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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Assault weapons ban expired; Bush Pushes Healthcare Agenda; Kerry Attacks Bush's Failure To Extend Assault Weapons Ban

Aired September 13, 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.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I am Judy Woodruff. Aaron is off tonight.
At a Senate hearing today, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he now thinks it is not likely that any stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons will ever be found in Iraq.

His remarks came as U.S. warplanes once again bombed the restive city of Fallujah after a bloody spike in violence across Iraq. In many ways, at least from the outside, it can seem like Groundhog Day in Iraq and that is where the whip begins tonight.

CNN's Walt Rodgers starts us off with a headline from Baghdad -- Walt.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Judy. A top Marine Corps general in Iraq called Fallujah a cancer. He said the Marines could crush the resistance there in four days. The Pentagon, however, seems to have opted for airpower, precision air strikes -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Walt, thank you.

The U.S. military strategy in Fallujah is under fire tonight. CNN's Jamie McIntyre is at the Pentagon with that headline -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, as U.S. warplanes continue to pound suspected al Qaeda hideouts in Fallujah, a top U.S. commander, having completed his tour, is now questioning the strategy that's turned Fallujah into an insurgent stronghold.

WOODRUFF: Thanks, Jamie.

And, on now to Michigan where President Bush spent the day campaigning hard on the issue of healthcare. CNN's White House Correspondent John King is in Battle Creek tonight, John a headline please.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Judy, ask voters which candidate they trust more on healthcare, John Kerry wins by an overwhelming margin. Trying to reverse that or at least whittle it away a bit today, President Bush says elect John Kerry and what you'll get in terms of healthcare is bigger government and higher taxes -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, John, thank you.

And to Wisconsin next and the issue that Senator John Kerry has put front and center of late the federal assault weapons ban which expired today. CNN's Candy Crowley has the headline -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Judy, it used to be the conventional wisdom that a Democrat talking any kind of gun control was toxic in rural areas but John Kerry believes that in 2004 he has changed the dynamic.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank you Candy. And we'll have more with all of you in just a moment.

Also on the program tonight, from Florida's panhandle to the Louisiana Gulf Coast some residents are boarding up and others are leaving town as Hurricane Ivan charts an unpredictable path.

And documenting the American experience during the Depression, from big city USA to the wheat fields of small town America all of that ahead on the program.

But we begin tonight in Iraq where a bloody weekend was followed by more violence today, the troubled city of Fallujah once again a part of the deadly mix. U.S. warplanes launched air strikes today at what the military said was a suspected hideout for one of the most wanted insurgent leaders in Iraq.

Here's CNN's Walt Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS (voice-over): U.S. Air Force F-16s dropped two 500-pound bombs on what the military called "a confirmed Abu Musah al-Zarqawi terrorist meeting site in Fallujah. America has a $25 million bounty on his head. The Americans believe he is orchestrating murderous attacks on coalition forces and Iraqi civilians.

Iraq's Ministry of Health reports 20 people were killed, 38 others wounded, among them five women and children. The U.S. military reports 25 of Zarqawi's fighters were killed in the latest bid to decapitate insurgent resistance in Fallujah using airpower. The outgoing Marine commander here says Fallujah has become a cancer.

LT. GEN. JAMES CONWAY, U.S. MARINES: Frankly, the marines that we have here right now could crush the city and be done with business in four days but that is not what we're going to do. Frankly, we can contain Fallujah like we've been doing now for quite some time and so there's no immediate sense of immediacy or urgency I believe associated with it.

RODGERS: Perhaps but here in the Iraqi capital itself the insurgents seem to be getting more powerful rather than being contained. Over the weekend at times it seemed to literally rain rockets and mortars in Baghdad and the devastating effect of car bombings and about 80 Iraqis died nationwide Sunday alone. One of the worst incidents was when insurgents hit this Bradley fighting vehicle. The crew was evacuated safely, then jubilant Iraqis danced around the burning Bradley celebrating.

A U.S. helicopter sent in to destroy the Bradley killed at least 22 Iraqis including this Al Aribiya TV journalist. His last words, "I'm dying. I'm dying." America's allies continue to die here as well. Sunday, three Polish soldiers were killed in an ambush. Three others were wounded.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS: A top U.S. general here in Iraq predicts this latest spike in violence will continue through the U.S. presidential elections in November. Many here it will bleed -- many here believe it will bleed into the Iraqi elections in December or January and nobody in Iraq is predicting when this bloodshed will end -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Walter, we just heard you say that in your view the insurgents only seem to grow more powerful. We heard the Marine commander say that he thinks they are contained. What evidence do he and other military officials give that they are being contained?

RODGERS: Judy, General Conway's reference to containment was only in the city of Fallujah and I don't think he would press the point much beyond that. What we saw over the weekend, and the numbers we have now are 88 dead in one day, Sunday, a bloody Sunday here in Iraq.

The numbers here and the actions here over the weekend are such that the insurgency is breaking out and is not contained and Baghdad was especially badly hit. It's going on all over the country. The containment is only Fallujah -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Walter Rodgers getting up early in Baghdad, Walter thank you very much.

Well, Fallujah has been a hornet's nest of anti-American sentiment since the beginning of the war. How to contain and calm the hornets has been a daunting challenge. The strategy adopted by the U.S. military months ago has now come under sharp criticism.

Today, the outgoing U.S. commander for the region joined the chorus of critics, more now from CNN's Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The U.S. decision to launch a Marine assault on Fallujah back in April, only to pull back after three days, is now seen by many as a colossal failure. Several top Pentagon officials and U.S. commanders concede it was a mistake to leave security to the Fallujah Brigade made up of remnants of Saddam Hussein's old army.

CONWAY: We said at the outset that the Fallujah Brigade was an experiment. The experiment didn't work for a combination of reasons.

MCINTYRE: In April, the Pentagon portrayed the experiment as the best thinking of field commanders but Lieutenant General James Conway, who just finished his tour as Marine commander, says both the attack and the abrupt halt were ordered over his objections.

CONWAY: When you order elements of a Marine division to attack a city then you really need to understand what the consequences of that is going to be and not perhaps vacillate in the middle of something like that. Once you commit, you got to -- you got to stay committed.

MCINTYRE: Instead of fighting insurgents, the Fallujah Brigade aided them, Marines say, and trucks, radios and some 800 AK-47 assault rifles provided by the U.S. appear to have ended up in the hands of the insurgents. One Marine commander called it a fiasco.

Now, with a sovereign Iraqi government in charge, the U.S. must wait until the fledgling Iraqi army and police are in position to help retake Fallujah, something officials concede will take months. Meanwhile, Fallujah remains a haven for terrorists and anti-U.S. militants.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Our commanders are dealing with the problem. They are putting in place plans to recover all of the cities in which there's a great insurgent presence in the Sunni Triangle over the next several months.

MCINTYRE: Pentagon officials say lessons learned in Fallujah were applied in Najaf where negotiations, backed by a strong offensive by both U.S. and Iraqi forces, produced an agreement to regain control from Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Pentagon officials say a showdown in Fallujah will probably not come until after early November but those same officials are adamant that the reason is because the Iraqi military needs more time to develop confidence before attacking Fallujah and that it has nothing to do with holding down casualties before the presidential elections in the United States -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jamie, who ordered the attack back in April and then ordered an abrupt halt to the attack over the objections of General Conway?

MCINTYRE: Well, it's not clear. General Conway said that he got his orders from General Sanchez, the top commander, and he said that he made his views known but, as they do in the military, he saluted smartly and carried out the plan.

The question is did the micromanaging, if that's what it is, come from the U.S. Central Command, Paul Bremer, or did it extend back to the Pentagon? Conway says he doesn't know. He only knows he made his best argument for the approach he wanted to try, which was more aid and trying to win people over and that he was overruled.

WOODRUFF: How unusual is it, Jamie, for a commander like General Conway to speak out like this?

MCINTYRE: Well, it's somewhat unusual and it's also interesting because at the time again the Pentagon was portraying this as -- they were saying well they didn't really know the details of what was going on in Fallujah because they were leaving it to the commanders there who had the best feel for what was happening.

And they portrayed this as something that was the best judgment of the commanders but maybe didn't work out. Now, we're hearing from General Conway that he wanted to try a completely different approach but he really didn't have a choice.

WOODRUFF: Well, we can assume that you're continuing to ask questions at the Pentagon and wherever you can get some answers. Jamie, thank you very much.

MCINTYRE: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Well, on now to politics here at home and the presidential race. The federal ban on assault weapons expired today after setting off a political firefight on the campaign trail.

President Bush had said he would sign the bill, if it were put on his desk, but he did virtually nothing to pressure Congress into renewing the ten-year ban. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has put the issue front and center on the stump.

Here now CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): It's not just about the guns.

SEN. JOHN KERRY, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is a test of character. In a secret deal he chose his powerful friends in the gun lobby over police officers and families that he promised to protect.

CROWLEY: The Kerry campaign saw the expiration of the assault weapons ban as a way to undercut what aides believe sustains the president's poll numbers that big lead over Kerry on leadership, honesty and trustworthiness.

KERRY: He failed the test of leadership by saying that he supports an assault weapons ban but then doing everything in his power to keep the Republicans from sending it to him. He should tell the American people the truth that he had no intention of extending the assault weapons ban.

CROWLEY: Though Al Gore lost critical rural votes with all his talk about licensing guns, Kerry strategists saw little downside in highlighting the Senator's vote for and continued support of the ban on some assault weapons.

Anyone who votes strictly on guns, said one Kerry source, will vote for Bush. The others have been acidulously courted. Kerry has shot and hunted his way through many a battleground state, not your average national Democrat, not Al Gore.

RICH JUDGE, KERRY CAMPAIGN: Well, I think that there's -- there's no question that, you know, as a hunter, Senator Kerry speaks very directly to gun owners as someone who's hunted for most of his life and as someone who is committed to the Second Amendment.

CROWLEY: Having passed the Second Amendment hurdle, Kerry hopes to bring home wayward rural Democrats by expanding the conversation onto friendlier territory.

JUDGE: What we're really concerned about is whether the water is clean enough to fish in, whether there are public lands that actually nurture the habitat of the animals that are necessary to provide a rich hunting experience.

CROWLEY: Despite the emphasis on guns today, don't expect it as a recurring theme.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: In fact, the Kerry campaign says over the next several weeks we will hear more of these character contrasts, which is to say they are taking dead aim at the president's positives in the poll -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Candy, if we are not going to be hearing much more about the gun ban, what is Senator Kerry going to be stressing in the days to come?

CROWLEY: Well, actually tomorrow we'll hear more about healthcare at a senior place here in Wisconsin. Then we're going to move on to Toledo, Ohio, one of those front porch activities that he has. Those tend to center on domestic issues, healthcare, the economy, jobs.

One of the interesting things we learned today in talking to people on the ground here is that, in fact, when they talk to rural voters and rural voters very important here in Wisconsin as elsewhere in the Midwest, what they're finding is the swing voters that remain tend to be women.

They tend to be working women and what they're most worried about is healthcare and jobs, so they want to take those two things and bring in that whole character contrast. What has this president done about your healthcare, that kind of thing?

WOODRUFF: All right, Candy Crowley out on the trail with John Kerry. Candy, thank you very much.

President Bush spent the day campaigning in Michigan, a crucial battleground state that he lost to Al Gore in 2000. Healthcare, as you just heard Candy mention it, has no been Mr. Bush's strong suit in the constellation of campaign issues so far.

But today with Michigan's 17 electoral votes hanging in the balance, he came out swinging reporting for us tonight, our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Campaigning in Michigan, the president tried to turn a political liability to his advantage by painting his opponent's healthcare plan as tax and spend liberalism.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They took a look at his plan. They said it's going to cost $1.5 trillion in new government spending. That's what you'd expect from a Senator from Massachusetts.

KING: Mr. Bush told rallies in Battle Creek, Holland and Muskegon that Democrat John Kerry's healthcare plan would leave them fewer choices and less money.

BUSH: Not only is his plan going to increase the power of bureaucrats in your lives but he can't pay for it unless he raises your taxes.

KING: The Kerry camp says Mr. Bush's numbers come from a biased conservative think tank and that only the rich would face higher taxes. Getting the upper hand in this debate could prove critical in a state Mr. Bush lost four years ago. In communities like Battle Creek, cereal city to the locals, Democrats hope what they call the middle class squeeze works against the incumbent.

Michigan's unemployment rate is 6.8 percent, well above the national average and in the Battle Creek area it is 7.5 percent. Eleven percent of Michigan's population does not have health insurance, up from eight percent when Mr. Bush took office, nationally the uninsured number 45 million, up from 40 million at the start of the Bush administration.

At DeMent and Marquardt in Kalamazoo, healthcare costs soared 400 percent over the past decade, so the small law firm's 15 employees were given a choice, scale back coverage or accept small or no raises.

MICHELE MARQUARDT, ATTORNEY: They opted this year to see more money in their pocket and, as a result, they do not have the quality of health insurance that they used to have but they feel it's sufficient and they have more money to live on.

KING: Mr. Bush says malpractice reforms and allowing small businesses to pool together would help lower costs and he blames the recession early in his term for the fact more Americans lack health insurance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: In national polls now, Senator Kerry has a double digit edge when voters are asked who would best handle the healthcare issue? Here in Michigan it is a 30-point advantage for Senator Kerry right now.

The president very aggressively trying to whittle away that advantage by saying if Senator Kerry wins, when it comes to healthcare what the voters will get is bigger government and higher taxes -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: John, the Bush campaign feeling that whenever they trot out the argument about higher taxes if John Kerry's elected they feel that works?

KING: They do believe if they can create the impression that he is a traditional Massachusetts liberal in the Michael Dukakis mold, if you will that it will help them.

Ironically, they think the very voters who might be thinking to vote against President Bush because of pocketbook strain, a struggling economy in places like the Midwest where manufacturing jobs have been lost, will get worried if they believe at a time they're a little anxious about how much money they have in their wallet if they believe Senator Kerry will raise taxes.

So, the president is trying here and it's a delicate balance to turn a liability to his advantage. They know come Election Day he is most unlikely to have an advantage on the healthcare issue but they hope if they can just whittle Senator Kerry's lead down a little bit and make the election, as Candy was just discussing, more about national security and about leadership they think they can win on that territory.

WOODRUFF: We hear you. We hear you, John. We heard you, Candy. Thanks very much, appreciate it, John King reporting on President Bush on the trail.

And ahead on NEWSNIGHT, fears of ethnic tensions rise in Russia and anger grows over the hostage taking at a Beslan school.

And after devastating parts of the Caribbean, Hurricane Ivan is now charting an unpredictable path toward the U.S. coast.

From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: As you could perhaps see in those numbers, in the ten years that the assault weapons ban was in effect, gun deaths declined dramatically and now that it has expired today some say that violent crime will increase. The critics maintain the ban was more cosmetic than really effective.

Here to help narrow the focus on this debate is Sue Peschin. She is the firearms project director for the Consumer Federation of America. It is a non-partisan, non-profit organization. Ms. Peschin, thank you for joining us.

SUE PESCHIN, CONSUMER FEDERATION OF AMERICA: Thank you for having me.

WOODRUFF: Let's try to be specific here. The gun manufacturers, the gun rights people, say this is not going to make much difference now that the ban is over. It's mostly cosmetic stuff. What's really going to be on the market now that wasn't for the last ten years?

PESCHIN: I mean I would say what the gun industry is saying is half right and half wrong. I mean what the gun industry is going to be looking at, as we showed in our study back in business, is really that assault weapons are going to be more lethal and less expensive.

And what that means is assault weapons are going to be sold with high capacity magazines now, two or three of them probably, which is a practice that happened prior to the '94 ban and because supply is going to increase the prices are going to go down.

WOODRUFF: Let's talk about those high capacity magazines. What do they enable a rifle or a gun to do that one -- that can't be done with that gun or rifle right now?

PESCHIN: Well, I mean, actually high capacity magazines were grandfathered by the 1994 ban, so they are still available throughout the ten-year period that...

WOODRUFF: Right, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

PESCHIN: Right, exactly. But what is going to happen now is manufacturers are going to be allowed to produce new high capacity magazines and, as a result, the pre-banned guns, which are going to come back, the AK-47 and the Uzi and Tech 9s, all of those are going to come back to the market and gun manufacturers are going to package those guns with these high capacity magazines. So, really what you're talking about is more firepower.

WOODRUFF: And what does that allow somebody to do? I mean what are these guns used for with this extra firepower?

PESCHIN: Well, I mean they're used in mass shootings. Law enforcement is especially at risk from criminals that use assault weapons. Just in the last couple of months, several law enforcement officers have been killed with assault weapons.

WOODRUFF: But the National Rifle Association, I interviewed on Friday the Vice President Wayne LaPierre, who talked about, you know, who said in essence that it's not going to make a difference that it's just wrong to say that these guns are getting into the wrong hands.

PESCHIN: Well, it's wrong for him to say that because they absolutely have been getting into the wrong hands. I mean they've been used in numerous high profile mass shootings.

Cops are getting killed by them and are having to incorporate more militaristic approaches to their policing because of it. Law enforcement was up here on the Hill this past week and overwhelmingly support extending the assault weapons ban, if not in fact actually strengthening it.

WOODRUFF: And you also mentioned that the price of some of these guns and these magazines and so forth is going to go down, so they're going to be what, easier for people to afford?

PESCHIN: Yes. There's going to be more of them out there. They're going to be less expensive.

WOODRUFF: If all this is the case, how do you explain what's happened here that this has gone -- it's not even coming up for a vote in the Congress?

PESCHIN: Yes. I mean it's ironic because really President Bush and Senator Kerry have the same position on this issue. They both support extension of the assault weapons ban. The difference is that John Kerry is actually the only one who's actually done anything about it.

President Bush has given lip service to it. He's been in support of the ban since 1999, since he first ran for president but he's done nothing really to lobby for this legislation to get it through.

WOODRUFF: The White House says, well the people know what the president's position is and that speaks for itself.

PESCHIN: Right but that's, I mean that's ridiculous. It's, you know, now you have Tom DeLay out as the front man saying even if the president asked me himself I wouldn't do anything on this because supposedly, you know, it's not the will of the people.

But people across the country support this. Law enforcement supports this and the president, you know, can very easily just pick up the phone and tell Tom DeLay he wants this to happen and he simply has not done that.

WOODRUFF: Well, we're all talking about something that's moot now because the deadline passed today.

PESCHIN: That's right.

WOODRUFF: And the assault weapons ban is now lifted. These guns are on the market. Sue Peschin with the Consumer Federation of America, I have a feeling we're going to hear a little bit more about this issue though. We appreciate your being with us.

PESCHIN: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Thanks very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, as Moscow deals with the reality of terrorism, the people of Russia must now confront the prospect of ethnic clashes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: From Iraq to Russia, anger over the massacre in Beslan two weeks ago still burns in many Russians. Some blame President Putin for the disaster. And they're demanding that he step down. He says the best way to defeat terrorists is to overhaul Russia's political system. But critics say that's just an obvious attempt to grab more power and it won't stop another attack.

CNN's Jill Dougherty reports from Beslan. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): "What kind of country are we living in? Somebody tell me," she screams.

Six women dressed in black, women who have lost their children, women who demand answers.

"Let President Putin answer us," she says. "He said he'd wipe out the terrorists in the outhouse. Well, where is that outhouse? Let all mothers rise up, every one of them. No mother will ever be able to sleep peacefully again."

Grief over the Beslan school massacre is now turning to fury, much of it directed at political leaders. Angry crowds are demanding the regional government resign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Why are they lying? Why are they saying 335 people died when it's really 600 or 700?

DOUGHERTY (on camera): Beyond the enormous tragedy at this school, there's growing concern both here and in Moscow that this terrorist act could have wider repercussions, potentially reigniting long-standing ethnic tensions with neighboring republics.

(voice-over) Russian authorities still have not publicly identified the terrorists who attacked the school. They claim it was an international band, including some fighters from Arab countries.

But in Beslan, located in the republic of North Ossetia, many already are blaming the Ingush, a neighboring people with whom they fought a war over territory 12 years ago.

They're our enemies, she says. How can they force us to live with our enemies?

Half an hour east of Beslan in the Ingush Republic, a village filled with Ingush refugees who fled ethnic fighting 12 years ago.

Maryann Makia (ph) says this week she sat watching TV reports of the school hostage massacre and cried.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I feel so sorry for the children. They're innocent. It was never accepted to raise a hand against a woman or child regardless of their nationality. Now it's as if the Ingush and Chechens are a nation of bandits. But we aren't.

DOUGHERTY: Her husband, Hassan (ph), is worried.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This is going to destabilize things, whip people up and give them an excuse to once again claim that the Ingush are guilty and you simply can't live next to them.

DOUGHERTY: At the school in Beslan, a father guides his young daughter through the wreckage where her grandmother perished.

"Look at this," he says. "Look at what these animals did. Remember this."

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Beslan, Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, residents in Florida and Louisiana brace for the furry of Hurricane Ivan, as the storm heads for the U.S. A report on the preparations is next.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: As you could see from that graphic, Hurricane Ivan is barreling up the Gulf of Mexico with sustained winds topping 160 miles an hour. This Category 5 storm has already killed at least 68 people. Right now, Ivan is battering the western tip of Cuba. Forecasters say even though Ivan will miss the Keys, Florida is not in the clear just yet.

CNN's Susan Candiotti has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Unless early-morning advisories change the outlook, more than a quarter of Bay County, Florida's 150,000 residents are ordered out of flood- prone areas and mobile homes by lunchtime Tuesday. Governor Jeb Bush warned the entire Gulf Coast to be on guard, no matter where Ivan strikes.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: There's no reason to want to try to live through a storm of that magnitude. It just -- it makes no sense at all. Now, we don't live in a police state. But people ought to take it very, very seriously.

CANDIOTTI: At the emergency operations center, operators are answering nervous callers wondering where to go and what to do if Ivan centers in. Homes and businesses are boarding up. That includes hotels, the cash cow of the local economy. There are investments to protect. It also helps to have history as a teacher.

In October 1995, Opal pounded Florida's Panhandle. Though the Category 3 hurricane targeted Navarre about 80 miles away, Panama City suffered half the destruction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is anxiety about, are we going to have landfall?

CANDIOTTI: Worry by both newcomers and natives. There's been massive construction on the beach over the years, though under stricter building codes, thanks to Opal, as yet untested. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back in '95, you had a lot of what we would call slab-on grade construction on coastline. Today, you have more structures that are built on pilings, common with what you see like in the Outer Banks area.

CANDIOTTI: Hotels are taking last-minute steps to protect property.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Picking up all the chairs from around the pool and sticking them in the indoor pool so we don't have flying debris, in case this sucker hits us.

CANDIOTTI: Some longtime residents are watching Ivan a little longer before getting out of harm's way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never been through a four. I'm saying I would. But in all hindsight, if it gets that powerful, I probably just will leave and take our chances. It's not worth losing a life over, you know, a house.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Disaster planners don't want anyone here or anywhere else along the Gulf Coast to take any chances, given Ivan's deadly aim.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Panama City Beach, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Here are some other stories making headlines across the country.

A letter rigged to burst into flames was sent to the governor's office in Richmond, Virginia. Another was sent to West Virginia. In the last week, 18 such letters have been sent to various executive officers around the country. Each had a return address from a prison in Nevada. Officials say they are questioning one person. No injuries have been reported.

A mixed ruling for the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui. A federal appeals court has ruled that he can submit questions to captured al Qaeda terrorists. But, if convicted, he could face the death penalty. Moussaoui claims he's innocent.

And, finally, talk show queen Oprah really knows how to make her audience happy. At the end of her season opener, which aired Monday, she gave away, gave away, more than 270 cars, one for every member of the audience. The tab for the $7 million giveaway was picked up by General Motors.

We'll think about doing that on CNN.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, with 50 days to go until the election, one of the main men behind the Kerry campaign is getting some attention. How much power does he wield?

And beyond black and white, scenes from the Great Depression in color, a fresh look at history.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Most people who follow politics have heard of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Some even call him Bush's brain. On the Democratic side, not as many people have heard of Senator Kerry's senior adviser, Bob Shrum.

Well, earlier, I spoke with Ken Auletta, who wrote an article in this week's "New Yorker" magazine about Shrum and his role in the Kerry campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Ken Auletta, who wrote this piece in this week's "New Yorker," why did you want to write about Bob Shrum?

KEN AULETTA, "THE NEW YORKER": Well, I thought it would be interesting to write about that -- I was actually starting out to write about the media campaign of both Bush and Kerry.

And as I got into it, I said Shrum is really kind of an interesting and often neglected figure. And I thought, through him, you could write about the Kerry campaign and a modern media campaign.

WOODRUFF: What did you learn? We've been hearing about Bob Shrum for a long time, sort of the genius behind the candidate, the media expert. What did you find out?

AULETTA: Well, I found out a couple things. He obviously has a very preeminent position with Kerry.

They piece in "The New Yorker" is called "Kerry's Brain," which is kind of a takeoff on "Bush's Brain," meaning Karl Rove. I found that he is not Karl Rove, in the sense that he doesn't that preeminent power that Rove has on the Bush side of it. And I think there are probably more questions about Shrum than there are about Rove as a strategist.

One of the things you learn as you poke into it and look at the ads they've created over the years and this year -- and they're all, by the way, on Kerry's Web site, which is quite excellent -- you see that the ads are very much like the ads you see in a statewide Senate campaign, let's say, which Bob Shrum has done a lot of. They're about tactical issues. They're about health care and jobs and other issues like that.

But you walk away from those ads and you don't have an overwhelming impression of a single message about Kerry as a man, his character, his decisiveness, his likability. And, in fact, a presidential campaign is not about the same thing, oftentimes, that a statewide race is about. And it has to be much more about a clear message. And so far, at least -- and this is subject to change -- the Kerry campaign has not communicated a clear message. And people talk about that. But you see it when you look closely at the ads they've done, 30-some-odd ads since the beginning of the campaign. WOODRUFF: Ken Auletta, you got a lot of people to talk to you, a number of them on the record. Some of them didn't want their names used. Did you come away thinking the problems, as they are in the Kerry campaign, relate more to Bob Shrum or to the candidate himself?

AULETTA: The candidate.

I think Shrum has some problems. I think that Shrum, who obviously is a very gifted man, but I think he's doing what generals do in wars. They fight the last war again. He had a very brilliant strategy, as did the Kerry campaign, to say, we're not going to go after Howard Dean a year ago. We're not going to destroy the Kerry candidacy. Kerry, by not going after Dean, was able to emerge as someone who could unite all factions of the Democratic Party and as someone who was perceived because of his war record in Vietnam as potentially being a very strong challenger to Bush.

But I think Shrum, who took that view not just because he thought it was ineffective against Dean in a way that united the Democratic Party, but he thought that something fundamental had changed about post-9/11 politics in America, that is to say, that the public would not tolerate a negative campaign. And the truth is, it worked in the primary season. But it's not working in the general election, because the public has shown a tolerance for negative campaigning, as Bush has proved.

Bush spent an enormous amount of money, $60 million, last spring attacking Kerry directly. And then, of course, you have the swift boat veterans attacking Kerry. And those have stuck and have hurt him. And I think they were very late to attack back. And I think one of the reasons they were late to attack back was the Shrum strategy of, the public won't tolerate this. And I think that was wrong so far.

But your question about Kerry, clearly, Kerry has problems as a candidate communicating. His speeches, he doesn't speak in short sentences. He tends to be obtuse and he tends to reinforce that flip- flopper image that the Republicans have tried to paint.

WOODRUFF: Do you come away -- having made the major miscalculation in strategy going into this general election, do you come away with the impression that they can turn it around?

AULETTA: Oh, of course.

I think events don't necessarily work in Bush's favor, be it Iraq or Afghanistan or the economy. There are a lot of things that work against Bush. And he's got a very high unfavorable rating for a sitting president, in terms of public support for many of his policies. So I think Kerry has got some things going for him that are pluses. But I think that, realistically, you cannot compete against a decisive Bush campaign with a committee structure. And that's what Kerry has now.

Someone I refer to in the piece as talking about as Berlin after the war, four-part division of Berlin. You have got a lot of factions in that Kerry campaign. And people are all heard out. But someone has to make a decision. And, ultimately, that's the candidate's job to say, this person's in charge. We need decisive action.

WOODRUFF: It's certainly a piece worth taking a look at. It's "Kerry's Brain." Ken Auletta is the author.

Ken, very good to see you. Thanks for talking. We appreciate it.

AULETTA: Thanks, Judy. My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: And still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an overlooked corner of the famous archive of Depression-era photographs, a burst of color where you might not expect it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Tonight, all of our passion for still photography intersects with history. As America came out of the Great Depression, the government set up the Farm Security Administration to help document rural and urban America. They hired people to travel the country and take photographs. Most of the images that came out to define the Depression are black and white.

But a fraction of them are color photographs. Some of the best of them can be found in a new book called "Bound For Glory." We recently talked with author Paul Hendrickson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL HENDRICKSON, AUTHOR, "BOUND FOR GLORY": So often, when we think back to the period of the Depression in the 1930s and the prewar '40s, we tend to think in black and white. But the point of this book is that, for the first time, we get to look at documentary photographs from that period that are shot in full color, the color of everyday life.

These were government documentary photographers. There were about a dozen altogether. Their mission was to go around the country documenting the ravages of the Depression on America's rural population. This is an encyclopedic portrait of America herself. It's not just poor people. It's not just shantytowns in West Virginia and dust bowls in Oklahoma. It's the whole range of American experience, from big cities, to small towns, to the wheat fields, to the frozen climbs of New England.

Pie Town, New Mexico, who could resist that name? It's kind of an agrarian experiment in which people originally were living in a kind of communal way, growing their things together, raising their families together. An awful lot of what I get out of those Pie Town photographs is the community aspect. Life was very, very hard there. I think you get a sense of how much more hard-won it was when you study the eating pictures, the barbecue pictures, the table pictures of families from Pie Town. Some of the powerful work, 1940, 1941, you see great Memorial Day parades in Connecticut. And the whole town is turning out. Those pictures are freighted with a certain meaning because they represent, I think, momentary relief.

At the back end of the book, we see many photographs about war mobilization, industrialization, turning to all of the production of war, factories, Rosie the Riveter, bomber factories, America getting ready for the inevitable.

The world is so complex that capturing well the drama of the real is an incredible challenge. It's a way of taking us by the hand and saying, come, look again at American history that is only over the mountain just beyond the reach of your own particular memory. It is the bite of the real. It's the drama of real life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Time to check out what's coming up tomorrow. Here, now, "AMERICAN MORNING"'s Heidi Collins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," a man who went to the edge of death and to the extremes of life in a Utah canyon. Aron Ralston is our guest, the hiker who was trapped beneath an 800-pound boulder last year. He carved his own epitaph in the canyon wall and cut off his arm in order to live. Now he's written a book about six days alone with difficult choices. His story CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WOODRUFF: That's a story you'll want to hear.

Well, that's it for us tonight. For most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next. Aaron will be back tomorrow.

Good night from Washington.

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 13, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I am Judy Woodruff. Aaron is off tonight.
At a Senate hearing today, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he now thinks it is not likely that any stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons will ever be found in Iraq.

His remarks came as U.S. warplanes once again bombed the restive city of Fallujah after a bloody spike in violence across Iraq. In many ways, at least from the outside, it can seem like Groundhog Day in Iraq and that is where the whip begins tonight.

CNN's Walt Rodgers starts us off with a headline from Baghdad -- Walt.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Judy. A top Marine Corps general in Iraq called Fallujah a cancer. He said the Marines could crush the resistance there in four days. The Pentagon, however, seems to have opted for airpower, precision air strikes -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Walt, thank you.

The U.S. military strategy in Fallujah is under fire tonight. CNN's Jamie McIntyre is at the Pentagon with that headline -- Jamie.

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, as U.S. warplanes continue to pound suspected al Qaeda hideouts in Fallujah, a top U.S. commander, having completed his tour, is now questioning the strategy that's turned Fallujah into an insurgent stronghold.

WOODRUFF: Thanks, Jamie.

And, on now to Michigan where President Bush spent the day campaigning hard on the issue of healthcare. CNN's White House Correspondent John King is in Battle Creek tonight, John a headline please.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Judy, ask voters which candidate they trust more on healthcare, John Kerry wins by an overwhelming margin. Trying to reverse that or at least whittle it away a bit today, President Bush says elect John Kerry and what you'll get in terms of healthcare is bigger government and higher taxes -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, John, thank you.

And to Wisconsin next and the issue that Senator John Kerry has put front and center of late the federal assault weapons ban which expired today. CNN's Candy Crowley has the headline -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Judy, it used to be the conventional wisdom that a Democrat talking any kind of gun control was toxic in rural areas but John Kerry believes that in 2004 he has changed the dynamic.

WOODRUFF: All right, thank you Candy. And we'll have more with all of you in just a moment.

Also on the program tonight, from Florida's panhandle to the Louisiana Gulf Coast some residents are boarding up and others are leaving town as Hurricane Ivan charts an unpredictable path.

And documenting the American experience during the Depression, from big city USA to the wheat fields of small town America all of that ahead on the program.

But we begin tonight in Iraq where a bloody weekend was followed by more violence today, the troubled city of Fallujah once again a part of the deadly mix. U.S. warplanes launched air strikes today at what the military said was a suspected hideout for one of the most wanted insurgent leaders in Iraq.

Here's CNN's Walt Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS (voice-over): U.S. Air Force F-16s dropped two 500-pound bombs on what the military called "a confirmed Abu Musah al-Zarqawi terrorist meeting site in Fallujah. America has a $25 million bounty on his head. The Americans believe he is orchestrating murderous attacks on coalition forces and Iraqi civilians.

Iraq's Ministry of Health reports 20 people were killed, 38 others wounded, among them five women and children. The U.S. military reports 25 of Zarqawi's fighters were killed in the latest bid to decapitate insurgent resistance in Fallujah using airpower. The outgoing Marine commander here says Fallujah has become a cancer.

LT. GEN. JAMES CONWAY, U.S. MARINES: Frankly, the marines that we have here right now could crush the city and be done with business in four days but that is not what we're going to do. Frankly, we can contain Fallujah like we've been doing now for quite some time and so there's no immediate sense of immediacy or urgency I believe associated with it.

RODGERS: Perhaps but here in the Iraqi capital itself the insurgents seem to be getting more powerful rather than being contained. Over the weekend at times it seemed to literally rain rockets and mortars in Baghdad and the devastating effect of car bombings and about 80 Iraqis died nationwide Sunday alone. One of the worst incidents was when insurgents hit this Bradley fighting vehicle. The crew was evacuated safely, then jubilant Iraqis danced around the burning Bradley celebrating.

A U.S. helicopter sent in to destroy the Bradley killed at least 22 Iraqis including this Al Aribiya TV journalist. His last words, "I'm dying. I'm dying." America's allies continue to die here as well. Sunday, three Polish soldiers were killed in an ambush. Three others were wounded.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RODGERS: A top U.S. general here in Iraq predicts this latest spike in violence will continue through the U.S. presidential elections in November. Many here it will bleed -- many here believe it will bleed into the Iraqi elections in December or January and nobody in Iraq is predicting when this bloodshed will end -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Walter, we just heard you say that in your view the insurgents only seem to grow more powerful. We heard the Marine commander say that he thinks they are contained. What evidence do he and other military officials give that they are being contained?

RODGERS: Judy, General Conway's reference to containment was only in the city of Fallujah and I don't think he would press the point much beyond that. What we saw over the weekend, and the numbers we have now are 88 dead in one day, Sunday, a bloody Sunday here in Iraq.

The numbers here and the actions here over the weekend are such that the insurgency is breaking out and is not contained and Baghdad was especially badly hit. It's going on all over the country. The containment is only Fallujah -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: All right, Walter Rodgers getting up early in Baghdad, Walter thank you very much.

Well, Fallujah has been a hornet's nest of anti-American sentiment since the beginning of the war. How to contain and calm the hornets has been a daunting challenge. The strategy adopted by the U.S. military months ago has now come under sharp criticism.

Today, the outgoing U.S. commander for the region joined the chorus of critics, more now from CNN's Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE (voice-over): The U.S. decision to launch a Marine assault on Fallujah back in April, only to pull back after three days, is now seen by many as a colossal failure. Several top Pentagon officials and U.S. commanders concede it was a mistake to leave security to the Fallujah Brigade made up of remnants of Saddam Hussein's old army.

CONWAY: We said at the outset that the Fallujah Brigade was an experiment. The experiment didn't work for a combination of reasons.

MCINTYRE: In April, the Pentagon portrayed the experiment as the best thinking of field commanders but Lieutenant General James Conway, who just finished his tour as Marine commander, says both the attack and the abrupt halt were ordered over his objections.

CONWAY: When you order elements of a Marine division to attack a city then you really need to understand what the consequences of that is going to be and not perhaps vacillate in the middle of something like that. Once you commit, you got to -- you got to stay committed.

MCINTYRE: Instead of fighting insurgents, the Fallujah Brigade aided them, Marines say, and trucks, radios and some 800 AK-47 assault rifles provided by the U.S. appear to have ended up in the hands of the insurgents. One Marine commander called it a fiasco.

Now, with a sovereign Iraqi government in charge, the U.S. must wait until the fledgling Iraqi army and police are in position to help retake Fallujah, something officials concede will take months. Meanwhile, Fallujah remains a haven for terrorists and anti-U.S. militants.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: Our commanders are dealing with the problem. They are putting in place plans to recover all of the cities in which there's a great insurgent presence in the Sunni Triangle over the next several months.

MCINTYRE: Pentagon officials say lessons learned in Fallujah were applied in Najaf where negotiations, backed by a strong offensive by both U.S. and Iraqi forces, produced an agreement to regain control from Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCINTYRE: Pentagon officials say a showdown in Fallujah will probably not come until after early November but those same officials are adamant that the reason is because the Iraqi military needs more time to develop confidence before attacking Fallujah and that it has nothing to do with holding down casualties before the presidential elections in the United States -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jamie, who ordered the attack back in April and then ordered an abrupt halt to the attack over the objections of General Conway?

MCINTYRE: Well, it's not clear. General Conway said that he got his orders from General Sanchez, the top commander, and he said that he made his views known but, as they do in the military, he saluted smartly and carried out the plan.

The question is did the micromanaging, if that's what it is, come from the U.S. Central Command, Paul Bremer, or did it extend back to the Pentagon? Conway says he doesn't know. He only knows he made his best argument for the approach he wanted to try, which was more aid and trying to win people over and that he was overruled.

WOODRUFF: How unusual is it, Jamie, for a commander like General Conway to speak out like this?

MCINTYRE: Well, it's somewhat unusual and it's also interesting because at the time again the Pentagon was portraying this as -- they were saying well they didn't really know the details of what was going on in Fallujah because they were leaving it to the commanders there who had the best feel for what was happening.

And they portrayed this as something that was the best judgment of the commanders but maybe didn't work out. Now, we're hearing from General Conway that he wanted to try a completely different approach but he really didn't have a choice.

WOODRUFF: Well, we can assume that you're continuing to ask questions at the Pentagon and wherever you can get some answers. Jamie, thank you very much.

MCINTYRE: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Well, on now to politics here at home and the presidential race. The federal ban on assault weapons expired today after setting off a political firefight on the campaign trail.

President Bush had said he would sign the bill, if it were put on his desk, but he did virtually nothing to pressure Congress into renewing the ten-year ban. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has put the issue front and center on the stump.

Here now CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): It's not just about the guns.

SEN. JOHN KERRY, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is a test of character. In a secret deal he chose his powerful friends in the gun lobby over police officers and families that he promised to protect.

CROWLEY: The Kerry campaign saw the expiration of the assault weapons ban as a way to undercut what aides believe sustains the president's poll numbers that big lead over Kerry on leadership, honesty and trustworthiness.

KERRY: He failed the test of leadership by saying that he supports an assault weapons ban but then doing everything in his power to keep the Republicans from sending it to him. He should tell the American people the truth that he had no intention of extending the assault weapons ban.

CROWLEY: Though Al Gore lost critical rural votes with all his talk about licensing guns, Kerry strategists saw little downside in highlighting the Senator's vote for and continued support of the ban on some assault weapons.

Anyone who votes strictly on guns, said one Kerry source, will vote for Bush. The others have been acidulously courted. Kerry has shot and hunted his way through many a battleground state, not your average national Democrat, not Al Gore.

RICH JUDGE, KERRY CAMPAIGN: Well, I think that there's -- there's no question that, you know, as a hunter, Senator Kerry speaks very directly to gun owners as someone who's hunted for most of his life and as someone who is committed to the Second Amendment.

CROWLEY: Having passed the Second Amendment hurdle, Kerry hopes to bring home wayward rural Democrats by expanding the conversation onto friendlier territory.

JUDGE: What we're really concerned about is whether the water is clean enough to fish in, whether there are public lands that actually nurture the habitat of the animals that are necessary to provide a rich hunting experience.

CROWLEY: Despite the emphasis on guns today, don't expect it as a recurring theme.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: In fact, the Kerry campaign says over the next several weeks we will hear more of these character contrasts, which is to say they are taking dead aim at the president's positives in the poll -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Candy, if we are not going to be hearing much more about the gun ban, what is Senator Kerry going to be stressing in the days to come?

CROWLEY: Well, actually tomorrow we'll hear more about healthcare at a senior place here in Wisconsin. Then we're going to move on to Toledo, Ohio, one of those front porch activities that he has. Those tend to center on domestic issues, healthcare, the economy, jobs.

One of the interesting things we learned today in talking to people on the ground here is that, in fact, when they talk to rural voters and rural voters very important here in Wisconsin as elsewhere in the Midwest, what they're finding is the swing voters that remain tend to be women.

They tend to be working women and what they're most worried about is healthcare and jobs, so they want to take those two things and bring in that whole character contrast. What has this president done about your healthcare, that kind of thing?

WOODRUFF: All right, Candy Crowley out on the trail with John Kerry. Candy, thank you very much.

President Bush spent the day campaigning in Michigan, a crucial battleground state that he lost to Al Gore in 2000. Healthcare, as you just heard Candy mention it, has no been Mr. Bush's strong suit in the constellation of campaign issues so far.

But today with Michigan's 17 electoral votes hanging in the balance, he came out swinging reporting for us tonight, our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Campaigning in Michigan, the president tried to turn a political liability to his advantage by painting his opponent's healthcare plan as tax and spend liberalism.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They took a look at his plan. They said it's going to cost $1.5 trillion in new government spending. That's what you'd expect from a Senator from Massachusetts.

KING: Mr. Bush told rallies in Battle Creek, Holland and Muskegon that Democrat John Kerry's healthcare plan would leave them fewer choices and less money.

BUSH: Not only is his plan going to increase the power of bureaucrats in your lives but he can't pay for it unless he raises your taxes.

KING: The Kerry camp says Mr. Bush's numbers come from a biased conservative think tank and that only the rich would face higher taxes. Getting the upper hand in this debate could prove critical in a state Mr. Bush lost four years ago. In communities like Battle Creek, cereal city to the locals, Democrats hope what they call the middle class squeeze works against the incumbent.

Michigan's unemployment rate is 6.8 percent, well above the national average and in the Battle Creek area it is 7.5 percent. Eleven percent of Michigan's population does not have health insurance, up from eight percent when Mr. Bush took office, nationally the uninsured number 45 million, up from 40 million at the start of the Bush administration.

At DeMent and Marquardt in Kalamazoo, healthcare costs soared 400 percent over the past decade, so the small law firm's 15 employees were given a choice, scale back coverage or accept small or no raises.

MICHELE MARQUARDT, ATTORNEY: They opted this year to see more money in their pocket and, as a result, they do not have the quality of health insurance that they used to have but they feel it's sufficient and they have more money to live on.

KING: Mr. Bush says malpractice reforms and allowing small businesses to pool together would help lower costs and he blames the recession early in his term for the fact more Americans lack health insurance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: In national polls now, Senator Kerry has a double digit edge when voters are asked who would best handle the healthcare issue? Here in Michigan it is a 30-point advantage for Senator Kerry right now.

The president very aggressively trying to whittle away that advantage by saying if Senator Kerry wins, when it comes to healthcare what the voters will get is bigger government and higher taxes -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: John, the Bush campaign feeling that whenever they trot out the argument about higher taxes if John Kerry's elected they feel that works?

KING: They do believe if they can create the impression that he is a traditional Massachusetts liberal in the Michael Dukakis mold, if you will that it will help them.

Ironically, they think the very voters who might be thinking to vote against President Bush because of pocketbook strain, a struggling economy in places like the Midwest where manufacturing jobs have been lost, will get worried if they believe at a time they're a little anxious about how much money they have in their wallet if they believe Senator Kerry will raise taxes.

So, the president is trying here and it's a delicate balance to turn a liability to his advantage. They know come Election Day he is most unlikely to have an advantage on the healthcare issue but they hope if they can just whittle Senator Kerry's lead down a little bit and make the election, as Candy was just discussing, more about national security and about leadership they think they can win on that territory.

WOODRUFF: We hear you. We hear you, John. We heard you, Candy. Thanks very much, appreciate it, John King reporting on President Bush on the trail.

And ahead on NEWSNIGHT, fears of ethnic tensions rise in Russia and anger grows over the hostage taking at a Beslan school.

And after devastating parts of the Caribbean, Hurricane Ivan is now charting an unpredictable path toward the U.S. coast.

From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: As you could perhaps see in those numbers, in the ten years that the assault weapons ban was in effect, gun deaths declined dramatically and now that it has expired today some say that violent crime will increase. The critics maintain the ban was more cosmetic than really effective.

Here to help narrow the focus on this debate is Sue Peschin. She is the firearms project director for the Consumer Federation of America. It is a non-partisan, non-profit organization. Ms. Peschin, thank you for joining us.

SUE PESCHIN, CONSUMER FEDERATION OF AMERICA: Thank you for having me.

WOODRUFF: Let's try to be specific here. The gun manufacturers, the gun rights people, say this is not going to make much difference now that the ban is over. It's mostly cosmetic stuff. What's really going to be on the market now that wasn't for the last ten years?

PESCHIN: I mean I would say what the gun industry is saying is half right and half wrong. I mean what the gun industry is going to be looking at, as we showed in our study back in business, is really that assault weapons are going to be more lethal and less expensive.

And what that means is assault weapons are going to be sold with high capacity magazines now, two or three of them probably, which is a practice that happened prior to the '94 ban and because supply is going to increase the prices are going to go down.

WOODRUFF: Let's talk about those high capacity magazines. What do they enable a rifle or a gun to do that one -- that can't be done with that gun or rifle right now?

PESCHIN: Well, I mean, actually high capacity magazines were grandfathered by the 1994 ban, so they are still available throughout the ten-year period that...

WOODRUFF: Right, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

PESCHIN: Right, exactly. But what is going to happen now is manufacturers are going to be allowed to produce new high capacity magazines and, as a result, the pre-banned guns, which are going to come back, the AK-47 and the Uzi and Tech 9s, all of those are going to come back to the market and gun manufacturers are going to package those guns with these high capacity magazines. So, really what you're talking about is more firepower.

WOODRUFF: And what does that allow somebody to do? I mean what are these guns used for with this extra firepower?

PESCHIN: Well, I mean they're used in mass shootings. Law enforcement is especially at risk from criminals that use assault weapons. Just in the last couple of months, several law enforcement officers have been killed with assault weapons.

WOODRUFF: But the National Rifle Association, I interviewed on Friday the Vice President Wayne LaPierre, who talked about, you know, who said in essence that it's not going to make a difference that it's just wrong to say that these guns are getting into the wrong hands.

PESCHIN: Well, it's wrong for him to say that because they absolutely have been getting into the wrong hands. I mean they've been used in numerous high profile mass shootings.

Cops are getting killed by them and are having to incorporate more militaristic approaches to their policing because of it. Law enforcement was up here on the Hill this past week and overwhelmingly support extending the assault weapons ban, if not in fact actually strengthening it.

WOODRUFF: And you also mentioned that the price of some of these guns and these magazines and so forth is going to go down, so they're going to be what, easier for people to afford?

PESCHIN: Yes. There's going to be more of them out there. They're going to be less expensive.

WOODRUFF: If all this is the case, how do you explain what's happened here that this has gone -- it's not even coming up for a vote in the Congress?

PESCHIN: Yes. I mean it's ironic because really President Bush and Senator Kerry have the same position on this issue. They both support extension of the assault weapons ban. The difference is that John Kerry is actually the only one who's actually done anything about it.

President Bush has given lip service to it. He's been in support of the ban since 1999, since he first ran for president but he's done nothing really to lobby for this legislation to get it through.

WOODRUFF: The White House says, well the people know what the president's position is and that speaks for itself.

PESCHIN: Right but that's, I mean that's ridiculous. It's, you know, now you have Tom DeLay out as the front man saying even if the president asked me himself I wouldn't do anything on this because supposedly, you know, it's not the will of the people.

But people across the country support this. Law enforcement supports this and the president, you know, can very easily just pick up the phone and tell Tom DeLay he wants this to happen and he simply has not done that.

WOODRUFF: Well, we're all talking about something that's moot now because the deadline passed today.

PESCHIN: That's right.

WOODRUFF: And the assault weapons ban is now lifted. These guns are on the market. Sue Peschin with the Consumer Federation of America, I have a feeling we're going to hear a little bit more about this issue though. We appreciate your being with us.

PESCHIN: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: Thanks very much.

Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, as Moscow deals with the reality of terrorism, the people of Russia must now confront the prospect of ethnic clashes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: From Iraq to Russia, anger over the massacre in Beslan two weeks ago still burns in many Russians. Some blame President Putin for the disaster. And they're demanding that he step down. He says the best way to defeat terrorists is to overhaul Russia's political system. But critics say that's just an obvious attempt to grab more power and it won't stop another attack.

CNN's Jill Dougherty reports from Beslan. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): "What kind of country are we living in? Somebody tell me," she screams.

Six women dressed in black, women who have lost their children, women who demand answers.

"Let President Putin answer us," she says. "He said he'd wipe out the terrorists in the outhouse. Well, where is that outhouse? Let all mothers rise up, every one of them. No mother will ever be able to sleep peacefully again."

Grief over the Beslan school massacre is now turning to fury, much of it directed at political leaders. Angry crowds are demanding the regional government resign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Why are they lying? Why are they saying 335 people died when it's really 600 or 700?

DOUGHERTY (on camera): Beyond the enormous tragedy at this school, there's growing concern both here and in Moscow that this terrorist act could have wider repercussions, potentially reigniting long-standing ethnic tensions with neighboring republics.

(voice-over) Russian authorities still have not publicly identified the terrorists who attacked the school. They claim it was an international band, including some fighters from Arab countries.

But in Beslan, located in the republic of North Ossetia, many already are blaming the Ingush, a neighboring people with whom they fought a war over territory 12 years ago.

They're our enemies, she says. How can they force us to live with our enemies?

Half an hour east of Beslan in the Ingush Republic, a village filled with Ingush refugees who fled ethnic fighting 12 years ago.

Maryann Makia (ph) says this week she sat watching TV reports of the school hostage massacre and cried.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I feel so sorry for the children. They're innocent. It was never accepted to raise a hand against a woman or child regardless of their nationality. Now it's as if the Ingush and Chechens are a nation of bandits. But we aren't.

DOUGHERTY: Her husband, Hassan (ph), is worried.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): This is going to destabilize things, whip people up and give them an excuse to once again claim that the Ingush are guilty and you simply can't live next to them.

DOUGHERTY: At the school in Beslan, a father guides his young daughter through the wreckage where her grandmother perished.

"Look at this," he says. "Look at what these animals did. Remember this."

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Beslan, Russia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, residents in Florida and Louisiana brace for the furry of Hurricane Ivan, as the storm heads for the U.S. A report on the preparations is next.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

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WOODRUFF: As you could see from that graphic, Hurricane Ivan is barreling up the Gulf of Mexico with sustained winds topping 160 miles an hour. This Category 5 storm has already killed at least 68 people. Right now, Ivan is battering the western tip of Cuba. Forecasters say even though Ivan will miss the Keys, Florida is not in the clear just yet.

CNN's Susan Candiotti has more.

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SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Unless early-morning advisories change the outlook, more than a quarter of Bay County, Florida's 150,000 residents are ordered out of flood- prone areas and mobile homes by lunchtime Tuesday. Governor Jeb Bush warned the entire Gulf Coast to be on guard, no matter where Ivan strikes.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: There's no reason to want to try to live through a storm of that magnitude. It just -- it makes no sense at all. Now, we don't live in a police state. But people ought to take it very, very seriously.

CANDIOTTI: At the emergency operations center, operators are answering nervous callers wondering where to go and what to do if Ivan centers in. Homes and businesses are boarding up. That includes hotels, the cash cow of the local economy. There are investments to protect. It also helps to have history as a teacher.

In October 1995, Opal pounded Florida's Panhandle. Though the Category 3 hurricane targeted Navarre about 80 miles away, Panama City suffered half the destruction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is anxiety about, are we going to have landfall?

CANDIOTTI: Worry by both newcomers and natives. There's been massive construction on the beach over the years, though under stricter building codes, thanks to Opal, as yet untested. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back in '95, you had a lot of what we would call slab-on grade construction on coastline. Today, you have more structures that are built on pilings, common with what you see like in the Outer Banks area.

CANDIOTTI: Hotels are taking last-minute steps to protect property.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Picking up all the chairs from around the pool and sticking them in the indoor pool so we don't have flying debris, in case this sucker hits us.

CANDIOTTI: Some longtime residents are watching Ivan a little longer before getting out of harm's way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never been through a four. I'm saying I would. But in all hindsight, if it gets that powerful, I probably just will leave and take our chances. It's not worth losing a life over, you know, a house.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Disaster planners don't want anyone here or anywhere else along the Gulf Coast to take any chances, given Ivan's deadly aim.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Panama City Beach, Florida.

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WOODRUFF: Here are some other stories making headlines across the country.

A letter rigged to burst into flames was sent to the governor's office in Richmond, Virginia. Another was sent to West Virginia. In the last week, 18 such letters have been sent to various executive officers around the country. Each had a return address from a prison in Nevada. Officials say they are questioning one person. No injuries have been reported.

A mixed ruling for the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui. A federal appeals court has ruled that he can submit questions to captured al Qaeda terrorists. But, if convicted, he could face the death penalty. Moussaoui claims he's innocent.

And, finally, talk show queen Oprah really knows how to make her audience happy. At the end of her season opener, which aired Monday, she gave away, gave away, more than 270 cars, one for every member of the audience. The tab for the $7 million giveaway was picked up by General Motors.

We'll think about doing that on CNN.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, with 50 days to go until the election, one of the main men behind the Kerry campaign is getting some attention. How much power does he wield?

And beyond black and white, scenes from the Great Depression in color, a fresh look at history.

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WOODRUFF: Most people who follow politics have heard of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Some even call him Bush's brain. On the Democratic side, not as many people have heard of Senator Kerry's senior adviser, Bob Shrum.

Well, earlier, I spoke with Ken Auletta, who wrote an article in this week's "New Yorker" magazine about Shrum and his role in the Kerry campaign.

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WOODRUFF: Ken Auletta, who wrote this piece in this week's "New Yorker," why did you want to write about Bob Shrum?

KEN AULETTA, "THE NEW YORKER": Well, I thought it would be interesting to write about that -- I was actually starting out to write about the media campaign of both Bush and Kerry.

And as I got into it, I said Shrum is really kind of an interesting and often neglected figure. And I thought, through him, you could write about the Kerry campaign and a modern media campaign.

WOODRUFF: What did you learn? We've been hearing about Bob Shrum for a long time, sort of the genius behind the candidate, the media expert. What did you find out?

AULETTA: Well, I found out a couple things. He obviously has a very preeminent position with Kerry.

They piece in "The New Yorker" is called "Kerry's Brain," which is kind of a takeoff on "Bush's Brain," meaning Karl Rove. I found that he is not Karl Rove, in the sense that he doesn't that preeminent power that Rove has on the Bush side of it. And I think there are probably more questions about Shrum than there are about Rove as a strategist.

One of the things you learn as you poke into it and look at the ads they've created over the years and this year -- and they're all, by the way, on Kerry's Web site, which is quite excellent -- you see that the ads are very much like the ads you see in a statewide Senate campaign, let's say, which Bob Shrum has done a lot of. They're about tactical issues. They're about health care and jobs and other issues like that.

But you walk away from those ads and you don't have an overwhelming impression of a single message about Kerry as a man, his character, his decisiveness, his likability. And, in fact, a presidential campaign is not about the same thing, oftentimes, that a statewide race is about. And it has to be much more about a clear message. And so far, at least -- and this is subject to change -- the Kerry campaign has not communicated a clear message. And people talk about that. But you see it when you look closely at the ads they've done, 30-some-odd ads since the beginning of the campaign. WOODRUFF: Ken Auletta, you got a lot of people to talk to you, a number of them on the record. Some of them didn't want their names used. Did you come away thinking the problems, as they are in the Kerry campaign, relate more to Bob Shrum or to the candidate himself?

AULETTA: The candidate.

I think Shrum has some problems. I think that Shrum, who obviously is a very gifted man, but I think he's doing what generals do in wars. They fight the last war again. He had a very brilliant strategy, as did the Kerry campaign, to say, we're not going to go after Howard Dean a year ago. We're not going to destroy the Kerry candidacy. Kerry, by not going after Dean, was able to emerge as someone who could unite all factions of the Democratic Party and as someone who was perceived because of his war record in Vietnam as potentially being a very strong challenger to Bush.

But I think Shrum, who took that view not just because he thought it was ineffective against Dean in a way that united the Democratic Party, but he thought that something fundamental had changed about post-9/11 politics in America, that is to say, that the public would not tolerate a negative campaign. And the truth is, it worked in the primary season. But it's not working in the general election, because the public has shown a tolerance for negative campaigning, as Bush has proved.

Bush spent an enormous amount of money, $60 million, last spring attacking Kerry directly. And then, of course, you have the swift boat veterans attacking Kerry. And those have stuck and have hurt him. And I think they were very late to attack back. And I think one of the reasons they were late to attack back was the Shrum strategy of, the public won't tolerate this. And I think that was wrong so far.

But your question about Kerry, clearly, Kerry has problems as a candidate communicating. His speeches, he doesn't speak in short sentences. He tends to be obtuse and he tends to reinforce that flip- flopper image that the Republicans have tried to paint.

WOODRUFF: Do you come away -- having made the major miscalculation in strategy going into this general election, do you come away with the impression that they can turn it around?

AULETTA: Oh, of course.

I think events don't necessarily work in Bush's favor, be it Iraq or Afghanistan or the economy. There are a lot of things that work against Bush. And he's got a very high unfavorable rating for a sitting president, in terms of public support for many of his policies. So I think Kerry has got some things going for him that are pluses. But I think that, realistically, you cannot compete against a decisive Bush campaign with a committee structure. And that's what Kerry has now.

Someone I refer to in the piece as talking about as Berlin after the war, four-part division of Berlin. You have got a lot of factions in that Kerry campaign. And people are all heard out. But someone has to make a decision. And, ultimately, that's the candidate's job to say, this person's in charge. We need decisive action.

WOODRUFF: It's certainly a piece worth taking a look at. It's "Kerry's Brain." Ken Auletta is the author.

Ken, very good to see you. Thanks for talking. We appreciate it.

AULETTA: Thanks, Judy. My pleasure.

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WOODRUFF: And still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, an overlooked corner of the famous archive of Depression-era photographs, a burst of color where you might not expect it.

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WOODRUFF: Tonight, all of our passion for still photography intersects with history. As America came out of the Great Depression, the government set up the Farm Security Administration to help document rural and urban America. They hired people to travel the country and take photographs. Most of the images that came out to define the Depression are black and white.

But a fraction of them are color photographs. Some of the best of them can be found in a new book called "Bound For Glory." We recently talked with author Paul Hendrickson.

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PAUL HENDRICKSON, AUTHOR, "BOUND FOR GLORY": So often, when we think back to the period of the Depression in the 1930s and the prewar '40s, we tend to think in black and white. But the point of this book is that, for the first time, we get to look at documentary photographs from that period that are shot in full color, the color of everyday life.

These were government documentary photographers. There were about a dozen altogether. Their mission was to go around the country documenting the ravages of the Depression on America's rural population. This is an encyclopedic portrait of America herself. It's not just poor people. It's not just shantytowns in West Virginia and dust bowls in Oklahoma. It's the whole range of American experience, from big cities, to small towns, to the wheat fields, to the frozen climbs of New England.

Pie Town, New Mexico, who could resist that name? It's kind of an agrarian experiment in which people originally were living in a kind of communal way, growing their things together, raising their families together. An awful lot of what I get out of those Pie Town photographs is the community aspect. Life was very, very hard there. I think you get a sense of how much more hard-won it was when you study the eating pictures, the barbecue pictures, the table pictures of families from Pie Town. Some of the powerful work, 1940, 1941, you see great Memorial Day parades in Connecticut. And the whole town is turning out. Those pictures are freighted with a certain meaning because they represent, I think, momentary relief.

At the back end of the book, we see many photographs about war mobilization, industrialization, turning to all of the production of war, factories, Rosie the Riveter, bomber factories, America getting ready for the inevitable.

The world is so complex that capturing well the drama of the real is an incredible challenge. It's a way of taking us by the hand and saying, come, look again at American history that is only over the mountain just beyond the reach of your own particular memory. It is the bite of the real. It's the drama of real life.

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WOODRUFF: Time to check out what's coming up tomorrow. Here, now, "AMERICAN MORNING"'s Heidi Collins.

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HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," a man who went to the edge of death and to the extremes of life in a Utah canyon. Aron Ralston is our guest, the hiker who was trapped beneath an 800-pound boulder last year. He carved his own epitaph in the canyon wall and cut off his arm in order to live. Now he's written a book about six days alone with difficult choices. His story CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m.

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WOODRUFF: That's a story you'll want to hear.

Well, that's it for us tonight. For most of you, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next. Aaron will be back tomorrow.

Good night from Washington.

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