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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Rice Nominated to Succeed Powell at State; Investigation Under Way Into Falluja Incident; Is Specter Too Moderate for Modern-Day GOP?
Aired November 16, 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.
We won't lead with Iraq tonight but we do suspect that what you'll remember most about the program comes from there, two stories very different but part of the larger whole that come together in an odd sort of way tonight.
The first is more on the incident first reported yesterday of a Marine, perhaps more than one Marine in fact, shooting wounded Iraqi insurgents. Lots of reaction to that story today and we expect more tonight. We said in our e-mail to regular viewers today that before you judge too harshly perhaps you should walk a few Falluja blocks in the boots of those young Marines.
And that is the second story, an extraordinary piece of reporting by British reporter Lindsey Hilsum who in five gripping minutes captures, as well as anything we have seen, what it's like to be a soldier or a Marine in Falluja these days, so there are war stories of a very powerful sort tonight and we'll get to them shortly.
First, the whip and the president's historic choice to be the next secretary of state, our Senior White House Correspondent John King with us again tonight, John a headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president calls for Condi. He calls for a friend. He wants the country and the world now to call her Madam Secretary. Condoleezza Rice is without a doubt loyal to this president, some say perhaps to a fault -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you.
Next to the Pentagon and the investigation of the Marine who killed a wounded man in Falluja, developments today, Jamie McIntyre with that and, Jamie, a headline.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the U.S. military investigators are looking at whether not just one but four wounded insurgents may have been shot in that mosque and whether there was any justification.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you.
And finally, Senator Arlen Specter, conservative groups targeting him, will he be too moderate a Republican for the modern Republican Party? CNN's Ed Henry has the story and the headline tonight.
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Senator Arlen Specter today won a key endorsement in his bid to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee but the battle is not over yet -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ed, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also as we said a remarkable view of Falluja from the streets and the rooftops of a very dangerous place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aiming in that window.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That window right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like a doorway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The Falluja story as you have not seen it before, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the president's new foreign policy team and a team it clearly now is. Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley didn't get where they've gotten by going it alone. This almost certainly means a more united voice to the rest of the world, also perhaps a more single-minded view of it.
We begin tonight with our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): In the Roosevelt Room, tapping one of his closest confidantes and a veteran White House insider for a critical and very public new role.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Secretary of State is America's face to the world and in Dr. Rice the world will see the strength, the grace and the decency of our country.
KING: Rice teared up as the president talked of her upbringing in the segregated south and the lesson from her parents he says guides her world view.
BUSH: That human dignity is the gift of God and that the ideals of America would overcome oppression.
KING: Both the president and Rice praised outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell and she immediately tried to calm fears one of her jobs is to stifle anti-Bush dissent in the State Department's bar flung bureaucracy. CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE: I have the utmost admiration and respect for their skill, their professionalism and their dedication.
KING: With Rice off to State, Mr. Bush also elevated her deputy Stephen Hadley to national security adviser. It was another reminder of the premium Mr. Bush puts on loyalty and of his perhaps unrivaled trust in the 50-year-old former Stanford Provost who would be the second woman and second African American secretary of state. There is little doubt Rice will be confirmed by the Senate but not without first facing tough questions about her judgment and management skills.
DAVID ROTHKOFF, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTL. PEACE: They dropped the ball in terms of pre-9/11 preparation for terrorism. They dropped the ball in terms of post conflict stabilization of Iraq. They dropped the ball in terms of managing intelligence flows and now she's going to a much bigger bureaucracy.
KING: Powell was known around the world as someone who would listen and convey to the president views he might not want to hear. Rice, on the other hand, is known to have shared the president's anger at Germany and especially France for opposing the Iraq war but the French ambassador to Washington says he is confident Rice and the president want fence mending not revenge or retribution.
JEAN-DAVID LEVITTE, FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: I wouldn't say that Condi Rice is a hard liner. I would say she's brilliant. She's determined but she's very pragmatic, open to dialogue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: The challenges are many and they are tough from war in Iraq to new peacemaking efforts in the Middle East to the nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea and, for the woman dubbed "warrior princess" by her staff in the days after the 9/11 attacks, the fundamental question is this. Will she be a rubber stamp for her friend the president or will she now emerge from his shadow and add a voice of her own, a unique new voice to American diplomacy -- Aaron?
BROWN: There are so many interesting things here but one of which is as the national security adviser she had literally daily access to the president, an office down the hall more or less. In some respects she is farther from him now than she was.
KING: She is. The secretary of state, the current secretary of state comes over about once a week for lunch and he participates in the National Security Council meetings the president has two or three times a week but it will be an interesting test or new chapter in the relationship, if you will.
They are as close as any two people on this White House staff. You might say Karl Rove, Karen Hughes when she was here in the old days. She's gone now. But Condoleezza Rice has been as close and working as close with this president as anyone else here, especially because of 9/11 and the portfolio. So, it's an interesting change.
BROWN: John, thank you, John King, our Senior White House Correspondent.
A day of changes all across Washington, Secretary Powell's deputy Richard Armitage, long time friend, has tendered his resignation, not surprising, with more departures almost certain to come farther down the line.
Conflicting reports tonight on Tom Ridge at the Department of Homeland Security, senior administration sources telling us he will leave. His spokesman calls such reports news to him.
And the Senate has a new minority leader. He's Democrat Harry Reid of the State of Nevada. When asked about working with his Republican colleagues, Senator Reid said "I'm ready to dance or fight, their choice."
Much to report from Iraq tonight, including a Marine's eye view of Falluja that shows if nothing else, how tough that job still is but theirs isn't the only job. American and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations in Mosul in the north, the third largest city in the country.
Bridges have been closed to civilians, the city under curfew while an Army task force goes after pockets of resistance, insurgents who took over many of the police stations last week in Mosul.
The resistance left another calling card today, another ugly reminder of how insane the situation has become. It appears that the kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan has been murdered. A videotape surfaced today purportedly showing her killing.
She was captured by insurgents weeks ago, her crime apparently to those who murdered her was trying to do good, not political good, not good in support of one side or the other, just trying to do good.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): We met her in the worst way, kidnapped, terrorized, pleading for her life but Margaret Hassan lived a life of generosity not desperation, compassionate, dedicated.
Her life's work was helping the children of her adopted land. It is, we think, impossible to look at a picture like this and describe her as childless, though she was, but her country's most vulnerable and impoverished found comfort in her.
She was a native of Dublin, fell in love with an Iraqi when they were both students in London, moved to Baghdad, became fluent in Arabic, converted to Islam. For the last 12 years, Margaret Hassan ran CARE's office in Baghdad, her final project the rehabilitation of a clinic for those with spinal injuries.
Shortly after her kidnapping, a small army of wheelchairs rolled through the streets of Baghdad urging her release. Today, harder souls prevailed and Margaret Hassan died and whatever the new Iraq is to be, it will be that much less because of it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In Falluja today, troops spent another day mopping up. This, of course, is a euphemism for going street by street by sniper infested street into booby trapped buildings and stepping over one body after another, mopping up indeed.
Two reports tonight beginning first with CNN's Jane Arraf, who is with the U.S. Army Infantry and joins us on the phone at the beginning of what we suspect will be another tough day, Jane, good evening.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (by telephone): Good evening, Aaron.
The explosions here are fewer and further between and there isn't quite as much gunfire as there has been, so the battle, the intensity of the battle has certainly lessened.
But you're absolutely right, as we go from street to street soldiers and Marines continue to find horrific things, not just places where they might have done what they did to Margaret Hassan but documents upon documents unearthed in this sector or town, a stronghold of foreign fighters, some of them linked to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, landmines on every corner.
We were taken to one house where they had homemade rocket launchers and armor-piercing rockets and an amazing menacing collection of weapons. It's going to be a long time before civilians are allowed back in the city -- Aaron.
BROWN: There was a report today out of the Red Cross that perhaps as many as 800 civilians had died. Have you seen any evidence that would support a number of that size?
ARRAF: We've been working really hard to track that down and the latest guidance from Marine officials and Iraqi security people who we talk to daily who were out there say there are very few civilians in the city in general, in fact, they now estimate perhaps five percent of the population, which would be less than 15,000 people.
Certainly, Aaron, in a bombardment, a campaign like this, some of them would have died and they wouldn't have been able to get to the hospital to potentially save them. Their relatives wouldn't be able to take them to the cemetery to bury them. They would have been buried just where they fell essentially.
It's going to be a long time before we determine how many of them would have died but there has been a very small civilian population here to begin with -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf who is in Falluja with the Army tonight.
Mopping up is more than hard work. It can be ugly work as well. One episode which came to light yesterday continues to draw attention and raise questions about whether it was a legitimate act or war or a war crime, from the Pentagon tonight CNN's Jamie McIntyre. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (voice-over): The video taken by an American television reporter indicates as many as four wounded people may have been shot to death in the mosque on Saturday. One squad of Marines is already inside when gunshots are heard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you shoot them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yeah man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did they have any weapons on them?
MCINTYRE: As the reporter with a second squad of Marines enters the mosque, he sees men he recognizes as insurgent fighters who were wounded and disarmed the day before dying of what appears to be fresh wounds. Then he witnesses another shooting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's (expletive) faking he's dead!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, he's breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's (expletive) he's (expletive dead!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dead now.
MCINTYRE: Human rights groups that have reviewed the tape think it's a clear war crime.
STEVE CRAWSHAW, LONDON DIR., HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: What we're seeing here and we can see it in the body language of the soldiers is they do not feel under threat and really every single soldier and every single commander, every soldier on the ground knows it's an absolute basic of warfare that when you have a wounded person who is not a threat to them, he's absolutely prohibited to further (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to kill that person. It's a real basic of international law.
MCINTYRE: The investigation will look into all four deaths and the actions of all the Marines involved.
LT. GEN. JOHN SATTLER, U.S. MARINES: Let me make it perfectly clear, we follow the law of armed conflict and we hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability.
MCINTYRE: The video does not answer all the key questions. The wounded had been left behind by other Marines. Could they have gotten weapons or set booby traps? Did the Marine know that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there a reasonable apprehension of serious bodily injury or death on the part of the person who pulled the trigger here and that would trump, in my opinion, any question of whether the person, whether the deceased was a prisoner, was wounded or anything.
BRIG. GEN. JAMES MARKS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): A buddy the day before had been killed in a very similar incident where an insurgent who was playing dead had, in fact, been booby trapped and a number of Marines had been injured and wounded and one Marine was killed, so you keep all of that in context.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says if there is any evidence that U.S. troops have killed any enemy fighters wrongfully, those troops are investigated and prosecuted, if warranted.
One example of that, they say, is it doesn't have to be caught on videotape. There was a first lieutenant or rather a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who was charged with premeditated murder this week in the death of an Iraqi in Sadr City -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.
Whatever the doings of a single Marine or the wrong doings as the case may be, he and his comrades are engaged in some of the roughest, most dangerous work of the war, which is something to keep in mind if you are inclined to judge. And, as you'll see, they are going about it more coolly than most of us could imagine under the best of circumstances, which these are not.
Lindsey Hilsum of Britain's ITN filed this report while on patrol with the Marine Corps' India Company.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LINDSEY HILSUM, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The last cigarette before heading out, certain attack they call it. The Marines move through the ruins of Falluja looking for any gunmen who have not fled or been killed, the most desperate and determined.
Tanks rumble in. The Americans were in this neighborhood the day before but maybe the insurgents crept back overnight. The Marines have been told to comb the mosque for weapons and, as they do, the firing starts.
It turns into a firefight. The armored vehicle arrives with more ammunition because the houses around the mosque are full of fighters. A group of Marines is pinned down on a flat rooftop. We're filming from an armored vehicle on the street below.
The heavier weapons fire a barrage at the insurgents. They call it suppressive fire. A Marine has been injured and his colleagues need to administer first aid and get him out. A stretcher is brought. This is a serious casualty and it may already be too late but the rest of the group now needs to get out too under intense fire. This is the most dangerous engagement India Company has had in Falluja.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got a Medivac coming on.
HILSUM: We weren't allowed to film the casualty. This one was loaded into the M-track (ph) and taken away. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) crosses the street. They're going to hit the insurgents with an empty tank missile.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's going to happen, M-16s, 240, we're going to pop up, going to do five seconds of suppression, all right, slow in M016s. It's like two bursts. That way (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is going to show me where the fire is coming from and I can look at the building, all right? You and you, ready, set, go.
HILSUM: The heavy fire keeps the insurgents' heads down. The tracer has shown the man with the missile the target.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll use that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then one aiming in that window, that window right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like a doorway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh!
HILSUM: The back blasts of the missile engulfs everyone in dust. They're calling an air strike and the troops must quickly leave the danger area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) all right. Start with the guns. Guns are going first. Let's go guns.
HILSUM: They rush down the stairs to find a new position. Fearing the insurgents may still be active, they run down the street. The debris of the day's battle lies in their path, a rocket launcher, a flattened Kalashnikov. From a safer rooftop we filmed tanks moving along the streets ready to fire a round into each house where there might still be resistance.
CAPT. BRIAN CHONTOSH, U.S. MARINES: There's probably a good 20 or 30 down in that last corner and they're pinched right now. The whole division's got them surrounded and this is where they were. They've been using this mosque over here to treat their wounded, so inside that mosque it's all dirty.
And on this last trip the houses down to our front about 300 meters just full of gunshot wounds and stuff trying to get them treated and they don't want to give up. We tried talking to them with our interpreter, getting them to surrender, walk out on the street. They're telling us they'd rather die than come out and surrender, so they're going to die.
HILSUM: The Marines begin to relax. The clash is nearing its end.
(on camera): They've made a tactical withdrawal to this rooftop here waiting for airpower to come in and bomb the remaining insurgents. They think that there's at least another half dozen still in there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five seconds.
HILSUM: Night is falling as the Marines go on foot to see whether the combined power of all their weaponry has destroyed their enemy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) check out the bodies there.
HILSUM: In the wreckage of the houses along the street near the mosque they find the bodies of 21 fighters. According to their documents, these five came from the neighboring town of Ramadi, terrorists to the Americans, martyrs to those who support their cause.
The end of the Muslim fast of Ramadan is marked by the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) moon. Americans control Falluja, the ruined city of mosques.
Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News, Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One day.
Ahead on the program a Republican Senator and the Republicans who want him out of the picture when it comes to approving federal judges.
And later, is a child's death from diabetes a case of first degree murder, a break first?
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Forget the loneliness of the long distance runner. Try being the senior Senator from the State of Pennsylvania. A moderate Republican whose seniority entitles him to chair the Judiciary Committee but whose moderation and candor may have cost him the job. A lot depends on how badly conservative groups want his scalp. Either way it's a lonely and less than dignified moment for the senior Senator.
So, from Capitol Hill tonight here's CNN's Ed Henry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HENRY (voice-over): A day of high drama in the Senate as Arlen Specter finally seemed to gain momentum. After two grueling face-to- face meetings with Republican colleagues, Specter won the endorsement of Oren Hatch, the outgoing chairman of the judiciary panel.
Hatch said he believes Specter will be a great chairman but conservatives are still pressuring Republican leaders to block Specter for suggesting it will be hard for President Bush to get opponents of abortion rights confirmed to the Supreme Court. Despite Hatch's support, some key lawmakers are staying non-committal.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: The chairman of the Judiciary Committee is a very important position dealing with the president's judicial nominations. It was a big issue in the campaign. Senator Specter knows that and he's been busily at work reassuring lots of us on that issue and this will take its course and we'll make a decision in due time.
HENRY: The Christian Defense Coalition held a demonstration on Capitol Hill and suggested they delivered the election for Republicans and are now owed a conservative judiciary chairman.
REV. PATRICK MAHONEY, CHRISTIAN DEFENSE COALITION: If Senator Specter becomes head of the Judiciary, it is a betrayal and a slap in the face to millions of pro-life Americans who worked to help reelect this president and get a 55 Republican majority in the Senate.
HENRY (on camera): Several Republican Senators said Specter privately made a good case that he will be fair to judicial nominees who do not share his views on issues like abortion.
(voice-over): But Specter is not out of the woods yet. Republican Senators will not vote on his fate until January, so conservative activists have just begun to fight.
CHRIS SLATTERY, CHRISTIAN DEFENSE COALITION: You're going to see a fight like none other that this movement has ever put forward.
HENRY: A pivotal player, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who wants to run for president in four years. After his two meetings with Specter, Frist was asked if his colleague will get the job. The majority leader said: "We'll see."
Ed Henry, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One other bit of business from the House side of the Congress. Tomorrow, House Republican leaders are expected to change their internal rules to allow Majority Leader Tom DeLay to keep his job even if he's indicted in Texas on campaign finance charges, a Republican aide calling it a defense against what he described as a political witch hunt.
Back now to the Bush cabinet, a lot of changes underway and many questions as to what the final lineup will be, not unusual for second term presidents to reshape their administration. With all the comings and goings making headlines, it's easy to focus on the individual parts of the story.
But, as our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield reports tonight, there is the larger picture to consider.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I submitted my resignation as secretary of state.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Colin Powell is leaving.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Mr. President, it is an honor.
GREENFIELD: Condoleezza Rice is arriving and attention should be paid. Powell is by far the best known member of the cabinet, the most popular who less than a decade ago was a serious presidential prospect. Rice is as close to the president as any in his administration.
Powell's disagreements with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney about the path to war with Iraq were among the worst kept secrets in Washington. The frustrations he and his allies voiced became near daily fare in the media. For their part the more hawkish voices in and around the Bush White House made little secret of their feelings toward Powell.
A year and a half ago, ex-House speaker Newt Gingrich accused the State Department of a "deliberate and systematic effort to undermine the president's policies." He didn't mention Powell but then everybody knows who was running the State Department.
(on camera): But there's another dimension to this departure and to the departure of some half dozen members of the president's cabinet, a dimension that a lot of this windy speculation doesn't acknowledge all that much. These days the cabinet is just not that big a deal.
(voice-over): For one thing, they rarely do what their counterparts in Great Britain do, resign on principle when they disagree strongly enough with the president. Two key allies did that over the war in Iraq in Great Britain. Two American secretaries of state have done that in the last century.
Oh sure, the cabinet members are handy lightning rods, easy to jettison when storm clouds brew. Jimmy Carter threw four of them over the side in 1979 when his poll numbers tanked. Bush canned Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to signal that he understood economic discontent.
But as far as any real policy choices go, it's been a White House call for decades. Henry Kissinger ran foreign policy under President Nixon, not Secretary of State Rogers (ph). When Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Al Haig wanted off the reservation he was gone. Clinton's White House economic team called the shots.
And if any cabinet member went against the political advice of Karl Rove over these last four years, that news has yet to surface. Yes, their offices are imposing. They have entourages, motorcades. They make grand entrances when the president makes his State of the Union speech.
(on camera): But if you're looking for the place where education policy will be made or environmental policy or economic policy or any other major policy, you can save yourself a lot of time trying to track down the location of these cabinet departments and keep your eye right here.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Coming up still on the program tonight, intrigue at the CIA, what the resignation of two top officials might mean to the war on terror.
Also ahead the rooster drops by. Did we mention that tonight? I don't think so, morning papers at the end of the house.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The White House Cabinet is not the only corner of Washington in flux tonight. The resignation yesterday of two top officials at the CIA has created a cloud of intrigue. Why they resigned, what their departures mean for the future of the agency just a couple of questions.
We're joined tonight from Washington by Michael Scheuer, the former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA. He is the author of "Imperial Hubris." Well, at least we think he is. I'm not sure he is technically allowed to say that. So, anonymous once, but at least not now.
It's nice to see you, sir.
"New York Times" apparently going to report tomorrow that Porter Goss, the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency, has sent a memo out saying: "It's the job of the agency to support the administration and its policies in our work. As agency employees, we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration and its policies."
Is that appropriate?
MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CHIEF OF CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: I think it's phrased a little ham-handedly, sir. But it is appropriate not to oppose policies of the administration.
But I think, without a discussion of those policies, the intelligence service, it can't operate. One has to have a view of how a U.S. policy impacts on, say, an enemy, in this case, Islamic militants, or it's really a rather feckless discussion.
BROWN: Wouldn't you say that you opposed the administration's policy in Iraq?
SCHEUER: Did I oppose it? No.
What I said that basically was that it would break the back of most of the efforts we had made against Osama bin Laden since 1996. I'm in no position to oppose the war. I'm in a position to assess what impact a policy will have on other aspects of the U.S. covert effort against -- or overt effort against terrorism.
BROWN: In that regard, is it your belief that, since 9/11, al Qaeda is stronger or weaker than it was?
SCHEUER: I think, on a whole, the organization has been hurt severely in terms of leadership by the clandestine service of the United States.
But I think it's a well-prepared organization. It's an organization that has always had successors ready to step into play. So the idea that -- the argument that two-thirds of al Qaeda's leadership has been destroyed is certainly true, that is, of the leadership we knew of. A gentleman named Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, we didn't know of on September 11.
But, of course, every one of those people have been replaced by another individual. It's very hard for me to see that we have anything really but a body count.
BROWN: A couple things that you have said recently that I think we ought to talk about. You have talked about, I think, 10 or 11 times when the agency developed intelligence that would have allowed the government to take bin Laden out to kill him and that, essentially, the political side didn't have the guts to do it.
SCHEUER: Well, I don't know if the word guts is correct, sir. But in my experience, on those occasions, the safety of Americans or the lives of American citizens never really came first.
It's very difficult, I think, to define 9/11 as an intelligence failure, sir. Intelligence failures usually don't come from a lack of information. They come from a lack of action. And the clandestine service of the United States gave its government 10 opportunities, which are documented in the 9/11 Commission report, to attack Osama bin Laden or to capture him. In none of those occasions, did we do it. And most of the times, it was because we were afraid of what the Europeans would think of us.
We were afraid of reaction in the Muslim world. And, of all things, we were at one time afraid we were going to kill an Arab prince who was dining with bin Laden. My point here is that I'm very surprised that the 9/11 Commission report has not invoked outrage among the American people, after they've seen that their government had the occasion on eight or 10 times to take out Osama bin Laden.
BROWN: Just one more question on bin Laden. He tends to be almost caricatured by the government and to some extent by us as this kind of wack job out there, which is not at all the way you see him.
SCHEUER: No, sir, I think, with all due respect, both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush are just exactly 100 percent wrong when they term him a terrorist or a gangster or a criminal or a deviant personality. He is much more than that.
In many ways, he is a great man in the sense -- without the connotation of positive or negative. He's changed the course of history. You only have to try to take your school child's class to a federal building to visit. He's a pious, charismatic leader, a talented manager. And he is much more dangerous because he's not a madman, because he's not a criminal.
And until we take his measure, I think we'll never frame policies adequate enough to kill him and to destroy his followers.
BROWN: Mr. Scheuer, the truth is, I probably have a dozen more questions I'd like to ask. I hope you will come back and join us soon.
SCHEUER: Sir, it would my pleasure. It's very nice of you to have me.
BROWN: Thank you. Good to meet you, Michael Scheuer, who ran the bin Laden desk at the CIA and is the author -- he is the anonymous of "Imperial Hubris."
Still to come on the program, a child with diabetes dies. Does that make the mom in this case a murderer, a first-degree murderer?
Also ahead, the mystery that has captivated Sin City, Las Vegas, a tale of sex and drugs and betrayal.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We began the program tonight with shades of gray as only war can paint them. This is not an easy story either.
Some forms of child abuse are so blatant, so repulsive, they generate little debate about guilt. Other times, however, the line is not so clear. And perhaps this is one of them. In Nevada, a mother has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of her child, a child who suffered from a serious, but treatable illness. Did the mother fail in her role as a parent? And, in this case, does that add up to a crime?
Here's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you intend for your daughter to die from this disease?
CHERYL BOTZET, ACCUSED MOTHER: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I loved my daughter.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is this woman a murderer, as prosecutors charge, or is she, like so many of us, just a parent who's not perfect?
Cheryl Botzet 11-year-old daughter, Ariel, died when her diabetes spun out of control. And now prosecutors in Nevada have charged her mother with first-degree murder. VICKI MONROE, PROSECUTOR: This death was senseless. It should not have happened. And it happened through the actions of her mother.
COHEN: DR. Ellen Wright Clayton, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt University who is not affiliated with the case, said Ariel's blood sugar levels were indeed extremely high. But DR. Clayton, who's also a lawyer, was shocked by the first-degree murder charge.
DR. ELLEN WRIGHT CLAYTON, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: I think that that is an extremely heavy rap to lay on her...
COHEN: But prosecutors say it's not too heavy at all. They charge that Cheryl Botzet didn't test her daughter's blood sugar levels often enough, and didn't even pick up her insulin prescriptions for several months.
But Botzet and her lawyers say she did everything she could to control the disease.
HERB SACHS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Was she a caring mother? Yes. Did she manage it? She managed it as best she could under the education that she was given.
COHEN: And now the case has some worried that parents will be called criminals if they're less than perfect at managing complicated diseases. For example, diabetes requires checking blood sugars and taking insulin shots often several times a day. But prosecutors say parents needn't worry, that Cheryl Botzet is an extreme case.
MONROE: It is a crime to abuse your child in this state. Cheryl Botzet abused her child by not taking care of her.
BOTZET: It's a difficult time. It was a tragedy to lose my daughter.
COHEN: Botzet's case is scheduled to go to trial in March.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, back to Las Vegas for a Las Vegas murder mystery with millions of dollars at stake, why the case has become such a big deal in Sin City.
Morning papers are always a big deal to us.
A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This next story has all the elements and intrigue of a made-for-TV drama, drugs, sex, betrayal, plus a backdrop straight from central casting, Sin City.
At the center of the drama, a Las Vegas legend and the woman accused of killing him, his former girlfriend, who, it, turns out, led a double life, even as the couple shared a house. And the plot thickens.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): As unlikely as it seems, this young woman with the horn-rimmed glasses and the small voice is the star attraction of the hottest real-life drama in town.
SANDRA MURPHY, CO-DEFENDANT: For the most part, I'm looking forward to my day of vindication.
BROWN: Her name is Sandra Murphy. And along with her former boyfriend, she is accused in the murder of a Las Vegas legend, Lonnie "Ted" Binion, whose equally famous father founded Binion's Horseshoe Casino. They built a statue to the father, whose son was not nearly as lucky.
JOHN MOMOT, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR MURPHY: She loved him, Binion. She just -- he chose heroin over her. That's the problem. She loved him. He loved his heroin. And so the saga goes.
BROWN: Ted Binion was found dead in the living room of his expansive Las Vegas home on a fall afternoon six years ago. His funeral, cowboy-hat-and-boots-topped coffin, was one of the city's biggest in years. And for several months, police and prosecutors brought no charges. Officially, Ted Binion had died of a failed combination of heroin and the drug Xanax, an accident. But the Binion family did not believe it, not for a second.
JEFF GERMAN, REPORTER, "LAS VEGAS SUN": They knew that Ted had been doing drugs, but they also knew that he was a careful drug user, if there is such a thing. And he knew exactly how much to take and how much not to take. They believe that there was more to this thing. And so, they started nosing around.
MURPHY: The shelves were full. And they've all been moved.
BROWN: One of the things that turned up was this, a videotape featuring Sandy Murphy taking inventory of practically everything in the Binion household less than 24 hours after his death. In it, she did not appear to be overly grief-struck.
GERMAN: They view her as a gold-digger. It's plain and simple. And they don't like that.
BROWN: Then there was this. Only a day or so later, police discovered Sandy Murphy's boyfriend, a Montana contractor named Rick Tabish, digging up piles and piles of silver that Binion had buried in the desert about 60 miles outside Vegas, estimated worth, $6 million.
MOMOT: It has it all, drugs, sex, homicide, buried treasure, silver bullion. I mean, it's the best of Las Vegas.
BROWN: That's what prosecutors thought, too. They charged Ms. Murphy and Mr. Tabish with murdering Ted Binion and four years ago won a conviction. But the verdict was overturned. And today, people line up outside the Clark County Courthouse at the crack of dawn to get a seat at the retrial.
MICHAEL CRISTALLI, ATTORNEY FOR MURPHY: What's different is the atmosphere of the case this time around. The Nevada Supreme Court spoke specific on a number of issues that weren't allowed to come in. In this case, we have, this time around, witnesses for the state that were paid $100,000 by the estate of Ted Binion. We have even more corroborating medical testimony this time around.
BROWN: Testimony the defense hopes will refute the prosecution theory that Sandra Murphy and Rick Tabish forced Binion to swallow heroin and Xanax and then suffocated him. Tabish, for his part, took the stand and told the jury he was innocent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you have anything to do with the death of Ted Binion?
RICK TABISH, CO-DEFENDANT: Absolutely and unequivocally not.
BROWN: The Binion family showed up in court to hear Tabish's testimony. But even in the event of a conviction again, act three, somehow you can be certain, will not be far behind.
MOMOT: It's a never-ending story, because, even after the first trial, the community here was divided. And the community was divided then. It's divided now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, just made it. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.
We'll lead with "The Stars and Stripes" again, because I like that. And I get to make that decision. "Stars and Stripes." "Bush Selects Rice as Secretary of State. Ridge, Thompson Believed Next to Resign From Cabinet." But here's a story that makes it worth leading off with tonight. "Wounds Don't Stop Walk Down The Aisle. Specialist Aaron Bugg's (ph) Leg Muscles Were Severed by Roadside Bomb in Iraq. Technology Helped the Soldier Stand Tall While Saying His Vows to His Childhood Sweetheart at Walter Reed Army Medical Center." Well, God bless them, you know? Hang in there, kid.
"The Times," British paper, leads local for them, but leads with Iraq as well. "A Life Devoted to Iraq Ends With a Single Bullet," the Margaret Hassan story. And it's a wonderful picture of Ms. Hassan holding a child on the front page of "The Times,"
"The Financial Times" -- we can do this whole segment with just newspapers named "The Times," without "The New York Times," as it turns out. Call me later. I'll tell you about that. "U.S. Flight Attendants to Vote on National Strike." Think about that. Every flight attendant just walking off the job? Anyway, they're not happy with the wage cutbacks and the hours and the lack of rest time and all that other stuff. So they may go on strike, according to "The Financial Times."
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." I'm not sure this is a front-page story, but I like it anyway. ABC -- that would be the American Broadcasting Company -- "Sorry That Towel Was a Foul. NFL, Eagles Weigh In, FCC Taking a Look." This was the introduction to "Monday Night Football," which obviously I didn't see, which was a little racy, I guess. It was promoting "Desperate Housewives." And so ABC apologized today. And the NFL is not happy.
Speaking of not happy, this story will make you sick, "The Detroit News." "Macomb Teens End Pregnancy With Beating. Boyfriend Hits Girl With Bat as Part of a Deal. And Boy's Mom Helps Bury Fetus, Police Say." What the?
What's the weather -- that's enough, OK? I don't want to do anymore.
What's the weather in Chicago? Yes.
(CHIMES)
BROWN: Thank you. I can't do the word until I hear the sound. "Muggy." How can it be muggy in November?
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That's it. We'll see you tomorrow. 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 November 16, 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.
We won't lead with Iraq tonight but we do suspect that what you'll remember most about the program comes from there, two stories very different but part of the larger whole that come together in an odd sort of way tonight.
The first is more on the incident first reported yesterday of a Marine, perhaps more than one Marine in fact, shooting wounded Iraqi insurgents. Lots of reaction to that story today and we expect more tonight. We said in our e-mail to regular viewers today that before you judge too harshly perhaps you should walk a few Falluja blocks in the boots of those young Marines.
And that is the second story, an extraordinary piece of reporting by British reporter Lindsey Hilsum who in five gripping minutes captures, as well as anything we have seen, what it's like to be a soldier or a Marine in Falluja these days, so there are war stories of a very powerful sort tonight and we'll get to them shortly.
First, the whip and the president's historic choice to be the next secretary of state, our Senior White House Correspondent John King with us again tonight, John a headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the president calls for Condi. He calls for a friend. He wants the country and the world now to call her Madam Secretary. Condoleezza Rice is without a doubt loyal to this president, some say perhaps to a fault -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, thank you.
Next to the Pentagon and the investigation of the Marine who killed a wounded man in Falluja, developments today, Jamie McIntyre with that and, Jamie, a headline.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, the U.S. military investigators are looking at whether not just one but four wounded insurgents may have been shot in that mosque and whether there was any justification.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you.
And finally, Senator Arlen Specter, conservative groups targeting him, will he be too moderate a Republican for the modern Republican Party? CNN's Ed Henry has the story and the headline tonight.
ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Senator Arlen Specter today won a key endorsement in his bid to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee but the battle is not over yet -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ed, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.
Also as we said a remarkable view of Falluja from the streets and the rooftops of a very dangerous place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aiming in that window.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That window right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like a doorway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: The Falluja story as you have not seen it before, all that and more in the hour ahead.
We begin tonight with the president's new foreign policy team and a team it clearly now is. Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley didn't get where they've gotten by going it alone. This almost certainly means a more united voice to the rest of the world, also perhaps a more single-minded view of it.
We begin tonight with our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): In the Roosevelt Room, tapping one of his closest confidantes and a veteran White House insider for a critical and very public new role.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Secretary of State is America's face to the world and in Dr. Rice the world will see the strength, the grace and the decency of our country.
KING: Rice teared up as the president talked of her upbringing in the segregated south and the lesson from her parents he says guides her world view.
BUSH: That human dignity is the gift of God and that the ideals of America would overcome oppression.
KING: Both the president and Rice praised outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell and she immediately tried to calm fears one of her jobs is to stifle anti-Bush dissent in the State Department's bar flung bureaucracy. CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE: I have the utmost admiration and respect for their skill, their professionalism and their dedication.
KING: With Rice off to State, Mr. Bush also elevated her deputy Stephen Hadley to national security adviser. It was another reminder of the premium Mr. Bush puts on loyalty and of his perhaps unrivaled trust in the 50-year-old former Stanford Provost who would be the second woman and second African American secretary of state. There is little doubt Rice will be confirmed by the Senate but not without first facing tough questions about her judgment and management skills.
DAVID ROTHKOFF, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTL. PEACE: They dropped the ball in terms of pre-9/11 preparation for terrorism. They dropped the ball in terms of post conflict stabilization of Iraq. They dropped the ball in terms of managing intelligence flows and now she's going to a much bigger bureaucracy.
KING: Powell was known around the world as someone who would listen and convey to the president views he might not want to hear. Rice, on the other hand, is known to have shared the president's anger at Germany and especially France for opposing the Iraq war but the French ambassador to Washington says he is confident Rice and the president want fence mending not revenge or retribution.
JEAN-DAVID LEVITTE, FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: I wouldn't say that Condi Rice is a hard liner. I would say she's brilliant. She's determined but she's very pragmatic, open to dialogue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: The challenges are many and they are tough from war in Iraq to new peacemaking efforts in the Middle East to the nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea and, for the woman dubbed "warrior princess" by her staff in the days after the 9/11 attacks, the fundamental question is this. Will she be a rubber stamp for her friend the president or will she now emerge from his shadow and add a voice of her own, a unique new voice to American diplomacy -- Aaron?
BROWN: There are so many interesting things here but one of which is as the national security adviser she had literally daily access to the president, an office down the hall more or less. In some respects she is farther from him now than she was.
KING: She is. The secretary of state, the current secretary of state comes over about once a week for lunch and he participates in the National Security Council meetings the president has two or three times a week but it will be an interesting test or new chapter in the relationship, if you will.
They are as close as any two people on this White House staff. You might say Karl Rove, Karen Hughes when she was here in the old days. She's gone now. But Condoleezza Rice has been as close and working as close with this president as anyone else here, especially because of 9/11 and the portfolio. So, it's an interesting change.
BROWN: John, thank you, John King, our Senior White House Correspondent.
A day of changes all across Washington, Secretary Powell's deputy Richard Armitage, long time friend, has tendered his resignation, not surprising, with more departures almost certain to come farther down the line.
Conflicting reports tonight on Tom Ridge at the Department of Homeland Security, senior administration sources telling us he will leave. His spokesman calls such reports news to him.
And the Senate has a new minority leader. He's Democrat Harry Reid of the State of Nevada. When asked about working with his Republican colleagues, Senator Reid said "I'm ready to dance or fight, their choice."
Much to report from Iraq tonight, including a Marine's eye view of Falluja that shows if nothing else, how tough that job still is but theirs isn't the only job. American and Iraqi forces have stepped up operations in Mosul in the north, the third largest city in the country.
Bridges have been closed to civilians, the city under curfew while an Army task force goes after pockets of resistance, insurgents who took over many of the police stations last week in Mosul.
The resistance left another calling card today, another ugly reminder of how insane the situation has become. It appears that the kidnapped aid worker Margaret Hassan has been murdered. A videotape surfaced today purportedly showing her killing.
She was captured by insurgents weeks ago, her crime apparently to those who murdered her was trying to do good, not political good, not good in support of one side or the other, just trying to do good.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): We met her in the worst way, kidnapped, terrorized, pleading for her life but Margaret Hassan lived a life of generosity not desperation, compassionate, dedicated.
Her life's work was helping the children of her adopted land. It is, we think, impossible to look at a picture like this and describe her as childless, though she was, but her country's most vulnerable and impoverished found comfort in her.
She was a native of Dublin, fell in love with an Iraqi when they were both students in London, moved to Baghdad, became fluent in Arabic, converted to Islam. For the last 12 years, Margaret Hassan ran CARE's office in Baghdad, her final project the rehabilitation of a clinic for those with spinal injuries.
Shortly after her kidnapping, a small army of wheelchairs rolled through the streets of Baghdad urging her release. Today, harder souls prevailed and Margaret Hassan died and whatever the new Iraq is to be, it will be that much less because of it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: In Falluja today, troops spent another day mopping up. This, of course, is a euphemism for going street by street by sniper infested street into booby trapped buildings and stepping over one body after another, mopping up indeed.
Two reports tonight beginning first with CNN's Jane Arraf, who is with the U.S. Army Infantry and joins us on the phone at the beginning of what we suspect will be another tough day, Jane, good evening.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (by telephone): Good evening, Aaron.
The explosions here are fewer and further between and there isn't quite as much gunfire as there has been, so the battle, the intensity of the battle has certainly lessened.
But you're absolutely right, as we go from street to street soldiers and Marines continue to find horrific things, not just places where they might have done what they did to Margaret Hassan but documents upon documents unearthed in this sector or town, a stronghold of foreign fighters, some of them linked to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, landmines on every corner.
We were taken to one house where they had homemade rocket launchers and armor-piercing rockets and an amazing menacing collection of weapons. It's going to be a long time before civilians are allowed back in the city -- Aaron.
BROWN: There was a report today out of the Red Cross that perhaps as many as 800 civilians had died. Have you seen any evidence that would support a number of that size?
ARRAF: We've been working really hard to track that down and the latest guidance from Marine officials and Iraqi security people who we talk to daily who were out there say there are very few civilians in the city in general, in fact, they now estimate perhaps five percent of the population, which would be less than 15,000 people.
Certainly, Aaron, in a bombardment, a campaign like this, some of them would have died and they wouldn't have been able to get to the hospital to potentially save them. Their relatives wouldn't be able to take them to the cemetery to bury them. They would have been buried just where they fell essentially.
It's going to be a long time before we determine how many of them would have died but there has been a very small civilian population here to begin with -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf who is in Falluja with the Army tonight.
Mopping up is more than hard work. It can be ugly work as well. One episode which came to light yesterday continues to draw attention and raise questions about whether it was a legitimate act or war or a war crime, from the Pentagon tonight CNN's Jamie McIntyre. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (voice-over): The video taken by an American television reporter indicates as many as four wounded people may have been shot to death in the mosque on Saturday. One squad of Marines is already inside when gunshots are heard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you shoot them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yeah man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did they have any weapons on them?
MCINTYRE: As the reporter with a second squad of Marines enters the mosque, he sees men he recognizes as insurgent fighters who were wounded and disarmed the day before dying of what appears to be fresh wounds. Then he witnesses another shooting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's (expletive) faking he's dead!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, he's breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's (expletive) he's (expletive dead!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dead now.
MCINTYRE: Human rights groups that have reviewed the tape think it's a clear war crime.
STEVE CRAWSHAW, LONDON DIR., HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: What we're seeing here and we can see it in the body language of the soldiers is they do not feel under threat and really every single soldier and every single commander, every soldier on the ground knows it's an absolute basic of warfare that when you have a wounded person who is not a threat to them, he's absolutely prohibited to further (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to kill that person. It's a real basic of international law.
MCINTYRE: The investigation will look into all four deaths and the actions of all the Marines involved.
LT. GEN. JOHN SATTLER, U.S. MARINES: Let me make it perfectly clear, we follow the law of armed conflict and we hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability.
MCINTYRE: The video does not answer all the key questions. The wounded had been left behind by other Marines. Could they have gotten weapons or set booby traps? Did the Marine know that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there a reasonable apprehension of serious bodily injury or death on the part of the person who pulled the trigger here and that would trump, in my opinion, any question of whether the person, whether the deceased was a prisoner, was wounded or anything.
BRIG. GEN. JAMES MARKS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): A buddy the day before had been killed in a very similar incident where an insurgent who was playing dead had, in fact, been booby trapped and a number of Marines had been injured and wounded and one Marine was killed, so you keep all of that in context.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: The Pentagon says if there is any evidence that U.S. troops have killed any enemy fighters wrongfully, those troops are investigated and prosecuted, if warranted.
One example of that, they say, is it doesn't have to be caught on videotape. There was a first lieutenant or rather a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army who was charged with premeditated murder this week in the death of an Iraqi in Sadr City -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.
Whatever the doings of a single Marine or the wrong doings as the case may be, he and his comrades are engaged in some of the roughest, most dangerous work of the war, which is something to keep in mind if you are inclined to judge. And, as you'll see, they are going about it more coolly than most of us could imagine under the best of circumstances, which these are not.
Lindsey Hilsum of Britain's ITN filed this report while on patrol with the Marine Corps' India Company.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LINDSEY HILSUM, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The last cigarette before heading out, certain attack they call it. The Marines move through the ruins of Falluja looking for any gunmen who have not fled or been killed, the most desperate and determined.
Tanks rumble in. The Americans were in this neighborhood the day before but maybe the insurgents crept back overnight. The Marines have been told to comb the mosque for weapons and, as they do, the firing starts.
It turns into a firefight. The armored vehicle arrives with more ammunition because the houses around the mosque are full of fighters. A group of Marines is pinned down on a flat rooftop. We're filming from an armored vehicle on the street below.
The heavier weapons fire a barrage at the insurgents. They call it suppressive fire. A Marine has been injured and his colleagues need to administer first aid and get him out. A stretcher is brought. This is a serious casualty and it may already be too late but the rest of the group now needs to get out too under intense fire. This is the most dangerous engagement India Company has had in Falluja.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got a Medivac coming on.
HILSUM: We weren't allowed to film the casualty. This one was loaded into the M-track (ph) and taken away. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) crosses the street. They're going to hit the insurgents with an empty tank missile.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's going to happen, M-16s, 240, we're going to pop up, going to do five seconds of suppression, all right, slow in M016s. It's like two bursts. That way (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is going to show me where the fire is coming from and I can look at the building, all right? You and you, ready, set, go.
HILSUM: The heavy fire keeps the insurgents' heads down. The tracer has shown the man with the missile the target.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll use that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then one aiming in that window, that window right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like a doorway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh!
HILSUM: The back blasts of the missile engulfs everyone in dust. They're calling an air strike and the troops must quickly leave the danger area.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) all right. Start with the guns. Guns are going first. Let's go guns.
HILSUM: They rush down the stairs to find a new position. Fearing the insurgents may still be active, they run down the street. The debris of the day's battle lies in their path, a rocket launcher, a flattened Kalashnikov. From a safer rooftop we filmed tanks moving along the streets ready to fire a round into each house where there might still be resistance.
CAPT. BRIAN CHONTOSH, U.S. MARINES: There's probably a good 20 or 30 down in that last corner and they're pinched right now. The whole division's got them surrounded and this is where they were. They've been using this mosque over here to treat their wounded, so inside that mosque it's all dirty.
And on this last trip the houses down to our front about 300 meters just full of gunshot wounds and stuff trying to get them treated and they don't want to give up. We tried talking to them with our interpreter, getting them to surrender, walk out on the street. They're telling us they'd rather die than come out and surrender, so they're going to die.
HILSUM: The Marines begin to relax. The clash is nearing its end.
(on camera): They've made a tactical withdrawal to this rooftop here waiting for airpower to come in and bomb the remaining insurgents. They think that there's at least another half dozen still in there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five seconds.
HILSUM: Night is falling as the Marines go on foot to see whether the combined power of all their weaponry has destroyed their enemy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) check out the bodies there.
HILSUM: In the wreckage of the houses along the street near the mosque they find the bodies of 21 fighters. According to their documents, these five came from the neighboring town of Ramadi, terrorists to the Americans, martyrs to those who support their cause.
The end of the Muslim fast of Ramadan is marked by the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) moon. Americans control Falluja, the ruined city of mosques.
Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News, Falluja.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One day.
Ahead on the program a Republican Senator and the Republicans who want him out of the picture when it comes to approving federal judges.
And later, is a child's death from diabetes a case of first degree murder, a break first?
From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Forget the loneliness of the long distance runner. Try being the senior Senator from the State of Pennsylvania. A moderate Republican whose seniority entitles him to chair the Judiciary Committee but whose moderation and candor may have cost him the job. A lot depends on how badly conservative groups want his scalp. Either way it's a lonely and less than dignified moment for the senior Senator.
So, from Capitol Hill tonight here's CNN's Ed Henry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HENRY (voice-over): A day of high drama in the Senate as Arlen Specter finally seemed to gain momentum. After two grueling face-to- face meetings with Republican colleagues, Specter won the endorsement of Oren Hatch, the outgoing chairman of the judiciary panel.
Hatch said he believes Specter will be a great chairman but conservatives are still pressuring Republican leaders to block Specter for suggesting it will be hard for President Bush to get opponents of abortion rights confirmed to the Supreme Court. Despite Hatch's support, some key lawmakers are staying non-committal.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: The chairman of the Judiciary Committee is a very important position dealing with the president's judicial nominations. It was a big issue in the campaign. Senator Specter knows that and he's been busily at work reassuring lots of us on that issue and this will take its course and we'll make a decision in due time.
HENRY: The Christian Defense Coalition held a demonstration on Capitol Hill and suggested they delivered the election for Republicans and are now owed a conservative judiciary chairman.
REV. PATRICK MAHONEY, CHRISTIAN DEFENSE COALITION: If Senator Specter becomes head of the Judiciary, it is a betrayal and a slap in the face to millions of pro-life Americans who worked to help reelect this president and get a 55 Republican majority in the Senate.
HENRY (on camera): Several Republican Senators said Specter privately made a good case that he will be fair to judicial nominees who do not share his views on issues like abortion.
(voice-over): But Specter is not out of the woods yet. Republican Senators will not vote on his fate until January, so conservative activists have just begun to fight.
CHRIS SLATTERY, CHRISTIAN DEFENSE COALITION: You're going to see a fight like none other that this movement has ever put forward.
HENRY: A pivotal player, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who wants to run for president in four years. After his two meetings with Specter, Frist was asked if his colleague will get the job. The majority leader said: "We'll see."
Ed Henry, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: One other bit of business from the House side of the Congress. Tomorrow, House Republican leaders are expected to change their internal rules to allow Majority Leader Tom DeLay to keep his job even if he's indicted in Texas on campaign finance charges, a Republican aide calling it a defense against what he described as a political witch hunt.
Back now to the Bush cabinet, a lot of changes underway and many questions as to what the final lineup will be, not unusual for second term presidents to reshape their administration. With all the comings and goings making headlines, it's easy to focus on the individual parts of the story.
But, as our Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield reports tonight, there is the larger picture to consider.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I submitted my resignation as secretary of state.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): Colin Powell is leaving.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Mr. President, it is an honor.
GREENFIELD: Condoleezza Rice is arriving and attention should be paid. Powell is by far the best known member of the cabinet, the most popular who less than a decade ago was a serious presidential prospect. Rice is as close to the president as any in his administration.
Powell's disagreements with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney about the path to war with Iraq were among the worst kept secrets in Washington. The frustrations he and his allies voiced became near daily fare in the media. For their part the more hawkish voices in and around the Bush White House made little secret of their feelings toward Powell.
A year and a half ago, ex-House speaker Newt Gingrich accused the State Department of a "deliberate and systematic effort to undermine the president's policies." He didn't mention Powell but then everybody knows who was running the State Department.
(on camera): But there's another dimension to this departure and to the departure of some half dozen members of the president's cabinet, a dimension that a lot of this windy speculation doesn't acknowledge all that much. These days the cabinet is just not that big a deal.
(voice-over): For one thing, they rarely do what their counterparts in Great Britain do, resign on principle when they disagree strongly enough with the president. Two key allies did that over the war in Iraq in Great Britain. Two American secretaries of state have done that in the last century.
Oh sure, the cabinet members are handy lightning rods, easy to jettison when storm clouds brew. Jimmy Carter threw four of them over the side in 1979 when his poll numbers tanked. Bush canned Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to signal that he understood economic discontent.
But as far as any real policy choices go, it's been a White House call for decades. Henry Kissinger ran foreign policy under President Nixon, not Secretary of State Rogers (ph). When Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Al Haig wanted off the reservation he was gone. Clinton's White House economic team called the shots.
And if any cabinet member went against the political advice of Karl Rove over these last four years, that news has yet to surface. Yes, their offices are imposing. They have entourages, motorcades. They make grand entrances when the president makes his State of the Union speech.
(on camera): But if you're looking for the place where education policy will be made or environmental policy or economic policy or any other major policy, you can save yourself a lot of time trying to track down the location of these cabinet departments and keep your eye right here.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Coming up still on the program tonight, intrigue at the CIA, what the resignation of two top officials might mean to the war on terror.
Also ahead the rooster drops by. Did we mention that tonight? I don't think so, morning papers at the end of the house.
This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The White House Cabinet is not the only corner of Washington in flux tonight. The resignation yesterday of two top officials at the CIA has created a cloud of intrigue. Why they resigned, what their departures mean for the future of the agency just a couple of questions.
We're joined tonight from Washington by Michael Scheuer, the former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA. He is the author of "Imperial Hubris." Well, at least we think he is. I'm not sure he is technically allowed to say that. So, anonymous once, but at least not now.
It's nice to see you, sir.
"New York Times" apparently going to report tomorrow that Porter Goss, the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency, has sent a memo out saying: "It's the job of the agency to support the administration and its policies in our work. As agency employees, we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration and its policies."
Is that appropriate?
MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CHIEF OF CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: I think it's phrased a little ham-handedly, sir. But it is appropriate not to oppose policies of the administration.
But I think, without a discussion of those policies, the intelligence service, it can't operate. One has to have a view of how a U.S. policy impacts on, say, an enemy, in this case, Islamic militants, or it's really a rather feckless discussion.
BROWN: Wouldn't you say that you opposed the administration's policy in Iraq?
SCHEUER: Did I oppose it? No.
What I said that basically was that it would break the back of most of the efforts we had made against Osama bin Laden since 1996. I'm in no position to oppose the war. I'm in a position to assess what impact a policy will have on other aspects of the U.S. covert effort against -- or overt effort against terrorism.
BROWN: In that regard, is it your belief that, since 9/11, al Qaeda is stronger or weaker than it was?
SCHEUER: I think, on a whole, the organization has been hurt severely in terms of leadership by the clandestine service of the United States.
But I think it's a well-prepared organization. It's an organization that has always had successors ready to step into play. So the idea that -- the argument that two-thirds of al Qaeda's leadership has been destroyed is certainly true, that is, of the leadership we knew of. A gentleman named Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, we didn't know of on September 11.
But, of course, every one of those people have been replaced by another individual. It's very hard for me to see that we have anything really but a body count.
BROWN: A couple things that you have said recently that I think we ought to talk about. You have talked about, I think, 10 or 11 times when the agency developed intelligence that would have allowed the government to take bin Laden out to kill him and that, essentially, the political side didn't have the guts to do it.
SCHEUER: Well, I don't know if the word guts is correct, sir. But in my experience, on those occasions, the safety of Americans or the lives of American citizens never really came first.
It's very difficult, I think, to define 9/11 as an intelligence failure, sir. Intelligence failures usually don't come from a lack of information. They come from a lack of action. And the clandestine service of the United States gave its government 10 opportunities, which are documented in the 9/11 Commission report, to attack Osama bin Laden or to capture him. In none of those occasions, did we do it. And most of the times, it was because we were afraid of what the Europeans would think of us.
We were afraid of reaction in the Muslim world. And, of all things, we were at one time afraid we were going to kill an Arab prince who was dining with bin Laden. My point here is that I'm very surprised that the 9/11 Commission report has not invoked outrage among the American people, after they've seen that their government had the occasion on eight or 10 times to take out Osama bin Laden.
BROWN: Just one more question on bin Laden. He tends to be almost caricatured by the government and to some extent by us as this kind of wack job out there, which is not at all the way you see him.
SCHEUER: No, sir, I think, with all due respect, both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush are just exactly 100 percent wrong when they term him a terrorist or a gangster or a criminal or a deviant personality. He is much more than that.
In many ways, he is a great man in the sense -- without the connotation of positive or negative. He's changed the course of history. You only have to try to take your school child's class to a federal building to visit. He's a pious, charismatic leader, a talented manager. And he is much more dangerous because he's not a madman, because he's not a criminal.
And until we take his measure, I think we'll never frame policies adequate enough to kill him and to destroy his followers.
BROWN: Mr. Scheuer, the truth is, I probably have a dozen more questions I'd like to ask. I hope you will come back and join us soon.
SCHEUER: Sir, it would my pleasure. It's very nice of you to have me.
BROWN: Thank you. Good to meet you, Michael Scheuer, who ran the bin Laden desk at the CIA and is the author -- he is the anonymous of "Imperial Hubris."
Still to come on the program, a child with diabetes dies. Does that make the mom in this case a murderer, a first-degree murderer?
Also ahead, the mystery that has captivated Sin City, Las Vegas, a tale of sex and drugs and betrayal.
Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We began the program tonight with shades of gray as only war can paint them. This is not an easy story either.
Some forms of child abuse are so blatant, so repulsive, they generate little debate about guilt. Other times, however, the line is not so clear. And perhaps this is one of them. In Nevada, a mother has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of her child, a child who suffered from a serious, but treatable illness. Did the mother fail in her role as a parent? And, in this case, does that add up to a crime?
Here's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you intend for your daughter to die from this disease?
CHERYL BOTZET, ACCUSED MOTHER: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I loved my daughter.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is this woman a murderer, as prosecutors charge, or is she, like so many of us, just a parent who's not perfect?
Cheryl Botzet 11-year-old daughter, Ariel, died when her diabetes spun out of control. And now prosecutors in Nevada have charged her mother with first-degree murder. VICKI MONROE, PROSECUTOR: This death was senseless. It should not have happened. And it happened through the actions of her mother.
COHEN: DR. Ellen Wright Clayton, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt University who is not affiliated with the case, said Ariel's blood sugar levels were indeed extremely high. But DR. Clayton, who's also a lawyer, was shocked by the first-degree murder charge.
DR. ELLEN WRIGHT CLAYTON, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: I think that that is an extremely heavy rap to lay on her...
COHEN: But prosecutors say it's not too heavy at all. They charge that Cheryl Botzet didn't test her daughter's blood sugar levels often enough, and didn't even pick up her insulin prescriptions for several months.
But Botzet and her lawyers say she did everything she could to control the disease.
HERB SACHS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Was she a caring mother? Yes. Did she manage it? She managed it as best she could under the education that she was given.
COHEN: And now the case has some worried that parents will be called criminals if they're less than perfect at managing complicated diseases. For example, diabetes requires checking blood sugars and taking insulin shots often several times a day. But prosecutors say parents needn't worry, that Cheryl Botzet is an extreme case.
MONROE: It is a crime to abuse your child in this state. Cheryl Botzet abused her child by not taking care of her.
BOTZET: It's a difficult time. It was a tragedy to lose my daughter.
COHEN: Botzet's case is scheduled to go to trial in March.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, back to Las Vegas for a Las Vegas murder mystery with millions of dollars at stake, why the case has become such a big deal in Sin City.
Morning papers are always a big deal to us.
A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: This next story has all the elements and intrigue of a made-for-TV drama, drugs, sex, betrayal, plus a backdrop straight from central casting, Sin City.
At the center of the drama, a Las Vegas legend and the woman accused of killing him, his former girlfriend, who, it, turns out, led a double life, even as the couple shared a house. And the plot thickens.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): As unlikely as it seems, this young woman with the horn-rimmed glasses and the small voice is the star attraction of the hottest real-life drama in town.
SANDRA MURPHY, CO-DEFENDANT: For the most part, I'm looking forward to my day of vindication.
BROWN: Her name is Sandra Murphy. And along with her former boyfriend, she is accused in the murder of a Las Vegas legend, Lonnie "Ted" Binion, whose equally famous father founded Binion's Horseshoe Casino. They built a statue to the father, whose son was not nearly as lucky.
JOHN MOMOT, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR MURPHY: She loved him, Binion. She just -- he chose heroin over her. That's the problem. She loved him. He loved his heroin. And so the saga goes.
BROWN: Ted Binion was found dead in the living room of his expansive Las Vegas home on a fall afternoon six years ago. His funeral, cowboy-hat-and-boots-topped coffin, was one of the city's biggest in years. And for several months, police and prosecutors brought no charges. Officially, Ted Binion had died of a failed combination of heroin and the drug Xanax, an accident. But the Binion family did not believe it, not for a second.
JEFF GERMAN, REPORTER, "LAS VEGAS SUN": They knew that Ted had been doing drugs, but they also knew that he was a careful drug user, if there is such a thing. And he knew exactly how much to take and how much not to take. They believe that there was more to this thing. And so, they started nosing around.
MURPHY: The shelves were full. And they've all been moved.
BROWN: One of the things that turned up was this, a videotape featuring Sandy Murphy taking inventory of practically everything in the Binion household less than 24 hours after his death. In it, she did not appear to be overly grief-struck.
GERMAN: They view her as a gold-digger. It's plain and simple. And they don't like that.
BROWN: Then there was this. Only a day or so later, police discovered Sandy Murphy's boyfriend, a Montana contractor named Rick Tabish, digging up piles and piles of silver that Binion had buried in the desert about 60 miles outside Vegas, estimated worth, $6 million.
MOMOT: It has it all, drugs, sex, homicide, buried treasure, silver bullion. I mean, it's the best of Las Vegas.
BROWN: That's what prosecutors thought, too. They charged Ms. Murphy and Mr. Tabish with murdering Ted Binion and four years ago won a conviction. But the verdict was overturned. And today, people line up outside the Clark County Courthouse at the crack of dawn to get a seat at the retrial.
MICHAEL CRISTALLI, ATTORNEY FOR MURPHY: What's different is the atmosphere of the case this time around. The Nevada Supreme Court spoke specific on a number of issues that weren't allowed to come in. In this case, we have, this time around, witnesses for the state that were paid $100,000 by the estate of Ted Binion. We have even more corroborating medical testimony this time around.
BROWN: Testimony the defense hopes will refute the prosecution theory that Sandra Murphy and Rick Tabish forced Binion to swallow heroin and Xanax and then suffocated him. Tabish, for his part, took the stand and told the jury he was innocent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you have anything to do with the death of Ted Binion?
RICK TABISH, CO-DEFENDANT: Absolutely and unequivocally not.
BROWN: The Binion family showed up in court to hear Tabish's testimony. But even in the event of a conviction again, act three, somehow you can be certain, will not be far behind.
MOMOT: It's a never-ending story, because, even after the first trial, the community here was divided. And the community was divided then. It's divided now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, just made it. Time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.
We'll lead with "The Stars and Stripes" again, because I like that. And I get to make that decision. "Stars and Stripes." "Bush Selects Rice as Secretary of State. Ridge, Thompson Believed Next to Resign From Cabinet." But here's a story that makes it worth leading off with tonight. "Wounds Don't Stop Walk Down The Aisle. Specialist Aaron Bugg's (ph) Leg Muscles Were Severed by Roadside Bomb in Iraq. Technology Helped the Soldier Stand Tall While Saying His Vows to His Childhood Sweetheart at Walter Reed Army Medical Center." Well, God bless them, you know? Hang in there, kid.
"The Times," British paper, leads local for them, but leads with Iraq as well. "A Life Devoted to Iraq Ends With a Single Bullet," the Margaret Hassan story. And it's a wonderful picture of Ms. Hassan holding a child on the front page of "The Times,"
"The Financial Times" -- we can do this whole segment with just newspapers named "The Times," without "The New York Times," as it turns out. Call me later. I'll tell you about that. "U.S. Flight Attendants to Vote on National Strike." Think about that. Every flight attendant just walking off the job? Anyway, they're not happy with the wage cutbacks and the hours and the lack of rest time and all that other stuff. So they may go on strike, according to "The Financial Times."
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." I'm not sure this is a front-page story, but I like it anyway. ABC -- that would be the American Broadcasting Company -- "Sorry That Towel Was a Foul. NFL, Eagles Weigh In, FCC Taking a Look." This was the introduction to "Monday Night Football," which obviously I didn't see, which was a little racy, I guess. It was promoting "Desperate Housewives." And so ABC apologized today. And the NFL is not happy.
Speaking of not happy, this story will make you sick, "The Detroit News." "Macomb Teens End Pregnancy With Beating. Boyfriend Hits Girl With Bat as Part of a Deal. And Boy's Mom Helps Bury Fetus, Police Say." What the?
What's the weather -- that's enough, OK? I don't want to do anymore.
What's the weather in Chicago? Yes.
(CHIMES)
BROWN: Thank you. I can't do the word until I hear the sound. "Muggy." How can it be muggy in November?
We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: That's it. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night for all of us.
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