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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

National Guardsmen Face Court Martial for Scavenging Parts for Military Vehicles; Peterson Sentenced to Death

Aired December 13, 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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening to all of you.
We'll get back to the Peterson case in a moment. We will tell you what jurors were thinking as they deliberated, among other things.

But first, the questions are simple enough. Do the men and women we send into battle have what they need to get the job done and stay alive doing it and, if not, why not? And what happens when they don't?

Recently we've seen a soldier stand up to the secretary of defense and troops refusing a mission for lack of armor. In just a few days, we'll also see a decorated reservist, the winner of a Bronze Star, walk out of the brig for what she and her comrades did to get what they believed necessary to do their jobs, for scrounging.

But, as CNN's Ed Lavandera found out there is scrounging and there is scrounging.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Workers at the Red River Army Depot are transforming chunks of steel and metal back into war fighting machines. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) defense contracts in northeast Texas is one of five depots nationwide responsible for what the Army calls resetting the force. That means turning bullet- riddled war weary debris back into battle ready military trucks in less than 100 days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are extreme cases of battlefield damage. Not all of these vehicles that are in this particular line can be repaired.

LAVANDERA: The demand intensified so much over the last year that 600 new workers have been hired to keep up with the demand of a 24-hour-a-day, seven day a week production line. Commanders forecast work on about 1,300 vehicles for 2005 fiscal year but already that number is predicted to hit 5,000.

COL. MICHAEL CERVONE, CMDR., RED RIVER ARMY DEPOT: I've told the workforce to be prepared to have to hold this pace for another two, two and a half years.

LAVANDERA: But some soldiers can't wait for their gear to be repaired. With missions to complete, they must scrounge the Iraqi landscape and terrain for equipment to patch together the Army equipment they do have and some have paid the penalty.

Darrell Birt and five other National Guard reservists face a military court martial on charges of theft for doing in the field what the Army is doing warp speed in Texas in this case scavenging two trailers and two tractors and stripping parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units that they had already moved into Iraq, equipment their unit needed to complete a fuel delivery mission.

DARRELL BIRT, COURT-MARTIALED SOLDIER: This is not for Darrell Birt to have his own personal vehicle to cruise around in Iraq and see the countryside. This is to the put the 656 in the fight and sustain us in the fight and we did our job.

LAVANDERA: The six men have been dishonorably discharged and themselves stripped of all military benefits. Some have also lost civilian jobs.

Meanwhile, at the Red River Army Depot, some of the most crucial work is underway in this warehouse. Workers are putting the final touches on armor kits for Humvees that will be used in Iraq. Orders for thousands have been made for this year.

CERVONE: This kit can get in theater as quick as nine days, so in ten to 14 days this kit could be on a truck.

LAVANDERA: Every day the lots here fill with more broken down battered military vehicles, the names of soldiers still etched in the glass, a reminder this isn't a story about scraps of metal and steel. It's about the soldiers that depend on the metal and sometimes stealing to get the mission done.

Ed Lavandera CNN, Texarkana, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And now Darrell Birt joins us from Columbus. Darrell, thanks for being with us on the program.

BIRT: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: All right. You heard the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld saying you fight with the Army you have, not the Army you want. You kind of took a little twist on that. You, in some senses, got the Army you wanted by getting some of the vehicles you needed. Does the end justify the means?

BIRT: Yes, sir, I believe that what we needed was available. It was abandoned. It wasn't being used and we therefore went and used what was Army equipment to support an Army mission and to do it successfully.

O'BRIEN: I guess whenever there is an allegation of impropriety or a crime or whatever you have to ask, who is harmed? Was anybody harmed by you taking those vehicles and appropriating them, if you will? BIRT: Sir, to my knowledge I don't know of any person or unit that was harmed using this equipment.

O'BRIEN: Now, of course, if everybody took the approach you took, which some would say is very resourceful on the one hand, you could say the entire system of supply for the Army and the military would break down. What do you say to that?

BIRT: Yes, sir that's a possibility. I'm not encouraging every unit to do it but, at the same time, I am encouraging the unit to support the units that are there with the necessary means that they have so that they can have all of their equipment to do their fight.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to take a wild guess that this has gone on quite a bit during this particular campaign, just as it has for time in memorial. Do you feel that your group has been singled out and, if so, why?

BIRT: Yes, sir I do believe it has been singled out. As to why, I couldn't tell you. People ask me what's the hidden agenda and there is none. We don't know why we were singled out.

O'BRIEN: I want to have you stand by there. I want to bring in one more guest. Robert Vaughn is joining us now. He served 20 years in Vietnam, Korea, Germany and elsewhere. He's a prolific military historian and writer, among other talents, and safe to say he's seen quite a bit of scrounging in his time. He's written about it. He joins us from Pensacola, Mr. Vaughn good to have you with us.

ROBERT VAUGHN, WRITER AND VIETNAM WAR VETERAN: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity.

O'BRIEN: We were just talking about this whole notion of this being part of the reality and the mythology of a military war, a scrounger, somebody who's a clever supply clerk who is able to get the parts you need to keep things going. That's a reality, isn't it?

VAUGHN: It's not only the reality in this war it's been the reality in every war that we've ever been involved in. Certainly it was true in Vietnam. I did it myself. I had the reputation of being the best liar, cheater and stealer of any officer in the battalion.

O'BRIEN: And you say that with a measure of pride, I gather.

VAUGHN: In fact, I do because I did it for the same reason that Chief Warrant Officer Birt did it. I did it to further the mission of our unit.

O'BRIEN: Well, and what you're talking about here is a situation where there is usually a very dire need, which runs up against logistical nightmares and, oftentimes, just a lot of paperwork. And, it's easy to justify doing some rather gray dealings in those situations, isn't it?

VAUGHN: Well, there are some -- there are a couple of things that you have to consider. Number one, as Mr. Birt said a while ago, it cannot be for self promotion. You can't do it for your own selfish reasons, to sell it on the black market or to make your own life more comfortable.

And, number two you cannot compromise the mission of one of the other units. You can't take from them in order to help yours. But if you have it just laying there and you need it, it would be unconscionable not to take it and use it.

O'BRIEN: Well, I think that's a very good point, Darrell, and do you think by that test, that litmus test which he just lays out there you and the people that have been accused in your company would pass that test?

BIRT: Yes, sir absolutely.

O'BRIEN: And it must leave you with a tremendous bitter taste to be in a situation where you feel like you did your job and actually went the extra mile quite literally to do what you had to do and be faced with this.

BIRT: Yes, sir. It's hard to face at days but our faith is sustaining us now.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Vaughn, going back to the Vietnam era, can you recall occasions when individuals or groups of individuals were singled out this way?

VAUGHN: I have never heard of such a thing. First, let me say I would have been very proud to have served with Mr. Birt and with the others involved. They were mission oriented. A job needed to be done and they did it and I would have been very proud to have served with them. And, no, I have never heard of this happening anywhere and I'm a military historian. I write military books and I've never heard of this happening.

O'BRIEN: And are you proud of the military when you read about this and hear about this right now, Mr. Vaughn you first?

VAUGHN: You know, I want to just isolate this to this incident and whoever the JAG officer was who handled this incident. I just do not believe that this represents the command structure of the entire military.

O'BRIEN: Darrell, final thought, do you think you'll see justice on this one?

BIRT: Yes, sir.

O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Darrell Birt, Robert Vaughn, for talking about this time in memorial practice of scrounging and how it has landed Darrell Birt and some of his colleagues in trouble. We appreciate it.

Meantime, a milestone in Iraq, a year ago today American forces, their vehicles powered by fuel, from Darrell Birt's unit by the way, pulled Saddam Hussein from his hole in the ground. Now since then not much cause for celebration, even less now.

In Baghdad today, a suicide bomber struck near a checkpoint leading into the Green Zone, 13 Iraqis killed there, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi's group claiming responsibility once again.

It happened after an especially deadly weekend in and around Falluja just west of Baghdad, seven Marines, one soldier killed there, the Air Force answering today with air strikes on that city. Clearly parts of it remain too hot to handle let alone come home to and waiting for it to cool tens of thousands of refugees.

Here's CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "There's only one God and the Americans are the enemy of God," these girls chant as they languish for another day in a makeshift refugee camp.

More than 100 families are crammed into tents on this Baghdad University campus since fleeing Falluja early last month, ahead of the U.S. assault on insurgents. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and her seven children have been scraping by with food donations from the mosque next door. She has no idea when U.S. and Iraqi officials will let them return home or if they still have a home to go to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We thought the government would take care of us but I've never experienced anything like this in my life. Where's the democracy and liberty Bush promised?

PENHAUL: As the wait goes on the seeds of anti-U.S. discontent are growing. This is not children's rhyme. It's a rebel song. "The longing is deep in our hearts. It's time to go back to Falluja," it goes "so come on let's walk with the Mujahaddin to Falluja. We'll build our tomorrow with the Mujahaddin."

Forty miles west in Falluja many homes lie in ruins after last month's fighting. U.S. commanders say they mail out tens of thousands of civilians who fled to begin returning later this month, one neighborhood at a time.

Falluja is still dangerous, littered with rubble and unexploded munitions. Power and water still hasn't been fully reconnected.

(on camera): In a move to stop insurgents gaining a new foothold, Marine commanders say all men of fighting age will have to undergo iris and fingerprint scans, much like aliens at U.S. airports. Entry will be limited to just five checkpoints.

BRIG. GEN. ERWIN LESSEL, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS: We clearly have to help separate the citizens who belong there who are residents who want peace and security from those who might try to infiltrate that and continue to conduct insurgent type operations.

PENHAUL: "That's an insult," says (UNINTELLIGIBLE). UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's our city and we'll enter and exit our city however we please. We don't need IDs or a blood test. We're not crossing the border.

PENHAUL: If the children are any measure, each day these people are kept out of their homes is another reason to hate the Americans and another reason to sing their rebel song.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Ahead on the program the wherefores but also the whys of the jury's decision to recommend the death penalty for Scott Peterson.

Later, the best-selling author Michael Crichton talks with Aaron about finding new challenges and his controversial new book.

And then we'll set the words aside for just a few moments and look at some of the best still photos of a very memorable year, a break first.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The war in Iraq hadn't begun when Laci Peterson disappeared nearly two years ago. That's one measure of this story. For fully half of 2004 the jurors in the Scott Peterson double murder trial have lived and breathed the case. A month ago they convicted Mr. Peterson. Today they sentenced him to death and, for the first time, were free to speak publicly about the case.

Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The entire panel appeared in a show of solidarity. Three juror talked, Greg Beratlis, a youth coach; Richelle Nice, an unemployed mother of four; and Steve Cardosi, a firefighter paramedic, the foreman. Over the course of six months, they said, there were sleepless nights.

GREG BERATLIS, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: You know it's a man's life and you want to make sure you make the right decision.

BUCKLEY: They said the totality of the circumstantial evidence against this man, Scott Peterson, and his actions following the disappearance and death of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son spoke to his guilt.

STEVE CARDOSI, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: He lost his wife and his child and it didn't seem to phase him and while that was going on, they were looking for his wife and his child, he's romancing a girlfriend. That's -- that doesn't make sense to me. BUCKLEY: The death penalty, they said, was appropriate given the personal nature of the crime.

RICHELLE NICE, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: Scott Peterson was Laci's husband, Connor's daddy, someone should have -- the one person that should have protected them and for him to have done that.

BUCKLEY: The jurors said they followed the judge's instructions not to talk about the case with anyone, not to be influenced by the media, but they said they couldn't avoid this, the public reaction to their guilty verdicts. Beratlis said for him that was the hardest day of a tough six month ordeal.

BERATLIS: People running around and clapping and screaming and all that that was not a happy event for anybody.

BUCKLEY: The jurors said in some cases they were personally changed by their service or emotionally drained but all expressed confidence that they made the right decisions about guilt and death.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In criminal trials, as in real estate, it can be said that location is key. Verdicts and sentences can be as much a function of where a jury sits as anything.

Joining us from Los Angeles is Rikki Kleiman, legal analyst and former criminal defense attorney, Rikki good to see you again.

RIKKI KLEIMAN, LEGAL ANALYST, FMR. CRIMINAL DEF. ATTY.: Good to see you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about this notion of location in here and how it might have factored into this becoming a capital case. It is, after all, sadly not uncommon for a husband to kill a wife and in most cases they don't end up capital cases.

KLEIMAN: Indeed you are correct. In fact, for the years that I was anchoring at "Court TV," we had many, many trials of husbands who killed their wives, were convicted of killing their wives ad we used to say, "Why didn't they just get a divorce?" It's exactly the same question that came up in the Peterson case.

Many of those cases the penalty ultimately was life. There was no death penalty on the table. In this particular case, we have to remember the only reason there is a death penalty on the table and the jurors found for death was because of multiple murders and that is the second murder, the murder of the unborn child.

O'BRIEN: And that is the extenuating circumstance here. Otherwise, this would have been strictly a case that would have had life imprisonment as the most serious punishment. It changes the whole dynamic of the thing, doesn't it? KLEIMAN: Indeed it does and I think that you might have had a debate in other places about whether or not that second degree murder conviction, which was of course for the baby Conner, would have really then risen to the level of the special circumstances to mandate death.

But I will say this, Miles. Although people expected, that is the public and the mob expected and wanted a death verdict, there were many people who were concerned about a death verdict in light of the fact that this was a circumstantial case where there might have been some residual doubt.

But when you listen to those jurors today I have to say I was dramatically impressed with their intelligence, their sensitivity and their reasons for their choice, whether I agreed ultimately with the death penalty or not.

O'BRIEN: Well, it was thoughtful and it was rather emotional and there were some really key insights in there. I thought when Richelle Nice, the female juror, talked about how he was supposed to protect his wife and unborn son that was very poignant and spoke to me a lot about what was resonating with the jury, would you agree?

KLEIMAN: I do agree. In fact, I think for me that was the moment that really touched my heart as well as my head as I watched those jurors talk. Ultimately what their death verdict came down to was the role of the husband and father, the protector, as Richelle said.

Also the whole issue of trust, I think that the jury foreman, as well as Greg, the third juror who spoke, talked a lot about issues of trust and mistrust, which of course goes back to the lies that Scott Peterson had said. And ultimately, there was the question of Scott Peterson's lack of emotion, interesting listening to the three jurors.

Richelle had said, "I never wanted to hear any more from him." She had heard enough. Yet the two gentlemen on the panel really wanted to see some expression from him. They wanted him to come forward, at least in the penalty phase, and just simply say "Please spare my life." They wanted him to cry at the guilt phase, at the time of the verdict.

And it's a dilemma for those of us who have been on both sides of the fence. I've been a prosecutor, then a defense lawyer and we always tell our clients not to show emotion because ultimately in a case like Peterson's, if he showed emotion, he jurors might have said "He's faking it. He faked all these other emotions."

O'BRIEN: There's really, that's darned if you do and darned if you don't I guess when you're in that situation.

KLEIMAN: Correct.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about what lies ahead. People who go to death row in California spend quite a bit of time there.

KLEIMAN: It's really quite a remarkable fact. Apparently, the length of time that someone spends on death row on a national average is approximately nine years and, in California for whatever reasons, the average is 16 years. There could be someone who spends more than 20 years on death row.

Rest assured that this is a case that will go through every conceivable appeal and even after that what we call relief by petitions for habeas corpus. Scott Peterson is going to spend a long time in a very isolated situation understanding what he did and why the jurors found the way they found.

O'BRIEN: All right. We shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves because the judge still has to issue the formal sentence, which will come in February, and he could overturn this death sentence, convert it to a life sentence. Do you think there's a good chance that will happen?

KLEIMAN: The experts who know this judge and who have spent time in northern California say there is not a good chance that this will happen, although in Modesto and in this general area apparently there has not been a death verdict in almost a decade. It is said that this particular judge would be really loathe to go underneath the jury's recommendation. We shall see what we see in February.

O'BRIEN: Rikki Kleiman, a legal analyst and former criminal defense attorney, thanks for your time.

KLEIMAN: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: In a moment on the program, allegations surrounding the president's former choice to run Homeland Security.

Also a terrorist attack as seen by a terrorist camera.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: On now to the security watch. Up until the end of last week, it was a Horatio Alger story, a boy abandoned by his mother drops out of school and yet somehow works his way out of the grim realities of a hard life in Patterson, New Jersey. He joins the military, walks the beat as a cop, and rises to the top to Washington and the president's cabinet, no less, or so it appeared.

The seemingly inspiring story of Bernard Kerik took a sad and surprising turn and, as Mary Snow tells us, the plot has thickened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Three days after pulling the plug on his own nomination to be Homeland Security director, Bernard Kerik showed up for work facing questions about business associates and women.

BERNARD KERIK, FMR. NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: After I withdrew naturally it's sort of like a snowball rolling downhill. It just gets bigger and bigger.

SNOW: Kerik's surprise withdrawal to be considered for the cabinet post has sparked questions over whether the nanny issue was the real reason he bowed out of the running.

A flurry of reports on Kerik's past have been coming out including one in Monday's "New York Times." That called into question a link to a friend with a questionable background.

KERIK: During my friendship with Mr. Wright (ph) we were extremely close. I never knew him to be associated with anyone that was involved in organized crime or criminal activity.

SNOW: But Kerik's current boss, Rudy Giuliani, indicated he still has questions.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, FORMER NYC MAYOR: Well, I think that's something I'll explore, you know, privately with Bernie. It's not right to comment on that especially (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

SNOW: Giuliani says he personally apologized to President Bush at the White House Sunday night. Kerik said he had a close relationship with a female subordinate at the corrections department while he served as commissioner and a very close relationship to book publisher Judith Regan.

Questions about that tie came up in 2001, while Kerik served as New York's police commissioner. Regan believed her cell phone and jewelry were stolen during a visit to FOX News. Four homicide detectives were dispatched to investigate several FOX employees.

ROBERT SAMUELS, NYC ATTORNEY: They sought to have each of my clients submit to fingerprint analysis, polygraphs in order to find Judith Regan's cell phone.

SNOW: Kerik's lawyer says officers did show up but that Kerik did not send them.

(on camera): One other issue that's being raised is how much Rudy Giuliani, who has been talked about as a possible presidential contender in 2008, will be damaged by all of this.

Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The president today chose a new man to head the Department of Health and Human Services. He didn't have to look very far. Michael Leavitt is head of the Environmental Protection Agency, the president calling him a fine executive and a man of great compassion.

One other note before we go to break this from the other end of Constitution Avenue word that William Rehnquist, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has decided not to take part in deciding a number of cases on the docket, this while he undergoes treatment for cancer. He'll abstain from voting on cases heard in November unless the other justices are deadlocked. Justice Rehnquist has been absent from the bench since October when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. He's been doing some work from home and says he'll be there come January to officiate the president's second inauguration.

Still to come, his father runs the U.N. They're both under a cloud. Now for the first time Kofi Annan's son speaks out.

And, later, it's more than just a job for a man who aimed for the stars.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Upcoming elections and ongoing violence are not a storyline exclusive to Iraq, not by a long shot. Next month, if all goes as planned, Palestinians will elect a new leader. The death of Yasser Arafat last month, seemed to some observers to open a window, however slight, to renewed peace efforts. A terrorist attack in Gaza City yesterday was a reminder of how fragile the window may be.

Here's CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The preparation for the attack videotaped by the militant group Hamas and Fatah Hawks, a military offshoot of the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah political party.

For four months, they tunneled under an Israeli checkpoint in southern Gaza, packed it with more than a ton of explosives. And just after sunset Sunday, they set off the blast. As rescue crews evacuated the wounded, militants opened fire with automatic weapons and mortars, well-planned and deadly, five Israeli soldiers killed. The Israelis responded with Apache helicopters firing six missiles into two buildings in Gaza City, where Israel claims weapons were being made. No one was hurt.

In the last 24 hours, though, the mood here has suddenly changed. The sense of optimism, of a new chance for peace that came with the death of Yasser Arafat, has started to fade. Meeting with U.S. lawmakers, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made his first public criticism of the new Palestinian leadership.

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The window of opportunity that is open now, that of course all depends on the Palestinians who will act against terror. Right now, we don't see any change whatsoever.

VAUSE: It was mild, but a clear warning that Israel will not tolerate these kinds of attacks for long.

SAEB EREKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: The only way to break this vicious cycle is through reviving a meaningful peace process that would lead to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

VAUSE: The man who will likely be the next president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is now facing his first real test, even before elections next month.

YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI, SHALEM CENTER: To ensure that, on the one hand, he distances himself and the Palestinian Authority from terrorism and begins creating a new relationship with Israel, and, on the other hand, to ensure that he maintains credibility within the Palestinian people.

VAUSE: But one of the difficulties, attacks like the tunnel explosion actually enhance the credibility of the militant groups.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: For the United Nations, fair to say 2004 got off to a rocky start, with rumors of corruption in its oil-for-food program in Iraq. An investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is still under way. And, in recent days, U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan has come under increasing fire.

Investigators have turned their attention to Mr. Annan's son, who, until now, had not personally commented on the allegations.

From Lagos, Nigeria, CNN's Jeff Koinange has an exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kojo Annan is the 31-year-old son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from Annan's first marriage. The younger Annan lives in a townhouse here in Lagos, the bustling commercial capital of Nigeria.

He is a businessman and a bachelor who enjoys traveling and whose financial interests stretch from Lagos to London. But it's Kojo Annan's work for the Swiss multinational Cotecna that's haunting him. Cotecna profited from the oil-for-food program, hired in 1998 to authenticate approved humanitarian goods shipments to Iraq. U.N. critics suspect the firm might have won the contract because of Kojo's U.N. connections.

Cotecna says that was not a factor and that it had been originally chosen to work for the U.N. in 1992. CNN has tried repeatedly to get Kojo Annan to speak to us on camera, but he has refused, instead issuing this statement to CNN, saying he's cooperating with investigators, "I feel the whole issue has been a witch-hunt from day one as part of a broader Republican political agenda."

Kojo Annan went to work for Cotecna fresh out of a British university in 1995. He and the firm insist his job was limited to the firm's activities in West Africa working in the Nigeria office for nine years. Kojo Annan says he was never involved in the firm's activities in Iraq, saying, "I have never participated directly or indirectly in any business related to the United Nations."

But even after Kojo Annan resigned from Cotecna, the firm kept him on its payroll until this February in a noncompete agreement, preventing him from disclosing any confidential company information or working for the competition. For this, Cotecna paid him a total of $125,000 over four years. The elder Annan has said he was unaware of the continuing payments and is disappointed they create a perception of conflict of interests.

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: He's a grown man. And I don't get involved with his activities. And he doesn't get involved in mine.

KOINANGE: Meanwhile, Kojo Annan says the investigations, especially in Washington, aren't about him, but a deliberate attempt to bring down his father.

(on camera): Kojo Annan tells me he feels sorry for all the distress he's brought on his father and the rest of his family. As for the ongoing investigation, he says he has already spent countless hours being questioned and feels confident that, in the end, he'll be found innocent of any wrongdoing.

Jeff Koinange, CNN, Lagos.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Still to come tonight, Aaron's conversation with writer/producer/director and, we think, Dr. Michael Crichton.

And the year in still photos, why this batch are considered the best of 2004.

Some words first from our sponsors. This is NEWSNIGHT tonight in Atlanta.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Unlike the T-Rex in "Jurassic Park," Michael Crichton is an omnivore, a very successful one. He's gobbled up genetics and physics and medicine, not to mention global trade, aviation, sexual harassment, and time travel, to boot. They're the stuff of a good Crichton novel or a movie or TV series, but not the soul, which is human, always.

Michael Crichton's latest novel, "State of Fear," deals with global warming and the people fighting over it. He and Aaron shared a few moments last week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: The book is a little bit sort of global warming meets environmental activism meets big corporations meets thriller, with lots of little twists. Fair description?

MICHAEL CRICHTON, AUTHOR, "STATE OF FEAR": I think so. BROWN: Would it be a mistake for people to come away saying there's no such thing as global warming?

CRICHTON: I think I would rather they came away saying maybe. I mean, my personal feeling is, I'm highly, highly skeptical. But more than -- I wouldn't be dismissive, so much as saying, why are we making certain decisions right this minute? It's premature.

BROWN: But does science always allow us -- if we are going to stay ahead of the curve, if we're going to be proactive in areas we need to be proactive, does our current body of knowledge always allow us to be as precise as you want us to be then?

CRICHTON: No. And that's fine. In other words, I'm very much in favor of doing climate research. I'm very much in favor of these computer models which are now -- this is a multigenerational undertaking. In a certain sense, this is analogous to building cathedrals in the Middle Ages. Generations of scientists have worked on these things.

But it's an enormously complicated problem. And my conflict with them, which is a discussion I have had with them is, look, I think it's great what you're doing. But you don't make policy over that, not yet.

BROWN: You said in a speech in the fall, "There are two reasons why I think we need to get rid of the religion of environmentalism." First of all, why do you see it as a religion? And why do we need to get rid of it?

CRICHTON: I'm interested in how intensely people feel about this.

In other words, I think that, when you have this sort of intensity of feeling, when you have in fact what I would call a fundamentalist approach -- I'm right; you're wrong; anything you say will damn you to hell unless you agree with me -- that's fundamentalism. And that's how many people approach environmental issues, instead of doing what I think is proper and correct, which is to treat it like a scientific problem, a complicated problem and one we don't understand very well.

BROWN: You live in Hollywood. You're a Hollywood guy, in a way. Do you think people are going to be surprised that you're coming at this from the direction you're coming at this and uncomfortable?

CRICHTON: What I find is that everybody wants to do the right thing and everybody wants to be on the right side. Everybody at this point is dealing with what I think of as received information.

They have an attitude, but they don't have any knowledge at all. They don't know -- I start saying it's three-tenths of a degree and what about the urban heat island bias, and everybody's eyes glaze over. But it's in the data. And how the data is handled, that's where the issue is. BROWN: Two more things. Is there -- do you have any desire for another act in your life? You have developed a hugely successful and popular TV program. Your books have done really well. Movies off the books have done pretty well. Bills have been paid. Do you feel like you want another act?

CRICHTON: You mean like my opera?

BROWN: Yes, or...

CRICHTON: My cookbook?

BROWN: Yes or your car or something, anything.

CRICHTON: Actually, I feel lucky in one way, Aaron, which is, it seems to me that I always do something fresh, even though -- I mean fresh to me, even though it's all still writing. So I have a lot of feeling of flexibility inside that. And I don't actually, you know, look forward to that acting career that is going to change my life.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Well, your life's been changed a couple times.

It's nice to see you.

CRICHTON: Thank you.

BROWN: Best of luck.

CRICHTON: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the year in still photographs, why the pictures that make the cut were chosen and what they say about 2004.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Every year around this time, the editors at "TIME" magazine, our corporate cousins in midtown Manhattan, take on the gargantuan task of distilling 12 months of news into a photo essay. Daunting? Yes. Illuminating? You bet. "TIME"s year in pictures hit the newsstands today. As you might imagine, choosing which pictures made the cut was a challenge. There were thousands to choose from. "TIME"'s photo editor, MaryAnne Golon, talked with us about the hard choices.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARYANNE GOLON, PHOTO EDITOR, "TIME": In 2004, it was very clear that we needed to cover the president and the challenger to the presidency, John Kerry. We also knew that we had to cover the biggest international story of the year, which continues to be the war in Iraq. But then we looked at the world events. And, unfortunately, when you're putting together best photos of the year, it's not often as pretty a picture as you'd like it to be.

In Madrid, I was particularly moved by how the train station became a memorial. And we ran one image where there are just hundreds and hundreds or red candles and the 40 days of mourning in Beslan as well. There's something so incredible about the historical quality and the human emotion that comes through in the work that we really want to share that with our readers.

We try to find the images that will really wow you, that will give you the kind of intimacy that takes you right to the scene. The opening photo from Iraq, this picture jumped out because you are literally on the end of a gun barrel. It has that kind of emotional value of putting you just right in the middle of the action. The whole story of AIDS, we've all seen images of how the disease ravages people.

And it's a very hard thing to look at. And we have this delightful image of a bunch of AIDS orphans. But there's so much light and brightness in their faces. It was a way to get at a important story without seeing a very familiar image. We also included a wonderful image of two women and their child when Gavin Newsom allowed gay couples to marry in San Francisco. The child is between them with this wonderful look on her face. But it was just such a bright, happy moment.

We ran a fabulous Olympics photo of Rulon Gardner. This year, he retired after having won the bronze medal. There's a wonderful image where they leave their shoes behind in the circle on the floor when they're retiring at the end of a match. The image is so compelling. You go, oh, yes, the Olympics were this year.

We have got this image of these children running, dashing happily through these yellow locusts everywhere. It was just an amazing thing to look at, because they're not registering that this is a horrible thing that they have these locusts.

There were amazing images from the hurricane. And we ended up with one that we thought was really unusual. We found an image of grapefruits, just hundreds of grapefruits floating in water in a flooded grapefruit field. And it just felt so fresh and different.

Society today, we're so inundated with visual information and imagery that one of the challenges in putting together a photo issue of this type is to really be able to surprise the reader, to bring them something that they maybe haven't seen or maybe they don't remember seeing or maybe they wanted to see again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In a moment, how the Bush administration has another high-flying position to fill. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, there's more to Japan than sushi, Hello Kitty, gizmos and gadgets. Bill Hemmer's there -- or should we call him Bill Hemmer-san? -- for "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Miles, thanks.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," our coverage continues from here in Tokyo. Security watch Japan. As memories of the 1995 sarin gas attack are relived in the age of modern terrorism, what has Japan done to protect its people? And how can the U.S. learn from their example? Also, tens of thousands of American troops stationed here in this country now torn between global threats. Can the president realistically keep them there when so many troops are needed in Iraq? We'll talk to the U.S. Ambassador Howard Baker, as we continue our live coverage from Tokyo, Japan, throughout the week here.

See you tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time right here on "AMERICAN MORNING" -- Miles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right, thank you, Bill.

Another job opening to tell you about in Washington. This time, it's over at NASA headquarters. After three years on the job, Sean O'Keefe tendered his resignation today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Sean O'Keefe is not a rocket scientist. And he makes no bones about it.

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: My oldest son, his response to this -- he's 12 years old -- said, Gee, I thought you had to be really smart to be in that job!

O'BRIEN: All joking aside, this career public servant, beltway operator and two generation Bush loyalist came to NASA from the White House budget office with a fairly down-to-earth charter, explore the costs and launch some new accounting.

(on camera): When people call you bean counter, are those fighting words?

O'KEEFE: I don't know.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): But the bean counter's equation changed in seven heartbeats on February 1, 2003. One year into his tenure, O'Keefe was dealing with tragedy, the shuttle Columbia and her crew of seven lost on reentry. O'KEEFE: While we're filled with sorrow now, there's so much about these historic and heroic astronauts for us to be grateful of.

O'BRIEN: Many at NASA were grateful O'Keefe was there in the wake of the disaster. He left the doors open, kept the public informed, offered genuine empathy and fully embraced the accident investigation.

KEITH COWING, NASAWATCH. COM: His reaction to a lot of this is just extremely honest and simple, and I think that helped the agency, you know, climb out of that problem and move onto where it is now.

O'BRIEN: It is now an agency with a budget increase, with success on mars and around Saturn, and a lofty goal to send humans back to the moon and onto the red planet.

COWING: They have a presidential mandate to get back to the stuff that the agency is best at doing. And a lot of people are feeling that can-do attitude again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: O'Keefe is headed to Louisiana State University, where he will become the chancellor.

That's all the time we have for NEWSNIGHT tonight. On behalf of Aaron Brown and the entire NEWSNIGHT team in Atlanta and in New York, I'm Miles O'Brien. Thanks for being with us.

Aaron will be back tomorrow.

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


Aired December 13, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening to all of you.
We'll get back to the Peterson case in a moment. We will tell you what jurors were thinking as they deliberated, among other things.

But first, the questions are simple enough. Do the men and women we send into battle have what they need to get the job done and stay alive doing it and, if not, why not? And what happens when they don't?

Recently we've seen a soldier stand up to the secretary of defense and troops refusing a mission for lack of armor. In just a few days, we'll also see a decorated reservist, the winner of a Bronze Star, walk out of the brig for what she and her comrades did to get what they believed necessary to do their jobs, for scrounging.

But, as CNN's Ed Lavandera found out there is scrounging and there is scrounging.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Workers at the Red River Army Depot are transforming chunks of steel and metal back into war fighting machines. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) defense contracts in northeast Texas is one of five depots nationwide responsible for what the Army calls resetting the force. That means turning bullet- riddled war weary debris back into battle ready military trucks in less than 100 days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are extreme cases of battlefield damage. Not all of these vehicles that are in this particular line can be repaired.

LAVANDERA: The demand intensified so much over the last year that 600 new workers have been hired to keep up with the demand of a 24-hour-a-day, seven day a week production line. Commanders forecast work on about 1,300 vehicles for 2005 fiscal year but already that number is predicted to hit 5,000.

COL. MICHAEL CERVONE, CMDR., RED RIVER ARMY DEPOT: I've told the workforce to be prepared to have to hold this pace for another two, two and a half years.

LAVANDERA: But some soldiers can't wait for their gear to be repaired. With missions to complete, they must scrounge the Iraqi landscape and terrain for equipment to patch together the Army equipment they do have and some have paid the penalty.

Darrell Birt and five other National Guard reservists face a military court martial on charges of theft for doing in the field what the Army is doing warp speed in Texas in this case scavenging two trailers and two tractors and stripping parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units that they had already moved into Iraq, equipment their unit needed to complete a fuel delivery mission.

DARRELL BIRT, COURT-MARTIALED SOLDIER: This is not for Darrell Birt to have his own personal vehicle to cruise around in Iraq and see the countryside. This is to the put the 656 in the fight and sustain us in the fight and we did our job.

LAVANDERA: The six men have been dishonorably discharged and themselves stripped of all military benefits. Some have also lost civilian jobs.

Meanwhile, at the Red River Army Depot, some of the most crucial work is underway in this warehouse. Workers are putting the final touches on armor kits for Humvees that will be used in Iraq. Orders for thousands have been made for this year.

CERVONE: This kit can get in theater as quick as nine days, so in ten to 14 days this kit could be on a truck.

LAVANDERA: Every day the lots here fill with more broken down battered military vehicles, the names of soldiers still etched in the glass, a reminder this isn't a story about scraps of metal and steel. It's about the soldiers that depend on the metal and sometimes stealing to get the mission done.

Ed Lavandera CNN, Texarkana, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: And now Darrell Birt joins us from Columbus. Darrell, thanks for being with us on the program.

BIRT: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: All right. You heard the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld saying you fight with the Army you have, not the Army you want. You kind of took a little twist on that. You, in some senses, got the Army you wanted by getting some of the vehicles you needed. Does the end justify the means?

BIRT: Yes, sir, I believe that what we needed was available. It was abandoned. It wasn't being used and we therefore went and used what was Army equipment to support an Army mission and to do it successfully.

O'BRIEN: I guess whenever there is an allegation of impropriety or a crime or whatever you have to ask, who is harmed? Was anybody harmed by you taking those vehicles and appropriating them, if you will? BIRT: Sir, to my knowledge I don't know of any person or unit that was harmed using this equipment.

O'BRIEN: Now, of course, if everybody took the approach you took, which some would say is very resourceful on the one hand, you could say the entire system of supply for the Army and the military would break down. What do you say to that?

BIRT: Yes, sir that's a possibility. I'm not encouraging every unit to do it but, at the same time, I am encouraging the unit to support the units that are there with the necessary means that they have so that they can have all of their equipment to do their fight.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to take a wild guess that this has gone on quite a bit during this particular campaign, just as it has for time in memorial. Do you feel that your group has been singled out and, if so, why?

BIRT: Yes, sir I do believe it has been singled out. As to why, I couldn't tell you. People ask me what's the hidden agenda and there is none. We don't know why we were singled out.

O'BRIEN: I want to have you stand by there. I want to bring in one more guest. Robert Vaughn is joining us now. He served 20 years in Vietnam, Korea, Germany and elsewhere. He's a prolific military historian and writer, among other talents, and safe to say he's seen quite a bit of scrounging in his time. He's written about it. He joins us from Pensacola, Mr. Vaughn good to have you with us.

ROBERT VAUGHN, WRITER AND VIETNAM WAR VETERAN: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity.

O'BRIEN: We were just talking about this whole notion of this being part of the reality and the mythology of a military war, a scrounger, somebody who's a clever supply clerk who is able to get the parts you need to keep things going. That's a reality, isn't it?

VAUGHN: It's not only the reality in this war it's been the reality in every war that we've ever been involved in. Certainly it was true in Vietnam. I did it myself. I had the reputation of being the best liar, cheater and stealer of any officer in the battalion.

O'BRIEN: And you say that with a measure of pride, I gather.

VAUGHN: In fact, I do because I did it for the same reason that Chief Warrant Officer Birt did it. I did it to further the mission of our unit.

O'BRIEN: Well, and what you're talking about here is a situation where there is usually a very dire need, which runs up against logistical nightmares and, oftentimes, just a lot of paperwork. And, it's easy to justify doing some rather gray dealings in those situations, isn't it?

VAUGHN: Well, there are some -- there are a couple of things that you have to consider. Number one, as Mr. Birt said a while ago, it cannot be for self promotion. You can't do it for your own selfish reasons, to sell it on the black market or to make your own life more comfortable.

And, number two you cannot compromise the mission of one of the other units. You can't take from them in order to help yours. But if you have it just laying there and you need it, it would be unconscionable not to take it and use it.

O'BRIEN: Well, I think that's a very good point, Darrell, and do you think by that test, that litmus test which he just lays out there you and the people that have been accused in your company would pass that test?

BIRT: Yes, sir absolutely.

O'BRIEN: And it must leave you with a tremendous bitter taste to be in a situation where you feel like you did your job and actually went the extra mile quite literally to do what you had to do and be faced with this.

BIRT: Yes, sir. It's hard to face at days but our faith is sustaining us now.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Vaughn, going back to the Vietnam era, can you recall occasions when individuals or groups of individuals were singled out this way?

VAUGHN: I have never heard of such a thing. First, let me say I would have been very proud to have served with Mr. Birt and with the others involved. They were mission oriented. A job needed to be done and they did it and I would have been very proud to have served with them. And, no, I have never heard of this happening anywhere and I'm a military historian. I write military books and I've never heard of this happening.

O'BRIEN: And are you proud of the military when you read about this and hear about this right now, Mr. Vaughn you first?

VAUGHN: You know, I want to just isolate this to this incident and whoever the JAG officer was who handled this incident. I just do not believe that this represents the command structure of the entire military.

O'BRIEN: Darrell, final thought, do you think you'll see justice on this one?

BIRT: Yes, sir.

O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Darrell Birt, Robert Vaughn, for talking about this time in memorial practice of scrounging and how it has landed Darrell Birt and some of his colleagues in trouble. We appreciate it.

Meantime, a milestone in Iraq, a year ago today American forces, their vehicles powered by fuel, from Darrell Birt's unit by the way, pulled Saddam Hussein from his hole in the ground. Now since then not much cause for celebration, even less now.

In Baghdad today, a suicide bomber struck near a checkpoint leading into the Green Zone, 13 Iraqis killed there, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi's group claiming responsibility once again.

It happened after an especially deadly weekend in and around Falluja just west of Baghdad, seven Marines, one soldier killed there, the Air Force answering today with air strikes on that city. Clearly parts of it remain too hot to handle let alone come home to and waiting for it to cool tens of thousands of refugees.

Here's CNN's Karl Penhaul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "There's only one God and the Americans are the enemy of God," these girls chant as they languish for another day in a makeshift refugee camp.

More than 100 families are crammed into tents on this Baghdad University campus since fleeing Falluja early last month, ahead of the U.S. assault on insurgents. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and her seven children have been scraping by with food donations from the mosque next door. She has no idea when U.S. and Iraqi officials will let them return home or if they still have a home to go to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We thought the government would take care of us but I've never experienced anything like this in my life. Where's the democracy and liberty Bush promised?

PENHAUL: As the wait goes on the seeds of anti-U.S. discontent are growing. This is not children's rhyme. It's a rebel song. "The longing is deep in our hearts. It's time to go back to Falluja," it goes "so come on let's walk with the Mujahaddin to Falluja. We'll build our tomorrow with the Mujahaddin."

Forty miles west in Falluja many homes lie in ruins after last month's fighting. U.S. commanders say they mail out tens of thousands of civilians who fled to begin returning later this month, one neighborhood at a time.

Falluja is still dangerous, littered with rubble and unexploded munitions. Power and water still hasn't been fully reconnected.

(on camera): In a move to stop insurgents gaining a new foothold, Marine commanders say all men of fighting age will have to undergo iris and fingerprint scans, much like aliens at U.S. airports. Entry will be limited to just five checkpoints.

BRIG. GEN. ERWIN LESSEL, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS: We clearly have to help separate the citizens who belong there who are residents who want peace and security from those who might try to infiltrate that and continue to conduct insurgent type operations.

PENHAUL: "That's an insult," says (UNINTELLIGIBLE). UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It's our city and we'll enter and exit our city however we please. We don't need IDs or a blood test. We're not crossing the border.

PENHAUL: If the children are any measure, each day these people are kept out of their homes is another reason to hate the Americans and another reason to sing their rebel song.

Karl Penhaul, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Ahead on the program the wherefores but also the whys of the jury's decision to recommend the death penalty for Scott Peterson.

Later, the best-selling author Michael Crichton talks with Aaron about finding new challenges and his controversial new book.

And then we'll set the words aside for just a few moments and look at some of the best still photos of a very memorable year, a break first.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The war in Iraq hadn't begun when Laci Peterson disappeared nearly two years ago. That's one measure of this story. For fully half of 2004 the jurors in the Scott Peterson double murder trial have lived and breathed the case. A month ago they convicted Mr. Peterson. Today they sentenced him to death and, for the first time, were free to speak publicly about the case.

Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The entire panel appeared in a show of solidarity. Three juror talked, Greg Beratlis, a youth coach; Richelle Nice, an unemployed mother of four; and Steve Cardosi, a firefighter paramedic, the foreman. Over the course of six months, they said, there were sleepless nights.

GREG BERATLIS, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: You know it's a man's life and you want to make sure you make the right decision.

BUCKLEY: They said the totality of the circumstantial evidence against this man, Scott Peterson, and his actions following the disappearance and death of his wife, Laci, and their unborn son spoke to his guilt.

STEVE CARDOSI, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: He lost his wife and his child and it didn't seem to phase him and while that was going on, they were looking for his wife and his child, he's romancing a girlfriend. That's -- that doesn't make sense to me. BUCKLEY: The death penalty, they said, was appropriate given the personal nature of the crime.

RICHELLE NICE, PETERSON TRIAL JUROR: Scott Peterson was Laci's husband, Connor's daddy, someone should have -- the one person that should have protected them and for him to have done that.

BUCKLEY: The jurors said they followed the judge's instructions not to talk about the case with anyone, not to be influenced by the media, but they said they couldn't avoid this, the public reaction to their guilty verdicts. Beratlis said for him that was the hardest day of a tough six month ordeal.

BERATLIS: People running around and clapping and screaming and all that that was not a happy event for anybody.

BUCKLEY: The jurors said in some cases they were personally changed by their service or emotionally drained but all expressed confidence that they made the right decisions about guilt and death.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In criminal trials, as in real estate, it can be said that location is key. Verdicts and sentences can be as much a function of where a jury sits as anything.

Joining us from Los Angeles is Rikki Kleiman, legal analyst and former criminal defense attorney, Rikki good to see you again.

RIKKI KLEIMAN, LEGAL ANALYST, FMR. CRIMINAL DEF. ATTY.: Good to see you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about this notion of location in here and how it might have factored into this becoming a capital case. It is, after all, sadly not uncommon for a husband to kill a wife and in most cases they don't end up capital cases.

KLEIMAN: Indeed you are correct. In fact, for the years that I was anchoring at "Court TV," we had many, many trials of husbands who killed their wives, were convicted of killing their wives ad we used to say, "Why didn't they just get a divorce?" It's exactly the same question that came up in the Peterson case.

Many of those cases the penalty ultimately was life. There was no death penalty on the table. In this particular case, we have to remember the only reason there is a death penalty on the table and the jurors found for death was because of multiple murders and that is the second murder, the murder of the unborn child.

O'BRIEN: And that is the extenuating circumstance here. Otherwise, this would have been strictly a case that would have had life imprisonment as the most serious punishment. It changes the whole dynamic of the thing, doesn't it? KLEIMAN: Indeed it does and I think that you might have had a debate in other places about whether or not that second degree murder conviction, which was of course for the baby Conner, would have really then risen to the level of the special circumstances to mandate death.

But I will say this, Miles. Although people expected, that is the public and the mob expected and wanted a death verdict, there were many people who were concerned about a death verdict in light of the fact that this was a circumstantial case where there might have been some residual doubt.

But when you listen to those jurors today I have to say I was dramatically impressed with their intelligence, their sensitivity and their reasons for their choice, whether I agreed ultimately with the death penalty or not.

O'BRIEN: Well, it was thoughtful and it was rather emotional and there were some really key insights in there. I thought when Richelle Nice, the female juror, talked about how he was supposed to protect his wife and unborn son that was very poignant and spoke to me a lot about what was resonating with the jury, would you agree?

KLEIMAN: I do agree. In fact, I think for me that was the moment that really touched my heart as well as my head as I watched those jurors talk. Ultimately what their death verdict came down to was the role of the husband and father, the protector, as Richelle said.

Also the whole issue of trust, I think that the jury foreman, as well as Greg, the third juror who spoke, talked a lot about issues of trust and mistrust, which of course goes back to the lies that Scott Peterson had said. And ultimately, there was the question of Scott Peterson's lack of emotion, interesting listening to the three jurors.

Richelle had said, "I never wanted to hear any more from him." She had heard enough. Yet the two gentlemen on the panel really wanted to see some expression from him. They wanted him to come forward, at least in the penalty phase, and just simply say "Please spare my life." They wanted him to cry at the guilt phase, at the time of the verdict.

And it's a dilemma for those of us who have been on both sides of the fence. I've been a prosecutor, then a defense lawyer and we always tell our clients not to show emotion because ultimately in a case like Peterson's, if he showed emotion, he jurors might have said "He's faking it. He faked all these other emotions."

O'BRIEN: There's really, that's darned if you do and darned if you don't I guess when you're in that situation.

KLEIMAN: Correct.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about what lies ahead. People who go to death row in California spend quite a bit of time there.

KLEIMAN: It's really quite a remarkable fact. Apparently, the length of time that someone spends on death row on a national average is approximately nine years and, in California for whatever reasons, the average is 16 years. There could be someone who spends more than 20 years on death row.

Rest assured that this is a case that will go through every conceivable appeal and even after that what we call relief by petitions for habeas corpus. Scott Peterson is going to spend a long time in a very isolated situation understanding what he did and why the jurors found the way they found.

O'BRIEN: All right. We shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves because the judge still has to issue the formal sentence, which will come in February, and he could overturn this death sentence, convert it to a life sentence. Do you think there's a good chance that will happen?

KLEIMAN: The experts who know this judge and who have spent time in northern California say there is not a good chance that this will happen, although in Modesto and in this general area apparently there has not been a death verdict in almost a decade. It is said that this particular judge would be really loathe to go underneath the jury's recommendation. We shall see what we see in February.

O'BRIEN: Rikki Kleiman, a legal analyst and former criminal defense attorney, thanks for your time.

KLEIMAN: Thank you, Miles.

O'BRIEN: In a moment on the program, allegations surrounding the president's former choice to run Homeland Security.

Also a terrorist attack as seen by a terrorist camera.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: On now to the security watch. Up until the end of last week, it was a Horatio Alger story, a boy abandoned by his mother drops out of school and yet somehow works his way out of the grim realities of a hard life in Patterson, New Jersey. He joins the military, walks the beat as a cop, and rises to the top to Washington and the president's cabinet, no less, or so it appeared.

The seemingly inspiring story of Bernard Kerik took a sad and surprising turn and, as Mary Snow tells us, the plot has thickened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Three days after pulling the plug on his own nomination to be Homeland Security director, Bernard Kerik showed up for work facing questions about business associates and women.

BERNARD KERIK, FMR. NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: After I withdrew naturally it's sort of like a snowball rolling downhill. It just gets bigger and bigger.

SNOW: Kerik's surprise withdrawal to be considered for the cabinet post has sparked questions over whether the nanny issue was the real reason he bowed out of the running.

A flurry of reports on Kerik's past have been coming out including one in Monday's "New York Times." That called into question a link to a friend with a questionable background.

KERIK: During my friendship with Mr. Wright (ph) we were extremely close. I never knew him to be associated with anyone that was involved in organized crime or criminal activity.

SNOW: But Kerik's current boss, Rudy Giuliani, indicated he still has questions.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, FORMER NYC MAYOR: Well, I think that's something I'll explore, you know, privately with Bernie. It's not right to comment on that especially (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

SNOW: Giuliani says he personally apologized to President Bush at the White House Sunday night. Kerik said he had a close relationship with a female subordinate at the corrections department while he served as commissioner and a very close relationship to book publisher Judith Regan.

Questions about that tie came up in 2001, while Kerik served as New York's police commissioner. Regan believed her cell phone and jewelry were stolen during a visit to FOX News. Four homicide detectives were dispatched to investigate several FOX employees.

ROBERT SAMUELS, NYC ATTORNEY: They sought to have each of my clients submit to fingerprint analysis, polygraphs in order to find Judith Regan's cell phone.

SNOW: Kerik's lawyer says officers did show up but that Kerik did not send them.

(on camera): One other issue that's being raised is how much Rudy Giuliani, who has been talked about as a possible presidential contender in 2008, will be damaged by all of this.

Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: The president today chose a new man to head the Department of Health and Human Services. He didn't have to look very far. Michael Leavitt is head of the Environmental Protection Agency, the president calling him a fine executive and a man of great compassion.

One other note before we go to break this from the other end of Constitution Avenue word that William Rehnquist, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has decided not to take part in deciding a number of cases on the docket, this while he undergoes treatment for cancer. He'll abstain from voting on cases heard in November unless the other justices are deadlocked. Justice Rehnquist has been absent from the bench since October when he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. He's been doing some work from home and says he'll be there come January to officiate the president's second inauguration.

Still to come, his father runs the U.N. They're both under a cloud. Now for the first time Kofi Annan's son speaks out.

And, later, it's more than just a job for a man who aimed for the stars.

This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Upcoming elections and ongoing violence are not a storyline exclusive to Iraq, not by a long shot. Next month, if all goes as planned, Palestinians will elect a new leader. The death of Yasser Arafat last month, seemed to some observers to open a window, however slight, to renewed peace efforts. A terrorist attack in Gaza City yesterday was a reminder of how fragile the window may be.

Here's CNN's John Vause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The preparation for the attack videotaped by the militant group Hamas and Fatah Hawks, a military offshoot of the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah political party.

For four months, they tunneled under an Israeli checkpoint in southern Gaza, packed it with more than a ton of explosives. And just after sunset Sunday, they set off the blast. As rescue crews evacuated the wounded, militants opened fire with automatic weapons and mortars, well-planned and deadly, five Israeli soldiers killed. The Israelis responded with Apache helicopters firing six missiles into two buildings in Gaza City, where Israel claims weapons were being made. No one was hurt.

In the last 24 hours, though, the mood here has suddenly changed. The sense of optimism, of a new chance for peace that came with the death of Yasser Arafat, has started to fade. Meeting with U.S. lawmakers, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made his first public criticism of the new Palestinian leadership.

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The window of opportunity that is open now, that of course all depends on the Palestinians who will act against terror. Right now, we don't see any change whatsoever.

VAUSE: It was mild, but a clear warning that Israel will not tolerate these kinds of attacks for long.

SAEB EREKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: The only way to break this vicious cycle is through reviving a meaningful peace process that would lead to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

VAUSE: The man who will likely be the next president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is now facing his first real test, even before elections next month.

YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI, SHALEM CENTER: To ensure that, on the one hand, he distances himself and the Palestinian Authority from terrorism and begins creating a new relationship with Israel, and, on the other hand, to ensure that he maintains credibility within the Palestinian people.

VAUSE: But one of the difficulties, attacks like the tunnel explosion actually enhance the credibility of the militant groups.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: For the United Nations, fair to say 2004 got off to a rocky start, with rumors of corruption in its oil-for-food program in Iraq. An investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is still under way. And, in recent days, U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan has come under increasing fire.

Investigators have turned their attention to Mr. Annan's son, who, until now, had not personally commented on the allegations.

From Lagos, Nigeria, CNN's Jeff Koinange has an exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kojo Annan is the 31-year-old son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from Annan's first marriage. The younger Annan lives in a townhouse here in Lagos, the bustling commercial capital of Nigeria.

He is a businessman and a bachelor who enjoys traveling and whose financial interests stretch from Lagos to London. But it's Kojo Annan's work for the Swiss multinational Cotecna that's haunting him. Cotecna profited from the oil-for-food program, hired in 1998 to authenticate approved humanitarian goods shipments to Iraq. U.N. critics suspect the firm might have won the contract because of Kojo's U.N. connections.

Cotecna says that was not a factor and that it had been originally chosen to work for the U.N. in 1992. CNN has tried repeatedly to get Kojo Annan to speak to us on camera, but he has refused, instead issuing this statement to CNN, saying he's cooperating with investigators, "I feel the whole issue has been a witch-hunt from day one as part of a broader Republican political agenda."

Kojo Annan went to work for Cotecna fresh out of a British university in 1995. He and the firm insist his job was limited to the firm's activities in West Africa working in the Nigeria office for nine years. Kojo Annan says he was never involved in the firm's activities in Iraq, saying, "I have never participated directly or indirectly in any business related to the United Nations."

But even after Kojo Annan resigned from Cotecna, the firm kept him on its payroll until this February in a noncompete agreement, preventing him from disclosing any confidential company information or working for the competition. For this, Cotecna paid him a total of $125,000 over four years. The elder Annan has said he was unaware of the continuing payments and is disappointed they create a perception of conflict of interests.

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: He's a grown man. And I don't get involved with his activities. And he doesn't get involved in mine.

KOINANGE: Meanwhile, Kojo Annan says the investigations, especially in Washington, aren't about him, but a deliberate attempt to bring down his father.

(on camera): Kojo Annan tells me he feels sorry for all the distress he's brought on his father and the rest of his family. As for the ongoing investigation, he says he has already spent countless hours being questioned and feels confident that, in the end, he'll be found innocent of any wrongdoing.

Jeff Koinange, CNN, Lagos.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Still to come tonight, Aaron's conversation with writer/producer/director and, we think, Dr. Michael Crichton.

And the year in still photos, why this batch are considered the best of 2004.

Some words first from our sponsors. This is NEWSNIGHT tonight in Atlanta.

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O'BRIEN: Unlike the T-Rex in "Jurassic Park," Michael Crichton is an omnivore, a very successful one. He's gobbled up genetics and physics and medicine, not to mention global trade, aviation, sexual harassment, and time travel, to boot. They're the stuff of a good Crichton novel or a movie or TV series, but not the soul, which is human, always.

Michael Crichton's latest novel, "State of Fear," deals with global warming and the people fighting over it. He and Aaron shared a few moments last week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: The book is a little bit sort of global warming meets environmental activism meets big corporations meets thriller, with lots of little twists. Fair description?

MICHAEL CRICHTON, AUTHOR, "STATE OF FEAR": I think so. BROWN: Would it be a mistake for people to come away saying there's no such thing as global warming?

CRICHTON: I think I would rather they came away saying maybe. I mean, my personal feeling is, I'm highly, highly skeptical. But more than -- I wouldn't be dismissive, so much as saying, why are we making certain decisions right this minute? It's premature.

BROWN: But does science always allow us -- if we are going to stay ahead of the curve, if we're going to be proactive in areas we need to be proactive, does our current body of knowledge always allow us to be as precise as you want us to be then?

CRICHTON: No. And that's fine. In other words, I'm very much in favor of doing climate research. I'm very much in favor of these computer models which are now -- this is a multigenerational undertaking. In a certain sense, this is analogous to building cathedrals in the Middle Ages. Generations of scientists have worked on these things.

But it's an enormously complicated problem. And my conflict with them, which is a discussion I have had with them is, look, I think it's great what you're doing. But you don't make policy over that, not yet.

BROWN: You said in a speech in the fall, "There are two reasons why I think we need to get rid of the religion of environmentalism." First of all, why do you see it as a religion? And why do we need to get rid of it?

CRICHTON: I'm interested in how intensely people feel about this.

In other words, I think that, when you have this sort of intensity of feeling, when you have in fact what I would call a fundamentalist approach -- I'm right; you're wrong; anything you say will damn you to hell unless you agree with me -- that's fundamentalism. And that's how many people approach environmental issues, instead of doing what I think is proper and correct, which is to treat it like a scientific problem, a complicated problem and one we don't understand very well.

BROWN: You live in Hollywood. You're a Hollywood guy, in a way. Do you think people are going to be surprised that you're coming at this from the direction you're coming at this and uncomfortable?

CRICHTON: What I find is that everybody wants to do the right thing and everybody wants to be on the right side. Everybody at this point is dealing with what I think of as received information.

They have an attitude, but they don't have any knowledge at all. They don't know -- I start saying it's three-tenths of a degree and what about the urban heat island bias, and everybody's eyes glaze over. But it's in the data. And how the data is handled, that's where the issue is. BROWN: Two more things. Is there -- do you have any desire for another act in your life? You have developed a hugely successful and popular TV program. Your books have done really well. Movies off the books have done pretty well. Bills have been paid. Do you feel like you want another act?

CRICHTON: You mean like my opera?

BROWN: Yes, or...

CRICHTON: My cookbook?

BROWN: Yes or your car or something, anything.

CRICHTON: Actually, I feel lucky in one way, Aaron, which is, it seems to me that I always do something fresh, even though -- I mean fresh to me, even though it's all still writing. So I have a lot of feeling of flexibility inside that. And I don't actually, you know, look forward to that acting career that is going to change my life.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Well, your life's been changed a couple times.

It's nice to see you.

CRICHTON: Thank you.

BROWN: Best of luck.

CRICHTON: Thanks.

BROWN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, the year in still photographs, why the pictures that make the cut were chosen and what they say about 2004.

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O'BRIEN: Every year around this time, the editors at "TIME" magazine, our corporate cousins in midtown Manhattan, take on the gargantuan task of distilling 12 months of news into a photo essay. Daunting? Yes. Illuminating? You bet. "TIME"s year in pictures hit the newsstands today. As you might imagine, choosing which pictures made the cut was a challenge. There were thousands to choose from. "TIME"'s photo editor, MaryAnne Golon, talked with us about the hard choices.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARYANNE GOLON, PHOTO EDITOR, "TIME": In 2004, it was very clear that we needed to cover the president and the challenger to the presidency, John Kerry. We also knew that we had to cover the biggest international story of the year, which continues to be the war in Iraq. But then we looked at the world events. And, unfortunately, when you're putting together best photos of the year, it's not often as pretty a picture as you'd like it to be.

In Madrid, I was particularly moved by how the train station became a memorial. And we ran one image where there are just hundreds and hundreds or red candles and the 40 days of mourning in Beslan as well. There's something so incredible about the historical quality and the human emotion that comes through in the work that we really want to share that with our readers.

We try to find the images that will really wow you, that will give you the kind of intimacy that takes you right to the scene. The opening photo from Iraq, this picture jumped out because you are literally on the end of a gun barrel. It has that kind of emotional value of putting you just right in the middle of the action. The whole story of AIDS, we've all seen images of how the disease ravages people.

And it's a very hard thing to look at. And we have this delightful image of a bunch of AIDS orphans. But there's so much light and brightness in their faces. It was a way to get at a important story without seeing a very familiar image. We also included a wonderful image of two women and their child when Gavin Newsom allowed gay couples to marry in San Francisco. The child is between them with this wonderful look on her face. But it was just such a bright, happy moment.

We ran a fabulous Olympics photo of Rulon Gardner. This year, he retired after having won the bronze medal. There's a wonderful image where they leave their shoes behind in the circle on the floor when they're retiring at the end of a match. The image is so compelling. You go, oh, yes, the Olympics were this year.

We have got this image of these children running, dashing happily through these yellow locusts everywhere. It was just an amazing thing to look at, because they're not registering that this is a horrible thing that they have these locusts.

There were amazing images from the hurricane. And we ended up with one that we thought was really unusual. We found an image of grapefruits, just hundreds of grapefruits floating in water in a flooded grapefruit field. And it just felt so fresh and different.

Society today, we're so inundated with visual information and imagery that one of the challenges in putting together a photo issue of this type is to really be able to surprise the reader, to bring them something that they maybe haven't seen or maybe they don't remember seeing or maybe they wanted to see again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: In a moment, how the Bush administration has another high-flying position to fill. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, there's more to Japan than sushi, Hello Kitty, gizmos and gadgets. Bill Hemmer's there -- or should we call him Bill Hemmer-san? -- for "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Miles, thanks.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," our coverage continues from here in Tokyo. Security watch Japan. As memories of the 1995 sarin gas attack are relived in the age of modern terrorism, what has Japan done to protect its people? And how can the U.S. learn from their example? Also, tens of thousands of American troops stationed here in this country now torn between global threats. Can the president realistically keep them there when so many troops are needed in Iraq? We'll talk to the U.S. Ambassador Howard Baker, as we continue our live coverage from Tokyo, Japan, throughout the week here.

See you tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time right here on "AMERICAN MORNING" -- Miles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right, thank you, Bill.

Another job opening to tell you about in Washington. This time, it's over at NASA headquarters. After three years on the job, Sean O'Keefe tendered his resignation today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Sean O'Keefe is not a rocket scientist. And he makes no bones about it.

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: My oldest son, his response to this -- he's 12 years old -- said, Gee, I thought you had to be really smart to be in that job!

O'BRIEN: All joking aside, this career public servant, beltway operator and two generation Bush loyalist came to NASA from the White House budget office with a fairly down-to-earth charter, explore the costs and launch some new accounting.

(on camera): When people call you bean counter, are those fighting words?

O'KEEFE: I don't know.

O'BRIEN (voice-over): But the bean counter's equation changed in seven heartbeats on February 1, 2003. One year into his tenure, O'Keefe was dealing with tragedy, the shuttle Columbia and her crew of seven lost on reentry. O'KEEFE: While we're filled with sorrow now, there's so much about these historic and heroic astronauts for us to be grateful of.

O'BRIEN: Many at NASA were grateful O'Keefe was there in the wake of the disaster. He left the doors open, kept the public informed, offered genuine empathy and fully embraced the accident investigation.

KEITH COWING, NASAWATCH. COM: His reaction to a lot of this is just extremely honest and simple, and I think that helped the agency, you know, climb out of that problem and move onto where it is now.

O'BRIEN: It is now an agency with a budget increase, with success on mars and around Saturn, and a lofty goal to send humans back to the moon and onto the red planet.

COWING: They have a presidential mandate to get back to the stuff that the agency is best at doing. And a lot of people are feeling that can-do attitude again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: O'Keefe is headed to Louisiana State University, where he will become the chancellor.

That's all the time we have for NEWSNIGHT tonight. On behalf of Aaron Brown and the entire NEWSNIGHT team in Atlanta and in New York, I'm Miles O'Brien. Thanks for being with us.

Aaron will be back tomorrow.

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