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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

30th Anniversary of Nixon's Resignation; U.S. Military Clashes With Mehdi Army for Fifth Straight Day; Politics of Stem Cell Research

Aired August 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.
As Larry's been talking about tonight, 30 years ago today a president resigned and Gerald Ford would say our long national nightmare is over. Richard Nixon's resignation may have been one of our worst national moments but it was also one of our best.

The system worked, not perfectly perhaps, not quickly enough but it worked. The courts did what courts need to do. The end wouldn't have happened without Judge John Sirica. The press did what the press ought to do, though a bit timidly at first to be sure.

Most of all, the Congress and the country did what each is supposed to do. The Senate investigated. The House passed articles of impeachment when the evidence was clear and the country believed enough in itself and in its institutions to say good riddance. Thirty years ago today we proved that the law trumps politics and the ambitions of any one man and it was a triumph and we'll remember it tonight of course.

But we begin with the fighting and perhaps an ugly turning point in Iraq. CNN's Matthew Chance is in Baghdad and starts the whip off with a headline.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, clashes between the forces of Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army and U.S. military personnel for a fifth consecutive day, clashes taking place in the holy city of Najaf where it's emerged, according to U.S. military that they've killed 360 of those Mehdi Army militia over the course of those last five days. U.S. forces now positioned around the most sacred shrine in Shia Islam. We'll see what happens next.

BROWN: Matthew, thank you.

On to the terror threat the dimensions of which seem to grow with each passing day and each computer disk. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has the story tonight from New York, Deborah a headline.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More surveillance photos show that it wasn't just financial institutions that al Qaeda operatives were interested in. They were also looking at New York City heliports -- Aaron.

BROWN: Deb, thank you. And finally to western Sudan and the brutal facts of a humanitarian crisis on the ground no matter what the rest of the world decides to do about it. CNN's Christiane Amanpour is there, so Christiane a headline.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are about two million people in urgent, urgent need of immediate food and medical humanitarian aid and many are saying that the U.S. and international credibility is on the line here in terms of how they deal with this African crisis.

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

Also coming up on the program on this Monday night, the politics of stem cell research, pressure again mounting on the president to do more. A scientific debate or election year politics in the race for the White House?

And, as we said, later the cancer that brought down the administration 30 years after Richard Nixon's resignation, a look back at some of the myths about Watergate.

And finally, the rooster is arriving just minutes from now, OK, 56 minutes from now. Once he does, we'll know what's in your morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight in Iraq where a cleric is promising martyrdom and American forces look ready to oblige. One thing is certain. If he dies, he will not be the first. Several hundred of his followers already have in addition to several thousand earlier this year, not to mention countless civilians. What happens next could be much more of the same, much more.

We begin tonight with CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): The holy city of Najaf, now Iraq's worst battleground. In five days U.S. forces, backed by Iraqis, say they've killed more than 360 Mehdi Army fighters here. They're loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr now publicly rejecting any negotiation while U.S. troops remain.

MUQTADA AL-SADR, SHIA CLERIC (through translator): I will continue with resistance and I will remain in Najaf. I will not leave. I will continue to defend Najaf as it is the holiest place. I will remain in the city until the last drop of my blood has been spilled.

CHANCE: In Baghdad, too, the Mehdi Army is taking a stand. In Sadr City there have been terrible clashes with U.S. forces but here the militias hijack a police station. Not a shot was fired. Inside the barracks, they rifle through cabinets for useful equipment. Body armor meant to protect the police is stolen. Still, the interim Iraqi government says it's keen to get this militia and its leader to join a political process they've so far rejected.

GEORGE SADA, IRAQI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: You see always the best solution is even not to fight but after we fight the best solution is to cease fire, stop fire and make negotiations.

CHANCE: But there's another way too, fight to the end, and U.S. troops now massed in Baghdad and with full authority in Najaf may be poised to finish it.

(on camera): This confrontation has potentially explosive consequences for Iraq. Reports from Najaf say the fighting is now focused around the Imam Ali Mosque, one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam where U.S. forces say the Mehdi militia or units of them are holed up inside and launching attacks against U.S. forces there. A strike against that mosque could unleash a very serious backlash amongst this country's majority Shia community.

(voice-over): And, a wrong step could unleash among Iraq's majority Shia a ferocious backlash.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A lot more going on in Iraq, including the Mehdi Army threats against the oil industry in Basra in the south. In response, the government today stopped pumping oil from fields in the area. About 90 percent of Iraqi exports go through Basra.

And yesterday, Ahmed and Salem Chalabi were indicted, the first on counterfeiting charges, the second on capital murder. Each is a conversation in and of itself.

But, Scott Baldauf is just back from Najaf, the first western journalist there during the recent fighting. He files for the "Christian Science Monitor" and he joins us from Baghdad. Scott, it's good to have you with us. What are these -- the Sadr force, what are they fighting for?

SCOTT BALDAUF, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Well, they say that they are fighting for freedom. They would like to remove the occupying forces, as they call the U.S. forces. They also want to have greater representation for Shias in Iraq. Shias make up the 60 percent of the population according to the latest census that we have and so they want to make sure that they do not get left out of the power balance.

BROWN: The government, at least to my ears, seems one minute to be playing carrot, the next minute to be playing stick. Is it clear that the government, in fact, has a strategy?

BALDAUF: Well, from the beginning of their coming into power there appears to have been a shift. The U.S. started to start to signal that it was willing to hand over a lot more of the political decisions that took the background. Whether all this is being designed by the Allawi government or by the U.S., of course we don't know, but the strategy does appear to be to try and split the Mehdi Army, to try and wean away the fighters, the lower level fighters away from the major commanders and also to split Sadr himself from his own militia.

There have been incentives to try and -- for instance, an amnesty for lower level criminals on one hand and death penalty for the major ones. That was just announced this weekend. So, there's an effort to try and bring them down, to get them suspicious of each other and also to fight them head on.

BROWN: Just a quick question here. Do we have any clue how many men, they are mostly men, are loyal to Mr. Sadr?

BALDAUF: The Sadr people don't give out their numbers. When we were in Najaf we could see hundreds around the shrine of Ali Mosque. We could also see there were hundreds more in the cemetery that is adjacent to the mosque and that's the main battlefield against the Americans.

But they also have control in a city called Sadr City, just north of Baghdad, that's adjacent to Baghdad and in a lot of other cities. You mentioned Basra, Nasiriyah and so on.

This is a widespread movement. It's not the biggest movement in Shia Islam here in Iraq but it is the one that is the most active in fighting against the Americans.

BROWN: And just finally, I suspect the absence now of the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, he's left the country, he's the most important Shia player in the country, what does that mean in all of this?

BALDAUF: Well, it takes away a voice of moderation. When we were in Najaf, a lot of the people were saying they really wanted Sistani to take the lead. They trusted his judgment more on matters dealing with politics, with religion.

They put Muqtada al-Sadr at a much lower rank and wish that he would be a little more subservient to Sistani. Having Sistani out of the picture right now takes away that ability to put some pressure on Sadr to try a different method.

BROWN: Scott, thank you for joining us. Your work the last few days has been just terrific reading. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you.

BALDAUF: Thanks.

BROWN: Scott Baldauf of the "Christian Science Monitor."

On to politics, domestic politics, namely John Kerry's support for the war and, if you don't mind, a general observation. Senator Kerry doesn't like either/or. The president does not do shades of gray. To some degree this is the nature of Senators and presidents but more so perhaps with this Senator and this president and especially so in this campaign.

So, Friday on the stump, the president asked the Senator an either/or question and today the Senator gave a yes/but answer, the story from CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the edge of the Grand Canyon, the Democratic nominee finally answered the president's challenge, knowing what he knows how would he still have backed giving the Bush administration the authority to wage war in Iraq?

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority, as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively. I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has.

KING: Then, Senator Kerry tried to turn the tables, posing a leadership question of his own for the president.

KERRY: Why did he rush to war without a plan to win the peace?

KING: This was to have been a day of sightseeing after a 3,000- mile campaign journey from his convention in Boston to the rim of the Grand Canyon here in Arizona. But after avoiding questions for days, Senator Kerry answered one posed by Mr. Bush, first last week and then again on Monday in Virginia. The president says he believes the war in Iraq was right even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And, by the way, I think that candidates for president must say yes or no, whether or not they would have made the same decision.

KING: By forcing Senator Kerry to defend his vote for the war, the White House hopes to dampen enthusiasm among antiwar Democratic voters. But Senator Kerry says the issue is how he would have used that power and he promised to restore alliances, strained by Mr. Bush, and to have a goal of reducing U.S. troop levels in Iraq within six months of taking office.

KERRY: It is an appropriate goal to have and I'm going to try to achieve it.

KING (on camera): Senator Kerry did not answer directly when pressed as to whether he had received any personal assurances of more international troop help in Iraq but he said Democratic Senator colleagues who have traveled abroad recently have told him they believe a change in administrations would bring more international help.

John King, CNN, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: If Iraq is a clear campaign issue, stem cell research is second tier but it is out there nevertheless. Three years ago tonight, the president announced limited support for embryonic stem cell research.

To many in the science community and to some notable members of his own party, the president's order was too little given the hopes, and that's all they are at this point, that stem cell therapy may some day cure some of our most dreaded ailments. Three years later, a campaign is on and the president's campaign was defending its limited approach as the Democrats were out promising to change it.

Here's CNN's Elaine Quijano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First Lady Laura Bush, on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, defended the president's policy limiting federal funds for embryonic stem cell research. She spoke not just as the president's wife but as the daughter of a man who suffered from Alzheimer's.

LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I know that embryonic stem cell research is very preliminary right now and the implication that cures for Alzheimer's are around the corner is just not right and it's really not fair to the people who are watching a loved one suffer with this disease.

QUIJANO: Three years ago President Bush, under strong political pressure and amid ethical concerns, announced he would allow federal money for research on existing embryonic stem cell lines.

Many, including the president's Democratic rival John Kerry, charged that opening up available lines of research could lead to cures for diseases like Alzheimer's. Kerry challenges the ethical concerns raised by the White House that are associated with further research.

KERRY: It is entirely within ethical bounds to do embryonic stem cell research without violating one's belief, so I think you have to measure it also against the lives you save, against the diseases that you're curing. If we can save millions of lives by doing research on something that may be destroyed anyway that the balance is important.

QUIJANO: The administration worries unlimited research could open the door to government funded creation of embryos solely for research and the president's spokesman was quick to reiterate Mr. Bush's beliefs, speaking to supporters of the president on the religious right, whose votes could prove crucial come November.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president does not believe we should be creating life for the sole purpose of destroying it. That's a principle which he feels very strongly about.

QUIJANO (on camera): Administration officials say the president remains committed to his policy saying he believes it's the best way to continue exploring the promise of stem cell research without crossing ethical lines.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, a possible threat from the skies. Is al Qaeda seeking to use helicopters to blow up buildings inside the nation's most populated city?

Also, the smoking gun that wounded an administration. Thirty years after President Nixon left the White House many questions remain unanswered but this one doesn't.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Some late news out of Turkey tonight, explosions rip through a pair of hotels, small hotels in Istanbul. Police are reporting one fatality and a number of people injured. The city's police chief says it looks like terrorism to him. The Associated Press reporting one of the hotels received a bomb threat ten minutes before the blast, so far no one claiming responsibility for the incident.

If terrorism amounts to imagination minus innocence, add this to the equation and take away yet another innocent pleasure. Late today the Transportation Security Administration notified heliport operators in New York that the TSA will begin screening passengers this week the same as it does at airports.

For the reasons why, CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK (voice-over): High above Manhattan, a tourist helicopter circles the most populated city in America, everything laid out in remarkable detail, the bridges and tunnels, the skyscrapers and rail yards.

Riders can take as many pictures as they like and it appears al Qaeda operatives did just that, law enforcement sources telling CNN along with photos of Citigroup, Prudential and the New York Stock Exchange, al Qaeda operatives were also scouting New York heliports.

Surveillance photos show heliports door locks, along with helicopter hatches and luggage doors, one source saying: "They were testing security. There was a discussion about the relative ease in which weapons could be smuggled onboard helicopters."

A recent FBI bulletin warns that helicopters could be used to attack people at "parades and sporting events, with explosives carried onboard to increase the destructive effects" or that they could be used to introduce chemical or biological weapons into high rise building ventilation systems.

Those scenarios are theoretical, not based on intelligence, helicopter expert Steve Massey.

STEVE MASSEY, HELICOPTER EXPERT: If you crash a lot of times there's a fire and then fire will burn up any chemical agent.

FEYERICK: CNN has learned security directors of some of the high risk buildings were asked by federal officials whether a helicopter was capable of landing on the building.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK CITY: Using an aircraft as a weapon, whether it is a fixed-wing or a rotary aircraft, is nothing new. We learned that lesson on 9/11 at enormous cost.

FEYERICK: The FBI bulletin is based on information found in recently seized al Qaeda computers. Officials stress there's no credible or specific evidence supporting a helicopter attack.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Helicopters are just part of a story that has added a chapter just about every day since the terror alert was issued a week ago and "Time" magazine's Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy has been on top of it all. Good to have you back with us tonight, Michael, thank you.

MICHAEL DUFFY, "TIME" MAGAZINE WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Nice to be here, Aaron.

BROWN: Is all this that's come out over the last week, including the stuff today on the helicopters, is this all coming off the Khan computer disks?

DUFFY: Yes, but I think the way to think about it, Aaron, is sort of two screens. Helicopters was -- helicopters and the limos and a variety of other things were on the disks and the hard drives of the computers that were seized in Pakistan now almost two weeks ago.

But some of those things they would get a bounce on from the other guys they arrested and apprehended and some they didn't. Helicopters was one they did and that took it to a higher level.

So, they kind of screen things, you know. They work it through the screens that they have, detainees, new people that they apprehend and other intelligence they get from other sources.

So, I think one of the reasons this feels like it's dribbling out a little here and a little there is that they took the most serious ones in the first couple of days and now they're working through the rest of the stuff that's on the computer.

BROWN: To be honest, it doesn't feel like it's dribbling out to me. It feels like it's gushing out. When you think of all that's gone on really in the last week and a half or so, there's an awful lot of material that's come out. DUFFY: Yes, it's true. To me it's felt more like a dribble because I think it's been harder for us to actually get the government to confirm what it took seriously. There was a lot of stuff but, as you walk them through it, and we say, "How do you prioritize these threats? You've given us a lot," they clearly take some more seriously than others and that's why I think helicopters and the limousines have sort of risen to the top.

BROWN: You note in the magazine this week that members of Congress, again and they were warned shortly after 9/11, have been told to be careful. Is that, as best you can figure out, a general warning or is that related to some specific pieces of information?

DUFFY: All I can tell you is that the warning went to selected lawmakers at first on Thursday and then a bit later the sergeant of arms actually gave them very specific instructions about what not to do, told them to change their license plates, for example, told them to use different exits and different patterns of movement.

It does seem to be -- we have not been able yet ourselves to link this to what was picked up in Pakistan but the timing is curious because that warning went out very quietly on Thursday, which was about the same time that this other stuff began to surface. So, we're not sure yet.

BROWN: Two quick questions. By and large, by and large members of Congress do not get, normally do not get security protection, correct?

DUFFY: Well, the leaders have quite a bit of security protection because some of them are constitutional officers and, since 9/11, more and more of them have obtained it. I can't give you an exact number in the House but I've rarely seen a Senator recently who didn't have some member of the sergeant of arms office with him.

I'm not sure that extends to all House members. I know when they go back in their states they're subject to other security procedures. But certainly the leadership in the House has quite a bit of it.

BROWN: And just, finally, when you and your reporters are talking to intelligence people and talking to counter intel, counterterrorism people and the like, is it clear within all this debate over the last week about whether there should have been a warning or not that they are taking all of this very seriously?

DUFFY: There's a lot of debate among the officers about whether there should be a warning. Just when you think you've found someone who is really concerned about a specific threat that person -- we had a lot of folks say to us, "I'm not sure this was a" -- "I would have alerted in this way in this fashion."

On the other hand, they all take all of -- it seems to me they take a variety of the threats very seriously and I think it's particularly hard for them because they're already working at 110 percent of RPM and to find out essentially when they collect this data, Aaron, that maybe they aren't working hard enough. I mean here's helicopters, something you might have thought they would have screened riders for after 9/11, they've only sort of thought of that now.

So again when you talk to them they sort of say -- there was a great quote from an FBI official who said, "Look, we've got a net over the country. It's not tight but it's a net and we're trying to tighten it day after day after day so that the screen is very, very tight but we're not there yet."

BROWN: Michael, good to see you again. Thank you.

DUFFY: Thank you.

BROWN: Michael Duffy of "Time" magazine, interesting stuff in the magazine this week.

Coming up on our program tonight, who has a better plan for the economy, President Bush or John Kerry? Jeff Greenfield examines the economic facts and the impact on the race for the White House.

Also, with the world finally waking up to the crisis in the Sudan, will help arrive in time for the millions, literally millions, who need it, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For a while, it looked as if the economy might actually be off the table this election year. Well, in the words of a well known economist, "as if." The recovery, which seemed to be picking up steam now looks a bit shakier, which is of course debatable. Weak job growth, lower unemployment. Higher oil prices, lower food prices. Record deficits, lower taxes. Debatable in the academic sense but indisputably back in the political realm.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BUSH: When it comes to creating jobs for American workers we are turning the corner and we're not going back.

KERRY: I don't know what corner they're turning. I think they're continually turning the same corner and they wind up right back where they started from.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It is something less than shocking to learn that the candidates for president have different views on how the economy is doing or on what to do about it and maybe it's simply too much to hope for that combatants in a political campaign could agree on anything.

(on camera): But let's give it a try. The late Senator Pat Moynahan was fond of saying that we're all entitled to our opinions but we're not entitled to our own facts. So, submitted for your consideration our best attempt to lay out a few economic facts on which most neutrals agree.

(voice-over): The president says he inherited an economy in recession. Now, technically that's not correct. The actual recession, a downturn in economic growth, began in March of 2001.

But does that mean that Bush inherited a prosperous economy? No. The high tech bubble burst in March of 2000, ten months before Bush took office. The economy was slowing markedly by the end of that year. Whoever became president in January, 2001, would have faced recession.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Think about that.

GREENFIELD: What about the budget deficit and the Bush tax cuts? The president says those cut are what turned the economy around in the last year and that economic growth is a long-term road to a balanced budget.

But his own Office of Management and Budget says that, over the last three years, tax cuts account for some $290 billion of the deficits. And even as vigorous a Bush supporter as "The Wall Street Journal" editorial page says that Bush's farm and prescription drug policies, among others, have contradicted his claim to support smaller government.

But does John Kerry have a plausible plan to reduce the deficit? Journalists from the Knight Ridder chain and others have flatly said that Kerry's deficit reduction plan doesn't add up, that his plans to increase spending on education and health care, among others, means his goal of cutting the deficit in half is at best highly unlikely.

What about energy policy? The rising price of oil is a key reason why this recovery seems so uncertain, just as the price of oil has gone hand in hand with every recession for the last 30 years. Bush want more domestic exploration, specifically drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But even by the most wildly optimistic estimates, if every drop of oil was extracted from that refuge, it would be gone within two years.

What about Kerry's call for energy independence? It is, say experts, a worldwide increase in demand, from China, especially, that has helped trigger the spike in oil prices. Proposals such as tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would amount to the proverbial drop in the bucket. In other words, the United States will for years to come continue to be reliant on fossil fuels and their price jolts, no matter who is president.

(on camera): Even with a common set of facts, there's plenty of room for wide disagreement based on political or policy choices. Should we cut taxes for everyone or roll back those tax cuts for the affluent? Do deficits really matter when it comes to long-term economic health? Should our energy policy stress increased demand or decreased supply.

But the way the candidates are talking now, you'd think they were running for the presidency of two different planets.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, Christiane Amanpour reporting from Sudan. The humanitarian aid isn't arriving nearly fast enough.

And later, the cancer that brought down a presidency and the things we think we know that just aren't so -- Watergate 30 years later.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Take the casualties of war we honor every night and multiply the total by 10, then multiply it again by 30. The first figure gives you the number of people who have died each day every day over the last year and a half in western Sudan. The second is how many more may die, a million or more ethnic Africans if nothing is done to stop a reign of terror by Arab-led militias.

Today, the White House endorsed a U.N.-brokered agreement calling for safe areas so refugees don't starve. But even if all goes smoothly -- and nobody expects it to -- the problems on the ground will be enormous.

From the Sudan tonight, CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the first delivery of aid to the Riyadh camp in Western Darfur. It is not the desperately needed food, but it is plastic sheeting blankets and jerricans.

ADEEL JAFFERI, ISLAMIC RELIEF: And they were all saying the same thing: We want food and we want shelter. When the rains come, it is a nightmare. I've been here when the rains have started. And it is like sheets of glass hitting your face.

AMANPOUR: Sara Senin (ph) and one of her five children take this treasure back to their hut made of twigs. The sheeting will be some protection against the rains, but what they need most is food. Sara, who is expecting her sixth child soon, hasn't even seen milk in five months.

These elderly women tell us they're hungry and no one in this camp has received any food aid since they arrived. There is meat at the camp's rancid little markets. Fly-infested cuts await those who did manage to earn some money doing odd jobs in the nearby town.

(on camera): Aid is still only reaching about a third of the more than two million people across this vast province who are in desperate need. And then they're only getting basic foodstuffs. There still isn't any proper sanitation or medical treatment.

(voice-over): As Darfur hovers between starvation and survival, there is another fear, too, safety. As she lashes her plastic sheeting to the roof, Sara tells us that she's still afraid of the janjaweed militias who burned down her home and killed 51 villagers earlier this year.

She tells us that some of the janjaweed are now among the police and the army who are here guarding the camp. The Sudanese government, which has deployed forces to guard this camp, denies that, although aid workers say there is a militia base not far from here. Caught between fear, hunger and disease, these people wonder just how they're going to survive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, it's been 18 months since this crisis started first as a massive military crackdown against a rebellion. But even though there have been high-profile visits here in the last month by Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, the pipeline for humanitarian aid still is not fully open. And these people are in desperate need. And the real question is whether they can open this pipeline in time to head off the disaster that many here are predicting.

There simply wasn't any prepositioning or any foresight or forethought about the humanitarian needs here. In addition, although the Sudanese government is under an enormous now pressure from the international community, there is still violence outside these camps. These people say they won't go back to their homes, most of which have been burned down, and they won't go back, they say, because they don't feel safe. And, anyway, they've missed this year's planting season -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just to what degree is the problem, the problem of getting food to people logistical and to what degree is it political?

AMANPOUR: It's both. It was political in the beginning, when the Sudanese government simply refused to acknowledge that there was a crisis and held up visas and travel permits and access for aid workers and humanitarian aid.

That opened up somewhat after Colin Powell's visit here. But it is also logistic. Because of the lack of foresight, the very slow response by the international community, still only half the funding for this region has been received by the United Nations. Because of all that, we're here in the middle of a crisis zone where there simply isn't enough yet. And it's anybody's guess as to whether enough will turn up by the time it is needed to stave off mass death, as the USAID is predicting, by the end of this year.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you -- Christiane Amanpour in Sudan tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, 30 years later, so many unanswered questions, the myths and mysteries of Watergate. And later still, roll the presses. Morning papers arrive.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been said that history follows a certain path, or at least historians do. First, myths are created, myths that make people feel comfortable with the past, make it fit their preconceptions. The next stage is debunking, breaking the myths; 30 years after Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign his office, perhaps it's time to go after a myth or two.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not a crook.

BROWN (voice-over): The first myth, that Richard Nixon did nothing worse than other presidents did.

MARK FELDSTEIN, DIRECTOR OF JOURNALISM, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Watergate was probably the biggest constitutional crisis this country has faced since the Civil War. It involved an organized and systemic abuse of power.

BROWN: Another is that two newspaper reporters brought him down. Nixon's downfall was far more involved.

STANLEY KUTLER, AUTHOR, "THE WARS OF WATERGATE": I would argue that all the revelations that were uncovered were not uncovered as a result of two intrepid young journalists, but they were uncovered because the various agencies were doing their job.

BROWN: And, of course, there's this. Watergate was more than a break-in. From the moment the Pentagon Papers were publishes, President Nixon used or tried to use the FBI, the IRS, the White House staff, the entire power of the United States government in an effort to investigate and intimidate his political opposition. In many ways, the break-in was the least of it.

FELDSTEIN: It was really kind of the tip of the iceberg of a whole system of illegal bugging and sabotage and espionage that Nixon and his henchmen were conducting over that time.

BROWN: Within days on the infamous smoking gun tape, the president can be heard agreeing to a cover-up. And while no one can argue that the work of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward at "The Washington Post" was crucial, inside of government, the two young reporters had plenty of help.

KUTLER: Now, the FBI quickly discovered that the acting head of the FBI, a Nixon appointee, was helping -- was working with Nixon to kind of thwart -- to thwart the investigation. And these FBI agents, the hierarchy of the FBI, the old hierarchy, was leaking this stuff all over town. BROWN: Among the leaks were how the burglars were found with White House phone number, that there was money from illegal campaign contributions, that there were connections to the president's reelection committee.

But it really started to unravel when Judge John Sirica put pressure on the burglars to talk. And James McCord did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did the president know and when did he know it?

BROWN: The Senate began televised hearings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a cancer growing on the presidency.

BROWN: John Dean claimed the president was involved, but had no firm proof. Finally, Alexander Butterfield was asked, was there a taping system in the Oval Office?

KUTLER: Butterfield was sure that they knew the answer. But more than that, Butterfield was not going to perjure himself and he said yes.

BROWN: Nixon fought to keep the tapes secret. He offered edited transcripts as a compromise. And when that was rejected by special prosecutor Archibald Cox, he ordered Cox fired. The Saturday night massacre, the resignation of the attorney general and his top assistant and the firing of Cox changed the public mood. Impeachment was no longer farfetched.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Thornton (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aye.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Plumber (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aye.

BROWN: After hearings in the House, articles of impeachment were passed. Nixon had lost support even among key Republican senators. It was, in effect, over.

NIXON: I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

FELDSTEIN: Richard Nixon resigned because the evidence was overwhelming, if I may put it in his terms, that he was a crook.

BROWN: Many things changed as a result of Watergate, not the least was the relationship between the president and the press.

FELDSTEIN: What we've seen since then is a far more aggressive press, a far more adversarial press than used to exist before Watergate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thirty years.

We're joined tonight from Los Angeles by John Dean, White House counsel under President Nixon, since then, an investment banker, historian, legal analyst and the author of a number of books, including "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush." We're pleased to have him with us again tonight.

John, nice to see you.

I remember going on the radio the day -- I was a kid in Seattle going on the radio to do a talk show, saying, OK, now what are we going to talk about? Thirty years either seems like a really long time or a heartbeat. Which is it?

JOHN DEAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: It seems like a short time to me. Just a blink of the eye and we're here.

BROWN: Do you think -- I mean, people who sort of remember the story know that there was an effort within the White House to make you the fall guy for all of this. If he had protected you, would you have protected him?

DEAN: Well, I don't think so. The way it unfolded was that I had already gone in to warn him that there was a cancer on his presidency, and in doing so, I knew that I was removing myself from any further role in the cover-up. When I had really laid it out in all its ugliness, they knew I wasn't going to cooperate.

And I soon told them that I thought I had to go to the prosecutors. And, indeed, they told me to do it. I don't think they thought I would ever tell the full truth or remember it. And it was very slow and cautious in coming out, because I wasn't sure the prosecutors could hold it. In fact, they couldn't. And it wasn't really until I got before the Senate that I fully testified.

BROWN: If the last 30 years seems like a heartbeat, did that year-and-a-half period seem excruciatingly slow?

DEAN: It was. It was like watching an accident happen.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Yes.

DEAN: And it was -- I've talked to people who were in the press corps back there who are still there now. And they tell me they have still never seen anything quite like it. You know, one day after another, just an incredible headline would come out. And it really became -- some of them suffered from withdrawal for years after that, because nothing would ever match it. And, hopefully, nothing ever will.

BROWN: A couple more, maybe a dozen. Was there a moment relatively early on when you thought, this is it, he's done?

DEAN: I realized -- there was actually sort of a technical moment for me. But he put out a statement on May 22 of 1973 where he was going to refute all of the rumors and charges and what have you.

And when I saw that statement that he put out, I realized that he was really in serious trouble, because while he tried to make some half-truths into explanations, I knew the other side of it. And I said, what's happened is, they've escalated the cover-up and at some point the people who are around him are going to decide they're not going to follow the same route the first team went and they're going to back off.

BROWN: When the Saturday night massacre went down, did you think, man, they've gone nuts over there?

DEAN: Well, I was actually watching television with my wife, Maureen, and it was actually quite startling. I happened to be watching NBC at the time. And Carl Stern came on. And he made this incredible -- he was sort of out of breath. And he looked a little anxious and made this announcement. And we heard all but the boots marching. It was really a very frightening evening.

BROWN: It was one of the strangest evenings of my life.

Final question, if it happened today, given all of the changes in media and politics, would it have played out differently, do you think?

DEAN: Well, I think, as you know, and you have said it, that indeed the media has changed.

I think that we've gone back. The lessons of Watergate have largely been lost. And, unfortunately, very few -- anybody who is over 45 remembers it. We have a whole generation that doesn't have a clue about what it meant and what it means.

BROWN: John, it's nice to see you. Thank you.

DEAN: Good seeing you.

BROWN: John Dean from Los Angeles tonight.

Morning papers from then and now after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.

We'll begin with a rare appearance, I think a first appearance by "The Washington Post." Unfortunately, it is a 30-year-old paper, Saturday August 10, 1974. This is how the post headlined the story. "Ford Becomes 38th President, Promises Openness and Candor. Sad, Emotional Nixon Bids Farewell to Staff." That speech that he gave in the White House, President Nixon gave in the White House that morning was one of the strangest speeches I have ever heard, ever. Anyway, that was "The Post" headline. If you haven't saved it, call me. I've got a copy.

"The Washington Times" for actually tomorrow. "Platform Battles Risk GOP Unity. Gay Unions, Immigration Divisive." My guess is, this is the last you'll hear about the platform. That's just my feeling on that. Also -- well, forget that. I don't want to do that. Now you're going to call me and say, what was that you didn't want to do?

Down at the corner, "The International Herald Tribune." I'll explain it to you later. "My Love of Thee, This the Other Guy Sings," a story out of Rome about people -- Can you get it? -- people who hire this guy to come serenade their lovers. They can't sing, so they hire someone out to do it.

"Philadelphia Inquirer," I like this paper a lot. "Sadr: A Fight to the Death." A very powerful picture on the front page there. And then at the top, "In Pennsylvania, First Lady Defends Stem Cell Ban." It is not really a ban, but you know what it is. "The implication that cures for Alzheimer's are around the corner are just not right." Actually, I'm not sure that anyone is saying that a cure for Alzheimer's is right around the corner.

I'll bet I'm almost out of time. School started in Atlanta, so they put a couple of school stories on the "Journal-Constitution." "Kids Not the Only Jittery Ones," the story of a first-year teacher.

And the weather tomorrow in Chicago is:

(CHIMES)

BROWN: Thank you.

"Nicely nicely."

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's strange to think, isn't it, that Watergate was 30 years ago? I mean, 30 years is a long time, half of my lifetime -- well, a little more than half my lifetime.

Anyway, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. "AMERICAN MORNING," 7:00 Eastern time, join those guys for a lively three hours.

We'll see you at 10:00 tomorrow night Eastern time. 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 August 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.
As Larry's been talking about tonight, 30 years ago today a president resigned and Gerald Ford would say our long national nightmare is over. Richard Nixon's resignation may have been one of our worst national moments but it was also one of our best.

The system worked, not perfectly perhaps, not quickly enough but it worked. The courts did what courts need to do. The end wouldn't have happened without Judge John Sirica. The press did what the press ought to do, though a bit timidly at first to be sure.

Most of all, the Congress and the country did what each is supposed to do. The Senate investigated. The House passed articles of impeachment when the evidence was clear and the country believed enough in itself and in its institutions to say good riddance. Thirty years ago today we proved that the law trumps politics and the ambitions of any one man and it was a triumph and we'll remember it tonight of course.

But we begin with the fighting and perhaps an ugly turning point in Iraq. CNN's Matthew Chance is in Baghdad and starts the whip off with a headline.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, clashes between the forces of Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army and U.S. military personnel for a fifth consecutive day, clashes taking place in the holy city of Najaf where it's emerged, according to U.S. military that they've killed 360 of those Mehdi Army militia over the course of those last five days. U.S. forces now positioned around the most sacred shrine in Shia Islam. We'll see what happens next.

BROWN: Matthew, thank you.

On to the terror threat the dimensions of which seem to grow with each passing day and each computer disk. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has the story tonight from New York, Deborah a headline.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More surveillance photos show that it wasn't just financial institutions that al Qaeda operatives were interested in. They were also looking at New York City heliports -- Aaron.

BROWN: Deb, thank you. And finally to western Sudan and the brutal facts of a humanitarian crisis on the ground no matter what the rest of the world decides to do about it. CNN's Christiane Amanpour is there, so Christiane a headline.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are about two million people in urgent, urgent need of immediate food and medical humanitarian aid and many are saying that the U.S. and international credibility is on the line here in terms of how they deal with this African crisis.

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

Also coming up on the program on this Monday night, the politics of stem cell research, pressure again mounting on the president to do more. A scientific debate or election year politics in the race for the White House?

And, as we said, later the cancer that brought down the administration 30 years after Richard Nixon's resignation, a look back at some of the myths about Watergate.

And finally, the rooster is arriving just minutes from now, OK, 56 minutes from now. Once he does, we'll know what's in your morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight in Iraq where a cleric is promising martyrdom and American forces look ready to oblige. One thing is certain. If he dies, he will not be the first. Several hundred of his followers already have in addition to several thousand earlier this year, not to mention countless civilians. What happens next could be much more of the same, much more.

We begin tonight with CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE (voice-over): The holy city of Najaf, now Iraq's worst battleground. In five days U.S. forces, backed by Iraqis, say they've killed more than 360 Mehdi Army fighters here. They're loyal to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr now publicly rejecting any negotiation while U.S. troops remain.

MUQTADA AL-SADR, SHIA CLERIC (through translator): I will continue with resistance and I will remain in Najaf. I will not leave. I will continue to defend Najaf as it is the holiest place. I will remain in the city until the last drop of my blood has been spilled.

CHANCE: In Baghdad, too, the Mehdi Army is taking a stand. In Sadr City there have been terrible clashes with U.S. forces but here the militias hijack a police station. Not a shot was fired. Inside the barracks, they rifle through cabinets for useful equipment. Body armor meant to protect the police is stolen. Still, the interim Iraqi government says it's keen to get this militia and its leader to join a political process they've so far rejected.

GEORGE SADA, IRAQI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: You see always the best solution is even not to fight but after we fight the best solution is to cease fire, stop fire and make negotiations.

CHANCE: But there's another way too, fight to the end, and U.S. troops now massed in Baghdad and with full authority in Najaf may be poised to finish it.

(on camera): This confrontation has potentially explosive consequences for Iraq. Reports from Najaf say the fighting is now focused around the Imam Ali Mosque, one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam where U.S. forces say the Mehdi militia or units of them are holed up inside and launching attacks against U.S. forces there. A strike against that mosque could unleash a very serious backlash amongst this country's majority Shia community.

(voice-over): And, a wrong step could unleash among Iraq's majority Shia a ferocious backlash.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A lot more going on in Iraq, including the Mehdi Army threats against the oil industry in Basra in the south. In response, the government today stopped pumping oil from fields in the area. About 90 percent of Iraqi exports go through Basra.

And yesterday, Ahmed and Salem Chalabi were indicted, the first on counterfeiting charges, the second on capital murder. Each is a conversation in and of itself.

But, Scott Baldauf is just back from Najaf, the first western journalist there during the recent fighting. He files for the "Christian Science Monitor" and he joins us from Baghdad. Scott, it's good to have you with us. What are these -- the Sadr force, what are they fighting for?

SCOTT BALDAUF, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Well, they say that they are fighting for freedom. They would like to remove the occupying forces, as they call the U.S. forces. They also want to have greater representation for Shias in Iraq. Shias make up the 60 percent of the population according to the latest census that we have and so they want to make sure that they do not get left out of the power balance.

BROWN: The government, at least to my ears, seems one minute to be playing carrot, the next minute to be playing stick. Is it clear that the government, in fact, has a strategy?

BALDAUF: Well, from the beginning of their coming into power there appears to have been a shift. The U.S. started to start to signal that it was willing to hand over a lot more of the political decisions that took the background. Whether all this is being designed by the Allawi government or by the U.S., of course we don't know, but the strategy does appear to be to try and split the Mehdi Army, to try and wean away the fighters, the lower level fighters away from the major commanders and also to split Sadr himself from his own militia.

There have been incentives to try and -- for instance, an amnesty for lower level criminals on one hand and death penalty for the major ones. That was just announced this weekend. So, there's an effort to try and bring them down, to get them suspicious of each other and also to fight them head on.

BROWN: Just a quick question here. Do we have any clue how many men, they are mostly men, are loyal to Mr. Sadr?

BALDAUF: The Sadr people don't give out their numbers. When we were in Najaf we could see hundreds around the shrine of Ali Mosque. We could also see there were hundreds more in the cemetery that is adjacent to the mosque and that's the main battlefield against the Americans.

But they also have control in a city called Sadr City, just north of Baghdad, that's adjacent to Baghdad and in a lot of other cities. You mentioned Basra, Nasiriyah and so on.

This is a widespread movement. It's not the biggest movement in Shia Islam here in Iraq but it is the one that is the most active in fighting against the Americans.

BROWN: And just finally, I suspect the absence now of the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, he's left the country, he's the most important Shia player in the country, what does that mean in all of this?

BALDAUF: Well, it takes away a voice of moderation. When we were in Najaf, a lot of the people were saying they really wanted Sistani to take the lead. They trusted his judgment more on matters dealing with politics, with religion.

They put Muqtada al-Sadr at a much lower rank and wish that he would be a little more subservient to Sistani. Having Sistani out of the picture right now takes away that ability to put some pressure on Sadr to try a different method.

BROWN: Scott, thank you for joining us. Your work the last few days has been just terrific reading. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you.

BALDAUF: Thanks.

BROWN: Scott Baldauf of the "Christian Science Monitor."

On to politics, domestic politics, namely John Kerry's support for the war and, if you don't mind, a general observation. Senator Kerry doesn't like either/or. The president does not do shades of gray. To some degree this is the nature of Senators and presidents but more so perhaps with this Senator and this president and especially so in this campaign.

So, Friday on the stump, the president asked the Senator an either/or question and today the Senator gave a yes/but answer, the story from CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the edge of the Grand Canyon, the Democratic nominee finally answered the president's challenge, knowing what he knows how would he still have backed giving the Bush administration the authority to wage war in Iraq?

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority, as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively. I would have done this very differently from the way President Bush has.

KING: Then, Senator Kerry tried to turn the tables, posing a leadership question of his own for the president.

KERRY: Why did he rush to war without a plan to win the peace?

KING: This was to have been a day of sightseeing after a 3,000- mile campaign journey from his convention in Boston to the rim of the Grand Canyon here in Arizona. But after avoiding questions for days, Senator Kerry answered one posed by Mr. Bush, first last week and then again on Monday in Virginia. The president says he believes the war in Iraq was right even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And, by the way, I think that candidates for president must say yes or no, whether or not they would have made the same decision.

KING: By forcing Senator Kerry to defend his vote for the war, the White House hopes to dampen enthusiasm among antiwar Democratic voters. But Senator Kerry says the issue is how he would have used that power and he promised to restore alliances, strained by Mr. Bush, and to have a goal of reducing U.S. troop levels in Iraq within six months of taking office.

KERRY: It is an appropriate goal to have and I'm going to try to achieve it.

KING (on camera): Senator Kerry did not answer directly when pressed as to whether he had received any personal assurances of more international troop help in Iraq but he said Democratic Senator colleagues who have traveled abroad recently have told him they believe a change in administrations would bring more international help.

John King, CNN, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: If Iraq is a clear campaign issue, stem cell research is second tier but it is out there nevertheless. Three years ago tonight, the president announced limited support for embryonic stem cell research.

To many in the science community and to some notable members of his own party, the president's order was too little given the hopes, and that's all they are at this point, that stem cell therapy may some day cure some of our most dreaded ailments. Three years later, a campaign is on and the president's campaign was defending its limited approach as the Democrats were out promising to change it.

Here's CNN's Elaine Quijano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): First Lady Laura Bush, on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, defended the president's policy limiting federal funds for embryonic stem cell research. She spoke not just as the president's wife but as the daughter of a man who suffered from Alzheimer's.

LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I know that embryonic stem cell research is very preliminary right now and the implication that cures for Alzheimer's are around the corner is just not right and it's really not fair to the people who are watching a loved one suffer with this disease.

QUIJANO: Three years ago President Bush, under strong political pressure and amid ethical concerns, announced he would allow federal money for research on existing embryonic stem cell lines.

Many, including the president's Democratic rival John Kerry, charged that opening up available lines of research could lead to cures for diseases like Alzheimer's. Kerry challenges the ethical concerns raised by the White House that are associated with further research.

KERRY: It is entirely within ethical bounds to do embryonic stem cell research without violating one's belief, so I think you have to measure it also against the lives you save, against the diseases that you're curing. If we can save millions of lives by doing research on something that may be destroyed anyway that the balance is important.

QUIJANO: The administration worries unlimited research could open the door to government funded creation of embryos solely for research and the president's spokesman was quick to reiterate Mr. Bush's beliefs, speaking to supporters of the president on the religious right, whose votes could prove crucial come November.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president does not believe we should be creating life for the sole purpose of destroying it. That's a principle which he feels very strongly about.

QUIJANO (on camera): Administration officials say the president remains committed to his policy saying he believes it's the best way to continue exploring the promise of stem cell research without crossing ethical lines.

Elaine Quijano, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, a possible threat from the skies. Is al Qaeda seeking to use helicopters to blow up buildings inside the nation's most populated city?

Also, the smoking gun that wounded an administration. Thirty years after President Nixon left the White House many questions remain unanswered but this one doesn't.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Some late news out of Turkey tonight, explosions rip through a pair of hotels, small hotels in Istanbul. Police are reporting one fatality and a number of people injured. The city's police chief says it looks like terrorism to him. The Associated Press reporting one of the hotels received a bomb threat ten minutes before the blast, so far no one claiming responsibility for the incident.

If terrorism amounts to imagination minus innocence, add this to the equation and take away yet another innocent pleasure. Late today the Transportation Security Administration notified heliport operators in New York that the TSA will begin screening passengers this week the same as it does at airports.

For the reasons why, CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK (voice-over): High above Manhattan, a tourist helicopter circles the most populated city in America, everything laid out in remarkable detail, the bridges and tunnels, the skyscrapers and rail yards.

Riders can take as many pictures as they like and it appears al Qaeda operatives did just that, law enforcement sources telling CNN along with photos of Citigroup, Prudential and the New York Stock Exchange, al Qaeda operatives were also scouting New York heliports.

Surveillance photos show heliports door locks, along with helicopter hatches and luggage doors, one source saying: "They were testing security. There was a discussion about the relative ease in which weapons could be smuggled onboard helicopters."

A recent FBI bulletin warns that helicopters could be used to attack people at "parades and sporting events, with explosives carried onboard to increase the destructive effects" or that they could be used to introduce chemical or biological weapons into high rise building ventilation systems.

Those scenarios are theoretical, not based on intelligence, helicopter expert Steve Massey.

STEVE MASSEY, HELICOPTER EXPERT: If you crash a lot of times there's a fire and then fire will burn up any chemical agent.

FEYERICK: CNN has learned security directors of some of the high risk buildings were asked by federal officials whether a helicopter was capable of landing on the building.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK CITY: Using an aircraft as a weapon, whether it is a fixed-wing or a rotary aircraft, is nothing new. We learned that lesson on 9/11 at enormous cost.

FEYERICK: The FBI bulletin is based on information found in recently seized al Qaeda computers. Officials stress there's no credible or specific evidence supporting a helicopter attack.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Helicopters are just part of a story that has added a chapter just about every day since the terror alert was issued a week ago and "Time" magazine's Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy has been on top of it all. Good to have you back with us tonight, Michael, thank you.

MICHAEL DUFFY, "TIME" MAGAZINE WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Nice to be here, Aaron.

BROWN: Is all this that's come out over the last week, including the stuff today on the helicopters, is this all coming off the Khan computer disks?

DUFFY: Yes, but I think the way to think about it, Aaron, is sort of two screens. Helicopters was -- helicopters and the limos and a variety of other things were on the disks and the hard drives of the computers that were seized in Pakistan now almost two weeks ago.

But some of those things they would get a bounce on from the other guys they arrested and apprehended and some they didn't. Helicopters was one they did and that took it to a higher level.

So, they kind of screen things, you know. They work it through the screens that they have, detainees, new people that they apprehend and other intelligence they get from other sources.

So, I think one of the reasons this feels like it's dribbling out a little here and a little there is that they took the most serious ones in the first couple of days and now they're working through the rest of the stuff that's on the computer.

BROWN: To be honest, it doesn't feel like it's dribbling out to me. It feels like it's gushing out. When you think of all that's gone on really in the last week and a half or so, there's an awful lot of material that's come out. DUFFY: Yes, it's true. To me it's felt more like a dribble because I think it's been harder for us to actually get the government to confirm what it took seriously. There was a lot of stuff but, as you walk them through it, and we say, "How do you prioritize these threats? You've given us a lot," they clearly take some more seriously than others and that's why I think helicopters and the limousines have sort of risen to the top.

BROWN: You note in the magazine this week that members of Congress, again and they were warned shortly after 9/11, have been told to be careful. Is that, as best you can figure out, a general warning or is that related to some specific pieces of information?

DUFFY: All I can tell you is that the warning went to selected lawmakers at first on Thursday and then a bit later the sergeant of arms actually gave them very specific instructions about what not to do, told them to change their license plates, for example, told them to use different exits and different patterns of movement.

It does seem to be -- we have not been able yet ourselves to link this to what was picked up in Pakistan but the timing is curious because that warning went out very quietly on Thursday, which was about the same time that this other stuff began to surface. So, we're not sure yet.

BROWN: Two quick questions. By and large, by and large members of Congress do not get, normally do not get security protection, correct?

DUFFY: Well, the leaders have quite a bit of security protection because some of them are constitutional officers and, since 9/11, more and more of them have obtained it. I can't give you an exact number in the House but I've rarely seen a Senator recently who didn't have some member of the sergeant of arms office with him.

I'm not sure that extends to all House members. I know when they go back in their states they're subject to other security procedures. But certainly the leadership in the House has quite a bit of it.

BROWN: And just, finally, when you and your reporters are talking to intelligence people and talking to counter intel, counterterrorism people and the like, is it clear within all this debate over the last week about whether there should have been a warning or not that they are taking all of this very seriously?

DUFFY: There's a lot of debate among the officers about whether there should be a warning. Just when you think you've found someone who is really concerned about a specific threat that person -- we had a lot of folks say to us, "I'm not sure this was a" -- "I would have alerted in this way in this fashion."

On the other hand, they all take all of -- it seems to me they take a variety of the threats very seriously and I think it's particularly hard for them because they're already working at 110 percent of RPM and to find out essentially when they collect this data, Aaron, that maybe they aren't working hard enough. I mean here's helicopters, something you might have thought they would have screened riders for after 9/11, they've only sort of thought of that now.

So again when you talk to them they sort of say -- there was a great quote from an FBI official who said, "Look, we've got a net over the country. It's not tight but it's a net and we're trying to tighten it day after day after day so that the screen is very, very tight but we're not there yet."

BROWN: Michael, good to see you again. Thank you.

DUFFY: Thank you.

BROWN: Michael Duffy of "Time" magazine, interesting stuff in the magazine this week.

Coming up on our program tonight, who has a better plan for the economy, President Bush or John Kerry? Jeff Greenfield examines the economic facts and the impact on the race for the White House.

Also, with the world finally waking up to the crisis in the Sudan, will help arrive in time for the millions, literally millions, who need it, a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: For a while, it looked as if the economy might actually be off the table this election year. Well, in the words of a well known economist, "as if." The recovery, which seemed to be picking up steam now looks a bit shakier, which is of course debatable. Weak job growth, lower unemployment. Higher oil prices, lower food prices. Record deficits, lower taxes. Debatable in the academic sense but indisputably back in the political realm.

Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BUSH: When it comes to creating jobs for American workers we are turning the corner and we're not going back.

KERRY: I don't know what corner they're turning. I think they're continually turning the same corner and they wind up right back where they started from.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It is something less than shocking to learn that the candidates for president have different views on how the economy is doing or on what to do about it and maybe it's simply too much to hope for that combatants in a political campaign could agree on anything.

(on camera): But let's give it a try. The late Senator Pat Moynahan was fond of saying that we're all entitled to our opinions but we're not entitled to our own facts. So, submitted for your consideration our best attempt to lay out a few economic facts on which most neutrals agree.

(voice-over): The president says he inherited an economy in recession. Now, technically that's not correct. The actual recession, a downturn in economic growth, began in March of 2001.

But does that mean that Bush inherited a prosperous economy? No. The high tech bubble burst in March of 2000, ten months before Bush took office. The economy was slowing markedly by the end of that year. Whoever became president in January, 2001, would have faced recession.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Think about that.

GREENFIELD: What about the budget deficit and the Bush tax cuts? The president says those cut are what turned the economy around in the last year and that economic growth is a long-term road to a balanced budget.

But his own Office of Management and Budget says that, over the last three years, tax cuts account for some $290 billion of the deficits. And even as vigorous a Bush supporter as "The Wall Street Journal" editorial page says that Bush's farm and prescription drug policies, among others, have contradicted his claim to support smaller government.

But does John Kerry have a plausible plan to reduce the deficit? Journalists from the Knight Ridder chain and others have flatly said that Kerry's deficit reduction plan doesn't add up, that his plans to increase spending on education and health care, among others, means his goal of cutting the deficit in half is at best highly unlikely.

What about energy policy? The rising price of oil is a key reason why this recovery seems so uncertain, just as the price of oil has gone hand in hand with every recession for the last 30 years. Bush want more domestic exploration, specifically drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But even by the most wildly optimistic estimates, if every drop of oil was extracted from that refuge, it would be gone within two years.

What about Kerry's call for energy independence? It is, say experts, a worldwide increase in demand, from China, especially, that has helped trigger the spike in oil prices. Proposals such as tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would amount to the proverbial drop in the bucket. In other words, the United States will for years to come continue to be reliant on fossil fuels and their price jolts, no matter who is president.

(on camera): Even with a common set of facts, there's plenty of room for wide disagreement based on political or policy choices. Should we cut taxes for everyone or roll back those tax cuts for the affluent? Do deficits really matter when it comes to long-term economic health? Should our energy policy stress increased demand or decreased supply.

But the way the candidates are talking now, you'd think they were running for the presidency of two different planets.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight on NEWSNIGHT, Christiane Amanpour reporting from Sudan. The humanitarian aid isn't arriving nearly fast enough.

And later, the cancer that brought down a presidency and the things we think we know that just aren't so -- Watergate 30 years later.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Take the casualties of war we honor every night and multiply the total by 10, then multiply it again by 30. The first figure gives you the number of people who have died each day every day over the last year and a half in western Sudan. The second is how many more may die, a million or more ethnic Africans if nothing is done to stop a reign of terror by Arab-led militias.

Today, the White House endorsed a U.N.-brokered agreement calling for safe areas so refugees don't starve. But even if all goes smoothly -- and nobody expects it to -- the problems on the ground will be enormous.

From the Sudan tonight, CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the first delivery of aid to the Riyadh camp in Western Darfur. It is not the desperately needed food, but it is plastic sheeting blankets and jerricans.

ADEEL JAFFERI, ISLAMIC RELIEF: And they were all saying the same thing: We want food and we want shelter. When the rains come, it is a nightmare. I've been here when the rains have started. And it is like sheets of glass hitting your face.

AMANPOUR: Sara Senin (ph) and one of her five children take this treasure back to their hut made of twigs. The sheeting will be some protection against the rains, but what they need most is food. Sara, who is expecting her sixth child soon, hasn't even seen milk in five months.

These elderly women tell us they're hungry and no one in this camp has received any food aid since they arrived. There is meat at the camp's rancid little markets. Fly-infested cuts await those who did manage to earn some money doing odd jobs in the nearby town.

(on camera): Aid is still only reaching about a third of the more than two million people across this vast province who are in desperate need. And then they're only getting basic foodstuffs. There still isn't any proper sanitation or medical treatment.

(voice-over): As Darfur hovers between starvation and survival, there is another fear, too, safety. As she lashes her plastic sheeting to the roof, Sara tells us that she's still afraid of the janjaweed militias who burned down her home and killed 51 villagers earlier this year.

She tells us that some of the janjaweed are now among the police and the army who are here guarding the camp. The Sudanese government, which has deployed forces to guard this camp, denies that, although aid workers say there is a militia base not far from here. Caught between fear, hunger and disease, these people wonder just how they're going to survive.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, it's been 18 months since this crisis started first as a massive military crackdown against a rebellion. But even though there have been high-profile visits here in the last month by Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan, the pipeline for humanitarian aid still is not fully open. And these people are in desperate need. And the real question is whether they can open this pipeline in time to head off the disaster that many here are predicting.

There simply wasn't any prepositioning or any foresight or forethought about the humanitarian needs here. In addition, although the Sudanese government is under an enormous now pressure from the international community, there is still violence outside these camps. These people say they won't go back to their homes, most of which have been burned down, and they won't go back, they say, because they don't feel safe. And, anyway, they've missed this year's planting season -- Aaron.

BROWN: Just to what degree is the problem, the problem of getting food to people logistical and to what degree is it political?

AMANPOUR: It's both. It was political in the beginning, when the Sudanese government simply refused to acknowledge that there was a crisis and held up visas and travel permits and access for aid workers and humanitarian aid.

That opened up somewhat after Colin Powell's visit here. But it is also logistic. Because of the lack of foresight, the very slow response by the international community, still only half the funding for this region has been received by the United Nations. Because of all that, we're here in the middle of a crisis zone where there simply isn't enough yet. And it's anybody's guess as to whether enough will turn up by the time it is needed to stave off mass death, as the USAID is predicting, by the end of this year.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you -- Christiane Amanpour in Sudan tonight.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, 30 years later, so many unanswered questions, the myths and mysteries of Watergate. And later still, roll the presses. Morning papers arrive.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been said that history follows a certain path, or at least historians do. First, myths are created, myths that make people feel comfortable with the past, make it fit their preconceptions. The next stage is debunking, breaking the myths; 30 years after Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign his office, perhaps it's time to go after a myth or two.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not a crook.

BROWN (voice-over): The first myth, that Richard Nixon did nothing worse than other presidents did.

MARK FELDSTEIN, DIRECTOR OF JOURNALISM, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Watergate was probably the biggest constitutional crisis this country has faced since the Civil War. It involved an organized and systemic abuse of power.

BROWN: Another is that two newspaper reporters brought him down. Nixon's downfall was far more involved.

STANLEY KUTLER, AUTHOR, "THE WARS OF WATERGATE": I would argue that all the revelations that were uncovered were not uncovered as a result of two intrepid young journalists, but they were uncovered because the various agencies were doing their job.

BROWN: And, of course, there's this. Watergate was more than a break-in. From the moment the Pentagon Papers were publishes, President Nixon used or tried to use the FBI, the IRS, the White House staff, the entire power of the United States government in an effort to investigate and intimidate his political opposition. In many ways, the break-in was the least of it.

FELDSTEIN: It was really kind of the tip of the iceberg of a whole system of illegal bugging and sabotage and espionage that Nixon and his henchmen were conducting over that time.

BROWN: Within days on the infamous smoking gun tape, the president can be heard agreeing to a cover-up. And while no one can argue that the work of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward at "The Washington Post" was crucial, inside of government, the two young reporters had plenty of help.

KUTLER: Now, the FBI quickly discovered that the acting head of the FBI, a Nixon appointee, was helping -- was working with Nixon to kind of thwart -- to thwart the investigation. And these FBI agents, the hierarchy of the FBI, the old hierarchy, was leaking this stuff all over town. BROWN: Among the leaks were how the burglars were found with White House phone number, that there was money from illegal campaign contributions, that there were connections to the president's reelection committee.

But it really started to unravel when Judge John Sirica put pressure on the burglars to talk. And James McCord did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did the president know and when did he know it?

BROWN: The Senate began televised hearings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a cancer growing on the presidency.

BROWN: John Dean claimed the president was involved, but had no firm proof. Finally, Alexander Butterfield was asked, was there a taping system in the Oval Office?

KUTLER: Butterfield was sure that they knew the answer. But more than that, Butterfield was not going to perjure himself and he said yes.

BROWN: Nixon fought to keep the tapes secret. He offered edited transcripts as a compromise. And when that was rejected by special prosecutor Archibald Cox, he ordered Cox fired. The Saturday night massacre, the resignation of the attorney general and his top assistant and the firing of Cox changed the public mood. Impeachment was no longer farfetched.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Thornton (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aye.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Plumber (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aye.

BROWN: After hearings in the House, articles of impeachment were passed. Nixon had lost support even among key Republican senators. It was, in effect, over.

NIXON: I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

FELDSTEIN: Richard Nixon resigned because the evidence was overwhelming, if I may put it in his terms, that he was a crook.

BROWN: Many things changed as a result of Watergate, not the least was the relationship between the president and the press.

FELDSTEIN: What we've seen since then is a far more aggressive press, a far more adversarial press than used to exist before Watergate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thirty years.

We're joined tonight from Los Angeles by John Dean, White House counsel under President Nixon, since then, an investment banker, historian, legal analyst and the author of a number of books, including "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush." We're pleased to have him with us again tonight.

John, nice to see you.

I remember going on the radio the day -- I was a kid in Seattle going on the radio to do a talk show, saying, OK, now what are we going to talk about? Thirty years either seems like a really long time or a heartbeat. Which is it?

JOHN DEAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: It seems like a short time to me. Just a blink of the eye and we're here.

BROWN: Do you think -- I mean, people who sort of remember the story know that there was an effort within the White House to make you the fall guy for all of this. If he had protected you, would you have protected him?

DEAN: Well, I don't think so. The way it unfolded was that I had already gone in to warn him that there was a cancer on his presidency, and in doing so, I knew that I was removing myself from any further role in the cover-up. When I had really laid it out in all its ugliness, they knew I wasn't going to cooperate.

And I soon told them that I thought I had to go to the prosecutors. And, indeed, they told me to do it. I don't think they thought I would ever tell the full truth or remember it. And it was very slow and cautious in coming out, because I wasn't sure the prosecutors could hold it. In fact, they couldn't. And it wasn't really until I got before the Senate that I fully testified.

BROWN: If the last 30 years seems like a heartbeat, did that year-and-a-half period seem excruciatingly slow?

DEAN: It was. It was like watching an accident happen.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Yes.

DEAN: And it was -- I've talked to people who were in the press corps back there who are still there now. And they tell me they have still never seen anything quite like it. You know, one day after another, just an incredible headline would come out. And it really became -- some of them suffered from withdrawal for years after that, because nothing would ever match it. And, hopefully, nothing ever will.

BROWN: A couple more, maybe a dozen. Was there a moment relatively early on when you thought, this is it, he's done?

DEAN: I realized -- there was actually sort of a technical moment for me. But he put out a statement on May 22 of 1973 where he was going to refute all of the rumors and charges and what have you.

And when I saw that statement that he put out, I realized that he was really in serious trouble, because while he tried to make some half-truths into explanations, I knew the other side of it. And I said, what's happened is, they've escalated the cover-up and at some point the people who are around him are going to decide they're not going to follow the same route the first team went and they're going to back off.

BROWN: When the Saturday night massacre went down, did you think, man, they've gone nuts over there?

DEAN: Well, I was actually watching television with my wife, Maureen, and it was actually quite startling. I happened to be watching NBC at the time. And Carl Stern came on. And he made this incredible -- he was sort of out of breath. And he looked a little anxious and made this announcement. And we heard all but the boots marching. It was really a very frightening evening.

BROWN: It was one of the strangest evenings of my life.

Final question, if it happened today, given all of the changes in media and politics, would it have played out differently, do you think?

DEAN: Well, I think, as you know, and you have said it, that indeed the media has changed.

I think that we've gone back. The lessons of Watergate have largely been lost. And, unfortunately, very few -- anybody who is over 45 remembers it. We have a whole generation that doesn't have a clue about what it meant and what it means.

BROWN: John, it's nice to see you. Thank you.

DEAN: Good seeing you.

BROWN: John Dean from Los Angeles tonight.

Morning papers from then and now after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.

We'll begin with a rare appearance, I think a first appearance by "The Washington Post." Unfortunately, it is a 30-year-old paper, Saturday August 10, 1974. This is how the post headlined the story. "Ford Becomes 38th President, Promises Openness and Candor. Sad, Emotional Nixon Bids Farewell to Staff." That speech that he gave in the White House, President Nixon gave in the White House that morning was one of the strangest speeches I have ever heard, ever. Anyway, that was "The Post" headline. If you haven't saved it, call me. I've got a copy.

"The Washington Times" for actually tomorrow. "Platform Battles Risk GOP Unity. Gay Unions, Immigration Divisive." My guess is, this is the last you'll hear about the platform. That's just my feeling on that. Also -- well, forget that. I don't want to do that. Now you're going to call me and say, what was that you didn't want to do?

Down at the corner, "The International Herald Tribune." I'll explain it to you later. "My Love of Thee, This the Other Guy Sings," a story out of Rome about people -- Can you get it? -- people who hire this guy to come serenade their lovers. They can't sing, so they hire someone out to do it.

"Philadelphia Inquirer," I like this paper a lot. "Sadr: A Fight to the Death." A very powerful picture on the front page there. And then at the top, "In Pennsylvania, First Lady Defends Stem Cell Ban." It is not really a ban, but you know what it is. "The implication that cures for Alzheimer's are around the corner are just not right." Actually, I'm not sure that anyone is saying that a cure for Alzheimer's is right around the corner.

I'll bet I'm almost out of time. School started in Atlanta, so they put a couple of school stories on the "Journal-Constitution." "Kids Not the Only Jittery Ones," the story of a first-year teacher.

And the weather tomorrow in Chicago is:

(CHIMES)

BROWN: Thank you.

"Nicely nicely."

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's strange to think, isn't it, that Watergate was 30 years ago? I mean, 30 years is a long time, half of my lifetime -- well, a little more than half my lifetime.

Anyway, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. "AMERICAN MORNING," 7:00 Eastern time, join those guys for a lively three hours.

We'll see you at 10:00 tomorrow night Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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