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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Is It Time to Bring Back Draft?; Mubarak: Arabs Hate U.S. More Than Ever; Honduras, Dominican Republic to Pull Troops Out of Iraq

Aired April 20, 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.
Chuck Hagel, the Republican Senator from Nebraska, said today it's time to consider bringing back the draft. We hope to talk to him tomorrow to flesh this out some but setting aside tonight the arguments pro and con, and there are both, a quick thought or two on the draft.

First, it isn't going to happen, not in an election year at least but beyond that maybe the debate over the draft is a really good thing. Maybe it's the best way to test how deeply the country is truly committed to Iraq.

We all look at things differently when it's someone else's kid. A discussion of the draft would force us all to think about the policy and the priority when the kid is ours.

Tonight the whip begins at the Pentagon with the talk of possibly sending more troops to Iraq. That talk is heavy with qualifiers, as it often is.

CNN's Jamie McIntyre starts us off with a headline tonight -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Aaron. The Pentagon says it's contingency planning but nevertheless they have drawn up plans to send even more troops to Iraq if necessary in the coming weeks and it may be just in time because tonight the Dominican Republic has become the latest country to announce it's withdrawing its troops from Iraq following the lead of Spain and Honduras -- Aaron.

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

The White House next and its perception problem in the Arab world and it's considerable, our Senior White House Correspondent with us tonight, John King, John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president is fond of saying the war in Iraq would prove the United States' commitment to freedom and democracy in the Arab world. Well, the president of Egypt today says Arabs hate Americans more than ever. The king of Jordan was supposed to be here tomorrow. He postponed. This administration has a very serious problem across the Arab world.

BROWN: John, thank you.

And on to John Kerry's military records and questions about how he got his Purple Hearts and the records that are or aren't tonight, Kelly Wallace a headline.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, with questions raised about whether John Kerry earned at least one of those three Purple Hearts, the campaign decided to do a document dump beginning to release some 100 pages of documents related to the Senator's military record, the question now will the release of some of these documents put an end to the questions -- Aaron.

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

Also on the program tonight more than 600 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, all of them keeping an eye on the United States Supreme Court, if of course they knew there was such a thing or that their fate was in the court's hands tonight.

Plus, Columbine, the name says it all how things have changed or not in the five years since the tragedy.

And last of all morning papers tonight. Of course we'll take a look at what will arrive on your doorstep tomorrow, all of that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in Iraq where the coalition of the willing is becoming a little bit less so at a crucial point in the mission. The decision by Spain and Honduras to withdraw their troops from the coalition comes just 10 weeks before the deadline for handing over power to the Iraqis. The more than 1,500 troops that will leave Iraq is not a big number but, if it leads to others doing the same things, things get a bit dicier in many respects.

So we begin at the Pentagon and our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): With the U.S. military taking casualties in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began and with two allies, Spain and Honduras pulling forces out of the coalition, the Pentagon is making plans for a quick infusion of reinforcements just in case.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: We have done a scrub of forces that could be available essentially immediately to in the next few weeks to the next couple of months in case we need more forces.

MCINTYRE: Currently, there are 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq including 20,000 whose combat tours were recently extended by three months but even as it makes contingency plans to boost U.S. force levels above 135,000, the Pentagon insists the option is not under active consideration.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Are we considering it, no, but have we prepared, you bet.

MCINTYRE: The abrupt departure of 1,300 Spanish troops and 370 Honduran forces has forced the U.S. to fill the gap with soldiers from the just extended 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. It's also prompted a flurry of calls by America's top diplomat to urge other coalition partners not to follow suit.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm getting solid support for our efforts, commitments to remain and finish the job that they came to do.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon believes the key to success between now and the June 30th turnover of sovereignty is convincing the Sunni minority they have a stake in Iraq's future and motivating the Iraqi police and military to battle the insurgents.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: They need to feel and to have their friends and relatives feel that they're fighting for Iraq not for the Americans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: And while the Pentagon continues to insist there are no serious cracks in the coalition the word now that a third country, the Dominican Republic has announced an early departure of its troops in the coming weeks about 300 of them has raised questions about that. We're also told that another country, Thailand, is having serious second thoughts -- Aaron.

BROWN: I think the government of Thailand said today they weren't at all interested in having their troops being attacked. From the Pentagon's point of view or the administration's point of view, maybe both, how much of this is a psychological problem and how much of it is a practical problem on the ground in terms of what they can accomplish?

MCINTYRE: Well, in terms of the way the Pentagon looks at these things it's "militarily insignificant" but politically it's very significant. The U.S. has already filled the gap with those missing troops by having the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment stay and basically pick up the slack.

But as coalition partners desert the coalition one by one, it certainly makes it much tougher for the U.S. to make the case that this is an international effort and certainly harder to get other countries to contribute more help.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you very much, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon again for us tonight.

We have talked on this program and others hundreds of times about the coalition and I suspect we've not really explained it very well once. It is time to do so. In some respects it is quite large, 36 countries by the Pentagon's count, though three of those countries told us today they have no soldiers in Iraq at all. In other respects it is quite small, only a few of those countries have combat troops in Iraq or engaged in combat there. Most of the fighting and the dying falls on the shoulders of the Americans, most of it but not all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): By far the largest contingent is British, 7,500 British combat troops oversee a multinational division in the southeast part of the country. Included in that group, 3,000 Italians, over 1,000 Dutch military engineers and doctors, and infantry battalions from Denmark and Romania and smaller or non-combat forces from the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Korea and Japan.

In the central part of Iraq, Poland's 2,500 soldiers lead a division that includes 1,600 Ukrainians, some 1,500 soon to be departing Spanish and Honduran troops and 13 small units from Central America, former Soviet states and other Asian allies.

In the north, a small Albanian military police unit bolsters the U.S. effort and an Australian naval ship and a Singaporean transport plane are working the Persian Gulf.

Only the largest allied forces are involved in combat. The others run hospitals or clear mines. Some act as policemen and border guards or work on reconstruction projects. Several, like the Japanese, are only willing to fight in self defense.

There is also a coalition of loss. Fifty-nine British soldiers lead the long and sad list. Seventeen Italians are on it, so are 11 Spaniards, five Bulgarians, four Ukrainians, two lost from Thailand and Portugal and single coffins sent back to Albania and Denmark and El Salvador and Estonia and Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The coalition, as it stands tonight.

If the recent surge in violence in Iraq has been a reminder of the earliest days of the war today also brought a sign of the future for the country. Iraqi leaders say they have set up a tribunal to try Saddam Hussein who was captured more than four months ago.

The nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, who head the Iraqi National Congress, will oversee the tribunal. Seven judges have been assigned so far. No date has been set for the proceedings to begin.

This week has been a reminder that Iraq is just one piece of the Middle East puzzle, a region fair to say full of diplomatic challenges. Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza, and parts of the West Bank, and President Bush's support of that plan have created considerable fallout in the Arab world, so here again our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KING (voice-over): As a candidate for reelection, introductions like this are viewed as a major plus.

GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK GOVERNOR: There has never been a president who's a stronger supporter of the State of Israel.

KING: But such a boast only adds to the administration's perception problem in the Arab world.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I think that people will see over time the United States is committed to the welfare, benefit and the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the Arab nations and especially the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the Palestinian people.

KING: Secretary Powell acknowledges what he calls difficulties now. Jordan's King Abdullah postponed a White House meeting planned for this week saying he needs assurances the administration is committed to Middle East peace.

The questions stem from the president's embrace of Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Mr. Bush calls it a bold way to revive the peace process. Palestinians call it an illegal land grab by Israel and a betrayal by the United States.

The Bush-Abdullah meeting will now be in two weeks and Jordan's foreign minister says relations are fine but the postponement was clear evidence Mr. Bush's solidarity with Israel's Sharon leaves moderate Arab allies in a tough spot.

AARON DAVID MILLER, PRESIDENT, SEEDS OF PEACE: I think the Jordanian king is concerned about his own domestic credibility and his credibility in the region if he were to be seen to be meeting with the U.S. president in the immediate aftermath.

KING: It's a challenge as well on the Arab street and on the Arab airwaves.

Iraq, of course is the other major challenge and even officials who predict things will be far better soon acknowledge major problems now.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: We want to be sure not to put on rose-colored glasses. There is a lot of broad dissatisfaction especially in the Sunni Arab community, partly with the pace of progress and the terrorists have done their best to slow down the pace of progress.

KING: The administration believes transferring sovereignty in Iraq in just ten weeks will help reduce anti-American sentiment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The administration promises in the days ahead new efforts to try to answer those Arab complaints that this White House favors Israel but it is a very complicated challenge, in part because this White House consistently supports Israel when it targets Hamas leaders and in part because this president refuses to have any business at all with Yasser Arafat saying the Palestinian leader not only actively undermines reform but actively encourages terrorism -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just, again to underscore this, the Egyptian president he said something similar to this to us the other day when we talked with him in Houston, was very strong on the perception of the administration in the Arab world these days.

KING: He says Americans are hated and he says this administration is to blame for its policies. Now this administration though does have a message for the Arab leaders as well. One, they would like the government of Qatar and other countries to let's just say be more stern with the media.

They say Al-Jazeera, Al Aribiya, they say the United States does not get a fair shake in the media but they also wish those leaders, especially like President Mubarak and King Abdullah, would speak out more publicly in favor of U.S. policy but those leaders tell the White House in private conversations they simply can't right now that they would be domestically making a huge mistake if they did that.

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

Also in Washington today, the Bush administration's policy in Iraq was facing tough questioning on Capitol Hill, some of the lawmakers expressing doubts over whether power can be transferred to the Iraqis by the 30th of June deadline, what ten weeks away now. Two separate hearings covering similar ground. The White House sent a representative to just one.

Here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a June 30th deadline to transfer power to the Iraqis just weeks away, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was demanding answers.

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: The administration must present a detailed plan to prove to Americans, Iraqis and our allies that we have a strategy and that we are committed to making it work.

JOHNS: The top Democrat on the committee was less diplomatic blasting the administration for not committing a high-ranking Pentagon official to answer the committee's questions.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE VICE-CHAIR: They are totally incompetent and they don't have anything to tell us which would constitute incompetence or -- or they're refusing to allow us to fulfill our constitutional responsibility and there's always a price to pay for that. JOHNS: But over in the Armed Services Committee, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was answering questions and arguing there is a plan that should not be postponed or derailed but there were few details.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Either you have a plan or you don't.

WOLFOWITZ: There are certainly ways to proceed if it can't be done by July 1st but the reason for keeping so much pressure on July 1st is, as I said earlier, it will improve the security situation in the country enormously if people stop thinking of themselves as occupied.

JOHNS: Wolfowitz was also grilled by Democrat Ted Kennedy about the assertion in Bob Woodward's new book that the administration diverted $700 million intended for Afghanistan to planning the Iraq War. Wolfowitz denied it.

WOLFOWITZ: We did not divert funds. We were very careful in making sure that we applied money to the broader war on terrorism that the Congress had authorized.

JOHNS (on camera): Two more days of hearings are scheduled, more tough questions, as the administration defends its policies in Iraq before the Congress and the public.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, a not so simple case of jurisdiction that's made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court and involves about 600 enemy detainees held at Guantanamo.

Plus, a little tip from the tax man and the president, are your tax dollars paying for politics?

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Supreme Court today heard the first of three cases concerning whether terror suspects captured in foreign countries or in one case taken prisoner here in the United States deserve access to American courts.

In some respects the narrowness of that argument belies the importance of the cases of one in particular today. Lawyer John Gibbons argued that holding prisoners on an American occupied patch of Cuban territory is an exercise in legal keep away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF JOHN GIBBONS, ATTORNEY: The Court of Appeals did rely on some mystical ultimate sovereignty of Cuba over, as we Navy types call it, GITMO treating the Navy base there as a no law zone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Thus arguing the case for the detainees, if you will. This notion got a pretty thorough going over from Justices Scalia and Rehnquist, though when it came time for the government to make its case, Justice Stephen Breyer stepped in with his.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER, U.S. SUPREME COURT: It seems rather contrary to an idea of a Constitution with three branches that the executive would be free to do whatever they want, whatever they want without a check.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: No exaggeration the case today holds the potential for changing the balance between security and liberty in a way not seen since the Civil War. No doubt either the passions that are in play. Outside the court this morning a protester carried a sign reading "no concentration camps."

Inside, Ted Olson who lost his wife on 9/11 argued the government's side. Also in court today, "Slate" Senior Editor Dahlia Lithwick who joins us again tonight, good to see you. Well, I guess I want to know who won. Is it possible to tell where the balance of the court was by listening to the arguments?

DAHLIA LITHWICK, SENIOR EDITOR, "SLATE": It's certainly not possible to tell who won and I never speculate but it looked like at least I would say five and maybe six justices on the court were quite sympathetic to the arguments from the GITMO detainees tonight.

BROWN: Dahlia, was there, was there one argument central to the presentation by the detainee side that seemed to capture the attention of those justices?

LITHWICK: Well, I mean I just think exactly that Breyer quote that you just heard, the sort of lawlessness, the sense of unchecked executive power, I think that might have been the thing that, you know, those two justices we always talk about, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, they're going to be the swing justices again this time and they seemed quite bothered by the fact that there are over 600 detainees in Guantanamo who have no semblance of a legal adjudication of their claims.

And I think it's the sense of all or nothing that there is simply no court there ever charging them, ever hearing their claims that made those justices quite nervous.

BROWN: There was some, to me at least, fascinating sort of back and forth and possibilities. There's a 50-year-old or perhaps longer underlying legal case here. Would it have made any difference to anyone if they had been held in Afghanistan rather than Guantanamo? LITHWICK: Well, I mean that was certainly one of the questions that Justice Anthony Kennedy worried about a lot today. He seemed to sort of be a little bit nervous that if the detainees prevailed every single guy who's ever captured on the battlefield is going to sort of lay down and demand to call his lawyer.

I think that the reason that isn't exactly the case is because, as you said before, Guantanamo isn't a foreign territory. It's leased from Cuba by the United States.

The United States has had control over it for 100 years and I think that the argument that the Bush administration makes that Guantanamo is no different from Germany or Japan is a little bit disingenuous in that way.

BROWN: And why would they frame the argument that way that it's no different from Germany or Japan?

LITHWICK: Well, because they have to mash their facts of this case into that 50-year-old precedent. There's sort of one crucial case that's going to govern the decision and that's a 50-year-old case called Eisentrager that involved Nazi spies who were tried in China and by military tribunal incarcerated in Germany and sought this habeas corpus relief from the United States.

The Supreme Court in that case said absolutely not. You're Germans. You're tried in China. You have no connection to the United States. U.S. courts have no jurisdiction. The Bush administration is arguing that that case is exactly the same as the case before it today.

BROWN: And the detainees are arguing it is inexact because Guantanamo is essentially American-controlled if not the country itself?

LITHWICK: Right. There was a really nice quote from the attorney for the detainees who said, "a stamp with Fidel Castro's picture on it couldn't get a letter off the base." It was sort of a colorful way of saying the U.S. is in control there.

The other big difference between the Eisentrager case is that those Nazi spies did have military adjudication. It wasn't a full hearing in front of a U.S. criminal court but they had some adjudication. The GITMO detainees have had no hearing on the merits at all.

BROWN: And finally, as quickly as you can, did anything that happened today give us any clue about the court's thinking on the other two cases, Hamdi and especially Padilla, which to me at least is the most intriguing?

LITHWICK: Well, there was a sort of interesting moment where Ted Olson, the Solicitor General, initially said that if these were Americans being held in Guantanamo they might have the right to habeas relief. That sounded like it was sort of a heads-up about next week because Hamdi and Padilla are Americans. He quickly retreated from that position, so he wasn't going to give away the farm this week.

BROWN: Always good to see you, thanks for your help tonight.

LITHWICK: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thank you.

Coming up on the program still, questioning the candidate's war record, this time it's John Kerry. Will the campaign answer and, if so, how, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is in some respects a story about no story. For most of the day we've been waiting to see the military records of John Kerry's years in the Navy. Those records are only now slowly being posted on the campaign's Web site and until they're complete it would be both unfair to the Senator and his critics to do a whole lot of reporting on them.

But we can report on the fuss surrounding them and the campaign's handling of them, so CNN's Kelly Wallace has that tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice-over): The move comes as John Kerry's former commanding officer says during Vietnam he questioned whether the Senator earned the first of his three Purple Hearts.

Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibbard told the "Boston Globe" last week: "People in the office were saying I don't think we got any fire and there is this guy holding a little piece of shrapnel in his palm."

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Kerry was asked if to answer that charge he would follow President Bush's lead and release all his military records.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're available to you to come and look at. I think that's a very unfair characterization by that person. I mean politics is politics. The medical records show that I had shrapnel removed from my arm.

WALLACE: A handful of documents on the Web site Tuesday evening include previously released information such as the three certificates noting Kerry was awarded Purple Hearts for wounds received in action.

John Dalton is a former Navy secretary and now a Kerry supporter.

JOHN DALTON, FMR. NAVY SECRETARY: When you're in a military combat zone and you get hit by enemy fire, you deserve a Purple Heart period, paragraph. I mean that's the way it is. WALLACE: The Bush-Cheney campaign waded into the controversy accusing the Senator of waffling about releasing his records.

KEN MEHLMAN, BUSH-CHENEY CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I think what we're pointing out is that on this issue, like on many others, what John Kerry says and what John Kerry does are two very different things.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And a Kerry campaign spokesman fired back saying if the Republicans want to compare the Senator's military service with the non-combat service of President Bush during Vietnam "we welcome that" -- Aaron.

BROWN: Two questions. The criticism is essentially about one of three Purple Hearts is that correct?

WALLACE: Correct.

BROWN: That's it?

WALLACE: That -- some -- that's it with his former commanding officer, a) how extensive the injury and, b) more importantly, did he sustain -- was it because of enemy fire? You get a Purple Heart if you get an injury due to enemy fire.

BROWN: As opposed to the shrapnel coming from a friendly side, I guess?

WALLACE: Yes, or self-inflicted or some injury that a colleague might have imposed.

BROWN: So, now the other question is, is more troublesome I think to me. They said they were going to have this stuff out there all day, correct?

WALLACE: Absolutely.

BROWN: And we're at almost 10:30 Eastern time now. Is it all out there yet?

WALLACE: No, and I checked before I came up here. The same nine pages that were put up just an hour ago are still there and we're told some 150 pages from the Navy will be posted.

BROWN: And do we have any idea why it's taking them so long?

WALLACE: The sense is they say that they have to sort of scan these documents, download them to get them on the Web site but we are sensing some frustration internally about how the campaign handled this.

BROWN: OK, I guess you know what you're doing tomorrow.

WALLACE: I think I know my assignment.

BROWN: I think you do, too.

Thank you very much, Kelly Wallace, tonight.

Here's a good question for you, a good question in an election year. Should an agency of the federal government, in this case the Treasury Department, use your tax money to promote one candidate's policies over another? Should the IRS tack on a sentence in a routine press release saying essentially the current president, any current president, has the right answers and his opponents are wrong? Is that fair? Is it right? Should it happen? It did.

Here is CNN's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It starts simply enough, an April 9 release from the Treasury Office of Public Affairs, a tax day reminder. But here is what is different, a italicized paragraph at the end that reads, "America has a choice. It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the president's policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation."

Some political observers say the language is jaw-dropping.

LARRY NOBLE, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS: It is not playing around in the gray area. It is not pushing the envelope. This is having a government agency, the IRS, at tax time, say to the American people, you have a choice. You can either support the president or end up paying higher taxes by supporting Senator Kerry.

CALLEBS: The same wording is also found on the Republican National Committee Web page and a White House fact sheet. Representative Charles Rangel is asking the Treasury Department's inspector general to investigate.

REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: It is not proper for the secretary of the treasury to be promoting political policies and to be using taxpayers' money to get it out. If he wants to go to fund- raisers and do it, if he wants to go to rallies and do it, so do it.

CALLEBS: A spokesman for the Treasury Department says: "It is an appropriate statement and in no way, shape or form is it unusual or political language."

He says: "We are stating fiscal policy. This is standard. It predates this administration to the previous eight years."

CNN spoke with a former treasury official who served under President Clinton, who denies such messages were ever attached to news releases.

(on camera): This isn't lost on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. A spokesman for John Kerry says the Bush administration is abusing the public trust and at the same time campaigning on the taxpayers' dime. Sean Callebs, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight, family ties between the White House and the House of Saud and questions being raised about them.

A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With the headlines full of allegations of a deal between Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration on keeping oil prices low to help the president get reelected and the big to-do over Bob Woodward's reporting of Saudi Arabia's role in the run-up to the war with Iraq, it seemed like a good time to take a closer look at the relationship between the kingdom and the White House. And it is a complicated one.

Craig Unger's book is titled "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties."

We're pleased to have Mr. Unger with us tonight.

I want to get into some of the specifics of these allegations and why they may be plausible or perhaps why not. But just give me a short paragraph on the history. How did these two families, particularly Prince Bandar and the Bushes, become so close?

CRAIG UNGER, AUTHOR, "HOUSE OF BUSH, HOUSE OF SAUD": Well, the Saudis sought to have relations with politicians in both political parties. And you may recall back in the '70, Bert Lance and Clark Clifford got into trouble with their business dealings with the Saudis.

But they also had particular luck with the Bushes. And over the last 30 years -- they started coming to Texas in 1974. And I found a man named Osama bin Laden, who is now dead. But he came to Houston, Texas, and it was the birth of the Saudi-Bush connection.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: He came there to meet with then, what, Congressman Bush?

UNGER: He was then -- well, this was in '74. I believe he was with the Republican National Committee.

BROWN: OK.

UNGER: But over that -- the Saudis had begun to invest over $800 billion in American equities over the next 20 years. It was the start of their power.

But what was interesting with the bin Ladens and some of the Saudis was when they started to put money into companies that weren't doing too well but were tied to powerful Texas politicians. And I found a total of $1.4 billion in investments and contracts that went from the Royal House of Saud to companies in which the Bushes and their allies had prominent positions.

BROWN: OK. Now any of this illegal?

UNGER: Nothing so far as I know is illegal. The question is, though, when they come into the public sector, are they indebted to the Saudis and what price do we pay? Are they doing favors for the Saudis?

BROWN: OK, that's a good question. Is there any evidence that they have -- that they the Bushes in this case have been unduly influenced by the Saudis or have done anything untoward where the Saudis are concerned?

UNGER: Well, it is especially interesting given the Saudi role in Islamic terrorism and that Wahabi terrorism is really at the root of some of our problems.

And I think the most disturbing thing that I found happened right after 9/11. You have...

BROWN: This is the plane flight.

UNGER: Exactly.

And it was not just one flight. It was -- I found at least eight planes stopping in 12 American cities, picking up 140 passengers. Most of them were Saudis, many members of the royal family, more than 24 members of the bin Laden family.

BROWN: This is a in period, just to frame it, where the airspace is closed. So it's in that period right after 9/11, when no planes are flying.

UNGER: Well, planes were just starting to fly again, but private planes were still banned. And the first flight that I found was a Learjet going from Tampa, Florida, to Lexington, Kentucky.

And we know that the authorization for this flight was discussed in the White House. I spoke to Richard Clarke and he later testified before the 9/11 Commission that in fact these discussions were going on about these flights.

BROWN: And the White House says about this what?

UNGER: The White House to me denied the flights ever took place. And, frankly, I have passenger lists for four of the flights that you can see on my Web site at HouseOfBush.com.

BROWN: All of this I suppose gives some arguable credibility, though it's denied, that the oil deal was actually -- that that conversation took place and that the prince knew before the secretary of state, right?

UNGER: I think it is perfectly consistent, yes.

And, by the way, I wouldn't fault President Bush or any president for asking the Saudis to lower the price of oil.

BROWN: Right.

UNGER: The question is, do they have such a close relationship with the Royal House of Saud that the House of Saud can influence American presidential elections?

BROWN: And do you think they do?

UNGER: I do think they have that kind of power. They have an extraordinary access. And it really is disturbing that they would -- that President Bush would share intelligence with Prince Bandar before he would with our own secretary of state.

BROWN: Good to meet you. Thanks for coming in tonight.

UNGER: Thank you.

BROWN: Nice job, tonight. Thank you.

Just ahead on the program, five years after Columbine, looking at the true risk to children in schools, perspective in proportion, not a bad thing.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Five years ago today Littleton, Columbine, joined the list. It joined Pearl and Paducah, Springfield and Jonesboro. Ordinary places became shorthand for an extraordinary wave of violence, cold-blooded killings that changed the way the country saw its schools and the children who attend those schools.

In five years, we may have forgotten Paducah and Pearl and Springfield and Jonesboro. No one has forgotten Columbine.

Here is CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the shooting was over at Columbine High School in 1999, the National Center For Education Statistics counted 152 violent school deaths in the U.S. in just three school years.

RICK KAUFMAN, SCHOOL DISTRICT SPOKESMAN: At one point as an educator we would have said that we could ensure the 100 percent the safety of the child. Can't do that anymore. Columbine told us we can't do that.

MATTINGLY: It was one of the nation's bloodiest periods of school-related violence; 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham murdered his mother, then two students at Mississippi's Pearl High School. He is serving three life sentences, plus 140 years. Paducah, Kentucky, 14-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a school prayer group, killing three. He was sentenced to life in prison. In 1998, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel of Springfield, Oregon, killed his parents, two classmates and wounded 25 others in his school cafeteria. He was sentenced to 111 years.

And two months earlier, middle schoolers Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden killed four students and a teacher in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The two will remain behind bars until their 21st birthdays.

KATHLEEN HEIDE, CRIMINOLOGIST: The sad thing about Columbine and some of the other school shootings was that there were signs there. Now, those signs couldn't have told anybody that this was absolutely going to happen, but they clearly pointed the way to troubled kids in need of mental health services.

MATTINGLY: For the years following Columbine for which we have statistics, violence school deaths were half of what they had been. Listening and intervention are the deterrents of choice.

In Colorado schools, there are no metal detectors. No bags are checked. No uniformed officers greet students at the door. Instead, teachers act quickly on behavior problems. And students are taught, don't hesitate to tell.

JOSH HAWKINS, STUDENT: I have noticed around the schools that there's not as many people walking all over each other, putting each other down and stuff like that.

MATTINGLY: These Columbine-area students say they're more sensitive today to the moods and words of their peers. Bullying in particular will invite intervention.

NEIL COSTER, STUDENT: But it does happen. I've had my share of bullying, but, you know, just tough it out.

MATTINGLY (on camera): Do people step in to help when that happens?

COSTER: Sometimes, yes. Some people stand up for you.

MATTINGLY: Standing together is the message of ceremonies in Littleton with the theme, "We are Columbine." But there are indications that school violence is again on the rise in the United States. And school safety experts say they hope this five-year anniversary reminds everyone to remain vigilant.

David Mattingly, CNN, Littleton, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: My daughter called me the day after the Columbine shooting while I was working the story. She was 10 at the time. And she was scared. If Columbine, where I was, was unsafe, what was to say her school was any better, she wondered. It was, I insisted. School is the safest place you can be, outside of home. She wasn't alone in her fears, of course. And risk is famously easy to distort. And the news cycle often amplifies the danger.

Here's our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Of course it wiped every other story off the TV screen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was shot, what, in the hallway?

GREENFIELD: And the front pages. How could it not? Every parent's primal fear, a sudden explosion of violent death inside the most ordinary of places, of course, it would set off the most urgent of alarms, raise the obvious questions: Why did it happen? Could it happen to you?

(on camera): But in its very power to mesmerize us, the Columbine story also did something else, something very familiar in this modern media age. It offered up a portrait of danger that overwhelmed the less dramatic reality.

(voice-over): For instance, no parent could look at what happened at Columbine without feeling a spasm of fear that my child could be in danger from violent attack. Yet, year after year, this is where American children are most at risk, in their neighborhood streets and in their parent's cars. Traffic and pedestrian accidents are the leading cause of death for children under 15.

And in fact in the years since Columbine, it is not these guards that have made our children safer, but these, speed bumps, the most pedestrian, undramatic of safeguards. According to one recent report out of Oakland, California, kids who live in neighborhoods with speed bumps are 60 percent less likely to be hit and injured by an auto than other kids.

This follows years of other studies showing that the single biggest step parents could take to protect their children is simply to buckle them up in their cars. But unlike the Columbine story, with its shock, its power to jolt us into confronting something new and terrible, the ordinary dangers of automobiles in neighborhoods are literally too ordinary, too pedestrian to become the focus of our energy and attention.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An Amber Alert helped police locate...

GREENFIELD: It is why stories about a suddenly appearing danger, abducted children, a flu outbreak...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still hoping for a recovery.

GREENFIELD: ... shark attacks, a school shooting, convince us that there is a new and looming threat even though in each of these cases there was no upsurge in danger, simply an upsurge in media coverage. (on camera): All the focus on Columbine may well have persuaded schools to pay more attention to bullying, to the alienated kids in their midst and the danger sings of violence. And of course that's good.

But when we do stories like this, it might also be well to remind audiences that the biggest dangers may lie in the most ordinary places and moments of our daily life.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, I think, but I'm not absolutely positive about the around the world part. We'll see how it goes.

"The Christian Science Monitor" starts us off tonight. It started us off last night, too. "Economy Hot. Will Rate Hikes Follow? Federal reserve Must Consider Whether it is Time to Raise Interest Rates and What Effect That Will Be on the Job Market." Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was on the Hill saying deflation is no longer the issue. And then anytime the guy speaks, then something happens. And the sense was that maybe interest rates are going up because they've been pretty low. In fact, most banks will now pay you to borrow money. OK, they won't.

I like this story a lot. It's one of those stories I wish I had gone to do. I would have loved to have gone to South Africa these days. "A Black Man's Unpaved Road to South Africa's Middle Class." It has been 10 years since Election Day, one of great professional days in my life in South Africa. And that's a nice story in "The Christian Science Monitor."

"The International Herald Tribune," published in Paris by "The New York Times," "On E.u.," European Union, "Blair Places New Political Wager, Call For Vote on Charter Fits a Daring Style." Does this guy ever have an easy day, Tony Blair? He's always in some kind of political hot water, it seems like.

Down at the bottom, this was actually a "New York Times" story today but the world will see it tomorrow. "Scientists Take a Peek Into Voters' Brains." They've been putting voters into MRIs and looking at their brains when they show them political ads. They figure sort of what side of your brain works if you're a Democrat and what side works if you're a Republican, or whether it works at all, I guess, as it turns out, depending on what party you belong to.

This is what "The Denver Post" looked like five years ago tomorrow. "High School Massacre. Columbine Bloodbath Leaves Up to 25 Dead." I think in fact the paper was in color then. But they didn't -- that's not the way they saved it. Five years ago. My goodness. Good headline. Good straightaway headline.

"Upbeat GM Predicts $4 Billion Profit For 2004. Sharp Increase in Spending to Cover Recall Pricing Pressures Could Temper Forecasts." That's "The Detroit News." How much time? Five?

OK, well, that's wait it goes, then. The weather tomorrow in Chicago is what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Spring fling."

BROWN: "Spring fling." Thank you. I knew I would remember it if someone told me.

We have one final story. It is just a terrific little tale, too. It comes after the break.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, there are any number of cliches about the wisdom of youth. Some of them, it turns out, are true. But they speak only of wisdom, not of compassion, which is thought to be the province of adults. Baloney. We close tonight with a measure of compassion for the family of a soldier held captive in Iraq from a boy both wise and true and very much welcome.

From Union Township, Ohio, tonight, here is CNN's Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACOB KELCH, WROTE LETTER TO MAUPIN FAMILY: Dear family of Matt Maupin.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The moment Jacob Kelch starts reading, it is easy to see he's not your normal sixth grader.

J. KELCH: I wrote you this letter to tell you that I'm in deep sorrow and grief for your son.

LAWRENCE: Jacob started writing when he watched a captured Private Maupin and thought of the family living a few blocks down.

J. KELCH: Well, I just kind of tried to feel what they were feeling and give them like the words that they might need to hear.

LAWRENCE: The day after he delivered it to the Maupin's mailbox, Jacob was asked to read the letter in front of the whole sixth grade and a special guest who came to meet him, Matt Maupin's dad.

J. KELCH: It was the first time he left his house since he received the news that his son was missing.

LAWRENCE: Jacob's parents still can't believe what their son has written.

SHANNON KELCH, MOTHER OF JACOB: And it makes me feel good to think that he thinks of others and that he wishes the best for others.

LAWRENCE: Private Maupin has become something of a hero to Jacob, who one day wants to join the Army.

S. KELCH: It scares me, but it makes me proud at the same time.

LAWRENCE: Proud of his selflessness, scared for his safety.

S. KELCH: To lose my son some day.

MICHAEL KELCH, FATHER OF JACOB: To have my son be held for something, and that's what Mr. Maupin has to be going through.

LAWRENCE: Twelve today, 18 tomorrow, but, in any sense of the word, Jacob Kelch may already be a man.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Batavia, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Young Jacob will be on "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow, 7:00 Eastern time.

We're back here tomorrow at 10:00. We hope you are, too. Until then, 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


Aired April 20, 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.
Chuck Hagel, the Republican Senator from Nebraska, said today it's time to consider bringing back the draft. We hope to talk to him tomorrow to flesh this out some but setting aside tonight the arguments pro and con, and there are both, a quick thought or two on the draft.

First, it isn't going to happen, not in an election year at least but beyond that maybe the debate over the draft is a really good thing. Maybe it's the best way to test how deeply the country is truly committed to Iraq.

We all look at things differently when it's someone else's kid. A discussion of the draft would force us all to think about the policy and the priority when the kid is ours.

Tonight the whip begins at the Pentagon with the talk of possibly sending more troops to Iraq. That talk is heavy with qualifiers, as it often is.

CNN's Jamie McIntyre starts us off with a headline tonight -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Aaron. The Pentagon says it's contingency planning but nevertheless they have drawn up plans to send even more troops to Iraq if necessary in the coming weeks and it may be just in time because tonight the Dominican Republic has become the latest country to announce it's withdrawing its troops from Iraq following the lead of Spain and Honduras -- Aaron.

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

The White House next and its perception problem in the Arab world and it's considerable, our Senior White House Correspondent with us tonight, John King, John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president is fond of saying the war in Iraq would prove the United States' commitment to freedom and democracy in the Arab world. Well, the president of Egypt today says Arabs hate Americans more than ever. The king of Jordan was supposed to be here tomorrow. He postponed. This administration has a very serious problem across the Arab world.

BROWN: John, thank you.

And on to John Kerry's military records and questions about how he got his Purple Hearts and the records that are or aren't tonight, Kelly Wallace a headline.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, with questions raised about whether John Kerry earned at least one of those three Purple Hearts, the campaign decided to do a document dump beginning to release some 100 pages of documents related to the Senator's military record, the question now will the release of some of these documents put an end to the questions -- Aaron.

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

Also on the program tonight more than 600 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, all of them keeping an eye on the United States Supreme Court, if of course they knew there was such a thing or that their fate was in the court's hands tonight.

Plus, Columbine, the name says it all how things have changed or not in the five years since the tragedy.

And last of all morning papers tonight. Of course we'll take a look at what will arrive on your doorstep tomorrow, all of that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin in Iraq where the coalition of the willing is becoming a little bit less so at a crucial point in the mission. The decision by Spain and Honduras to withdraw their troops from the coalition comes just 10 weeks before the deadline for handing over power to the Iraqis. The more than 1,500 troops that will leave Iraq is not a big number but, if it leads to others doing the same things, things get a bit dicier in many respects.

So we begin at the Pentagon and our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): With the U.S. military taking casualties in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began and with two allies, Spain and Honduras pulling forces out of the coalition, the Pentagon is making plans for a quick infusion of reinforcements just in case.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: We have done a scrub of forces that could be available essentially immediately to in the next few weeks to the next couple of months in case we need more forces.

MCINTYRE: Currently, there are 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq including 20,000 whose combat tours were recently extended by three months but even as it makes contingency plans to boost U.S. force levels above 135,000, the Pentagon insists the option is not under active consideration.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Are we considering it, no, but have we prepared, you bet.

MCINTYRE: The abrupt departure of 1,300 Spanish troops and 370 Honduran forces has forced the U.S. to fill the gap with soldiers from the just extended 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. It's also prompted a flurry of calls by America's top diplomat to urge other coalition partners not to follow suit.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm getting solid support for our efforts, commitments to remain and finish the job that they came to do.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon believes the key to success between now and the June 30th turnover of sovereignty is convincing the Sunni minority they have a stake in Iraq's future and motivating the Iraqi police and military to battle the insurgents.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: They need to feel and to have their friends and relatives feel that they're fighting for Iraq not for the Americans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: And while the Pentagon continues to insist there are no serious cracks in the coalition the word now that a third country, the Dominican Republic has announced an early departure of its troops in the coming weeks about 300 of them has raised questions about that. We're also told that another country, Thailand, is having serious second thoughts -- Aaron.

BROWN: I think the government of Thailand said today they weren't at all interested in having their troops being attacked. From the Pentagon's point of view or the administration's point of view, maybe both, how much of this is a psychological problem and how much of it is a practical problem on the ground in terms of what they can accomplish?

MCINTYRE: Well, in terms of the way the Pentagon looks at these things it's "militarily insignificant" but politically it's very significant. The U.S. has already filled the gap with those missing troops by having the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment stay and basically pick up the slack.

But as coalition partners desert the coalition one by one, it certainly makes it much tougher for the U.S. to make the case that this is an international effort and certainly harder to get other countries to contribute more help.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you very much, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon again for us tonight.

We have talked on this program and others hundreds of times about the coalition and I suspect we've not really explained it very well once. It is time to do so. In some respects it is quite large, 36 countries by the Pentagon's count, though three of those countries told us today they have no soldiers in Iraq at all. In other respects it is quite small, only a few of those countries have combat troops in Iraq or engaged in combat there. Most of the fighting and the dying falls on the shoulders of the Americans, most of it but not all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): By far the largest contingent is British, 7,500 British combat troops oversee a multinational division in the southeast part of the country. Included in that group, 3,000 Italians, over 1,000 Dutch military engineers and doctors, and infantry battalions from Denmark and Romania and smaller or non-combat forces from the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Korea and Japan.

In the central part of Iraq, Poland's 2,500 soldiers lead a division that includes 1,600 Ukrainians, some 1,500 soon to be departing Spanish and Honduran troops and 13 small units from Central America, former Soviet states and other Asian allies.

In the north, a small Albanian military police unit bolsters the U.S. effort and an Australian naval ship and a Singaporean transport plane are working the Persian Gulf.

Only the largest allied forces are involved in combat. The others run hospitals or clear mines. Some act as policemen and border guards or work on reconstruction projects. Several, like the Japanese, are only willing to fight in self defense.

There is also a coalition of loss. Fifty-nine British soldiers lead the long and sad list. Seventeen Italians are on it, so are 11 Spaniards, five Bulgarians, four Ukrainians, two lost from Thailand and Portugal and single coffins sent back to Albania and Denmark and El Salvador and Estonia and Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The coalition, as it stands tonight.

If the recent surge in violence in Iraq has been a reminder of the earliest days of the war today also brought a sign of the future for the country. Iraqi leaders say they have set up a tribunal to try Saddam Hussein who was captured more than four months ago.

The nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, who head the Iraqi National Congress, will oversee the tribunal. Seven judges have been assigned so far. No date has been set for the proceedings to begin.

This week has been a reminder that Iraq is just one piece of the Middle East puzzle, a region fair to say full of diplomatic challenges. Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza, and parts of the West Bank, and President Bush's support of that plan have created considerable fallout in the Arab world, so here again our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KING (voice-over): As a candidate for reelection, introductions like this are viewed as a major plus.

GEORGE PATAKI (R), NEW YORK GOVERNOR: There has never been a president who's a stronger supporter of the State of Israel.

KING: But such a boast only adds to the administration's perception problem in the Arab world.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I think that people will see over time the United States is committed to the welfare, benefit and the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the Arab nations and especially the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the Palestinian people.

KING: Secretary Powell acknowledges what he calls difficulties now. Jordan's King Abdullah postponed a White House meeting planned for this week saying he needs assurances the administration is committed to Middle East peace.

The questions stem from the president's embrace of Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Mr. Bush calls it a bold way to revive the peace process. Palestinians call it an illegal land grab by Israel and a betrayal by the United States.

The Bush-Abdullah meeting will now be in two weeks and Jordan's foreign minister says relations are fine but the postponement was clear evidence Mr. Bush's solidarity with Israel's Sharon leaves moderate Arab allies in a tough spot.

AARON DAVID MILLER, PRESIDENT, SEEDS OF PEACE: I think the Jordanian king is concerned about his own domestic credibility and his credibility in the region if he were to be seen to be meeting with the U.S. president in the immediate aftermath.

KING: It's a challenge as well on the Arab street and on the Arab airwaves.

Iraq, of course is the other major challenge and even officials who predict things will be far better soon acknowledge major problems now.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: We want to be sure not to put on rose-colored glasses. There is a lot of broad dissatisfaction especially in the Sunni Arab community, partly with the pace of progress and the terrorists have done their best to slow down the pace of progress.

KING: The administration believes transferring sovereignty in Iraq in just ten weeks will help reduce anti-American sentiment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: The administration promises in the days ahead new efforts to try to answer those Arab complaints that this White House favors Israel but it is a very complicated challenge, in part because this White House consistently supports Israel when it targets Hamas leaders and in part because this president refuses to have any business at all with Yasser Arafat saying the Palestinian leader not only actively undermines reform but actively encourages terrorism -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just, again to underscore this, the Egyptian president he said something similar to this to us the other day when we talked with him in Houston, was very strong on the perception of the administration in the Arab world these days.

KING: He says Americans are hated and he says this administration is to blame for its policies. Now this administration though does have a message for the Arab leaders as well. One, they would like the government of Qatar and other countries to let's just say be more stern with the media.

They say Al-Jazeera, Al Aribiya, they say the United States does not get a fair shake in the media but they also wish those leaders, especially like President Mubarak and King Abdullah, would speak out more publicly in favor of U.S. policy but those leaders tell the White House in private conversations they simply can't right now that they would be domestically making a huge mistake if they did that.

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

Also in Washington today, the Bush administration's policy in Iraq was facing tough questioning on Capitol Hill, some of the lawmakers expressing doubts over whether power can be transferred to the Iraqis by the 30th of June deadline, what ten weeks away now. Two separate hearings covering similar ground. The White House sent a representative to just one.

Here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With a June 30th deadline to transfer power to the Iraqis just weeks away, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was demanding answers.

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: The administration must present a detailed plan to prove to Americans, Iraqis and our allies that we have a strategy and that we are committed to making it work.

JOHNS: The top Democrat on the committee was less diplomatic blasting the administration for not committing a high-ranking Pentagon official to answer the committee's questions.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE VICE-CHAIR: They are totally incompetent and they don't have anything to tell us which would constitute incompetence or -- or they're refusing to allow us to fulfill our constitutional responsibility and there's always a price to pay for that. JOHNS: But over in the Armed Services Committee, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was answering questions and arguing there is a plan that should not be postponed or derailed but there were few details.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), MICHIGAN: Either you have a plan or you don't.

WOLFOWITZ: There are certainly ways to proceed if it can't be done by July 1st but the reason for keeping so much pressure on July 1st is, as I said earlier, it will improve the security situation in the country enormously if people stop thinking of themselves as occupied.

JOHNS: Wolfowitz was also grilled by Democrat Ted Kennedy about the assertion in Bob Woodward's new book that the administration diverted $700 million intended for Afghanistan to planning the Iraq War. Wolfowitz denied it.

WOLFOWITZ: We did not divert funds. We were very careful in making sure that we applied money to the broader war on terrorism that the Congress had authorized.

JOHNS (on camera): Two more days of hearings are scheduled, more tough questions, as the administration defends its policies in Iraq before the Congress and the public.

Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, a not so simple case of jurisdiction that's made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court and involves about 600 enemy detainees held at Guantanamo.

Plus, a little tip from the tax man and the president, are your tax dollars paying for politics?

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Supreme Court today heard the first of three cases concerning whether terror suspects captured in foreign countries or in one case taken prisoner here in the United States deserve access to American courts.

In some respects the narrowness of that argument belies the importance of the cases of one in particular today. Lawyer John Gibbons argued that holding prisoners on an American occupied patch of Cuban territory is an exercise in legal keep away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF JOHN GIBBONS, ATTORNEY: The Court of Appeals did rely on some mystical ultimate sovereignty of Cuba over, as we Navy types call it, GITMO treating the Navy base there as a no law zone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Thus arguing the case for the detainees, if you will. This notion got a pretty thorough going over from Justices Scalia and Rehnquist, though when it came time for the government to make its case, Justice Stephen Breyer stepped in with his.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OF JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER, U.S. SUPREME COURT: It seems rather contrary to an idea of a Constitution with three branches that the executive would be free to do whatever they want, whatever they want without a check.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: No exaggeration the case today holds the potential for changing the balance between security and liberty in a way not seen since the Civil War. No doubt either the passions that are in play. Outside the court this morning a protester carried a sign reading "no concentration camps."

Inside, Ted Olson who lost his wife on 9/11 argued the government's side. Also in court today, "Slate" Senior Editor Dahlia Lithwick who joins us again tonight, good to see you. Well, I guess I want to know who won. Is it possible to tell where the balance of the court was by listening to the arguments?

DAHLIA LITHWICK, SENIOR EDITOR, "SLATE": It's certainly not possible to tell who won and I never speculate but it looked like at least I would say five and maybe six justices on the court were quite sympathetic to the arguments from the GITMO detainees tonight.

BROWN: Dahlia, was there, was there one argument central to the presentation by the detainee side that seemed to capture the attention of those justices?

LITHWICK: Well, I mean I just think exactly that Breyer quote that you just heard, the sort of lawlessness, the sense of unchecked executive power, I think that might have been the thing that, you know, those two justices we always talk about, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor, they're going to be the swing justices again this time and they seemed quite bothered by the fact that there are over 600 detainees in Guantanamo who have no semblance of a legal adjudication of their claims.

And I think it's the sense of all or nothing that there is simply no court there ever charging them, ever hearing their claims that made those justices quite nervous.

BROWN: There was some, to me at least, fascinating sort of back and forth and possibilities. There's a 50-year-old or perhaps longer underlying legal case here. Would it have made any difference to anyone if they had been held in Afghanistan rather than Guantanamo? LITHWICK: Well, I mean that was certainly one of the questions that Justice Anthony Kennedy worried about a lot today. He seemed to sort of be a little bit nervous that if the detainees prevailed every single guy who's ever captured on the battlefield is going to sort of lay down and demand to call his lawyer.

I think that the reason that isn't exactly the case is because, as you said before, Guantanamo isn't a foreign territory. It's leased from Cuba by the United States.

The United States has had control over it for 100 years and I think that the argument that the Bush administration makes that Guantanamo is no different from Germany or Japan is a little bit disingenuous in that way.

BROWN: And why would they frame the argument that way that it's no different from Germany or Japan?

LITHWICK: Well, because they have to mash their facts of this case into that 50-year-old precedent. There's sort of one crucial case that's going to govern the decision and that's a 50-year-old case called Eisentrager that involved Nazi spies who were tried in China and by military tribunal incarcerated in Germany and sought this habeas corpus relief from the United States.

The Supreme Court in that case said absolutely not. You're Germans. You're tried in China. You have no connection to the United States. U.S. courts have no jurisdiction. The Bush administration is arguing that that case is exactly the same as the case before it today.

BROWN: And the detainees are arguing it is inexact because Guantanamo is essentially American-controlled if not the country itself?

LITHWICK: Right. There was a really nice quote from the attorney for the detainees who said, "a stamp with Fidel Castro's picture on it couldn't get a letter off the base." It was sort of a colorful way of saying the U.S. is in control there.

The other big difference between the Eisentrager case is that those Nazi spies did have military adjudication. It wasn't a full hearing in front of a U.S. criminal court but they had some adjudication. The GITMO detainees have had no hearing on the merits at all.

BROWN: And finally, as quickly as you can, did anything that happened today give us any clue about the court's thinking on the other two cases, Hamdi and especially Padilla, which to me at least is the most intriguing?

LITHWICK: Well, there was a sort of interesting moment where Ted Olson, the Solicitor General, initially said that if these were Americans being held in Guantanamo they might have the right to habeas relief. That sounded like it was sort of a heads-up about next week because Hamdi and Padilla are Americans. He quickly retreated from that position, so he wasn't going to give away the farm this week.

BROWN: Always good to see you, thanks for your help tonight.

LITHWICK: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thank you.

Coming up on the program still, questioning the candidate's war record, this time it's John Kerry. Will the campaign answer and, if so, how, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is in some respects a story about no story. For most of the day we've been waiting to see the military records of John Kerry's years in the Navy. Those records are only now slowly being posted on the campaign's Web site and until they're complete it would be both unfair to the Senator and his critics to do a whole lot of reporting on them.

But we can report on the fuss surrounding them and the campaign's handling of them, so CNN's Kelly Wallace has that tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE (voice-over): The move comes as John Kerry's former commanding officer says during Vietnam he questioned whether the Senator earned the first of his three Purple Hearts.

Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibbard told the "Boston Globe" last week: "People in the office were saying I don't think we got any fire and there is this guy holding a little piece of shrapnel in his palm."

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Kerry was asked if to answer that charge he would follow President Bush's lead and release all his military records.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're available to you to come and look at. I think that's a very unfair characterization by that person. I mean politics is politics. The medical records show that I had shrapnel removed from my arm.

WALLACE: A handful of documents on the Web site Tuesday evening include previously released information such as the three certificates noting Kerry was awarded Purple Hearts for wounds received in action.

John Dalton is a former Navy secretary and now a Kerry supporter.

JOHN DALTON, FMR. NAVY SECRETARY: When you're in a military combat zone and you get hit by enemy fire, you deserve a Purple Heart period, paragraph. I mean that's the way it is. WALLACE: The Bush-Cheney campaign waded into the controversy accusing the Senator of waffling about releasing his records.

KEN MEHLMAN, BUSH-CHENEY CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I think what we're pointing out is that on this issue, like on many others, what John Kerry says and what John Kerry does are two very different things.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And a Kerry campaign spokesman fired back saying if the Republicans want to compare the Senator's military service with the non-combat service of President Bush during Vietnam "we welcome that" -- Aaron.

BROWN: Two questions. The criticism is essentially about one of three Purple Hearts is that correct?

WALLACE: Correct.

BROWN: That's it?

WALLACE: That -- some -- that's it with his former commanding officer, a) how extensive the injury and, b) more importantly, did he sustain -- was it because of enemy fire? You get a Purple Heart if you get an injury due to enemy fire.

BROWN: As opposed to the shrapnel coming from a friendly side, I guess?

WALLACE: Yes, or self-inflicted or some injury that a colleague might have imposed.

BROWN: So, now the other question is, is more troublesome I think to me. They said they were going to have this stuff out there all day, correct?

WALLACE: Absolutely.

BROWN: And we're at almost 10:30 Eastern time now. Is it all out there yet?

WALLACE: No, and I checked before I came up here. The same nine pages that were put up just an hour ago are still there and we're told some 150 pages from the Navy will be posted.

BROWN: And do we have any idea why it's taking them so long?

WALLACE: The sense is they say that they have to sort of scan these documents, download them to get them on the Web site but we are sensing some frustration internally about how the campaign handled this.

BROWN: OK, I guess you know what you're doing tomorrow.

WALLACE: I think I know my assignment.

BROWN: I think you do, too.

Thank you very much, Kelly Wallace, tonight.

Here's a good question for you, a good question in an election year. Should an agency of the federal government, in this case the Treasury Department, use your tax money to promote one candidate's policies over another? Should the IRS tack on a sentence in a routine press release saying essentially the current president, any current president, has the right answers and his opponents are wrong? Is that fair? Is it right? Should it happen? It did.

Here is CNN's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It starts simply enough, an April 9 release from the Treasury Office of Public Affairs, a tax day reminder. But here is what is different, a italicized paragraph at the end that reads, "America has a choice. It can continue to grow the economy and create new jobs as the president's policies are doing; or it can raise taxes on American families and small businesses, hurting economic recovery and future job creation."

Some political observers say the language is jaw-dropping.

LARRY NOBLE, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS: It is not playing around in the gray area. It is not pushing the envelope. This is having a government agency, the IRS, at tax time, say to the American people, you have a choice. You can either support the president or end up paying higher taxes by supporting Senator Kerry.

CALLEBS: The same wording is also found on the Republican National Committee Web page and a White House fact sheet. Representative Charles Rangel is asking the Treasury Department's inspector general to investigate.

REP. CHARLES RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: It is not proper for the secretary of the treasury to be promoting political policies and to be using taxpayers' money to get it out. If he wants to go to fund- raisers and do it, if he wants to go to rallies and do it, so do it.

CALLEBS: A spokesman for the Treasury Department says: "It is an appropriate statement and in no way, shape or form is it unusual or political language."

He says: "We are stating fiscal policy. This is standard. It predates this administration to the previous eight years."

CNN spoke with a former treasury official who served under President Clinton, who denies such messages were ever attached to news releases.

(on camera): This isn't lost on the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. A spokesman for John Kerry says the Bush administration is abusing the public trust and at the same time campaigning on the taxpayers' dime. Sean Callebs, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight, family ties between the White House and the House of Saud and questions being raised about them.

A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With the headlines full of allegations of a deal between Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration on keeping oil prices low to help the president get reelected and the big to-do over Bob Woodward's reporting of Saudi Arabia's role in the run-up to the war with Iraq, it seemed like a good time to take a closer look at the relationship between the kingdom and the White House. And it is a complicated one.

Craig Unger's book is titled "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties."

We're pleased to have Mr. Unger with us tonight.

I want to get into some of the specifics of these allegations and why they may be plausible or perhaps why not. But just give me a short paragraph on the history. How did these two families, particularly Prince Bandar and the Bushes, become so close?

CRAIG UNGER, AUTHOR, "HOUSE OF BUSH, HOUSE OF SAUD": Well, the Saudis sought to have relations with politicians in both political parties. And you may recall back in the '70, Bert Lance and Clark Clifford got into trouble with their business dealings with the Saudis.

But they also had particular luck with the Bushes. And over the last 30 years -- they started coming to Texas in 1974. And I found a man named Osama bin Laden, who is now dead. But he came to Houston, Texas, and it was the birth of the Saudi-Bush connection.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: He came there to meet with then, what, Congressman Bush?

UNGER: He was then -- well, this was in '74. I believe he was with the Republican National Committee.

BROWN: OK.

UNGER: But over that -- the Saudis had begun to invest over $800 billion in American equities over the next 20 years. It was the start of their power.

But what was interesting with the bin Ladens and some of the Saudis was when they started to put money into companies that weren't doing too well but were tied to powerful Texas politicians. And I found a total of $1.4 billion in investments and contracts that went from the Royal House of Saud to companies in which the Bushes and their allies had prominent positions.

BROWN: OK. Now any of this illegal?

UNGER: Nothing so far as I know is illegal. The question is, though, when they come into the public sector, are they indebted to the Saudis and what price do we pay? Are they doing favors for the Saudis?

BROWN: OK, that's a good question. Is there any evidence that they have -- that they the Bushes in this case have been unduly influenced by the Saudis or have done anything untoward where the Saudis are concerned?

UNGER: Well, it is especially interesting given the Saudi role in Islamic terrorism and that Wahabi terrorism is really at the root of some of our problems.

And I think the most disturbing thing that I found happened right after 9/11. You have...

BROWN: This is the plane flight.

UNGER: Exactly.

And it was not just one flight. It was -- I found at least eight planes stopping in 12 American cities, picking up 140 passengers. Most of them were Saudis, many members of the royal family, more than 24 members of the bin Laden family.

BROWN: This is a in period, just to frame it, where the airspace is closed. So it's in that period right after 9/11, when no planes are flying.

UNGER: Well, planes were just starting to fly again, but private planes were still banned. And the first flight that I found was a Learjet going from Tampa, Florida, to Lexington, Kentucky.

And we know that the authorization for this flight was discussed in the White House. I spoke to Richard Clarke and he later testified before the 9/11 Commission that in fact these discussions were going on about these flights.

BROWN: And the White House says about this what?

UNGER: The White House to me denied the flights ever took place. And, frankly, I have passenger lists for four of the flights that you can see on my Web site at HouseOfBush.com.

BROWN: All of this I suppose gives some arguable credibility, though it's denied, that the oil deal was actually -- that that conversation took place and that the prince knew before the secretary of state, right?

UNGER: I think it is perfectly consistent, yes.

And, by the way, I wouldn't fault President Bush or any president for asking the Saudis to lower the price of oil.

BROWN: Right.

UNGER: The question is, do they have such a close relationship with the Royal House of Saud that the House of Saud can influence American presidential elections?

BROWN: And do you think they do?

UNGER: I do think they have that kind of power. They have an extraordinary access. And it really is disturbing that they would -- that President Bush would share intelligence with Prince Bandar before he would with our own secretary of state.

BROWN: Good to meet you. Thanks for coming in tonight.

UNGER: Thank you.

BROWN: Nice job, tonight. Thank you.

Just ahead on the program, five years after Columbine, looking at the true risk to children in schools, perspective in proportion, not a bad thing.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Five years ago today Littleton, Columbine, joined the list. It joined Pearl and Paducah, Springfield and Jonesboro. Ordinary places became shorthand for an extraordinary wave of violence, cold-blooded killings that changed the way the country saw its schools and the children who attend those schools.

In five years, we may have forgotten Paducah and Pearl and Springfield and Jonesboro. No one has forgotten Columbine.

Here is CNN's David Mattingly.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the shooting was over at Columbine High School in 1999, the National Center For Education Statistics counted 152 violent school deaths in the U.S. in just three school years.

RICK KAUFMAN, SCHOOL DISTRICT SPOKESMAN: At one point as an educator we would have said that we could ensure the 100 percent the safety of the child. Can't do that anymore. Columbine told us we can't do that.

MATTINGLY: It was one of the nation's bloodiest periods of school-related violence; 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham murdered his mother, then two students at Mississippi's Pearl High School. He is serving three life sentences, plus 140 years. Paducah, Kentucky, 14-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a school prayer group, killing three. He was sentenced to life in prison. In 1998, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel of Springfield, Oregon, killed his parents, two classmates and wounded 25 others in his school cafeteria. He was sentenced to 111 years.

And two months earlier, middle schoolers Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden killed four students and a teacher in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The two will remain behind bars until their 21st birthdays.

KATHLEEN HEIDE, CRIMINOLOGIST: The sad thing about Columbine and some of the other school shootings was that there were signs there. Now, those signs couldn't have told anybody that this was absolutely going to happen, but they clearly pointed the way to troubled kids in need of mental health services.

MATTINGLY: For the years following Columbine for which we have statistics, violence school deaths were half of what they had been. Listening and intervention are the deterrents of choice.

In Colorado schools, there are no metal detectors. No bags are checked. No uniformed officers greet students at the door. Instead, teachers act quickly on behavior problems. And students are taught, don't hesitate to tell.

JOSH HAWKINS, STUDENT: I have noticed around the schools that there's not as many people walking all over each other, putting each other down and stuff like that.

MATTINGLY: These Columbine-area students say they're more sensitive today to the moods and words of their peers. Bullying in particular will invite intervention.

NEIL COSTER, STUDENT: But it does happen. I've had my share of bullying, but, you know, just tough it out.

MATTINGLY (on camera): Do people step in to help when that happens?

COSTER: Sometimes, yes. Some people stand up for you.

MATTINGLY: Standing together is the message of ceremonies in Littleton with the theme, "We are Columbine." But there are indications that school violence is again on the rise in the United States. And school safety experts say they hope this five-year anniversary reminds everyone to remain vigilant.

David Mattingly, CNN, Littleton, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: My daughter called me the day after the Columbine shooting while I was working the story. She was 10 at the time. And she was scared. If Columbine, where I was, was unsafe, what was to say her school was any better, she wondered. It was, I insisted. School is the safest place you can be, outside of home. She wasn't alone in her fears, of course. And risk is famously easy to distort. And the news cycle often amplifies the danger.

Here's our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Of course it wiped every other story off the TV screen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was shot, what, in the hallway?

GREENFIELD: And the front pages. How could it not? Every parent's primal fear, a sudden explosion of violent death inside the most ordinary of places, of course, it would set off the most urgent of alarms, raise the obvious questions: Why did it happen? Could it happen to you?

(on camera): But in its very power to mesmerize us, the Columbine story also did something else, something very familiar in this modern media age. It offered up a portrait of danger that overwhelmed the less dramatic reality.

(voice-over): For instance, no parent could look at what happened at Columbine without feeling a spasm of fear that my child could be in danger from violent attack. Yet, year after year, this is where American children are most at risk, in their neighborhood streets and in their parent's cars. Traffic and pedestrian accidents are the leading cause of death for children under 15.

And in fact in the years since Columbine, it is not these guards that have made our children safer, but these, speed bumps, the most pedestrian, undramatic of safeguards. According to one recent report out of Oakland, California, kids who live in neighborhoods with speed bumps are 60 percent less likely to be hit and injured by an auto than other kids.

This follows years of other studies showing that the single biggest step parents could take to protect their children is simply to buckle them up in their cars. But unlike the Columbine story, with its shock, its power to jolt us into confronting something new and terrible, the ordinary dangers of automobiles in neighborhoods are literally too ordinary, too pedestrian to become the focus of our energy and attention.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An Amber Alert helped police locate...

GREENFIELD: It is why stories about a suddenly appearing danger, abducted children, a flu outbreak...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still hoping for a recovery.

GREENFIELD: ... shark attacks, a school shooting, convince us that there is a new and looming threat even though in each of these cases there was no upsurge in danger, simply an upsurge in media coverage. (on camera): All the focus on Columbine may well have persuaded schools to pay more attention to bullying, to the alienated kids in their midst and the danger sings of violence. And of course that's good.

But when we do stories like this, it might also be well to remind audiences that the biggest dangers may lie in the most ordinary places and moments of our daily life.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, I think, but I'm not absolutely positive about the around the world part. We'll see how it goes.

"The Christian Science Monitor" starts us off tonight. It started us off last night, too. "Economy Hot. Will Rate Hikes Follow? Federal reserve Must Consider Whether it is Time to Raise Interest Rates and What Effect That Will Be on the Job Market." Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was on the Hill saying deflation is no longer the issue. And then anytime the guy speaks, then something happens. And the sense was that maybe interest rates are going up because they've been pretty low. In fact, most banks will now pay you to borrow money. OK, they won't.

I like this story a lot. It's one of those stories I wish I had gone to do. I would have loved to have gone to South Africa these days. "A Black Man's Unpaved Road to South Africa's Middle Class." It has been 10 years since Election Day, one of great professional days in my life in South Africa. And that's a nice story in "The Christian Science Monitor."

"The International Herald Tribune," published in Paris by "The New York Times," "On E.u.," European Union, "Blair Places New Political Wager, Call For Vote on Charter Fits a Daring Style." Does this guy ever have an easy day, Tony Blair? He's always in some kind of political hot water, it seems like.

Down at the bottom, this was actually a "New York Times" story today but the world will see it tomorrow. "Scientists Take a Peek Into Voters' Brains." They've been putting voters into MRIs and looking at their brains when they show them political ads. They figure sort of what side of your brain works if you're a Democrat and what side works if you're a Republican, or whether it works at all, I guess, as it turns out, depending on what party you belong to.

This is what "The Denver Post" looked like five years ago tomorrow. "High School Massacre. Columbine Bloodbath Leaves Up to 25 Dead." I think in fact the paper was in color then. But they didn't -- that's not the way they saved it. Five years ago. My goodness. Good headline. Good straightaway headline.

"Upbeat GM Predicts $4 Billion Profit For 2004. Sharp Increase in Spending to Cover Recall Pricing Pressures Could Temper Forecasts." That's "The Detroit News." How much time? Five?

OK, well, that's wait it goes, then. The weather tomorrow in Chicago is what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Spring fling."

BROWN: "Spring fling." Thank you. I knew I would remember it if someone told me.

We have one final story. It is just a terrific little tale, too. It comes after the break.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us tonight, there are any number of cliches about the wisdom of youth. Some of them, it turns out, are true. But they speak only of wisdom, not of compassion, which is thought to be the province of adults. Baloney. We close tonight with a measure of compassion for the family of a soldier held captive in Iraq from a boy both wise and true and very much welcome.

From Union Township, Ohio, tonight, here is CNN's Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACOB KELCH, WROTE LETTER TO MAUPIN FAMILY: Dear family of Matt Maupin.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The moment Jacob Kelch starts reading, it is easy to see he's not your normal sixth grader.

J. KELCH: I wrote you this letter to tell you that I'm in deep sorrow and grief for your son.

LAWRENCE: Jacob started writing when he watched a captured Private Maupin and thought of the family living a few blocks down.

J. KELCH: Well, I just kind of tried to feel what they were feeling and give them like the words that they might need to hear.

LAWRENCE: The day after he delivered it to the Maupin's mailbox, Jacob was asked to read the letter in front of the whole sixth grade and a special guest who came to meet him, Matt Maupin's dad.

J. KELCH: It was the first time he left his house since he received the news that his son was missing.

LAWRENCE: Jacob's parents still can't believe what their son has written.

SHANNON KELCH, MOTHER OF JACOB: And it makes me feel good to think that he thinks of others and that he wishes the best for others.

LAWRENCE: Private Maupin has become something of a hero to Jacob, who one day wants to join the Army.

S. KELCH: It scares me, but it makes me proud at the same time.

LAWRENCE: Proud of his selflessness, scared for his safety.

S. KELCH: To lose my son some day.

MICHAEL KELCH, FATHER OF JACOB: To have my son be held for something, and that's what Mr. Maupin has to be going through.

LAWRENCE: Twelve today, 18 tomorrow, but, in any sense of the word, Jacob Kelch may already be a man.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Batavia, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Young Jacob will be on "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow, 7:00 Eastern time.

We're back here tomorrow at 10:00. We hope you are, too. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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