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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

9/11 Commission Begins Final Public Hearings; Iraqi Insurgents Hit Oil Pipelines

Aired June 16, 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.
The 9/11 Commission began its final public hearings today laying out in some detail everything it's been able to learn about the plot and the plotters and much of the program tonight centers on their work.

They also caused a bit of a storm when they asserted that there was no real link between al Qaeda and Saddam. There was no meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence and, in the end, there was no love lost between the fanatical religious extremists of al Qaeda and Saddam, who was many things but a religious extremist he was not.

As recently as Monday, the vice president asserted otherwise, asserted there was a strong connection between al Qaeda and Iraq, so the commission gives us some history to consider and some additional grist for the political mill as well.

Its work leads the program tonight and, of course, begins the whip.

CNN's David Ensor starts us off, so David a headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the commission staff report says Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and backs that up with some evidence. It also lays out in great detail a competent, complex and flexible effort by al Qaeda on 9/11 and the report suggests that group remains a formidable foe -- Aaron.

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

On to Baghdad and the complexities of handing over Saddam Hussein and putting them on trial, CNN's Christiane Amanpour following the story, Christiane a headline tonight.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In the last half hour heavy explosions around this area. It sounds like large caliber mortar fire (unintelligible) as yet unknown, this as the head of the special tribunal here (AUDIO GAP) to file arrest warrants against Saddam Hussein in the next week or so -- Aaron.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you.

In Southern Iraq today at the only place insurgents had targeted but potentially the costliest they've hit oil pipelines there. Brent Sadler will have the report coming up tonight.

And finally the challenge and the cost of returning to the moon, then striking out for Mars, CNN's Miles O'Brien will report the story, Miles a headline.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, five months after President Bush told NASA to return to the moon and aim for Mars, the idea gets a report card. It says NASA can live with the lean budgets if it radically changes the way it does business.

BROWN: Miles, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up on the program tonight, new details to an already unsavory picture, the career of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

Plus, a surprising move made by the man at the center of a major sports scandal, a move that could prevent many of America's top runners, track and field stars from (AUDIO GAP) this summer in Athens.

And there will be no need for you to get up early in the morning to read your paper, well no reason at least to read the front page because we'll have the front page for you tonight we hope, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin at the end of a stunning day. It is a cherished belief in Washington that blue ribbon panels rarely make news. Today, the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks made plenty.

At the end of the day we now have the fullest theory yet of how 9/11 came to be, how much worse it might have been, who else was involved and more. The more has to do with the lynch pin of the president's case for going to war with Iraq and it too was a blockbuster today.

We have a number of reports tonight. We begin with CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): With chilling new detail, the 9/11 Commission staff laid out what it called a highly competent, flexible plot to attack the United States. Commissioners were dismayed.

JAMES THOMPSON, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: How in the world do we ever expect to win this war?

ENSOR: Among the revelations that mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed originally proposed hijacking ten planes in the U.S. to hit targets on the West Coast too and that he would personally land the tenth after just the men onboard had been killed in order to address the world's media.

That the plotters argued about whether Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania should target the U.S. Capitol or the White House. Osama bin Laden wanted to hit the White House. The pilots thought the Capitol would be an easier target. That one of the plotters says Zacarias Moussaoui was to have been the fourth pilot if Ziad Jarrah dropped out, as he was threatening to do, that original plans called for attacks in Asia and the U.S. simultaneously, that bin Laden wanted to attack back in 2000 but was told the hijackers weren't yet ready, that all 19 of the hijackers attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

DOUGLAS MACEACHIN, 9/11 COMMISSION STAFF: The camps create a climate in which trainees and other personnel were free to think creatively about ways to commit mass murder.

ENSOR: The commission made public a photo of Mohamed Atta withdrawing money in Virginia April 4th and spoke of him using his cell phone in Florida April 6th through 11th, so he couldn't have been in Prague meeting an Iraqi intelligence officer April 9th as administration officials have suggested and, in fact, the commission said Iraq was not involved in 9/11.

MCEACHIN: We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

ENSOR: Commissioners were not happy with how little FBI and CIA witnesses could tell them about al Qaeda's presence now in the United States.

LEE HAMILTON, 9/11 COMMISSION VICE CHMN.: To sum up then we have almost no information with regard to their capabilities in the United States. We know a little bit about their funding in the United States today. We know a little bit about their leadership today in the United States. We know very little, if anything, about their command and control. Do I sum it up correctly?

JOHN PISTOLE, FBI COUNTERTERRORISM DIRECTOR: That's fairly accurate.

ENSOR: The commission also says there's intelligence suggesting al Qaeda played a role in the Khobar Towers bombing of 1996 that killed 19 U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia, possibly cooperating with Hezbollah and Iran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: There will be more revelations Thursday commissioners are telling us. Most people believe, for example, that the White House ordered the military to shoot down civilian airliners if it came to that on 9/11 and that the military was ready to do so.

Not true, one commissioner tells us, and that commissioner says that there are other urban myths out there about 9/11 that will also be corrected at tomorrow's hearing -- Aaron.

BROWN: Can we just because we're going to spend some time on this, David, talk for a minute about what the commission did say and what it did not say about the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq. In the sound we heard they talked specifically about attacks on the United States and participation in 9/11. Did the commission say that it found no credible link between the regime and al Qaeda period?

ENSOR: Not quite. No, they said that there were meetings and, of course, we knew that there were meetings back in Sudan. We knew that a senior Iraqi intelligence officer had visited Osama bin Laden. There were three meetings, according to the staff reports, in the early '90s.

There apparently was discussion of whether or not they would cooperate with each other. It's not clear whether any kind of agreements were made but there's no evidence that they came to any agreements to cooperate in any substantive kind of way.

BROWN: And so the conclusion is, based on the fact that there is no evidence otherwise, that they apparently did not agree to work together.

ENSOR: That is the conclusion and it's worth pointing out that Osama bin Laden was reaching out to the governments of Iran, Pakistan, others and there's more evidence of cooperation with those two countries than there is, for example than there is with Iraq.

BROWN: David, thank you, a long day for you, David Ensor tonight.

More now on the man from whom the commission has apparently learned a good deal, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in custody somewhere in the world and he is talking. How the U.S. government got him to talk is something we can only guess at tonight but clearly he is talking and just as clearly the government is listening.

So here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has often been called the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks but the depth and details of his involvement have never been chronicled until now.

PETER BERGEN, TERRORISM ANALYST: It's really in a sense his baby this whole thing. Obviously, it required al Qaeda, bin Laden's organization, but the person who came up with these ideas was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

MESERVE: According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's initial 1996 proposal targeted tall buildings in California and Washington State, nuclear power plants, CIA and FBI headquarters.

Another plan involved the simultaneous hijacking of U.S. airliners across Southeast Asia that would then be blown up in midair. Osama bin Laden eventually vetoed that idea.

When the plot evolved with final shape, Mohammed was pressing to have seven or more hijackers on each plane to ensure success. One commission member was struck by what he called Mohammed's fanaticism and deep hatred of the U.S. JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSIONER: This is a guy that went to school and spent a lot of time here and he knew all he wanted to know about us and he hated us and he was determined to kill as many people as possible.

MESERVE: According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden clashed over the scope of the attacks, the timing, potential targets and even some of the hijackers but from beginning to end, Mohammed was deeply involved in the mission.

PHILIP ZELKOW, 9/11 COMMISSION STAFF: He taught three of these operatives basic English words and phrases, showed them how to read a phone book, make travel reservations, use the Internet and encode communications. They also used flight simulator computer games and analyzed airline schedules.

MESERVE: Mohammed's nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali helped the hijackers get plane tickets and money.

(on camera): The commission said there is compelling evidence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed financed the 9/11 attacks. Where he got the money is not known.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Now, one of the arguments the president used to convince the country that war was the only option with Iraq was, in the president's view, the ties between al Qaeda and Saddam. That was powerful motivation for a country attacked by al Qaeda, which was the point of making the argument.

So now today comes the commission shooting down essentially the connection and they are not the first to do so but today, at least, the administration was not budging from its argument.

Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The war in Iraq was launched in part on arguments that Iraq and al Qaeda to some degree were working together to promote terrorism and now, even this week, as the 9/11 Commission flatly says there is no proof of such sinister cooperation in the U.S. attacks, Vice President Cheney is pressing the case against Saddam Hussein.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He was a patron of terrorism and providing safe haven and support for such terrorist groups as Abu Nidal and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He had long established ties with al Qaeda.

FOREMAN: Cheney went much further last fall. On NBC's "Meet the Press" he said the Iraqis trained agents of al Qaeda in chemical and biological warfare, in bomb making, even suggesting Iraq may have been involved in the first World Trade Center bombing but three days later the president said this.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September the 11th.

FOREMAN: Cheney in the past pointed to Prague, to Czech intelligence reports that said four years ago 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta allegedly met an Iraqi intelligence officer. The commission, however, has now confirmed that meeting never happened.

The commission says that ten years ago Osama bin Laden met in Africa with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer and later in Afghanistan with other Iraqi officials.

DOUGLAS MACEACHIN, FORMER DEPUTY INTEL OFFICER CIA: But they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship and two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq.

FOREMAN: John Kerry is capitalizing.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The administration misled America. The administration reached too far. They did not tell the truth to Americans about what was happening or their own intentions.

FOREMAN (on camera): So why does the vice president keep talking about the Iraq-al Qaeda link? Well, consider this. Polls indicate many voters believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

(voice-over): And it is not clear yet if the commission's report will ease those suspicions.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: From the very beginning we've been privileged to speak with members of the 9/11 Commission and have to a person that impressed with how seriously each one of them takes the job at hand.

We spoke earlier today with the commission chair and vice chair Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, former governor of New Jersey and a former Congressman from Indiana respectively.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Congressman, let me start with you and let's try and work through a bit on the Iraq question because I think that's got a lot of people talking today. The vice president as recently as Monday said Saddam had a long established tie with al Qaeda. Is the commission quarreling with that or merely quarreling with any suggestion that al Qaeda and Iraq -- Iraq was involved in 9/11?

HAMILTON: The commission I think has no evidence that there was an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and indeed it has some evidence that there was a deep hostility between them.

The commission does have some evidence that there were some contacts between al Qaeda and Iraqi officials but the nature, the number, the quality of those contacts we know almost nothing about.

BROWN: Whether or not Iraq had a role in 9/11 that clearly falls into the province of your work. More broadly why is the commission getting involved in these questions of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda beyond 9/11?

HAMILTON: It's important for us to understand al Qaeda and what it did. It was very important, for example, that al Qaeda had an established relationship with the governments of Sudan, with the government of Afghanistan and perhaps the government of Iran as well.

That helps us understand the nature of al Qaeda and how it's not a -- was not, is not today a local organization but one with a vast network in the Middle East and indeed across the world.

One of the thrusts of our hearing this morning was try to understand the characteristics of al Qaeda and I really think we advanced the understanding quite a bit with regard to the nature of that organization.

BROWN: I wouldn't quarrel with that at all. Governor, there's been a tremendous amount of detail out now on the planning and execution of the attack on 9/11. Are you confident that all that can be known is now known?

THOMAS H. KEAN, CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: I think all that can be known as of today. Now, if we find some of the al Qaeda operatives, if we capture Osama bin Laden or other people in his network it's possible that even after our work is completed we'll learn some things that just were not available to us today but I'm absolutely confident that the work of the commission and the staff has really gotten everything that is available to us today and it will form our report.

BROWN: You have had, I mean because those that followed this all along know there have been these tussles here and there over who you'd get to talk to and what you'd get to see. Is there anyone you needed to talk to in the end you couldn't, any documents you needed to see that in the end you didn't get to see?

KEAN: This is actually for us at least I think a very good story because we've had bumps along the way but in the end we have talked to everybody we asked to talk to, including two presidents of the United States.

We have interviewed about 1,100 people. We've seen every document, including them most secretive documents that the United States government possesses, documents that no congressional committee has ever been able to see. We've seen those documents and they will inform our report.

So, we've seen every document that we requested and interviewed everybody. Now the detainee interviews have been under conditions. We have not been able to go to where they're held and interview them but we've been able to submit questions to people in the intelligence services who then have taken those questions and asked them for us. So, we haven't in person-to-person interviewed them but that's the only, only exception. Everyone else we've seen one-on-one.

BROWN: Congressman, tell me if this is overstating the situation that as we look at it today at almost every level, the intelligence community, the military community, to some degree even first responders in New York and perhaps to a lesser degree in Washington that no one was really ready for the kind of attack that al Qaeda envisioned on the United States on September 11, 2001.

HAMILTON: Oh, I think that's absolutely right. We just did not have the imagination to think about airplanes flying into the World Trade Tower or into the Pentagon and, in a sense, all of us were unprepared.

I was impressed again and again today with how slow we were, all of us, all aspects of government, the American people, in understanding the gravity of the threat from Osama bin Laden.

Looking back and obviously that's easy to do, you can see this Osama bin Laden putting his organization together back in the early '90s or maybe even before, getting a very sophisticated organization, educated people, patient people, highly skilled people, putting their plot together, a lot of instances where they committed violence against Americans. We just did not quickly grasp the gravity of the threat from Osama bin Laden.

BROWN: Gentlemen, you're in the home stretch of this work. We hope we get a chance to talk to you right around the time the final report comes out. We're always honored to have you with us. Thanks for your work.

KEAN: Thank you.

HAMILTON: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, their report is due out next month and we hope to talk with them again.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the politics of handing over Saddam Hussein, it turns out much easier said than done.

And oil security in Iraq or lack of it anyway, several attacks later the oil importing business there is draining uselessly away into the desert it turns out. We take a break.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: In Iraq today another bloody day like too many others. A rocket slammed into a U.S. logistics base in Balad north of Baghdad killing at least two American soldiers, injuring more than 20 others.

Two separate attacks elsewhere in the country killed seven Iraqis, including a police officer. With the handover two weeks away now of the power in Iraq, escalating violence is complicating an already dicey task transferring Saddam Hussein into Iraqi custody, reporting that piece of the Iraq story tonight, CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Saddam Hussein is being held in U.S. custody at the Baghdad Airport, according to Iraqi officials. Will he still be there after June 30th?

(on camera): The Iraqi official in charge of setting up the special tribunal here tells CNN that he expects arrest warrants to be issued against Saddam Hussein and 62 of his cohorts in the next week or so. Formal charges will not be filed. Rather, the warrants would be based on suspicions that they have committed the kinds of crimes that fall under the tribunal's jurisdiction. In addition, Iraqi and U.S. officials are discussing how to jointly maintain custody of Saddam.

(voice-over): Some officials say Iraq could get legal custody while the U.S. keeps physical security over him. The U.S. Justice Department official helping the tribunal says building a case, even against Saddam, will be a painstaking job.

GREG KEHOE, U.S. JUSTICE DEPT.: You still have to build a chain of command and a command responsibility leading up to Saddam Hussein or whomever might be responsible for giving those orders. In order to do that you have to get into the documentation, follow the orders, see what the chain of command was and build a case from the bottom up.

AMANPOUR: Saddam could be charged with any number of crimes from attacking the Kurds with chemical weapons in Halabja.

KEHOE: Or can we turn ourselves to the intifadah uprising in 1991 against the Shia in the south or, for that matter, some of the ethnic cleansing in the north, as well as the exile of the marsh Arabs in the south.

AMANPOUR: Saddam was captured last December but slowing down the legal process has been the issue of the death penalty, Iraq and the U.S. support it but the European coalition members do not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can't, I mean, be here and accept that under their auspices, under their control people are executed.

AMANPOUR: Even though many Iraqis would like that for Saddam, he's not expected to be in (unintelligible) as others have tried to build the case against him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now there is an enormous amount, as we said, of painstaking work to be done to bring this case to trial, including, of course, going through the evidence. They have started, we are told some of the forensic exhumations but not all, nowhere near all of what they need to do to actually present a case in court.

Also, they say they've started some of the witness interviews, the testimony from victims but, again, a huge number of those will have to be taken. And from watching previous tribunals, for instance in the Balkans, we know just how long it takes to provide and to present a full proof, a whole proof case to a war crimes tribunal -- Aaron.

BROWN: Two questions in one here, a) do we have any guess when what actually will be the trial of the century begins, and do we presume that people like Tariq Aziz and others in Saddam's chain of command go first?

AMANPOUR: We do presume that simply by what people are telling us right now but I must say that even though we would expect these things to have been already sorted out there does seem to be still a level of uncertainly about exactly how this process is going.

There is a certain legal and physical limbo about this process right now and once it does get started we're told, at least at the moment, that other so-called henchmen, former cohorts will be tried first and that it could take many, many months.

We were told this even when the special tribunal was first set up. It could take as much as a year or so to put Saddam on trial, but again that is at the moment speculation.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you, good to see you again tonight, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad.

Insurgents are also taking aim at the lifeblood of Iraq's economy, its oil infrastructure. Today the security chief of the country's northern oil company was shot to death on his way to work in Kirkuk.

The apparent assassination follows a wave of attacks on oil pipelines in the north and in the south, which have brought production of oil pretty much to a halt, reporting tonight CNN's Brent Sadler.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A river of Iraqi crude oil drains into the desert sand near Basra in southern Iraq escaping from a ruptured pipeline targeted by saboteurs in a wave of attacks against Iraq's precious oil industry. Exports have completely ground to a halt in the south crippling this vital distribution network.

KEVIN THOMAS: They're absolutely destroying it to be honest. If we don't correct this now and make sure that the export of crude continues, there's no way that Iraq can stay back on its feet.

SADLER: These surface ripples from an underground hemorrhage mean Iraq is bleeding money, hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted revenue. With similar attacks in the north of the country, Iraq is now struggling to export any oil at all. Repair teams are working as fast as they can but with a shortage of pumps, rundown equipment and security fears it's a struggle.

The ripple effects are hitting oil supplies worldwide. Iraq's giant offshore export terminals at the northern end of the Persian Gulf are now starved of oil, international tankers left stranded, shipments delayed costing Iraq even more in penalties for late deliveries.

And production is dropping to zero in the vast southern oil fields with nowhere for the product to go. A 15,000 strong oil protection force of Iraqis guard this vulnerable business but still the bombers get through with relative ease.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I stress that there should be more resources allocated for this particular point. That is the security of oil installations.

SADLER: At least half a billion dollars could be lost in the time it may take to fix this damage, money Iraq can ill afford.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SADLER: Now, Iraqi officials here are complaining bitterly that while protection of the offshore terminals has been greatly enhanced over the past two months since failed suicide bomb attacks against those two critical oil terminals, land-based security to protect this vast distribution of often remote pipe work is still very much exposed to the winds of how these pipeline saboteurs are operating. Now what they want to see on the ground here is oil revenues. Once they get back on stream again. No one is saying when that might be. But perhaps as long as a week, according to some calculations. They want to see more revenues diverted to beefing up the security on the ground here.

All this, say coalition officials, in terms of attacks, Aaron, is to undermine the stability and reconstruction efforts in this critical run-up to the restoration of sovereignty at the end of this month -- Aaron.

BROWN: Brent, thank you. Brent Sadler, who's in Basra. A reminder of how little we've seen of the country that far south since the toppling of the regime more than a year ago.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the great Marion Jones, or the great runner, one of the track and field stars of all time, pointing fingers, blaming what she calls a kangaroo court that might just keep her out of the Olympic games in Athens.

And the family of an American kidnapped in Saudi Arabia talks exclusively with CNN's Deborah Feyerick. A break first around the world. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: San Francisco is a long way from Athens, but for several U.S. track and field stars, the road to the summer Olympic games in Greece runs right through the city by the bay, more or less.

The athletes have been caught up in a doping scandal by way of their connection to a California lab charged with dealing illegal performance enhancing drugs.

Today one of the most prominent athletes in the group took the offensive.

Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Under a cloud of suspicion for months for alleged steroid use, Olympic track star Marion Jones stepped into the spotlight to point her finger at the body responsible for testing Olympic athletes: the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Jones calls it USADA.

MARION JONES, OLYMPIC CHAMPION: I had taken over 160 drug tests. I have taken tests before, during and after the 2000 Olympics and have never failed a test.

DORNIN: The agency began investigating Jones and other Olympic athletes for doping violations after a scandal involving a nutritional supplement lab known as Balco.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sends it to deep left field.

DORNIN: Baseball sluggers Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi were other big name athletes to testify before a San Francisco grand jury about Balco. The results? Four men, including Barry Bonds' trainer, were indicted for the distribution of steroids and money laundering.

Also indicted the owner of Balco labs, Victor Conte. Conte has been unable to reach a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. So this week Conte's attorney wrote President Bush a letter asking for intervention.

In return, Mr. Conte will reveal everything he knows about officials, coaches and athlete in order to help clean up the Olympics. Conte's attorney says there's been no response yet to the letter and denies it's a publicity stunt.

Jones says she stopped buying supplements from Balco Labs when her marriage to another Olympic athlete ended in 2000. She never took any enhancing drugs.

(on camera) In a statement, the Anti-Doping Agency calls Jones' attacks baseless. The agency says it's simply searching for the truth. Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, NASA who? President Bush outlined a mission to Mars, but many now wonder if the American space agency will have anything to do with it. We'll explain in a moment.

Plus how members of a family of an American hostage are pleading with his captors to send him home.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In January, President Bush unveiled a plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and to use the mission as a stepping- stone for manned trips to Mars and beyond. An ambitious plan, to say the least.

Today the commission appointed to figure out how to make it happen delivered its blueprint: 60 pages, a report long on ideas, modest on detail.

Reporting the story for us, CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Charged with bootstrapping NASA's audacious space itinerary to the moon and Mars, a presidential commission offered some advice on how to get there from here.

PETE ALDRIDGE, CHAIRMAN, MOON, MARS AND BEYOND: NASA's focus ought to be on that exploration initiative and allow some of the operational, less risky functions that are being performed by the government be transferred exclusively to the private sector.

O'BRIEN: Led by former Air Force Secretary Pete Aldridge, the commission wants NASA to be more business friendly, partnering with space entrepreneurs. It endorsed NASA's plans to offer cash rewards for innovative ideas and accomplishments.

It calls on NASA to outsource some of the operations of its field centers to universities and nonprofit organizations.

And the panel wants the White House to create a space steering council to develop policy and coordinate the efforts of all space faring federal agencies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people have asked us, you know, how much is this going to cost. And the answer is I don't know. I'll ask the same question. How much is the cure for cancer going to cost?

O'BRIEN: The ideas are hard to criticize, but the details are scant. And on Capitol Hill they know all too well that is how NASA could get lost on its way to Mars.

SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: I think the vision is a true one. But it's not being implemented. And sooner or later if you're going to go to the moon and Mars, you have to make a commitment in dollars. And that's got to be supported by the White House.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: We can't afford not to invest in research if we are going to maintain our strong economy.

O'BRIEN (on camera): The White House and NASA are embracing the report. It does, after all, endorse their pay as you go approach.

But this is an election year and the presumptive Democratic nominee, John Kerry told Space.com, "the Bush space initiative throws out lofty goals but fails to support those goals with realistic funding."

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A few quick business items before we head to break, starting with the Federal Reserve's Beige Book on economic progress. They show housing starts fell in May but fell less than expected. Hiring picked up, and so did industrial production, a lot. The executive summary, in case you hadn't noticed, things in the economy are looking up.

Nothing in the Beige Book about this. A researcher named El Paso, Texas, as the sweatiest city in the country, with an average summer temperature of 93 and humidity over 70 percent. Residents there shed 36 hours of perspiration per person an hour.

You know, I'm not sure we needed to tell you that, but we did. So there you go.

Markets today barely budged. We did need to tell you that. You see the numbers. The Dow down just a little bit, a skosh, I think is the correct word.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the family of an American held hostage describes him as a man who has done much for Saudi Arabia. And now they beg for him to leave that country alive.

Also still ahead, the rooster, this morning's papers. Where else but NEWSNIGHT?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For the family of kidnapped American contractor Paul Johnson life has become a horrid countdown.

It's been four days since the Lockheed Martin employee went missing in Saudi Arabia. About 24 hours now since his captors posted a video on a Web site showing Mr. Johnson and threatening to kill him within 72 hours unless their demands are met. Today, half a world away in New Jersey, Mr. Johnson's soon and daughter -- rather, his sons and sister, talked with CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONNA MAYEUX, PAUL JOHNSON'S SISTER: And I would just like to say that my brother is an honorable man. He's always treated people with dignity and respect. And I'm sure they were able to see that as they've spoken with him. And our family just pleads for his safe return.

PAUL JOHNSON III, PAUL JOHNSON'S SON: My father is a loving father. He's a grandfather. He would give the shirt off his back to them if he knew them. And he respected -- he respected the Saudis.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You see the kidnappers. One is behind him. Clearly, one is there shooting the video. What goes through your mind?

MAYEUX: For me it's disbelief. My brother always felt safe in Saudi Arabia. He never feared living there.

FEYERICK: Did he ever consider listening to the embassy warnings for Americans to leave Riyadh, to leave Saudi Arabia?

JOHNSON: He's been there for over ten years, and he likes working with the Saudis. He respects their culture. And there is never a problem. He respected everything they believed in.

FEYERICK: The U.S. government, the Saudi government says that their policy is not to negotiate with terrorists. What do you say to the governments?

JOHNSON: The governments, you know, we know what they want, and my father, I know he's an innocent victim in this whole matter. And I plead with the Saudi government and the group of men that are holding my father to please let him return home safely. He will leave your country. You will never see him again. I just plead with them to -- to get him home safely.

FEYERICK: What is the message that you have for your dad right now?

JOHNSON: I just want him brought home safely.

MAYEUX: We're doing everything we can to bring him home. Everybody is trying to help. We appreciate that.

JOHNSON: I just plead with the Saudis to please, do whatever you take. If you got to -- we're all human. Just please, he's done a lot for your country. I respect your country. I respect -- I respect everything that everybody's done.

And I just want to see my father brought home safely. And the Saudis, you can make it happen. And I'm just asking you, please, make this happen. H's -- he does not deserve this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Wow, there's a fair amount of madness in the world. And at some point it all comes down to affecting families like that family in New Jersey.

"Morning Papers," after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okey-dokey. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Many cool things in the papers today.

Most everybody, but not everybody, but most everybody leads with the 9/11 commission.

"Initial al Qaeda plot" -- plan, rather -- "called for ten-jet attack on two coasts. U.S. Capital, CIA, FBI were targets." That's the lead in the "International Herald-Tribune." A very good story that I expect will appear in tomorrow's "New York Times," as well.

"Iraqi cleric tells his fighters to go home." Muqtada al-Sadr sort of giving up the ghost, telling his fighters to go home. Because he wants to run for office. He wants to be a politician, get into the mainstream of Iraqi life. Remember he -- well, things change over there.

Like I said, most everybody leads with 9/11, but not everybody. This is the most important story today in the "Washington Times."

"Senate sets mid-July vote on marriage." Convenient date: two weeks before the Democrats meet. This is the constitutional amendment on gay marriage. No politics involved in setting the date for that, my friends.

This is a very big issue to the "Times." They put it on the front page. In fact, they have a second story. "Seek to block homosexual marriages," a story out of Montana, an initiative drive there.

Something else I like? Well, probably, but it's gone now.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer," 9/11 leads. Here's a troubling story down in the corner by Anna Alum of the Inquirer staff: "Iraqis turn hopes to extremists." In parts of the countries it seems that both Shia and Sunni extremists are winning the game. Not a very good sign.

At the Des Moines register leads with -- well, they've got a bunch of stuff on the front page. It's not a lead. But it's a front- page story, nevertheless. And it's a purely Iowa story, folks: "Neighbors may sue hog farmer." They don't like the smell, they can sue. This overturns the state law.

"The Detroit News" leads basketball. I would, too. This is a wonderful essay on the front page by Francis X. Donnelley (ph): "Unity from unity," he writes, "by joining together, the Detroit Pistons won a world championship that, at least for a few glorious weeks, is bringing together a disparate region and people, city and suburbs, whites and blacks, white collar and blue collar."

Yes, it sure did.

That's the -- The weather in Chicago. Give me the weather in Chicago? Glug, glug. I think it's going to rain.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, there you go. Before we go, a quick look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING." Here is Soledad O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST, "AMERICAN MORNING": Thanks, Aaron.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," first came accusations by Hillary Clinton of a vast right-wing conspiracy. Now comes the movie, a documentary called "The Hunting of the President: The 10-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill Clinton," set for release this week. We're going to talk to the director, as well as Susan McDougal, find out what's new in this film, what we hadn't heard before.

That's CNN tomorrow, 7 a.m. Eastern. Aaron, back to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Soledad, thank you. And just part of what they'll be doing tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING." So if you're up early -- it's really early for me. If you're up early, check that out.

We're back here tomorrow night at 10 Eastern Time. We trust you will be, too.

"LOU DOBBS" ahead for most of you. Until tomorrow, good night from 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 June 16, 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.
The 9/11 Commission began its final public hearings today laying out in some detail everything it's been able to learn about the plot and the plotters and much of the program tonight centers on their work.

They also caused a bit of a storm when they asserted that there was no real link between al Qaeda and Saddam. There was no meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence and, in the end, there was no love lost between the fanatical religious extremists of al Qaeda and Saddam, who was many things but a religious extremist he was not.

As recently as Monday, the vice president asserted otherwise, asserted there was a strong connection between al Qaeda and Iraq, so the commission gives us some history to consider and some additional grist for the political mill as well.

Its work leads the program tonight and, of course, begins the whip.

CNN's David Ensor starts us off, so David a headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the commission staff report says Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and backs that up with some evidence. It also lays out in great detail a competent, complex and flexible effort by al Qaeda on 9/11 and the report suggests that group remains a formidable foe -- Aaron.

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

On to Baghdad and the complexities of handing over Saddam Hussein and putting them on trial, CNN's Christiane Amanpour following the story, Christiane a headline tonight.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In the last half hour heavy explosions around this area. It sounds like large caliber mortar fire (unintelligible) as yet unknown, this as the head of the special tribunal here (AUDIO GAP) to file arrest warrants against Saddam Hussein in the next week or so -- Aaron.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you.

In Southern Iraq today at the only place insurgents had targeted but potentially the costliest they've hit oil pipelines there. Brent Sadler will have the report coming up tonight.

And finally the challenge and the cost of returning to the moon, then striking out for Mars, CNN's Miles O'Brien will report the story, Miles a headline.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, five months after President Bush told NASA to return to the moon and aim for Mars, the idea gets a report card. It says NASA can live with the lean budgets if it radically changes the way it does business.

BROWN: Miles, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly. Also coming up on the program tonight, new details to an already unsavory picture, the career of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

Plus, a surprising move made by the man at the center of a major sports scandal, a move that could prevent many of America's top runners, track and field stars from (AUDIO GAP) this summer in Athens.

And there will be no need for you to get up early in the morning to read your paper, well no reason at least to read the front page because we'll have the front page for you tonight we hope, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin at the end of a stunning day. It is a cherished belief in Washington that blue ribbon panels rarely make news. Today, the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks made plenty.

At the end of the day we now have the fullest theory yet of how 9/11 came to be, how much worse it might have been, who else was involved and more. The more has to do with the lynch pin of the president's case for going to war with Iraq and it too was a blockbuster today.

We have a number of reports tonight. We begin with CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): With chilling new detail, the 9/11 Commission staff laid out what it called a highly competent, flexible plot to attack the United States. Commissioners were dismayed.

JAMES THOMPSON, 9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER: How in the world do we ever expect to win this war?

ENSOR: Among the revelations that mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed originally proposed hijacking ten planes in the U.S. to hit targets on the West Coast too and that he would personally land the tenth after just the men onboard had been killed in order to address the world's media.

That the plotters argued about whether Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania should target the U.S. Capitol or the White House. Osama bin Laden wanted to hit the White House. The pilots thought the Capitol would be an easier target. That one of the plotters says Zacarias Moussaoui was to have been the fourth pilot if Ziad Jarrah dropped out, as he was threatening to do, that original plans called for attacks in Asia and the U.S. simultaneously, that bin Laden wanted to attack back in 2000 but was told the hijackers weren't yet ready, that all 19 of the hijackers attended al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

DOUGLAS MACEACHIN, 9/11 COMMISSION STAFF: The camps create a climate in which trainees and other personnel were free to think creatively about ways to commit mass murder.

ENSOR: The commission made public a photo of Mohamed Atta withdrawing money in Virginia April 4th and spoke of him using his cell phone in Florida April 6th through 11th, so he couldn't have been in Prague meeting an Iraqi intelligence officer April 9th as administration officials have suggested and, in fact, the commission said Iraq was not involved in 9/11.

MCEACHIN: We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.

ENSOR: Commissioners were not happy with how little FBI and CIA witnesses could tell them about al Qaeda's presence now in the United States.

LEE HAMILTON, 9/11 COMMISSION VICE CHMN.: To sum up then we have almost no information with regard to their capabilities in the United States. We know a little bit about their funding in the United States today. We know a little bit about their leadership today in the United States. We know very little, if anything, about their command and control. Do I sum it up correctly?

JOHN PISTOLE, FBI COUNTERTERRORISM DIRECTOR: That's fairly accurate.

ENSOR: The commission also says there's intelligence suggesting al Qaeda played a role in the Khobar Towers bombing of 1996 that killed 19 U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia, possibly cooperating with Hezbollah and Iran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: There will be more revelations Thursday commissioners are telling us. Most people believe, for example, that the White House ordered the military to shoot down civilian airliners if it came to that on 9/11 and that the military was ready to do so.

Not true, one commissioner tells us, and that commissioner says that there are other urban myths out there about 9/11 that will also be corrected at tomorrow's hearing -- Aaron.

BROWN: Can we just because we're going to spend some time on this, David, talk for a minute about what the commission did say and what it did not say about the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq. In the sound we heard they talked specifically about attacks on the United States and participation in 9/11. Did the commission say that it found no credible link between the regime and al Qaeda period?

ENSOR: Not quite. No, they said that there were meetings and, of course, we knew that there were meetings back in Sudan. We knew that a senior Iraqi intelligence officer had visited Osama bin Laden. There were three meetings, according to the staff reports, in the early '90s.

There apparently was discussion of whether or not they would cooperate with each other. It's not clear whether any kind of agreements were made but there's no evidence that they came to any agreements to cooperate in any substantive kind of way.

BROWN: And so the conclusion is, based on the fact that there is no evidence otherwise, that they apparently did not agree to work together.

ENSOR: That is the conclusion and it's worth pointing out that Osama bin Laden was reaching out to the governments of Iran, Pakistan, others and there's more evidence of cooperation with those two countries than there is, for example than there is with Iraq.

BROWN: David, thank you, a long day for you, David Ensor tonight.

More now on the man from whom the commission has apparently learned a good deal, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in custody somewhere in the world and he is talking. How the U.S. government got him to talk is something we can only guess at tonight but clearly he is talking and just as clearly the government is listening.

So here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has often been called the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks but the depth and details of his involvement have never been chronicled until now.

PETER BERGEN, TERRORISM ANALYST: It's really in a sense his baby this whole thing. Obviously, it required al Qaeda, bin Laden's organization, but the person who came up with these ideas was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

MESERVE: According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's initial 1996 proposal targeted tall buildings in California and Washington State, nuclear power plants, CIA and FBI headquarters.

Another plan involved the simultaneous hijacking of U.S. airliners across Southeast Asia that would then be blown up in midair. Osama bin Laden eventually vetoed that idea.

When the plot evolved with final shape, Mohammed was pressing to have seven or more hijackers on each plane to ensure success. One commission member was struck by what he called Mohammed's fanaticism and deep hatred of the U.S. JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSIONER: This is a guy that went to school and spent a lot of time here and he knew all he wanted to know about us and he hated us and he was determined to kill as many people as possible.

MESERVE: According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden clashed over the scope of the attacks, the timing, potential targets and even some of the hijackers but from beginning to end, Mohammed was deeply involved in the mission.

PHILIP ZELKOW, 9/11 COMMISSION STAFF: He taught three of these operatives basic English words and phrases, showed them how to read a phone book, make travel reservations, use the Internet and encode communications. They also used flight simulator computer games and analyzed airline schedules.

MESERVE: Mohammed's nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali helped the hijackers get plane tickets and money.

(on camera): The commission said there is compelling evidence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed financed the 9/11 attacks. Where he got the money is not known.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Now, one of the arguments the president used to convince the country that war was the only option with Iraq was, in the president's view, the ties between al Qaeda and Saddam. That was powerful motivation for a country attacked by al Qaeda, which was the point of making the argument.

So now today comes the commission shooting down essentially the connection and they are not the first to do so but today, at least, the administration was not budging from its argument.

Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The war in Iraq was launched in part on arguments that Iraq and al Qaeda to some degree were working together to promote terrorism and now, even this week, as the 9/11 Commission flatly says there is no proof of such sinister cooperation in the U.S. attacks, Vice President Cheney is pressing the case against Saddam Hussein.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He was a patron of terrorism and providing safe haven and support for such terrorist groups as Abu Nidal and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He had long established ties with al Qaeda.

FOREMAN: Cheney went much further last fall. On NBC's "Meet the Press" he said the Iraqis trained agents of al Qaeda in chemical and biological warfare, in bomb making, even suggesting Iraq may have been involved in the first World Trade Center bombing but three days later the president said this.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September the 11th.

FOREMAN: Cheney in the past pointed to Prague, to Czech intelligence reports that said four years ago 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta allegedly met an Iraqi intelligence officer. The commission, however, has now confirmed that meeting never happened.

The commission says that ten years ago Osama bin Laden met in Africa with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer and later in Afghanistan with other Iraqi officials.

DOUGLAS MACEACHIN, FORMER DEPUTY INTEL OFFICER CIA: But they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship and two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq.

FOREMAN: John Kerry is capitalizing.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The administration misled America. The administration reached too far. They did not tell the truth to Americans about what was happening or their own intentions.

FOREMAN (on camera): So why does the vice president keep talking about the Iraq-al Qaeda link? Well, consider this. Polls indicate many voters believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

(voice-over): And it is not clear yet if the commission's report will ease those suspicions.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: From the very beginning we've been privileged to speak with members of the 9/11 Commission and have to a person that impressed with how seriously each one of them takes the job at hand.

We spoke earlier today with the commission chair and vice chair Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, former governor of New Jersey and a former Congressman from Indiana respectively.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Congressman, let me start with you and let's try and work through a bit on the Iraq question because I think that's got a lot of people talking today. The vice president as recently as Monday said Saddam had a long established tie with al Qaeda. Is the commission quarreling with that or merely quarreling with any suggestion that al Qaeda and Iraq -- Iraq was involved in 9/11?

HAMILTON: The commission I think has no evidence that there was an operational relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and indeed it has some evidence that there was a deep hostility between them.

The commission does have some evidence that there were some contacts between al Qaeda and Iraqi officials but the nature, the number, the quality of those contacts we know almost nothing about.

BROWN: Whether or not Iraq had a role in 9/11 that clearly falls into the province of your work. More broadly why is the commission getting involved in these questions of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda beyond 9/11?

HAMILTON: It's important for us to understand al Qaeda and what it did. It was very important, for example, that al Qaeda had an established relationship with the governments of Sudan, with the government of Afghanistan and perhaps the government of Iran as well.

That helps us understand the nature of al Qaeda and how it's not a -- was not, is not today a local organization but one with a vast network in the Middle East and indeed across the world.

One of the thrusts of our hearing this morning was try to understand the characteristics of al Qaeda and I really think we advanced the understanding quite a bit with regard to the nature of that organization.

BROWN: I wouldn't quarrel with that at all. Governor, there's been a tremendous amount of detail out now on the planning and execution of the attack on 9/11. Are you confident that all that can be known is now known?

THOMAS H. KEAN, CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: I think all that can be known as of today. Now, if we find some of the al Qaeda operatives, if we capture Osama bin Laden or other people in his network it's possible that even after our work is completed we'll learn some things that just were not available to us today but I'm absolutely confident that the work of the commission and the staff has really gotten everything that is available to us today and it will form our report.

BROWN: You have had, I mean because those that followed this all along know there have been these tussles here and there over who you'd get to talk to and what you'd get to see. Is there anyone you needed to talk to in the end you couldn't, any documents you needed to see that in the end you didn't get to see?

KEAN: This is actually for us at least I think a very good story because we've had bumps along the way but in the end we have talked to everybody we asked to talk to, including two presidents of the United States.

We have interviewed about 1,100 people. We've seen every document, including them most secretive documents that the United States government possesses, documents that no congressional committee has ever been able to see. We've seen those documents and they will inform our report.

So, we've seen every document that we requested and interviewed everybody. Now the detainee interviews have been under conditions. We have not been able to go to where they're held and interview them but we've been able to submit questions to people in the intelligence services who then have taken those questions and asked them for us. So, we haven't in person-to-person interviewed them but that's the only, only exception. Everyone else we've seen one-on-one.

BROWN: Congressman, tell me if this is overstating the situation that as we look at it today at almost every level, the intelligence community, the military community, to some degree even first responders in New York and perhaps to a lesser degree in Washington that no one was really ready for the kind of attack that al Qaeda envisioned on the United States on September 11, 2001.

HAMILTON: Oh, I think that's absolutely right. We just did not have the imagination to think about airplanes flying into the World Trade Tower or into the Pentagon and, in a sense, all of us were unprepared.

I was impressed again and again today with how slow we were, all of us, all aspects of government, the American people, in understanding the gravity of the threat from Osama bin Laden.

Looking back and obviously that's easy to do, you can see this Osama bin Laden putting his organization together back in the early '90s or maybe even before, getting a very sophisticated organization, educated people, patient people, highly skilled people, putting their plot together, a lot of instances where they committed violence against Americans. We just did not quickly grasp the gravity of the threat from Osama bin Laden.

BROWN: Gentlemen, you're in the home stretch of this work. We hope we get a chance to talk to you right around the time the final report comes out. We're always honored to have you with us. Thanks for your work.

KEAN: Thank you.

HAMILTON: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, their report is due out next month and we hope to talk with them again.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the politics of handing over Saddam Hussein, it turns out much easier said than done.

And oil security in Iraq or lack of it anyway, several attacks later the oil importing business there is draining uselessly away into the desert it turns out. We take a break.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: In Iraq today another bloody day like too many others. A rocket slammed into a U.S. logistics base in Balad north of Baghdad killing at least two American soldiers, injuring more than 20 others.

Two separate attacks elsewhere in the country killed seven Iraqis, including a police officer. With the handover two weeks away now of the power in Iraq, escalating violence is complicating an already dicey task transferring Saddam Hussein into Iraqi custody, reporting that piece of the Iraq story tonight, CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Saddam Hussein is being held in U.S. custody at the Baghdad Airport, according to Iraqi officials. Will he still be there after June 30th?

(on camera): The Iraqi official in charge of setting up the special tribunal here tells CNN that he expects arrest warrants to be issued against Saddam Hussein and 62 of his cohorts in the next week or so. Formal charges will not be filed. Rather, the warrants would be based on suspicions that they have committed the kinds of crimes that fall under the tribunal's jurisdiction. In addition, Iraqi and U.S. officials are discussing how to jointly maintain custody of Saddam.

(voice-over): Some officials say Iraq could get legal custody while the U.S. keeps physical security over him. The U.S. Justice Department official helping the tribunal says building a case, even against Saddam, will be a painstaking job.

GREG KEHOE, U.S. JUSTICE DEPT.: You still have to build a chain of command and a command responsibility leading up to Saddam Hussein or whomever might be responsible for giving those orders. In order to do that you have to get into the documentation, follow the orders, see what the chain of command was and build a case from the bottom up.

AMANPOUR: Saddam could be charged with any number of crimes from attacking the Kurds with chemical weapons in Halabja.

KEHOE: Or can we turn ourselves to the intifadah uprising in 1991 against the Shia in the south or, for that matter, some of the ethnic cleansing in the north, as well as the exile of the marsh Arabs in the south.

AMANPOUR: Saddam was captured last December but slowing down the legal process has been the issue of the death penalty, Iraq and the U.S. support it but the European coalition members do not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can't, I mean, be here and accept that under their auspices, under their control people are executed.

AMANPOUR: Even though many Iraqis would like that for Saddam, he's not expected to be in (unintelligible) as others have tried to build the case against him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now there is an enormous amount, as we said, of painstaking work to be done to bring this case to trial, including, of course, going through the evidence. They have started, we are told some of the forensic exhumations but not all, nowhere near all of what they need to do to actually present a case in court.

Also, they say they've started some of the witness interviews, the testimony from victims but, again, a huge number of those will have to be taken. And from watching previous tribunals, for instance in the Balkans, we know just how long it takes to provide and to present a full proof, a whole proof case to a war crimes tribunal -- Aaron.

BROWN: Two questions in one here, a) do we have any guess when what actually will be the trial of the century begins, and do we presume that people like Tariq Aziz and others in Saddam's chain of command go first?

AMANPOUR: We do presume that simply by what people are telling us right now but I must say that even though we would expect these things to have been already sorted out there does seem to be still a level of uncertainly about exactly how this process is going.

There is a certain legal and physical limbo about this process right now and once it does get started we're told, at least at the moment, that other so-called henchmen, former cohorts will be tried first and that it could take many, many months.

We were told this even when the special tribunal was first set up. It could take as much as a year or so to put Saddam on trial, but again that is at the moment speculation.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you, good to see you again tonight, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad.

Insurgents are also taking aim at the lifeblood of Iraq's economy, its oil infrastructure. Today the security chief of the country's northern oil company was shot to death on his way to work in Kirkuk.

The apparent assassination follows a wave of attacks on oil pipelines in the north and in the south, which have brought production of oil pretty much to a halt, reporting tonight CNN's Brent Sadler.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A river of Iraqi crude oil drains into the desert sand near Basra in southern Iraq escaping from a ruptured pipeline targeted by saboteurs in a wave of attacks against Iraq's precious oil industry. Exports have completely ground to a halt in the south crippling this vital distribution network.

KEVIN THOMAS: They're absolutely destroying it to be honest. If we don't correct this now and make sure that the export of crude continues, there's no way that Iraq can stay back on its feet.

SADLER: These surface ripples from an underground hemorrhage mean Iraq is bleeding money, hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted revenue. With similar attacks in the north of the country, Iraq is now struggling to export any oil at all. Repair teams are working as fast as they can but with a shortage of pumps, rundown equipment and security fears it's a struggle.

The ripple effects are hitting oil supplies worldwide. Iraq's giant offshore export terminals at the northern end of the Persian Gulf are now starved of oil, international tankers left stranded, shipments delayed costing Iraq even more in penalties for late deliveries.

And production is dropping to zero in the vast southern oil fields with nowhere for the product to go. A 15,000 strong oil protection force of Iraqis guard this vulnerable business but still the bombers get through with relative ease.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I stress that there should be more resources allocated for this particular point. That is the security of oil installations.

SADLER: At least half a billion dollars could be lost in the time it may take to fix this damage, money Iraq can ill afford.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SADLER: Now, Iraqi officials here are complaining bitterly that while protection of the offshore terminals has been greatly enhanced over the past two months since failed suicide bomb attacks against those two critical oil terminals, land-based security to protect this vast distribution of often remote pipe work is still very much exposed to the winds of how these pipeline saboteurs are operating. Now what they want to see on the ground here is oil revenues. Once they get back on stream again. No one is saying when that might be. But perhaps as long as a week, according to some calculations. They want to see more revenues diverted to beefing up the security on the ground here.

All this, say coalition officials, in terms of attacks, Aaron, is to undermine the stability and reconstruction efforts in this critical run-up to the restoration of sovereignty at the end of this month -- Aaron.

BROWN: Brent, thank you. Brent Sadler, who's in Basra. A reminder of how little we've seen of the country that far south since the toppling of the regime more than a year ago.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, the great Marion Jones, or the great runner, one of the track and field stars of all time, pointing fingers, blaming what she calls a kangaroo court that might just keep her out of the Olympic games in Athens.

And the family of an American kidnapped in Saudi Arabia talks exclusively with CNN's Deborah Feyerick. A break first around the world. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: San Francisco is a long way from Athens, but for several U.S. track and field stars, the road to the summer Olympic games in Greece runs right through the city by the bay, more or less.

The athletes have been caught up in a doping scandal by way of their connection to a California lab charged with dealing illegal performance enhancing drugs.

Today one of the most prominent athletes in the group took the offensive.

Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Under a cloud of suspicion for months for alleged steroid use, Olympic track star Marion Jones stepped into the spotlight to point her finger at the body responsible for testing Olympic athletes: the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Jones calls it USADA.

MARION JONES, OLYMPIC CHAMPION: I had taken over 160 drug tests. I have taken tests before, during and after the 2000 Olympics and have never failed a test.

DORNIN: The agency began investigating Jones and other Olympic athletes for doping violations after a scandal involving a nutritional supplement lab known as Balco.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sends it to deep left field.

DORNIN: Baseball sluggers Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi were other big name athletes to testify before a San Francisco grand jury about Balco. The results? Four men, including Barry Bonds' trainer, were indicted for the distribution of steroids and money laundering.

Also indicted the owner of Balco labs, Victor Conte. Conte has been unable to reach a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. So this week Conte's attorney wrote President Bush a letter asking for intervention.

In return, Mr. Conte will reveal everything he knows about officials, coaches and athlete in order to help clean up the Olympics. Conte's attorney says there's been no response yet to the letter and denies it's a publicity stunt.

Jones says she stopped buying supplements from Balco Labs when her marriage to another Olympic athlete ended in 2000. She never took any enhancing drugs.

(on camera) In a statement, the Anti-Doping Agency calls Jones' attacks baseless. The agency says it's simply searching for the truth. Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, NASA who? President Bush outlined a mission to Mars, but many now wonder if the American space agency will have anything to do with it. We'll explain in a moment.

Plus how members of a family of an American hostage are pleading with his captors to send him home.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In January, President Bush unveiled a plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and to use the mission as a stepping- stone for manned trips to Mars and beyond. An ambitious plan, to say the least.

Today the commission appointed to figure out how to make it happen delivered its blueprint: 60 pages, a report long on ideas, modest on detail.

Reporting the story for us, CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Charged with bootstrapping NASA's audacious space itinerary to the moon and Mars, a presidential commission offered some advice on how to get there from here.

PETE ALDRIDGE, CHAIRMAN, MOON, MARS AND BEYOND: NASA's focus ought to be on that exploration initiative and allow some of the operational, less risky functions that are being performed by the government be transferred exclusively to the private sector.

O'BRIEN: Led by former Air Force Secretary Pete Aldridge, the commission wants NASA to be more business friendly, partnering with space entrepreneurs. It endorsed NASA's plans to offer cash rewards for innovative ideas and accomplishments.

It calls on NASA to outsource some of the operations of its field centers to universities and nonprofit organizations.

And the panel wants the White House to create a space steering council to develop policy and coordinate the efforts of all space faring federal agencies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people have asked us, you know, how much is this going to cost. And the answer is I don't know. I'll ask the same question. How much is the cure for cancer going to cost?

O'BRIEN: The ideas are hard to criticize, but the details are scant. And on Capitol Hill they know all too well that is how NASA could get lost on its way to Mars.

SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: I think the vision is a true one. But it's not being implemented. And sooner or later if you're going to go to the moon and Mars, you have to make a commitment in dollars. And that's got to be supported by the White House.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS: We can't afford not to invest in research if we are going to maintain our strong economy.

O'BRIEN (on camera): The White House and NASA are embracing the report. It does, after all, endorse their pay as you go approach.

But this is an election year and the presumptive Democratic nominee, John Kerry told Space.com, "the Bush space initiative throws out lofty goals but fails to support those goals with realistic funding."

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A few quick business items before we head to break, starting with the Federal Reserve's Beige Book on economic progress. They show housing starts fell in May but fell less than expected. Hiring picked up, and so did industrial production, a lot. The executive summary, in case you hadn't noticed, things in the economy are looking up.

Nothing in the Beige Book about this. A researcher named El Paso, Texas, as the sweatiest city in the country, with an average summer temperature of 93 and humidity over 70 percent. Residents there shed 36 hours of perspiration per person an hour.

You know, I'm not sure we needed to tell you that, but we did. So there you go.

Markets today barely budged. We did need to tell you that. You see the numbers. The Dow down just a little bit, a skosh, I think is the correct word.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the family of an American held hostage describes him as a man who has done much for Saudi Arabia. And now they beg for him to leave that country alive.

Also still ahead, the rooster, this morning's papers. Where else but NEWSNIGHT?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For the family of kidnapped American contractor Paul Johnson life has become a horrid countdown.

It's been four days since the Lockheed Martin employee went missing in Saudi Arabia. About 24 hours now since his captors posted a video on a Web site showing Mr. Johnson and threatening to kill him within 72 hours unless their demands are met. Today, half a world away in New Jersey, Mr. Johnson's soon and daughter -- rather, his sons and sister, talked with CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONNA MAYEUX, PAUL JOHNSON'S SISTER: And I would just like to say that my brother is an honorable man. He's always treated people with dignity and respect. And I'm sure they were able to see that as they've spoken with him. And our family just pleads for his safe return.

PAUL JOHNSON III, PAUL JOHNSON'S SON: My father is a loving father. He's a grandfather. He would give the shirt off his back to them if he knew them. And he respected -- he respected the Saudis.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You see the kidnappers. One is behind him. Clearly, one is there shooting the video. What goes through your mind?

MAYEUX: For me it's disbelief. My brother always felt safe in Saudi Arabia. He never feared living there.

FEYERICK: Did he ever consider listening to the embassy warnings for Americans to leave Riyadh, to leave Saudi Arabia?

JOHNSON: He's been there for over ten years, and he likes working with the Saudis. He respects their culture. And there is never a problem. He respected everything they believed in.

FEYERICK: The U.S. government, the Saudi government says that their policy is not to negotiate with terrorists. What do you say to the governments?

JOHNSON: The governments, you know, we know what they want, and my father, I know he's an innocent victim in this whole matter. And I plead with the Saudi government and the group of men that are holding my father to please let him return home safely. He will leave your country. You will never see him again. I just plead with them to -- to get him home safely.

FEYERICK: What is the message that you have for your dad right now?

JOHNSON: I just want him brought home safely.

MAYEUX: We're doing everything we can to bring him home. Everybody is trying to help. We appreciate that.

JOHNSON: I just plead with the Saudis to please, do whatever you take. If you got to -- we're all human. Just please, he's done a lot for your country. I respect your country. I respect -- I respect everything that everybody's done.

And I just want to see my father brought home safely. And the Saudis, you can make it happen. And I'm just asking you, please, make this happen. H's -- he does not deserve this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Wow, there's a fair amount of madness in the world. And at some point it all comes down to affecting families like that family in New Jersey.

"Morning Papers," after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Okey-dokey. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. Many cool things in the papers today.

Most everybody, but not everybody, but most everybody leads with the 9/11 commission.

"Initial al Qaeda plot" -- plan, rather -- "called for ten-jet attack on two coasts. U.S. Capital, CIA, FBI were targets." That's the lead in the "International Herald-Tribune." A very good story that I expect will appear in tomorrow's "New York Times," as well.

"Iraqi cleric tells his fighters to go home." Muqtada al-Sadr sort of giving up the ghost, telling his fighters to go home. Because he wants to run for office. He wants to be a politician, get into the mainstream of Iraqi life. Remember he -- well, things change over there.

Like I said, most everybody leads with 9/11, but not everybody. This is the most important story today in the "Washington Times."

"Senate sets mid-July vote on marriage." Convenient date: two weeks before the Democrats meet. This is the constitutional amendment on gay marriage. No politics involved in setting the date for that, my friends.

This is a very big issue to the "Times." They put it on the front page. In fact, they have a second story. "Seek to block homosexual marriages," a story out of Montana, an initiative drive there.

Something else I like? Well, probably, but it's gone now.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer," 9/11 leads. Here's a troubling story down in the corner by Anna Alum of the Inquirer staff: "Iraqis turn hopes to extremists." In parts of the countries it seems that both Shia and Sunni extremists are winning the game. Not a very good sign.

At the Des Moines register leads with -- well, they've got a bunch of stuff on the front page. It's not a lead. But it's a front- page story, nevertheless. And it's a purely Iowa story, folks: "Neighbors may sue hog farmer." They don't like the smell, they can sue. This overturns the state law.

"The Detroit News" leads basketball. I would, too. This is a wonderful essay on the front page by Francis X. Donnelley (ph): "Unity from unity," he writes, "by joining together, the Detroit Pistons won a world championship that, at least for a few glorious weeks, is bringing together a disparate region and people, city and suburbs, whites and blacks, white collar and blue collar."

Yes, it sure did.

That's the -- The weather in Chicago. Give me the weather in Chicago? Glug, glug. I think it's going to rain.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, there you go. Before we go, a quick look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING." Here is Soledad O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST, "AMERICAN MORNING": Thanks, Aaron.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," first came accusations by Hillary Clinton of a vast right-wing conspiracy. Now comes the movie, a documentary called "The Hunting of the President: The 10-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill Clinton," set for release this week. We're going to talk to the director, as well as Susan McDougal, find out what's new in this film, what we hadn't heard before.

That's CNN tomorrow, 7 a.m. Eastern. Aaron, back to you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Soledad, thank you. And just part of what they'll be doing tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING." So if you're up early -- it's really early for me. If you're up early, check that out.

We're back here tomorrow night at 10 Eastern Time. We trust you will be, too.

"LOU DOBBS" ahead for most of you. Until tomorrow, good night from all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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