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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

South Korean Hostage Beheaded; Bill Clinton Sells Memoir

Aired June 22, 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.
It seems the administration has decided that among the enemies in Iraq are the media. Complaining about what he believes is a lack of balance in the coverage, the number two man at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz said this before Congress:

"Part of our problem is that a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and publish rumors and rumors are plentiful." He then said too much attention is paid to violence because the violence is sensational.

First of all, we don't publish rumors. Second, reporters ours and others, travel a good deal. They went to Fallujah during the nastiness there. They were in Najaf. They're in Basra tonight.

They have also gone to schools and hospitals and a lot of other places to present the most balanced picture they can of what life is like but the fact is that life in Iraq today is dangerous.

Listen to what the Iraqis say. Listen to their fears about leaving their homes in Baghdad, for example. Listen to their new government talk about the possible need to impose martial law.

Iraq isn't black or white. It's neither all good, nor all bad, but to argue, as Mr. Wolfowitz implicitly does that security and violence are not the major story, is about as correct as his argument to Congress that the reconstruction would be self financing and that Iraqis would welcome us with flowers.

We begin the whip in Baghdad and our Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour, Christiane a headline tonight.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the fact is that it was another violent day. The Korean hostage, who had pled for his life in such a harrowing manner, has been beheaded and the U.S. has made another air strike in Fallujah.

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

Next to the White House and newly revealed pages on the administration's thinking on the subject of torture, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux with the watch tonight, Suzanne a headline.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, today the Bush administration launched an incredible campaign that counter claims that it condones the torture of detainees. They're releasing hundreds of pages of documents but, as typical of these type of document dumps, it has caused critics to say it raises more questions than answers.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you.

And next to the Pentagon and the defense secretary's thinking and writing on the matter of interrogation and torture, Jamie McIntyre with us again tonight, Jamie a headline from there.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, contrary to what a senior defense official told CNN last night, the documents show that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld never approved some of the most controversial interrogation techniques, including something called water boarding but those documents also don't say that they won't ever be approved in the future.

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

Also coming up on this Tuesday night, the president who wrote a book, you might have heard of him, Bill Clinton back in the spotlight selling and selling his memoir.

Plus the story of one Senate hopeful, his ex-wife, and well let's just say a lot of stuff you can bet they never planned on seeing in public.

And, of course, the big finish on every night, morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin once again tonight with ugly pictures and an uglier reality. No one is safe in Iraq. More than a year into the occupation that began with looting, the political transition is playing out with bombings, shootings and beheadings.

Whether this is the work of many or just a few the aim seems apparent enough to make it harder for Americans and other foreigners to stay and harder still for the new government to govern. A law professor was murdered today in Mosul, along with her husband. And a South Korean translator kidnapped five days ago was beheaded.

Again, from Baghdad tonight CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to die.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Two days after releasing this harrowing video of a South Korean contractor pleading for his life, his captors killed him. U.S. soldiers found his body west of Baghdad and officials said he was beheaded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please get out of here. AMANPOUR: Thirty-three-year-old Kim Sun-il had been forced to plead with his government to accept the Islamic militants' demands, pull out all South Korean troops here and do not send the next contingent of 3,000. The latest image showed Kim in a Guantanamo- style orange jumpsuit, apparently just before he was executed.

The orange jumpsuit is among the militants' political statements. Americans Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded by the same people in May and Paul Johnson who was beheaded in Saudi Arabia last week were also dressed the same way.

Trying to win Kim's release, a South Korean delegation came to negotiate. They departed for Baghdad from neighboring Jordan today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are making an appeal for the safe release of an innocent civilian of my country. He's kept against his own will.

AMANPOUR: But it turned out to be too late. Kim had been in Iraq for more than a year. He spoke Arabic and was a devout Christian. He worked as a translator for a Korean company here.

About 600 South Korean troops have been doing mostly humanitarian and reconstruction work in Iraq but a statement by the killers addressed to the Korean people says, "Enough of the lies. Enough of the games. You claim you're here on behalf of the Iraqi people but you're really here on behalf of the United States." The South Korean government said it would not be deterred and would send the next contingent of troops as planned.

It was a day that did not spare Iraqis either. The dean of the law school at Mosul University in northern Iraq was assassinated along with her husband and at least three other Iraqis were killed north of Baghdad in a roadside explosion.

Two U.S. soldiers were also killed as the relentless campaign of terror designed to derail the occupation and the new interim Iraqi government continues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, the U.S. did conduct an air strike on Fallujah. We're told it was a safe house with possible links to Zarqawi, the man alleged to be connected with al Qaeda. No evidence that he may have been in that.

And, in terms of the last video, the last images of Kim Sun-il that we saw, it was an identical pose as that that they made Nicholas Berg assume just before he was assassinated, knelling, dressed in orange, blindfolded and before the terrorists who had a statement read as well -- Aaron.

BROWN: Christiane, is there much evidence, any evidence that all of this that has gone on, this violence, has in fact chased the contractors, the non-military people out of the country? AMANPOUR: Non-military, very many of them, yes. I mean you know there is a lot of military contractors, in other words security contractors, people who are hired. I mean real armies full of people here who are hired as bodyguards and other such security functions here.

But the non-military ones, many of them have left and it is a very, very chilling atmosphere for them, people from truck drivers, translators and any other number of civilian jobs that they may have assumed, yes.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you, good to have you with us again tonight. We'll talk tomorrow.

On now to the latest chapter in the prison abuse story, as long as the photos of prisoners with electrodes and dogs have been out there the administration has maintained that such pictures do not reflect policy, not in Iraq, not elsewhere.

Torture, the president has said, is not part of our soul but despite documents from the Justice Department and the Pentagon that seem to show it clearly was a subject of some discussion and planning.

Today the White House released a trove of documents aimed at making, excuse me, the case that allegations notwithstanding, all this planning, all these documents went nowhere.

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): The Bush administration launched an extraordinary campaign to discredit claims that the White House condoned the torture of detainees.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.

MALVEAUX: The White House released a two-inch stack of documents that showed within the legal community there was rigorous debate over where the U.S. military could legally draw the line.

But White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales said much of the discussion was merely exploring the legal landscape and never directly impacted the presidential policy or the instructions to the soldiers in the field.

In a presidential memo, dated February 7, 2002, Mr. Bush accepted the Justice Department's recommendation that the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war did not apply to the U.S. conflict with al Qaeda and the Taliban but he stated:

"Our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment."

Democrats immediately took to the Senate floor to complain that the White House had released only three of the 23 documents they have been asking for.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Don't let anyone think that because it's a thick pile here that it really has the nub of the matter. It doesn't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Now, Aaron, all of this really revolves around an August, 2002 memo from the Justice Department. It created a lot of controversy and questions. That memo says, in part, that the president as commander-in-chief has unlimited power to protect the United States from attack, that self defense may be used to justify interrogation methods that might violate U.S. and international law against torture. Now today Justice Department officials repudiated that memo saying that it will be replaced -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just correct me on this if I'm wrong please that the president does say in regards to that memo that he accepts the reasoning of that memo but does not go along with the implementation of what it says, is that correct?

MALVEAUX: Well, that's correct, Aaron. What the president is saying is that he accepts the Justice Department argument that al Qaeda, as well as Taliban, they say is not under the Geneva Accords when it comes to the treatment of prisoners of war.

However, what he is saying is that they treat these al Qaeda and Taliban consistent with the Geneva Conventions. They treat them humanely, although legally speaking the Justice Department says they are unlawful combatants.

They are not considered prisoners of war. They are not members of any kind of state sponsored army. They don't wear uniforms. They don't carry badges, things of that nature. However, having said that, the president says that, yes, they are being treated consistent with those Geneva Conventions.

BROWN: And just briefly on this point, this significant Justice Department memo, among the things it does is it expands, if you will, what constitutes torture or it stretches the limit, I guess, of some would argue I guess of what constitutes torture and what does not.

MALVEAUX: It actually parses it because it actually gets into some of the details about extraordinary pain, what would be considered inflicting the type of pain that is not endurable and those type of things.

It's something perhaps that Jamie can get into more details about but it does parse the definition of torture so that if the administration needed a more lax definition that it could use that.

But White House counsel and other officials say all that really is irrelevant that it doesn't necessarily matter because it's not a part of U.S. policy. It is not ultimately what the president signed off on.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you very much. We'll give Jamie a chance to punt on that one too. Thank you very much.

There was a document dump along the same lines at the Pentagon today. Again, it seems there are a number of different stories here, the practical demands coming in from interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, the legal case being made for a variety of practices and the defense secretary's view of what is and is not acceptable.

There have been and will be many interpretations of what this all adds up to but today we got the view from the Pentagon and so from there tonight, again Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The documents detail how U.S. commanders complained in October of 2002 that they were encountering advanced resistance from detainees at Guantanamo Bay. They asked permission to use more aggressive interrogation tactics to break them down, a request that eventually went to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The tactics included convincing the detainee that death or severe pain could be imminent, exposure to cold weather or water, the use of water to induce a perception of suffocating also known as water boarding.

But Rumsfeld approved only one technique, mild non-injurious physical contact, defined as grabbing, poking the chest, or light pushing. Rumsfeld insists nothing he authorized was torture or inhumane.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: But the implication that's out there is the United States government is engaging in torture as a matter of policy and that's not true.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld did approve subjecting detainees at Guantanamo to yelling, isolation, 20-hour marathon interrogations, forced shaving and standing for four hours straight and, while he also approved other more controversial techniques, including hooding, stress positions, removal of clothing and the use of dogs to induce stress, the Pentagon insists those tactics were never used.

ELISA MASSIMINO, HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: I think we're beyond a situation where we can be satisfied with the answer, "trust us, it's never been used." In fact, it appears that there are some in the military chain of command who were unaware that some of this misconduct amounting to torture was engaged in at Abu Ghraib.

MCINTYRE: A Pentagon official Monday inaccurately told CNN that Rumsfeld had approved water boarding but even though the documents show Rumsfeld rejected it they do indicate it could be approved in the future. The Pentagon general counsel writes in a December 2, 2002 memo, signed by Rumsfeld: "While all techniques may be legally available, we believe a blanket approval is not warranted at this time."

Rumsfeld, who works at a stand-up desk, scrawled at the bottom of the memo: "However, I stand for eight to ten hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?"

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Nevertheless, just a month later in January of 2003, Rumsfeld threw out all those techniques and replaced them with a new list of 24 approved techniques, most of them straight out of the Army field manual, standard stuff. Four techniques, though, required that he be personally notified before they were employed. They included things like playing good-cop bad-cop, removing incentives, insulting the detainees or prolonged isolation -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, some of that stuff honestly sounds pretty benign, good-cop bad-cop, insults, that sort of thing, so what is the issue there? Why would the secretary have to approve that?

MCINTYRE: Well, he wanted to know about those things ahead of time. He didn't necessarily have to approve them but wanted to be notified when they were used. These are things that in an extreme could be perhaps abusive but normally wouldn't be.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you very much, Jamie McIntyre.

If it's possible to have a paper dump within a paper dump, today was the day to do it. The State Department too came out with a revised report. Its report was on terrorism, showing that it is on the rise, nothing to brag about but safe to say it was checked, double checked and this time, at least, accurate.

Here's CNN's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Terrorist bombings in Istanbul, Turkey in November of 2003 killed 61 people but you wouldn't know from the State Department's initial report released in April detailing terror attacks last year. The fatalities weren't included until now, updating a global terrorism report the secretary of state called embarrassing.

Numbers have been sharply revised from 190 attacks claiming 307 lives in the initial report to 208 attacks, killing 625, more than doubling the number of people who died.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: The report is not designed to make our efforts look better or worse or terrorism look better or worse but to provide the facts to the American people.

CALLEBS: The war on terrorism has been a cornerstone of the Bush administration. Figures in the initial report were trumpeted. The fewest number of people killed in terror attacks in 35 years. Changes were made only after Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman raised questions.

Problems were found in accounting, misclassification of data, and partly since the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, a new conglomeration of government anti-terrorism officials, is not responsible for tracking attacks and deaths.

COFER BLACK, STATE DEPT. COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICE: I assure you and the American people that the errors in (unintelligible) report were honest mistakes and certainly not deliberate deceptions as some have speculated.

CALLEBS: Critics of the administration have wondered if the initial report is less an oversight and more a slight of hand.

REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D), ILLINOIS: A funny thing happened on the way to the printer.

CALLEBS: Democratic members of Congress said the initial report made it appear the administration was more successful than it was in reality.

EMANUEL: It appears that a pattern exists of either gross incompetence or gross political manipulation and neither is worthy of a political -- of a cabinet secretary.

CALLEBS: Also, not included in the 2003 report, most of the killings in Iraq saying attacks against troops don't fit the definition of international terrorism.

Sean Callebs, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, the mess of paper and photos and talk in the prisoner abuse scandal. We'll try and make some sense of what we know so far.

Plus a huge court ruling involving Wal-Mart and allegations of sex discrimination, a break first.

From New York, and there it is, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The whos and hows and whys of the prisoner abuse scandal get more complicated as the paper trail grows. What the memos say versus what they mean versus what consequences they may have had is the focus of much debate.

Richard Cohen is a columnist with "The Washington Post." He joins us tonight from Boulder, Colorado. And, Robert Maginnis served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. Presumably he worked to get to lieutenant colonel as well and is an expert on national security and foreign affairs. He's in Washington tonight. We're pleased to have you both here.

There's a lot that we, I guess, need to talk about but the thing I think that concerns many of us most is how much damage has been done to the country's credibility around the world? You're both very worldly people.

Mr. Maginnis, we'll start with you. How bad do you think it is out there?

ROBERT MAGINNIS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, we -- of course the people at Abu Ghraib betrayed our good armed forces people. We have 135,000 or so over there. They've done a pretty good job quite frankly, Aaron.

But, of course, Iran is using this as a buttress against us. The people that beheaded Paul Johnson the other day in Saudi Arabia said that it's because of their Muslim brothers who were embarrassed in Abu Ghraib. And even our European allies are ganging up on us with regard to this.

You know it just seems as if there are a host of things that they're using as an excuse. You know an embarrassing situation. I do believe though rather limited there in the Abu Ghraib and the brigadier general, perhaps a couple colonels but, you know, I don't see this going up to Mr. Rumsfeld or certainly not the president.

BROWN: Let's get to that. Mr. Cohen, do you think it's more than just an embarrassing incident? It seems to be seen as more than that around the world.

RICHARD COHEN, "WASHINGTON POST" SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, maybe it should be seen as something, as only an embarrassing incident but in the Arab world, at least, where I was last month it's seen as a debacle, I mean a debacle if you're an American traveling because you hear about it over and over again. People are appalled by it and people are horrified by it.

And, you know, it's one thing to get that kind of sentiment from say the man on the street but when sophisticated Arabs talk about America in a certain way it's just plain disheartening and I think this thing has become at least a diplomatic debacle.

BROWN: When you look at all of these memos that have come out, does it not suggest that the administration was looking for at the very least the outside edge of what it could legally get away with, Mr. Cohen?

COHEN: Well, it certainly seems to me that way. You have that 50-page memo that the Justice Department prepared, the Office of Legal Counsel. Nobody at the Office of Legal Counsel just comes up, spends their spare time doing a 50-page memo for the hell of it.

It seemed to me that they were looking to see just how far they could go before a certain amount of pain or deprivation or something of that sort could be labeled torture. I mean to me it's a horrible -- it's a horrible document. It's one of these things which says we can go this far but not further, a little bit of pain but not too much pain. I mean what did they have a pain-o-meter? I just don't get it.

BROWN: Mr. Maginnis, given the stakes that are in play, is it really that appropriate to talk about the outer limits?

MAGINNIS: Well, Aaron, at the time if you go back to 9/11, we weren't really clear as to what we were facing and then we applied the Geneva Convention, written 50-some odd years ago and applied to a different reality.

You know like the president said, we're in a new paradigm. We don't know in many cases where this enemy is. They don't wear uniforms and they clearly are not playing by the rules of law or the laws of war.

The reality though is that in bureaucracies, whether military or Justice Department, you're always throwing out ideas to be considered. You know, obviously cool heads prevailed here. They dismissed this 50-page memo. I would argue that 50-page memos in the federal government are not uncommon. They burn a lot of trees out there.

BROWN: Gentlemen, good to have you both with us. There's more here and we'll get to it again. Thank you very much.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, Bill Clinton back on the campaign trail, campaigning this time for his own book, all 957 pages of it. We'll take a look at that.

Plus trying to make up for a horrible mistake in Afghanistan and the young boy at the center of this sad story, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Have you heard? Former President Bill Clinton has a book out, big book, real long. It's all there, the economy, Bosnia, Kosovo, the government shut down, something about some woman and a guy named Starr. It's all there. And when you have read the book you must -- or written a book, rather, you must sell the book and Mr. Clinton is out there selling hard and apparently selling well.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill Clinton always loved to campaign and seems to be relishing his latest one.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm glad it's finally happened. I've been living with this for two and a half years.

WALLACE: And then the hottest political author in the country at the moment got to work, signing more than 2,000 copies of his autobiography, while spending nearly five hours at his first book signing in Midtown Manhattan.

CLINTON: It's amazing. I'm very moved.

WALLACE (on camera): They're calling you the "Harry Potter" of adult books.

CLINTON: Maybe I'll get some glasses like "Harry Potter."

WALLACE (voice-over): Clinton fans had been lining up since the middle of the night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he's our generation's -- our Kennedy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you know, I've been fascinated by American politics since I was 12 in Denmark. And so obviously I wanted to see the guy.

WALLACE: Even bad reviews and bad weather couldn't keep them away. Derrick Miller (ph) drove from Allentown, Pennsylvania, more excited about Bill than his 957-page book.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll probably read the first couple of chapters. It looks a little heavy going for me.

WALLACE: There were few signs of Mr. Clinton's enemies, but the first signs that renewed questions about Monica Lewinsky were getting to him.

Pressed by a BBC reporter about his affair with Lewinsky in an interview that aired Tuesday night, the former president fired off at independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr and the media, as he does in his book.

CLINTON: One of the reasons he got away with it is because people like you only asked people like me the questions. You gave him a complete free ride, any abuse they want to do. They indicted all these little people from Arkansas. What did you care about them? They're not famous. Who cares if their lives are trampled? Who cares that their children are humiliated?

Who cares if Starr sends FBI agents to their school and rip them out of their school to humiliate them, try to force their parents to lie about me?

These are my biggest purchasers here, 6.

WALLACE: But for Bill Clinton, this day was about looking forward, as he headed to Harlem and around the country to sign even more books, looking to add best-selling author to his resume.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, has been working his way through the book. And he joins us now.

In fairness, you just got your hands on it, right?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Yes. I've digested chunks.

BROWN: But you read quickly.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

BROWN: All right. Do we come away knowing too much, too little or both?

GREENFIELD: Both.

On the too little thing, what struck me was, this guy is one of the great storytellers in American politics who has a real feel for language. And the early part of this book, his childhood in Arkansas, it comes alive and he draws conclusions and he makes connections from what happened to him then and now.

I have to say this. The presidential part, our colleague Joe Klein called it a data dump. It's as though he had his little -- his big diary. It's a day-by-day thing. And then I went here, and then I was impeached, and then I met the prime minister of "Krukistan," and coupled with some extremely forceful language about what happened to him, that kind of takes some of what we just heard from the BBC.

BROWN: Picking up on that, then, he clearly wants to turn that in his favor, turn the -- is he successful in it?

GREENFIELD: I'm giving you a personal opinion. I

do not think so. What he says is -- there's a further clip on that BBC interview where he says, people like you, meaning the media, help the far right because you want to hurt people. And in the book, he describes the whole impeachment product as a fight against the same people who wanted to keep blacks out of integrated schools and not let black people vote.

And I remember, during impeachment, he compared himself to a character in an Arthur Koestler famous novel "Darkness at Noon," Rubashov, the guy who is the victim of Stalinist purges. That's all there. The stuff that we don't hear, there's no reflection about whether or not he thinks part of what happened to him, there was any public harm to his conduct, to the reputation of politics, to what it did to young people, none, absolutely no reflection from an extremely reflective guy.

BROWN: Do you remember how Nixon explained Watergate and can you compare that in any sense to how this president explains his issues?

GREENFIELD: Right. Nixon's famous phrase, which actually popped up I think in the David Frost interviews, was, this was, my enemies were out to get me. And then he said, I gave them the sword. That was the famous line from Nixon.

BROWN: Yes.

GREENFIELD: And he goes through a whole series of why it was unfair, but he couldn't help it.

But there are other parts in this book that -- the dog that did not bark in the night. You remember "Primary Colors," the book that Joe Klein wrote? You would have thought that a sitting president who is the subject of this really remarkable novel, this huge guessing game, who did it, a million copies sold, painting the president in very complicated lights, there's not a word about it in the book. It as though it never happened. He never gave it a minute's thought.

BROWN: So, at the end, it is unsatisfying or -- not that you're at the end yet?

GREENFIELD: Yes, the presidential part -- and I have read much of it -- it disappoints because this -- Bill Clinton is a unique politician. He is cognitively smarter than almost anybody else around him, which is unusual. And he has a mind of capable of really complicated and interesting thinking.

When he talks, he has these wonderful, vivid phrases. He has never given, in my view, a great formal speech. And maybe part of the problem here was, he shouldn't have written this. He should have talked it.

BROWN: Well, he's going to get a chance to do that.

GREENFIELD: Yes. By the way, I don't think the reviews are going to hurt the sales too much.

BROWN: It doesn't seem like it.

GREENFIELD: No.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you very much.

He will talk about it Thursday night with Larry King, his first prime-time live interview, 9:00 Eastern time, Bill Clinton with Larry King. And, as they say, they will take your calls.

Still to come tonight on the program, a couple of interesting legal battles. The first involves a Senate hopeful, his ex-wife who is a TV star, and some very, let's just say interesting court documents that have put the campaign on the defensive.

And in a completely different courtroom, retail giant Wal-Mart and a giant lawsuit it is now facing.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Maybe in France, this wouldn't be a big deal. Then again, maybe it would.

The Republican candidate for the Senate in Illinois is denying charges made by his ex-wife that he tried to induce her to have sex in front of an audience. Now, she's an actress, but not that kind of actress. And she, according to the records, said thanks, but no thanks. This is all part of a divorce proceeding that had been sealed until local media outlets argued successfully the records be opened.

From Chicago tonight, CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Illinois Senate race has been sideswiped by that three-letter word. But Jack Ryan is asking voters to look beyond the headlines and feel for him as a parent.

JACK RYAN (R), ILLINOIS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think about my boy we're trying to protect.

FREED: The Republican's campaign is reeling from allegations that he once pressured his then wife, actress Jeri Ryan of "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Boston Public," to have sex in front of other people at risque nightclubs, which she says she refused. She alleged it in four-year-old court documents unsealed by a California court and released late Monday. He denies it.

RYAN: There's no allegation of infidelity or breaking any laws, kept all civil and criminal laws, kept my vows to my spouse.

FREED: But there are questions about whether he kept the details from the state's GOP leadership. For months, Ryan, a millionaire and political neophyte, insisted there was nothing damaging in the divorce documents, which both he and his ex-wife fought to keep sealed.

BRUCE DOLD, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE": The Republican Party leadership in this state is livid with Jack Ryan, because they felt like that they didn't tell them the truth on this.

FREED: "The Chicago Tribune" is preparing a critical editorial for Wednesday's paper, but will stop short of calling for Ryan to quit. The Illinois seat could help shift control of the Senate. And Ryan was already trailing Democrat Barack Obama, who chose his words carefully Tuesday.

BARACK OBAMA (D), ILLINOIS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Over the next week, I'm sure that this is going to get a lot of attention, but it's not what we're going to be focused on.

FREED: Ryan hopes the public has had enough of sex scandals, but on the day when Bill Clinton's memoirs started flying off the shelves... PAUL GREEN, PROFESSOR, ROOSEVELT UNIVERSITY: His greatest name recognition comes from going allegedly to sex clubs with his wife. That's a tough position to be in as a Republican in the age of Republican moralism.

FREED: Political watchers here expect the party leadership to wait until the end of the week before deciding if they should pressure Ryan to quit.

Jonathan Freed, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Sex in another sense of the word is at the center of a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, sex as in gender, gender as in gender equality.

The allegation is simple: Women at Wal-Mart are paid less than men, passed over for promotions more often. Seven women sued the company. Today, a federal judge in San Francisco gave their lawsuit class-action status, making it the largest civil rights lawsuit ever. It now potentially involves more than a million and a half current and former Wal-Mart employees. The company's spokesman today denied it discriminates and promised to challenge the judge's ruling. Wal-Mart has fought class-action status all along, claiming each of its 3,200 stores is autonomous.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, trying to see good come from a horrible mistake in Afghanistan.

And later still, your morning papers.

A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the war on terror, the enemy isn't always easy to identify. And in the fog of war, the task is even harder.

CNN's Ryan Chilcote saw this firsthand as an embedded reporter in Afghanistan. He was on a week-long mission with a platoon of U.S. soldiers in the country's volatile border province of Paktika. Soldiers were providing security for the new governor of the province as he toured the region. We warn you, some of the images you are about to see are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their convoy had been attacked during the past week by people in civilian clothes who set off roadside bombs then slipped away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bravo Company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe from the lob and from...

CHILCOTE: Today, the scouts are out in front, entering a region where no American soldier has ever gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then we are headed down into an area that we knew was known it was going to be hairy.

CHILCOTE: In the distance, they spot what appears to be a man running away. They pursue on foot through a mine field and fire warning shots. The figure in the distance doesn't stop running. There's more firing, taking aim this time.

And the scouts catch up, only to encounter a combat soldier's nightmare. The target turns out to be a 12-year-old boy. The boy's name is Azizullah. He'd been helping his father tend their cattle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's hit.

CHILCOTE: Inside the bag he's carrying, that they thought was suspicious, nothing more than a bottle of water and a stick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, quit filming. Stop filming.

CHILCOTE (on camera): Two soldiers, including the soldier who shot him and CNN's security adviser, Alan Trappe, got to work on Azizullah keeping him alive for more than two hours before the helicopters arrived. Azizullah's father distraught and convinced his son wouldn't make it, pleaded with the soldiers to let him take his boy home to die.

(voice-over): But the soldiers didn't give up, and neither did Azizullah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The kid held on, asked for his family and stuff. But he wasn't crying a lot. He was working with us, you know, telling us what hurt and what didn't hurt. And that really helps out a lot.

CHILCOTE: Finally, the choppers arrived. Azizullah is whisked away. It is the last time these soldiers will see him. They don't know if he will make it or not. The soldier who pulled the trigger declined to be interviewed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know him pretty well, and you know, this is -- has messed him up pretty good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, he didn't know he was a boy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... establish a perimeter here...

CHILCOTE: The whole unit is stunned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...I think we're too spread out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like we all got kicked in the gut. It's going to take a little bit to get over. All of us that saw it happen are going to see it happen every single day for the rest of our lives, you know? It's -- you've got to live with that. CHILCOTE: The Army is investigating. While the investigation is underway, we're not reporting the soldier's name. Lieutenant Chris Morrison (ph) is his platoon leader.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every day my soldiers are put in life and death situations and forced to make life or death decisions. And it's not easy. And they'd be foolish to think that every decision comes out the right way.

CHILCOTE: Nearly two weeks after it all went wrong, Azizullah's father arrived in the Afghan capital to see his son in an American field hospital. It was his first time in Kabul, and it had taken intervention by the provincial governor and the help of some Americans to get him here.

Because of this, the father said, my son is injured, my cattle went missing, and my wife has gone crazy. Azizullah's father says his wife will not leave the place where the boy was shot. She rolls on the ground and pleads with Allah to bring her first-born son home, he says. Their livestock all ran away during the shooting. Gone with them, says Azizullah's father, their livelihood.

We asked the Army if there would be any compensation for Azizullah's family. No, we were told. We do not pay compensation for events occurring during combat operations, ever. Twice during their short visit, Azizullah pulled his oxygen mask away and told his father, I want to go home. Doctors say it will be at least a month before Azizullah can leave the hospital.

Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Paktika Province, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, a challenge for your humble reporter, since many of the stories are the same. But that will not stop me from making a good attempt at making the next two minutes fascinating, or just OK. We'll see.

"Christian Science Monitor" begins it all. "Rumblings of War in the Heart of Africa. U.S. and U.N. Sends Envoys to Stop Congo Conflict." Another mess there. Also, this will -- essentially same stories on all of these front pages. Wal-Mart makes most of them. This is a huge story, the Wal-Mart sex discrimination class-action suit, and prison abuse. "High Stakes, Harsh Scrutiny as Prison Abuse Trials Go On." They will be very interesting.

"Philadelphia Inquirer." I think I would have put this on the front page. Well, I led with it tonight. So, obviously, I would put it on the front page, now that I think about it. "South Korean Executed." I should think more often. "U.S. Hits Iraqi Target" as well. They lead that way. There was something else I liked here. Oh, they put Wal-Mart on there, too. I'll think of it later and call you.

"The Washington Times." "Values Guided Bush Torture Ban" is the way they lead the White House document story today. "Clinton Hits His Decision on Counsel, Calls it 'The Worst I've Made.'" I'm not sure what that is. And "Marriage Bill" -- we've talked about this before, "The Washington Times" really enamored of the battle over gay marriage, so they put that on the front page. Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, was in Washington today. "Marriage Bill Backed by Romney."

"Bush Never Ordered Torture" is the way "The Richmond Times" leads it. And they've got kind of a cool story about kids and scooters.

"The Detroit News."

How much? One. OK. I'll get there.

"Smokers to Pay Higher Taxes," the way "The Detroit News" leads for tomorrow. "Fingerprint Use Worries Employees. More Firms Use High-Tech Time Clocks, Track Customer Transactions, Raising Privacy Fears." We may start doing that here. Down here, best story of the day: "Farmers Grow Low-Carb Spuds." Come on. Yes, right.

We're just about out of time, aren't we? "The Oregonian." "Memo Show Rumsfeld Shift." So everybody is seeing the same story just a little bit differently. "Wal-Mart Bias Case Can Move Forward." They put that on the front page as well.

"Memo Shows Bush Eyed Waiving Anti-Torture Laws" is how "The Chattanooga Times Free Press" leads it.

And, finally, "Chicago Sun-Times," uh-oh, one of the Olsen twins has an eating disorder. We're not happy about that. And the weather tomorrow is "irritating." And we're not happy about that either.

We'll take a break. We are happy about that. We'll be right back. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Good to have you with us tonight. We're all out of time because I was prattling on about morning papers for too long. We're all back here tomorrow.

Coming up next for most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT."

We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern time tomorrow. 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 22, 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.
It seems the administration has decided that among the enemies in Iraq are the media. Complaining about what he believes is a lack of balance in the coverage, the number two man at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz said this before Congress:

"Part of our problem is that a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and publish rumors and rumors are plentiful." He then said too much attention is paid to violence because the violence is sensational.

First of all, we don't publish rumors. Second, reporters ours and others, travel a good deal. They went to Fallujah during the nastiness there. They were in Najaf. They're in Basra tonight.

They have also gone to schools and hospitals and a lot of other places to present the most balanced picture they can of what life is like but the fact is that life in Iraq today is dangerous.

Listen to what the Iraqis say. Listen to their fears about leaving their homes in Baghdad, for example. Listen to their new government talk about the possible need to impose martial law.

Iraq isn't black or white. It's neither all good, nor all bad, but to argue, as Mr. Wolfowitz implicitly does that security and violence are not the major story, is about as correct as his argument to Congress that the reconstruction would be self financing and that Iraqis would welcome us with flowers.

We begin the whip in Baghdad and our Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour, Christiane a headline tonight.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the fact is that it was another violent day. The Korean hostage, who had pled for his life in such a harrowing manner, has been beheaded and the U.S. has made another air strike in Fallujah.

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

Next to the White House and newly revealed pages on the administration's thinking on the subject of torture, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux with the watch tonight, Suzanne a headline.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, today the Bush administration launched an incredible campaign that counter claims that it condones the torture of detainees. They're releasing hundreds of pages of documents but, as typical of these type of document dumps, it has caused critics to say it raises more questions than answers.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you.

And next to the Pentagon and the defense secretary's thinking and writing on the matter of interrogation and torture, Jamie McIntyre with us again tonight, Jamie a headline from there.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, contrary to what a senior defense official told CNN last night, the documents show that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld never approved some of the most controversial interrogation techniques, including something called water boarding but those documents also don't say that they won't ever be approved in the future.

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

Also coming up on this Tuesday night, the president who wrote a book, you might have heard of him, Bill Clinton back in the spotlight selling and selling his memoir.

Plus the story of one Senate hopeful, his ex-wife, and well let's just say a lot of stuff you can bet they never planned on seeing in public.

And, of course, the big finish on every night, morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin once again tonight with ugly pictures and an uglier reality. No one is safe in Iraq. More than a year into the occupation that began with looting, the political transition is playing out with bombings, shootings and beheadings.

Whether this is the work of many or just a few the aim seems apparent enough to make it harder for Americans and other foreigners to stay and harder still for the new government to govern. A law professor was murdered today in Mosul, along with her husband. And a South Korean translator kidnapped five days ago was beheaded.

Again, from Baghdad tonight CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to die.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Two days after releasing this harrowing video of a South Korean contractor pleading for his life, his captors killed him. U.S. soldiers found his body west of Baghdad and officials said he was beheaded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please get out of here. AMANPOUR: Thirty-three-year-old Kim Sun-il had been forced to plead with his government to accept the Islamic militants' demands, pull out all South Korean troops here and do not send the next contingent of 3,000. The latest image showed Kim in a Guantanamo- style orange jumpsuit, apparently just before he was executed.

The orange jumpsuit is among the militants' political statements. Americans Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded by the same people in May and Paul Johnson who was beheaded in Saudi Arabia last week were also dressed the same way.

Trying to win Kim's release, a South Korean delegation came to negotiate. They departed for Baghdad from neighboring Jordan today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are making an appeal for the safe release of an innocent civilian of my country. He's kept against his own will.

AMANPOUR: But it turned out to be too late. Kim had been in Iraq for more than a year. He spoke Arabic and was a devout Christian. He worked as a translator for a Korean company here.

About 600 South Korean troops have been doing mostly humanitarian and reconstruction work in Iraq but a statement by the killers addressed to the Korean people says, "Enough of the lies. Enough of the games. You claim you're here on behalf of the Iraqi people but you're really here on behalf of the United States." The South Korean government said it would not be deterred and would send the next contingent of troops as planned.

It was a day that did not spare Iraqis either. The dean of the law school at Mosul University in northern Iraq was assassinated along with her husband and at least three other Iraqis were killed north of Baghdad in a roadside explosion.

Two U.S. soldiers were also killed as the relentless campaign of terror designed to derail the occupation and the new interim Iraqi government continues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, the U.S. did conduct an air strike on Fallujah. We're told it was a safe house with possible links to Zarqawi, the man alleged to be connected with al Qaeda. No evidence that he may have been in that.

And, in terms of the last video, the last images of Kim Sun-il that we saw, it was an identical pose as that that they made Nicholas Berg assume just before he was assassinated, knelling, dressed in orange, blindfolded and before the terrorists who had a statement read as well -- Aaron.

BROWN: Christiane, is there much evidence, any evidence that all of this that has gone on, this violence, has in fact chased the contractors, the non-military people out of the country? AMANPOUR: Non-military, very many of them, yes. I mean you know there is a lot of military contractors, in other words security contractors, people who are hired. I mean real armies full of people here who are hired as bodyguards and other such security functions here.

But the non-military ones, many of them have left and it is a very, very chilling atmosphere for them, people from truck drivers, translators and any other number of civilian jobs that they may have assumed, yes.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you, good to have you with us again tonight. We'll talk tomorrow.

On now to the latest chapter in the prison abuse story, as long as the photos of prisoners with electrodes and dogs have been out there the administration has maintained that such pictures do not reflect policy, not in Iraq, not elsewhere.

Torture, the president has said, is not part of our soul but despite documents from the Justice Department and the Pentagon that seem to show it clearly was a subject of some discussion and planning.

Today the White House released a trove of documents aimed at making, excuse me, the case that allegations notwithstanding, all this planning, all these documents went nowhere.

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): The Bush administration launched an extraordinary campaign to discredit claims that the White House condoned the torture of detainees.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.

MALVEAUX: The White House released a two-inch stack of documents that showed within the legal community there was rigorous debate over where the U.S. military could legally draw the line.

But White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales said much of the discussion was merely exploring the legal landscape and never directly impacted the presidential policy or the instructions to the soldiers in the field.

In a presidential memo, dated February 7, 2002, Mr. Bush accepted the Justice Department's recommendation that the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war did not apply to the U.S. conflict with al Qaeda and the Taliban but he stated:

"Our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment."

Democrats immediately took to the Senate floor to complain that the White House had released only three of the 23 documents they have been asking for.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Don't let anyone think that because it's a thick pile here that it really has the nub of the matter. It doesn't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Now, Aaron, all of this really revolves around an August, 2002 memo from the Justice Department. It created a lot of controversy and questions. That memo says, in part, that the president as commander-in-chief has unlimited power to protect the United States from attack, that self defense may be used to justify interrogation methods that might violate U.S. and international law against torture. Now today Justice Department officials repudiated that memo saying that it will be replaced -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just correct me on this if I'm wrong please that the president does say in regards to that memo that he accepts the reasoning of that memo but does not go along with the implementation of what it says, is that correct?

MALVEAUX: Well, that's correct, Aaron. What the president is saying is that he accepts the Justice Department argument that al Qaeda, as well as Taliban, they say is not under the Geneva Accords when it comes to the treatment of prisoners of war.

However, what he is saying is that they treat these al Qaeda and Taliban consistent with the Geneva Conventions. They treat them humanely, although legally speaking the Justice Department says they are unlawful combatants.

They are not considered prisoners of war. They are not members of any kind of state sponsored army. They don't wear uniforms. They don't carry badges, things of that nature. However, having said that, the president says that, yes, they are being treated consistent with those Geneva Conventions.

BROWN: And just briefly on this point, this significant Justice Department memo, among the things it does is it expands, if you will, what constitutes torture or it stretches the limit, I guess, of some would argue I guess of what constitutes torture and what does not.

MALVEAUX: It actually parses it because it actually gets into some of the details about extraordinary pain, what would be considered inflicting the type of pain that is not endurable and those type of things.

It's something perhaps that Jamie can get into more details about but it does parse the definition of torture so that if the administration needed a more lax definition that it could use that.

But White House counsel and other officials say all that really is irrelevant that it doesn't necessarily matter because it's not a part of U.S. policy. It is not ultimately what the president signed off on.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you very much. We'll give Jamie a chance to punt on that one too. Thank you very much.

There was a document dump along the same lines at the Pentagon today. Again, it seems there are a number of different stories here, the practical demands coming in from interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, the legal case being made for a variety of practices and the defense secretary's view of what is and is not acceptable.

There have been and will be many interpretations of what this all adds up to but today we got the view from the Pentagon and so from there tonight, again Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The documents detail how U.S. commanders complained in October of 2002 that they were encountering advanced resistance from detainees at Guantanamo Bay. They asked permission to use more aggressive interrogation tactics to break them down, a request that eventually went to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The tactics included convincing the detainee that death or severe pain could be imminent, exposure to cold weather or water, the use of water to induce a perception of suffocating also known as water boarding.

But Rumsfeld approved only one technique, mild non-injurious physical contact, defined as grabbing, poking the chest, or light pushing. Rumsfeld insists nothing he authorized was torture or inhumane.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: But the implication that's out there is the United States government is engaging in torture as a matter of policy and that's not true.

MCINTYRE: Rumsfeld did approve subjecting detainees at Guantanamo to yelling, isolation, 20-hour marathon interrogations, forced shaving and standing for four hours straight and, while he also approved other more controversial techniques, including hooding, stress positions, removal of clothing and the use of dogs to induce stress, the Pentagon insists those tactics were never used.

ELISA MASSIMINO, HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST: I think we're beyond a situation where we can be satisfied with the answer, "trust us, it's never been used." In fact, it appears that there are some in the military chain of command who were unaware that some of this misconduct amounting to torture was engaged in at Abu Ghraib.

MCINTYRE: A Pentagon official Monday inaccurately told CNN that Rumsfeld had approved water boarding but even though the documents show Rumsfeld rejected it they do indicate it could be approved in the future. The Pentagon general counsel writes in a December 2, 2002 memo, signed by Rumsfeld: "While all techniques may be legally available, we believe a blanket approval is not warranted at this time."

Rumsfeld, who works at a stand-up desk, scrawled at the bottom of the memo: "However, I stand for eight to ten hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?"

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Nevertheless, just a month later in January of 2003, Rumsfeld threw out all those techniques and replaced them with a new list of 24 approved techniques, most of them straight out of the Army field manual, standard stuff. Four techniques, though, required that he be personally notified before they were employed. They included things like playing good-cop bad-cop, removing incentives, insulting the detainees or prolonged isolation -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, some of that stuff honestly sounds pretty benign, good-cop bad-cop, insults, that sort of thing, so what is the issue there? Why would the secretary have to approve that?

MCINTYRE: Well, he wanted to know about those things ahead of time. He didn't necessarily have to approve them but wanted to be notified when they were used. These are things that in an extreme could be perhaps abusive but normally wouldn't be.

BROWN: Jamie, thank you very much, Jamie McIntyre.

If it's possible to have a paper dump within a paper dump, today was the day to do it. The State Department too came out with a revised report. Its report was on terrorism, showing that it is on the rise, nothing to brag about but safe to say it was checked, double checked and this time, at least, accurate.

Here's CNN's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Terrorist bombings in Istanbul, Turkey in November of 2003 killed 61 people but you wouldn't know from the State Department's initial report released in April detailing terror attacks last year. The fatalities weren't included until now, updating a global terrorism report the secretary of state called embarrassing.

Numbers have been sharply revised from 190 attacks claiming 307 lives in the initial report to 208 attacks, killing 625, more than doubling the number of people who died.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: The report is not designed to make our efforts look better or worse or terrorism look better or worse but to provide the facts to the American people.

CALLEBS: The war on terrorism has been a cornerstone of the Bush administration. Figures in the initial report were trumpeted. The fewest number of people killed in terror attacks in 35 years. Changes were made only after Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman raised questions.

Problems were found in accounting, misclassification of data, and partly since the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, a new conglomeration of government anti-terrorism officials, is not responsible for tracking attacks and deaths.

COFER BLACK, STATE DEPT. COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICE: I assure you and the American people that the errors in (unintelligible) report were honest mistakes and certainly not deliberate deceptions as some have speculated.

CALLEBS: Critics of the administration have wondered if the initial report is less an oversight and more a slight of hand.

REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D), ILLINOIS: A funny thing happened on the way to the printer.

CALLEBS: Democratic members of Congress said the initial report made it appear the administration was more successful than it was in reality.

EMANUEL: It appears that a pattern exists of either gross incompetence or gross political manipulation and neither is worthy of a political -- of a cabinet secretary.

CALLEBS: Also, not included in the 2003 report, most of the killings in Iraq saying attacks against troops don't fit the definition of international terrorism.

Sean Callebs, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, the mess of paper and photos and talk in the prisoner abuse scandal. We'll try and make some sense of what we know so far.

Plus a huge court ruling involving Wal-Mart and allegations of sex discrimination, a break first.

From New York, and there it is, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The whos and hows and whys of the prisoner abuse scandal get more complicated as the paper trail grows. What the memos say versus what they mean versus what consequences they may have had is the focus of much debate.

Richard Cohen is a columnist with "The Washington Post." He joins us tonight from Boulder, Colorado. And, Robert Maginnis served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. Presumably he worked to get to lieutenant colonel as well and is an expert on national security and foreign affairs. He's in Washington tonight. We're pleased to have you both here.

There's a lot that we, I guess, need to talk about but the thing I think that concerns many of us most is how much damage has been done to the country's credibility around the world? You're both very worldly people.

Mr. Maginnis, we'll start with you. How bad do you think it is out there?

ROBERT MAGINNIS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Well, we -- of course the people at Abu Ghraib betrayed our good armed forces people. We have 135,000 or so over there. They've done a pretty good job quite frankly, Aaron.

But, of course, Iran is using this as a buttress against us. The people that beheaded Paul Johnson the other day in Saudi Arabia said that it's because of their Muslim brothers who were embarrassed in Abu Ghraib. And even our European allies are ganging up on us with regard to this.

You know it just seems as if there are a host of things that they're using as an excuse. You know an embarrassing situation. I do believe though rather limited there in the Abu Ghraib and the brigadier general, perhaps a couple colonels but, you know, I don't see this going up to Mr. Rumsfeld or certainly not the president.

BROWN: Let's get to that. Mr. Cohen, do you think it's more than just an embarrassing incident? It seems to be seen as more than that around the world.

RICHARD COHEN, "WASHINGTON POST" SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, maybe it should be seen as something, as only an embarrassing incident but in the Arab world, at least, where I was last month it's seen as a debacle, I mean a debacle if you're an American traveling because you hear about it over and over again. People are appalled by it and people are horrified by it.

And, you know, it's one thing to get that kind of sentiment from say the man on the street but when sophisticated Arabs talk about America in a certain way it's just plain disheartening and I think this thing has become at least a diplomatic debacle.

BROWN: When you look at all of these memos that have come out, does it not suggest that the administration was looking for at the very least the outside edge of what it could legally get away with, Mr. Cohen?

COHEN: Well, it certainly seems to me that way. You have that 50-page memo that the Justice Department prepared, the Office of Legal Counsel. Nobody at the Office of Legal Counsel just comes up, spends their spare time doing a 50-page memo for the hell of it.

It seemed to me that they were looking to see just how far they could go before a certain amount of pain or deprivation or something of that sort could be labeled torture. I mean to me it's a horrible -- it's a horrible document. It's one of these things which says we can go this far but not further, a little bit of pain but not too much pain. I mean what did they have a pain-o-meter? I just don't get it.

BROWN: Mr. Maginnis, given the stakes that are in play, is it really that appropriate to talk about the outer limits?

MAGINNIS: Well, Aaron, at the time if you go back to 9/11, we weren't really clear as to what we were facing and then we applied the Geneva Convention, written 50-some odd years ago and applied to a different reality.

You know like the president said, we're in a new paradigm. We don't know in many cases where this enemy is. They don't wear uniforms and they clearly are not playing by the rules of law or the laws of war.

The reality though is that in bureaucracies, whether military or Justice Department, you're always throwing out ideas to be considered. You know, obviously cool heads prevailed here. They dismissed this 50-page memo. I would argue that 50-page memos in the federal government are not uncommon. They burn a lot of trees out there.

BROWN: Gentlemen, good to have you both with us. There's more here and we'll get to it again. Thank you very much.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, Bill Clinton back on the campaign trail, campaigning this time for his own book, all 957 pages of it. We'll take a look at that.

Plus trying to make up for a horrible mistake in Afghanistan and the young boy at the center of this sad story, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Have you heard? Former President Bill Clinton has a book out, big book, real long. It's all there, the economy, Bosnia, Kosovo, the government shut down, something about some woman and a guy named Starr. It's all there. And when you have read the book you must -- or written a book, rather, you must sell the book and Mr. Clinton is out there selling hard and apparently selling well.

Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill Clinton always loved to campaign and seems to be relishing his latest one.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm glad it's finally happened. I've been living with this for two and a half years.

WALLACE: And then the hottest political author in the country at the moment got to work, signing more than 2,000 copies of his autobiography, while spending nearly five hours at his first book signing in Midtown Manhattan.

CLINTON: It's amazing. I'm very moved.

WALLACE (on camera): They're calling you the "Harry Potter" of adult books.

CLINTON: Maybe I'll get some glasses like "Harry Potter."

WALLACE (voice-over): Clinton fans had been lining up since the middle of the night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he's our generation's -- our Kennedy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you know, I've been fascinated by American politics since I was 12 in Denmark. And so obviously I wanted to see the guy.

WALLACE: Even bad reviews and bad weather couldn't keep them away. Derrick Miller (ph) drove from Allentown, Pennsylvania, more excited about Bill than his 957-page book.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll probably read the first couple of chapters. It looks a little heavy going for me.

WALLACE: There were few signs of Mr. Clinton's enemies, but the first signs that renewed questions about Monica Lewinsky were getting to him.

Pressed by a BBC reporter about his affair with Lewinsky in an interview that aired Tuesday night, the former president fired off at independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr and the media, as he does in his book.

CLINTON: One of the reasons he got away with it is because people like you only asked people like me the questions. You gave him a complete free ride, any abuse they want to do. They indicted all these little people from Arkansas. What did you care about them? They're not famous. Who cares if their lives are trampled? Who cares that their children are humiliated?

Who cares if Starr sends FBI agents to their school and rip them out of their school to humiliate them, try to force their parents to lie about me?

These are my biggest purchasers here, 6.

WALLACE: But for Bill Clinton, this day was about looking forward, as he headed to Harlem and around the country to sign even more books, looking to add best-selling author to his resume.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, New York. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, has been working his way through the book. And he joins us now.

In fairness, you just got your hands on it, right?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Yes. I've digested chunks.

BROWN: But you read quickly.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

BROWN: All right. Do we come away knowing too much, too little or both?

GREENFIELD: Both.

On the too little thing, what struck me was, this guy is one of the great storytellers in American politics who has a real feel for language. And the early part of this book, his childhood in Arkansas, it comes alive and he draws conclusions and he makes connections from what happened to him then and now.

I have to say this. The presidential part, our colleague Joe Klein called it a data dump. It's as though he had his little -- his big diary. It's a day-by-day thing. And then I went here, and then I was impeached, and then I met the prime minister of "Krukistan," and coupled with some extremely forceful language about what happened to him, that kind of takes some of what we just heard from the BBC.

BROWN: Picking up on that, then, he clearly wants to turn that in his favor, turn the -- is he successful in it?

GREENFIELD: I'm giving you a personal opinion. I

do not think so. What he says is -- there's a further clip on that BBC interview where he says, people like you, meaning the media, help the far right because you want to hurt people. And in the book, he describes the whole impeachment product as a fight against the same people who wanted to keep blacks out of integrated schools and not let black people vote.

And I remember, during impeachment, he compared himself to a character in an Arthur Koestler famous novel "Darkness at Noon," Rubashov, the guy who is the victim of Stalinist purges. That's all there. The stuff that we don't hear, there's no reflection about whether or not he thinks part of what happened to him, there was any public harm to his conduct, to the reputation of politics, to what it did to young people, none, absolutely no reflection from an extremely reflective guy.

BROWN: Do you remember how Nixon explained Watergate and can you compare that in any sense to how this president explains his issues?

GREENFIELD: Right. Nixon's famous phrase, which actually popped up I think in the David Frost interviews, was, this was, my enemies were out to get me. And then he said, I gave them the sword. That was the famous line from Nixon.

BROWN: Yes.

GREENFIELD: And he goes through a whole series of why it was unfair, but he couldn't help it.

But there are other parts in this book that -- the dog that did not bark in the night. You remember "Primary Colors," the book that Joe Klein wrote? You would have thought that a sitting president who is the subject of this really remarkable novel, this huge guessing game, who did it, a million copies sold, painting the president in very complicated lights, there's not a word about it in the book. It as though it never happened. He never gave it a minute's thought.

BROWN: So, at the end, it is unsatisfying or -- not that you're at the end yet?

GREENFIELD: Yes, the presidential part -- and I have read much of it -- it disappoints because this -- Bill Clinton is a unique politician. He is cognitively smarter than almost anybody else around him, which is unusual. And he has a mind of capable of really complicated and interesting thinking.

When he talks, he has these wonderful, vivid phrases. He has never given, in my view, a great formal speech. And maybe part of the problem here was, he shouldn't have written this. He should have talked it.

BROWN: Well, he's going to get a chance to do that.

GREENFIELD: Yes. By the way, I don't think the reviews are going to hurt the sales too much.

BROWN: It doesn't seem like it.

GREENFIELD: No.

BROWN: Jeff, thank you very much.

He will talk about it Thursday night with Larry King, his first prime-time live interview, 9:00 Eastern time, Bill Clinton with Larry King. And, as they say, they will take your calls.

Still to come tonight on the program, a couple of interesting legal battles. The first involves a Senate hopeful, his ex-wife who is a TV star, and some very, let's just say interesting court documents that have put the campaign on the defensive.

And in a completely different courtroom, retail giant Wal-Mart and a giant lawsuit it is now facing.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Maybe in France, this wouldn't be a big deal. Then again, maybe it would.

The Republican candidate for the Senate in Illinois is denying charges made by his ex-wife that he tried to induce her to have sex in front of an audience. Now, she's an actress, but not that kind of actress. And she, according to the records, said thanks, but no thanks. This is all part of a divorce proceeding that had been sealed until local media outlets argued successfully the records be opened.

From Chicago tonight, CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Illinois Senate race has been sideswiped by that three-letter word. But Jack Ryan is asking voters to look beyond the headlines and feel for him as a parent.

JACK RYAN (R), ILLINOIS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think about my boy we're trying to protect.

FREED: The Republican's campaign is reeling from allegations that he once pressured his then wife, actress Jeri Ryan of "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Boston Public," to have sex in front of other people at risque nightclubs, which she says she refused. She alleged it in four-year-old court documents unsealed by a California court and released late Monday. He denies it.

RYAN: There's no allegation of infidelity or breaking any laws, kept all civil and criminal laws, kept my vows to my spouse.

FREED: But there are questions about whether he kept the details from the state's GOP leadership. For months, Ryan, a millionaire and political neophyte, insisted there was nothing damaging in the divorce documents, which both he and his ex-wife fought to keep sealed.

BRUCE DOLD, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE": The Republican Party leadership in this state is livid with Jack Ryan, because they felt like that they didn't tell them the truth on this.

FREED: "The Chicago Tribune" is preparing a critical editorial for Wednesday's paper, but will stop short of calling for Ryan to quit. The Illinois seat could help shift control of the Senate. And Ryan was already trailing Democrat Barack Obama, who chose his words carefully Tuesday.

BARACK OBAMA (D), ILLINOIS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Over the next week, I'm sure that this is going to get a lot of attention, but it's not what we're going to be focused on.

FREED: Ryan hopes the public has had enough of sex scandals, but on the day when Bill Clinton's memoirs started flying off the shelves... PAUL GREEN, PROFESSOR, ROOSEVELT UNIVERSITY: His greatest name recognition comes from going allegedly to sex clubs with his wife. That's a tough position to be in as a Republican in the age of Republican moralism.

FREED: Political watchers here expect the party leadership to wait until the end of the week before deciding if they should pressure Ryan to quit.

Jonathan Freed, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Sex in another sense of the word is at the center of a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, sex as in gender, gender as in gender equality.

The allegation is simple: Women at Wal-Mart are paid less than men, passed over for promotions more often. Seven women sued the company. Today, a federal judge in San Francisco gave their lawsuit class-action status, making it the largest civil rights lawsuit ever. It now potentially involves more than a million and a half current and former Wal-Mart employees. The company's spokesman today denied it discriminates and promised to challenge the judge's ruling. Wal-Mart has fought class-action status all along, claiming each of its 3,200 stores is autonomous.

Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, trying to see good come from a horrible mistake in Afghanistan.

And later still, your morning papers.

A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In the war on terror, the enemy isn't always easy to identify. And in the fog of war, the task is even harder.

CNN's Ryan Chilcote saw this firsthand as an embedded reporter in Afghanistan. He was on a week-long mission with a platoon of U.S. soldiers in the country's volatile border province of Paktika. Soldiers were providing security for the new governor of the province as he toured the region. We warn you, some of the images you are about to see are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their convoy had been attacked during the past week by people in civilian clothes who set off roadside bombs then slipped away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bravo Company.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe from the lob and from...

CHILCOTE: Today, the scouts are out in front, entering a region where no American soldier has ever gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then we are headed down into an area that we knew was known it was going to be hairy.

CHILCOTE: In the distance, they spot what appears to be a man running away. They pursue on foot through a mine field and fire warning shots. The figure in the distance doesn't stop running. There's more firing, taking aim this time.

And the scouts catch up, only to encounter a combat soldier's nightmare. The target turns out to be a 12-year-old boy. The boy's name is Azizullah. He'd been helping his father tend their cattle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's hit.

CHILCOTE: Inside the bag he's carrying, that they thought was suspicious, nothing more than a bottle of water and a stick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, quit filming. Stop filming.

CHILCOTE (on camera): Two soldiers, including the soldier who shot him and CNN's security adviser, Alan Trappe, got to work on Azizullah keeping him alive for more than two hours before the helicopters arrived. Azizullah's father distraught and convinced his son wouldn't make it, pleaded with the soldiers to let him take his boy home to die.

(voice-over): But the soldiers didn't give up, and neither did Azizullah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The kid held on, asked for his family and stuff. But he wasn't crying a lot. He was working with us, you know, telling us what hurt and what didn't hurt. And that really helps out a lot.

CHILCOTE: Finally, the choppers arrived. Azizullah is whisked away. It is the last time these soldiers will see him. They don't know if he will make it or not. The soldier who pulled the trigger declined to be interviewed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know him pretty well, and you know, this is -- has messed him up pretty good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, he didn't know he was a boy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... establish a perimeter here...

CHILCOTE: The whole unit is stunned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...I think we're too spread out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's like we all got kicked in the gut. It's going to take a little bit to get over. All of us that saw it happen are going to see it happen every single day for the rest of our lives, you know? It's -- you've got to live with that. CHILCOTE: The Army is investigating. While the investigation is underway, we're not reporting the soldier's name. Lieutenant Chris Morrison (ph) is his platoon leader.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every day my soldiers are put in life and death situations and forced to make life or death decisions. And it's not easy. And they'd be foolish to think that every decision comes out the right way.

CHILCOTE: Nearly two weeks after it all went wrong, Azizullah's father arrived in the Afghan capital to see his son in an American field hospital. It was his first time in Kabul, and it had taken intervention by the provincial governor and the help of some Americans to get him here.

Because of this, the father said, my son is injured, my cattle went missing, and my wife has gone crazy. Azizullah's father says his wife will not leave the place where the boy was shot. She rolls on the ground and pleads with Allah to bring her first-born son home, he says. Their livestock all ran away during the shooting. Gone with them, says Azizullah's father, their livelihood.

We asked the Army if there would be any compensation for Azizullah's family. No, we were told. We do not pay compensation for events occurring during combat operations, ever. Twice during their short visit, Azizullah pulled his oxygen mask away and told his father, I want to go home. Doctors say it will be at least a month before Azizullah can leave the hospital.

Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Paktika Province, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world, a challenge for your humble reporter, since many of the stories are the same. But that will not stop me from making a good attempt at making the next two minutes fascinating, or just OK. We'll see.

"Christian Science Monitor" begins it all. "Rumblings of War in the Heart of Africa. U.S. and U.N. Sends Envoys to Stop Congo Conflict." Another mess there. Also, this will -- essentially same stories on all of these front pages. Wal-Mart makes most of them. This is a huge story, the Wal-Mart sex discrimination class-action suit, and prison abuse. "High Stakes, Harsh Scrutiny as Prison Abuse Trials Go On." They will be very interesting.

"Philadelphia Inquirer." I think I would have put this on the front page. Well, I led with it tonight. So, obviously, I would put it on the front page, now that I think about it. "South Korean Executed." I should think more often. "U.S. Hits Iraqi Target" as well. They lead that way. There was something else I liked here. Oh, they put Wal-Mart on there, too. I'll think of it later and call you.

"The Washington Times." "Values Guided Bush Torture Ban" is the way they lead the White House document story today. "Clinton Hits His Decision on Counsel, Calls it 'The Worst I've Made.'" I'm not sure what that is. And "Marriage Bill" -- we've talked about this before, "The Washington Times" really enamored of the battle over gay marriage, so they put that on the front page. Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, was in Washington today. "Marriage Bill Backed by Romney."

"Bush Never Ordered Torture" is the way "The Richmond Times" leads it. And they've got kind of a cool story about kids and scooters.

"The Detroit News."

How much? One. OK. I'll get there.

"Smokers to Pay Higher Taxes," the way "The Detroit News" leads for tomorrow. "Fingerprint Use Worries Employees. More Firms Use High-Tech Time Clocks, Track Customer Transactions, Raising Privacy Fears." We may start doing that here. Down here, best story of the day: "Farmers Grow Low-Carb Spuds." Come on. Yes, right.

We're just about out of time, aren't we? "The Oregonian." "Memo Show Rumsfeld Shift." So everybody is seeing the same story just a little bit differently. "Wal-Mart Bias Case Can Move Forward." They put that on the front page as well.

"Memo Shows Bush Eyed Waiving Anti-Torture Laws" is how "The Chattanooga Times Free Press" leads it.

And, finally, "Chicago Sun-Times," uh-oh, one of the Olsen twins has an eating disorder. We're not happy about that. And the weather tomorrow is "irritating." And we're not happy about that either.

We'll take a break. We are happy about that. We'll be right back. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Good to have you with us tonight. We're all out of time because I was prattling on about morning papers for too long. We're all back here tomorrow.

Coming up next for most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT."

We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern time tomorrow. Good night for all of us.

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