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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Questions About Process of Delaying Presidential Election Due to Terror; Bush Says America is Safer Than it Was Three Years Ago.
Aired July 12, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again.
It's one thing to have to take your shoes off at the airport. That's sort of new normal is tolerable. It is quite another to postpone a national election. As we'll report in a moment or two, the Department of Homeland Security has asked the Justice Department if such a thing could happen consistent with existing law.
It has never once happened in the country's history, not in a national election, not during any of the wars, including the Civil War and, in truth, I can't imagine it will happen this time.
But the mere idea that we should research it, think and talk about it, tells us how much our world has changed. But rather than just talk about the problem, we offer a solution.
Let's do what they do in Oregon. Let's all vote by mail. It would be safer if that's the concern and there would be, I suspect, another benefit. Our pathetically low national voting rate just might go up giving us a chance to say the terrorists didn't lose just once, they lost twice and that's where we'll start tonight.
We'll also have Kelli Arena tonight on al Qaeda.
And the whip. And from the White House the president's stout defense of the war in face of shifting public opinion, Dana Bash at the White House, Dana a headline.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was pretty hard to miss the message the president was trying to send today. Over and over again he declared America a safer place because of his actions, including the Iraq war, weapons of mass destruction or not -- Aaron.
BROWN: Dana, thank you.
Next to China and a combustible mixture of AIDS and Communist Party politics, CNN's Mike Chinoy there for us, so Mike a headline from you.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as an International AIDS Conference gets underway in Bangkok, experts are talking about an AIDS time bomb here in China, ten to 15 million cases possible by the end of the decade and the fight against the disease hampered by corruption in China's authoritarian political system -- Aaron. BROWN: Mike, thank you.
Finally, Los Angeles, and a question of counting eyeballs and whether the way television does it discriminates. CNN's Sibila Vargas did the reporting and is here tonight with the headline.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Neilson Media Research is introducing a new system to measure TV ratings but minority groups say it counts them out -- Aaron.
BROWN: Sibila, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program tonight, Iraq after the handover, on patrol with an elite Iraqi unit and the noticeable change when Iraqis manage their own security.
Also, he's the only president not to have spoken to the NAACP, why President Bush refuses to talk to this influential group.
And it's back to work for the rooster on this Monday, time for him to gather up your morning papers, as he always does, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the possibility that until recently was only discussed in terms of places like Afghanistan and Iraq, the possibility that acts of terror might force the postponement of election day in the United States of America.
Then came Madrid and now comes a fresh season of terror alerts at home. Suddenly, the unthinkable is something to consider and it raises questions along the way about who's considering it for the administration.
We begin tonight with CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Through all the suffering, terror and turmoil in New York on 9/11, something else was supposed to be happening, an election.
The city's mayoral primary wound up being postponed but now the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is asking the Department of Homeland Security what if something like that happened on the presidential election day and voting had to be delayed?
GRACIA HILLMAN, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION: We are not advocating postponement. That is not how we approached the scenario.
PAUL DEGREGORIO, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION: We don't want it to happen but, if it does, I think we want to be prepared.
FOREMAN: The bipartisan commission was created by Congress and appointed by President Bush to restore voter confidence after the controversial last election but their questions have created a storm. REP. JANE HARMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: I think it's excessive based on what we know.
FOREMAN: Some Democrats are suspicious that the White House is pulling the strings. A former official from the Clinton administration, Morris Reid, issued a statement saying the idea "blatantly smells of unfair political self-protection" and President Bush is "desperately trying to keep his job."
You're being accused of being shields for the Bush administration, that this is all about protecting George Bush if the election goes against him, what do you say?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we're not.
FOREMAN: The commission says many things could disrupt the election, a hurricane in Florida, an earthquake in California, a massive power outage in almost any city.
(on camera): Still, even the commissioners say delaying a presidential election falls somewhere between very difficult and impossible. No one person in the federal government appears to have the authority to do it and it would undoubtedly face legal challenges.
(voice-over): So, the debate begs another question. If such ranker can erupt over just the idea of a terrorist attack and its aftermath, have the terrorists already upset the democratic process?
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: When Haynes Johnson was at "The Washington Post" he reported on and lived through a moment when the president's men, President Nixon's in this case, were making plans to ring the White House with the 82nd Airborne. Different jitters today to be sure but we're always glad for Mr. Johnson's take on it all. It's good to see you again, sir.
HAYNES JOHNSON, AUTHOR: Thank you, Aaron.
BROWN: This is quite a remarkable discussion we find ourselves having when you step back and think about it.
JOHNSON: It's astonishing. I don't remember anything quite like it and the idea that it seems to be taken seriously, or supposedly so, just tells you the problems we're having right now with all of our anxieties in the country.
But it's a crazy idea that the whole democracy is about voting and to postpone an election, Lincoln said it best in 1864, the same idea came up then. Maybe we got to postpone the election. He said, "If we did that, the rebels would have won." If we did this now, the terrorists win.
It's one thing to look very seriously at what might happen, what might we do, but the idea of vesting, particularly the power to cancel an election in the hands of the Homeland Security Department, which isn't winning great plaudits for its encouragement or making us feel easy with these alerts, I just think it's a crazy idea. And I think you're right, I don't think it's ever going to happen.
BROWN: I'll come back to the mechanics of it in a moment but, in fact, at a much smaller scale, dramatically smaller scale, it did happen in New York and New York then went on to vote again and elected a mayor and everything seems OK here.
JOHNSON: Yes, that's true, except we're talking about the whole country here and I think it is a very good thing to have contingency planes, Aaron, find out in a grave, grave crisis what do we do?
But this is a national election and it really comes against the backdrop of terror and fear and anxieties and suspicions about elections and stealing elections and cynicism in the country. It brings all those things up to the forefront once again. That's the last thing we need.
BROWN: That's one of the things that struck me today yet again. I mean this has hit me before is how absolutely cynical the response has been to all of this.
I would make a gentle argument here that there's nothing wrong with thinking this through and seeing if it makes any sense and even how you would do it if you had to do it but the assumptions that people jump to right away, it's an attempt to steal an election, says an awful lot about where we are politically.
JOHNSON: Yes and the country is very badly polarized, as we know, and this would only do more of that and that's what we do not need now in a divided country. And it is a good idea to look carefully, seriously think about what we may do in the great moment of extremists.
OK, fine, but this is not the solution and, if you're going to do it, let's have a debate about it. Let's talk about seriously how we might handle it. I like your idea. Maybe we all vote on mail or something.
Well put it in and then nothing happens and the country goes forward but you can't let terror disturb, betray the whole process of a democracy. That would be terrible.
BROWN: I think it's a dangerous idea to start taking my ideas too terribly seriously but I just wonder if there is a way to do it that would satisfy everyone, if there's, you know, you can't say let the Supreme Court do it because we lived four years ago and there's a lot of unease about that.
JOHNSON: No.
BROWN: I just wonder if there's anything in the political process today that is trusted enough to postpone a national election. JOHNSON: Actually I think there is a way to look at this quite seriously and put it out of the realm of politics and cynicism. Get a commission of the best people, the wisest people not elected office holders. Make them four or five people.
Let's talk about how do we do this, bring up proposals, then talk to the leaders of Congress, vet it with the people in the country and then let's understand where we are but not put power in the hands of bureaucrats of one party who are, you know, appointed by the president in power. That would just be a disaster.
BROWN: Good to see you, sir. Thank you.
JOHNSON: Thanks, Aaron.
BROWN: Haynes Johnson, good man.
All this is unfolding, of course, hard on the heels of another terror alert, a confusing one at that, most of them are, but it's also a serious one in terms of what officials tell us the intelligence is telling them.
Some of that intelligence we learned today comes from sources other than the traditional ones but more and more they are being looked upon as reliable.
Here's CNN's Kelli Arena.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This Web site reads in part: "Oh, Allah, destroy America and shake it." This one says: "The decisive battle is approaching."
Such threats are not new to terror experts who scan hundreds of al Qaeda-related Web sites daily but recently some say there is more reason to worry. Experts say threats are coming with greater frequency and from more reliable sources.
EVAN KOHLMAN, GLOBALTERRORALERT.COM: A lot of the chatter that we're seeing is not coming from unidentified, unspecified sources on Internet chat boards. It's coming from the same sources that have predicted before terrorist acts that have actually occurred.
ARENA: One such source warned of attacks in Spain three months before the bombings there in March and distributed video of the beheading of American Nick Berg. It's called Global Islamic Media.
KOHLMAN: It is now saying that the death blows and the approaching battles are coming that the death blows are upon us and that these death blows will not only be horrible but that they are sure to happen.
ARENA: Some of the potential targets mentioned include hospitals, parks, airports and houses of worship. GABRIEL WEIMANN, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE: You see many targets mentioned and, if you are involved in psychological warfare you know that the more targets you mention the more panic you cause and it will be harder to defend against the attacks.
ARENA: What's more, Weimann says, even if the postings are pure propaganda, they help terrorists accomplish their goal.
WEIMANN: I think al Qaeda knows that one of the most important values of terrorism is the psychological impact, that is you can widen the scope of the victims by enlarging it to the people who are affected psychologically.
ARENA (on camera): Officials are taking the web chatter very seriously and have reached out to a variety of experts for assistance. Many are convinced al Qaeda is prepared to strike and are intent on not missing any clues.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Given the news of the day, given what has preceded us tonight, now might seem like an odd moment to raise a hearty hip, hip, hooray for where things stand on the war on terror and Iraq. That's presidential politics for you.
It's also a president who firmly believes in the rightness of his policies and just as firmly adheres to the policy of repetition.
Again from the White House, here's CNN's Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): The president's unmistakable message uttered some half dozen times in his 32-minute speech...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the American people are safer.
BASH: Under fresh fire for invading Iraq based on faulty intelligence, Mr. Bush dug in saying war was about more than Saddam Hussein's illusive weapons.
BUSH: Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction we were right to go into Iraq. In the world after September the 11th that was a risk we could not afford to take.
BASH: The president has his work cut out for him. A recent poll shows 55 percent of Americans feel less safe from terror because of the war in Iraq, up 22 points in six months.
Mr. Bush spoke at this Tennessee site where officials are studying nuclear materials surrendered by Libya. He said Moammar Gadhafi got the message because America was so tough on Iraq. BUSH: Because the Libyan government saw the seriousness of the civilized world and correctly judged its own interests, the American people are safer.
BASH: Some weapons experts say it's not that simple.
ROSE GOTTEMOELLER, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: I don't really agree that it was Iraq that pushed Moammar Gadhafi into making the decision to give up his weapons of mass destruction. This has been a long diplomatic process.
BASH: In a refrain reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago," Mr. Bush insisted Americans are more secure than they were three years ago when the U.S. was attacked. Ticking off relationships and reforms he's initiated he made this sweeping claim.
BUSH: The world changed on September the 11th and, since that day, we have changed the world.
BASH: His Democratic opponent pointed to hotspots like North Korea, saying he begs to differ.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not enough just to give speeches. America will only be safer when we get results.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: Having to defend the Iraq War, 14 months after declaring major combat over there, is not necessarily what the Bush campaign expected but, Aaron, it's something they're resigned to because they understand this is something that the Bush presidency is defined by now -- Aaron.
BROWN: Is the president out on the campaign again this week?
BASH: Yes. He is going, shifting a little bit, going to talk about the values issue that he talked about last week. He is going to some rural areas in Michigan, Minnesota, you should be glad to hear, and also in Wisconsin.
He'll be trying to again play up the fact that he thinks Senators Kerry and Edwards are too liberal for people who are registered to vote there as Democrats but ten to perhaps vote more conservatively.
BROWN: When you say the values issue, are we taking gay marriage here, are we talking more than that?
BASH: Gay marriage is certainly going to be high on the agenda because obviously that's what the Senate is going to be debating this week and both Senators are going to have to vote on that but it's more than that.
The issue that the campaign has been trying to play up since Senator Kerry picked Senator Edwards is the fact that they point to their voting record saying that they're very, very liberal, although they're going to go across the country and say that they are more moderate.
The whole thrust of the Bush campaign now is to try to point out that they are very liberal to try to take the votes away from those very few undecided voters who tend to be more in the middle -- Aaron.
BROWN: Dana, thank you, Dana Bash at the White House tonight.
The White House says it has yet to receive any official word from the Philippines that it will withdraw its troops from Iraq. Manila says it is doing that in order to secure a safe release for truck driver Angelo de la Cruz whose captors are threatening to behead him if the Philippines doesn't pull out its troops by the 20th of July. Sources tell CNN the abductors plan to release de la Cruz early on Tuesday. The Philippine presence in Iraq is quite small, about 50 humanitarian workers.
On to Iraq and the notion that nobody ever washed a rented car, something we've talked about before. Iraqis now have the responsibility for running their country and increasingly for securing it. In many places that means joint patrols. In some, as in parts of Baghdad, Iraqi forces have begun venturing out on their own.
CNN's Michael Holmes accompanied one such unit and filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Coalition forces coming under fire on patrol is routine. These troops, however, are not Americans. They are Iraqi, all of them, not a single American in sight.
(on camera): This is an area where just a few weeks ago, U.S. troops on patrol faced what one officer said was rocks by day, bullets, bombs and RPGs by night. But in the two weeks that these Iraqi soldiers have been patrolling the same area, not a single shot has been fired.
(voice-over): What is happening in what is still considered a highly dangerous suburb is waves, handshakes, water being offered. One American later said, "No one offered us water." This is an army unit which literally speaks the same language as the locals.
MAJOR DAVID LANE, 14TH MARINE REGIMENT: They understand the people. They understand the insinuations. They understand the cultural perspective.
HOLMES: It's called the Iraqi Intervention Force, 2nd Battalion, trained in urban combat, counterinsurgency and crucial intelligence gathering.
"We are the army of Iraq," says this veteran. "We are proud of what we do." Their American instructors say this unit has probably already saved lives. Residents here alerted an IIF patrol to a roadside bomb, later destroyed in a controlled explosion.
"Of course the people were very happy to see us. They showed cooperation by informing about the bad people."
Some of the colonel's men have already found weapons caches, arrested high level suspects and engaged in gun battles. Two more IIF battalions are about to finish training and hit the streets, a total of 2,000 men. Well equipped and well armed they will have the job of stamping out Iraq's insurgents. Major Lane is confident they are up to the task.
Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, they're hunted and jailed and persecuted and ruined and those are the good guys fighting AIDS in China.
And a controversial new way of keeping tabs on what America is watching on TV.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Four years ago, candidate George W. Bush, a new sort of Republican he said, spoke to the National Convention of the nation's oldest civil rights group, the NAACP.
He did not go there expecting to win a majority of black votes. Republicans don't. He went to send a message to the delegates, it seemed, and to those who were watching a still largely unknown candidate.
He hadn't spoken to the group since and won't this week at their national convention, which says something about both the president and the NAACP.
Here's CNN's Bruce Morton.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The NAACP, 95 years old, is meeting in Philadelphia. President Bush campaigns in Pennsylvania often, including last week, but he won't speak to the civil rights group. He did in 2000 when he was running but hasn't as president. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume says he wrote asking for meetings in 2001, '02 and '03 but...
KWEISI MFUME, NAACP PRESIDENT: The president never wrote me back. I always got a letter from someone else in the White House stating that his schedule did not permit such a meeting and they would get back to me essentially and never did.
MORTON: President Bush in Pennsylvania last week told reporters his relationship with the present NAACP leadership is basically non- existent, adding "You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me."
MFUME: If the president's new mantle and measurement for dialog is to only talk and to only meet with those individuals or organizations that agree with him then we are getting closer to the previous regime in Baghdad than we are to a democracy here in America, where nations around the world expect us to be different from everyone else.
MORTON: But there may be a simple political reason for Mr. Bush's non-appearance. Blacks are and have been for years he most constant, loyal element in the coalition that is the Democratic Party.
KEATING HOLLAND, CNN POLLING DIRECTOR: About eight in ten blacks tell us right now that they are likely to vote for the Kerry/Edwards ticket. Only about one in ten blacks say that they're likely to vote for the Bush/Cheney ticket right now.
That's very much in keeping with what we've seen in previous elections. Typically Democrats at the presidential level, Senate level, gubernatorial races win 80 to 90 percent of the black vote and that's been going on for several decades.
MORTON: So, will the Democratic candidate talk to the NAACP, you bet.
KERRY: My friends, I will be a president who meets with the leadership of the Civil Rights Congress, who meets with the NAACP.
MORTON: He'll speak to them on Thursday.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A quick look at some other stories that made news today around the country starting in Milwaukee, police questioning a man about the beating of a 14-year-old boy who was attacked by as many as 20 people last week.
Tension is already high in some parts of the city after a 54- year-old man diagnosed with schizophrenia was beaten to death by a group of ten young men over the Fourth of July holiday. Sadly, Milwaukee is no stranger to this sort of thing. Two years ago a man was beaten to death by several young men, very young, in the same neighborhood.
In Houston, Texas, Lea Fastow, the wife of former Enron executive Andrew Fastow, began serving a yearlong prison sentence for misdemeanor tax crimes. Her husband, who pleaded guilty to the same offense, did not accompany his wife of 19 years as she entered prison. He is expected to testify against former Enron CEO Ken Lay. And, in Florida, civil rights leaders are applauding a decision to abandon a controversial list of nearly 48,000 names the state was using to remove convicted felons from the voting rolls.
Florida is one of only a few states that does not automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons once they've completed their sentence. The list in question was marred by flaws in the database.
There are a wide range of opinions, of course, about the war in Iraq still but one thing was clear. Before it began, it was a war of choice. There was no preemptive strike by Saddam Hussein as there was 14 years ago against Kuwait.
Now against the backdrop of last week's report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, there is a debate anew in Washington about whether wars of choice will be more difficult in the future. Not surprisingly, smart people differ.
Here to discuss it with us Philip Gourevitch of "The New Yorker" magazine and Richard Brookhiser of "National Review." I got the name and then screwed up the magazine. Nice to have you with us.
Simple question to start, the next time the United States goes to the international community (unintelligible) and says, "Here's the case against Country X," is it a tougher sell?
PHILIP GOUREVITCH, "THE NEW YORKER" MAGAZINE: Of course. Of course. I mean after September 11th I think we saw traditionally somewhat complicated but generally amicable in recent years relations between America and many of its transatlantic allies and global allies or even not only allies really reach a peak of solidarity.
There was a tremendous outpouring of support for the United States and a kind of willingness to say let's try and fight a common enemy of terror together and the Bush administration chose to identify that enemy as the Saddam Hussein regime at a certain point and the international community was largely unconvinced.
And, as time has progressed, we have seen many, many, many claims of the case the administration made for that war fall apart completely and the evidence behind it fall apart and it puts the administration in a position of looking very much like it cried wolf, like there was a wish to go to war, rather than a need to go to war and it's going to raise the bar of skepticism anywhere else, not only abroad but amongst American voters.
BROWN: Rick, without arguing the correctness or not of the war in Iraq itself, the next time the country goes to the U.N. or NATO or wherever, does it have a harder job?
RICHARD BROOKHISER, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Well, look, there are two questions put together in that question. One is do coalitions break up and change over the course of long wars and, of course, historically they always have.
There were nations in World War II that changed sides, the Soviet Union obviously, Spain in a much more covert way. We didn't get into World War II until it had been going on for two years.
You know if you look at wars of the 18th Century, wars of the Spanish succession, Austrian succession, coalitions form. They lose members. They break apart and, you know, that's just a part of history and a way of life.
In terms of how we react to the next threat or when the next situation for a possible preemptive war arises, what do we do? It all depends on the individual circumstance.
BROWN: So, you would make the argument that well this obviously hasn't been a slam dunk to use Mr. Tenet's phrase, that the next situation will be a different situation in any case and the arguments will be different and people have to look at the case then.
BROOKHISER: There are different situations right now. I mean North Korea we know already has nuclear arms and no one in Washington is contemplating a preemptive war against them. We're using a diplomatic roadmap to try and deal with it and having, so far as I know, you know, a certain amount of success getting Japan, China, Russia, the relevant nations to go along with it.
GOUREVITCH: Well, I think that, in fact, I think that it does depend on the situation to some extent, which is to say certainly the Bush administration would have a much harder time.
Interestingly, and I don't if there's any way to prove if he's right or not, John Kerry would argue that a case much closer to yours, which is that it's going to be situation driven and that if the case is good and it's made correctly by an administration that goes to the people, the American people, and to the international community with a strong case, with strong evidence and a compelling case for taking the nation to war, it could be done.
There doesn't have to be a sort of irreparable Iraq syndrome following this war but I think that, I mean the sort of historical analogies that you're using frankly, you know, this is the first case where America is the sole super power in the world, has used all of its credibility following an attack on its soil, unprecedented circumstances, to be the aggressor, to be the person who launches an attack without any provocation of direct attack from the country that it attacks and that puts a very high war.
BROWN: I'm going to give you the last word but I need you to do it in 20 seconds, can you do it?
BROOKHISER: The world changed after 9/11. And it seems to me that the new rules have to be that, if you're an aggressive, well- armed despot, you have to be purer than Caesar's wife.
BROWN: That's an interesting way to end it. We'll bring you back to continue it.
Thank you both. Good to have you with us. Thank you.
Coming up on the program, the largest, perhaps toughest, new front in the war on AIDS.
And later, their very first week on the ticket in still photos.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In Thailand today, politicians, doctors, protesters and patients are gathered to talk about AIDS, the 15th annual conference since the disease became a global menace.
A lot has changed in 15 years and in some very important ways, nothing has changed. In addition to killing, the virus that causes AIDS still has a knack of polarizing opinion and paralyzing leaders so that even more people die. As you'll see in a moment, such a storyline is playing out in China.
First, though, AIDS at home 15 years ago and now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Finding a cure for AIDS.
BROWN (voice-over): By 1989, three years after President Reagan first spoke to the nation about AIDS and a year before he would apologize for not speaking sooner, more than 50,000 Americans had died, more than 95,000 cases had been diagnosed, and only one antiviral drug, AZT was in widespread use.
Over the next four years, three trend lines would continue to rise, new cases, deaths and also a third line, people living with the disease. By 1993, the first two lines would peak. Then, with better drugs and early detection and prevention, they rapidly would fall, then level off. And that third line, the lifeline, would keep rising.
By 2002, the most recent year for which we have figures, 800,000 people have been diagnosed in the country with AIDS, roughly the population of Detroit. Most are men between the ages of 25 and 44. More than two-thirds got the disease either from male-to-male sex or I.V. drug use. Also by 2002, more than 500,000 Americans had died, a city roughly the size of Boston.
But just as many Americans were living and living longer with AIDS.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's here in the U.S. Nearly everywhere else is another story.
Even in the United States, it took years for the political system to catch on to the public health necessities. Even now, the debate goes on over condoms and abstinence. Beyond all that, there is often denial on a grand enough scale to cover an entire country. The virus, on the other hand, doesn't much care. From Beijing, here's CNN's Mike Chinoy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's 78, a retired doctor, a grandmother. But Gao Yaojie's phone is tapped. Police watch her constantly. And she fears for her life.
"I'm afraid of them faking a traffic accident to kill me," she says.
CHINOY: Huja (ph) lives in fear, too. He's been repeatedly detained, threatened with incarceration in a psychiatric ward.
"They're very obvious," he says. "When I walk, they walk. Where I stand, they stand."
CHINOY (on camera): What Huja and Dr. Gao have in common is that they're two of China's leading AIDS activists. And even as the government finally acknowledges that China has a serious AIDS problem, a secretive and repressive political system continues to harass those seeking to highlight the epidemic and the government's failure to combat it.
(voice-over): That failure is most evident in Hunan Province in central China. Here, hundreds of thousands of poor farmers like these contracted HIV after selling blood to illegal and unhygienic but officially tolerated blood banks.
"If I die, who will look after my child?" weeps Jan Ciochin (ph). "It is so sad."
As the epidemic spread, officials tried to keep it under wraps. But Dr. Gao and her fellow activists managed to expose Hunan's dirty secret.
"They claim I've damaged Hunan's image," says Dr. Gao. "Someone even said whoever gets rid of Dr. Gao will solve Hunan's AIDS problem."
"Security police told us AIDS was a state secret," says Huja. "If it got out, people would criticize China. This is ridiculous."
Belatedly, China's top leaders have now recognized the need to face up to the disease, the premier even shown on TV shaking hands with an AIDS patient. But local officials, many linked to the illegal blood trade, continue to treat people like Dr. Gao as enemies.
"A few days ago, I tried to visit an AIDS village," she tells me. "The authorities were waiting to get us. They even put a price on my head." But, she adds, "I'm not going to let them get me."
The battle against AIDS, in China, a battle against corruption and repression as well.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHINOY: Dr. Gao and other activists complain that officials responsible for the tainted blood scandal have not only not been punished, but some have even been promoted. One example, the man who was governor of Hunan Province for most of the 1990s is now a member of the powerful standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party's politburo here in Beijing -- Aaron.
BROWN: You used the phrase AIDS village. Is an AIDS village like a leper colony?
CHINOY: Well, it's not exactly a leper colony, but there are numerous villages in the heartland of China, Hunan Province, which is kind of the breadbasket of central China, where so many people gave blood. These are poor peasants desperate for money who for a few dozen dollars or a couple hundred dollars were selling their blood. And now you have got whole villages with most of the people infected. Economic activity has fallen off. There are a lot of sick people there. So they talk about AIDS villages dotted all around the Chinese heartland.
BROWN: All right, thank you. Good to see you. It's been a while. Mike Chinoy in Beijing tonight.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the television version of a census and why some minority groups say they're not being counted. Some networks are agreed.
And still ahead, of course, tomorrow's headlines tonight, morning papers.
A break first. From CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, thank goodness you all watch television, because without viewers, there would be new advertising, no advertising, no money, no money, no paychecks for people like me. You get the idea. Advertisers know how many of you are watching each night because one company, A.C. Nielsen tells them. But now Nielsen is under fire for the way it counts viewers, or at least changes it's proposing.
Here is CNN's Sibila Vargas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the streets of New York to the steps of Los Angeles City Hall, protesters are criticizing Nielsen, the company that provides advertisers with ratings data, for its new local people meter system.
ALEX NOGALES, NATIONAL HISPANIC MEDIA COALITION: This is a civil rights issue. We need to be counted. This is like the census. Unless we are counted, we're going to be invisible.
VARGAS: The electronic system for gathering ratings eliminates the need for paper diaries. It is already in place in Boston and New York and was introduced last week in Los Angeles. But it's under fire from some minority groups and major broadcasters like Fox, CBS, Univision and Tribune. Several minority organizations partly funded by Fox say the meter system needs a lot of improvement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is technologically much more advanced. The other one had too many way it could be flawed and so forth. It doesn't really matter. If the methodology is incorrect, you're not going to have the proper number of Latinos and African-Americans and other people of color.
VARGAS: Early test data from people meters in New York show declines for a variety of shows like "The Simpsons," as well as some that are especially popular with minority viewers. Critics fear the new system could lead to less diversity in programming.
AL SHARPTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This could mean a lot of jobs in our community. And it could also mean that we have the whitenizing of American television, based on a system, rather than based on fairness.
VARGAS: It could also mean the loss of millions of advertising dollars to networks whose shows dip in the ratings.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a lot of dollars at stake. And that's where Actually some of this controversy is also coming.
VARGAS: Nielsen declined our request for an interview, but its Web site says it will increase the number of people meters in African- American and Hispanic households in New York.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not going from something perfect to something imperfect. We're going from something that's very imperfect to something that's slightly better.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VARGAS: Later this week, the Senate Communications Subcommittee will hold hearings regarding local people meters. And Nielsen plans to roll out the new system in Chicago early next month. And we should add that CNN is a Nielsen client, as is Turner Broadcasting -- Aaron.
SCARBOROUGH: Thank you, Sibila Vargas. Thank you.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, there from the very beginning, a look at the first week of the Kerry-Edwards presidential ticket in stills, the NEWSNIGHT way.
And also coming up, your favorite and mine, morning papers. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Segment seven tonight might be called the birth of a presidential campaign in stills. We don't know how many thousands of still photos were taken last week of the two Johns, Kerry and Edwards, many thousands, to be sure. And we're sure you have seen just a handful, which is the way it works for a still photographer. So here are some of the others, shots taken by "TIME" magazine contributor Diana Walker, who has been shooting pictures of presidents and presidential hopefuls for a long time, and, with luck, a long time to come as well.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIANA WALKER, PHOTOGRAPHER: The pictures are from last week with Senator Kerry's choice of Senator Edwards as his running mate.
And I was behind the scenes from Monday through Saturday watching every inch of that process. All these years, I have kind of carried this mantra of seeing and not hearing, because I'm concentrating so hard on making the picture that I don't hear. But I can see. And I can get the feelings of what's going on.
Senator Kerry had breakfast. And they got up from the breakfast table and walked in to the library. And the senator sat down at his desk and sort of indicated, well, here goes. It just unfolded in front of me right there. When you find yourself with your camera in a room where something really important is going on, you just keep working.
It's as if nothing is going to stop you. From my standpoint watching them, they seemed to click, all four of them, on every cylinder. It's a mesh of families that I think looks to me as though they will have a wonderful time in the campaign.
What I have seen in the pictures of Senator Edwards and Senator Kerry is a connection. And what I saw was truly an ease and an understanding between them and a lot of humor and an enormous kind of meshing of families that was so much fun to photograph.
What I was giving was the freedom to walk in and out, to the front of the plane, to the back of the plane, as a fly on the wall. And it was a joyful trip, as the candidates took off on this adventure. They were sharing thoughts about things, all of them, the four of them.
A photographer doesn't spend much time analyzing relationships. A photographer watches. And the evidence of what a photographer sees is in a picture. Therefore, what the relationship between John Edwards and John Kerry is, I hope, what I saw. I hope I'm able to see and so that you can see what their relationship is together. That's the point of my work, in my view.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Diana Walker. Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We will start with "The International Herald Tribune," published by "The New York Times" in Paris. "Athens Blackout Raises Red Olympic Flag." They had a power blackout in Athens. What, are we about a month before the Olympic Games? People are nervous about security. Now they're nervous about power and everything else.
Also another good story we could have done tonight if we had more time. "Sharon Asks Labor to Join His Coalition. Move Could Bolster Gaza Pullout Plan, But Hurdles Remain." A couple of good stories there on the front page of "The Herald Tribune," "The International Herald Tribune."
"Christian Science Monitor," I love this picture, this little boy playing baseball. "Is Baseball Still Fun For Kids?" We're on the eve of the All-Star Game, so that seems like a good place to put a baseball picture. And on the subject of baseball, a very interesting story in "The Philadelphia Inquirer." "Robinson's Legacy Dims On Diamond. More Than Half a Century After the Color Barrier Was Broken, the Number of Black Major League Players Is Stuck in a Slide." And according to just a couple of quotes on the front page by black Major League players, it is considered in the black community or among many people in the black community -- or some -- who knows -- a white person's game, which had never occurred to me one way or the other. Anyway, that's a neat story in "The Philadelphia Inquirer."
"The Cincinnati Enquirer," not the inquirer, but "The Enquirer" here." "Burned Cross Drives Family Away. Car Window Smashes, Too, at Home in Boone." My goodness. Come on, people. Don't be doing things like that, though that would chase me out of a neighborhood. Or maybe it wouldn't. I can be pretty stubborn.
"Chattanooga Times Free Press." "Bush: Right to Go to War." A story on most front pages, the president's speech in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but it certainly would be on the front page of the Chattanooga paper.
"Washington Times." "GOP Split On Marriage Proposals. Democratic Tactics Forces Republicans to Pick One." I'm not sure precisely what this is about. I guess that's why you have to buy the paper and read the whole thing. You can't just go by the headlines.
Talk about leading local. This is "The Williamson County Review Appeal." And they're up there -- or down there, I guess -- in Williamson County, Tennessee. "AmSouth Robbed." That's a bank. And they led with it. And they've got a couple of pictures, including the guy who did it.
"The Detroit News." "Army Targets Driver Training Safety Upgrades." Beth Nissen has been pitching this story for the longest time. I keep saying no to it. Traffic accidents kill a lot of soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere. And, apparently, the Army's been listening more carefully than I have to Nissen.
"The Chicago Sun-Times." "Ditka For Senate Not Sounding So Crazy. Suddenly, Da Coach Won't Say No." A Republican Senate candidate still needs to be picked. And, also, "Holdout Juror Locked Herself in the Bathroom." I'd buy the paper just to find out what that story is about.
Weather tomorrow...
(CHIMES)
BROWN: Careful over there -- is gamy if you're in Chicago.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Before we go, Heidi Collins has a look at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.
Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," what happens when telling the truth gets in the way of turning a profit? In many cases, it's the truth that loses. Tomorrow, we'll have the second part in our weeklong series on "The Lies We Tell." The focus is business, where the rules are different and crossing the line can be a lot more costly.
That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Heidi, thank you.
And thank you for joining us all. We're all back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time.
"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you.
We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, 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 12, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again.
It's one thing to have to take your shoes off at the airport. That's sort of new normal is tolerable. It is quite another to postpone a national election. As we'll report in a moment or two, the Department of Homeland Security has asked the Justice Department if such a thing could happen consistent with existing law.
It has never once happened in the country's history, not in a national election, not during any of the wars, including the Civil War and, in truth, I can't imagine it will happen this time.
But the mere idea that we should research it, think and talk about it, tells us how much our world has changed. But rather than just talk about the problem, we offer a solution.
Let's do what they do in Oregon. Let's all vote by mail. It would be safer if that's the concern and there would be, I suspect, another benefit. Our pathetically low national voting rate just might go up giving us a chance to say the terrorists didn't lose just once, they lost twice and that's where we'll start tonight.
We'll also have Kelli Arena tonight on al Qaeda.
And the whip. And from the White House the president's stout defense of the war in face of shifting public opinion, Dana Bash at the White House, Dana a headline.
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, it was pretty hard to miss the message the president was trying to send today. Over and over again he declared America a safer place because of his actions, including the Iraq war, weapons of mass destruction or not -- Aaron.
BROWN: Dana, thank you.
Next to China and a combustible mixture of AIDS and Communist Party politics, CNN's Mike Chinoy there for us, so Mike a headline from you.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as an International AIDS Conference gets underway in Bangkok, experts are talking about an AIDS time bomb here in China, ten to 15 million cases possible by the end of the decade and the fight against the disease hampered by corruption in China's authoritarian political system -- Aaron. BROWN: Mike, thank you.
Finally, Los Angeles, and a question of counting eyeballs and whether the way television does it discriminates. CNN's Sibila Vargas did the reporting and is here tonight with the headline.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Neilson Media Research is introducing a new system to measure TV ratings but minority groups say it counts them out -- Aaron.
BROWN: Sibila, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also coming up on the program tonight, Iraq after the handover, on patrol with an elite Iraqi unit and the noticeable change when Iraqis manage their own security.
Also, he's the only president not to have spoken to the NAACP, why President Bush refuses to talk to this influential group.
And it's back to work for the rooster on this Monday, time for him to gather up your morning papers, as he always does, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the possibility that until recently was only discussed in terms of places like Afghanistan and Iraq, the possibility that acts of terror might force the postponement of election day in the United States of America.
Then came Madrid and now comes a fresh season of terror alerts at home. Suddenly, the unthinkable is something to consider and it raises questions along the way about who's considering it for the administration.
We begin tonight with CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Through all the suffering, terror and turmoil in New York on 9/11, something else was supposed to be happening, an election.
The city's mayoral primary wound up being postponed but now the U.S. Election Assistance Commission is asking the Department of Homeland Security what if something like that happened on the presidential election day and voting had to be delayed?
GRACIA HILLMAN, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION: We are not advocating postponement. That is not how we approached the scenario.
PAUL DEGREGORIO, ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION: We don't want it to happen but, if it does, I think we want to be prepared.
FOREMAN: The bipartisan commission was created by Congress and appointed by President Bush to restore voter confidence after the controversial last election but their questions have created a storm. REP. JANE HARMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: I think it's excessive based on what we know.
FOREMAN: Some Democrats are suspicious that the White House is pulling the strings. A former official from the Clinton administration, Morris Reid, issued a statement saying the idea "blatantly smells of unfair political self-protection" and President Bush is "desperately trying to keep his job."
You're being accused of being shields for the Bush administration, that this is all about protecting George Bush if the election goes against him, what do you say?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we're not.
FOREMAN: The commission says many things could disrupt the election, a hurricane in Florida, an earthquake in California, a massive power outage in almost any city.
(on camera): Still, even the commissioners say delaying a presidential election falls somewhere between very difficult and impossible. No one person in the federal government appears to have the authority to do it and it would undoubtedly face legal challenges.
(voice-over): So, the debate begs another question. If such ranker can erupt over just the idea of a terrorist attack and its aftermath, have the terrorists already upset the democratic process?
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: When Haynes Johnson was at "The Washington Post" he reported on and lived through a moment when the president's men, President Nixon's in this case, were making plans to ring the White House with the 82nd Airborne. Different jitters today to be sure but we're always glad for Mr. Johnson's take on it all. It's good to see you again, sir.
HAYNES JOHNSON, AUTHOR: Thank you, Aaron.
BROWN: This is quite a remarkable discussion we find ourselves having when you step back and think about it.
JOHNSON: It's astonishing. I don't remember anything quite like it and the idea that it seems to be taken seriously, or supposedly so, just tells you the problems we're having right now with all of our anxieties in the country.
But it's a crazy idea that the whole democracy is about voting and to postpone an election, Lincoln said it best in 1864, the same idea came up then. Maybe we got to postpone the election. He said, "If we did that, the rebels would have won." If we did this now, the terrorists win.
It's one thing to look very seriously at what might happen, what might we do, but the idea of vesting, particularly the power to cancel an election in the hands of the Homeland Security Department, which isn't winning great plaudits for its encouragement or making us feel easy with these alerts, I just think it's a crazy idea. And I think you're right, I don't think it's ever going to happen.
BROWN: I'll come back to the mechanics of it in a moment but, in fact, at a much smaller scale, dramatically smaller scale, it did happen in New York and New York then went on to vote again and elected a mayor and everything seems OK here.
JOHNSON: Yes, that's true, except we're talking about the whole country here and I think it is a very good thing to have contingency planes, Aaron, find out in a grave, grave crisis what do we do?
But this is a national election and it really comes against the backdrop of terror and fear and anxieties and suspicions about elections and stealing elections and cynicism in the country. It brings all those things up to the forefront once again. That's the last thing we need.
BROWN: That's one of the things that struck me today yet again. I mean this has hit me before is how absolutely cynical the response has been to all of this.
I would make a gentle argument here that there's nothing wrong with thinking this through and seeing if it makes any sense and even how you would do it if you had to do it but the assumptions that people jump to right away, it's an attempt to steal an election, says an awful lot about where we are politically.
JOHNSON: Yes and the country is very badly polarized, as we know, and this would only do more of that and that's what we do not need now in a divided country. And it is a good idea to look carefully, seriously think about what we may do in the great moment of extremists.
OK, fine, but this is not the solution and, if you're going to do it, let's have a debate about it. Let's talk about seriously how we might handle it. I like your idea. Maybe we all vote on mail or something.
Well put it in and then nothing happens and the country goes forward but you can't let terror disturb, betray the whole process of a democracy. That would be terrible.
BROWN: I think it's a dangerous idea to start taking my ideas too terribly seriously but I just wonder if there is a way to do it that would satisfy everyone, if there's, you know, you can't say let the Supreme Court do it because we lived four years ago and there's a lot of unease about that.
JOHNSON: No.
BROWN: I just wonder if there's anything in the political process today that is trusted enough to postpone a national election. JOHNSON: Actually I think there is a way to look at this quite seriously and put it out of the realm of politics and cynicism. Get a commission of the best people, the wisest people not elected office holders. Make them four or five people.
Let's talk about how do we do this, bring up proposals, then talk to the leaders of Congress, vet it with the people in the country and then let's understand where we are but not put power in the hands of bureaucrats of one party who are, you know, appointed by the president in power. That would just be a disaster.
BROWN: Good to see you, sir. Thank you.
JOHNSON: Thanks, Aaron.
BROWN: Haynes Johnson, good man.
All this is unfolding, of course, hard on the heels of another terror alert, a confusing one at that, most of them are, but it's also a serious one in terms of what officials tell us the intelligence is telling them.
Some of that intelligence we learned today comes from sources other than the traditional ones but more and more they are being looked upon as reliable.
Here's CNN's Kelli Arena.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This Web site reads in part: "Oh, Allah, destroy America and shake it." This one says: "The decisive battle is approaching."
Such threats are not new to terror experts who scan hundreds of al Qaeda-related Web sites daily but recently some say there is more reason to worry. Experts say threats are coming with greater frequency and from more reliable sources.
EVAN KOHLMAN, GLOBALTERRORALERT.COM: A lot of the chatter that we're seeing is not coming from unidentified, unspecified sources on Internet chat boards. It's coming from the same sources that have predicted before terrorist acts that have actually occurred.
ARENA: One such source warned of attacks in Spain three months before the bombings there in March and distributed video of the beheading of American Nick Berg. It's called Global Islamic Media.
KOHLMAN: It is now saying that the death blows and the approaching battles are coming that the death blows are upon us and that these death blows will not only be horrible but that they are sure to happen.
ARENA: Some of the potential targets mentioned include hospitals, parks, airports and houses of worship. GABRIEL WEIMANN, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE: You see many targets mentioned and, if you are involved in psychological warfare you know that the more targets you mention the more panic you cause and it will be harder to defend against the attacks.
ARENA: What's more, Weimann says, even if the postings are pure propaganda, they help terrorists accomplish their goal.
WEIMANN: I think al Qaeda knows that one of the most important values of terrorism is the psychological impact, that is you can widen the scope of the victims by enlarging it to the people who are affected psychologically.
ARENA (on camera): Officials are taking the web chatter very seriously and have reached out to a variety of experts for assistance. Many are convinced al Qaeda is prepared to strike and are intent on not missing any clues.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Given the news of the day, given what has preceded us tonight, now might seem like an odd moment to raise a hearty hip, hip, hooray for where things stand on the war on terror and Iraq. That's presidential politics for you.
It's also a president who firmly believes in the rightness of his policies and just as firmly adheres to the policy of repetition.
Again from the White House, here's CNN's Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): The president's unmistakable message uttered some half dozen times in his 32-minute speech...
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the American people are safer.
BASH: Under fresh fire for invading Iraq based on faulty intelligence, Mr. Bush dug in saying war was about more than Saddam Hussein's illusive weapons.
BUSH: Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction we were right to go into Iraq. In the world after September the 11th that was a risk we could not afford to take.
BASH: The president has his work cut out for him. A recent poll shows 55 percent of Americans feel less safe from terror because of the war in Iraq, up 22 points in six months.
Mr. Bush spoke at this Tennessee site where officials are studying nuclear materials surrendered by Libya. He said Moammar Gadhafi got the message because America was so tough on Iraq. BUSH: Because the Libyan government saw the seriousness of the civilized world and correctly judged its own interests, the American people are safer.
BASH: Some weapons experts say it's not that simple.
ROSE GOTTEMOELLER, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT: I don't really agree that it was Iraq that pushed Moammar Gadhafi into making the decision to give up his weapons of mass destruction. This has been a long diplomatic process.
BASH: In a refrain reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago," Mr. Bush insisted Americans are more secure than they were three years ago when the U.S. was attacked. Ticking off relationships and reforms he's initiated he made this sweeping claim.
BUSH: The world changed on September the 11th and, since that day, we have changed the world.
BASH: His Democratic opponent pointed to hotspots like North Korea, saying he begs to differ.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not enough just to give speeches. America will only be safer when we get results.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: Having to defend the Iraq War, 14 months after declaring major combat over there, is not necessarily what the Bush campaign expected but, Aaron, it's something they're resigned to because they understand this is something that the Bush presidency is defined by now -- Aaron.
BROWN: Is the president out on the campaign again this week?
BASH: Yes. He is going, shifting a little bit, going to talk about the values issue that he talked about last week. He is going to some rural areas in Michigan, Minnesota, you should be glad to hear, and also in Wisconsin.
He'll be trying to again play up the fact that he thinks Senators Kerry and Edwards are too liberal for people who are registered to vote there as Democrats but ten to perhaps vote more conservatively.
BROWN: When you say the values issue, are we taking gay marriage here, are we talking more than that?
BASH: Gay marriage is certainly going to be high on the agenda because obviously that's what the Senate is going to be debating this week and both Senators are going to have to vote on that but it's more than that.
The issue that the campaign has been trying to play up since Senator Kerry picked Senator Edwards is the fact that they point to their voting record saying that they're very, very liberal, although they're going to go across the country and say that they are more moderate.
The whole thrust of the Bush campaign now is to try to point out that they are very liberal to try to take the votes away from those very few undecided voters who tend to be more in the middle -- Aaron.
BROWN: Dana, thank you, Dana Bash at the White House tonight.
The White House says it has yet to receive any official word from the Philippines that it will withdraw its troops from Iraq. Manila says it is doing that in order to secure a safe release for truck driver Angelo de la Cruz whose captors are threatening to behead him if the Philippines doesn't pull out its troops by the 20th of July. Sources tell CNN the abductors plan to release de la Cruz early on Tuesday. The Philippine presence in Iraq is quite small, about 50 humanitarian workers.
On to Iraq and the notion that nobody ever washed a rented car, something we've talked about before. Iraqis now have the responsibility for running their country and increasingly for securing it. In many places that means joint patrols. In some, as in parts of Baghdad, Iraqi forces have begun venturing out on their own.
CNN's Michael Holmes accompanied one such unit and filed this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Coalition forces coming under fire on patrol is routine. These troops, however, are not Americans. They are Iraqi, all of them, not a single American in sight.
(on camera): This is an area where just a few weeks ago, U.S. troops on patrol faced what one officer said was rocks by day, bullets, bombs and RPGs by night. But in the two weeks that these Iraqi soldiers have been patrolling the same area, not a single shot has been fired.
(voice-over): What is happening in what is still considered a highly dangerous suburb is waves, handshakes, water being offered. One American later said, "No one offered us water." This is an army unit which literally speaks the same language as the locals.
MAJOR DAVID LANE, 14TH MARINE REGIMENT: They understand the people. They understand the insinuations. They understand the cultural perspective.
HOLMES: It's called the Iraqi Intervention Force, 2nd Battalion, trained in urban combat, counterinsurgency and crucial intelligence gathering.
"We are the army of Iraq," says this veteran. "We are proud of what we do." Their American instructors say this unit has probably already saved lives. Residents here alerted an IIF patrol to a roadside bomb, later destroyed in a controlled explosion.
"Of course the people were very happy to see us. They showed cooperation by informing about the bad people."
Some of the colonel's men have already found weapons caches, arrested high level suspects and engaged in gun battles. Two more IIF battalions are about to finish training and hit the streets, a total of 2,000 men. Well equipped and well armed they will have the job of stamping out Iraq's insurgents. Major Lane is confident they are up to the task.
Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, they're hunted and jailed and persecuted and ruined and those are the good guys fighting AIDS in China.
And a controversial new way of keeping tabs on what America is watching on TV.
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Four years ago, candidate George W. Bush, a new sort of Republican he said, spoke to the National Convention of the nation's oldest civil rights group, the NAACP.
He did not go there expecting to win a majority of black votes. Republicans don't. He went to send a message to the delegates, it seemed, and to those who were watching a still largely unknown candidate.
He hadn't spoken to the group since and won't this week at their national convention, which says something about both the president and the NAACP.
Here's CNN's Bruce Morton.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The NAACP, 95 years old, is meeting in Philadelphia. President Bush campaigns in Pennsylvania often, including last week, but he won't speak to the civil rights group. He did in 2000 when he was running but hasn't as president. NAACP President Kweisi Mfume says he wrote asking for meetings in 2001, '02 and '03 but...
KWEISI MFUME, NAACP PRESIDENT: The president never wrote me back. I always got a letter from someone else in the White House stating that his schedule did not permit such a meeting and they would get back to me essentially and never did.
MORTON: President Bush in Pennsylvania last week told reporters his relationship with the present NAACP leadership is basically non- existent, adding "You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me."
MFUME: If the president's new mantle and measurement for dialog is to only talk and to only meet with those individuals or organizations that agree with him then we are getting closer to the previous regime in Baghdad than we are to a democracy here in America, where nations around the world expect us to be different from everyone else.
MORTON: But there may be a simple political reason for Mr. Bush's non-appearance. Blacks are and have been for years he most constant, loyal element in the coalition that is the Democratic Party.
KEATING HOLLAND, CNN POLLING DIRECTOR: About eight in ten blacks tell us right now that they are likely to vote for the Kerry/Edwards ticket. Only about one in ten blacks say that they're likely to vote for the Bush/Cheney ticket right now.
That's very much in keeping with what we've seen in previous elections. Typically Democrats at the presidential level, Senate level, gubernatorial races win 80 to 90 percent of the black vote and that's been going on for several decades.
MORTON: So, will the Democratic candidate talk to the NAACP, you bet.
KERRY: My friends, I will be a president who meets with the leadership of the Civil Rights Congress, who meets with the NAACP.
MORTON: He'll speak to them on Thursday.
Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A quick look at some other stories that made news today around the country starting in Milwaukee, police questioning a man about the beating of a 14-year-old boy who was attacked by as many as 20 people last week.
Tension is already high in some parts of the city after a 54- year-old man diagnosed with schizophrenia was beaten to death by a group of ten young men over the Fourth of July holiday. Sadly, Milwaukee is no stranger to this sort of thing. Two years ago a man was beaten to death by several young men, very young, in the same neighborhood.
In Houston, Texas, Lea Fastow, the wife of former Enron executive Andrew Fastow, began serving a yearlong prison sentence for misdemeanor tax crimes. Her husband, who pleaded guilty to the same offense, did not accompany his wife of 19 years as she entered prison. He is expected to testify against former Enron CEO Ken Lay. And, in Florida, civil rights leaders are applauding a decision to abandon a controversial list of nearly 48,000 names the state was using to remove convicted felons from the voting rolls.
Florida is one of only a few states that does not automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons once they've completed their sentence. The list in question was marred by flaws in the database.
There are a wide range of opinions, of course, about the war in Iraq still but one thing was clear. Before it began, it was a war of choice. There was no preemptive strike by Saddam Hussein as there was 14 years ago against Kuwait.
Now against the backdrop of last week's report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, there is a debate anew in Washington about whether wars of choice will be more difficult in the future. Not surprisingly, smart people differ.
Here to discuss it with us Philip Gourevitch of "The New Yorker" magazine and Richard Brookhiser of "National Review." I got the name and then screwed up the magazine. Nice to have you with us.
Simple question to start, the next time the United States goes to the international community (unintelligible) and says, "Here's the case against Country X," is it a tougher sell?
PHILIP GOUREVITCH, "THE NEW YORKER" MAGAZINE: Of course. Of course. I mean after September 11th I think we saw traditionally somewhat complicated but generally amicable in recent years relations between America and many of its transatlantic allies and global allies or even not only allies really reach a peak of solidarity.
There was a tremendous outpouring of support for the United States and a kind of willingness to say let's try and fight a common enemy of terror together and the Bush administration chose to identify that enemy as the Saddam Hussein regime at a certain point and the international community was largely unconvinced.
And, as time has progressed, we have seen many, many, many claims of the case the administration made for that war fall apart completely and the evidence behind it fall apart and it puts the administration in a position of looking very much like it cried wolf, like there was a wish to go to war, rather than a need to go to war and it's going to raise the bar of skepticism anywhere else, not only abroad but amongst American voters.
BROWN: Rick, without arguing the correctness or not of the war in Iraq itself, the next time the country goes to the U.N. or NATO or wherever, does it have a harder job?
RICHARD BROOKHISER, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Well, look, there are two questions put together in that question. One is do coalitions break up and change over the course of long wars and, of course, historically they always have.
There were nations in World War II that changed sides, the Soviet Union obviously, Spain in a much more covert way. We didn't get into World War II until it had been going on for two years.
You know if you look at wars of the 18th Century, wars of the Spanish succession, Austrian succession, coalitions form. They lose members. They break apart and, you know, that's just a part of history and a way of life.
In terms of how we react to the next threat or when the next situation for a possible preemptive war arises, what do we do? It all depends on the individual circumstance.
BROWN: So, you would make the argument that well this obviously hasn't been a slam dunk to use Mr. Tenet's phrase, that the next situation will be a different situation in any case and the arguments will be different and people have to look at the case then.
BROOKHISER: There are different situations right now. I mean North Korea we know already has nuclear arms and no one in Washington is contemplating a preemptive war against them. We're using a diplomatic roadmap to try and deal with it and having, so far as I know, you know, a certain amount of success getting Japan, China, Russia, the relevant nations to go along with it.
GOUREVITCH: Well, I think that, in fact, I think that it does depend on the situation to some extent, which is to say certainly the Bush administration would have a much harder time.
Interestingly, and I don't if there's any way to prove if he's right or not, John Kerry would argue that a case much closer to yours, which is that it's going to be situation driven and that if the case is good and it's made correctly by an administration that goes to the people, the American people, and to the international community with a strong case, with strong evidence and a compelling case for taking the nation to war, it could be done.
There doesn't have to be a sort of irreparable Iraq syndrome following this war but I think that, I mean the sort of historical analogies that you're using frankly, you know, this is the first case where America is the sole super power in the world, has used all of its credibility following an attack on its soil, unprecedented circumstances, to be the aggressor, to be the person who launches an attack without any provocation of direct attack from the country that it attacks and that puts a very high war.
BROWN: I'm going to give you the last word but I need you to do it in 20 seconds, can you do it?
BROOKHISER: The world changed after 9/11. And it seems to me that the new rules have to be that, if you're an aggressive, well- armed despot, you have to be purer than Caesar's wife.
BROWN: That's an interesting way to end it. We'll bring you back to continue it.
Thank you both. Good to have you with us. Thank you.
Coming up on the program, the largest, perhaps toughest, new front in the war on AIDS.
And later, their very first week on the ticket in still photos.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In Thailand today, politicians, doctors, protesters and patients are gathered to talk about AIDS, the 15th annual conference since the disease became a global menace.
A lot has changed in 15 years and in some very important ways, nothing has changed. In addition to killing, the virus that causes AIDS still has a knack of polarizing opinion and paralyzing leaders so that even more people die. As you'll see in a moment, such a storyline is playing out in China.
First, though, AIDS at home 15 years ago and now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Finding a cure for AIDS.
BROWN (voice-over): By 1989, three years after President Reagan first spoke to the nation about AIDS and a year before he would apologize for not speaking sooner, more than 50,000 Americans had died, more than 95,000 cases had been diagnosed, and only one antiviral drug, AZT was in widespread use.
Over the next four years, three trend lines would continue to rise, new cases, deaths and also a third line, people living with the disease. By 1993, the first two lines would peak. Then, with better drugs and early detection and prevention, they rapidly would fall, then level off. And that third line, the lifeline, would keep rising.
By 2002, the most recent year for which we have figures, 800,000 people have been diagnosed in the country with AIDS, roughly the population of Detroit. Most are men between the ages of 25 and 44. More than two-thirds got the disease either from male-to-male sex or I.V. drug use. Also by 2002, more than 500,000 Americans had died, a city roughly the size of Boston.
But just as many Americans were living and living longer with AIDS.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's here in the U.S. Nearly everywhere else is another story.
Even in the United States, it took years for the political system to catch on to the public health necessities. Even now, the debate goes on over condoms and abstinence. Beyond all that, there is often denial on a grand enough scale to cover an entire country. The virus, on the other hand, doesn't much care. From Beijing, here's CNN's Mike Chinoy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's 78, a retired doctor, a grandmother. But Gao Yaojie's phone is tapped. Police watch her constantly. And she fears for her life.
"I'm afraid of them faking a traffic accident to kill me," she says.
CHINOY: Huja (ph) lives in fear, too. He's been repeatedly detained, threatened with incarceration in a psychiatric ward.
"They're very obvious," he says. "When I walk, they walk. Where I stand, they stand."
CHINOY (on camera): What Huja and Dr. Gao have in common is that they're two of China's leading AIDS activists. And even as the government finally acknowledges that China has a serious AIDS problem, a secretive and repressive political system continues to harass those seeking to highlight the epidemic and the government's failure to combat it.
(voice-over): That failure is most evident in Hunan Province in central China. Here, hundreds of thousands of poor farmers like these contracted HIV after selling blood to illegal and unhygienic but officially tolerated blood banks.
"If I die, who will look after my child?" weeps Jan Ciochin (ph). "It is so sad."
As the epidemic spread, officials tried to keep it under wraps. But Dr. Gao and her fellow activists managed to expose Hunan's dirty secret.
"They claim I've damaged Hunan's image," says Dr. Gao. "Someone even said whoever gets rid of Dr. Gao will solve Hunan's AIDS problem."
"Security police told us AIDS was a state secret," says Huja. "If it got out, people would criticize China. This is ridiculous."
Belatedly, China's top leaders have now recognized the need to face up to the disease, the premier even shown on TV shaking hands with an AIDS patient. But local officials, many linked to the illegal blood trade, continue to treat people like Dr. Gao as enemies.
"A few days ago, I tried to visit an AIDS village," she tells me. "The authorities were waiting to get us. They even put a price on my head." But, she adds, "I'm not going to let them get me."
The battle against AIDS, in China, a battle against corruption and repression as well.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CHINOY: Dr. Gao and other activists complain that officials responsible for the tainted blood scandal have not only not been punished, but some have even been promoted. One example, the man who was governor of Hunan Province for most of the 1990s is now a member of the powerful standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party's politburo here in Beijing -- Aaron.
BROWN: You used the phrase AIDS village. Is an AIDS village like a leper colony?
CHINOY: Well, it's not exactly a leper colony, but there are numerous villages in the heartland of China, Hunan Province, which is kind of the breadbasket of central China, where so many people gave blood. These are poor peasants desperate for money who for a few dozen dollars or a couple hundred dollars were selling their blood. And now you have got whole villages with most of the people infected. Economic activity has fallen off. There are a lot of sick people there. So they talk about AIDS villages dotted all around the Chinese heartland.
BROWN: All right, thank you. Good to see you. It's been a while. Mike Chinoy in Beijing tonight.
Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the television version of a census and why some minority groups say they're not being counted. Some networks are agreed.
And still ahead, of course, tomorrow's headlines tonight, morning papers.
A break first. From CNN, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well, thank goodness you all watch television, because without viewers, there would be new advertising, no advertising, no money, no money, no paychecks for people like me. You get the idea. Advertisers know how many of you are watching each night because one company, A.C. Nielsen tells them. But now Nielsen is under fire for the way it counts viewers, or at least changes it's proposing.
Here is CNN's Sibila Vargas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the streets of New York to the steps of Los Angeles City Hall, protesters are criticizing Nielsen, the company that provides advertisers with ratings data, for its new local people meter system.
ALEX NOGALES, NATIONAL HISPANIC MEDIA COALITION: This is a civil rights issue. We need to be counted. This is like the census. Unless we are counted, we're going to be invisible.
VARGAS: The electronic system for gathering ratings eliminates the need for paper diaries. It is already in place in Boston and New York and was introduced last week in Los Angeles. But it's under fire from some minority groups and major broadcasters like Fox, CBS, Univision and Tribune. Several minority organizations partly funded by Fox say the meter system needs a lot of improvement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is technologically much more advanced. The other one had too many way it could be flawed and so forth. It doesn't really matter. If the methodology is incorrect, you're not going to have the proper number of Latinos and African-Americans and other people of color.
VARGAS: Early test data from people meters in New York show declines for a variety of shows like "The Simpsons," as well as some that are especially popular with minority viewers. Critics fear the new system could lead to less diversity in programming.
AL SHARPTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This could mean a lot of jobs in our community. And it could also mean that we have the whitenizing of American television, based on a system, rather than based on fairness.
VARGAS: It could also mean the loss of millions of advertising dollars to networks whose shows dip in the ratings.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a lot of dollars at stake. And that's where Actually some of this controversy is also coming.
VARGAS: Nielsen declined our request for an interview, but its Web site says it will increase the number of people meters in African- American and Hispanic households in New York.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not going from something perfect to something imperfect. We're going from something that's very imperfect to something that's slightly better.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VARGAS: Later this week, the Senate Communications Subcommittee will hold hearings regarding local people meters. And Nielsen plans to roll out the new system in Chicago early next month. And we should add that CNN is a Nielsen client, as is Turner Broadcasting -- Aaron.
SCARBOROUGH: Thank you, Sibila Vargas. Thank you.
Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, there from the very beginning, a look at the first week of the Kerry-Edwards presidential ticket in stills, the NEWSNIGHT way.
And also coming up, your favorite and mine, morning papers. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Segment seven tonight might be called the birth of a presidential campaign in stills. We don't know how many thousands of still photos were taken last week of the two Johns, Kerry and Edwards, many thousands, to be sure. And we're sure you have seen just a handful, which is the way it works for a still photographer. So here are some of the others, shots taken by "TIME" magazine contributor Diana Walker, who has been shooting pictures of presidents and presidential hopefuls for a long time, and, with luck, a long time to come as well.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIANA WALKER, PHOTOGRAPHER: The pictures are from last week with Senator Kerry's choice of Senator Edwards as his running mate.
And I was behind the scenes from Monday through Saturday watching every inch of that process. All these years, I have kind of carried this mantra of seeing and not hearing, because I'm concentrating so hard on making the picture that I don't hear. But I can see. And I can get the feelings of what's going on.
Senator Kerry had breakfast. And they got up from the breakfast table and walked in to the library. And the senator sat down at his desk and sort of indicated, well, here goes. It just unfolded in front of me right there. When you find yourself with your camera in a room where something really important is going on, you just keep working.
It's as if nothing is going to stop you. From my standpoint watching them, they seemed to click, all four of them, on every cylinder. It's a mesh of families that I think looks to me as though they will have a wonderful time in the campaign.
What I have seen in the pictures of Senator Edwards and Senator Kerry is a connection. And what I saw was truly an ease and an understanding between them and a lot of humor and an enormous kind of meshing of families that was so much fun to photograph.
What I was giving was the freedom to walk in and out, to the front of the plane, to the back of the plane, as a fly on the wall. And it was a joyful trip, as the candidates took off on this adventure. They were sharing thoughts about things, all of them, the four of them.
A photographer doesn't spend much time analyzing relationships. A photographer watches. And the evidence of what a photographer sees is in a picture. Therefore, what the relationship between John Edwards and John Kerry is, I hope, what I saw. I hope I'm able to see and so that you can see what their relationship is together. That's the point of my work, in my view.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Diana Walker. Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We will start with "The International Herald Tribune," published by "The New York Times" in Paris. "Athens Blackout Raises Red Olympic Flag." They had a power blackout in Athens. What, are we about a month before the Olympic Games? People are nervous about security. Now they're nervous about power and everything else.
Also another good story we could have done tonight if we had more time. "Sharon Asks Labor to Join His Coalition. Move Could Bolster Gaza Pullout Plan, But Hurdles Remain." A couple of good stories there on the front page of "The Herald Tribune," "The International Herald Tribune."
"Christian Science Monitor," I love this picture, this little boy playing baseball. "Is Baseball Still Fun For Kids?" We're on the eve of the All-Star Game, so that seems like a good place to put a baseball picture. And on the subject of baseball, a very interesting story in "The Philadelphia Inquirer." "Robinson's Legacy Dims On Diamond. More Than Half a Century After the Color Barrier Was Broken, the Number of Black Major League Players Is Stuck in a Slide." And according to just a couple of quotes on the front page by black Major League players, it is considered in the black community or among many people in the black community -- or some -- who knows -- a white person's game, which had never occurred to me one way or the other. Anyway, that's a neat story in "The Philadelphia Inquirer."
"The Cincinnati Enquirer," not the inquirer, but "The Enquirer" here." "Burned Cross Drives Family Away. Car Window Smashes, Too, at Home in Boone." My goodness. Come on, people. Don't be doing things like that, though that would chase me out of a neighborhood. Or maybe it wouldn't. I can be pretty stubborn.
"Chattanooga Times Free Press." "Bush: Right to Go to War." A story on most front pages, the president's speech in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but it certainly would be on the front page of the Chattanooga paper.
"Washington Times." "GOP Split On Marriage Proposals. Democratic Tactics Forces Republicans to Pick One." I'm not sure precisely what this is about. I guess that's why you have to buy the paper and read the whole thing. You can't just go by the headlines.
Talk about leading local. This is "The Williamson County Review Appeal." And they're up there -- or down there, I guess -- in Williamson County, Tennessee. "AmSouth Robbed." That's a bank. And they led with it. And they've got a couple of pictures, including the guy who did it.
"The Detroit News." "Army Targets Driver Training Safety Upgrades." Beth Nissen has been pitching this story for the longest time. I keep saying no to it. Traffic accidents kill a lot of soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere. And, apparently, the Army's been listening more carefully than I have to Nissen.
"The Chicago Sun-Times." "Ditka For Senate Not Sounding So Crazy. Suddenly, Da Coach Won't Say No." A Republican Senate candidate still needs to be picked. And, also, "Holdout Juror Locked Herself in the Bathroom." I'd buy the paper just to find out what that story is about.
Weather tomorrow...
(CHIMES)
BROWN: Careful over there -- is gamy if you're in Chicago.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Before we go, Heidi Collins has a look at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron.
Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," what happens when telling the truth gets in the way of turning a profit? In many cases, it's the truth that loses. Tomorrow, we'll have the second part in our weeklong series on "The Lies We Tell." The focus is business, where the rules are different and crossing the line can be a lot more costly.
That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Heidi, thank you.
And thank you for joining us all. We're all back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time.
"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you.
We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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