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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

U.S. Forces Raid Chalabi's Office; Authorities Release Portland Lawyer Accused Of Having Connection To Madrid Bombing; Interview with Mark Hosenball

Aired May 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.
It is a measure of how things have gone in Iraq of late that our lead story tonight concerns Ahmed Chalabi, a man who would very much like to run the new Iraq.

As we'll report in a few moments, his offices in the country were raided today by both Iraqi and U.S. forces. Mr. Chalabi had good friends in high places in the U.S.

Until a few days ago, he was receiving more than 300,000 taxpayer dollars a month for services provided to the U.S. government. He was a man loved at the Pentagon, not especially trusted at the State Department. In these battles, the Pentagon wins and so Mr. Chalabi came back to Iraq with an eye on running the place.

It is also believed he gave the U.S. a lot of intelligence on WMD programs that turned out not to exist. His reaction to that was sort of cavalier we thought. So what? We got what we wanted the end of Saddam. Mr. Chalabi plays by tough rules. It now seems the Americans are catching on.

That's the story that begins the whip tonight, CNN's Harris Whitbeck starts us off with a headline from Baghdad.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a raid on a compound in Baghdad inspires intense U.S. criticism by the man who calls himself America's best friend in Iraq. That man Ahmed Chalabi lived and worked in the raided building.

BROWN: Harris, thank you. We'll get back to you in a few moments.

Next to Washington and what looks to be another high profile mistake in the war on terror. CNN's Kelli Arena working the story, Kelli the headline.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, remember Brandon Mayfield, the Portland lawyer who was held as a material witness because his fingerprint allegedly matched a print found in connection with the Madrid train bombings? Well tonight he is a free man and his family says he's the victim of a witch hunt.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you. And finally to the president's work today stiffening Republican backbones on Capitol Hill. CNN's Dana Bash has the duty at the White House, so Dana a headline.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the president took a short trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to show some goodwill the White House hopes will go a long way. He tried to ease the concerns among fellow Republicans in Congress about the situation in Iraq and about his own approval ratings which are dropping -- Aaron.

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

Also coming up on the program on this Thursday night, our Jeff Greenfield takes a look at the pictures we always say we hate but can't stop looking at.

Our "On the Rise" segment tonight, a product that is minting money for its inventor. Bennett Serf is smiling somewhere.

And, of course, the rooster brings us morning papers at the end, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with a fall from grace and the questions it raises about how the country got into Iraq in the first place and perhaps how it gets out. As we said, Ahmed Chalabi was the darling of the Pentagon in the run-up to the war.

His exiled group supplied intelligence to make the case this despite strong reservations about the intelligence, the organization and the man himself who now sits on the Iraqi Governing Council and dreams of more.

We have two reports tonight, first from Baghdad CNN's Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK (voice-over): U.S. troops and Iraqi policemen raid the headquarters of the man who calls himself America's best friend in Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi, head of Iraq's National Congress who provided information that President Bush used to help justify his decision to go to war now lambasting U.S. policy in Iraq.

AHMED CHALABI, IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL: I am now calling for policies to liberate the Iraqi people, to get full sovereignty now and I am putting the case in a way which they don't like.

WHITBECK: Chalabi claims it is his criticism of the pace and scope of the handover plan that soured his relations with Washington and that led to the raid on his home but Iraqi officials said the raid was directed at men inside Chalabi's compound who were believed to be involved in cases of government fraud and kidnapping.

The U.S. spokesman in Baghdad said neither Chalabi nor his Iraqi National Congress were the targets and the coalition went to great lengths to say the raid was organized and executed by the Iraqi National Police.

DAN SENIOR, CPA SPOKESMAN: It was an Iraqi-led investigation. It was an Iraqi-led raid. It was the result of Iraqi arrest warrants.

WHITBECK: Although U.S. Administrator Paul Bremer was aware of the investigation of government fraud before the raid took place.

(on camera): The question now is how much Chalabi's break with the United States will resonate. Many here say his fortunes in terms of Iraqi public opinion were never really very high in the first place and his public criticism of U.S. policy in Iraq can't have won him many new friends back in Washington.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As we said at the top, Chalabi and company were living quite well at taxpayers' expense until the Pentagon pulled the plug, at $340,000 a month at one point.

"Newsweek" magazine's Mark Hosenball has been looking into what the administration was getting for its money and why the falling out and Mark joins us tonight from Washington. It's good to see you again.

Just as a kind of overview, is it over for Mr. Chalabi in the sense does he still have supporters in the Pentagon? Does he still have believers there or have they given up on him too?

MARK HOSENBALL, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: My sense is he still has a few believers but, as someone in the White House said to me a couple of weeks ago, his support used to be the size of an iceberg. Now it's sort of diminished to an ice cube and I'm not sure it's even an ice cube anymore. It may just be kind of a raindrop.

He still also has supporters in the media to whom he fed various very lurid stories about Saddam before the war, but my sense is that some of them are going off him now as well but he -- this guys weaves the spell of magic and he took in some, in my view, very smart people.

BROWN: Somebody around us today said he played the country like chumps.

HOSENBALL: Arguably you could say that, yes. I mean to my mind he was pretty transparent when I first started to look at him. This guy is not particularly credible as far as I can tell but he does tell people what they like to hear and he's also an Arabic person who speaks English, which I guess, you know, got him very far.

BROWN: What was it that a guy like Rumsfeld, for example, saw in Chalabi that he liked? HOSENBALL: I'm not sure that Rumsfeld had that much to do with him. My understanding is he was kind of close to Wolfowitz. He was very close to Douglas Fife, Wolfowitz' principal deputy.

He was also very, very, very close to Richard Perle, a sort of (unintelligible) at the Pentagon who himself was close to Rumsfeld, so he had friends there but I'm not sure that Rumsfeld himself was very close to this guy.

BROWN: Any idea what this thing really was about today?

HOSENBALL: Oh, I have various ideas what this is about. I'm told that the raid, in fact, there's a big investigation going on. There are allegations against members of the Iraqi National Congress of bribery, of extortion, of messing with currency, of -- I'm trying -- oh, embezzlement.

Also there are allegations which were reported in "Newsweek" a couple weeks ago that Chalabi himself and some of his top leftenants systematically have been supplying sensitive information, including as I understand it today, classified information, U.S. classified information to people in the government of Iran with whom Chalabi has never made a secret of his friendship and the supply of this information could have actually gotten people killed in Iraq.

And so this has certainly not impressed people way high up in the administration including people at the White House and it's my understanding that one of the reasons why, as I understand it, Vice President Cheney's office or the vice president himself, who had kind of protected Chalabi up until now, has stopped protecting him is perhaps because of this intelligence about his dealings with Iran.

BROWN: It's good to see you again, thanks, nice quick job on this tonight. Thank you Mark Hosenball. "Newsweek" magazine has been reporting on this sort of stuff for some time now.

On now to what all this maneuvering and fighting is supposed to lead up to, the handover next month. When you think about it the date June 30th is just about all we actually know.

Eight years out we know what the new World Trade Center will look like. We know who will be on the presidential ballot eight months from now. So, what shape will the government of Iraq take seven weeks from now? Good question.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid the continuing fighting and scandals in Iraq, administration officials are rushing to set out the way they see things working in July after the handover. First and foremost they say incoming U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte will not be running the country.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: It is the interim government that is replacing Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority not Ambassador Negroponte.

ENSOR: But newly sovereign Iraq will still have 135,000 or more American troops and Negroponte will head the largest U.S. Embassy on earth with a staff of almost 1,000.

FRANK RICCIARDONE, STATE DEPT. COORDINATOR FOR IRAQI TRANSITION: No other embassy in the world is responsible for overseeing $18.4 billion in assistance.

ENSOR: With just over 40 days to the turnover officials admit key questions are unresolved like how much influence over coalition troops will the new Iraqi government have?

And, in the wake of the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, who will control the prisons. The handover to a new Iraqi government to be selected by the U.N.'s Lakhdar Brahimi cannot come too quickly say many experts.

LARRY DIAMOND, HOOVER INSTITUTION: The overall ineptitude of our mission to date leaves us and Iraq in a terrible bind.

GEN. JOSEPH HOAR (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss.

ENSOR: Bush administration officials stress that the incoming Iraqi government, the new ministers, really will have power. There are plenty of skeptics.

HUSAIN HAQQANI, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTL. PEACE: The general feeling in the Muslim and the Arab world is that the U.S. will not really truly pull out after June 30th. What will happen is that there will just be more Iraqi faces and that there will still be a de facto American-run administration.

ENSOR (on camera): After the handoff, U.S. officials say the American footprint in Iraq will need to remain large. In addition to all the security, the troops and the big embassy, about 200 advisers to the Iraqi ministries, consultants hired by the U.S. will also be in place, most of them from this country.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In other news tonight, when he was arrested more than a week ago, Brandon Mayfield, hardly a high-powered lawyer in Portland, Oregon made news around the world.

His fingerprints, reports said, were on a bag connected to the terrorist bombing in Madrid. It was further reported that he had converted to Islam, which apparently was seen as evidence as well. Tonight, Mr. Mayfield is free. The government, which arrested him, has some explaining to do.

Here's CNN's Kelli Arena. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Brandon Mayfield, a U.S. citizen and Muslim convert who has been sitting in a Portland detention center for two weeks, is a free man. Just after being released he joined his lawyers for a brief press conference.

BRANDON MAYFIELD, RELEASED FROM CUSTODY: I just want to say thank God, everybody who was praying for me.

ARENA: Grand jury rules of secrecy stopping Mayfield and his lawyers from saying more at this time but Mayfield's brother promises the family will not go away silently.

KENT MAYFIELD, BROTHER: I think there's going to be a major review about why they detained him. This obviously proves -- this obviously proves that this was a complete witch hunt and we are going to follow up as much as I can.

ARENA: U.S. law enforcement officials say Mayfield was taken into custody as a material witness in connection to the March train bombing in Madrid. Those officials say the FBI matched his fingerprint to a print found near the scene on a bag containing explosive materials similar to those used in the attack.

They say agents were conducting surveillance on Mayfield but a decision was made to detain him when the media got hold of the story and the FBI feared its cover was blown.

STEVE WAX, MAYFIELD'S ATTORNEY: He has maintained at the outset that he has had no involvement in the horrible bombing that occurred in Spain in March and he's maintained from the outset that he has no knowledge about that.

ARENA: Spanish officials disputed the FBI's findings telling CNN they did not believe the FBI had a print match. The Spanish now tell CNN they matched the print found near the scene of the bombing to another man, an Algerian, named Ouhnane Daoud.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: The Justice Department, FBI and prosecutors in Portland all had no comment, Aaron, but you can be sure that we'll keep asking for one -- back to you.

BROWN: At some point, this will sound naive I suppose not the first time but at some point don't they have to explain what happened here?

ARENA: One would think so, Aaron. I mean the government can argue though that it never publicly released Mayfield's name. As you know, material witnesses are often held in secret. That's because they're not charged with any crime. They just are believed to have information regarding an investigation.

Many are released without anyone ever having known that they were detained at all, so the government never came out and had a press conference, never said officially on the record that he was in detention. One could argue they don't have to say anything now that he's out.

BROWN: We shall see. Kelli, thank you, Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

Ahead on the program, the president goes to Capitol Hill to encourage his political troops. We'll take a look.

And did a drug meant to help our troops in Iraq harm some instead, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We dealt at some length on the program last night with the divide among Republicans in Congress over the war in Iraq. Giving the issue legs, if you will, is the line that lawmakers have to walk in an election year, the line between loyalty to their president, duty to the country and accountability to voters come November. It's a tough line and today the president recognized it.

Here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): A trip to the capital to rally House and Senate Republicans. Most times it would be preaching to the choir. This time the choir may have needed to hear a little preaching.

SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: This has been a rough couple of months for the president particularly in the issues of Iraq.

BASH: At the closed door meeting, described as a pep rally atmosphere with a standing room only crowd, the president tried to talk up the economy and Iraq but warned things could look worse after the June 30th handover.

REP. DEBORAH PRYCE (R), OHIO: He said that this is war and this is the theater of war and that this is part of war and that we all need to be braced for it.

BASH: Difficult times in Iraq and the president's approval rating dropping have caused private whispers of concern among fellow Republicans to grow louder.

John Duncan is a rare Republican who opposed the war from the start but feels lately he has more company.

REP. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. (R), TENNESSEE: I'm in a very small minority of the Republican Party, although over the last few weeks I have had several members tell me that they wish they had questioned the war more closely or had voted against it.

BASH: Nick Calio was the president's point man to Congress.

NICK CALIO, FMR. ASST. TO PRESIDENT FOR LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS: Letting them see him, letting them see the resolve that he has, I think brings a lot of comfort to members. I think it could steady them as they go home, you know, send them off on a high.

BASH: Most say the presidential cheerleading worked.

SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: People were very enthusiastic. They interrupted by applause probably dozens of times and several standing ovations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And rallying congressional Republicans, Aaron, was just the first step in a broader new communications effort by the White House. Senior officials say that starting Monday the president will give a series of speeches, about one a week, talking about the June 30th deadline and explaining the details as they become available and also will try to set expectations for American people saying that the situation will probably stay. Bad news will probably still be coming from Iraq and it could get worse -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, in a sense that's the problem. I mean you can say it's going to happen but it is the happening itself, the pictures of the deteriorating situation that's causing the president the problems he's got.

BASH: That's right and they say really candidly when you talk to officials here about that they say that that's nothing that they can -- can do -- there's nothing they can do about that.

So, at this point, they are simply going to try a communications strategy to at least get the president's voice more involved in this -- in this issue, more aggressively get him out there.

They say that once the president talks about something the shelf life, according to one official I talked to day of that is so short that you need to get him out there on a constant basis and it's particularly critical for them, they understand that, to do that between now and June 30th.

BROWN: Dana, thank you, Dana Bash at the White House.

With us now a pair of hawks who have been devoting a lot of thought to where things go from here in Iraq and what can be salvaged at the end of the day, better perhaps to call them owls now.

Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing editor to "The Weekly Standard," Robert George, an editorial writer for "The New York Post" and we are always pleased to see them and we are tonight, good to have you.

MAX BOOT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Hoo, hoo, hoo.

BROWN: I love it when a guest brings sound effects. Thank you. Max, let me start with you but I want to ask you both so if you can make this one fairly brief, are you as certain today as you were a year ago that the war itself and the way the United States entered the war with the limited international support it had was the right thing to do?

BOOT: I still think that deposing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do but am I happy about the way things have worked out in the last year? The answer is no. I don't see how anybody could possibly be happy about the way things have gone and unfortunately I think we still, I mean we still have an opportunity to salvage it. That's the good part but unfortunately it just has not gone as well as anybody who supported the war would have liked.

BROWN: Do you still believe the cause was right in that it was the execution, particularly the post-war execution that was at fault?

ROBERT GEORGE, "THE NEW YORK POST": Generally speaking yes. I think I may have been a little bit skeptical at the beginning but I felt that many of my colleagues, my ideological colleagues, many friends, I felt they were convinced that this was the right thing to do and let's see it through. However, we can see obviously in hindsight that the planning for the post-war period was disastrous if there was planning to begin with.

BROWN: A fair question. Do you give the antiwar side any credit at all for talking about how complicated and difficult it's in fact going to be once that government falls?

GEORGE: I mean I think -- I think some of them maybe you might want to give credit to. I think part of the problem is that many on the left tend to be skeptical of American power in any -- in any circumstances, so hearing them attack this particular enterprise seemed like in a sense same old, same old but it is the case that obviously this is a very, very difficult task and one that many in the administration underestimated.

BROWN: Naivete?

BOOT: I think there was some naivete, some lack of planning, a lot of bad assumptions which have come back to haunt the administration. I mean it's really striking when you look at the caliber of the president's foreign policy team. These are folks you think you can have confidence in, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, all the rest and yet they've made a lot of basic mistakes and it's not a matter of ideology.

It's a matter of basic competence such as, for example, not reassembling the Iraqi Army, at the same time not having enough American security forces on the ground in order to keep order, which I think is basically the problem that's plagued us.

GEORGE: Yes, and the other thing is...

BROWN: Go ahead.

GEORGE: To follow up on that what you're seeing what we now know is that there were divisions on that -- in that foreign policy team from the beginning and to this day those same -- those same divisions are creating serious repercussions. I mean the issue over Ahmed Chalabi, should we trust him, should we not trust him? I mean and that's...

BOOT: Ultimately I think it comes down to the president because I think they've been pursuing different policies within the administration, different policies in Iraq and I think there's been a basic failure at the White House to put it all together and pursue a consistent policy which comes down to Condy Rice and the president who are ultimately responsible for making those calls.

BROWN: How do we get out of this?

BOOT: Well, unfortunately I don't think anybody has an easy plan. I mean people talk about dividing Iraq up but I think that has a lot of problems as well. I think basically we just have to stick this through right now. I think we still need to send more troops.

I think we need to move up elections in order to have a legitimate government in Iraq that has the kind of legitimacy that Jerry Bremer doesn't have and that the interim government that we're going to install on June 30th is not going to have but basically I don't think anybody has an easy answer for how do we get out of this.

BROWN: Quick last word, do you agree with that?

GEORGE: I generally agree with that and obviously though in the short term as well we've got -- we've got to deal with these problems with these -- with these insurgents because this kind of do we attack them or do we pull back I think is doing a great disservice to our troops there.

BROWN: That's a great chapter too to this conversation which we will reschedule. Thank you. It's good to see you both. Thanks for coming in.

GEORGE: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Still ahead on the program John Lehman joins us to take a look at the 9/11 Commission and the problems still left to solve and his comments the other day here in New York.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are things we say and things we do and, as any young child can tell any adult, the two often are far from the same. It has been a terrible month of awful images, images that have enraged, images that have caused great damage, images that we couldn't resist. It is true of adults and kids. Maybe it is somewhere in our DNA.

Here's our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): An American captive in Iraq is beheaded by his captors. We are outraged, appalled, disgusted. And an Internet tracking service reported last week that video of the Berg beheading had replaced porn and celebrity items as the most frequently searched item on the net.

A princess dies in a car crash. We are witness to the ritual of grieving.

ANNOUNCER: The truth about the death of a princess.

GREENFIELD: Six and a half years later a major U.S. broadcast network airs photos of the dying princess. More than nine million people watch.

Americans degrade prisoners in Iraq and photograph their humiliation. We are outraged, appalled, disgusted and within days those pictures with no detail omitted are posted prominently on countless websites where they are among the most popular fare.

(on camera): In all the debate about what should be seen and what should be concealed there is one factor as unpleasant to mention as it is unavoidable. There is and always has been a huge appetite for the grisly details of violent death.

Its appeal has often been compared to pornography but, with sex so readily available these days, the images of death may be more alluring precisely because they remain forbidden.

(voice-over): There is a long ignoble history here. Public executions in the United States and Britain were treated as entertainment spectacles with hawkers selling portraits of the condemned and details of their crimes to the mobs.

In 1928, when a New York "Daily News" photograph snapped this picture of Ruth Snyder (ph) in the electric chair the paper sold an extra 775,000 copies and ran the photo again on the front page the next day.

The memorials to the slain president, as this "Life" magazine special, all contained pictures from the famous Zapruder film and at least one publisher openly wondered whether the appeal of these tributes was in part the morbid fascination with a murder captured on film.

There was no need to wonder about the "Faces of Death" videos that surfaced in the mid-1980s. They featured graphic scenes of human and animal killings, suicides, executions, ritual slaughterings and proved a hot item in video stores across the country.

Why this appeal? Maybe it's nothing more than the dark side of human nature, the same impulse that makes us slow down and look at a traffic accident or make some people watch any perspective suicide shout "jump." Maybe it's a way of dealing with the most primal and unavoidable fear of all. Forty years ago, folk singer Phil Oaks wrote a song about the Kennedy assassination. "Tell me every detail. I've got to know it all," he wrote "and do you have a picture of the pain?" Well we have more and more of those pictures now and more and more outlets for them and apparently more and more of us do want to know it all.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thirty-two months later, the images from 9/11 remain some of the hardest to watch.

The awful details of the day were again the focus this week in New York at a hearing of the 9/11 Commission. For two days, the commissioners grilled the officials who were in charge of the rescue efforts at the Trade Center. Commissioner John Lehman served as a secretary of Navy under President Reagan and he pulled no punches at the hearing, especially on the opening day. His scathing assessment of the city's emergency services did not go over well with everyone, perhaps did not go over well with anyone.

We spoke with him earlier tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: No, they certainly haven't been solved. And I think it is incumbent on us in the commission to continue to work with the city to fully realize what needs to be done.

They have to take a military approach to this problem. Command, control and communications are not adequate for the threats that we foresee. Much has been done to improve the situation from 9/11. But they do not have the kind of integrated command, control and communications that are necessary in a military situation.

And there are -- many of the officials' response has been, but we're not the military. Well, they're going to have to be, to a certain extent, imbued with the military tradition on dealing with communications, because there are technologies that are available that can work in many different circumstances, but people have to be trained in them. They have to understand them. You have to have specialists at different levels.

And you to have the discipline to use the kinds of communications that are necessary. We're not there yet in New York. And we can get there.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Mr. Secretary, I'm sorry. Let me ask one more question on this, because, as you know, one of the problems in New York is that New Yorkers believe we do not get a fair share of the money to pay for what is very expensive stuff. Will the commission make any recommendations on the kind of specific tools that cities need and how that stuff should be paid for relative to the federal government? LEHMAN: Absolutely. New York is the front line. New York is the prime target. We -- through interrogation and all the other intelligence that we get, there is no question that the enemy, which is violent fundamentalist Islamists, view New York as Satan's own citadel, the center of Wall Street and of television and communication and everything that they are dedicated to destroy.

So New York, while there may be attacks in other places, they see that to win the war against us, they want to attack New York. And they're coming back. And they're coming back in a very determined and sophisticated way. So we've got to be able to be ahead of them. We have to have the capability to deal with that. And it is going to take money.

And New York City is not getting the federal money that they must have because they are -- they are targeted by the enemy of the United States, not by the enemy of New York. So they need federal funding. And certainly the commission is going to weigh in heavily on that score.

BROWN: We -- sir, we appreciate your work on the commission. And we appreciate the whole effort and I know this has been a tough week for you. Thanks for coming on with us for a few minutes tonight.

LEHMAN: Pleasure.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, we talked with him earlier tonight.

Still to come on the program, what appears to be a cookbook for terrorists, a poisonous cookbook, it is, found in the Philippines.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With so much turmoil in the Middle East, it is easy to lose sight of al Qaeda's influence in the South Pacific. The group and groups affiliated with it have millions of Muslims to recruit from and hundreds of islands to operate in. Recently, evidence of danger surfaced in the southern Philippines, documents, according to officials, that speak of chemical and biological weapons.

From Manila tonight, here is CNN's Maria Ressa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Authorities in the Philippines call it a chem-bio manual. CNN obtained a portion of the classified Indonesia-language document discovered in the southern Philippines and translated it into English. Investigators say these pages reveal Jemaah Islamiya, al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia, has tested deadly and toxic chemicals in the Philippines for possible terror attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The psychology of this group is, the more casualties, the better, the more horrible the inflicted damage on humans, the better, so that I will not be surprised if they will engage in chemical warfare in the Philippines.

RESSA: The documents describe the characteristics of several toxic gases, cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, phosphine, as well as toxic bacteria which cause botulism.

(on camera): The pages show how to make these poisons from available materials. We're not going to show you the exact procedures, but these toxic chemicals have even been tested on farm animals.

(voice-over): This page describes use of hydrogen cyanide. The gas was mixed in a closed box with a healthy living rabbit. Result, rabbit died within half a minute. Or cyanide, which was mixed with ordinary skin cream. The document states, rub into skin on a rabbit's neck. The rabbit will faint in eight minutes and die in 20. For each substance, the manuals had a section called, firing device, how to deliver the poison in a terror attack.

For botulism, the bacteria is supposed to be mixed with liquefied food and drink, but the manual concludes an effective way of delivery must still be found. This is not the first time documents and videotapes have shown evidence of al Qaeda efforts to create poison weapons. This tape obtained by CNN in Afghanistan showed al Qaeda testing gas on dogs. While the latest documents found in the Philippines alarm government officials across the region, a classified analysis of them outlines how difficult it is to turn biochemical agents into weapons.

In nearly every case, the firing device for operation was not yet perfected.

(on camera): Another intelligence document obtained by CNN shows as early as the mid '90s, al Qaeda tried to convince another associate terror group in Arab where to use cyanide for an attack. The poison was to be sprayed from perform bottles. The group's leader dismissed that thought as unrealistic then.

But the discovery of this manual, investigators say, shows the work to carry out a successful chem-bio attack continues.

Maria Ressa, CNN, Manila.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, potential side effects of drugs prescribed for soldiers overseas.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Part of every military mission is giving the troops the protection they need, including medicines to prevent disease, including malaria, which kills at least 700,000 people around the world each year. Thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq received one of these drugs, a drug called Lariam. And it may have prevented many soldiers from getting sick.

The question tonight is whether or not soldiers were adequately warned about its rare side effects, serious, life-changing side effects. In collaboration with UPI investigative reporter Mark Benjamin, CNN's investigative unit has been working on this story, reported for us by Jonathan Mann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill Manofsky and his wife, Tori, are looking for a new home.

TORI MANOFSKY, WIFE OF CMDR. BILL MANOFSKY: Appliances, the cabinetry.

MANN: They aren't moving because of a new job, but because Bill can't do his old one. Manofsky, a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves, is relocating near San Diego for medical care.

CMDR. BILL MANOFSKY, U.S. NAVAL RESERVE: My ears ring. They're ringing now, mostly in my right ear.

MANN: Manofsky'S problems began when he was sent to Kuwait in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Like thousands of others, he was given a drug called Lariam to prevent malaria.

B. MANOFSKY: I lost it. I literally went nuts. I was talking to myself.

MANN: When he returned to the U.S., his wife encountered a very different man.

T. MANOFSKY: The panic attacks began so acute, we had to rush him to the emergency hospital five different times.

MANN: After civilian doctors determined his symptoms were related to his use of Lariam, Manofsky finally found a military doctor who also recognized the link.

DR. MICHAEL HOFFER, U.S. NAVY: It's usually more in this area here. And he's way down here.

MANN: Navy Dr. Michael Hoffer is treating him for a range of balance problems.

HOFFER: And because Mr. Manofsky reported the Lariam exposure and did not report any other toxic exposure, we, again, with all medical likelihood, related it to the Lariam.

MANN: Mark Benjamin, an investigative reporter for UPI, has pored through hundreds of pages of reports on Lariam and the people who have taken it.

MARK BENJAMIN, UPI: Soldiers in the field are handed Lariam routinely with no warning, no written warning, no verbal warning. And when they suffer the side effects, that's one of the reasons why they don't know.

MANN: The company that makes Lariam, Roche Pharmaceuticals, says it has been used safely by more than 20 million people. But Roche's literature warns users that in rare cases, Lariam can cause hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, depression, and paranoia.

Roche would not provide a spokesperson on camera, but replied to CNN's questions in an e-mail: "Roche has made Lariam medication guides available to the four pharmacy consultants for the services, who in turn sent the information to military pharmacies." Bill Manofsky says that information never made it to him.

(on camera): Researchers have been raising their concerns about Lariam for years in medical journals here in the United States and overseas. But it wasn't until this year that the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs finally ordered the Pentagon's own investigation.

WILLIAM WINKENWERDER, ASST. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR HEALTH AFFAIRS: Any service member that is taking a medication ought to know why he or she is taking that medication. And they ought to have some sense of whether there are side effects or concerns with respect to taking that medication.

MANN (on camera): Were you warned about the side effects?

B. MANOFSKY: No I was not.

MANN (voice-over): Manofsky intends to sue Lariam's makers. Meanwhile, his 17-year military career has been cut short while he tries to recover.

Jonathan Mann, CNN, San Diego.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a moment with Momints, a new product that's "On the Rise."

This must be NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, every corner of life has its Davids and its Goliaths, including, it turns out, the world of breath mints. Tony Shurman used to work for one of the big guys in breath mints, Warner- Lambert's gum and mint division. When the company was bought out, Mr. Shurman used his severance to start his own business. And he stuck with what he knew and he knew mints. His business has gone from humble to huge, or at least pretty big.

Mr. Shurman and his Momints the focus of tonight's "On the Rise."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANTHONY SHURMAN, MOMINTS FOUNDER: We're here today because we have the most exciting breath mint on the market. The name of the product is Momints. We're the innovator. We are the originator.

They're liquid-filled capsules. You put them in your mouth, they dissolve instantly and the liquid inside rushes through your mouth. It provides extremely powerful and extremely effective breath freshening. Within seconds, you have the freshest breath around.

The original idea was around the packaging that we provided for people who smoke, research that showed there is huge cross-usage of cigarettes and breath mints. We thought we would make it one step easier if we could come up with a way that you can carry your mints with your cigarettes. And it quickly became evident that this was a much greater market than simply for smokers.

We originally started this business, we were selling these store to store, literally pulling a wagon of mints up and down the avenues of Manhattan. And the first one that really latched on and gave us our big shot was 7-Eleven. I got a call three weeks later saying that we were the No. 2 selling breath mint in the stores.

The key for us has been that we have just found you don't really need to advertise in a big way. We have been able to succeed in proving that out, that just putting it on the shelf drives sales to a point that is sustainable and that's growing.

A guy in the Caribbean has introduced it to his bar. And they have created what they are calling whoa mint.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Picturing the whoa mint and that Momint bikini.

SHURMAN: It is almost like the lime after the tequila.

I think a lot of people that are amazed at how much we have been able to achieve with a really small staff, really small. There are two people who are full-time. I actually have focused on mints through my entire professional career, mints and chewing gums and just breath fresheners in general. I guess I am a mint man.

The production is actually Europe of the mints themselves. I visit our manufacturing plant in France a couple of times a year at least.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How full will...

SHURMAN: And if we were to taste them now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're like blue caviar.

SHURMAN: I think they look magnificent. They look like jewels. We have three flavors. They are peppermint, cinnamon and winter burst, which is a wintergreen mixed flavor. They come in two different package varieties. One is the easy-slide pack that slides into a pack of cigarettes. And the other is what we call the tubes package and that is actually reminiscent of a perfume sample, which we did intentionally as a way to highlight that this is almost like perfume for your breath.

When you think about it, it's almost rude not to offer somebody a mint when you take one for yourself. When people are offering each other mints and saying, here, take a Momint, we'll know that we've really got it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, a couple of signs they've already got it. Several major candy and confection makers are copying Momints. Expects revenues for the product this year, $50 million. My goodness. Amanda Townsend of our staff put that together using every production device known to humankind.

Soledad O'Brien now with a look ahead at "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," how about this story for a Friday morning? Cincinnati Reds pitcher Danny Graves amazed by the honesty of one fan. A man found his wallet in San Diego full of 1,400 bucks in cash and then he went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that Graves got it all back. What he did ask for? An autograph. Danny Graves and the good samaritan are on our show. We're going to hear from both of them. It should be a good one. That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron, back to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

And still ahead from us, morning papers. We'll take a break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around -- I thought I had broken myself of that habit, but apparently not.

We'll start with "The International Herald Tribune." Glasses go over there. Middle of the page here. "Amid the Dead, a Struggle to Define Reality," a piece written by James Bennet of "The New York Times" in Gaza. "The Differing Versions Of What Happens." This happens all the time, who actually pulled the trigger that led to a death or many deaths. We also know Mr. Bennet, reading about this today, survived yesterday a kidnapping attempt by Palestinian militants of one sort of or another in the territories. So we're glad he's well and back to work. "The Times" puts you back to work immediately, it turns out.

"The Christian Science Monitor," right here. We were talking about doing this story for tomorrow. "Over the Hill and Shattering Records." Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens having a great year down in Houston already. "How Old Guys Are Still Doing it in The World of Sports," and other things too, I might add.

"The Washington Times," there was something here I liked. Well, there's actually many things I like. It's a fine paper. "Israel Vows Not to Widen Security Corridor in Gaza." That's the way they report it.

But yet, in "The Miami Herald," "Israel Widens Gaza Sweep." So which is it? I can't keep track sometimes.

A few good local stories in our last half-minute here. "The Detroit News." This would be Detroit, Michigan, of course. Medicaid Dental Cuts Force Poor to Suffer. Michigan Unlikely to Restore Benefits" the lead there." Also, another good local story, "Jury Exonerates Eight Detroit Police Officers."

"Boston Herald" leads local, too. "We're Roadkill" is the lead in "The Herald." "Mayor Tells Us to Stay Away While Dems Play." It's one of those convention stories.

Weather in tom -- weather in tomorrow in Chicago -- weather tomorrow in Chicago is partly cloudy.

That's our report. I'm sure we'll be back here tomorrow, partly cloudy or not. Hope you will, too.

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 May 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.
It is a measure of how things have gone in Iraq of late that our lead story tonight concerns Ahmed Chalabi, a man who would very much like to run the new Iraq.

As we'll report in a few moments, his offices in the country were raided today by both Iraqi and U.S. forces. Mr. Chalabi had good friends in high places in the U.S.

Until a few days ago, he was receiving more than 300,000 taxpayer dollars a month for services provided to the U.S. government. He was a man loved at the Pentagon, not especially trusted at the State Department. In these battles, the Pentagon wins and so Mr. Chalabi came back to Iraq with an eye on running the place.

It is also believed he gave the U.S. a lot of intelligence on WMD programs that turned out not to exist. His reaction to that was sort of cavalier we thought. So what? We got what we wanted the end of Saddam. Mr. Chalabi plays by tough rules. It now seems the Americans are catching on.

That's the story that begins the whip tonight, CNN's Harris Whitbeck starts us off with a headline from Baghdad.

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a raid on a compound in Baghdad inspires intense U.S. criticism by the man who calls himself America's best friend in Iraq. That man Ahmed Chalabi lived and worked in the raided building.

BROWN: Harris, thank you. We'll get back to you in a few moments.

Next to Washington and what looks to be another high profile mistake in the war on terror. CNN's Kelli Arena working the story, Kelli the headline.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, remember Brandon Mayfield, the Portland lawyer who was held as a material witness because his fingerprint allegedly matched a print found in connection with the Madrid train bombings? Well tonight he is a free man and his family says he's the victim of a witch hunt.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you. And finally to the president's work today stiffening Republican backbones on Capitol Hill. CNN's Dana Bash has the duty at the White House, so Dana a headline.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the president took a short trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to show some goodwill the White House hopes will go a long way. He tried to ease the concerns among fellow Republicans in Congress about the situation in Iraq and about his own approval ratings which are dropping -- Aaron.

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

Also coming up on the program on this Thursday night, our Jeff Greenfield takes a look at the pictures we always say we hate but can't stop looking at.

Our "On the Rise" segment tonight, a product that is minting money for its inventor. Bennett Serf is smiling somewhere.

And, of course, the rooster brings us morning papers at the end, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with a fall from grace and the questions it raises about how the country got into Iraq in the first place and perhaps how it gets out. As we said, Ahmed Chalabi was the darling of the Pentagon in the run-up to the war.

His exiled group supplied intelligence to make the case this despite strong reservations about the intelligence, the organization and the man himself who now sits on the Iraqi Governing Council and dreams of more.

We have two reports tonight, first from Baghdad CNN's Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK (voice-over): U.S. troops and Iraqi policemen raid the headquarters of the man who calls himself America's best friend in Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi, head of Iraq's National Congress who provided information that President Bush used to help justify his decision to go to war now lambasting U.S. policy in Iraq.

AHMED CHALABI, IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL: I am now calling for policies to liberate the Iraqi people, to get full sovereignty now and I am putting the case in a way which they don't like.

WHITBECK: Chalabi claims it is his criticism of the pace and scope of the handover plan that soured his relations with Washington and that led to the raid on his home but Iraqi officials said the raid was directed at men inside Chalabi's compound who were believed to be involved in cases of government fraud and kidnapping.

The U.S. spokesman in Baghdad said neither Chalabi nor his Iraqi National Congress were the targets and the coalition went to great lengths to say the raid was organized and executed by the Iraqi National Police.

DAN SENIOR, CPA SPOKESMAN: It was an Iraqi-led investigation. It was an Iraqi-led raid. It was the result of Iraqi arrest warrants.

WHITBECK: Although U.S. Administrator Paul Bremer was aware of the investigation of government fraud before the raid took place.

(on camera): The question now is how much Chalabi's break with the United States will resonate. Many here say his fortunes in terms of Iraqi public opinion were never really very high in the first place and his public criticism of U.S. policy in Iraq can't have won him many new friends back in Washington.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As we said at the top, Chalabi and company were living quite well at taxpayers' expense until the Pentagon pulled the plug, at $340,000 a month at one point.

"Newsweek" magazine's Mark Hosenball has been looking into what the administration was getting for its money and why the falling out and Mark joins us tonight from Washington. It's good to see you again.

Just as a kind of overview, is it over for Mr. Chalabi in the sense does he still have supporters in the Pentagon? Does he still have believers there or have they given up on him too?

MARK HOSENBALL, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT "NEWSWEEK" MAGAZINE: My sense is he still has a few believers but, as someone in the White House said to me a couple of weeks ago, his support used to be the size of an iceberg. Now it's sort of diminished to an ice cube and I'm not sure it's even an ice cube anymore. It may just be kind of a raindrop.

He still also has supporters in the media to whom he fed various very lurid stories about Saddam before the war, but my sense is that some of them are going off him now as well but he -- this guys weaves the spell of magic and he took in some, in my view, very smart people.

BROWN: Somebody around us today said he played the country like chumps.

HOSENBALL: Arguably you could say that, yes. I mean to my mind he was pretty transparent when I first started to look at him. This guy is not particularly credible as far as I can tell but he does tell people what they like to hear and he's also an Arabic person who speaks English, which I guess, you know, got him very far.

BROWN: What was it that a guy like Rumsfeld, for example, saw in Chalabi that he liked? HOSENBALL: I'm not sure that Rumsfeld had that much to do with him. My understanding is he was kind of close to Wolfowitz. He was very close to Douglas Fife, Wolfowitz' principal deputy.

He was also very, very, very close to Richard Perle, a sort of (unintelligible) at the Pentagon who himself was close to Rumsfeld, so he had friends there but I'm not sure that Rumsfeld himself was very close to this guy.

BROWN: Any idea what this thing really was about today?

HOSENBALL: Oh, I have various ideas what this is about. I'm told that the raid, in fact, there's a big investigation going on. There are allegations against members of the Iraqi National Congress of bribery, of extortion, of messing with currency, of -- I'm trying -- oh, embezzlement.

Also there are allegations which were reported in "Newsweek" a couple weeks ago that Chalabi himself and some of his top leftenants systematically have been supplying sensitive information, including as I understand it today, classified information, U.S. classified information to people in the government of Iran with whom Chalabi has never made a secret of his friendship and the supply of this information could have actually gotten people killed in Iraq.

And so this has certainly not impressed people way high up in the administration including people at the White House and it's my understanding that one of the reasons why, as I understand it, Vice President Cheney's office or the vice president himself, who had kind of protected Chalabi up until now, has stopped protecting him is perhaps because of this intelligence about his dealings with Iran.

BROWN: It's good to see you again, thanks, nice quick job on this tonight. Thank you Mark Hosenball. "Newsweek" magazine has been reporting on this sort of stuff for some time now.

On now to what all this maneuvering and fighting is supposed to lead up to, the handover next month. When you think about it the date June 30th is just about all we actually know.

Eight years out we know what the new World Trade Center will look like. We know who will be on the presidential ballot eight months from now. So, what shape will the government of Iraq take seven weeks from now? Good question.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid the continuing fighting and scandals in Iraq, administration officials are rushing to set out the way they see things working in July after the handover. First and foremost they say incoming U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte will not be running the country.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: It is the interim government that is replacing Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority not Ambassador Negroponte.

ENSOR: But newly sovereign Iraq will still have 135,000 or more American troops and Negroponte will head the largest U.S. Embassy on earth with a staff of almost 1,000.

FRANK RICCIARDONE, STATE DEPT. COORDINATOR FOR IRAQI TRANSITION: No other embassy in the world is responsible for overseeing $18.4 billion in assistance.

ENSOR: With just over 40 days to the turnover officials admit key questions are unresolved like how much influence over coalition troops will the new Iraqi government have?

And, in the wake of the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, who will control the prisons. The handover to a new Iraqi government to be selected by the U.N.'s Lakhdar Brahimi cannot come too quickly say many experts.

LARRY DIAMOND, HOOVER INSTITUTION: The overall ineptitude of our mission to date leaves us and Iraq in a terrible bind.

GEN. JOSEPH HOAR (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss.

ENSOR: Bush administration officials stress that the incoming Iraqi government, the new ministers, really will have power. There are plenty of skeptics.

HUSAIN HAQQANI, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTL. PEACE: The general feeling in the Muslim and the Arab world is that the U.S. will not really truly pull out after June 30th. What will happen is that there will just be more Iraqi faces and that there will still be a de facto American-run administration.

ENSOR (on camera): After the handoff, U.S. officials say the American footprint in Iraq will need to remain large. In addition to all the security, the troops and the big embassy, about 200 advisers to the Iraqi ministries, consultants hired by the U.S. will also be in place, most of them from this country.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In other news tonight, when he was arrested more than a week ago, Brandon Mayfield, hardly a high-powered lawyer in Portland, Oregon made news around the world.

His fingerprints, reports said, were on a bag connected to the terrorist bombing in Madrid. It was further reported that he had converted to Islam, which apparently was seen as evidence as well. Tonight, Mr. Mayfield is free. The government, which arrested him, has some explaining to do.

Here's CNN's Kelli Arena. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): Brandon Mayfield, a U.S. citizen and Muslim convert who has been sitting in a Portland detention center for two weeks, is a free man. Just after being released he joined his lawyers for a brief press conference.

BRANDON MAYFIELD, RELEASED FROM CUSTODY: I just want to say thank God, everybody who was praying for me.

ARENA: Grand jury rules of secrecy stopping Mayfield and his lawyers from saying more at this time but Mayfield's brother promises the family will not go away silently.

KENT MAYFIELD, BROTHER: I think there's going to be a major review about why they detained him. This obviously proves -- this obviously proves that this was a complete witch hunt and we are going to follow up as much as I can.

ARENA: U.S. law enforcement officials say Mayfield was taken into custody as a material witness in connection to the March train bombing in Madrid. Those officials say the FBI matched his fingerprint to a print found near the scene on a bag containing explosive materials similar to those used in the attack.

They say agents were conducting surveillance on Mayfield but a decision was made to detain him when the media got hold of the story and the FBI feared its cover was blown.

STEVE WAX, MAYFIELD'S ATTORNEY: He has maintained at the outset that he has had no involvement in the horrible bombing that occurred in Spain in March and he's maintained from the outset that he has no knowledge about that.

ARENA: Spanish officials disputed the FBI's findings telling CNN they did not believe the FBI had a print match. The Spanish now tell CNN they matched the print found near the scene of the bombing to another man, an Algerian, named Ouhnane Daoud.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: The Justice Department, FBI and prosecutors in Portland all had no comment, Aaron, but you can be sure that we'll keep asking for one -- back to you.

BROWN: At some point, this will sound naive I suppose not the first time but at some point don't they have to explain what happened here?

ARENA: One would think so, Aaron. I mean the government can argue though that it never publicly released Mayfield's name. As you know, material witnesses are often held in secret. That's because they're not charged with any crime. They just are believed to have information regarding an investigation.

Many are released without anyone ever having known that they were detained at all, so the government never came out and had a press conference, never said officially on the record that he was in detention. One could argue they don't have to say anything now that he's out.

BROWN: We shall see. Kelli, thank you, Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

Ahead on the program, the president goes to Capitol Hill to encourage his political troops. We'll take a look.

And did a drug meant to help our troops in Iraq harm some instead, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We dealt at some length on the program last night with the divide among Republicans in Congress over the war in Iraq. Giving the issue legs, if you will, is the line that lawmakers have to walk in an election year, the line between loyalty to their president, duty to the country and accountability to voters come November. It's a tough line and today the president recognized it.

Here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice-over): A trip to the capital to rally House and Senate Republicans. Most times it would be preaching to the choir. This time the choir may have needed to hear a little preaching.

SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: This has been a rough couple of months for the president particularly in the issues of Iraq.

BASH: At the closed door meeting, described as a pep rally atmosphere with a standing room only crowd, the president tried to talk up the economy and Iraq but warned things could look worse after the June 30th handover.

REP. DEBORAH PRYCE (R), OHIO: He said that this is war and this is the theater of war and that this is part of war and that we all need to be braced for it.

BASH: Difficult times in Iraq and the president's approval rating dropping have caused private whispers of concern among fellow Republicans to grow louder.

John Duncan is a rare Republican who opposed the war from the start but feels lately he has more company.

REP. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. (R), TENNESSEE: I'm in a very small minority of the Republican Party, although over the last few weeks I have had several members tell me that they wish they had questioned the war more closely or had voted against it.

BASH: Nick Calio was the president's point man to Congress.

NICK CALIO, FMR. ASST. TO PRESIDENT FOR LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS: Letting them see him, letting them see the resolve that he has, I think brings a lot of comfort to members. I think it could steady them as they go home, you know, send them off on a high.

BASH: Most say the presidential cheerleading worked.

SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: People were very enthusiastic. They interrupted by applause probably dozens of times and several standing ovations.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And rallying congressional Republicans, Aaron, was just the first step in a broader new communications effort by the White House. Senior officials say that starting Monday the president will give a series of speeches, about one a week, talking about the June 30th deadline and explaining the details as they become available and also will try to set expectations for American people saying that the situation will probably stay. Bad news will probably still be coming from Iraq and it could get worse -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, in a sense that's the problem. I mean you can say it's going to happen but it is the happening itself, the pictures of the deteriorating situation that's causing the president the problems he's got.

BASH: That's right and they say really candidly when you talk to officials here about that they say that that's nothing that they can -- can do -- there's nothing they can do about that.

So, at this point, they are simply going to try a communications strategy to at least get the president's voice more involved in this -- in this issue, more aggressively get him out there.

They say that once the president talks about something the shelf life, according to one official I talked to day of that is so short that you need to get him out there on a constant basis and it's particularly critical for them, they understand that, to do that between now and June 30th.

BROWN: Dana, thank you, Dana Bash at the White House.

With us now a pair of hawks who have been devoting a lot of thought to where things go from here in Iraq and what can be salvaged at the end of the day, better perhaps to call them owls now.

Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing editor to "The Weekly Standard," Robert George, an editorial writer for "The New York Post" and we are always pleased to see them and we are tonight, good to have you.

MAX BOOT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Hoo, hoo, hoo.

BROWN: I love it when a guest brings sound effects. Thank you. Max, let me start with you but I want to ask you both so if you can make this one fairly brief, are you as certain today as you were a year ago that the war itself and the way the United States entered the war with the limited international support it had was the right thing to do?

BOOT: I still think that deposing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do but am I happy about the way things have worked out in the last year? The answer is no. I don't see how anybody could possibly be happy about the way things have gone and unfortunately I think we still, I mean we still have an opportunity to salvage it. That's the good part but unfortunately it just has not gone as well as anybody who supported the war would have liked.

BROWN: Do you still believe the cause was right in that it was the execution, particularly the post-war execution that was at fault?

ROBERT GEORGE, "THE NEW YORK POST": Generally speaking yes. I think I may have been a little bit skeptical at the beginning but I felt that many of my colleagues, my ideological colleagues, many friends, I felt they were convinced that this was the right thing to do and let's see it through. However, we can see obviously in hindsight that the planning for the post-war period was disastrous if there was planning to begin with.

BROWN: A fair question. Do you give the antiwar side any credit at all for talking about how complicated and difficult it's in fact going to be once that government falls?

GEORGE: I mean I think -- I think some of them maybe you might want to give credit to. I think part of the problem is that many on the left tend to be skeptical of American power in any -- in any circumstances, so hearing them attack this particular enterprise seemed like in a sense same old, same old but it is the case that obviously this is a very, very difficult task and one that many in the administration underestimated.

BROWN: Naivete?

BOOT: I think there was some naivete, some lack of planning, a lot of bad assumptions which have come back to haunt the administration. I mean it's really striking when you look at the caliber of the president's foreign policy team. These are folks you think you can have confidence in, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, all the rest and yet they've made a lot of basic mistakes and it's not a matter of ideology.

It's a matter of basic competence such as, for example, not reassembling the Iraqi Army, at the same time not having enough American security forces on the ground in order to keep order, which I think is basically the problem that's plagued us.

GEORGE: Yes, and the other thing is...

BROWN: Go ahead.

GEORGE: To follow up on that what you're seeing what we now know is that there were divisions on that -- in that foreign policy team from the beginning and to this day those same -- those same divisions are creating serious repercussions. I mean the issue over Ahmed Chalabi, should we trust him, should we not trust him? I mean and that's...

BOOT: Ultimately I think it comes down to the president because I think they've been pursuing different policies within the administration, different policies in Iraq and I think there's been a basic failure at the White House to put it all together and pursue a consistent policy which comes down to Condy Rice and the president who are ultimately responsible for making those calls.

BROWN: How do we get out of this?

BOOT: Well, unfortunately I don't think anybody has an easy plan. I mean people talk about dividing Iraq up but I think that has a lot of problems as well. I think basically we just have to stick this through right now. I think we still need to send more troops.

I think we need to move up elections in order to have a legitimate government in Iraq that has the kind of legitimacy that Jerry Bremer doesn't have and that the interim government that we're going to install on June 30th is not going to have but basically I don't think anybody has an easy answer for how do we get out of this.

BROWN: Quick last word, do you agree with that?

GEORGE: I generally agree with that and obviously though in the short term as well we've got -- we've got to deal with these problems with these -- with these insurgents because this kind of do we attack them or do we pull back I think is doing a great disservice to our troops there.

BROWN: That's a great chapter too to this conversation which we will reschedule. Thank you. It's good to see you both. Thanks for coming in.

GEORGE: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Still ahead on the program John Lehman joins us to take a look at the 9/11 Commission and the problems still left to solve and his comments the other day here in New York.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are things we say and things we do and, as any young child can tell any adult, the two often are far from the same. It has been a terrible month of awful images, images that have enraged, images that have caused great damage, images that we couldn't resist. It is true of adults and kids. Maybe it is somewhere in our DNA.

Here's our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): An American captive in Iraq is beheaded by his captors. We are outraged, appalled, disgusted. And an Internet tracking service reported last week that video of the Berg beheading had replaced porn and celebrity items as the most frequently searched item on the net.

A princess dies in a car crash. We are witness to the ritual of grieving.

ANNOUNCER: The truth about the death of a princess.

GREENFIELD: Six and a half years later a major U.S. broadcast network airs photos of the dying princess. More than nine million people watch.

Americans degrade prisoners in Iraq and photograph their humiliation. We are outraged, appalled, disgusted and within days those pictures with no detail omitted are posted prominently on countless websites where they are among the most popular fare.

(on camera): In all the debate about what should be seen and what should be concealed there is one factor as unpleasant to mention as it is unavoidable. There is and always has been a huge appetite for the grisly details of violent death.

Its appeal has often been compared to pornography but, with sex so readily available these days, the images of death may be more alluring precisely because they remain forbidden.

(voice-over): There is a long ignoble history here. Public executions in the United States and Britain were treated as entertainment spectacles with hawkers selling portraits of the condemned and details of their crimes to the mobs.

In 1928, when a New York "Daily News" photograph snapped this picture of Ruth Snyder (ph) in the electric chair the paper sold an extra 775,000 copies and ran the photo again on the front page the next day.

The memorials to the slain president, as this "Life" magazine special, all contained pictures from the famous Zapruder film and at least one publisher openly wondered whether the appeal of these tributes was in part the morbid fascination with a murder captured on film.

There was no need to wonder about the "Faces of Death" videos that surfaced in the mid-1980s. They featured graphic scenes of human and animal killings, suicides, executions, ritual slaughterings and proved a hot item in video stores across the country.

Why this appeal? Maybe it's nothing more than the dark side of human nature, the same impulse that makes us slow down and look at a traffic accident or make some people watch any perspective suicide shout "jump." Maybe it's a way of dealing with the most primal and unavoidable fear of all. Forty years ago, folk singer Phil Oaks wrote a song about the Kennedy assassination. "Tell me every detail. I've got to know it all," he wrote "and do you have a picture of the pain?" Well we have more and more of those pictures now and more and more outlets for them and apparently more and more of us do want to know it all.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thirty-two months later, the images from 9/11 remain some of the hardest to watch.

The awful details of the day were again the focus this week in New York at a hearing of the 9/11 Commission. For two days, the commissioners grilled the officials who were in charge of the rescue efforts at the Trade Center. Commissioner John Lehman served as a secretary of Navy under President Reagan and he pulled no punches at the hearing, especially on the opening day. His scathing assessment of the city's emergency services did not go over well with everyone, perhaps did not go over well with anyone.

We spoke with him earlier tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: No, they certainly haven't been solved. And I think it is incumbent on us in the commission to continue to work with the city to fully realize what needs to be done.

They have to take a military approach to this problem. Command, control and communications are not adequate for the threats that we foresee. Much has been done to improve the situation from 9/11. But they do not have the kind of integrated command, control and communications that are necessary in a military situation.

And there are -- many of the officials' response has been, but we're not the military. Well, they're going to have to be, to a certain extent, imbued with the military tradition on dealing with communications, because there are technologies that are available that can work in many different circumstances, but people have to be trained in them. They have to understand them. You have to have specialists at different levels.

And you to have the discipline to use the kinds of communications that are necessary. We're not there yet in New York. And we can get there.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Mr. Secretary, I'm sorry. Let me ask one more question on this, because, as you know, one of the problems in New York is that New Yorkers believe we do not get a fair share of the money to pay for what is very expensive stuff. Will the commission make any recommendations on the kind of specific tools that cities need and how that stuff should be paid for relative to the federal government? LEHMAN: Absolutely. New York is the front line. New York is the prime target. We -- through interrogation and all the other intelligence that we get, there is no question that the enemy, which is violent fundamentalist Islamists, view New York as Satan's own citadel, the center of Wall Street and of television and communication and everything that they are dedicated to destroy.

So New York, while there may be attacks in other places, they see that to win the war against us, they want to attack New York. And they're coming back. And they're coming back in a very determined and sophisticated way. So we've got to be able to be ahead of them. We have to have the capability to deal with that. And it is going to take money.

And New York City is not getting the federal money that they must have because they are -- they are targeted by the enemy of the United States, not by the enemy of New York. So they need federal funding. And certainly the commission is going to weigh in heavily on that score.

BROWN: We -- sir, we appreciate your work on the commission. And we appreciate the whole effort and I know this has been a tough week for you. Thanks for coming on with us for a few minutes tonight.

LEHMAN: Pleasure.

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, we talked with him earlier tonight.

Still to come on the program, what appears to be a cookbook for terrorists, a poisonous cookbook, it is, found in the Philippines.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With so much turmoil in the Middle East, it is easy to lose sight of al Qaeda's influence in the South Pacific. The group and groups affiliated with it have millions of Muslims to recruit from and hundreds of islands to operate in. Recently, evidence of danger surfaced in the southern Philippines, documents, according to officials, that speak of chemical and biological weapons.

From Manila tonight, here is CNN's Maria Ressa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Authorities in the Philippines call it a chem-bio manual. CNN obtained a portion of the classified Indonesia-language document discovered in the southern Philippines and translated it into English. Investigators say these pages reveal Jemaah Islamiya, al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia, has tested deadly and toxic chemicals in the Philippines for possible terror attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The psychology of this group is, the more casualties, the better, the more horrible the inflicted damage on humans, the better, so that I will not be surprised if they will engage in chemical warfare in the Philippines.

RESSA: The documents describe the characteristics of several toxic gases, cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, phosphine, as well as toxic bacteria which cause botulism.

(on camera): The pages show how to make these poisons from available materials. We're not going to show you the exact procedures, but these toxic chemicals have even been tested on farm animals.

(voice-over): This page describes use of hydrogen cyanide. The gas was mixed in a closed box with a healthy living rabbit. Result, rabbit died within half a minute. Or cyanide, which was mixed with ordinary skin cream. The document states, rub into skin on a rabbit's neck. The rabbit will faint in eight minutes and die in 20. For each substance, the manuals had a section called, firing device, how to deliver the poison in a terror attack.

For botulism, the bacteria is supposed to be mixed with liquefied food and drink, but the manual concludes an effective way of delivery must still be found. This is not the first time documents and videotapes have shown evidence of al Qaeda efforts to create poison weapons. This tape obtained by CNN in Afghanistan showed al Qaeda testing gas on dogs. While the latest documents found in the Philippines alarm government officials across the region, a classified analysis of them outlines how difficult it is to turn biochemical agents into weapons.

In nearly every case, the firing device for operation was not yet perfected.

(on camera): Another intelligence document obtained by CNN shows as early as the mid '90s, al Qaeda tried to convince another associate terror group in Arab where to use cyanide for an attack. The poison was to be sprayed from perform bottles. The group's leader dismissed that thought as unrealistic then.

But the discovery of this manual, investigators say, shows the work to carry out a successful chem-bio attack continues.

Maria Ressa, CNN, Manila.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, potential side effects of drugs prescribed for soldiers overseas.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Part of every military mission is giving the troops the protection they need, including medicines to prevent disease, including malaria, which kills at least 700,000 people around the world each year. Thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq received one of these drugs, a drug called Lariam. And it may have prevented many soldiers from getting sick.

The question tonight is whether or not soldiers were adequately warned about its rare side effects, serious, life-changing side effects. In collaboration with UPI investigative reporter Mark Benjamin, CNN's investigative unit has been working on this story, reported for us by Jonathan Mann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill Manofsky and his wife, Tori, are looking for a new home.

TORI MANOFSKY, WIFE OF CMDR. BILL MANOFSKY: Appliances, the cabinetry.

MANN: They aren't moving because of a new job, but because Bill can't do his old one. Manofsky, a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves, is relocating near San Diego for medical care.

CMDR. BILL MANOFSKY, U.S. NAVAL RESERVE: My ears ring. They're ringing now, mostly in my right ear.

MANN: Manofsky'S problems began when he was sent to Kuwait in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Like thousands of others, he was given a drug called Lariam to prevent malaria.

B. MANOFSKY: I lost it. I literally went nuts. I was talking to myself.

MANN: When he returned to the U.S., his wife encountered a very different man.

T. MANOFSKY: The panic attacks began so acute, we had to rush him to the emergency hospital five different times.

MANN: After civilian doctors determined his symptoms were related to his use of Lariam, Manofsky finally found a military doctor who also recognized the link.

DR. MICHAEL HOFFER, U.S. NAVY: It's usually more in this area here. And he's way down here.

MANN: Navy Dr. Michael Hoffer is treating him for a range of balance problems.

HOFFER: And because Mr. Manofsky reported the Lariam exposure and did not report any other toxic exposure, we, again, with all medical likelihood, related it to the Lariam.

MANN: Mark Benjamin, an investigative reporter for UPI, has pored through hundreds of pages of reports on Lariam and the people who have taken it.

MARK BENJAMIN, UPI: Soldiers in the field are handed Lariam routinely with no warning, no written warning, no verbal warning. And when they suffer the side effects, that's one of the reasons why they don't know.

MANN: The company that makes Lariam, Roche Pharmaceuticals, says it has been used safely by more than 20 million people. But Roche's literature warns users that in rare cases, Lariam can cause hallucinations, suicidal thoughts, depression, and paranoia.

Roche would not provide a spokesperson on camera, but replied to CNN's questions in an e-mail: "Roche has made Lariam medication guides available to the four pharmacy consultants for the services, who in turn sent the information to military pharmacies." Bill Manofsky says that information never made it to him.

(on camera): Researchers have been raising their concerns about Lariam for years in medical journals here in the United States and overseas. But it wasn't until this year that the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs finally ordered the Pentagon's own investigation.

WILLIAM WINKENWERDER, ASST. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR HEALTH AFFAIRS: Any service member that is taking a medication ought to know why he or she is taking that medication. And they ought to have some sense of whether there are side effects or concerns with respect to taking that medication.

MANN (on camera): Were you warned about the side effects?

B. MANOFSKY: No I was not.

MANN (voice-over): Manofsky intends to sue Lariam's makers. Meanwhile, his 17-year military career has been cut short while he tries to recover.

Jonathan Mann, CNN, San Diego.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a moment with Momints, a new product that's "On the Rise."

This must be NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, every corner of life has its Davids and its Goliaths, including, it turns out, the world of breath mints. Tony Shurman used to work for one of the big guys in breath mints, Warner- Lambert's gum and mint division. When the company was bought out, Mr. Shurman used his severance to start his own business. And he stuck with what he knew and he knew mints. His business has gone from humble to huge, or at least pretty big.

Mr. Shurman and his Momints the focus of tonight's "On the Rise."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANTHONY SHURMAN, MOMINTS FOUNDER: We're here today because we have the most exciting breath mint on the market. The name of the product is Momints. We're the innovator. We are the originator.

They're liquid-filled capsules. You put them in your mouth, they dissolve instantly and the liquid inside rushes through your mouth. It provides extremely powerful and extremely effective breath freshening. Within seconds, you have the freshest breath around.

The original idea was around the packaging that we provided for people who smoke, research that showed there is huge cross-usage of cigarettes and breath mints. We thought we would make it one step easier if we could come up with a way that you can carry your mints with your cigarettes. And it quickly became evident that this was a much greater market than simply for smokers.

We originally started this business, we were selling these store to store, literally pulling a wagon of mints up and down the avenues of Manhattan. And the first one that really latched on and gave us our big shot was 7-Eleven. I got a call three weeks later saying that we were the No. 2 selling breath mint in the stores.

The key for us has been that we have just found you don't really need to advertise in a big way. We have been able to succeed in proving that out, that just putting it on the shelf drives sales to a point that is sustainable and that's growing.

A guy in the Caribbean has introduced it to his bar. And they have created what they are calling whoa mint.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Picturing the whoa mint and that Momint bikini.

SHURMAN: It is almost like the lime after the tequila.

I think a lot of people that are amazed at how much we have been able to achieve with a really small staff, really small. There are two people who are full-time. I actually have focused on mints through my entire professional career, mints and chewing gums and just breath fresheners in general. I guess I am a mint man.

The production is actually Europe of the mints themselves. I visit our manufacturing plant in France a couple of times a year at least.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How full will...

SHURMAN: And if we were to taste them now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're like blue caviar.

SHURMAN: I think they look magnificent. They look like jewels. We have three flavors. They are peppermint, cinnamon and winter burst, which is a wintergreen mixed flavor. They come in two different package varieties. One is the easy-slide pack that slides into a pack of cigarettes. And the other is what we call the tubes package and that is actually reminiscent of a perfume sample, which we did intentionally as a way to highlight that this is almost like perfume for your breath.

When you think about it, it's almost rude not to offer somebody a mint when you take one for yourself. When people are offering each other mints and saying, here, take a Momint, we'll know that we've really got it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, a couple of signs they've already got it. Several major candy and confection makers are copying Momints. Expects revenues for the product this year, $50 million. My goodness. Amanda Townsend of our staff put that together using every production device known to humankind.

Soledad O'Brien now with a look ahead at "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," how about this story for a Friday morning? Cincinnati Reds pitcher Danny Graves amazed by the honesty of one fan. A man found his wallet in San Diego full of 1,400 bucks in cash and then he went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that Graves got it all back. What he did ask for? An autograph. Danny Graves and the good samaritan are on our show. We're going to hear from both of them. It should be a good one. That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern -- Aaron, back to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

And still ahead from us, morning papers. We'll take a break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around -- I thought I had broken myself of that habit, but apparently not.

We'll start with "The International Herald Tribune." Glasses go over there. Middle of the page here. "Amid the Dead, a Struggle to Define Reality," a piece written by James Bennet of "The New York Times" in Gaza. "The Differing Versions Of What Happens." This happens all the time, who actually pulled the trigger that led to a death or many deaths. We also know Mr. Bennet, reading about this today, survived yesterday a kidnapping attempt by Palestinian militants of one sort of or another in the territories. So we're glad he's well and back to work. "The Times" puts you back to work immediately, it turns out.

"The Christian Science Monitor," right here. We were talking about doing this story for tomorrow. "Over the Hill and Shattering Records." Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens having a great year down in Houston already. "How Old Guys Are Still Doing it in The World of Sports," and other things too, I might add.

"The Washington Times," there was something here I liked. Well, there's actually many things I like. It's a fine paper. "Israel Vows Not to Widen Security Corridor in Gaza." That's the way they report it.

But yet, in "The Miami Herald," "Israel Widens Gaza Sweep." So which is it? I can't keep track sometimes.

A few good local stories in our last half-minute here. "The Detroit News." This would be Detroit, Michigan, of course. Medicaid Dental Cuts Force Poor to Suffer. Michigan Unlikely to Restore Benefits" the lead there." Also, another good local story, "Jury Exonerates Eight Detroit Police Officers."

"Boston Herald" leads local, too. "We're Roadkill" is the lead in "The Herald." "Mayor Tells Us to Stay Away While Dems Play." It's one of those convention stories.

Weather in tom -- weather in tomorrow in Chicago -- weather tomorrow in Chicago is partly cloudy.

That's our report. I'm sure we'll be back here tomorrow, partly cloudy or not. Hope you will, too.

Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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