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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Car Bomb Blasts Baghdad Hotel, Kills More Than 27; Interview With Colin Powell

Aired March 17, 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 from Islamabad.
It is morning for us, Thursday morning here, and somewhere in the region we can hear the voice of General John Abizaid saying you can't say you're surprised by what happened.

What happened, of course, was this horrible bombing overnight at the Mount Lebanon Hotel in Baghdad, a car bomb or something. At least 29 people have died, scores more have been injured. The deaths and the injuries are quantifiable.

What is not quantifiable is the chaos and the fear that these things create and how much more complicated these things make the American effort to rebuilt Iraq, to give the Iraqis confidence that they can rebuild their country.

We came here to Pakistan with the idea that we would shift the focus of the program away from the one year anniversary of the war on Iraq towards the broader war on terror, of which this country is such an important part but events have a way of trumping best laid plans.

And so we begin the program and the whip back in Baghdad, CNN's Walter Rodgers on the morning after the night before, Walter a headline.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as Americans prepare to remember the first anniversary of the war in Iraq the insurgents in Iraq, the guerillas celebrated in a very deadly fashion, a car bomb reminding Americans they are very much hip deep in a bloody and deadly guerilla war here.

BROWN: Walter, thank you. We'll get back to you.

This has both policy and political implications for the president and the White House. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux has the watch for us tonight, Suzanne a headline from you.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, this bombing really comes at a time, a week when the White House was trying to highlight the administration's successes in Iraq. This is one year after the U.S.-led invasion. Instead they are focusing now on just trying to keep the coalition together.

BROWN: Suzanne, we'll get back to you and Walt and the rest shortly. Also coming up in the hour ahead tonight we'll have an update on the hunt for Osama bin Laden as the American Army and the Pakistanis as well try to tighten the noose around the man and around the area he's believed to be hiding.

And an interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell who is here in Pakistan this morning, I talked to him late last night, all that and more in the hour ahead from Pakistan.

We begin tonight in Baghdad and a sign of the times and a sign that maybe the forces who are opposed to the American occupation and the American effort there have an eye on the clock, if you will.

We are here in this part of the world just a day away from the anniversary of the Iraq war, the invasion, and we are just a season away from the moment the Americans will turn day-to-day sovereignty of Iraq back to the Iraqis themselves.

Both of those things may have played a part in the decision making that went into the horrible terrorist attack in Baghdad last night but whatever the motivation the method of the attack speaks clearly.

It was yet again another soft target as the military refers to it. Civilians were hit. Iraqi civilians in many cases were hit. It is one dimension of what is an unfolding story in an unfolding war that is hardly over.

We begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's become almost a regular occurrence but no less terrifying, a huge blast in the middle of central Baghdad, this one captured on video by an Arabic language television station as 1,000 pounds of explosives detonated in a suicide bomb that ripped the street apart.

On one side the Mount Lebanon Hotel where hotel employees said nine guests are believed to have perished, including two British citizens working for a mobile telephone network. The dead also included members of the families in houses on the other side that were destroyed by the blast.

As the night went on, workers with U.S. Army earth-moving equipment tried to clear the debris this after hours of sifting through rubble of brick, iron girders and steel beams with pick axes and their bare hands but officials said no one could have survived being crushed by this devastation.

The car bomb was detonated as U.S. military officials said they had launched raids across Baghdad designed to arrest extremists, pick up explosives and weapons and make the city a safer place but very few Iraqis believe it will be a safer place anytime soon.

(on camera): Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from the scene of the explosion in Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we're joined now by CNN's Walter Rodgers who is in Baghdad. Let's try and get two questions done here, Walt. First, any late information you have this morning?

RODGERS: No, except to add that we believe there were only nine guests in the Mount Lebanon Hotel. Most of the casualties in that car bomb blast appear to have been residents in the area. It was a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood.

Actually, if you look over my left shoulder at the mosque, the blast took place just to the right of that mosque about two-third of a kilometer, half a mile in that direction.

It happened at exactly 8:10 last night. The army is saying they expect there were at least 1,000 pounds of explosives involved in that vehicle bomb blast. It may have also carried a large artillery shell. Certainly it felt like a large artillery shell when the explosion occurred at 8:10 last night.

The ground shook from where I was standing here and all the buildings shook as well. Glass even as far as half a mile away, two- thirds of a kilometer, rattled -- Aaron.

BROWN: Walt, when these things have happened in the past, Iraqis at least in their first instinct have tended to blame the Americans for not providing security. I saw some reporting online before we went on the air that suggests that may not be the case here. What have you picked up?

RODGERS: Well, Iraqis need somebody to blame for their fate and it is not a very happy fate these days. If you ask any of them what they complain most about it's the insecurity. There was rage, initial rage when the explosion took place. U.S. soldiers from the 1st Armored Division went into the area, tried to pull people out of the rubble.

Many of the angry Iraqis on the street started yelling at the Americans, tried to push them away. It really depends on who you ask. Government officials, Governing Council, they won't blame the Americans. The Arab street might -- Aaron.

BROWN: Walt, thank you, Walter Rodgers in Baghdad.

At the White House, this was meant to be a week to highlight, if you will, progress in the last year since the war with Iraq began, progress in the broader war on terrorism.

As we said earlier in a different context planning is often trumped by events, first the events in Madrid and then what has been a really awful week in Iraq, the deaths of a half a dozen American soldiers, the deaths of the four missionaries and now the bombing today and all of this, of course, is taking place in the backdrop of a political campaign that's beginning to unfold. At the White House tonight for us, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): President Bush used the St. Patrick's Day ceremony with Ireland's prime minister to argue that America is not fighting terrorism alone.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Together we're fighting terrorism, a danger that has brought destruction and grief to Americans and Irish alike and to the world.

MALVEAUX: The Bush administration is trying to convince American voters and foreign allies to stay the course to remain steadfast in their support of the U.S.-led effort in Iraq.

In a (unintelligible) pre-scheduled speech, Vice President Dick Cheney used the latest bombing in Iraq to express the administration's resolve.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The thugs and assassins in Iraq are desperately trying to shake out will. Just this morning they conducted a murderous attack on a hotel in Baghdad. Their goal is to prevent the rise of democracy but they will fail.

MALVEAUX: The White House insists terror strikes will not move President Bush to change course.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We will meet this test with strength and with resolve. Democracy is taking root in Iraq and there is no turning back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: President Bush will deliver that message tomorrow at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. That is where more than 20,000 U.S. troops have recently returned from Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Suzanne, does the event in Baghdad change in any sense either the political strategy or the message the president will deliver?

MALVEAUX: It certainly doesn't change the message that the president is going to deliver. If anything, they say that this is further evidence that the president has to continue with the message that they have to be tough on terror.

This does complicate matters, however, because the thinking here is, is that if the killing, if the carnage reaches a certain threshold where American people say or even foreign allies say that this is no longer worth it that is when the Bush administration has a problem.

So far that hasn't happened with the exception of Spain. They still have those 30-plus members of the coalition that are still onboard and they emphasize that this is something that is a problem for the world, for the Iraqi people, not specifically for Americans -- Aaron.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Suzanne is in Washington. We're in Pakistan tonight.

A little more than 24 hours ago we were in Iraq and we sat down with the commander of the American forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan, in this part of the world, Lieutenant General John Abizaid. His words seem prescient now.

General Abizaid radiates a kind of low key confidence that is undoubtedly a necessity in the job he has. We began our conversation 48 hours or so ago by asking him what makes him most nervous about the 30 days ahead?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Over the next 30 days what makes me the most nervous is what I think is going to be a clear increase in the violence by those that want to derail this process and I think that because they know they're running out of time.

Every day that Iraqi security institutions get stronger is a day that they'll have less and less of an opportunity to gain or to derail the process. And so, it makes me nervous that we're moving into a very intense political period.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: General Abizaid that was two days before the bombing, this horrible event in Baghdad overnight.

It's a sentiment shared much earlier to us by Ken Pollack. We remember a briefing he gave us in our office in New York. He had just come back from Iraq and his emphasis in that conversation was all about security and what a security nightmare it was.

It was a different kind of security nightmare at the time but if you're living with it, if you're in the midst of it, the kind of it probably doesn't matter very much.

Mr. Pollack, who is very much an expert on the world of Iraq, joins us in Washington. Ken, good evening to you. Explain as simply as you can what the American view is of what the forces opposed to it are trying to accomplish by these bombings.

KENNETH POLLACK, DIRECTOR, SABAN CENTER, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Very simply, Aaron, they are trying to undo the entire reconstruction effort. They are trying to turn the Iraqi people against the Americans by convincing Iraqis that the Americans can't make them safe.

They're trying to turn Iraqi against Iraqi by picking out targets that will hopefully inflame Shia against Sunni, Arab against Kurd to try to create the kind of civil war that we saw Abu Musab al-Zuqawi talk about in that letter that was uncovered a number of weeks ago. BROWN: If you look at the bombing over the holiday of Ashura that's a little clear, if you look at the bombing today which just seemed to target whoever was in the area that seems less clear to me.

POLLACK: Yes, I think you're absolutely right. I don't think we know exactly what they were going after. If all we ever have is what we've seen today, I think you can still make the point that this is a way of reinforcing to the Iraqi people that they are never going to be safe. The Americans are never going to be able to protect them from this kind of a threat.

BROWN: I think all of us who have reported on this and all of the people involved in fighting it understand that you can only do so much. You can only protect so many targets. You can't protect them all. The Israelis have been trying to do it for years. Is there in any sense here a deficiency in American planning that is in play?

POLLACK: Well, look, obviously it depends on who you talk to. My own personal view is that there are simply not enough trained military personnel in Iraq to do this job. There are large numbers of Iraqis who are coming online, coming into the various security forces but many of them have not been properly vetted.

We saw that problem last week when we learned that Iraqi policemen were behind one of the latest terrorist attacks against U.S. forces because they have not been properly vetted. There are some real nasty people in the police now.

In addition, many of those who really are honest and good would like to get the job done don't have the training that they need. They're often given just two or three weeks before they're sent out onto the street and, even though they may be well meaning, they simply don't have the skills yet to actually perform the very dangerous job that they've been set to.

BROWN: Ken, just as briefly as you can, taken in isolation it's a moment but taken I guess in the view of the other events that have happened over the last few weeks how big a setback is this?

POLLACK: Today's event, Aaron, is a tragedy obviously but it's not a major event. There were other events in the last couple of weeks that I would have put as much more important.

The bombings in Ashura that you mentioned before much more important going after holy sites in Karbala and in Baghdad, much more important and, in particular, causing the Grand Ayatollah Sistani to come out and say the Americans are in part to blame because they're not giving us security.

BROWN: Ken, even from a distance it's good to talk to you again. Thank you very much, Ken Pollack in Washington tonight.

POLLACK: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Still ahead on the program the war with Iraq a year later. We'll talk with Secretary of State Powell who is in the region about the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan. We talked to him late last night.

But before we do that, Anderson Cooper in New York with the day's other news.

From Islamabad, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper. We'll go back to Aaron Brown shortly.

In news here at home the manhunt for the Ohio sniper suspect has ended in Las Vegas. Two days ago, police in Columbus made Charles McCoy, Jr.'s name and picture public. They also warned anyone who might see him not to approach him. He was considered that dangerous. In the end, he surrendered without a fight.

Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Charles McCoy, Jr. was taken into custody just before 3:00 a.m. at the Budget Suites just off the Las Vegas Strip. Investigators say they believe he'd been staying there for the past day and a half.

LT. TED LEE, LAS VEGAS POLICE: He didn't have any weapons and he complied with the officers when they told him to get on the ground and they took him into custody.

ROWLANDS: McCoy was first spotted and recognized Tuesday afternoon at the Stardust Casino by Las Vegas resident Conrad Malsom. After alerting the FBI, Malsom took it upon himself to search a nearby parking lot where he eventually found McCoy's car with the matching Ohio plates.

CONRAD MALSOM, LAS VEGAS RESIDENT: My heart virtually did a little skip because now there was no question. This is the hard evidence because the plate can't be a mistake.

ROWLANDS: Police say a 9mm pistol, one of two provided to investigators by his father, links McCoy to nine of the 24 highway shootings in Columbus, Ohio, one of which claimed the life of 62-year- old Gail Knisley.

A statement released by McCoy's family expressed relief that the manhunt is now over. The 28-year-old former high school football player suffers from paranoid schizophrenia according to his family.

CHIEF DEPUTY STEVE MARTIN, FRANKLIN CO. SHERIFF'S OFFICE: We're relieved. We're also very cognizant of the Knisley family and Mrs. Cox' family and wanted to bring them here for some closure I hope.

ROWLANDS: FBI agents in Las Vegas describe McCoy as "very cooperative," saying they've provided him with food from McDonald's while they questioned him throughout the day. (on camera): A Las Vegas police spokesperson said given the level of cooperation to this point they do not believe that McCoy will fight extradition back to Ohio. His first scheduled court appearance here in Las Vegas is set for Friday morning.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Las Vegas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A few other stories making news around the country. The extension that caused such a political flap is now official. President Bush today signed the bill giving the 9/11 commission 60 more days to complete its work. Next week it holds two days of public hearings, among those testifying Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Shamrocks aside, it was a very white St. Patrick's Day in the northeast a day after a storm dumped more than a foot of snow in some places. At least 14 traffic deaths were blamed on slippery roads. Many flights were cancelled or delayed. Some schools closed and the shovels came back out three days before spring.

In Savannah, eight people were hurt when a car taking part in a St. Patrick's Day parade crashed into marchers and onlookers. Police say they've ruled out alcohol as a cause. They're looking into whether a mechanical problem was to blame.

A few business items to get to now, shareholders of Fleet Bank and Bank of America today approved B of A's purchase of Fleet. The $48 billion deal creates the nation's third largest bank but it also is expected to result in as many as 13,000 layoffs.

The Pentagon is planning to withhold about $300 million in payments to Halliburton for services in Iraq and Kuwait. Halliburton faces a number of investigations into whether a subsidiary has been overcharging the military.

Oil prices are at a 13-year high pushing $39 a barrel for light sweet crude, um, light sweet crude. OPEC production cuts partly to blame, so is increasing consumption by China.

And despite a report showing a small increase in timber prices, Wall Street today saw the silver lining. Inflation seems under control and that sent the markets into the St. Paddy's Day green.

Coming up, more on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to go back to Islamabad to Aaron Brown and an update on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Terrorist attacks can turn political campaigns on a dime. Just ask the Spanish government. The conventional wisdom is that American elections are decided by domestic issues, the economy and the like but the truth is the conventional wisdom was written before 9/11. This will be the first presidential campaign of the new normal.

Here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One year later, no weapons of mass destruction, yet not a sliver of doubt either.

BUSH: We showed the dictator and a watching world that America means what it says.

KING: Senator John Kerry sees it much differently.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The United States of America should never go to war because we want to. We should only go to war because we have to.

KING: How Iraq cuts as a political issue come November is impossible to predict but for now it is a clear campaign dividing line.

SAMUEL R. BERGER, FMR. CLIINTON NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I mean national security has become personal security and so I think, I think national security is going to play a very important role in the campaign.

KING: For the president a test of leadership.

BUSH: Americans have the clearest possible choice. My opponent says he approves of bold action in the world but only if other countries don't object.

KING: For the Massachusetts Democrat an example of how not to lead.

KERRY: I believe that this president rushed to war. I believe that he misled America.

KING: The Bush camp says the Senator wants it both ways. He voted to give the president the authority to wage war, then voted against the $87 billion to pay for it.

CHENEY: These are not times for leaders who shift with the political winds saying one thing one day and another the next.

KING: But when he voted for the war, Senator Kerry did say Mr. Bush needed to do a better job rallying international support and when he voted against the funding he said Mr. Bush had failed that test.

KERRY: It was bad enough to go it alone in the war. It is inexcusable and incomprehensible to go it alone in the peace.

KING: By November there will be new tests. The United States is scheduled to transfer sovereignty to a new Iraqi government four months from now and perhaps begin to bring some troops home. Yet at the one year mark, this much is certain. Iraq is far from the political plus many envisioned back when the statue fell and the president walked the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: The fact of the matter is there have been over 500 people killed since mission accomplished, so the question is do the American people have the patience to stay with the policy of building a post-war Iraq and the fact that President Bush had claimed the mission accomplished are now saying well it's not really accomplished is I think his Achilles Heel in this election year.

KING: John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, one thing we can say with some certainty is that the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden would be an enormous political boost for the president. It would probably boost the president's fortunes more than it would impact the broader war on terror. The Islamic extremists waging that war are not confined to the soul of one man. It's a much more complicated issue than that.

As winter has turned to spring in this part of the world, a part of the world that is as much the home office of terrorism as any, the hunt for bin Laden has intensified, from Pakistan tonight CNN's Ash- Har Quraishi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ASH-HAR QURAISHI, CNN ISLAMABAD BUREAU CHIEF: These tribesmen are performing their ancient cultural dance the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), sometimes performed with sabers, today it is Kalishnikov rifles.

Here in the tribal belt of northwest Pakistan, an AK-47 slung over the shoulder is the norm rather than the exception. It is treacherous terrain. The main sources of income are smuggling in the arms trade and somewhere within these mountains intelligence sources believe Osama bin Laden may be hiding.

LT. GEN. YALAT MASOOD (RET.), DEFENSE ANALYST: He has the advantage of geography, of terrain, of a society, a tribal society which will give him cover and which will show him the loyalty. So, unless sort of somebody betrays him or by chance he's caught it may be very difficult.

QURAISHI: Coalition forces in Afghanistan have been on bin Laden's trail for almost three years and for the first time in more than a century, Pakistani forces have ventured into an area of their country that has never really been under their control.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've gone in with a steamroller in an area which is extremely, one it's pro-Taliban and it's pro al-Qaeda. Secondly, it's a very difficult area and, thirdly, you have a very hostile population. QURAISHI: For months, the army has been increasing its presence here, sometimes with deadly consequences. On Tuesday, at least 24 suspected terrorists and more than a dozen Pakistani troops were killed in a violent clash in South Waziristan.

The threat of force have yielded few catches but it has pressured some tribal elders into forming their own militias to search for al Qaeda militants who might be hiding amidst their own ranks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I don't believe that there are al Qaeda members in this area but we will find them if they are here.

QURAISHI (on camera): With the Pakistani tribesmen seemingly on board, the United States is launching intensified operations this spring. Described as a hammer-and-anvil strategy, U.S. coalition forces will pound al Qaeda fighters on the Afghan side, while the Pakistani forces block them from crossing over the border.

(voice-over): But it will take a lot more than firepower to get results.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What have seen right now is a huge intelligence effort, similar to the one that captured Saddam Hussein, which involved hundreds of people from the American side. It wasn't just a few special forces wandering around. And I think, for that, they need a great deal of Pakistani cooperation.

QURAISHI: But there may be a limit to how much cooperation Pakistan can offer. President Musharraf has refused to allow U.S. troops on Pakistani soil, for fear that the move might fuel an explosive reaction in a region highly opposed to U.S. intervention.

Ash-Har Quraishi, CNN, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, our interview with Secretary of State Powell. The secretary is here in Islamabad. He was in Afghanistan yesterday. This is an important trip for him. And that conversation, which took place last night, is next.

From Pakistan, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It would be hard to overstate how important Pakistan is in the overall war on terror or how complicated it is.

A recent poll done here showed that Osama bin Laden enjoyed 60 percent favorable rating from Pakistanis. Yet President Musharraf, the Pakistani leader, is trying to navigate a moderate course, trying to be an ally of the United States, an imperfect ally perhaps, but an ally nevertheless. It is why Secretary of State Powell is here to visit him, to try and gain increasing support from him and to try and shore him up as best he can without overdoing it.

The secretary and I talked at the ambassador's residence here in Islamabad last night, just about an hour before the bombing in Baghdad. That's important to note in the conversation you are about to hear. We began by talking about internal Pakistani politics and how it complicates life for the U.S. government.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Mr. Secretary, President Musharraf has obviously been a good friend of the United States since 9/11. How sensitive does the United States have to be to his political situation in the things it asks of him?

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We are sensitive to his political situation, and you are quite right. He has been a good friend to the United States. He's been a good friend as we participate in the war against terrorists. And he has a terrorist threat here in Pakistan. We had a terrible terrorist threat in Afghanistan. And after 9/11, he elected to move away from the Taliban and join with the civilized world in going after terrorism.

And he did it against forces within his society that weren't fully supportive of that kind of action. And so, we've tried to be very considerate of political needs of the Pakistani leadership. We have been forthcoming with financial assistance, with debt relief, and normalizing our relationship in a way that hadn't been the case prior to 9/11.

BROWN: Are there things you would like from him now?

POWELL: We want to see him continue to try to root out the al Qaeda and Taliban elements that are along the border in the tribal areas. And they're working on that.

And, in fact, they had a significant action recently and with some loss of life on the side of the Pakistanis, and my heart goes out to their families. But these young men were fighting terrorists who are essentially a hostile, a hostile presence in this country. We are very pleased with the comprehensive dialogue that has been decided upon between Pakistan and India that the two presidents announced in early January, and we hope that both the prime minister of India and the president of Pakistan will continue to pursue all of the eight baskets in that comprehensive dialogue.

It's off to a good start. This could be an historic opportunity. And both Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf deserve great credit for taking this important, historic step forward, and we'll support them in whatever way that we can, but this is work they have to do with each other.

BROWN: Do you believe that he is in fact limited in what he can do by the domestic political pressures on him, that there is in Pakistani society a fair amount of support for Islamic fundamentalism and extremism? POWELL: There's no doubt about that. And I think a case can be made that this is an Islamic state and Islam is a religion that is followed by the citizens of Pakistan.

But when Islam becomes fundamentalism to the point that one believes it is acceptable to take the lives of innocent people or participate in terrorist actions, this is not just a deviant interpretation of Islam. It goes against the basic tenets of Islam. So I hope that, over time, as he goes after terrorists that might be here in Pakistan or as he joins us in the war on terrorism around the world in other parts of the world, the Pakistani people understand that he is moving in the right direction.

BROWN: You are just here from Afghanistan.

Is the Karzai government, in your view, expanding its area of influence? It's a horribly complicated country to manage, to govern.

POWELL: It is a very complicated country, and they are expanding their influence slowly. It takes time. And they have to do it really the Afghan way. There's a lot of discussion and moving of people around.

But we're starting to connect the country, too, with the new road that's in place between Kabul and Kandahar, which will be completed to Herat some time by the end of the year, we hope or early in 2005. We're starting to connect the country in a physical way, with roads, with concentration on providing tax revenue from the regional governors back to the central government.

And what will really help to pull this all together and start to unify the country is an election, the kind of election they're getting ready for now. I visited a registration site early this morning where women were registering to vote; 28 percent of those who registered so far are women. And in a province such as Herat out in the west, 46 percent of those who have to registered to vote are women.

So with elections for a president and with elections for a new legislature, you're essentially giving a mandate to that president and a mandate to that legislature that says, we want to be pulled together, drawn together, into a country that now is resting politically on a constitution that we have approved and with leaders that we have voted for. And I hope -- I think this will help break down some of the regional distinctions that have existed in this society.

BROWN: This is apropos of Afghanistan and Iraq, I think. Do Americans have to be a little careful about their own expectations of what realistically can emerge, what these democracies, if we get there, can look like?

POWELL: I think we have to be very, very realistic.

It's not going to be the founding fathers in Philadelphia in 1776 and then later, when we finished work on our Constitution. It's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of education. People have to get used to what democracy means and what it's all about, to get used to the fact that even though a majority may have most people in the legislature, the rights of minorities have to be preserved. And there has to be compromise and consensus.

So it's going to take time. But President Bush and all of us reject the idea that it is not possible to do such things in the Muslim world. That's not the case. We see it happening in the Muslim world. We see it in Turkey. We see it in other Muslim nations. And why shouldn't it be possible in Iraq and Afghanistan?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Iraq and terror in part two of our interview with the secretary of state.

We take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from Islamabad.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Tragically, this week, it seems, is going to be defined by the horrible attacks in Spain and the repercussions of those attacks. So let me get your take on that. How much, if at all, do you see this as a setback in the efforts of the American war on terror?

POWELL: Well, once again, it highlights to all the civilized nations of the world that no one is immune. And we don't know who was responsible for this attack, whether it was ETA or whether it was al Qaeda or some other fundamentalist organization.

But I hope, rather than everybody saying, oh, dear, we'd better pull back from the war on terror, I hope all of the nations in Europe and other nations around the world will say, this is such a horrible, horrible incident that now is the time to redouble our efforts and go after terrorists. You can't walk away from this challenge.

You can't say, it isn't going to affect me. You can't say, let's not take any actions that a terrorist might not like by, say, participating in the coalition in Iraq or doing other things that are right because you're afraid of what the terrorists' reaction might be. This is the time to fight terrorism, not to walk away or be terrified by terrorists.

BROWN: We've done some reporting and talking to counterterrorism people. And one of the concerns they express about Iraq is that, in trying to solve one problem, WMD, it has created a Pandora's box on another front. It's sort of a bad way to look at Newton's law, I guess.

Do you at all share the concern that, in trying to deal with Saddam and trying to deal with WMDs, we have created or worsened or complicated the terrorist problem?

POWELL: I can't accept that because al Qaeda was around before we went after Saddam Hussein. Al Qaeda was using Afghanistan as a home. Al Qaeda had essentially kidnapped a country.

And in that country of Afghanistan, al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden, was planning terrorist attacks not just against the United States, but against anything that was against his own weird, his own horrible view of the world. And so to think that Iraq is the cause of terrorism or to expand terrorist actions around the world, I think, is a misreading of the situation. And we just didn't go after weapons of mass destruction. We went after weapons of mass destruction. We went after the capability of that regime to develop such weapons.

And we went after an individual who had the intention of having such weapons. And we thought he did have them in stockpiles. And we haven't found those stockpiles, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he had the capability, he had the intention, and, if ever relieved from sanctions, he would have gone right back to it.

But, more than that, we removed a dictator and a regime that had filled mass graves, that had violated the rights of its citizens, that was in league with terrorists. And so he's gone. And now the debates we're having is how best to put Iraq on a democratic footing to move forward. Terrorism is not caused by our invasion and our freeing and liberation of Iraq.

BROWN: And, finally, sir, do you have concerns that, in all of this discussion of Iraq, what's happened in Spain and the rest, that American credibility around the world, not simply yours, but the country's, has taken a hit?

POWELL: Well, some people say that. I don't think so. I think that, as we move forward and as we put in place a democratic government in Baghdad and we help the Iraqis put in place this government, and as we see continued progress in Afghanistan, any temporary hit against our credibility will be overcome.

People look at Afghanistan and say, well, what have you accomplished that? Look what we've accomplished. Since my last visit two years ago, a stable currency, an economy that's starting to function. Three million Afghan refugees have left refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran to go where? To go home to Afghanistan. And we created the conditions that allowed these people to find hope back in their own country.

That's nothing that I'm going to ever shrink from. That's a real accomplish. We have helped them create a constitution. We are helping them go toward elections. Yes, there is still a problem in the southeast portion of the country with the Taliban, with al Qaeda. Well, let's deal with it. Let's fight it. But let's recognize the enormous accomplishments that we've seen in Afghanistan over the last couple of years.

I was there earlier today. Buildings are going up. People are all over the street. Traffic is of a like that I never saw before in my previous visit. And so we should take some pride in what we've accomplished, even though difficult times are ahead and the work is not yet done. Let's be proud of what we've done in Afghanistan. And we will be proud. In due course, everyone will see it, of what we've done in Iraq. It was the right thing to do, and history will judge it to have been the right thing to do.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Secretary of State Powell, who is in Islamabad this morning. He will meet with President Musharraf later in the day.

When we come back, we go back to Iraq, still photos of a war that is still being fought.

From Pakistan, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our love affair with the power of still photographs didn't begin with the war in Iraq, but in many ways it seemed to blossom during that war, when each night we featured the work of one of the world's great still photographers after another as they made their way with coalition troops from Kuwait all the way to Baghdad and beyond.

Tonight, we revisit one of them, Bob Nickelsberg of "TIME" magazine, and the pictures that he shot.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB NICKELSBERG, PHOTOGRAPHER, "TIME": I was with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines from 29 Palms, California. In Kuwait in 2003, in January, went all the way to Baghdad with them, until mid-April.

They're known as very aggressive infantry. And that's really what they were trained to do over and over again, sort of muscle memory, they call it. The amount of adrenaline and motivation that was visible, you could taste it. The concentration and the focus was completely different than February, March of last year, when they were looking into an unknown.

Now they're getting into the mystery and peeling back the layers of Iraqi society and figuring out who's shooting at them. It's a very complex society that takes a while to integrate into and find a way of connecting the dots. And everyone is on a learning curve. Back in the fall, I worked with different Army units. And on a day-to-day basis, the Army was pretty much a police action, going out every day looking for certain people, casing houses, on patrol, looking for all of the cards in the deck, plus smaller people that were in neighborhoods, in districts.

They get enough information from local people. They go in, surround a house. They opened up a lot of doors, kicked in a lot of doors, and had to learn very quickly.

This was the result of a police action. They had a tip that Fedayeen were operating on the outskirts of town. He is one of the leaders of a Fedayeen unit. They were cuffed and then taken away. This person was rudely awakened with a bang on the door at 2:00 in the morning. We found nothing in the house. But they found weapons and money at another house two or three blocks away.

When I was in Baji, outside of the oil refinery, there was a weapons depot that was one of five Saddam had. It was one-mile-by- five-miles. It was entirely full. And the Americans were there blowing up twice a day 5,000 pounds at a shot. And they were planning to be there for five years.

Prior to this, 99 percent of the forces had no battle experience, no shots fired at them in anger. And they lost innocence very quickly. They have very little contact with real daily life of the Iraqi culture. There's a big security problem there. And there's a barrier that they never really cross until perhaps they leave. So there's a lot of thinking going on and a realization that they're going to have to be there for a while.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The remarkable Bob Nickelsberg, shooting for "TIME" magazine.

We'll take a break. When we come back, we'll update the horrible top story of the night and look ahead to NEWSNIGHT tomorrow.

But the break comes first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been a tough week for the American military in Iraq, and the events overnight suggest more tough days ahead.

The top story of this night is a horrible bombing that took place in Baghdad in front of the Mount Lebanon Hotel. A thousand pounds of explosives, very likely a car bomb, perhaps as many as -- well, at least 29 dead and very likely more when all is said and done, scores of casualties and more complications for the American effort.

It's not clear yet who did it, but the why is pretty obvious, to create chaos and fear, to make the effort to rebuild Iraq more difficult than it already is.

Tomorrow, more on the anniversary of the war which started it. We'll also talk with Pakistani President Musharraf here in Islamabad.

Our thanks and gratitude to our colleagues here for their work in getting us on the air. We'll see you tomorrow.

Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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





Interview With Colin Powell>


Aired March 17, 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 from Islamabad.
It is morning for us, Thursday morning here, and somewhere in the region we can hear the voice of General John Abizaid saying you can't say you're surprised by what happened.

What happened, of course, was this horrible bombing overnight at the Mount Lebanon Hotel in Baghdad, a car bomb or something. At least 29 people have died, scores more have been injured. The deaths and the injuries are quantifiable.

What is not quantifiable is the chaos and the fear that these things create and how much more complicated these things make the American effort to rebuilt Iraq, to give the Iraqis confidence that they can rebuild their country.

We came here to Pakistan with the idea that we would shift the focus of the program away from the one year anniversary of the war on Iraq towards the broader war on terror, of which this country is such an important part but events have a way of trumping best laid plans.

And so we begin the program and the whip back in Baghdad, CNN's Walter Rodgers on the morning after the night before, Walter a headline.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as Americans prepare to remember the first anniversary of the war in Iraq the insurgents in Iraq, the guerillas celebrated in a very deadly fashion, a car bomb reminding Americans they are very much hip deep in a bloody and deadly guerilla war here.

BROWN: Walter, thank you. We'll get back to you.

This has both policy and political implications for the president and the White House. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux has the watch for us tonight, Suzanne a headline from you.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, this bombing really comes at a time, a week when the White House was trying to highlight the administration's successes in Iraq. This is one year after the U.S.-led invasion. Instead they are focusing now on just trying to keep the coalition together.

BROWN: Suzanne, we'll get back to you and Walt and the rest shortly. Also coming up in the hour ahead tonight we'll have an update on the hunt for Osama bin Laden as the American Army and the Pakistanis as well try to tighten the noose around the man and around the area he's believed to be hiding.

And an interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell who is here in Pakistan this morning, I talked to him late last night, all that and more in the hour ahead from Pakistan.

We begin tonight in Baghdad and a sign of the times and a sign that maybe the forces who are opposed to the American occupation and the American effort there have an eye on the clock, if you will.

We are here in this part of the world just a day away from the anniversary of the Iraq war, the invasion, and we are just a season away from the moment the Americans will turn day-to-day sovereignty of Iraq back to the Iraqis themselves.

Both of those things may have played a part in the decision making that went into the horrible terrorist attack in Baghdad last night but whatever the motivation the method of the attack speaks clearly.

It was yet again another soft target as the military refers to it. Civilians were hit. Iraqi civilians in many cases were hit. It is one dimension of what is an unfolding story in an unfolding war that is hardly over.

We begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's become almost a regular occurrence but no less terrifying, a huge blast in the middle of central Baghdad, this one captured on video by an Arabic language television station as 1,000 pounds of explosives detonated in a suicide bomb that ripped the street apart.

On one side the Mount Lebanon Hotel where hotel employees said nine guests are believed to have perished, including two British citizens working for a mobile telephone network. The dead also included members of the families in houses on the other side that were destroyed by the blast.

As the night went on, workers with U.S. Army earth-moving equipment tried to clear the debris this after hours of sifting through rubble of brick, iron girders and steel beams with pick axes and their bare hands but officials said no one could have survived being crushed by this devastation.

The car bomb was detonated as U.S. military officials said they had launched raids across Baghdad designed to arrest extremists, pick up explosives and weapons and make the city a safer place but very few Iraqis believe it will be a safer place anytime soon.

(on camera): Jane Arraf, CNN, reporting from the scene of the explosion in Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we're joined now by CNN's Walter Rodgers who is in Baghdad. Let's try and get two questions done here, Walt. First, any late information you have this morning?

RODGERS: No, except to add that we believe there were only nine guests in the Mount Lebanon Hotel. Most of the casualties in that car bomb blast appear to have been residents in the area. It was a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood.

Actually, if you look over my left shoulder at the mosque, the blast took place just to the right of that mosque about two-third of a kilometer, half a mile in that direction.

It happened at exactly 8:10 last night. The army is saying they expect there were at least 1,000 pounds of explosives involved in that vehicle bomb blast. It may have also carried a large artillery shell. Certainly it felt like a large artillery shell when the explosion occurred at 8:10 last night.

The ground shook from where I was standing here and all the buildings shook as well. Glass even as far as half a mile away, two- thirds of a kilometer, rattled -- Aaron.

BROWN: Walt, when these things have happened in the past, Iraqis at least in their first instinct have tended to blame the Americans for not providing security. I saw some reporting online before we went on the air that suggests that may not be the case here. What have you picked up?

RODGERS: Well, Iraqis need somebody to blame for their fate and it is not a very happy fate these days. If you ask any of them what they complain most about it's the insecurity. There was rage, initial rage when the explosion took place. U.S. soldiers from the 1st Armored Division went into the area, tried to pull people out of the rubble.

Many of the angry Iraqis on the street started yelling at the Americans, tried to push them away. It really depends on who you ask. Government officials, Governing Council, they won't blame the Americans. The Arab street might -- Aaron.

BROWN: Walt, thank you, Walter Rodgers in Baghdad.

At the White House, this was meant to be a week to highlight, if you will, progress in the last year since the war with Iraq began, progress in the broader war on terrorism.

As we said earlier in a different context planning is often trumped by events, first the events in Madrid and then what has been a really awful week in Iraq, the deaths of a half a dozen American soldiers, the deaths of the four missionaries and now the bombing today and all of this, of course, is taking place in the backdrop of a political campaign that's beginning to unfold. At the White House tonight for us, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): President Bush used the St. Patrick's Day ceremony with Ireland's prime minister to argue that America is not fighting terrorism alone.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Together we're fighting terrorism, a danger that has brought destruction and grief to Americans and Irish alike and to the world.

MALVEAUX: The Bush administration is trying to convince American voters and foreign allies to stay the course to remain steadfast in their support of the U.S.-led effort in Iraq.

In a (unintelligible) pre-scheduled speech, Vice President Dick Cheney used the latest bombing in Iraq to express the administration's resolve.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The thugs and assassins in Iraq are desperately trying to shake out will. Just this morning they conducted a murderous attack on a hotel in Baghdad. Their goal is to prevent the rise of democracy but they will fail.

MALVEAUX: The White House insists terror strikes will not move President Bush to change course.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We will meet this test with strength and with resolve. Democracy is taking root in Iraq and there is no turning back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: President Bush will deliver that message tomorrow at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. That is where more than 20,000 U.S. troops have recently returned from Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: Suzanne, does the event in Baghdad change in any sense either the political strategy or the message the president will deliver?

MALVEAUX: It certainly doesn't change the message that the president is going to deliver. If anything, they say that this is further evidence that the president has to continue with the message that they have to be tough on terror.

This does complicate matters, however, because the thinking here is, is that if the killing, if the carnage reaches a certain threshold where American people say or even foreign allies say that this is no longer worth it that is when the Bush administration has a problem.

So far that hasn't happened with the exception of Spain. They still have those 30-plus members of the coalition that are still onboard and they emphasize that this is something that is a problem for the world, for the Iraqi people, not specifically for Americans -- Aaron.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. Suzanne is in Washington. We're in Pakistan tonight.

A little more than 24 hours ago we were in Iraq and we sat down with the commander of the American forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan, in this part of the world, Lieutenant General John Abizaid. His words seem prescient now.

General Abizaid radiates a kind of low key confidence that is undoubtedly a necessity in the job he has. We began our conversation 48 hours or so ago by asking him what makes him most nervous about the 30 days ahead?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: Over the next 30 days what makes me the most nervous is what I think is going to be a clear increase in the violence by those that want to derail this process and I think that because they know they're running out of time.

Every day that Iraqi security institutions get stronger is a day that they'll have less and less of an opportunity to gain or to derail the process. And so, it makes me nervous that we're moving into a very intense political period.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: General Abizaid that was two days before the bombing, this horrible event in Baghdad overnight.

It's a sentiment shared much earlier to us by Ken Pollack. We remember a briefing he gave us in our office in New York. He had just come back from Iraq and his emphasis in that conversation was all about security and what a security nightmare it was.

It was a different kind of security nightmare at the time but if you're living with it, if you're in the midst of it, the kind of it probably doesn't matter very much.

Mr. Pollack, who is very much an expert on the world of Iraq, joins us in Washington. Ken, good evening to you. Explain as simply as you can what the American view is of what the forces opposed to it are trying to accomplish by these bombings.

KENNETH POLLACK, DIRECTOR, SABAN CENTER, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Very simply, Aaron, they are trying to undo the entire reconstruction effort. They are trying to turn the Iraqi people against the Americans by convincing Iraqis that the Americans can't make them safe.

They're trying to turn Iraqi against Iraqi by picking out targets that will hopefully inflame Shia against Sunni, Arab against Kurd to try to create the kind of civil war that we saw Abu Musab al-Zuqawi talk about in that letter that was uncovered a number of weeks ago. BROWN: If you look at the bombing over the holiday of Ashura that's a little clear, if you look at the bombing today which just seemed to target whoever was in the area that seems less clear to me.

POLLACK: Yes, I think you're absolutely right. I don't think we know exactly what they were going after. If all we ever have is what we've seen today, I think you can still make the point that this is a way of reinforcing to the Iraqi people that they are never going to be safe. The Americans are never going to be able to protect them from this kind of a threat.

BROWN: I think all of us who have reported on this and all of the people involved in fighting it understand that you can only do so much. You can only protect so many targets. You can't protect them all. The Israelis have been trying to do it for years. Is there in any sense here a deficiency in American planning that is in play?

POLLACK: Well, look, obviously it depends on who you talk to. My own personal view is that there are simply not enough trained military personnel in Iraq to do this job. There are large numbers of Iraqis who are coming online, coming into the various security forces but many of them have not been properly vetted.

We saw that problem last week when we learned that Iraqi policemen were behind one of the latest terrorist attacks against U.S. forces because they have not been properly vetted. There are some real nasty people in the police now.

In addition, many of those who really are honest and good would like to get the job done don't have the training that they need. They're often given just two or three weeks before they're sent out onto the street and, even though they may be well meaning, they simply don't have the skills yet to actually perform the very dangerous job that they've been set to.

BROWN: Ken, just as briefly as you can, taken in isolation it's a moment but taken I guess in the view of the other events that have happened over the last few weeks how big a setback is this?

POLLACK: Today's event, Aaron, is a tragedy obviously but it's not a major event. There were other events in the last couple of weeks that I would have put as much more important.

The bombings in Ashura that you mentioned before much more important going after holy sites in Karbala and in Baghdad, much more important and, in particular, causing the Grand Ayatollah Sistani to come out and say the Americans are in part to blame because they're not giving us security.

BROWN: Ken, even from a distance it's good to talk to you again. Thank you very much, Ken Pollack in Washington tonight.

POLLACK: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Still ahead on the program the war with Iraq a year later. We'll talk with Secretary of State Powell who is in the region about the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan. We talked to him late last night.

But before we do that, Anderson Cooper in New York with the day's other news.

From Islamabad, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper. We'll go back to Aaron Brown shortly.

In news here at home the manhunt for the Ohio sniper suspect has ended in Las Vegas. Two days ago, police in Columbus made Charles McCoy, Jr.'s name and picture public. They also warned anyone who might see him not to approach him. He was considered that dangerous. In the end, he surrendered without a fight.

Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Charles McCoy, Jr. was taken into custody just before 3:00 a.m. at the Budget Suites just off the Las Vegas Strip. Investigators say they believe he'd been staying there for the past day and a half.

LT. TED LEE, LAS VEGAS POLICE: He didn't have any weapons and he complied with the officers when they told him to get on the ground and they took him into custody.

ROWLANDS: McCoy was first spotted and recognized Tuesday afternoon at the Stardust Casino by Las Vegas resident Conrad Malsom. After alerting the FBI, Malsom took it upon himself to search a nearby parking lot where he eventually found McCoy's car with the matching Ohio plates.

CONRAD MALSOM, LAS VEGAS RESIDENT: My heart virtually did a little skip because now there was no question. This is the hard evidence because the plate can't be a mistake.

ROWLANDS: Police say a 9mm pistol, one of two provided to investigators by his father, links McCoy to nine of the 24 highway shootings in Columbus, Ohio, one of which claimed the life of 62-year- old Gail Knisley.

A statement released by McCoy's family expressed relief that the manhunt is now over. The 28-year-old former high school football player suffers from paranoid schizophrenia according to his family.

CHIEF DEPUTY STEVE MARTIN, FRANKLIN CO. SHERIFF'S OFFICE: We're relieved. We're also very cognizant of the Knisley family and Mrs. Cox' family and wanted to bring them here for some closure I hope.

ROWLANDS: FBI agents in Las Vegas describe McCoy as "very cooperative," saying they've provided him with food from McDonald's while they questioned him throughout the day. (on camera): A Las Vegas police spokesperson said given the level of cooperation to this point they do not believe that McCoy will fight extradition back to Ohio. His first scheduled court appearance here in Las Vegas is set for Friday morning.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Las Vegas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: A few other stories making news around the country. The extension that caused such a political flap is now official. President Bush today signed the bill giving the 9/11 commission 60 more days to complete its work. Next week it holds two days of public hearings, among those testifying Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Shamrocks aside, it was a very white St. Patrick's Day in the northeast a day after a storm dumped more than a foot of snow in some places. At least 14 traffic deaths were blamed on slippery roads. Many flights were cancelled or delayed. Some schools closed and the shovels came back out three days before spring.

In Savannah, eight people were hurt when a car taking part in a St. Patrick's Day parade crashed into marchers and onlookers. Police say they've ruled out alcohol as a cause. They're looking into whether a mechanical problem was to blame.

A few business items to get to now, shareholders of Fleet Bank and Bank of America today approved B of A's purchase of Fleet. The $48 billion deal creates the nation's third largest bank but it also is expected to result in as many as 13,000 layoffs.

The Pentagon is planning to withhold about $300 million in payments to Halliburton for services in Iraq and Kuwait. Halliburton faces a number of investigations into whether a subsidiary has been overcharging the military.

Oil prices are at a 13-year high pushing $39 a barrel for light sweet crude, um, light sweet crude. OPEC production cuts partly to blame, so is increasing consumption by China.

And despite a report showing a small increase in timber prices, Wall Street today saw the silver lining. Inflation seems under control and that sent the markets into the St. Paddy's Day green.

Coming up, more on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to go back to Islamabad to Aaron Brown and an update on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Terrorist attacks can turn political campaigns on a dime. Just ask the Spanish government. The conventional wisdom is that American elections are decided by domestic issues, the economy and the like but the truth is the conventional wisdom was written before 9/11. This will be the first presidential campaign of the new normal.

Here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One year later, no weapons of mass destruction, yet not a sliver of doubt either.

BUSH: We showed the dictator and a watching world that America means what it says.

KING: Senator John Kerry sees it much differently.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The United States of America should never go to war because we want to. We should only go to war because we have to.

KING: How Iraq cuts as a political issue come November is impossible to predict but for now it is a clear campaign dividing line.

SAMUEL R. BERGER, FMR. CLIINTON NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I mean national security has become personal security and so I think, I think national security is going to play a very important role in the campaign.

KING: For the president a test of leadership.

BUSH: Americans have the clearest possible choice. My opponent says he approves of bold action in the world but only if other countries don't object.

KING: For the Massachusetts Democrat an example of how not to lead.

KERRY: I believe that this president rushed to war. I believe that he misled America.

KING: The Bush camp says the Senator wants it both ways. He voted to give the president the authority to wage war, then voted against the $87 billion to pay for it.

CHENEY: These are not times for leaders who shift with the political winds saying one thing one day and another the next.

KING: But when he voted for the war, Senator Kerry did say Mr. Bush needed to do a better job rallying international support and when he voted against the funding he said Mr. Bush had failed that test.

KERRY: It was bad enough to go it alone in the war. It is inexcusable and incomprehensible to go it alone in the peace.

KING: By November there will be new tests. The United States is scheduled to transfer sovereignty to a new Iraqi government four months from now and perhaps begin to bring some troops home. Yet at the one year mark, this much is certain. Iraq is far from the political plus many envisioned back when the statue fell and the president walked the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: The fact of the matter is there have been over 500 people killed since mission accomplished, so the question is do the American people have the patience to stay with the policy of building a post-war Iraq and the fact that President Bush had claimed the mission accomplished are now saying well it's not really accomplished is I think his Achilles Heel in this election year.

KING: John King, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, one thing we can say with some certainty is that the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden would be an enormous political boost for the president. It would probably boost the president's fortunes more than it would impact the broader war on terror. The Islamic extremists waging that war are not confined to the soul of one man. It's a much more complicated issue than that.

As winter has turned to spring in this part of the world, a part of the world that is as much the home office of terrorism as any, the hunt for bin Laden has intensified, from Pakistan tonight CNN's Ash- Har Quraishi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ASH-HAR QURAISHI, CNN ISLAMABAD BUREAU CHIEF: These tribesmen are performing their ancient cultural dance the (UNINTELLIGIBLE), sometimes performed with sabers, today it is Kalishnikov rifles.

Here in the tribal belt of northwest Pakistan, an AK-47 slung over the shoulder is the norm rather than the exception. It is treacherous terrain. The main sources of income are smuggling in the arms trade and somewhere within these mountains intelligence sources believe Osama bin Laden may be hiding.

LT. GEN. YALAT MASOOD (RET.), DEFENSE ANALYST: He has the advantage of geography, of terrain, of a society, a tribal society which will give him cover and which will show him the loyalty. So, unless sort of somebody betrays him or by chance he's caught it may be very difficult.

QURAISHI: Coalition forces in Afghanistan have been on bin Laden's trail for almost three years and for the first time in more than a century, Pakistani forces have ventured into an area of their country that has never really been under their control.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've gone in with a steamroller in an area which is extremely, one it's pro-Taliban and it's pro al-Qaeda. Secondly, it's a very difficult area and, thirdly, you have a very hostile population. QURAISHI: For months, the army has been increasing its presence here, sometimes with deadly consequences. On Tuesday, at least 24 suspected terrorists and more than a dozen Pakistani troops were killed in a violent clash in South Waziristan.

The threat of force have yielded few catches but it has pressured some tribal elders into forming their own militias to search for al Qaeda militants who might be hiding amidst their own ranks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I don't believe that there are al Qaeda members in this area but we will find them if they are here.

QURAISHI (on camera): With the Pakistani tribesmen seemingly on board, the United States is launching intensified operations this spring. Described as a hammer-and-anvil strategy, U.S. coalition forces will pound al Qaeda fighters on the Afghan side, while the Pakistani forces block them from crossing over the border.

(voice-over): But it will take a lot more than firepower to get results.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What have seen right now is a huge intelligence effort, similar to the one that captured Saddam Hussein, which involved hundreds of people from the American side. It wasn't just a few special forces wandering around. And I think, for that, they need a great deal of Pakistani cooperation.

QURAISHI: But there may be a limit to how much cooperation Pakistan can offer. President Musharraf has refused to allow U.S. troops on Pakistani soil, for fear that the move might fuel an explosive reaction in a region highly opposed to U.S. intervention.

Ash-Har Quraishi, CNN, Islamabad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, our interview with Secretary of State Powell. The secretary is here in Islamabad. He was in Afghanistan yesterday. This is an important trip for him. And that conversation, which took place last night, is next.

From Pakistan, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It would be hard to overstate how important Pakistan is in the overall war on terror or how complicated it is.

A recent poll done here showed that Osama bin Laden enjoyed 60 percent favorable rating from Pakistanis. Yet President Musharraf, the Pakistani leader, is trying to navigate a moderate course, trying to be an ally of the United States, an imperfect ally perhaps, but an ally nevertheless. It is why Secretary of State Powell is here to visit him, to try and gain increasing support from him and to try and shore him up as best he can without overdoing it.

The secretary and I talked at the ambassador's residence here in Islamabad last night, just about an hour before the bombing in Baghdad. That's important to note in the conversation you are about to hear. We began by talking about internal Pakistani politics and how it complicates life for the U.S. government.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Mr. Secretary, President Musharraf has obviously been a good friend of the United States since 9/11. How sensitive does the United States have to be to his political situation in the things it asks of him?

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: We are sensitive to his political situation, and you are quite right. He has been a good friend to the United States. He's been a good friend as we participate in the war against terrorists. And he has a terrorist threat here in Pakistan. We had a terrible terrorist threat in Afghanistan. And after 9/11, he elected to move away from the Taliban and join with the civilized world in going after terrorism.

And he did it against forces within his society that weren't fully supportive of that kind of action. And so, we've tried to be very considerate of political needs of the Pakistani leadership. We have been forthcoming with financial assistance, with debt relief, and normalizing our relationship in a way that hadn't been the case prior to 9/11.

BROWN: Are there things you would like from him now?

POWELL: We want to see him continue to try to root out the al Qaeda and Taliban elements that are along the border in the tribal areas. And they're working on that.

And, in fact, they had a significant action recently and with some loss of life on the side of the Pakistanis, and my heart goes out to their families. But these young men were fighting terrorists who are essentially a hostile, a hostile presence in this country. We are very pleased with the comprehensive dialogue that has been decided upon between Pakistan and India that the two presidents announced in early January, and we hope that both the prime minister of India and the president of Pakistan will continue to pursue all of the eight baskets in that comprehensive dialogue.

It's off to a good start. This could be an historic opportunity. And both Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf deserve great credit for taking this important, historic step forward, and we'll support them in whatever way that we can, but this is work they have to do with each other.

BROWN: Do you believe that he is in fact limited in what he can do by the domestic political pressures on him, that there is in Pakistani society a fair amount of support for Islamic fundamentalism and extremism? POWELL: There's no doubt about that. And I think a case can be made that this is an Islamic state and Islam is a religion that is followed by the citizens of Pakistan.

But when Islam becomes fundamentalism to the point that one believes it is acceptable to take the lives of innocent people or participate in terrorist actions, this is not just a deviant interpretation of Islam. It goes against the basic tenets of Islam. So I hope that, over time, as he goes after terrorists that might be here in Pakistan or as he joins us in the war on terrorism around the world in other parts of the world, the Pakistani people understand that he is moving in the right direction.

BROWN: You are just here from Afghanistan.

Is the Karzai government, in your view, expanding its area of influence? It's a horribly complicated country to manage, to govern.

POWELL: It is a very complicated country, and they are expanding their influence slowly. It takes time. And they have to do it really the Afghan way. There's a lot of discussion and moving of people around.

But we're starting to connect the country, too, with the new road that's in place between Kabul and Kandahar, which will be completed to Herat some time by the end of the year, we hope or early in 2005. We're starting to connect the country in a physical way, with roads, with concentration on providing tax revenue from the regional governors back to the central government.

And what will really help to pull this all together and start to unify the country is an election, the kind of election they're getting ready for now. I visited a registration site early this morning where women were registering to vote; 28 percent of those who registered so far are women. And in a province such as Herat out in the west, 46 percent of those who have to registered to vote are women.

So with elections for a president and with elections for a new legislature, you're essentially giving a mandate to that president and a mandate to that legislature that says, we want to be pulled together, drawn together, into a country that now is resting politically on a constitution that we have approved and with leaders that we have voted for. And I hope -- I think this will help break down some of the regional distinctions that have existed in this society.

BROWN: This is apropos of Afghanistan and Iraq, I think. Do Americans have to be a little careful about their own expectations of what realistically can emerge, what these democracies, if we get there, can look like?

POWELL: I think we have to be very, very realistic.

It's not going to be the founding fathers in Philadelphia in 1776 and then later, when we finished work on our Constitution. It's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of education. People have to get used to what democracy means and what it's all about, to get used to the fact that even though a majority may have most people in the legislature, the rights of minorities have to be preserved. And there has to be compromise and consensus.

So it's going to take time. But President Bush and all of us reject the idea that it is not possible to do such things in the Muslim world. That's not the case. We see it happening in the Muslim world. We see it in Turkey. We see it in other Muslim nations. And why shouldn't it be possible in Iraq and Afghanistan?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Iraq and terror in part two of our interview with the secretary of state.

We take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from Islamabad.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Tragically, this week, it seems, is going to be defined by the horrible attacks in Spain and the repercussions of those attacks. So let me get your take on that. How much, if at all, do you see this as a setback in the efforts of the American war on terror?

POWELL: Well, once again, it highlights to all the civilized nations of the world that no one is immune. And we don't know who was responsible for this attack, whether it was ETA or whether it was al Qaeda or some other fundamentalist organization.

But I hope, rather than everybody saying, oh, dear, we'd better pull back from the war on terror, I hope all of the nations in Europe and other nations around the world will say, this is such a horrible, horrible incident that now is the time to redouble our efforts and go after terrorists. You can't walk away from this challenge.

You can't say, it isn't going to affect me. You can't say, let's not take any actions that a terrorist might not like by, say, participating in the coalition in Iraq or doing other things that are right because you're afraid of what the terrorists' reaction might be. This is the time to fight terrorism, not to walk away or be terrified by terrorists.

BROWN: We've done some reporting and talking to counterterrorism people. And one of the concerns they express about Iraq is that, in trying to solve one problem, WMD, it has created a Pandora's box on another front. It's sort of a bad way to look at Newton's law, I guess.

Do you at all share the concern that, in trying to deal with Saddam and trying to deal with WMDs, we have created or worsened or complicated the terrorist problem?

POWELL: I can't accept that because al Qaeda was around before we went after Saddam Hussein. Al Qaeda was using Afghanistan as a home. Al Qaeda had essentially kidnapped a country.

And in that country of Afghanistan, al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden, was planning terrorist attacks not just against the United States, but against anything that was against his own weird, his own horrible view of the world. And so to think that Iraq is the cause of terrorism or to expand terrorist actions around the world, I think, is a misreading of the situation. And we just didn't go after weapons of mass destruction. We went after weapons of mass destruction. We went after the capability of that regime to develop such weapons.

And we went after an individual who had the intention of having such weapons. And we thought he did have them in stockpiles. And we haven't found those stockpiles, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he had the capability, he had the intention, and, if ever relieved from sanctions, he would have gone right back to it.

But, more than that, we removed a dictator and a regime that had filled mass graves, that had violated the rights of its citizens, that was in league with terrorists. And so he's gone. And now the debates we're having is how best to put Iraq on a democratic footing to move forward. Terrorism is not caused by our invasion and our freeing and liberation of Iraq.

BROWN: And, finally, sir, do you have concerns that, in all of this discussion of Iraq, what's happened in Spain and the rest, that American credibility around the world, not simply yours, but the country's, has taken a hit?

POWELL: Well, some people say that. I don't think so. I think that, as we move forward and as we put in place a democratic government in Baghdad and we help the Iraqis put in place this government, and as we see continued progress in Afghanistan, any temporary hit against our credibility will be overcome.

People look at Afghanistan and say, well, what have you accomplished that? Look what we've accomplished. Since my last visit two years ago, a stable currency, an economy that's starting to function. Three million Afghan refugees have left refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran to go where? To go home to Afghanistan. And we created the conditions that allowed these people to find hope back in their own country.

That's nothing that I'm going to ever shrink from. That's a real accomplish. We have helped them create a constitution. We are helping them go toward elections. Yes, there is still a problem in the southeast portion of the country with the Taliban, with al Qaeda. Well, let's deal with it. Let's fight it. But let's recognize the enormous accomplishments that we've seen in Afghanistan over the last couple of years.

I was there earlier today. Buildings are going up. People are all over the street. Traffic is of a like that I never saw before in my previous visit. And so we should take some pride in what we've accomplished, even though difficult times are ahead and the work is not yet done. Let's be proud of what we've done in Afghanistan. And we will be proud. In due course, everyone will see it, of what we've done in Iraq. It was the right thing to do, and history will judge it to have been the right thing to do.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Secretary of State Powell, who is in Islamabad this morning. He will meet with President Musharraf later in the day.

When we come back, we go back to Iraq, still photos of a war that is still being fought.

From Pakistan, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our love affair with the power of still photographs didn't begin with the war in Iraq, but in many ways it seemed to blossom during that war, when each night we featured the work of one of the world's great still photographers after another as they made their way with coalition troops from Kuwait all the way to Baghdad and beyond.

Tonight, we revisit one of them, Bob Nickelsberg of "TIME" magazine, and the pictures that he shot.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB NICKELSBERG, PHOTOGRAPHER, "TIME": I was with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines from 29 Palms, California. In Kuwait in 2003, in January, went all the way to Baghdad with them, until mid-April.

They're known as very aggressive infantry. And that's really what they were trained to do over and over again, sort of muscle memory, they call it. The amount of adrenaline and motivation that was visible, you could taste it. The concentration and the focus was completely different than February, March of last year, when they were looking into an unknown.

Now they're getting into the mystery and peeling back the layers of Iraqi society and figuring out who's shooting at them. It's a very complex society that takes a while to integrate into and find a way of connecting the dots. And everyone is on a learning curve. Back in the fall, I worked with different Army units. And on a day-to-day basis, the Army was pretty much a police action, going out every day looking for certain people, casing houses, on patrol, looking for all of the cards in the deck, plus smaller people that were in neighborhoods, in districts.

They get enough information from local people. They go in, surround a house. They opened up a lot of doors, kicked in a lot of doors, and had to learn very quickly.

This was the result of a police action. They had a tip that Fedayeen were operating on the outskirts of town. He is one of the leaders of a Fedayeen unit. They were cuffed and then taken away. This person was rudely awakened with a bang on the door at 2:00 in the morning. We found nothing in the house. But they found weapons and money at another house two or three blocks away.

When I was in Baji, outside of the oil refinery, there was a weapons depot that was one of five Saddam had. It was one-mile-by- five-miles. It was entirely full. And the Americans were there blowing up twice a day 5,000 pounds at a shot. And they were planning to be there for five years.

Prior to this, 99 percent of the forces had no battle experience, no shots fired at them in anger. And they lost innocence very quickly. They have very little contact with real daily life of the Iraqi culture. There's a big security problem there. And there's a barrier that they never really cross until perhaps they leave. So there's a lot of thinking going on and a realization that they're going to have to be there for a while.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The remarkable Bob Nickelsberg, shooting for "TIME" magazine.

We'll take a break. When we come back, we'll update the horrible top story of the night and look ahead to NEWSNIGHT tomorrow.

But the break comes first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been a tough week for the American military in Iraq, and the events overnight suggest more tough days ahead.

The top story of this night is a horrible bombing that took place in Baghdad in front of the Mount Lebanon Hotel. A thousand pounds of explosives, very likely a car bomb, perhaps as many as -- well, at least 29 dead and very likely more when all is said and done, scores of casualties and more complications for the American effort.

It's not clear yet who did it, but the why is pretty obvious, to create chaos and fear, to make the effort to rebuild Iraq more difficult than it already is.

Tomorrow, more on the anniversary of the war which started it. We'll also talk with Pakistani President Musharraf here in Islamabad.

Our thanks and gratitude to our colleagues here for their work in getting us on the air. We'll see you tomorrow.

Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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Interview With Colin Powell>