have them both with us. It's one of those books that people are going to be talking about, we suspect, for a long time.

Thank you both, gentlemen.

FRUM: Thank you.

PERLE: Thank you.

BROWN: And we'll check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING) BROWN: I'd like to tell you I'm as prepared as I should be for this segment. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, such as they are today.

"The International Herald Tribune." I'm pretty upset, by the way, and it will be clear a little later why. "The International Herald Tribune" leads with the helicopter crash in Iraq, in and around Fallujah. "U.S. Copter Crash Kills Nine G.I.s in Iraq." That's their lead. So, if you're traveling around the world, that's probably what you'll hope to find tomorrow. So you can check the ball scores.

"USA Today" leads, if you're traveling to domestically, "A Different Kind of Rock Star. Mars Mania Grips a Nation That Can't Get Enough of Spirit's Images." This is a Hubble space shot, I think. In any case, they lead with space. And implants is on the front page.

And then over here, OK, "Rose Discusses Thorny Issues: Interview With Baseball Icon" -- oh, come on -- "Contradicts Material in New Book." Is it just me, or, the more the guy says, the less you like him? It's possible, right?

"Chattanooga Times Free Press." "Manhunt Ends, Spree" -- "Shoots Self." This is a story we led with tonight. That's a pretty good story and that's a pretty good lead for them.

Sports stories abound. "The Washington Times." "Joe Gibbs' New Deal. Coach Leaves Past Behind, Sees Tough NFC East." They lead with sports. Down here, though, "Home a Safe Haven For Mexican Suspects." This is a story this program did several months ago. "Death Penalty Halts Extradition For U.S. Crimes." We talked about that.

How we doing on time? Thirty? Forget that one.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer." "Birds, Pack Ready to Harsh it Out." This is the Eagles. Lots of sports. Football season. They also put the Iraq helicopter crash on the front page.

Down here, "The Miami Herald." "Give Us Your Well-Chiseled, Your Absolutely Fabulous. An Obscure Visa Program Designed to Attract Rare Talent Gives Green Cards to Singers, Body Builders, Opera Stars and Drag Queens."

OK, we do not have the "Chicago Sun-Times." But I can tell you the weather word is "lake effect." It happens sometimes, folks.

We'll wrap up the day after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Before we go, a quick recap of our top stories tonight.

Three little girls were found safe after a kidnapping that began yesterday with a killing rampage in the northwestern part of Georgia. Police say Jerry William Jones shot three former in-laws to death, strangled his infant daughter, and fled with two of her sisters and a former stepdaughter. When authorities caught up with them, Mr. Jones attempted suicide. He is in the hospital tonight.

And an Army medevac helicopter went down today in central Iraq. A witness says it was hit by a missile. The Army isn't saying that yet. What we can tell you is, nine soldiers were on board and all nine died in the crash.

Tomorrow night on this program, orange at the airport, yellow someplace else. Authorities are exploring the possibility of selectively lowering the threat level -- what that means to you in dollars and cents and a sense of security as well tomorrow, right here on NEWSNIGHT.

For most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next.

We'll see you tomorrow, won't we, 10:00 Eastern time. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

END

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





Mostly On Paper; Presidential Advisor Says We Aren't Doing Enough Against Terrorists>


Aired January 8, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
We said before that sometimes the news is about big and important things, big and important in bold letters and sometimes it's about something else. The program tonight has plenty of those big, bold, important stories, more on the failed hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the administration's defense.

We have a hardliner's view of the war on terror and why this influential adviser to the president believes the country is not doing enough of the right things big, bold, important, life-changing stuff. We have that.

But we lead the program and the whip with importance of another sort, small importance if you will, not civilization but a family, a community devastated, destroyed, the tragedies of their lives played out all day for all the world to see.

We start at Calhoun, Georgia and CNN's Martin Savidge who has been reporting the story that ended tonight, Marty a headline.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening to you, Aaron. It was a day that started with horrendous tragedy, four bodies found including that of a small child. Then the discovery, three other children missing believed kidnapped by a desperate man now on the run. Tonight, authorities say a miracle. The children have been found alive and well.

BROWN: Marty, we'll get the details from you coming up.

Baghdad next at the end of a difficult and yet deadly day, CNN's Karl Penhaul with us again tonight, Karl a headline.

I'll take that on a sign we need to work on communications to Iraq.

We'll move on to Houston, the Enron case, the husband and wife who could be on the verge of breaking that case open. CNN's Jen Rogers has that, we'll see how we do in Houston, Jen a headline.

JEN RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Aaron. That's right. Andrew and Lea Fastow didn't even have to show up here at federal court in Houston today to be the talk of the town. The one time power couple is still trying to hammer out a deal with the government that many say could set the stage for even more big name indictments -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jen, thank you.

And on to Modesto, California where, as perhaps you have heard, Scott Peterson's trial will not take place. CNN's David Mattingly covered the developments there today so, David, a headline from you.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, because of all the pretrial publicity the judge in the Scott Peterson case decided that there's no way that a jury here could reach a verdict based entirely on what it hears in the courtroom. So, for that reason, this trial is moving -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you. Back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up tonight on NEWSNIGHT the nuts and bolts of the battle over abortion or should we say the hammer and nails, one man's effort to prevent a clinic from being built.

Later as we mentioned we'll talk with two influential advisers to the Bush administration on the war on terror, Richard Pearl (ph) and David From (ph) have a new book out about where we should go from here and some of the mistakes they believe the country is making.

We'll get a jump on Friday, of course, a check of your morning papers ushered in by a rooster, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the news that three young girls are safe tonight. It is good news, the best news imaginable but not by any stretch of the imagination a happy ending, only the least horrible outcome in a story that began and ended with unspeakable violence.

We begin with CNN's Martin Savidge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): A tip from a motorist, a highway chase, a crash and self-inflicted gunshot wound, three children alive and well. For authorities this wasn't the sort of ending that they had just hoped for but in this part of Georgia one they had prayed for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Georgia officers located him on I-75 heading north towards Chattanooga. They got in a chase with him. Several agencies joined into the chase. It went over into the Tennessee line.

He took the first exist, the Ringgold (ph) exit and then apparently had a traffic accident. But there was apparently a gunshot heard and we don't know any more than that. The kids apparently are fine but he apparently is in bad condition.

SAVIDGE: Jerry Jones was not only a wanted man in Georgia but by the end of the day had become the most desperately sought after man in America, wanted not only for the murders authorities alleged he committed but also for the three young children he reportedly had taken with him. It began late Wednesday night with a phone call that led police to this rural community in north Georgia and the discovery of the bodies of three adults and a 10-month-old infant.

A number of the victims had been shot several times, the infant apparently strangled and then the discovery, three other children, all girls, ten, four and three were missing and believed kidnapped by the suspect. An Amber Alert was issued across the region. Authorities were gravely concerned for the children's safety.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A statement was made if you notify the officers I will harm the children.

SAVIDGE: That statement was made by Melissa Peeler (ph) the mother of the three missing children estranged from Jones. She was the one that had called police from Oregon Wednesday evening saying that Jones had called her telling her what he had done. It was that phone call that led police to the gruesome discovery.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not know where he is at. We do not know where he is headed to.

SAVIDGE: The dragnet for Jerry Jones not only spread across the southeast but then went across the nation. For the sheriff in the small community in Gordon County the murders were not just a terrible crime. They became personal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The way he's treated these people I want him bad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: And Sheriff Jerry Davis has his wish tonight, although it remains to be seen exactly how serious the condition is for the suspect right now. It is said that he is gravely wounded but, of course, it is the fact that the children have been recovered.

We mentioned at the beginning of the piece about how prayer is important in this part of Georgia. It should be noted that the head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ended tonight by saying that the Lord was riding with police officers tonight and also riding with those three young children.

It is not a happy ending though, a bittersweet ending. There are still four bodies to be buried including a 10-month-old child -- Aaron.

BROWN: Do we know what this was about?

SAVIDGE: Authorities do not say on the record what this is about yet. They are still in the investigative stages trying to figure that out. Family members we've talked to say they believe that there was a falling out between the suspect and his estranged wife. He had threatened to kill family members if she ever left him. The breakup apparently occurred over the holidays -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, thank you, Martin Savidge in Georgia. Good work today.

On now to Iraq where the military aviation is often indispensable for getting around the country, getting people and supplies in and out of where they need to be. It is indispensable but it is never risk- free.

Today a giant Air Force transport plane was targeted by ground fire and an Army helicopter might have been, no one is saying for certain. The transport managed to land safely. The helicopter did not.

In Iraq today, CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL (voice-over): U.S. military helicopters circle a crash site the wreck of the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that went down just south of Fallujah.

GEN. MARK KIMMIT, U.S. ARMY: An Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on a routine mission carrying nine passengers crashed southeast of Fallujah. There were no survivors.

PENHAUL: He says all aboard were U.S. soldiers. One coalition official said the helicopter was on a medical evacuation mission. Kimmit's not specifying the cause only that the helicopter made an emergency landing but one Iraqi witness said the crash was the result of ground fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I saw a missile hit the helicopter. It went down over there. It had a red cross on it.

PENHAUL: This is the Sunni Triangle, heartland of the guerrilla war against coalition forces. Earlier this month a Kiowa observation helicopter was shot down in the same area and in November insurgents brought down a Chinook transport helicopter not far away.

The Black Hawk crash came hours after an attack on a U.S. base in the same region just west of Baghdad. A barrage of six mortars slammed into barracks at logistics base sites, home to the 541st Maintenance Battalion out of Fort Riley, Kansas, one soldier dead, 33 other soldiers and a civilian wounded. The Army says some of the injured have since returned to duty.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL: As you say, Aaron, the risks to aviation here in Iraq very high not just in that Sunni Triangle but, as you mention, in Baghdad. Just hours before the Black Hawk went down one of these giant C-5 Galaxy transport planes comes under fire.

We don't yet know what brought the Black Hawk down, whether it was an accident or whether it was hostile fire but the Pentagon has told us that the Galaxy C-5 was hit in the engine compartment by a heat-seeking surface-to-air missile. That did though manage to turn around and return to Baghdad Airport safely from altitude of about 6,000 feet and all 63 passengers and crew onboard that aircraft are safe.

BROWN: Karl, thank you, Karl Penhaul in Baghdad.

This seems the week for exhaustive and obviously controversial reports about the administration's rationale for war with Iraq and the so far failed search for weapons of mass destruction.

Just a day after a major piece in the "Washington Post" detailing how little weapons inspectors have found so far and how little some now say they expect to find the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is out with a report on its own. It too provides little for the White House to like.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After six months of interviewing Iraqis and weapons inspectors and reviewing intelligence, the report's authors are scathing about the Bush administration's pre-war statements on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

JESSICA MATHEWS, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: The representations by senior administration officials show a fairly systematic misrepresentation of the facts over and above the intelligence failings with respect to chemical and biological weapons.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm confident of what I presented last year.

ENSOR: At a news conference Secretary of State Powell strongly defended his pre-war presentation to the United Nations of what was known about Iraq's weapons programs.

POWELL: And anything that we did not feel was solid and multi- sourced we did not use in that speech.

ENSOR: The Carnegie report says the threat was exaggerated and that war was not the best or only option. It calls for U.S. national security policy to drop the idea of unilateral preemptive war.

It says U.S. intelligence was unduly influenced by policymakers and recommends possibly making the post of director of Central Intelligence a career job not a presidential appointment to avoid the politicization of intelligence.

CIA officials from the top down have consistently said there is no need for that kind of change. It would not work and that they've always and will always tell it like it is.

STUART COHEN, CIA OFFICIAL: No reasonable person could have reached conclusions other than the ones that we reached.

ENSOR: The Carnegie report also says there remains no evidence of any connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. POWELL: I have not seen smoking gun concrete evidence about the connection but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.

ENSOR: The Carnegie report's authors have been critics of the Iraq war all along and include former officials in Democratic administrations. The report will likely be quoted this election year by whoever gets the Democratic Party's nomination for president.

(on camera): Some U.S. officials suspect that Iraqi scientists may have been lying to Saddam Hussein telling him they had weapons related capabilities that they did not really have and that even as the dictator was duped so was the rest of the world but for now that's only a theory.

David Ensor, CNN the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It is more than safe to say other people hold different views and few people defend those views better than Richard Pearl who has been a close adviser to the administration and David From, the president's former top speech writer.

They've collaborated on a new book and both join us a little bit later in the program to talk about their feelings about the war on terror and how the country is handling it.

On to corporate crime, it has been almost two years since we watched a gallery of suspected rogues testify before Congress following the spectacular collapse of Enron. Many of those former executives took the Fifth.

Andrew Fastow was one of them, Enron's former chief financial officer. He is considered key in this case, accused of devising the schemes that caused the company's downfall his wife charged with helping and that has given prosecutors some leverage. Both of the Fastow's have been negotiating plea deals, his and her pleas if you will, and today there was movement.

Here's CNN's Jen Rogers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROGERS (voice-over): After nearly two years of investigation the Enron Task Force may be close to its biggest breakthrough yet. A federal judge Thursday set a deadline of noon Friday for Lea Fastow's team to decide whether or not she wants to enter a new plea, a guilty plea that would be part of an agreement with the government to limit her jail sentence to five months.

Lea Fastow, wife of former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow, the alleged mastermind behind the web of complex accounting deals that brought down the energy giant was charged in a six count indictment last May.

While it could be a big step forward there's a hitch. The judge didn't sign off on all the details of the deal expressing concern over the preliminary agreement.

So the ball is now in Mrs. Fastow's court her decision to change her plea and risk that the judge might up her sentence or stick with her not guilty plea and head to trial. Lea Fastow's attorney spoke earlier Thursday about his client's motivation for changing her plea.

MICHAEL DEGUERIN, LEA FASTOW ATTORNEY: You'd have to be a mother to fully understand. She has two children at home, five and eight and five months works. Anything more than that doesn't.

ROGERS: If Lea Fastow pleads guilty it is expected to set in motion a series of major announcements including a deal for her husband. Many would see that potential agreement as a huge victory for the government and a possible step towards turning up the heat on other former Enron officials including two men at the top of the Enron food chain, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.

DAVID BERG, TRIAL LAWYER: The government wants him desperately. He's the best key they've got to Skilling and Lay and potential indictments and convictions of those two men.

ROGERS: Mr. Skilling's attorney did not return calls for comment. Mr. Lay's attorney says as long as the Fastow's tell the truth his client won't be impacted at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROGERS: Now if Mrs. Fastow does not change her plea this case is headed to a trial and, in fact, jury selection was underway here today and a trial date of February 10 has been set for Mrs. Fastow, April 20 for Andrew Fastow -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jen, thank you very much.

Peter Elkind, a senior writer with "Fortune" magazine is with us. He's also the co-author of the book, "Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron," good to have you with us. Let's deal with Mrs. Fastow for a second.

PETER ELKIND, SENIOR WRITER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Sure.

BROWN: She is a minnow in this is she not?

ELKIND: Relatively speaking absolutely.

BROWN: So when people hear five months, which sounds like something you get for a serial shoplifting they ought to consider that she is not a major player at the very least.

ELKIND: No. She's a minor supporting actor but she played a part in managing the partnerships and taking some of the money.

BROWN: Now on the other hand her husband is considered a huge deal and the deal they are talking about, ten years, for white collar crime is serious stuff. ELKIND: Yes. No, by white collar crime standards that's a lot of time. Many of these cases end with two and three and four and five-year sentences. This is a lot. It doesn't sound like a lot when you see what drug dealers get in some cases and blue collar criminals get but in white collar crime this is a long sentence.

BROWN: And what if anything does that tell you?

ELKIND: Well, it tells you that Andy Fastow was an incredibly -- was a key player at the very center of the financial fraud involving Enron and he was involved in two ways.

One is he was the maestro of all the financial machinations that allowed Enron to defraud investors and, secondly, he was actually defrauding Enron at the same time. He was lining his own pocket and collected $60 million plus in income from the partnerships that he was running for the company.

BROWN: I think there is out there a frustration among some people that this case has moved in their view very slowly and that they really want, they want the big fish. They want Ken Lay and probably nothing short of Ken Lay. Has it been moving slowly or has it been moving in a kind of smart, methodical way?

ELKIND: It's been very classic. It's been absolutely methodical. It seems like it's been taking a long time because people want to see blood right away but this case is incredibly complicated.

There's a prosecutor who said that in the Martha Stewart case, for example, which moved forward very rapidly is like arithmetic, Enron's like calculus. That's very much the case.

BROWN: Just at the risk of spending the next ten minutes trying to answer this why is it so complicated?

ELKIND: Oh, well because Enron was engaged in all sorts of incredibly sophisticated cutting edge out there financial machinations. They were --

BROWN: Is it that -- in one person's view they were criminals and in another person's view they just made lousy business decisions and it's not always easy to tell the difference.

ELKIND: That's absolutely the defense. The defense says these guys just made some bad calls and they were doing things that got approved by accountants and they got approved by lawyers so what's the problem? How can you blame them for making some bad choices? In addition in business sometimes bad stuff happens.

BROWN: Yes.

ELKIND: That's one view obviously of the people that are under the gun at this point.

BROWN: Do you have a feel for where this is going? Will it get to Mr. Lay, for example? ELKIND: Well, I think it, you know, these indictments -- presuming all of this falls into place, which it likely will and for which everyone has a lot of motivation to make it happen it's aimed straight at Jeff Skilling and then Ken Lay.

BROWN: Good to see you.

ELKIND: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Thank you for coming in. Hope you'll come back as this one plays out. This is a great story isn't it? Thank you.

Ahead on the program tonight a ruling on a change of venue in the Scott Peterson case. We'll head out to California for that.

Plus, the fight over abortion making it an economic issue as well as a moral one, the battle over building a clinic in Texas.

And a new warning about the dangers of eating farm-raised salmon.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In our very wired world it's popular to say we are all connected, 24/7 news, being part of the glue that binds us together which makes an interesting backdrop for a decision today in the Scott Peterson murder trial.

A judge ruled that Mr. Peterson, who as you know is accused of killing his wife Laci and their unborn child, cannot get a fair trial in his hometown of Modesto, California. He will get a change of venue.

The case has been widely covered, endlessly some would say. One might argue and prosecutors did today that Modesto jurors might be no more tainted than anyone else. The judge disagreed.

Here's CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (voice-over): It was a not-so-simple question posed to the Court, could Scott Peterson get a fair trial in his home county but one easily answered according to the judge by looking outside the courthouse. Eight thousand articles in print worldwide he says and uncounted hours of air time add up to too much pretrial publicity.

AL GIROLAMI, SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: As much as I regret the inconvenience and hardship that this will cause a large number of witnesses that are expected in this trial and the significant extra cost for the county and the state, the facts of this case require a different venue.

MATTINGLY: It's exactly what Scott Peterson wanted to hear. His attorney, Mark Geragos, described a lynch mob mentality in Stanislaus County citing the night Peterson was arrested when a crowd outside the jail jeered at his arrival, some calling him a murderer.

MARK GERAGOS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It's a very good day and obviously we're extremely pleased. The Court has taken the first step toward ensuring a fair trial in this case and I think that's what everybody is interested in doing except the prosecution.

MATTINGLY: Prosecutors, however, argued there was no need to move that jury pools all over California were subject to the same media coverage of this emotionally charged case, going so far to cite the trial of mass murdered Charles Manson, pointing out that sensational trial was not moved.

DAVID HARRIS, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: If you can have the horrendous facts in that case and not get a change of venue there's nothing in this case that's been made public. There's nothing that's been said or brought out that even comes close to that case.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: But the judge did not agree and now the trial is moving to someplace that can possible accommodate hundreds of potential witnesses and someplace where the jury pool hasn't been completely saturated by media coverage -- Aaron.

BROWN: And where might that be on planet earth?

MATTINGLY: Well, that's been the question that's been bandied about since Scott Peterson was arrested. Where can he go to get a fair trial? The judge has a short list of three counties, all of them in the San Francisco Bay area. Mark Geragos has an even shorter list. He would like to see it tried in Los Angeles.

But a lot of this will be up to a state board that will look in to find out which county can actually handle this case because it is a huge undertaking, one that could take six months before a jury goes to deliberate on this -- Aaron.

BROWN: David, thank you, David Mattingly in Modesto tonight.

On to Texas and a new tactic in the abortion wars, anti-abortion activists have long targeted Planned Parenthood and its clinics, nothing new there. Now they are taking a preemptive strike. The idea is simple. Play hardball with the guys who build the clinics.

Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Chris Danze builds home foundations in the Texas hill country but the one foundation that hasn't been poured is the one he considers his masterpiece.

CHRIS DANZE, ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVIST: My intent was to stop, slow down or make the project more expensive.

LAVANDERA: Danze is an anti-abortion activist. His mission is to keep Planned Parenthood from opening a new clinic in Austin. In September, Planned Parenthood broke ground for a $6 million facility and Danze organized a boycott. He sent 750 letters urging contractors to walk away from the job. Six weeks after the groundbreaking the contractors quit and construction stopped.

DANZE: What I try to do is get behind the desk, get behind the facade, the business facade and get to the person behind the desk and try to reach their heart, reach their conscience, reach their soul.

LAVANDERA: But it's the second part of his mission that some say really made people listen.

DANZE: So, if we go to their heart if that doesn't work we go for the wallet.

LAVANDERA: What that means is Danze is putting together a list of everyone who agrees to work on the clinic. That list will be sent to area churches to keep them off future church construction projects, a not so subtle reminder that taking this job now will cost you in the future.

DANZE: When they go into an abortion chamber and rip the arms and legs and tear the head off these little boys and girls that's hardball, if you want to talk about hardball. That's hardball. What I'm doing is nothing compared to that.

LAVANDERA: Tom Hatch is the project's architect. He refuses to back out and says it's not fair to force contractors to choose sides in the abortion debate.

TOM HATCH, ARCHITECT: My sense is it's not a philosophical issue because they knew what the project was about to begin with. So, I think it's strictly financial.

LAVANDERA (on camera): A group that's known for trying to shut down Planned Parenthood clinics says that this idea of targeting contractors isn't new. It's been tried about six times in the last ten years but it's never been successful until now and Planned Parenthood admits that they never expected a one man mission to become this successful.

GLENDA PARKS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: We were caught knowing that something could happen but not what would happen. We know now what can happen.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Planned Parenthood still expects to finish the project next year about two months behind schedule but this time they'll be their own contractor and try to keep the list of workers private.

PARKS: So, as we begin the new process of construction we're going to protect our subcontractors. We're going to do a whole lot more to make sure that we are very cautious.

LAVANDERA: Chris Danze knows his one man mission probably won't be enough to stop this clinic from being finished but for now he finds inspiration in history books and compares this boycott to similar non- violent tactics used during the civil rights movement.

Ed Lavandera CNN, Austin, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight he may be no Meredith Wilson but Jeff Greenfield will do his best to explain why Iowa sticks stubbornly to its caucuses.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Ten days from now, the presidential primary season officially gets under way, but not with a primary, not exactly. Voters get their first chance to have their say, but not by voting, at least not exactly.

We're talking about the caucuses a week from Monday in Iowa, which, if we were being perfectly honest, we'll say we understand completely, just not exactly.

Fortunately, we have CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't talk it. I do it.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It sure looks like a primary campaign.

HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is about what kind of America you're going to have.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need a president....

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Are you ready for this fight?

GREENFIELD: And it sounds like a primary campaign.

DEAN: It's time for the truth.

GREENFIELD: But whatever it looks and sounds like, Iowa is not a primary campaign. This is a caucus state.

(on camera): So what? Here's what. It makes a huge difference that Iowans use caucuses to start the nominating process, huge differences in everything from who votes to how they vote.

(voice-over): In a primary election, voters show up at the polls anytime they choose and, in a few minutes, if they're lucky, they cast their ballots and they're on their way. But the Iowa caucuses are held during the evening, almost always a cold Midwest midwinter evening. And you have to be prepared to invest a few hours in the process.

The first consequence, almost nobody participates, at least compared with states that have primaries. For instance, back in 2000, when both parties had battles for the nomination, a total of 149,000 Iowans showed up for the caucuses. That is 6.8 percent of eligible Iowans. By contrast, more than 44 percent of New Hampshire voters cast votes in that state's two primaries.

Moreover, because of the investment of time and body heat, a caucus draws out the more intensely committed voters. Ballot boxes don't measure intensity, of course, but the caucuses do. That's why, in 1988, Reverend Pat Robertson actually out-polled Vice President George Bush at the Iowa caucuses.

Another huge difference, when you vote in a primary, you don't get to say who your second choice is. But in the Democratic caucuses, you sometimes can. If your candidate can't get 15 percent support from the people who go to your caucus, those supporters can join with another candidate. That means that tactical voting can play a big role.

For instance, if you're for John Edwards and he doesn't make the 15 percent threshold where you're caucusing, you and fellow Edwards supporters can figure out which other candidate might help Edwards' cause in later states.

(on camera): Now, you may wonder why Iowa chooses caucuses instead of a primary to choose their delegates. Well, here's one very good reason. It's the only reason Iowa gets to go before New Hampshire, the first primary state. And that adds up to millions and millions of reasons, millions and millions of dollars in TV and radio ads, hotel rooms, restaurants, car rentals, not to mention all the attention, or you might call it pandering, that candidates bring to it.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Anne Kornblut joins us now from Des Moines. She covers the caucuses and the campaign for "The Boston Globe." We're pleased to have her with us.

Have you talked to all 149,000 or 169,000 people that will show up for the caucuses yet?

ANNE KORNBLUT, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Not yet. I'm trying to get there.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: There was a story yesterday, a poll out yesterday, that did show the race kind of generally tightening. It showed some movement for General Clark in New Hampshire. Is there any sense in Iowa that things are shifting around at all?

KORNBLUT: Yes.

There's some more polls that have come out today that show a much tighter field, actually, depending on what you believe. A lot of people here, even though you see the sort of -- what we've seen is Dean sort of in the high 20s, followed by Gephardt in the low 20s, and Kerry and then Edwards somewhere behind that. It varies by a few points, depending on the poll.

But it's not clear whether you should even believe these polls, because the caucus is so different from the primary, like the piece just said.

BROWN: Is it a foregone conclusion, I guess, that Dean wins, and if that's the case, then is second place what the story becomes?

KORNBLUT: Well, the second-place spot has been the story for some time here. Nothing is a foregone conclusion, of course. Dean looks like he's ahead.

BROWN: Yes.

KORNBLUT: But the race for first, second, third, and fourth, actually, all of them are stories, because they will determine who drops out, who goes on to New Hampshire, who has got momentum, whatever that is, and so on.

BROWN: How much do the candidates in Iowa tailor their message to Iowans, as opposed to a kind of broad national message?

KORNBLUT: It's pretty tailored. You don't hear much talk about ethanol subsidies in New Hampshire, which is a big deal in Iowa. You hear a lot more about trade. Dick Gephardt has put trade ads on the air and is running a very anti-NAFTA campaign here. It works a lot better here than it does in New Hampshire.

But because there's so much national media here, they have to be careful not to say anything that would be directly opposed to what they'd say in the next state or in South Carolina or the primaries after that.

BROWN: And is Iraq -- does Iraq remain the kind of bubbling issue that seems to dominate all others?

KORNBLUT: It doesn't seem to dominate right now. It's still the litmus test or it's still the reason people broke for Dean or for Kerry or for Gephardt in the first place. And the people who are anti-war are very anti-war. Many of them are with Dennis Kucinich.

But other issues are really in the front. Tax cuts, in the last 24 or 48 hours have become a very big question and whether Dean would offer a tax cut.

BROWN: And Governor Dean's campaign yesterday seemed to suggest that it was rethinking its idea that it would repeal all of the Bush tax cuts.

KORNBLUT: Yes. And this has actually been sort of a rough 24 hours for Dean in that regard.

He said, as recently as, I guess, Tuesday or Sunday, that he'd repeal all the Bush tax cuts. That's something that he's said from the beginning. Some of his economic advisers, however, have talked about coming out with a middle-class tax cut plan.

The campaign at this point is saying it's not going to come out soon, but it's been a tough P.R. job for them in the last few days.

BROWN: Do you notice, just in the last minute, candidates growing or changing over the period of time that you've watched them in this process out there?

KORNBLUT: Well, the one I think we've seen change the most so far is General Clark, who seemed a little unsure of his footing at first. But all of them improve over time.

The other thing you notice, of course, is they all start getting sick or they start losing their voices or they lose weight or they gain weight. And we're certainly seeing variations on that with all of them.

BROWN: Anne, thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you soon again, I hope.

KORNBLUT: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still to come on the program tonight, what's left to eat? New concerns now about the dangers of farm-raised salmon, which is most of the salmon you eat. We'll explain that after the break.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, this is where we tell you that the food we've been told is good for you might actually be dangerous for you. We don't like these stories either. We find them confusing. Plus, it makes it harder to order.

Farm-raised salmon is the food in question tonight. Part of the problem is the food these salmon are fed, other fish ground into fish meal. Does this sound like the mad cow story, only with fish? We've been told for years that eating this particular fish, rich in omega 3 fatty acids, is good for our hearts. Now a new study suggests risks.

Here's CNN's Holly Firfer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HOLLY FIRFER, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the largest study published in the journal "Science" done on farm-raised salmon, scientists found a significantly higher concentration of potentially cancer-causing continents such as PCBs and dioxins than in salmon caught in the wild.

Look at 700 farm-raised salmon from 16 large cities in North and South America and Europe, researchers found the dioxin level was 11 times higher than in salmon caught in the wild. They also found farm- raised salmon in Europe had the most continents. The least amount were found in the farm fish from Chile.

DR. DAVID CARPENTER, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY: Once should limit your consumption of farm salmon to probably on the average of not more than one farm salmon meal per month. However, we're not telling people not to eat farm salmon and we're certainly not telling people not to eat fish. Fish that is not contaminated is a very healthy food.

FIRFER: The FDA, however, disagrees that farm salmon is unsafe, citing, the levels of pollutants are too low for serious concern and add, it is safe to eat this farm fish.

DR. LESTER CRAWFORD, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, FDA: There is no health risk. It's just an element of concern. People should not stop eating fish of any kind as a result of this study.

FIRFER: While salmon in the wild eat a variety of things in the ocean, like krill and zooplankton, farm-raised salmon eat a high-fat feed primarily of other fish ground into fish meal, and, as a result, eat more of those toxins than fish in the wild, which end up building up in the fat tissue.

The trade group Salmon of the Americas says this study is based on research done two years ago and, since then, the industry has been making changes, like replacing the feed from fish oil with soybean or canola oil, and points to a National Academy of Sciences report that -- quote -- "recommends that the consumption of fish not be restricted to achieve reductions in PCBs in the total diet because of the increasing evidence of health benefits compared to unproven risks."

The authors of the study are recommending, farm-raised salmon be clearly labeled farm-raised and that the country of origin be clearly identified. They ad, if the label says fresh, it doesn't mean caught from the ocean. And almost any salmon labeled Atlantic in the U.S. is usually farmed. And health experts add, since we know contaminants tend to build up in the fatty tissue of the fish, remove as much visible fat as possible, as well as the skin.

Holly Firfer, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Moving on, the "MONEYLINE Roundup" begins tonight with the rest of the surf and turf, if you will.

New rules from the Agriculture Department aimed at stopping mad cow disease, they limit the use of advanced meat recovery systems. Those are machines that scrape every last bit of meat off the bones, which often includes the tissue thought to harbor the disease.

The FDA, in the meantime, has rejected one company's bid to get silicone breast implants back on the market. This was something of a surprise coming, as it did, after an FDA scientific advisory panel recommended lifting the 11-year-old ban. The agency said more research is needed to show that these implants are safe.

More headaches for Dick Grasso. The New York Stock Exchange, which he once ran, is asking state and federal regulators to help it recover about $140 million it paid Mr. Grasso, money it now calls unreasonable compensation.

Wall Street, in the meantime, had a boffo day today, didn't it? Good profit news from Alcoa and Nokia, among others, helped get the bulls running, the Dow industrials up 63, the Nasdaq again -- this is like the old days, isn't it? Buy some Internet stocks and really enjoy ourselves.

As NEWSNIGHT continues, the next steps in the war on terror. We'll hear what two influential Bush administration advisers think should be done now.

A break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, I think it's fair to say that, when Peter, Paul and Mary go on tour next, Richard Perle will not be on stage singing backup.

Over the years, people have called Mr. Perle's approach to international affairs hard-headed, cold-eyed, tough-minded. Whatever the adjective, he's been an influential voice in Washington to lots of people for a long time, more than two decades. He's written a book now, "An End to Evil: Strategies For Victory in the War on Terror." His co-author, David Frum, is credited with putting that last word, evil, in the president's public vocabulary.

David Frum and Richard Perle join us tonight from Washington, and it is good to see them both.

Mr. Perle, let's start with the news of today and then we'll move on to some of the things the book deals with.

Do you think that the failure to this point to find these caches of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are going to ultimately damage the country as it tries to persuade the rest of the world to adopt its strategies in the war on terror?

RICHARD PERLE, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I think we have a difficult task persuading countries that are not the targets of terror, as we are, that they should adopt the same robust approach that we think is vital for the United States under any circumstances.

So, clearly, our credibility would have been enhanced if we'd found the things that we expected to find. But it's worth recalling that it was the United Nations inspectors who had given us the inventories that Saddam Hussein never accounted for. And we had every reason to believe that those inventories were there. The simple logic was, if they were not there, he would have explained it and probably avoided the war.

BROWN: Let's talk about some of the things in the book. There are so many things, it's hard, honestly, to do it justice.

David, if you had to, in a sentence or two, tell Americans one thing they need to understand that either they don't or may have forgotten about the war on terror, what would it be?

DAVID FRUM, FORMER SPEECHWRITER FOR PRESIDENT BUSH: I think they need to understand that, in this war, the hardest line is the safest line.

This is a big war. This is not a bandit hunt. We're not looking for one or two or eight killers in the mountains of Afghanistan. We're dealing with a global threat to the United States. It's an ideology. It's connected to regimes. It's connected to many regimes that pretend to be our friends, like the regimes in Saudi Arabia, from which the money comes.

This is a big challenge and it demands a big answer. And it demands specific answers, which is what we lay out in the book.

BROWN: And, Mr. Perle, in the book, you both are particularly tough on the Saudis, it seems to me.

And one of the things you say essentially is, look, we as a country, or the government, the administration, the president, all of them, have got to stop pretending that the Saudis are helpful.

PERLE: That's right.

They've now, for years, been sending huge amounts of money, tens of billions of dollars, to extremist institutions all over the world. You find them in Brussels. You find them in Pakistan. You find them in London and in Virginia. And these institutions are teaching hatred of the West. They're preaching holy war.

And this is the fertile ground in which terrorists are created. We've got to get them to stop. You take the money away and you have a fringe element. But with the billions that they've made available, you have something much more dangerous than a fringe element.

BROWN: You gentlemen write about the need for regime changes in Syria and in Iran. And you don't necessarily suggest that we have to go to war with each and every country that's a problem. But do you expect that, before this is all done, there will be other wars, old- fashioned wars -- perhaps old-fashioned is not the right word here -- to be fought here?

FRUM: Look, we -- the United States needs to be ready to use power. But the very readiness to use power often eliminates the necessity to do it. I mean, maybe the biggest problem or one of the biggest problems out there is Iran, which not only sponsored Hezbollah terrorism, but is actually sheltering senior members of al Qaeda and members of bin Laden's family.

The United States is not going to need to use force against Iran, because its own people hate that regime as much as we do. We have a common enemy. But what is necessary is for the United States to make clear that it has the will, it has the determination, it will not be pushed. People sometimes suggest, well, why don't we try a soft response.

BROWN: Yes.

FRUM: We had a dozen years of that, of meeting terrorism with a gentle answer, with symbolic responses. And each of those weak responses caused the terrorists to try more and more bolder and bolder actions, culminating in the terrible atrocity of 9/11.

BROWN: Mr. Perle, let me give you the last word on all of this. There is, it seems to me, the suggestion that the administration certainly hasn't lost its will, but is less than robust, perhaps, these days, that it's not as edgy on this as it once was. Am I misreading it?

PERLE: No, I think the president is certainly every bit as robust as he was at the outset. At the outset, he made what I think is the single most important decision affecting this war, when he declared that we won't distinguish between the terrorists and the countries that harbor them.

That put us clearly in opposition to a number of regimes around the world. And I think his firmness is undiminished. But there are large bureaucratic institutions that have to implement these policies. And it's very hard to get them to share the president's vigor.

BROWN: "An End to Evil" is the book, Richard Perle and David Frum the authors.

It's good to have them both with us. It's one of those books that people are going to be talking about, we suspect, for a long time.

Thank you both, gentlemen.

FRUM: Thank you.

PERLE: Thank you.

BROWN: And we'll check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING) BROWN: I'd like to tell you I'm as prepared as I should be for this segment. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, such as they are today.

"The International Herald Tribune." I'm pretty upset, by the way, and it will be clear a little later why. "The International Herald Tribune" leads with the helicopter crash in Iraq, in and around Fallujah. "U.S. Copter Crash Kills Nine G.I.s in Iraq." That's their lead. So, if you're traveling around the world, that's probably what you'll hope to find tomorrow. So you can check the ball scores.

"USA Today" leads, if you're traveling to domestically, "A Different Kind of Rock Star. Mars Mania Grips a Nation That Can't Get Enough of Spirit's Images." This is a Hubble space shot, I think. In any case, they lead with space. And implants is on the front page.

And then over here, OK, "Rose Discusses Thorny Issues: Interview With Baseball Icon" -- oh, come on -- "Contradicts Material in New Book." Is it just me, or, the more the guy says, the less you like him? It's possible, right?

"Chattanooga Times Free Press." "Manhunt Ends, Spree" -- "Shoots Self." This is a story we led with tonight. That's a pretty good story and that's a pretty good lead for them.

Sports stories abound. "The Washington Times." "Joe Gibbs' New Deal. Coach Leaves Past Behind, Sees Tough NFC East." They lead with sports. Down here, though, "Home a Safe Haven For Mexican Suspects." This is a story this program did several months ago. "Death Penalty Halts Extradition For U.S. Crimes." We talked about that.

How we doing on time? Thirty? Forget that one.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer." "Birds, Pack Ready to Harsh it Out." This is the Eagles. Lots of sports. Football season. They also put the Iraq helicopter crash on the front page.

Down here, "The Miami Herald." "Give Us Your Well-Chiseled, Your Absolutely Fabulous. An Obscure Visa Program Designed to Attract Rare Talent Gives Green Cards to Singers, Body Builders, Opera Stars and Drag Queens."

OK, we do not have the "Chicago Sun-Times." But I can tell you the weather word is "lake effect." It happens sometimes, folks.

We'll wrap up the day after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Before we go, a quick recap of our top stories tonight.

Three little girls were found safe after a kidnapping that began yesterday with a killing rampage in the northwestern part of Georgia. Police say Jerry William Jones shot three former in-laws to death, strangled his infant daughter, and fled with two of her sisters and a former stepdaughter. When authorities caught up with them, Mr. Jones attempted suicide. He is in the hospital tonight.

And an Army medevac helicopter went down today in central Iraq. A witness says it was hit by a missile. The Army isn't saying that yet. What we can tell you is, nine soldiers were on board and all nine died in the crash.

Tomorrow night on this program, orange at the airport, yellow someplace else. Authorities are exploring the possibility of selectively lowering the threat level -- what that means to you in dollars and cents and a sense of security as well tomorrow, right here on NEWSNIGHT.

For most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next.

We'll see you tomorrow, won't we, 10:00 Eastern time. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

END

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Mostly On Paper; Presidential Advisor Says We Aren't Doing Enough Against Terrorists>