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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
U.S. Transfers Power to Iraqis; Supreme Court Rules on Fate of Detainees
Aired June 28, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.
History was made today. Whether it turns out to be history with a capital H or something less we shall see over time. But in a ceremony that spoke volumes about the security situation in Iraq, the occupation, that's occupation with a capital O, ended and is now replaced by an occupation with a lower case O.
One hundred sixty thousand coalition troops remain on the ground, their mission and their risks unchanged. Iraqis themselves seemed to see the day in mostly modest terms, no big deal celebrations, no guns firing in the air, just an acknowledgement that another step had been taken into a still uncertain future.
But it was not a small step, not an unimportant step, and most of all it was not a step back, so it was history that was being written and it is history that tops the news and begins the whip tonight.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour is in Baghdad where the day began with a surprise, a new chapter in Iraqi history, Christiane a headline from you tonight.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was a big step in that Iraqis now sovereign again but the U.S. has handed over power with the job only barely half done and so now democracy, the economy, and especially security is up to Iraq.
BROWN: Christiane, thank you. We'll look forward to your report tonight, a step forward but not the whole story in Iraq either, the fate of several hostages hanging in the balance tonight.
CNN's Barbara Starr has the watch at the Pentagon, so Barbara a headline.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Another American family agonizes and waits over the fate of its loved one and the news may be terrible -- Aaron.
BROWN: Barbara, thank you.
The Supreme Court issues two major decisions in the war on terror today. Neither was what the Bush administration had argued for or hoped for, Bob Franken with the headline -- Bob.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, even in wartime the justices told the president, Aaron, that he can't have all the power.
BROWN: Bob, thank you.
And on a day like today in Iraq it is hard to resist talking politics and what's to be gained or lost at the White House. Our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield with the headline -- Jeff.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Aaron, what happens in these next four months or so after the handoff may well determine who the next president of the United States is. How are voters feeling right now? We'll hear from them in a key battleground region of a key battleground state -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program from Washington, D.C. tonight, they are the names and the faces of the new Iraq, so who are they and what's ahead of them?
Later, the story of a war widow's grief and the friends who helped her sew her life and her memories back together.
And morning papers top it off. No matter where we are we've got time for the rooster tonight, all that and more in the hour ahead from Washington.
We begin in Iraq with the surprise that made history. For months, June 30 had been the end point of a countdown that seemed to grow bloodier by the day. This morning the countdown was cut short when power was handed to Iraq's new government two days early.
It was a significant first step but it was only just one step on a journey that most everyone agrees will be long and difficult. Today, the U.S.-led occupation technically ended in Iraq and a crucial new chapter began.
We begin our coverage with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR (voice-over): At precisely 10:26 this morning, Baghdad time, Paul Bremer became the ex-U.S. administrator.
PAUL BREMER, FORMER CPA ADMIN. TO IRAQ: We welcome Iraq's steps to take its rightful place of equality and honor among the free nations of the world. Sincerely, L. Paul Bremer, ex-administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
AMANPOUR: Then Bremer presented the blue bound document, the legal transfer of sovereignty to Iraq's new interim government. Iraqi official attending were the Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his deputy, the President Ghazi Yawar and the Supreme Court Justice Midhat Al- Mahmood. For a momentous occasion it was understated taking place in a small room in the prime minister's new office. AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: This is a historical day with the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people.
AMANPOUR: Bremer had signed the order in his own office earlier in the morning. As he said farewell to his staff on the way to the handover ceremony, he also carried a letter to Prime Minister Allawi from President George Bush formally requesting that diplomatic ties be restored between Iraq and the United States. They were broken in January, 1991 just before the first Gulf War.
Bremer went from the ceremony to a helicopter which took him out of occupation headquarters, the Green Zone that had been his office and home for the past 14 months. He then boarded a plane out of Iraq and out of this job.
As Bremer was in the air, the rest of the cabinet was sworn in. Some ministers told us they too knew nothing about this until the last minute. Allawi set out his agenda with a wide range of promises on everything from services to the economy, democracy and especially security.
ALLAWI (through translator): Here I call on the efforts of all people to defend the country. I call on the heroes of the past, all the regions of Iraq and the sons of Iraq and I call on their efforts to eradicate foreign terrorists whoa re killing our people and destroying our country.
AMANPOUR: He offered a pardon for any Iraqi insurgents and former Saddam loyalists who did not have blood on their hands, that in return for information and cooperation in fingering the terrorists.
While he has repeatedly said he would impose emergency security measures that's expected to fall short of full marshal law. Allawi has yet to detail his security plan. It could include curfews and a ban on public gatherings.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: He also laid out his challenges. The promises were really couched in how difficult it would be to get the economy up and running. One to two years, he said, just to get the backbone of the economy up, the oil industry, because of the sabotage.
And he sort of implied that that was also the case with democracy that it would take a long, long time for this to take root and to be the kind of democracy that we've heard so much America wants to have here.
But the most important thing is the security and every person we talk to on the street who said they were happy about what had happened said that what they want is peace and they want civility after 14 months, they said, of explosions and violence.
BROWN: How do they believe or do they believe, how do they believe this change of government will facilitate a more secure Iraq if the 160,000 foreign soldiers couldn't do it? How does an ill- trained, undisciplined, untested Iraq security force do it?
AMANPOUR: Well, we asked that question many times, I've done, to Ayad Allawi and he sort of enigmatically talks about tough action means tough action but we're still waiting to hear the precise measures that they're going to take.
We do know, of course, that the American forces are going to be here and be the back up while these Iraqi forces are getting trained but I think for the people they hope it's a sort of a wishful thinking, if you like.
But they hope that now with an Iraqi sovereign government, with Iraqi forces who will at least be symbolically deployed in the front lines inside the community they hope that that somehow will psychologically deflect this notion of an insurgency against an occupation.
But it is still a very, very desperate hope because, as you've been talking about and as we've been talking about, this insurgency is very determined. It's changed its tone and it says that it wants to not just get rid of the Americans but this new government as well, so the challenge is huge.
BROWN: Just, quickly, as you looked around today obviously something important happened but, as you looked around, were the Americans, the American soldiers any less visible than they were a day or two before?
AMANPOUR: No and, in fact, ironically because of the prediction of violence over the handover period they have been deployed and in checkpoints and areas perhaps a little bit more than a few days ago.
But the idea is and we've been told this, the idea is that the Iraqis, I mean let's face it they simply aren't up in numbers but the Iraqis symbolically will be deployed into the community and the Americans will be basically round the corner ready for an SOS to come out and help if that's necessary.
There is no question that the American presence will still be on the street if somebody at the coalition headquarters, of course it's no longer that, said that if anybody expects to see a different deployment of Americans they're mistaken. It's going to be very much the same.
BROWN: Christiane, thank you for your work today. We'll talk tomorrow. Thank you, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad on this historic day.
The decision to move the day for transferring power ahead was in large part designed to diffuse the violence aimed at derailing the handover. As surprises go, today's was a success by the most basic measure. No one in the loop blew the cover.
While the handover ceremony was unfolding in Baghdad this morning, a NATO Summit meeting was underway in Istanbul. That part of the story from our Senior White House Correspondent John King. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It was a tightly- held secret as the president arrived for Monday's NATO Summit session, then this note from his national security adviser. "Iraq is sovereign."
Mr. Bush scribbled his reaction in the margin, "let freedom reign," then a glance at his watch to mark the moment and a celebratory handshake with the leader at his side from the beginning of the Iraq debate. This time no banners declaring "mission accomplished," but while Mr. Bush was more subdued he was optimistic and by no means apologetic.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We pledged to end a dangerous regime, to free the oppressed and to restore sovereignty. We have kept our word.
KING: The president called the early transfer of power a tribute to Iraq's new government and a message to those behind the violent insurgency.
BUSH: That their bombs and attacks have not prevented Iraqi sovereignty and they will not prevent Iraqi democracy.
KING: From a legal standpoint, occupation over, after 14 months but 138,000 U.S. and 12,000 British troops remain and Prime Minister Blair warned of difficult and dangerous days ahead.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We'll stay for as long as it takes to make sure that that support is there for them so that we help them to that freedom and democracy they want to see.
KING: The NATO alliance quickly pledged help training Iraqi security forces. Not too long ago, Mr. Bush had hoped for NATO troops, not just training, but he compromised in the face of familiar opposition.
JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): It is not the vocation of NATO to intervene in Iraq.
KING: Administration officials say the idea of transferring sovereignty ahead of schedule gained steam about a week ago and that Iraq's new prime minister gave the final OK Sunday night saying the sooner he took power the sooner he could launch new efforts to improve security.
BUSH: And our job is to help the Iraqis stand up forces that are able to deal with these thugs.
KING (on camera): With the political handover now complete, U.S. officials say the new government likely will take legal custody of Saddam Hussein within days but U.S. troops will continue to help guard him. As one senior U.S. official put it, "We want to make sure he is put on trial, not snuck out a back door or strung up a flagpole."
John King, CNN, Istanbul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A day like today answers some questions and raises lots of others. Senator Chuck Hagel represents Nebraska in the Senate where he serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and we talked with the Senator earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Senator, today's obviously an important day. It's an important marker. What makes you nervous about the next six months?
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: Well, security obviously is still the great unknown and the focus on security is going to have to be continued and enhanced but in connection with that security we're going to have to do and help the Iraqi government do a much more better job with the enhancement of economic development, the rebuilding the infrastructure because this business is about the Iraq people.
The Iraqi people must see tangible results that their lives are getting better, there's a future for them, for their families, for their children and that also means that they must develop a confidence in this interim Iraqi government and that confidence then moves into elections and into a future. If we lose the Iraqi people, if we break that confidence, then we will lose Iraq.
BROWN: Do you think that they will, that the Iraqi government can win the confidence of the people and be pro-American at the same time?
HAGEL: I think that's a very delicate balance that the interim Iraqi government is going to have to work through. The polls, the various interviews, the various dynamics within the Iraqi people are somewhat in conflict on that overall issue but what's very important here is the Iraqi people see Iraqis in charge making decisions for their country, which impact their future.
I don't think there's anyone in Iraq who doesn't understand that the American presence is still going to be required, along with our allies, to help guarantee the security there as much as we can but the fact is the future of Iraq will eventually be decided by the Iraqi people.
BROWN: If Fallujah today is an example of what's going to happen when the Iraqis take responsibility for Iraq, it's going to be a very rough ride.
HAGEL: Well, we have some very challenging, difficult months ahead of us. These next seven months prior to a January, 2005 election, are going to be of a critical nature because if things come undone, if we see Iraq being unwound in the measurement of security, economic development and confidence of the Iraqi people, then you will be in a situation next year where elections will essentially be meaningless. So, yes, the challenges are great. Everything is at stake. I think over the next seven months in Iraq (unintelligible).
BROWN: This is the last question. Do you think as we sit here today we can say that ten years from now there will be one Iraqi nation and not Kurdish Iraq and Sunni Iraq and Shia Iraq?
HAGEL: Aaron, I am not near wise enough to answer that question but I would say this. That is something that we should do everything we can to prevent but, in the end, we won't control that. The United States can't impose its will on any country. We can't impose peace on any country.
My sense of it is that Iraq has a good opportunity to develop itself and keep that country together, which I think most likely is in the best interest of the Iraqi people and certainly I think is in the best interest of the Middle East.
You can't view Iraq in a vacuum here. It is woven into the fabric of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Middle East, the challenges, how the Arab world, the Muslim world sees the United States and all of that will play out in this drama called Iraq.
BROWN: You have been for us a good and interesting voice in all stages up to this moment and I expect, or hope at least, you will be as we go forward and it's good to see you again.
HAGEL: Thanks, Aaron, very much.
BROWN: Thank you sir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel, we talked with him late this afternoon.
In one sense, everything changed in Iraq today, at least on paper even it so much looked the same or possibly worse. The fate of six foreign hostages, including an American soldier and an American Marine, hang in the balance tonight all facing the threat of beheading. If the handover ceremony in Baghdad was the high point of the day, the low came in a video aired on an Arab television network.
From the Pentagon tonight CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The picture is dark and grainy, a man kneeling with his back to the camera. The Pentagon says it cannot confirm this is Specialist Matt Maupin but Al-Jazeera Television said in addition to the less than the second of video it aired. Other frames do show a man being shot. The Pentagon confirmed that account but the frames of the killing were not broadcast.
SPC KEITH MATTHEW MAUPIN: My name is Keith Matthew Maupin.
STARR: The only known pictures of Maupin were shown shortly after he was captured on April 9 when his convoy was ambushed outside Baghdad. Al-Jazeera also showed a statement it said it received with the video from Maupin's alleged captors, a group calling itself the sharp sword against the enemies of God and his prophet. The group claimed to have killed the 20-year-old soldier from Ohio over U.S. policies in Iraq.
As word of the tape circulated, the Army contacted the Maupin family to warn them the worst news might be coming but that the military couldn't confirm anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no indication thus far that that tape contains footage of Matt Maupin or any other Army soldier.
STARR: The Pentagon also was worried about the fate of Marine Corporal Wassaf Ali Hassoun, last seen on June 19, reported missing to his family, now apparently seen blindfolded with a sword over his head also on Arab television. No one is sure how he came to be in the hands of the insurgents, his father in Lebanon pleading for his son's life.
MOHAMMED HASSOUN, U.S. MARINE'S FATHER (through translator): I plead the authority of Islamic scholars and everyone who has mercy in his heart and fears God. I ask them for the sake of God, Prophet Mohammed, and their children to release my son and I thank them and they will have great reward from God.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STARR: Aaron, tonight no indication that the insurgents who are holding the hostages are letting up on their campaign of terror -- Aaron.
BROWN: Barbara, thank you, Barbara Starr at the Pentagon tonight.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the faces and political forces soon to be at work in the new Iraq, the political repercussions back home as well.
From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Just as the swearing in this morning put security above a clear view of the process, so too did the Iraq's new leadership. Because of that and because of the fact that many in the new government were exiles, they represent for many ordinary Iraqis a collection of unknowns. So do some of the new American faces in play but with a tip of the hat to the defense secretary, let's call them known unknowns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): The new prime minister is a doctor, a former neurologist, named Ayad Allawi. He's in his late 50s, a Shiite, with fairly extensive connections to the CIA. He has been critical from time to time of the United States. He speaks near perfect English and is a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party though hardly recently. He was an exile from Iraq in the early '70s.
The president, a largely ceremonial post, is a 45-year-old moderate Sunni tribal leader. He is Ghazi Mausal Ajil Al-Yawar. He too was exiled in the early '90s. Al-Yawar served in the interim Iraqi Governing Council and sometimes joined Dr. Allawi in his criticisms of the U.S.
As for the Americans, John Negroponte will become the American ambassador in Baghdad heading up the largest American Embassy anywhere in the world. He is a career diplomat, once serving as ambassador to Honduras during the turbulent period in the '80s under President Reagan. He has been the U.S. representative to the United Nations for the past three years.
On the military side, a name to remember, Lieutenant General David Petraeus who gets the none-too-easy job of getting Iraq's military and police forces up, running and willing to fight. He is a celebrated field commander with proven success over the last year commanding the 101st Airborne in Mosul in Iraq. He is well liked it is said, by many Iraqis.
Much of the power in Iraq, of course, still rests with religious leaders and the most powerful among them is the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He is the country's most senior Shia cleric and, while he believes in the separation of religion and state, it is not exactly clear what his agenda is. He is quiet, usually unseen and extraordinarily powerful.
A cleric who longs for power is young Muqtada al-Sadr. He urged his followers to take up arms against the coalition and they did. His Mehdi Army has been responsible for a number of uprisings and anti- U.S. violence. He is extremely popular among the Iraqi poor.
And then there are the insurgents and the biggest of the bad guys on the block, if you will, is this man, Abu Zarqawi, cited repeatedly by both the Americans and many Iraqis as the terrorist in back of nearly all the major bombings, executions and assaults against the coalition in the year or so since major combat ended. He is unquestionably the number one on Iraq's most wanted list.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Having introduced the players, let's talk a bit about their prospects. Noah Feldman helped draft the interim Iraqi constitution. I'm not sure many people there remember it but he did and it's an important document. He's a law professor at New York University. Fouad Ajami is Director of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and we're glad to have you both here.
Mr. Ajami, let me start with you but we'll put the same question on the table for both. Why should we believe, why should we be encouraged to believe that this new government will be more successful in putting down the insurgency, which seems to be growing more sophisticated than the coalition was?
FOUAD AJAMI, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Well, we have to be realistic about what -- in our expectations from this new government. I don't think this new government alone could put down this insurgency.
But to the extent that this insurgency, if you will, phrases and frames itself as a rebellion against the infidels, the fact that we have transferred sovereignty to the Iraqis, the fact that now this Abu Musab Zarqawi, this (unintelligible) from, this killer from Jordan who has made his way to Iraq will be warring against a sovereign Iraqi government, admittedly a sovereign Iraqi government with enormous amounts of American support and protection.
It could conceivably alter the equation. It could give Iraqis a stake in their own country. They will turn these insurgents in. It could make the life of the insurgents in Fallujah, for example, more difficult because they will not be fighting against Americans. They will be fighting against their own.
BROWN: Professor Feldman you buy that?
NOAH FELDMAN, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Largely. The key for the transitional government is to peel away the al Qaeda style outsiders in the country from ordinary Iraqis. If they win over the ordinary Iraqis, and they're fighting for their hearts and minds, then the new government is basically going to be sunk because the insurgency and the terrorism won't stop.
If, on the other hand, ordinary Iraqis say, look, these guys came from the outside, they want a permanent jihad, we just want to govern our own country then there's a real chance of moving forward and actually having a successful government.
BROWN: Is there any reason to believe that isn't what the Iraqis want that basically like everybody else on the planet they pretty much want to be left alone, raise their kids, have a decent job, good income, good schools, good health care? Is there any reason to believe that they want something more complicated, more religious, more anything like that?
FELDMAN: I think that was the view of almost all Iraqis a year ago. The question is whether a year of frustration and really insecurity had led people to develop views that you and I would consider more irrational, views that say what we really need is a permanent war and any government will be backed by the U.S. I think the overwhelming majority of Iraqis still don't feel that way but clearly some do. These foreign fighters are not acting totally on their own.
BROWN: Professor Ajami, do you believe that the -- this occupation which was obviously, was much more complicated than the administration imagined 15 months ago, has changed the whole notion of the Bush doctrine that the president, this administration would be less likely to wage war or preemptive war again?
AJAMI: I think, Mr. Brown, you ask a very, very profound and important question. I think this Iraq War has been full of surprises. We are now bereft of any (unintelligible) and even as we now negotiate, the terms of our presence in Iraq and the terms of our exit out of Iraq, we have been chasing about the foreign world.
The next time we think that maybe another regime needs to be sacked, we will think thoroughly about this. So, even if the Bush people do not proclaim that their faith in their own power has declined, I think they will emerge out of this war a chastened group of people.
We know the world better and we understand the limits of our own power. Iraq has been an incredible roller coaster of a ride. It has been a great triumph but has also been a great disappointment and the costs have been heartbreakingly high.
BROWN: Professor Feldman, let me give you the last word here. You spent a lot of time working over there on this. When you heard the news today did you have a kind of rush of excitement about it or are you so much a realist that you're just going to wait and see?
FELDMAN: I'm becoming more of a realist every day. I think that we ought to wait and see, which is what Iraqis are going to do. I do wish that things were secure enough in Iraq that we could have had a more formal ceremony.
BROWN: Yes.
FELDMAN: That we didn't have to cut and run in this kind of quiet way. It's true that it's about the Iraqis but we need to assure security right now.
BROWN: Gentlemen, good to have you both with us. It's an important day and the beginning of something. We'll find out what pretty soon. Thank you both.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, two setbacks in the administration's way of waging the war on terror, on any day these would be lead stories. It's amazing that a half hour in we're just getting to them.
And later we'll stop the presses, well more or less, we'll deliver your morning papers. That we will do.
From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: At the Supreme Court today, a double setback for the White House, one involving foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay, the other having to do with Americans being kept for all intents and purposes in legal limbo.
In its ruling today, the court moved the line between security and liberty in wartime. Nothing new here. The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact, said Justice Robert Jackson more than a half century ago, nor, writes Justice Sandra Day O'Connor today, is a state of war a blank check.
Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Bob Franken.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The rulings rejected the administration's claim that the president had near absolute power in times of war over declared enemy combatants, the courts, little or no power.
The justices ruled the courts even had little beyond the borders, that the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base had a right to challenge their imprisonments, even though Guantanamo is technically part of Cuba.
THOMAS GOLDSTEIN, SUPREME COURT LEGAL ANALYST: There's clear repudiation of the government's absolute position that the courts have no role.
FRANKEN: The court did not specify what form the Guantanamo detainee hearings would take.
By a 6-3 margin ruled in favor of Yaser Hamdi, a U.S. citizen but he was captured by U.S. allies in Afghanistan. And even with the president's sweeping wartime powers, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor insisted, "an unchecked system of detention carries the potential to become a means for oppression and abuse of others." And therefore, Hamdi has the right to challenge in court why he's being held.
FRANK DUNHAM, YASER HAMDI'S ATTORNEY: The king can't lock you up and forget about you, throw away the key. He's got bring you forward before a neutral magistrate.
FRANKEN: At the same time, the court upheld the president's power to detain terrorist suspects -- possibly indefinitely, possibly without charges.
DAVID RIVKIN, MILITARY LAW EXPERT: Releasing them would have dealt a very heavy blow to our ability to prosecute this war. So that basically affirms the administration is proceeding in the right way.
FRANKEN: The justices effectively made no determination about the detention of Jose Padilla, saying his lawyers had filed in the wrong lower courts. Padilla, too, was a U.S. citizen, but he was arrested on U.S. soil at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, accused of planning a dirty bomb attack.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: His attorney says she will refile. And, in these case, Aaron, those involved will know, whatever they do, the courts will be watching. BROWN: No matter how you slice this and dice this, this was not a good day for the administration's argument that the president has virtually absolute power.
FRANKEN: No, they're trying to make the best of it by saying that some of the justices said he did have the right to hold people, perhaps indefinitely, but the courts asserted themselves today, saying, as they have since Marbury vs. Madison, that the courts do have the rights to judicial review.
BROWN: Bob, thank you -- Bob Franken with us tonight.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT from Washington, the view from home of a handover, the war and the president, as seen by American voters who used to be decided, but are somewhat less decided these days.
And, later, the fabric that memories are made of.
We take a break first. From the nation's capital, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Thirty-six years ago in March, Lyndon Johnson became a casualty of war. Vietnam ended his career, tainted his legacy and many believe broke his heart.
But it's worth remembering that it took more than just 25,000 dead servicemen by that point for the country to sour on the enterprise and the president. It took Tet and My Lai and the weight of a million other things. Americans have always been willing to tolerate casualties for the right war fought in the right way. When it looks otherwise, they find a new president.
Whether it's looking that way now, given the headlines coming out of Iraq, is certainly too soon too say. It isn't, however, too soon to ask.
Here is our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Thousands of miles from Baghdad, the judgment on the handoff, on the war, on the presidency itself will be rendered in places like this.
This is the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, about 40 miles north of Philadelphia, where some 600,000 people live in a battleground region of a key battleground state. It is a region that includes urban centers like Allentown and Bethlehem, suburbs, farms and rural communities as well.
REP. PAT TOOMEY (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I think of it often as a slice of America.
GREENFIELD: Republican Congressman Pat Toomey. TOOMEY: My district has a little bit of almost everything America has.
GREENFIELD: And while they fly a lot of flags in the Lehigh Valley to show support for the troops...
GLENN KRANZLEY, "ALLENTOWN MORNING CALL": The support for the war, for the president, has decreased. And we're hearing more and more doubts about why we're there and what we're accomplishing.
GREENFIELD: Glenn Kranzley edits the editorial page of "The Morning Call," the dominant newspaper in the region.
KRANZLEY: The one thing that I believe that holds people back from being more negative about the war is this very strong sense of wanting to be supportive of the men and women who are serving over there.
GREENFIELD: To hear for ourselves, we invited eight voters to join us at the Lehigh University Library. All voted last time, four for Bush, four for Al Gore.
(on camera): So you're definitely voting in November?
(voice-over): And all of them say they're now undecided.
Their comments tell us a lot about how the core Iraq messages of President Bush and Senator Kerry are being received right now.
Dr. Jeff Wack, a chiropractor, backed the war and agrees it was good for Iraq. It's the pace of progress, he says, that now worries people.
DR. JEFF WACK, VOTER: We were all under the impression that regardless of why we went in and what the ultimate intention was in the beginning, we would go in and just solve this, be done with it, clean it up, wash our hands and leave. And that obviously hasn't happened.
GREENFIELD: Those who were skeptical from the beginning have grown more so. They hear the president's optimism, but they don't buy it.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East.
Craftsman Glenn Kern.
GLENN KERN, VOTER: Every day, you see on the news more and more people dying for things that they thought they knew, but they really didn't know.
GREENFIELD: Helen Sekol accepts the president's call for patience for a very good reason.
HELEN SEKOL, VOTER: My son fought in the war. And, you know, as he pointed out, you cannot go in, bomb a country and expect to leave right away and just leave them left to pick up the pieces. You have to be there for as long as it takes.
GREENFIELD: You can also hear echoes of discontents from earlier wars, a sense that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Teacher Pam Myers.
PAM MYERS, VOTER: There is no clear end. We don't see, when can we bring our boys home? And I understand that you can't put a timeline on something like this, but there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Attracting international support in a situation like Iraq is a clear test of presidential leadership.
GREENFIELD: But if President Bush is losing support on his conduct of the war, has John Kerry convinced voters that he has a way out? No, or at least not yet.
JONI MILLER, VOTER: I don't feel like he's really firm on any real issues. I just don't feel like -- I don't have a gut feeling -- good feeling for him.
GREENFIELD (on camera): But, in the end, it is the president who took the nation to war in Iraq. And it is his fate that is particularly bound up with what happens in Iraq over the next 4 1/2 months. Four years ago, the editorial page of "The Morning Call" says his paper backed the president. As of now, if they had to make a choice, they'd vote against him, with the war in Iraq as the key reason why.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We're joined in Washington by Peter Beinart, who is the editor of "The New Republic" magazine, and, in New York, Dan Henninger, who the editorial page writer, an editorial page writer at "The Wall Street Journal," and a good one. And we're glad to have them both with us tonight.
Dan, let me start with you. Not that it matters, necessarily, where people are today, but as you look at the scene today, is the war a net political plus or a net political minus for the president?
DAN HENNINGER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": I would say, Aaron, that it is a net political plus. I think he's taken some hits. He's taken some damage from the war lately.
But I don't think that he's been hurt so badly that it stands at the moment as a political threat to him in the election. I think one point we have to keep in mind here is that we've been talking about the effect of the war in Iraq. But I think a lot of voters out there don't put a line around the war in Iraq. They understand that we're in a war against global terror. And when you incorporate the idea of a war on terror end into the equation, the president's standing remains pretty high.
BROWN: Peter, do you think that that line -- I would agree that, if the war is viewed in that context, it changes the equation. Do you agree that the war is still seen in that context, or that the president can make it seen in that context?
PETER BEINART, EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": I think something very ironic has happened.
The president has been defining Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism for a long time. Why? Because they thought that the war on terrorism, with it evocation of 9/11, would make people more positive about Iraq. In the last month or so, something very significant has happened, the reverse. The war in Iraq is making people feel less positive about the war on terrorism.
It's not just that President Bush's ratings are now low on Iraq. They're actually significantly lower on the war on terrorism. In the "Washington Post"/ABC poll, only 50 percent of Americans approve of his performance on the war on terrorism. That's disastrous for this president. That was his calling card. I think the gamble of conflating Iraq and the war on terrorism will prove to be the crucial mistake of this presidency.
BROWN: Why does Kerry get -- seemingly get nothing out of it?
BEINART: I think it is wrong to say he's getting nothing out of it. I think what pollsters will tell you is that people move away from the president and they don't immediately move to the challenger. They first make a decision on Bush, then on the other guy.
The key fact is that Bush cannot get his approval rating above 50 percent. And, historically, when presidents don't do that, the undecideds go to the challenger. The bar for John Kerry will be relatively low if George Bush's approval rate remains below 50 percent, as they have for a couple of months now.
BROWN: Dan, do you agree with that?
HENNINGER: Only up to a point, Aaron.
I think the one number we haven't put on the table here is John Kerry's number in that poll. And Kerry's support, as the ability to carry the war forward against global terror, remains under 40 percent. It is around 37 or 38 percent. And it has been sitting there since at least January.
And he somehow has to find a way to convince the American people that he's capable of conducting a war against global terror. And that 38 percent rating, Aaron, has just got to get up at least over 45 percent. And I disagree with Peter, who said it's a low hurdle. I think John Kerry's got a very high hurdle at the moment. And it's troubling that his number remains that low.
BROWN: All right, I've got a minute left.
Let me try and reduce this a little bit to a simple, if really unpleasant question. If the rate of American casualties in Iraq remains as it has been over the last four months, let's say, can the president win?
Dan, let's start with you.
HENNINGER: I think he can win, Aaron. It remains to be seen.
That's a highly predictive question.
BROWN: Yes.
HENNINGER: Iraqis now have responsibility for their own country. And it is going to be up to them to try to carry the fight to the insurgents over there. But, yes, if those casualties remain high, it will be troubling. It will be a challenge for the president.
BROWN: Peter?
BEINART: He can survive that rate of casualties if it looks like Iraq is really going to be able to pull off this election and if it looks like Iraqis are getting ready to handle their own security.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: If the election is delayed?
BEINART: It can be delayed a little bit, but it has got to look like it is going to come off and be free and fair. And the Iraqis have to look like they can handle their own security by next year so we can leave.
BROWN: Good to have you both with us. Thank you. I hope you'll come back and we'll do this again. Thank you.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, Captain Ben Wilson and his widow, their lives now sewn together in memory. This is a nice little story coming up.
And later, a nice little piece of business, too, morning papers, which we will do from Washington, D.C. tonight.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Today in Iraq, the U.S. military went from occupier to government guest, technically speaking. On a practical level, of course, the dangers haven't changed much, not yet they haven't. Hopefully, they will; 854 American troops have died in Iraq. Every loss, of course, is different. And every family copes in its own way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STACEY SAMMIS, WIDOW OF U.S. SOLDIER: I remember, I sat on the couch and I stared up at this big lieutenant colonel with his big blue eyes and he had just tears coming out of his eyes. And they were reading me all this military technical terms. And I just stopped the captain for a second. I said, did the bad guys get him? And they said, yes. And that was all I needed to know.
He had a heart that was so big. He just loved everyone. He was very intelligent. And he had big dreams for his life, big dreams. He wanted to be a dad. He wanted to be the best officer he could be. He was funny as anything. He could do voices from "Shrek" and the Klumps from "The Nutty Professor." He was always there with a laugh to make you smile. And every time I cry, like that, like now, he just would say, Stacey, just smile, just smile, and always there to pick me up, too.
In California, we each had our own closet. And after he was killed, sometimes I'd go in there and just give a big hug to all those clothes. It almost felt like a person. But when I moved, I was really preoccupied with, what do you do with these things? So I talked to my pastor about it, and she said, you know what you should do? You should make a quilt. I said, that's awesome, but I don't know how to quilt.
She talked to Rebecca's Reel Quilters. They're a group of women that are so supportive of me and Ben, my hero.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do it with a curved needle. It's much easier.
SAMMIS: They were willing to take his clothes and make it into a beautiful, beautiful quilt that will last forever.
BARBARA O'TOOLE, REBECCA'S REEL QUILTERS: It was important. All the quilts I do for other people are important, but this one was -- this fabric can never be found again. It was precious to his wife.
SAMMIS: I went through Ben's clothes. I picked out two boxes full of clothes. And I said, pick out three of your favorite things. So I picked out a Hawaiian shirt, a yellow fleece and his flight suit.
The Hawaiian shirt to show that he was a fun and crazy kind of guy that put the military side away for a few minutes and just be silly and dance at a karaoke bar. From the very beginning, Ben always had a fleece vest. And he wore it everywhere, to the Grand Canyon, to walk the dog, go to dog school together. And then the last thing was his flight suit. Flying was a very, very important part of his life. And that's what he wore to work every day.
O'TOOLE: When I saw his name that was stamped on his jumpsuit, that was a little bit much. That's when it made me feel like I'm doing this for a real person. When you get it, it's pieces. And when you put it together, it makes the quilt come alive.
SAMMIS: On the label, it says, in memory of Captain Benjamin Wilson's family, United States Marine Corps, made by the ladies of Rebecca's Reel Quilters Guild.
If I kept the clothes in a box or I gave them away, they'd be gone. This way, this is mine.
There you go.
Pretty much every night after work, I lay on the couch with my dog on the floor and just wrap myself up in it, because that's what our life was like. After work, we'd cook our dinner. We'd clean up. And just like everybody else in America, we would sit down, we'd watch some TV and talk about our day. It's a little different now. I have Bailey and Ben's blanket. And I just cuddle up with it. It feels like it's just a big hug from him that I'll have forever.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: We take that darn animal wherever we go.
Time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world.
We begin with "The International Herald Tribune." Basically, it's a two story day. And so how newspapers lead it is what we note. Well, it's sort of what we always note. But here we go.
"International Herald Tribune." Very straight-ahead lead: "U.S.- Led Military Occupation Formally Ends, Transfer of Sovereignty Two Days Ahead of Schedule." And then down at the bottom, "U.S. Detainees Get Right to Appeal." All right, that's the way they headline it there.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer," a little bit more edgy. Sovereignty now, but what next? So, right away, they're raising questions about the future. Also, pretty big headline over here, "Detainees Win Access to the Courts." It's a huge decision.
A very -- the one exception in this is "The Cincinnati Enquirer." They lead differently, and with good reason. It's how I'd lead, unfortunately, in Cincinnati, too, if I was there. "Cincinnati Enquirer," "Grim Report on Maupin Shadows Iraq Handover." Matt Maupin is a resident of suburban Cincinnati. And they've been following his story more closely than has the rest of us, I'm sure. So the news today for them was pretty nasty.
"Dallas Morning News" straight ahead. "Early Handover." Well, not so straight ahead. "Terrorism, Divisions Challenge New leadership. We Will Be Victorious, Premier Vows."
And then up here, I don't know if you can see that, "Texas is the Lone Carb State." Some Texas classics, such as chicken-fried steak, okra and peaches are packed with carbohydrates.
Here we go. "The Oregonian" out in Portland, Oregon, one of the few Western papers we're able to get our hands on. "Justices Reject Detention Tactics." And then on Iraq, "A New But Uncertain Day in Iraq," so pretty edgy there.
We'll go right to "The Chicago Sun-Times," OK? "Bush: We Kept Our Word" is how they lead it. This the story that caught my eye. "Fox Drops Anchor." That's the local Fox station. Walter Jacobson. For years, people said I reminded them of Walter Jacobson, so it's pretty darn unsettling to know that he got canned.
"Sunscreen" is the weather in Chicago tomorrow.
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Time to plan your morning TV watching. Here's Bill Hemmer with a look at "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks.
Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," it took seven years to get there at a cost of more than $3 billion, now NASA Cassini's spacecraft finally arriving at Saturn for a whole new chapter in the exploration of the solar system. What do scientists hope to learn and what will Cassini discover on Saturn's 31 mysterious moons? The answers, we're told, may lie there.
We'll check it out tomorrow morning, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time here on "AMERICAN MORNING" -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Bill, thank you.
And that's our report from Washington. We're going to head back home from New York tomorrow. But it was an interesting and important day to be here. We'll see you tomorrow.
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 28, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.
History was made today. Whether it turns out to be history with a capital H or something less we shall see over time. But in a ceremony that spoke volumes about the security situation in Iraq, the occupation, that's occupation with a capital O, ended and is now replaced by an occupation with a lower case O.
One hundred sixty thousand coalition troops remain on the ground, their mission and their risks unchanged. Iraqis themselves seemed to see the day in mostly modest terms, no big deal celebrations, no guns firing in the air, just an acknowledgement that another step had been taken into a still uncertain future.
But it was not a small step, not an unimportant step, and most of all it was not a step back, so it was history that was being written and it is history that tops the news and begins the whip tonight.
CNN's Christiane Amanpour is in Baghdad where the day began with a surprise, a new chapter in Iraqi history, Christiane a headline from you tonight.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was a big step in that Iraqis now sovereign again but the U.S. has handed over power with the job only barely half done and so now democracy, the economy, and especially security is up to Iraq.
BROWN: Christiane, thank you. We'll look forward to your report tonight, a step forward but not the whole story in Iraq either, the fate of several hostages hanging in the balance tonight.
CNN's Barbara Starr has the watch at the Pentagon, so Barbara a headline.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Another American family agonizes and waits over the fate of its loved one and the news may be terrible -- Aaron.
BROWN: Barbara, thank you.
The Supreme Court issues two major decisions in the war on terror today. Neither was what the Bush administration had argued for or hoped for, Bob Franken with the headline -- Bob.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, even in wartime the justices told the president, Aaron, that he can't have all the power.
BROWN: Bob, thank you.
And on a day like today in Iraq it is hard to resist talking politics and what's to be gained or lost at the White House. Our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield with the headline -- Jeff.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Aaron, what happens in these next four months or so after the handoff may well determine who the next president of the United States is. How are voters feeling right now? We'll hear from them in a key battleground region of a key battleground state -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jeff, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program from Washington, D.C. tonight, they are the names and the faces of the new Iraq, so who are they and what's ahead of them?
Later, the story of a war widow's grief and the friends who helped her sew her life and her memories back together.
And morning papers top it off. No matter where we are we've got time for the rooster tonight, all that and more in the hour ahead from Washington.
We begin in Iraq with the surprise that made history. For months, June 30 had been the end point of a countdown that seemed to grow bloodier by the day. This morning the countdown was cut short when power was handed to Iraq's new government two days early.
It was a significant first step but it was only just one step on a journey that most everyone agrees will be long and difficult. Today, the U.S.-led occupation technically ended in Iraq and a crucial new chapter began.
We begin our coverage with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR (voice-over): At precisely 10:26 this morning, Baghdad time, Paul Bremer became the ex-U.S. administrator.
PAUL BREMER, FORMER CPA ADMIN. TO IRAQ: We welcome Iraq's steps to take its rightful place of equality and honor among the free nations of the world. Sincerely, L. Paul Bremer, ex-administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
AMANPOUR: Then Bremer presented the blue bound document, the legal transfer of sovereignty to Iraq's new interim government. Iraqi official attending were the Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his deputy, the President Ghazi Yawar and the Supreme Court Justice Midhat Al- Mahmood. For a momentous occasion it was understated taking place in a small room in the prime minister's new office. AYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: This is a historical day with the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people.
AMANPOUR: Bremer had signed the order in his own office earlier in the morning. As he said farewell to his staff on the way to the handover ceremony, he also carried a letter to Prime Minister Allawi from President George Bush formally requesting that diplomatic ties be restored between Iraq and the United States. They were broken in January, 1991 just before the first Gulf War.
Bremer went from the ceremony to a helicopter which took him out of occupation headquarters, the Green Zone that had been his office and home for the past 14 months. He then boarded a plane out of Iraq and out of this job.
As Bremer was in the air, the rest of the cabinet was sworn in. Some ministers told us they too knew nothing about this until the last minute. Allawi set out his agenda with a wide range of promises on everything from services to the economy, democracy and especially security.
ALLAWI (through translator): Here I call on the efforts of all people to defend the country. I call on the heroes of the past, all the regions of Iraq and the sons of Iraq and I call on their efforts to eradicate foreign terrorists whoa re killing our people and destroying our country.
AMANPOUR: He offered a pardon for any Iraqi insurgents and former Saddam loyalists who did not have blood on their hands, that in return for information and cooperation in fingering the terrorists.
While he has repeatedly said he would impose emergency security measures that's expected to fall short of full marshal law. Allawi has yet to detail his security plan. It could include curfews and a ban on public gatherings.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: He also laid out his challenges. The promises were really couched in how difficult it would be to get the economy up and running. One to two years, he said, just to get the backbone of the economy up, the oil industry, because of the sabotage.
And he sort of implied that that was also the case with democracy that it would take a long, long time for this to take root and to be the kind of democracy that we've heard so much America wants to have here.
But the most important thing is the security and every person we talk to on the street who said they were happy about what had happened said that what they want is peace and they want civility after 14 months, they said, of explosions and violence.
BROWN: How do they believe or do they believe, how do they believe this change of government will facilitate a more secure Iraq if the 160,000 foreign soldiers couldn't do it? How does an ill- trained, undisciplined, untested Iraq security force do it?
AMANPOUR: Well, we asked that question many times, I've done, to Ayad Allawi and he sort of enigmatically talks about tough action means tough action but we're still waiting to hear the precise measures that they're going to take.
We do know, of course, that the American forces are going to be here and be the back up while these Iraqi forces are getting trained but I think for the people they hope it's a sort of a wishful thinking, if you like.
But they hope that now with an Iraqi sovereign government, with Iraqi forces who will at least be symbolically deployed in the front lines inside the community they hope that that somehow will psychologically deflect this notion of an insurgency against an occupation.
But it is still a very, very desperate hope because, as you've been talking about and as we've been talking about, this insurgency is very determined. It's changed its tone and it says that it wants to not just get rid of the Americans but this new government as well, so the challenge is huge.
BROWN: Just, quickly, as you looked around today obviously something important happened but, as you looked around, were the Americans, the American soldiers any less visible than they were a day or two before?
AMANPOUR: No and, in fact, ironically because of the prediction of violence over the handover period they have been deployed and in checkpoints and areas perhaps a little bit more than a few days ago.
But the idea is and we've been told this, the idea is that the Iraqis, I mean let's face it they simply aren't up in numbers but the Iraqis symbolically will be deployed into the community and the Americans will be basically round the corner ready for an SOS to come out and help if that's necessary.
There is no question that the American presence will still be on the street if somebody at the coalition headquarters, of course it's no longer that, said that if anybody expects to see a different deployment of Americans they're mistaken. It's going to be very much the same.
BROWN: Christiane, thank you for your work today. We'll talk tomorrow. Thank you, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad on this historic day.
The decision to move the day for transferring power ahead was in large part designed to diffuse the violence aimed at derailing the handover. As surprises go, today's was a success by the most basic measure. No one in the loop blew the cover.
While the handover ceremony was unfolding in Baghdad this morning, a NATO Summit meeting was underway in Istanbul. That part of the story from our Senior White House Correspondent John King. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It was a tightly- held secret as the president arrived for Monday's NATO Summit session, then this note from his national security adviser. "Iraq is sovereign."
Mr. Bush scribbled his reaction in the margin, "let freedom reign," then a glance at his watch to mark the moment and a celebratory handshake with the leader at his side from the beginning of the Iraq debate. This time no banners declaring "mission accomplished," but while Mr. Bush was more subdued he was optimistic and by no means apologetic.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We pledged to end a dangerous regime, to free the oppressed and to restore sovereignty. We have kept our word.
KING: The president called the early transfer of power a tribute to Iraq's new government and a message to those behind the violent insurgency.
BUSH: That their bombs and attacks have not prevented Iraqi sovereignty and they will not prevent Iraqi democracy.
KING: From a legal standpoint, occupation over, after 14 months but 138,000 U.S. and 12,000 British troops remain and Prime Minister Blair warned of difficult and dangerous days ahead.
TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We'll stay for as long as it takes to make sure that that support is there for them so that we help them to that freedom and democracy they want to see.
KING: The NATO alliance quickly pledged help training Iraqi security forces. Not too long ago, Mr. Bush had hoped for NATO troops, not just training, but he compromised in the face of familiar opposition.
JACQUES CHIRAC, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): It is not the vocation of NATO to intervene in Iraq.
KING: Administration officials say the idea of transferring sovereignty ahead of schedule gained steam about a week ago and that Iraq's new prime minister gave the final OK Sunday night saying the sooner he took power the sooner he could launch new efforts to improve security.
BUSH: And our job is to help the Iraqis stand up forces that are able to deal with these thugs.
KING (on camera): With the political handover now complete, U.S. officials say the new government likely will take legal custody of Saddam Hussein within days but U.S. troops will continue to help guard him. As one senior U.S. official put it, "We want to make sure he is put on trial, not snuck out a back door or strung up a flagpole."
John King, CNN, Istanbul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A day like today answers some questions and raises lots of others. Senator Chuck Hagel represents Nebraska in the Senate where he serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and we talked with the Senator earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Senator, today's obviously an important day. It's an important marker. What makes you nervous about the next six months?
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R), NEBRASKA: Well, security obviously is still the great unknown and the focus on security is going to have to be continued and enhanced but in connection with that security we're going to have to do and help the Iraqi government do a much more better job with the enhancement of economic development, the rebuilding the infrastructure because this business is about the Iraq people.
The Iraqi people must see tangible results that their lives are getting better, there's a future for them, for their families, for their children and that also means that they must develop a confidence in this interim Iraqi government and that confidence then moves into elections and into a future. If we lose the Iraqi people, if we break that confidence, then we will lose Iraq.
BROWN: Do you think that they will, that the Iraqi government can win the confidence of the people and be pro-American at the same time?
HAGEL: I think that's a very delicate balance that the interim Iraqi government is going to have to work through. The polls, the various interviews, the various dynamics within the Iraqi people are somewhat in conflict on that overall issue but what's very important here is the Iraqi people see Iraqis in charge making decisions for their country, which impact their future.
I don't think there's anyone in Iraq who doesn't understand that the American presence is still going to be required, along with our allies, to help guarantee the security there as much as we can but the fact is the future of Iraq will eventually be decided by the Iraqi people.
BROWN: If Fallujah today is an example of what's going to happen when the Iraqis take responsibility for Iraq, it's going to be a very rough ride.
HAGEL: Well, we have some very challenging, difficult months ahead of us. These next seven months prior to a January, 2005 election, are going to be of a critical nature because if things come undone, if we see Iraq being unwound in the measurement of security, economic development and confidence of the Iraqi people, then you will be in a situation next year where elections will essentially be meaningless. So, yes, the challenges are great. Everything is at stake. I think over the next seven months in Iraq (unintelligible).
BROWN: This is the last question. Do you think as we sit here today we can say that ten years from now there will be one Iraqi nation and not Kurdish Iraq and Sunni Iraq and Shia Iraq?
HAGEL: Aaron, I am not near wise enough to answer that question but I would say this. That is something that we should do everything we can to prevent but, in the end, we won't control that. The United States can't impose its will on any country. We can't impose peace on any country.
My sense of it is that Iraq has a good opportunity to develop itself and keep that country together, which I think most likely is in the best interest of the Iraqi people and certainly I think is in the best interest of the Middle East.
You can't view Iraq in a vacuum here. It is woven into the fabric of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Middle East, the challenges, how the Arab world, the Muslim world sees the United States and all of that will play out in this drama called Iraq.
BROWN: You have been for us a good and interesting voice in all stages up to this moment and I expect, or hope at least, you will be as we go forward and it's good to see you again.
HAGEL: Thanks, Aaron, very much.
BROWN: Thank you sir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel, we talked with him late this afternoon.
In one sense, everything changed in Iraq today, at least on paper even it so much looked the same or possibly worse. The fate of six foreign hostages, including an American soldier and an American Marine, hang in the balance tonight all facing the threat of beheading. If the handover ceremony in Baghdad was the high point of the day, the low came in a video aired on an Arab television network.
From the Pentagon tonight CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The picture is dark and grainy, a man kneeling with his back to the camera. The Pentagon says it cannot confirm this is Specialist Matt Maupin but Al-Jazeera Television said in addition to the less than the second of video it aired. Other frames do show a man being shot. The Pentagon confirmed that account but the frames of the killing were not broadcast.
SPC KEITH MATTHEW MAUPIN: My name is Keith Matthew Maupin.
STARR: The only known pictures of Maupin were shown shortly after he was captured on April 9 when his convoy was ambushed outside Baghdad. Al-Jazeera also showed a statement it said it received with the video from Maupin's alleged captors, a group calling itself the sharp sword against the enemies of God and his prophet. The group claimed to have killed the 20-year-old soldier from Ohio over U.S. policies in Iraq.
As word of the tape circulated, the Army contacted the Maupin family to warn them the worst news might be coming but that the military couldn't confirm anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no indication thus far that that tape contains footage of Matt Maupin or any other Army soldier.
STARR: The Pentagon also was worried about the fate of Marine Corporal Wassaf Ali Hassoun, last seen on June 19, reported missing to his family, now apparently seen blindfolded with a sword over his head also on Arab television. No one is sure how he came to be in the hands of the insurgents, his father in Lebanon pleading for his son's life.
MOHAMMED HASSOUN, U.S. MARINE'S FATHER (through translator): I plead the authority of Islamic scholars and everyone who has mercy in his heart and fears God. I ask them for the sake of God, Prophet Mohammed, and their children to release my son and I thank them and they will have great reward from God.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STARR: Aaron, tonight no indication that the insurgents who are holding the hostages are letting up on their campaign of terror -- Aaron.
BROWN: Barbara, thank you, Barbara Starr at the Pentagon tonight.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the faces and political forces soon to be at work in the new Iraq, the political repercussions back home as well.
From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Just as the swearing in this morning put security above a clear view of the process, so too did the Iraq's new leadership. Because of that and because of the fact that many in the new government were exiles, they represent for many ordinary Iraqis a collection of unknowns. So do some of the new American faces in play but with a tip of the hat to the defense secretary, let's call them known unknowns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): The new prime minister is a doctor, a former neurologist, named Ayad Allawi. He's in his late 50s, a Shiite, with fairly extensive connections to the CIA. He has been critical from time to time of the United States. He speaks near perfect English and is a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party though hardly recently. He was an exile from Iraq in the early '70s.
The president, a largely ceremonial post, is a 45-year-old moderate Sunni tribal leader. He is Ghazi Mausal Ajil Al-Yawar. He too was exiled in the early '90s. Al-Yawar served in the interim Iraqi Governing Council and sometimes joined Dr. Allawi in his criticisms of the U.S.
As for the Americans, John Negroponte will become the American ambassador in Baghdad heading up the largest American Embassy anywhere in the world. He is a career diplomat, once serving as ambassador to Honduras during the turbulent period in the '80s under President Reagan. He has been the U.S. representative to the United Nations for the past three years.
On the military side, a name to remember, Lieutenant General David Petraeus who gets the none-too-easy job of getting Iraq's military and police forces up, running and willing to fight. He is a celebrated field commander with proven success over the last year commanding the 101st Airborne in Mosul in Iraq. He is well liked it is said, by many Iraqis.
Much of the power in Iraq, of course, still rests with religious leaders and the most powerful among them is the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He is the country's most senior Shia cleric and, while he believes in the separation of religion and state, it is not exactly clear what his agenda is. He is quiet, usually unseen and extraordinarily powerful.
A cleric who longs for power is young Muqtada al-Sadr. He urged his followers to take up arms against the coalition and they did. His Mehdi Army has been responsible for a number of uprisings and anti- U.S. violence. He is extremely popular among the Iraqi poor.
And then there are the insurgents and the biggest of the bad guys on the block, if you will, is this man, Abu Zarqawi, cited repeatedly by both the Americans and many Iraqis as the terrorist in back of nearly all the major bombings, executions and assaults against the coalition in the year or so since major combat ended. He is unquestionably the number one on Iraq's most wanted list.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Having introduced the players, let's talk a bit about their prospects. Noah Feldman helped draft the interim Iraqi constitution. I'm not sure many people there remember it but he did and it's an important document. He's a law professor at New York University. Fouad Ajami is Director of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and we're glad to have you both here.
Mr. Ajami, let me start with you but we'll put the same question on the table for both. Why should we believe, why should we be encouraged to believe that this new government will be more successful in putting down the insurgency, which seems to be growing more sophisticated than the coalition was?
FOUAD AJAMI, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Well, we have to be realistic about what -- in our expectations from this new government. I don't think this new government alone could put down this insurgency.
But to the extent that this insurgency, if you will, phrases and frames itself as a rebellion against the infidels, the fact that we have transferred sovereignty to the Iraqis, the fact that now this Abu Musab Zarqawi, this (unintelligible) from, this killer from Jordan who has made his way to Iraq will be warring against a sovereign Iraqi government, admittedly a sovereign Iraqi government with enormous amounts of American support and protection.
It could conceivably alter the equation. It could give Iraqis a stake in their own country. They will turn these insurgents in. It could make the life of the insurgents in Fallujah, for example, more difficult because they will not be fighting against Americans. They will be fighting against their own.
BROWN: Professor Feldman you buy that?
NOAH FELDMAN, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Largely. The key for the transitional government is to peel away the al Qaeda style outsiders in the country from ordinary Iraqis. If they win over the ordinary Iraqis, and they're fighting for their hearts and minds, then the new government is basically going to be sunk because the insurgency and the terrorism won't stop.
If, on the other hand, ordinary Iraqis say, look, these guys came from the outside, they want a permanent jihad, we just want to govern our own country then there's a real chance of moving forward and actually having a successful government.
BROWN: Is there any reason to believe that isn't what the Iraqis want that basically like everybody else on the planet they pretty much want to be left alone, raise their kids, have a decent job, good income, good schools, good health care? Is there any reason to believe that they want something more complicated, more religious, more anything like that?
FELDMAN: I think that was the view of almost all Iraqis a year ago. The question is whether a year of frustration and really insecurity had led people to develop views that you and I would consider more irrational, views that say what we really need is a permanent war and any government will be backed by the U.S. I think the overwhelming majority of Iraqis still don't feel that way but clearly some do. These foreign fighters are not acting totally on their own.
BROWN: Professor Ajami, do you believe that the -- this occupation which was obviously, was much more complicated than the administration imagined 15 months ago, has changed the whole notion of the Bush doctrine that the president, this administration would be less likely to wage war or preemptive war again?
AJAMI: I think, Mr. Brown, you ask a very, very profound and important question. I think this Iraq War has been full of surprises. We are now bereft of any (unintelligible) and even as we now negotiate, the terms of our presence in Iraq and the terms of our exit out of Iraq, we have been chasing about the foreign world.
The next time we think that maybe another regime needs to be sacked, we will think thoroughly about this. So, even if the Bush people do not proclaim that their faith in their own power has declined, I think they will emerge out of this war a chastened group of people.
We know the world better and we understand the limits of our own power. Iraq has been an incredible roller coaster of a ride. It has been a great triumph but has also been a great disappointment and the costs have been heartbreakingly high.
BROWN: Professor Feldman, let me give you the last word here. You spent a lot of time working over there on this. When you heard the news today did you have a kind of rush of excitement about it or are you so much a realist that you're just going to wait and see?
FELDMAN: I'm becoming more of a realist every day. I think that we ought to wait and see, which is what Iraqis are going to do. I do wish that things were secure enough in Iraq that we could have had a more formal ceremony.
BROWN: Yes.
FELDMAN: That we didn't have to cut and run in this kind of quiet way. It's true that it's about the Iraqis but we need to assure security right now.
BROWN: Gentlemen, good to have you both with us. It's an important day and the beginning of something. We'll find out what pretty soon. Thank you both.
Coming up on NEWSNIGHT tonight, two setbacks in the administration's way of waging the war on terror, on any day these would be lead stories. It's amazing that a half hour in we're just getting to them.
And later we'll stop the presses, well more or less, we'll deliver your morning papers. That we will do.
From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: At the Supreme Court today, a double setback for the White House, one involving foreigners held at Guantanamo Bay, the other having to do with Americans being kept for all intents and purposes in legal limbo.
In its ruling today, the court moved the line between security and liberty in wartime. Nothing new here. The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact, said Justice Robert Jackson more than a half century ago, nor, writes Justice Sandra Day O'Connor today, is a state of war a blank check.
Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Bob Franken.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The rulings rejected the administration's claim that the president had near absolute power in times of war over declared enemy combatants, the courts, little or no power.
The justices ruled the courts even had little beyond the borders, that the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base had a right to challenge their imprisonments, even though Guantanamo is technically part of Cuba.
THOMAS GOLDSTEIN, SUPREME COURT LEGAL ANALYST: There's clear repudiation of the government's absolute position that the courts have no role.
FRANKEN: The court did not specify what form the Guantanamo detainee hearings would take.
By a 6-3 margin ruled in favor of Yaser Hamdi, a U.S. citizen but he was captured by U.S. allies in Afghanistan. And even with the president's sweeping wartime powers, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor insisted, "an unchecked system of detention carries the potential to become a means for oppression and abuse of others." And therefore, Hamdi has the right to challenge in court why he's being held.
FRANK DUNHAM, YASER HAMDI'S ATTORNEY: The king can't lock you up and forget about you, throw away the key. He's got bring you forward before a neutral magistrate.
FRANKEN: At the same time, the court upheld the president's power to detain terrorist suspects -- possibly indefinitely, possibly without charges.
DAVID RIVKIN, MILITARY LAW EXPERT: Releasing them would have dealt a very heavy blow to our ability to prosecute this war. So that basically affirms the administration is proceeding in the right way.
FRANKEN: The justices effectively made no determination about the detention of Jose Padilla, saying his lawyers had filed in the wrong lower courts. Padilla, too, was a U.S. citizen, but he was arrested on U.S. soil at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, accused of planning a dirty bomb attack.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FRANKEN: His attorney says she will refile. And, in these case, Aaron, those involved will know, whatever they do, the courts will be watching. BROWN: No matter how you slice this and dice this, this was not a good day for the administration's argument that the president has virtually absolute power.
FRANKEN: No, they're trying to make the best of it by saying that some of the justices said he did have the right to hold people, perhaps indefinitely, but the courts asserted themselves today, saying, as they have since Marbury vs. Madison, that the courts do have the rights to judicial review.
BROWN: Bob, thank you -- Bob Franken with us tonight.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT from Washington, the view from home of a handover, the war and the president, as seen by American voters who used to be decided, but are somewhat less decided these days.
And, later, the fabric that memories are made of.
We take a break first. From the nation's capital, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Thirty-six years ago in March, Lyndon Johnson became a casualty of war. Vietnam ended his career, tainted his legacy and many believe broke his heart.
But it's worth remembering that it took more than just 25,000 dead servicemen by that point for the country to sour on the enterprise and the president. It took Tet and My Lai and the weight of a million other things. Americans have always been willing to tolerate casualties for the right war fought in the right way. When it looks otherwise, they find a new president.
Whether it's looking that way now, given the headlines coming out of Iraq, is certainly too soon too say. It isn't, however, too soon to ask.
Here is our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Thousands of miles from Baghdad, the judgment on the handoff, on the war, on the presidency itself will be rendered in places like this.
This is the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, about 40 miles north of Philadelphia, where some 600,000 people live in a battleground region of a key battleground state. It is a region that includes urban centers like Allentown and Bethlehem, suburbs, farms and rural communities as well.
REP. PAT TOOMEY (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I think of it often as a slice of America.
GREENFIELD: Republican Congressman Pat Toomey. TOOMEY: My district has a little bit of almost everything America has.
GREENFIELD: And while they fly a lot of flags in the Lehigh Valley to show support for the troops...
GLENN KRANZLEY, "ALLENTOWN MORNING CALL": The support for the war, for the president, has decreased. And we're hearing more and more doubts about why we're there and what we're accomplishing.
GREENFIELD: Glenn Kranzley edits the editorial page of "The Morning Call," the dominant newspaper in the region.
KRANZLEY: The one thing that I believe that holds people back from being more negative about the war is this very strong sense of wanting to be supportive of the men and women who are serving over there.
GREENFIELD: To hear for ourselves, we invited eight voters to join us at the Lehigh University Library. All voted last time, four for Bush, four for Al Gore.
(on camera): So you're definitely voting in November?
(voice-over): And all of them say they're now undecided.
Their comments tell us a lot about how the core Iraq messages of President Bush and Senator Kerry are being received right now.
Dr. Jeff Wack, a chiropractor, backed the war and agrees it was good for Iraq. It's the pace of progress, he says, that now worries people.
DR. JEFF WACK, VOTER: We were all under the impression that regardless of why we went in and what the ultimate intention was in the beginning, we would go in and just solve this, be done with it, clean it up, wash our hands and leave. And that obviously hasn't happened.
GREENFIELD: Those who were skeptical from the beginning have grown more so. They hear the president's optimism, but they don't buy it.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We believe that freedom can advance and change lives in the greater Middle East.
Craftsman Glenn Kern.
GLENN KERN, VOTER: Every day, you see on the news more and more people dying for things that they thought they knew, but they really didn't know.
GREENFIELD: Helen Sekol accepts the president's call for patience for a very good reason.
HELEN SEKOL, VOTER: My son fought in the war. And, you know, as he pointed out, you cannot go in, bomb a country and expect to leave right away and just leave them left to pick up the pieces. You have to be there for as long as it takes.
GREENFIELD: You can also hear echoes of discontents from earlier wars, a sense that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Teacher Pam Myers.
PAM MYERS, VOTER: There is no clear end. We don't see, when can we bring our boys home? And I understand that you can't put a timeline on something like this, but there doesn't seem to be any end in sight.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Attracting international support in a situation like Iraq is a clear test of presidential leadership.
GREENFIELD: But if President Bush is losing support on his conduct of the war, has John Kerry convinced voters that he has a way out? No, or at least not yet.
JONI MILLER, VOTER: I don't feel like he's really firm on any real issues. I just don't feel like -- I don't have a gut feeling -- good feeling for him.
GREENFIELD (on camera): But, in the end, it is the president who took the nation to war in Iraq. And it is his fate that is particularly bound up with what happens in Iraq over the next 4 1/2 months. Four years ago, the editorial page of "The Morning Call" says his paper backed the president. As of now, if they had to make a choice, they'd vote against him, with the war in Iraq as the key reason why.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We're joined in Washington by Peter Beinart, who is the editor of "The New Republic" magazine, and, in New York, Dan Henninger, who the editorial page writer, an editorial page writer at "The Wall Street Journal," and a good one. And we're glad to have them both with us tonight.
Dan, let me start with you. Not that it matters, necessarily, where people are today, but as you look at the scene today, is the war a net political plus or a net political minus for the president?
DAN HENNINGER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": I would say, Aaron, that it is a net political plus. I think he's taken some hits. He's taken some damage from the war lately.
But I don't think that he's been hurt so badly that it stands at the moment as a political threat to him in the election. I think one point we have to keep in mind here is that we've been talking about the effect of the war in Iraq. But I think a lot of voters out there don't put a line around the war in Iraq. They understand that we're in a war against global terror. And when you incorporate the idea of a war on terror end into the equation, the president's standing remains pretty high.
BROWN: Peter, do you think that that line -- I would agree that, if the war is viewed in that context, it changes the equation. Do you agree that the war is still seen in that context, or that the president can make it seen in that context?
PETER BEINART, EDITOR, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": I think something very ironic has happened.
The president has been defining Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism for a long time. Why? Because they thought that the war on terrorism, with it evocation of 9/11, would make people more positive about Iraq. In the last month or so, something very significant has happened, the reverse. The war in Iraq is making people feel less positive about the war on terrorism.
It's not just that President Bush's ratings are now low on Iraq. They're actually significantly lower on the war on terrorism. In the "Washington Post"/ABC poll, only 50 percent of Americans approve of his performance on the war on terrorism. That's disastrous for this president. That was his calling card. I think the gamble of conflating Iraq and the war on terrorism will prove to be the crucial mistake of this presidency.
BROWN: Why does Kerry get -- seemingly get nothing out of it?
BEINART: I think it is wrong to say he's getting nothing out of it. I think what pollsters will tell you is that people move away from the president and they don't immediately move to the challenger. They first make a decision on Bush, then on the other guy.
The key fact is that Bush cannot get his approval rating above 50 percent. And, historically, when presidents don't do that, the undecideds go to the challenger. The bar for John Kerry will be relatively low if George Bush's approval rate remains below 50 percent, as they have for a couple of months now.
BROWN: Dan, do you agree with that?
HENNINGER: Only up to a point, Aaron.
I think the one number we haven't put on the table here is John Kerry's number in that poll. And Kerry's support, as the ability to carry the war forward against global terror, remains under 40 percent. It is around 37 or 38 percent. And it has been sitting there since at least January.
And he somehow has to find a way to convince the American people that he's capable of conducting a war against global terror. And that 38 percent rating, Aaron, has just got to get up at least over 45 percent. And I disagree with Peter, who said it's a low hurdle. I think John Kerry's got a very high hurdle at the moment. And it's troubling that his number remains that low.
BROWN: All right, I've got a minute left.
Let me try and reduce this a little bit to a simple, if really unpleasant question. If the rate of American casualties in Iraq remains as it has been over the last four months, let's say, can the president win?
Dan, let's start with you.
HENNINGER: I think he can win, Aaron. It remains to be seen.
That's a highly predictive question.
BROWN: Yes.
HENNINGER: Iraqis now have responsibility for their own country. And it is going to be up to them to try to carry the fight to the insurgents over there. But, yes, if those casualties remain high, it will be troubling. It will be a challenge for the president.
BROWN: Peter?
BEINART: He can survive that rate of casualties if it looks like Iraq is really going to be able to pull off this election and if it looks like Iraqis are getting ready to handle their own security.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: If the election is delayed?
BEINART: It can be delayed a little bit, but it has got to look like it is going to come off and be free and fair. And the Iraqis have to look like they can handle their own security by next year so we can leave.
BROWN: Good to have you both with us. Thank you. I hope you'll come back and we'll do this again. Thank you.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, Captain Ben Wilson and his widow, their lives now sewn together in memory. This is a nice little story coming up.
And later, a nice little piece of business, too, morning papers, which we will do from Washington, D.C. tonight.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Today in Iraq, the U.S. military went from occupier to government guest, technically speaking. On a practical level, of course, the dangers haven't changed much, not yet they haven't. Hopefully, they will; 854 American troops have died in Iraq. Every loss, of course, is different. And every family copes in its own way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STACEY SAMMIS, WIDOW OF U.S. SOLDIER: I remember, I sat on the couch and I stared up at this big lieutenant colonel with his big blue eyes and he had just tears coming out of his eyes. And they were reading me all this military technical terms. And I just stopped the captain for a second. I said, did the bad guys get him? And they said, yes. And that was all I needed to know.
He had a heart that was so big. He just loved everyone. He was very intelligent. And he had big dreams for his life, big dreams. He wanted to be a dad. He wanted to be the best officer he could be. He was funny as anything. He could do voices from "Shrek" and the Klumps from "The Nutty Professor." He was always there with a laugh to make you smile. And every time I cry, like that, like now, he just would say, Stacey, just smile, just smile, and always there to pick me up, too.
In California, we each had our own closet. And after he was killed, sometimes I'd go in there and just give a big hug to all those clothes. It almost felt like a person. But when I moved, I was really preoccupied with, what do you do with these things? So I talked to my pastor about it, and she said, you know what you should do? You should make a quilt. I said, that's awesome, but I don't know how to quilt.
She talked to Rebecca's Reel Quilters. They're a group of women that are so supportive of me and Ben, my hero.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do it with a curved needle. It's much easier.
SAMMIS: They were willing to take his clothes and make it into a beautiful, beautiful quilt that will last forever.
BARBARA O'TOOLE, REBECCA'S REEL QUILTERS: It was important. All the quilts I do for other people are important, but this one was -- this fabric can never be found again. It was precious to his wife.
SAMMIS: I went through Ben's clothes. I picked out two boxes full of clothes. And I said, pick out three of your favorite things. So I picked out a Hawaiian shirt, a yellow fleece and his flight suit.
The Hawaiian shirt to show that he was a fun and crazy kind of guy that put the military side away for a few minutes and just be silly and dance at a karaoke bar. From the very beginning, Ben always had a fleece vest. And he wore it everywhere, to the Grand Canyon, to walk the dog, go to dog school together. And then the last thing was his flight suit. Flying was a very, very important part of his life. And that's what he wore to work every day.
O'TOOLE: When I saw his name that was stamped on his jumpsuit, that was a little bit much. That's when it made me feel like I'm doing this for a real person. When you get it, it's pieces. And when you put it together, it makes the quilt come alive.
SAMMIS: On the label, it says, in memory of Captain Benjamin Wilson's family, United States Marine Corps, made by the ladies of Rebecca's Reel Quilters Guild.
If I kept the clothes in a box or I gave them away, they'd be gone. This way, this is mine.
There you go.
Pretty much every night after work, I lay on the couch with my dog on the floor and just wrap myself up in it, because that's what our life was like. After work, we'd cook our dinner. We'd clean up. And just like everybody else in America, we would sit down, we'd watch some TV and talk about our day. It's a little different now. I have Bailey and Ben's blanket. And I just cuddle up with it. It feels like it's just a big hug from him that I'll have forever.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: We take that darn animal wherever we go.
Time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world.
We begin with "The International Herald Tribune." Basically, it's a two story day. And so how newspapers lead it is what we note. Well, it's sort of what we always note. But here we go.
"International Herald Tribune." Very straight-ahead lead: "U.S.- Led Military Occupation Formally Ends, Transfer of Sovereignty Two Days Ahead of Schedule." And then down at the bottom, "U.S. Detainees Get Right to Appeal." All right, that's the way they headline it there.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer," a little bit more edgy. Sovereignty now, but what next? So, right away, they're raising questions about the future. Also, pretty big headline over here, "Detainees Win Access to the Courts." It's a huge decision.
A very -- the one exception in this is "The Cincinnati Enquirer." They lead differently, and with good reason. It's how I'd lead, unfortunately, in Cincinnati, too, if I was there. "Cincinnati Enquirer," "Grim Report on Maupin Shadows Iraq Handover." Matt Maupin is a resident of suburban Cincinnati. And they've been following his story more closely than has the rest of us, I'm sure. So the news today for them was pretty nasty.
"Dallas Morning News" straight ahead. "Early Handover." Well, not so straight ahead. "Terrorism, Divisions Challenge New leadership. We Will Be Victorious, Premier Vows."
And then up here, I don't know if you can see that, "Texas is the Lone Carb State." Some Texas classics, such as chicken-fried steak, okra and peaches are packed with carbohydrates.
Here we go. "The Oregonian" out in Portland, Oregon, one of the few Western papers we're able to get our hands on. "Justices Reject Detention Tactics." And then on Iraq, "A New But Uncertain Day in Iraq," so pretty edgy there.
We'll go right to "The Chicago Sun-Times," OK? "Bush: We Kept Our Word" is how they lead it. This the story that caught my eye. "Fox Drops Anchor." That's the local Fox station. Walter Jacobson. For years, people said I reminded them of Walter Jacobson, so it's pretty darn unsettling to know that he got canned.
"Sunscreen" is the weather in Chicago tomorrow.
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Time to plan your morning TV watching. Here's Bill Hemmer with a look at "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks.
Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," it took seven years to get there at a cost of more than $3 billion, now NASA Cassini's spacecraft finally arriving at Saturn for a whole new chapter in the exploration of the solar system. What do scientists hope to learn and what will Cassini discover on Saturn's 31 mysterious moons? The answers, we're told, may lie there.
We'll check it out tomorrow morning, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time here on "AMERICAN MORNING" -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Bill, thank you.
And that's our report from Washington. We're going to head back home from New York tomorrow. But it was an interesting and important day to be here. We'll see you tomorrow.
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