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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

British Report Says Most Likely Outcome in Iraq is Civil War; Strategists Keep Kerry on Message in Stump Speeches

Aired September 08, 2004 - 22:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
There is something slightly nuts about this never ending, and I now believe it will be never ending, tit-for-tat over Vietnam and who did what? Today, the show was on the other foot again and it is the president and the White House having to play defense over the president's time in the Texas Air National Guard, how he got in, what he did when he was in, whether he did all he was supposed to, if big shots looked the other way because his name was Bush, all that stuff.

The details are coming up in a bit and, as we did with the swift boat stuff, we will do with this. We will report as best we can the facts, the record, and leave the yelling and the screaming to others.

But sometimes in all of this something quite simple is left out. In fact, the president acknowledged this, at least indirectly, the other day and it was good that he did.

One guy went to Vietnam and the other guy didn't. The guy who went most likely could have avoided going but didn't. The guy who didn't go made it clear he had no interest in fighting a war he says he supported.

To the extent that any of this matters all these years later, and I'm not sure any of it does, that's really it. That should be the end of the story but with Vietnam it never really ends.

We begin with a current war, a relevant war, CNN's Walter Rodgers in Iraq, Walter the headline tonight.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the focus of battle has temporarily shifted in Iraq from the Shiite slum of Sadr City, northeast of Baghdad, to U.S. air strikes against Fallujah but in neither case the attacks on the Shias in Sadr City or the Sunni rebels in Fallujah can it be said that they were routed merely temporarily punished. They will be back -- Aaron.

BROWN: Walter, thank you.

Next to Iowa, the Kerry campaign and CNN's Candy Crowley, Candy the headline from the trail tonight.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, John Kerry is trying to change the subject by getting voters to ask themselves a different kind of question, not whether the world is safer without Saddam Hussein but what might the U.S. look like had the war been conducted differently -- Aaron?

BROWN: Candy, thank you.

Finally back to the Vietnam era and the president, as we said at the top, details of a new report out today, CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King with us, so John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president says he was honorably discharged and that he knows of no special treatment. The White House says that should be end of story but there are some new accusations today and some new memos out just tonight that show that at least Mr. Bush's commanding officer thought he was being watched by higher ups to see how he handled the kid with the famous name -- Aaron.

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

Also coming up on the program tonight, a space capsule's earthly homecoming, a little too earthly it turns out, the final moments of Genesis out in the Utah desert, not the only headline out of Utah tonight. The state also grappling with a controversy over carrying concealed weapons on campus.

And, at the end of the hour, news from your region and around the world, morning papers wraps it up, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight in Iraq with an assessment of the place and the politics as it is, not as it ought to be or might one day be or might have been had things gone differently.

Part of the assessment comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Its report, published today, is richly detailed based, among other things, on interviews done with 700 Iraqis in 15 cities this summer. The bottom line conditions in Iraq have gotten worse, not better, and success could be years away at best.

So there it is and none of it contradicted on the ground today, reporting the story for us tonight CNN's Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS (voice-over): An American fighter bomber targeting a suspected Islamist insurgent command and control headquarters in Fallujah for those at ground zero it was an angel of death. U.S. forces estimate they killed as many as 100 insurgents.

Fallujah is currently the epicenter of resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, home as well to several thousand foreign fighters eager to spill American blood. On Monday they succeeded killing seven U.S. Marines in a suicide car bomb that blew up the Marines' transport vehicle. After bitter fighting in Fallujah last spring, the American military has opted to bypass it now, instead encircling the insurgents, locking them down thus minimizing U.S. casualties. Some generals acknowledge much of Iraq is less stable now than when U.S. forces first arrived.

JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. CENTCOM COMMANDER: I think that it's fair to say that in certain areas it's more hostile than it was right after the fall of Baghdad. I think that is fair to say and those areas are primarily in the Fallujah/Ramadi area.

RODGERS: Sadr City, northeast of Baghdad, was quiet after savage fighting Monday and Tuesday. Iraqis paused to bury their dead. Dozens died in the past few days. Few expect the quiet to last. Witness this graffiti, "Death to the enemies of Muqtada al-Sadr." Dead Iraqis, now more than 1,000 dead Americans, back in the United States a mourning American mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're killing off our young. We're killing off our future.

RODGERS: Still unknown at this point is the fate of these two 29-year-old Italian aid workers helping in a hospital kidnapped yesterday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS: Britain -- rather, Iraq, now seems a country only partially under control of the interim government but largely up for grabs. Britain's Royal Institute for International Affairs released a report that says the most likely outcome here is civil war -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is there any word from the kidnappers on the two hostages?

RODGERS: None at all. They're not sure who did it. The initial report suggested that they were men wearing Iraqi National Guard uniforms but anybody's uniform is up for grabs here.

Aaron, we have a horrible statistic here. We've learned that the U.S. Army has lost a dozen of its Humvees, fully equipped, full armor, full ammunition, radios and everything. They were taken, stolen by presumably the rebels, so uniforms, military equipment, anybody can have them in this country -- Aaron.

BROWN: I'm sorry and where were they stolen?

RODGERS: Well, all around the country in various places.

BROWN: It wasn't one incident? It wasn't...

RODGERS: No, no it was not a single incident.

BROWN: Got it.

RODGERS: Some soldiers got sloppy. Now what's interesting is that some of those Humvees do have GPS systems on them and they can be tracked down but there's been no indication that others have and, if you have an American Humvee and you can get American uniforms here, you can drive through any guard -- any checkpoint. You can drive anywhere in this country and then, if you're an insurgent just open up with a machinegun. It's a very violent situation here, very, very mercurial -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, Walter, Walter Rodgers in Baghdad.

On to presidential politics here at home where Iraq is both front and center on the campaign trail and also the backdrop for almost every other issue that is in play.

That much at least was clear today in Cincinnati, reporting tonight our Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): If you think this looks a lot like this then you got the picture.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need a new direction. We need statesmanship. We need leadership.

CROWLEY: Twenty-three months after George Bush came to Cincinnati to make his case for a war in Iraq, John Kerry returned to the same spot to make his case for a new president in the United States.

KERRY: A new credibility to open up the channels of communication. We need to do a whole bunch of things in Iraq that this president could have done and hasn't even tried to do. We need to really bring our allies to our side.

CROWLEY: It was little more than Kerry's latest stump speech in teleprompter form in a symbolic setting. It is part of an ongoing effort by strategists to keep the candidate on message and on offense, which basically means less Iraq, more everything else.

George Bush currently holds a double digit edge when voters are asked who can best handle Iraq or the terror threat. The playing field advantage falls to Kerry on the economy, so the Senator is trying to bring home the war.

KERRY: Two hundred billion for Iraq but they tell us we can't afford after school programs for our children. Two hundred billion dollars for Iraq but they tell us we can't afford healthcare for our veterans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: The Bush campaign was quick to point out that just a year ago John Kerry gave an interview in which he said the U.S. should spend whatever billions are needed to win the war. Said a Bush spokesman, John Kerry has gone from a candidate with conflicting positions on Iraq to a candidate with incoherent positions on Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: So they seem to, they being the Kerry people are in a kind of a trap. They can't avoid talking about Iraq but the more they talk about it the more problems it seems to create. Is that a fair assessment?

CROWLEY: It's a fair assessment so far. I mean we were told when the fall campaign kicked off, which would be right after the Republican campaign -- the Republican Convention, then Kerry was going to focus his message and his message was going to be on the economy.

And the first day out he said, in answer to a question in a sort of town hall or front porch as they call them, wrong war, wrong time, wrong place, which prompted a response from the Bush campaign, which then prompted another response from the Kerry campaign and on it went and they never quite got around to the economy, at least so far as the news coverage was concerned.

So, they are trying to really make that pivot to kind of bring it home because they know that the strong territory for John Kerry, at least according to the polls, is the economy, so they want to try to figure out how to take the war and pivot it into the home front but so far it's been sort of a very slow pivot.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much, Candy Crowley tonight.

The war in Iraq and the war on terror, of course aren't the only wars shaping this presidential election. As we said at the top, Vietnam is very much alive on the campaign trail with the military service of each candidate becoming game for the other side. Fair game or not, that is how it is playing. Lately, it's been the swift boat controversy.

Tonight, the Republicans are on the defensive, reporting our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): New questions about the president's National Guard service are shifting the campaign focus on Vietnam era conduct his way and drawing an aggressive White House response.

Mr. Bush in June, 1973 signed this promise to associate with a new guard unit when he moved from Texas to enroll at Harvard Business School. If not, he could face possible involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months.

"The Boston Globe" says its investigation found Mr. Bush did not keep that commitment but the White House cited documents released months ago that show Mr. Bush was reassigned in October, 1973 to inactive reserve status with a unit in Denver, Colorado and listed Harvard as his address. DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: The fact of the matter is that President Bush would not have been honorably discharged if he had not met his obligations.

KING: The former head of the Air National Guard who reviewed the records for CNN backs the White House.

GEN. DON SHEPPARD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: He did everything right, everything in accordance with what he was supposed to do.

KING: The Pentagon says it recently discovered these records detailing Mr. Bush's early flight training in the Texas Air National Guard. Critics say still missing are logs of what, if any, drills Mr. Bush performed during a four to six-month period in 1972 after he transferred to the Alabama Guard.

A group calling itself Texans for Truth launched a new ad campaign suggesting Mr. Bush never showed up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was my unit and I don't remember seeing you there, so I called friends, you know, and did you know that George served in our unit? No, I never saw him there.

KING: The White House says dental and pay records prove he did report for duty and note that liberal Bush critics are bankrolling the ad.

BARTLETT: Their strategy is now is that President Bush is ahead in the polls and we're going to try to bring him down, so let's recycle old charges.

KING: Mr. Bush's father was a Congressman back then but both men say they neither asked for nor knowingly received special treatment.

A "60 Minutes" report Wednesday included memos from a commanding officer speculating that when he was trying to transfer to Alabama, Lieutenant Bush was "talking to someone upstairs." The memos also refer to a superior officer wanting to sugarcoat Lieutenant Bush's evaluation. The officer who wrote those memos died 20 years ago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And the White House tonight has released the memo cited in that CBS "60 Minutes" report and, Aaron, the politics are beginning. The Democratic national chairman says those memos contradict Mr. Bush's longstanding claim of receiving no special treatment.

The Chairman Terry McAuliffe says it calls into question the president's credibility now as well as his conduct back then 30 years ago. The White House says nonsense that the Democrats are just recycling old partisan garbage -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, there's a lot here some of which is new and some of which is just looked at, I think, differently. Tell me if I'm right about this. The president has not said he didn't receive special treatment. The president has said he doesn't know that he received special treatment, is that fair?

KING: Right. He says he did not ask for special treatment either to get the slot in the guard or once he was in the guard. He said his father, to the best of his knowledge and former President Bush has said he never picked up the phone to get his son in.

There was a family friend who did call a Texas politician who says he got George Bush the spot in the National Guard but the president says he never asked for any special treatment nor did he knowingly, knowingly receive any.

BROWN: Now, let me just turn you slightly. Are they nervous there about the Kitty Kelly (ph) book that's coming out next week which has all manner of accusations about the president, including drug use?

KING: On the one hand they say no because they say past accounts from her, past books from her have been discredited. On the other hand, they are mounting an advance public relations campaign, which tells you they may not be worried that the -- about the truthfulness of the specifics but they certainly worry in a dead heat campaign 55 days to go.

They want to be talking about things other than allegations of drug use or allegations of any misconduct. So, they say it is false and scurrilous but the fact that they're saying that before the book is out tells you something.

BROWN: John, thank you, John King our Senior White House Correspondent.

We're joined now from Boston by Walter Robinson who is the head of the investigative reporting team at "The Boston Globe," the same unit, by the way, that did the first reporting on Senator Kerry's purple heart flap and today wrote an extensive look at the Bush National Guard service, good to have you with us.

The central charges here I think are fairly simple that the president back then all those years ago did not do what he agreed to do, what he signed contracts to do and that he was never punished for it, fair?

WALTER ROBINSON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I think that's a fair reading of the records. In 1968, he promised to do a certain number of days of service each year or face involuntary call to active duty and in 1973, as he was going off to Harvard, despite what the White House's person said, he did promise to find a unit in Boston and fulfill his obligation. His records were sent to Denver but he had that obligation in Boston and he didn't fulfill it.

BROWN: The White House says a couple things about the reporting that you and your colleagues at "The Globe" did. One is that you rely on the analysis of partisan Democrats, people associated with the Kerry campaign who reached these conclusions that the president failed to meet his responsibilities back then as a lieutenant. ROBINSON: Well, I think that misses the point. We have dealt with eight or ten retired military officers over the last several months, all of whom who have reached the same conclusion about these records.

What the White House failed to note is that one of the officers we quoted as agreeing with this conclusion is the same retired Texas lieutenant colonel who has been the White House consultant on these records.

BROWN: The White House in all of its response to this falls back on one fairly simple and I think to most people easy to understand conclusion which is at the end of the day whatever he did and I think they acknowledge there was a period where he didn't go to drills, they say he made them up, that he was honorably discharged. Therefore, he must have done what he agreed to do.

ROBINSON: I think that's partly true. He was honorably discharged from the Texas Guard by the very same officers who it is clear from these records and even clearer from the records that CBS obtained, this very same officer is who condoned his non attendance at drills for most of the last 17 months he was in the guard.

BROWN: Just to take it one sentence further. I gather what you mean by that is, look, they knew who he was and they gave him a pass?

ROBINSON: That's a fair conclusion from the documents.

BROWN: And the other thing the White House talked about today a lot was the timing of all this. They say the president pulled ahead in the polls. We're 55 days away from the election. I guess what they are saying is that you timed this piece to come out at a point where it would do the maximum damage or would change the subject just when things were going well for the White House.

ROBINSON: Well, that's just not true. It was last month when we went to Dan Bartlett trying to get answers to some questions and he delayed us and delayed us for three weeks.

In fact, when we first wrote about Bush's attendance problems four years ago, we reported it in May of 2000 and after that election people said, "Well why didn't you wait until the fall?" And our answer was simple. It's the same then as it was now. We report it and we put it in the paper when we get it in the same way that you do at CNN.

BROWN: Just one more tidbit before I lose you. Did the White House at one point tell you that the president did, in fact, do his service in the Boston area?

ROBINSON: No. Mr. Bartlett was quoted in a "Washington Post" series in 1999 as saying that Mr. Bush did reserve duty in the Boston area.

BROWN: And now they say, well we made a mistake about that?

ROBINSON: Mr. Bartlett said he misspoke.

BROWN: OK. I assume the piece is online at "The Boston Globe." People who didn't have a chance to look at it ought to take a look at it and they can judge for themselves. Nice piece of work by you and your team, thank you.

ROBINSON: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Walter Robinson at "The Boston Globe." And, again, sometimes you just got to look at this stuff and decide for yourself. It seems the best way to do it. Look at their reporting and see if it makes sense.

In a moment, taking a measure of the American losses in Iraq, we'll take a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Almost every weeknight for the last year and a half we have honored the men and women who have died in Iraq, who gave their lives, although as someone once said, "Nobody really gives their life. It is taken from them."

But as volunteers they left spouses and parents and children behind first to wait now to cope, so each night we remember just a half a minute or so at a time, 30 seconds a night.

If taken all at once, though, nearly two hours of names, which is one way of measuring the loss and here is another reported by NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the language of the military, they are the fallen warriors, the 1,000 U.S. troops who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than 860 of them since May 1st of last year when major combat operations were declared at an end.

Combat continued in the streets and alleys of Baghdad, in the hot dust of Fallujah and Ramadi, in the cemetery of Najaf. Troops deaths peaked this spring, 50 in March, 134 in April the deadliest single month of the war, 81 in May.

How they died is not always clear, the Department of Defense releases or in the fog of war on the ground. At lest 80 troops are listed simply as killed in enemy or hostile action. As many as one in five died the way soldiers have in every modern war, shot in firefights on patrol by snipers.

Another 125 were killed by rocket-propelled grenades, mortars. Almost double that number have been killed by one of this war's greatest threats, IEDs, improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs. At least 237 U.S. troops have been killed by IEDs set along roads, thrown into vehicles, detonated on passing convoys. Vehicles are dangerous places in Iraq even in the absence of enemy attack. At least 107 troops, just over ten percent of the war dead, were killed in motor vehicle accidents when their Humvees and Bradleys and trucks collided in dust storms, rolled over on Iraq's poor roads, went off road and tumbled into ravines and canals.

Helicopters, another vital means of transport and supply, are also a constant danger. Eighty-three U.S. troops have died when their helicopters were shot down or crashed, 17 on one day alone last November 15th when two Black Hawk helicopters collided over Mosul.

In this war, in any war, there are accidents, non-combat deaths. In Iraq, at least 30 U.S. troops have died in accidental shootings, often as they or their comrades cleaned their weapons. Some of these weapon discharges were not accidents.

The Pentagon has confirmed that at least 26 Operation Iraqi Freedom troops have committed suicide. Other deaths have been caused by the same kind of accidents that might befall a population of 137,000 anywhere.

At least 16 U.S. military personnel have drowned in Iraq, crossing or swimming in rivers and canals. Seven were electrocuted. Troops in Iraq have also died of illnesses that claim thousands of civilian lives each year. At least 13 have died of heart failure, others suffered strokes, died of acute leukemia, cancer.

Who were these 1,000 Americans in uniform? The great majority, more than 720 were in the Army, the 101st Airborne, 1st Armored Division, 1st Infantry Division.

Since April when the Marines replaced Army units in the explosive Al Anbar (ph) province, a growing number of the dead have been Marines. More than 240 have died in Iraq so far 33 last month alone.

Every branch of the service has seen losses, the Navy, the Air Force, even the Coast Guard. Those fighting for the U.S. in Iraq and those who have died represent the American population in broad strokes.

African Americans accounted for an estimated 13 percent of the dead, Hispanics another 12 percent. Seventy percent of the war dead were Caucasian, white men. Only 22 of the military fatalities have been women, almost half of them killed when their convoys hit roadside bombs.

The common denominator for most of these casualties is youth. Just over half of those killed in Iraq have been age 25 or younger. The youngest were 18, 19 years old. At least 77 were teenagers, the oldest 51, 55, 59.

An unprecedented number of regular enlistees and reservists in the all voluntary military are older in their 30s and 40s and married. The Defense Department does not release information on families but, according to the Associated Press and reports in obituaries in local newspapers, more than 400 of the troops killed in Iraq were married, a third had children, most of them young. At least 389 children under the age of 12 have lost a father and five have lost a mother in Iraq. The numbers say so much and so little.

One thousand American lives lost, 1,000 individuals who had middle names that someone proudly chose for them, who had pictures taken on the first day of Kindergarten and at high school graduation, who had plans for the future, to be a police officer or a college student or a dad for the third time who wanted to serve their country and did at such great price.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Back now to Vietnam, by way of the presidential campaign.

As we've said along the way, new questions tonight about the president's service in the Air National Guard in Texas long ago, another chapter in the story some people can't get enough of and others wish would just go away already.

Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, joins us.

Anything change today? You had two, I would say, major pieces, the CBS' "60 Minutes" piece tonight, certainly "The Boston Globe" piece this morning?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Yes, there are two things that change. There is meat on the bones of whether or not somebody of influence trying to do a favor apparently for the president's father one step removed got young George Bush into the Texas National Guard at a time when lots of people wanted to do that to stop them from being in danger of going to war in Vietnam.

And the second one is that it's pretty clear that he did not fulfill all his obligations, "The Boston Globe," which was an exhaustively researched story.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, the White House says that's not the truth at all. The White Houses says he fulfilled every bit of his obligation or he wouldn't have gotten the honorable discharge.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

I think what "The Globe" winds up now -- the people they quote are rebutted on the grounds that they are all -- either they work for liberal think tanks or they're a Democrat. They're saying, a lot of people got honorable discharges because the National Guard was either sloppy about it or gave people a pass. And certainly George W. Bush is not the only guy to benefit from the Guard's either politicization or negligence of strict record-keeping.

BROWN: No, my unit had a lot of athletes in it. And I notice, there were very few athlete Major League Baseball players and football players who ended up in Vietnam, but a lot of ended up in the reserves.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

BROWN: Does it matter? Does it change the dynamic of the campaign? And if it doesn't, why doesn't this change the dynamic when the swift boat stuff seemed to?

GREENFIELD: I think the one big difference -- and we're going to skip over a lot here is -- people don't know nearly as much about John Kerry as they do or think they do about the president.

President's opinions over the president formed over the last four years, five, if you count the campaign, are pretty solid. And it's an old rule in politics that it is much harder to get people to move off of a position they have than to develop a position when they're not yet there. In other words, if this story had been reported fully about young George Bush in say 2000, around this time of year, it might have done more damage to him.

The question is whether this will change people's views of the president. And we've all said it probably ad nauseam, that, really, the asset George W. Bush has is, people think he is not just likable, but a strait shooter, a regular guy, one of us. If some people draw the conclusion from his that, no, he's a son of a rich and powerful man, who, as one guy said, gamed the system and didn't do what he was supposed to do when he got in the Guard, I suppose it could change.

But the other part about this is, is how rigidly people approach information in this polarized age.

BROWN: Yes. We just put one more paragraph on that. What you mean by that is?

GREENFIELD: I mean that we seem to be in a position where more and more people refuse to believe something if it comes with a source that doesn't agree with them anyway.

The same people who thought the swift boaties were all politically motivated are probably to going that this story is a reveal truth and visa-versa. The people who believe that Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, some people on Fox News are the only sources of -- quote -- "objective information," if they don't jump on this story -- and some of them I doubt will -- they are going to say, this is all politics.

And I think that's how we debate. I'm trying to figure out these days, is there any group that both sides would say, OK, that's a fair- minded observer, and if that source tells me something, I am inclined to believe it? I don't know. You, yes. Well, beside you.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I'm sure it's me.

GREENFIELD: I'm sure it is, too.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeff. Around here, it is.

GREENFIELD: OK.

BROWN: Thank you.

President Bush met with leaders of Congress today, pledging to submit legislation to strengthen the nation's intelligence services. This has come to mean redrawing bureaucratic lines, which is controversial, as well as changing who controls the purse strings, which, in Washington, can be positively radioactive.

Our national security correspondent David Ensor now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At his meeting with congressional leaders, an important signal on post-9/11 intelligence reform from President Bush.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We believe that there ought to be a national intelligence director who has full budgetary authority. We will talk to members of Congress about how to implement that.

ENSOR: Those three new words from the president, full budgetary authority, were good news for families of 9/11 victims who have been pressing for a new national intelligence director to have real budget control of the entire intelligence community, including agencies like the National Security Agency, now under Pentagon control.

But the White House also made public a fact sheet that says the NSA and others should remain under the Department of Defense, so skeptical Democrats said they will wait to see the fine print.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: As you know, with all of this it's the devil is in the details.

ENSOR: For its part, the Kerry campaign, in a statement said, If George W. Bush were serious about intelligence reform, he'd stop taking half measures and wholeheartedly endorse the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

On Capitol Hill, the nation's acting chief intelligence officer, John McLaughlin, said the key thing is for his more powerful successor to have real budget and hiring power, so as to be able to move fast against threats.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, ACTING DIRECTOR, CIA: A national intelligence director needs to be able to say to his operating -- or her operating agencies, I need five from you and five from you and five from you, and I need them in two or three days, and they need to be up and running in this room with these computers and this information technologies -- these systems with these databases flowing to them in order to move with maximum agility and speed.

ENSOR (on camera): If many billions of dollars of budget control do indeed move from the Pentagon to a new intelligence director, that is a major power shift in this town, which does not like change. It will still not be easy, though it looks like it just may happen.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, Russia's president goes on the offensive, as he vows to launch a preemptive strike against terrorism in his country.

And spinning out of control. NASA's space capsule Genesis comes tumbling down.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It isn't hard to fathom what the Russians are going through these days. In that respect, history repeats itself, in a blur of funerals and rage and a burning desire to balance the scales. How, where and when are tough questions for another time, but the question of whether or not was answered by the Russian government today.

From Moscow, CNN's Jill Dougherty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Still reeling from a terrorist massacre of hundreds men, women, and children held hostage in a southern Russian school, Moscow vowed to strike back.

Russian Chief of Staff General Yuri Baluyevsky said, "Russia will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region." The General noted he was not implying Russia would resort to nuclear weapons in its fight against terrorism. The remarks echoed a stance taken by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, that it retains the right to launch preemptive strikes on terrorists virtually anywhere.

A senior administration officials tells CNN, every country has the right to defend itself in the war against terrorism. In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the Russian position understandable.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER: The United Nations' charter does give a right of self-defense. And the United Nations itself has accepted that an imminent or likely threat of terrorism certainly entitles any state to take appropriate action.

DOUGHERTY: Meanwhile, Russian's heard the first definitive version of what happened in that school in southern Russia. The prosecutor general, Vladimir Ustinov, reporting to president Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, the meeting broadcast at length on Russian television.

The report contained the first official public acknowledgement that there were 1,200 men, women and children taken hostage, far more than first reported. The prosecutor general told the president, one terrorist questioned the ringleader called the colonel, "Why seize a school?" The colonel shot him dead and later killed two female terrorists as a warning, triggering a remote control to detonate explosives they had strapped to their bodies.

Anger over the behavior of Russian authorities spilled into the streets of the nearby town of Vladikavkaz Wednesday, the regional president promising his government and possibly he will resign. As more families in Beslan laid to rest their loved one, Russian authorities announced an unprecedented $10 million reward for information leading to the neutralization of two Chechen rebel leaders whom they accuse of organizing the assault that killed so many.

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, you'll see some pictures that look like a hubcap from grandpa's Studebaker tumbling through the sky. And we can imagine a lot of rocket scientists are wishing it were a hubcap or a hockey puck or anything but the Genesis spacecraft. Genesis was designed to catch the solar wind. Today, it wound up biting the dust.

Here's CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was supposed to end with a high-budget action movie hook. Instead, it looked like grade-B sci-fi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Impact, impact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have an altitude?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's impact, sir, ground level.

O'BRIEN: The 450-pound, 5-foot-wide craft plowed into the Utah salt flats at nearly 200 miles an hour, the fate of its precious fragile scientific payload officially unknown, but clearly in great jeopardy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When it hit the ground, there was this moment of, gee, did that really happen?

O'BRIEN: NASA's Genesis capsule returned after spending more than 800 days soaking up the sun in space. Tiny wafers made of silicon, diamond, sapphires and gold snagged atom-sized bits of the solar wind, which contains the basic ingredients of our solar system.

Because the wafers are so fragile, even a gentle parachute landing was considered too much a jolt. So the Genesis team designed an odd landing system that called for the unfurling of two parachutes and then a midair helicopter retrieval. NASA hired a pair of Hollywood stunt pilots to do the fancy flying. They practiced it 17 times and never missed.

But when it came time for the money shot, they got written out of the script.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're sorry we didn't get to perform the midair retrieval that we trained so hard to perform. But our hearts really go out to the science team.

O'BRIEN: Neither parachute opened. In fact, none of the pyrotechnic devices designed to launch the shoots ever fired. But beyond that, there are only questions, a hole in the desert, and a pit in some dedicated scientists' stomachs. The search for the origins of the solar system may have to wait for answers to why a piece of the sun came crashing down on Earth.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: They were so close.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the controversy over carrying concealed weapons on campus.

And the presses are rolling and we're reviewing. Morning papers at the end of the hour. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Republican congressional leaders said today they will not bring up the assault weapons ban for a vote before it expires on Monday. The federal law has been one of the most visible signs that while many Americans support the right to own guns, they don't always object to limitations on that right. Less visible has been a bitter debate playing out in Utah, where it's easy to own and carry a gun, with one exception.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Of all of the rules at the University of Utah, there's one that nearly everyone on campus seems content with, the one that prohibits anyone from carry anything weapon anywhere on university grounds.

SARAH GENESAR, GRADUATE STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: Guns are dangerous. And having them on campus and allowing people to do so would probably increase the amount of people being worried about the fact that, oh, who's in my class? Are they carrying guns? Should I maybe carry a gun because that person might be carrying a gun?

BROWN: But the state of Utah, which of course oversees the school, disagrees and has gone to court to enforce a law that says carrying weapons on campus in the open or concealed is legal, and that the university cannot choose to ignore that law.

BRENT BURNETT, UTAH ASST. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The question isn't really just firearms. The question is whether or not the University of Utah, as a state-created and a state-funded institution, is free and independent of having to follow state law, that they are claiming that they don't have to comply with the firearms laws that were enacted by the state legislature and meant to apply to all institutions.

BROWN: But lawyers for the school say, because guns are so inherently dangerous, administrators should be allowed to disregard the statute, so that students can learn and teaches can teach without worrying about guns.

ALAN SULLIVAN, COUNSEL, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: The university has a responsibility to the academic community and to the state. And that includes maintaining an environment for learning, for teaching, for research, for all of the things that go on in an academic community. And in the judgment of the university's officers for the past 30, 40 years, the carrying of concealed weapons is an interference with the academic enterprise.

BROWN: Utah, it is fair to say, is a gun-loving state. Half the residents own guns. More than 60,000 residents have received permission to carry concealed weapons. Gun advocates say the campus would in fact be safer, not more dangerous, if weapons were allowed.

W. CLARK APOSHIAN, UTAH SELF-DEFENSE INSTRUCTORS NETWORK: Study after study after study has shown that the presence of -- the presence of allowing -- the ability to allow a concealed firearm in a place actually reduces crime, just by the mere fact that criminals or someone that is bent on doing some harm to someone else has to contend with the possibility that they may meet armed resistance.

BROWN: Not everyone agrees with that argument, and it is certainly a tough sell on campus. But state lawmakers are determined to have their way.

MICHAEL WADDOUPS (R), UTAH STATE SENATOR: The University of Utah is a subdivision of the state. It is funded by the state. And I believe that all citizens and all subdivisions of the state are obligated to obey state law.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: This debate went all the way to Utah's Supreme Court this week, both sides arguing the case, a decision pending.

So are morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world.

"International Herald Tribune," published by "The New York Times." This story in one way, shape or form found its way on a lot of front pages, or at least three or four, which is a lot to me. "Airline Turbulence From 9/11 Goes On. Around the World, Carriers Struggle As" -- quote -- 'Our Way of Doing Business Changes.'" This is -- Delta was the first to announce big-time trouble.

And that made the front page of "The San Antonio Express-News." "Massive Cutbacks Set at DFW," Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Delta Air Lines." Desperate Delta. Retrenching Airport Will Lose a Fifth of Its Daily Departures." Delta's got trouble, it seems.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer" leads politics. "Backyard Bonanza. For Bush and Kerry, Much at Stake in Philadelphia Suburbs. Kerry Fires at Bush on Iraq." That made the front page also. What else did I like here? I don't know. Nothing.

"Cincinnati Enquirer." That's "Enquirer," as opposed to inquirer. "Delta Plan Adds 29 Flight Here." So one airport's problems is another one's gain. Anyway, Delta is going to try and restructure the way it does business. "New Seats and Interiors to Enhance Passenger Comfort." I like that. I fly Delta.

"The Des Moines Register" leads political. "Iowa Stumping Ground." One candidate or another seems to be in Iowa every day, and they point that out. And down here in the corner, I'm not sure you can see this, but try. "Dad: Son Paid Sheriff $250 to Clear His Name. Cass County Official Took Money From Teen Charged With Drunk Driving, According to Testimony." Goodness.

"The Detroit News." "Show Up For Work, Says Ford." Seems like a reasonable thing to do if they are paying you, you guys.

"Boston Herald." "School Sex Zone Club. Outrage Over Wild Parties Across From Junior High." And just in case you did not get it, there's the picture next door to it, a totally different story.

Weather in Chicago tomorrow morning, according to "The Chicago Sun-Times," is "divine" -- 76 in Chicago tomorrow.

We will wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's our report for tonight. For most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next. We're all back here tomorrow, let's say 10:00 Eastern time. I hope you will join us.

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 September 8, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
There is something slightly nuts about this never ending, and I now believe it will be never ending, tit-for-tat over Vietnam and who did what? Today, the show was on the other foot again and it is the president and the White House having to play defense over the president's time in the Texas Air National Guard, how he got in, what he did when he was in, whether he did all he was supposed to, if big shots looked the other way because his name was Bush, all that stuff.

The details are coming up in a bit and, as we did with the swift boat stuff, we will do with this. We will report as best we can the facts, the record, and leave the yelling and the screaming to others.

But sometimes in all of this something quite simple is left out. In fact, the president acknowledged this, at least indirectly, the other day and it was good that he did.

One guy went to Vietnam and the other guy didn't. The guy who went most likely could have avoided going but didn't. The guy who didn't go made it clear he had no interest in fighting a war he says he supported.

To the extent that any of this matters all these years later, and I'm not sure any of it does, that's really it. That should be the end of the story but with Vietnam it never really ends.

We begin with a current war, a relevant war, CNN's Walter Rodgers in Iraq, Walter the headline tonight.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the focus of battle has temporarily shifted in Iraq from the Shiite slum of Sadr City, northeast of Baghdad, to U.S. air strikes against Fallujah but in neither case the attacks on the Shias in Sadr City or the Sunni rebels in Fallujah can it be said that they were routed merely temporarily punished. They will be back -- Aaron.

BROWN: Walter, thank you.

Next to Iowa, the Kerry campaign and CNN's Candy Crowley, Candy the headline from the trail tonight.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, John Kerry is trying to change the subject by getting voters to ask themselves a different kind of question, not whether the world is safer without Saddam Hussein but what might the U.S. look like had the war been conducted differently -- Aaron?

BROWN: Candy, thank you.

Finally back to the Vietnam era and the president, as we said at the top, details of a new report out today, CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King with us, so John a headline.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president says he was honorably discharged and that he knows of no special treatment. The White House says that should be end of story but there are some new accusations today and some new memos out just tonight that show that at least Mr. Bush's commanding officer thought he was being watched by higher ups to see how he handled the kid with the famous name -- Aaron.

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

Also coming up on the program tonight, a space capsule's earthly homecoming, a little too earthly it turns out, the final moments of Genesis out in the Utah desert, not the only headline out of Utah tonight. The state also grappling with a controversy over carrying concealed weapons on campus.

And, at the end of the hour, news from your region and around the world, morning papers wraps it up, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight in Iraq with an assessment of the place and the politics as it is, not as it ought to be or might one day be or might have been had things gone differently.

Part of the assessment comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Its report, published today, is richly detailed based, among other things, on interviews done with 700 Iraqis in 15 cities this summer. The bottom line conditions in Iraq have gotten worse, not better, and success could be years away at best.

So there it is and none of it contradicted on the ground today, reporting the story for us tonight CNN's Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS (voice-over): An American fighter bomber targeting a suspected Islamist insurgent command and control headquarters in Fallujah for those at ground zero it was an angel of death. U.S. forces estimate they killed as many as 100 insurgents.

Fallujah is currently the epicenter of resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, home as well to several thousand foreign fighters eager to spill American blood. On Monday they succeeded killing seven U.S. Marines in a suicide car bomb that blew up the Marines' transport vehicle. After bitter fighting in Fallujah last spring, the American military has opted to bypass it now, instead encircling the insurgents, locking them down thus minimizing U.S. casualties. Some generals acknowledge much of Iraq is less stable now than when U.S. forces first arrived.

JOHN ABIZAID, U.S. CENTCOM COMMANDER: I think that it's fair to say that in certain areas it's more hostile than it was right after the fall of Baghdad. I think that is fair to say and those areas are primarily in the Fallujah/Ramadi area.

RODGERS: Sadr City, northeast of Baghdad, was quiet after savage fighting Monday and Tuesday. Iraqis paused to bury their dead. Dozens died in the past few days. Few expect the quiet to last. Witness this graffiti, "Death to the enemies of Muqtada al-Sadr." Dead Iraqis, now more than 1,000 dead Americans, back in the United States a mourning American mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're killing off our young. We're killing off our future.

RODGERS: Still unknown at this point is the fate of these two 29-year-old Italian aid workers helping in a hospital kidnapped yesterday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS: Britain -- rather, Iraq, now seems a country only partially under control of the interim government but largely up for grabs. Britain's Royal Institute for International Affairs released a report that says the most likely outcome here is civil war -- Aaron.

BROWN: Is there any word from the kidnappers on the two hostages?

RODGERS: None at all. They're not sure who did it. The initial report suggested that they were men wearing Iraqi National Guard uniforms but anybody's uniform is up for grabs here.

Aaron, we have a horrible statistic here. We've learned that the U.S. Army has lost a dozen of its Humvees, fully equipped, full armor, full ammunition, radios and everything. They were taken, stolen by presumably the rebels, so uniforms, military equipment, anybody can have them in this country -- Aaron.

BROWN: I'm sorry and where were they stolen?

RODGERS: Well, all around the country in various places.

BROWN: It wasn't one incident? It wasn't...

RODGERS: No, no it was not a single incident.

BROWN: Got it.

RODGERS: Some soldiers got sloppy. Now what's interesting is that some of those Humvees do have GPS systems on them and they can be tracked down but there's been no indication that others have and, if you have an American Humvee and you can get American uniforms here, you can drive through any guard -- any checkpoint. You can drive anywhere in this country and then, if you're an insurgent just open up with a machinegun. It's a very violent situation here, very, very mercurial -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you, Walter, Walter Rodgers in Baghdad.

On to presidential politics here at home where Iraq is both front and center on the campaign trail and also the backdrop for almost every other issue that is in play.

That much at least was clear today in Cincinnati, reporting tonight our Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): If you think this looks a lot like this then you got the picture.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need a new direction. We need statesmanship. We need leadership.

CROWLEY: Twenty-three months after George Bush came to Cincinnati to make his case for a war in Iraq, John Kerry returned to the same spot to make his case for a new president in the United States.

KERRY: A new credibility to open up the channels of communication. We need to do a whole bunch of things in Iraq that this president could have done and hasn't even tried to do. We need to really bring our allies to our side.

CROWLEY: It was little more than Kerry's latest stump speech in teleprompter form in a symbolic setting. It is part of an ongoing effort by strategists to keep the candidate on message and on offense, which basically means less Iraq, more everything else.

George Bush currently holds a double digit edge when voters are asked who can best handle Iraq or the terror threat. The playing field advantage falls to Kerry on the economy, so the Senator is trying to bring home the war.

KERRY: Two hundred billion for Iraq but they tell us we can't afford after school programs for our children. Two hundred billion dollars for Iraq but they tell us we can't afford healthcare for our veterans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: The Bush campaign was quick to point out that just a year ago John Kerry gave an interview in which he said the U.S. should spend whatever billions are needed to win the war. Said a Bush spokesman, John Kerry has gone from a candidate with conflicting positions on Iraq to a candidate with incoherent positions on Iraq -- Aaron.

BROWN: So they seem to, they being the Kerry people are in a kind of a trap. They can't avoid talking about Iraq but the more they talk about it the more problems it seems to create. Is that a fair assessment?

CROWLEY: It's a fair assessment so far. I mean we were told when the fall campaign kicked off, which would be right after the Republican campaign -- the Republican Convention, then Kerry was going to focus his message and his message was going to be on the economy.

And the first day out he said, in answer to a question in a sort of town hall or front porch as they call them, wrong war, wrong time, wrong place, which prompted a response from the Bush campaign, which then prompted another response from the Kerry campaign and on it went and they never quite got around to the economy, at least so far as the news coverage was concerned.

So, they are trying to really make that pivot to kind of bring it home because they know that the strong territory for John Kerry, at least according to the polls, is the economy, so they want to try to figure out how to take the war and pivot it into the home front but so far it's been sort of a very slow pivot.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much, Candy Crowley tonight.

The war in Iraq and the war on terror, of course aren't the only wars shaping this presidential election. As we said at the top, Vietnam is very much alive on the campaign trail with the military service of each candidate becoming game for the other side. Fair game or not, that is how it is playing. Lately, it's been the swift boat controversy.

Tonight, the Republicans are on the defensive, reporting our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): New questions about the president's National Guard service are shifting the campaign focus on Vietnam era conduct his way and drawing an aggressive White House response.

Mr. Bush in June, 1973 signed this promise to associate with a new guard unit when he moved from Texas to enroll at Harvard Business School. If not, he could face possible involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months.

"The Boston Globe" says its investigation found Mr. Bush did not keep that commitment but the White House cited documents released months ago that show Mr. Bush was reassigned in October, 1973 to inactive reserve status with a unit in Denver, Colorado and listed Harvard as his address. DAN BARTLETT, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: The fact of the matter is that President Bush would not have been honorably discharged if he had not met his obligations.

KING: The former head of the Air National Guard who reviewed the records for CNN backs the White House.

GEN. DON SHEPPARD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: He did everything right, everything in accordance with what he was supposed to do.

KING: The Pentagon says it recently discovered these records detailing Mr. Bush's early flight training in the Texas Air National Guard. Critics say still missing are logs of what, if any, drills Mr. Bush performed during a four to six-month period in 1972 after he transferred to the Alabama Guard.

A group calling itself Texans for Truth launched a new ad campaign suggesting Mr. Bush never showed up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was my unit and I don't remember seeing you there, so I called friends, you know, and did you know that George served in our unit? No, I never saw him there.

KING: The White House says dental and pay records prove he did report for duty and note that liberal Bush critics are bankrolling the ad.

BARTLETT: Their strategy is now is that President Bush is ahead in the polls and we're going to try to bring him down, so let's recycle old charges.

KING: Mr. Bush's father was a Congressman back then but both men say they neither asked for nor knowingly received special treatment.

A "60 Minutes" report Wednesday included memos from a commanding officer speculating that when he was trying to transfer to Alabama, Lieutenant Bush was "talking to someone upstairs." The memos also refer to a superior officer wanting to sugarcoat Lieutenant Bush's evaluation. The officer who wrote those memos died 20 years ago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And the White House tonight has released the memo cited in that CBS "60 Minutes" report and, Aaron, the politics are beginning. The Democratic national chairman says those memos contradict Mr. Bush's longstanding claim of receiving no special treatment.

The Chairman Terry McAuliffe says it calls into question the president's credibility now as well as his conduct back then 30 years ago. The White House says nonsense that the Democrats are just recycling old partisan garbage -- Aaron.

BROWN: Well, there's a lot here some of which is new and some of which is just looked at, I think, differently. Tell me if I'm right about this. The president has not said he didn't receive special treatment. The president has said he doesn't know that he received special treatment, is that fair?

KING: Right. He says he did not ask for special treatment either to get the slot in the guard or once he was in the guard. He said his father, to the best of his knowledge and former President Bush has said he never picked up the phone to get his son in.

There was a family friend who did call a Texas politician who says he got George Bush the spot in the National Guard but the president says he never asked for any special treatment nor did he knowingly, knowingly receive any.

BROWN: Now, let me just turn you slightly. Are they nervous there about the Kitty Kelly (ph) book that's coming out next week which has all manner of accusations about the president, including drug use?

KING: On the one hand they say no because they say past accounts from her, past books from her have been discredited. On the other hand, they are mounting an advance public relations campaign, which tells you they may not be worried that the -- about the truthfulness of the specifics but they certainly worry in a dead heat campaign 55 days to go.

They want to be talking about things other than allegations of drug use or allegations of any misconduct. So, they say it is false and scurrilous but the fact that they're saying that before the book is out tells you something.

BROWN: John, thank you, John King our Senior White House Correspondent.

We're joined now from Boston by Walter Robinson who is the head of the investigative reporting team at "The Boston Globe," the same unit, by the way, that did the first reporting on Senator Kerry's purple heart flap and today wrote an extensive look at the Bush National Guard service, good to have you with us.

The central charges here I think are fairly simple that the president back then all those years ago did not do what he agreed to do, what he signed contracts to do and that he was never punished for it, fair?

WALTER ROBINSON, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": I think that's a fair reading of the records. In 1968, he promised to do a certain number of days of service each year or face involuntary call to active duty and in 1973, as he was going off to Harvard, despite what the White House's person said, he did promise to find a unit in Boston and fulfill his obligation. His records were sent to Denver but he had that obligation in Boston and he didn't fulfill it.

BROWN: The White House says a couple things about the reporting that you and your colleagues at "The Globe" did. One is that you rely on the analysis of partisan Democrats, people associated with the Kerry campaign who reached these conclusions that the president failed to meet his responsibilities back then as a lieutenant. ROBINSON: Well, I think that misses the point. We have dealt with eight or ten retired military officers over the last several months, all of whom who have reached the same conclusion about these records.

What the White House failed to note is that one of the officers we quoted as agreeing with this conclusion is the same retired Texas lieutenant colonel who has been the White House consultant on these records.

BROWN: The White House in all of its response to this falls back on one fairly simple and I think to most people easy to understand conclusion which is at the end of the day whatever he did and I think they acknowledge there was a period where he didn't go to drills, they say he made them up, that he was honorably discharged. Therefore, he must have done what he agreed to do.

ROBINSON: I think that's partly true. He was honorably discharged from the Texas Guard by the very same officers who it is clear from these records and even clearer from the records that CBS obtained, this very same officer is who condoned his non attendance at drills for most of the last 17 months he was in the guard.

BROWN: Just to take it one sentence further. I gather what you mean by that is, look, they knew who he was and they gave him a pass?

ROBINSON: That's a fair conclusion from the documents.

BROWN: And the other thing the White House talked about today a lot was the timing of all this. They say the president pulled ahead in the polls. We're 55 days away from the election. I guess what they are saying is that you timed this piece to come out at a point where it would do the maximum damage or would change the subject just when things were going well for the White House.

ROBINSON: Well, that's just not true. It was last month when we went to Dan Bartlett trying to get answers to some questions and he delayed us and delayed us for three weeks.

In fact, when we first wrote about Bush's attendance problems four years ago, we reported it in May of 2000 and after that election people said, "Well why didn't you wait until the fall?" And our answer was simple. It's the same then as it was now. We report it and we put it in the paper when we get it in the same way that you do at CNN.

BROWN: Just one more tidbit before I lose you. Did the White House at one point tell you that the president did, in fact, do his service in the Boston area?

ROBINSON: No. Mr. Bartlett was quoted in a "Washington Post" series in 1999 as saying that Mr. Bush did reserve duty in the Boston area.

BROWN: And now they say, well we made a mistake about that?

ROBINSON: Mr. Bartlett said he misspoke.

BROWN: OK. I assume the piece is online at "The Boston Globe." People who didn't have a chance to look at it ought to take a look at it and they can judge for themselves. Nice piece of work by you and your team, thank you.

ROBINSON: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Walter Robinson at "The Boston Globe." And, again, sometimes you just got to look at this stuff and decide for yourself. It seems the best way to do it. Look at their reporting and see if it makes sense.

In a moment, taking a measure of the American losses in Iraq, we'll take a break first.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Almost every weeknight for the last year and a half we have honored the men and women who have died in Iraq, who gave their lives, although as someone once said, "Nobody really gives their life. It is taken from them."

But as volunteers they left spouses and parents and children behind first to wait now to cope, so each night we remember just a half a minute or so at a time, 30 seconds a night.

If taken all at once, though, nearly two hours of names, which is one way of measuring the loss and here is another reported by NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the language of the military, they are the fallen warriors, the 1,000 U.S. troops who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than 860 of them since May 1st of last year when major combat operations were declared at an end.

Combat continued in the streets and alleys of Baghdad, in the hot dust of Fallujah and Ramadi, in the cemetery of Najaf. Troops deaths peaked this spring, 50 in March, 134 in April the deadliest single month of the war, 81 in May.

How they died is not always clear, the Department of Defense releases or in the fog of war on the ground. At lest 80 troops are listed simply as killed in enemy or hostile action. As many as one in five died the way soldiers have in every modern war, shot in firefights on patrol by snipers.

Another 125 were killed by rocket-propelled grenades, mortars. Almost double that number have been killed by one of this war's greatest threats, IEDs, improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs. At least 237 U.S. troops have been killed by IEDs set along roads, thrown into vehicles, detonated on passing convoys. Vehicles are dangerous places in Iraq even in the absence of enemy attack. At least 107 troops, just over ten percent of the war dead, were killed in motor vehicle accidents when their Humvees and Bradleys and trucks collided in dust storms, rolled over on Iraq's poor roads, went off road and tumbled into ravines and canals.

Helicopters, another vital means of transport and supply, are also a constant danger. Eighty-three U.S. troops have died when their helicopters were shot down or crashed, 17 on one day alone last November 15th when two Black Hawk helicopters collided over Mosul.

In this war, in any war, there are accidents, non-combat deaths. In Iraq, at least 30 U.S. troops have died in accidental shootings, often as they or their comrades cleaned their weapons. Some of these weapon discharges were not accidents.

The Pentagon has confirmed that at least 26 Operation Iraqi Freedom troops have committed suicide. Other deaths have been caused by the same kind of accidents that might befall a population of 137,000 anywhere.

At least 16 U.S. military personnel have drowned in Iraq, crossing or swimming in rivers and canals. Seven were electrocuted. Troops in Iraq have also died of illnesses that claim thousands of civilian lives each year. At least 13 have died of heart failure, others suffered strokes, died of acute leukemia, cancer.

Who were these 1,000 Americans in uniform? The great majority, more than 720 were in the Army, the 101st Airborne, 1st Armored Division, 1st Infantry Division.

Since April when the Marines replaced Army units in the explosive Al Anbar (ph) province, a growing number of the dead have been Marines. More than 240 have died in Iraq so far 33 last month alone.

Every branch of the service has seen losses, the Navy, the Air Force, even the Coast Guard. Those fighting for the U.S. in Iraq and those who have died represent the American population in broad strokes.

African Americans accounted for an estimated 13 percent of the dead, Hispanics another 12 percent. Seventy percent of the war dead were Caucasian, white men. Only 22 of the military fatalities have been women, almost half of them killed when their convoys hit roadside bombs.

The common denominator for most of these casualties is youth. Just over half of those killed in Iraq have been age 25 or younger. The youngest were 18, 19 years old. At least 77 were teenagers, the oldest 51, 55, 59.

An unprecedented number of regular enlistees and reservists in the all voluntary military are older in their 30s and 40s and married. The Defense Department does not release information on families but, according to the Associated Press and reports in obituaries in local newspapers, more than 400 of the troops killed in Iraq were married, a third had children, most of them young. At least 389 children under the age of 12 have lost a father and five have lost a mother in Iraq. The numbers say so much and so little.

One thousand American lives lost, 1,000 individuals who had middle names that someone proudly chose for them, who had pictures taken on the first day of Kindergarten and at high school graduation, who had plans for the future, to be a police officer or a college student or a dad for the third time who wanted to serve their country and did at such great price.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Back now to Vietnam, by way of the presidential campaign.

As we've said along the way, new questions tonight about the president's service in the Air National Guard in Texas long ago, another chapter in the story some people can't get enough of and others wish would just go away already.

Our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield, joins us.

Anything change today? You had two, I would say, major pieces, the CBS' "60 Minutes" piece tonight, certainly "The Boston Globe" piece this morning?

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Yes, there are two things that change. There is meat on the bones of whether or not somebody of influence trying to do a favor apparently for the president's father one step removed got young George Bush into the Texas National Guard at a time when lots of people wanted to do that to stop them from being in danger of going to war in Vietnam.

And the second one is that it's pretty clear that he did not fulfill all his obligations, "The Boston Globe," which was an exhaustively researched story.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, the White House says that's not the truth at all. The White Houses says he fulfilled every bit of his obligation or he wouldn't have gotten the honorable discharge.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

I think what "The Globe" winds up now -- the people they quote are rebutted on the grounds that they are all -- either they work for liberal think tanks or they're a Democrat. They're saying, a lot of people got honorable discharges because the National Guard was either sloppy about it or gave people a pass. And certainly George W. Bush is not the only guy to benefit from the Guard's either politicization or negligence of strict record-keeping.

BROWN: No, my unit had a lot of athletes in it. And I notice, there were very few athlete Major League Baseball players and football players who ended up in Vietnam, but a lot of ended up in the reserves.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

BROWN: Does it matter? Does it change the dynamic of the campaign? And if it doesn't, why doesn't this change the dynamic when the swift boat stuff seemed to?

GREENFIELD: I think the one big difference -- and we're going to skip over a lot here is -- people don't know nearly as much about John Kerry as they do or think they do about the president.

President's opinions over the president formed over the last four years, five, if you count the campaign, are pretty solid. And it's an old rule in politics that it is much harder to get people to move off of a position they have than to develop a position when they're not yet there. In other words, if this story had been reported fully about young George Bush in say 2000, around this time of year, it might have done more damage to him.

The question is whether this will change people's views of the president. And we've all said it probably ad nauseam, that, really, the asset George W. Bush has is, people think he is not just likable, but a strait shooter, a regular guy, one of us. If some people draw the conclusion from his that, no, he's a son of a rich and powerful man, who, as one guy said, gamed the system and didn't do what he was supposed to do when he got in the Guard, I suppose it could change.

But the other part about this is, is how rigidly people approach information in this polarized age.

BROWN: Yes. We just put one more paragraph on that. What you mean by that is?

GREENFIELD: I mean that we seem to be in a position where more and more people refuse to believe something if it comes with a source that doesn't agree with them anyway.

The same people who thought the swift boaties were all politically motivated are probably to going that this story is a reveal truth and visa-versa. The people who believe that Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, some people on Fox News are the only sources of -- quote -- "objective information," if they don't jump on this story -- and some of them I doubt will -- they are going to say, this is all politics.

And I think that's how we debate. I'm trying to figure out these days, is there any group that both sides would say, OK, that's a fair- minded observer, and if that source tells me something, I am inclined to believe it? I don't know. You, yes. Well, beside you.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: I'm sure it's me.

GREENFIELD: I'm sure it is, too.

BROWN: Thank you, Jeff. Around here, it is.

GREENFIELD: OK.

BROWN: Thank you.

President Bush met with leaders of Congress today, pledging to submit legislation to strengthen the nation's intelligence services. This has come to mean redrawing bureaucratic lines, which is controversial, as well as changing who controls the purse strings, which, in Washington, can be positively radioactive.

Our national security correspondent David Ensor now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At his meeting with congressional leaders, an important signal on post-9/11 intelligence reform from President Bush.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We believe that there ought to be a national intelligence director who has full budgetary authority. We will talk to members of Congress about how to implement that.

ENSOR: Those three new words from the president, full budgetary authority, were good news for families of 9/11 victims who have been pressing for a new national intelligence director to have real budget control of the entire intelligence community, including agencies like the National Security Agency, now under Pentagon control.

But the White House also made public a fact sheet that says the NSA and others should remain under the Department of Defense, so skeptical Democrats said they will wait to see the fine print.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: As you know, with all of this it's the devil is in the details.

ENSOR: For its part, the Kerry campaign, in a statement said, If George W. Bush were serious about intelligence reform, he'd stop taking half measures and wholeheartedly endorse the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

On Capitol Hill, the nation's acting chief intelligence officer, John McLaughlin, said the key thing is for his more powerful successor to have real budget and hiring power, so as to be able to move fast against threats.

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, ACTING DIRECTOR, CIA: A national intelligence director needs to be able to say to his operating -- or her operating agencies, I need five from you and five from you and five from you, and I need them in two or three days, and they need to be up and running in this room with these computers and this information technologies -- these systems with these databases flowing to them in order to move with maximum agility and speed.

ENSOR (on camera): If many billions of dollars of budget control do indeed move from the Pentagon to a new intelligence director, that is a major power shift in this town, which does not like change. It will still not be easy, though it looks like it just may happen.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, Russia's president goes on the offensive, as he vows to launch a preemptive strike against terrorism in his country.

And spinning out of control. NASA's space capsule Genesis comes tumbling down.

Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It isn't hard to fathom what the Russians are going through these days. In that respect, history repeats itself, in a blur of funerals and rage and a burning desire to balance the scales. How, where and when are tough questions for another time, but the question of whether or not was answered by the Russian government today.

From Moscow, CNN's Jill Dougherty.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Still reeling from a terrorist massacre of hundreds men, women, and children held hostage in a southern Russian school, Moscow vowed to strike back.

Russian Chief of Staff General Yuri Baluyevsky said, "Russia will take steps to liquidate terror bases in any region." The General noted he was not implying Russia would resort to nuclear weapons in its fight against terrorism. The remarks echoed a stance taken by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, that it retains the right to launch preemptive strikes on terrorists virtually anywhere.

A senior administration officials tells CNN, every country has the right to defend itself in the war against terrorism. In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called the Russian position understandable.

JACK STRAW, BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER: The United Nations' charter does give a right of self-defense. And the United Nations itself has accepted that an imminent or likely threat of terrorism certainly entitles any state to take appropriate action.

DOUGHERTY: Meanwhile, Russian's heard the first definitive version of what happened in that school in southern Russia. The prosecutor general, Vladimir Ustinov, reporting to president Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, the meeting broadcast at length on Russian television.

The report contained the first official public acknowledgement that there were 1,200 men, women and children taken hostage, far more than first reported. The prosecutor general told the president, one terrorist questioned the ringleader called the colonel, "Why seize a school?" The colonel shot him dead and later killed two female terrorists as a warning, triggering a remote control to detonate explosives they had strapped to their bodies.

Anger over the behavior of Russian authorities spilled into the streets of the nearby town of Vladikavkaz Wednesday, the regional president promising his government and possibly he will resign. As more families in Beslan laid to rest their loved one, Russian authorities announced an unprecedented $10 million reward for information leading to the neutralization of two Chechen rebel leaders whom they accuse of organizing the assault that killed so many.

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, you'll see some pictures that look like a hubcap from grandpa's Studebaker tumbling through the sky. And we can imagine a lot of rocket scientists are wishing it were a hubcap or a hockey puck or anything but the Genesis spacecraft. Genesis was designed to catch the solar wind. Today, it wound up biting the dust.

Here's CNN's Miles O'Brien.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was supposed to end with a high-budget action movie hook. Instead, it looked like grade-B sci-fi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Impact, impact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have an altitude?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's impact, sir, ground level.

O'BRIEN: The 450-pound, 5-foot-wide craft plowed into the Utah salt flats at nearly 200 miles an hour, the fate of its precious fragile scientific payload officially unknown, but clearly in great jeopardy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When it hit the ground, there was this moment of, gee, did that really happen?

O'BRIEN: NASA's Genesis capsule returned after spending more than 800 days soaking up the sun in space. Tiny wafers made of silicon, diamond, sapphires and gold snagged atom-sized bits of the solar wind, which contains the basic ingredients of our solar system.

Because the wafers are so fragile, even a gentle parachute landing was considered too much a jolt. So the Genesis team designed an odd landing system that called for the unfurling of two parachutes and then a midair helicopter retrieval. NASA hired a pair of Hollywood stunt pilots to do the fancy flying. They practiced it 17 times and never missed.

But when it came time for the money shot, they got written out of the script.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're sorry we didn't get to perform the midair retrieval that we trained so hard to perform. But our hearts really go out to the science team.

O'BRIEN: Neither parachute opened. In fact, none of the pyrotechnic devices designed to launch the shoots ever fired. But beyond that, there are only questions, a hole in the desert, and a pit in some dedicated scientists' stomachs. The search for the origins of the solar system may have to wait for answers to why a piece of the sun came crashing down on Earth.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: They were so close.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the controversy over carrying concealed weapons on campus.

And the presses are rolling and we're reviewing. Morning papers at the end of the hour. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Republican congressional leaders said today they will not bring up the assault weapons ban for a vote before it expires on Monday. The federal law has been one of the most visible signs that while many Americans support the right to own guns, they don't always object to limitations on that right. Less visible has been a bitter debate playing out in Utah, where it's easy to own and carry a gun, with one exception.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Of all of the rules at the University of Utah, there's one that nearly everyone on campus seems content with, the one that prohibits anyone from carry anything weapon anywhere on university grounds.

SARAH GENESAR, GRADUATE STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: Guns are dangerous. And having them on campus and allowing people to do so would probably increase the amount of people being worried about the fact that, oh, who's in my class? Are they carrying guns? Should I maybe carry a gun because that person might be carrying a gun?

BROWN: But the state of Utah, which of course oversees the school, disagrees and has gone to court to enforce a law that says carrying weapons on campus in the open or concealed is legal, and that the university cannot choose to ignore that law.

BRENT BURNETT, UTAH ASST. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The question isn't really just firearms. The question is whether or not the University of Utah, as a state-created and a state-funded institution, is free and independent of having to follow state law, that they are claiming that they don't have to comply with the firearms laws that were enacted by the state legislature and meant to apply to all institutions.

BROWN: But lawyers for the school say, because guns are so inherently dangerous, administrators should be allowed to disregard the statute, so that students can learn and teaches can teach without worrying about guns.

ALAN SULLIVAN, COUNSEL, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: The university has a responsibility to the academic community and to the state. And that includes maintaining an environment for learning, for teaching, for research, for all of the things that go on in an academic community. And in the judgment of the university's officers for the past 30, 40 years, the carrying of concealed weapons is an interference with the academic enterprise.

BROWN: Utah, it is fair to say, is a gun-loving state. Half the residents own guns. More than 60,000 residents have received permission to carry concealed weapons. Gun advocates say the campus would in fact be safer, not more dangerous, if weapons were allowed.

W. CLARK APOSHIAN, UTAH SELF-DEFENSE INSTRUCTORS NETWORK: Study after study after study has shown that the presence of -- the presence of allowing -- the ability to allow a concealed firearm in a place actually reduces crime, just by the mere fact that criminals or someone that is bent on doing some harm to someone else has to contend with the possibility that they may meet armed resistance.

BROWN: Not everyone agrees with that argument, and it is certainly a tough sell on campus. But state lawmakers are determined to have their way.

MICHAEL WADDOUPS (R), UTAH STATE SENATOR: The University of Utah is a subdivision of the state. It is funded by the state. And I believe that all citizens and all subdivisions of the state are obligated to obey state law.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: This debate went all the way to Utah's Supreme Court this week, both sides arguing the case, a decision pending.

So are morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country, around the world.

"International Herald Tribune," published by "The New York Times." This story in one way, shape or form found its way on a lot of front pages, or at least three or four, which is a lot to me. "Airline Turbulence From 9/11 Goes On. Around the World, Carriers Struggle As" -- quote -- 'Our Way of Doing Business Changes.'" This is -- Delta was the first to announce big-time trouble.

And that made the front page of "The San Antonio Express-News." "Massive Cutbacks Set at DFW," Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Delta Air Lines." Desperate Delta. Retrenching Airport Will Lose a Fifth of Its Daily Departures." Delta's got trouble, it seems.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer" leads politics. "Backyard Bonanza. For Bush and Kerry, Much at Stake in Philadelphia Suburbs. Kerry Fires at Bush on Iraq." That made the front page also. What else did I like here? I don't know. Nothing.

"Cincinnati Enquirer." That's "Enquirer," as opposed to inquirer. "Delta Plan Adds 29 Flight Here." So one airport's problems is another one's gain. Anyway, Delta is going to try and restructure the way it does business. "New Seats and Interiors to Enhance Passenger Comfort." I like that. I fly Delta.

"The Des Moines Register" leads political. "Iowa Stumping Ground." One candidate or another seems to be in Iowa every day, and they point that out. And down here in the corner, I'm not sure you can see this, but try. "Dad: Son Paid Sheriff $250 to Clear His Name. Cass County Official Took Money From Teen Charged With Drunk Driving, According to Testimony." Goodness.

"The Detroit News." "Show Up For Work, Says Ford." Seems like a reasonable thing to do if they are paying you, you guys.

"Boston Herald." "School Sex Zone Club. Outrage Over Wild Parties Across From Junior High." And just in case you did not get it, there's the picture next door to it, a totally different story.

Weather in Chicago tomorrow morning, according to "The Chicago Sun-Times," is "divine" -- 76 in Chicago tomorrow.

We will wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's our report for tonight. For most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next. We're all back here tomorrow, let's say 10:00 Eastern time. I hope you will join us.

Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

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