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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Glimmer of Hope in Fallujah Standoff; Bush, Cheney Meet With 9/11 Commission
Aired April 29, 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.
There is so much sorrow in the program tonight. I really wonder if you'll stay through it to the end. Will it help if I tell you that by the end you'll find a reason or two to smile? The news is rarely about laughs, of course. This month with a day yet to go has been about so much grief though, so much that we've already forgotten some of it.
When did you last think about Thomas Hamill, the truck driver from Mississippi taken hostage in Iraq after his convoy was attacked? Or, how about young Private Matt Maupin from Ohio, the soldier also taken hostage and shown on TVs around the world?
We've had so many deaths this month, so much loss, none of us can keep up with it all. It seems we're destined to remember this April, not as we should, for the renewal that spring brings but for the losses and there were more today.
The whip begins in Baghdad, ten Americans were killed in an near the city, while in Fallujah a glimmer of hope.
Ben Wedeman starts us off with a headline tonight.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A glimmer of hope in the Fallujah standoff, Aaron, but otherwise it's been a grim day for American forces in Iraq.
BROWN: Ben, thank you, get back to you at the top.
On to Najaf now, that other major flashpoint in Iraq where our Jane Arraf has had a very close brush today, so Jane a headline.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, a barrage of mortar fire, a few rocket-propelled grenades and a lot of gunfire and the banned militia lets the U.S. Army know it is still here as the Army makes clear it's not going anywhere either -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you.
And the White House finally, President Bush and Vice President Cheney meeting with the 9/11 Commission for more than three hours today. Our Senior White House Correspondent working the story, John King with a headline. JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the session ran three hours and ten minutes in the Oval Office. The president and the vice president, Mr. Bush said, answered every question asked. A president who once opposed the creation of this commission saying he was glad he did it -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, we'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program tonight, it's the other war Americans are fighting, the war that many of us seem to have forgotten, the war that many grieving families cannot forget.
Plus, the war in Iraq comes extremely close to home. One of our own and his story of being under attack in Fallujah.
And no need to get up early tomorrow, we have tonight what you'll be reading when you do get up on your doorstep, morning papers at the end, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight at the end of one of the worst days for American fatalities this month in Iraq, an especially grim day in a grim month, a difficult year since the president declared major combat over.
At the end of the day, ten more Americans are dead and though there seems to be progress in bringing the standoff in Fallujah to a close, combat, both major and minor, goes on.
We begin tonight with CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (voice-over): Thursday was a day of more fighting between American forces and their opponents. American bombs dropped on the city's southwest.
But there is a glimmer of hope coming from an unlikely source, a group of former officers from Saddam Hussein's army who have come forward with an offer to take a stab at restoring order and convincing the insurgents to lay down their arms.
They've told the Marines they can muster as many as 1,000 men who would help diffuse the crisis and take responsibility for security in Fallujah. The Marines accepted their offer but one senior military spokesman told CNN he was only "hopefully optimistic they might be able to field such a force."
The talk of a peaceful solution in Fallujah came on a day when American casualties mounted dramatically, eight soldiers with the 1st Armored Division killed by a car bomb south of Baghdad, another American soldier killed in an attack in Baquba, northeast of the capital.
Another lost his life in an ambush on his convoy in an eastern Baghdad suburb. A crowd gathered after the attack with some climbing on top of the damaged vehicle chanting "long live Sadr" referring to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr whose militia, the Mehdi Army, has taken control of the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
(on camera): A reminder that as hopes rise for a resolution in Fallujah, in another part of Iraq another standoff waits to be resolved one way or another.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well, as if to underscore that notion of how fluid things are, a moment now in another correspondent's day. It unfolded like many others. It unraveled also like many others. We're especially grateful it did not end like all too many others and that everyone lived to tell the story, the troops, the correspondent, everyone.
Here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF (voice-over): It was a simple checkpoint near Najaf. There's nothing routine though about a city controlled by a Shia militia with U.S. forces on the edges. On only the second day U.S. soldiers have operated these control points there were a few friendly waves and a lot of wary looks.
Then suddenly the traffic stopped, a warning to these soldiers from the 2nd Battalion 37th Armored Regiment who had been in Baghdad for a year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every time the street is clear we get attacked.
ARRAF: Has it happened before?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I was on top of an IP station it happened and then I was in a convoy. We had to stop because they had blocked the road with an overturned truck. There we go. Take cover. Take cover. Take cover. It came from our rear. This is the direction. Stay down.
ARRAF: We did, taking cover near an armored vehicle.
(on camera): Just a few minutes ago this was a normal busy street with traffic going back and forth. Now we're in the middle of rocket-propelled grenade and mortar attacks. They're small arms fire and the unit we're with has called in for tanks.
(voice-over): Across the bridge at the first American checkpoint there was a virtually simultaneous attack, both believed launched by Muqtada al-Sadr's militia and where we were with the soldiers a mortar platoon attached to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment bided their time. They would have liked to be more aggressive but they're under orders to avoid inflaming tension.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is anybody hit, anybody injured?
ARRAF: One of the soldiers from headquarters company was grazed by a bullet in the leg. They were all relieved it wasn't worse.
CPL. KADE CLARK, 37TH ARMORED REGIMENT: It really wasn't that bad. I mean usually when they do hit us it's a lot more but I guess that was just kind of the -- trying to, I don't know a territory spot or I don't know.
ARRAF: Just minutes after the firing ended, Iraqis started to venture out again. An hour later, the soldiers resumed the checkpoint. No one killed in this shootout but a message sent on both sides.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF: And it didn't stop there. We're standing in front of a bunker at this U.S. Army base in Najaf city limits but well away from the holy sites. Well before dawn there was a barrage of mortar fire on this base where a few coalition officials from the civilian coalition are staying.
U.S. troops continue to build up here they say partly to protect those people and also to send a message that one man cannot take control of a city that's holy to the country and the whole world's Muslims, Shia Muslims -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, it's Friday there. Is there a particular nervousness about Fridays when all the mosques are full and all the clerics write and read their sermons?
ARRAF: There is and everyone is eagerly awaiting the sermon from one particular cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, that radical cleric who controls the city of Najaf and Kufa.
And, Aaron, as we were at that checkpoint talking to people coming through at the beginning before that firefight broke out, we saw people who were actually fleeing the city of Kufa, adjoining Najaf.
They said that they were fearing more violence as U.S. troops are in force here and the militia says that it's just not going anywhere. There's a lot of nervousness here -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you. Stay safe. Jane Arraf in Najaf tonight.
A lot of moving pieces in the story today. Clearly, reporting anything in Iraq is no small feat, as we've been saying all week. Christine Spolar is the Foreign Correspondent for the "Chicago Tribune," been reporting out of Iraq in and out for the past year. It's good to see her again. Welcome.
Let's talk about Fallujah first, this deal. Where do you think it is right now?
CHRISTINE SPOLAR, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE" FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. We're calling it a tentative agreement and the lieutenant colonel who is quoted saying that there was a deal calls it a plan. So, we will see where this goes. The generals are saying that they're ready to make a plan and the Marines on the ground there are saying that they're willing to do it.
I think there's a lot of questions. Whenever you have any kind of agreement in Iraq, in Baghdad, whether it's the government or the military or the police rather, whether it comes true is always another issue.
BROWN: It puts a lot -- assuming it all plays out it puts an enormous responsibility on Iraqi security forces who have not exactly performed with distinction to this point.
SPOLAR: That's true and I think that's a big concern for military officials here in Baghdad. When they heard of the agreement, they said well we've had agreements from some of these people before.
The biggest you hear is they hear is they have to produce between 600 and 1,000 people, men, to fill in the ranks of the patrols that they need and they're just not sure that they can do it.
There's other issues too. There still has not been a weapons turn out and turnover as the Americans have requested, so that's a very big if for the coalition, so we'll just have to see where it goes.
BROWN: Well, just one more if question here. If this deal plays out as it's been laid out, will it be seen do you think by Iraqis as the capitulation by the Americans?
SPOLAR: Well, that was interesting. I mean we were trying to figure out during the day yesterday if the Marines were withdrawing and, in fact, not saying -- the coalition not admitting that they were, thinking there's some kind of withdrawal and the Iraqis could have some kind of reaction.
I don't know. I mean we will see. I would think that the Iraqis in the mood that they are in or, at least some of them, will see this as they've won but who will really win are the people of Fallujah if, in fact, some kind of peace happens there.
BROWN: Yes. Many of them have been out of their homes for a long, long time. Let's move south for a bit. What do you hear about Najaf? Is there a sense that that one at least may very well end peacefully or not yet?
SPOLAR: They really want it to end peacefully. The Americans yesterday were saying that there is no timeline for Najaf, unlike Fallujah. Fallujah they see as they have to get some kind of resolution before the turnover of sovereignty.
What they said yesterday is they're willing to wait so that the clerics themselves in Najaf can control Muqtada al-Sadr and bring him in line. They are very willing to work both with the clerics and the business people in Najaf because Najaf is a tourism town and they want things to go well there so that the town is intact. BROWN: Is there risk for the clerics to come out too strong against Sadr? Is there risk for business people there who are getting killed in all of this, I don't mean literally killed but their businesses are, for coming out too strong against him?
SPOLAR: I'm not sure of that. I don't think that we understand very well at all the talk between the clerics and clearly the coalition, the American coalition thinks that they have deals sometimes, indications that there is approval from Grand Ayatollah al- Sistani and then they don't.
So, I'm not sure that what we think that might go wrong with negotiations in fact has any effect. It's really an internal Iraqi, internal Shiite Muslim issue that we don't have great incite to.
BROWN: It's good to see you again. Thanks for your time and we enjoy your work in the "Chicago Tribune." Thank you very much.
Tomorrow we will devote virtually the entire program to Iraq, a year since the end of major combat, as the president declared. In that year, a lot has happened in Iraq and by no means has it all been bad. Much has been accomplished even as clearly much still needs to be done.
A year from now we may look at this month, April, differently. We will be 12 months removed. We'll have the benefit of time. We don't have that now. All we have are 29 bad days.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): This is how the month began, the killing of four American security contractors. The mutilation and the celebration in Fallujah set the stage and set the tone.
BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: Quite simply we will respond. We are not going to do a pell-mell rush into the city. It's going to be deliberate. It will be precise and it will be overwhelming.
BROWN: But it was not just the Sunni areas. In the slums of Baghdad and in the Shiite south, the black-clad fighters of a renegade cleric followed demonstrations with repeated attacks on occupation troops.
Some day we may see April as part of a larger picture, a necessary chapter to the rebuilding of Iraq but now we mostly remember the dying, seven Americans on a Sunday in Sadr City, a dozen in the town of Ramadi, more on the Syrian border and in the heart of Baghdad.
MICHAEL O'HANLON, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: The American public saw a very bloody month. It began to make you wonder even more than before if this war really was worth it or if we have a clear theory of victory for how to go from here.
BROWN: And the world saw pictures of casualties too, Iraqi bodies, some surely fighters, others likely innocents that wars so often claim.
O'HANLON: The image of the resistance as simply a bunch of former Saddam loyalists is no longer quite true. We now have a lot more people sympathetic to the resistance because they're mad at the United States.
BROWN: April saw a devastating and coordinated series of bombings in the otherwise generally peaceful southern city of Basra. It saw American generals on the ground acknowledging they needed more troops and it saw 20,000 Americans scheduled to come home have their departure delayed.
April saw the beginning of the kidnappings, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, French and finally an American soldier on camera, tonight his whereabouts still unknown.
Diplomatic policies changed at dazzling speed. A new prime minister in Spain ordered his troops out, a few other countries said they were getting out as well.
This deadly month saw a major policy shift. Many Ba'athists, Saddam's party, who had been banned from military and civilian jobs were told those jobs were now available, their leadership skills needed. That is especially true in the new Iraqi security force, which performed very badly in its first major test of its training and willingness to fight.
ROBIN WRIGHT, DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON POST": The United States has taken what it calls modifications but, in fact, amount to major policy shifts.
BROWN: As this cruel month draws to an end, the picture of Iraq has changed. Previously banned photographs of flag-draped coffins have now appeared on television.
A cease-fire in Fallujah looks more like a pitched battle every day and every night though it does seem that cooler heads may well prevail in the Shiite south.
The final toll is clear and troubling, 132 U.S. troops dead, more deaths than in the entire invasion, more deaths than in any other single month and there is no reason to believe it is over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, he was the victim of the war and his wife still grieves. Gene Vance died two years ago in a war the world seems to have forgotten.
And later, President Bush and Vice President Cheney before the 9/11 Commission, a break first.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: After much ado, the sitting president and vice president of the United States sat down formally today to talk to the 9/11 Commission. By its very nature, we know little beyond the broad headlines of what transpired. That may eventually change.
Until now, here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): In the Rose Garden after answering the 9/11 Commission's questions glad he did it was the president's take, no apologies for insisting the vice president be at his side.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we had something to hide we wouldn't have met with them in the first place. We answered all their questions.
KING: The commission called the session extraordinary and said members "found the president and vice president forthcoming and candid."
LEE HAMILTON, CO-CHAIR, 9/11 COMMISSION: We had a marvelous meeting with the president. The president's comments were very candid, very forthcoming.
KING: Administration and commission sources say the topics included the administration assessment of the al Qaeda threat pre-9/11 and August, 2001 intelligence warning that al Qaeda was planning to strike, former White House official Richard Clarke's testimony that Mr. Bush all but ignored the terrorist threat and how Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney directed the government's response after the attacks.
BUSH: I was impressed by their questions and it was a -- I think it helped them understand how I think and how I run the White House and how we deal with threats.
KING: The president's talk of cooperation struck some as ironic.
JAMES THURBER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Historically this is a unique circumstance where the president of the United States and the vice president have met with a commission that he didn't want to exist and didn't want to appear before.
KING: The historic session in the Oval Office ran three hours and ten minutes. The president and vice president were joined by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and two of his deputies.
The entire 10-member commission was on hand, as well as a staff member to take notes. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were not under oath and there was no stenographer or tape recording. The commission's final report is due out this summer in the middle of the presidential election.
Congressional Republicans already say Democrats on the 9/11 panel are overly partisan and, just Wednesday, the Bush Justice Department released documents Republicans say show commission member Jamie Gorelick made it tougher to track down terrorists when she worked in the Clinton administration.
(on camera): But so eager was the president to stress cooperation that the White House publicly rebuked its own Justice Department for making those documents public and Mr. Bush began the Oval Office meeting by telling Gorelick and other commission members he was disappointed and that he wanted no part of the finger pointing.
John King, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The war in Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks makes fewer headlines these days, though the death last week of former NFL football player Pat Tillman was a reminder of the mission and of the dangers. Fifteen thousand American troops remain in Afghanistan, 80 have died there, and each one has a story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It's been nearly two years since National Guard Sergeant Gene Vance died fighting in Afghanistan, two years, for some a long time but not for everyone.
LISA VANCE, WIDOW OF SGT. GENE VANCE: I had somebody say to me a couple weeks ago well that's been so long ago, you must be over it by now, and I just looked at them like it was just yesterday. The pain is just like yesterday.
BROWN: At their home in West Virginia, the yellow ribbon has been replaced by a black one. There are remembrances everywhere, outside the home and in. There are daily visits to her husband's grave, an enormous sense of grief and loss.
VANCE: One of the things I lost when I lost Gene was my plans for the future. I kind of live day to day. I don't have any plans for the future anymore.
BROWN: And Lisa Vance wonders if you remember at all. Is she simply the widow of yesterday's war eclipsed by the fresher losses of todays?
VANCE: It seems like I'm going on with my life and the world's forgotten. Everybody is all focused on what's going on in Iraq and we do still have a war going on in Afghanistan and the guys that died over there made just as much of a sacrifice as those that died in Iraq. I think the Afghanistan war is being somewhat forgotten by the American public.
BROWN: When she has sought help from support groups and charities, she says she has been turned away, turned away in ways that seem unimaginable.
VANCE: Some of them would actually say that they're not supporting Enduring Freedom. They have to focus on the casualties in Iraqi Freedom because it's the forefront. BROWN: Tonight in the war we tend to forget, just as in the war that dominates the headlines, another Gene Vance may well fall. Another Lisa Vance will grieve. Another life will be forever changed in ways most of us will never really understand.
VANCE: He was the most attentive, adoring, loving husband you could ever imagine. He treated me like a princess but we gave up living happily ever after. He gave up a job. He gave up going -- finishing college. He gave up having kids. We were trying to start a family and we gave up our life together.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, back to Iraq, inside Fallujah, a first person account, a break first.
Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, this is not the story I'm especially comfortable running. Reporters should never be the story and, in most respects, this is a story about one reporter's experience, a co-worker, in Fallujah.
In the end I said yes because the piece tells you a good deal about the moments of battle in Fallujah, what they've been like and even more about the young Marines who have been sent there to do the work and take the risks.
The central character in the story is CNN Producer Tomas Etzler, his story helped along by Correspondent Bruce Burkhardt.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOMAS ETZLER, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): I was there as a pool producer for American networks and I (unintelligible) with the NBC crew. I was by myself in that school because the school, as I mentioned perhaps, is on the front lines.
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was just a little more than two weeks ago, the evening of April the 12th, situated in a school with a platoon of Marines, CNN Producer Tomas Etzler was making a call on a satellite phone. He needed to be outside for the phone to work, so he made his way to a small courtyard in the middle of the building.
TOMAS ETZLER, CNN PRODUCER: I walked to the balcony. It was approximately 12 feet above the courtyard, making the phone calls. And I still managed to dial the number when a huge explosion occurred. It was huge, huge boom. Everything -- it probably was getting kind of dark. But everything went black.
BURKHARDT: It seemed like a million-to-one shot. An .89- millimeter mortar landed with amazing precision in the middle of the courtyard, the worst possible place for a hit. ETZLER: I had pain under my right kidney. Almost immediately, I heard absolutely horrendous screams of the men who were down on the floor, on the down floor when the mortar hit.
And I realized all of a sudden there was shooting coming from everywhere. I don't know how many were in that courtyard, but 10 soldiers were hit. And two of them later died. And several of them lost their limbs or part of their limbs. And it was just carnage.
BURKHARDT: For nearly an hour following the mortar attack, an intense firefight raged.
ETZLER: Five minutes of such firefight would be enough. I think 10 minutes would be more than enough. But after half an hour, I thought it would never end. It's just -- it's just -- it's just -- this is the first time when I kind of realized, this is real and I don't want to play anymore. I just wanted it to end.
BURKHARDT: Although bloodied, Tomas' injuries were minor and his news instincts started to kick in. He grabbed his camera.
ETZLER: I was adjusting into opening the iris when one Marine saw me and gave me the dirtiest look of anger. I just didn't (UNINTELLIGIBLE) because I realize, he's right. He didn't want me to film the carnage. He didn't want me to film that suffering, because the men who suffered or who died -- the men who died, they did not with dignity. They died in a lot of pain.
BURKHARDT: Something else occurred to Tomas in all this chaos, something that helped him overcome his fear.
ETZLER: I thought we would be overrun, but I have never seen any -- what gave me the kind of courage was -- or hope -- is the determination of those Marines. I just -- they were calm. They were not panicking. There was no sign of panic.
BURKHARDT: Early the next morning, Tomas finally did get back to his camera to shoot the aftermath, the cleanup.
ETZLER: The Marines are usually a very loud bunch. They joke a lot. They talk about movies. They talk about music. They talk about fighting.
And that morning, everybody was extremely quiet. And it was kind of an eerie feeling, when you realize what happened there. And I saw a lot of Marines just staring into the yard and there was still disbelief.
BURKHARDT: Tomas Etzler is back at his regular job now at CNN's international desk in Atlanta, in front of a computer where sterile images conjure up recent memories of a very nonsterile experience. He plans on returning to Iraq in late May.
Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Still to come tonight, a very important confidential house call, the president and vice president in the Oval Office and the 9/11 Commission. David Gergen joins us to talk about that and more.
We break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, it's fair to say, we think, that the president didn't envision spending the one-year anniversary of what he called the end of major combat in Iraq meeting with the 9/11 Commission. But testify he did in private, while the fighting in Iraq raged very publicly.
What this all means for the history books and the reelection campaign is a wild card of sorts.
We're joined tonight from Boston by David Gergen, an adviser to many presidents and now a professor at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, someone we are always pleased to see.
David, welcome. Thank you.
DAVID GERGEN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Aaron. It's good to be here again.
BROWN: Let's talk about -- I think there's going to be, in all of this, particularly in the absence of a transcript or a record where we know what the president said, a sidebar story which has to do with two of the commission members leaving early.
GERGEN: Well, Aaron, there is this disturbing report which I understand that CNN has now confirmed, that two members of the commission left before it was over. One was Senator Bob Kerrey and the other has been identified as the co-chair, Lee Hamilton. If that's true and CNN has confirmed it that they left well within an hour left or more of the conversation, that would be a highly disturbing and I think a bizarre event, because the commission has been asking the president and the vice president to talk to them for so long.
For people to get up and leave because they have conflicts in their schedules is just -- it is just hard to believe. I'm just incredulous at that. And I trust that in due course they will have explanations about what happened.
BROWN: Well, I hope so.
But, in the meantime, it does seem to help those who have been making the argument on the Republican side pretty aggressively for about three weeks now that commission is too political anyway, the Republicans on the commission, the Democrats on the commission. It is too political.
GERGEN: If two Democratic members of the commission left early, as the report says, that will undercut the commission's findings. It will make it -- it will give fodder to people on the other side who have said this has been way too politicized.
You can just hear the drumbeat that is going to come from conservatives, Republicans, who are saying, couldn't they give time to listen to the president of the United States give his own explanation, whatever the reason was? The president cleared his schedule today. He made himself totally available to the commission, as requested.
They hadn't wanted to do it in the White House. They did it. And it just -- I just can't -- I'm still so baffled. I would like to believe it is not true, because it just so violates our sense of how a commission which has weight and is important to the country should operate. And so I'm just -- and I have enormous respect for these two gentlemen. I've known them both for a long time.
They've been great public servants. And it is just so baffling that I just hope it is not true.
BROWN: Well, let's set that aside until we figure out more.
GERGEN: OK. Sure.
BROWN: Just one quick one. Do you think -- there has been a lot of allegation or charges, a lot of floor speeches that the commission has been very partisan. Just as you've watched this, does it seem that way to you?
GERGEN: Well, one of the good things about this commission was it started in such a bipartisan spirit.
But I must say, the partisan juices among many members of the commission on each side have been running high. And I was one of the ones -- I first thought them going on television and making public pronouncements was fine. It was -- they hoped to open it up to the country. But the longer this has gone on and to hear today's news, I think, really raises questions about sort of how has this been conducted.
I just can't tell you how -- this is probably one of the most important investigatory commissions we have had since the Warren Commission looked at the Kennedy assassination. Americans very much deserve to know and have a balanced, fair, comprehensive report about what happened on 9/11. So we can assure ourselves not only was there no negligence on the part of American officials -- and I don't think the commission is going to reach that judgment -- but indeed that we have got a -- we're on the path toward making things better.
And we have had a commission of distinguished people come together and really put their minds and hearts into trying to do something good for the country. And so there has been this partisan overtone recently that I think has been terribly unfortunate, because most Americans are not looking for partisan answers out of it. They really just want to know what happened, especially the families want to know what happened. BROWN: I think that -- boy, the last just sentence or two there is exactly right. I think that by and large the country doesn't see this politically, isn't interested in the politics of it, just wants to know the truth of it.
David, go nurse that cold.
GERGEN: OK, Aaron. Thank you so much.
BROWN: Thank you, David Gergen, in Boston tonight.
Before we break, a couple of quick business notes. Google the letters IPO on Google and the name Google pops up, as it would. The creator of the search engine that has became both a noun and a verb finally came forth today with plans to take itself public, hopes to raise about $3 billion. The IPO expected to raise that and about $17 billion more. Man. It's like the old days, isn't it?
Just a month after cutting 20 percent of the work force -- this is like the new days -- computer maker Gateway is cutting 40 percent of what is left. That adds up to about 1,500 jobs. It leaves Gateway with 2,000 employees, down from 25,000 four years ago.
And this will break your heart, if you're old enough. In Lansing, Michigan, the last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line today, the Alero. And if you have never heard of that, that's the reason General Motors gave Olds the ax. Couldn't sell it to younger buyers, by and large.
Markets, meantime, took another hit, better than yesterday, but hardly good. Nasdaq is really getting jammed up there. Not much good news to bring the market, carry the markets forward.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a journey to New Orleans' Congo Square and a trip to American history. Welcome to Jazz Fest and a welcome break from the sorrow, Jazz Fest in stills.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In a day and a week heavy on war news, a change of gears now. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is celebrating its 35th year. Since it started, photographer Michael P. Smith has been documenting the artists who make the music.
As we see it, making pictures of music might be one of the toughest assignments around. Mr. Smith has succeeded splendidly. His images are silent, but they are not quiet. The photographer is slowing down, but the work speaks for itself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
QUINT DAVIS, FESTIVAL DIRECTOR: 2004 is the 35th anniversary of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. It started in 1970 in a little square downtown called Congo Square, which is the birthplace of African music in North America. Mike Smith has been a part of Jazz Fest the entire 35 years. Mike Smith is really the chronicler of this culture.
HERMAN LEONARD, PHOTOGRAPHER: He is sort of a laid-back, quiet fellow. Doesn't go out and push his work. Jazz is the only true really uniquely American art form. And here we have Michael, who has done this wonderful documentation of all these people.
DAVIS: We came up with the idea this year to have our 35th anniversary through the eyes of Mike Smith. Outside of the festival, all around the grounds, we have these kiosks. And they're called "Mike Smith Memories." The people who are at the festival are just like us and just like Mike Smith. Many of them have been here 10 and 20 years.
LESLIE SMITH, DAUGHTER OF MIKE SMITH: My father has Parkinson's. And he's moving a little slower than he used to. So I've been carrying his stuff, just kind of being there if he needs something, and going around, taking photos, like he always has.
DAVIS: There are generations that have grown up with Mike Smith taking their picture, older generations that have passed on and then new generations come along. So we can trace the growth, the young Neville brothers, the older Neville brothers, Bonnie Raitt in the '70s, B.B. King in the '70s.
B.B. King played on the festival in 1972. To make that leap, our little hometown festival had the king of the blues. It was a great occasion. And Mike Smith took this classic, classic picture of him. Well, the next year, in 1973, B.B. came back. We got this picture, had it framed, gave it to him on the stage. And that was me giving him the picture.
Just as live music itself is a participatory art form, one of the only art forms where the audience and the artist experience the art together, well, Mike Smith is like that. He's like music, because, at our festival, when people look at his pictures, they're experiencing something that they experienced before.
JON CLEARY, MUSICIAN: The pictures he has of musicians are musicians at work. You see them busting a sweat and you can see them really digging in, kind of the essence of what New Orleans music is all about.
SMITH: My father captured energy. The thing that interests him when he's photographing is energy, passion.
When he feels that moment, when it is just raw aliveness, that's what he shoots. He feels that the -- what he's capturing is what is special. Maybe in his secret heart, he understands how amazingly important all of this is. But I think ultimately for him, he just wanted to make sure that someone knew that there was a record of this amazing, wonderful culture we have here and that someone would know.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Told you there would be something to make you smile tonight.
Morning papers, which may or may not make you smile, after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world.
We'll start, as has been our custom of late, with "The International Herald Tribune," published by "The New York Times" in Paris. Leads with Google. "Google Is Headed For Wall Street. Web Search Pioneer to Raise $2.7 Billion in Drive to Take on Microsoft and Yahoo!" Google and Yahoo!, all those funny names. "Deal to End Fallujah Standoff Is Set." That pretty much shows up on every front page.
Here is a story that is getting a lot of play in Britain, a fair amount of play here. "U.S. Military in Torture Scandal." This is a story "60 Minutes" did on CBS the other night, because there are pictures of Iraqi prisoners or detainees being mistreated. It would certainly seem that's one of them, thought it's a little tricky to tell what is going on there. Here is a part of the story I did not know and that is really troubling, actually. "Use of Private Contractors in Iraqi Jail Interrogations Highlighted By Inquiry Into Abuse of Prisoners."
I think six American soldiers are headed for court-martial. The general in charge has got some issues, too. More on this as we learn more. But it's a pretty good story and an unfortunate story.
This is "The Washington Times." "Bush Tells Panel Memo Lacked Data, Nothing New There, Not Enough Intelligence To Prevent 9/11 Strikes." That's pretty much what the White House has been saying. This is a story that hasn't got a lot of attention either today, but probably should have. "Britain Seeks Legal Resolution For Deployment After June 30," wants something out of the U.N.
"Cincinnati Enquirer." I always wondered how rich Marge Schott was. And now I know. "Marge Schott Heirs Get Share in $100 Million, But Most of Estate Goes to Charity."
We're just about out of time, aren't we? OK. I always think I'm going to get to all of these. Don't. I'm getting there.
The weather tomorrow in Chicago, according to "The Chicago Sun- Times," is "droopy." It sounds humid to me. It may get humid here, too.
A couple of other items before we go. We'll take a break first. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Consider this. A bare 10 years after the end of the only war this country has only lost, a war that tore America apart while it was being fought and still tears at us today, there was already a Vietnam Memorial in Washington.
And yet World War II, which united the country, which made it a world power, which every history book accounts as one of the great triumphs of all time, World War II has had to wait almost 60 years for its memorial -- until today, in fact.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Construction hasn't taken that long, really, just 30 months. But the bill authorizing the memorial goes back to 1993. And the idea goes back another six years to a conversation at a fish fry between a World War II vet and an Ohio congresswoman. But even that is not so bad when you think about it for something so grand, 17 years from suggestion to reality.
But that was already more than 40 years after the fact; 16 million Americans served in World War II, in which there were 400,000 military deaths. And 42 years went by before anyone proposed a place to stand and think about that. It is almost as if those remarkable men and women thought it was honor enough simply to have served. Their breathtaking modesty makes them even more honorable to us. The World War II memorial is open to the public now and will be formally dedicated on the 29th of May.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Quickly, a look ahead. Soledad O'Brien with what is coming up tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.
Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," an author who thinks he has cracked the secret world of men. And that could mean a lot of things. He says it is not all about lying around on a sofa. In fact, he has coaxed 27 men to reveal their innermost secrets of love and relationships and lust. Do you believe men are talking about that?
That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron, back to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Thank you.
Finally, here's something I never thought I would have to say. I made my animated debut last night. We thought we would share with the class.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SOUTH PARK") UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: This is breaking news. Here is anchorman Aaron Brown.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Incredible, absolutely amazing news today. A man from the future has come back in time and is in a government hospital after being hit by a car.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Whoa.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Christina Nailon (ph) has more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: I've never been cooler to my daughter's friends. 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
Aired April 29, 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.
There is so much sorrow in the program tonight. I really wonder if you'll stay through it to the end. Will it help if I tell you that by the end you'll find a reason or two to smile? The news is rarely about laughs, of course. This month with a day yet to go has been about so much grief though, so much that we've already forgotten some of it.
When did you last think about Thomas Hamill, the truck driver from Mississippi taken hostage in Iraq after his convoy was attacked? Or, how about young Private Matt Maupin from Ohio, the soldier also taken hostage and shown on TVs around the world?
We've had so many deaths this month, so much loss, none of us can keep up with it all. It seems we're destined to remember this April, not as we should, for the renewal that spring brings but for the losses and there were more today.
The whip begins in Baghdad, ten Americans were killed in an near the city, while in Fallujah a glimmer of hope.
Ben Wedeman starts us off with a headline tonight.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A glimmer of hope in the Fallujah standoff, Aaron, but otherwise it's been a grim day for American forces in Iraq.
BROWN: Ben, thank you, get back to you at the top.
On to Najaf now, that other major flashpoint in Iraq where our Jane Arraf has had a very close brush today, so Jane a headline.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, a barrage of mortar fire, a few rocket-propelled grenades and a lot of gunfire and the banned militia lets the U.S. Army know it is still here as the Army makes clear it's not going anywhere either -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you.
And the White House finally, President Bush and Vice President Cheney meeting with the 9/11 Commission for more than three hours today. Our Senior White House Correspondent working the story, John King with a headline. JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the session ran three hours and ten minutes in the Oval Office. The president and the vice president, Mr. Bush said, answered every question asked. A president who once opposed the creation of this commission saying he was glad he did it -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, we'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program tonight, it's the other war Americans are fighting, the war that many of us seem to have forgotten, the war that many grieving families cannot forget.
Plus, the war in Iraq comes extremely close to home. One of our own and his story of being under attack in Fallujah.
And no need to get up early tomorrow, we have tonight what you'll be reading when you do get up on your doorstep, morning papers at the end, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight at the end of one of the worst days for American fatalities this month in Iraq, an especially grim day in a grim month, a difficult year since the president declared major combat over.
At the end of the day, ten more Americans are dead and though there seems to be progress in bringing the standoff in Fallujah to a close, combat, both major and minor, goes on.
We begin tonight with CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (voice-over): Thursday was a day of more fighting between American forces and their opponents. American bombs dropped on the city's southwest.
But there is a glimmer of hope coming from an unlikely source, a group of former officers from Saddam Hussein's army who have come forward with an offer to take a stab at restoring order and convincing the insurgents to lay down their arms.
They've told the Marines they can muster as many as 1,000 men who would help diffuse the crisis and take responsibility for security in Fallujah. The Marines accepted their offer but one senior military spokesman told CNN he was only "hopefully optimistic they might be able to field such a force."
The talk of a peaceful solution in Fallujah came on a day when American casualties mounted dramatically, eight soldiers with the 1st Armored Division killed by a car bomb south of Baghdad, another American soldier killed in an attack in Baquba, northeast of the capital.
Another lost his life in an ambush on his convoy in an eastern Baghdad suburb. A crowd gathered after the attack with some climbing on top of the damaged vehicle chanting "long live Sadr" referring to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr whose militia, the Mehdi Army, has taken control of the Shiite holy city of Najaf.
(on camera): A reminder that as hopes rise for a resolution in Fallujah, in another part of Iraq another standoff waits to be resolved one way or another.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Well, as if to underscore that notion of how fluid things are, a moment now in another correspondent's day. It unfolded like many others. It unraveled also like many others. We're especially grateful it did not end like all too many others and that everyone lived to tell the story, the troops, the correspondent, everyone.
Here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF (voice-over): It was a simple checkpoint near Najaf. There's nothing routine though about a city controlled by a Shia militia with U.S. forces on the edges. On only the second day U.S. soldiers have operated these control points there were a few friendly waves and a lot of wary looks.
Then suddenly the traffic stopped, a warning to these soldiers from the 2nd Battalion 37th Armored Regiment who had been in Baghdad for a year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every time the street is clear we get attacked.
ARRAF: Has it happened before?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I was on top of an IP station it happened and then I was in a convoy. We had to stop because they had blocked the road with an overturned truck. There we go. Take cover. Take cover. Take cover. It came from our rear. This is the direction. Stay down.
ARRAF: We did, taking cover near an armored vehicle.
(on camera): Just a few minutes ago this was a normal busy street with traffic going back and forth. Now we're in the middle of rocket-propelled grenade and mortar attacks. They're small arms fire and the unit we're with has called in for tanks.
(voice-over): Across the bridge at the first American checkpoint there was a virtually simultaneous attack, both believed launched by Muqtada al-Sadr's militia and where we were with the soldiers a mortar platoon attached to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment bided their time. They would have liked to be more aggressive but they're under orders to avoid inflaming tension.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is anybody hit, anybody injured?
ARRAF: One of the soldiers from headquarters company was grazed by a bullet in the leg. They were all relieved it wasn't worse.
CPL. KADE CLARK, 37TH ARMORED REGIMENT: It really wasn't that bad. I mean usually when they do hit us it's a lot more but I guess that was just kind of the -- trying to, I don't know a territory spot or I don't know.
ARRAF: Just minutes after the firing ended, Iraqis started to venture out again. An hour later, the soldiers resumed the checkpoint. No one killed in this shootout but a message sent on both sides.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF: And it didn't stop there. We're standing in front of a bunker at this U.S. Army base in Najaf city limits but well away from the holy sites. Well before dawn there was a barrage of mortar fire on this base where a few coalition officials from the civilian coalition are staying.
U.S. troops continue to build up here they say partly to protect those people and also to send a message that one man cannot take control of a city that's holy to the country and the whole world's Muslims, Shia Muslims -- Aaron.
BROWN: Well, it's Friday there. Is there a particular nervousness about Fridays when all the mosques are full and all the clerics write and read their sermons?
ARRAF: There is and everyone is eagerly awaiting the sermon from one particular cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, that radical cleric who controls the city of Najaf and Kufa.
And, Aaron, as we were at that checkpoint talking to people coming through at the beginning before that firefight broke out, we saw people who were actually fleeing the city of Kufa, adjoining Najaf.
They said that they were fearing more violence as U.S. troops are in force here and the militia says that it's just not going anywhere. There's a lot of nervousness here -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you. Stay safe. Jane Arraf in Najaf tonight.
A lot of moving pieces in the story today. Clearly, reporting anything in Iraq is no small feat, as we've been saying all week. Christine Spolar is the Foreign Correspondent for the "Chicago Tribune," been reporting out of Iraq in and out for the past year. It's good to see her again. Welcome.
Let's talk about Fallujah first, this deal. Where do you think it is right now?
CHRISTINE SPOLAR, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE" FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. We're calling it a tentative agreement and the lieutenant colonel who is quoted saying that there was a deal calls it a plan. So, we will see where this goes. The generals are saying that they're ready to make a plan and the Marines on the ground there are saying that they're willing to do it.
I think there's a lot of questions. Whenever you have any kind of agreement in Iraq, in Baghdad, whether it's the government or the military or the police rather, whether it comes true is always another issue.
BROWN: It puts a lot -- assuming it all plays out it puts an enormous responsibility on Iraqi security forces who have not exactly performed with distinction to this point.
SPOLAR: That's true and I think that's a big concern for military officials here in Baghdad. When they heard of the agreement, they said well we've had agreements from some of these people before.
The biggest you hear is they hear is they have to produce between 600 and 1,000 people, men, to fill in the ranks of the patrols that they need and they're just not sure that they can do it.
There's other issues too. There still has not been a weapons turn out and turnover as the Americans have requested, so that's a very big if for the coalition, so we'll just have to see where it goes.
BROWN: Well, just one more if question here. If this deal plays out as it's been laid out, will it be seen do you think by Iraqis as the capitulation by the Americans?
SPOLAR: Well, that was interesting. I mean we were trying to figure out during the day yesterday if the Marines were withdrawing and, in fact, not saying -- the coalition not admitting that they were, thinking there's some kind of withdrawal and the Iraqis could have some kind of reaction.
I don't know. I mean we will see. I would think that the Iraqis in the mood that they are in or, at least some of them, will see this as they've won but who will really win are the people of Fallujah if, in fact, some kind of peace happens there.
BROWN: Yes. Many of them have been out of their homes for a long, long time. Let's move south for a bit. What do you hear about Najaf? Is there a sense that that one at least may very well end peacefully or not yet?
SPOLAR: They really want it to end peacefully. The Americans yesterday were saying that there is no timeline for Najaf, unlike Fallujah. Fallujah they see as they have to get some kind of resolution before the turnover of sovereignty.
What they said yesterday is they're willing to wait so that the clerics themselves in Najaf can control Muqtada al-Sadr and bring him in line. They are very willing to work both with the clerics and the business people in Najaf because Najaf is a tourism town and they want things to go well there so that the town is intact. BROWN: Is there risk for the clerics to come out too strong against Sadr? Is there risk for business people there who are getting killed in all of this, I don't mean literally killed but their businesses are, for coming out too strong against him?
SPOLAR: I'm not sure of that. I don't think that we understand very well at all the talk between the clerics and clearly the coalition, the American coalition thinks that they have deals sometimes, indications that there is approval from Grand Ayatollah al- Sistani and then they don't.
So, I'm not sure that what we think that might go wrong with negotiations in fact has any effect. It's really an internal Iraqi, internal Shiite Muslim issue that we don't have great incite to.
BROWN: It's good to see you again. Thanks for your time and we enjoy your work in the "Chicago Tribune." Thank you very much.
Tomorrow we will devote virtually the entire program to Iraq, a year since the end of major combat, as the president declared. In that year, a lot has happened in Iraq and by no means has it all been bad. Much has been accomplished even as clearly much still needs to be done.
A year from now we may look at this month, April, differently. We will be 12 months removed. We'll have the benefit of time. We don't have that now. All we have are 29 bad days.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): This is how the month began, the killing of four American security contractors. The mutilation and the celebration in Fallujah set the stage and set the tone.
BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: Quite simply we will respond. We are not going to do a pell-mell rush into the city. It's going to be deliberate. It will be precise and it will be overwhelming.
BROWN: But it was not just the Sunni areas. In the slums of Baghdad and in the Shiite south, the black-clad fighters of a renegade cleric followed demonstrations with repeated attacks on occupation troops.
Some day we may see April as part of a larger picture, a necessary chapter to the rebuilding of Iraq but now we mostly remember the dying, seven Americans on a Sunday in Sadr City, a dozen in the town of Ramadi, more on the Syrian border and in the heart of Baghdad.
MICHAEL O'HANLON, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: The American public saw a very bloody month. It began to make you wonder even more than before if this war really was worth it or if we have a clear theory of victory for how to go from here.
BROWN: And the world saw pictures of casualties too, Iraqi bodies, some surely fighters, others likely innocents that wars so often claim.
O'HANLON: The image of the resistance as simply a bunch of former Saddam loyalists is no longer quite true. We now have a lot more people sympathetic to the resistance because they're mad at the United States.
BROWN: April saw a devastating and coordinated series of bombings in the otherwise generally peaceful southern city of Basra. It saw American generals on the ground acknowledging they needed more troops and it saw 20,000 Americans scheduled to come home have their departure delayed.
April saw the beginning of the kidnappings, Japanese, Koreans, Russians, French and finally an American soldier on camera, tonight his whereabouts still unknown.
Diplomatic policies changed at dazzling speed. A new prime minister in Spain ordered his troops out, a few other countries said they were getting out as well.
This deadly month saw a major policy shift. Many Ba'athists, Saddam's party, who had been banned from military and civilian jobs were told those jobs were now available, their leadership skills needed. That is especially true in the new Iraqi security force, which performed very badly in its first major test of its training and willingness to fight.
ROBIN WRIGHT, DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON POST": The United States has taken what it calls modifications but, in fact, amount to major policy shifts.
BROWN: As this cruel month draws to an end, the picture of Iraq has changed. Previously banned photographs of flag-draped coffins have now appeared on television.
A cease-fire in Fallujah looks more like a pitched battle every day and every night though it does seem that cooler heads may well prevail in the Shiite south.
The final toll is clear and troubling, 132 U.S. troops dead, more deaths than in the entire invasion, more deaths than in any other single month and there is no reason to believe it is over.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, he was the victim of the war and his wife still grieves. Gene Vance died two years ago in a war the world seems to have forgotten.
And later, President Bush and Vice President Cheney before the 9/11 Commission, a break first.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: After much ado, the sitting president and vice president of the United States sat down formally today to talk to the 9/11 Commission. By its very nature, we know little beyond the broad headlines of what transpired. That may eventually change.
Until now, here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): In the Rose Garden after answering the 9/11 Commission's questions glad he did it was the president's take, no apologies for insisting the vice president be at his side.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we had something to hide we wouldn't have met with them in the first place. We answered all their questions.
KING: The commission called the session extraordinary and said members "found the president and vice president forthcoming and candid."
LEE HAMILTON, CO-CHAIR, 9/11 COMMISSION: We had a marvelous meeting with the president. The president's comments were very candid, very forthcoming.
KING: Administration and commission sources say the topics included the administration assessment of the al Qaeda threat pre-9/11 and August, 2001 intelligence warning that al Qaeda was planning to strike, former White House official Richard Clarke's testimony that Mr. Bush all but ignored the terrorist threat and how Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney directed the government's response after the attacks.
BUSH: I was impressed by their questions and it was a -- I think it helped them understand how I think and how I run the White House and how we deal with threats.
KING: The president's talk of cooperation struck some as ironic.
JAMES THURBER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Historically this is a unique circumstance where the president of the United States and the vice president have met with a commission that he didn't want to exist and didn't want to appear before.
KING: The historic session in the Oval Office ran three hours and ten minutes. The president and vice president were joined by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and two of his deputies.
The entire 10-member commission was on hand, as well as a staff member to take notes. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney were not under oath and there was no stenographer or tape recording. The commission's final report is due out this summer in the middle of the presidential election.
Congressional Republicans already say Democrats on the 9/11 panel are overly partisan and, just Wednesday, the Bush Justice Department released documents Republicans say show commission member Jamie Gorelick made it tougher to track down terrorists when she worked in the Clinton administration.
(on camera): But so eager was the president to stress cooperation that the White House publicly rebuked its own Justice Department for making those documents public and Mr. Bush began the Oval Office meeting by telling Gorelick and other commission members he was disappointed and that he wanted no part of the finger pointing.
John King, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The war in Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks makes fewer headlines these days, though the death last week of former NFL football player Pat Tillman was a reminder of the mission and of the dangers. Fifteen thousand American troops remain in Afghanistan, 80 have died there, and each one has a story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It's been nearly two years since National Guard Sergeant Gene Vance died fighting in Afghanistan, two years, for some a long time but not for everyone.
LISA VANCE, WIDOW OF SGT. GENE VANCE: I had somebody say to me a couple weeks ago well that's been so long ago, you must be over it by now, and I just looked at them like it was just yesterday. The pain is just like yesterday.
BROWN: At their home in West Virginia, the yellow ribbon has been replaced by a black one. There are remembrances everywhere, outside the home and in. There are daily visits to her husband's grave, an enormous sense of grief and loss.
VANCE: One of the things I lost when I lost Gene was my plans for the future. I kind of live day to day. I don't have any plans for the future anymore.
BROWN: And Lisa Vance wonders if you remember at all. Is she simply the widow of yesterday's war eclipsed by the fresher losses of todays?
VANCE: It seems like I'm going on with my life and the world's forgotten. Everybody is all focused on what's going on in Iraq and we do still have a war going on in Afghanistan and the guys that died over there made just as much of a sacrifice as those that died in Iraq. I think the Afghanistan war is being somewhat forgotten by the American public.
BROWN: When she has sought help from support groups and charities, she says she has been turned away, turned away in ways that seem unimaginable.
VANCE: Some of them would actually say that they're not supporting Enduring Freedom. They have to focus on the casualties in Iraqi Freedom because it's the forefront. BROWN: Tonight in the war we tend to forget, just as in the war that dominates the headlines, another Gene Vance may well fall. Another Lisa Vance will grieve. Another life will be forever changed in ways most of us will never really understand.
VANCE: He was the most attentive, adoring, loving husband you could ever imagine. He treated me like a princess but we gave up living happily ever after. He gave up a job. He gave up going -- finishing college. He gave up having kids. We were trying to start a family and we gave up our life together.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight, back to Iraq, inside Fallujah, a first person account, a break first.
Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, this is not the story I'm especially comfortable running. Reporters should never be the story and, in most respects, this is a story about one reporter's experience, a co-worker, in Fallujah.
In the end I said yes because the piece tells you a good deal about the moments of battle in Fallujah, what they've been like and even more about the young Marines who have been sent there to do the work and take the risks.
The central character in the story is CNN Producer Tomas Etzler, his story helped along by Correspondent Bruce Burkhardt.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOMAS ETZLER, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): I was there as a pool producer for American networks and I (unintelligible) with the NBC crew. I was by myself in that school because the school, as I mentioned perhaps, is on the front lines.
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was just a little more than two weeks ago, the evening of April the 12th, situated in a school with a platoon of Marines, CNN Producer Tomas Etzler was making a call on a satellite phone. He needed to be outside for the phone to work, so he made his way to a small courtyard in the middle of the building.
TOMAS ETZLER, CNN PRODUCER: I walked to the balcony. It was approximately 12 feet above the courtyard, making the phone calls. And I still managed to dial the number when a huge explosion occurred. It was huge, huge boom. Everything -- it probably was getting kind of dark. But everything went black.
BURKHARDT: It seemed like a million-to-one shot. An .89- millimeter mortar landed with amazing precision in the middle of the courtyard, the worst possible place for a hit. ETZLER: I had pain under my right kidney. Almost immediately, I heard absolutely horrendous screams of the men who were down on the floor, on the down floor when the mortar hit.
And I realized all of a sudden there was shooting coming from everywhere. I don't know how many were in that courtyard, but 10 soldiers were hit. And two of them later died. And several of them lost their limbs or part of their limbs. And it was just carnage.
BURKHARDT: For nearly an hour following the mortar attack, an intense firefight raged.
ETZLER: Five minutes of such firefight would be enough. I think 10 minutes would be more than enough. But after half an hour, I thought it would never end. It's just -- it's just -- it's just -- this is the first time when I kind of realized, this is real and I don't want to play anymore. I just wanted it to end.
BURKHARDT: Although bloodied, Tomas' injuries were minor and his news instincts started to kick in. He grabbed his camera.
ETZLER: I was adjusting into opening the iris when one Marine saw me and gave me the dirtiest look of anger. I just didn't (UNINTELLIGIBLE) because I realize, he's right. He didn't want me to film the carnage. He didn't want me to film that suffering, because the men who suffered or who died -- the men who died, they did not with dignity. They died in a lot of pain.
BURKHARDT: Something else occurred to Tomas in all this chaos, something that helped him overcome his fear.
ETZLER: I thought we would be overrun, but I have never seen any -- what gave me the kind of courage was -- or hope -- is the determination of those Marines. I just -- they were calm. They were not panicking. There was no sign of panic.
BURKHARDT: Early the next morning, Tomas finally did get back to his camera to shoot the aftermath, the cleanup.
ETZLER: The Marines are usually a very loud bunch. They joke a lot. They talk about movies. They talk about music. They talk about fighting.
And that morning, everybody was extremely quiet. And it was kind of an eerie feeling, when you realize what happened there. And I saw a lot of Marines just staring into the yard and there was still disbelief.
BURKHARDT: Tomas Etzler is back at his regular job now at CNN's international desk in Atlanta, in front of a computer where sterile images conjure up recent memories of a very nonsterile experience. He plans on returning to Iraq in late May.
Bruce Burkhardt, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Still to come tonight, a very important confidential house call, the president and vice president in the Oval Office and the 9/11 Commission. David Gergen joins us to talk about that and more.
We break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, it's fair to say, we think, that the president didn't envision spending the one-year anniversary of what he called the end of major combat in Iraq meeting with the 9/11 Commission. But testify he did in private, while the fighting in Iraq raged very publicly.
What this all means for the history books and the reelection campaign is a wild card of sorts.
We're joined tonight from Boston by David Gergen, an adviser to many presidents and now a professor at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, someone we are always pleased to see.
David, welcome. Thank you.
DAVID GERGEN, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Thank you, Aaron. It's good to be here again.
BROWN: Let's talk about -- I think there's going to be, in all of this, particularly in the absence of a transcript or a record where we know what the president said, a sidebar story which has to do with two of the commission members leaving early.
GERGEN: Well, Aaron, there is this disturbing report which I understand that CNN has now confirmed, that two members of the commission left before it was over. One was Senator Bob Kerrey and the other has been identified as the co-chair, Lee Hamilton. If that's true and CNN has confirmed it that they left well within an hour left or more of the conversation, that would be a highly disturbing and I think a bizarre event, because the commission has been asking the president and the vice president to talk to them for so long.
For people to get up and leave because they have conflicts in their schedules is just -- it is just hard to believe. I'm just incredulous at that. And I trust that in due course they will have explanations about what happened.
BROWN: Well, I hope so.
But, in the meantime, it does seem to help those who have been making the argument on the Republican side pretty aggressively for about three weeks now that commission is too political anyway, the Republicans on the commission, the Democrats on the commission. It is too political.
GERGEN: If two Democratic members of the commission left early, as the report says, that will undercut the commission's findings. It will make it -- it will give fodder to people on the other side who have said this has been way too politicized.
You can just hear the drumbeat that is going to come from conservatives, Republicans, who are saying, couldn't they give time to listen to the president of the United States give his own explanation, whatever the reason was? The president cleared his schedule today. He made himself totally available to the commission, as requested.
They hadn't wanted to do it in the White House. They did it. And it just -- I just can't -- I'm still so baffled. I would like to believe it is not true, because it just so violates our sense of how a commission which has weight and is important to the country should operate. And so I'm just -- and I have enormous respect for these two gentlemen. I've known them both for a long time.
They've been great public servants. And it is just so baffling that I just hope it is not true.
BROWN: Well, let's set that aside until we figure out more.
GERGEN: OK. Sure.
BROWN: Just one quick one. Do you think -- there has been a lot of allegation or charges, a lot of floor speeches that the commission has been very partisan. Just as you've watched this, does it seem that way to you?
GERGEN: Well, one of the good things about this commission was it started in such a bipartisan spirit.
But I must say, the partisan juices among many members of the commission on each side have been running high. And I was one of the ones -- I first thought them going on television and making public pronouncements was fine. It was -- they hoped to open it up to the country. But the longer this has gone on and to hear today's news, I think, really raises questions about sort of how has this been conducted.
I just can't tell you how -- this is probably one of the most important investigatory commissions we have had since the Warren Commission looked at the Kennedy assassination. Americans very much deserve to know and have a balanced, fair, comprehensive report about what happened on 9/11. So we can assure ourselves not only was there no negligence on the part of American officials -- and I don't think the commission is going to reach that judgment -- but indeed that we have got a -- we're on the path toward making things better.
And we have had a commission of distinguished people come together and really put their minds and hearts into trying to do something good for the country. And so there has been this partisan overtone recently that I think has been terribly unfortunate, because most Americans are not looking for partisan answers out of it. They really just want to know what happened, especially the families want to know what happened. BROWN: I think that -- boy, the last just sentence or two there is exactly right. I think that by and large the country doesn't see this politically, isn't interested in the politics of it, just wants to know the truth of it.
David, go nurse that cold.
GERGEN: OK, Aaron. Thank you so much.
BROWN: Thank you, David Gergen, in Boston tonight.
Before we break, a couple of quick business notes. Google the letters IPO on Google and the name Google pops up, as it would. The creator of the search engine that has became both a noun and a verb finally came forth today with plans to take itself public, hopes to raise about $3 billion. The IPO expected to raise that and about $17 billion more. Man. It's like the old days, isn't it?
Just a month after cutting 20 percent of the work force -- this is like the new days -- computer maker Gateway is cutting 40 percent of what is left. That adds up to about 1,500 jobs. It leaves Gateway with 2,000 employees, down from 25,000 four years ago.
And this will break your heart, if you're old enough. In Lansing, Michigan, the last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line today, the Alero. And if you have never heard of that, that's the reason General Motors gave Olds the ax. Couldn't sell it to younger buyers, by and large.
Markets, meantime, took another hit, better than yesterday, but hardly good. Nasdaq is really getting jammed up there. Not much good news to bring the market, carry the markets forward.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a journey to New Orleans' Congo Square and a trip to American history. Welcome to Jazz Fest and a welcome break from the sorrow, Jazz Fest in stills.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In a day and a week heavy on war news, a change of gears now. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is celebrating its 35th year. Since it started, photographer Michael P. Smith has been documenting the artists who make the music.
As we see it, making pictures of music might be one of the toughest assignments around. Mr. Smith has succeeded splendidly. His images are silent, but they are not quiet. The photographer is slowing down, but the work speaks for itself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
QUINT DAVIS, FESTIVAL DIRECTOR: 2004 is the 35th anniversary of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. It started in 1970 in a little square downtown called Congo Square, which is the birthplace of African music in North America. Mike Smith has been a part of Jazz Fest the entire 35 years. Mike Smith is really the chronicler of this culture.
HERMAN LEONARD, PHOTOGRAPHER: He is sort of a laid-back, quiet fellow. Doesn't go out and push his work. Jazz is the only true really uniquely American art form. And here we have Michael, who has done this wonderful documentation of all these people.
DAVIS: We came up with the idea this year to have our 35th anniversary through the eyes of Mike Smith. Outside of the festival, all around the grounds, we have these kiosks. And they're called "Mike Smith Memories." The people who are at the festival are just like us and just like Mike Smith. Many of them have been here 10 and 20 years.
LESLIE SMITH, DAUGHTER OF MIKE SMITH: My father has Parkinson's. And he's moving a little slower than he used to. So I've been carrying his stuff, just kind of being there if he needs something, and going around, taking photos, like he always has.
DAVIS: There are generations that have grown up with Mike Smith taking their picture, older generations that have passed on and then new generations come along. So we can trace the growth, the young Neville brothers, the older Neville brothers, Bonnie Raitt in the '70s, B.B. King in the '70s.
B.B. King played on the festival in 1972. To make that leap, our little hometown festival had the king of the blues. It was a great occasion. And Mike Smith took this classic, classic picture of him. Well, the next year, in 1973, B.B. came back. We got this picture, had it framed, gave it to him on the stage. And that was me giving him the picture.
Just as live music itself is a participatory art form, one of the only art forms where the audience and the artist experience the art together, well, Mike Smith is like that. He's like music, because, at our festival, when people look at his pictures, they're experiencing something that they experienced before.
JON CLEARY, MUSICIAN: The pictures he has of musicians are musicians at work. You see them busting a sweat and you can see them really digging in, kind of the essence of what New Orleans music is all about.
SMITH: My father captured energy. The thing that interests him when he's photographing is energy, passion.
When he feels that moment, when it is just raw aliveness, that's what he shoots. He feels that the -- what he's capturing is what is special. Maybe in his secret heart, he understands how amazingly important all of this is. But I think ultimately for him, he just wanted to make sure that someone knew that there was a record of this amazing, wonderful culture we have here and that someone would know.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Told you there would be something to make you smile tonight.
Morning papers, which may or may not make you smile, after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world.
We'll start, as has been our custom of late, with "The International Herald Tribune," published by "The New York Times" in Paris. Leads with Google. "Google Is Headed For Wall Street. Web Search Pioneer to Raise $2.7 Billion in Drive to Take on Microsoft and Yahoo!" Google and Yahoo!, all those funny names. "Deal to End Fallujah Standoff Is Set." That pretty much shows up on every front page.
Here is a story that is getting a lot of play in Britain, a fair amount of play here. "U.S. Military in Torture Scandal." This is a story "60 Minutes" did on CBS the other night, because there are pictures of Iraqi prisoners or detainees being mistreated. It would certainly seem that's one of them, thought it's a little tricky to tell what is going on there. Here is a part of the story I did not know and that is really troubling, actually. "Use of Private Contractors in Iraqi Jail Interrogations Highlighted By Inquiry Into Abuse of Prisoners."
I think six American soldiers are headed for court-martial. The general in charge has got some issues, too. More on this as we learn more. But it's a pretty good story and an unfortunate story.
This is "The Washington Times." "Bush Tells Panel Memo Lacked Data, Nothing New There, Not Enough Intelligence To Prevent 9/11 Strikes." That's pretty much what the White House has been saying. This is a story that hasn't got a lot of attention either today, but probably should have. "Britain Seeks Legal Resolution For Deployment After June 30," wants something out of the U.N.
"Cincinnati Enquirer." I always wondered how rich Marge Schott was. And now I know. "Marge Schott Heirs Get Share in $100 Million, But Most of Estate Goes to Charity."
We're just about out of time, aren't we? OK. I always think I'm going to get to all of these. Don't. I'm getting there.
The weather tomorrow in Chicago, according to "The Chicago Sun- Times," is "droopy." It sounds humid to me. It may get humid here, too.
A couple of other items before we go. We'll take a break first. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Consider this. A bare 10 years after the end of the only war this country has only lost, a war that tore America apart while it was being fought and still tears at us today, there was already a Vietnam Memorial in Washington.
And yet World War II, which united the country, which made it a world power, which every history book accounts as one of the great triumphs of all time, World War II has had to wait almost 60 years for its memorial -- until today, in fact.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Construction hasn't taken that long, really, just 30 months. But the bill authorizing the memorial goes back to 1993. And the idea goes back another six years to a conversation at a fish fry between a World War II vet and an Ohio congresswoman. But even that is not so bad when you think about it for something so grand, 17 years from suggestion to reality.
But that was already more than 40 years after the fact; 16 million Americans served in World War II, in which there were 400,000 military deaths. And 42 years went by before anyone proposed a place to stand and think about that. It is almost as if those remarkable men and women thought it was honor enough simply to have served. Their breathtaking modesty makes them even more honorable to us. The World War II memorial is open to the public now and will be formally dedicated on the 29th of May.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Quickly, a look ahead. Soledad O'Brien with what is coming up tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.
Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," an author who thinks he has cracked the secret world of men. And that could mean a lot of things. He says it is not all about lying around on a sofa. In fact, he has coaxed 27 men to reveal their innermost secrets of love and relationships and lust. Do you believe men are talking about that?
That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron, back to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Thank you.
Finally, here's something I never thought I would have to say. I made my animated debut last night. We thought we would share with the class.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SOUTH PARK") UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: This is breaking news. Here is anchorman Aaron Brown.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Incredible, absolutely amazing news today. A man from the future has come back in time and is in a government hospital after being hit by a car.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Whoa.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Christina Nailon (ph) has more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: I've never been cooler to my daughter's friends. We'll see you tomorrow.
Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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