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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Troop Levels Being Raised in Iraq; New York Firefighter Remembered; Questions over Pentagon Misleading News Media
Aired December 01, 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.
Truth they say is the first casualty of war and there is ample evidence that is so. It's something we look at tonight, if the Pentagon in an effort to mess with the minds of the insurgents in Iraq is in effect messing with your mind too. War in the information age is turning out to be a complex bit of business. We'll get to that in a moment but first another side of the complexity of war, in this case, a complicated math problem.
Take 130,000, add 1,500 and at the Pentagon you get 150,000. That's what's going to happen in Iraq in the weeks ahead as American troop levels in that country reach an all time high.
We begin tonight with CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With Iraq's fledgling security forces still a question mark and thousands of U.S. forces still tied down in Falluja, the Pentagon is moving to boost overall American troop levels in Iraq by roughly 12,000 to beef up security for Iraqi elections now set for January 30. Fifteen hundred fresh soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne, known as the 911 Division, have gotten the word they'll be in Iraq by mid- month.
MAJ. JOHN MORGAN, 82ND AIRBORNE DIVISION: Our paratroopers are prepared to assist the people of Iraq who have been fighting terror and intimidation as they prepare for the upcoming elections.
MCINTYRE: And, in addition to the new soldiers, more than 10,000 other troops already in Iraq have been informed they'll be going home in March of next year instead of January.
Among the troops extended for two more months on the ground, 4,400 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division, 3,500 from the 1st Cavalry Division, 2,300 Marines from the 31st MEU and 160 soldiers from the 116th Transportation Company.
Currently, there are 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. With the extensions and new deployments that number will swell to 150,000 by mid-January, an all time high eclipsing the peak of 148,000 American troops in Iraq in May of last year right after the invasion.
For some soldiers this is the second extension of their tours, first from ten months to 12, then from 12 to 14. The Pentagon insists they won't be extended again and that they'll be given two extra months at home to make up for it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: Aaron, two things. The plus-up of troops is intended to increase security for the elections and the Pentagon believes the best way to do that is to keep the insurgents on the run, build on the momentum from the Falluja invasion, so that's what some of these troops will be up to.
The other thing is despite the fact that they've had to extend these troops, the Pentagon continues to insist the military is not too small and that they're not suffering from any shortage of new recruits -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just one question. Do they give you an idea of when they'll pull this number down again?
MCINTYRE: Well, they promise that these troops will not be extended again and they're hopeful that by March when they start coming home they'll be able to start drawing down the numbers. But, again, no one here will give you a guarantee and they say it's entirely based on the situation on the ground and, as we know in recent months, that situation has only gotten worse.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre.
As of today, 1,256 American soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq. One of the things we hope you'll do is see this not as one large number but as 1,256 individuals, each of them different, each of them important, each with a story.
We focus on one story tonight because this one life seems to span in ways that no other has the events that started the country down the road to the war with Iraq.
Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL ALLEN, LADDER COMPANY 61, NEW YORK FIRE DEPT.: Chris was not the type of guy to be upset or run from any kind of a fight. When you met him, he made you a better person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he was in the background as a spectator he wasn't happy. He had to help. He had to do something.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Ladder Company 61 in the Bronx a memorial for the first New York City firefighter to die in Iraq, Chris Engeldrum, Drum to his friends. He was killed in Baghdad on Monday when his Humvee rolled over an explosive. He was 39.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry.
CARROLL: That's OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't replace him. We can't -- we can't be a father. We can't be a wife but we can fill in the gaps, you know.
CARROLL: Engeldrum served with honors in the Gulf War, then became a New York City police officer. He found his true joy after joining the fire department in 1999. On 9/11, his company arrived as the first tower fell. Engeldrum rescued as many people as he could. His colleagues don't know how many.
He helped to raise the first flag at Ground Zero. Still, he wanted to do more. For him that meant serving in Iraq in the Army National Guard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy wasn't a couch potato patriot. This guy lived it. He walked the walk and he talked the talk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He thought it cowardly if he would stay here and let the rest of his unit go. If he unit was going, just like at a fire, if we were going, he was going. He wasn't going to play it safe.
CARROLL: His wife called him the ultimate patriot. Engeldrum also leaves behind two teenage sons. The grief is shared by his former colleagues at the fire house where they hang reminders of Engeldrum and every time they head out on a call...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right here behind the rubber band. We got a rubber band.
CARROLL: ...he's there too, a toy soldier stashed in every helmet, tribute to a man who was a firefighter and a soldier at heart.
Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There is an important and explicit bargain between the press and the Pentagon in a time of war. We don't do anything to endanger the troops or operations. They don't lie to us.
Each is essential in a free society and each is made more complicated by the information age but it seems that sometimes in an effort to mislead the enemy the military has come close, very close, to crossing the line and misleading you, so again, from the Pentagon, CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LT. LYLE GILBERT, U.S. MARINES: When the troops crossed the line of departure we had artillery fire, front fire going out. Aircraft had been moving through the area all day, helicopters providing transport. It's been a pretty uncomfortable time.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marine Corps Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit outside Falluja appeared on CNN October 14th offering words that sounded like the invasion of Falluja had begun.
But further reporting indicated that the long expected large scale ground offensive against Falluja had not started. It would be another three weeks before that would happen.
So, was Lieutenant Gilbert just wrong or was the U.S. military using CNN to convince viewers in the battle zone that the attack was already underway? The chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insists deception of the news media is never allowed.
LARRY DIRITA, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: Never. It's just not.
STARR: DiRita says he is reviewing the circumstances of the Gilbert interview.
DIRITA: And we're looking into specific reports where people may have gotten more creative than they should have.
STARR: A senior Pentagon official told CNN Gilbert's remarks were "technically true but misleading that there was an attempt to get CNN to report something not true." And CNN management is asking the Pentagon for an official response to this report that there was possible deliberate misinformation.
The "Los Angeles Times," which first reported the story, says it's all part of a broader effort to manipulate the media to achieve U.S. goals in Iraq. It was an unusual interview. Gilbert, a junior public affairs officer dealing with the media, appeared only because the military contacted CNN saying they had someone ready on the scene to discuss major unfolding developments that night.
A CNN spokesman said, "As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to our viewers exactly what was going on in and around Falluja." Whatever conflicting information was out there behind the scenes at the Pentagon there is now a raging debate about the use of information as a weapon and whether a single battlefield commander should be in charge of both psychological operations and media operations at the same time.
At the Corps, concerns that the military is blurring clear distinctions among three goals, psychological operations against enemy forces, offering timely and accurate information to reporters and influencing foreign audiences.
A Pentagon advisory panel warns the military must make an effort to communicate better with the Muslim world but critics worry it is becoming a Madison Avenue type campaign full of leaflets, broadcasts and government sponsored influence that crosses the line.
A proposal circulated within the Pentagon calls for a new director of central information, all part of an acknowledged deeper Pentagon effort to counter ideological support to terrorism.
(END VIDEOTAPE) STARR: So, Aaron, at the end of the day the news media will be watching this entire trend toward information warfare very closely -- Aaron.
BROWN: I actually have a question I probably should know the answer to. When the young Marine originally made his statement, did he make it on CNN America, the network that is seen around the country or on CNN International or both?
STARR: Indeed, Aaron, Lieutenant Gilbert appeared on both CNN International and, as you say, what we refer to here as CNN domestic, the network that is seen in the United States. He was on both of those raising the question of what exact goal his comments were attempting to achieve. Was he looking at audiences shall we say outside of the U.S. in the battle zone or was there some reason he was making those remarks to be heard inside the United States, not terribly clear.
BROWN: All right, Barbara, hang on for a little bit.
Mark Mazzetti joins us now. He's the defense correspondent at the "L.A. Times." He filed a story in today's edition and he joins us again tonight.
Let's just focus for just one quick second on who the intended audience was in that. There's no particular reason to tell an American audience that this thing has started but there is a whole lot of reason, I suppose, to mislead, if you are so inclined, the insurgents.
MARK MAZZETTI, "LOS ANGELES TIMES" DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The Pentagon people I spoke to for this story said that the intended audience for the report was the insurgent population in and around Falluja who might think that the U.S. military was basically coming to get them and the U.S. military basically wanted to observe what they did when they thought the U.S. was coming. So, it was basically a psychological operation built into their war plan to sort of see what the enemy was up to.
BROWN: OK. Now there is here, I mean this -- first of all none of us are particularly comfortable when we're talking about things, about ourselves if you will. There are these broader questions as both you and Barbara know. Are there -- is there an argument being made in important parts of the Pentagon that essentially go like this?
Look, we're going to do what we have to do. We're going to say what we have to say. This is the information age. We've got 130,000 kids out there whose lives are on the line and if the American media doesn't like it, tough luck.
MAZZETTI: There is that argument being made to some extent and I think the larger debate is between the people who take that position you just articulated and a lot of very senior career military officers who came up through the ranks after Vietnam and they make the case that they say, you know, look one of the biggest casualties in Vietnam was the credibility of the U.S. military. Over time people just didn't believe what the military was saying and they fear that if we go down this path the same thing is going to happen again that a U.S. spokesman or a commander on the field will say things about the war in Iraq and the American public, the American media, the world won't believe what they're saying and I think that's a real danger and a fear that they have.
BROWN: Barbara, let me turn to you. You've been around the Pentagon a long time and we all operate to one degree or another on the premise that even if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. Do you find generally speaking that you are getting the straight skinny out of the Pentagon these days?
STARR: Well, with Iraq it's a very interesting question, Aaron, because we are thousands of miles away from the front lines here. You do get a certain level of information here but there is a time lag. There is a lag of geography. The time zone difference is substantial.
So, these days if you want to be a reporter covering a war many hours away, even if you are not at the front lines, you have to make an effort through e-mail, through cell phones, through modern communications to be in touch with sources in Iraq, to be in touch with people there.
It's very tough business, as you say. It's very different than when most of us started in the business a few years back. Now you really have to try and operate in multiple time zones and talk to many, many people to discern what is really going on.
BROWN: Mark, a broader question here still is clearly the United States has in a large part of the Arab world an enormous image problem. The Defense Policy Board or advisory board made that clear and there are different ways to approach that and there are, in fact, different ways to read the information. How exactly can the Pentagon respond if at its core the problem is not perception but policy?
MAZZETTI: Well, I think that's the heart of the issue. I mean the case is being made that we need to strategically communicate our policies better, you know, in other words we're not doing a good job articulating the message. We've got to combine public affairs, psychological operations, information operations together to package into one broad message.
But at the end of the day a lot of people will say if your policies are sound, there's only so much you can do to make your policies palatable around the world, so you know I think that that is the heart of the debate right now and I think that, you know, there are some who question us spending millions and millions of dollars to better articulate our messages maybe wasting our money if the policies are flawed to begin with.
BROWN: and let me end this with our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, is there do you think a difference in the way the uniformed personnel see this issue and in the way the civilian side of the Pentagon sees this issue? MCINTYRE: Well, it's interesting. I don't think the split is so much uniform and civilian but there is a split in the military and, as Mark referred to, it's sort of people who have come up for a long time who understand that credibility is the coin of the realm in terms of being able to have a successful information operation of any kind. People have to believe you.
And the problem with the statements that young Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert made was, as Barbara noted, they were technically correct but very misleading. In fact, we didn't really find out what was going on in that operation for days later. It turned out it was really a total fake.
It was a fake trying to provoke the insurgents and clearly if the military has the -- they have the right to conduct that kind of operation but they have to be very careful how they characterize it because they did lose some credibility that day and CNN was victimized a little bit by the early statements by Gilbert. So, you know, we're much more suspicious now of some of the comments that we're getting over there.
You know, Barbara talked about having sources in Iraq. This guy was supposedly in Iraq. We were told he was with one of the front line units. So, you know, there was a lesson there.
BROWN: Yes, if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. Thank you all. It's good to see you all. Thank you for your time tonight.
Ahead on the program, a collision of faith and honesty.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. ELIZABETH STROUD, MINISTER ON TRIAL: I reached a place in my life where I could not grow anymore as a Christian unless I told the truth about my sexual orientation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: A lesbian minister on trial by her church, her career on the line, her church at odds over whether she should stay or go.
Also ahead, a church that produced a TV ad to spread the word it welcome everyone, why the three major networks will not run it, a break first.
Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In two ways tonight two churches deal with what is clearly a complicated issue, the issue of homosexuality. First, the trial of a minister in the Methodist Church, an admitted lesbian, began today. Reverend Irene Elizabeth Stroud is charged with violating two different church laws. These trials in the Methodist Church are usually held in private. Reverend Stroud, whose career is on the line, wanted this one public, reporting for us tonight CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reverend Beth Stroud and her partner Chris Page (ph) are in the middle of a family quarrel caught between members of their church family who support them in their lesbian relationship and those who do not.
STROUD: I think the support from my congregation makes it much less scary for me. I might have made this choice but certainly the support of my congregation has made this much easier for me to do.
FOREMAN: Less than a year ago at her church in Philadelphia, Reverend Stroud chose to tell her congregation about her long term homosexual relationship and in that strongly liberal neighborhood they have supported her but the larger United Methodist Church is more conservative.
ROBERT SHOEMAKER, ATTORNEY, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: It's always been our position here that we should operate under the law as it exists and not operate under what certain people want the law to be.
FOREMAN: Earlier this year, national church leadership reaffirmed its law against practicing homosexuals in the clergy and now Stroud is facing a rarely seen public church trial in which a jury of her fellow pastors could force her out of the ministry. Stroud's parents are angry.
BILL STROUD, ELIZABETH'S FATHER: You know, I despair at times but change does happen.
FOREMAN: Even though they know the church is struggling the same way they struggled with their daughter's sexuality.
JANE STROUD, ELIZABETH'S MOTHER: We didn't know, didn't fully understand in our family but we didn't say you can't be a part of our family, you know. Our response was, you know, we don't quite understand this right now but we love you. You're our daughter and you always will be.
FOREMAN (on camera): Church leaders acknowledge they are in a terrible situation here. On both sides of this case they say Beth Stroud is an excellent pastor and a person of great integrity.
REV. TOM HALL, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: I feel conflicted in that I have to confront my colleague in ministry in a very painful way over an issue that has split a lot of different communities, both in our country and in our major denominations.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Why not just walk away when you found yourself at such odds with your own church's teachings?
STROUD: Because it is my own church. FOREMAN: So, many in this church family say they are torn feeling they cannot let this young woman stay in the pulpit of their church yet wishing she did not have to go.
Tom Foreman CNN, Spring City, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Reverend Stroud and her partner were married in a church affiliated with the United Church of Christ, which says something about how that denomination sees this issue. The church would like to tell a lot of people how it sees a lot of issues but is having a hard time getting its message heard.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): The images are stark. They are meant to be. The United Church of Christ is trying to reach those who may feel rejected by other denominations, minorities, the young, gays.
RON BUFORD, COORDINATOR, UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: Our message is a message of inclusion that everyone is welcome no matter who they are or where they are in life's journey.
BROWN: But this commercial is not welcome on the top three broadcast networks, although it will air on network affiliates and many cable networks, including CNN.
A spokesperson from ABC told CNN "We do not generally accept paid advertising that espouses a particular religious doctrine." CBS told CNN that they "have a longstanding policy of not accepting advocacy or issue-oriented ads."
In a memo sent to the church, CBS went a bit further saying, "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and the fact that the executive branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the networks."
In another memo sent to the church, NBC rejected the ad as "too controversial." But apparently both CBS and NBC will accept another less pointed commercial scheduled to run later this month.
The church says that their initial ad has already aired in several test markets, both red and blue states, without public complaint and the church says it doesn't see why it should be blocked from the airwaves.
BUFORD: But I think the most controversial thing is whether or not we're going to be denied free expression of the practice of our religion or freedom of speech. That is the most controversial thing of all.
BROWN: Alex Ben Block, the editor of "Television Week," agrees.
ALEX BEN BLOCK, EDITOR, "TELEVISION WEEK": And I think what's really going on here is that there's a great chill over television and over media today because of the shift to the right in our society and because nobody really knows what the rules are at the FCC anymore and everybody is afraid to offend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight one of the many casualties of war in Iraq, children and malnutrition.
And the latest development in the case of a woman in Florida in a coma for more than a decade, the fight over her life as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When you look at Falluja today you're reminded of that saying out of Vietnam, "We had to destroy the city to save it." Hundreds and hundreds of homes destroyed in Falluja, the power system, water, food.
It is a mess there and will be for a long time to come. Two hundred and fifty thousand people at least lived there. Eventually they do need to come home, Jane Arraf tonight on what they face when they get there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The Zabaris (ph) are one of the first families in Falluja trying to rebuild their home. It will take a long time to overcome their tragedy, the loss of their 13-year-old son in the bombing of their neighborhood. Since their own house was destroyed in the fighting, they're now staying in the home of relatives.
The Marines and the Iraqi Red Crescent brought them here after they spent five days at the cramped Red Crescent offices, where they were taken for shelter. There were fewer civilians left in Falluja than originally feared before the U.S. offensive. But it doesn't lessen the suffering of individual families.
The Zabaris' 13-year-old son, Mustafa (ph), was killed when their home was hit. His mother, Selma Hasan, said it was three days before they could bury the boy. "We were trapped in the house. Our house was hit and the house next door. It was destruction, complete destruction and fire. Nothing was left, not even the children's clothing," she told us.
Her 10-year-old son, Abdel Jaleel, explains to us why they stayed when so many left. "We thought the bombing wouldn't be as bad as the last time," he said. They were wrong.
The Marine commander here estimates there were only about 50 families in the center of the city when the battle started. There was such intense fighting that a lot of them had a very hard time. A relative who knows English wrote this sign in the hope it would keep the family safe from U.S. forces. Marines accompanying them back searched the house first to make sure no insurgents had moved in since they left.
The youngest children, 2-year-old Malud (ph) and 3-year-old Authman (ph), are too young to absorb this. "But we're still afraid," says 16-year-old Fantama (ph). Their father, Mahmood Odey Zabari (ph), says he's been told his brother was killed and buried in someone's garden. He asks for help in finding him.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Ramos says they'll help the family any way they can.
LT. COL. MIKE RAMOS, U.S. MARINES: I'll be here tomorrow if he would like to start talking about rebuilding his house.
ARRAF: Nothing will compensate for the loss of their child. Selma says she has to think about the children remaining and try to rebuild their lives.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF: And most families in Falluja, of course, are still outside the city. And it could be a while before they come back. The military here, the Marines, are trying to remove water that could cause disease, trying to get the electricity back up. And rather than bringing people in, they are still sending families who want to leave Falluja out of the city -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you -- Jane Arraf tonight.
A broken country, we guess, can be measured in lots of different ways, including in ounces and inches. According to the United Nations, more than one-quarter of the Iraqi children are underfed today. Food shortages in Iraq were a problem, of course, before the U.S. invasion. Whether the level of malnourishment has worsened since and, if so, by how much, is a point of some debate. But what everyone can agree on, many of the youngest, the most vulnerable Iraqis are clearly suffering. Malnutrition is not pretty. The pictures here are not either.
Here's CNN's Karl Penhaul.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet little Hibba (ph), six months old, chronically malnourished. She can't digest the lactose in her mother's milk. And with a government worker's wage of $80 a month, her father's too poor to buy soy milk.
SUAD, GRANDMOTHER (through translator): I have raised 11 children in my life. And I never had a case like this one before.
PENHAUL: Malnutrition was a problem during Saddam Hussein's rule, partly because of food shortages blamed on international sanctions.
But according to United Nations figures, the situation has got no better since the U.S.-led invasion and may even be graphically worse. Looking around the ward at this Baghdad child nutrition center, it certainly looks that way.
DR. ZAID MOHAMMED, NUTRITIONIST (through translator): Cases of malnutrition have doubled for many reasons. First of all, the services are not as good as they used to be. The sanitary situation is very bad. There's no healthy water supply.
PENHAUL: Parts of the damaged water supply network haven't been repaired since the war. Families still receive U.N.-sponsored subsidized food rations, but that's not sufficient.
Meanwhile, open market prices have risen and unemployment makes it difficult for many families to earn enough to buy the basics. Hussein (ph) has come with mom to get weighed and measured. Doctors say malnourishment is stunting his growth.
(on camera): A source working on a new U.N. survey says June figures indicate 7.5 percent of Iraqi kids suffer acute malnutrition and are literally wasting away.
(voice-over): A week ago, UNICEF's head, Carol Bellamy, said -- quote -- "The latest reports are showing that acute malnutrition among young children has nearly doubled since March 2003" -- close quote.
A government official says he's seen no persuasive evidence of that trend.
DR. NIMA SAID, PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT: There is no reason to believe that there is a real increase or duplication in the -- or doubling of the cases or the prevalence of malnutrition.
PENHAUL: The U.N. Development Program plans to publish a new report on malnutrition next year.
But for Najat Hassan, every day, it's a struggle to find the cash for the high-protein milk she needs to feed her 7-month-old baby.
NAJAT HASSAN, MOTHER (through translator): My husband sold our propane gas cylinder and our stove to buy a package of milk. What will he sell next?
PENHAUL: She says all she has left to sell is a small TV and a bedside lamp. But when the money from that runs out, little Hussein may starve.
Karl Penhaul, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The case of Terri Schiavo may be decided ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court. Florida governor, Jeb Bush, today asked the justices to take the case. The details here have become familiar; 14 years ago, Ms. Terri Schiavo suffered severe brain damage, has been in what doctors call a vegetative state ever since. Last year, at the governor's bidding, the Florida state legislature wrote a law to stop Ms. Schiavo's husband from letting her die, which she said was her wish, though she had not written it down and it's not what her parents want.
No matter how you see these things, this is a sad case that may now -- may -- be decided by the nation's highest court.
All these sorts of cases are hard. And, as a culture, we struggle with them, as we should. Life is precious. We struggle when the person has lived a long, full life. And we struggle even more, we suspect, when we're talking about a child. Other countries deal with it differently. The Netherlands allows lives to be ended to end suffering. And now they want to add children to the list. Does age matter? Should it matter?
A couple of questions to throw out tonight. We're joined by Arthur Caplan, director of the Center For Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. It's always good to see you.
DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR BIOETHICS: Hey, Aaron.
BROWN: This is one of like those Russian dolls, where there's questions inside of questions inside of questions.
Just a couple of quick ones. Does it make sense that different cultures, that the Dutch would come to different conclusions than the Americans might?
CAPLAN: You know, it's interesting, Aaron. The Dutch really think so. They would say they have national health care. No one's worried about somebody killing another person to save money for the budget or to allow somehow, you know, the national debt to be canceled.
They say, we know each other. We're a country of 15 million people. We know our doctors. We trust one another. We can do things that a country like the United States with 300 million people and, you know, just as many religious and just as many points of view could never do. So they think so.
BROWN: Does it change the discussion if you're talking about an 86-year-old or a 92-year-old person on one end and a severely disabled child, three months old, at the other end?
CAPLAN: You know, I think it does.
The principle that I would look to here is to say whatever one's views about euthanasia, if you're going to have it legalized -- and we have a state, Oregon, where it is -- doctors can help people to die there, cause their death, not allow them to die -- you want to have someone the person's permission. That means you need someone who is competent, able to understand what's going on and makes the choice. When you start extending that opportunity to end a life to people who can't consent, I think it's a recipe for big trouble. And children and babies are by no means in a position to consent.
BROWN: Should we make a distinction -- Oregon does -- between a law that ends suffering and -- the Oregon law allows doctor-assisted suicide when the patient is terminal, as opposed to really miserable, I guess.
CAPLAN: Correct. Yes.
You know, it's, again, the dolls inside dolls. It's hard for me to imagine a case where suffering couldn't be managed using today's kind of weapons to do pain control. If you're just going to tell me that you've got to end somebody's life because that's the only way you can manage their suffering, my inclination is to say, you're not doing a good job managing their suffering.
We shouldn't have anybody in pain because of cancer. We yell at the doctors. We issue reports and commissions and government studies and say, use pain control. Sometimes, we don't, but there's no excuse. You shouldn't have to die in order to not suffer.
BROWN: Yes.
Just, as a practical matter, being realistic about this, in hospitals around the country, this country, would you expect, do you suspect that children, in fact, infants, very young children, are allowed to die -- I don't mean an act taken, but taken off respirators or whatever, and that it happens all the time?
CAPLAN: I think it does happen. I don't think it happens a lot, but it happens. No one -- no one steps in and injects a baby with a lethal dose of morphine or kills them.
But if you have a little tiny preemie baby, 400 grams, fit in your hand, and you are trying to treat that child who is just not responding and it looks like nothing's going to work, there are situations in which people just say, let's pull the technology. If the child goes on, we'll continue. But if that child dies, that's telling us something. It's beyond our means.
So there are babies who don't get resuscitated for a 10th time.
BROWN: Yes.
CAPLAN: There are babies who people say, we're not going to keep that ventilator going. This child is just -- it's called failure to flourish. And occasionally you see a baby, the technology just isn't working. And they let the baby go. It does happen.
BROWN: Doc, it's good to see you. Thank you, sir.
CAPLAN: My pleasure.
BROWN: Arthur Caplan from Pennsylvania. Take a break. We'll continue in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The job of the photographer, specifically the portrait photographer, is to capture the true spirit of his or her subject. Does he or she smile, wear a hat? It takes more than that, of course, to make a memorable picture. The great photographers reveal layer after layer in one flash.
That's what Melanie Dunea and Nigel Parry have done in their most unusual book "Precious."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIGEL PARRY, PHOTOGRAPHER: Normally, we're commissioned by people to shoot specific things a specific way at a specific time.
MELANIE DUNEA, PHOTOGRAPHER: Precious is the actual person playing themselves. And hopefully this gets you one step closer.
PARRY: So we decided them to have them participate a little more and ask them what they wanted us to photograph.
DUNEA: In this, we wanted to get their essence, get the soul of the subject, the part that they had picked and make it look precious.
And it's people that are eminent in their field. It could be an author or a chef, a movie actress or actor. And our intention in "Precious" was actually to emphasize the diversity, to have a very A- level or A-list celebrity and then to have a chef and the best cardiologist.
Tony Hawk gave a really interesting quote. And he said, "I choose my scars because they're my stories." And I think the same thing with Twyla Tharp.
PARRY: That's true. Have big toes.
DUNEA: Bunions.
PARRY: Yes, sort of stick out like that. It's unbelievable. And that apparently is what happens to virtually everybody's feet when they wear those ballet points.
DUNEA: Daniel, who, when we arrived he at the restaurant, he said, my tongue. It's just definitely my tongue. That's the essence of cooking, is my tongue.
PARRY: This book isn't a vehicle to show photographs. It is an entity in itself. It is precious.
DUNEA: We really wanted it to be a gem, you know, precious. That's why we used the gold, which is why we used the graphics.
PARRY: It would be very, very difficult to have these photographs without the swath of gold across them and without the sort of juxtaposition with the other photographs as well.
And the Tucci shot. He told us before that he wanted to photograph his hands. He has such a recognizable shaped head.
DUNEA: And it was important to somehow keep the person, the subject.
PARRY: Yes.
DUNEA: We wanted to see who it was. We didn't want to have a book full of hands and eyes.
PARRY: We tried to show part of sort of their feelings that they had toward the part of the body that they had chose.
Paul Theroux, his quote was how he was horrified one morning because he had thought he had woken up blind. So, even though he chose his eyes, I have him in sort of a beautiful landscape with his hands over his eyes.
DUNEA: Susan Sarandon, she chose her spirit.
PARRY: Which was a very difficult thing to do. It took us so long to work out the exact exposure, the exact amount of light and for how quickly she should move from one place to the next.
PARRY: Paloma Picasso.
DUNEA: What an elegant woman.
PARRY: Yes. She chose her shoulders. I think actually that was a bit of cheating, because that was her husband's favorite part.
DUNEA: It was just the essence of her, sort of an abstract photograph, hearkening back to perhaps her dad. That's actually one of my favorite pictures, is the David Copperfield picture. I think it sums up "Precious" in a nutshell. It's the elements, the graphics and just a little hint of David Copperfield.
We really do try to show the truth of the person, the essence, the soul of the person when we photograph them. So "Precious" is the actual person playing themselves. And, hopefully, this gets you one step closer. It tears away one more layer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Check morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers around the country and around the world. I don't know why that amused me, since I've said it 400 times. "Stars and Stripes" leads it off. "U.S. Troop Numbers to Rise For Iraq Vote." That's the right lead. And it's especially the right lead if you're "Stars and Stripes." They put the "Jeopardy" guy on the front page. First of all, isn't this day-old news? I think so. "Jeopardy Superman Loses on 75th Game." Or I guess that should, did the "Jeopardy" guy lose on the 75th game?
"Christian Science Monitor." "Bush Goals Still Big, Bold. Daunting Reforms and Unorthodox Order Are Born of Confidence, But Leave Room For a Fall," a look at the agenda for the president. There's going to be a huge national debate over Social Security, which I hope is actually a good debate, as opposed to a bumper sticker debate.
CNN -- "The CNN Enquirer" -- I just changed the name of this newspaper. "The Cincinnati Enquirer." "P&G" -- Procter & Gamble, based there in Cincinnati, I believe -- "Sex Hormone Under Scrutiny. Hearing Today to Address the Safety of the Patch." This is a patch for post-menopausal to increase their sex drive. Our audience is much younger than that, so there's not much demand here for that.
How are we doing on time? Oh, really? OK.
Let me do this one, then, quickly. "The Boston Herald." Up in the corner here, "Band in Boston." Senior producer Jennifer Block (ph) is laughing at this. She's been trying to get me to do this story for a while, these fake fund-raiser -- for Lance Armstrong fund- raiser things.
The weather tomorrow in Chicago, by the way...
(CHIMES)
BROWN: ... is "crummy."
One goodbye before we say goodbye. A break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Quickly, before we go tonight, after two decades of anchoring NBC's "Nightly News," Tom Brokaw, as most of you know, signed off for the last time as the anchorman tonight. Doing so set in motion the changing of the guard at the big three, or at least two of the big three. Sorry, Peter. Mr. Brokaw left by his own choice, terms and timetable and left with the grace you would expect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS")
TOM BROKAW, NBC ANCHOR: Well, the time is here.
We have been through a lot together, through dark days and nights and seasons of hope and joy. Whatever the story, I had only one objective, to get it right. When I failed, it was personally painful and there was no greater urgency than course correction. On those occasions, I was grateful for your forbearance and always mindful that your patience and attention didn't come with a lifetime warranty. I was not alone here, of course. I'm simply the most conspicuous part of a large, thoroughly dedicated and professional staff that extends from just beyond these cameras across the country and around the world, in too many instances in places of grave danger and personal hardship. And they are family to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: He's a very classy guy.
I just kind of wonder how he is sleeping tonight and how Brian Williams is sleeping tonight.
We'll see you all 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 December 1, 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.
Truth they say is the first casualty of war and there is ample evidence that is so. It's something we look at tonight, if the Pentagon in an effort to mess with the minds of the insurgents in Iraq is in effect messing with your mind too. War in the information age is turning out to be a complex bit of business. We'll get to that in a moment but first another side of the complexity of war, in this case, a complicated math problem.
Take 130,000, add 1,500 and at the Pentagon you get 150,000. That's what's going to happen in Iraq in the weeks ahead as American troop levels in that country reach an all time high.
We begin tonight with CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With Iraq's fledgling security forces still a question mark and thousands of U.S. forces still tied down in Falluja, the Pentagon is moving to boost overall American troop levels in Iraq by roughly 12,000 to beef up security for Iraqi elections now set for January 30. Fifteen hundred fresh soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne, known as the 911 Division, have gotten the word they'll be in Iraq by mid- month.
MAJ. JOHN MORGAN, 82ND AIRBORNE DIVISION: Our paratroopers are prepared to assist the people of Iraq who have been fighting terror and intimidation as they prepare for the upcoming elections.
MCINTYRE: And, in addition to the new soldiers, more than 10,000 other troops already in Iraq have been informed they'll be going home in March of next year instead of January.
Among the troops extended for two more months on the ground, 4,400 soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division, 3,500 from the 1st Cavalry Division, 2,300 Marines from the 31st MEU and 160 soldiers from the 116th Transportation Company.
Currently, there are 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. With the extensions and new deployments that number will swell to 150,000 by mid-January, an all time high eclipsing the peak of 148,000 American troops in Iraq in May of last year right after the invasion.
For some soldiers this is the second extension of their tours, first from ten months to 12, then from 12 to 14. The Pentagon insists they won't be extended again and that they'll be given two extra months at home to make up for it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: Aaron, two things. The plus-up of troops is intended to increase security for the elections and the Pentagon believes the best way to do that is to keep the insurgents on the run, build on the momentum from the Falluja invasion, so that's what some of these troops will be up to.
The other thing is despite the fact that they've had to extend these troops, the Pentagon continues to insist the military is not too small and that they're not suffering from any shortage of new recruits -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just one question. Do they give you an idea of when they'll pull this number down again?
MCINTYRE: Well, they promise that these troops will not be extended again and they're hopeful that by March when they start coming home they'll be able to start drawing down the numbers. But, again, no one here will give you a guarantee and they say it's entirely based on the situation on the ground and, as we know in recent months, that situation has only gotten worse.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre.
As of today, 1,256 American soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq. One of the things we hope you'll do is see this not as one large number but as 1,256 individuals, each of them different, each of them important, each with a story.
We focus on one story tonight because this one life seems to span in ways that no other has the events that started the country down the road to the war with Iraq.
Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL ALLEN, LADDER COMPANY 61, NEW YORK FIRE DEPT.: Chris was not the type of guy to be upset or run from any kind of a fight. When you met him, he made you a better person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he was in the background as a spectator he wasn't happy. He had to help. He had to do something.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Ladder Company 61 in the Bronx a memorial for the first New York City firefighter to die in Iraq, Chris Engeldrum, Drum to his friends. He was killed in Baghdad on Monday when his Humvee rolled over an explosive. He was 39.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry.
CARROLL: That's OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't replace him. We can't -- we can't be a father. We can't be a wife but we can fill in the gaps, you know.
CARROLL: Engeldrum served with honors in the Gulf War, then became a New York City police officer. He found his true joy after joining the fire department in 1999. On 9/11, his company arrived as the first tower fell. Engeldrum rescued as many people as he could. His colleagues don't know how many.
He helped to raise the first flag at Ground Zero. Still, he wanted to do more. For him that meant serving in Iraq in the Army National Guard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy wasn't a couch potato patriot. This guy lived it. He walked the walk and he talked the talk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He thought it cowardly if he would stay here and let the rest of his unit go. If he unit was going, just like at a fire, if we were going, he was going. He wasn't going to play it safe.
CARROLL: His wife called him the ultimate patriot. Engeldrum also leaves behind two teenage sons. The grief is shared by his former colleagues at the fire house where they hang reminders of Engeldrum and every time they head out on a call...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right here behind the rubber band. We got a rubber band.
CARROLL: ...he's there too, a toy soldier stashed in every helmet, tribute to a man who was a firefighter and a soldier at heart.
Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There is an important and explicit bargain between the press and the Pentagon in a time of war. We don't do anything to endanger the troops or operations. They don't lie to us.
Each is essential in a free society and each is made more complicated by the information age but it seems that sometimes in an effort to mislead the enemy the military has come close, very close, to crossing the line and misleading you, so again, from the Pentagon, CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LT. LYLE GILBERT, U.S. MARINES: When the troops crossed the line of departure we had artillery fire, front fire going out. Aircraft had been moving through the area all day, helicopters providing transport. It's been a pretty uncomfortable time.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marine Corps Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit outside Falluja appeared on CNN October 14th offering words that sounded like the invasion of Falluja had begun.
But further reporting indicated that the long expected large scale ground offensive against Falluja had not started. It would be another three weeks before that would happen.
So, was Lieutenant Gilbert just wrong or was the U.S. military using CNN to convince viewers in the battle zone that the attack was already underway? The chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insists deception of the news media is never allowed.
LARRY DIRITA, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: Never. It's just not.
STARR: DiRita says he is reviewing the circumstances of the Gilbert interview.
DIRITA: And we're looking into specific reports where people may have gotten more creative than they should have.
STARR: A senior Pentagon official told CNN Gilbert's remarks were "technically true but misleading that there was an attempt to get CNN to report something not true." And CNN management is asking the Pentagon for an official response to this report that there was possible deliberate misinformation.
The "Los Angeles Times," which first reported the story, says it's all part of a broader effort to manipulate the media to achieve U.S. goals in Iraq. It was an unusual interview. Gilbert, a junior public affairs officer dealing with the media, appeared only because the military contacted CNN saying they had someone ready on the scene to discuss major unfolding developments that night.
A CNN spokesman said, "As the story developed, we quickly made it clear to our viewers exactly what was going on in and around Falluja." Whatever conflicting information was out there behind the scenes at the Pentagon there is now a raging debate about the use of information as a weapon and whether a single battlefield commander should be in charge of both psychological operations and media operations at the same time.
At the Corps, concerns that the military is blurring clear distinctions among three goals, psychological operations against enemy forces, offering timely and accurate information to reporters and influencing foreign audiences.
A Pentagon advisory panel warns the military must make an effort to communicate better with the Muslim world but critics worry it is becoming a Madison Avenue type campaign full of leaflets, broadcasts and government sponsored influence that crosses the line.
A proposal circulated within the Pentagon calls for a new director of central information, all part of an acknowledged deeper Pentagon effort to counter ideological support to terrorism.
(END VIDEOTAPE) STARR: So, Aaron, at the end of the day the news media will be watching this entire trend toward information warfare very closely -- Aaron.
BROWN: I actually have a question I probably should know the answer to. When the young Marine originally made his statement, did he make it on CNN America, the network that is seen around the country or on CNN International or both?
STARR: Indeed, Aaron, Lieutenant Gilbert appeared on both CNN International and, as you say, what we refer to here as CNN domestic, the network that is seen in the United States. He was on both of those raising the question of what exact goal his comments were attempting to achieve. Was he looking at audiences shall we say outside of the U.S. in the battle zone or was there some reason he was making those remarks to be heard inside the United States, not terribly clear.
BROWN: All right, Barbara, hang on for a little bit.
Mark Mazzetti joins us now. He's the defense correspondent at the "L.A. Times." He filed a story in today's edition and he joins us again tonight.
Let's just focus for just one quick second on who the intended audience was in that. There's no particular reason to tell an American audience that this thing has started but there is a whole lot of reason, I suppose, to mislead, if you are so inclined, the insurgents.
MARK MAZZETTI, "LOS ANGELES TIMES" DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The Pentagon people I spoke to for this story said that the intended audience for the report was the insurgent population in and around Falluja who might think that the U.S. military was basically coming to get them and the U.S. military basically wanted to observe what they did when they thought the U.S. was coming. So, it was basically a psychological operation built into their war plan to sort of see what the enemy was up to.
BROWN: OK. Now there is here, I mean this -- first of all none of us are particularly comfortable when we're talking about things, about ourselves if you will. There are these broader questions as both you and Barbara know. Are there -- is there an argument being made in important parts of the Pentagon that essentially go like this?
Look, we're going to do what we have to do. We're going to say what we have to say. This is the information age. We've got 130,000 kids out there whose lives are on the line and if the American media doesn't like it, tough luck.
MAZZETTI: There is that argument being made to some extent and I think the larger debate is between the people who take that position you just articulated and a lot of very senior career military officers who came up through the ranks after Vietnam and they make the case that they say, you know, look one of the biggest casualties in Vietnam was the credibility of the U.S. military. Over time people just didn't believe what the military was saying and they fear that if we go down this path the same thing is going to happen again that a U.S. spokesman or a commander on the field will say things about the war in Iraq and the American public, the American media, the world won't believe what they're saying and I think that's a real danger and a fear that they have.
BROWN: Barbara, let me turn to you. You've been around the Pentagon a long time and we all operate to one degree or another on the premise that even if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. Do you find generally speaking that you are getting the straight skinny out of the Pentagon these days?
STARR: Well, with Iraq it's a very interesting question, Aaron, because we are thousands of miles away from the front lines here. You do get a certain level of information here but there is a time lag. There is a lag of geography. The time zone difference is substantial.
So, these days if you want to be a reporter covering a war many hours away, even if you are not at the front lines, you have to make an effort through e-mail, through cell phones, through modern communications to be in touch with sources in Iraq, to be in touch with people there.
It's very tough business, as you say. It's very different than when most of us started in the business a few years back. Now you really have to try and operate in multiple time zones and talk to many, many people to discern what is really going on.
BROWN: Mark, a broader question here still is clearly the United States has in a large part of the Arab world an enormous image problem. The Defense Policy Board or advisory board made that clear and there are different ways to approach that and there are, in fact, different ways to read the information. How exactly can the Pentagon respond if at its core the problem is not perception but policy?
MAZZETTI: Well, I think that's the heart of the issue. I mean the case is being made that we need to strategically communicate our policies better, you know, in other words we're not doing a good job articulating the message. We've got to combine public affairs, psychological operations, information operations together to package into one broad message.
But at the end of the day a lot of people will say if your policies are sound, there's only so much you can do to make your policies palatable around the world, so you know I think that that is the heart of the debate right now and I think that, you know, there are some who question us spending millions and millions of dollars to better articulate our messages maybe wasting our money if the policies are flawed to begin with.
BROWN: and let me end this with our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre. Jamie, is there do you think a difference in the way the uniformed personnel see this issue and in the way the civilian side of the Pentagon sees this issue? MCINTYRE: Well, it's interesting. I don't think the split is so much uniform and civilian but there is a split in the military and, as Mark referred to, it's sort of people who have come up for a long time who understand that credibility is the coin of the realm in terms of being able to have a successful information operation of any kind. People have to believe you.
And the problem with the statements that young Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert made was, as Barbara noted, they were technically correct but very misleading. In fact, we didn't really find out what was going on in that operation for days later. It turned out it was really a total fake.
It was a fake trying to provoke the insurgents and clearly if the military has the -- they have the right to conduct that kind of operation but they have to be very careful how they characterize it because they did lose some credibility that day and CNN was victimized a little bit by the early statements by Gilbert. So, you know, we're much more suspicious now of some of the comments that we're getting over there.
You know, Barbara talked about having sources in Iraq. This guy was supposedly in Iraq. We were told he was with one of the front line units. So, you know, there was a lesson there.
BROWN: Yes, if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. Thank you all. It's good to see you all. Thank you for your time tonight.
Ahead on the program, a collision of faith and honesty.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. ELIZABETH STROUD, MINISTER ON TRIAL: I reached a place in my life where I could not grow anymore as a Christian unless I told the truth about my sexual orientation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: A lesbian minister on trial by her church, her career on the line, her church at odds over whether she should stay or go.
Also ahead, a church that produced a TV ad to spread the word it welcome everyone, why the three major networks will not run it, a break first.
Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: In two ways tonight two churches deal with what is clearly a complicated issue, the issue of homosexuality. First, the trial of a minister in the Methodist Church, an admitted lesbian, began today. Reverend Irene Elizabeth Stroud is charged with violating two different church laws. These trials in the Methodist Church are usually held in private. Reverend Stroud, whose career is on the line, wanted this one public, reporting for us tonight CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reverend Beth Stroud and her partner Chris Page (ph) are in the middle of a family quarrel caught between members of their church family who support them in their lesbian relationship and those who do not.
STROUD: I think the support from my congregation makes it much less scary for me. I might have made this choice but certainly the support of my congregation has made this much easier for me to do.
FOREMAN: Less than a year ago at her church in Philadelphia, Reverend Stroud chose to tell her congregation about her long term homosexual relationship and in that strongly liberal neighborhood they have supported her but the larger United Methodist Church is more conservative.
ROBERT SHOEMAKER, ATTORNEY, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: It's always been our position here that we should operate under the law as it exists and not operate under what certain people want the law to be.
FOREMAN: Earlier this year, national church leadership reaffirmed its law against practicing homosexuals in the clergy and now Stroud is facing a rarely seen public church trial in which a jury of her fellow pastors could force her out of the ministry. Stroud's parents are angry.
BILL STROUD, ELIZABETH'S FATHER: You know, I despair at times but change does happen.
FOREMAN: Even though they know the church is struggling the same way they struggled with their daughter's sexuality.
JANE STROUD, ELIZABETH'S MOTHER: We didn't know, didn't fully understand in our family but we didn't say you can't be a part of our family, you know. Our response was, you know, we don't quite understand this right now but we love you. You're our daughter and you always will be.
FOREMAN (on camera): Church leaders acknowledge they are in a terrible situation here. On both sides of this case they say Beth Stroud is an excellent pastor and a person of great integrity.
REV. TOM HALL, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: I feel conflicted in that I have to confront my colleague in ministry in a very painful way over an issue that has split a lot of different communities, both in our country and in our major denominations.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Why not just walk away when you found yourself at such odds with your own church's teachings?
STROUD: Because it is my own church. FOREMAN: So, many in this church family say they are torn feeling they cannot let this young woman stay in the pulpit of their church yet wishing she did not have to go.
Tom Foreman CNN, Spring City, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Reverend Stroud and her partner were married in a church affiliated with the United Church of Christ, which says something about how that denomination sees this issue. The church would like to tell a lot of people how it sees a lot of issues but is having a hard time getting its message heard.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): The images are stark. They are meant to be. The United Church of Christ is trying to reach those who may feel rejected by other denominations, minorities, the young, gays.
RON BUFORD, COORDINATOR, UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: Our message is a message of inclusion that everyone is welcome no matter who they are or where they are in life's journey.
BROWN: But this commercial is not welcome on the top three broadcast networks, although it will air on network affiliates and many cable networks, including CNN.
A spokesperson from ABC told CNN "We do not generally accept paid advertising that espouses a particular religious doctrine." CBS told CNN that they "have a longstanding policy of not accepting advocacy or issue-oriented ads."
In a memo sent to the church, CBS went a bit further saying, "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and the fact that the executive branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the networks."
In another memo sent to the church, NBC rejected the ad as "too controversial." But apparently both CBS and NBC will accept another less pointed commercial scheduled to run later this month.
The church says that their initial ad has already aired in several test markets, both red and blue states, without public complaint and the church says it doesn't see why it should be blocked from the airwaves.
BUFORD: But I think the most controversial thing is whether or not we're going to be denied free expression of the practice of our religion or freedom of speech. That is the most controversial thing of all.
BROWN: Alex Ben Block, the editor of "Television Week," agrees.
ALEX BEN BLOCK, EDITOR, "TELEVISION WEEK": And I think what's really going on here is that there's a great chill over television and over media today because of the shift to the right in our society and because nobody really knows what the rules are at the FCC anymore and everybody is afraid to offend.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight one of the many casualties of war in Iraq, children and malnutrition.
And the latest development in the case of a woman in Florida in a coma for more than a decade, the fight over her life as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When you look at Falluja today you're reminded of that saying out of Vietnam, "We had to destroy the city to save it." Hundreds and hundreds of homes destroyed in Falluja, the power system, water, food.
It is a mess there and will be for a long time to come. Two hundred and fifty thousand people at least lived there. Eventually they do need to come home, Jane Arraf tonight on what they face when they get there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The Zabaris (ph) are one of the first families in Falluja trying to rebuild their home. It will take a long time to overcome their tragedy, the loss of their 13-year-old son in the bombing of their neighborhood. Since their own house was destroyed in the fighting, they're now staying in the home of relatives.
The Marines and the Iraqi Red Crescent brought them here after they spent five days at the cramped Red Crescent offices, where they were taken for shelter. There were fewer civilians left in Falluja than originally feared before the U.S. offensive. But it doesn't lessen the suffering of individual families.
The Zabaris' 13-year-old son, Mustafa (ph), was killed when their home was hit. His mother, Selma Hasan, said it was three days before they could bury the boy. "We were trapped in the house. Our house was hit and the house next door. It was destruction, complete destruction and fire. Nothing was left, not even the children's clothing," she told us.
Her 10-year-old son, Abdel Jaleel, explains to us why they stayed when so many left. "We thought the bombing wouldn't be as bad as the last time," he said. They were wrong.
The Marine commander here estimates there were only about 50 families in the center of the city when the battle started. There was such intense fighting that a lot of them had a very hard time. A relative who knows English wrote this sign in the hope it would keep the family safe from U.S. forces. Marines accompanying them back searched the house first to make sure no insurgents had moved in since they left.
The youngest children, 2-year-old Malud (ph) and 3-year-old Authman (ph), are too young to absorb this. "But we're still afraid," says 16-year-old Fantama (ph). Their father, Mahmood Odey Zabari (ph), says he's been told his brother was killed and buried in someone's garden. He asks for help in finding him.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Ramos says they'll help the family any way they can.
LT. COL. MIKE RAMOS, U.S. MARINES: I'll be here tomorrow if he would like to start talking about rebuilding his house.
ARRAF: Nothing will compensate for the loss of their child. Selma says she has to think about the children remaining and try to rebuild their lives.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF: And most families in Falluja, of course, are still outside the city. And it could be a while before they come back. The military here, the Marines, are trying to remove water that could cause disease, trying to get the electricity back up. And rather than bringing people in, they are still sending families who want to leave Falluja out of the city -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you -- Jane Arraf tonight.
A broken country, we guess, can be measured in lots of different ways, including in ounces and inches. According to the United Nations, more than one-quarter of the Iraqi children are underfed today. Food shortages in Iraq were a problem, of course, before the U.S. invasion. Whether the level of malnourishment has worsened since and, if so, by how much, is a point of some debate. But what everyone can agree on, many of the youngest, the most vulnerable Iraqis are clearly suffering. Malnutrition is not pretty. The pictures here are not either.
Here's CNN's Karl Penhaul.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet little Hibba (ph), six months old, chronically malnourished. She can't digest the lactose in her mother's milk. And with a government worker's wage of $80 a month, her father's too poor to buy soy milk.
SUAD, GRANDMOTHER (through translator): I have raised 11 children in my life. And I never had a case like this one before.
PENHAUL: Malnutrition was a problem during Saddam Hussein's rule, partly because of food shortages blamed on international sanctions.
But according to United Nations figures, the situation has got no better since the U.S.-led invasion and may even be graphically worse. Looking around the ward at this Baghdad child nutrition center, it certainly looks that way.
DR. ZAID MOHAMMED, NUTRITIONIST (through translator): Cases of malnutrition have doubled for many reasons. First of all, the services are not as good as they used to be. The sanitary situation is very bad. There's no healthy water supply.
PENHAUL: Parts of the damaged water supply network haven't been repaired since the war. Families still receive U.N.-sponsored subsidized food rations, but that's not sufficient.
Meanwhile, open market prices have risen and unemployment makes it difficult for many families to earn enough to buy the basics. Hussein (ph) has come with mom to get weighed and measured. Doctors say malnourishment is stunting his growth.
(on camera): A source working on a new U.N. survey says June figures indicate 7.5 percent of Iraqi kids suffer acute malnutrition and are literally wasting away.
(voice-over): A week ago, UNICEF's head, Carol Bellamy, said -- quote -- "The latest reports are showing that acute malnutrition among young children has nearly doubled since March 2003" -- close quote.
A government official says he's seen no persuasive evidence of that trend.
DR. NIMA SAID, PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT: There is no reason to believe that there is a real increase or duplication in the -- or doubling of the cases or the prevalence of malnutrition.
PENHAUL: The U.N. Development Program plans to publish a new report on malnutrition next year.
But for Najat Hassan, every day, it's a struggle to find the cash for the high-protein milk she needs to feed her 7-month-old baby.
NAJAT HASSAN, MOTHER (through translator): My husband sold our propane gas cylinder and our stove to buy a package of milk. What will he sell next?
PENHAUL: She says all she has left to sell is a small TV and a bedside lamp. But when the money from that runs out, little Hussein may starve.
Karl Penhaul, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The case of Terri Schiavo may be decided ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court. Florida governor, Jeb Bush, today asked the justices to take the case. The details here have become familiar; 14 years ago, Ms. Terri Schiavo suffered severe brain damage, has been in what doctors call a vegetative state ever since. Last year, at the governor's bidding, the Florida state legislature wrote a law to stop Ms. Schiavo's husband from letting her die, which she said was her wish, though she had not written it down and it's not what her parents want.
No matter how you see these things, this is a sad case that may now -- may -- be decided by the nation's highest court.
All these sorts of cases are hard. And, as a culture, we struggle with them, as we should. Life is precious. We struggle when the person has lived a long, full life. And we struggle even more, we suspect, when we're talking about a child. Other countries deal with it differently. The Netherlands allows lives to be ended to end suffering. And now they want to add children to the list. Does age matter? Should it matter?
A couple of questions to throw out tonight. We're joined by Arthur Caplan, director of the Center For Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. It's always good to see you.
DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR BIOETHICS: Hey, Aaron.
BROWN: This is one of like those Russian dolls, where there's questions inside of questions inside of questions.
Just a couple of quick ones. Does it make sense that different cultures, that the Dutch would come to different conclusions than the Americans might?
CAPLAN: You know, it's interesting, Aaron. The Dutch really think so. They would say they have national health care. No one's worried about somebody killing another person to save money for the budget or to allow somehow, you know, the national debt to be canceled.
They say, we know each other. We're a country of 15 million people. We know our doctors. We trust one another. We can do things that a country like the United States with 300 million people and, you know, just as many religious and just as many points of view could never do. So they think so.
BROWN: Does it change the discussion if you're talking about an 86-year-old or a 92-year-old person on one end and a severely disabled child, three months old, at the other end?
CAPLAN: You know, I think it does.
The principle that I would look to here is to say whatever one's views about euthanasia, if you're going to have it legalized -- and we have a state, Oregon, where it is -- doctors can help people to die there, cause their death, not allow them to die -- you want to have someone the person's permission. That means you need someone who is competent, able to understand what's going on and makes the choice. When you start extending that opportunity to end a life to people who can't consent, I think it's a recipe for big trouble. And children and babies are by no means in a position to consent.
BROWN: Should we make a distinction -- Oregon does -- between a law that ends suffering and -- the Oregon law allows doctor-assisted suicide when the patient is terminal, as opposed to really miserable, I guess.
CAPLAN: Correct. Yes.
You know, it's, again, the dolls inside dolls. It's hard for me to imagine a case where suffering couldn't be managed using today's kind of weapons to do pain control. If you're just going to tell me that you've got to end somebody's life because that's the only way you can manage their suffering, my inclination is to say, you're not doing a good job managing their suffering.
We shouldn't have anybody in pain because of cancer. We yell at the doctors. We issue reports and commissions and government studies and say, use pain control. Sometimes, we don't, but there's no excuse. You shouldn't have to die in order to not suffer.
BROWN: Yes.
Just, as a practical matter, being realistic about this, in hospitals around the country, this country, would you expect, do you suspect that children, in fact, infants, very young children, are allowed to die -- I don't mean an act taken, but taken off respirators or whatever, and that it happens all the time?
CAPLAN: I think it does happen. I don't think it happens a lot, but it happens. No one -- no one steps in and injects a baby with a lethal dose of morphine or kills them.
But if you have a little tiny preemie baby, 400 grams, fit in your hand, and you are trying to treat that child who is just not responding and it looks like nothing's going to work, there are situations in which people just say, let's pull the technology. If the child goes on, we'll continue. But if that child dies, that's telling us something. It's beyond our means.
So there are babies who don't get resuscitated for a 10th time.
BROWN: Yes.
CAPLAN: There are babies who people say, we're not going to keep that ventilator going. This child is just -- it's called failure to flourish. And occasionally you see a baby, the technology just isn't working. And they let the baby go. It does happen.
BROWN: Doc, it's good to see you. Thank you, sir.
CAPLAN: My pleasure.
BROWN: Arthur Caplan from Pennsylvania. Take a break. We'll continue in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: The job of the photographer, specifically the portrait photographer, is to capture the true spirit of his or her subject. Does he or she smile, wear a hat? It takes more than that, of course, to make a memorable picture. The great photographers reveal layer after layer in one flash.
That's what Melanie Dunea and Nigel Parry have done in their most unusual book "Precious."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIGEL PARRY, PHOTOGRAPHER: Normally, we're commissioned by people to shoot specific things a specific way at a specific time.
MELANIE DUNEA, PHOTOGRAPHER: Precious is the actual person playing themselves. And hopefully this gets you one step closer.
PARRY: So we decided them to have them participate a little more and ask them what they wanted us to photograph.
DUNEA: In this, we wanted to get their essence, get the soul of the subject, the part that they had picked and make it look precious.
And it's people that are eminent in their field. It could be an author or a chef, a movie actress or actor. And our intention in "Precious" was actually to emphasize the diversity, to have a very A- level or A-list celebrity and then to have a chef and the best cardiologist.
Tony Hawk gave a really interesting quote. And he said, "I choose my scars because they're my stories." And I think the same thing with Twyla Tharp.
PARRY: That's true. Have big toes.
DUNEA: Bunions.
PARRY: Yes, sort of stick out like that. It's unbelievable. And that apparently is what happens to virtually everybody's feet when they wear those ballet points.
DUNEA: Daniel, who, when we arrived he at the restaurant, he said, my tongue. It's just definitely my tongue. That's the essence of cooking, is my tongue.
PARRY: This book isn't a vehicle to show photographs. It is an entity in itself. It is precious.
DUNEA: We really wanted it to be a gem, you know, precious. That's why we used the gold, which is why we used the graphics.
PARRY: It would be very, very difficult to have these photographs without the swath of gold across them and without the sort of juxtaposition with the other photographs as well.
And the Tucci shot. He told us before that he wanted to photograph his hands. He has such a recognizable shaped head.
DUNEA: And it was important to somehow keep the person, the subject.
PARRY: Yes.
DUNEA: We wanted to see who it was. We didn't want to have a book full of hands and eyes.
PARRY: We tried to show part of sort of their feelings that they had toward the part of the body that they had chose.
Paul Theroux, his quote was how he was horrified one morning because he had thought he had woken up blind. So, even though he chose his eyes, I have him in sort of a beautiful landscape with his hands over his eyes.
DUNEA: Susan Sarandon, she chose her spirit.
PARRY: Which was a very difficult thing to do. It took us so long to work out the exact exposure, the exact amount of light and for how quickly she should move from one place to the next.
PARRY: Paloma Picasso.
DUNEA: What an elegant woman.
PARRY: Yes. She chose her shoulders. I think actually that was a bit of cheating, because that was her husband's favorite part.
DUNEA: It was just the essence of her, sort of an abstract photograph, hearkening back to perhaps her dad. That's actually one of my favorite pictures, is the David Copperfield picture. I think it sums up "Precious" in a nutshell. It's the elements, the graphics and just a little hint of David Copperfield.
We really do try to show the truth of the person, the essence, the soul of the person when we photograph them. So "Precious" is the actual person playing themselves. And, hopefully, this gets you one step closer. It tears away one more layer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Check morning papers after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers around the country and around the world. I don't know why that amused me, since I've said it 400 times. "Stars and Stripes" leads it off. "U.S. Troop Numbers to Rise For Iraq Vote." That's the right lead. And it's especially the right lead if you're "Stars and Stripes." They put the "Jeopardy" guy on the front page. First of all, isn't this day-old news? I think so. "Jeopardy Superman Loses on 75th Game." Or I guess that should, did the "Jeopardy" guy lose on the 75th game?
"Christian Science Monitor." "Bush Goals Still Big, Bold. Daunting Reforms and Unorthodox Order Are Born of Confidence, But Leave Room For a Fall," a look at the agenda for the president. There's going to be a huge national debate over Social Security, which I hope is actually a good debate, as opposed to a bumper sticker debate.
CNN -- "The CNN Enquirer" -- I just changed the name of this newspaper. "The Cincinnati Enquirer." "P&G" -- Procter & Gamble, based there in Cincinnati, I believe -- "Sex Hormone Under Scrutiny. Hearing Today to Address the Safety of the Patch." This is a patch for post-menopausal to increase their sex drive. Our audience is much younger than that, so there's not much demand here for that.
How are we doing on time? Oh, really? OK.
Let me do this one, then, quickly. "The Boston Herald." Up in the corner here, "Band in Boston." Senior producer Jennifer Block (ph) is laughing at this. She's been trying to get me to do this story for a while, these fake fund-raiser -- for Lance Armstrong fund- raiser things.
The weather tomorrow in Chicago, by the way...
(CHIMES)
BROWN: ... is "crummy."
One goodbye before we say goodbye. A break first.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Quickly, before we go tonight, after two decades of anchoring NBC's "Nightly News," Tom Brokaw, as most of you know, signed off for the last time as the anchorman tonight. Doing so set in motion the changing of the guard at the big three, or at least two of the big three. Sorry, Peter. Mr. Brokaw left by his own choice, terms and timetable and left with the grace you would expect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS")
TOM BROKAW, NBC ANCHOR: Well, the time is here.
We have been through a lot together, through dark days and nights and seasons of hope and joy. Whatever the story, I had only one objective, to get it right. When I failed, it was personally painful and there was no greater urgency than course correction. On those occasions, I was grateful for your forbearance and always mindful that your patience and attention didn't come with a lifetime warranty. I was not alone here, of course. I'm simply the most conspicuous part of a large, thoroughly dedicated and professional staff that extends from just beyond these cameras across the country and around the world, in too many instances in places of grave danger and personal hardship. And they are family to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: He's a very classy guy.
I just kind of wonder how he is sleeping tonight and how Brian Williams is sleeping tonight.
We'll see you all tomorrow. Good night for all of us.
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