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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

How D-Day Changed America; John Kerry and Catholicism

Aired June 04, 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.
This weekend in Normandy, the world remembers D-Day. In words far more eloquent than these, the men who planned the invasion and the men who carried it out will be remembered for what they did and how what they did changed the course of the war and perhaps the world.

While we can't match the eloquence of those weekend speeches, we can do what we do best. We can tell a few stories. And tonight, we will. They're not the reliving of D-Day stories, just a few tales about a family that has gone to war again and again, about the nature of war itself, about World War II and some things you might not have considered when you think about how it changed history. They're sprinkled throughout the program tonight. About the only place they don't show up is in "The Whip."

It begins with Iraq and what the pope had to say to the president. CNN's John King has the duty tonight and starts us off with a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president had an audience with Pope John Paul II today and received a bit of a lecture about Iraq. The pope says the Vatican's opposition to the war was unequivocal, the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was deplorable, and that the United States and its coalition allies should turn sovereignty back over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible -- Aaron.

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

Next to Baghdad, a very mixed picture there. CNN's Harris Whitbeck is reporting again tonight.

The headline, please?

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the interim prime minister went on national television asking for the people's support and some of them said they'll give it to him.

BROWN: And finally the report on 9/11 shaping up to be a tough one, that and other intelligence matters.

CNN's Joe Johns is at the Capitol tonight.

Joe, a headline from you.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the Senate report on prewar intelligence is still veiled in secrecy, but it is expected to come out soon. And a lot of people are it's going to be one tough document.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. Good to have you with us tonight. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up on this Friday, job numbers came out today and they looked good, good for the unemployed and perhaps good for the president as well. This is a political season, after all. As we said, Sunday, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, a day where heroes were everywhere, as was fear and triumph and far too much death. And the rooster is fairly heroic just for showing up every night around here with morning papers. And since it's Friday, we shall throw in a tabloid or two, a couple of goodies there. All that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight at the intersection of the past, the present and the timeless, in other words, Europe, where events of 60 years ago at Normandy and a year and a half ago at the United Nations live side by side this weekend. They form the backdrop of the president's visit, which aims to play up the first and paper over the second. It may not be easy, but increasingly the administration is coming to see it is necessary.

There's Iraq, the war on terror and the reelection campaign, all of which runs smoother with allies. So the past and the present intertwine this weekend. And the timeless, the president came face to face with that in Rome today.

We start with our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): At the Vatican, the aging pope's speech was halting, at times slurred. But his message to the president clear. John Paul II spoke of grave unrest in Iraq, called the Vatican's opposition to the war unequivocal and labeled the abuse of Iraqi prisoners deplorable.

Neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome, the pope told Mr. Bush, without an end to such abuses and a universal commitment to human rights.

But there were words the president and his delegation found encouraging. The holy father called for the speedy return of Iraq's sovereignty and said this week's appointment of an interim government is an encouraging step.

At this public session Mr. Bush presented the pope with the presidential medal of freedom and steered clear of controversy.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We appreciate the strong symbol of freedom that you have stood for. And we recognize the power of freedom to change societies and to change the world. KING: In a private meeting in the pope's study, aides say Mr. Bush defended the war and promised a vigorous investigation of the prisoner abuses.

Opposition to the Iraq war runs deep here in Italy and across Europe. And the president's visit generated boisterous protests. And a massive deployment of police in central Rome. But the demonstrations were overwhelmingly peaceful. Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, supported the Iraq war, deployed 2,700 troops there and has a warm relationship with Mr. Bush.

France is the president's next stop, and strained would be an understatement in describing recent relations between Mr. Bush and President Jacques Chirac, an outspoken Iraq War critic.

(on camera): Mr. Bush said he considers Mr. Chirac a friend and looks forward to cooperation with Paris now on a new United Nations resolution endorsing Iraq's political transition. Asked by a Paris magazine if Mr. Chirac is worthy of an invitation to Crawford, Texas, the president did not specifically mention his ranch there, but says, if he wants to see some cows, he's welcome.

John King, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, if Crawford is a long way from Paris, so too is Normandy. On one of those beaches there today, someone wrote God bless America in giant letters in the sand. It said nothing about then and now, though others did.

Here's CNN's Jim Bittermann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across Normandy, you see the flags flying, the decorations going up. And there's no question about it. The French are in love with America, or at least the America of 60 years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We remember very well what America did 60 years ago. But we have the recognize that the D- Day landings better than the attack on Iraq.

BITTERMANN: Even in the sophisticated, often cynical boulevards of Paris, a week of liberty with light shows, debates and dances has been organized to show simple gratitude for liberation.

The goodwill is everywhere, free hotel rooms and trans-Atlantic flights offered to American vets, scores of ceremonies to honor them personally. But ask the Harvard-educated pro-American organizer of Liberty Week where relations stand between the U.S. and France, and he doesn't mince words.

PIERRE LELLOUCHE, LIBERTY WEEK ORGANIZER: There is a concentration of quite a hatred against the person of George Bush. It's a very new phenomenon. He is considered as a moron or as a danger surrounded by dangerous people.

BITTERMANN: That phenomenon got its start last year in the protests against Washington's drumbeat to go to war against Iraq. And it has not helped those who questioned the quest to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq believe their skepticism was justified.

At last year's G8 Summit, there was at least a symbolic attempt to patch over trans-Atlantic differences. But there's been plenty since to strain them again, postwar Iraq, the mistreatment of prisoners, and yet another U.N. resolution some countries cannot yet accept.

AXEL PONIATOWSKI, FRENCH PARLIAMENT: The point is that the country is so big and is so powerful, then, of course, it is easier for the United States to impose their views than it was a few years ago when they were kind of balanced. That was more respected.

BITTERMANN (on camera): In an interview published in a French magazine on Thursday, President Bush claims he was never angry with France. The day before, President Chirac of France said the same thing about the United States. And it's clear both men plan to use the ceremonies here to try to patch up their differences, even if a potential confrontation is brewing over the U.N. resolution on the future of Iraq.

(voice-over): In a small town near the D-Day beaches Thursday afternoon, there was yet another commemoration of events 60 years ago. Anyone who says the French have forgotten what the U.S. did for them on the coast of Normandy simply has not been here. But the U.S. of today is not the America they thank.

Jim Bittermann, CNN, on the Normandy coast of France.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On now to Iraq, starting with the paperwork Jim alluded to.

At the U.N. today, the United States submitted a third draft of a resolution outlining Iraq's return to sovereignty. The document also authorizes the presence of multinational troops after the handover at the end of June. The new revision now faces the review of technical experts, meaning the vote on it will likely not happen until next week at the earliest.

In Iraq itself, several major developments to report tonight. In the eastern part of Baghdad, five American soldiers were killed, five others injured. Their Humvee was attacked today. The attack brings the U.S. death toll in Iraq to 825.

In Najaf and in Kufa, where coalition forces have been fighting troops loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for weeks now, a move to make a cease-fire hold finally. The governor of Najaf today ordered Iraqi police to begin patrolling the centers of both cities near the holy shrines. Coalition troops will retreat to the city's outskirts, as they have already done in the north in Fallujah. A mixed backdrop then for Iraq's new prime minister, who outlined the government's agenda today in a national television address.

With more on that, CNN's Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK (voice-over): Another first in Iraq, an Iraqi leader other than Saddam Hussein addressed the nation on television asking for the people's support. And he reaffirmed Saddam would be tried in an Iraqi court.

IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER-DESIGNATE (through translator): I will meet in the next week with the special court that the Iraqis will accept after transferring sovereignty. This court will be in charge of the crimes that were committed at the time of Saddam.

WHITBECK: While promising he will fight to insure full sovereignty, Iyad Allawi told his countrymen he needed their help, moral support for the new leaders and practical support in standing up to the insurgency whose attacks are destabilizing the country.

Iraqis gathered at a Baghdad teahouse were generally supportive. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He called for the stability Iraq, for security to prevail and for the rebuilding of the country. And we the Iraqi people will support him in order for him to do so.

WHITBECK: But the interim prime minister also said foreign troops will have to stay in Iraq a while longer. And many who heard him were skeptical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Let the U.S. forces remain in Iraq. But it continues with its present provocation, they will have to be changed. The resistance is the result of the American provocations.

WHITBECK (on camera): Allawi said continued attacks will delay return to civility and an improvement in the economy. He asked for patience but said ultimately the solution is in Iraqis hands.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Now to wars past.

This weekend's D-Day commemorations obviously hold special meaning to the veterans of World War II, veterans like George Wiersma of Sparta, Michigan. He was not the first in his family to go to war, nor the last. The family's history of military service dates back to the First World War. Four successive generations have gone off to battle when called. Each time, they've taken a reminder of home and family with them.

Their story told tonight by CNN's Jonathan freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 87 years, the men of fighting age in the Wiersma family have answered the call of duty and made it back home.

GEORGE WIERSMA, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: What happened at Bastogne was one awful big battle.

FREED: George Wiersma fought in World War II.

(on camera): What part of it stays with you the most?

G. WIERSMA: Oh, I don't know. I think the dead bodies laying on the ground. I think that's what I remember the most. And there was many, many of them, many of them.

FREED (voice-over): George's son, John, is a Vietnam veteran. What he remembers is the sting of controversy.

JOHN WIERSMA, VIETNAM VETERAN: You didn't feel like people were united behind the effort. And so, you had mixed feelings. And the same when you got back. People didn't talk much about where you had been or what you had done.

FREED: That's Scott Fuhs, John's nephew. Iraq is his war. And having fought there has helped him to see America through different eyes since he came home last week.

SCOTT FUHS, U.S. SOLDIER: I've seen a lot of changes in the last six months that I've been gone.

FREED (on camera): Like what?

FUHS: Just in terms of the seriousness within the nation itself, I think, towards what's going on, the concern.

FREED (voice-over): He just served a tour in Tikrit and with him throughout an 18-karat gold cross. Scott's great grandfather wore it first in the First World War. Then it landed on Omaha Beach with the grandfather George in July of 1944. Uncle John to Southeast Asia. And now Corporal Fuhs will bear the cross back for a second tour in Iraq.

(on camera): Did you feel at times that the cross kept you safe?

FUHS: I don't feel that the cross in and of itself kept me safe. But it was comforting to have it there because of the background of it.

FREED: The three generations of warriors hope Iraq will be the last war zone the crucifix they see. Scott, though, is reluctantly prepared to hand it off once more.

FUHS: Passed on down hopefully to my children, and have those same values that my father, mother, my uncles, my grandfather have passed on to me. FREED: A cherished tradition seeing a family through conflict.

Jonathan Freed, CNN, Sparta, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, a stinging report leaking out from Capitol Hill on the CIA's failure to get the facts on Iraq before the war. And why would George Bush be so eager to be seen with the pope? It couldn't have anything to do with politics, could it?

From around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The first casualties in what would become the war against terror were those people aboard the four airliners hijacked on 9/11.

Today, at a private briefing in Princeton, New Jersey, about 150 of their relatives listened to tapes of phone calls the passengers made that day from those planes, listened as well to government investigators lay out in as much detail as they could what exactly happened during the flights' final moments.

Deborah Burlingame, whose brother Charles was a pilot aboard American Airlines Flight 77, eloquently said aloud what many must have felt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH BURLINGAME, SISTER OF 9/11 VICTIM: Today was a very difficult day for all the families. And I'd like to thank the Department of Justice, all the U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys and all the FBI agents and special agents in charge who were in charge of all these four flights.

And I just have to say that I was overwhelmed by the unbelievable courage of the passengers and crews of all four of these flights. And I sat there wistfully wishing that this country could be as united and as determined and as brave in fighting the terrorists as they were in the first few moments of September 11. I wish we could be that way two and a half years later, as they were. I was very proud of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: At the end of next month, the 9/11 Commission will submit its long-awaited report on the terrorist attacks and the failure to prevent them. Excuse me.

It's just of one three reports expected to hammer the CIA for bungling intelligence before and after 9/11. The criticism coming down the pike is one reason many people believe George Tenet resigned his post yesterday. A 400-page report by the Senate Intelligence Committee presented to the CIA for comment last month, much of it dealing with Iraq, is said to be the harshest of the three.

From the Hill tonight, here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): The Senate report is being called a stinging indictment of CIA failures; so harsh, it's seen by some senators as one reason George Tenet resigned. Publicly, the Intelligence Committee chairman calls it, unflattering.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: I think the community is in somewhat denial over the full extent, and I emphasize full extent, of the shortcoming of its work on Iraq.

JOHNS: The report is especially critical of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, detailing evidence the CIA said showed Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, and was trying to rebuild its nuclear weapons program. Among the findings, committee sources say, claims were based on unfounded assumptions, multiple names were used for the same source, making the evidence look stronger than it was. U.S. intelligence never interviewed sources who said Iraq had mobile weapons labs. And warnings one of those sources was a fabricator were ignored.

ROBERT BAER, FORMER CIA OFFICER: Sometimes in terrorism, if there's an imminent threat, you take unsourced information, disseminate it. But something to justify a preemptive war is totally unacceptable.

JOHNS: The CIA, which is adding its remarks to the report and taking out classified material, had no comment.

Before George Tenet's resignation, Chairman Roberts suggested that intelligence failures were so serious, someone should be fired or disciplined.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Roberts says he expects to release the report publicly as early at this month. Then the committee begins working on a second report on the policy-makers and whether they hyped the threat of weapons of mass destruction to make the case for war -- Aaron.

BROWN: All right, just a quick one here and then a longer one. When does that second report come out?

JOHNS: Well, that's a good question. One thing is clear. At least we're told for now, that report will not come out until after the election. There was a lot of concern about that, Aaron.

BROWN: You read my mind.

How much of the Intelligence Committee's report -- and the Intelligence Committee really is among the most bipartisanship of the committees in the Congress -- how much of that will we actually see and how much of it is classified?

JOHNS: Well, that's the key question and that's what's going on right now. Once they wrote this report, then they had to disseminate it to the various agencies, chiefly the CIA, for them to talk about declassification. They're trying to figure out what stays in, what goes out, what the public can see and what the public cannot. That's an ongoing negotiation and sometimes it takes quite a long time, Aaron.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. We'll wait and see when it does comes out what it all proves out. Thank you.

Amid all of this, a new piece of the pre-9/11 story is emerging. The London "Sunday Times" first reported some of the details last month. Today, "The Wall Street Journal" added much more after interviewing the British Muslim at the center. His names is Niaz Khan and he claims he was trained as a hijacker for Osama bin Laden.

He later turned himself into the FBI about 18 months before the 9/11 attack.

"The Wall Street Journal"'s Glenn Simpson interviewed Mr. Khan in London. And Mr. Simpson joins us from Washington tonight.

Nice to see you.

GLENN SIMPSON, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Good evening.

BROWN: Mr. Khan is not what you would think a potential terrorist would be. He's sort of a sad case.

SIMPSON: I think that's right, although he's also a highly eligible recruit. He's a person who never really settled into British culture, where he was born. He's sort of half Pakistani, half British, had problems with gambling, susceptible and persuadable, someone you could convince to kill himself.

BROWN: By the way, is it clear that -- did he believe that whatever mission he would ultimately go on would end in his own death?

SIMPSON: That's what he says. And I believe him.

BROWN: OK.

Just to kind of fast-forward a bit, he goes on this kind of around-the-world tour on al Qaeda money, ends up in the United States with $3,000 in his pocket and does what?

SIMPSON: Goes to Atlantic City and gambles it away at the roulette table.

BROWN: And then does what?

SIMPSON: Turns himself into the Atlantic City Police. And they hand him over to the counterterrorism squad of the FBI in Newark, New Jersey.

BROWN: And then what? SIMPSON: They don't take him seriously at first, but they do their job. They investigate him. They debrief him. They question him extensively. He has enough detail that they're interested. They hook him up to a polygraph. He passes.

They start to think maybe there's something to this. They put him in a safe house. They sit him down with a sketch artist. They do drawings of the people he says he met in Pakistan. They ask him more questions. Then they hook him up to the polygraph again. At the end of this roughly two-week period, the street agents who are working the case were apparently convinced that he was not making the story up.

BROWN: And the story was essentially that he had gone and been trained as a hijacker, that there were -- he had been told other people in the country already that he would be contacted by, that he would work with. And when you talked to him, did you believe it?

SIMPSON: I must say, I found it incredible at first when I heard the story. And he was not particularly persuasive the first time I met him. I did meet him several times and began to be persuaded that he wasn't making the story up after I did some checking. And it just seemed improbable that someone could walk into the FBI in April of 2000 and tell a tale of being recruited in this way, when no one at the time knew any of this was going on. The FBI didn't know this was going on.

BROWN: And just finally, Glenn, they let him go, right?

SIMPSON: They did. That has to be understood. I mean, he didn't commit a crime while in the United States.

BROWN: Right.

SIMPSON: And so they turned him over to the British in the hope and the expectation that the British would continue the investigation in conjunction with the United States. It's not quite clear, but it looks as if that did not happen.

BROWN: Glenn, a nice piece of reporting. It's a fascinating story. Thanks for your time tonight.

SIMPSON: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, a look at the politics of religion. Will the Catholic vote switch from the Democrats, where it has been for years, or will it be the economy that proves decisive in November? If so, things are looking up for the GOP, this month at least.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Forty-some years ago, a junior senator from the state of Massachusetts who commanded a tiny warship and came home a hero had a problem with his Catholicism; 40 years later, a junior senator from the state of Massachusetts who commanded a tiny warship and came home a hero does as well.

That JFK was seen by some as too Catholic, this JFK, John Forbes Kerry, as not Catholic enough. In the years separating the two, politics evolved, Catholicism, also.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): At the Vatican, religion and politics were side by side, as President George Bush met Pope John Paul II. About 4,000 miles away at Saint Anthony's Catholic Church in Boston, the faithful were praying and pondering the significance of the Rome meeting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The fact that he's visited the pope does not influence my opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How better can you get? The president of the United States and the pope in the Vatican together, that has to work wonders for this world.

LOTHIAN: But behind that religious symbolism, some see a strategic move in the battle to win the vote of America's 65 million Catholics.

DR. DAVID KING, HARVARD INSTITUTE OF POLITICS: Being with the pope, hearing the pope's message, and sounding open to Catholicism can only help the president among conservative Catholics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I figure that, if he cares enough for all the Catholic people and everything, probably feel more, you know, better about him also.

LOTHIAN (on camera): The largest denomination is almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Some say how they ultimately vote could be a major factor, especially in battleground states like Ohio.

(voice-over): The Catholic candidate, Democrat John Kerry, proudly touts his religious roots, but his views on abortion rights and other issues have placed him at odds with the church. Some bishops have said he should be denied communion.

So does President Bush, the Protestant, anti-abortion candidate who has also made faith part of his political sermon, sense an opportunity?

KING: In some ways, this is a Hail Mary pass by the president to try and get Catholic votes.

LOTHIAN: But some say not all Catholics are swayed politically by the strict teachings of the church.

THOMAS GROOME, BOSTON COLLEGE: I think most Catholics will make up their minds apart from what these religious leaders tell them.

LOTHIAN: For this woman, a Vatican visit by the president isn't enough.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What influences my opinion is what he does on a large national scale.

LOTHIAN: A presidential trip leads to a debate over religious and a denomination both candidates over courting.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: If religion in one form or another might shape the election, the economy almost certainly will. Employers added 248,000 new jobs in May. That's higher than expected. The president made a point of mentioning that today. Senator Kerry pointed out, the administration is running about a million jobs in the red. Politics everywhere.

The unemployment rate meantime remains steady, 5.6 percent. That's the big picture. One of the pieces can be found in the Rust Belt in a factory that is hiring. Others are not, it pays to mention. An outplacement firm anticipates another wave of layoffs coming from larger corporations in the months ahead.

But over Bison Gear & Engineering in Saint Charles, Illinois, the picture today looks better, not worse.

Here's CNN's Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): James Szymczak is back on the floor of a manufacturing plant, working full-time for the first time in a year.

JAMES SZYMCZAK, MANUFACTURING WORKER: It shows that things are picking back up in the economy, where people are hiring.

LAWRENCE: At Bison Gear & Engineering, Szymczak and about 175 others are hustling to keep up with a 15 percent surge in orders. And the job outlook's a lot better than last June, when another manufacturer laid off Szymczak.

SZYMCZAK: It's devastating with five kids, because you look -- you look at their faces when you go home and you know you have got to support them.

LAWRENCE (on camera): Bison has already hired about 25 people this year and they're looking for more. But you don't have to go very far back to find a very different company.

(voice-over): A few years ago, Bison laid off 30 percent of its workers over a few months. RON BULLOCK, OWNER, BISON GEAR & ENGINEERING: In the year 2001, we were in a survival mode.

LAWRENCE: Owner Ron Bullock says Bison makes gear and electric motors for all kinds of companies, from powering treadmills to machines that make ice cream.

BULLOCK: And we think we're a pretty good barometer of what is happening in the economy.

LAWRENCE: Bullock says customers from various industries have been ordering more, allowing him to hire more workers. Profits are up compared to a couple of years ago, but still not where they were in the year 2000.

(on camera): So you're cautiously optimistic?

BULLOCK: Yes. The fight is never over. You need to keep sharpening the saw every day.

LAWRENCE (voice-over): But every day for now, the orders are coming into Bison. And for workers like these, the recovery is real.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Saint Charles, Illinois.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, D-Day and the victory that followed wasn't just a war. It was a force of change, change that affected just about every aspect of our lives. Jeff Greenfield on that.

And later, Bruce Morton looks at the bleak realities that underlie all wars after the guns have fallen silent.

A break first. On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Looking at row after row of crosses in military cemeteries, from Normandy to Arlington to Manchuria, it's hard to imagine the Second World War as a backdrop to anything, but it was -- the backdrop and the catalyst and the connective tissue to a generation that might otherwise have turned out utterly different.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): You will be seeing images like these all weekend long on your TV sets. And you'll see images as well like these, pictures of the young men now grown old receiving what may be their last tributes 60 years after the Normandy invasion that marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War.

(on camera): But because the memory of what happened and our gratitude to these men is so profound, it's easy to overlook what World War II did not on foreign battlefields, but right here at home.

(voice-over): The war ended the Great Depression. The universal draft took millions of men out of the work force, gave them three square meals a day and a roof over their heads. At home, a massive industrial mobilization poured billions of dollars into American pockets, all but wiped out unemployment. And the war's end left the United States the world's lone economic superpower.

That war changed where and how we lived. Millions went West to live in the defense plants and stayed. Millions more poured into the big cities, including blacks, who found good-paying jobs and racial hostility. The Detroit race riots of 1943 that left 25 blacks and nine whites dead was triggered by white outrage over black promotions in a defense plant. That war gave the federal government vastly more resources, power and range than ever before.

It effectively ran the American economy and in the decade since that war, neither Republicans nor Democratic governments have reversed that flow of power. And the war's influence reached well beyond the war's end. The G.I. Bill of Rights gave education and job training that propelled eight million veterans and their families into the middle class.

New techniques in home building, coupled with cheap G.I. mortgages effectively created the rush to the suburbs that reshaped our living patterns and our politics. Those young men who hit the beaches and the cliffs of Normandy 60 years ago were fighting thousands of miles from home, but the war they helped end would change the country they came home to for the rest of their lives and ours.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight, Omaha Beach on D-Day as seen through the lens of the best combat photographer who ever picked up a camera.

And later, tomorrow's news on tomorrow's front pages.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's often said war is hell, a place you can't imagine without seeing, which is why war photographers are such a special breed. They risk their lives to document what most of us would otherwise never see.

In 1938, the "Picture Post" magazine dubbed Robert Capa the greatest war photographer in the world. That was nearly six years before he would photograph the first waves of troops rushing Omaha Beach in Normandy. He would go on to co-found Magnum Photos and to cover other conflicts. But it's his D-Day photographs that set the bar so high.

We spoke recently to Richard Whelan, the author of "Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD WHELAN, AUTHOR, "ROBERT CAPA": If one had to choose a day that was the climax of Capa's career, D-Day was it.

Capa set the standard of bravery, certainly. He took his camera closer to the front-line action than anyone had ever dared to do before. He chose to go in with the first wave of American troops. And the soldiers thought this was the most extraordinary folly they'd ever heard of, that someone would go in without being ordered to do so.

Capa photographed them studying this model, planning their strategic moves. He photographed men putting their equipment together and getting on to the ships, as they were putting the final preparations on the sail, and while they were actually sailing to the French coast.

When he got out of the landing craft into waist-deep water and waded with the men into the beach, he began shooting and he had two cameras loaded with film. He wanted to photograph the faces of the soldiers. He wasn't content to walk behind and photograph the soldiers' backs. He wanted the faces, as he always did.

And when he went to change the film, hi hands were shaking so badly he could not change his film again. There were so much pressure in the London office of "LIFE" that a darkroom assistant turned the heat in the drying cabinet up too high. And the films that Capa had exposed at such extraordinary risk to his life, going in with his back to the Germans, armed only with a camera, no gun, the films he had made began to melt. Of all the photographs he had made on the beach, only 11 were at all savable, usable.

When Capa left Omaha Beach, the only landing craft to which he could manage to swim was a medical craft that was evacuating some of the first of the wounded. He often focused on doctors, medics, treating not only Americans, but Germans as well. What interested him was how the living cope with the horrors of war.

He really understood what a horrendous social crisis, a catastrophe war is. The German army had sustained extremely heavy losses. And these very, very young men, these boys really, were thrown into combat with almost no training, very little equipment. He photographed them as bewildered, terrified, victims of war in their own way.

Capa was very aware of the political complexities of the situation. And he brought that to his work. He covered wars that in some ways really touched his life very directly and wars in which he was willing to risk his life, just as the combatants were risking theirs for the outcome. Capa's work is a benchmark to measure work against, as most photojournalists do still regard Capa in that sense. They depend upon his work. They go back to his work to get their bearings, to get a sense of what it really is about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Capa's luck ran out in Vietnam in 1954. He was covering a French effort there. He was killed after he stepped on a land mine. He was 40 years old. His camera was in his hand when he died.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, Bruce Morton takes a look at the realities of war, all wars, even the good ones.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We honor the fallen this way every night. It takes about a half a minute. Doing the same for those who died on D-Day would take four hours. It is one measure of the gulf between then and now. And there are many. But in some respects, each misses the point about war, any war.

Here's CNN's Bruce Morton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All wars are alike. Each war is different. The bodies come home. The families mourn. Wars come in different sizes, but the grief is the same. Pain, like politics, is local.

We've lost fewer than 1,000 Americans so far in America. D-Day 60 years ago this weekend was massive. About 156,000 allied troops, 73,000 American, landed in Normandy. Roughly 2,500 allied troops died. Overall, the U.S. lost 400,000 men and women in World War II. Each of these gold stars on the World War II Memorial stands for 100 dead.

It was war in Europe, in the Pacific, on a scale that's hard to imagine today. Everyone's windows had little banners with a star on them, a blue star for a son or daughter in the service, a gold star for one who died, so many of those that a young John Kennedy, campaigning for Congress, told a roomful of gold star mothers that he knew how they felt because his mother was one, too.

The new memorial here honors that war's dead. And those who died on D-Day have a special place, the U.S. military cemetery in Normandy just above Omaha Beach, a very quiet place. Was it, as many have said, the last good war? The late Bill Mauldin was in Europe, along with his G.I. cartoons of Willie and Joe. He talked about it 50 years after the war in Europe ended.

BILL MAULDIN, WORLD WAR II CARTOONIST: Well, we whipped some people that needed whipping. Outside of that, I can't think of anything really useful that came of it, you know. It's -- I haven't seen any letup in the number of wars going on, the number of people getting killed in various ways. You know, it is kind of discouraging.

MORTON: Longtime CBS anchor Walter Cronkite covered the European war for United Press. WALTER CRONKITE, FORMER CBS ANCHORMAN: Good war? Oh, no, no, no. There's no good war. It was a terrible war, a negative war, a horrible war. But the idea that people understand sometimes the need for that kind of violent action in defense of liberty and home.

MORTON: After Pearl Harbor, it was an uncontroversial war in America, plenty of isolationists on December 6, but not afterward.

Most of our wars haven't been like that. Lots of Americans were against the American Revolution. Lots, even in the North, were against the Civil War. The statues that honor the Korean vets stand quietly now, but that war, undeclared, never formally ended, sharply divided America. The black wall with the names of the 58,000 who died in Vietnam is a place for healing now. But then, kids outside the White House chanted hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?

Everyone was for the war in Afghanistan, but not for the invasion of Iraq. So we go on, free, in wars or out of them, to speak our minds, and the bodies come home, many or few. Only the grief never changes.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Let's have morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country around the world. It's Friday. We'll throw in a tabloid or two, if my voice holds out. I think it will.

"The International Herald Tribune." "U.S. Posts Strong Job Growth For Third Month" is their lead. A D-Day story. But this is the best story in the paper. "Spain Challenges FBI Approach to Bomb Arrest." This is the Brandon Mayfield story, the young Portland lawyer who was arrested in connection with the Madrid bombings. It turned out to be bogus. There's a story here, my friends. I can feel it.

"The Washington Times" leads with the economy, also. "May Brings Quarter-Million U.S. Jobs Jolt." Also puts the president's visit with the pope on the front page. "Pope Scolds Bush on Abuse of Prisoners, Urges Greater U.N. Role in Iraq." That's one of those meetings you would have liked to have attended, isn't it?

"Philadelphia Inquirer." Got to have Smarty Jones story. There's a big Smarty party tomorrow at Belmont. "A Smarty in Name Only." It's a horse, of course. Wait. That's like that Mr. Ed thing.

How much time we got? Oh, OK. Cool; "248,000 Find Jobs in May." That's headline in the "Cincinnati Enquirer." Notable, Smarty Jones, another story here. Smarty carried the weight of history today.

We'll do "The San Antonio Express-News," not because it's a brilliant paper today, but because a guy sent an e-mail begging. He should send hot sauce from San Antonio. No, it's actually a very good paper. It leads with the economy. A good story here, "Warrior Against War." A Marine who lost his leg in the war now questions the effort.

Here we go with the tabloids for today, some stories you may not have heard about because we didn't have the courage to report. "Nasa Plans to Castrate Astronaut So Coed Crew Won't Fool Around on Trip to Mars." "Osama to Unleash Evil Minds on U.S. to Drive You Crazy." OK, this one is a little racy, folks, so a woman in Cleveland, please don't be listening. "America Brings Out the Big Guns. Gal's Boobs Pick Up Al Qaeda Chatter." That was actually printed.

This is the best of them ever, OK? More on the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal: "Prisoners Forced to Watch Jerry Lewis Movies."

The weather tomorrow in Chicago is radiant.

Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Good night for all of us.

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 June 4, 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.
This weekend in Normandy, the world remembers D-Day. In words far more eloquent than these, the men who planned the invasion and the men who carried it out will be remembered for what they did and how what they did changed the course of the war and perhaps the world.

While we can't match the eloquence of those weekend speeches, we can do what we do best. We can tell a few stories. And tonight, we will. They're not the reliving of D-Day stories, just a few tales about a family that has gone to war again and again, about the nature of war itself, about World War II and some things you might not have considered when you think about how it changed history. They're sprinkled throughout the program tonight. About the only place they don't show up is in "The Whip."

It begins with Iraq and what the pope had to say to the president. CNN's John King has the duty tonight and starts us off with a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president had an audience with Pope John Paul II today and received a bit of a lecture about Iraq. The pope says the Vatican's opposition to the war was unequivocal, the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was deplorable, and that the United States and its coalition allies should turn sovereignty back over to the Iraqi people as soon as possible -- Aaron.

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

Next to Baghdad, a very mixed picture there. CNN's Harris Whitbeck is reporting again tonight.

The headline, please?

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the interim prime minister went on national television asking for the people's support and some of them said they'll give it to him.

BROWN: And finally the report on 9/11 shaping up to be a tough one, that and other intelligence matters.

CNN's Joe Johns is at the Capitol tonight.

Joe, a headline from you.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the Senate report on prewar intelligence is still veiled in secrecy, but it is expected to come out soon. And a lot of people are it's going to be one tough document.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. Good to have you with us tonight. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up on this Friday, job numbers came out today and they looked good, good for the unemployed and perhaps good for the president as well. This is a political season, after all. As we said, Sunday, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, a day where heroes were everywhere, as was fear and triumph and far too much death. And the rooster is fairly heroic just for showing up every night around here with morning papers. And since it's Friday, we shall throw in a tabloid or two, a couple of goodies there. All that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight at the intersection of the past, the present and the timeless, in other words, Europe, where events of 60 years ago at Normandy and a year and a half ago at the United Nations live side by side this weekend. They form the backdrop of the president's visit, which aims to play up the first and paper over the second. It may not be easy, but increasingly the administration is coming to see it is necessary.

There's Iraq, the war on terror and the reelection campaign, all of which runs smoother with allies. So the past and the present intertwine this weekend. And the timeless, the president came face to face with that in Rome today.

We start with our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): At the Vatican, the aging pope's speech was halting, at times slurred. But his message to the president clear. John Paul II spoke of grave unrest in Iraq, called the Vatican's opposition to the war unequivocal and labeled the abuse of Iraqi prisoners deplorable.

Neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome, the pope told Mr. Bush, without an end to such abuses and a universal commitment to human rights.

But there were words the president and his delegation found encouraging. The holy father called for the speedy return of Iraq's sovereignty and said this week's appointment of an interim government is an encouraging step.

At this public session Mr. Bush presented the pope with the presidential medal of freedom and steered clear of controversy.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We appreciate the strong symbol of freedom that you have stood for. And we recognize the power of freedom to change societies and to change the world. KING: In a private meeting in the pope's study, aides say Mr. Bush defended the war and promised a vigorous investigation of the prisoner abuses.

Opposition to the Iraq war runs deep here in Italy and across Europe. And the president's visit generated boisterous protests. And a massive deployment of police in central Rome. But the demonstrations were overwhelmingly peaceful. Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, supported the Iraq war, deployed 2,700 troops there and has a warm relationship with Mr. Bush.

France is the president's next stop, and strained would be an understatement in describing recent relations between Mr. Bush and President Jacques Chirac, an outspoken Iraq War critic.

(on camera): Mr. Bush said he considers Mr. Chirac a friend and looks forward to cooperation with Paris now on a new United Nations resolution endorsing Iraq's political transition. Asked by a Paris magazine if Mr. Chirac is worthy of an invitation to Crawford, Texas, the president did not specifically mention his ranch there, but says, if he wants to see some cows, he's welcome.

John King, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, if Crawford is a long way from Paris, so too is Normandy. On one of those beaches there today, someone wrote God bless America in giant letters in the sand. It said nothing about then and now, though others did.

Here's CNN's Jim Bittermann.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across Normandy, you see the flags flying, the decorations going up. And there's no question about it. The French are in love with America, or at least the America of 60 years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We remember very well what America did 60 years ago. But we have the recognize that the D- Day landings better than the attack on Iraq.

BITTERMANN: Even in the sophisticated, often cynical boulevards of Paris, a week of liberty with light shows, debates and dances has been organized to show simple gratitude for liberation.

The goodwill is everywhere, free hotel rooms and trans-Atlantic flights offered to American vets, scores of ceremonies to honor them personally. But ask the Harvard-educated pro-American organizer of Liberty Week where relations stand between the U.S. and France, and he doesn't mince words.

PIERRE LELLOUCHE, LIBERTY WEEK ORGANIZER: There is a concentration of quite a hatred against the person of George Bush. It's a very new phenomenon. He is considered as a moron or as a danger surrounded by dangerous people.

BITTERMANN: That phenomenon got its start last year in the protests against Washington's drumbeat to go to war against Iraq. And it has not helped those who questioned the quest to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq believe their skepticism was justified.

At last year's G8 Summit, there was at least a symbolic attempt to patch over trans-Atlantic differences. But there's been plenty since to strain them again, postwar Iraq, the mistreatment of prisoners, and yet another U.N. resolution some countries cannot yet accept.

AXEL PONIATOWSKI, FRENCH PARLIAMENT: The point is that the country is so big and is so powerful, then, of course, it is easier for the United States to impose their views than it was a few years ago when they were kind of balanced. That was more respected.

BITTERMANN (on camera): In an interview published in a French magazine on Thursday, President Bush claims he was never angry with France. The day before, President Chirac of France said the same thing about the United States. And it's clear both men plan to use the ceremonies here to try to patch up their differences, even if a potential confrontation is brewing over the U.N. resolution on the future of Iraq.

(voice-over): In a small town near the D-Day beaches Thursday afternoon, there was yet another commemoration of events 60 years ago. Anyone who says the French have forgotten what the U.S. did for them on the coast of Normandy simply has not been here. But the U.S. of today is not the America they thank.

Jim Bittermann, CNN, on the Normandy coast of France.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On now to Iraq, starting with the paperwork Jim alluded to.

At the U.N. today, the United States submitted a third draft of a resolution outlining Iraq's return to sovereignty. The document also authorizes the presence of multinational troops after the handover at the end of June. The new revision now faces the review of technical experts, meaning the vote on it will likely not happen until next week at the earliest.

In Iraq itself, several major developments to report tonight. In the eastern part of Baghdad, five American soldiers were killed, five others injured. Their Humvee was attacked today. The attack brings the U.S. death toll in Iraq to 825.

In Najaf and in Kufa, where coalition forces have been fighting troops loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for weeks now, a move to make a cease-fire hold finally. The governor of Najaf today ordered Iraqi police to begin patrolling the centers of both cities near the holy shrines. Coalition troops will retreat to the city's outskirts, as they have already done in the north in Fallujah. A mixed backdrop then for Iraq's new prime minister, who outlined the government's agenda today in a national television address.

With more on that, CNN's Harris Whitbeck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITBECK (voice-over): Another first in Iraq, an Iraqi leader other than Saddam Hussein addressed the nation on television asking for the people's support. And he reaffirmed Saddam would be tried in an Iraqi court.

IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER-DESIGNATE (through translator): I will meet in the next week with the special court that the Iraqis will accept after transferring sovereignty. This court will be in charge of the crimes that were committed at the time of Saddam.

WHITBECK: While promising he will fight to insure full sovereignty, Iyad Allawi told his countrymen he needed their help, moral support for the new leaders and practical support in standing up to the insurgency whose attacks are destabilizing the country.

Iraqis gathered at a Baghdad teahouse were generally supportive. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He called for the stability Iraq, for security to prevail and for the rebuilding of the country. And we the Iraqi people will support him in order for him to do so.

WHITBECK: But the interim prime minister also said foreign troops will have to stay in Iraq a while longer. And many who heard him were skeptical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Let the U.S. forces remain in Iraq. But it continues with its present provocation, they will have to be changed. The resistance is the result of the American provocations.

WHITBECK (on camera): Allawi said continued attacks will delay return to civility and an improvement in the economy. He asked for patience but said ultimately the solution is in Iraqis hands.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Now to wars past.

This weekend's D-Day commemorations obviously hold special meaning to the veterans of World War II, veterans like George Wiersma of Sparta, Michigan. He was not the first in his family to go to war, nor the last. The family's history of military service dates back to the First World War. Four successive generations have gone off to battle when called. Each time, they've taken a reminder of home and family with them.

Their story told tonight by CNN's Jonathan freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 87 years, the men of fighting age in the Wiersma family have answered the call of duty and made it back home.

GEORGE WIERSMA, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: What happened at Bastogne was one awful big battle.

FREED: George Wiersma fought in World War II.

(on camera): What part of it stays with you the most?

G. WIERSMA: Oh, I don't know. I think the dead bodies laying on the ground. I think that's what I remember the most. And there was many, many of them, many of them.

FREED (voice-over): George's son, John, is a Vietnam veteran. What he remembers is the sting of controversy.

JOHN WIERSMA, VIETNAM VETERAN: You didn't feel like people were united behind the effort. And so, you had mixed feelings. And the same when you got back. People didn't talk much about where you had been or what you had done.

FREED: That's Scott Fuhs, John's nephew. Iraq is his war. And having fought there has helped him to see America through different eyes since he came home last week.

SCOTT FUHS, U.S. SOLDIER: I've seen a lot of changes in the last six months that I've been gone.

FREED (on camera): Like what?

FUHS: Just in terms of the seriousness within the nation itself, I think, towards what's going on, the concern.

FREED (voice-over): He just served a tour in Tikrit and with him throughout an 18-karat gold cross. Scott's great grandfather wore it first in the First World War. Then it landed on Omaha Beach with the grandfather George in July of 1944. Uncle John to Southeast Asia. And now Corporal Fuhs will bear the cross back for a second tour in Iraq.

(on camera): Did you feel at times that the cross kept you safe?

FUHS: I don't feel that the cross in and of itself kept me safe. But it was comforting to have it there because of the background of it.

FREED: The three generations of warriors hope Iraq will be the last war zone the crucifix they see. Scott, though, is reluctantly prepared to hand it off once more.

FUHS: Passed on down hopefully to my children, and have those same values that my father, mother, my uncles, my grandfather have passed on to me. FREED: A cherished tradition seeing a family through conflict.

Jonathan Freed, CNN, Sparta, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, a stinging report leaking out from Capitol Hill on the CIA's failure to get the facts on Iraq before the war. And why would George Bush be so eager to be seen with the pope? It couldn't have anything to do with politics, could it?

From around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The first casualties in what would become the war against terror were those people aboard the four airliners hijacked on 9/11.

Today, at a private briefing in Princeton, New Jersey, about 150 of their relatives listened to tapes of phone calls the passengers made that day from those planes, listened as well to government investigators lay out in as much detail as they could what exactly happened during the flights' final moments.

Deborah Burlingame, whose brother Charles was a pilot aboard American Airlines Flight 77, eloquently said aloud what many must have felt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH BURLINGAME, SISTER OF 9/11 VICTIM: Today was a very difficult day for all the families. And I'd like to thank the Department of Justice, all the U.S. attorneys and assistant U.S. attorneys and all the FBI agents and special agents in charge who were in charge of all these four flights.

And I just have to say that I was overwhelmed by the unbelievable courage of the passengers and crews of all four of these flights. And I sat there wistfully wishing that this country could be as united and as determined and as brave in fighting the terrorists as they were in the first few moments of September 11. I wish we could be that way two and a half years later, as they were. I was very proud of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: At the end of next month, the 9/11 Commission will submit its long-awaited report on the terrorist attacks and the failure to prevent them. Excuse me.

It's just of one three reports expected to hammer the CIA for bungling intelligence before and after 9/11. The criticism coming down the pike is one reason many people believe George Tenet resigned his post yesterday. A 400-page report by the Senate Intelligence Committee presented to the CIA for comment last month, much of it dealing with Iraq, is said to be the harshest of the three.

From the Hill tonight, here's CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS (voice-over): The Senate report is being called a stinging indictment of CIA failures; so harsh, it's seen by some senators as one reason George Tenet resigned. Publicly, the Intelligence Committee chairman calls it, unflattering.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), KANSAS: I think the community is in somewhat denial over the full extent, and I emphasize full extent, of the shortcoming of its work on Iraq.

JOHNS: The report is especially critical of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, detailing evidence the CIA said showed Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, and was trying to rebuild its nuclear weapons program. Among the findings, committee sources say, claims were based on unfounded assumptions, multiple names were used for the same source, making the evidence look stronger than it was. U.S. intelligence never interviewed sources who said Iraq had mobile weapons labs. And warnings one of those sources was a fabricator were ignored.

ROBERT BAER, FORMER CIA OFFICER: Sometimes in terrorism, if there's an imminent threat, you take unsourced information, disseminate it. But something to justify a preemptive war is totally unacceptable.

JOHNS: The CIA, which is adding its remarks to the report and taking out classified material, had no comment.

Before George Tenet's resignation, Chairman Roberts suggested that intelligence failures were so serious, someone should be fired or disciplined.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Roberts says he expects to release the report publicly as early at this month. Then the committee begins working on a second report on the policy-makers and whether they hyped the threat of weapons of mass destruction to make the case for war -- Aaron.

BROWN: All right, just a quick one here and then a longer one. When does that second report come out?

JOHNS: Well, that's a good question. One thing is clear. At least we're told for now, that report will not come out until after the election. There was a lot of concern about that, Aaron.

BROWN: You read my mind.

How much of the Intelligence Committee's report -- and the Intelligence Committee really is among the most bipartisanship of the committees in the Congress -- how much of that will we actually see and how much of it is classified?

JOHNS: Well, that's the key question and that's what's going on right now. Once they wrote this report, then they had to disseminate it to the various agencies, chiefly the CIA, for them to talk about declassification. They're trying to figure out what stays in, what goes out, what the public can see and what the public cannot. That's an ongoing negotiation and sometimes it takes quite a long time, Aaron.

BROWN: Joe, thank you. We'll wait and see when it does comes out what it all proves out. Thank you.

Amid all of this, a new piece of the pre-9/11 story is emerging. The London "Sunday Times" first reported some of the details last month. Today, "The Wall Street Journal" added much more after interviewing the British Muslim at the center. His names is Niaz Khan and he claims he was trained as a hijacker for Osama bin Laden.

He later turned himself into the FBI about 18 months before the 9/11 attack.

"The Wall Street Journal"'s Glenn Simpson interviewed Mr. Khan in London. And Mr. Simpson joins us from Washington tonight.

Nice to see you.

GLENN SIMPSON, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Good evening.

BROWN: Mr. Khan is not what you would think a potential terrorist would be. He's sort of a sad case.

SIMPSON: I think that's right, although he's also a highly eligible recruit. He's a person who never really settled into British culture, where he was born. He's sort of half Pakistani, half British, had problems with gambling, susceptible and persuadable, someone you could convince to kill himself.

BROWN: By the way, is it clear that -- did he believe that whatever mission he would ultimately go on would end in his own death?

SIMPSON: That's what he says. And I believe him.

BROWN: OK.

Just to kind of fast-forward a bit, he goes on this kind of around-the-world tour on al Qaeda money, ends up in the United States with $3,000 in his pocket and does what?

SIMPSON: Goes to Atlantic City and gambles it away at the roulette table.

BROWN: And then does what?

SIMPSON: Turns himself into the Atlantic City Police. And they hand him over to the counterterrorism squad of the FBI in Newark, New Jersey.

BROWN: And then what? SIMPSON: They don't take him seriously at first, but they do their job. They investigate him. They debrief him. They question him extensively. He has enough detail that they're interested. They hook him up to a polygraph. He passes.

They start to think maybe there's something to this. They put him in a safe house. They sit him down with a sketch artist. They do drawings of the people he says he met in Pakistan. They ask him more questions. Then they hook him up to the polygraph again. At the end of this roughly two-week period, the street agents who are working the case were apparently convinced that he was not making the story up.

BROWN: And the story was essentially that he had gone and been trained as a hijacker, that there were -- he had been told other people in the country already that he would be contacted by, that he would work with. And when you talked to him, did you believe it?

SIMPSON: I must say, I found it incredible at first when I heard the story. And he was not particularly persuasive the first time I met him. I did meet him several times and began to be persuaded that he wasn't making the story up after I did some checking. And it just seemed improbable that someone could walk into the FBI in April of 2000 and tell a tale of being recruited in this way, when no one at the time knew any of this was going on. The FBI didn't know this was going on.

BROWN: And just finally, Glenn, they let him go, right?

SIMPSON: They did. That has to be understood. I mean, he didn't commit a crime while in the United States.

BROWN: Right.

SIMPSON: And so they turned him over to the British in the hope and the expectation that the British would continue the investigation in conjunction with the United States. It's not quite clear, but it looks as if that did not happen.

BROWN: Glenn, a nice piece of reporting. It's a fascinating story. Thanks for your time tonight.

SIMPSON: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Thank you.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, a look at the politics of religion. Will the Catholic vote switch from the Democrats, where it has been for years, or will it be the economy that proves decisive in November? If so, things are looking up for the GOP, this month at least.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Forty-some years ago, a junior senator from the state of Massachusetts who commanded a tiny warship and came home a hero had a problem with his Catholicism; 40 years later, a junior senator from the state of Massachusetts who commanded a tiny warship and came home a hero does as well.

That JFK was seen by some as too Catholic, this JFK, John Forbes Kerry, as not Catholic enough. In the years separating the two, politics evolved, Catholicism, also.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): At the Vatican, religion and politics were side by side, as President George Bush met Pope John Paul II. About 4,000 miles away at Saint Anthony's Catholic Church in Boston, the faithful were praying and pondering the significance of the Rome meeting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The fact that he's visited the pope does not influence my opinion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How better can you get? The president of the United States and the pope in the Vatican together, that has to work wonders for this world.

LOTHIAN: But behind that religious symbolism, some see a strategic move in the battle to win the vote of America's 65 million Catholics.

DR. DAVID KING, HARVARD INSTITUTE OF POLITICS: Being with the pope, hearing the pope's message, and sounding open to Catholicism can only help the president among conservative Catholics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I figure that, if he cares enough for all the Catholic people and everything, probably feel more, you know, better about him also.

LOTHIAN (on camera): The largest denomination is almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Some say how they ultimately vote could be a major factor, especially in battleground states like Ohio.

(voice-over): The Catholic candidate, Democrat John Kerry, proudly touts his religious roots, but his views on abortion rights and other issues have placed him at odds with the church. Some bishops have said he should be denied communion.

So does President Bush, the Protestant, anti-abortion candidate who has also made faith part of his political sermon, sense an opportunity?

KING: In some ways, this is a Hail Mary pass by the president to try and get Catholic votes.

LOTHIAN: But some say not all Catholics are swayed politically by the strict teachings of the church.

THOMAS GROOME, BOSTON COLLEGE: I think most Catholics will make up their minds apart from what these religious leaders tell them.

LOTHIAN: For this woman, a Vatican visit by the president isn't enough.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What influences my opinion is what he does on a large national scale.

LOTHIAN: A presidential trip leads to a debate over religious and a denomination both candidates over courting.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: If religion in one form or another might shape the election, the economy almost certainly will. Employers added 248,000 new jobs in May. That's higher than expected. The president made a point of mentioning that today. Senator Kerry pointed out, the administration is running about a million jobs in the red. Politics everywhere.

The unemployment rate meantime remains steady, 5.6 percent. That's the big picture. One of the pieces can be found in the Rust Belt in a factory that is hiring. Others are not, it pays to mention. An outplacement firm anticipates another wave of layoffs coming from larger corporations in the months ahead.

But over Bison Gear & Engineering in Saint Charles, Illinois, the picture today looks better, not worse.

Here's CNN's Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): James Szymczak is back on the floor of a manufacturing plant, working full-time for the first time in a year.

JAMES SZYMCZAK, MANUFACTURING WORKER: It shows that things are picking back up in the economy, where people are hiring.

LAWRENCE: At Bison Gear & Engineering, Szymczak and about 175 others are hustling to keep up with a 15 percent surge in orders. And the job outlook's a lot better than last June, when another manufacturer laid off Szymczak.

SZYMCZAK: It's devastating with five kids, because you look -- you look at their faces when you go home and you know you have got to support them.

LAWRENCE (on camera): Bison has already hired about 25 people this year and they're looking for more. But you don't have to go very far back to find a very different company.

(voice-over): A few years ago, Bison laid off 30 percent of its workers over a few months. RON BULLOCK, OWNER, BISON GEAR & ENGINEERING: In the year 2001, we were in a survival mode.

LAWRENCE: Owner Ron Bullock says Bison makes gear and electric motors for all kinds of companies, from powering treadmills to machines that make ice cream.

BULLOCK: And we think we're a pretty good barometer of what is happening in the economy.

LAWRENCE: Bullock says customers from various industries have been ordering more, allowing him to hire more workers. Profits are up compared to a couple of years ago, but still not where they were in the year 2000.

(on camera): So you're cautiously optimistic?

BULLOCK: Yes. The fight is never over. You need to keep sharpening the saw every day.

LAWRENCE (voice-over): But every day for now, the orders are coming into Bison. And for workers like these, the recovery is real.

Chris Lawrence, CNN, Saint Charles, Illinois.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, D-Day and the victory that followed wasn't just a war. It was a force of change, change that affected just about every aspect of our lives. Jeff Greenfield on that.

And later, Bruce Morton looks at the bleak realities that underlie all wars after the guns have fallen silent.

A break first. On CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Looking at row after row of crosses in military cemeteries, from Normandy to Arlington to Manchuria, it's hard to imagine the Second World War as a backdrop to anything, but it was -- the backdrop and the catalyst and the connective tissue to a generation that might otherwise have turned out utterly different.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): You will be seeing images like these all weekend long on your TV sets. And you'll see images as well like these, pictures of the young men now grown old receiving what may be their last tributes 60 years after the Normandy invasion that marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War.

(on camera): But because the memory of what happened and our gratitude to these men is so profound, it's easy to overlook what World War II did not on foreign battlefields, but right here at home.

(voice-over): The war ended the Great Depression. The universal draft took millions of men out of the work force, gave them three square meals a day and a roof over their heads. At home, a massive industrial mobilization poured billions of dollars into American pockets, all but wiped out unemployment. And the war's end left the United States the world's lone economic superpower.

That war changed where and how we lived. Millions went West to live in the defense plants and stayed. Millions more poured into the big cities, including blacks, who found good-paying jobs and racial hostility. The Detroit race riots of 1943 that left 25 blacks and nine whites dead was triggered by white outrage over black promotions in a defense plant. That war gave the federal government vastly more resources, power and range than ever before.

It effectively ran the American economy and in the decade since that war, neither Republicans nor Democratic governments have reversed that flow of power. And the war's influence reached well beyond the war's end. The G.I. Bill of Rights gave education and job training that propelled eight million veterans and their families into the middle class.

New techniques in home building, coupled with cheap G.I. mortgages effectively created the rush to the suburbs that reshaped our living patterns and our politics. Those young men who hit the beaches and the cliffs of Normandy 60 years ago were fighting thousands of miles from home, but the war they helped end would change the country they came home to for the rest of their lives and ours.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight, Omaha Beach on D-Day as seen through the lens of the best combat photographer who ever picked up a camera.

And later, tomorrow's news on tomorrow's front pages.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's often said war is hell, a place you can't imagine without seeing, which is why war photographers are such a special breed. They risk their lives to document what most of us would otherwise never see.

In 1938, the "Picture Post" magazine dubbed Robert Capa the greatest war photographer in the world. That was nearly six years before he would photograph the first waves of troops rushing Omaha Beach in Normandy. He would go on to co-found Magnum Photos and to cover other conflicts. But it's his D-Day photographs that set the bar so high.

We spoke recently to Richard Whelan, the author of "Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD WHELAN, AUTHOR, "ROBERT CAPA": If one had to choose a day that was the climax of Capa's career, D-Day was it.

Capa set the standard of bravery, certainly. He took his camera closer to the front-line action than anyone had ever dared to do before. He chose to go in with the first wave of American troops. And the soldiers thought this was the most extraordinary folly they'd ever heard of, that someone would go in without being ordered to do so.

Capa photographed them studying this model, planning their strategic moves. He photographed men putting their equipment together and getting on to the ships, as they were putting the final preparations on the sail, and while they were actually sailing to the French coast.

When he got out of the landing craft into waist-deep water and waded with the men into the beach, he began shooting and he had two cameras loaded with film. He wanted to photograph the faces of the soldiers. He wasn't content to walk behind and photograph the soldiers' backs. He wanted the faces, as he always did.

And when he went to change the film, hi hands were shaking so badly he could not change his film again. There were so much pressure in the London office of "LIFE" that a darkroom assistant turned the heat in the drying cabinet up too high. And the films that Capa had exposed at such extraordinary risk to his life, going in with his back to the Germans, armed only with a camera, no gun, the films he had made began to melt. Of all the photographs he had made on the beach, only 11 were at all savable, usable.

When Capa left Omaha Beach, the only landing craft to which he could manage to swim was a medical craft that was evacuating some of the first of the wounded. He often focused on doctors, medics, treating not only Americans, but Germans as well. What interested him was how the living cope with the horrors of war.

He really understood what a horrendous social crisis, a catastrophe war is. The German army had sustained extremely heavy losses. And these very, very young men, these boys really, were thrown into combat with almost no training, very little equipment. He photographed them as bewildered, terrified, victims of war in their own way.

Capa was very aware of the political complexities of the situation. And he brought that to his work. He covered wars that in some ways really touched his life very directly and wars in which he was willing to risk his life, just as the combatants were risking theirs for the outcome. Capa's work is a benchmark to measure work against, as most photojournalists do still regard Capa in that sense. They depend upon his work. They go back to his work to get their bearings, to get a sense of what it really is about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Capa's luck ran out in Vietnam in 1954. He was covering a French effort there. He was killed after he stepped on a land mine. He was 40 years old. His camera was in his hand when he died.

Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, Bruce Morton takes a look at the realities of war, all wars, even the good ones.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We honor the fallen this way every night. It takes about a half a minute. Doing the same for those who died on D-Day would take four hours. It is one measure of the gulf between then and now. And there are many. But in some respects, each misses the point about war, any war.

Here's CNN's Bruce Morton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): All wars are alike. Each war is different. The bodies come home. The families mourn. Wars come in different sizes, but the grief is the same. Pain, like politics, is local.

We've lost fewer than 1,000 Americans so far in America. D-Day 60 years ago this weekend was massive. About 156,000 allied troops, 73,000 American, landed in Normandy. Roughly 2,500 allied troops died. Overall, the U.S. lost 400,000 men and women in World War II. Each of these gold stars on the World War II Memorial stands for 100 dead.

It was war in Europe, in the Pacific, on a scale that's hard to imagine today. Everyone's windows had little banners with a star on them, a blue star for a son or daughter in the service, a gold star for one who died, so many of those that a young John Kennedy, campaigning for Congress, told a roomful of gold star mothers that he knew how they felt because his mother was one, too.

The new memorial here honors that war's dead. And those who died on D-Day have a special place, the U.S. military cemetery in Normandy just above Omaha Beach, a very quiet place. Was it, as many have said, the last good war? The late Bill Mauldin was in Europe, along with his G.I. cartoons of Willie and Joe. He talked about it 50 years after the war in Europe ended.

BILL MAULDIN, WORLD WAR II CARTOONIST: Well, we whipped some people that needed whipping. Outside of that, I can't think of anything really useful that came of it, you know. It's -- I haven't seen any letup in the number of wars going on, the number of people getting killed in various ways. You know, it is kind of discouraging.

MORTON: Longtime CBS anchor Walter Cronkite covered the European war for United Press. WALTER CRONKITE, FORMER CBS ANCHORMAN: Good war? Oh, no, no, no. There's no good war. It was a terrible war, a negative war, a horrible war. But the idea that people understand sometimes the need for that kind of violent action in defense of liberty and home.

MORTON: After Pearl Harbor, it was an uncontroversial war in America, plenty of isolationists on December 6, but not afterward.

Most of our wars haven't been like that. Lots of Americans were against the American Revolution. Lots, even in the North, were against the Civil War. The statues that honor the Korean vets stand quietly now, but that war, undeclared, never formally ended, sharply divided America. The black wall with the names of the 58,000 who died in Vietnam is a place for healing now. But then, kids outside the White House chanted hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?

Everyone was for the war in Afghanistan, but not for the invasion of Iraq. So we go on, free, in wars or out of them, to speak our minds, and the bodies come home, many or few. Only the grief never changes.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Let's have morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country around the world. It's Friday. We'll throw in a tabloid or two, if my voice holds out. I think it will.

"The International Herald Tribune." "U.S. Posts Strong Job Growth For Third Month" is their lead. A D-Day story. But this is the best story in the paper. "Spain Challenges FBI Approach to Bomb Arrest." This is the Brandon Mayfield story, the young Portland lawyer who was arrested in connection with the Madrid bombings. It turned out to be bogus. There's a story here, my friends. I can feel it.

"The Washington Times" leads with the economy, also. "May Brings Quarter-Million U.S. Jobs Jolt." Also puts the president's visit with the pope on the front page. "Pope Scolds Bush on Abuse of Prisoners, Urges Greater U.N. Role in Iraq." That's one of those meetings you would have liked to have attended, isn't it?

"Philadelphia Inquirer." Got to have Smarty Jones story. There's a big Smarty party tomorrow at Belmont. "A Smarty in Name Only." It's a horse, of course. Wait. That's like that Mr. Ed thing.

How much time we got? Oh, OK. Cool; "248,000 Find Jobs in May." That's headline in the "Cincinnati Enquirer." Notable, Smarty Jones, another story here. Smarty carried the weight of history today.

We'll do "The San Antonio Express-News," not because it's a brilliant paper today, but because a guy sent an e-mail begging. He should send hot sauce from San Antonio. No, it's actually a very good paper. It leads with the economy. A good story here, "Warrior Against War." A Marine who lost his leg in the war now questions the effort.

Here we go with the tabloids for today, some stories you may not have heard about because we didn't have the courage to report. "Nasa Plans to Castrate Astronaut So Coed Crew Won't Fool Around on Trip to Mars." "Osama to Unleash Evil Minds on U.S. to Drive You Crazy." OK, this one is a little racy, folks, so a woman in Cleveland, please don't be listening. "America Brings Out the Big Guns. Gal's Boobs Pick Up Al Qaeda Chatter." That was actually printed.

This is the best of them ever, OK? More on the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal: "Prisoners Forced to Watch Jerry Lewis Movies."

The weather tomorrow in Chicago is radiant.

Have a wonderful weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Good night for all of us.

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