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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Senate Intelligence Committee Criticizes CIA; World Court Rules West Bank Barrier Is in Violation of International Law
Aired July 09, 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. There are a lot of things we could still argue about where going to war with Iraq is concerned.
The one thing we can't argue about any more is whether there were stockpiles of WMD in the country.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report issued today pulls few punches in its criticism of the intelligence community's work where Iraq was concerned. The unanswered question -- or at least the debatable question -- is why they got it so wrong.
And it is no small question. The death toll of coalition soldiers in Iraq crossed the 1,000 mark today.
We don't know how many more thousands of Iraqis have died, or how many of them were innocent victims that wars so often claim.
The cost of the war has been enormous, and it is part of the reason we in this country live with record deficits.
Was the intelligence manipulated? Were analysts pressured to deliver the answer their bosses wanted?
Were we all mislead?
The report doesn't answer those questions. We wish it did.
So, no doubt, do the families of the more than 800 Americans who have already died in Iraq.
"The Whip" begins with the black and white on the page.
CNN's David Ensor reported this today. David, a headline tonight.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a 511- page broadside by the Senate Intelligence Committee against the intelligence community.
It got it wrong on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The report has broad political implications -- Aaron.
BROWN: It certainly does, David, thank you. Baghdad next, and a complication to building a new society out of the pieces of an old one. CNN's Jane Arraf with the watch. Jane, a headline.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, as the insurgency in Iraq continues, a year after American occupation, authorities vowed to destroy the Baath Party forever, a new sovereign Iraqi government is inviting Baathist to come in from the cold.
BROWN: Jane, thank you.
And finally, to the question of the wall, or the fence, or just the thing standing between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and what an international court said about it today.
CNN's John Vause with the watch in Jerusalem, so John a headline from you.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A legal slam-dunk for the Palestinians -- everything they could have hoped for and probably then some.
The World Court says Israel's barrier through the West Bank is a violation of international law and must be torn down.
The Palestinians say this is an historic day. Israelis say they'll ignore it -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you. We get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on this Friday night, Nader and Dean, as one former and one current presidential hopeful debate the reasons for staying in the race.
And from California tonight, one of those "what was he thinking" stories. The education secretary and the 6-year-old, in what could be called, "politicians say the darndest things."
And it's my favorite night of the week, not just because it's Friday, but because we have a tabloid or two to throw in the "Morning Papers."
All that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the Senate Intelligence Committee's report. It reads like an indictment of the ways and means of gathering intelligence used to make the case for war.
An indictment and, sadly, almost literally a post-mortem. Also a report card, but in one respect, an incomplete one. Nothing about how the administration used the intelligence it received. That's expected to come after the election.
Within its scope, however, few punches pulled today. Here's CNN's David Ensor. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR (voice-over): The Senate panel's report says the justification for the war, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was just plain wrong, and that the U.S. intelligence community is to blame.
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Today we know these assessments were wrong. And as our inquiry will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available -- the available intelligence.
ENSOR: The report complains of "group think" in U.S. intelligence, leading the community to interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program.
SEN. JOHN ROCKEFELLER (D) INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We in Congress would not have authorized that war -- we would not have authorized that war with 75 votes, if we knew what we know now.
ENSOR: At the CIA, the deputy director took the unusual step of holding a news conference to respond, saying steps have already been taken to make sure such mistakes are never made again.
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CIA: So my first message to you is a very simple one. We get it.
ROBERTS: Most, if not all, of these problems stem from a broken corporate culture and poor management.
MCLAUGHLIN: No, I don't think we have a broken corporate culture at all.
ENSOR: The report says before the Iraq war, the CIA did not have a single officer in that country working on finding weapons of mass destruction. Committee staffers call the agency risk adverse.
MCLAUGHLIN: I mean, if its intended to convey a timidity on the part of our officers in terms of working in dangerous environments, I would just reject that totally out of hand. I mean, we put stars on the wall out here this year. We put stars on the wall out here this year.
ENSOR: The stars in the CIA's front hall represent officers killed in the line of duty.
Though McLaughlin insisted CIA analysts were not pressured excessively by administration officials to come up with conclusions that the White House wanted on Iraq, the committee's top Democrat is not so sure.
ROCKEFELLER: A veteran of many years there said that the hammering on analysts was greater than he had seen in his 32 years of service to the Central Intelligence Agency, and he was referring to pressure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR: With the 9/11 Commission report yet to come, the U.S. intelligence community is in for a summer of criticism and debate, followed possibly in 2005 by some important changes in the way it's organized and led -- Aaron.
BROWN: David, we'll get into this a bit in a moment with the two committee chairmen. But let me ask you as well what's next here?
This is not the end of the road as far as the Senate Intelligence Committee report is concerned?
ENSOR: No, that's right. There's a sort of second phase where they're going to look into how the intelligence was used, or some believe misused. Into issues like what did Ahmed Chalabi's group of Iraqi dissidents supply -- people who lied about weapons of mass destruction.
Was that information funneled straight through Douglas Feith's office at the Pentagon to the White House? Those kinds of questions. It will be quite -- quite a hot topic.
BROWN: But that comes after the election?
ENSOR: Probably, yes.
BROWN: David, thank you. David Ensor in Washington tonight.
We have done our best these months to keep up with the committee as it went about its work, and in that regard Senators Rockefeller and Roberts have helped immensely.
We spoke with them today at the end of a long and trying process.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Senator Roberts, let me start with you, if I may. You said today that this was a failure by the intelligence community managers to adequately encourage analysts to challenge assumptions.
That sounds like it is at least possible that what they're -- what the bosses were doing -- was saying to the people who work for them, give us the answer we want.
ROBERTS: I don't think that's the case so much as it -- I've said in the statement and actually both Jay and I have said it -- that the failure was more of something like a group think or a layering effect where you -- you kept getting intelligence, but you ignored the assumption that really wasn't based on solid -- on solid -- on solid research or a solid product.
And so you ended up as sort of an assumption train. And at some point, some manager has to step in and say now wait a minute, is this objective, are we truly sure of this product? Senator Rockefeller has made the point in many of these interviews that what they really lacked was a "red teaming" policy, i.e., something that they use in the military where you have a red team and they're contrary and this team comes in and double-checks -- they sort of have a contrary view and say are you sure about this product.
And that's what was missing.
BROWN: Senator Rockefeller, it sounds like in the intelligence business, at least as much as in the military business, that sort of operation is essential.
ROCKEFELLER: It is. And, you know, I think Pat Roberts and I both agree that -- that the intelligence business has changed completely since 9/11. It's probably changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but we just didn't understand that until the 9/11 tragedy.
Now we are no longer -- with the exception of our war with Iraq -- we're probably no longer going to be fighting countries, states, people in uniforms. They're going to be people; you know, down in the subway somewhere or up the street.
They're going to look like us, or not look like us, but we're not going to be able to know where they're coming from.
So intelligence is all of a sudden gotten about 500 percent more difficult. And therefore the need for human intelligence, which both Chairman Roberts and I have fought for, hard, to have more people on the ground, around the world -- and I really mean that -- around the world in 100 more countries -- who can give us information that we need to know about what others have in mind.
BROWN: Senator Roberts, was there pressure from anyone within the intelligence community, within the Pentagon, within the White House -- anywhere that you can find, for them to come up with this specific answer, that the Iraqis had these stockpiles?
ROBERTS: Well, I think we have a difference of opinion on the committee as to what really constitutes pressure.
And so I would expect my distinguished colleague to offer a different point of view, but in 516 pages and in many, many comments that I made in public and in committee asking if anybody had been coerced, intimidated or manipulated, had there been any pressure, not one person came forward.
What Senator Rockefeller will point out is that there is concern that repetitive questioning where the whole environment in regards to post-9/11 and going to war did constitute pressure.
My response to that is that I hope to heck there's pressure by the policymakers and also by those of us in the Congress in terms of the witnesses that we -- you know, where we ask questions. After 9/11, everybody is urged not to be risk adverse, but to lean forward and on the repetitive questioning issue, it appears now that on the WMD section, we had very little repetitive questioning. And so that was the section where we find most flaws in the intelligence product.
However, on the terrorist section, there was repetitive questioning and that section is much more reasonable and much more accurate.
BROWN: Senator Rockefeller, do you believe that if the truth had been known that the country would have gone to war with Iraq?
ROCKEFELLER: Well, that decision would not have been up to either Pat Roberts or myself; that would have been up to the president.
BROWN: Would the Congress have authorized war?
ROCKEFELLER: No, I don't think the Congress would have. I voted for the -- authorizing legislation and have said for months now that now that I know what I do know about the fact that all of the reasons given to us by the president in his state -- second state of the union message, which really propelled -- which really wasn't spoken to us so much as it was to you know the 50-85 million American people that we would not have voted for that resolution.
We would not have given them the option of going to the U.N. and -- and not being able to get other people but basically not giving him the free choice to go to war. Because the intelligence undermined every -- virtually every reason that he gave us that night.
BROWN: And Senator Roberts, you're the chairman and you get the last word here. Is this it? Is this everything? Or after the election will there be more?
ROBERTS: Oh, there's going to be more. We're -- you know this is an ongoing effort. You know we hear a lot of talk about what about the use of intelligence, what about the intelligence in reference to pre-war intelligence on post-war Iraq.
We know the difficulties are very severe over there now. Why didn't we know more than we do now. And then also the involvement of the Department of Defense so-called planning cell under -- under the Undersecretary Douglas Feith and the INC, the International -- or, pardon me, the Iraqi National Congress.
You know, what effect that had. We had to get this first report out. We will go to phase two and we also have a reform agenda that both Senator Rockefeller and I will have at least three hearings of wise men and women to tell us what they think is the best approach.
We're going to do it very carefully, very deliberately, but this country is under a threat on a possible attack some time between now and the election and so we have to be very expeditious as well.
BROWN: Gentlemen, thank you for your time and particularly thank you for your good work on this. We appreciate it very much.
ROBERTS: OK, thank you Aaron.
ROCKEFELLER: Thank you, Aaron.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Talked to the two senators late this afternoon and that's why there was some redundancy in both David's report and that interview and we apologize for that.
As we mentioned at the top, the long-awaited report arrived at a grim milestone in Iraq. The overall death toll among coalition forces now exceeds 1,000 -- 1,0002.
U.S. forces, of course, have sustained the largest number of losses -- 882 American troops have died since the fighting began.
The military makes it relatively easy to keep track of these sad milestones. It is a whole lot harder to measure the losses among Iraqis, civilians and otherwise.
As the death toll has climbed over the months, the fortunes of one particular group in Iraq have come pretty close to full circle. When Baghdad fell, so did Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party.
It's members were labeled the enemy and banned from a role in the new Iraq, a strategy that to say the least did not produce the dividends hoped for as the insurgency grew, as Fallujah exploded, the members of Saddam's former regime got a second wind.
Which brings us to the new sovereign Iraq where everything old has a way of seeming new again. From Baghdad, here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF (voice-over): This new sovereign Iraq is just a week old, but already asserting its independence.
The government is promising an amnesty for low-level insurgents and militia members. And it's bringing the Arab Baath Socialist Party, disbanded and discredited under Paul Bremer's Iraq, in from the cold.
The shift was signaled in Washington itself by the new Iraqi ambassador to the United States.
REND RAHIM FRANCKE, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: This is a new departure with a democratic, pluralistic system that respects the right of all the citizens, that gives everybody in Iraq an opportunity to participate in decision making, in making their voices heard.
ARRAF: Rend Rahim said the new Iraq would try to engage not just former Baathist's but current ones. Saddam Hussein headed the Baath Party, but he didn't invent it. Many Iraqis say he and his regime hijacked a party that had made Iraq one of the best-educated countries in the region.
It's a far cry from May of last year when the chief U.S. administrator hailed the destruction of the 57-year-old Baath Party as one of the coalition's main achievements.
PAUL BREMER, FORMER CPA ADMINISTRATOR: Those who were on high before, in particular the Baathists, who used their power to repress the Iraqi people, will be removed from office.
ARRAF: But the move banned from public employment hundreds of thousands of badly needed teachers, engineers and other professionals; dissolving the Iraqi army through just as many officers out of work, creating hundreds of thousands of enemies, making clear they would have no role in the new Iraq.
Iraqis say in teahouses and living rooms in Baghdad and other cities a new Baath Party is forming. One that will appeal partly to Sunni Muslims who believe they've been ignored and stripped of Saddam Hussein one that will be able to compete in the political process.
Some of the most senior U.S. military officials believe even people funding the insurgency can be convinced that their fight is futile and can be rehabilitated.
LT. GENERAL THOMAS METZ, U.S. ARMY: My logic tells me that that's a better way to go than to feed an insurgency with your money, and maybe we can work to get those -- have a few converts.
ARRAF: Many American officials say the United States has learned a lot in the past year. One of the things its learned the hard way is that building a new country takes more than tearing down a regime.
Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The missing Marine's odyssey now finds him in Germany.
Corporal Wassef Hassoun arrived today for evaluation and debriefing at the Army Medical Center in Landstuhl. They'll be -- I mean, he'll be undergoing tests -- medical tests, mostly, but he'll also be answering lots of questions, we are told, about his disappearance in Iraq and his sudden reappearance in Lebanon.
Speaking to reporters back home in Utah the corporal's brother today denied allegations that the kidnapping was part of a hoax.
On now to the line of concrete dividing Israel from parts of the Palestinian West Bank. The Israelis call it a security fence, the Palestinians a barrier wall and worse.
For both sides this is more than a semantic question. Israelis believe it prevents suicide attacks. Palestinians believe it is choking what's left of a potential state to death.
Today a court in The Netherlands issued a ruling, which means little in and of itself, but could set the stage for more.
Reporting tonight for us, CNN's John Vause.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE (voice-over): The moment of victory for Palestinians. The International Court of Justice could not have been more resolute.
This is a wall, it said, not just a security fence, built illegally on occupied Palestinian land. Construction must stop, said the court, what has been built, torn down, and Israel must pay compensation to thousands of Palestinians for damaged property.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a total slam for the Israeli policy. None of the Israeli considerations was accepted, none -- they just did not get anything. Total loss.
VAUSE: One hundred miles of the barrier has already been built and Israel says construction of the remaining 300 or so miles will not stop.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI FINANCE MINISTER: For God's sake, all Israel is doing to defend itself against the most unprecedented wave of terror in history is to put up a fence.
VAUSE: But the Court of Justice ruled Israel is doing much more: violating international law though the risk is there of de facto annexation of Palestinian land and it held grave concerns about the devastating impact on the lives of the Palestinian civilian population, and the prospects for solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: This is suffocating the lives of 343,000 Palestinians -- killing them. They cannot tell me I'm going to live and I live to die. The concept here is live and let live. So we want to build a wall, let them build it on their own borders.
VAUSE: Israel argues the barrier is only to self-defense, that attacks have fallen by 90 percent, a point made by Israeli protesters carrying photos of victims of Palestinian suicide bombers, all killed before construction began.
Arnold Roff's (ph) daughter was one of them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, FATHER OF TERROR VICTIM: I can't say that my daughter's life would have been spared -- I don't know. But 90 percent is a very compelling number for a father.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: And one very important point in all of this, the World Court ruling is an advisory, non-binding opinion only. Israel always expected this to go badly. It has every intention to ignore it -- Aaron.
BROWN: So when all is said and done, after all the arguing in the court and all the reporting today, when all is said and done, nothing is going to change?
VAUSE: Nothing is going to change tomorrow but there is hope for the Palestinians that this will go to the U.N. Security Council. All 26 previous advisory opinions issued by the World Court have been acted on in some way.
The Palestinians take heart from that. The Israelis, though take heart from the fact that the U.S. is in the Security Council and will likely torpedo any move against Israel.
BROWN: John, thank you. John Vause in Jerusalem.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, two men who may never be president debate the reasons to be one.
And they couldn't be prouder. What else would you expect from the parents of a vice presidential candidate? A talk with the parents of John Edwards.
We'll take a break first from New York on the edge of Columbus Circle, and this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Spoilers matter in electoral politics. Just ask Al Gore. In 2000, Ralph Nader won more than 150 times as many votes in Florida as Al Gore's margin of defeat there.
The vast majority of which the vice president would have won, say the experts and common sense.
Ralph Nader isn't buying it -- he didn't buy it then, he's not buying it now. But then, as now, the Democratic Party is taking Mr. Nader seriously, even at the expense of giving him some free publicity as there was in Washington today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): It wasn't exactly an ice cream social.
RALPH NADER (I) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you were an insurgent, who is now adopting a role of being a detergent of the dirty linen of the Democratic Party.
BROWN: There was the lifelong outsider Ralph Nader debating another outsider, the former Vermont governor Howard Dean. The latter urging Mr. Nader to abandon his run for the presidency.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have an extraordinary career in standing up for the American people. You have saved lives and done extraordinary work with automobile safety. You are responsible for much of the extraordinary environmental work that has been done in this country in the last forty years -- I ask you not to turn your back on your own legacy.
BROWN: Two intense men sparring intensely.
DEAN: You have the right to run, you can get in bed with whomever you want to. But don't call the Democratic Party full of corporate interests.
NADER: We don't want to settle for the lesser of two evils in our country; we don't want to have another special interest clone in Washington.
BROWN: But it wasn't Washington that Dean wanted to talk about, it was Oregon. Fuming that Nader had accepted help from Republicans to obtain a spot on the ballot in Oregon in November, drawing votes away from Democrat John Kerry.
DEAN: In this campaign of yours is far from pure. If you are willing to accept the help of a right-wing anti-gay group to get you on the ballot...
NADER: You really are being very inaccurate apart from being unfair. We have not accepted the support of any anti-gay groups. We have not accepted as fulsomely the support of Republican dollars the way the Democrats have.
BROWN: At the end of the debate, one thing seemed fairly certain, Ralph Nader will not go away quietly into the good night of politics.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: He never has. Well election seasons seem to have cycles and this week the new cycle clearly belonged to the Democrats.
From the moment John Edwards was named John Kerry's running mate, the Democrats have had the spotlight. Some no doubt find that unfair, but in our experience it all balances out in the end.
All of which is to say here is another story about the Democratic ticket. In this case, it is the real voices of the real people who molded John Edwards from a mill worker's son to a contender.
Edwards has told his story so often and, frankly, so well, it has become a political cliche. Joe Johns' piece tonight is anything but.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John Edwards likes to talk about his small town roots. Robbins is a small town in the center of North Carolina.
His parents, still a little stunned how their son grew up to all this. WALLACE EDWARDS, FATHER OF JOHN EDWARDS: It is amazing.
BOBBIE EDWARDS, MOTHER OF JOHN EDWARDS: A little overwhelming at times.
JOHNS: Bobbie and Wallace Edwards have been married 52 years. They moved here from South Carolina, where John, the first of their three children, was born.
WALLACE EDWARDS: I had to go borrow money from a loan company to get him and his mother out of the hospital. My insurance covered part of it, didn't cover all of it, so I had -- came up short $50.
JOHNS: In Robbins, they lived in a one-story house. John went to Sunday school at First Baptist Church, played football and was an all-round athlete at the high school just down the road.
His father remembers telling his son how to deal with bullies.
WALLACE EDWARDS: I told him one day, I said, best way to defend against that is to punch them in the nose and they'll leave you alone.
JOHNS: The mill closed in 1990 but before then the textile business was booming. Bobbie worked, too. Wallace had to work extra hard because he didn't have a college education.
WALLACE EDWARDS: I had to train a lot of college people that -- that came in to -- that the company hired in. I had to train them to do this job.
BOBBIE EDWARDS: And then he had to work for them.
WALLACE EDWARDS: And you know...
JOHNS: Eventually, Wallace Edwards himself moved up to management. The son who would grow up to be a senator kept busy also. His first job, a drug store soda jerk -- and as a teenager he once worked with his dad.
WALLACE EDWARDS: He worked over here in the mill where I worked cleaning looms and sweeping the floor and cleaning out ducts, air conditioning ducts. And he come home and oh, you ought to see him. He said I'm not going to do this all my life.
JOHNS: And he didn't. First of his family to go to college, Edwards became a lawyer, senator, and Democrat standard-bearer, a product of small town America.
BOBBIE EDWARDS: He grew up with just -- struggling just like we were. Good everyday working people. I think his desire to help people grew out of that atmosphere.
JOHNS: Even though he's their son, John Edwards's parents are mystified by his drive and refuse to take credit for it. They say he saw their struggles and just wanted a better life.
Joe Johns, CNN, Robbins, North Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program, tonight what was missing from today's intelligence report and how might that missing material affect the president.
And later tonight nightlife in the city in stills from New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Back now to the Senate Intelligence Committee report and the president who embraced it today, understandably enough, say critics, who focus what it puts off until after the election. That said, what's in the report as it stands is hardly the stuff of campaign glory for this president, or any president, we imagine.
Here's CNN's Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Campaigning in Pennsylvania, the president stressed the point he wasn't the only one who got it wrong.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Listen, we thought there was going to be stockpiles of weapons. I thought so, the Congress thought so, the U.N. thought so.
BASH: Iraq already is a defining issue in the campaign. A majority of Americans now say it was not worth going to war. Bad intelligence or not, the president says he still made the right decision.
BUSH: He was a dangerous man. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.
BASH: But Democrats say the new 511-page Senate report only tells half the story. Phase two will study whether the president misused intelligence he did have in making his case for war. Some Democrats think they already know the answer.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Unless administration officials, from the president on down, had information not made available to the Senate Intelligence Committee, there was clearly an exaggeration of either an imminent or a grave and growing threat.
BASH: Critics say even the flawed intelligence did not support dramatic statements like this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, SEPTEMBER 2002)
BUSH: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: In a report addendum, Democrats say the administration exaggerated the threat and twisted arms to shape intelligence. The White House says nonsense.
DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: The administration didn't put pressure or try to get them to change their analyses at the CIA or any other intelligence agency.
BASH (on camera): The next part of the investigation probing whether the White House misused intelligence won't be finished until after the election. With Iraq so critical in the campaign, Democrats complain, waiting is unfair to voters.
Dana Bash, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Doug Jehl has been working on the story for "The New York Times." His reporting will be in tomorrow's edition of the paper. And he joins us from Washington tonight.
So we assume he's filed. Good to see you.
How -- it's clear that the committee seems to agree on the what here, and then there is partisan disagreement on the why. How partisan in the end was the process?
DOUGLAS JEHL, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": In the end, the process was not particularly partisan because both sides agreed to put off the hard work until later.
And what we had today was unusual in Washington, a unanimous, bipartisan report in an election year. That was achieved by putting off the question of how the administration used the intelligence until after the election.
BROWN: When Senator Rockefeller talks about the pressure, as he sees it, pressure put on analysts, do we interpret that to mean the visits, for example, that the vice president made to Langley to talk directly to analysts?
JEHL: That's one of the pieces of evidence that is cited. So is repeated questioning by managers, by administration officials on the question of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. It's important to note, though, that the pressure the Democrats cite is very much limited to those Iraq-al Qaeda links, not the question of Iraq and its illicit weapons.
BROWN: And does the report today put to rest the Iraq-al Qaeda connection story?
JEHL: Well, I'm not sure this is a story that will ever be put entirely to rest. But I think it does add another strong piece of evidence to the assertion that the CIA has made all along that the links between Iraq and al Qaeda were limited, were not collaborative, and did not involve cooperation on any attacks on the United States.
BROWN: Do you have a sense now of where this all goes? How do they get to the question of how the -- how the intelligence was used, whether it was exaggerated and the like?
JEHL: I think they get on that question by seeing it debated on the campaign trail, to be frank, this year. The committee is going to have a choice in the weeks ahead. Do you focus on intelligence reform, on the way ahead? Or do you look backward on the question of use?
The Democrats would clearly like to look backward. The Republicans won't be so eager. And we're not going to see that resolved for several months, I think.
BROWN: In a sense, if it becomes that -- this is I suppose, a bit beyond the reporting work that you do. But if it becomes that, that the Republicans aren't interested in looking back and talking about it, and the Democrats are trying to use it as a political issue, will we ever get to the answer, how was the intelligence used or misused?
JEHL: Well, in some ways, we will, because in fact what we have today is a foundation. The committee has told us that the document was flawed.
Whether the committee does it or the voter does it, one needs now to compare what in fact the intelligence agency said with what the administration said. In some cases, the two were the same. In some cases, they were very different.
BROWN: You've been reporting on this for a while. And I think there has been a sense for a while that the report was going to be as harsh as in fact it was today. Nevertheless, is it a bit surprising, given the timing, given the events, given that the war is still going on, given all of that, that the language that was used today was as strong and strident in some cases as it was?
JEHL: I was surprised, certainly, and surprised to see it come from nine Republicans and eight Democrats joining forces. It was extraordinary.
BROWN: Doug, it's good to see you. We appreciate your time and your work. Thank very much, Doug Jehl of "The New York Times."
JEHL: Thank you.
BROWN: Still to come on the program, when is it a good time to call a child a stupid, dirty girl? Maybe you should ask the former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. And I wonder if the rooster looks forward to Friday as much as the rest of us? I'm sure. Morning papers, too, still ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We teach our children to treat others with respect and kindness and honesty. And if they're friendly and curious as well, all the better. We also warn our children of the inevitable, that not everyone they meet will respond in kind. Some people will be mean and rude. Some will be bullies. When the person behaving badly is an adult and a public figure, the secretary of education, no less, well, that can make news, in fact, did make news.
Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): California's education secretary, Richard Riordan, was at the Santa Barbara Library to encourage kids to read when a 6-year-old girl in the audience named Isis asked a question.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know my name actually means an Egyptian goddess?
RICHARD RIORDAN, FORMER LOS ANGELES MAYOR: It means -- it means stupid dirty girl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
(LAUGHTER)
RIORDAN: No, what does it mean?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Egyptian goddess.
RIORDAN: Oh, is that what it means? Hey, that's nifty.
BUCKLEY: Nifty, not the reaction of a governor who appointed Riordan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who issued a statement saying the statement was unacceptable in any context. Some are going further.
BERTHA GAFFNEY GORMAN, CALIFORNIA NAACP: We would like to see the governor take responsibility and ask Mr. Riordan to leave.
BUCKLEY: From "The Sacramento Bee": "California shouldn't have an education secretary who makes offensive, damaging remarks to young children for no apparent reason."
But columnist Dan Walters believes Riordan meant no harm.
DAN WALTERS, COLUMNIST, "SACRAMENTO BEE": Dick Riordan doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Just, it's not him. He was making a joke he thought that she would get. That's my interpretation of it. And it was a terrible joke. And she didn't get it and it sounded awful.
BUCKLEY: Riordan's response? "I teased a little girl about her name," he said in a statement. "I immediately apologized to her and I want to do so again for the misunderstanding."
Riordan is a wealthy former mayor of Los Angeles who's donated millions to education and years to helping children. (on camera): But his reputation for sometimes politically incorrect humor has long caused political advisers to wince. And this time, no one's laughing about the joke about the name of a 6-year-old girl.
Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a different way of looking at things, our favorite way in fact, in stills. And the tabloids always have a different take. It's part of the Friday night menu on NEWSNIGHT here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We often use the camera lens metaphorically on the program, a reminder that every news story, no matter how singular, has many facets and seeing them all requires many lenses. Then again, sometimes, a lens is just a lens. Tonight, the lens and the camera are literal, tools in a photography class, but the message is pretty much the same. Oh, what a difference the camera and the lens and the person looking through them makes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOBY OLD, PHOTOGRAPHER & PROFESSOR: The name of the class is "Night Life in the City." The course is a 10-week course. It's a workshop taught at the International Center of Photography.
OK, the Tattoo Convention, did I go over that?
Basically, it's a location class. We go out to five different locations, the Tattoo Convention at the Webster Hall. We went to the Avalon Club this year, Lisa's Gym (ph), and then Coney Island.
I think you can talk all want to about photography, but I think, for me, the way I like to do it, I like to go out and get in the field and in the trenches and actually do it, because rhetoric is one thing, but making images is, for me, that's the way I like to approach photography.
Photography today is very multifaceted. So there are a lot of different kinds of photography being done. And how this course fits in, I guess it would be in a more traditional sense of a documentary style of photography.
Digital, OK. Well, you can shoot with a pinhole camera, an 11- by-14 view camera. I don't care what you use.
The technology of it has changed. Some students shoot in color, some black and white. Some use a Widelux kind of camera or a panoramic camera. Some use square. Some use .35-millimeter. So, right there, you have got a whole host of different visions.
During the day, you can see what's going on a little bit better. At night, you're a little more restricted in that sense. So you're working a lot more intuitively and sensing what might be happening or about to happen, and then use the flash to capture it.
MARIA CAMERON, PHOTOGRAPHY STUDENT: I want to see people having fun. And I want to sort of try and exchange with that. I learned that the flash doesn't necessarily disrupt as I thought it would. I really found that people are really inviting, and the flash is more of an aid than an obstruction. And it was a great way to learn how to use something like that.
OLD: You had a nice take of the boxing.
Usually, what happens, I've found, is that some kind of spark happens throughout the course, and people do usually produce a lot of work and some pretty amazing work comes out of it, just by the energy, maybe, that they bring to it.
You can set the exact same thing up and no two students are going to photograph it the same. No two people will. No two trained photographers will. It will look close, maybe, but not the same.
This is Coney Island.
We actually shoot photographs and then put them up and see what we've done and how we've evolved.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You come to these classes and you want to learn things technically. You want to improve your shooting technique. You want to improve your composition technique. But, in the end, it's you, the camera and the image that you shoot.
OLD: That's kind of interesting.
I have created an environment where people were able to make pictures and done some things they wouldn't normally do. Everybody starts from a certain place and is an influence, but then, at some point, you take off from that and form your own vision.
Yes, that could be my favorite of the bunch. I like that one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, I don't know how this is going to go. I don't feel great about morning papers today, but we'll give it a go anyway.
Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We'll throw a tabloid or two in because it's Friday or because we feel like, though I got a really nasty note last week from somebody who hated the tabloid part, thought it was undignified. Bat boy, undignified. Imagine. "The International Herald Tribune." It's interesting to see how papers are headlining the CIA report. Very straight-ahead from "The International Herald Tribune," published by the "New York Times." Panel Assails CIA on Iraq. Senate Committee Says Prewar Threat Was Overstated." Can't get much straighter than that, can you? And, no, you can't.
"Washington Times." "CIA Blamed For Bad Data On Iraq Arms. Senate Panel Clears Bush of Using Pressure." So they put that sentence on the front page. Also, I don't know about this as a front- page story. We could argue whether it's news or not. "Republicans Question Kerry's Heart and Soul, Cite Vulgar Remarks at Concert Attended By Him." There was an event in New York yesterday. It got a little crazy. Anyway, I'm not sure it's front page. But they did. And it's their paper and they get to do what they want.
"Philadelphia Inquirer" on the front page. "Bush Faults NAACP's Leaders, Citing Harsh Remarks By Some. He Said He Would Seek Members' Support in Other Ways." Yesterday, he said he wouldn't speak to the convention which meets in Philadelphia because of a scheduling problem, but it turns out that was not reason."
"The Des Moines Register." Good to have them with us tonight. "Report: Prewar Claims Were False." That's how they lead. They also put the world court decision on Israel and the wall on the front page. "U.N. Court Deals Blow to Wall."
A minute left. We ought to do a few tabloids, right, just for that guy that wrote me last week.
OK, always a Saddam story. Here's this week's. "The Dream Scream. Exposed, Saddam's Bid to Hire O.J.'s Defense Team." I don't think that's going to help. We were talking about bat boy earlier, weren't we? "Bat Boy's Unbelievable Claim: Britney Is My Bride."
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: That could be true. Come on.
I don't know about this either. "Judge Orders Mafia to Admit Gays." "Queer Eye For the Wise Guy," they write. And finally -- oh, not finally, "Terrorists Sick New Plan to Kill Us With B.O." And "Baby Shrek. Mom Couldn't Stop Watching the Movies While Undergoing Fertility Treatments." And so -- give me a shot -- this is what she gave birth to. Oh, my.
One more story before we go. We'll take a break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: If it's at all possible, we'd like to send you off on Friday with something to put a little spring in your step, something to remind you, all of us, really, that fortune doesn't always glower at us poor little human beings down here on planet Earth.
Sometimes, quite contrary, it beams. It did today on Geraldine Williams, who was turned by lady luck into one lucky lady.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Geraldine Williams of Lowell, Massachusetts, a retired 68-year-old university janitor who's been cleaning houses for the last couple of years, bought the only winning Mega Millions lottery ticket in last week's giant 11-state drawing. She wins the second largest jackpot ever paid out to one person in North America, a cool $294 million.
GERALDINE WILLIAMS, LOTTERY WINNER: I just said, oh, God, oh, God, let it be, let it be.
BROWN: This means Ms. Williams, who has been dusting books and mopping floors, had a better year than Mel Gibson, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, J.K. Rowling, a better year than Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson of "Lord of the Rings" fame, a better year than Simon & Garfunkel and Bruce Springsteen combined.
Actually, Geraldine Williams, bowler, golfer, mother of three, grandmother of eight, is worth more now than Fidel Castro. Sure, you wish you had won. We all do. But put envy aside. If not you, who better as a second choice than Geraldine Williams. So let's all just bask in her good fortune.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And one more quick note before we go about a story we did last night.
Many of you have e-mailed asking us how you can contribute to Jacob's Light, the foundation that sends care packages to soldiers in Iraq. We've added a link to our Web site with all the information. You can find it at CNN.com/NEWSNIGHT. And if that's something you feel like doing, that's how you can do it.
Good to have you with us tonight and this week. We'll see you all again Monday. Have a wonderful weekend. And good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 9, 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. There are a lot of things we could still argue about where going to war with Iraq is concerned.
The one thing we can't argue about any more is whether there were stockpiles of WMD in the country.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report issued today pulls few punches in its criticism of the intelligence community's work where Iraq was concerned. The unanswered question -- or at least the debatable question -- is why they got it so wrong.
And it is no small question. The death toll of coalition soldiers in Iraq crossed the 1,000 mark today.
We don't know how many more thousands of Iraqis have died, or how many of them were innocent victims that wars so often claim.
The cost of the war has been enormous, and it is part of the reason we in this country live with record deficits.
Was the intelligence manipulated? Were analysts pressured to deliver the answer their bosses wanted?
Were we all mislead?
The report doesn't answer those questions. We wish it did.
So, no doubt, do the families of the more than 800 Americans who have already died in Iraq.
"The Whip" begins with the black and white on the page.
CNN's David Ensor reported this today. David, a headline tonight.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a 511- page broadside by the Senate Intelligence Committee against the intelligence community.
It got it wrong on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The report has broad political implications -- Aaron.
BROWN: It certainly does, David, thank you. Baghdad next, and a complication to building a new society out of the pieces of an old one. CNN's Jane Arraf with the watch. Jane, a headline.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, as the insurgency in Iraq continues, a year after American occupation, authorities vowed to destroy the Baath Party forever, a new sovereign Iraqi government is inviting Baathist to come in from the cold.
BROWN: Jane, thank you.
And finally, to the question of the wall, or the fence, or just the thing standing between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and what an international court said about it today.
CNN's John Vause with the watch in Jerusalem, so John a headline from you.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A legal slam-dunk for the Palestinians -- everything they could have hoped for and probably then some.
The World Court says Israel's barrier through the West Bank is a violation of international law and must be torn down.
The Palestinians say this is an historic day. Israelis say they'll ignore it -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you. We get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on this Friday night, Nader and Dean, as one former and one current presidential hopeful debate the reasons for staying in the race.
And from California tonight, one of those "what was he thinking" stories. The education secretary and the 6-year-old, in what could be called, "politicians say the darndest things."
And it's my favorite night of the week, not just because it's Friday, but because we have a tabloid or two to throw in the "Morning Papers."
All that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the Senate Intelligence Committee's report. It reads like an indictment of the ways and means of gathering intelligence used to make the case for war.
An indictment and, sadly, almost literally a post-mortem. Also a report card, but in one respect, an incomplete one. Nothing about how the administration used the intelligence it received. That's expected to come after the election.
Within its scope, however, few punches pulled today. Here's CNN's David Ensor. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR (voice-over): The Senate panel's report says the justification for the war, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was just plain wrong, and that the U.S. intelligence community is to blame.
SEN. PAT ROBERTS (R), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Today we know these assessments were wrong. And as our inquiry will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available -- the available intelligence.
ENSOR: The report complains of "group think" in U.S. intelligence, leading the community to interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program.
SEN. JOHN ROCKEFELLER (D) INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: We in Congress would not have authorized that war -- we would not have authorized that war with 75 votes, if we knew what we know now.
ENSOR: At the CIA, the deputy director took the unusual step of holding a news conference to respond, saying steps have already been taken to make sure such mistakes are never made again.
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CIA: So my first message to you is a very simple one. We get it.
ROBERTS: Most, if not all, of these problems stem from a broken corporate culture and poor management.
MCLAUGHLIN: No, I don't think we have a broken corporate culture at all.
ENSOR: The report says before the Iraq war, the CIA did not have a single officer in that country working on finding weapons of mass destruction. Committee staffers call the agency risk adverse.
MCLAUGHLIN: I mean, if its intended to convey a timidity on the part of our officers in terms of working in dangerous environments, I would just reject that totally out of hand. I mean, we put stars on the wall out here this year. We put stars on the wall out here this year.
ENSOR: The stars in the CIA's front hall represent officers killed in the line of duty.
Though McLaughlin insisted CIA analysts were not pressured excessively by administration officials to come up with conclusions that the White House wanted on Iraq, the committee's top Democrat is not so sure.
ROCKEFELLER: A veteran of many years there said that the hammering on analysts was greater than he had seen in his 32 years of service to the Central Intelligence Agency, and he was referring to pressure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ENSOR: With the 9/11 Commission report yet to come, the U.S. intelligence community is in for a summer of criticism and debate, followed possibly in 2005 by some important changes in the way it's organized and led -- Aaron.
BROWN: David, we'll get into this a bit in a moment with the two committee chairmen. But let me ask you as well what's next here?
This is not the end of the road as far as the Senate Intelligence Committee report is concerned?
ENSOR: No, that's right. There's a sort of second phase where they're going to look into how the intelligence was used, or some believe misused. Into issues like what did Ahmed Chalabi's group of Iraqi dissidents supply -- people who lied about weapons of mass destruction.
Was that information funneled straight through Douglas Feith's office at the Pentagon to the White House? Those kinds of questions. It will be quite -- quite a hot topic.
BROWN: But that comes after the election?
ENSOR: Probably, yes.
BROWN: David, thank you. David Ensor in Washington tonight.
We have done our best these months to keep up with the committee as it went about its work, and in that regard Senators Rockefeller and Roberts have helped immensely.
We spoke with them today at the end of a long and trying process.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Senator Roberts, let me start with you, if I may. You said today that this was a failure by the intelligence community managers to adequately encourage analysts to challenge assumptions.
That sounds like it is at least possible that what they're -- what the bosses were doing -- was saying to the people who work for them, give us the answer we want.
ROBERTS: I don't think that's the case so much as it -- I've said in the statement and actually both Jay and I have said it -- that the failure was more of something like a group think or a layering effect where you -- you kept getting intelligence, but you ignored the assumption that really wasn't based on solid -- on solid -- on solid research or a solid product.
And so you ended up as sort of an assumption train. And at some point, some manager has to step in and say now wait a minute, is this objective, are we truly sure of this product? Senator Rockefeller has made the point in many of these interviews that what they really lacked was a "red teaming" policy, i.e., something that they use in the military where you have a red team and they're contrary and this team comes in and double-checks -- they sort of have a contrary view and say are you sure about this product.
And that's what was missing.
BROWN: Senator Rockefeller, it sounds like in the intelligence business, at least as much as in the military business, that sort of operation is essential.
ROCKEFELLER: It is. And, you know, I think Pat Roberts and I both agree that -- that the intelligence business has changed completely since 9/11. It's probably changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but we just didn't understand that until the 9/11 tragedy.
Now we are no longer -- with the exception of our war with Iraq -- we're probably no longer going to be fighting countries, states, people in uniforms. They're going to be people; you know, down in the subway somewhere or up the street.
They're going to look like us, or not look like us, but we're not going to be able to know where they're coming from.
So intelligence is all of a sudden gotten about 500 percent more difficult. And therefore the need for human intelligence, which both Chairman Roberts and I have fought for, hard, to have more people on the ground, around the world -- and I really mean that -- around the world in 100 more countries -- who can give us information that we need to know about what others have in mind.
BROWN: Senator Roberts, was there pressure from anyone within the intelligence community, within the Pentagon, within the White House -- anywhere that you can find, for them to come up with this specific answer, that the Iraqis had these stockpiles?
ROBERTS: Well, I think we have a difference of opinion on the committee as to what really constitutes pressure.
And so I would expect my distinguished colleague to offer a different point of view, but in 516 pages and in many, many comments that I made in public and in committee asking if anybody had been coerced, intimidated or manipulated, had there been any pressure, not one person came forward.
What Senator Rockefeller will point out is that there is concern that repetitive questioning where the whole environment in regards to post-9/11 and going to war did constitute pressure.
My response to that is that I hope to heck there's pressure by the policymakers and also by those of us in the Congress in terms of the witnesses that we -- you know, where we ask questions. After 9/11, everybody is urged not to be risk adverse, but to lean forward and on the repetitive questioning issue, it appears now that on the WMD section, we had very little repetitive questioning. And so that was the section where we find most flaws in the intelligence product.
However, on the terrorist section, there was repetitive questioning and that section is much more reasonable and much more accurate.
BROWN: Senator Rockefeller, do you believe that if the truth had been known that the country would have gone to war with Iraq?
ROCKEFELLER: Well, that decision would not have been up to either Pat Roberts or myself; that would have been up to the president.
BROWN: Would the Congress have authorized war?
ROCKEFELLER: No, I don't think the Congress would have. I voted for the -- authorizing legislation and have said for months now that now that I know what I do know about the fact that all of the reasons given to us by the president in his state -- second state of the union message, which really propelled -- which really wasn't spoken to us so much as it was to you know the 50-85 million American people that we would not have voted for that resolution.
We would not have given them the option of going to the U.N. and -- and not being able to get other people but basically not giving him the free choice to go to war. Because the intelligence undermined every -- virtually every reason that he gave us that night.
BROWN: And Senator Roberts, you're the chairman and you get the last word here. Is this it? Is this everything? Or after the election will there be more?
ROBERTS: Oh, there's going to be more. We're -- you know this is an ongoing effort. You know we hear a lot of talk about what about the use of intelligence, what about the intelligence in reference to pre-war intelligence on post-war Iraq.
We know the difficulties are very severe over there now. Why didn't we know more than we do now. And then also the involvement of the Department of Defense so-called planning cell under -- under the Undersecretary Douglas Feith and the INC, the International -- or, pardon me, the Iraqi National Congress.
You know, what effect that had. We had to get this first report out. We will go to phase two and we also have a reform agenda that both Senator Rockefeller and I will have at least three hearings of wise men and women to tell us what they think is the best approach.
We're going to do it very carefully, very deliberately, but this country is under a threat on a possible attack some time between now and the election and so we have to be very expeditious as well.
BROWN: Gentlemen, thank you for your time and particularly thank you for your good work on this. We appreciate it very much.
ROBERTS: OK, thank you Aaron.
ROCKEFELLER: Thank you, Aaron.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Talked to the two senators late this afternoon and that's why there was some redundancy in both David's report and that interview and we apologize for that.
As we mentioned at the top, the long-awaited report arrived at a grim milestone in Iraq. The overall death toll among coalition forces now exceeds 1,000 -- 1,0002.
U.S. forces, of course, have sustained the largest number of losses -- 882 American troops have died since the fighting began.
The military makes it relatively easy to keep track of these sad milestones. It is a whole lot harder to measure the losses among Iraqis, civilians and otherwise.
As the death toll has climbed over the months, the fortunes of one particular group in Iraq have come pretty close to full circle. When Baghdad fell, so did Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party.
It's members were labeled the enemy and banned from a role in the new Iraq, a strategy that to say the least did not produce the dividends hoped for as the insurgency grew, as Fallujah exploded, the members of Saddam's former regime got a second wind.
Which brings us to the new sovereign Iraq where everything old has a way of seeming new again. From Baghdad, here's CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF (voice-over): This new sovereign Iraq is just a week old, but already asserting its independence.
The government is promising an amnesty for low-level insurgents and militia members. And it's bringing the Arab Baath Socialist Party, disbanded and discredited under Paul Bremer's Iraq, in from the cold.
The shift was signaled in Washington itself by the new Iraqi ambassador to the United States.
REND RAHIM FRANCKE, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: This is a new departure with a democratic, pluralistic system that respects the right of all the citizens, that gives everybody in Iraq an opportunity to participate in decision making, in making their voices heard.
ARRAF: Rend Rahim said the new Iraq would try to engage not just former Baathist's but current ones. Saddam Hussein headed the Baath Party, but he didn't invent it. Many Iraqis say he and his regime hijacked a party that had made Iraq one of the best-educated countries in the region.
It's a far cry from May of last year when the chief U.S. administrator hailed the destruction of the 57-year-old Baath Party as one of the coalition's main achievements.
PAUL BREMER, FORMER CPA ADMINISTRATOR: Those who were on high before, in particular the Baathists, who used their power to repress the Iraqi people, will be removed from office.
ARRAF: But the move banned from public employment hundreds of thousands of badly needed teachers, engineers and other professionals; dissolving the Iraqi army through just as many officers out of work, creating hundreds of thousands of enemies, making clear they would have no role in the new Iraq.
Iraqis say in teahouses and living rooms in Baghdad and other cities a new Baath Party is forming. One that will appeal partly to Sunni Muslims who believe they've been ignored and stripped of Saddam Hussein one that will be able to compete in the political process.
Some of the most senior U.S. military officials believe even people funding the insurgency can be convinced that their fight is futile and can be rehabilitated.
LT. GENERAL THOMAS METZ, U.S. ARMY: My logic tells me that that's a better way to go than to feed an insurgency with your money, and maybe we can work to get those -- have a few converts.
ARRAF: Many American officials say the United States has learned a lot in the past year. One of the things its learned the hard way is that building a new country takes more than tearing down a regime.
Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: The missing Marine's odyssey now finds him in Germany.
Corporal Wassef Hassoun arrived today for evaluation and debriefing at the Army Medical Center in Landstuhl. They'll be -- I mean, he'll be undergoing tests -- medical tests, mostly, but he'll also be answering lots of questions, we are told, about his disappearance in Iraq and his sudden reappearance in Lebanon.
Speaking to reporters back home in Utah the corporal's brother today denied allegations that the kidnapping was part of a hoax.
On now to the line of concrete dividing Israel from parts of the Palestinian West Bank. The Israelis call it a security fence, the Palestinians a barrier wall and worse.
For both sides this is more than a semantic question. Israelis believe it prevents suicide attacks. Palestinians believe it is choking what's left of a potential state to death.
Today a court in The Netherlands issued a ruling, which means little in and of itself, but could set the stage for more.
Reporting tonight for us, CNN's John Vause.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE (voice-over): The moment of victory for Palestinians. The International Court of Justice could not have been more resolute.
This is a wall, it said, not just a security fence, built illegally on occupied Palestinian land. Construction must stop, said the court, what has been built, torn down, and Israel must pay compensation to thousands of Palestinians for damaged property.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a total slam for the Israeli policy. None of the Israeli considerations was accepted, none -- they just did not get anything. Total loss.
VAUSE: One hundred miles of the barrier has already been built and Israel says construction of the remaining 300 or so miles will not stop.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI FINANCE MINISTER: For God's sake, all Israel is doing to defend itself against the most unprecedented wave of terror in history is to put up a fence.
VAUSE: But the Court of Justice ruled Israel is doing much more: violating international law though the risk is there of de facto annexation of Palestinian land and it held grave concerns about the devastating impact on the lives of the Palestinian civilian population, and the prospects for solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: This is suffocating the lives of 343,000 Palestinians -- killing them. They cannot tell me I'm going to live and I live to die. The concept here is live and let live. So we want to build a wall, let them build it on their own borders.
VAUSE: Israel argues the barrier is only to self-defense, that attacks have fallen by 90 percent, a point made by Israeli protesters carrying photos of victims of Palestinian suicide bombers, all killed before construction began.
Arnold Roff's (ph) daughter was one of them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, FATHER OF TERROR VICTIM: I can't say that my daughter's life would have been spared -- I don't know. But 90 percent is a very compelling number for a father.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: And one very important point in all of this, the World Court ruling is an advisory, non-binding opinion only. Israel always expected this to go badly. It has every intention to ignore it -- Aaron.
BROWN: So when all is said and done, after all the arguing in the court and all the reporting today, when all is said and done, nothing is going to change?
VAUSE: Nothing is going to change tomorrow but there is hope for the Palestinians that this will go to the U.N. Security Council. All 26 previous advisory opinions issued by the World Court have been acted on in some way.
The Palestinians take heart from that. The Israelis, though take heart from the fact that the U.S. is in the Security Council and will likely torpedo any move against Israel.
BROWN: John, thank you. John Vause in Jerusalem.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, two men who may never be president debate the reasons to be one.
And they couldn't be prouder. What else would you expect from the parents of a vice presidential candidate? A talk with the parents of John Edwards.
We'll take a break first from New York on the edge of Columbus Circle, and this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Spoilers matter in electoral politics. Just ask Al Gore. In 2000, Ralph Nader won more than 150 times as many votes in Florida as Al Gore's margin of defeat there.
The vast majority of which the vice president would have won, say the experts and common sense.
Ralph Nader isn't buying it -- he didn't buy it then, he's not buying it now. But then, as now, the Democratic Party is taking Mr. Nader seriously, even at the expense of giving him some free publicity as there was in Washington today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN (voice-over): It wasn't exactly an ice cream social.
RALPH NADER (I) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you were an insurgent, who is now adopting a role of being a detergent of the dirty linen of the Democratic Party.
BROWN: There was the lifelong outsider Ralph Nader debating another outsider, the former Vermont governor Howard Dean. The latter urging Mr. Nader to abandon his run for the presidency.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have an extraordinary career in standing up for the American people. You have saved lives and done extraordinary work with automobile safety. You are responsible for much of the extraordinary environmental work that has been done in this country in the last forty years -- I ask you not to turn your back on your own legacy.
BROWN: Two intense men sparring intensely.
DEAN: You have the right to run, you can get in bed with whomever you want to. But don't call the Democratic Party full of corporate interests.
NADER: We don't want to settle for the lesser of two evils in our country; we don't want to have another special interest clone in Washington.
BROWN: But it wasn't Washington that Dean wanted to talk about, it was Oregon. Fuming that Nader had accepted help from Republicans to obtain a spot on the ballot in Oregon in November, drawing votes away from Democrat John Kerry.
DEAN: In this campaign of yours is far from pure. If you are willing to accept the help of a right-wing anti-gay group to get you on the ballot...
NADER: You really are being very inaccurate apart from being unfair. We have not accepted the support of any anti-gay groups. We have not accepted as fulsomely the support of Republican dollars the way the Democrats have.
BROWN: At the end of the debate, one thing seemed fairly certain, Ralph Nader will not go away quietly into the good night of politics.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: He never has. Well election seasons seem to have cycles and this week the new cycle clearly belonged to the Democrats.
From the moment John Edwards was named John Kerry's running mate, the Democrats have had the spotlight. Some no doubt find that unfair, but in our experience it all balances out in the end.
All of which is to say here is another story about the Democratic ticket. In this case, it is the real voices of the real people who molded John Edwards from a mill worker's son to a contender.
Edwards has told his story so often and, frankly, so well, it has become a political cliche. Joe Johns' piece tonight is anything but.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John Edwards likes to talk about his small town roots. Robbins is a small town in the center of North Carolina.
His parents, still a little stunned how their son grew up to all this. WALLACE EDWARDS, FATHER OF JOHN EDWARDS: It is amazing.
BOBBIE EDWARDS, MOTHER OF JOHN EDWARDS: A little overwhelming at times.
JOHNS: Bobbie and Wallace Edwards have been married 52 years. They moved here from South Carolina, where John, the first of their three children, was born.
WALLACE EDWARDS: I had to go borrow money from a loan company to get him and his mother out of the hospital. My insurance covered part of it, didn't cover all of it, so I had -- came up short $50.
JOHNS: In Robbins, they lived in a one-story house. John went to Sunday school at First Baptist Church, played football and was an all-round athlete at the high school just down the road.
His father remembers telling his son how to deal with bullies.
WALLACE EDWARDS: I told him one day, I said, best way to defend against that is to punch them in the nose and they'll leave you alone.
JOHNS: The mill closed in 1990 but before then the textile business was booming. Bobbie worked, too. Wallace had to work extra hard because he didn't have a college education.
WALLACE EDWARDS: I had to train a lot of college people that -- that came in to -- that the company hired in. I had to train them to do this job.
BOBBIE EDWARDS: And then he had to work for them.
WALLACE EDWARDS: And you know...
JOHNS: Eventually, Wallace Edwards himself moved up to management. The son who would grow up to be a senator kept busy also. His first job, a drug store soda jerk -- and as a teenager he once worked with his dad.
WALLACE EDWARDS: He worked over here in the mill where I worked cleaning looms and sweeping the floor and cleaning out ducts, air conditioning ducts. And he come home and oh, you ought to see him. He said I'm not going to do this all my life.
JOHNS: And he didn't. First of his family to go to college, Edwards became a lawyer, senator, and Democrat standard-bearer, a product of small town America.
BOBBIE EDWARDS: He grew up with just -- struggling just like we were. Good everyday working people. I think his desire to help people grew out of that atmosphere.
JOHNS: Even though he's their son, John Edwards's parents are mystified by his drive and refuse to take credit for it. They say he saw their struggles and just wanted a better life.
Joe Johns, CNN, Robbins, North Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program, tonight what was missing from today's intelligence report and how might that missing material affect the president.
And later tonight nightlife in the city in stills from New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Back now to the Senate Intelligence Committee report and the president who embraced it today, understandably enough, say critics, who focus what it puts off until after the election. That said, what's in the report as it stands is hardly the stuff of campaign glory for this president, or any president, we imagine.
Here's CNN's Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Campaigning in Pennsylvania, the president stressed the point he wasn't the only one who got it wrong.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Listen, we thought there was going to be stockpiles of weapons. I thought so, the Congress thought so, the U.N. thought so.
BASH: Iraq already is a defining issue in the campaign. A majority of Americans now say it was not worth going to war. Bad intelligence or not, the president says he still made the right decision.
BUSH: He was a dangerous man. The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.
BASH: But Democrats say the new 511-page Senate report only tells half the story. Phase two will study whether the president misused intelligence he did have in making his case for war. Some Democrats think they already know the answer.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Unless administration officials, from the president on down, had information not made available to the Senate Intelligence Committee, there was clearly an exaggeration of either an imminent or a grave and growing threat.
BASH: Critics say even the flawed intelligence did not support dramatic statements like this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, SEPTEMBER 2002)
BUSH: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: In a report addendum, Democrats say the administration exaggerated the threat and twisted arms to shape intelligence. The White House says nonsense.
DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: The administration didn't put pressure or try to get them to change their analyses at the CIA or any other intelligence agency.
BASH (on camera): The next part of the investigation probing whether the White House misused intelligence won't be finished until after the election. With Iraq so critical in the campaign, Democrats complain, waiting is unfair to voters.
Dana Bash, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Doug Jehl has been working on the story for "The New York Times." His reporting will be in tomorrow's edition of the paper. And he joins us from Washington tonight.
So we assume he's filed. Good to see you.
How -- it's clear that the committee seems to agree on the what here, and then there is partisan disagreement on the why. How partisan in the end was the process?
DOUGLAS JEHL, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": In the end, the process was not particularly partisan because both sides agreed to put off the hard work until later.
And what we had today was unusual in Washington, a unanimous, bipartisan report in an election year. That was achieved by putting off the question of how the administration used the intelligence until after the election.
BROWN: When Senator Rockefeller talks about the pressure, as he sees it, pressure put on analysts, do we interpret that to mean the visits, for example, that the vice president made to Langley to talk directly to analysts?
JEHL: That's one of the pieces of evidence that is cited. So is repeated questioning by managers, by administration officials on the question of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. It's important to note, though, that the pressure the Democrats cite is very much limited to those Iraq-al Qaeda links, not the question of Iraq and its illicit weapons.
BROWN: And does the report today put to rest the Iraq-al Qaeda connection story?
JEHL: Well, I'm not sure this is a story that will ever be put entirely to rest. But I think it does add another strong piece of evidence to the assertion that the CIA has made all along that the links between Iraq and al Qaeda were limited, were not collaborative, and did not involve cooperation on any attacks on the United States.
BROWN: Do you have a sense now of where this all goes? How do they get to the question of how the -- how the intelligence was used, whether it was exaggerated and the like?
JEHL: I think they get on that question by seeing it debated on the campaign trail, to be frank, this year. The committee is going to have a choice in the weeks ahead. Do you focus on intelligence reform, on the way ahead? Or do you look backward on the question of use?
The Democrats would clearly like to look backward. The Republicans won't be so eager. And we're not going to see that resolved for several months, I think.
BROWN: In a sense, if it becomes that -- this is I suppose, a bit beyond the reporting work that you do. But if it becomes that, that the Republicans aren't interested in looking back and talking about it, and the Democrats are trying to use it as a political issue, will we ever get to the answer, how was the intelligence used or misused?
JEHL: Well, in some ways, we will, because in fact what we have today is a foundation. The committee has told us that the document was flawed.
Whether the committee does it or the voter does it, one needs now to compare what in fact the intelligence agency said with what the administration said. In some cases, the two were the same. In some cases, they were very different.
BROWN: You've been reporting on this for a while. And I think there has been a sense for a while that the report was going to be as harsh as in fact it was today. Nevertheless, is it a bit surprising, given the timing, given the events, given that the war is still going on, given all of that, that the language that was used today was as strong and strident in some cases as it was?
JEHL: I was surprised, certainly, and surprised to see it come from nine Republicans and eight Democrats joining forces. It was extraordinary.
BROWN: Doug, it's good to see you. We appreciate your time and your work. Thank very much, Doug Jehl of "The New York Times."
JEHL: Thank you.
BROWN: Still to come on the program, when is it a good time to call a child a stupid, dirty girl? Maybe you should ask the former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. And I wonder if the rooster looks forward to Friday as much as the rest of us? I'm sure. Morning papers, too, still ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We teach our children to treat others with respect and kindness and honesty. And if they're friendly and curious as well, all the better. We also warn our children of the inevitable, that not everyone they meet will respond in kind. Some people will be mean and rude. Some will be bullies. When the person behaving badly is an adult and a public figure, the secretary of education, no less, well, that can make news, in fact, did make news.
Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): California's education secretary, Richard Riordan, was at the Santa Barbara Library to encourage kids to read when a 6-year-old girl in the audience named Isis asked a question.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know my name actually means an Egyptian goddess?
RICHARD RIORDAN, FORMER LOS ANGELES MAYOR: It means -- it means stupid dirty girl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
(LAUGHTER)
RIORDAN: No, what does it mean?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Egyptian goddess.
RIORDAN: Oh, is that what it means? Hey, that's nifty.
BUCKLEY: Nifty, not the reaction of a governor who appointed Riordan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who issued a statement saying the statement was unacceptable in any context. Some are going further.
BERTHA GAFFNEY GORMAN, CALIFORNIA NAACP: We would like to see the governor take responsibility and ask Mr. Riordan to leave.
BUCKLEY: From "The Sacramento Bee": "California shouldn't have an education secretary who makes offensive, damaging remarks to young children for no apparent reason."
But columnist Dan Walters believes Riordan meant no harm.
DAN WALTERS, COLUMNIST, "SACRAMENTO BEE": Dick Riordan doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Just, it's not him. He was making a joke he thought that she would get. That's my interpretation of it. And it was a terrible joke. And she didn't get it and it sounded awful.
BUCKLEY: Riordan's response? "I teased a little girl about her name," he said in a statement. "I immediately apologized to her and I want to do so again for the misunderstanding."
Riordan is a wealthy former mayor of Los Angeles who's donated millions to education and years to helping children. (on camera): But his reputation for sometimes politically incorrect humor has long caused political advisers to wince. And this time, no one's laughing about the joke about the name of a 6-year-old girl.
Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a different way of looking at things, our favorite way in fact, in stills. And the tabloids always have a different take. It's part of the Friday night menu on NEWSNIGHT here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We often use the camera lens metaphorically on the program, a reminder that every news story, no matter how singular, has many facets and seeing them all requires many lenses. Then again, sometimes, a lens is just a lens. Tonight, the lens and the camera are literal, tools in a photography class, but the message is pretty much the same. Oh, what a difference the camera and the lens and the person looking through them makes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOBY OLD, PHOTOGRAPHER & PROFESSOR: The name of the class is "Night Life in the City." The course is a 10-week course. It's a workshop taught at the International Center of Photography.
OK, the Tattoo Convention, did I go over that?
Basically, it's a location class. We go out to five different locations, the Tattoo Convention at the Webster Hall. We went to the Avalon Club this year, Lisa's Gym (ph), and then Coney Island.
I think you can talk all want to about photography, but I think, for me, the way I like to do it, I like to go out and get in the field and in the trenches and actually do it, because rhetoric is one thing, but making images is, for me, that's the way I like to approach photography.
Photography today is very multifaceted. So there are a lot of different kinds of photography being done. And how this course fits in, I guess it would be in a more traditional sense of a documentary style of photography.
Digital, OK. Well, you can shoot with a pinhole camera, an 11- by-14 view camera. I don't care what you use.
The technology of it has changed. Some students shoot in color, some black and white. Some use a Widelux kind of camera or a panoramic camera. Some use square. Some use .35-millimeter. So, right there, you have got a whole host of different visions.
During the day, you can see what's going on a little bit better. At night, you're a little more restricted in that sense. So you're working a lot more intuitively and sensing what might be happening or about to happen, and then use the flash to capture it.
MARIA CAMERON, PHOTOGRAPHY STUDENT: I want to see people having fun. And I want to sort of try and exchange with that. I learned that the flash doesn't necessarily disrupt as I thought it would. I really found that people are really inviting, and the flash is more of an aid than an obstruction. And it was a great way to learn how to use something like that.
OLD: You had a nice take of the boxing.
Usually, what happens, I've found, is that some kind of spark happens throughout the course, and people do usually produce a lot of work and some pretty amazing work comes out of it, just by the energy, maybe, that they bring to it.
You can set the exact same thing up and no two students are going to photograph it the same. No two people will. No two trained photographers will. It will look close, maybe, but not the same.
This is Coney Island.
We actually shoot photographs and then put them up and see what we've done and how we've evolved.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You come to these classes and you want to learn things technically. You want to improve your shooting technique. You want to improve your composition technique. But, in the end, it's you, the camera and the image that you shoot.
OLD: That's kind of interesting.
I have created an environment where people were able to make pictures and done some things they wouldn't normally do. Everybody starts from a certain place and is an influence, but then, at some point, you take off from that and form your own vision.
Yes, that could be my favorite of the bunch. I like that one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, I don't know how this is going to go. I don't feel great about morning papers today, but we'll give it a go anyway.
Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We'll throw a tabloid or two in because it's Friday or because we feel like, though I got a really nasty note last week from somebody who hated the tabloid part, thought it was undignified. Bat boy, undignified. Imagine. "The International Herald Tribune." It's interesting to see how papers are headlining the CIA report. Very straight-ahead from "The International Herald Tribune," published by the "New York Times." Panel Assails CIA on Iraq. Senate Committee Says Prewar Threat Was Overstated." Can't get much straighter than that, can you? And, no, you can't.
"Washington Times." "CIA Blamed For Bad Data On Iraq Arms. Senate Panel Clears Bush of Using Pressure." So they put that sentence on the front page. Also, I don't know about this as a front- page story. We could argue whether it's news or not. "Republicans Question Kerry's Heart and Soul, Cite Vulgar Remarks at Concert Attended By Him." There was an event in New York yesterday. It got a little crazy. Anyway, I'm not sure it's front page. But they did. And it's their paper and they get to do what they want.
"Philadelphia Inquirer" on the front page. "Bush Faults NAACP's Leaders, Citing Harsh Remarks By Some. He Said He Would Seek Members' Support in Other Ways." Yesterday, he said he wouldn't speak to the convention which meets in Philadelphia because of a scheduling problem, but it turns out that was not reason."
"The Des Moines Register." Good to have them with us tonight. "Report: Prewar Claims Were False." That's how they lead. They also put the world court decision on Israel and the wall on the front page. "U.N. Court Deals Blow to Wall."
A minute left. We ought to do a few tabloids, right, just for that guy that wrote me last week.
OK, always a Saddam story. Here's this week's. "The Dream Scream. Exposed, Saddam's Bid to Hire O.J.'s Defense Team." I don't think that's going to help. We were talking about bat boy earlier, weren't we? "Bat Boy's Unbelievable Claim: Britney Is My Bride."
(LAUGHTER)
BROWN: That could be true. Come on.
I don't know about this either. "Judge Orders Mafia to Admit Gays." "Queer Eye For the Wise Guy," they write. And finally -- oh, not finally, "Terrorists Sick New Plan to Kill Us With B.O." And "Baby Shrek. Mom Couldn't Stop Watching the Movies While Undergoing Fertility Treatments." And so -- give me a shot -- this is what she gave birth to. Oh, my.
One more story before we go. We'll take a break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: If it's at all possible, we'd like to send you off on Friday with something to put a little spring in your step, something to remind you, all of us, really, that fortune doesn't always glower at us poor little human beings down here on planet Earth.
Sometimes, quite contrary, it beams. It did today on Geraldine Williams, who was turned by lady luck into one lucky lady.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Geraldine Williams of Lowell, Massachusetts, a retired 68-year-old university janitor who's been cleaning houses for the last couple of years, bought the only winning Mega Millions lottery ticket in last week's giant 11-state drawing. She wins the second largest jackpot ever paid out to one person in North America, a cool $294 million.
GERALDINE WILLIAMS, LOTTERY WINNER: I just said, oh, God, oh, God, let it be, let it be.
BROWN: This means Ms. Williams, who has been dusting books and mopping floors, had a better year than Mel Gibson, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, J.K. Rowling, a better year than Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson of "Lord of the Rings" fame, a better year than Simon & Garfunkel and Bruce Springsteen combined.
Actually, Geraldine Williams, bowler, golfer, mother of three, grandmother of eight, is worth more now than Fidel Castro. Sure, you wish you had won. We all do. But put envy aside. If not you, who better as a second choice than Geraldine Williams. So let's all just bask in her good fortune.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And one more quick note before we go about a story we did last night.
Many of you have e-mailed asking us how you can contribute to Jacob's Light, the foundation that sends care packages to soldiers in Iraq. We've added a link to our Web site with all the information. You can find it at CNN.com/NEWSNIGHT. And if that's something you feel like doing, that's how you can do it.
Good to have you with us tonight and this week. We'll see you all again Monday. Have a wonderful weekend. And good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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