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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Russians Bury Their Dead; Frances Moves Into Georgia; Bush Gets Bounce, But Not Slam-Dunk

Aired September 06, 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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening to all of you, happy Labor Day.
If you stop to think much about this holiday, named for work but marked by a national day off, it became a national holiday to honor the working man 100 years ago. Somehow it evolved into little more than a bookend for summer, a bittersweet, final fling and a reminder not so much of the glory of labor but the work that can no longer be avoided.

And there is so much hard work that lies ahead on this Labor Day in Florida, in the Middle East, in Iraq and in southern Russia, all places where people badly need a break or a simple bittersweet bookend would be an improvement.

We begin, however, with a tough choice, picking a president. With the country at war just how tough it may be is reflected in some new polling that shows a bounce but hardly a slam dunk.

CNN's Bill Schneider is looking at that for us, Bill a headline please.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: The Bush bounce, it's a tough dance to do when there aren't many swingers.

O'BRIEN: All right, Bill Schneider.

On to Russia's 9/11, as it is being called, scores of funerals and growing anger at Russia's president. CNN's Jill Dougherty is in Moscow, Jill a headline from you.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Vladimir Putin says the hostage takers were so depraved they shot children because they were bored. Who were these hostage takers? The president says it was an international band of terrorists.

O'BRIEN: Jill Dougherty.

Next we go to Florida and Frances and CNN's Tom Foreman, Tom a headline from there please.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is a rainy night in Georgia and that's very good news down here in Florida. The much despised Frances has finally moved on. The cleanup begins.

O'BRIEN: And finally Orlando and a family we last checked in with as Frances was approaching, the second hurricane in their lives. CNN's Jonathan Freed was with them through Frances, Jonathan a headline from there please.

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, the Gold family here in Orlando says that when two hurricanes rock your house and your life in just three weeks, you know, you start to take it personally.

O'BRIEN: Jonathan Freed, thanks very much, back with all of you as we go along tonight on the program.

And doctors say Bill Clinton can look forward to a normal life. He may have bypassed a serious heart attack in the nick of time.

Also, more than a year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq an assessment, some say the situation has gone from bad to worse, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with presidential politics and if a horserace it is then traditionally Labor Day marks the beginning of the home stretch. And, if the horses were neck-in-neck a week or two ago, tonight the president is leading by a nose.

New polling, as Bill Schneider just mentioned, puts President Bush ahead with likely voters by a margin of 52 to 45. That's a two point bump since the convention of the Republicans and another wakeup call for a campaign grappling with how to respond. Two reports tonight.

We begin with CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Running second outside the margin of error is not where you want to be as the fall campaign opens, so John Kerry is turning a new leaf, putting old faces in new places and focusing on the economy. Still, several voters at a front porch conversation with the Democratic nominee asked about Iraq.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

CROWLEY: It was Kerry's most concise, harshest war critique yet and it was coupled with a slam at Bush's coalition.

KERRY: The fact is when they talk about a coalition that's the phoniest thing I ever heard.

CROWLEY: It was not precisely the Labor Day lead Camp Kerry was looking for as it tries to till more fertile territory. The latest CNN-Gallup poll shows George Bush with a 27 point advantage when voters are asked who could better handle the war on terror and a 13 point edge on Iraq. But on the home front, Kerry shows a 13 point advantage on healthcare and three points on the economy. By the time he got to Cleveland, Kerry found a way to pivot from Iraq back home. KERRY: George Bush's wrongheaded go it alone policy has cost you, cost you already over $200 billion. That's $200 billion we're not investing in Cleveland. That's $200 billion that we're not investing in our schools and in No Child Left Behind.

CROWLEY: Inside his campaign, Kerry continues to shift around his staff. John Sasso (ph), an old friend and former Dukakis campaign manager, has been brought over to be a kind of high powered seat mate and strategist. Insiders hope Sasso can keep the candidate focused and on offense while on the road.

KERRY: That "W" stands for wrong, wrong direction, wrong choices, wrong priorities, wrong judgment for our country.

CROWLEY (on camera): The fall battle is now joined with Bush banking that terrorism will be uppermost on voters' minds and Kerry betting on the economy. Polls indicate there are even odds with voters split on the two issues.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Cleveland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The president meantime spends the night in Kansas City after a rally today in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Missouri is a state lagging in job creation. It sustained the second highest job losses of any state in the union. It's a red state with a sizeable blue collar, if you will, and either way a big prize come November.

Traveling with the president here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Staff changes at his opponent's campaign plus a more defiant John Kerry on Iraq equals a new Labor Day zinger from a rain-soaked President Bush with a too good to be true tone in his voice.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers and yet another new position. Suddenly he's against it again.

BASH: The vice president campaigning on his own in Iowa mocked Kerry's accusations the Iraq coalition is phony.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to diplomacy, it looks to me like John Kerry should stick to windsurfing.

BASH: Kerry aides say he's consistently opposed the way the president went to war. Nevertheless, Bush advisers delighted in what they call Kerry again revising positions on Iraq instead of shifting to hit Mr. Bush on domestic issues and with good reason.

The president has a comfortable lead in new polling on his handling of terrorism and Iraq but he still trails Kerry on stewardship of the economy. The economy and terrorism are tied for what drives voters most this election year. So, the president also came to the "show me" state with 100-year history of picking the winner on Election Day to talk up a convention idea with props.

BUSH: This tax code weighs heavily on our economy. It weighs heavily on every American family. Sitting down with your tax -- to do your taxes shouldn't require wading through more than one million words of complicated rules.

BASH: But he offered no new specifics on tax reform and, for these protesters here to greet the president, finding a job matters most.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been out of work for over a year now. I'm to the point where I'm about to lose my home. I have three children. My unemployment is about to run out any day. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know where I'm going to turn.

BASH: In Missouri, after several months of steady growth, 23,200 jobs disappeared in July. That's 25,400 total on the president's watch. The president touts 1.7 million new jobs nationally since August as proof it's getting better.

(on camera): But that's still a net loss of 900,000 jobs since the president's been in office. It's an issue here in Missouri but an even bigger potential problem in battlegrounds like Ohio and Pennsylvania where tens of thousands of workers, many potential Bush voters, are still looking for jobs.

Dana Bash CNN, Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: So, let's dissect the numbers. According to our CNN- USA Today Gallup poll there is a seven point gap between Bush and Kerry now. It was a three point spread before the RNC. Now, a two point bounce really isn't that much but it is better than nothing, which is precisely what John Kerry got as he left Boston.

We turn now to Bill Schneider, as we do when we bring these numbers up, a political analyst and the man who correctly predicted the Bush bounce.

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Even if he does say so himself. He is, of course, in Washington. Mr. Schneider, sir, good to see you. Let's talk about what is going on. Is this -- is this the success of the RNC or the failures of the Kerry campaign or both?

SCHNEIDER: Well, keep in mind it's a very small bounce. It's the smallest for any incumbent president in the last 35 years since we began recording the convention bounce. It only looks big because Kerry got no bounce at all. There aren't many swing voters out there, so there are very few people who are going to change their minds. It was a successful convention by and large for Bush. The convention stayed on message. It was all about one thing, 9/11. Iraq, the economy, it was all packaged at 9/11 and they got that message across.

Just like the Democrats packaged everything as the Vietnam War, which frankly the voters weren't terribly interested in. That turned out to be a bad mistake and it invited the attacks that Kerry had to endure for most of the month of August.

O'BRIEN: At the outset on the campaign we talked about this a lot. It seemed as if for Senator Kerry Iraq would be a very strong issue. It hasn't worked out that way.

SCHNEIDER: He handled it very poorly. I mean he was in a trap to begin with because he voted to authorize the war. He couldn't take back that vote. He had to stand by the vote and then explain why he was opposed to the war. It got to be a very complicated position.

Then last month he said something that astonished Democrats when asked if he knows -- if he knew then what he knows now about the lack of any weapons of mass destruction would he have voted the same way and he said, yes, sticking obdurately to his position.

Democrats threw up their hands in disbelief and yet he's stuck with that now and the result is that the Iraq issue is no longer an issue that looks like it has much mileage in it for John Kerry. He's got to run on the domestic agenda, on healthcare, on the economy. Those are the issues where he can make some headway.

O'BRIEN: So, it's the economy, stupid, again and some of the people who coined that mantra are now a part of that campaign. Is that going to be the cavalry coming to the rescue for John Kerry?

SCHNEIDER: Well, here's the rule. I call it the Schneider rule. It's the economy, stupid, except when it isn't and this year it doesn't look like the economy, stupid. There are about a third of the voters we saw in that chart that say the economy is their number one concern but nothing like 1992 when that phrase was coined when voters were overwhelmingly concerned about the economy.

What Kerry has to do is drive up that concern, talk about the Bush record, go after Bush not personally but over his record in office, his record of economic problems, the record of healthcare problems that have been accumulating and talk about what he's going to do. That's what he hasn't done yet and I'm afraid that whole debate about swift boats and the Vietnam War just distracted him and he lost a big opportunity.

O'BRIEN: And, meanwhile, for the Bush campaign stay the course you'd suggest?

SCHNEIDER: Well, yes. The Bush campaign is basically talking about their candidate's leadership qualities. You know it's interesting. In this election unlike 2000, the issues don't loom as large as personal qualities.

After 9/11, Americans seemed to be looking for a strong leader and that's the quality that Bush sells. Kerry tried to compete with that and he has some credibility as a man of strength but he's not going to win the election on that. He's got to win the election by refocusing the agenda of this campaign on the issues. The issues are where he stands to win.

O'BRIEN: Bill Schneider in Washington thanks very much.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

O'BRIEN: A hundred percent of the doctors we have polled say former President Bill Clinton should make a full recovery. Mr. Clinton is still in intensive care recovering from quadruple heart bypass surgery. After the operation, doctors said Mr. Clinton's arteries were so clogged they were like a time bomb.

Adaora Udoji has the latest on this morning's surgery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The surgeons emerged from the operating theater with good news. Bill Clinton's quadruple bypass operation, they said, was a success and none too early.

DR. ALLAN SCHWARTZ, CHIEF OF CARDIOLOGY, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN: Because of the syndrome he had with progressive symptoms culminating in rest pain, there was a substantial likelihood that he would have had a substantial heart attack in the near future and that was the reason for the time urgency of what was done.

UDOJI: Fifty-eight years old and though fond of junk food, Clinton had in recent months embraced a diet and vigorous exercise, feeling good until at least Thursday when he complained of chest pains and was admitted to the hospital. They discovered some of his arteries were 90 percent blocked.

(on camera): The doctors here at New York Presbyterian describe a relatively routine operation, taking a medical team of 15 people four hours to complete. That's the average time for the more than 300,000 Americans who undergo bypass surgery every year.

(voice-over): Senator Hillary Clinton and their daughter Chelsey have been by his side constantly, the staff says. Friday, the Senator thanked the hundreds of people who sent good wishes. Today, a hospital official read a statement from the two women.

DR. HERBERT PARDES, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN: These past few days have been quite an emotional roller coaster for us. As so many families know, open heart surgery, though increasingly common, is a very serious procedure.

UDOJI: The good wishes keep coming. Clinton aides say his website has received over 45,000 notes, like this one from Rich and Terri saying: "There are a lot of us out here who love you and can't wait for you to be back on your feet."

The prognosis is good. Doctors say he should experience a steady recovery and be back to full strength in two to three months. Clinton will spend the night in intensive care and, if all goes well, be home by the end of the week.

Adaora Udoji, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Hurricane Frances sure took its time as it raked across Florida but in an election year politicians are responding to the disaster faster than you can say remember me November 2nd.

Today, the president asked Congress to approve $2 billion in emergency funding for the storm ravaged area, and it's a big area, and on Wednesday he will travel to the Sunshine State to see the damage for himself. Meanwhile, Frances finally started conking out, spinning down to a tropical storm as it passed over the panhandle.

CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look at the aftermath of Frances' fury.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (voice-over): Six million people without electricity, 90,000 in shelters and up to $10 billion in property damage. By the numbers alone, Frances was a monster.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just went on and on and on and on and on.

FOREMAN: And the cleanup is going to be mammoth too. Extra utility crews and relief trucks are heading in from all around the south and people are lining up by the thousands just for the basics.

LT. GOVERNOR TONI JENNINGS, FLORIDA: We are focused on mass care at this point. That's the ice, water, food, comfort stations headed towards those areas in southeast Florida that had the first of the impact.

FOREMAN: The loss of lives was relatively small considering the storm' size but among the fatalities are a former son-in-law and a grandson of Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden (ph). They died in a car crash on a wet road.

Many residents are grateful they lost only property but, at places like this decimated marina where the National Guard is now standing by to stop looting, that is little comfort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know it's got insurance on it. That's all I can do is collect the insurance and we spend all our free time working on it and trying to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) but what can you do?

FOREMAN: Up in the panhandle where Frances passed with little of the expected damage, a sigh of relief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You never know what you're going to get so you have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

FOREMAN: Frances is not going too gently into this night. Another half foot of rain is expected as she moves north into Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: It is easy to get caught up in hyperbole when it comes to storms like this. This was not the most savage storm to ever hit Florida, nor will it be the most destructive but it did linger for a long time, 30 hours of storm in some area. That's highly unusual.

Many of the old timers around here all day said they've never seen a storm quite do that, so that's the one superlative that does stick to this storm and a lot of people here are glad that it's finally headed out -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Yes, Frances did earn a spot in the history books. Let's talk a little bit about Ivan, a lot of concern of course about the fact that there's ever more damage out there, not enough time to repair it and the possibility of yet another killer storm coming in.

FOREMAN: Well, obviously, one of the problems that we had just now with Frances was that Charley just came through. There were homes that were damaged, people who lost some things, then got hit by a second storm.

In some cases, people literally had parts of their roof, part of a wall damaged by the first storm. They hadn't repaired it yet. The second storm came through and that became the crack that became wider and wider and in some cases may have destroyed their homes all together. That's a big deal.

Now, Ivan, the truth is when storms are that far away we can have tracks for them and we look at those tracks but people who have covered hurricanes a long time all will tell you, it takes a long time to figure out where it's going and it can change a lot along the way. Ivan has to be watched.

It has to be taken seriously but all the people up and down here right now are saying let's not even talk about Ivan right now because they want to get over this one a little bit, get some damage repaired, get a little bit back on their feet and then address Ivan. The question is will Ivan agree with that and take its time about getting here?

O'BRIEN: All right, Tom Coleman (sic) in the panhandle of Florida, thank you very much -- Tom Foreman. Did I say -- I might have said something else. I apologize, Tom Foreman in the panhandle of Florida.

Still ahead from big picture to salvaging pictures, more on the hurricane, surviving it for the second time, CNN's Jonathan Freed he has a weekend adventure and the harrowing ordeal of family survival.

And up next, mourning the victims in Russia, family members bury loved ones and turning agony into rage. From the CNN Center in Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: They're expecting the streets of Moscow to be packed in just a few hours, packed with protesters marching against recent acts of terror and some believe the government's ineptitude in preventing them, this as funerals go on by the hundred in southern Russia. Grave diggers told to prepare for as many as 600 burials in the wake of that gun battle at Middle School No. 1 in Beslan.

Today, Russian state television aired video of a suspect saying he and the others were told to seize the school to start a war across the region, whether that's so remains to be seen. The rest is almost impossible to watch.

Here's CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a field set aside for the dead, the people of Beslan are burying their children in utter grief. Some families shocked by their loss have still to find their loved ones. Others must bid theirs farewell at the grave. Those with the strength to speak breathed contempt for the killers who did this, few can explain it.

"We pray for the souls of the innocents who were killed by the terrorists in Beslan" says the priest. "May they rest in peace."

So many have been robbed of all joy, Morat (ph) has a daughter no more, killed he told me with all her schoolmates. He invited us to join the mourners at his home. We walked into bedlam.

Around the coffin, the grief is fever pitched. Alana (ph) was just 15 and a bright student. In her wake, the chaos of despair is overwhelming. She'll be missed.

"As parents we should die before our kids but I have seen my daughter's death" says Morat. "Now our home feels cold. There are many homes like this in Beslan now."

And this is where the innocent life was lost. School No. 1 is now a burned out ruin on public view, its playgrounds littered with painful reminders of the hostage siege.

Survivors like Zara (ph) and her two grandchildren speak of the cruelty suffered at the hands of their captors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They never gave us any water. The kids couldn't bear it. For days the screamed of thirst, some even drank their own urine or poured it on themselves to cool down. Others just cried for help.

CHANCE: Help that never came or arrived too late for the hundreds now being laid to rest. (on camera): This has already been declared a day of official mourning across Russia but it's clear from the misery in these fields outside Beslan that the wounds will take far longer to heal here. One bereaved father told me that even the loss of a single child is enough to be called a tragedy. This, he said, is beyond words.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Beslan in southern Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: More now on the political dimension and connections, if any, with the likes of al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups. This is a complicated question.

Arab fighters have long played a role in the Chechen fight as soldiers. Now whether there is more to it than that is another thornier question.

Russia's president, for one, believes the answer is yes, with that side of the story CNN's Jill Dougherty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY (voice-over): Russian security forces display the bodies of what they say are the terrorists who carried out the deadly school hostage attack, an international band, Russian officials claim, with fighters from neighboring regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia, as well as Kazakhstan, Russia and, as yet unnamed, Arab countries.

The operation directed, they say, by Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev. The information apparently coming partly from a suspect paraded on Russian TV speaking with what appears to be a Chechen accent. International terrorism, that's what Russian President Vladimir Putin insists is fueling attacks in Russia.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are dealing with the direct intervention of international terror against Russia with total and full scale war, which again and again is taking away the lives of our compatriots.

DOUGHERTY (on camera): Russian and other intelligence agencies, including those of the United States, believe there is, at least in part, a connection between the Chechen rebel movement and an international web of terrorists.

(voice-over): One Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, former president of the republic, condemns the hostage takers. On the rebel website he says: "The perpetrators are motivated by feelings of personal revenge resulting from the deaths of their loved ones at the hands of Russian soldiers operating in an atmosphere of lawlessness."

Two years ago during the Moscow theater crisis, the Chechen hostage takers asked for a prominent Russian lawmaker, Grigory Yavlinsky, to negotiate. He says a new and more volatile generation of rebels and terrorists has emerged. GRIGORY YAVLINSKY, FMR. MEMBER RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT: Completely different story, very young people of the age about 20, 25, with the mentality of the people of 16, 17 because they were grown up during the war.

DOUGHERTY: The terrorists who held hostages at the school in Beslan, he says, could not even clearly formulate their demands but seemed willing to stop at nothing. It was a recipe for disaster.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY: Russians throughout this country but especially in Beslan also want to know why did so many people have to die? And, the anger is building but so far it appears to be more an amorphous anger, not yet directed against President Putin himself -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jill Dougherty in Moscow thank you very much.

The question is where will that anger lead and what will President Putin do? We'll put those questions to a guest after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The horror in Beslan, Russia, has put enormous political pressure on President Putin. There is no doubt it will force him to take some action. The question is, will it be a rash response that could ultimately make matters worse?

Joining me now from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is Stephen Blank. He's professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College.

Good evening, Professor Blank. Good to have you with us.

STEPHEN BLANK, PROFESSOR, U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE: It's good to be here, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Do you care to venture a prediction on what President Putin might do?

BLANK: Well, I think that his natural instinct is to try and get tough and probably engage in more authoritarian and centralizing policies, such as he has carried out in the past.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: That could lead to quite a backlash with the public in Russia. Does he care much about that?

BLANK: Well, I think they don't care too much about public opinion in Russia. Public opinion has long since wanted a negotiated settlement to this war. And one has to understand that, for Putin, this war is a kind of personal crusade.

O'BRIEN: Why is that?

BLANK: It brought him to power in '99. And he has cast himself in the posture of a man who is fighting to save Russia, if not Europe, from international terrorism. And, therefore, I don't think he sees that it's possible to retreat.

O'BRIEN: Is it really that, though? Is this about international terrorism or is this about Russian pride?

BLANK: Well, it's about a lot of things.

There certainly is an international terrorist dimension to this and there has been for at least five years. When the Russians invaded in '99, they found Arab passports among the dead Chechen soldiers. So this goes back at least five years and at that time the Taliban had recognized the Chechen government and there were links to al Qaeda and there are still links to al Qaeda today.

But posing this as just simply a question of international terrorism striking at Russia is a recipe for failure.

O'BRIEN: Why is that?

BLANK: Because it doesn't answer the basic political question. The Chechen war is over the question of whether the Chechens will have their own independent or autonomous province within Russia, and Russia refuses to even consider the proposition.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: If it's characterized as terror, it's impossible to negotiate, because you've called it terror and you don't negotiate with terrorists, right?

BLANK: Absolutely.

And, therefore, they don't have to negotiate with terrorists and they can just continue terrorizing the country in reverse, which is what the Russian army has done. But that leads nowhere. There's no concept of victory there and there's no political solution at the end of the day.

O'BRIEN: So. And the Chechens certainly aren't going to stop their fight, because this is about their independence?

BLANK: Absolutely not.

O'BRIEN: So what -- short of cracking down on the Chechens and appearing to look tough, Putin really doesn't have anything else to do.

BLANK: Well, I wouldn't say that.

I think that what he needs to do is completely reverse course. Quite frankly, he doesn't have an army or intelligence or police network capable of dealing with the problem. And to undertake the reforms necessary to do this will take years, although it's necessary to do them. So what he needs to do is to start trying to find a political solution and negotiate with people like Mr. Maskhadov, unpalatable as that may be, because, in reality, he has no other viable alternative.

O'BRIEN: And when you say negotiating with the Chechen rebels, we're assuming for a moment this is a monolithic group. It's pretty fractious, isn't it?

BLANK: Very fractious.

But the point is that he has to find somebody at the end of the day who can rule in Chechnya with some legitimacy. And the creatures of Moscow whom he has tried to install possess no legitimacy and will be killed sooner or later by the Chechens, as were their predecessors.

O'BRIEN: Stephen Blank, thanks for your insights. Appreciate it.

BLANK: You're very welcome, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, as violence escalates in Iraq, so does the number of American forces killed in action.

Also, a family's tale of survival, how one family rode out Hurricane Frances. CNN was along for the emotional roller coaster.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: In Iraq, a setback. A spokesman for the interim government says a man arrested on Sunday is not Izzat Ibrahim al- Douri, a top commander under Saddam Hussein. And today more U.S. Marines died in combat.

CNN's Walter Rodgers takes a look back at the day and the last year and a half in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have taught you what you need. And you have practiced what you need.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Behind the masks, the new American-trained Iraqi security forces, still so insecure, they hide their faces; 17 months into the American experiment in Iraq, there is now a quasi-legislature whose powers have yet to be defined. There's a new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, to many, a still unproven leader.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Trust could be built if he delivered electricity, clean water and security. But so far, he's not delivered.

RODGERS (on camera): If this were the complete picture, nearly a year and a half into the American experiment in Iraq, it might be encouraging. But there is more and much of it is bad.

(voice-over): Today, seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi National Guardsmen were killed by a car bomb in Fallujah. It's the greatest number of Marines killed since April. The most frequently heard criticism is that the Bush administration blundered badly when it disbanded the Iraqi military and security forces, dissolving the glue that held the country together, leaving thousands of unemployed soldiers and cops to take up guns against U.S. troops.

Iraq's prime minister says so openly.

IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: The problem we face is the mistakes that have been committed in dissolving the Iraqi security and the Iraqi army. And this left us quite exposed and left the borders very open, terrorists, insurgents, lawless.

RODGERS: After first being told they would be welcomed as liberators, nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers died here, 7,000 more wounded.

To many, Iraq now seems a tragedy in the making. Militias still control huge areas, leaving much of Iraq unsafe. The so-called Sunni Triangle, west of Baghdad, is now a no-go zone. U.S. troops are in isolated fortresses, much like the Soviets in Afghanistan. Kidnappings, intimidations, beheadings take their toll. "The Washington Post" reports only 2 percent of the $18 billion appropriated for Iraq has been spent. It's simply not safe for contractors to work here.

SAAD NAJI JAWAD, IRAQI SCHOLAR: The United Nations complained about 100 -- about -- sorry -- $11 billion unaccounted for from the Iraqi funds. Nobody knows where they've gone. Yet, we hear about Bechtel and Halliburton and other American companies taking big contracts, but there's nothing going on. Nothing is built.

RODGERS: Ninety percent of the problems in Iraq are because of the Americans, this man says, adding, "They are the problem."

Yet a top American general says these perceptions are incorrect. GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, CMDR., U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We are winning. We're winning in the race against the insurgents by building Iraqi governmental institutions that are independent and Iraqi security institutions that are effective.

RODGERS: Still, from the first day Baghdad fell and looting was rampant, there was a feeling of unraveling. A year and a half later, one Jordanian analyst observed, "The Americans lurch from crisis to crisis with no grand design." More moderate critics say, context is needed.

SUBHI HADAD, IRAQI JOURNALIST: Iraq hasn't witnessed any legitimate or elected government or parliament for the past something like a half century, since 1958's revolution that toppled the monarchy. And if stability is restored and security is restored, this country will flourish.

RODGERS: The U.S. has several timetables to draw down troop strength. But, a year and a half later, no one is sure which one will work.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: From Iraq to Iran. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the nuclear question in Tehran has U.S. officials frustrated and some allies more concerned than others.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Now to the nuclear standoff between the U.S. and Iran. The White House is under growing pressure to solve the problem. The administration claims Tehran is secretly pursuing a weapons program and wants the International Atomic Energy Agency to haul them before the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions. Tehran denies that it is building nuclear weapons and says talks, not threats, could resolve the dispute.

National security correspondent David Ensor reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iranian officials have admitted to international inspectors that by the end of this month they will have reprocessed 37 tons of yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride, producing enough for five nuclear warheads.

But the Iranian insists the material is for nuclear power production and. At the rate they're going, experts say, the Iranians could have nuclear weapons to put on their medium-range missiles within two to three four years.

ROBERT EINHORN, FORMER ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE: We don't have much time. They're making steady progress now.

ENSOR: Both President Bush and his challenger, John Kerry, have called a nuclear-armed Iran unacceptable. How to stop it, though, is far from clear.

Back in 1981, with a single bombing raid, Israel stopped Iraq's nuclear bomb program in its tracks. But Iran's program reflects lessons learned from that. Nuclear facilities are widely dispersed and U.S. officials say only some of them have been identified.

GEOFFREY KEMP, THE NIXON CENTER: These are deeply buried facilities. There are thousands of them. We don't know where they all are. And so even if we bomb them with the most precise weaponry, it won't be clear that we got them.

EINHORN: An ineffective military strike would be the worst of all worlds.

ENSOR: The Bush administration has been relying on European diplomacy to convince Tehran to give up any potential for nuclear weapons. But even Republican experts now say the U.S. needs to take over and needs to offer Iran something in return.

KEMP: What this will require on the part of the Bush administration is some carrots. There is no way the Iranians are going to back down on this issue unless they are offered something in exchange.

ENSOR: The U.S. could offer to let Iran finish its peaceful nuclear energy plant at Bushehr, with spent fuel being reexported back to Russia. It could also offer Iran's mullahs a nonaggression pact, even the lifting of economic sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency board meets next week on Iran, but no one expects real movement before the November U.S. elections.

At that point, though, experts say, whoever wins needs to tackle the problem, and quickly.

EINHORN: I think we've lost a lot of time in the last few years.

ENSOR: Washington needs to deal with Iran on other issues, too. The U.S. military suspects Iran of meddling in Najaf and in Iraqi Shia politics generally. U.S. intelligence wants al Qaeda terrorist leaders like Saif Al-Adel, believed to be in Iran.

(on camera): Senator Kerry has said, if elected, he would try to set up talks on nuclear matters with Tehran. But even if the president gets a second term, experts say, look for a new sense of urgency and a new approach.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: On now to Gaza, Israeli helicopters firing on a location in Gaza city, a terrorist training camp, according to the Israeli defense forces, four rockets fired, killing at least 15. A source from Hamas said 10 of its members died in the attack. The Israelis say members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade may also have been training at that camp, the attack coming a week after a pair of suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, killing 16.

In a moment, a family you have met before in a situation they have faced before. For the Gaults, if it isn't one hurricane, it's another.

A break first. From Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: On Friday, as Hurricane Frances, now a tropical depression, bore down on Florida, we introduced you to the Gault family of Orlando. They were still reeling from Hurricane Charley when they started boarding up for Frances.

CNN's Jonathan Freed and his crew decided to stick with the Gaults and follow their second battle with Mother Nature.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 6:45 p.m. on Saturday and Mike Gault fires up his generator. The center of Hurricane Frances is still more than half a day away, but this Orlando family of five is already living in the dark.

MIKE GAULT, HURRICANE VICTIM: I figure we get one more night of hot showers and what not, a hot meal, but I guess that's out.

JODY GAULT, HURRICANE VICTIM: Some scallop potatoes.

FREED (on camera): How close to done were they?

J. GAULT: Oh, like 10 minutes.

FREED: Is the fact that it's moving so slowly and taking longer to reach you, is that frustrating for you?

M. GAULT: I would rather it come and be gone.

FREED (voice-over): The Gaults are dealing with $10,000 in roof damage caused by Hurricane Charley last month. They refused to abandon their home then and now, hoping to protect it.

M. GAULT: There goes some of my tarp.

(LAUGHTER)

FREED: If Frances makes things worse, the neighbors say they have room for Mike and his family. The generosity touches a soft spot.

M. GAULT: I can feel my eyes watering up a little bit. Just hold them back. I guess that's all. FREED (on camera): Why hold back?

M. GAULT: Well, it's just not the time. The children don't need to see it. And I need to stay strong for the children.

Close to 10:00, she went to sleep.

FREED (voice-over): The wind picks up and the family spends Saturday night sheltered in a bedroom closet, taking their own video.

J. GAULT: Didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Every time you hear a creak, it's like, is that going to be the roof coming down?

FREED: And the next morning, while Mike is inspecting the house with a camera, the ceiling crumbles in the girls' room, right over where daughter Alisa (ph) usually sleeps.

M. GAULT: If she would have been laying in bed, this would have fallen right on her, so very lucky.

FREED: Now Jody Gault is holding back tears.

J. GAULT: I don't think I would be this strong if I didn't have three kids. I would definitely be balling my eyes out, probably.

FREED: Sunday night, as Frances finally starts heading out of town, the Gaults get their power back.

M. GAULT: You see a lot more when you have lights.

(LAUGHTER)

FREED (on camera): Do you think you're going to be spending the night in here tonight?

M. GAULT: Not in here. We'll be in our beds tonight, get a real night's sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Uh-oh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe not.

FREED (voice-over): Monday afternoon, the Orlando sky is clearing, and although the family has survived storm No. 2, Mike Gault is already planning for a possible third, Hurricane Ivan.

M. GAULT: Third one comes, we're going. We're not staying.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREED: Now, the Gaults are still dealing with their insurance company over the damage caused by Charley. And, Miles, they say they just can't believe that they now have to go through that routine again -- Miles. O'BRIEN: Jonathan, watching that ceiling come down where that little girl might have been sleeping makes me wonder if they had any regrets in staying.

FREED: We asked them that and they said that, no, they don't. They really felt that the best thing that they could do was to stay and to try to protect the property. It was really the father, Mike, that wanted to stay, was insisting on staying.

And his wife said, well, if he was staying, there was no way that she could possibly leave him alone just in case something would happen. Didn't want to have him alone in the house.

O'BRIEN: But interesting. They've decided, if Ivan does come their way, no dice. They're out.

FREED: Well, two was enough. I think that, based on the state that their roof is in right now, to quote Mike, he said, what would be left for Ivan to take?

O'BRIEN: The third time could be the harm, I suppose.

Jonathan Freed in Orlando, thanks very much.

Back with a few words in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Kelly Wallace joins us now with a preview of "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Miles.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," did the Kobe Bryant case set back laws written to protect rape victims by 30 years? And did the alleged victim's decision to drop out of the trial make matters even worse? Tomorrow, the real story of the final days of the Kobe Bryant case, when we talk to the attorneys representing the young woman, her 14- month ordeal, and the latest on the civil suit. That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. -- Miles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Thanks very much, Kelly.

And thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Miles O'Brien.

On behalf of Aaron Brown, who is taking this Labor Day off, and the rest of the NEWSNIGHT team, we'll see you tomorrow.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired September 6, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening to all of you, happy Labor Day.
If you stop to think much about this holiday, named for work but marked by a national day off, it became a national holiday to honor the working man 100 years ago. Somehow it evolved into little more than a bookend for summer, a bittersweet, final fling and a reminder not so much of the glory of labor but the work that can no longer be avoided.

And there is so much hard work that lies ahead on this Labor Day in Florida, in the Middle East, in Iraq and in southern Russia, all places where people badly need a break or a simple bittersweet bookend would be an improvement.

We begin, however, with a tough choice, picking a president. With the country at war just how tough it may be is reflected in some new polling that shows a bounce but hardly a slam dunk.

CNN's Bill Schneider is looking at that for us, Bill a headline please.

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: The Bush bounce, it's a tough dance to do when there aren't many swingers.

O'BRIEN: All right, Bill Schneider.

On to Russia's 9/11, as it is being called, scores of funerals and growing anger at Russia's president. CNN's Jill Dougherty is in Moscow, Jill a headline from you.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Vladimir Putin says the hostage takers were so depraved they shot children because they were bored. Who were these hostage takers? The president says it was an international band of terrorists.

O'BRIEN: Jill Dougherty.

Next we go to Florida and Frances and CNN's Tom Foreman, Tom a headline from there please.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is a rainy night in Georgia and that's very good news down here in Florida. The much despised Frances has finally moved on. The cleanup begins.

O'BRIEN: And finally Orlando and a family we last checked in with as Frances was approaching, the second hurricane in their lives. CNN's Jonathan Freed was with them through Frances, Jonathan a headline from there please.

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, the Gold family here in Orlando says that when two hurricanes rock your house and your life in just three weeks, you know, you start to take it personally.

O'BRIEN: Jonathan Freed, thanks very much, back with all of you as we go along tonight on the program.

And doctors say Bill Clinton can look forward to a normal life. He may have bypassed a serious heart attack in the nick of time.

Also, more than a year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq an assessment, some say the situation has gone from bad to worse, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with presidential politics and if a horserace it is then traditionally Labor Day marks the beginning of the home stretch. And, if the horses were neck-in-neck a week or two ago, tonight the president is leading by a nose.

New polling, as Bill Schneider just mentioned, puts President Bush ahead with likely voters by a margin of 52 to 45. That's a two point bump since the convention of the Republicans and another wakeup call for a campaign grappling with how to respond. Two reports tonight.

We begin with CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Running second outside the margin of error is not where you want to be as the fall campaign opens, so John Kerry is turning a new leaf, putting old faces in new places and focusing on the economy. Still, several voters at a front porch conversation with the Democratic nominee asked about Iraq.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

CROWLEY: It was Kerry's most concise, harshest war critique yet and it was coupled with a slam at Bush's coalition.

KERRY: The fact is when they talk about a coalition that's the phoniest thing I ever heard.

CROWLEY: It was not precisely the Labor Day lead Camp Kerry was looking for as it tries to till more fertile territory. The latest CNN-Gallup poll shows George Bush with a 27 point advantage when voters are asked who could better handle the war on terror and a 13 point edge on Iraq. But on the home front, Kerry shows a 13 point advantage on healthcare and three points on the economy. By the time he got to Cleveland, Kerry found a way to pivot from Iraq back home. KERRY: George Bush's wrongheaded go it alone policy has cost you, cost you already over $200 billion. That's $200 billion we're not investing in Cleveland. That's $200 billion that we're not investing in our schools and in No Child Left Behind.

CROWLEY: Inside his campaign, Kerry continues to shift around his staff. John Sasso (ph), an old friend and former Dukakis campaign manager, has been brought over to be a kind of high powered seat mate and strategist. Insiders hope Sasso can keep the candidate focused and on offense while on the road.

KERRY: That "W" stands for wrong, wrong direction, wrong choices, wrong priorities, wrong judgment for our country.

CROWLEY (on camera): The fall battle is now joined with Bush banking that terrorism will be uppermost on voters' minds and Kerry betting on the economy. Polls indicate there are even odds with voters split on the two issues.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Cleveland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The president meantime spends the night in Kansas City after a rally today in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Missouri is a state lagging in job creation. It sustained the second highest job losses of any state in the union. It's a red state with a sizeable blue collar, if you will, and either way a big prize come November.

Traveling with the president here's CNN's Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Staff changes at his opponent's campaign plus a more defiant John Kerry on Iraq equals a new Labor Day zinger from a rain-soaked President Bush with a too good to be true tone in his voice.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers and yet another new position. Suddenly he's against it again.

BASH: The vice president campaigning on his own in Iowa mocked Kerry's accusations the Iraq coalition is phony.

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to diplomacy, it looks to me like John Kerry should stick to windsurfing.

BASH: Kerry aides say he's consistently opposed the way the president went to war. Nevertheless, Bush advisers delighted in what they call Kerry again revising positions on Iraq instead of shifting to hit Mr. Bush on domestic issues and with good reason.

The president has a comfortable lead in new polling on his handling of terrorism and Iraq but he still trails Kerry on stewardship of the economy. The economy and terrorism are tied for what drives voters most this election year. So, the president also came to the "show me" state with 100-year history of picking the winner on Election Day to talk up a convention idea with props.

BUSH: This tax code weighs heavily on our economy. It weighs heavily on every American family. Sitting down with your tax -- to do your taxes shouldn't require wading through more than one million words of complicated rules.

BASH: But he offered no new specifics on tax reform and, for these protesters here to greet the president, finding a job matters most.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been out of work for over a year now. I'm to the point where I'm about to lose my home. I have three children. My unemployment is about to run out any day. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know where I'm going to turn.

BASH: In Missouri, after several months of steady growth, 23,200 jobs disappeared in July. That's 25,400 total on the president's watch. The president touts 1.7 million new jobs nationally since August as proof it's getting better.

(on camera): But that's still a net loss of 900,000 jobs since the president's been in office. It's an issue here in Missouri but an even bigger potential problem in battlegrounds like Ohio and Pennsylvania where tens of thousands of workers, many potential Bush voters, are still looking for jobs.

Dana Bash CNN, Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: So, let's dissect the numbers. According to our CNN- USA Today Gallup poll there is a seven point gap between Bush and Kerry now. It was a three point spread before the RNC. Now, a two point bounce really isn't that much but it is better than nothing, which is precisely what John Kerry got as he left Boston.

We turn now to Bill Schneider, as we do when we bring these numbers up, a political analyst and the man who correctly predicted the Bush bounce.

SCHNEIDER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Even if he does say so himself. He is, of course, in Washington. Mr. Schneider, sir, good to see you. Let's talk about what is going on. Is this -- is this the success of the RNC or the failures of the Kerry campaign or both?

SCHNEIDER: Well, keep in mind it's a very small bounce. It's the smallest for any incumbent president in the last 35 years since we began recording the convention bounce. It only looks big because Kerry got no bounce at all. There aren't many swing voters out there, so there are very few people who are going to change their minds. It was a successful convention by and large for Bush. The convention stayed on message. It was all about one thing, 9/11. Iraq, the economy, it was all packaged at 9/11 and they got that message across.

Just like the Democrats packaged everything as the Vietnam War, which frankly the voters weren't terribly interested in. That turned out to be a bad mistake and it invited the attacks that Kerry had to endure for most of the month of August.

O'BRIEN: At the outset on the campaign we talked about this a lot. It seemed as if for Senator Kerry Iraq would be a very strong issue. It hasn't worked out that way.

SCHNEIDER: He handled it very poorly. I mean he was in a trap to begin with because he voted to authorize the war. He couldn't take back that vote. He had to stand by the vote and then explain why he was opposed to the war. It got to be a very complicated position.

Then last month he said something that astonished Democrats when asked if he knows -- if he knew then what he knows now about the lack of any weapons of mass destruction would he have voted the same way and he said, yes, sticking obdurately to his position.

Democrats threw up their hands in disbelief and yet he's stuck with that now and the result is that the Iraq issue is no longer an issue that looks like it has much mileage in it for John Kerry. He's got to run on the domestic agenda, on healthcare, on the economy. Those are the issues where he can make some headway.

O'BRIEN: So, it's the economy, stupid, again and some of the people who coined that mantra are now a part of that campaign. Is that going to be the cavalry coming to the rescue for John Kerry?

SCHNEIDER: Well, here's the rule. I call it the Schneider rule. It's the economy, stupid, except when it isn't and this year it doesn't look like the economy, stupid. There are about a third of the voters we saw in that chart that say the economy is their number one concern but nothing like 1992 when that phrase was coined when voters were overwhelmingly concerned about the economy.

What Kerry has to do is drive up that concern, talk about the Bush record, go after Bush not personally but over his record in office, his record of economic problems, the record of healthcare problems that have been accumulating and talk about what he's going to do. That's what he hasn't done yet and I'm afraid that whole debate about swift boats and the Vietnam War just distracted him and he lost a big opportunity.

O'BRIEN: And, meanwhile, for the Bush campaign stay the course you'd suggest?

SCHNEIDER: Well, yes. The Bush campaign is basically talking about their candidate's leadership qualities. You know it's interesting. In this election unlike 2000, the issues don't loom as large as personal qualities.

After 9/11, Americans seemed to be looking for a strong leader and that's the quality that Bush sells. Kerry tried to compete with that and he has some credibility as a man of strength but he's not going to win the election on that. He's got to win the election by refocusing the agenda of this campaign on the issues. The issues are where he stands to win.

O'BRIEN: Bill Schneider in Washington thanks very much.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

O'BRIEN: A hundred percent of the doctors we have polled say former President Bill Clinton should make a full recovery. Mr. Clinton is still in intensive care recovering from quadruple heart bypass surgery. After the operation, doctors said Mr. Clinton's arteries were so clogged they were like a time bomb.

Adaora Udoji has the latest on this morning's surgery.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADAORA UDOJI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The surgeons emerged from the operating theater with good news. Bill Clinton's quadruple bypass operation, they said, was a success and none too early.

DR. ALLAN SCHWARTZ, CHIEF OF CARDIOLOGY, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN: Because of the syndrome he had with progressive symptoms culminating in rest pain, there was a substantial likelihood that he would have had a substantial heart attack in the near future and that was the reason for the time urgency of what was done.

UDOJI: Fifty-eight years old and though fond of junk food, Clinton had in recent months embraced a diet and vigorous exercise, feeling good until at least Thursday when he complained of chest pains and was admitted to the hospital. They discovered some of his arteries were 90 percent blocked.

(on camera): The doctors here at New York Presbyterian describe a relatively routine operation, taking a medical team of 15 people four hours to complete. That's the average time for the more than 300,000 Americans who undergo bypass surgery every year.

(voice-over): Senator Hillary Clinton and their daughter Chelsey have been by his side constantly, the staff says. Friday, the Senator thanked the hundreds of people who sent good wishes. Today, a hospital official read a statement from the two women.

DR. HERBERT PARDES, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN: These past few days have been quite an emotional roller coaster for us. As so many families know, open heart surgery, though increasingly common, is a very serious procedure.

UDOJI: The good wishes keep coming. Clinton aides say his website has received over 45,000 notes, like this one from Rich and Terri saying: "There are a lot of us out here who love you and can't wait for you to be back on your feet."

The prognosis is good. Doctors say he should experience a steady recovery and be back to full strength in two to three months. Clinton will spend the night in intensive care and, if all goes well, be home by the end of the week.

Adaora Udoji, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Hurricane Frances sure took its time as it raked across Florida but in an election year politicians are responding to the disaster faster than you can say remember me November 2nd.

Today, the president asked Congress to approve $2 billion in emergency funding for the storm ravaged area, and it's a big area, and on Wednesday he will travel to the Sunshine State to see the damage for himself. Meanwhile, Frances finally started conking out, spinning down to a tropical storm as it passed over the panhandle.

CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look at the aftermath of Frances' fury.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (voice-over): Six million people without electricity, 90,000 in shelters and up to $10 billion in property damage. By the numbers alone, Frances was a monster.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just went on and on and on and on and on.

FOREMAN: And the cleanup is going to be mammoth too. Extra utility crews and relief trucks are heading in from all around the south and people are lining up by the thousands just for the basics.

LT. GOVERNOR TONI JENNINGS, FLORIDA: We are focused on mass care at this point. That's the ice, water, food, comfort stations headed towards those areas in southeast Florida that had the first of the impact.

FOREMAN: The loss of lives was relatively small considering the storm' size but among the fatalities are a former son-in-law and a grandson of Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden (ph). They died in a car crash on a wet road.

Many residents are grateful they lost only property but, at places like this decimated marina where the National Guard is now standing by to stop looting, that is little comfort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know it's got insurance on it. That's all I can do is collect the insurance and we spend all our free time working on it and trying to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) but what can you do?

FOREMAN: Up in the panhandle where Frances passed with little of the expected damage, a sigh of relief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You never know what you're going to get so you have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

FOREMAN: Frances is not going too gently into this night. Another half foot of rain is expected as she moves north into Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: It is easy to get caught up in hyperbole when it comes to storms like this. This was not the most savage storm to ever hit Florida, nor will it be the most destructive but it did linger for a long time, 30 hours of storm in some area. That's highly unusual.

Many of the old timers around here all day said they've never seen a storm quite do that, so that's the one superlative that does stick to this storm and a lot of people here are glad that it's finally headed out -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Yes, Frances did earn a spot in the history books. Let's talk a little bit about Ivan, a lot of concern of course about the fact that there's ever more damage out there, not enough time to repair it and the possibility of yet another killer storm coming in.

FOREMAN: Well, obviously, one of the problems that we had just now with Frances was that Charley just came through. There were homes that were damaged, people who lost some things, then got hit by a second storm.

In some cases, people literally had parts of their roof, part of a wall damaged by the first storm. They hadn't repaired it yet. The second storm came through and that became the crack that became wider and wider and in some cases may have destroyed their homes all together. That's a big deal.

Now, Ivan, the truth is when storms are that far away we can have tracks for them and we look at those tracks but people who have covered hurricanes a long time all will tell you, it takes a long time to figure out where it's going and it can change a lot along the way. Ivan has to be watched.

It has to be taken seriously but all the people up and down here right now are saying let's not even talk about Ivan right now because they want to get over this one a little bit, get some damage repaired, get a little bit back on their feet and then address Ivan. The question is will Ivan agree with that and take its time about getting here?

O'BRIEN: All right, Tom Coleman (sic) in the panhandle of Florida, thank you very much -- Tom Foreman. Did I say -- I might have said something else. I apologize, Tom Foreman in the panhandle of Florida.

Still ahead from big picture to salvaging pictures, more on the hurricane, surviving it for the second time, CNN's Jonathan Freed he has a weekend adventure and the harrowing ordeal of family survival.

And up next, mourning the victims in Russia, family members bury loved ones and turning agony into rage. From the CNN Center in Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: They're expecting the streets of Moscow to be packed in just a few hours, packed with protesters marching against recent acts of terror and some believe the government's ineptitude in preventing them, this as funerals go on by the hundred in southern Russia. Grave diggers told to prepare for as many as 600 burials in the wake of that gun battle at Middle School No. 1 in Beslan.

Today, Russian state television aired video of a suspect saying he and the others were told to seize the school to start a war across the region, whether that's so remains to be seen. The rest is almost impossible to watch.

Here's CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a field set aside for the dead, the people of Beslan are burying their children in utter grief. Some families shocked by their loss have still to find their loved ones. Others must bid theirs farewell at the grave. Those with the strength to speak breathed contempt for the killers who did this, few can explain it.

"We pray for the souls of the innocents who were killed by the terrorists in Beslan" says the priest. "May they rest in peace."

So many have been robbed of all joy, Morat (ph) has a daughter no more, killed he told me with all her schoolmates. He invited us to join the mourners at his home. We walked into bedlam.

Around the coffin, the grief is fever pitched. Alana (ph) was just 15 and a bright student. In her wake, the chaos of despair is overwhelming. She'll be missed.

"As parents we should die before our kids but I have seen my daughter's death" says Morat. "Now our home feels cold. There are many homes like this in Beslan now."

And this is where the innocent life was lost. School No. 1 is now a burned out ruin on public view, its playgrounds littered with painful reminders of the hostage siege.

Survivors like Zara (ph) and her two grandchildren speak of the cruelty suffered at the hands of their captors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): They never gave us any water. The kids couldn't bear it. For days the screamed of thirst, some even drank their own urine or poured it on themselves to cool down. Others just cried for help.

CHANCE: Help that never came or arrived too late for the hundreds now being laid to rest. (on camera): This has already been declared a day of official mourning across Russia but it's clear from the misery in these fields outside Beslan that the wounds will take far longer to heal here. One bereaved father told me that even the loss of a single child is enough to be called a tragedy. This, he said, is beyond words.

Matthew Chance, CNN, Beslan in southern Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: More now on the political dimension and connections, if any, with the likes of al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups. This is a complicated question.

Arab fighters have long played a role in the Chechen fight as soldiers. Now whether there is more to it than that is another thornier question.

Russia's president, for one, believes the answer is yes, with that side of the story CNN's Jill Dougherty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY (voice-over): Russian security forces display the bodies of what they say are the terrorists who carried out the deadly school hostage attack, an international band, Russian officials claim, with fighters from neighboring regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia, as well as Kazakhstan, Russia and, as yet unnamed, Arab countries.

The operation directed, they say, by Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev. The information apparently coming partly from a suspect paraded on Russian TV speaking with what appears to be a Chechen accent. International terrorism, that's what Russian President Vladimir Putin insists is fueling attacks in Russia.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We are dealing with the direct intervention of international terror against Russia with total and full scale war, which again and again is taking away the lives of our compatriots.

DOUGHERTY (on camera): Russian and other intelligence agencies, including those of the United States, believe there is, at least in part, a connection between the Chechen rebel movement and an international web of terrorists.

(voice-over): One Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, former president of the republic, condemns the hostage takers. On the rebel website he says: "The perpetrators are motivated by feelings of personal revenge resulting from the deaths of their loved ones at the hands of Russian soldiers operating in an atmosphere of lawlessness."

Two years ago during the Moscow theater crisis, the Chechen hostage takers asked for a prominent Russian lawmaker, Grigory Yavlinsky, to negotiate. He says a new and more volatile generation of rebels and terrorists has emerged. GRIGORY YAVLINSKY, FMR. MEMBER RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT: Completely different story, very young people of the age about 20, 25, with the mentality of the people of 16, 17 because they were grown up during the war.

DOUGHERTY: The terrorists who held hostages at the school in Beslan, he says, could not even clearly formulate their demands but seemed willing to stop at nothing. It was a recipe for disaster.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOUGHERTY: Russians throughout this country but especially in Beslan also want to know why did so many people have to die? And, the anger is building but so far it appears to be more an amorphous anger, not yet directed against President Putin himself -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Jill Dougherty in Moscow thank you very much.

The question is where will that anger lead and what will President Putin do? We'll put those questions to a guest after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The horror in Beslan, Russia, has put enormous political pressure on President Putin. There is no doubt it will force him to take some action. The question is, will it be a rash response that could ultimately make matters worse?

Joining me now from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is Stephen Blank. He's professor at the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College.

Good evening, Professor Blank. Good to have you with us.

STEPHEN BLANK, PROFESSOR, U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE: It's good to be here, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Do you care to venture a prediction on what President Putin might do?

BLANK: Well, I think that his natural instinct is to try and get tough and probably engage in more authoritarian and centralizing policies, such as he has carried out in the past.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: That could lead to quite a backlash with the public in Russia. Does he care much about that?

BLANK: Well, I think they don't care too much about public opinion in Russia. Public opinion has long since wanted a negotiated settlement to this war. And one has to understand that, for Putin, this war is a kind of personal crusade.

O'BRIEN: Why is that?

BLANK: It brought him to power in '99. And he has cast himself in the posture of a man who is fighting to save Russia, if not Europe, from international terrorism. And, therefore, I don't think he sees that it's possible to retreat.

O'BRIEN: Is it really that, though? Is this about international terrorism or is this about Russian pride?

BLANK: Well, it's about a lot of things.

There certainly is an international terrorist dimension to this and there has been for at least five years. When the Russians invaded in '99, they found Arab passports among the dead Chechen soldiers. So this goes back at least five years and at that time the Taliban had recognized the Chechen government and there were links to al Qaeda and there are still links to al Qaeda today.

But posing this as just simply a question of international terrorism striking at Russia is a recipe for failure.

O'BRIEN: Why is that?

BLANK: Because it doesn't answer the basic political question. The Chechen war is over the question of whether the Chechens will have their own independent or autonomous province within Russia, and Russia refuses to even consider the proposition.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: If it's characterized as terror, it's impossible to negotiate, because you've called it terror and you don't negotiate with terrorists, right?

BLANK: Absolutely.

And, therefore, they don't have to negotiate with terrorists and they can just continue terrorizing the country in reverse, which is what the Russian army has done. But that leads nowhere. There's no concept of victory there and there's no political solution at the end of the day.

O'BRIEN: So. And the Chechens certainly aren't going to stop their fight, because this is about their independence?

BLANK: Absolutely not.

O'BRIEN: So what -- short of cracking down on the Chechens and appearing to look tough, Putin really doesn't have anything else to do.

BLANK: Well, I wouldn't say that.

I think that what he needs to do is completely reverse course. Quite frankly, he doesn't have an army or intelligence or police network capable of dealing with the problem. And to undertake the reforms necessary to do this will take years, although it's necessary to do them. So what he needs to do is to start trying to find a political solution and negotiate with people like Mr. Maskhadov, unpalatable as that may be, because, in reality, he has no other viable alternative.

O'BRIEN: And when you say negotiating with the Chechen rebels, we're assuming for a moment this is a monolithic group. It's pretty fractious, isn't it?

BLANK: Very fractious.

But the point is that he has to find somebody at the end of the day who can rule in Chechnya with some legitimacy. And the creatures of Moscow whom he has tried to install possess no legitimacy and will be killed sooner or later by the Chechens, as were their predecessors.

O'BRIEN: Stephen Blank, thanks for your insights. Appreciate it.

BLANK: You're very welcome, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, as violence escalates in Iraq, so does the number of American forces killed in action.

Also, a family's tale of survival, how one family rode out Hurricane Frances. CNN was along for the emotional roller coaster.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: In Iraq, a setback. A spokesman for the interim government says a man arrested on Sunday is not Izzat Ibrahim al- Douri, a top commander under Saddam Hussein. And today more U.S. Marines died in combat.

CNN's Walter Rodgers takes a look back at the day and the last year and a half in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have taught you what you need. And you have practiced what you need.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Behind the masks, the new American-trained Iraqi security forces, still so insecure, they hide their faces; 17 months into the American experiment in Iraq, there is now a quasi-legislature whose powers have yet to be defined. There's a new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, to many, a still unproven leader.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Trust could be built if he delivered electricity, clean water and security. But so far, he's not delivered.

RODGERS (on camera): If this were the complete picture, nearly a year and a half into the American experiment in Iraq, it might be encouraging. But there is more and much of it is bad.

(voice-over): Today, seven U.S. Marines and three Iraqi National Guardsmen were killed by a car bomb in Fallujah. It's the greatest number of Marines killed since April. The most frequently heard criticism is that the Bush administration blundered badly when it disbanded the Iraqi military and security forces, dissolving the glue that held the country together, leaving thousands of unemployed soldiers and cops to take up guns against U.S. troops.

Iraq's prime minister says so openly.

IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: The problem we face is the mistakes that have been committed in dissolving the Iraqi security and the Iraqi army. And this left us quite exposed and left the borders very open, terrorists, insurgents, lawless.

RODGERS: After first being told they would be welcomed as liberators, nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers died here, 7,000 more wounded.

To many, Iraq now seems a tragedy in the making. Militias still control huge areas, leaving much of Iraq unsafe. The so-called Sunni Triangle, west of Baghdad, is now a no-go zone. U.S. troops are in isolated fortresses, much like the Soviets in Afghanistan. Kidnappings, intimidations, beheadings take their toll. "The Washington Post" reports only 2 percent of the $18 billion appropriated for Iraq has been spent. It's simply not safe for contractors to work here.

SAAD NAJI JAWAD, IRAQI SCHOLAR: The United Nations complained about 100 -- about -- sorry -- $11 billion unaccounted for from the Iraqi funds. Nobody knows where they've gone. Yet, we hear about Bechtel and Halliburton and other American companies taking big contracts, but there's nothing going on. Nothing is built.

RODGERS: Ninety percent of the problems in Iraq are because of the Americans, this man says, adding, "They are the problem."

Yet a top American general says these perceptions are incorrect. GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, CMDR., U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We are winning. We're winning in the race against the insurgents by building Iraqi governmental institutions that are independent and Iraqi security institutions that are effective.

RODGERS: Still, from the first day Baghdad fell and looting was rampant, there was a feeling of unraveling. A year and a half later, one Jordanian analyst observed, "The Americans lurch from crisis to crisis with no grand design." More moderate critics say, context is needed.

SUBHI HADAD, IRAQI JOURNALIST: Iraq hasn't witnessed any legitimate or elected government or parliament for the past something like a half century, since 1958's revolution that toppled the monarchy. And if stability is restored and security is restored, this country will flourish.

RODGERS: The U.S. has several timetables to draw down troop strength. But, a year and a half later, no one is sure which one will work.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: From Iraq to Iran. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the nuclear question in Tehran has U.S. officials frustrated and some allies more concerned than others.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Now to the nuclear standoff between the U.S. and Iran. The White House is under growing pressure to solve the problem. The administration claims Tehran is secretly pursuing a weapons program and wants the International Atomic Energy Agency to haul them before the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions. Tehran denies that it is building nuclear weapons and says talks, not threats, could resolve the dispute.

National security correspondent David Ensor reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iranian officials have admitted to international inspectors that by the end of this month they will have reprocessed 37 tons of yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride, producing enough for five nuclear warheads.

But the Iranian insists the material is for nuclear power production and. At the rate they're going, experts say, the Iranians could have nuclear weapons to put on their medium-range missiles within two to three four years.

ROBERT EINHORN, FORMER ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE: We don't have much time. They're making steady progress now.

ENSOR: Both President Bush and his challenger, John Kerry, have called a nuclear-armed Iran unacceptable. How to stop it, though, is far from clear.

Back in 1981, with a single bombing raid, Israel stopped Iraq's nuclear bomb program in its tracks. But Iran's program reflects lessons learned from that. Nuclear facilities are widely dispersed and U.S. officials say only some of them have been identified.

GEOFFREY KEMP, THE NIXON CENTER: These are deeply buried facilities. There are thousands of them. We don't know where they all are. And so even if we bomb them with the most precise weaponry, it won't be clear that we got them.

EINHORN: An ineffective military strike would be the worst of all worlds.

ENSOR: The Bush administration has been relying on European diplomacy to convince Tehran to give up any potential for nuclear weapons. But even Republican experts now say the U.S. needs to take over and needs to offer Iran something in return.

KEMP: What this will require on the part of the Bush administration is some carrots. There is no way the Iranians are going to back down on this issue unless they are offered something in exchange.

ENSOR: The U.S. could offer to let Iran finish its peaceful nuclear energy plant at Bushehr, with spent fuel being reexported back to Russia. It could also offer Iran's mullahs a nonaggression pact, even the lifting of economic sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency board meets next week on Iran, but no one expects real movement before the November U.S. elections.

At that point, though, experts say, whoever wins needs to tackle the problem, and quickly.

EINHORN: I think we've lost a lot of time in the last few years.

ENSOR: Washington needs to deal with Iran on other issues, too. The U.S. military suspects Iran of meddling in Najaf and in Iraqi Shia politics generally. U.S. intelligence wants al Qaeda terrorist leaders like Saif Al-Adel, believed to be in Iran.

(on camera): Senator Kerry has said, if elected, he would try to set up talks on nuclear matters with Tehran. But even if the president gets a second term, experts say, look for a new sense of urgency and a new approach.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: On now to Gaza, Israeli helicopters firing on a location in Gaza city, a terrorist training camp, according to the Israeli defense forces, four rockets fired, killing at least 15. A source from Hamas said 10 of its members died in the attack. The Israelis say members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade may also have been training at that camp, the attack coming a week after a pair of suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, killing 16.

In a moment, a family you have met before in a situation they have faced before. For the Gaults, if it isn't one hurricane, it's another.

A break first. From Atlanta, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: On Friday, as Hurricane Frances, now a tropical depression, bore down on Florida, we introduced you to the Gault family of Orlando. They were still reeling from Hurricane Charley when they started boarding up for Frances.

CNN's Jonathan Freed and his crew decided to stick with the Gaults and follow their second battle with Mother Nature.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 6:45 p.m. on Saturday and Mike Gault fires up his generator. The center of Hurricane Frances is still more than half a day away, but this Orlando family of five is already living in the dark.

MIKE GAULT, HURRICANE VICTIM: I figure we get one more night of hot showers and what not, a hot meal, but I guess that's out.

JODY GAULT, HURRICANE VICTIM: Some scallop potatoes.

FREED (on camera): How close to done were they?

J. GAULT: Oh, like 10 minutes.

FREED: Is the fact that it's moving so slowly and taking longer to reach you, is that frustrating for you?

M. GAULT: I would rather it come and be gone.

FREED (voice-over): The Gaults are dealing with $10,000 in roof damage caused by Hurricane Charley last month. They refused to abandon their home then and now, hoping to protect it.

M. GAULT: There goes some of my tarp.

(LAUGHTER)

FREED: If Frances makes things worse, the neighbors say they have room for Mike and his family. The generosity touches a soft spot.

M. GAULT: I can feel my eyes watering up a little bit. Just hold them back. I guess that's all. FREED (on camera): Why hold back?

M. GAULT: Well, it's just not the time. The children don't need to see it. And I need to stay strong for the children.

Close to 10:00, she went to sleep.

FREED (voice-over): The wind picks up and the family spends Saturday night sheltered in a bedroom closet, taking their own video.

J. GAULT: Didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Every time you hear a creak, it's like, is that going to be the roof coming down?

FREED: And the next morning, while Mike is inspecting the house with a camera, the ceiling crumbles in the girls' room, right over where daughter Alisa (ph) usually sleeps.

M. GAULT: If she would have been laying in bed, this would have fallen right on her, so very lucky.

FREED: Now Jody Gault is holding back tears.

J. GAULT: I don't think I would be this strong if I didn't have three kids. I would definitely be balling my eyes out, probably.

FREED: Sunday night, as Frances finally starts heading out of town, the Gaults get their power back.

M. GAULT: You see a lot more when you have lights.

(LAUGHTER)

FREED (on camera): Do you think you're going to be spending the night in here tonight?

M. GAULT: Not in here. We'll be in our beds tonight, get a real night's sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Uh-oh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe not.

FREED (voice-over): Monday afternoon, the Orlando sky is clearing, and although the family has survived storm No. 2, Mike Gault is already planning for a possible third, Hurricane Ivan.

M. GAULT: Third one comes, we're going. We're not staying.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREED: Now, the Gaults are still dealing with their insurance company over the damage caused by Charley. And, Miles, they say they just can't believe that they now have to go through that routine again -- Miles. O'BRIEN: Jonathan, watching that ceiling come down where that little girl might have been sleeping makes me wonder if they had any regrets in staying.

FREED: We asked them that and they said that, no, they don't. They really felt that the best thing that they could do was to stay and to try to protect the property. It was really the father, Mike, that wanted to stay, was insisting on staying.

And his wife said, well, if he was staying, there was no way that she could possibly leave him alone just in case something would happen. Didn't want to have him alone in the house.

O'BRIEN: But interesting. They've decided, if Ivan does come their way, no dice. They're out.

FREED: Well, two was enough. I think that, based on the state that their roof is in right now, to quote Mike, he said, what would be left for Ivan to take?

O'BRIEN: The third time could be the harm, I suppose.

Jonathan Freed in Orlando, thanks very much.

Back with a few words in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Kelly Wallace joins us now with a preview of "AMERICAN MORNING" tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Miles.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," did the Kobe Bryant case set back laws written to protect rape victims by 30 years? And did the alleged victim's decision to drop out of the trial make matters even worse? Tomorrow, the real story of the final days of the Kobe Bryant case, when we talk to the attorneys representing the young woman, her 14- month ordeal, and the latest on the civil suit. That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. -- Miles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Thanks very much, Kelly.

And thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Miles O'Brien.

On behalf of Aaron Brown, who is taking this Labor Day off, and the rest of the NEWSNIGHT team, we'll see you tomorrow.

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