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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Voice Hijacker Filled Room 9/11 Commission Played Cockpit Tape

Aired June 17, 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.
History is full of horrible lies. One of the worst was spelled out in wrought iron letters on the gates at Auschwitz. "Work will make you free" it said in German, but the one that was heard in the 9/11 hearing room today is right up there.

The tape recorded voice of, it is believed, Mohamed Atta telling passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, "stay quiet and you'll be OK." He knew they wouldn't be OK, to the contrary.

He knew that he and they and all those aboard three other jets would very soon be dead, along with many innocent people on the ground, which is why he lied to keep the doomed passengers calm and manageable.

If 9/11 isn't already the most studied day in history, it surely will be soon and yet we keep finding out things, heartbreaking things. The investigation again tops the program and begins the whip.

The 9/11 Commission's final hearings in Washington, Kelli Arena covering, Kelli a headline from you tonight.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the voice of one of the hijackers filled that room as a commissioner played a cockpit tape. And, as one family member said, even though nearly three years passed, it took you right back to that horrible day.

BROWN: It certainly did. Kelli, we'll get to you at the top tonight.

The White House next, the president sticking by his past statements about al Qaeda and Iraq. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux with the watch tonight, Suzanne the headline.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, a recent poll shows that as many as 50 percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Now, with the findings of the 9/11 Commission there are renewed questions whether the White House exaggerated the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to make its case for war. President Bush today defending the justification for the invasion.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. On to the Pentagon where the decision to keep a high value Iraqi prisoner hidden, off the books as it were, is causing some problems. CNN's Jamie McIntyre with the headline -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today said he was only doing what CIA Director George Tenet asked him to do when he ordered a prisoner dubbed XXX to be held in secret detention at the U.S. military prison camp near the Baghdad Airport.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you.

And finally, Iraq, the attacks mount, so do the deaths. Civilians taking the biggest hit. CNN's Christiane Amanpour is in Baghdad this morning, Christiane a headline from you.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, security forces as well taking the biggest hit. This is the latest in more than a dozen attacks on security forces. They weren't protected. All they wanted to do was join the new army.

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

Also coming up on the program on this Thursday night, an interesting follow-up on a story we've reported here on NEWSNIGHT before concerning the anti-malaria drug Lariam. The drug's side effects will be used to defend a soldier against charges of cowardice.

Plus a new chapter in the battle over marriage. In-state couples in Massachusetts can get married. Out of state gay couple cannot. The courts will have to settle this one.

And later, as he does every night, the rooster drops by bringing with him your morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the 9/11 Commission. In their final public hearing, the commissioners turned the clock back to the morning of September 11, 2001, before any of the planes had crashed, before Americans knew of the hijackings, before everything changed. They turned the clock back to the old normal.

How the military and the FAA and the White House responded on that morning was the focus today, with great confusion, say the commissioners. Their report on the response fueled most of the talk today but the hijackers also spoke in radio transmissions played publicly for the first time.

A series of reports beginning with CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): It was a chilling moment, a hijacker gives passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 an order.

VOICE OF MOHAMED ATTA: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport.

ARENA: The 9/11 Commission believes it's the voice of ringleader Mohamed Atta just before he piloted the flight into the World Trade Center.

LAURIE VAN AUKEN, WIFE OF 9/11 VICTIM: You know you start to cry when you hear that because it's three years but it brings you right back to the day.

ARENA: The tape was played during the final public hearing by the commission in which the members concluded the U.S. Air Defense System was completely unprepared for what happened that day.

PHILIP ZELIKOW, 9/11 COMMISSION EXEC. DIR.: On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.

ARENA: The 29-page report chronicled confusion and delays in trying to confirm which planes were hijacked and where they were headed.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHMN.: We got many aircraft calls inbound that morning that turned out to be phantoms.

ARENA: The commission concluded the military never received more than nine minutes' notice from the FAA on any of the hijackings. If it had, military officials now say they could have intercepted all four planes. Instead, the first call from the SAH and the military for help prompted this question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this real world or exercise?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, this is not an exercise (unintelligible).

ARENA: The president, who was in Florida during the attacks, admitted to the commission that he had problems communicating with the White House.

TOM KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHMN.: America is under attack and the commander-in-chief can't get through to the nation's capital, I mean that's a serious problem.

ARENA: The commission said President Bush gave Vice President Cheney an order to shoot down hostile aircraft, which he relayed to the military. Half an hour later, Cheney said to the defense secretary: "It's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out." He was mistaken.

JOHN FARMER, 9/11 COMMISSION STAFF: The only orders actually conveyed to the Langley pilots were to "I.D., type and tail."

ARENA: Confusion reigned at the FAA as well. Officials told the military Flight 11 was still in the air even after it had hit the World Trade Center and the FAA never asked for military assistance to deal with the flight that later crashed into the Pentagon. That flight, American Airlines 77, traveled undetected by radar for more than half an hour.

DEBRA BURLINGAME, SISTER OF 9/11 VICTIM: No one knew where these planes were except the people who were in them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: The report was not a complete indictment and did praise the work of aviation officials who "thought outside the box," making split second decisions that got 4,500 commercial planes that were still in the air to land safely -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just I think it helps people a little bit if we I think understand some of the confusion that was reigning to talk about the time frame that all this was happening in. You're not talking about hours and hours and hours.

ARENA: No. You're talking about seconds, Aaron, in some cases minutes if you were lucky and, as the commission members said, there was no training that at the time when they thought they were dealing with a hijacking they thought in the traditional sense that someone would take over a plane, make a demand but not drive it into a building.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you, Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

A little later in the program we'll have a long excerpt from the hijackers themselves and their talks with both the passengers and the control towers. That's coming up a little bit later.

These final two days of the 9/11 hearings have been long on drama in a number of ways. Yesterday, the panel delivered what many saw as a blow to the White House saying that al Qaeda and Iraq did not cooperate in the 9/11 attacks and had no formal relationship at all.

The White House has long maintained there were links between al Qaeda and Iraq. It used that allegation to make the case for war and it is not budging from that assertion, not tonight at least. A lot of parsing going on tonight, links and contacts and relationships and how they are different from what the commission found.

From the White House tonight, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): The 9/11 Commission says it has no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the September 11 attacks. During a cabinet meeting, the president maintained that the administration never made that claim.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

LEE HAMILTON, VICE CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: We don't disagree with that. MALVEAUX: And while there is no disagreement regarding the September 11 terrorist attacks, the president and members of his administration continue to highlight what they call direct links between the group responsible for those attacks and Saddam Hussein.

BUSH: Well, the reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

MALVEAUX: In the lead up to the war with Iraq, President Bush and his top aides cited numerous links between the two.

BUSH: There are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda had met at least eight times since the early 1990s.

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

MALVEAUX: Some on the 9/11 Commission continue to charge that the president and senior administration officials may have overstated the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda for political purposes.

JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: Certainly some in the administration may have overplayed this to leave the implication that the intelligence services in Iraq participated or helped plan 9/11.

MALVEAUX: Bush critics and some political analysts go even further.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: I don't think the Bush administration could be convicted of lying in a court of law but I think it deliberately politicked the issue to make its case for war in a way that was really not defensible based on the evidence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Now with the end of the 9/11 hearings, the White House is certainly hoping to move beyond this controversy, at least until the final report from the 9/11 Commission that comes out later in the summer -- Aaron.

BROWN: They certainly got the headlines in the paper today though and this story headlined most newspapers that we saw last night and they must have seen it as dangerous because they went at it full bore.

MALVEAUX: Well, certainly over the last 48 hours, I mean this has been a White House, of course, that has been on the defensive but they are very confident of the statements that they have made in the past. There are, as you know, a whole political aspect to this as well. The commission saying today that they wanted to make sure they get that final report out at least well before the Democratic National Committee. They are trying to show that this is not a partisan effort that its conclusions are not partisan but you can bet, Aaron, that both sides are using this to their advantage.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you, Suzanne Malveaux at the White House.

Also later in the program we'll talk with commission member John Lehman. That's coming up in a bit as well.

The Senate Intelligence Committee today unanimously approved what's said to be a very critical report on pre-war Iraqi intelligence. There's no telling when that report will be made public because the agencies being criticized get to go through it first, scratch out the things they say should be classified.

And here's another development Alfred Hitchcock would have liked, a man whisked not just off the street but off the record, captured but not registered, so that in a sense he ceased to exist.

Today, though, the man who wasn't came back, came back to haunt the Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Here's our senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The case began in late October, a time when U.S. troops were coming under increasing attack from insurgents. The CIA had captured a man dubbed XXX by some soldiers who was believed to be a terrorist leader directly responsible.

After an initial interrogation, the CIA Director George Tenet asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to take custody of the man but keep his detention secret. Rumsfeld insisted he did nothing wrong by complying with the CIA's request.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are those who would say, I guess, that you're not telling it because you might be mistreating such prisoners. That might be the suspicion.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I understand that. That's not the case at all and I think that will be clear.

MCINTYRE: XXX is identified by the Pentagon only as a high official and paramilitary leaders of the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group believed to be coordinating attacks on U.S. troops. Rumsfeld denies his order was in any way aimed at covering up abuse or inhumane treatment.

(on camera): Was there an intention to hide this prisoner from the Red Cross?

RUMSFELD: Not on my part.

MCINTYRE (voice-over): But the prisoner was never registered with the Red Cross as required by the Geneva Conventions, which the Pentagon now admits was a breakdown in procedure.

DANIEL DELL ORTO, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPT. OF DEFENSE: We should have registered him much sooner than we did. It didn't have to be at the very instant we brought him into our custody.

MCINTYRE: In his investigation of abuse at the Abu Ghraib Prison, Major General Antonio Taguba criticized military police for hiding so-called ghost detainees from the Red Cross, calling the practice "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law." Rumsfeld insists the case of XXX, who was never at Abu Ghraib, is different.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How is this case different from what Taguba was talking about the ghost detainees?

RUMSFELD: It is just different. That's all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain how and why?

RUMSFELD: I can't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Secretary Rumsfeld says it's up to the CIA to explain why the capture of this prisoner needed to be kept secret but there's more than a touch of irony in the defense that Rumsfeld is offering. It's somewhat similar to that of those lower down on the scale accused of wrongdoing, namely that he was just following orders -- Aaron.

BROWN: The order in this sense being the request from the CIA director?

MCINTYRE: Exactly.

BROWN: And does the CIA offer us any help on this? If we have to get this information from the CIA, what's it saying?

MCINTYRE: Well, right now the CIA is saying very little about what was going on with this prisoner except that he was of some value and then the question is why they never interrogated him again. The Pentagon kept thinking the CIA was going to come back and ask to talk to him again.

There were several requests to have his status reviewed that were ignored until just recently when a high-ranking general asked what was going on with him after eight months. That's when the Pentagon finally said I guess we better do something about this.

BROWN: And where is the guy now, do we know?

MCINTYRE: He remains at the prison camp outside of Baghdad where he has been for eight months.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre tonight.

Until today the only Americans charged in the prison abuse scandal have been low-ranking soldiers. Today the Justice Department says it's gotten an indictment on an independent contractor, the first civilian to be charged. The prisoner he is accused of assaulting had voluntarily surrendered in Afghanistan.

He was beaten to death during the interrogation, reporting for us tonight, CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thirty-eight-year-old David Passaro was indicted on four counts of assault in the beating of an Afghan prisoner Abdul Walli who later died.

At the time, Passaro was a private contractor for the CIA. A former Special Forces soldier, he was arrested Thursday morning where he lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: During these interrogations on June 19 and June 20, 2003, it is alleged that Passaro beat Walli repeatedly using his hands and feet and a large flashlight. Walli died in a cell in Asadabad Base on June the 21st, 2003.

ENSOR: The base is in a remote and hazardous area near the Pakistani border where Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are frequently encountered. U.S. forces there sometimes fire grenades to keep enemies at bay. Abdul Walli, the man who died, was suspected of firing rockets at U.S. forces.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield says as soon as his agency heard about the allegations they were immediately reported to the Justice Department. The attorney general sought to contrast the indictments with the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

ASHCROFT: The American people are by now familiar with the images of prisoner abuse committed in detention facilities overseas. Today a wholly different and frankly more accurate picture of our nation emerges.

ENSOR: One human rights advocate said assault was not the only crime that should have been charged.

STEVEN WATT, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: And given the nature of the indictment that he was literally bashed to death with a flashlight whilst he was being -- whilst he was under interrogation is a clear case of torture.

ENSOR (on camera): Passaro will face trial in a federal court in North Carolina. Each of the four charges carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison and $250,000 fine.

David Ensor, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, more violence in Iraq, and again, most of the casualties are innocent civilians. CNN's Christiane Amanpour joins us shortly.

And as promised, we'll look at the new battle brewing in Massachusetts between out-of-state gay couples and the state government. All because of a very old law.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In Iraq, the news of the day is again strained by the numbers. In a firefight near Baquba, U.S. soldier killed 10 suspected Iraqi insurgents, but the insurgents struck again as well. Two car bombings killed at least 41 people and injured more than 100 others. An Iraqi army-recruiting center in Baghdad was one of the targets. None of the 175 would-be recruits inside the facility's gates was killed or injured, nor were there any U.S. or Iraqi army casualties. That simple fact underscores the mathematical truth often lost in the fog of Iraq.

Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Yet another suicide bomber strikes at the very of Iraqi society: its new security forces. During the morning rush hour, a car backed with artillery shells exploded outside a recruiting center. And as usual, most of the victims were ordinary Iraqis, a media-mobbed U.S. soldier said.

LT. COL. MIKE MURRAY, U.S. ARMY: Those are where the casualties came from, was innocent civilians that just happened to be on the street when this bomb went off.

AMANPOUR: And it's been like that since last summer. But the traffic of caskets in and out of the Baghdad morgue is heavier than usual these days in the run-up to the June 30 handover.

Waiting inside the morgue, Azi Niad (ph) is terrified.

"Fear is everywhere," he tells us. "If you go out at night, you're afraid. During the day, you're afraid. There is no security anywhere."

(on camera): While most of the attention has been paid to the deaths of American soldiers and international contractors, by far the highest number of death have been amongst Iraqis, most of them ordinary civilians. This one morgue in Baghdad alone says that it receives about 40 bodies everyday, victims of the current violence.

(voice-over): Ada al-Hilfrim (ph) has come to collect the body of his 12-year-old nephew, killed by a stray bullet.

"This are all our people," he says. "Sons and brothers gone because of the lack of security and stability in our country."

Whether at U.N. headquarters or at police stations, every time the terrorists and insurgents strike, Iraqis have paid dearly.

Statistics for the whole country are hard to come by. But in Baghdad in Najaf alone, health ministry officials say 2,600 have been killed over the last year, and another 3,500 injured. That's about triple the number of U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors killed in the whole country.

The aim is to sow panic and paralyze the country, especially by assassinating government officials and businessmen, kidnapping doctors and other professionals.

BAKHTYAR AMIN: They are pushing our elite, our brains, outside the country or (UNINTELLIGIBLE) them.

AMANPOUR: Mohammed Ali says he plans to leave if things don't change. He's a medical student.

MOHAMMED ALI, MEDICAL STUDENT: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) shooting. We don't know where (UNINTELLIGIBLE) any -- any time. Don't know in the evening, night (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

AMANPOUR: Fear and misery that are expected only to get worse even beyond the handover.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: This is about the 20th attack on either police or security headquarters since mid September, and it points to a very severe problem: how are Iraqi forces going to be up and running and ready to take even some security after the handover on June 30.

The U.S. deputy defense security in Iraq said that the Iraqi security forces are going to need substantial U.S. military help for a long period of time -- Aaron.

BROWN: Obviously, most of the violence is political. It's the insurgency -- and the insurgency has many heads, but it's the insurgency. But not all of it is. Some of it is just random violence, isn't it? Or at least non-political violence.

AMANPOUR: Well, it just seems that when we're talking specifically about the security forces, it does seem very much targeted. And it is political, and it is an attempt not to allow Iraq to form its own security forces, which is vital to, as you know, to the maintaining of any state. Wherever they are, they need a security force, and many of these people want to join up.

Remember, the army was disbanded by the American occupational authority's Paul Bremer last year. And since then, a lot of the military have A, been disgruntled, and others have wanted to come and join up again. They see this as their chance. And they're just -- the attacks on them are very dispiriting, and that's what we found after this latest attack. BROWN: Christiane, thanks. Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad. It's morning there.

Couple of more notes from Iraq, and better things to report.

Diplomatic sources tell CNN that a Lebanese man who had been held hostage was released today unharmed. And Turkish media are reporting that two truckers, one of them Egyptian, the other from Turkey, were also freed by kidnappers. They had been held hostage for about two weeks.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the chilling voice of a murderer heard publicly today for the very first time at the 9/11 commission hearings. And you will hear them too.

And surely you'll see much of the 9/11 hearings in tomorrow's papers, which we'll have for you tonight. Because that's the way we are.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In all that we heard today from the 9/11 commission, nothing captured the absolute horror of that day quite like what you're about to hear. There's no need to dress this up with fancy graphics, no need for flashy production. Just cue the tape and play the tape and listen to the hijackers, the killers of 9/11, as they go about their business.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 8:00 on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 began its take off role at Logan Airport in Boston. By 8:09, it was being monitored by FAA's Boston Center. At 8:24:36, the following transmission came from American 11:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK. We're returning to the airport.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next transmission came seconds later.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just say quiet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hearing that transmission, the controller told us he then knew it was a hijacking. At 8:34, the Boston Center controller received a third transmission from American 11.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 8:37:52, Boston Center reached NEADS. This was the first notification received by the military at any level that American 11 had been hijacked.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi Boston Center TMU, we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York and we need you guys to -- we need someone to scramble some F16s or something up there to help us out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this real-world or exercise?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 8:41, United 175 enter New York Center's airspace. The New York Center controller and manager were unaware that American 11 had already crashed. Between 9:01 and 9:02, a manager from New York Center told the command center Herndon:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got several situations going on here. It's escalating big time, and we need to get the military involved with this.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 9:01, New York Center contacted New York Terminal Approach Control and asked for help in locating United 175.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just -- we don't know who yet. We're just picking him up now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, heads up. And it looks like another one coming in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The controllers observed the planes in rapid descent. At 9:03:03, United 175 crashed into the South Tower. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: United 93 took over from Newark at 8:42. At 9:28, United 93 acknowledged the transmission from the controller. At 9:32, a third radio transmission came over the frequency. Quote -- "Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board." -- end quote.

Then, at 9:39, a fifth radio transmission came over the radio frequency from United 93.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ZIAD JARRAH, 9/11 HIJACKER: This is your captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb aboard and are going back to the airport and to have our demands (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Please remain quiet.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 9:46 and again two minutes later, command center updated FAA headquarters that United 93 was now -- quote -- "29 minutes out of the Washington, D.C." -- end quote.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we want to think about scrambling aircraft?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God, I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next 10 minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, everybody just left the room.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Repeatedly between 10:14 and 10:19, a lieutenant colonel at the White House relayed the information to the National Military Command Center that the vice president had confirmed fighters were cleared to engage any aircraft that they could verify that the aircraft had been hijacked.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There was no time to get that verification. United Air 93 had already crashed in a field in Pennsylvania 10 minutes short of an intercept, and 125 miles short of Washington, D.C.

The commission's report is due next month, five Democrats, five Republicans.

One of them is former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a Republican. We talked with him today about the day late this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Among the things you talked about today, Mr. Secretary, is the NORAD response, the military response to all of this.

I have two questions there. First of all, was there in place protocol for the shooting down of a civilian airliner? And corollary to that, I guess, is, has anyone ever thought about whether an American pilot could actually pull the trigger under those circumstances?

JOHN LEHMAN, FMR. SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, 9/11 COMMISSION: Well, the answer is there were no protocols in place, and that was one of the criticisms that we've had. Even though we have found in our -- in our investigations that planners at NORAD had proposed that they start exercising when some of the early intelligence came in that there were -- there were reports of al Qaeda planning things like Bojinka plot, and using aircraft as missiles.

But it was rejected and never put into the exercises. And hence, there were never any protocols developed. And everybody was playing it by ear that day, which was unfortunate.

However, at the working level, everybody -- everybody did very well on the military side, and in the FAA at the centers. They -- there's no doubt in my mind that they would have pulled the trigger. The Air National Guard F-116s that were sent up over -- over Washington were cleared to fire. And they would have. If any aircraft had come in within a 20-mile radius, I have no doubt that the pilots would have pulled the trigger had they been armed. Unfortunately...

BROWN: So on balance, it was not so much a protocol problem as it was, ultimately, a communications problem. They weren't sure what they had, and by the time they figured it out it was too late?

LEHMAN: Well, a huge problem was that the FAA's headquarters was really dysfunctional. Their protocols had to pass everything up to headquarters to get approvals, even to contact the military. And -- and when it got up to headquarters in Washington, it seemed to enter a black hole where nothing came out.

So, particularly on United 93, which was the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania, that was lost by FAA. And while the headquarters knew that it was lost, they were still -- they didn't designate hijacked, and they never reported it to NORAD until after it had crashed.

BROWN: And just in the last half-minute or so, you'll be laying out those lessons to be learned over the next couple of weeks. As you get to the end here, do you expect the debate internally to be fairly spirited and do you expect the result to be unanimous?

LEHMAN: I do expect the result to be unanimous because the facts that we have been immersed in over the last 18 months has really dissolved most of the partisanship that is natural whenever you get five Republicans and five Democrats in a room.

So while, yes, there is going to be active debate over nuance and things that verge on the editorial, there won't be any difference and we haven't run into any difference over the real substance, the facts. And I am confident also in the recommendations, which are going to be hard-hitting, they're going to be dramatic, and they're going to be doable.

BROWN: Mr. Secretary, we appreciate your time and we especially appreciate your work on the commission. Thank you, sir.

LEHMAN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. We talked with him late this afternoon.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the law was originally intended to keep blacks and whites from marrying. Now, almost 100 years later in Massachusetts, that same law is being used to stop out- of-state gay couples from marrying. We'll have the latest on that.

Still later, the youngest (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we've ever seen. "On the Rise," of course. From Down Under no less.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: "This Week in History," the first African American, Thurgood Marshall, was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a slow-speed chase on June 17, 1994, L.A. police followed O.J. Simpson in a white Ford Bronco driven by his friend and former teammate Al Cowlings.

And in Montana, an 81-day standoff between the FBI and the anti- government Freemen group came to a peaceful end.

And that is "This Week in History."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As things stand in the state of Massachusetts, if you are gay and reside in the state, you can be married. If you reside elsewhere, you cannot come there to be married. Well, at least you can't get married when you get there.

That is based on a law that was written to keep interracial couples from coming to the state to wed when marriages were forbidden in their home state. To no one's surprise, the law is being tested in a suit filed today.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The honeymoon is already over in the gay marriage legal battle in Massachusetts.

ED BUTLER, PLAINTIFF: We want to be able to hear somebody say, I now pronounce you married.

LOTHIAN: Wendy Becker lives in Rhode Island and feels gays and lesbians from anywhere should have the right to be married in the only state that has legalized gay marriages.

WENDY BECKER, PLAINTIFF: We want the social recognition and the legal protection that goes with being married.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're gathered here together...

LOTHIAN: This double wedding with couples from out of state was just one of many such unions that took place last month in Massachusetts. Some clerks issues licenses to out-of-state residents, openly defying warnings by Governor Mitt Romney and his attorney general that their actions violated the law.

GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R), MASSACHUSETTS: I do believe that we should not export same-sex marriage to other states that have the Defense of Marriage Act.

LOTHIAN: The state attorney general quickly issued an order that halted non-resident licenses.

But these couples, who were either recently married in Massachusetts or were turned away, say the segregation-era law, passed in response to interracial marriages, is not only discriminatory, but unconstitutional.

MARY BONAUTO, CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT DIRECTOR, GLAD: We can't dust off this law that hasn't been enforced for many years, and now rely on this law that has very disreputable, racist origins.

LOTHIAN: Clerks in Provincetown, a gay-vacation hot spot, and in cities like Sommerville, north of Boston, did issue some marriage licenses to non-residents. They are now part of the lawsuits.

MAYOR JOE CURTATONE, SOMMERVILLE, MASS.: Our clerks have never been asked to act as marriage police before. We shouldn't be required to do so now.

LOTHIAN (on camera): Since there is pending litigation, Governor Romney's office said he would have no comment. His attorney general, who also had no comment, has said in the past that his office is just upholding the current law, and that nothing would change until a court rules otherwise.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, tonight, we'll introduce you to a group of 15-year-olds from Australia who are very much "On the Rise." And what do 15-year-olds from Down Under do? Well, they make wine. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

And late, as always, "Morning Papers."

Break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is a story about kids and culture and a good bottle of wine.

Now, the kids are too young to drink a good bottle of wine, or even a bad bottle of wine, for that matter. But they aren't too young to make wine, which is what they are doing in Australia. Making good wine (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

This is why tonight they are "On the Rise."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN HOSON: Once considered part of Australian culture, it's something that Australians enjoy doing.

We set out to introduce the teaching of wine making, not the teaching of drinking wine.

This is 2003 quarts. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

SHARIDAN BARTER: We've never tasted any wine. We're all underage here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

AARON SCHMIDT: They trust us, and we haven't let them down yet, I don't think. They haven't let (UNINTELLIGIBLE) taste his own wine.

HOSON: Our program is certainly unique. We have got highly motivated students.

BARTER: We have been involved in all aspects of the wine making.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE)

HOSON: You add yeast to it, and that converts the sugar to alcohol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ever think of that?

HOSON: Then, it's stored in (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

HOSON: And then goes into the bottle. And then it gets mangled into whatever brand it is.

BARTER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we have just (ph) a glass.

HOSON: Chardonnay.

BARTER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

HOSON: They're a very good filler in our restaurant. They love it. Really, really love it.

I was shocked that day. The wines are doing so little (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Famous Wines and Spirits, down here on Gowall (ph) Street.

The local scholar from New (UNINTELLIGIBLE) High School is the one (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

I was incredulous. You're kidding me! You know, 15-year-old kids made this wine?

BARTER: I think it's great that we're finally getting some money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The wine costs $35 per bottle. Most customers will thank me for recommending it to them, and they love it.

BARTER: We've gotten great reviews. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first review I saw for this particular wine was from the Wine Advocate, and the review was 94-point. Ninety- four point line is exceptional. That's a rarity.

To make such an incredibly good product at that age, and you don't even drink.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A small project, handcrafted, they're incredible.

BARTER: Having experienced making real (UNINTELLIGIBLE) wine has been great. Go out, buy it, try it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That is a -- that's a great "On the Rise."

"Morning Papers" after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Time to check "Morning Papers" from around the country and around the world in no particular order tonight, I guess because I had no time to put them in a particular order.

We'll begin with the San Antonio Express News. Almost everyone led with 9/11. "D.C. Stood Defenseless on 9/11" is the San Antonio lead. And under that, it says, "Defensive: President Bush defends his administration against charges it exaggerated Iraq's ties to al Qaeda in the lead-up to the war last year." I'm not sure it sounded defensive to me, but it did to the editors of this good paper, so we'll go with that.

Christian Science Monitor, "On 9/11, Defenders Just Improvised: September 11 Panel Finds the National Security System was Utterly unprepared for the challenge posed by al Qaeda." Also like this story: "Clinton Peddles a Book, Polishes an Image." Next week, man, it's going to be all Clinton all the time, as the book comes out.

I -- we're -- on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to look at the policy implications of the book.

"Hoop-Dee-Do!" is the lead -- sometimes I just say things to amuse me. "Hoop-Dee-Do" is the lead in the Detroit Free Press. They put basketball on the front page. 9/11 is there.

What I found interesting -- I find this -- these sort of things interesting -- The Detroit News didn't put sports on the front page at all. Big parade in town, they just ignored it. They go with a good road story though, "Metro Road Fixed To Cost Up To $75 Billion -- $70 Billion." Unfortunately, only $40 billion will be available over the next 25 years. So they got a problem there.

Chattanooga Times Free Press leads with 9/11: "Air Defenses Ineffective on 9/11." This is the most interesting story on the front page to me: "Americans Feel More Upbeat About Iraq, Polls Show." A dramatic shift in a month -- about 57 percent of Americans think the effort is going well, up from 46 percent last month. And the president's numbers go up in this poll. A Pew poll now has a two- point lead over John Kerry, and I think if you looked at the electoral map, you'd be running a little better than that.

Two good stories on the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer is down at the bottom, both economic stories. "Economic Factories Get Busy, So Many May Add Jobs." On the other hand, it turns out minority firms lag in city deals. Two good economic stories in a very good newspaper, The Detroit Inquirer (sic).

The big tobacco story was that fewer kids are smoking these days, but that's not what The Richmond Times-Dispatch put on. They put this story on tobacco, "Tobacco Buy-Out Could Help Avert Train Wreck." The House of Representatives voted to end the tobacco subsidy program and to give tobacco growers about $9 billion to get out of the business.

Running out of time. I think the weather tomorrow in Chicago -- thank you -- is malaise. I'll find it, and we'll just -- we'll work it out.

We'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Couple quick programming notes before we say good night.

We said at the top of the program that we'd have an update on the anti-malaria drug Larium. This being TV, sometimes unfortunate things happen. The spot got eaten by the server or something. Anyway, we'll fix it and have it for you tomorrow night. It's actually quite a story, so we'll have that tomorrow night.

Also, tomorrow on the program, our love of still photos intersects with history. Anne Frank -- Anne Frank would have been 75 last week had she survived. Her father, Otto Frank, was an avid amateur photographer. Birthday parties, holidays, trips to the beach, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) large and small. He documented all of them. They are moving in many different ways, and we'll have that tomorrow on the program.

It being Friday night, we'll throw in a tabloid or two just because.

All that's tomorrow. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern Time.

Until then, 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 17, 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.
History is full of horrible lies. One of the worst was spelled out in wrought iron letters on the gates at Auschwitz. "Work will make you free" it said in German, but the one that was heard in the 9/11 hearing room today is right up there.

The tape recorded voice of, it is believed, Mohamed Atta telling passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, "stay quiet and you'll be OK." He knew they wouldn't be OK, to the contrary.

He knew that he and they and all those aboard three other jets would very soon be dead, along with many innocent people on the ground, which is why he lied to keep the doomed passengers calm and manageable.

If 9/11 isn't already the most studied day in history, it surely will be soon and yet we keep finding out things, heartbreaking things. The investigation again tops the program and begins the whip.

The 9/11 Commission's final hearings in Washington, Kelli Arena covering, Kelli a headline from you tonight.

KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the voice of one of the hijackers filled that room as a commissioner played a cockpit tape. And, as one family member said, even though nearly three years passed, it took you right back to that horrible day.

BROWN: It certainly did. Kelli, we'll get to you at the top tonight.

The White House next, the president sticking by his past statements about al Qaeda and Iraq. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux with the watch tonight, Suzanne the headline.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, a recent poll shows that as many as 50 percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Now, with the findings of the 9/11 Commission there are renewed questions whether the White House exaggerated the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to make its case for war. President Bush today defending the justification for the invasion.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you. On to the Pentagon where the decision to keep a high value Iraqi prisoner hidden, off the books as it were, is causing some problems. CNN's Jamie McIntyre with the headline -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today said he was only doing what CIA Director George Tenet asked him to do when he ordered a prisoner dubbed XXX to be held in secret detention at the U.S. military prison camp near the Baghdad Airport.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you.

And finally, Iraq, the attacks mount, so do the deaths. Civilians taking the biggest hit. CNN's Christiane Amanpour is in Baghdad this morning, Christiane a headline from you.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, security forces as well taking the biggest hit. This is the latest in more than a dozen attacks on security forces. They weren't protected. All they wanted to do was join the new army.

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

Also coming up on the program on this Thursday night, an interesting follow-up on a story we've reported here on NEWSNIGHT before concerning the anti-malaria drug Lariam. The drug's side effects will be used to defend a soldier against charges of cowardice.

Plus a new chapter in the battle over marriage. In-state couples in Massachusetts can get married. Out of state gay couple cannot. The courts will have to settle this one.

And later, as he does every night, the rooster drops by bringing with him your morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with the 9/11 Commission. In their final public hearing, the commissioners turned the clock back to the morning of September 11, 2001, before any of the planes had crashed, before Americans knew of the hijackings, before everything changed. They turned the clock back to the old normal.

How the military and the FAA and the White House responded on that morning was the focus today, with great confusion, say the commissioners. Their report on the response fueled most of the talk today but the hijackers also spoke in radio transmissions played publicly for the first time.

A series of reports beginning with CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA (voice-over): It was a chilling moment, a hijacker gives passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 an order.

VOICE OF MOHAMED ATTA: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport.

ARENA: The 9/11 Commission believes it's the voice of ringleader Mohamed Atta just before he piloted the flight into the World Trade Center.

LAURIE VAN AUKEN, WIFE OF 9/11 VICTIM: You know you start to cry when you hear that because it's three years but it brings you right back to the day.

ARENA: The tape was played during the final public hearing by the commission in which the members concluded the U.S. Air Defense System was completely unprepared for what happened that day.

PHILIP ZELIKOW, 9/11 COMMISSION EXEC. DIR.: On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.

ARENA: The 29-page report chronicled confusion and delays in trying to confirm which planes were hijacked and where they were headed.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHMN.: We got many aircraft calls inbound that morning that turned out to be phantoms.

ARENA: The commission concluded the military never received more than nine minutes' notice from the FAA on any of the hijackings. If it had, military officials now say they could have intercepted all four planes. Instead, the first call from the SAH and the military for help prompted this question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this real world or exercise?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, this is not an exercise (unintelligible).

ARENA: The president, who was in Florida during the attacks, admitted to the commission that he had problems communicating with the White House.

TOM KEAN, 9/11 COMMISSION CHMN.: America is under attack and the commander-in-chief can't get through to the nation's capital, I mean that's a serious problem.

ARENA: The commission said President Bush gave Vice President Cheney an order to shoot down hostile aircraft, which he relayed to the military. Half an hour later, Cheney said to the defense secretary: "It's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out." He was mistaken.

JOHN FARMER, 9/11 COMMISSION STAFF: The only orders actually conveyed to the Langley pilots were to "I.D., type and tail."

ARENA: Confusion reigned at the FAA as well. Officials told the military Flight 11 was still in the air even after it had hit the World Trade Center and the FAA never asked for military assistance to deal with the flight that later crashed into the Pentagon. That flight, American Airlines 77, traveled undetected by radar for more than half an hour.

DEBRA BURLINGAME, SISTER OF 9/11 VICTIM: No one knew where these planes were except the people who were in them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARENA: The report was not a complete indictment and did praise the work of aviation officials who "thought outside the box," making split second decisions that got 4,500 commercial planes that were still in the air to land safely -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just I think it helps people a little bit if we I think understand some of the confusion that was reigning to talk about the time frame that all this was happening in. You're not talking about hours and hours and hours.

ARENA: No. You're talking about seconds, Aaron, in some cases minutes if you were lucky and, as the commission members said, there was no training that at the time when they thought they were dealing with a hijacking they thought in the traditional sense that someone would take over a plane, make a demand but not drive it into a building.

BROWN: Kelli, thank you, Kelli Arena in Washington tonight.

A little later in the program we'll have a long excerpt from the hijackers themselves and their talks with both the passengers and the control towers. That's coming up a little bit later.

These final two days of the 9/11 hearings have been long on drama in a number of ways. Yesterday, the panel delivered what many saw as a blow to the White House saying that al Qaeda and Iraq did not cooperate in the 9/11 attacks and had no formal relationship at all.

The White House has long maintained there were links between al Qaeda and Iraq. It used that allegation to make the case for war and it is not budging from that assertion, not tonight at least. A lot of parsing going on tonight, links and contacts and relationships and how they are different from what the commission found.

From the White House tonight, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): The 9/11 Commission says it has no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the September 11 attacks. During a cabinet meeting, the president maintained that the administration never made that claim.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

LEE HAMILTON, VICE CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: We don't disagree with that. MALVEAUX: And while there is no disagreement regarding the September 11 terrorist attacks, the president and members of his administration continue to highlight what they call direct links between the group responsible for those attacks and Saddam Hussein.

BUSH: Well, the reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

MALVEAUX: In the lead up to the war with Iraq, President Bush and his top aides cited numerous links between the two.

BUSH: There are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda had met at least eight times since the early 1990s.

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

MALVEAUX: Some on the 9/11 Commission continue to charge that the president and senior administration officials may have overstated the relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda for political purposes.

JOHN LEHMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: Certainly some in the administration may have overplayed this to leave the implication that the intelligence services in Iraq participated or helped plan 9/11.

MALVEAUX: Bush critics and some political analysts go even further.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: I don't think the Bush administration could be convicted of lying in a court of law but I think it deliberately politicked the issue to make its case for war in a way that was really not defensible based on the evidence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Now with the end of the 9/11 hearings, the White House is certainly hoping to move beyond this controversy, at least until the final report from the 9/11 Commission that comes out later in the summer -- Aaron.

BROWN: They certainly got the headlines in the paper today though and this story headlined most newspapers that we saw last night and they must have seen it as dangerous because they went at it full bore.

MALVEAUX: Well, certainly over the last 48 hours, I mean this has been a White House, of course, that has been on the defensive but they are very confident of the statements that they have made in the past. There are, as you know, a whole political aspect to this as well. The commission saying today that they wanted to make sure they get that final report out at least well before the Democratic National Committee. They are trying to show that this is not a partisan effort that its conclusions are not partisan but you can bet, Aaron, that both sides are using this to their advantage.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you, Suzanne Malveaux at the White House.

Also later in the program we'll talk with commission member John Lehman. That's coming up in a bit as well.

The Senate Intelligence Committee today unanimously approved what's said to be a very critical report on pre-war Iraqi intelligence. There's no telling when that report will be made public because the agencies being criticized get to go through it first, scratch out the things they say should be classified.

And here's another development Alfred Hitchcock would have liked, a man whisked not just off the street but off the record, captured but not registered, so that in a sense he ceased to exist.

Today, though, the man who wasn't came back, came back to haunt the Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Here's our senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The case began in late October, a time when U.S. troops were coming under increasing attack from insurgents. The CIA had captured a man dubbed XXX by some soldiers who was believed to be a terrorist leader directly responsible.

After an initial interrogation, the CIA Director George Tenet asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to take custody of the man but keep his detention secret. Rumsfeld insisted he did nothing wrong by complying with the CIA's request.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are those who would say, I guess, that you're not telling it because you might be mistreating such prisoners. That might be the suspicion.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I understand that. That's not the case at all and I think that will be clear.

MCINTYRE: XXX is identified by the Pentagon only as a high official and paramilitary leaders of the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group believed to be coordinating attacks on U.S. troops. Rumsfeld denies his order was in any way aimed at covering up abuse or inhumane treatment.

(on camera): Was there an intention to hide this prisoner from the Red Cross?

RUMSFELD: Not on my part.

MCINTYRE (voice-over): But the prisoner was never registered with the Red Cross as required by the Geneva Conventions, which the Pentagon now admits was a breakdown in procedure.

DANIEL DELL ORTO, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPT. OF DEFENSE: We should have registered him much sooner than we did. It didn't have to be at the very instant we brought him into our custody.

MCINTYRE: In his investigation of abuse at the Abu Ghraib Prison, Major General Antonio Taguba criticized military police for hiding so-called ghost detainees from the Red Cross, calling the practice "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law." Rumsfeld insists the case of XXX, who was never at Abu Ghraib, is different.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How is this case different from what Taguba was talking about the ghost detainees?

RUMSFELD: It is just different. That's all.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain how and why?

RUMSFELD: I can't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Secretary Rumsfeld says it's up to the CIA to explain why the capture of this prisoner needed to be kept secret but there's more than a touch of irony in the defense that Rumsfeld is offering. It's somewhat similar to that of those lower down on the scale accused of wrongdoing, namely that he was just following orders -- Aaron.

BROWN: The order in this sense being the request from the CIA director?

MCINTYRE: Exactly.

BROWN: And does the CIA offer us any help on this? If we have to get this information from the CIA, what's it saying?

MCINTYRE: Well, right now the CIA is saying very little about what was going on with this prisoner except that he was of some value and then the question is why they never interrogated him again. The Pentagon kept thinking the CIA was going to come back and ask to talk to him again.

There were several requests to have his status reviewed that were ignored until just recently when a high-ranking general asked what was going on with him after eight months. That's when the Pentagon finally said I guess we better do something about this.

BROWN: And where is the guy now, do we know?

MCINTYRE: He remains at the prison camp outside of Baghdad where he has been for eight months.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre tonight.

Until today the only Americans charged in the prison abuse scandal have been low-ranking soldiers. Today the Justice Department says it's gotten an indictment on an independent contractor, the first civilian to be charged. The prisoner he is accused of assaulting had voluntarily surrendered in Afghanistan.

He was beaten to death during the interrogation, reporting for us tonight, CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Thirty-eight-year-old David Passaro was indicted on four counts of assault in the beating of an Afghan prisoner Abdul Walli who later died.

At the time, Passaro was a private contractor for the CIA. A former Special Forces soldier, he was arrested Thursday morning where he lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: During these interrogations on June 19 and June 20, 2003, it is alleged that Passaro beat Walli repeatedly using his hands and feet and a large flashlight. Walli died in a cell in Asadabad Base on June the 21st, 2003.

ENSOR: The base is in a remote and hazardous area near the Pakistani border where Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are frequently encountered. U.S. forces there sometimes fire grenades to keep enemies at bay. Abdul Walli, the man who died, was suspected of firing rockets at U.S. forces.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield says as soon as his agency heard about the allegations they were immediately reported to the Justice Department. The attorney general sought to contrast the indictments with the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

ASHCROFT: The American people are by now familiar with the images of prisoner abuse committed in detention facilities overseas. Today a wholly different and frankly more accurate picture of our nation emerges.

ENSOR: One human rights advocate said assault was not the only crime that should have been charged.

STEVEN WATT, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: And given the nature of the indictment that he was literally bashed to death with a flashlight whilst he was being -- whilst he was under interrogation is a clear case of torture.

ENSOR (on camera): Passaro will face trial in a federal court in North Carolina. Each of the four charges carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison and $250,000 fine.

David Ensor, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, more violence in Iraq, and again, most of the casualties are innocent civilians. CNN's Christiane Amanpour joins us shortly.

And as promised, we'll look at the new battle brewing in Massachusetts between out-of-state gay couples and the state government. All because of a very old law.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In Iraq, the news of the day is again strained by the numbers. In a firefight near Baquba, U.S. soldier killed 10 suspected Iraqi insurgents, but the insurgents struck again as well. Two car bombings killed at least 41 people and injured more than 100 others. An Iraqi army-recruiting center in Baghdad was one of the targets. None of the 175 would-be recruits inside the facility's gates was killed or injured, nor were there any U.S. or Iraqi army casualties. That simple fact underscores the mathematical truth often lost in the fog of Iraq.

Here's CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Yet another suicide bomber strikes at the very of Iraqi society: its new security forces. During the morning rush hour, a car backed with artillery shells exploded outside a recruiting center. And as usual, most of the victims were ordinary Iraqis, a media-mobbed U.S. soldier said.

LT. COL. MIKE MURRAY, U.S. ARMY: Those are where the casualties came from, was innocent civilians that just happened to be on the street when this bomb went off.

AMANPOUR: And it's been like that since last summer. But the traffic of caskets in and out of the Baghdad morgue is heavier than usual these days in the run-up to the June 30 handover.

Waiting inside the morgue, Azi Niad (ph) is terrified.

"Fear is everywhere," he tells us. "If you go out at night, you're afraid. During the day, you're afraid. There is no security anywhere."

(on camera): While most of the attention has been paid to the deaths of American soldiers and international contractors, by far the highest number of death have been amongst Iraqis, most of them ordinary civilians. This one morgue in Baghdad alone says that it receives about 40 bodies everyday, victims of the current violence.

(voice-over): Ada al-Hilfrim (ph) has come to collect the body of his 12-year-old nephew, killed by a stray bullet.

"This are all our people," he says. "Sons and brothers gone because of the lack of security and stability in our country."

Whether at U.N. headquarters or at police stations, every time the terrorists and insurgents strike, Iraqis have paid dearly.

Statistics for the whole country are hard to come by. But in Baghdad in Najaf alone, health ministry officials say 2,600 have been killed over the last year, and another 3,500 injured. That's about triple the number of U.S. soldiers and other foreign contractors killed in the whole country.

The aim is to sow panic and paralyze the country, especially by assassinating government officials and businessmen, kidnapping doctors and other professionals.

BAKHTYAR AMIN: They are pushing our elite, our brains, outside the country or (UNINTELLIGIBLE) them.

AMANPOUR: Mohammed Ali says he plans to leave if things don't change. He's a medical student.

MOHAMMED ALI, MEDICAL STUDENT: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) shooting. We don't know where (UNINTELLIGIBLE) any -- any time. Don't know in the evening, night (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

AMANPOUR: Fear and misery that are expected only to get worse even beyond the handover.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: This is about the 20th attack on either police or security headquarters since mid September, and it points to a very severe problem: how are Iraqi forces going to be up and running and ready to take even some security after the handover on June 30.

The U.S. deputy defense security in Iraq said that the Iraqi security forces are going to need substantial U.S. military help for a long period of time -- Aaron.

BROWN: Obviously, most of the violence is political. It's the insurgency -- and the insurgency has many heads, but it's the insurgency. But not all of it is. Some of it is just random violence, isn't it? Or at least non-political violence.

AMANPOUR: Well, it just seems that when we're talking specifically about the security forces, it does seem very much targeted. And it is political, and it is an attempt not to allow Iraq to form its own security forces, which is vital to, as you know, to the maintaining of any state. Wherever they are, they need a security force, and many of these people want to join up.

Remember, the army was disbanded by the American occupational authority's Paul Bremer last year. And since then, a lot of the military have A, been disgruntled, and others have wanted to come and join up again. They see this as their chance. And they're just -- the attacks on them are very dispiriting, and that's what we found after this latest attack. BROWN: Christiane, thanks. Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad. It's morning there.

Couple of more notes from Iraq, and better things to report.

Diplomatic sources tell CNN that a Lebanese man who had been held hostage was released today unharmed. And Turkish media are reporting that two truckers, one of them Egyptian, the other from Turkey, were also freed by kidnappers. They had been held hostage for about two weeks.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the chilling voice of a murderer heard publicly today for the very first time at the 9/11 commission hearings. And you will hear them too.

And surely you'll see much of the 9/11 hearings in tomorrow's papers, which we'll have for you tonight. Because that's the way we are.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In all that we heard today from the 9/11 commission, nothing captured the absolute horror of that day quite like what you're about to hear. There's no need to dress this up with fancy graphics, no need for flashy production. Just cue the tape and play the tape and listen to the hijackers, the killers of 9/11, as they go about their business.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 8:00 on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 began its take off role at Logan Airport in Boston. By 8:09, it was being monitored by FAA's Boston Center. At 8:24:36, the following transmission came from American 11:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK. We're returning to the airport.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next transmission came seconds later.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just say quiet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hearing that transmission, the controller told us he then knew it was a hijacking. At 8:34, the Boston Center controller received a third transmission from American 11.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 8:37:52, Boston Center reached NEADS. This was the first notification received by the military at any level that American 11 had been hijacked.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi Boston Center TMU, we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York and we need you guys to -- we need someone to scramble some F16s or something up there to help us out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this real-world or exercise?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 8:41, United 175 enter New York Center's airspace. The New York Center controller and manager were unaware that American 11 had already crashed. Between 9:01 and 9:02, a manager from New York Center told the command center Herndon:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got several situations going on here. It's escalating big time, and we need to get the military involved with this.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 9:01, New York Center contacted New York Terminal Approach Control and asked for help in locating United 175.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just -- we don't know who yet. We're just picking him up now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, heads up. And it looks like another one coming in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The controllers observed the planes in rapid descent. At 9:03:03, United 175 crashed into the South Tower. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: United 93 took over from Newark at 8:42. At 9:28, United 93 acknowledged the transmission from the controller. At 9:32, a third radio transmission came over the frequency. Quote -- "Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board." -- end quote.

Then, at 9:39, a fifth radio transmission came over the radio frequency from United 93.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ZIAD JARRAH, 9/11 HIJACKER: This is your captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb aboard and are going back to the airport and to have our demands (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Please remain quiet.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 9:46 and again two minutes later, command center updated FAA headquarters that United 93 was now -- quote -- "29 minutes out of the Washington, D.C." -- end quote.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we want to think about scrambling aircraft?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God, I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next 10 minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, everybody just left the room.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Repeatedly between 10:14 and 10:19, a lieutenant colonel at the White House relayed the information to the National Military Command Center that the vice president had confirmed fighters were cleared to engage any aircraft that they could verify that the aircraft had been hijacked.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There was no time to get that verification. United Air 93 had already crashed in a field in Pennsylvania 10 minutes short of an intercept, and 125 miles short of Washington, D.C.

The commission's report is due next month, five Democrats, five Republicans.

One of them is former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a Republican. We talked with him today about the day late this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Among the things you talked about today, Mr. Secretary, is the NORAD response, the military response to all of this.

I have two questions there. First of all, was there in place protocol for the shooting down of a civilian airliner? And corollary to that, I guess, is, has anyone ever thought about whether an American pilot could actually pull the trigger under those circumstances?

JOHN LEHMAN, FMR. SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, 9/11 COMMISSION: Well, the answer is there were no protocols in place, and that was one of the criticisms that we've had. Even though we have found in our -- in our investigations that planners at NORAD had proposed that they start exercising when some of the early intelligence came in that there were -- there were reports of al Qaeda planning things like Bojinka plot, and using aircraft as missiles.

But it was rejected and never put into the exercises. And hence, there were never any protocols developed. And everybody was playing it by ear that day, which was unfortunate.

However, at the working level, everybody -- everybody did very well on the military side, and in the FAA at the centers. They -- there's no doubt in my mind that they would have pulled the trigger. The Air National Guard F-116s that were sent up over -- over Washington were cleared to fire. And they would have. If any aircraft had come in within a 20-mile radius, I have no doubt that the pilots would have pulled the trigger had they been armed. Unfortunately...

BROWN: So on balance, it was not so much a protocol problem as it was, ultimately, a communications problem. They weren't sure what they had, and by the time they figured it out it was too late?

LEHMAN: Well, a huge problem was that the FAA's headquarters was really dysfunctional. Their protocols had to pass everything up to headquarters to get approvals, even to contact the military. And -- and when it got up to headquarters in Washington, it seemed to enter a black hole where nothing came out.

So, particularly on United 93, which was the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania, that was lost by FAA. And while the headquarters knew that it was lost, they were still -- they didn't designate hijacked, and they never reported it to NORAD until after it had crashed.

BROWN: And just in the last half-minute or so, you'll be laying out those lessons to be learned over the next couple of weeks. As you get to the end here, do you expect the debate internally to be fairly spirited and do you expect the result to be unanimous?

LEHMAN: I do expect the result to be unanimous because the facts that we have been immersed in over the last 18 months has really dissolved most of the partisanship that is natural whenever you get five Republicans and five Democrats in a room.

So while, yes, there is going to be active debate over nuance and things that verge on the editorial, there won't be any difference and we haven't run into any difference over the real substance, the facts. And I am confident also in the recommendations, which are going to be hard-hitting, they're going to be dramatic, and they're going to be doable.

BROWN: Mr. Secretary, we appreciate your time and we especially appreciate your work on the commission. Thank you, sir.

LEHMAN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. We talked with him late this afternoon.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, the law was originally intended to keep blacks and whites from marrying. Now, almost 100 years later in Massachusetts, that same law is being used to stop out- of-state gay couples from marrying. We'll have the latest on that.

Still later, the youngest (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we've ever seen. "On the Rise," of course. From Down Under no less.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: "This Week in History," the first African American, Thurgood Marshall, was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a slow-speed chase on June 17, 1994, L.A. police followed O.J. Simpson in a white Ford Bronco driven by his friend and former teammate Al Cowlings.

And in Montana, an 81-day standoff between the FBI and the anti- government Freemen group came to a peaceful end.

And that is "This Week in History."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: As things stand in the state of Massachusetts, if you are gay and reside in the state, you can be married. If you reside elsewhere, you cannot come there to be married. Well, at least you can't get married when you get there.

That is based on a law that was written to keep interracial couples from coming to the state to wed when marriages were forbidden in their home state. To no one's surprise, the law is being tested in a suit filed today.

Here's CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The honeymoon is already over in the gay marriage legal battle in Massachusetts.

ED BUTLER, PLAINTIFF: We want to be able to hear somebody say, I now pronounce you married.

LOTHIAN: Wendy Becker lives in Rhode Island and feels gays and lesbians from anywhere should have the right to be married in the only state that has legalized gay marriages.

WENDY BECKER, PLAINTIFF: We want the social recognition and the legal protection that goes with being married.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're gathered here together...

LOTHIAN: This double wedding with couples from out of state was just one of many such unions that took place last month in Massachusetts. Some clerks issues licenses to out-of-state residents, openly defying warnings by Governor Mitt Romney and his attorney general that their actions violated the law.

GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R), MASSACHUSETTS: I do believe that we should not export same-sex marriage to other states that have the Defense of Marriage Act.

LOTHIAN: The state attorney general quickly issued an order that halted non-resident licenses.

But these couples, who were either recently married in Massachusetts or were turned away, say the segregation-era law, passed in response to interracial marriages, is not only discriminatory, but unconstitutional.

MARY BONAUTO, CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT DIRECTOR, GLAD: We can't dust off this law that hasn't been enforced for many years, and now rely on this law that has very disreputable, racist origins.

LOTHIAN: Clerks in Provincetown, a gay-vacation hot spot, and in cities like Sommerville, north of Boston, did issue some marriage licenses to non-residents. They are now part of the lawsuits.

MAYOR JOE CURTATONE, SOMMERVILLE, MASS.: Our clerks have never been asked to act as marriage police before. We shouldn't be required to do so now.

LOTHIAN (on camera): Since there is pending litigation, Governor Romney's office said he would have no comment. His attorney general, who also had no comment, has said in the past that his office is just upholding the current law, and that nothing would change until a court rules otherwise.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, tonight, we'll introduce you to a group of 15-year-olds from Australia who are very much "On the Rise." And what do 15-year-olds from Down Under do? Well, they make wine. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

And late, as always, "Morning Papers."

Break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This is a story about kids and culture and a good bottle of wine.

Now, the kids are too young to drink a good bottle of wine, or even a bad bottle of wine, for that matter. But they aren't too young to make wine, which is what they are doing in Australia. Making good wine (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

This is why tonight they are "On the Rise."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN HOSON: Once considered part of Australian culture, it's something that Australians enjoy doing.

We set out to introduce the teaching of wine making, not the teaching of drinking wine.

This is 2003 quarts. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

SHARIDAN BARTER: We've never tasted any wine. We're all underage here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

AARON SCHMIDT: They trust us, and we haven't let them down yet, I don't think. They haven't let (UNINTELLIGIBLE) taste his own wine.

HOSON: Our program is certainly unique. We have got highly motivated students.

BARTER: We have been involved in all aspects of the wine making.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE)

HOSON: You add yeast to it, and that converts the sugar to alcohol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ever think of that?

HOSON: Then, it's stored in (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

HOSON: And then goes into the bottle. And then it gets mangled into whatever brand it is.

BARTER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we have just (ph) a glass.

HOSON: Chardonnay.

BARTER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

HOSON: They're a very good filler in our restaurant. They love it. Really, really love it.

I was shocked that day. The wines are doing so little (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Famous Wines and Spirits, down here on Gowall (ph) Street.

The local scholar from New (UNINTELLIGIBLE) High School is the one (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

I was incredulous. You're kidding me! You know, 15-year-old kids made this wine?

BARTER: I think it's great that we're finally getting some money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The wine costs $35 per bottle. Most customers will thank me for recommending it to them, and they love it.

BARTER: We've gotten great reviews. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first review I saw for this particular wine was from the Wine Advocate, and the review was 94-point. Ninety- four point line is exceptional. That's a rarity.

To make such an incredibly good product at that age, and you don't even drink.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A small project, handcrafted, they're incredible.

BARTER: Having experienced making real (UNINTELLIGIBLE) wine has been great. Go out, buy it, try it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That is a -- that's a great "On the Rise."

"Morning Papers" after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Time to check "Morning Papers" from around the country and around the world in no particular order tonight, I guess because I had no time to put them in a particular order.

We'll begin with the San Antonio Express News. Almost everyone led with 9/11. "D.C. Stood Defenseless on 9/11" is the San Antonio lead. And under that, it says, "Defensive: President Bush defends his administration against charges it exaggerated Iraq's ties to al Qaeda in the lead-up to the war last year." I'm not sure it sounded defensive to me, but it did to the editors of this good paper, so we'll go with that.

Christian Science Monitor, "On 9/11, Defenders Just Improvised: September 11 Panel Finds the National Security System was Utterly unprepared for the challenge posed by al Qaeda." Also like this story: "Clinton Peddles a Book, Polishes an Image." Next week, man, it's going to be all Clinton all the time, as the book comes out.

I -- we're -- on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to look at the policy implications of the book.

"Hoop-Dee-Do!" is the lead -- sometimes I just say things to amuse me. "Hoop-Dee-Do" is the lead in the Detroit Free Press. They put basketball on the front page. 9/11 is there.

What I found interesting -- I find this -- these sort of things interesting -- The Detroit News didn't put sports on the front page at all. Big parade in town, they just ignored it. They go with a good road story though, "Metro Road Fixed To Cost Up To $75 Billion -- $70 Billion." Unfortunately, only $40 billion will be available over the next 25 years. So they got a problem there.

Chattanooga Times Free Press leads with 9/11: "Air Defenses Ineffective on 9/11." This is the most interesting story on the front page to me: "Americans Feel More Upbeat About Iraq, Polls Show." A dramatic shift in a month -- about 57 percent of Americans think the effort is going well, up from 46 percent last month. And the president's numbers go up in this poll. A Pew poll now has a two- point lead over John Kerry, and I think if you looked at the electoral map, you'd be running a little better than that.

Two good stories on the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer is down at the bottom, both economic stories. "Economic Factories Get Busy, So Many May Add Jobs." On the other hand, it turns out minority firms lag in city deals. Two good economic stories in a very good newspaper, The Detroit Inquirer (sic).

The big tobacco story was that fewer kids are smoking these days, but that's not what The Richmond Times-Dispatch put on. They put this story on tobacco, "Tobacco Buy-Out Could Help Avert Train Wreck." The House of Representatives voted to end the tobacco subsidy program and to give tobacco growers about $9 billion to get out of the business.

Running out of time. I think the weather tomorrow in Chicago -- thank you -- is malaise. I'll find it, and we'll just -- we'll work it out.

We'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Couple quick programming notes before we say good night.

We said at the top of the program that we'd have an update on the anti-malaria drug Larium. This being TV, sometimes unfortunate things happen. The spot got eaten by the server or something. Anyway, we'll fix it and have it for you tomorrow night. It's actually quite a story, so we'll have that tomorrow night.

Also, tomorrow on the program, our love of still photos intersects with history. Anne Frank -- Anne Frank would have been 75 last week had she survived. Her father, Otto Frank, was an avid amateur photographer. Birthday parties, holidays, trips to the beach, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) large and small. He documented all of them. They are moving in many different ways, and we'll have that tomorrow on the program.

It being Friday night, we'll throw in a tabloid or two just because.

All that's tomorrow. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern Time.

Until then, good night for all of us.

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