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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Bush Addresses U.N.; Kerry Attacks Bush's Handling of War in Iraq

Aired September 21, 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.
Back during the Vietnam War, you know that long ago war we continue to fight these days, back then as the casualties mounted and the options narrowed, as the country grew weary there were lots of ideas how to end it.

The president at the time, President Nixon, said the search was for peace with honor. Someone on the antiwar side came up with an idea. Why not just declare victory and bring everybody home? Several years and several thousands of lives later that's just about what the country did.

I thought of that option the other day after reading a piece by columnist and CNN host Bob Novak, who wrote about an idea circulating Washington to do essentially that with Iraq. Hold the elections in January. Declare victory and bring the troops home.

Do I think that will happen? No. Does Mr. Novak? I don't know but we'll ask him later because he joins us to talk about one exit strategy that someone is talking about in Washington. That's ahead on the program.

The whip begins here in New York where the president gave a vigorous defense of his war in Iraq at the U.N. today and our Senior White House Correspondent was with him. John King starts us off with a headline -- John.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president made clear today that he will stay in Iraq and U.S. troops will until, he says, there is a working democracy. He also made it clear he has much more faith in the new prime minister of Iraq than he does in the United Nations.

BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get to you early tonight.

The meeting at the General Assembly was full of tension expressed within the confines of diplomatic speak. Richard Roth covers the U.N. and joins us tonight with a headline -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT: President Bush calls for United Nations help in Iraq, boy that sounds familiar, details on the president's fourth appearance at the U.N. coming up.

BROWN: Thank you, Richard. And on to Florida where John Kerry for a second straight day turned up the heat on the president and his handling of the war in Iraq, Candy Crowley in Orlando tonight with a headline -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, John Kerry described the audience at the U.N. stony when listening to George Bush's speech but that's nothing compared to Kerry's critique.

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

Also coming up on the program tonight a spiritual standoff in Boston, the church officially closed, the faithful refusing to leave.

And knowing when to hold them and when to fold them, as they say, when to take the money and run, the explosion in the world of poker.

And, I'll bet you we'll end it all with morning papers. We often do at the end of the program, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin regrettably where we did this time last night, the beheading of another American, a civil engineer in Iraq. Like Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley worked for a Middle Eastern company whose business was reconstruction. Like so many others, his job in Iraq cost him his life, so tonight a second family grieves and the life of a third hostage hangs again in the balance.

Our reporting begins with CNN's Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Islamist militants have now killed two of the three hostages they kidnapped from an upscale Baghdad neighborhood Thursday a week ago. The second man killed is Jack Hensley, another private contractor from Georgia. Both men were Americans.

The kidnappers later issued a statement saying: "Thank God the lions of Tawhid and Jihad have slaughtered a second American hostage."

From their statement, these Muslim militants appear to see them (AUDIO GAP) the west or at least with the United States and Britain. Their statement says: "Bush eat your heart out. Blair may cry tears of blood. Glory be to God."

The remaining hostage in this trio is Kenneth Bigley, a British subject and he too faces a death threat. This string of executions began Monday when the Tawhid and Jihad group beheaded this American hostage, Eugene Armstrong.

They made a grisly videotape of the decapitation and say they have a video of the second killing. Sources have told CNN a second headless body has now been found in Baghdad.

(on camera): The demands of this gang of Islamist militants are simple. Release all Iraqi women now in prison. That seems all but moot, however, with but one hostage left alive. Still, the psychological impact of these killings leaves most of the few remaining westerners here locked in a prison of fear.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: At the U.N. today, the bloodshed in Iraq formed much of the talk in the room and the talkers included the president of the United States who addressed the General Assembly at his annual meeting.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) comes this year at a key juncture in several respects. The American presidential election just weeks away, Mr. Bush facing criticism, much of it from his own party on his strategy in Iraq.

None of that seemed to shake the president today. He stuck to his script and also gave an unqualified pledge of support to Iraq's interim prime minister who was in the audience.

We have two reports tonight, John King and Richard Roth. John starts us off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president's embrace of Iraq's prime minister included a remarkable public review of a classified CIA assessment warning of possible civil war.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like. The Iraqi citizens are defying the pessimistic predictions. The Iraqi citizens are headed toward free elections.

KING: Six weeks to Election Day here at home, Mr. Bush deflected a question about GOP critics of his Iraq policy saying the Republicans raising those questions still preferred him over Democrat John Kerry.

BUSH: Both Senators you quoted strongly want me elected as president.

KING: Senator Kerry calls Mr. Bush's Iraq policy a colossal failure and says it is the president who has lost credibility as Iraq spirals into chaos. This campaign debate raises the stakes of Prime Minister Allawi's visit, which includes a speech to Congress on Thursday. Mr. Bush is banking on help convincing Americans that the insurgency will be crushed and a new democracy born.

IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER: We are winning. We are making progress in Iraq. We are defeating terrorists.

KING: Mr. Bush posed for the cameras with Kofi Annan just days after the U.N. Secretary-General labeled the Iraq War illegal. As he opened this year's General Assembly, Mr. Annan was less pointed but again critical. KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: Every nation that proclaims a rule of law at home must respect it abroad.

KING: Mr. Bush followed soon after and defended his decision to go to war, though it was clear most in the audience did not agree. And while voicing optimism about Iraq's future, the president was more candid about political and security problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq than he tends to be in more upbeat campaign speeches.

BUSH: But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat. It is to prevail.

KING: John King, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH (voice-over): It only appeared like a heavyweight fight, Mohammed Ali witnessing the start of the annual General Assembly meeting. Inside the assembly hall they fought with words but pulled some punches, standard diplomatic practice, the president insisting to a skeptical audience he had the right to invade Iraq based on Security Council resolutions.

BUSH: When we say serious consequences for the sake of peace there must be serious consequences.

ROTH: Switzerland, only a U.N. member for two years, challenged the president.

PRES. JOSEPH DEISS, SWITZERLAND (through translator): In hindsight, experience has shown that actions taken without a mandate, which has been clearly defined in a Security Council resolution, are doomed to failure.

ROTH: A former U.S. coalition partner in Iraq, Spain, defended its pullout in opposition to the occupation.

JOSE LUIS RODRIGUEZ ZAPATERO, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Peace must be our endeavor, an endeavor that requires more courage, more determination more heroism than the war itself.

ROTH: Overall, if the president praised your country the country liked the speech, President Bush siding with the Russian government in its struggle against terrorists in the wake of the assault on a school in Beslan.

SERGEI LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Our firmness in fighting terrorism is something we totally share.

ROTH: But Sudan was accused by the president of genocide in Darfur and urged to stop the killing. The Sudanese foreign minister charged a double standard by the U.S. leader for attacking Sudan and not Israel. MUSTAFA OSMAN, SUDANESE FOREIGN MINISTER: Is it a sort of hypocrisy to talk about democracy and to say this will settle the problem between Palestine and Israel while children are being killed, women are being killed and houses being destroyed and then you just say this will be settled by democracy?

ROTH: In the end, there was the traditional U.S./United Nations toast, though the relationship is at one of its most awkward stages ever.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: Several world leaders said the president was really speaking to two audiences, one at the U.N., the other the American electorate. They know that the American elections are in six weeks but they're well aware the outcome will also have an impact on their countries -- Aaron.

BROWN: To both of you, Richard and John, Richard in the two years since the president went to the U.N. to talk about Iraq the first time is the country more isolated than it was then?

ROTH: Are we talking about the United States?

BROWN: Yes, I'm sorry. Is the United States more isolated there?

ROTH: I think it is, though they talk a good game about working well on other resolutions. No one really hears that they teamed with France a couple of weeks ago on a resolution to demand Syria get its troops out of Lebanon.

But Iraq has been called the big elephant in the room. The last General Assembly president said the Iraq issue sucked the oxygen out of the General Assembly and you don't hear that kind of talk. It still counts and weighs heavily on every issue.

BROWN: And, John, two things, one on that. Did they concede that they are more isolated that this White House is more isolated than it was a couple years ago?

KING: They wouldn't use that term but, yes. They think that people are in a holding pattern. They are waiting in the international community just as people in this country are to see who wins the election and then they'll deal with the reality they face.

BROWN: And just one thing on the president's comment in the room today, he walked away from the CIA document, one of the most sensitive sorts of documents the intelligence community puts out. What does that -- how do we see that? How should we look at that?

KING: Aides quickly tried to say he didn't mean to be so harsh. This is a speculative document and the president is more optimistic than some of the CIA analysts.

Critics immediately said how can this president immediately walk away and refute a CIA report now when he based his, of course, adamant findings that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction on the CIA. This president is now in the middle of what many believe is open warfare with his own CIA and most think that's not healthy.

BROWN: You're edging to weigh in.

ROTH: Yes, if I could. I mean President Bush got really polite applause and tonight the Spanish prime minister got enthusiastic applause, almost a standing ovation, so that should tell you where the U.S. sits.

The prime minister of Iraq is still hoping he's going to get troops now from Pakistan, he says he's going to talk, from Georgia but no U.N. member in that chamber has even contributed forces to help a meager U.N. staff there in elections. So, even if they disagree with President Bush, they're not backing up what they say about helping Iraqis.

BROWN: Twenty seconds. The president meets with the president of Pakistan tomorrow and then back to the campaign?

KING: Back to the campaign and don't think that's not part of the campaign. The president's mission here, the speech is one thing. He has to give that speech.

He's trying to do business out in the sidelines and part of his message is trust the new prime minister of Iraq. He will get to the finish line somehow. I have a relationship with the president of Pakistan. We're making progress in the war on terror. Some critics might say if so, sir, where's Osama bin Laden? And Mr. Bush will make the case his relationship with President Musharraf is yielding results.

BROWN: Thank you. Thank you. Travel safely tomorrow. It's good to see you, Richard. It's been a while. Thank you.

In hindsight when this election is over, whatever the outcome, this week might well be remembered as the moment Senator John Kerry roared or perhaps roared again. The change in tone and focus began in earnest yesterday, picked up steam today, his opponent's speech about Iraq at the U.N. providing the fuel.

Here again CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): The president's U.N. speech inspired John Kerry's first news conference in almost seven weeks.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The president of the United States stood before a stony-faced body and barely talked about the realities at all of Iraq after lecturing them, instead of leading them to understand how we are all together with a stake in the outcome of Iraq.

CROWLEY: In a speech Monday, Kerry had urged President Bush to use the gathering of world leaders in New York to reach out for help in Iraq.

BUSH: The U.N. and its member nations must respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal and free.

CROWLEY: That, Kerry complained, is not what he had in mind.

KERRY: You don't just stand up in front of folks in the midst of a -- sort of running through all the issues speech and pretend that that's the way you lead people to the table.

CROWLEY: The Kerry campaign thinks it's on to something. The Senator's acid review of the state of war in Iraq got blanket coverage and rave reviews from fellow Democrats.

It's too early to tell whether this new heat will warm up Kerry's poll numbers but the campaign was enthused enough to give it another go-round Tuesday, refusing to be thrown off message with suggestions that Kerry has been inconsistent about Iraq.

KERRY: No. I have one position on Iraq, one position. What they should be confused about is what President Bush has done.

CROWLEY: Still, even as he goes alpha male on the stump, Kerry is tending to his softer side yucking it up on Letterman for the show's highest rated season opener since 1993.

KERRY: Eliminate all income taxes. Just ask Teresa to cover the whole damn thing.

CROWLEY: And dropping by for a little "Regis and Kelly" in the morning.

KERRY: For any undecided voter in America I have five words for them.

REGIS PHILBIN, HOST: And?

KERRY: Secretary of State Regis Philbin.

PHILBIN: Oh.

CROWLEY: Still to come a chat with Dr. Phil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: No matter which mode John Kerry is in, it is all about one thing, Aaron, and that is infusing energy into this campaign because time is a wasting. Trying to get a little late night juice here in Orlando, Florida in this building behind me, we want to show you a picture.

John Kerry has come for a rally and is meeting up with John Edwards, the two of them flying here into Orlando late tonight, Aaron, to try to rev up this crowd. Obviously, Florida's been a little difficult for them to campaign in. They're not really sure what the polls are doing here. They only know it's a really important state, so the two of them will spread out over the next 24 hours and touch as many places as they can -- Aaron.

BROWN: Quickly, is the -- I mean you watch the candidate and you deal with the candidate's handlers. Are they dispirited by the last couple of weeks?

CROWLEY: Actually, no, they -- yes and no, not the last couple of days. They were, you know, last week you could sort of feel them reaching. We went through that whole W is, you know, stands for wrong.

They really do have high hopes, if not a feeling that yesterday when he gave that very harsh critique of what was going on, on the ground, in Iraq it's part of their effort to get the country to sort of rivet to what's going on, on the ground, because they really can't believe the president's poll numbers stay up given what's going on there.

So, they feel very good about the speech yesterday. They obviously feel that they're on to something again because he's continuing on that same attack. He'll also talk about other issues, obviously, talked about Medicare today and he'll talk about other issues but they do feel that they've sort of righted the ship. Now we'll know later on whether it's actually worked.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much, Candy down in Florida tonight.

Whichever candidate wins the election will inherit this among all the other problems in the world. Iran was roaring a bit today saying in no uncertain terms it will press ahead with its nuclear program, a blunt message to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency and a new wrinkle in a very complicated piece of foreign policy.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At a parade ground in Tehran, Iran's President Khatami said his nation will continue its nuclear enrichment activities despite the latest call from the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to freeze them.

"We shall continue our same path" he said "even if it leads to suspension of international supervision."

HASSAN ROHANI, IRANIAN CHIEF NUCLEAR NEGOTIATOR (through translator): In Iran's opinion, the demand of the IAEA is illegal and cannot bring new obligations for Iran.

ENSOR: Iran told the IAEA weeks ago that it is currently converting 37 tons of yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride only for peaceful energy production, Iran insists, but that is enough for five nuclear warheads.

The White House failed last week to convince other nuclear nations to send Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Part of the problem, critics say, is a serious split on Iran within the Bush administration.

GEOFFREY KEMP, NIXON CENTER: They were so divided they couldn't get a coherent policy together and hopefully a second Bush administration will have a tougher National Security Council that will be able to force a consensus within the system which clearly this National Security Council has been unable to do.

ENSOR: The debate is over whether to push for sanctions and eventually regime change in Iran or whether to push much harder with diplomacy.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: I think if you just threaten Iran now with sticks, all you're going to get is a nuclear arsenal in Iran.

ROBERT EINHORN, CTR. FOR STRATEGIC AND INTL. STUDIES: The U.S. has to play the good cop or at least play a somewhat better cop than it's played in the past and I think what it needs to do is to demonstrate to the Iranians that if Iran genuinely renounces nuclear weapons, it can have a better relationship with the United States.

ENSOR (on camera): The IAEA director general is scheduled to produce a report in November about the extent to which Iran has or has not cooperated with his weapons inspectors' efforts to get to the bottom of the Iranian nuclear programs. Whether he's reelected or a lame duck, George Bush is likely to have to make some important decisions in November about policy towards Iran.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: One more quick item before we head to break, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens appears to be behind the diversion of a plane bound for Dulles Airport in Washington from London.

United Flight 919 was diverted to Bangor, Maine when Yusef Islam matched a federal watch list. After converting to Islam, the pop singer became -- changed his name and became an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the Bush National Guard controversy and CBS and charges there was coordination with the Kerry campaign, not surprising that.

And the aftermath of Tropical Storm Jeanne and its impact on Haiti, a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Joe Lockhart, a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign, said today he had, in fact, talked with Texan Bill Burkett, the man who provided the memos on the president's National Guard service to CBS News.

Lockhart says he was given Burkett's name by CBS News producer Mary Mapes. He also said he had nothing to do with the documents whose authenticity nobody seems to vouch for these days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE LOCKHART, KERRY CAMPAIGN ADVISER: The content of the discussion was he had some strong feelings about the way the Kerry campaign had responded to the swift boat attack, Senator Kerry's record in Vietnam and, you know, the smear campaign that was going on against him.

He believed that we should have responded more forcefully. You know, I listened respectfully, told him I thought it was good advice and that was the end of the conversation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, the president's campaign, as you might imagine, suspects otherwise and wants to know what the Democrats knew and when they knew it.

We now go back to Iraq, not to the ongoing bloodshed, not to what the candidates say they'll do if elected but to what might actually happen come January after elections are held there, if in fact they are held there.

As we said at the top of the program, Bob Novak has done some intriguing reporting on this of late talking with unnamed policymakers who say one option on the table is essentially to declare victory after the Iraqi elections but in the absence of any real stability and bring the troops home.

Mr. Novak, who it's fair to say appears on this network from time to time, joins us from Washington tonight. We're pleased to see him. Did I lay it out pretty accurately in a sentence that there is talk among some level, you don't really tell us how high a level in Washington, that maybe the best course of action for the country is to get out as quickly as possible but before there's any real stability?

ROBERT NOVAK, CNN'S "CROSSFIRE": That isn't quite it. Declaring victory was an old line by the late Senator George Aiken (ph) in Vietnam. He said, "Let's declare victory and get out," and it was ironic because he was a dove.

What the people I talk to at a pretty high policy making level, these are presidential appointees, these are not bureaucrats, are talking about after these elections are held, assuming they will be successful elections that you get out and put this in the hands of the Iraqis. There are really -- I wrote in the column, Aaron, that after the election, whoever wins this election, the president is going to sit down with the military and there's going to be three options.

One is keep doing what we're doing now. Number two is to increase the military pressure on Iraq. And the third is to get out, continue to give aid to the Iraqi military, don't do it until these elections are held but get out so that we don't have this continued loss of blood.

And my sources think they'll go the third option. I've talked to people in the Kerry campaign. They're very cautious about bugging out. After all they're not in the government but they don't preclude that as a possibility.

BROWN: Let me...

NOVAK: In this campaign, Aaron, nobody of course is going to say that.

BROWN: Right. Let me ask a couple, three quick questions on this. First of all, it is not unreasonable to say that civil war at some level would break out. How could President Bush, OK, who has said we will stay there until the job is finished, how could he justify this?

NOVAK: Well, people have been -- presidents have been going back on their word from the time of Franklin Roosevelt when he promised a balanced budget and had the biggest deficits in history up to that time.

He could justify it on the standpoint that we had achieved national security for the country by getting rid of Saddam Hussein, by eliminating the threat that he would develop weapons of mass destruction and by saying, OK, it's enough bloodletting.

You know, Aaron, there is a British cemetery in Baghdad with graves of 33,000 British troops who were killed, British Empire troops who were killed by the Iraqis and that is a loss that the United States in the 21st Century simply will not sustain.

And, if you don't have a clear path toward some kind of a military victory, I think that the people, whoever in the White House next year, are going to be considering this option because the other two alternatives are very tough and those are the only three options that you have.

BROWN: Good to see you, Bob. Thank you. It's an intriguing column. People haven't read it might want to take a look at it as you lay it all out as you did for us tonight. Thank you, sir, Bob Novak from Washington.

Still ahead on the program, from humble beginnings to high-flying stakes, the most popular card game around, poker, what's the big deal we asked? Of course, we're blackjack players.

And a preview of tomorrow's news tonight, at the end of the program we take a look at morning papers, a break first.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We can expect terrorist attacks to escalate as Afghanistan and Iraq approach national elections. The work ahead is demanding. But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat. It is to prevail.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The debate now is whether or not you have a plan to win and whether or not you are facing the realities on the ground in Iraq. Iraq was not the war on terror the day that the president decided to go. The war on terror was al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So here's a simple question for you tonight. When it comes to Iraq, where do the two presidential candidates agree and where do they disagree?

It is going to be helpful figuring that out when you decide who to vote for. So we'll try and answer the question tonight with the help of "The New Yorker"'s political correspondent, Phil Gourevitch.

Nice to see you.

If, knowing what he knows today, would John Kerry have voted -- would John Kerry have gone to war in Iraq?

PHILIP GOUREVITCH, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORKER": He says no. He says that he would have voted to give the president the authority to make that decision, but if he was the president, he would have handled it quite differently.

BROWN: How does he explain that distinction, by the way?

GOUREVITCH: The distinction is, as he sees it, he gave the president with his vote, his Senate vote, the authority to confront Saddam Hussein, to ratchet up with the backing of force, diplomatic pressure to isolate Saddam Hussein, contain Saddam Hussein, enforce all of these U.N. resolutions with an invigorated inspections program, and really determine once and for all did he or did he not have the WMD that posed the threat that was and that America might have to confront.

BROWN: Was the president misleading yesterday when he said that, if my opponent had his way, Saddam would still be in power?

GOUREVITCH: He was misleading in the sense that it may it sound as if, if my opponent had been in power, he couldn't have cared less about this whole thing, which is of course the impression he was trying to create.

Would Saddam Hussein quite possibly be in power? That's essentially something that Kerry allowed for yesterday. What Kerry said yesterday is, if he found that there were not a weapons of mass destruction direct threat to America's security, if the only argument for the war is, this is a terrible dictator, that would not have been the grounds for risking and expending 1,000 lives-plus and the quantity of money that we have so far. That's not how America goes to war and certainly not goes to war alone.

That was his argument.

BROWN: OK. And I'm sure they appreciate your helping us understand it. I do.

Do they disagree on the conditions in Iraq today as it relates to whether or not terrorism is a greater problem or a lesser problem because of the war? That was an inelegant question, but I think you got it.

GOUREVITCH: Certainly. They do disagree on that.

George Bush from the beginning said this is, essentially, part of the war on terror. And, frankly, as the justification for the war and weapons of mass destruction diminished and the weapons haven't been found, the idea that this was linked to 9/11 has actually been more part of the claim, that he says, 9/11...

BROWN: Linked to 9/11?

GOUREVITCH: He says, 9/11 -- he said this at the convention. He said it repeatedly.

He says, 9/11 showed me that one cannot let threats gather.

BROWN: OK.

GOUREVITCH: He makes this link. He says, and I had after 9/11, the choice of taking the word of a madman or defending America. So defending America means there was a threat.

BROWN: Right.

GOUREVITCH: That's what he says: 9/11 left me with no choice but to move. So he says this was part of the war on terror. And that's how he sees it. He wants very much for Iraq and the war on terror to be seen as two parts of the same event.

BROWN: And Kerry argues that it has in fact made the world -- or the country -- less safe.

GOUREVITCH: A great diversion. And he's argues that it has made it less safe because, in pursuing the war in Iraq, he argues, the president withdrew from the full-tilt pursuit of bin Laden, and instead of pursuing bin Laden and al Qaeda, he went to Iraq. I think neither of them would be able to argue now -- certainly Kerry wouldn't be able to argue now that there isn't terrorism in Iraq. Obviously, the war in Iraq, as it has developed and turned into this war with an insurgency, there's a real element of terror there.

BROWN: All right.

One final question. I think both the president and the vice president yesterday said that Senator Kerry has had eight or nine different positions on Iraq? Is that misleading?

GOUREVITCH: He's had a really hard time articulating his position.

And, at times, he's been simply utterly muddled about it. He has also threw out, sort of touched on the elements that came together in yesterday's speech as what I think even his conservative and partisan antagonists would agree was his clearest articulation yet of a critique of the president's position. And his argument is, in some ways, they both say the same thing: We have to succeed over there.

But he says Bush can't succeed over there unless he admits that there are problems over there, that this is not freedom on the march, democracy nascent, America triumphant, terrorism routed. We have to do that. And so he's arguing, in the end, we have the same objective, a secure Middle East, a healthy Iraq, us out of there. But I can get you there and he can't, because look where he got us.

BROWN: Good to see you. Come back. We'll do this on every single issue.

GOUREVITCH: I'm...

BROWN: You're game, huh?

GOUREVITCH: I'm game.

BROWN: Thank you. Nice to see you.

Still ahead on the program, Haiti takes a hard hit from Tropical Storm Jeanne, hundreds dead, the toll rising.

And true believers. The church doors are closed, but the faithful remain.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Life in Haiti has been tough for an awfully long time. But after Tropical Storm Jeanne, it became gruesome again, almost 700 people dead. That number will surely rise as the floodwaters recede.

Mostly people died in the northern part of the country, where the trees that might have saved them, might have slowed the floodwaters down disappeared years ago. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Though the winds were not quite hurricane force, they brought more rain than the island can handle. Roads throughout the northern part of Haiti became fast-flowing rivers. The authorities could not bury the hundreds of dead, much less locate the thousands they said were still missing.

Government leaders put out urgent calls for additional relief supplies. But even those on hand seemed more or less useless. In one northern city, half the town's population of 200,000 were jammed into fragile shelters. The United Nations tried its best. Soldiers already on hand to maintain peace after the departure of President Aristide did manage to take some supplies to the most badly hit areas, this against a backdrop of a nation still unstable after months of civil unrest.

Haiti is prone to disastrous flooding. Most of the country's trees are gone because nearly all the forests have been cut for fuel. This poorest country in the Western Hemisphere struck by disaster and sorrow once again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The best news we could find out of Haiti, really the only good news, is that the World Food Program will go in tomorrow and start feeding people. That's the good news out of Haiti tonight.

In Boston, the effects of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church can be measured in any number of ways. And here is one. When the financially strapped Archdiocese of Boston announced a plan to reorganize itself, dozens of churches were told they would be shut down. Not all have closed without a fight.

So from Boston tonight, CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's a spiritual standoff. Parishioners armed with prayer...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think all of us here believe in the power of prayer.

LOTHIAN: ... and determination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That this Parish belongs to us.

MARIE RILEY, PARISHIONER: Just to close the doors on us is just so unjust. And we're just going to fight for it.

LOTHIAN: In the Boston suburb of Weymouth, St. Albert the Great Catholic Church is officially closed, no priest, no mass, no authority to be here, painful for John Muscillo, who has called this his spiritual home for 49 years.

JOHN MUSCILLO, PARISHIONER: Very sad. A little bit of anger, because I love this church.

LOTHIAN: That's why parishioners have been occupying this building for three weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's somebody here continuously. This goes on right around the clock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, lord, stay with us.

LOTHIAN: They hold three organized prayer services, eat meals in the basement. Then, as the sun goes down, they roll out the mats, brush their teeth and go to sleep.

MARY CRATTY, PARISHIONER: We want to have a presence here so the church will not be closed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to do my part to make sure that it stays open.

LOTHIAN (on camera): St. Albert the Great is just one of 82 churches scheduled to close under a reconfiguration plan by the scandal-plagued Boston Archdiocese. But parishioners say strong attendance, healthy finances and an effective priest should have kept their parish off the list.

RICH ROBAK, PARISHIONER: The way they went about it was, in my own opinion, it was like "Survivor." You put them in clusters and said vote the one off the island. And we happened to be the one voted off.

LOTHIAN (voice-over): The archdiocese defends its decision.

FATHER CHRIS COYNE, ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON: The fact of the matter is that we can't continue to maintain five churches in the city of Weymouth.

LOTHIAN: Hoping to avoid confrontation, the archdiocese has scheduled talks. Even though parishioners have lost one court vigil...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to continue the vigil? And what do we say?

(APPLAUSE)

LOTHIAN: ... they continue to fight in the courts and the Vatican. Donations keep the lights on. Prayer, they hope, will keep the doors open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like God is on our side.

LOTHIAN: Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I know we'll keep track of that one. Ahead on the program, how poker went from no-frills card game to casino superstar and television hit.

Morning papers, a television hit, too.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A friend said to me not long ago that one sure sign there were too many TV channels was the proliferation of poker on TV. I don't know about the first part, but I can't argue with the second. Poker has become a TV sport, well, not sport really, but not exactly recreation either.

In Atlantic City in a couple weeks, they'll host the Texas hold 'em championship, one of many high-stakes, big-deal poker tournaments in casinos these days. So what's the big deal with poker, we wondered.

Photographer Doug Carroll (ph) played the hand he was dealt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like a 10/20 stud?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Part of the popularity of poker back in the Midwest and the West and even today is that it's an everyman's game. The rules are very simple to learn. There's not a lot of great mystery behind the rules of the game. And anyone can win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been with the Taj 11 years now, since we opened poker in 1993.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, Joe, you're going to table 31, seat 4.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been dealing, flooring and running the tournaments for the past couple months.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least somebody's got some brains. No, I mean that with respect.

KEVIN LILLO, POKER DEALER, TRUMP TAJ MAHAL: City's hot with poker. Believe it or not, with the 67 tables we have now, on a Saturday night, it's just not enough.

VINCE MASCIO, TRUMP CASINOS AND RESORTS: It's just not what people think -- what they used to think it was, the old stereotype of the old guys sitting around smoking cigars. Is it a whole different crowd. It's American. America is coming in to play poker now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is for everybody now. It's a lot of young people. Some you can tell play a lot at school, I guess. I don't know if that's part of their curriculum now, hold 'em 101 or what. But they come down here and play a pretty good game.

I believe the Internet has had a lot to do with it. They don't have to be near a casino and they can get involved in the game.

PHIL GORDON, TWO-TIME WORLD POKER TOUR CHAMPION: And, online, you're playing five to 10 times more hands per hour than you'd play in a live casino. You're getting five times more experience per hour for every hour you play online than you would in a real casino. I think that's invaluable.

The downside of playing Internet poker is that you can't sit across from and chat with your fellow competitor. I think one of the more satisfying aspects of poker is being able to look at your competitor and see if they're scared, trying to read them for tells and such. And it is also a very social game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quarter, 50, 75.

GORDON: There always seemed to be one night where you could get together with friends, drink a few beers, talk about whatever was happening in the world, and maybe win some of your friend's money.

ROB SCHWARTZ, POKER PLAYER: I play because I enjoy it, a little gambling, jocularity with my friends, a few, you know good times.

STU SCHWERNER, POKER PLAYER: I've been playing poker with at least two of these guys for 20 years now and four of them about 15 to 10 years. It has kept us together, I think as a group, as a social group.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold 'em is the most popular game because it's the game people see on TV all the time. Is it also the game that's played on ESPN's World Series of Poker, that played in Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown." And it's also played in the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour.

TOM JITTO, TRUMP TAJ MAHAL: TV exposure just created a monster. It just turned everything around in the poker industry. When we first opened our room, it was 75 percent seven-card stud. And now it's the other way around. It's 75 percent Texas hold 'em. Everybody that called on the phone wanted to play in a tournament. And we didn't really run tournaments. But the demand was there. As you can see, it is unbelievable.

GORDON: I'm never going to be able to win the Super Bowl. I'm never going to be able to pitch a perfect game, but I can sit down Against the best players in the world on any given day and beat the hell out of them. And that is -- that's a great feeling when it happens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. These are the real front pages of actual newspapers. We'll start with "The Washington Times." Hold it still, Aaron. "Bush Demands Help From U.N., Scolds Group For Failure To Aid Iraq, Fight Saddam." That's a good way to get help, isn't it? Scold people. Well, I don't -- that's a very tough looking picture of the president there, actually. "Kerry Camp Rejects CBS Link. Lockhart Calls Call Not Improper." I'm tired of that and swift boats and all of it.

"Warring Visions For Iraq" is the lead in "The Christian Science Monitor." "With Bush's Speech to U.N., Kerry's Stern Rebuke, Candidates Turn to Future of U.S. Involvement." This actually is the issue we ought to be talking about as a country and we as reporters ought to be covering more of. And we shall.

"The Guardian," a British paper. "Glimmer of Hope For Britain, But Second U.S. Hostage Is Killed. Iraq Claims Woman Prisoner To Be Released." So, hopefully, somebody will get out of that mess alive. We shall see.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer" -- "Inquirer," almost confused with it "The Cincinnati Enquirer." That's probably happened to you, too. "Bush Calls For U.N. Aid in Iraq," a milder headline than "The Washington Times."

Why did I want to do that? Oh, "The Detroit News." "New Media Era Dawns in U.S." Take a look at people reading Drudge and this and that and all the other thing.

I love this headline. Have no idea what the story is. "Boston Herald" down here. "Too Sexy For Preschool." What the heck is that about? When you only read the front page, you don't know.

"Chicago Sun-Times" will end it. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, "yowza." Going to be nice, 84 degrees in Chicago.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's it for tonight.

Most of the program on Iraq tomorrow, the military options and the political options and a soldier's story.

We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern tomorrow.

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


Aired September 21, 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.
Back during the Vietnam War, you know that long ago war we continue to fight these days, back then as the casualties mounted and the options narrowed, as the country grew weary there were lots of ideas how to end it.

The president at the time, President Nixon, said the search was for peace with honor. Someone on the antiwar side came up with an idea. Why not just declare victory and bring everybody home? Several years and several thousands of lives later that's just about what the country did.

I thought of that option the other day after reading a piece by columnist and CNN host Bob Novak, who wrote about an idea circulating Washington to do essentially that with Iraq. Hold the elections in January. Declare victory and bring the troops home.

Do I think that will happen? No. Does Mr. Novak? I don't know but we'll ask him later because he joins us to talk about one exit strategy that someone is talking about in Washington. That's ahead on the program.

The whip begins here in New York where the president gave a vigorous defense of his war in Iraq at the U.N. today and our Senior White House Correspondent was with him. John King starts us off with a headline -- John.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president made clear today that he will stay in Iraq and U.S. troops will until, he says, there is a working democracy. He also made it clear he has much more faith in the new prime minister of Iraq than he does in the United Nations.

BROWN: John, thank you. We'll get to you early tonight.

The meeting at the General Assembly was full of tension expressed within the confines of diplomatic speak. Richard Roth covers the U.N. and joins us tonight with a headline -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT: President Bush calls for United Nations help in Iraq, boy that sounds familiar, details on the president's fourth appearance at the U.N. coming up.

BROWN: Thank you, Richard. And on to Florida where John Kerry for a second straight day turned up the heat on the president and his handling of the war in Iraq, Candy Crowley in Orlando tonight with a headline -- Candy.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, John Kerry described the audience at the U.N. stony when listening to George Bush's speech but that's nothing compared to Kerry's critique.

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

Also coming up on the program tonight a spiritual standoff in Boston, the church officially closed, the faithful refusing to leave.

And knowing when to hold them and when to fold them, as they say, when to take the money and run, the explosion in the world of poker.

And, I'll bet you we'll end it all with morning papers. We often do at the end of the program, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin regrettably where we did this time last night, the beheading of another American, a civil engineer in Iraq. Like Eugene Armstrong, Jack Hensley worked for a Middle Eastern company whose business was reconstruction. Like so many others, his job in Iraq cost him his life, so tonight a second family grieves and the life of a third hostage hangs again in the balance.

Our reporting begins with CNN's Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Islamist militants have now killed two of the three hostages they kidnapped from an upscale Baghdad neighborhood Thursday a week ago. The second man killed is Jack Hensley, another private contractor from Georgia. Both men were Americans.

The kidnappers later issued a statement saying: "Thank God the lions of Tawhid and Jihad have slaughtered a second American hostage."

From their statement, these Muslim militants appear to see them (AUDIO GAP) the west or at least with the United States and Britain. Their statement says: "Bush eat your heart out. Blair may cry tears of blood. Glory be to God."

The remaining hostage in this trio is Kenneth Bigley, a British subject and he too faces a death threat. This string of executions began Monday when the Tawhid and Jihad group beheaded this American hostage, Eugene Armstrong.

They made a grisly videotape of the decapitation and say they have a video of the second killing. Sources have told CNN a second headless body has now been found in Baghdad.

(on camera): The demands of this gang of Islamist militants are simple. Release all Iraqi women now in prison. That seems all but moot, however, with but one hostage left alive. Still, the psychological impact of these killings leaves most of the few remaining westerners here locked in a prison of fear.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: At the U.N. today, the bloodshed in Iraq formed much of the talk in the room and the talkers included the president of the United States who addressed the General Assembly at his annual meeting.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) comes this year at a key juncture in several respects. The American presidential election just weeks away, Mr. Bush facing criticism, much of it from his own party on his strategy in Iraq.

None of that seemed to shake the president today. He stuck to his script and also gave an unqualified pledge of support to Iraq's interim prime minister who was in the audience.

We have two reports tonight, John King and Richard Roth. John starts us off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): The president's embrace of Iraq's prime minister included a remarkable public review of a classified CIA assessment warning of possible civil war.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like. The Iraqi citizens are defying the pessimistic predictions. The Iraqi citizens are headed toward free elections.

KING: Six weeks to Election Day here at home, Mr. Bush deflected a question about GOP critics of his Iraq policy saying the Republicans raising those questions still preferred him over Democrat John Kerry.

BUSH: Both Senators you quoted strongly want me elected as president.

KING: Senator Kerry calls Mr. Bush's Iraq policy a colossal failure and says it is the president who has lost credibility as Iraq spirals into chaos. This campaign debate raises the stakes of Prime Minister Allawi's visit, which includes a speech to Congress on Thursday. Mr. Bush is banking on help convincing Americans that the insurgency will be crushed and a new democracy born.

IYAD ALLAWI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER: We are winning. We are making progress in Iraq. We are defeating terrorists.

KING: Mr. Bush posed for the cameras with Kofi Annan just days after the U.N. Secretary-General labeled the Iraq War illegal. As he opened this year's General Assembly, Mr. Annan was less pointed but again critical. KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: Every nation that proclaims a rule of law at home must respect it abroad.

KING: Mr. Bush followed soon after and defended his decision to go to war, though it was clear most in the audience did not agree. And while voicing optimism about Iraq's future, the president was more candid about political and security problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq than he tends to be in more upbeat campaign speeches.

BUSH: But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat. It is to prevail.

KING: John King, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH (voice-over): It only appeared like a heavyweight fight, Mohammed Ali witnessing the start of the annual General Assembly meeting. Inside the assembly hall they fought with words but pulled some punches, standard diplomatic practice, the president insisting to a skeptical audience he had the right to invade Iraq based on Security Council resolutions.

BUSH: When we say serious consequences for the sake of peace there must be serious consequences.

ROTH: Switzerland, only a U.N. member for two years, challenged the president.

PRES. JOSEPH DEISS, SWITZERLAND (through translator): In hindsight, experience has shown that actions taken without a mandate, which has been clearly defined in a Security Council resolution, are doomed to failure.

ROTH: A former U.S. coalition partner in Iraq, Spain, defended its pullout in opposition to the occupation.

JOSE LUIS RODRIGUEZ ZAPATERO, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Peace must be our endeavor, an endeavor that requires more courage, more determination more heroism than the war itself.

ROTH: Overall, if the president praised your country the country liked the speech, President Bush siding with the Russian government in its struggle against terrorists in the wake of the assault on a school in Beslan.

SERGEI LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Our firmness in fighting terrorism is something we totally share.

ROTH: But Sudan was accused by the president of genocide in Darfur and urged to stop the killing. The Sudanese foreign minister charged a double standard by the U.S. leader for attacking Sudan and not Israel. MUSTAFA OSMAN, SUDANESE FOREIGN MINISTER: Is it a sort of hypocrisy to talk about democracy and to say this will settle the problem between Palestine and Israel while children are being killed, women are being killed and houses being destroyed and then you just say this will be settled by democracy?

ROTH: In the end, there was the traditional U.S./United Nations toast, though the relationship is at one of its most awkward stages ever.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: Several world leaders said the president was really speaking to two audiences, one at the U.N., the other the American electorate. They know that the American elections are in six weeks but they're well aware the outcome will also have an impact on their countries -- Aaron.

BROWN: To both of you, Richard and John, Richard in the two years since the president went to the U.N. to talk about Iraq the first time is the country more isolated than it was then?

ROTH: Are we talking about the United States?

BROWN: Yes, I'm sorry. Is the United States more isolated there?

ROTH: I think it is, though they talk a good game about working well on other resolutions. No one really hears that they teamed with France a couple of weeks ago on a resolution to demand Syria get its troops out of Lebanon.

But Iraq has been called the big elephant in the room. The last General Assembly president said the Iraq issue sucked the oxygen out of the General Assembly and you don't hear that kind of talk. It still counts and weighs heavily on every issue.

BROWN: And, John, two things, one on that. Did they concede that they are more isolated that this White House is more isolated than it was a couple years ago?

KING: They wouldn't use that term but, yes. They think that people are in a holding pattern. They are waiting in the international community just as people in this country are to see who wins the election and then they'll deal with the reality they face.

BROWN: And just one thing on the president's comment in the room today, he walked away from the CIA document, one of the most sensitive sorts of documents the intelligence community puts out. What does that -- how do we see that? How should we look at that?

KING: Aides quickly tried to say he didn't mean to be so harsh. This is a speculative document and the president is more optimistic than some of the CIA analysts.

Critics immediately said how can this president immediately walk away and refute a CIA report now when he based his, of course, adamant findings that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction on the CIA. This president is now in the middle of what many believe is open warfare with his own CIA and most think that's not healthy.

BROWN: You're edging to weigh in.

ROTH: Yes, if I could. I mean President Bush got really polite applause and tonight the Spanish prime minister got enthusiastic applause, almost a standing ovation, so that should tell you where the U.S. sits.

The prime minister of Iraq is still hoping he's going to get troops now from Pakistan, he says he's going to talk, from Georgia but no U.N. member in that chamber has even contributed forces to help a meager U.N. staff there in elections. So, even if they disagree with President Bush, they're not backing up what they say about helping Iraqis.

BROWN: Twenty seconds. The president meets with the president of Pakistan tomorrow and then back to the campaign?

KING: Back to the campaign and don't think that's not part of the campaign. The president's mission here, the speech is one thing. He has to give that speech.

He's trying to do business out in the sidelines and part of his message is trust the new prime minister of Iraq. He will get to the finish line somehow. I have a relationship with the president of Pakistan. We're making progress in the war on terror. Some critics might say if so, sir, where's Osama bin Laden? And Mr. Bush will make the case his relationship with President Musharraf is yielding results.

BROWN: Thank you. Thank you. Travel safely tomorrow. It's good to see you, Richard. It's been a while. Thank you.

In hindsight when this election is over, whatever the outcome, this week might well be remembered as the moment Senator John Kerry roared or perhaps roared again. The change in tone and focus began in earnest yesterday, picked up steam today, his opponent's speech about Iraq at the U.N. providing the fuel.

Here again CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): The president's U.N. speech inspired John Kerry's first news conference in almost seven weeks.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The president of the United States stood before a stony-faced body and barely talked about the realities at all of Iraq after lecturing them, instead of leading them to understand how we are all together with a stake in the outcome of Iraq.

CROWLEY: In a speech Monday, Kerry had urged President Bush to use the gathering of world leaders in New York to reach out for help in Iraq.

BUSH: The U.N. and its member nations must respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal and free.

CROWLEY: That, Kerry complained, is not what he had in mind.

KERRY: You don't just stand up in front of folks in the midst of a -- sort of running through all the issues speech and pretend that that's the way you lead people to the table.

CROWLEY: The Kerry campaign thinks it's on to something. The Senator's acid review of the state of war in Iraq got blanket coverage and rave reviews from fellow Democrats.

It's too early to tell whether this new heat will warm up Kerry's poll numbers but the campaign was enthused enough to give it another go-round Tuesday, refusing to be thrown off message with suggestions that Kerry has been inconsistent about Iraq.

KERRY: No. I have one position on Iraq, one position. What they should be confused about is what President Bush has done.

CROWLEY: Still, even as he goes alpha male on the stump, Kerry is tending to his softer side yucking it up on Letterman for the show's highest rated season opener since 1993.

KERRY: Eliminate all income taxes. Just ask Teresa to cover the whole damn thing.

CROWLEY: And dropping by for a little "Regis and Kelly" in the morning.

KERRY: For any undecided voter in America I have five words for them.

REGIS PHILBIN, HOST: And?

KERRY: Secretary of State Regis Philbin.

PHILBIN: Oh.

CROWLEY: Still to come a chat with Dr. Phil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: No matter which mode John Kerry is in, it is all about one thing, Aaron, and that is infusing energy into this campaign because time is a wasting. Trying to get a little late night juice here in Orlando, Florida in this building behind me, we want to show you a picture.

John Kerry has come for a rally and is meeting up with John Edwards, the two of them flying here into Orlando late tonight, Aaron, to try to rev up this crowd. Obviously, Florida's been a little difficult for them to campaign in. They're not really sure what the polls are doing here. They only know it's a really important state, so the two of them will spread out over the next 24 hours and touch as many places as they can -- Aaron.

BROWN: Quickly, is the -- I mean you watch the candidate and you deal with the candidate's handlers. Are they dispirited by the last couple of weeks?

CROWLEY: Actually, no, they -- yes and no, not the last couple of days. They were, you know, last week you could sort of feel them reaching. We went through that whole W is, you know, stands for wrong.

They really do have high hopes, if not a feeling that yesterday when he gave that very harsh critique of what was going on, on the ground, in Iraq it's part of their effort to get the country to sort of rivet to what's going on, on the ground, because they really can't believe the president's poll numbers stay up given what's going on there.

So, they feel very good about the speech yesterday. They obviously feel that they're on to something again because he's continuing on that same attack. He'll also talk about other issues, obviously, talked about Medicare today and he'll talk about other issues but they do feel that they've sort of righted the ship. Now we'll know later on whether it's actually worked.

BROWN: Candy, thank you very much, Candy down in Florida tonight.

Whichever candidate wins the election will inherit this among all the other problems in the world. Iran was roaring a bit today saying in no uncertain terms it will press ahead with its nuclear program, a blunt message to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency and a new wrinkle in a very complicated piece of foreign policy.

Here's CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At a parade ground in Tehran, Iran's President Khatami said his nation will continue its nuclear enrichment activities despite the latest call from the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to freeze them.

"We shall continue our same path" he said "even if it leads to suspension of international supervision."

HASSAN ROHANI, IRANIAN CHIEF NUCLEAR NEGOTIATOR (through translator): In Iran's opinion, the demand of the IAEA is illegal and cannot bring new obligations for Iran.

ENSOR: Iran told the IAEA weeks ago that it is currently converting 37 tons of yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride only for peaceful energy production, Iran insists, but that is enough for five nuclear warheads.

The White House failed last week to convince other nuclear nations to send Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. Part of the problem, critics say, is a serious split on Iran within the Bush administration.

GEOFFREY KEMP, NIXON CENTER: They were so divided they couldn't get a coherent policy together and hopefully a second Bush administration will have a tougher National Security Council that will be able to force a consensus within the system which clearly this National Security Council has been unable to do.

ENSOR: The debate is over whether to push for sanctions and eventually regime change in Iran or whether to push much harder with diplomacy.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: I think if you just threaten Iran now with sticks, all you're going to get is a nuclear arsenal in Iran.

ROBERT EINHORN, CTR. FOR STRATEGIC AND INTL. STUDIES: The U.S. has to play the good cop or at least play a somewhat better cop than it's played in the past and I think what it needs to do is to demonstrate to the Iranians that if Iran genuinely renounces nuclear weapons, it can have a better relationship with the United States.

ENSOR (on camera): The IAEA director general is scheduled to produce a report in November about the extent to which Iran has or has not cooperated with his weapons inspectors' efforts to get to the bottom of the Iranian nuclear programs. Whether he's reelected or a lame duck, George Bush is likely to have to make some important decisions in November about policy towards Iran.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: One more quick item before we head to break, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens appears to be behind the diversion of a plane bound for Dulles Airport in Washington from London.

United Flight 919 was diverted to Bangor, Maine when Yusef Islam matched a federal watch list. After converting to Islam, the pop singer became -- changed his name and became an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the Bush National Guard controversy and CBS and charges there was coordination with the Kerry campaign, not surprising that.

And the aftermath of Tropical Storm Jeanne and its impact on Haiti, a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: Joe Lockhart, a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign, said today he had, in fact, talked with Texan Bill Burkett, the man who provided the memos on the president's National Guard service to CBS News.

Lockhart says he was given Burkett's name by CBS News producer Mary Mapes. He also said he had nothing to do with the documents whose authenticity nobody seems to vouch for these days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE LOCKHART, KERRY CAMPAIGN ADVISER: The content of the discussion was he had some strong feelings about the way the Kerry campaign had responded to the swift boat attack, Senator Kerry's record in Vietnam and, you know, the smear campaign that was going on against him.

He believed that we should have responded more forcefully. You know, I listened respectfully, told him I thought it was good advice and that was the end of the conversation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, the president's campaign, as you might imagine, suspects otherwise and wants to know what the Democrats knew and when they knew it.

We now go back to Iraq, not to the ongoing bloodshed, not to what the candidates say they'll do if elected but to what might actually happen come January after elections are held there, if in fact they are held there.

As we said at the top of the program, Bob Novak has done some intriguing reporting on this of late talking with unnamed policymakers who say one option on the table is essentially to declare victory after the Iraqi elections but in the absence of any real stability and bring the troops home.

Mr. Novak, who it's fair to say appears on this network from time to time, joins us from Washington tonight. We're pleased to see him. Did I lay it out pretty accurately in a sentence that there is talk among some level, you don't really tell us how high a level in Washington, that maybe the best course of action for the country is to get out as quickly as possible but before there's any real stability?

ROBERT NOVAK, CNN'S "CROSSFIRE": That isn't quite it. Declaring victory was an old line by the late Senator George Aiken (ph) in Vietnam. He said, "Let's declare victory and get out," and it was ironic because he was a dove.

What the people I talk to at a pretty high policy making level, these are presidential appointees, these are not bureaucrats, are talking about after these elections are held, assuming they will be successful elections that you get out and put this in the hands of the Iraqis. There are really -- I wrote in the column, Aaron, that after the election, whoever wins this election, the president is going to sit down with the military and there's going to be three options.

One is keep doing what we're doing now. Number two is to increase the military pressure on Iraq. And the third is to get out, continue to give aid to the Iraqi military, don't do it until these elections are held but get out so that we don't have this continued loss of blood.

And my sources think they'll go the third option. I've talked to people in the Kerry campaign. They're very cautious about bugging out. After all they're not in the government but they don't preclude that as a possibility.

BROWN: Let me...

NOVAK: In this campaign, Aaron, nobody of course is going to say that.

BROWN: Right. Let me ask a couple, three quick questions on this. First of all, it is not unreasonable to say that civil war at some level would break out. How could President Bush, OK, who has said we will stay there until the job is finished, how could he justify this?

NOVAK: Well, people have been -- presidents have been going back on their word from the time of Franklin Roosevelt when he promised a balanced budget and had the biggest deficits in history up to that time.

He could justify it on the standpoint that we had achieved national security for the country by getting rid of Saddam Hussein, by eliminating the threat that he would develop weapons of mass destruction and by saying, OK, it's enough bloodletting.

You know, Aaron, there is a British cemetery in Baghdad with graves of 33,000 British troops who were killed, British Empire troops who were killed by the Iraqis and that is a loss that the United States in the 21st Century simply will not sustain.

And, if you don't have a clear path toward some kind of a military victory, I think that the people, whoever in the White House next year, are going to be considering this option because the other two alternatives are very tough and those are the only three options that you have.

BROWN: Good to see you, Bob. Thank you. It's an intriguing column. People haven't read it might want to take a look at it as you lay it all out as you did for us tonight. Thank you, sir, Bob Novak from Washington.

Still ahead on the program, from humble beginnings to high-flying stakes, the most popular card game around, poker, what's the big deal we asked? Of course, we're blackjack players.

And a preview of tomorrow's news tonight, at the end of the program we take a look at morning papers, a break first.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We can expect terrorist attacks to escalate as Afghanistan and Iraq approach national elections. The work ahead is demanding. But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat. It is to prevail.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The debate now is whether or not you have a plan to win and whether or not you are facing the realities on the ground in Iraq. Iraq was not the war on terror the day that the president decided to go. The war on terror was al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So here's a simple question for you tonight. When it comes to Iraq, where do the two presidential candidates agree and where do they disagree?

It is going to be helpful figuring that out when you decide who to vote for. So we'll try and answer the question tonight with the help of "The New Yorker"'s political correspondent, Phil Gourevitch.

Nice to see you.

If, knowing what he knows today, would John Kerry have voted -- would John Kerry have gone to war in Iraq?

PHILIP GOUREVITCH, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORKER": He says no. He says that he would have voted to give the president the authority to make that decision, but if he was the president, he would have handled it quite differently.

BROWN: How does he explain that distinction, by the way?

GOUREVITCH: The distinction is, as he sees it, he gave the president with his vote, his Senate vote, the authority to confront Saddam Hussein, to ratchet up with the backing of force, diplomatic pressure to isolate Saddam Hussein, contain Saddam Hussein, enforce all of these U.N. resolutions with an invigorated inspections program, and really determine once and for all did he or did he not have the WMD that posed the threat that was and that America might have to confront.

BROWN: Was the president misleading yesterday when he said that, if my opponent had his way, Saddam would still be in power?

GOUREVITCH: He was misleading in the sense that it may it sound as if, if my opponent had been in power, he couldn't have cared less about this whole thing, which is of course the impression he was trying to create.

Would Saddam Hussein quite possibly be in power? That's essentially something that Kerry allowed for yesterday. What Kerry said yesterday is, if he found that there were not a weapons of mass destruction direct threat to America's security, if the only argument for the war is, this is a terrible dictator, that would not have been the grounds for risking and expending 1,000 lives-plus and the quantity of money that we have so far. That's not how America goes to war and certainly not goes to war alone.

That was his argument.

BROWN: OK. And I'm sure they appreciate your helping us understand it. I do.

Do they disagree on the conditions in Iraq today as it relates to whether or not terrorism is a greater problem or a lesser problem because of the war? That was an inelegant question, but I think you got it.

GOUREVITCH: Certainly. They do disagree on that.

George Bush from the beginning said this is, essentially, part of the war on terror. And, frankly, as the justification for the war and weapons of mass destruction diminished and the weapons haven't been found, the idea that this was linked to 9/11 has actually been more part of the claim, that he says, 9/11...

BROWN: Linked to 9/11?

GOUREVITCH: He says, 9/11 -- he said this at the convention. He said it repeatedly.

He says, 9/11 showed me that one cannot let threats gather.

BROWN: OK.

GOUREVITCH: He makes this link. He says, and I had after 9/11, the choice of taking the word of a madman or defending America. So defending America means there was a threat.

BROWN: Right.

GOUREVITCH: That's what he says: 9/11 left me with no choice but to move. So he says this was part of the war on terror. And that's how he sees it. He wants very much for Iraq and the war on terror to be seen as two parts of the same event.

BROWN: And Kerry argues that it has in fact made the world -- or the country -- less safe.

GOUREVITCH: A great diversion. And he's argues that it has made it less safe because, in pursuing the war in Iraq, he argues, the president withdrew from the full-tilt pursuit of bin Laden, and instead of pursuing bin Laden and al Qaeda, he went to Iraq. I think neither of them would be able to argue now -- certainly Kerry wouldn't be able to argue now that there isn't terrorism in Iraq. Obviously, the war in Iraq, as it has developed and turned into this war with an insurgency, there's a real element of terror there.

BROWN: All right.

One final question. I think both the president and the vice president yesterday said that Senator Kerry has had eight or nine different positions on Iraq? Is that misleading?

GOUREVITCH: He's had a really hard time articulating his position.

And, at times, he's been simply utterly muddled about it. He has also threw out, sort of touched on the elements that came together in yesterday's speech as what I think even his conservative and partisan antagonists would agree was his clearest articulation yet of a critique of the president's position. And his argument is, in some ways, they both say the same thing: We have to succeed over there.

But he says Bush can't succeed over there unless he admits that there are problems over there, that this is not freedom on the march, democracy nascent, America triumphant, terrorism routed. We have to do that. And so he's arguing, in the end, we have the same objective, a secure Middle East, a healthy Iraq, us out of there. But I can get you there and he can't, because look where he got us.

BROWN: Good to see you. Come back. We'll do this on every single issue.

GOUREVITCH: I'm...

BROWN: You're game, huh?

GOUREVITCH: I'm game.

BROWN: Thank you. Nice to see you.

Still ahead on the program, Haiti takes a hard hit from Tropical Storm Jeanne, hundreds dead, the toll rising.

And true believers. The church doors are closed, but the faithful remain.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Life in Haiti has been tough for an awfully long time. But after Tropical Storm Jeanne, it became gruesome again, almost 700 people dead. That number will surely rise as the floodwaters recede.

Mostly people died in the northern part of the country, where the trees that might have saved them, might have slowed the floodwaters down disappeared years ago. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Though the winds were not quite hurricane force, they brought more rain than the island can handle. Roads throughout the northern part of Haiti became fast-flowing rivers. The authorities could not bury the hundreds of dead, much less locate the thousands they said were still missing.

Government leaders put out urgent calls for additional relief supplies. But even those on hand seemed more or less useless. In one northern city, half the town's population of 200,000 were jammed into fragile shelters. The United Nations tried its best. Soldiers already on hand to maintain peace after the departure of President Aristide did manage to take some supplies to the most badly hit areas, this against a backdrop of a nation still unstable after months of civil unrest.

Haiti is prone to disastrous flooding. Most of the country's trees are gone because nearly all the forests have been cut for fuel. This poorest country in the Western Hemisphere struck by disaster and sorrow once again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The best news we could find out of Haiti, really the only good news, is that the World Food Program will go in tomorrow and start feeding people. That's the good news out of Haiti tonight.

In Boston, the effects of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church can be measured in any number of ways. And here is one. When the financially strapped Archdiocese of Boston announced a plan to reorganize itself, dozens of churches were told they would be shut down. Not all have closed without a fight.

So from Boston tonight, CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): It's a spiritual standoff. Parishioners armed with prayer...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think all of us here believe in the power of prayer.

LOTHIAN: ... and determination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That this Parish belongs to us.

MARIE RILEY, PARISHIONER: Just to close the doors on us is just so unjust. And we're just going to fight for it.

LOTHIAN: In the Boston suburb of Weymouth, St. Albert the Great Catholic Church is officially closed, no priest, no mass, no authority to be here, painful for John Muscillo, who has called this his spiritual home for 49 years.

JOHN MUSCILLO, PARISHIONER: Very sad. A little bit of anger, because I love this church.

LOTHIAN: That's why parishioners have been occupying this building for three weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's somebody here continuously. This goes on right around the clock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, lord, stay with us.

LOTHIAN: They hold three organized prayer services, eat meals in the basement. Then, as the sun goes down, they roll out the mats, brush their teeth and go to sleep.

MARY CRATTY, PARISHIONER: We want to have a presence here so the church will not be closed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to do my part to make sure that it stays open.

LOTHIAN (on camera): St. Albert the Great is just one of 82 churches scheduled to close under a reconfiguration plan by the scandal-plagued Boston Archdiocese. But parishioners say strong attendance, healthy finances and an effective priest should have kept their parish off the list.

RICH ROBAK, PARISHIONER: The way they went about it was, in my own opinion, it was like "Survivor." You put them in clusters and said vote the one off the island. And we happened to be the one voted off.

LOTHIAN (voice-over): The archdiocese defends its decision.

FATHER CHRIS COYNE, ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON: The fact of the matter is that we can't continue to maintain five churches in the city of Weymouth.

LOTHIAN: Hoping to avoid confrontation, the archdiocese has scheduled talks. Even though parishioners have lost one court vigil...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to continue the vigil? And what do we say?

(APPLAUSE)

LOTHIAN: ... they continue to fight in the courts and the Vatican. Donations keep the lights on. Prayer, they hope, will keep the doors open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like God is on our side.

LOTHIAN: Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I know we'll keep track of that one. Ahead on the program, how poker went from no-frills card game to casino superstar and television hit.

Morning papers, a television hit, too.

From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A friend said to me not long ago that one sure sign there were too many TV channels was the proliferation of poker on TV. I don't know about the first part, but I can't argue with the second. Poker has become a TV sport, well, not sport really, but not exactly recreation either.

In Atlantic City in a couple weeks, they'll host the Texas hold 'em championship, one of many high-stakes, big-deal poker tournaments in casinos these days. So what's the big deal with poker, we wondered.

Photographer Doug Carroll (ph) played the hand he was dealt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like a 10/20 stud?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Part of the popularity of poker back in the Midwest and the West and even today is that it's an everyman's game. The rules are very simple to learn. There's not a lot of great mystery behind the rules of the game. And anyone can win.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been with the Taj 11 years now, since we opened poker in 1993.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, Joe, you're going to table 31, seat 4.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been dealing, flooring and running the tournaments for the past couple months.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least somebody's got some brains. No, I mean that with respect.

KEVIN LILLO, POKER DEALER, TRUMP TAJ MAHAL: City's hot with poker. Believe it or not, with the 67 tables we have now, on a Saturday night, it's just not enough.

VINCE MASCIO, TRUMP CASINOS AND RESORTS: It's just not what people think -- what they used to think it was, the old stereotype of the old guys sitting around smoking cigars. Is it a whole different crowd. It's American. America is coming in to play poker now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is for everybody now. It's a lot of young people. Some you can tell play a lot at school, I guess. I don't know if that's part of their curriculum now, hold 'em 101 or what. But they come down here and play a pretty good game.

I believe the Internet has had a lot to do with it. They don't have to be near a casino and they can get involved in the game.

PHIL GORDON, TWO-TIME WORLD POKER TOUR CHAMPION: And, online, you're playing five to 10 times more hands per hour than you'd play in a live casino. You're getting five times more experience per hour for every hour you play online than you would in a real casino. I think that's invaluable.

The downside of playing Internet poker is that you can't sit across from and chat with your fellow competitor. I think one of the more satisfying aspects of poker is being able to look at your competitor and see if they're scared, trying to read them for tells and such. And it is also a very social game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quarter, 50, 75.

GORDON: There always seemed to be one night where you could get together with friends, drink a few beers, talk about whatever was happening in the world, and maybe win some of your friend's money.

ROB SCHWARTZ, POKER PLAYER: I play because I enjoy it, a little gambling, jocularity with my friends, a few, you know good times.

STU SCHWERNER, POKER PLAYER: I've been playing poker with at least two of these guys for 20 years now and four of them about 15 to 10 years. It has kept us together, I think as a group, as a social group.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold 'em is the most popular game because it's the game people see on TV all the time. Is it also the game that's played on ESPN's World Series of Poker, that played in Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown." And it's also played in the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour.

TOM JITTO, TRUMP TAJ MAHAL: TV exposure just created a monster. It just turned everything around in the poker industry. When we first opened our room, it was 75 percent seven-card stud. And now it's the other way around. It's 75 percent Texas hold 'em. Everybody that called on the phone wanted to play in a tournament. And we didn't really run tournaments. But the demand was there. As you can see, it is unbelievable.

GORDON: I'm never going to be able to win the Super Bowl. I'm never going to be able to pitch a perfect game, but I can sit down Against the best players in the world on any given day and beat the hell out of them. And that is -- that's a great feeling when it happens.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. These are the real front pages of actual newspapers. We'll start with "The Washington Times." Hold it still, Aaron. "Bush Demands Help From U.N., Scolds Group For Failure To Aid Iraq, Fight Saddam." That's a good way to get help, isn't it? Scold people. Well, I don't -- that's a very tough looking picture of the president there, actually. "Kerry Camp Rejects CBS Link. Lockhart Calls Call Not Improper." I'm tired of that and swift boats and all of it.

"Warring Visions For Iraq" is the lead in "The Christian Science Monitor." "With Bush's Speech to U.N., Kerry's Stern Rebuke, Candidates Turn to Future of U.S. Involvement." This actually is the issue we ought to be talking about as a country and we as reporters ought to be covering more of. And we shall.

"The Guardian," a British paper. "Glimmer of Hope For Britain, But Second U.S. Hostage Is Killed. Iraq Claims Woman Prisoner To Be Released." So, hopefully, somebody will get out of that mess alive. We shall see.

"The Philadelphia Inquirer" -- "Inquirer," almost confused with it "The Cincinnati Enquirer." That's probably happened to you, too. "Bush Calls For U.N. Aid in Iraq," a milder headline than "The Washington Times."

Why did I want to do that? Oh, "The Detroit News." "New Media Era Dawns in U.S." Take a look at people reading Drudge and this and that and all the other thing.

I love this headline. Have no idea what the story is. "Boston Herald" down here. "Too Sexy For Preschool." What the heck is that about? When you only read the front page, you don't know.

"Chicago Sun-Times" will end it. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, "yowza." Going to be nice, 84 degrees in Chicago.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's it for tonight.

Most of the program on Iraq tomorrow, the military options and the political options and a soldier's story.

We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern tomorrow.

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