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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Powell Stands By Iran Intelligence; Look at Danger of Tasers

Aired November 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.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: And thanks to all of you for joining us.
This is November 19th. It is the Friday before Thanksgiving. It's a time when many of us begin to gear down, to think about family and the holidays ahead and when world events begin for a moment to recede in our minds.

We're inclined to want to do that here but the news on this day at least is the troubling sort that we really can't let go of. After what the United States is still going through in Iraq, word that Iran may or may not be close to being able to deliver a nuclear weapon has grabbed our attention, especially since American options are limited by the Iraqi experience.

As for Iraq, the news from there, even after the takeover of Falluja, coupled with the costs in U.S. and Iraqi casualties, reminds us that far too many families won't have much to be thankful for next week.

Even so, there are always things that give us comfort and inspire us, some people that is and we're going to tell you about an extraordinary one of them tonight.

First, though, the tough stuff, Iran, nuclear weapons and another familiar dust-up over intelligence, CNN's David Ensor with the story, David, a headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Judy, there are questions tonight about intelligence that Secretary Powell used in the last few days about the Iranian nuclear program but the secretary is standing by his story. So is the department. They say Iran is racing towards a nuclear weapon -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, David.

On to Iraq, the rubble of Falluja and what comes next, CNN's Jane Arraf is there on the videophone so, Jane, a headline from you.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Judy, Iraqi forces going through the city of Falluja are making some chilling discoveries and Iraqi civilians continuing to slowly emerge from their homes are finding that their city isn't exactly a safe place.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Jane. And finally, the story out of Florida that so many people are talking about to put it gently, the 6-year-old, police and a Taser, CNN's Susan Candiotti has the latest twist, Susan, the headline.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Judy. Police now reveal they were only about three feet away from that little boy when they fired a Taser afraid, police say, that he might hurt himself or them with a piece of broken glass.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Susan, and we'll be back with all of you shortly.

Also on the program tonight some of the best and most vitally needed emergency surgery outside of Iraq gets done in a trauma center in south Los Angeles, so why is it closing?

And why does the maker of "Apollo 13," and other wholesome fare, have his eye on pornography these days? He's certainly not alone. We'll look at one of the country's hottest growth industries.

We'll close things out, however, with a labor not of lust but love and a pretty serious rush of speed to boot, all that and more in the hour ahead.

But we begin tonight with what many believe is the next big national security challenge for the Bush administration, Iran's nuclear program, and whether or not it also amounts to a nuclear weapons program.

If all this sounds familiar, that's because it is right down to differences with European allies and a debate over what we know and how we know it. Secretary Powell touched off the latest chapter earlier this week.

The fallout, if you will, came today, here again CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Knowledgeable sources tell CNN there are questions about the reliability of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear program that Secretary of State Powell spoke of. These sources commented on a highly sensitive intelligence matter only because Powell had revealed it publicly. At the State Department, however, there's no backing down.

ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: The secretary did not misspeak. The secretary knows exactly what he was talking about.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I've seen some information and the dissidents have put out more information that suggests that the Iranians are also working on the designs one would have to have for putting such a warhead into a missile.

ENSOR: The likely missile in question a Shahab-3 tested in October by Iran. U.S. officials are angered by a "Washington Post" article saying Powell's information came from an unvetted single source, a walk-in with more than 1,000 pages of Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to deliver an atomic strike.

KENNETH POLLACK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: It makes collecting against Iran, it makes protecting this source and it makes recruiting other sources infinitely harder and this is a hard enough topic as it is.

ENSOR: The questions about Powell's comments on intelligence evoked memories of his testimony on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at the U.N. before the war, weapons that have not been found.

The questions came after an Iranian opposition group, whose supporters demonstrated in Washington Friday, offered evidence it said that Iran is working on nuclear weapons at a newly discovered site, something Tehran hotly denies.

Critics of the European/Iranian agreement, an exchange of trade incentives for suspension of uranium enrichment, are putting their cards on the table in the run up to next week's meeting on Iran of the International Atomic Energy Board in Vienna.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTL. PEACE: I do think there's a lot of rock throwing at this agreement right now and I think we have to look at that information very carefully and remember what happened in Iraq when we do that.

ENSOR: But Iran too is not helping matters. Western diplomats in Vienna Friday said Iran is rushing to convert some yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride, which is used in both making nuclear power and nuclear bombs prior to Monday, the day Iran has promised to suspend enrichment activities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: The conversion activity in Isfahan is allowed under the deal with the Europeans but some U.S. officials are calling it alarming. It may be a sign Iran intends, at a minimum, to have the capability to make bomb-grade uranium ready to go and apparently doesn't fear the consequences -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: David, what are the prospects that the United States can deal with this diplomatically?

ENSOR: Well, there aren't very many attractive military options and that is certainly what the Bush administration would like to do if it can. The question really is whether Iran has decided to have nuclear weapons no matter what or whether there is a deal that can be done. It's also, of course, a question as to whether the U.S. and the Europeans can, in the end, get together enough to make the deal work.

WOODRUFF: A lot of question marks still.

ENSOR: There are. WOODRUFF: David Ensor, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Well all three members of the president's so-called axis of evil get a place at the table tonight.

We turn now to North Korea by way of Chile and the Asian Pacific Summit that the president is attending this weekend, with that our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president's first post election international trip comes as the White House talks of staying the course but even some allies say with the new term should also come a new approach.

The top White House goal at the annual Asian Pacific Summit in Chile this year a unified front in the nuclear showdown with North Korea but Mr. Bush's partners in the so-called six party talks China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, all to varying degrees suggest North Korea isn't the only obstacle to progress and that Mr. Bush could offer security and other incentives.

LEE HAMILTON, WOODROW WILSON CENTER: All of them are urging the United States to get off the dime here and move forward on negotiations.

KING: APEC is an economic club by name, known for its colorful class photos. Security has dominated the attendance in recent years, especially after the 9/11 attacks but some leaders want to refocus on pocketbook issues and put their stamp on Mr. Bush's second term agenda.

AMBASSADOR WENDY SHERMAN, FORMER STATE DEPT. COUNSELOR: We're going to see leaders turn to the American president and say "What about your budget deficit? What about the weak dollar? What about rising oil prices in the world?"

KING: These summits are largely scripted but will give Mr. Bush his first opportunity since winning reelection to meet face-to-face with many of his peers including a few favorites. Japan's Koizumi, for example, was a staple of the Bush campaign speech.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't tell him I was going to tell you that Elvis is his favorite singer.

KING: Russia's Putin publicly endorsed a second Bush term and Mr. Bush prefers to call the Russian leader Vladimir but Moscow's announcement of a new nuclear weapon has some thinking it is past time for Mr. Bush to turn tougher with a leader critics say has turned too autocratic.

SHERMAN: The Bush administration is going to have to take the gloves off a little bit and be a little bit more head on about where President Putin is leading his country. KING: Mr. Bush is the focal point of summit protests. Anger over the Iraq war adding to the more familiar APEC demonstrations complaining global trade exploits the poor and the environment.

(on camera): Despite anti-American sentiment on the street, White House officials say Mr. Bush comes here quite confident, fresh from what he considers to be a reelection mandate to continue his policies and hopeful that progress can be made on North Korea and other long stalled issues now that other leaders know, like it or not, they'll be dealing with him for four more years.

John King, CNN, Santiago, Chile.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Easier said than done perhaps given the climate in Iraq and elsewhere. As you saw in John's piece, thousands marched through Santiago today calling for an end to the war in Iraq, some carrying signs calling the president an assassin. Two marches took place. One of them got ugly, police using teargas on the crowd. The other larger demonstration was peaceful.

And, of more immediate concern at least six NATO allies have refused to provide military instructors to train Iraqi officers. The countries include Spain, Germany and France.

Meantime, there was new insight today into the insurgent leader believed to be behind many of the attacks on Iraqi soldiers and police. From the Pentagon tonight here's CNN's Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a major reason for going to war in Iraq, alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Now months later in the wake of the Falluja assault, evidence is emerging of al Qaeda's new relationship with the most wanted man in Iraq, the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, whose organization claims responsibility for much of the violence. The number two general at U.S. Central Command says al Qaeda and Zarqawi's group apparently are trying to communicate.

LT. GEN. LANCE SMITH, DEP. COMMANDING GEN. U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: I think there are attempted communications between Zarqawi and bin Laden. Whether or not they've been successful because of the huge distances involved in those lines of communication I would say that they probably have not been but we know for a fact that there are attempted communications between them.

STARR: Smith says the best guess is that senior al Qaeda leaders are not trying to orchestrate attacks inside Iraq but instead are offering Zarqawi philosophical support and congratulating him on his recent statements of allegiance to al Qaeda. Evidence of that support unveiled during a recent search of a house in Falluja where an al Qaeda mural was found on the wall.

(on camera): It's well known that associates of Zarqawi have tried to communicate with bin Laden in the past but this is the most recent indication that al Qaeda is making moves of its own toward Zarqawi's operatives.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Whoever Zarqawi and his followers do or don't talk to, their movement draws its strength from a deep well of resentment inside the Sunni Triangle. In an effort to keep it to a minimum, American and Iraqi officials again today promised to rebuild the city of Falluja but their promises have to compete with some fiery voices from the pulpit, if you will, not to mention the scenes of destruction wherever you turn.

Two reports tonight, first CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the dead of Falluja the living look for loved ones, prayers offered as relatives find and commit their kin for burial, the living encouraged to continue the fight against Americans. Inside Sunni mosques across Baghdad the human cost of the Falluja offensive was publicly weighed during holy day prayers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): What has happened has made our hearts bleed and filled our eyes with tears.

ROBERTSON: Strident anti-American sermons characterizing the price cleric say should be paid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): God take on Americans. God destroy their camps. God shake the ground under their feet. God make their children orphans. God make their wives widows.

ROBERTSON: Outside Baghdad's Abu Hanifa (ph) mosque in an area long a bastion of Sunni resentment of U.S. forces, Iraqi National Guard and U.S. troops clashed with Friday prayer goers. Two Iraqis were killed and seven wounded as, according to eyewitnesses, worshipers believe the mosque's preacher and two of his deputies were to be arrested.

In the east of the city within hours of the week's main prayers ending, killings resume, five police killed as a suicide bomber plowed his explosive-laden Mercedes into their checkpoint.

(on camera): The hours after Friday prayers have become some of the most dangerous of the week. This particular holy day drawing into sharp focus anger over Falluja, this just a few days after government officials arrested anti-government clerics in Mosul.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WOODRUFF: Another view now from CNN's Jane Arraf, who has been embedded with the Army's 1st Infantry Division from day one of the operation. She joins us once again from Falluja by videophone with her impressions. Jane, from the sound of Nic's report it doesn't sound as if all the insurgents are gone. There's so much anti- Americanism still in Falluja.

ARRAF (by videophone): And more than anti-Americanism, Judy. There are still definitely insurgents out there. Now, truly as many as there were. The Army and the Marines believe they've killed more than 1,000 of them and judging by the bodies we've seen in this neighborhood alone, there were a substantial number of gunmen who are dead.

But this city continues to hold secrets as the Iraqi forces, the Marines and the Army go through opening locked doors, breaking them down. The Iraqi commander of forces here told us today that they have found more than eight Iraqis who have been held hostage still in homes after their captors have fled, some of the who said had written on white flags they put outside those homes "Help me" in Arabic and English.

And we were also in the center of town today, Judy, at a mosque that the Marines have set up to help feed and treat wounded and hungry civilians and, as we were there, we continued to see civilians, young men in this case, crossing the street to get to the mosque holding white flags so that soldiers and Marines wouldn't shoot them.

And, among those, were two women with two wounded babies. They said they had heeded a call from the mosque a week ago to come out saying it was safe. They did and they say five members of their family were shot.

Now the Marine commander on the ground tells us that he believes that was a call from a mosque deliberately luring civilians out on that day to put them in harm's way. The other Marines said that there were no Marine forces in the area and no Iraqi forces in the area.

It's unclear what's happened to people like that but clearly there are still an awful lot of them in their homes and this is still clearly not a safe place. Weapons finds in many areas of the city. Marines and soldiers continue to find those weapon depots -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane, what is your sense of a number of casualties of Iraqi -- we've heard about the military casualties, what about the Iraqi casualties, what do you hear?

ARRAF: It's really -- it's been almost impossible to find out at the beginning of this conflict how many Iraqi civilian casualties there were because we weren't seeing any civilians in this sector of town. In the center of town where there are civilians, they were wisely staying in their homes most of them.

But now that they're beginning to emerge and now that Iraqi forces and Marines are getting to them, there's a little bit of a picture. It does not -- impossible to put numbers on it at this point, Judy, but we have to say that the number of civilians who remained in Falluja in general is much smaller than American forces had thought, much smaller than we had anticipated. The number of wounded will be consequently smaller and the number of dead as well who still would be out there.

There are obviously tragedies, tragedy upon tragedy in the civilian population among those who stayed but in terms of overall numbers, one of the things that made this battle as quick and relatively decisive as it was in defeating those numbers of insurgents was the fact that there weren't a lot of civilians left in the city -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane Arraf reporting tonight after having been embedded with U.S. military for days in Falluja, Jane, thank you very much.

Ahead on the program tonight, two California stories that could be coming to a town near you, the first a hospital hit hard by the economy, immigration and high demand plans to stop doing the one thing that it does best, saving lives of the most critically injured patients.

And, a look at the porn industry with the emphasis on industry, not porn, because after all this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: More now on the puzzle of Iran, not an academic problem not anymore. Joining us is Ray Takeyh. He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

What exactly do we believe, I mean the Americans believe, that Iran has the capability to do that we should be worried about?

RAY TAKEYH, SR. FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, the concern is that Iran has developed a rather sophisticated and advanced nuclear infrastructure on both uranium enrichment rods and also plutonium rods and that could give it a nuclear weapons option. The estimates vary but at least in the next two years or so.

And, the idea is that an energy rich country like Iran with substantial subterranean wealth, both gas and oil, doesn't really require nuclear energy and if it's spending that kind of money on nuclear infrastructure then really the civilian program is a cover for developing potentially a nuclear weapons option. So, the idea is that Iranians are using a civilian research program to conceal perhaps more nefarious designs.

WOODRUFF: Is it ever going to be possible, I mean short of Iran coming out and saying "This is what we're doing" for the U.S. to know what's going on?

TAKEYH: It's very difficult to decipher intent and motivation from the pattern of technological procurement and it's particularly difficult in this particular case given the fact that where you need to have a civilian research program and where you need to have a military program are technologically quite similar. There is a breakout point at some point but that's still down the line.

There are some indications if Iran completes the fuel cycle and begins to enrich uranium, especially weapon grade uranium, then that's obviously a concern. But right now we're looking at technological pieces and trying to attribute motive to it and that's just very difficult to do.

WOODRUFF: Is this at the point yet where the United States needs to take some action, diplomatic or something else?

TAKEYH: If you accept the fact that I do that Iran wants nuclear weapons potentially as a weapon of deterrence against the United States, that it has some security concerns and this is why it is seeking to have these weapons, then the only way it can dispense with the deterrent value of nuclear weapons is to have a different type of a relationship with the United States, more normalized relations and more -- a relationship where the existing problems are going to be resolved.

The Europeans can sort of episodically restrain Iran with sort of a series of interim arrangements but the long term solution to this requires a more direct U.S.-Iranian engagement and discussion on a range of security issues, requiring concessions and compromises from both sides.

WOODRUFF: Of course what everybody's worried about or what most people would be worried about in this country is what about the possibility of a military action? I mean is that something that should be, could be contemplated?

TAKEYH: There are three options of dealing with Iran's nuclear program if you're the United States. Number one is to engage in diplomatic dialogue with Iran, similar to the ones that we're engaged with with North Korea in the past and may be so again. Now, the president has ruled that out.

Number two is to rely on the IAEA and the Europeans and everyone sort of stipulates in the long term this is not a suitable solution to Iran's proliferation challenge.

The third option is a military option, which for the military option to succeed you need precise weapons and exact intelligence and I'm not prepared to say that American intelligence was profoundly deficient in the case of Iraq and remarkably efficient in the case of Iran.

So, if you don't have the intelligence and what the Iranians have done with their program is engage in redundancy, hardening the facilities and urbanizing them, which means that if there's a military strike you have to take casualties. And what redundancy means you have ten plants doing the same thing. If you hit nine of them and one of them survives, that doesn't necessarily shorten their nuclear time line. WOODRUFF: It sounds complicated and it sounds like a problem that we're clearly not going to figure out tonight and it seems like the United States is going to take some time to continue to work on it.

TAKEYH: Yes. We might not have that much time.

WOODRUFF: All right. Well, on that note, Ray Takeyh who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations thanks very much.

TAKEYH: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate your helping us understand this.

TAKEYH: Thanks.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

Straight ahead tonight, a new turn in the saga of a 6-year-old, the police and a stun gun.

From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: In many instances when police confront a violent suspect it's better to use a Taser than a gun but now questions have arisen as to whether police are Tasering too many of the wrong people, some old, some very young, one of them six years old, more on that today, the report from CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CNN has seen photographs of the 6-year-old boy shortly after he was Tasered by police. Four adults, including two police officers, had him cornered in a school office. This photo provided by the boy's attorneys shows mark on the first grader's torso, a small puncture wound near the top of his chest, a larger bruise below his waist.

CARMEN VIZCAINO, ATTORNEY: We've managed to educate children and discipline them for hundreds of years in the absence of a Taser. The fact that anyone would have the position that we had no choice but to use a Taser I find to be preposterous.

CANDIOTTI: The youngster is just under 3.5-feet tall and, according to the family, weighs 53 pounds.

A Taser shoots two metal probes electrified by 50,000 volts, less than one amp, that can knock you flat. Speaking publicly about the case for the first time, the director of Miami Dade Police defended Tasering the boy, described as bloodied from a broken picture frame, highly agitated and refusing to drop a small piece of glass. He says the two female officers were three feet from the youngster.

BOBBY PARKER, POLICE DIRECTOR, MIAMI DADE: They made a determination, and a determination that I back, that they utilize the Taser to disarm the child. The child was not injured.

DAVID GORDON, ATTORNEY: The fact that the policy allows the Taser to be used on a young child, where there's no testing of the potential outcome is amazing to me.

CANDIOTTI: Taser International says testing is done on pigs, not humans and adds, the weapon can be used safely on anyone weighing at least 60 pounds.

Now other controversial cases coming to light, including one involving a 75-year-old South Carolina woman last month. She was visiting a nursing home and allegedly refused to leave. Police used a stun gun on her. Authorities admit, there was a better way to handle it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: (AUDIO GAP) chief calls the questions Monday-morning quarterbacking. In his words, attacking police is one of America's favorite sports. Then he adds this: There's no possible harm in reviewing Taser guidelines -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Susan, do we assume that most police in the United States have Tasers?

CANDIOTTI: Many of them do. More than 1,500, possibly more, are currently using them. And all the police, during their training, do have to experience what it feels like.

WOODRUFF: As we saw in your demonstration.

Susan Candiotti, thanks very much.

CANDIOTTI: You're welcome.

WOODRUFF: Well, now to a different kind of battle, not with Tasers or guns, but to keep a hospital from closing. On the chopping block is the trauma center in South Los Angeles. To use a medical analogy, county officials decided it was better to cut of an appendage to save the patient, but the patient isn't going without a fight.

Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Victims of L.A.'s gang warfare frequently fall just blocks away from the King- Drew Medical Center near Watts. Some 1,800 gunshot victims and other trauma patients are treated in the hospital's trauma center each year. And some of its surgeons claim, its planned closure means trauma patients are going to die.

DR. BRYAN ROBBARD, SURGEON: We ask the question, is one life loss is one too many?

CROWD (singing): I am on the battlefield. BUCKLEY: The issue brought hundreds of protesters on to the streets this week, Jesse Jackson to their side. The Martin Luther King-Charles Drew Medical Center is an icon to many in L.A.'s black community, given its history.

Created in the aftermath of the Watts riots, it was to provide health care to under-served African-Americans. Now, some say, a critical part of that institution is being taken away.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: I decided that I was going to take time from everything that I was doing and make this my top priority, because I'm tired of folks taking stuff from us.

BUCKLEY: But problems over the past several years, ranging from inadequate staffing to a number of deaths, have resulted in a loss of some of its accreditation and now a threat to its federal funding.

(on camera): L.A. County officials who run the hospital say that would result in the closure of the entire hospital. They say closing just the trauma center portion of the hospital will allow administrators to fix the problems while they continue to provide care to non-trauma patients.

CAROL MEYER, DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES EMS: I will be the first to say that that hospital cannot close. But it may be closed on us.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): But the heat of heavyweight movers like Maxine Waters is bearing down on L.A.'s board of supervisors. And critics like Joe Hicks worry that that political heat could actually hurt.

JOE HICKS, COMMUNITY ADVOCATES INC.: Now the board of supervisors is under a great deal of pressure to respond in some way, but respond perhaps politically correct and not make the right decision.

BUCKLEY: A vote is expected next Tuesday, as the patients keep coming.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Still to come, virtue and vice, just not in that order. With the United States Senate holding hearings on the porn industry, we'll look at the industry itself, a major part of the economy in Southern California.

And virtue, Aaron's interview with the author of "The Purpose Driven Life."

From Washington tonight, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Much has been made after the election of the sharp division between red states and blue states, with claims that President Bush won not on issues, but on values.

Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life," takes it one step further. This election, he says, was, pure and simple, about faith.

Aaron Brown spoke with Mr. Warren earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: When you talk about it not being as much political as cultural, tell me what you mean.

RICK WARREN, AUTHOR, "THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE": I think that a lot of elections really are Democrat vs. Republican.

But I think that, in this particular election, there were a certain number of factors that have been happening in society that caused people who don't normally vote to come out and vote, obviously, on both sides. But the values -- one of the things that I think people saw was, we have courts that are starting to impose values on people rather than by democracy.

When you take Catholics and you take evangelicals together -- and they, in this election, discovered they have more in common than they don't -- that's 48 percent of the voting population. Well, you wouldn't know that on most TV shows. In other words, that's not just a small segment. That's a serious segment of America. And a lot of times, they feel like they're being put down. They're being devalued.

BROWN: You mentioned that. Actually, when we talked earlier, you said that people were uncomfortable with their core values being mocked.

WARREN: Yes. Yes.

BROWN: In what sense are they being mocked?

WARREN: Well, just read the pundits since the election. You can take Paul Krugman or E.J. Dionne or Jane Smiley or -- a lot of people said basically, the flyover country, which is a derogatory term, that they're idiot and that they were mocked.

In fact, Thomas Friedman said, this was like the American Taliban, that they were fundamentalists. This wasn't about fundamentalism. When you talk about 70 percent of people saying I think marriage is between a man and a woman, that's not fundamentalism. That's not even evangelicalism. That's 5,000 years of history.

BROWN: Do you worry that this is a peak of the power of the faithful?

WARREN: I believe that the problems in America are essentially spiritual, and I don't think there are political solutions to them.

I don't think you can change people necessarily by laws. If I believe you could change people by laws, I'd be a politician. But I am a pastor, which means, I think only God can change your life. There really are two conversations going on in America. One of them is the above conversation, which gets promoted in the traditional distribution channels, like this show, CNN, and media of a different kind.

But there's a lot of stuff that's going on underground that a lot people are missing. The three biggest surprises of 2004 which shocked everybody, the first was "The Passion," the movie, because, as a general rule, newspapers and others panned it, said, it isn't going to work. And it became a big hit.

The second biggest surprise was my book, which "Publishers Weekly" said is now the best-selling hardback in history, selling one million copies a month. But you wouldn't know that in San Francisco. It's not even been on the charts. And No. 3 was this election.

Now, all three of those -- this is not the only factor -- but all three of those went word of mouth through a network of churches throughout the United States, Catholic churches, Protestant churches, other houses of worship.

BROWN: Why do you think you've been -- you're so hot right now?

WARREN: I think there are three factors.

First, the book is not a niche book. The subtitle is, "What On Earth Am I Here For"? That is a fundamental question of life. There are three basic issues, the issue of significance. Does my life matter? The issue of intention. What's my purpose? And the issue of existence. Why am I here? Everybody at some point puts their head down on a pillow and goes, what's it all about?

Then the second thing is, it's a simple book. It's not shallow. It's just simple. And so I made it extremely simple, that people could say, who is God and what is his purpose for my life? And then I'm just a pretty average guy. And I think people can relate to me. I'm not a superstar.

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: Thank you.

BROWN: You're a most interesting guy. Best of luck to you.

WARREN: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: And if you want to hear more from Rick Warren, he'll be Larry King's guest on Monday night, 9:00 Eastern.

Well, here's a transition. Consider this the last time we're going to tease our story on the pornography industry. The story itself is next.

And later, overcoming adversity a quarter mile at a time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: It goes without saying: Sex sells. How well does it sell? A Senate committee held hearings this week. And to spare you the dry testimony, how well does it sell? Let us count the ways.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Aaron Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The product is packed and ready to go.

JOY KING, VICE PRESIDENT OF SPECIAL PROJECTS, WICKED PICTURES: Well, we have several hundred movies. So we have VHS. We have DVD. There are literally tens of thousands of movies in here.

BROWN: That would be tens of thousands of pornographic movies, a small slice of what's believed to be at least an $11 billion annual industry. Centered in the smoggy San Fernando Valley just outside Los Angeles, "Porn Valley," the industry calls it.

TIM CONNELLY, PUBLISHER/EDITOR, "ADULT VIDEO NEWS": It just happens to be the place where you have the cheapest industrial space, freeway close. Housing is cheap and the market's booming.

BROWN: An understatement, that. From the estimated 10,000 new pornographic movies made and distributed every year -- 10,000 -- to the lucrative porn movies paid for in hotel rooms worldwide, to the Internet, to on-demand cable, porn is ubiquitous. It's even on "The New York Times" best-seller list. This book by a leading porn actress is now in the top 10.

CONNELLY: Any form of media, porn's always there first.

BROWN: We can't show you a lot about this, of course, but this yearly awards show sponsored by the industry magazine "Adult Video News" itself is an enormous seller on DVD, and there's little the authorities can do about it.

STEVE TAKESHITA, PORNOGRAPHY UNIT, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: We've been actively investigating the distributions all through the last 30 or 40 years. Unfortunately, though, in the state of California, distribution of obscenity is a misdemeanor.

BROWN: That means that the LAPD, which used to have nine officers investigating porn, now has three.

TAKESHITA: It is a giant industry, but we do what we can with the resources we have.

BROWN: Lately, even mainstream Hollywood producers are edging in to the arena. BRIAN GRAZER, HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER: What intrigues me is that there was so much pornography of that preceded "Deep Throat," but none of it seemed to have real impact.

BROWN: He's Brian Grazer, who, along with director Ron Howard, has produced some of Hollywood's biggest hits, "Apollo 13," for one. Now he's spending $1 million of his own money to finance a documentary about the making of the first porn megahit, "Deep Throat."

GRAZER: I thinks it's the title and the act itself that, in that equation, produced an iconic power that was magnetizing to people.

BROWN: For many Americans, the shock value of pornography has diminished. But those who work in it and with the porn industry say they fear what's next.

SHARON MITCHELL, ADULT INDUSTRY MEDICAL HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION: I don't know how much more they could do to one body part than they are already doing. And, clinically, it's a little scary to me, because it's almost a can-you-top-this type of thing.

BROWN: Even so, the porn deluge shows absolutely no sign of slowing down.

KING: As it becomes more accepted, it just continues to grow. And, hopefully, it provides people with entertainment that they enjoy in the privacy of their home, and they have the choice to do that. And hopefully it will just continue to grow and be profitable and fulfill a part of people's sex lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Aaron Brown reporting, something that -- that story, something that takes our imaginations.

Well, the sights and sounds of drag-racing from a crew chief who refuses to let a handicap slow him down.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: A story of triumph over (AUDIO GAP) Jay Blake was working for a transportation company in Massachusetts when a wheel assembly blew up in his face, literally. At 31, he was left completely blind. But this tragedy didn't stop Jay Blake from living life to its fullest. Just the opposite. Since his injury, he has water-skied, used power tools and even gotten behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer. But that's nothing compared to what he's doing now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAY BLAKE, PRESIDENT, FOLLOW A DREAM: The first time you see a drag race, it is mind-blowing. It's ear-piercing. The ground literally shakes. It just hits you and you feel it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blocks out.

BLAKE: The car I run is called an alcohol funny car. I am the owner and crew chief of the race team.

What is unique about me and what I do in drag racing, I have no sight at all. I am totally blind.

I'm going to forgo that.

I move around the engine, around my tools all by feel.

I guess I'm not driving today, huh?

I truly love getting my hands dirty.

Wow.

Putting the tools in my hand and working on the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You feel (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

BLAKE: Yes, I did. Yes, right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you got a guy that deals with...

BLAKE: That's the oil filter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... what he deals with every day...

BLAKE: Fired up, ready to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It makes it tough for us to start whining about things, you know?

BLAKE: Power!

I've been a fan of drag racing for most of my life. And after my accident, I decided that I was going to follow my dream and start my own race team. With the right attitude, you can do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Ray, the new driver for Jim and Jay Blake. Jay, the car owner, lost his sight in an industrial accident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hit it.

BLAKE: This program is about helping people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Follow a Dream concept, which pretty much means exactly like it says on the race car.

BLAKE: I go out and I will do presentations and talk about, things will happen in life, but it's how we choose to handle them and what we do with that that makes up the difference. I was sighted for 31 years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes!

BLAKE: And I didn't think I could do half the things I'm doing.

Yes, baby!

I am one of the luckiest guys in the world!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For Jay Blake, a marvelous run.

BLAKE: Just doing what I'm doing is awesome. I love it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: What an inspiration.

We'll wrap things up in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: One other late item before we go.

Defending NBA champions the Detroit Pistons were hosting the Indiana Pacers. A fight broke out between the Pacer team and the fans in the stands. You can go to CNN.com for more details. That's what we're going to do.

Thanks for joining us. That's it for NEWSNIGHT. Good night.

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 19, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: And thanks to all of you for joining us.
This is November 19th. It is the Friday before Thanksgiving. It's a time when many of us begin to gear down, to think about family and the holidays ahead and when world events begin for a moment to recede in our minds.

We're inclined to want to do that here but the news on this day at least is the troubling sort that we really can't let go of. After what the United States is still going through in Iraq, word that Iran may or may not be close to being able to deliver a nuclear weapon has grabbed our attention, especially since American options are limited by the Iraqi experience.

As for Iraq, the news from there, even after the takeover of Falluja, coupled with the costs in U.S. and Iraqi casualties, reminds us that far too many families won't have much to be thankful for next week.

Even so, there are always things that give us comfort and inspire us, some people that is and we're going to tell you about an extraordinary one of them tonight.

First, though, the tough stuff, Iran, nuclear weapons and another familiar dust-up over intelligence, CNN's David Ensor with the story, David, a headline.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Judy, there are questions tonight about intelligence that Secretary Powell used in the last few days about the Iranian nuclear program but the secretary is standing by his story. So is the department. They say Iran is racing towards a nuclear weapon -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, David.

On to Iraq, the rubble of Falluja and what comes next, CNN's Jane Arraf is there on the videophone so, Jane, a headline from you.

JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Judy, Iraqi forces going through the city of Falluja are making some chilling discoveries and Iraqi civilians continuing to slowly emerge from their homes are finding that their city isn't exactly a safe place.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Jane. And finally, the story out of Florida that so many people are talking about to put it gently, the 6-year-old, police and a Taser, CNN's Susan Candiotti has the latest twist, Susan, the headline.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Judy. Police now reveal they were only about three feet away from that little boy when they fired a Taser afraid, police say, that he might hurt himself or them with a piece of broken glass.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Susan, and we'll be back with all of you shortly.

Also on the program tonight some of the best and most vitally needed emergency surgery outside of Iraq gets done in a trauma center in south Los Angeles, so why is it closing?

And why does the maker of "Apollo 13," and other wholesome fare, have his eye on pornography these days? He's certainly not alone. We'll look at one of the country's hottest growth industries.

We'll close things out, however, with a labor not of lust but love and a pretty serious rush of speed to boot, all that and more in the hour ahead.

But we begin tonight with what many believe is the next big national security challenge for the Bush administration, Iran's nuclear program, and whether or not it also amounts to a nuclear weapons program.

If all this sounds familiar, that's because it is right down to differences with European allies and a debate over what we know and how we know it. Secretary Powell touched off the latest chapter earlier this week.

The fallout, if you will, came today, here again CNN's David Ensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): Knowledgeable sources tell CNN there are questions about the reliability of the intelligence on Iran's nuclear program that Secretary of State Powell spoke of. These sources commented on a highly sensitive intelligence matter only because Powell had revealed it publicly. At the State Department, however, there's no backing down.

ADAM ERELI, STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: The secretary did not misspeak. The secretary knows exactly what he was talking about.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I've seen some information and the dissidents have put out more information that suggests that the Iranians are also working on the designs one would have to have for putting such a warhead into a missile.

ENSOR: The likely missile in question a Shahab-3 tested in October by Iran. U.S. officials are angered by a "Washington Post" article saying Powell's information came from an unvetted single source, a walk-in with more than 1,000 pages of Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to deliver an atomic strike.

KENNETH POLLACK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: It makes collecting against Iran, it makes protecting this source and it makes recruiting other sources infinitely harder and this is a hard enough topic as it is.

ENSOR: The questions about Powell's comments on intelligence evoked memories of his testimony on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at the U.N. before the war, weapons that have not been found.

The questions came after an Iranian opposition group, whose supporters demonstrated in Washington Friday, offered evidence it said that Iran is working on nuclear weapons at a newly discovered site, something Tehran hotly denies.

Critics of the European/Iranian agreement, an exchange of trade incentives for suspension of uranium enrichment, are putting their cards on the table in the run up to next week's meeting on Iran of the International Atomic Energy Board in Vienna.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTL. PEACE: I do think there's a lot of rock throwing at this agreement right now and I think we have to look at that information very carefully and remember what happened in Iraq when we do that.

ENSOR: But Iran too is not helping matters. Western diplomats in Vienna Friday said Iran is rushing to convert some yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride, which is used in both making nuclear power and nuclear bombs prior to Monday, the day Iran has promised to suspend enrichment activities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: The conversion activity in Isfahan is allowed under the deal with the Europeans but some U.S. officials are calling it alarming. It may be a sign Iran intends, at a minimum, to have the capability to make bomb-grade uranium ready to go and apparently doesn't fear the consequences -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: David, what are the prospects that the United States can deal with this diplomatically?

ENSOR: Well, there aren't very many attractive military options and that is certainly what the Bush administration would like to do if it can. The question really is whether Iran has decided to have nuclear weapons no matter what or whether there is a deal that can be done. It's also, of course, a question as to whether the U.S. and the Europeans can, in the end, get together enough to make the deal work.

WOODRUFF: A lot of question marks still.

ENSOR: There are. WOODRUFF: David Ensor, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Well all three members of the president's so-called axis of evil get a place at the table tonight.

We turn now to North Korea by way of Chile and the Asian Pacific Summit that the president is attending this weekend, with that our Senior White House Correspondent John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president's first post election international trip comes as the White House talks of staying the course but even some allies say with the new term should also come a new approach.

The top White House goal at the annual Asian Pacific Summit in Chile this year a unified front in the nuclear showdown with North Korea but Mr. Bush's partners in the so-called six party talks China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, all to varying degrees suggest North Korea isn't the only obstacle to progress and that Mr. Bush could offer security and other incentives.

LEE HAMILTON, WOODROW WILSON CENTER: All of them are urging the United States to get off the dime here and move forward on negotiations.

KING: APEC is an economic club by name, known for its colorful class photos. Security has dominated the attendance in recent years, especially after the 9/11 attacks but some leaders want to refocus on pocketbook issues and put their stamp on Mr. Bush's second term agenda.

AMBASSADOR WENDY SHERMAN, FORMER STATE DEPT. COUNSELOR: We're going to see leaders turn to the American president and say "What about your budget deficit? What about the weak dollar? What about rising oil prices in the world?"

KING: These summits are largely scripted but will give Mr. Bush his first opportunity since winning reelection to meet face-to-face with many of his peers including a few favorites. Japan's Koizumi, for example, was a staple of the Bush campaign speech.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't tell him I was going to tell you that Elvis is his favorite singer.

KING: Russia's Putin publicly endorsed a second Bush term and Mr. Bush prefers to call the Russian leader Vladimir but Moscow's announcement of a new nuclear weapon has some thinking it is past time for Mr. Bush to turn tougher with a leader critics say has turned too autocratic.

SHERMAN: The Bush administration is going to have to take the gloves off a little bit and be a little bit more head on about where President Putin is leading his country. KING: Mr. Bush is the focal point of summit protests. Anger over the Iraq war adding to the more familiar APEC demonstrations complaining global trade exploits the poor and the environment.

(on camera): Despite anti-American sentiment on the street, White House officials say Mr. Bush comes here quite confident, fresh from what he considers to be a reelection mandate to continue his policies and hopeful that progress can be made on North Korea and other long stalled issues now that other leaders know, like it or not, they'll be dealing with him for four more years.

John King, CNN, Santiago, Chile.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Easier said than done perhaps given the climate in Iraq and elsewhere. As you saw in John's piece, thousands marched through Santiago today calling for an end to the war in Iraq, some carrying signs calling the president an assassin. Two marches took place. One of them got ugly, police using teargas on the crowd. The other larger demonstration was peaceful.

And, of more immediate concern at least six NATO allies have refused to provide military instructors to train Iraqi officers. The countries include Spain, Germany and France.

Meantime, there was new insight today into the insurgent leader believed to be behind many of the attacks on Iraqi soldiers and police. From the Pentagon tonight here's CNN's Barbara Starr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a major reason for going to war in Iraq, alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Now months later in the wake of the Falluja assault, evidence is emerging of al Qaeda's new relationship with the most wanted man in Iraq, the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, whose organization claims responsibility for much of the violence. The number two general at U.S. Central Command says al Qaeda and Zarqawi's group apparently are trying to communicate.

LT. GEN. LANCE SMITH, DEP. COMMANDING GEN. U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: I think there are attempted communications between Zarqawi and bin Laden. Whether or not they've been successful because of the huge distances involved in those lines of communication I would say that they probably have not been but we know for a fact that there are attempted communications between them.

STARR: Smith says the best guess is that senior al Qaeda leaders are not trying to orchestrate attacks inside Iraq but instead are offering Zarqawi philosophical support and congratulating him on his recent statements of allegiance to al Qaeda. Evidence of that support unveiled during a recent search of a house in Falluja where an al Qaeda mural was found on the wall.

(on camera): It's well known that associates of Zarqawi have tried to communicate with bin Laden in the past but this is the most recent indication that al Qaeda is making moves of its own toward Zarqawi's operatives.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Whoever Zarqawi and his followers do or don't talk to, their movement draws its strength from a deep well of resentment inside the Sunni Triangle. In an effort to keep it to a minimum, American and Iraqi officials again today promised to rebuild the city of Falluja but their promises have to compete with some fiery voices from the pulpit, if you will, not to mention the scenes of destruction wherever you turn.

Two reports tonight, first CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among the dead of Falluja the living look for loved ones, prayers offered as relatives find and commit their kin for burial, the living encouraged to continue the fight against Americans. Inside Sunni mosques across Baghdad the human cost of the Falluja offensive was publicly weighed during holy day prayers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): What has happened has made our hearts bleed and filled our eyes with tears.

ROBERTSON: Strident anti-American sermons characterizing the price cleric say should be paid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): God take on Americans. God destroy their camps. God shake the ground under their feet. God make their children orphans. God make their wives widows.

ROBERTSON: Outside Baghdad's Abu Hanifa (ph) mosque in an area long a bastion of Sunni resentment of U.S. forces, Iraqi National Guard and U.S. troops clashed with Friday prayer goers. Two Iraqis were killed and seven wounded as, according to eyewitnesses, worshipers believe the mosque's preacher and two of his deputies were to be arrested.

In the east of the city within hours of the week's main prayers ending, killings resume, five police killed as a suicide bomber plowed his explosive-laden Mercedes into their checkpoint.

(on camera): The hours after Friday prayers have become some of the most dangerous of the week. This particular holy day drawing into sharp focus anger over Falluja, this just a few days after government officials arrested anti-government clerics in Mosul.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE) WOODRUFF: Another view now from CNN's Jane Arraf, who has been embedded with the Army's 1st Infantry Division from day one of the operation. She joins us once again from Falluja by videophone with her impressions. Jane, from the sound of Nic's report it doesn't sound as if all the insurgents are gone. There's so much anti- Americanism still in Falluja.

ARRAF (by videophone): And more than anti-Americanism, Judy. There are still definitely insurgents out there. Now, truly as many as there were. The Army and the Marines believe they've killed more than 1,000 of them and judging by the bodies we've seen in this neighborhood alone, there were a substantial number of gunmen who are dead.

But this city continues to hold secrets as the Iraqi forces, the Marines and the Army go through opening locked doors, breaking them down. The Iraqi commander of forces here told us today that they have found more than eight Iraqis who have been held hostage still in homes after their captors have fled, some of the who said had written on white flags they put outside those homes "Help me" in Arabic and English.

And we were also in the center of town today, Judy, at a mosque that the Marines have set up to help feed and treat wounded and hungry civilians and, as we were there, we continued to see civilians, young men in this case, crossing the street to get to the mosque holding white flags so that soldiers and Marines wouldn't shoot them.

And, among those, were two women with two wounded babies. They said they had heeded a call from the mosque a week ago to come out saying it was safe. They did and they say five members of their family were shot.

Now the Marine commander on the ground tells us that he believes that was a call from a mosque deliberately luring civilians out on that day to put them in harm's way. The other Marines said that there were no Marine forces in the area and no Iraqi forces in the area.

It's unclear what's happened to people like that but clearly there are still an awful lot of them in their homes and this is still clearly not a safe place. Weapons finds in many areas of the city. Marines and soldiers continue to find those weapon depots -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane, what is your sense of a number of casualties of Iraqi -- we've heard about the military casualties, what about the Iraqi casualties, what do you hear?

ARRAF: It's really -- it's been almost impossible to find out at the beginning of this conflict how many Iraqi civilian casualties there were because we weren't seeing any civilians in this sector of town. In the center of town where there are civilians, they were wisely staying in their homes most of them.

But now that they're beginning to emerge and now that Iraqi forces and Marines are getting to them, there's a little bit of a picture. It does not -- impossible to put numbers on it at this point, Judy, but we have to say that the number of civilians who remained in Falluja in general is much smaller than American forces had thought, much smaller than we had anticipated. The number of wounded will be consequently smaller and the number of dead as well who still would be out there.

There are obviously tragedies, tragedy upon tragedy in the civilian population among those who stayed but in terms of overall numbers, one of the things that made this battle as quick and relatively decisive as it was in defeating those numbers of insurgents was the fact that there weren't a lot of civilians left in the city -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Jane Arraf reporting tonight after having been embedded with U.S. military for days in Falluja, Jane, thank you very much.

Ahead on the program tonight, two California stories that could be coming to a town near you, the first a hospital hit hard by the economy, immigration and high demand plans to stop doing the one thing that it does best, saving lives of the most critically injured patients.

And, a look at the porn industry with the emphasis on industry, not porn, because after all this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: More now on the puzzle of Iran, not an academic problem not anymore. Joining us is Ray Takeyh. He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

What exactly do we believe, I mean the Americans believe, that Iran has the capability to do that we should be worried about?

RAY TAKEYH, SR. FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, the concern is that Iran has developed a rather sophisticated and advanced nuclear infrastructure on both uranium enrichment rods and also plutonium rods and that could give it a nuclear weapons option. The estimates vary but at least in the next two years or so.

And, the idea is that an energy rich country like Iran with substantial subterranean wealth, both gas and oil, doesn't really require nuclear energy and if it's spending that kind of money on nuclear infrastructure then really the civilian program is a cover for developing potentially a nuclear weapons option. So, the idea is that Iranians are using a civilian research program to conceal perhaps more nefarious designs.

WOODRUFF: Is it ever going to be possible, I mean short of Iran coming out and saying "This is what we're doing" for the U.S. to know what's going on?

TAKEYH: It's very difficult to decipher intent and motivation from the pattern of technological procurement and it's particularly difficult in this particular case given the fact that where you need to have a civilian research program and where you need to have a military program are technologically quite similar. There is a breakout point at some point but that's still down the line.

There are some indications if Iran completes the fuel cycle and begins to enrich uranium, especially weapon grade uranium, then that's obviously a concern. But right now we're looking at technological pieces and trying to attribute motive to it and that's just very difficult to do.

WOODRUFF: Is this at the point yet where the United States needs to take some action, diplomatic or something else?

TAKEYH: If you accept the fact that I do that Iran wants nuclear weapons potentially as a weapon of deterrence against the United States, that it has some security concerns and this is why it is seeking to have these weapons, then the only way it can dispense with the deterrent value of nuclear weapons is to have a different type of a relationship with the United States, more normalized relations and more -- a relationship where the existing problems are going to be resolved.

The Europeans can sort of episodically restrain Iran with sort of a series of interim arrangements but the long term solution to this requires a more direct U.S.-Iranian engagement and discussion on a range of security issues, requiring concessions and compromises from both sides.

WOODRUFF: Of course what everybody's worried about or what most people would be worried about in this country is what about the possibility of a military action? I mean is that something that should be, could be contemplated?

TAKEYH: There are three options of dealing with Iran's nuclear program if you're the United States. Number one is to engage in diplomatic dialogue with Iran, similar to the ones that we're engaged with with North Korea in the past and may be so again. Now, the president has ruled that out.

Number two is to rely on the IAEA and the Europeans and everyone sort of stipulates in the long term this is not a suitable solution to Iran's proliferation challenge.

The third option is a military option, which for the military option to succeed you need precise weapons and exact intelligence and I'm not prepared to say that American intelligence was profoundly deficient in the case of Iraq and remarkably efficient in the case of Iran.

So, if you don't have the intelligence and what the Iranians have done with their program is engage in redundancy, hardening the facilities and urbanizing them, which means that if there's a military strike you have to take casualties. And what redundancy means you have ten plants doing the same thing. If you hit nine of them and one of them survives, that doesn't necessarily shorten their nuclear time line. WOODRUFF: It sounds complicated and it sounds like a problem that we're clearly not going to figure out tonight and it seems like the United States is going to take some time to continue to work on it.

TAKEYH: Yes. We might not have that much time.

WOODRUFF: All right. Well, on that note, Ray Takeyh who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations thanks very much.

TAKEYH: Thank you.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate your helping us understand this.

TAKEYH: Thanks.

WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

Straight ahead tonight, a new turn in the saga of a 6-year-old, the police and a stun gun.

From Washington this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: In many instances when police confront a violent suspect it's better to use a Taser than a gun but now questions have arisen as to whether police are Tasering too many of the wrong people, some old, some very young, one of them six years old, more on that today, the report from CNN's Susan Candiotti.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CNN has seen photographs of the 6-year-old boy shortly after he was Tasered by police. Four adults, including two police officers, had him cornered in a school office. This photo provided by the boy's attorneys shows mark on the first grader's torso, a small puncture wound near the top of his chest, a larger bruise below his waist.

CARMEN VIZCAINO, ATTORNEY: We've managed to educate children and discipline them for hundreds of years in the absence of a Taser. The fact that anyone would have the position that we had no choice but to use a Taser I find to be preposterous.

CANDIOTTI: The youngster is just under 3.5-feet tall and, according to the family, weighs 53 pounds.

A Taser shoots two metal probes electrified by 50,000 volts, less than one amp, that can knock you flat. Speaking publicly about the case for the first time, the director of Miami Dade Police defended Tasering the boy, described as bloodied from a broken picture frame, highly agitated and refusing to drop a small piece of glass. He says the two female officers were three feet from the youngster.

BOBBY PARKER, POLICE DIRECTOR, MIAMI DADE: They made a determination, and a determination that I back, that they utilize the Taser to disarm the child. The child was not injured.

DAVID GORDON, ATTORNEY: The fact that the policy allows the Taser to be used on a young child, where there's no testing of the potential outcome is amazing to me.

CANDIOTTI: Taser International says testing is done on pigs, not humans and adds, the weapon can be used safely on anyone weighing at least 60 pounds.

Now other controversial cases coming to light, including one involving a 75-year-old South Carolina woman last month. She was visiting a nursing home and allegedly refused to leave. Police used a stun gun on her. Authorities admit, there was a better way to handle it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: (AUDIO GAP) chief calls the questions Monday-morning quarterbacking. In his words, attacking police is one of America's favorite sports. Then he adds this: There's no possible harm in reviewing Taser guidelines -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Susan, do we assume that most police in the United States have Tasers?

CANDIOTTI: Many of them do. More than 1,500, possibly more, are currently using them. And all the police, during their training, do have to experience what it feels like.

WOODRUFF: As we saw in your demonstration.

Susan Candiotti, thanks very much.

CANDIOTTI: You're welcome.

WOODRUFF: Well, now to a different kind of battle, not with Tasers or guns, but to keep a hospital from closing. On the chopping block is the trauma center in South Los Angeles. To use a medical analogy, county officials decided it was better to cut of an appendage to save the patient, but the patient isn't going without a fight.

Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Victims of L.A.'s gang warfare frequently fall just blocks away from the King- Drew Medical Center near Watts. Some 1,800 gunshot victims and other trauma patients are treated in the hospital's trauma center each year. And some of its surgeons claim, its planned closure means trauma patients are going to die.

DR. BRYAN ROBBARD, SURGEON: We ask the question, is one life loss is one too many?

CROWD (singing): I am on the battlefield. BUCKLEY: The issue brought hundreds of protesters on to the streets this week, Jesse Jackson to their side. The Martin Luther King-Charles Drew Medical Center is an icon to many in L.A.'s black community, given its history.

Created in the aftermath of the Watts riots, it was to provide health care to under-served African-Americans. Now, some say, a critical part of that institution is being taken away.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: I decided that I was going to take time from everything that I was doing and make this my top priority, because I'm tired of folks taking stuff from us.

BUCKLEY: But problems over the past several years, ranging from inadequate staffing to a number of deaths, have resulted in a loss of some of its accreditation and now a threat to its federal funding.

(on camera): L.A. County officials who run the hospital say that would result in the closure of the entire hospital. They say closing just the trauma center portion of the hospital will allow administrators to fix the problems while they continue to provide care to non-trauma patients.

CAROL MEYER, DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES EMS: I will be the first to say that that hospital cannot close. But it may be closed on us.

BUCKLEY (voice-over): But the heat of heavyweight movers like Maxine Waters is bearing down on L.A.'s board of supervisors. And critics like Joe Hicks worry that that political heat could actually hurt.

JOE HICKS, COMMUNITY ADVOCATES INC.: Now the board of supervisors is under a great deal of pressure to respond in some way, but respond perhaps politically correct and not make the right decision.

BUCKLEY: A vote is expected next Tuesday, as the patients keep coming.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Still to come, virtue and vice, just not in that order. With the United States Senate holding hearings on the porn industry, we'll look at the industry itself, a major part of the economy in Southern California.

And virtue, Aaron's interview with the author of "The Purpose Driven Life."

From Washington tonight, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Much has been made after the election of the sharp division between red states and blue states, with claims that President Bush won not on issues, but on values.

Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life," takes it one step further. This election, he says, was, pure and simple, about faith.

Aaron Brown spoke with Mr. Warren earlier this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: When you talk about it not being as much political as cultural, tell me what you mean.

RICK WARREN, AUTHOR, "THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE": I think that a lot of elections really are Democrat vs. Republican.

But I think that, in this particular election, there were a certain number of factors that have been happening in society that caused people who don't normally vote to come out and vote, obviously, on both sides. But the values -- one of the things that I think people saw was, we have courts that are starting to impose values on people rather than by democracy.

When you take Catholics and you take evangelicals together -- and they, in this election, discovered they have more in common than they don't -- that's 48 percent of the voting population. Well, you wouldn't know that on most TV shows. In other words, that's not just a small segment. That's a serious segment of America. And a lot of times, they feel like they're being put down. They're being devalued.

BROWN: You mentioned that. Actually, when we talked earlier, you said that people were uncomfortable with their core values being mocked.

WARREN: Yes. Yes.

BROWN: In what sense are they being mocked?

WARREN: Well, just read the pundits since the election. You can take Paul Krugman or E.J. Dionne or Jane Smiley or -- a lot of people said basically, the flyover country, which is a derogatory term, that they're idiot and that they were mocked.

In fact, Thomas Friedman said, this was like the American Taliban, that they were fundamentalists. This wasn't about fundamentalism. When you talk about 70 percent of people saying I think marriage is between a man and a woman, that's not fundamentalism. That's not even evangelicalism. That's 5,000 years of history.

BROWN: Do you worry that this is a peak of the power of the faithful?

WARREN: I believe that the problems in America are essentially spiritual, and I don't think there are political solutions to them.

I don't think you can change people necessarily by laws. If I believe you could change people by laws, I'd be a politician. But I am a pastor, which means, I think only God can change your life. There really are two conversations going on in America. One of them is the above conversation, which gets promoted in the traditional distribution channels, like this show, CNN, and media of a different kind.

But there's a lot of stuff that's going on underground that a lot people are missing. The three biggest surprises of 2004 which shocked everybody, the first was "The Passion," the movie, because, as a general rule, newspapers and others panned it, said, it isn't going to work. And it became a big hit.

The second biggest surprise was my book, which "Publishers Weekly" said is now the best-selling hardback in history, selling one million copies a month. But you wouldn't know that in San Francisco. It's not even been on the charts. And No. 3 was this election.

Now, all three of those -- this is not the only factor -- but all three of those went word of mouth through a network of churches throughout the United States, Catholic churches, Protestant churches, other houses of worship.

BROWN: Why do you think you've been -- you're so hot right now?

WARREN: I think there are three factors.

First, the book is not a niche book. The subtitle is, "What On Earth Am I Here For"? That is a fundamental question of life. There are three basic issues, the issue of significance. Does my life matter? The issue of intention. What's my purpose? And the issue of existence. Why am I here? Everybody at some point puts their head down on a pillow and goes, what's it all about?

Then the second thing is, it's a simple book. It's not shallow. It's just simple. And so I made it extremely simple, that people could say, who is God and what is his purpose for my life? And then I'm just a pretty average guy. And I think people can relate to me. I'm not a superstar.

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: Thank you.

BROWN: You're a most interesting guy. Best of luck to you.

WARREN: Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: And if you want to hear more from Rick Warren, he'll be Larry King's guest on Monday night, 9:00 Eastern.

Well, here's a transition. Consider this the last time we're going to tease our story on the pornography industry. The story itself is next.

And later, overcoming adversity a quarter mile at a time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: It goes without saying: Sex sells. How well does it sell? A Senate committee held hearings this week. And to spare you the dry testimony, how well does it sell? Let us count the ways.

Here's NEWSNIGHT's Aaron Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The product is packed and ready to go.

JOY KING, VICE PRESIDENT OF SPECIAL PROJECTS, WICKED PICTURES: Well, we have several hundred movies. So we have VHS. We have DVD. There are literally tens of thousands of movies in here.

BROWN: That would be tens of thousands of pornographic movies, a small slice of what's believed to be at least an $11 billion annual industry. Centered in the smoggy San Fernando Valley just outside Los Angeles, "Porn Valley," the industry calls it.

TIM CONNELLY, PUBLISHER/EDITOR, "ADULT VIDEO NEWS": It just happens to be the place where you have the cheapest industrial space, freeway close. Housing is cheap and the market's booming.

BROWN: An understatement, that. From the estimated 10,000 new pornographic movies made and distributed every year -- 10,000 -- to the lucrative porn movies paid for in hotel rooms worldwide, to the Internet, to on-demand cable, porn is ubiquitous. It's even on "The New York Times" best-seller list. This book by a leading porn actress is now in the top 10.

CONNELLY: Any form of media, porn's always there first.

BROWN: We can't show you a lot about this, of course, but this yearly awards show sponsored by the industry magazine "Adult Video News" itself is an enormous seller on DVD, and there's little the authorities can do about it.

STEVE TAKESHITA, PORNOGRAPHY UNIT, LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: We've been actively investigating the distributions all through the last 30 or 40 years. Unfortunately, though, in the state of California, distribution of obscenity is a misdemeanor.

BROWN: That means that the LAPD, which used to have nine officers investigating porn, now has three.

TAKESHITA: It is a giant industry, but we do what we can with the resources we have.

BROWN: Lately, even mainstream Hollywood producers are edging in to the arena. BRIAN GRAZER, HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER: What intrigues me is that there was so much pornography of that preceded "Deep Throat," but none of it seemed to have real impact.

BROWN: He's Brian Grazer, who, along with director Ron Howard, has produced some of Hollywood's biggest hits, "Apollo 13," for one. Now he's spending $1 million of his own money to finance a documentary about the making of the first porn megahit, "Deep Throat."

GRAZER: I thinks it's the title and the act itself that, in that equation, produced an iconic power that was magnetizing to people.

BROWN: For many Americans, the shock value of pornography has diminished. But those who work in it and with the porn industry say they fear what's next.

SHARON MITCHELL, ADULT INDUSTRY MEDICAL HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION: I don't know how much more they could do to one body part than they are already doing. And, clinically, it's a little scary to me, because it's almost a can-you-top-this type of thing.

BROWN: Even so, the porn deluge shows absolutely no sign of slowing down.

KING: As it becomes more accepted, it just continues to grow. And, hopefully, it provides people with entertainment that they enjoy in the privacy of their home, and they have the choice to do that. And hopefully it will just continue to grow and be profitable and fulfill a part of people's sex lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Aaron Brown reporting, something that -- that story, something that takes our imaginations.

Well, the sights and sounds of drag-racing from a crew chief who refuses to let a handicap slow him down.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: A story of triumph over (AUDIO GAP) Jay Blake was working for a transportation company in Massachusetts when a wheel assembly blew up in his face, literally. At 31, he was left completely blind. But this tragedy didn't stop Jay Blake from living life to its fullest. Just the opposite. Since his injury, he has water-skied, used power tools and even gotten behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer. But that's nothing compared to what he's doing now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAY BLAKE, PRESIDENT, FOLLOW A DREAM: The first time you see a drag race, it is mind-blowing. It's ear-piercing. The ground literally shakes. It just hits you and you feel it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blocks out.

BLAKE: The car I run is called an alcohol funny car. I am the owner and crew chief of the race team.

What is unique about me and what I do in drag racing, I have no sight at all. I am totally blind.

I'm going to forgo that.

I move around the engine, around my tools all by feel.

I guess I'm not driving today, huh?

I truly love getting my hands dirty.

Wow.

Putting the tools in my hand and working on the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You feel (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

BLAKE: Yes, I did. Yes, right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you got a guy that deals with...

BLAKE: That's the oil filter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... what he deals with every day...

BLAKE: Fired up, ready to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It makes it tough for us to start whining about things, you know?

BLAKE: Power!

I've been a fan of drag racing for most of my life. And after my accident, I decided that I was going to follow my dream and start my own race team. With the right attitude, you can do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Ray, the new driver for Jim and Jay Blake. Jay, the car owner, lost his sight in an industrial accident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hit it.

BLAKE: This program is about helping people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Follow a Dream concept, which pretty much means exactly like it says on the race car.

BLAKE: I go out and I will do presentations and talk about, things will happen in life, but it's how we choose to handle them and what we do with that that makes up the difference. I was sighted for 31 years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes!

BLAKE: And I didn't think I could do half the things I'm doing.

Yes, baby!

I am one of the luckiest guys in the world!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For Jay Blake, a marvelous run.

BLAKE: Just doing what I'm doing is awesome. I love it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: What an inspiration.

We'll wrap things up in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: One other late item before we go.

Defending NBA champions the Detroit Pistons were hosting the Indiana Pacers. A fight broke out between the Pacer team and the fans in the stands. You can go to CNN.com for more details. That's what we're going to do.

Thanks for joining us. That's it for NEWSNIGHT. Good night.

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