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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

International Aid Worker Taken Hostage in Baghdad; Interview With Michael Gordon; Bush Accuses Kerry of Practicing Politics of Fear

Aired October 19, 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.
On another day when Iraq leads the news we'll look at what is perhaps the most interesting single question to be broached in weeks. Did the insurgency need to happen? Could it have been avoided if civilian leaders at the Pentagon had paid more attention to the uniformed brass? Why were the warnings of too little manpower rejected?

Michael Gordon, "The New York Times" lead defense writer offers some answers to that today in the first of a series of articles on how Iraq went awry and for those who still believe it has not gone awry consider this. Back when Saddam was overthrown when the Americans marched into Baghdad there was a plan to begin almost immediately a dramatic reduction in American forces there.

In part they would be replaced by soldiers from other countries and, in part, they wouldn't be needed at all in a lawful Iraq. Today there are 130,000 Americans there. More may be coming after the U.S. election and before the Iraqis vote in January. It did go awry. Tonight, Mr. Gordon joins us to talk about the fateful decisions made and the assumptions gone wrong.

But the whip begins in Baghdad, CNN's Karl Penhaul with the duty so, Karl, a headline from you tonight.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A top international aid worker is taken hostage in Baghdad. Meanwhile the insurgency grinds on -- Aaron.

BROWN: Karl, thank you.

Next to CNN's Jane Arraf and perhaps the toughest mission in any counterinsurgency not just this one so, Jane, a headline from you tonight.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Whatever happened to winning Iraqi hearts and minds? Military officials say it's just not going to happen. They have a new goal -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you. We'll get to you in a few moments.

And finally to Florida and the campaign and what many would see as the campaign scare tactics of both sides. Our Senior White House Correspondent John King is traveling with the president so, John, a headline tonight.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president today accused his Democratic opponent of practicing the politics of fear when it comes to the flu, the military draft and other issues. Translation, the president's worried some of Senator Kerry's attacks might be sticking.

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

Candy Crowley joins us with the Kerry campaign as well tonight.

Also coming up on the program from Atlanta what does a person have to do to get a flu shot these days, cross the border to Canada, stand in line for the day, buy a lottery ticket just to name a few.

Also, the military wants them, your local high school students in big numbers. We'll look at recruiting in a time of war.

And later joined by our very own recruit, a conscript actually, the rooster stops by with morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with Iraq and how things got where they've gotten so to speak. Today the American general in charge of Baghdad said the city needs about 10,000 more policemen but probably won't get the full complement until next spring or summer. Last summer the administration said the present level would be enough.

For American forces the city and the country are still dotted with no-go zones and reporters not embedded with the troops are finding it harder to venture outside their hotels or even to stay put inside them.

In a moment some very thorough reporting on how decisions made prior to the invasion and in the days after have led to all of this, first, the news of the day starting with another kidnapping and CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL (voice-over): Snatched by kidnappers and captured on camera, just hours after aid worker Margaret Hassan was taken hostage this proof of life was passed to Arabic language broadcaster Al- Jazeera.

Hassan is director of CARE International's operations in Iraq. She's a duel British-Iraqi citizen who's lived and breathed aid work in the country for half her life, so far no clues about the kidnappers' identities, no explanation why, no demands.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We'll do whatever we can obviously. This is -- this is someone who has actually lived in Iraq for 30 years. It's someone who is immensely respected, married to an Iraqi, someone who's doing her level best to help the country and I think it shows you the type of people we're up against that they would prepare to kidnap somebody like this. PENHAUL: Hassan's kidnapping comes as Blair considers a controversial order to redeploy British troops to more volatile areas near Baghdad. That could free up more U.S. Marines for a possible assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

U.S. warplanes pounded Fallujah again overnight. An Army spokesman said these houses were being used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda. The spokesman said air strikes like these may have killed some of the terrorist network's leaders in recent days and destroyed some of its ammunition dumps.

Just north of Baghdad more fighting, this plume of smoke rises after insurgents rained mortar fire onto an Iraqi National Guard base. U.S. helicopters helped ferry away the dead and scores of injured, another blow to Iraq's efforts to build its own security forces.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, we're long past the time when anyone expected the Americans to be greeted with flowers in Iraq. Too much has happened. Too many IEDs and RPGs and flag-draped coffins arriving home.

Everyone's expectations have changed politicians here, soldiers there; again tonight, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): A year and a half after the end of the war there are few Americans talking about winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Now they're just trying to earn their trust. Soldiers still throw candy to children even from helicopters and they value friendly waves from townspeople.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now somebody sees someone throwing rocks at us. They usually try to drop a few bags of toys or candy. They won't do it the next time.

ARRAF: But the U.S. military's mission here is more complex than anyone bargained for in an environment more hostile than anyone expected. Increasingly they're aiming at more tangible goals.

LT. COL. STEVE BULLMORE, U.S. ARMY: Can we have trust and confidence in each other Iraqis and us and us and Iraqis? I would think that that's far easier than being of the same heart and of the same mind.

ARRAF: Walid Farid Abdul Salam, Chief of Police in Diyala in the Sunni Triangle, says trust between military commanders here and the police has built slowly. Now, he says, that has to trickle down to the level of ordinary Iraqis.

WALID FARID ABDUL SALAM, DIYALA CHIEF OF POLICE: We need time to convince our people of the intentions of the Americans, the intentions behind their presence and efforts for Iraq. ARRAF: After the war, Iraqis expected peace and prosperity in this oil rich country. Most have neither and they blame the United States.

"The Americans have brought us nothing concrete, only words" (UNINTELLIGIBLE) tells us reeling off a list of complaints.

American psychological operations teams still broadcast their messages in towns and cities but many of those messages are asking for help in defeating the insurgency.

To build the trust they need savvy military leaders devote a lot of time to talking with local leaders. At the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade they use lessons they learned in the ethnic cauldron of Kosovo, primarily patience.

COL. DANA PITTARD, U.S. ARMY: What we learned there is for meetings success is, is that you wait everybody out. You listen to everybody's issues.

ARRAF: Success, he says, won't be making Iraqis like the American presence here. They probably won't ever do that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to gain their confidence and cooperation in building a new Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: How much of how Iraqis feel about U.S. forces here depends on really basic things like water and electricity and until those are restored the United States will never have the confidence of Iraqis they say -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, just let me report a little bit of news and then ask you something about it. CARE International has announced its suspending operations in Iraq after the kidnapping today. Much of the reconstruction effort getting help to the Iraqis depends on not just the U.S. government but these NGOs, these non-governmental organizations. Are they fleeing the country?

ARRAF: They have fled in many places, Aaron. Here in Kirkuk where we are there's been a huge problem of internally displaced people, internal refugees, if you will. Normally they would be taken care of by the United Nations. Normally schools would be provided, books by the United Nations.

Now that's just the U.N. The U.N. of course fled after their headquarters was bombed and hasn't really come back. They've had big conferences here trying to get NGOs to come in. They haven't come. Here it's relatively safe but there's still the perception that it's dangerous as evidenced by that kidnapping today in Baghdad. It is a huge problem -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you.

And, again, just to repeat CARE International has just announced that it's going to pull all its people out of Iraq. It is simply too dangerous.

All this brings us to a central question tonight did the insurgency, which has claimed so many lives, Iraqi and American, have to happen? Could it have been avoided?

As we said at the top that's a central question in the reporting today by Michael Gordon of "The New York Times," "The Times" will print a series of pieces and Mr. Gordon will publish the rest in a book coming up. He is as shrewd a military writer as we know and we're always glad to have him on the program. Michael, it's nice to see you.

Let's just go back to shortly after the Americans arrived in Baghdad and General Franks comes in and there is, in fact, a plan to get American troops out, correct?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Correct, Aaron, and I was in Baghdad at the time living in this Abu Ghraib North Palace and I think speaking to you more or less during that time frame as well.

BROWN: Yes.

GORDON: But what happened and even -- it's surprising even to me having been there during this period and it emerged in some of my book research but when the Bush administration went in it had what I would consider to be some very optimistic and really unrealistic set of expectations about what would unfold in Iraq and their expectation essentially was to have a kind of an in and out war.

They wanted to go in, demolish the regime, hand over things to Iraqis, bring in multinational forces and remove American forces on a pretty expeditious basis. The plan that General Franks brought on April 16th, now this is really less than two weeks after American forces entered Baghdad, was to go down to a division plus by September, 2003 or some 30,000 troops. It seems fanciful now but that was the goal at the time.

BROWN: Now we know not everyone believed that was possible. General Shinseki talked about the need for several hundred thousand troops. Why didn't -- and even as you reported today Jay Garner, who first went in there to run the post war, Bremer, after Bremer, after said the same thing. They believed they didn't have enough troops there. They needed more troops there. Why didn't the military guys push harder on the civilian side to get what they needed?

GORDON: Well, I think this is a complicated question. There's no one answer. I think there are a number of factors at work. Number one, I think the Bush administration came in with a kind of attitude about nation building as it had been practiced by the Clinton administration in the Balkans.

It didn't really want to get engaged in that degree of nation building and it took as its model for Iraq I think Afghanistan where we made a fairly light effort. I think that was a factor.

I think another factor was that Secretary Rumsfeld at the Pentagon was pioneering a new approach to warfare where we'd use fewer ground troops and he's a very domineering personality, so I think that was a factor in shaping the plan.

And I think basically there was a sort of optimism in the Bush administration that events in Iraq might be such that the existing institutions, the army and the police they would continue to exist and the United States could hand over to them.

Now as for the military, I think General Franks got what General Franks asked for but I know that there were senior level people below him who were uneasy with it and all I can say is they sort of had their fingers crossed and hoped for the best.

The U.S. went under -- went into Iraq really under sort of a best case scenario and it didn't work out that way and the consequence I think is pretty important, which is that there was a very critical moment in April and May when the U.S. might have snuffed out the insurgency or at least tamped it down.

If it had had more forces and not only forces but more resources to bestow on the Iraqi people, as you noted in your report, they still want basic services, if the U.S. had been able to do more of that at that time, also had more force, if it had a bigger carrot and a bigger stick some senior level people who were involved in that think things might be different now.

BROWN: Tell me where the series goes tomorrow and the next day.

GORDON: This is cold out of my ongoing book effort, so I've been living in 2003 for the last year and just investigating this period. The one -- the series in today's "New York Times" really looks at all of these things I talked about how really the force levels were set for the occupation even though there were indications we might need more.

Tomorrow's story in "The New York Times" looks at intelligence and, you know, a very striking thing to me was intelligence was profoundly off target not only on WMD and 9/11 but on the kind of adversary that we were going to face in Iraq.

It did not foresee the Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary forces playing the role they did during the combat phase and, yes, the intel made reference to the possibility of an insurgency but it really didn't highlight it.

And I think this is an aspect of the intelligence community's performance that needs to be examined along with the WMD issue, which I think has been worked over pretty intensively.

BROWN: Michael, you don't need any pats on the back from me but I'll just tell you I thought it was as compelling a piece of reading today as I've seen in a long time, so congratulations. People who haven't read it ought to go online if they don't have access to the paper and read it there. And, again, the series continues tomorrow and the book will be out and it's good to see you, buddy thank you.

GORDON: OK, thank you.

BROWN: Michael Gordon of "The New York Times."

One other item before we head to break concerning terrorism and Spain's worst terrorism attack on record, the train bombings of the 11th of March. Spanish television today aired a security camera video of one of the explosions. It is not, as you would imagine, easy to watch, so we warn you now. It largely speaks for itself.

Two networks, including the state run network ran it, about 45 seconds, the explosion and the chaos, one of ten explosions on four trains in rapid succession during the morning rush hour. One hundred ninety-one people died that day in Spain, more than 1,800 were wounded.

Still ahead tonight from Atlanta, from Florida to Pennsylvania, the president and the Senator on the stump a look at the day in politics.

And while we're talking candidates, what about health care, their positions in their own words, we take a break first.

From Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And on it goes.

If you're looking for fear factor you can find it on another network or perhaps coming soon to a campaign stump speech near you. As the election approaches, so apparently does the apocalypse each candidate painting the other as a mortal threat to Social Security or the safety of the free world depending on who's doing the talking.

So again tonight, a pair of reports starting with Candy Crowley traveling with the Kerry campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): Eyeing the shrinking pool of undecideds, John Kerry stalks a center now as he pushes the president to the right.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The president and his friends keep feeding the people at the top, keep walking on by and crossing over to the other side of the street and ignoring those who need the help in America. I'm going to be a champion for the middle class, for the working folks.

CROWLEY: Kerry promises better and higher paying jobs, more available cheaper health care and Social Security as is.

KERRY: I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut the benefits. I will not raise the retirement age.

CROWLEY: In the battleground of Pennsylvania where 28 percent of voters in 2000 were 60 and older, Kerry enjoys an edge but not a lot. He has been here 19 times this election season and this time pushing hard against the president's plan to let younger workers invest a portion of their Social Security taxes.

KERRY: He wants to be the first president in history to put the greatest retirement program in history at risk.

CROWLEY: In the time left, Kerry's task is twofold, convince fence sitters that he is non-scary, non-threatening, non-liberal presidential material and keep his base wound up by defining the election in the starkest of terms.

KERRY: A choice between one candidate who will save Social Security and another who will undermine it.

CROWLEY (on camera): Kerry aides shrug off recent polls showing the president with a slight but perceptible lead. "We're comfortable where we are" said one strategist adding, "It is a difficult task to unseat an incumbent president."

Candy Crowley CNN, Dayton, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Next now to the president who again lit into Senator Kerry on Iraq and terrorism. He also addressed though some of the Senator's allegations on social issues, which tells us what that he's on the defensive? Perhaps or that he simply understands the importance of leaving no charge left unanswered so late in the game.

Here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Campaigning in must-win Florida for the president today spent largely on defense answering attacks Mr. Bush calls cynical fear mongering.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On November the 2nd the people of America will reject the politics of fear and vote for an agenda of hope and opportunity and security.

KING: At The Villages, the voter rich retirement community northwest of Orlando rebutting Senator Kerry's claim that a second Bush term might bankrupt Social Security and bring a restoration of the draft.

BUSH: We will keep the promise of Social Security for our seniors and there will be no draft as long as I'm the president.

KING: The shortage of flu vaccines is both a health problem and a campaign issue. Senator Kerry blames the president who calls that charge ludicrous but nonetheless took time in St. Petersburg to make sure it did not go unanswered.

BUSH: We have millions of vaccine doses on hand for the most vulnerable Americans and millions more will be shipped in the coming weeks.

KING: The Bush campaign prides itself on knocking the other guy off stride and Tuesday brought a new line on Senator Kerry's evolving views on the Iraq War.

BUSH: In a time of great challenge in the world the commander- in-chief must stand on principle not on the shifting sands of political convenience.

KING: So, the uncharacteristically defensive tone on Social Security, the draft and the flu was all the more striking but the rebuttals necessary, Bush aides say, because the race here and nationally is so tight with just two weeks left.

BUSH: My opponent will say anything he thinks will benefit him politically at the time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Early voting, of course, already underway here in Florida. This is one state and, of course, nationally as well where the elderly vote is critical and the trend in that regard is not heading in the president's direction. About seven weeks ago, just out of the Republican convention, Mr. Bush had a seven point lead among voters age 65 and older. Aaron, tonight a dead heat.

BROWN: John, just on the Social Security there's no question the president has talked about wanting to privatize a portion of it. Has he said at all in the campaign how he would pay for the transition period which could be certainly billions of dollars, maybe a trillion or more?

KING: It could be as much as $2 trillion according to some estimates, not all of those estimates from liberal think tanks. Some conservative groups think it might cost as much as $2 trillion. And the answer is no.

What the president has said is that he believes this must be done and what he would do if reelected is bring a group of Democrats, Republicans, smart people together and work it out.

He likes to note that the late Democratic Senator from New York Daniel Patrick Moynihan was helping him in this regard with the previous commission of the Bush administration but how will he pay for it? No, he says he'll just have somebody explore that if he wins a second term.

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

Coming up making sure, speaking of Florida, 2004 looks nothing like 2000 except for the palm trees. We'll look at one Florida couple being extraordinarily careful this election year.

We'll also take a look at polls coming up. Also tonight the hard sell in high school getting teenagers to volunteer for the service during the time of war, we'll take a break first.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On November 2nd, two weeks from today, it's fair to say no state will feel itself under the microscope quite like Florida is sure to. The 2000 election mess set off a wave of lawsuits and voting reforms.

It also may be fueling a desire to vote early this year. Some states began accepting ballots this week and, in Florida, the lines have been longer than many expected.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald and Shelly Kronfeld don't mind the two hour wait to cast an early ballot in Palm Beach County, anything they say to avoid what happened last time when they voted inadvertently for conservative candidate Pat Buchanan.

DONALD KROMFELD, EARLY VOTER: I like to listen to him but I really did not intend to vote for him.

FREED: Donald was raised as a Democrat. He and his wife were among the thousands of voters confused by the county's infamous butterfly ballot. This week's early voting lines are as long as people's political memories.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to make sure, if possible, my vote gets counted so that's why I came early.

FREED: Since 2000, Palm Beach's butterfly ballot has gone through a metamorphosis. People here and in other Florida counties now vote by touch screen computer but not everyone. The Democrats are predicting problems and blame the state's GOP leadership.

SCOTT MADDOX, FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN: When they could have fixed this by having one technology, they allowed many different technologies and it's going to lead to confusion.

FREED: Florida's Republican secretary of state denies Democratic allegations that she's too partisan and insists that Florida's electoral reforms have already been tested.

GLENDA HOOD (R), FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: From the track record we've seen since all the changes were put in place and first implemented by the supervisors in the 2002 election cycle, there have been hundreds of successful elections as a result of those changes.

FREED: And was the Kronfeld's vote successful back in Palm Beach?

(on camera): So four years ago you walked out feeling uncertain about how you voted?

KRONFELD: Absolutely.

FREED: And today?

KRONFELD: Perfect.

FREED (voice-over): One case of closure still two weeks to Election Day.

Jonathan Freed CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: My e-mail is being swamped today by people, in this case, Kerry supporters, upset with a poll, a Gallup poll.

I'm reasonably certain, had the poll numbers been different, my e-mail would have been swamped by Bush supporters upset with the poll. So it is with politics these days. But it is also true that polling is part science and part art. And the more you try and figure out who will actually vote, the more subjective it gets. Or at least I think that's true.

Joining us from Washington tonight, Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and a former president of the Gallup Organization as well. And, in New York, Lee Miringoff, president of the National Council on Public Polls and the director of the Marist College Poll.

And it's good to see you all.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Andrew, let's start with Gallup. Gallup has been taking a beating from the Democratic side, from the Kerry side. They'll argue that their model is all wrong. They'll argue that the head of the organization is biased, biased Republican. They argue all this stuff. From where you sit, is there any truth to any of it?

ANDREW KOHUT, PRESIDENT, PEW RESEARCH CENTER: Well, the Gallup numbers have been highly variable. And it's been mostly in -- on their likely voter base, not on -- when we look at the results of all registered voters in the Gallup surveys.

But there's no truth to this issue of Gallup being in the pocket of the Republicans or anyone else. They're a wonderful independent, professional organization. The voter screens or the likely voter scale that Gallup uses is really very well-tested. It's one of the rare instances where we can go back and actually look up the behavior of the respondents and check behavior to answers.

Gallup routinely -- and Pew does as well -- look up what our respondents do, because their voting records are public records. And that isn't to say there isn't some loopiness in the scale at various points in time, because, unlike a voting intentions question, where we ask people, how do you feel today, in the likely voter situation, we're saying, what are you going to do two or three weeks from now?

And that tends to be a little bit more variable.

BROWN: Lee, there are lots of variables out there in this election, it seems to me, the issues. Among them, war is a motivating force. All these new registered voters. How can pollsters accurately project who is going to vote and who is not going to vote?

LEE MIRINGOFF, INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC OPINION: Well, as you identify, this is the art side. And there is no copyright on this in terms of defining a likely voter.

And everybody does it a little differently, which is why there's this discrepancy in some of the poll results from one poll to the other. And part of the issue may be this avalanche of voters who may show up this time who haven't voted in the past. And if the organization relies very heavily on prior voting experience, whether you voted four years ago or eight years ago, as a predictor whether you're going to vote this time, then there may be inaccuracy of some of those mix of voters, Democrats, Republicans, white, black, Latino, whatever it is.

You want to make you're getting the right mix. And you have to have a model that's dynamic enough to pick up all these new registrants and first-time voters who may literally flood some of the voting booths this time.

BROWN: Lee, give me an example of one question you would ask someone to determine -- not the only question, but one you would ask to determine they were a likely voter.

MIRINGOFF: Well, simply, first of all, you're starting with registered voters, a group of eligible, potentially eligible people to vote. And you might say whether chances of voting are excellent, good, fair and poor.

You may want to look at people's interests, people very interested, not so interested. And you start looking at different combinations of people in trying to determine what is the electorate that is likely to show up. And, then again, we're talking about campaigns with big get-out-the-vote efforts. And that may have an impact on all this. So it's a very dynamic, fluid situation. That's why there may be some variation in some of these national polls that Andrew alluded to.

BROWN: Andrew, let me bring this back to where I began, with the flood of e-mails.

There seems to be a feeling that, when polls are reported, it leads to a self-fulfilling result, that bad news for Kerry means bad news for Kerry in two weeks because of the poll. Is there any evidence of that at all?

KOHUT: There's no evidence of it.

In fact, given the zigzagging nature of the polls in this election cycle, there's -- it's pretty good proof that a poll showing -- a Gallup poll showing a big Bush lead at one point, it changes rather quickly to a Kerry lead and vice-versa. Obviously, if people were only following what they saw in the polls, they'd stick to the one answer that they saw at a certain point in time.

But there's no scientific evidence of a bandwagon effect.

MIRINGOFF: And, Aaron, I would jump in on that.

Candidates win or lose this on their own. You look at the debates.

BROWN: Yes.

MIRINGOFF: Kerry does well in the debates, he does better in the polls.

People vote for who they like. Were us pollster types so powerful, Andrew and I would start picking presidents. It isn't that way. People sometimes vote for people even though they think they're not going to win just because they like that person. And I think that's what we're dealing with.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: I hope they do. I hope they vote for the person they like, and not who the poll says they ought to vote for.

MIRINGOFF: Absolutely.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's good to talk to you both. I expect we'll talk again before the election. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, how far people are going to get a flu shot and what the federal government is doing to help.

And, later, where the candidates stand on health care, the facts.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Two-thousand four may well be remembered as a black eye for government health officials, flu season fast approaching, a serious shortage of flu vaccine. Some people, many of them seniors, many with health problems, are going to extraordinary lengths to get flu shots. The government continues to say more vaccine is on the way. But that hasn't stopped the worry. It's a matter of math.

Here's CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In New York, a 94-year-old woman desperately searches for a flu shot. Nelly Anderson called two recommended doctors and contacted the Health Department.

NELLY ANDERSON, 94 YEARS OLD: Every one of them was out of flu shots.

COHEN: She tried her own doctor.

ANDERSON: He was on the phone quite upset and said, you won't believe it, the first time in my life I can't help my patients. He did not get any.

COHEN: Despite her age and a bad hip, she's willing to wait in line. But a neighbor tried that.

ANDERSON: She waited three 1/2 hours. And she came back and said, don't even try it.

COHEN: This drama is being played out across the country, with lines from Georgia to California. In New Jersey, one town is holding a lottery to see who will get flu shots.

RAYMOND MCCARTHY, MAYOR OF BLOOMFIELD, NEW JERSEY: When you have thousands, 8,000 senior citizens that we have in the township and you only have 300 shots, you got to give them out.

COHEN: The federal government is negotiating to buy 1.5 million doses from Canada. Already, some Americans are crossing the border on their own. Americans like Anna Smith, who says she needs the shot because cancer treatment has weakened her immune treatment.

ANNA SMITH, CANCER PATIENT: I can't get one in my own country.

COHEN: The top U.S. health officials said Tuesday that 2.6 additional doses will be available in January.

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We need all of us to take a deep breath. We've successfully worked through vaccine supply problems in the past. And we're doing so this time as well.

COHEN: But a look at the numbers shows the newly-found vaccine won't even come close to making up for the shortage. The government had planned to have about 100 million flu shots this year, but now predicts just 58 million will be available. Plus, January is well after the flu season has begun. So, it's not clear how useful the additional shots will be.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On the presidential campaign trail, the flu vaccine shortage is refocusing attention on health care, which many voters rank among their top concerns. And that is where our weeklong series on key campaign issues picks up tonight.

The number, familiar by now -- we hear it often -- more than 40 million Americans have no health insurance, about 15 percent of the population. They're mostly the working poor, the unemployed and the young. They can't afford to get sick, not the flu or anything else. Both candidates say they'll reduce the number of uninsured.

A look now at how they plan on doing it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will preserve the system of private medicine that makes America's health care the best in the world.

BROWN (voice-over): The president's current program includes the Medicare Reform Bill passed last year that already provides a tax credit for drug expenses and privately-issued drug discount cards that have had mixed success and will also create a drug benefit and tax- sheltered health savings accounts in 2006.

There's also a program to encourage price competition between brand-name and generic drugs, an increase in the number of federally- funded health care centers in poor communities and rule changes that make it easier for states to cover more low-income citizens. In the second term, the president says, he would push for the formation of voluntary associations of individuals and small businesses to buy health insurance at lower costs.

There would be liability reform to limit the amount patients could win in malpractice lawsuits, tax credits for long-term care and high deductible health insurance, tax deductions for low-income families who buy health insurance and a program to enable coverage for low-income children by a combination of government and faith-based organizations.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Health care is not a privilege for the wealthy and the connected and the elected. It is a right for all Americans.

BROWN: For his part, John Kerry says he would allow the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada, overhaul Medicare to provide increased coverage, including some prescription drugs, and use government buying power to negotiate lower drug prices. He would create a federal fund to reimburse employers for the cost of catastrophic health insurance, which would thereby reduce most insurance premiums.

Kerry also says he would open the health care system used by Congress to all Americans with tax credits for low-income purchases, that he would create a bill of rights for patients in conflict with their HMOs, restrict some malpractice lawsuits, but not impose a cap on damages, and, finally, expand federal and state insurance programs, so that all children and 95 percent of all Americans would be covered.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: The candidates on health care. Tomorrow, the candidates on the economy.

Ahead from us tonight, reading, writing and war, the latest addition to high school campuses these days, the military recruitment office.

And later, as always, wherever we are, morning papers.

We're in Atlanta tonight. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We began tonight with Iraq, and segment seven takes us back there; 19 months into the mission, with more than 1,100 American troops dead already and the ranks stretched thin, we wondered what the job of military recruiters is like these days. Is it harder to get young people to enlist? We know that the standards for enlistment have been lowered a bit, not a lot, but some. Are kids still willing to join?

Here's CNN's Maria Hinojosa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the 1,800 students in West Side High School in Macon, Georgia, school means buses and lunchrooms and class and a trip past military recruiters, the Navy, the Marines or the Air Force, searching for teenagers ready to serve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People who are energetic, people who are passionate, people who want to make a contribution, not the people who just want to sit on the sidelines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's got all the information you need. What I'm going to do is give you a call.

HINOJOSA: Years ago, military recruiters in a public high school were less common. But the federal No Child Left Behind act forced schools to not only open their doors, but to hand over home phone numbers and addresses for every 17- and 18-year-old student or else face loss of their federal aid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I average a total of about 70-something phone calls a day, daily. And I call grads, people that graduated in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you signed up yet, man? Why not, man?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's my ship date, September 9.

HINOJOSA: Recruiter Zeke Mott is a graduate of West Side High.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They come up to ask me why I joined and when did I join and how am I doing. And I tell them, the Navy's a good thing. It's a good thing. I did a year of college. I've already done a year of college. I found out, college isn't for everybody. It wasn't for me.

HINOJOSA: These recruiters say they have no problems meeting their quotas. The Marines here have a goal of 12 new sign-ups a month, the Army, 60 new recruits a year. But with the war, their job has become more difficult.

TEELA BOGAN, ARMY RECRUITER: A lot times, there are people that are interested, but their mom will call and say, I'm sorry. I don't want you to talk to my son or daughter.

HINOJOSA (on camera): Because?

BOGAN: Because they're scared. I tell them up front what can happen. It's their choice what they want to do. I don't force anything on them. And I tell them the good and the bad. And it's up to them to make an informed decision.

HINOJOSA (voice-over): Seventeen-year-old Dwonn Finney has already made his decision. A focused student with good enough grades, recruiters have told him he'll start getting a salary the day he starts basic training in the Army and an added cash bonus if he joins the infantry.

DWONN FINNEY, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: I want to get paid while I go to college and not as a burden on my parents to pay for me in college. And the quickest way I can do that is go into the Army with college.

HINOJOSA: Kevin Brown has already signed up to join the Marines. His motive, a sense of duty.

KEVIN BROWN, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: What changed it as in a definite go in the military was seeing September 11, and just because it was like, well, our nation's just been attacked.

HINOJOSA: Many teenagers from this high school talk about wanting to serve their country, about giving something back, a sense so strong that though some, like Jennifer Nelson (ph) may have questions about this war, they're still prepared to sign up for military service.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be one of the great people that helps to stop it and slow it down.

HINOJOSA: What won't slow down? The pace of recruiting for America's military at war.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, Macon, Georgia.

BROWN: Still ahead from Atlanta tonight, morning papers.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

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

We will start with "The International Herald Tribune." We mentioned this earlier, but, honestly, it bears repeating. Tomorrow -- and you don't have to take "The International Tribune." You can buy a "New York Times" and get the story, too. "U.S. Intelligence Getting the Signals Wrong," Michael Gordon's second in his series of three pieces. I'm just telling you, the reporting on that stuff is terrific. And it's why, for my money, a newspaper is the best bargain there is. OK, enough of the plugging of "The Times." They won't send me the paper, OK? Call me and I'll explain that to you.

"The Detroit News." "GM Idles 900 Here." That would be here in Detroit. Down -- here's a story where people will read, though -- not that they don't care about that, because they do? "Patch Touted as Post-Menopausal Viagra." It's a patch for women to increase their sex drive. So there you go. How much money will that bring in?

"The Examiner." The other paper in San Francisco is "The Chronicle." And there's "The Examiner." I don't know what happened to "The Chronicle" -- "$1 Billion Bid for Napa Wine Giant Robert Mondavi. Shares Surge 30 Percent on the News."

"The Miami Herald." "Another Gamble," this is a story about slot machines at racetracks. I've never understood why there aren't casinos in South Florida. It seems like a sort of natural thing, but they always vote them down. I don't know if South Floridians vote them down or if Northern Floridians vote them down.

"Boston Herald." "Blood Feud. Yankees Soar Loser Nabbed in Sox Fan Slaying." Come on, people. It's a game. OK? Don't be killing each other. And, by the way, the Red Sox are the official team of NEWSNIGHT for at least another day.

Forget that one. Ten. OK.

"The Chicago Sun-Times" ends it. "Feds: Midway" -- that's the airport -- "Midway Agents Tipped Off Drug Ring." Customs officers allegedly gave confidential data to smugglers in the post-9/11 era. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, by the way...

(CHIMES)

BROWN: We brought that with us -- is "improving."

We'll wrap it up and preview tomorrow, a very cool story to tell you about, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Quickly, tomorrow night on the program, an absolutely remarkable story of bravery and courage and heartbreak and hope about one woman's determined effort to rescue the tiny community of Jews in Iraq. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This house had fallen in around her. And we sat down on some stones in this courtyard. And she looked at me. And she said, who are you? And I looked at her and I said, I'm Jewish. And I'm here to take you home. And she said, I thought everyone had forgotten about me. And I said, no, we just couldn't get to you, but now I'm here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: It's one of the best stories we've ever done, 10:00 tomorrow. We'll see you then.

Good night for all of us.

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 October 19, 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.
On another day when Iraq leads the news we'll look at what is perhaps the most interesting single question to be broached in weeks. Did the insurgency need to happen? Could it have been avoided if civilian leaders at the Pentagon had paid more attention to the uniformed brass? Why were the warnings of too little manpower rejected?

Michael Gordon, "The New York Times" lead defense writer offers some answers to that today in the first of a series of articles on how Iraq went awry and for those who still believe it has not gone awry consider this. Back when Saddam was overthrown when the Americans marched into Baghdad there was a plan to begin almost immediately a dramatic reduction in American forces there.

In part they would be replaced by soldiers from other countries and, in part, they wouldn't be needed at all in a lawful Iraq. Today there are 130,000 Americans there. More may be coming after the U.S. election and before the Iraqis vote in January. It did go awry. Tonight, Mr. Gordon joins us to talk about the fateful decisions made and the assumptions gone wrong.

But the whip begins in Baghdad, CNN's Karl Penhaul with the duty so, Karl, a headline from you tonight.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A top international aid worker is taken hostage in Baghdad. Meanwhile the insurgency grinds on -- Aaron.

BROWN: Karl, thank you.

Next to CNN's Jane Arraf and perhaps the toughest mission in any counterinsurgency not just this one so, Jane, a headline from you tonight.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Whatever happened to winning Iraqi hearts and minds? Military officials say it's just not going to happen. They have a new goal -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you. We'll get to you in a few moments.

And finally to Florida and the campaign and what many would see as the campaign scare tactics of both sides. Our Senior White House Correspondent John King is traveling with the president so, John, a headline tonight.

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president today accused his Democratic opponent of practicing the politics of fear when it comes to the flu, the military draft and other issues. Translation, the president's worried some of Senator Kerry's attacks might be sticking.

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

Candy Crowley joins us with the Kerry campaign as well tonight.

Also coming up on the program from Atlanta what does a person have to do to get a flu shot these days, cross the border to Canada, stand in line for the day, buy a lottery ticket just to name a few.

Also, the military wants them, your local high school students in big numbers. We'll look at recruiting in a time of war.

And later joined by our very own recruit, a conscript actually, the rooster stops by with morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin with Iraq and how things got where they've gotten so to speak. Today the American general in charge of Baghdad said the city needs about 10,000 more policemen but probably won't get the full complement until next spring or summer. Last summer the administration said the present level would be enough.

For American forces the city and the country are still dotted with no-go zones and reporters not embedded with the troops are finding it harder to venture outside their hotels or even to stay put inside them.

In a moment some very thorough reporting on how decisions made prior to the invasion and in the days after have led to all of this, first, the news of the day starting with another kidnapping and CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PENHAUL (voice-over): Snatched by kidnappers and captured on camera, just hours after aid worker Margaret Hassan was taken hostage this proof of life was passed to Arabic language broadcaster Al- Jazeera.

Hassan is director of CARE International's operations in Iraq. She's a duel British-Iraqi citizen who's lived and breathed aid work in the country for half her life, so far no clues about the kidnappers' identities, no explanation why, no demands.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We'll do whatever we can obviously. This is -- this is someone who has actually lived in Iraq for 30 years. It's someone who is immensely respected, married to an Iraqi, someone who's doing her level best to help the country and I think it shows you the type of people we're up against that they would prepare to kidnap somebody like this. PENHAUL: Hassan's kidnapping comes as Blair considers a controversial order to redeploy British troops to more volatile areas near Baghdad. That could free up more U.S. Marines for a possible assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

U.S. warplanes pounded Fallujah again overnight. An Army spokesman said these houses were being used by fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al Qaeda. The spokesman said air strikes like these may have killed some of the terrorist network's leaders in recent days and destroyed some of its ammunition dumps.

Just north of Baghdad more fighting, this plume of smoke rises after insurgents rained mortar fire onto an Iraqi National Guard base. U.S. helicopters helped ferry away the dead and scores of injured, another blow to Iraq's efforts to build its own security forces.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, we're long past the time when anyone expected the Americans to be greeted with flowers in Iraq. Too much has happened. Too many IEDs and RPGs and flag-draped coffins arriving home.

Everyone's expectations have changed politicians here, soldiers there; again tonight, CNN's Jane Arraf.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF (voice-over): A year and a half after the end of the war there are few Americans talking about winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Now they're just trying to earn their trust. Soldiers still throw candy to children even from helicopters and they value friendly waves from townspeople.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now somebody sees someone throwing rocks at us. They usually try to drop a few bags of toys or candy. They won't do it the next time.

ARRAF: But the U.S. military's mission here is more complex than anyone bargained for in an environment more hostile than anyone expected. Increasingly they're aiming at more tangible goals.

LT. COL. STEVE BULLMORE, U.S. ARMY: Can we have trust and confidence in each other Iraqis and us and us and Iraqis? I would think that that's far easier than being of the same heart and of the same mind.

ARRAF: Walid Farid Abdul Salam, Chief of Police in Diyala in the Sunni Triangle, says trust between military commanders here and the police has built slowly. Now, he says, that has to trickle down to the level of ordinary Iraqis.

WALID FARID ABDUL SALAM, DIYALA CHIEF OF POLICE: We need time to convince our people of the intentions of the Americans, the intentions behind their presence and efforts for Iraq. ARRAF: After the war, Iraqis expected peace and prosperity in this oil rich country. Most have neither and they blame the United States.

"The Americans have brought us nothing concrete, only words" (UNINTELLIGIBLE) tells us reeling off a list of complaints.

American psychological operations teams still broadcast their messages in towns and cities but many of those messages are asking for help in defeating the insurgency.

To build the trust they need savvy military leaders devote a lot of time to talking with local leaders. At the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade they use lessons they learned in the ethnic cauldron of Kosovo, primarily patience.

COL. DANA PITTARD, U.S. ARMY: What we learned there is for meetings success is, is that you wait everybody out. You listen to everybody's issues.

ARRAF: Success, he says, won't be making Iraqis like the American presence here. They probably won't ever do that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to gain their confidence and cooperation in building a new Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ARRAF: How much of how Iraqis feel about U.S. forces here depends on really basic things like water and electricity and until those are restored the United States will never have the confidence of Iraqis they say -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, just let me report a little bit of news and then ask you something about it. CARE International has announced its suspending operations in Iraq after the kidnapping today. Much of the reconstruction effort getting help to the Iraqis depends on not just the U.S. government but these NGOs, these non-governmental organizations. Are they fleeing the country?

ARRAF: They have fled in many places, Aaron. Here in Kirkuk where we are there's been a huge problem of internally displaced people, internal refugees, if you will. Normally they would be taken care of by the United Nations. Normally schools would be provided, books by the United Nations.

Now that's just the U.N. The U.N. of course fled after their headquarters was bombed and hasn't really come back. They've had big conferences here trying to get NGOs to come in. They haven't come. Here it's relatively safe but there's still the perception that it's dangerous as evidenced by that kidnapping today in Baghdad. It is a huge problem -- Aaron.

BROWN: Jane, thank you.

And, again, just to repeat CARE International has just announced that it's going to pull all its people out of Iraq. It is simply too dangerous.

All this brings us to a central question tonight did the insurgency, which has claimed so many lives, Iraqi and American, have to happen? Could it have been avoided?

As we said at the top that's a central question in the reporting today by Michael Gordon of "The New York Times," "The Times" will print a series of pieces and Mr. Gordon will publish the rest in a book coming up. He is as shrewd a military writer as we know and we're always glad to have him on the program. Michael, it's nice to see you.

Let's just go back to shortly after the Americans arrived in Baghdad and General Franks comes in and there is, in fact, a plan to get American troops out, correct?

MICHAEL GORDON, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Correct, Aaron, and I was in Baghdad at the time living in this Abu Ghraib North Palace and I think speaking to you more or less during that time frame as well.

BROWN: Yes.

GORDON: But what happened and even -- it's surprising even to me having been there during this period and it emerged in some of my book research but when the Bush administration went in it had what I would consider to be some very optimistic and really unrealistic set of expectations about what would unfold in Iraq and their expectation essentially was to have a kind of an in and out war.

They wanted to go in, demolish the regime, hand over things to Iraqis, bring in multinational forces and remove American forces on a pretty expeditious basis. The plan that General Franks brought on April 16th, now this is really less than two weeks after American forces entered Baghdad, was to go down to a division plus by September, 2003 or some 30,000 troops. It seems fanciful now but that was the goal at the time.

BROWN: Now we know not everyone believed that was possible. General Shinseki talked about the need for several hundred thousand troops. Why didn't -- and even as you reported today Jay Garner, who first went in there to run the post war, Bremer, after Bremer, after said the same thing. They believed they didn't have enough troops there. They needed more troops there. Why didn't the military guys push harder on the civilian side to get what they needed?

GORDON: Well, I think this is a complicated question. There's no one answer. I think there are a number of factors at work. Number one, I think the Bush administration came in with a kind of attitude about nation building as it had been practiced by the Clinton administration in the Balkans.

It didn't really want to get engaged in that degree of nation building and it took as its model for Iraq I think Afghanistan where we made a fairly light effort. I think that was a factor.

I think another factor was that Secretary Rumsfeld at the Pentagon was pioneering a new approach to warfare where we'd use fewer ground troops and he's a very domineering personality, so I think that was a factor in shaping the plan.

And I think basically there was a sort of optimism in the Bush administration that events in Iraq might be such that the existing institutions, the army and the police they would continue to exist and the United States could hand over to them.

Now as for the military, I think General Franks got what General Franks asked for but I know that there were senior level people below him who were uneasy with it and all I can say is they sort of had their fingers crossed and hoped for the best.

The U.S. went under -- went into Iraq really under sort of a best case scenario and it didn't work out that way and the consequence I think is pretty important, which is that there was a very critical moment in April and May when the U.S. might have snuffed out the insurgency or at least tamped it down.

If it had had more forces and not only forces but more resources to bestow on the Iraqi people, as you noted in your report, they still want basic services, if the U.S. had been able to do more of that at that time, also had more force, if it had a bigger carrot and a bigger stick some senior level people who were involved in that think things might be different now.

BROWN: Tell me where the series goes tomorrow and the next day.

GORDON: This is cold out of my ongoing book effort, so I've been living in 2003 for the last year and just investigating this period. The one -- the series in today's "New York Times" really looks at all of these things I talked about how really the force levels were set for the occupation even though there were indications we might need more.

Tomorrow's story in "The New York Times" looks at intelligence and, you know, a very striking thing to me was intelligence was profoundly off target not only on WMD and 9/11 but on the kind of adversary that we were going to face in Iraq.

It did not foresee the Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary forces playing the role they did during the combat phase and, yes, the intel made reference to the possibility of an insurgency but it really didn't highlight it.

And I think this is an aspect of the intelligence community's performance that needs to be examined along with the WMD issue, which I think has been worked over pretty intensively.

BROWN: Michael, you don't need any pats on the back from me but I'll just tell you I thought it was as compelling a piece of reading today as I've seen in a long time, so congratulations. People who haven't read it ought to go online if they don't have access to the paper and read it there. And, again, the series continues tomorrow and the book will be out and it's good to see you, buddy thank you.

GORDON: OK, thank you.

BROWN: Michael Gordon of "The New York Times."

One other item before we head to break concerning terrorism and Spain's worst terrorism attack on record, the train bombings of the 11th of March. Spanish television today aired a security camera video of one of the explosions. It is not, as you would imagine, easy to watch, so we warn you now. It largely speaks for itself.

Two networks, including the state run network ran it, about 45 seconds, the explosion and the chaos, one of ten explosions on four trains in rapid succession during the morning rush hour. One hundred ninety-one people died that day in Spain, more than 1,800 were wounded.

Still ahead tonight from Atlanta, from Florida to Pennsylvania, the president and the Senator on the stump a look at the day in politics.

And while we're talking candidates, what about health care, their positions in their own words, we take a break first.

From Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: And on it goes.

If you're looking for fear factor you can find it on another network or perhaps coming soon to a campaign stump speech near you. As the election approaches, so apparently does the apocalypse each candidate painting the other as a mortal threat to Social Security or the safety of the free world depending on who's doing the talking.

So again tonight, a pair of reports starting with Candy Crowley traveling with the Kerry campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY (voice-over): Eyeing the shrinking pool of undecideds, John Kerry stalks a center now as he pushes the president to the right.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The president and his friends keep feeding the people at the top, keep walking on by and crossing over to the other side of the street and ignoring those who need the help in America. I'm going to be a champion for the middle class, for the working folks.

CROWLEY: Kerry promises better and higher paying jobs, more available cheaper health care and Social Security as is.

KERRY: I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut the benefits. I will not raise the retirement age.

CROWLEY: In the battleground of Pennsylvania where 28 percent of voters in 2000 were 60 and older, Kerry enjoys an edge but not a lot. He has been here 19 times this election season and this time pushing hard against the president's plan to let younger workers invest a portion of their Social Security taxes.

KERRY: He wants to be the first president in history to put the greatest retirement program in history at risk.

CROWLEY: In the time left, Kerry's task is twofold, convince fence sitters that he is non-scary, non-threatening, non-liberal presidential material and keep his base wound up by defining the election in the starkest of terms.

KERRY: A choice between one candidate who will save Social Security and another who will undermine it.

CROWLEY (on camera): Kerry aides shrug off recent polls showing the president with a slight but perceptible lead. "We're comfortable where we are" said one strategist adding, "It is a difficult task to unseat an incumbent president."

Candy Crowley CNN, Dayton, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Next now to the president who again lit into Senator Kerry on Iraq and terrorism. He also addressed though some of the Senator's allegations on social issues, which tells us what that he's on the defensive? Perhaps or that he simply understands the importance of leaving no charge left unanswered so late in the game.

Here's our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Campaigning in must-win Florida for the president today spent largely on defense answering attacks Mr. Bush calls cynical fear mongering.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On November the 2nd the people of America will reject the politics of fear and vote for an agenda of hope and opportunity and security.

KING: At The Villages, the voter rich retirement community northwest of Orlando rebutting Senator Kerry's claim that a second Bush term might bankrupt Social Security and bring a restoration of the draft.

BUSH: We will keep the promise of Social Security for our seniors and there will be no draft as long as I'm the president.

KING: The shortage of flu vaccines is both a health problem and a campaign issue. Senator Kerry blames the president who calls that charge ludicrous but nonetheless took time in St. Petersburg to make sure it did not go unanswered.

BUSH: We have millions of vaccine doses on hand for the most vulnerable Americans and millions more will be shipped in the coming weeks.

KING: The Bush campaign prides itself on knocking the other guy off stride and Tuesday brought a new line on Senator Kerry's evolving views on the Iraq War.

BUSH: In a time of great challenge in the world the commander- in-chief must stand on principle not on the shifting sands of political convenience.

KING: So, the uncharacteristically defensive tone on Social Security, the draft and the flu was all the more striking but the rebuttals necessary, Bush aides say, because the race here and nationally is so tight with just two weeks left.

BUSH: My opponent will say anything he thinks will benefit him politically at the time.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Early voting, of course, already underway here in Florida. This is one state and, of course, nationally as well where the elderly vote is critical and the trend in that regard is not heading in the president's direction. About seven weeks ago, just out of the Republican convention, Mr. Bush had a seven point lead among voters age 65 and older. Aaron, tonight a dead heat.

BROWN: John, just on the Social Security there's no question the president has talked about wanting to privatize a portion of it. Has he said at all in the campaign how he would pay for the transition period which could be certainly billions of dollars, maybe a trillion or more?

KING: It could be as much as $2 trillion according to some estimates, not all of those estimates from liberal think tanks. Some conservative groups think it might cost as much as $2 trillion. And the answer is no.

What the president has said is that he believes this must be done and what he would do if reelected is bring a group of Democrats, Republicans, smart people together and work it out.

He likes to note that the late Democratic Senator from New York Daniel Patrick Moynihan was helping him in this regard with the previous commission of the Bush administration but how will he pay for it? No, he says he'll just have somebody explore that if he wins a second term.

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

Coming up making sure, speaking of Florida, 2004 looks nothing like 2000 except for the palm trees. We'll look at one Florida couple being extraordinarily careful this election year.

We'll also take a look at polls coming up. Also tonight the hard sell in high school getting teenagers to volunteer for the service during the time of war, we'll take a break first.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On November 2nd, two weeks from today, it's fair to say no state will feel itself under the microscope quite like Florida is sure to. The 2000 election mess set off a wave of lawsuits and voting reforms.

It also may be fueling a desire to vote early this year. Some states began accepting ballots this week and, in Florida, the lines have been longer than many expected.

Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald and Shelly Kronfeld don't mind the two hour wait to cast an early ballot in Palm Beach County, anything they say to avoid what happened last time when they voted inadvertently for conservative candidate Pat Buchanan.

DONALD KROMFELD, EARLY VOTER: I like to listen to him but I really did not intend to vote for him.

FREED: Donald was raised as a Democrat. He and his wife were among the thousands of voters confused by the county's infamous butterfly ballot. This week's early voting lines are as long as people's political memories.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to make sure, if possible, my vote gets counted so that's why I came early.

FREED: Since 2000, Palm Beach's butterfly ballot has gone through a metamorphosis. People here and in other Florida counties now vote by touch screen computer but not everyone. The Democrats are predicting problems and blame the state's GOP leadership.

SCOTT MADDOX, FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN: When they could have fixed this by having one technology, they allowed many different technologies and it's going to lead to confusion.

FREED: Florida's Republican secretary of state denies Democratic allegations that she's too partisan and insists that Florida's electoral reforms have already been tested.

GLENDA HOOD (R), FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: From the track record we've seen since all the changes were put in place and first implemented by the supervisors in the 2002 election cycle, there have been hundreds of successful elections as a result of those changes.

FREED: And was the Kronfeld's vote successful back in Palm Beach?

(on camera): So four years ago you walked out feeling uncertain about how you voted?

KRONFELD: Absolutely.

FREED: And today?

KRONFELD: Perfect.

FREED (voice-over): One case of closure still two weeks to Election Day.

Jonathan Freed CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: My e-mail is being swamped today by people, in this case, Kerry supporters, upset with a poll, a Gallup poll.

I'm reasonably certain, had the poll numbers been different, my e-mail would have been swamped by Bush supporters upset with the poll. So it is with politics these days. But it is also true that polling is part science and part art. And the more you try and figure out who will actually vote, the more subjective it gets. Or at least I think that's true.

Joining us from Washington tonight, Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and a former president of the Gallup Organization as well. And, in New York, Lee Miringoff, president of the National Council on Public Polls and the director of the Marist College Poll.

And it's good to see you all.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Andrew, let's start with Gallup. Gallup has been taking a beating from the Democratic side, from the Kerry side. They'll argue that their model is all wrong. They'll argue that the head of the organization is biased, biased Republican. They argue all this stuff. From where you sit, is there any truth to any of it?

ANDREW KOHUT, PRESIDENT, PEW RESEARCH CENTER: Well, the Gallup numbers have been highly variable. And it's been mostly in -- on their likely voter base, not on -- when we look at the results of all registered voters in the Gallup surveys.

But there's no truth to this issue of Gallup being in the pocket of the Republicans or anyone else. They're a wonderful independent, professional organization. The voter screens or the likely voter scale that Gallup uses is really very well-tested. It's one of the rare instances where we can go back and actually look up the behavior of the respondents and check behavior to answers.

Gallup routinely -- and Pew does as well -- look up what our respondents do, because their voting records are public records. And that isn't to say there isn't some loopiness in the scale at various points in time, because, unlike a voting intentions question, where we ask people, how do you feel today, in the likely voter situation, we're saying, what are you going to do two or three weeks from now?

And that tends to be a little bit more variable.

BROWN: Lee, there are lots of variables out there in this election, it seems to me, the issues. Among them, war is a motivating force. All these new registered voters. How can pollsters accurately project who is going to vote and who is not going to vote?

LEE MIRINGOFF, INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC OPINION: Well, as you identify, this is the art side. And there is no copyright on this in terms of defining a likely voter.

And everybody does it a little differently, which is why there's this discrepancy in some of the poll results from one poll to the other. And part of the issue may be this avalanche of voters who may show up this time who haven't voted in the past. And if the organization relies very heavily on prior voting experience, whether you voted four years ago or eight years ago, as a predictor whether you're going to vote this time, then there may be inaccuracy of some of those mix of voters, Democrats, Republicans, white, black, Latino, whatever it is.

You want to make you're getting the right mix. And you have to have a model that's dynamic enough to pick up all these new registrants and first-time voters who may literally flood some of the voting booths this time.

BROWN: Lee, give me an example of one question you would ask someone to determine -- not the only question, but one you would ask to determine they were a likely voter.

MIRINGOFF: Well, simply, first of all, you're starting with registered voters, a group of eligible, potentially eligible people to vote. And you might say whether chances of voting are excellent, good, fair and poor.

You may want to look at people's interests, people very interested, not so interested. And you start looking at different combinations of people in trying to determine what is the electorate that is likely to show up. And, then again, we're talking about campaigns with big get-out-the-vote efforts. And that may have an impact on all this. So it's a very dynamic, fluid situation. That's why there may be some variation in some of these national polls that Andrew alluded to.

BROWN: Andrew, let me bring this back to where I began, with the flood of e-mails.

There seems to be a feeling that, when polls are reported, it leads to a self-fulfilling result, that bad news for Kerry means bad news for Kerry in two weeks because of the poll. Is there any evidence of that at all?

KOHUT: There's no evidence of it.

In fact, given the zigzagging nature of the polls in this election cycle, there's -- it's pretty good proof that a poll showing -- a Gallup poll showing a big Bush lead at one point, it changes rather quickly to a Kerry lead and vice-versa. Obviously, if people were only following what they saw in the polls, they'd stick to the one answer that they saw at a certain point in time.

But there's no scientific evidence of a bandwagon effect.

MIRINGOFF: And, Aaron, I would jump in on that.

Candidates win or lose this on their own. You look at the debates.

BROWN: Yes.

MIRINGOFF: Kerry does well in the debates, he does better in the polls.

People vote for who they like. Were us pollster types so powerful, Andrew and I would start picking presidents. It isn't that way. People sometimes vote for people even though they think they're not going to win just because they like that person. And I think that's what we're dealing with.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: I hope they do. I hope they vote for the person they like, and not who the poll says they ought to vote for.

MIRINGOFF: Absolutely.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's good to talk to you both. I expect we'll talk again before the election. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Still to come on the program tonight, how far people are going to get a flu shot and what the federal government is doing to help.

And, later, where the candidates stand on health care, the facts.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT from Atlanta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Two-thousand four may well be remembered as a black eye for government health officials, flu season fast approaching, a serious shortage of flu vaccine. Some people, many of them seniors, many with health problems, are going to extraordinary lengths to get flu shots. The government continues to say more vaccine is on the way. But that hasn't stopped the worry. It's a matter of math.

Here's CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In New York, a 94-year-old woman desperately searches for a flu shot. Nelly Anderson called two recommended doctors and contacted the Health Department.

NELLY ANDERSON, 94 YEARS OLD: Every one of them was out of flu shots.

COHEN: She tried her own doctor.

ANDERSON: He was on the phone quite upset and said, you won't believe it, the first time in my life I can't help my patients. He did not get any.

COHEN: Despite her age and a bad hip, she's willing to wait in line. But a neighbor tried that.

ANDERSON: She waited three 1/2 hours. And she came back and said, don't even try it.

COHEN: This drama is being played out across the country, with lines from Georgia to California. In New Jersey, one town is holding a lottery to see who will get flu shots.

RAYMOND MCCARTHY, MAYOR OF BLOOMFIELD, NEW JERSEY: When you have thousands, 8,000 senior citizens that we have in the township and you only have 300 shots, you got to give them out.

COHEN: The federal government is negotiating to buy 1.5 million doses from Canada. Already, some Americans are crossing the border on their own. Americans like Anna Smith, who says she needs the shot because cancer treatment has weakened her immune treatment.

ANNA SMITH, CANCER PATIENT: I can't get one in my own country.

COHEN: The top U.S. health officials said Tuesday that 2.6 additional doses will be available in January.

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We need all of us to take a deep breath. We've successfully worked through vaccine supply problems in the past. And we're doing so this time as well.

COHEN: But a look at the numbers shows the newly-found vaccine won't even come close to making up for the shortage. The government had planned to have about 100 million flu shots this year, but now predicts just 58 million will be available. Plus, January is well after the flu season has begun. So, it's not clear how useful the additional shots will be.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On the presidential campaign trail, the flu vaccine shortage is refocusing attention on health care, which many voters rank among their top concerns. And that is where our weeklong series on key campaign issues picks up tonight.

The number, familiar by now -- we hear it often -- more than 40 million Americans have no health insurance, about 15 percent of the population. They're mostly the working poor, the unemployed and the young. They can't afford to get sick, not the flu or anything else. Both candidates say they'll reduce the number of uninsured.

A look now at how they plan on doing it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will preserve the system of private medicine that makes America's health care the best in the world.

BROWN (voice-over): The president's current program includes the Medicare Reform Bill passed last year that already provides a tax credit for drug expenses and privately-issued drug discount cards that have had mixed success and will also create a drug benefit and tax- sheltered health savings accounts in 2006.

There's also a program to encourage price competition between brand-name and generic drugs, an increase in the number of federally- funded health care centers in poor communities and rule changes that make it easier for states to cover more low-income citizens. In the second term, the president says, he would push for the formation of voluntary associations of individuals and small businesses to buy health insurance at lower costs.

There would be liability reform to limit the amount patients could win in malpractice lawsuits, tax credits for long-term care and high deductible health insurance, tax deductions for low-income families who buy health insurance and a program to enable coverage for low-income children by a combination of government and faith-based organizations.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Health care is not a privilege for the wealthy and the connected and the elected. It is a right for all Americans.

BROWN: For his part, John Kerry says he would allow the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada, overhaul Medicare to provide increased coverage, including some prescription drugs, and use government buying power to negotiate lower drug prices. He would create a federal fund to reimburse employers for the cost of catastrophic health insurance, which would thereby reduce most insurance premiums.

Kerry also says he would open the health care system used by Congress to all Americans with tax credits for low-income purchases, that he would create a bill of rights for patients in conflict with their HMOs, restrict some malpractice lawsuits, but not impose a cap on damages, and, finally, expand federal and state insurance programs, so that all children and 95 percent of all Americans would be covered.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: The candidates on health care. Tomorrow, the candidates on the economy.

Ahead from us tonight, reading, writing and war, the latest addition to high school campuses these days, the military recruitment office.

And later, as always, wherever we are, morning papers.

We're in Atlanta tonight. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We began tonight with Iraq, and segment seven takes us back there; 19 months into the mission, with more than 1,100 American troops dead already and the ranks stretched thin, we wondered what the job of military recruiters is like these days. Is it harder to get young people to enlist? We know that the standards for enlistment have been lowered a bit, not a lot, but some. Are kids still willing to join?

Here's CNN's Maria Hinojosa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the 1,800 students in West Side High School in Macon, Georgia, school means buses and lunchrooms and class and a trip past military recruiters, the Navy, the Marines or the Air Force, searching for teenagers ready to serve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People who are energetic, people who are passionate, people who want to make a contribution, not the people who just want to sit on the sidelines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's got all the information you need. What I'm going to do is give you a call.

HINOJOSA: Years ago, military recruiters in a public high school were less common. But the federal No Child Left Behind act forced schools to not only open their doors, but to hand over home phone numbers and addresses for every 17- and 18-year-old student or else face loss of their federal aid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I average a total of about 70-something phone calls a day, daily. And I call grads, people that graduated in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you signed up yet, man? Why not, man?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's my ship date, September 9.

HINOJOSA: Recruiter Zeke Mott is a graduate of West Side High.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They come up to ask me why I joined and when did I join and how am I doing. And I tell them, the Navy's a good thing. It's a good thing. I did a year of college. I've already done a year of college. I found out, college isn't for everybody. It wasn't for me.

HINOJOSA: These recruiters say they have no problems meeting their quotas. The Marines here have a goal of 12 new sign-ups a month, the Army, 60 new recruits a year. But with the war, their job has become more difficult.

TEELA BOGAN, ARMY RECRUITER: A lot times, there are people that are interested, but their mom will call and say, I'm sorry. I don't want you to talk to my son or daughter.

HINOJOSA (on camera): Because?

BOGAN: Because they're scared. I tell them up front what can happen. It's their choice what they want to do. I don't force anything on them. And I tell them the good and the bad. And it's up to them to make an informed decision.

HINOJOSA (voice-over): Seventeen-year-old Dwonn Finney has already made his decision. A focused student with good enough grades, recruiters have told him he'll start getting a salary the day he starts basic training in the Army and an added cash bonus if he joins the infantry.

DWONN FINNEY, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: I want to get paid while I go to college and not as a burden on my parents to pay for me in college. And the quickest way I can do that is go into the Army with college.

HINOJOSA: Kevin Brown has already signed up to join the Marines. His motive, a sense of duty.

KEVIN BROWN, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: What changed it as in a definite go in the military was seeing September 11, and just because it was like, well, our nation's just been attacked.

HINOJOSA: Many teenagers from this high school talk about wanting to serve their country, about giving something back, a sense so strong that though some, like Jennifer Nelson (ph) may have questions about this war, they're still prepared to sign up for military service.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be one of the great people that helps to stop it and slow it down.

HINOJOSA: What won't slow down? The pace of recruiting for America's military at war.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, Macon, Georgia.

BROWN: Still ahead from Atlanta tonight, morning papers.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

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

We will start with "The International Herald Tribune." We mentioned this earlier, but, honestly, it bears repeating. Tomorrow -- and you don't have to take "The International Tribune." You can buy a "New York Times" and get the story, too. "U.S. Intelligence Getting the Signals Wrong," Michael Gordon's second in his series of three pieces. I'm just telling you, the reporting on that stuff is terrific. And it's why, for my money, a newspaper is the best bargain there is. OK, enough of the plugging of "The Times." They won't send me the paper, OK? Call me and I'll explain that to you.

"The Detroit News." "GM Idles 900 Here." That would be here in Detroit. Down -- here's a story where people will read, though -- not that they don't care about that, because they do? "Patch Touted as Post-Menopausal Viagra." It's a patch for women to increase their sex drive. So there you go. How much money will that bring in?

"The Examiner." The other paper in San Francisco is "The Chronicle." And there's "The Examiner." I don't know what happened to "The Chronicle" -- "$1 Billion Bid for Napa Wine Giant Robert Mondavi. Shares Surge 30 Percent on the News."

"The Miami Herald." "Another Gamble," this is a story about slot machines at racetracks. I've never understood why there aren't casinos in South Florida. It seems like a sort of natural thing, but they always vote them down. I don't know if South Floridians vote them down or if Northern Floridians vote them down.

"Boston Herald." "Blood Feud. Yankees Soar Loser Nabbed in Sox Fan Slaying." Come on, people. It's a game. OK? Don't be killing each other. And, by the way, the Red Sox are the official team of NEWSNIGHT for at least another day.

Forget that one. Ten. OK.

"The Chicago Sun-Times" ends it. "Feds: Midway" -- that's the airport -- "Midway Agents Tipped Off Drug Ring." Customs officers allegedly gave confidential data to smugglers in the post-9/11 era. The weather tomorrow in Chicago, by the way...

(CHIMES)

BROWN: We brought that with us -- is "improving."

We'll wrap it up and preview tomorrow, a very cool story to tell you about, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Quickly, tomorrow night on the program, an absolutely remarkable story of bravery and courage and heartbreak and hope about one woman's determined effort to rescue the tiny community of Jews in Iraq. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This house had fallen in around her. And we sat down on some stones in this courtyard. And she looked at me. And she said, who are you? And I looked at her and I said, I'm Jewish. And I'm here to take you home. And she said, I thought everyone had forgotten about me. And I said, no, we just couldn't get to you, but now I'm here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: It's one of the best stories we've ever done, 10:00 tomorrow. We'll see you then.

Good night for all of us.

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