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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Attack on Mess Tent in Mosul Leaves Over 20 Americans Dead

Aired December 21, 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, HOST: Good evening again. We sat here last night and reported that as far as Americans at least were concerned, it had been a good few days in Iraq, none killed since last Thursday, we said, attacks down. So much for that. We awoke this morning to the second deadliest day since the war began, the single-worst incident in the war, an attack on a mess tent in the northern city of Mosul, more than 20 Americans dead, upwards of 60 injured. The counting still incomplete, the notifications just beginning, the reality of the war, once again, at the top of the program. Much of the program tonight centers on this horrible day, beginning at the beginning with the attack itself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): It was the lunch rush in the mess hall at forward base camp Marez. Jeremy Redmon, a reporter with the "Richmond Times Dispatch" was embedded there.

JEREMY REDMON, "RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH": There were hundreds of soldiers in there having lunch at the time. People were cheery. They were having lunch, enjoying themselves and this happened and as soon as the explosion, the firewall occurred, it tore a pretty large hole in the roof of the tent.

BROWN: The air was thick with smoke and dust and the screams of the wounded.

REDMON: There were folks that were in shock. There's blood all over the floor, food, trays. It was really just sort of a sea of wounded and dead. Soldiers were very quick thinking and turned their dining room tables upside down and placed the wounded on top of them. I counted one, then two, then four, then six and eight wounded coming out.

BROWN: Bill Nemitz, a reporter for the Portland, Maine "Press Herald" was also at the base.

BILL NEMITZ, "PORTLAND PRESS HERALD": When I arrived, maybe, I don't know five or 10 minutes after the blast, it was just truly remarkable what these soldiers were doing. I thought - I saw a triage area immediately take form outside the entrance to the dining facility. I saw soldiers, both Iraqi and American, carrying litters out, civilians doing that, as well.

BROWN: Most of those in the tent were not wearing their body armor, standard operating procedure for those on base. CNN photo journalist David Allbriton, who was on the base just three weeks ago.

DAVID ALLBRITON, CNN PHOTOJOURNALIST: You get this false sense of security. You're walking around without your body armor on, without your kevlar. And you're just walking around. I mean, you know, everyday street clothes. If you go out on a mission, you put on your vest and your helmet.

BROWN: At least 22 were killed in the attack, more than 50 wounded although exact numbers were hard to confirm throughout the day. A spokesman at U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad said 19 American soldiers died. Halliburton said seven of its employees and subcontractors were killed in the blast, as well.

BRIGADIER GEN. CARTER HAM, CMDR. OF TASK FORCE OLYMPIA IN MOSUL: The killed include U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army. The wounded also come from those various groups.

BROWN: A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al Sunnah army claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. officials are not sure whether the explosion was caused by a rocket or a mortar or a planted explosive device inside the hangar-like tent.

HAM: We don't yet know the source of that explosion. An investigation is ongoing by explosives experts to determine the source.

BROWN: The catastrophic attack was only the latest on this mess hall. According to those on base, insurgents have fired mortars at the tent more than 30 times this year. Concerns about the vulnerability of the soft-sided tent is one reason contractors are building a new, concrete and steel dining hall on the base. Construction -- behind schedule.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had hoped to have that facility opened by Christmas. But if you look at it, you can tell it still has a ways to go.

BROWN: In the tense hours after the attack, there were quick prayers for the wounded and the dead and then those on base got back to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a sad day in Mosul. But as they always do, soldiers will come back from that. And they will do what they can do best to honor those who were fallen today. And that is to see this very important mission through, to a successful completion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We turn, now, to CNN's Chris Lawrence who like most of the media, is either embedded with forces elsewhere in Iraq or essentially pinned down in Baghdad, hardly a safe place to be in either situation. He joins us from Baghdad where the sun is coming up this morning. Chris, good morning to you. Let's walk through a couple of just basic factual issues that might have changed overnight. Do you have any better sense of the number of casualties? CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From what we are hearing, we are still going with the figure of 19 American troops that were killed in that attack. That is the latest that we're hearing from the Pentagon. And we expect that to hold at least for the next few hours.

BROWN: The other question that's been hanging out there is exactly what caused the explosion? Was it a mortar? Was it a rocket? Was it a suicide bomb from inside the perimeter of the base? Do we know anymore about that?

LAWRENCE: You know one of our photo journalists like David Allbriton, one of our photojournalists here just spent a day and a night there, just a couple weeks ago and he was describing what that area looked like. We were having this debate, trying to figure out -- initially it seemed like a rocket attack. But then a lot of the people there who were on the ground say they saw one massive explosion and that it kind of blew outward, which would tend to think, perhaps, the explosion came from something that got into the base and it exploded outward. So I don't think the military has made an exact determination yet. Or if they have, they are not, right now, pinning down an exact cause of this blast.

BROWN: And just on that point, in your conversations since this happened now, there is, at least what we're getting, is a sense that Iraqis -- contractors, people who are working on the base, come in and off the base all the time. Is that what you hear, as well?

LAWRENCE: Yeah. And that is the case at bases throughout Iraq. A lot of people at home might be surprised to hear just how varied the population is on some of these bases. The security is incredibly tight. At most of them, you've got Iraqi National Guard members and police handling checkpoints at the perimeter and as you get further, closer in to the base, the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps will man some of those checkpoints and stand guard at the gates. But you've got all kinds of people coming and going. You've got private contractors. You've got Iraqis. You've got U.S. service people, coalition members, everybody doing business on that base in one capacity or another. So, that it does leave open the suggestion that something may have gotten in. But it could be just as likely that this was a mortar or rocket attack. We know that mortars have landed near that dining hall before.

BROWN: And just one final question, Chris. Do you have roughly an idea of how many soldiers would have been in that mess hall, eating lunch, when this explosion took place?

LAWRENCE: It's a huge tent and that was one area of vulnerability when our photographer was there a few weeks ago. One of the soldiers and one of the security guys mentioned to him that if you wanted to attack the American troops, what better time to do it than lunchtime? They all go at the same time, pretty much. And you've got -- this is a huge mess hall. You're talking maybe 400 people in there at any one time. It is a very inviting target, if you are an insurgent, looking to inflict a lot of damage on American troops.

BROWN: Chris, nice job tonight. Take care of yourself out there. You're just in country. It will be a long haul for you. We appreciate your work today. I imagine how frustrating it is to be in Baghdad, not able to get there, nice job tonight. Thank you. Chris Lawrence.

That this happened just days before Christmas colors, in some respects, a story that it happened just one day after the president took a more sober tone on Iraq than he had during the campaign, colors it, as well. So, too does the fact that polls now show most Americans believe the war was a mistake. Today's tragedy is not likely to make them feel any better. For a just-re-elected president, is not a political problem as such. It is just a reality of how the war can dominate the national agenda, whether he wants it to, or not. Here's our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president offered his condolences after a holiday season visit with wounded troops and their families at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This time of year is particularly sorrowful for the families as we head into the Christmas season. We pray for them. We send our heart-felt condolences to the loved ones who suffer today.

KING: As he has so many times before, Mr. Bush defended the mission and vowed the deaths would not be in vain.

BUSH: It's a very important and vital mission, confident democracy will prevail in Iraq. I know a free Iraq will lead to a more peaceful world. So, we ask for God's blessings on all who are involved in that vital mission.

KING: The White House tied the attack to opponents of Iraqi democracy and said it is critical to press ahead with next month's planned elections.

SCOTT McCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The terrorists and Saddam loyalists want to turn back to the past of oppression and brutality. That will not happen.

KING: But the strike on a presumably secure military base in Mosul, raised new questions about the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to provide security for election polling places.

KEN POLLACK, ANALYST: We don't have the troops to make the country safe. That's hurting the chances for good elections. That also hurts us in every aspect because it is killing Iraqis in a very literal sense and the Iraqis see this and they're deeply dismayed by the fact that they simply don't feel safe in their homes and their streets.

KING: Lawmakers just back from Iraq also question whether there are enough troops and other complaints about administration policy include shortages of armored vehicles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: That political debate can seem a bit trivial on a sad day like this and in any event, the administration hopes the situation on the ground in Iraq is much improved by the time Congress resumes its work full-time in early February. And Aaron, in the meantime, as we await the inevitable political debate and the policy debate to hit this White House, the administration is warning that it expects the violence will continue and probably even intensify as we get closer to those elections, now scheduled for just five weeks from now.

BROWN: And the president, at least to my ear yesterday suggested there's no reason to believe the violence will subside after the elections, that this is something we're going to experience for a while. And I would think, and just tell me how you see this. The more Iraq dominates the debate in Washington and around the country, the harder it is for the president to get the country, the Congress, to focus on those big issues and they are big issues, that he wants to push through in a second term.

KING: They are big issues. What the president needs is the good will that typically comes after an inauguration. Remember, even four years ago, when he won a contested election, he lost the popular vote, the president did get the rally around the president, the goodwill of the country heading into that first term. An he governed far beyond many would say what he received in the election in terms of claiming a mandate on tax cuts an other issues. This time, the president, you're exactly right, very much wanted to build goodwill from Election Day through the inauguration and the state of the union, try to rally the country to deal with very tough issues, Social Security and tax reform, chief among them. But the cloud over this administration -- it was in the election and it will be in the new term, is Iraq. That will not change for a while at least.

BROWN: John, thank you. If we don't talk having a good holiday, thanks. Thank you.

Still ahead tonight, more on the attacks. First, a scene from the home front, the families involved.

And later, from a reporter just back from Mosul, which at one time was something of a beacon of hope in the rest of the country, at one time. We'll take a break first. From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Many of the troops involved in today's tragedy were based in Washington state out of Ft. Lewis, the state of Maine, as well, and Virginia, too. Some were due home in just a matter of weeks. Others, sadly, will now make that journey, sooner. This, of course, is the harshest reality. But for the spouses, for the parents, for the children alike, even relatively good news on a day like today is jarring. So reporting tonight from Ft. Lewis Washington here's CNN's Kimberly Osias.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Melissa Doss got an early-morning e-mail from her husband, a battalion personnel officer serving in Mosul, saying he was alive and uninjured. But she's still feeling the loss of life there.

MELISSA DOSS, SOLDIER'S WIFE: I'm happy that I know but I feel guilty. I have that guilt that I know that my husband's OK and I know there's other families that know that their soldier's OK. But there's a lot that don't. And I feel guilty that I know and they don't.

OSIAS: Doss is a support group leader, talking to families of other soldiers at the base.

DOSS: Right now, it's just consoling. You know, giving them, letting them know that there's somebody here to talk to if they need anything.

OSIAS: Raw nerves at the headquarters of the 276th engineering battalion in Virginia, where she lives. In the hometown paper, conflicting images, a ray of sunlight streaming in through the blown out mess hall tent, soldier helping soldier, brothers in arms, trying to escape to safety, serving there, 4,500 of Ft. Lewis' striker brigade in Washington State. Since operation Iraqi freedom broke out, this bridge has worn yellow ribbons and hosted the base's most ardent supporters.

GEORGE GARCIA, FORT LEWIS SOLDIER: I feel kind of crying and weeping. I said I have to pray for the people that got injured and killed and their relatives, too.

OSIAS: Young's barbershop is less than a click, that's military talk for about a half mile, away from base. Hair cuts are still $6 unless soldiers are getting a buzz which is most of the business here. Soldiers come to relax especially today.

DANIEL VILLANUEVA, TROOP SUPPORTER: That's a real tragedy especially right before Christmas.

CESAR CONTHERAS, FORT LEWIS SOLDIER: I'm waiting for e-mails, waiting for something to let me know they're all right.

OSIAS: Cesar Contheras was one of the lucky ones. He just got back from Mosul a month ago. For him and many like him, there's a pall over Ft. Lewis and other bases this Christmas, as everyone watches and waits. Kimberly Osias, CNN, Fort Lewis, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thanassis Cambanis has just returned from Mosul. He reports for "The Boston Globe," his dispatches dealing with the city, the third largest in Iraq. That's fair to say is starting to pull apart at the seams or so it appears sometimes. He joins us tonight from Stamford, Connecticut. It's nice to see you. Talk about for a second how big these bases are and how well-protected they are.

THANASSIS CAMBANIS, "BOSTON GLOBE" BAGHDAD BUREAU:There's three major bases in Mosul, one on the north side of the city and two clustered together on the south and these are enormous installations. I mean they have air strips, two of them have air strips on them. I think there's about 10,000 personnel, military as well as civilian support staff on these three bases and they have buses going around the base they're so large. To get from some of the base areas to the mess hall, you have to ride the bus. They have PXs. They have -- they're cities in and of themselves really.

BROWN: A lot of Iraqis coming in to work on the base, as well?

CAMBANIS: Yes. When I was there in November, the soldiers there were very aware of the vulnerability of the base. They told me that insurgents count every vehicle that comes in and out. They know the rough routines of the patrols, as well as of the staff on the base. At the time and now one of the biggest worries was the execution of Iraqi soldiers who were working on the base and then being murdered on their way home. And intelligence officials were trying to figure out how deeply the insurgents had penetrated the base to know exactly who were the Iraqis working with the Americans on the base, how they were so able to know who they were and follow them, track them out of the base and kill them off-base.

BROWN: The city itself is a very complicated sort of ethnic cocktail of a place. It seems like -- well, there's not much Shia representation. Just about everybody else is there, isn't it?

CAMBANIS: Yeah and Mosul is very much part of the potentially dark future of Iraq. It's a city that has about half Sunni-Arab population. It's got a substantial Kurdish plurality, as well as a Turkamen and Syrian Christian communities. And there's been a lot of tension and this is something that's percolated under the surface for the last several months. There's been a lot of ethnic fighting between these three groups or largely between the Sunni-Arabs who are allied with Baathists against the Kurds and the Syrians in the city.

BROWN: Have the jihadists moved in, as well?

CAMBANIS: What's interesting to me in Mosul, is that the Baathists actually, according to sources both in the U.S. military, as well as in Kurdish intelligence organizations, is that the Baathists have made a very organized attempt to make a power grab and these are not Saddamist Baathists. These are Baath party members who apparently reorganized in Syria. They've made new chiefs for their city organization and they are the biggest threat, according to these folks, to stability inside Mosul. They've been joined in a marriage of convenience with Islamist terrorists groups, including as Ansar al Sunnah, which took credit for or responsibility for today's attack and they're having reports that many fighters left Falluja to relocate to Mosul. However, if you look at the frequency of attacks in that city over the last two months, there was plenty of violence taking place there before the U.S. military began its operations in Falluja.

BROWN: This is I think a two-part question. I'm trying to get two things in it. Are there enough Americans in the area to control the city, A? And part B, does there need to be as long as the Kurds, the Peshmerga which have a large representation there, the Kurdish militia are there?

CAMBANIS: Well, the first part of your question, I asked General Ham that in November. And by way of answering, he pointed out he has about half as many troops at his disposal as General Dave Petraeus did when he was responsible for Mosul at a time that it was much more peaceful. I think that goes away to saying that no, there are not enough American troops in the city.

Another key part of the American strategy there has been to turn over security responsibility to Iraqi police and Iraqi National Guard. Again what we saw in November was the utter collapse of the police system more dramatically in Mosul than we've seen anywhere else in Iraq. Out of a force up to 8,000 people, only a few hundred returned to work after the uprising, which was in part, led by police. So that says not only are there not enough Americans, but there are not enough Iraqis. And I think the level again of instability there speaks for itself. The second part of your question --

BROWN: Are the Kurds, the Peshmerga militia, enough of an American ally to secure the area or are they simply just trying to secure what they can get and hold for themselves?

CAMBANIS: The Peshmerga I think are a deeply trusted American ally. But they cannot be deployed across the city because that will create -- that will create the very ethnic --

BROWN: Got it.

CAMBANIS: ... the Americans are seeking to avoid. And they have held back. I mean there are Peshmerga all over the eastern side of Mosul. And the Americans have held back from letting them deploy on the western bank which is almost entirely Arab because that would be a huge provocation and people are very much afraid of what that would lead to.

BROWN: Read a bunch of your pieces today. You've done some terrific work over there. Have a good holiday.

CAMBANIS: Thanks a lot.

BROWN: Thank you. Coming up on the program, still more on the attack. We'll hear from two experts on the military security side of this, what they make of it all. We'll also head south in Iraq, where life is no safer for American soldiers especially those trying to drive supplies into the country out of the giant bases of Kuwait. We'll take a break first around the world. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, it's safe to say that for any army in any combat zone, there's always a balance to be struck between carrying out the mission and protecting the forces. Rarely are those two imperatives so tightly intertwined as in Iraq today. We're joined to talk about that and Mosul and the larger mission by military analyst Bob Maginnis and Peter Khalil, who's now at the Brookings Institution and formerly director of national security policy for the American administration in Iraq and it's good to see you both.

Bob, when last we talked with you today, you were still trying to sort out, if you could, sort of literally what happened, whether it was a rocket, whether it was a mortar, whether it was an inside job, if you will. Do you know anymore?

LT. COL. ROBERT MAGINNIS, U.S. ARMY (RET): Aaron, the Pentagon people in Iraq are still trying to sort through whether there's a bomb crater. Certainly the shrapnel that went out, pellet-sized really causes me to question. The location of the fire ball reported. If you look at the suicide that we've seen -- suicide bombers we've seen in Israel, some of the reports were very similar. But this could have been done by a proximity fuse that went off fairly high and then caused a rain of small pellets throughout the area, resulting in these deaths. So we're just going to have to wait until we get the conclusive results back. But what I'm most concerned about if in fact this was a bomb placed there, that means penetration has taken place and then anyone that is at all suspect must be kept off that facility.

BROWN: Peter, the problem is that to some degree, everybody is suspect these days. We know don't we, that there's been considerable infiltration of the Iraqi security forces by the insurgents.

PETER KHALIL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: That's true, Aaron. It is a great concern, as far as vetting of those forces. Part of the problem of course is that the Iraqi National Guard and the Iraqi police, local police have very limited training, an average of three to four weeks. Vetting hasn't been standard across the country and I think the Army is better trained and has a longer training cycle, so that the Iraqi army soldiers are much better capable of dealing with insurgents and also providing security for elections, if that's what they're going to be used for.

BROWN: Is this just a -- Bob, we talked in introducing you about this balance between protecting the force and allowing them to do the work. An awful lot of effort has gone into force protection, particularly in the last year in Iraq. Does this -- I don't mean this as naively as it sounds. Does this mean there's a long way to go?

MAGINNIS: It is a long way to go, Aaron.

It's interesting that Dave Petraeus, the lieutenant general that is in charge of the training of all the Iraqi security forces, was the division commander of 101st up in Mosul when I was there a year ago. And a great success story. He was being touted all over the place.

Now he's in charge of training these people. And, of course, one of the first thing we hear six weeks ago is that we had thousands, as reported earlier in your program, of police that abandoned their stations. You know, we've got to somehow put a stiff backbone. But, at the same time, we have to give them enough motivation to be willing to take on these insurgents, who are deadly.

And, unfortunately, Saddam Hussein didn't leave a legacy that really has helped us to really bolster these forces, wherever they may be in that country. BROWN: I want to broaden this in a minute.

But, Bob, let me just ask you one more question before I do about that point. Not quite a year ago, nine months, when I was in there with General Abizaid, one of the things he kept saying over and over again is, we can find privates. We can't find leaders. We can't find captains and lieutenants and I suppose, ultimately, colonels and generals.

MAGINNIS: That's right, Aaron. That is the problem.

And John knows that as well, as all these other generals over there. You know, the units that fought the best in Najaf and in Falluja, the Iraqi units, were those units that had good leaders. But we just can't create leaders out of whole cloth overnight. And, unfortunately some of the better leaders were tainted with some terrible, bloody, you know, background with Saddam Hussein. So, we don't bring them back.

So, we're really between a rock and a hard place here.

BROWN: All right, Peter, let's step back from all of this today. The importance of Mosul. We talked a moment ago about the potential ethnic s there. Is Mosul going to become the new Falluja?

KHALIL: I don't think it will become the new Falluja. But it's certainly a target of the insurgents, particularly the jihadists, I think, to try and foment as much ethnic and sectarian violence as possible.

As you have heard earlier, Mosul is a multiethnic and multireligious city. And they want to derail the political process. It's a perfect place to do that by stirring up trouble among different ethnic groups.

BROWN: Is it a place where elections, should we be able to pull them off in that area, will calm things down?

MAGINNIS: Well, I think elections have to be legitimate. And legitimacy comes from having Sunnis participate in the elections. And adequate Sunni voter turnout is absolutely necessary to have legitimate government post-January 30.

And, of course, the insurgents are going to do everything they can to derail that political process. And they will target election centers, polling booths. And, of course, even Sunnis who want to come out and vote might not do so because they fear for their lives.

BROWN: Yes.

Bob, let me give you the last word. Does your instinct tell you one way or another whether this was a -- that horrible expression, a lucky strike, by the insurgents? They throw enough of these things out there and eventually they get a target? Or it was a more sophisticated intelligence; they knew exactly where to throw it, exactly when to throw it? MAGINNIS: Aaron, yesterday, Mr. Allawi announced that there were some sophisticated rockets that he intercepted coming in, I believe, from Syria, that were remote-controlled and very accurate. I hope he got them all.

If, in fact, this was a lucky shot today, then we won't see this again. But it's hard to bet on either way.

BROWN: Gentlemen, thank you both. Have good holidays. We appreciate your time tonight.

MAGINNIS: Thank you.

KHALIL: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

Today's attack in Mosul was a reminder, in one sense, of the obvious. American soldiers are safe nowhere in Iraq. From the moment they cross into the country, there is danger, considerable danger.

Another reminder of that tonight from CNN's Barbara Starr, who is embedded with an Army Reserve unit from North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just before sunrise, these soldiers quietly gather to pray for a safe journey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.

STARR: This is the 227th Transportation Company, an Army Reserve unit from North Carolina. They call themselves the Road Dogs. On this cold morning in the Kuwaiti desert, they are about to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the military, drive a supply convoy north into Iraq.

CNN had an exclusive look this morning at what is known here as the Iraqi express. It gets underway every morning at dawn, driving fast to avoid attacks. Today, the convoy has more than 30 military and civilian trucks with armor protection plates, and its own heavily armed Humvee escorts with 50-caliber machine guns.

It is just five minutes to the Iraqi border, and the shooting can start the minute they cross the line. Scores of U.S. troops have already been killed or injured driving convoys into Iraq. Many were in armored vehicles. These young soldiers, and they are very young, all have their own way of coping with the threat of insurgent attacks, the instant when a normal day can become a disaster.

Specialist Gabrielle Curtis is just 19 years old. Today, she is smiling.

(on camera): How many times have you driven convoys into Iraq so far?

SPC. GABRIELLE CURTIS, U.S. ARMY: This will be the first time.

STARR (voice-over): She says she is ready.

CURTIS: Pray. Ask God for strength.

STARR: Specialist Anna Galbraith drives a supply truck. She is 20 years old.

SPC. ANNA GALBRAITH, U.S. ARMY: You just kind of drive and hope nothing happens. That's really basically all I do. Just drive and hope nothing happens.

STARR: But she knows the worst is possible. One buddy was hurt recently.

GALBRAITH: Oh, I'm afraid every time I go out, every time. I mean, it's exciting, but it's scary, because you never know if you're going to come back.

STARR: Staff Sergeant Gregory Duncan says presenting a tough face to the Iraqis is essential, and his weapon is always ready.

STAFF SGT. GREGORY DUNCAN, U.S. ARMY: You're always afraid. Always afraid. It's a job, you've got to do it and you do it.

STARR: A final briefing, and then the convoy moves out as the sun begins to rise.

On this day, soldiers of the 227th include heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and prayers in their arsenal.

(on camera): The Iraqi express has now pulled out and is on its way north to its destination, Falluja. It will be a two-day drive. Already, another convoy is getting ready to go.

Barbara Starr, CNN, on the Kuwait/Iraqi border.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been said, if you're taking heat from all sides, you must be doing something right. Of course, one could also argue it might be a signal you are dead wrong.

The new normal in many ways is a balancing act for the government and for us. How much freedom are we willing to give to stay safe? How do you protect lives while respecting individual freedoms?

On the security watch tonight, CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was a lyricist for the Grateful Dead.

JOHN PERRY BARLOW, FORMER GRATEFUL DEAD LYRICIST: I've been a fairly pesky civil libertarian for a long time.

MESERVE: She was a fire-breathing congressional conservative.

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: I think the only thing that I've ever terrorized are liberals.

MESERVE: Helen Chenoweth-Hage may be from Venus, John Perry Barlow from Mars, but they have found a common enemy -- secrecy at the Transportation Security Administration. Chenoweth-Hage is irate that TSA personnel at the Boise, Idaho, airport refused to reveal the regulations allowing them to pat her down.

CHENOWETH-HAGE: I was absolutely astounded at the fact that they thought that they could violate my Fourth Amendment rights, violate my privacy, violate my body because of some secret law.

MESERVE: John Perry Barlow believes his constitutional rights were violated too when a TSA screening for explosives allegedly turned up drugs in his checked bag.

BARLOW: If it is, in fact, the case that when you decide to travel in America, you have automatically consented to having an extremely thorough, warrantless, nonspecific search on you for any kind of criminality, then I think we need to know that.

MESERVE (on camera): Both Perry Barlow and Chenoweth-Hage asked to see the rules and regulations under which TSA was operating. Both were told it was designated sensitive security information, or SSI, to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

MARK HATFIELD, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: So you can come see the stadium, and you can meet the players, but you can't photocopy the playbook.

MESERVE (voice-over): The problem, as some see it, is that too much information is being kept secret, limiting the capacity for oversight and masking abuses.

STEVEN AFTERGOOD, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: It's self- evident that in an open, democratic society governed by the rule of law, we have to be able to know what the law is.

MESERVE: While TSA says SSI has been used inappropriately in the past, it believes it now has the appropriate balance between protecting freedoms and protecting us, though some of those being protected beg to disagree.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we remind you, as we do, to stay tuned to CNN all the time for the most reliable news about security, a story of which there is no larger.

Ahead on the program, the power of a paper clip. This is a great tale -- six million paper clips, actually.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDRA ROBERTS, EIGHTH GRADE TEACHER: ... tolerance reigns and when prejudice goes unchecked...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: We'll explain it all after the break.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been said that pity drowns in numbers, which is another way of saying, some numbers are so large, so incomprehensible, they lose their capacity to overwhelm.

To say six million Jews died in the Holocaust is true. But to say one Jew died six million times, as someone wise once put it, shifts the frame of the fact, which brings us to a group of children in a small Southern town trying to connect with something enormous.

Their story became a film which is now playing in Los Angeles and New York and this past weekend in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE FAB, PRODUCER, "PAPER CLIPS": "Paper Clips" is a film about a small town in Tennessee, 1,600 people who are pretty much, each one, like the others, in that they are all Christian. They are all white. And they have very little diversity.

At the middle school there, they noticed that the children were really having problems when they would leave Whitwell, because they had only met people who were like themselves.

LINDA HOOPER, PRINCIPAL, WHITWELL MIDDLE SCHOOL: So, in 1998, we began an adventure.

ROBERTS: We decided that our goal was to teach children what happens when intolerance reigns and when prejudice goes unchecked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will remind you before we start that what we're going to cover in this project is very, very graphic.

FAB: They decided to start a Holocaust study group.

HOOPER: Of course, one of the first things that the kids had to learn and one of the hardest things for them to comprehend was that Hitler murdered six million Jewish people.

CASEY CONDRA, STUDENT, WHITWELL MIDDLE SCHOOL: The idea for the paper clips came when a student said, what is six million? I've never seen six million. Ms. Hooper is like, well, neither have I. If you can find something to collect, we'll try it.

ELLIOT BERLIN, DIRECTOR, "PAPER CLIPS": They did some research on the Internet. And it came out that the Norwegians invented the paper clip. And during the Second World War, they took to wearing paper clips on their lapels as forms of silent protest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed a the perfect symbol. So, the paper clip project began.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they came and they said, can we write some letters to people we know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Originally, the letters they got back were from somebody like Uncle Steve saying, that's a great project. And here's a box of paper clips.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go Tigers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But everything really changed when a pair of German journalists came to Whitwell, saw what the kids were doing and decided to report on it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got something for you here from Germany.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now the letters had postmarks from Italy and from Poland and from Germany. And the letters said things like:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Dear students, many members of my mother's and father's families died at the camps. I've enclosed 14 paper clips for four grandparents, a brother, seven aunts and uncles and two cousins."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A group of survivors in Cedarhurst, New York, heard what the children were doing. And they wanted to come down and visit.

SAM SITKO, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: I asked them. I said, please, tell me. We arrived last night. And I arrived with my mother and my brother. Where are they? What happened to them? And that man shows me smoke coming out from a chimney. I did not understand what that means until I found out that that chimney is from a crematorium.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was so much emotion in the room as the survivors talked. You watch the children's faces in the film. You can almost see they're now attaching real human beings with the atrocities of the Holocaust. Other media learned what the children were up to and came and began to report on this project. After that, the mail just flooded in.

CONDRA: Over a period of six weeks, we ended up with 24 million paper clips.

FAB: The idea came to build a memorial, that a railcar, one of the cars that carried people to the concentration camps, might be the perfect way to exhibit the paper clips. It had to be carried across Germany. It had to be shipped to the United States, carried to the school. Now the memorial stands in the schoolyard as a permanent testimony to what happened during the Holocaust.

HOOPER: One of them said to me, Ms. Hooper, when you touch these, can you feel the souls? Well, yes, you can feel the souls, because most of them came with a letter that told you about the soul that paper clip represented.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a description that's been applied to the film that the things that draw us together are actually stronger than the things that separate us. I hope that, for people who go and see the film, that they look at the town and they recognize that, while it might look like an unlikely place for a paper clip project to happen, it's really a perfect place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: God bless those kids. On a pretty nasty day, we needed that.

Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

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

We'll start things off with a couple of papers we don't normally get. And we're very pleased that they sent them our way today. They certainly are the newspapers of the day, not the biggest. But, on this day, they turned out to be the best.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch." "Deadliest Strike. Mosul Dining Hall Attack Kills as Many as 19 U.S. Troops, at Least Seven Others." It was reporter Jeremy Redmon and Dean Hoffmeyer who took those pictures and gave us this account. That picture, which is an unbelievable photo, isn't it, graces many front pages and may grace the newspaper in your town tomorrow. Thanks to the work of these young reporters. I assume they're young. It's young man's work over there, and women's.

Also, "The Portland Press Herald," also, Bill Nemitz, the reporter up there. "Carnage in Mosul." We especially appreciate their sending the paper down. They clearly hadn't finished putting up the front page. But they sent it to us anyway. Papers don't really like to do that. You can understand why. But we appreciate it. Nice work for them.

"The Des Moines Register." Everybody's going to lead with this. It's the lead. "Mess Tent Blast Kills 20." It's been hard to nail down the right number -- "60 Hurt in Horrific Lunchtime Attack at Northern Iraqi Base." One or two other quick items. "The Washington Times" leads with the Mosul attack, but, as I told you, "Deal Puts District Back in the Ball Game. Council, Baseball Officials Agree on Financing." Caved in.

The weather -- well, not totally.

The weather in Chicago tomorrow is "shivery," if I remember.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If not today, then over the last, I guess, few weeks, Iraq has sort of faded away, that we all, after a while, get tired of reporting it. You all get tired of hearing about it, in some respects. Today was one of those horrible snapbacks into reality. It's a bad day.

But we're glad you were with us for it. We're all back tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next.

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 21, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again. We sat here last night and reported that as far as Americans at least were concerned, it had been a good few days in Iraq, none killed since last Thursday, we said, attacks down. So much for that. We awoke this morning to the second deadliest day since the war began, the single-worst incident in the war, an attack on a mess tent in the northern city of Mosul, more than 20 Americans dead, upwards of 60 injured. The counting still incomplete, the notifications just beginning, the reality of the war, once again, at the top of the program. Much of the program tonight centers on this horrible day, beginning at the beginning with the attack itself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): It was the lunch rush in the mess hall at forward base camp Marez. Jeremy Redmon, a reporter with the "Richmond Times Dispatch" was embedded there.

JEREMY REDMON, "RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH": There were hundreds of soldiers in there having lunch at the time. People were cheery. They were having lunch, enjoying themselves and this happened and as soon as the explosion, the firewall occurred, it tore a pretty large hole in the roof of the tent.

BROWN: The air was thick with smoke and dust and the screams of the wounded.

REDMON: There were folks that were in shock. There's blood all over the floor, food, trays. It was really just sort of a sea of wounded and dead. Soldiers were very quick thinking and turned their dining room tables upside down and placed the wounded on top of them. I counted one, then two, then four, then six and eight wounded coming out.

BROWN: Bill Nemitz, a reporter for the Portland, Maine "Press Herald" was also at the base.

BILL NEMITZ, "PORTLAND PRESS HERALD": When I arrived, maybe, I don't know five or 10 minutes after the blast, it was just truly remarkable what these soldiers were doing. I thought - I saw a triage area immediately take form outside the entrance to the dining facility. I saw soldiers, both Iraqi and American, carrying litters out, civilians doing that, as well.

BROWN: Most of those in the tent were not wearing their body armor, standard operating procedure for those on base. CNN photo journalist David Allbriton, who was on the base just three weeks ago.

DAVID ALLBRITON, CNN PHOTOJOURNALIST: You get this false sense of security. You're walking around without your body armor on, without your kevlar. And you're just walking around. I mean, you know, everyday street clothes. If you go out on a mission, you put on your vest and your helmet.

BROWN: At least 22 were killed in the attack, more than 50 wounded although exact numbers were hard to confirm throughout the day. A spokesman at U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad said 19 American soldiers died. Halliburton said seven of its employees and subcontractors were killed in the blast, as well.

BRIGADIER GEN. CARTER HAM, CMDR. OF TASK FORCE OLYMPIA IN MOSUL: The killed include U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army. The wounded also come from those various groups.

BROWN: A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al Sunnah army claimed responsibility for the attack. U.S. officials are not sure whether the explosion was caused by a rocket or a mortar or a planted explosive device inside the hangar-like tent.

HAM: We don't yet know the source of that explosion. An investigation is ongoing by explosives experts to determine the source.

BROWN: The catastrophic attack was only the latest on this mess hall. According to those on base, insurgents have fired mortars at the tent more than 30 times this year. Concerns about the vulnerability of the soft-sided tent is one reason contractors are building a new, concrete and steel dining hall on the base. Construction -- behind schedule.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They had hoped to have that facility opened by Christmas. But if you look at it, you can tell it still has a ways to go.

BROWN: In the tense hours after the attack, there were quick prayers for the wounded and the dead and then those on base got back to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a sad day in Mosul. But as they always do, soldiers will come back from that. And they will do what they can do best to honor those who were fallen today. And that is to see this very important mission through, to a successful completion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We turn, now, to CNN's Chris Lawrence who like most of the media, is either embedded with forces elsewhere in Iraq or essentially pinned down in Baghdad, hardly a safe place to be in either situation. He joins us from Baghdad where the sun is coming up this morning. Chris, good morning to you. Let's walk through a couple of just basic factual issues that might have changed overnight. Do you have any better sense of the number of casualties? CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From what we are hearing, we are still going with the figure of 19 American troops that were killed in that attack. That is the latest that we're hearing from the Pentagon. And we expect that to hold at least for the next few hours.

BROWN: The other question that's been hanging out there is exactly what caused the explosion? Was it a mortar? Was it a rocket? Was it a suicide bomb from inside the perimeter of the base? Do we know anymore about that?

LAWRENCE: You know one of our photo journalists like David Allbriton, one of our photojournalists here just spent a day and a night there, just a couple weeks ago and he was describing what that area looked like. We were having this debate, trying to figure out -- initially it seemed like a rocket attack. But then a lot of the people there who were on the ground say they saw one massive explosion and that it kind of blew outward, which would tend to think, perhaps, the explosion came from something that got into the base and it exploded outward. So I don't think the military has made an exact determination yet. Or if they have, they are not, right now, pinning down an exact cause of this blast.

BROWN: And just on that point, in your conversations since this happened now, there is, at least what we're getting, is a sense that Iraqis -- contractors, people who are working on the base, come in and off the base all the time. Is that what you hear, as well?

LAWRENCE: Yeah. And that is the case at bases throughout Iraq. A lot of people at home might be surprised to hear just how varied the population is on some of these bases. The security is incredibly tight. At most of them, you've got Iraqi National Guard members and police handling checkpoints at the perimeter and as you get further, closer in to the base, the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps will man some of those checkpoints and stand guard at the gates. But you've got all kinds of people coming and going. You've got private contractors. You've got Iraqis. You've got U.S. service people, coalition members, everybody doing business on that base in one capacity or another. So, that it does leave open the suggestion that something may have gotten in. But it could be just as likely that this was a mortar or rocket attack. We know that mortars have landed near that dining hall before.

BROWN: And just one final question, Chris. Do you have roughly an idea of how many soldiers would have been in that mess hall, eating lunch, when this explosion took place?

LAWRENCE: It's a huge tent and that was one area of vulnerability when our photographer was there a few weeks ago. One of the soldiers and one of the security guys mentioned to him that if you wanted to attack the American troops, what better time to do it than lunchtime? They all go at the same time, pretty much. And you've got -- this is a huge mess hall. You're talking maybe 400 people in there at any one time. It is a very inviting target, if you are an insurgent, looking to inflict a lot of damage on American troops.

BROWN: Chris, nice job tonight. Take care of yourself out there. You're just in country. It will be a long haul for you. We appreciate your work today. I imagine how frustrating it is to be in Baghdad, not able to get there, nice job tonight. Thank you. Chris Lawrence.

That this happened just days before Christmas colors, in some respects, a story that it happened just one day after the president took a more sober tone on Iraq than he had during the campaign, colors it, as well. So, too does the fact that polls now show most Americans believe the war was a mistake. Today's tragedy is not likely to make them feel any better. For a just-re-elected president, is not a political problem as such. It is just a reality of how the war can dominate the national agenda, whether he wants it to, or not. Here's our senior White House correspondent, John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The president offered his condolences after a holiday season visit with wounded troops and their families at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This time of year is particularly sorrowful for the families as we head into the Christmas season. We pray for them. We send our heart-felt condolences to the loved ones who suffer today.

KING: As he has so many times before, Mr. Bush defended the mission and vowed the deaths would not be in vain.

BUSH: It's a very important and vital mission, confident democracy will prevail in Iraq. I know a free Iraq will lead to a more peaceful world. So, we ask for God's blessings on all who are involved in that vital mission.

KING: The White House tied the attack to opponents of Iraqi democracy and said it is critical to press ahead with next month's planned elections.

SCOTT McCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The terrorists and Saddam loyalists want to turn back to the past of oppression and brutality. That will not happen.

KING: But the strike on a presumably secure military base in Mosul, raised new questions about the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to provide security for election polling places.

KEN POLLACK, ANALYST: We don't have the troops to make the country safe. That's hurting the chances for good elections. That also hurts us in every aspect because it is killing Iraqis in a very literal sense and the Iraqis see this and they're deeply dismayed by the fact that they simply don't feel safe in their homes and their streets.

KING: Lawmakers just back from Iraq also question whether there are enough troops and other complaints about administration policy include shortages of armored vehicles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: That political debate can seem a bit trivial on a sad day like this and in any event, the administration hopes the situation on the ground in Iraq is much improved by the time Congress resumes its work full-time in early February. And Aaron, in the meantime, as we await the inevitable political debate and the policy debate to hit this White House, the administration is warning that it expects the violence will continue and probably even intensify as we get closer to those elections, now scheduled for just five weeks from now.

BROWN: And the president, at least to my ear yesterday suggested there's no reason to believe the violence will subside after the elections, that this is something we're going to experience for a while. And I would think, and just tell me how you see this. The more Iraq dominates the debate in Washington and around the country, the harder it is for the president to get the country, the Congress, to focus on those big issues and they are big issues, that he wants to push through in a second term.

KING: They are big issues. What the president needs is the good will that typically comes after an inauguration. Remember, even four years ago, when he won a contested election, he lost the popular vote, the president did get the rally around the president, the goodwill of the country heading into that first term. An he governed far beyond many would say what he received in the election in terms of claiming a mandate on tax cuts an other issues. This time, the president, you're exactly right, very much wanted to build goodwill from Election Day through the inauguration and the state of the union, try to rally the country to deal with very tough issues, Social Security and tax reform, chief among them. But the cloud over this administration -- it was in the election and it will be in the new term, is Iraq. That will not change for a while at least.

BROWN: John, thank you. If we don't talk having a good holiday, thanks. Thank you.

Still ahead tonight, more on the attacks. First, a scene from the home front, the families involved.

And later, from a reporter just back from Mosul, which at one time was something of a beacon of hope in the rest of the country, at one time. We'll take a break first. From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Many of the troops involved in today's tragedy were based in Washington state out of Ft. Lewis, the state of Maine, as well, and Virginia, too. Some were due home in just a matter of weeks. Others, sadly, will now make that journey, sooner. This, of course, is the harshest reality. But for the spouses, for the parents, for the children alike, even relatively good news on a day like today is jarring. So reporting tonight from Ft. Lewis Washington here's CNN's Kimberly Osias.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Melissa Doss got an early-morning e-mail from her husband, a battalion personnel officer serving in Mosul, saying he was alive and uninjured. But she's still feeling the loss of life there.

MELISSA DOSS, SOLDIER'S WIFE: I'm happy that I know but I feel guilty. I have that guilt that I know that my husband's OK and I know there's other families that know that their soldier's OK. But there's a lot that don't. And I feel guilty that I know and they don't.

OSIAS: Doss is a support group leader, talking to families of other soldiers at the base.

DOSS: Right now, it's just consoling. You know, giving them, letting them know that there's somebody here to talk to if they need anything.

OSIAS: Raw nerves at the headquarters of the 276th engineering battalion in Virginia, where she lives. In the hometown paper, conflicting images, a ray of sunlight streaming in through the blown out mess hall tent, soldier helping soldier, brothers in arms, trying to escape to safety, serving there, 4,500 of Ft. Lewis' striker brigade in Washington State. Since operation Iraqi freedom broke out, this bridge has worn yellow ribbons and hosted the base's most ardent supporters.

GEORGE GARCIA, FORT LEWIS SOLDIER: I feel kind of crying and weeping. I said I have to pray for the people that got injured and killed and their relatives, too.

OSIAS: Young's barbershop is less than a click, that's military talk for about a half mile, away from base. Hair cuts are still $6 unless soldiers are getting a buzz which is most of the business here. Soldiers come to relax especially today.

DANIEL VILLANUEVA, TROOP SUPPORTER: That's a real tragedy especially right before Christmas.

CESAR CONTHERAS, FORT LEWIS SOLDIER: I'm waiting for e-mails, waiting for something to let me know they're all right.

OSIAS: Cesar Contheras was one of the lucky ones. He just got back from Mosul a month ago. For him and many like him, there's a pall over Ft. Lewis and other bases this Christmas, as everyone watches and waits. Kimberly Osias, CNN, Fort Lewis, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Thanassis Cambanis has just returned from Mosul. He reports for "The Boston Globe," his dispatches dealing with the city, the third largest in Iraq. That's fair to say is starting to pull apart at the seams or so it appears sometimes. He joins us tonight from Stamford, Connecticut. It's nice to see you. Talk about for a second how big these bases are and how well-protected they are.

THANASSIS CAMBANIS, "BOSTON GLOBE" BAGHDAD BUREAU:There's three major bases in Mosul, one on the north side of the city and two clustered together on the south and these are enormous installations. I mean they have air strips, two of them have air strips on them. I think there's about 10,000 personnel, military as well as civilian support staff on these three bases and they have buses going around the base they're so large. To get from some of the base areas to the mess hall, you have to ride the bus. They have PXs. They have -- they're cities in and of themselves really.

BROWN: A lot of Iraqis coming in to work on the base, as well?

CAMBANIS: Yes. When I was there in November, the soldiers there were very aware of the vulnerability of the base. They told me that insurgents count every vehicle that comes in and out. They know the rough routines of the patrols, as well as of the staff on the base. At the time and now one of the biggest worries was the execution of Iraqi soldiers who were working on the base and then being murdered on their way home. And intelligence officials were trying to figure out how deeply the insurgents had penetrated the base to know exactly who were the Iraqis working with the Americans on the base, how they were so able to know who they were and follow them, track them out of the base and kill them off-base.

BROWN: The city itself is a very complicated sort of ethnic cocktail of a place. It seems like -- well, there's not much Shia representation. Just about everybody else is there, isn't it?

CAMBANIS: Yeah and Mosul is very much part of the potentially dark future of Iraq. It's a city that has about half Sunni-Arab population. It's got a substantial Kurdish plurality, as well as a Turkamen and Syrian Christian communities. And there's been a lot of tension and this is something that's percolated under the surface for the last several months. There's been a lot of ethnic fighting between these three groups or largely between the Sunni-Arabs who are allied with Baathists against the Kurds and the Syrians in the city.

BROWN: Have the jihadists moved in, as well?

CAMBANIS: What's interesting to me in Mosul, is that the Baathists actually, according to sources both in the U.S. military, as well as in Kurdish intelligence organizations, is that the Baathists have made a very organized attempt to make a power grab and these are not Saddamist Baathists. These are Baath party members who apparently reorganized in Syria. They've made new chiefs for their city organization and they are the biggest threat, according to these folks, to stability inside Mosul. They've been joined in a marriage of convenience with Islamist terrorists groups, including as Ansar al Sunnah, which took credit for or responsibility for today's attack and they're having reports that many fighters left Falluja to relocate to Mosul. However, if you look at the frequency of attacks in that city over the last two months, there was plenty of violence taking place there before the U.S. military began its operations in Falluja.

BROWN: This is I think a two-part question. I'm trying to get two things in it. Are there enough Americans in the area to control the city, A? And part B, does there need to be as long as the Kurds, the Peshmerga which have a large representation there, the Kurdish militia are there?

CAMBANIS: Well, the first part of your question, I asked General Ham that in November. And by way of answering, he pointed out he has about half as many troops at his disposal as General Dave Petraeus did when he was responsible for Mosul at a time that it was much more peaceful. I think that goes away to saying that no, there are not enough American troops in the city.

Another key part of the American strategy there has been to turn over security responsibility to Iraqi police and Iraqi National Guard. Again what we saw in November was the utter collapse of the police system more dramatically in Mosul than we've seen anywhere else in Iraq. Out of a force up to 8,000 people, only a few hundred returned to work after the uprising, which was in part, led by police. So that says not only are there not enough Americans, but there are not enough Iraqis. And I think the level again of instability there speaks for itself. The second part of your question --

BROWN: Are the Kurds, the Peshmerga militia, enough of an American ally to secure the area or are they simply just trying to secure what they can get and hold for themselves?

CAMBANIS: The Peshmerga I think are a deeply trusted American ally. But they cannot be deployed across the city because that will create -- that will create the very ethnic --

BROWN: Got it.

CAMBANIS: ... the Americans are seeking to avoid. And they have held back. I mean there are Peshmerga all over the eastern side of Mosul. And the Americans have held back from letting them deploy on the western bank which is almost entirely Arab because that would be a huge provocation and people are very much afraid of what that would lead to.

BROWN: Read a bunch of your pieces today. You've done some terrific work over there. Have a good holiday.

CAMBANIS: Thanks a lot.

BROWN: Thank you. Coming up on the program, still more on the attack. We'll hear from two experts on the military security side of this, what they make of it all. We'll also head south in Iraq, where life is no safer for American soldiers especially those trying to drive supplies into the country out of the giant bases of Kuwait. We'll take a break first around the world. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, it's safe to say that for any army in any combat zone, there's always a balance to be struck between carrying out the mission and protecting the forces. Rarely are those two imperatives so tightly intertwined as in Iraq today. We're joined to talk about that and Mosul and the larger mission by military analyst Bob Maginnis and Peter Khalil, who's now at the Brookings Institution and formerly director of national security policy for the American administration in Iraq and it's good to see you both.

Bob, when last we talked with you today, you were still trying to sort out, if you could, sort of literally what happened, whether it was a rocket, whether it was a mortar, whether it was an inside job, if you will. Do you know anymore?

LT. COL. ROBERT MAGINNIS, U.S. ARMY (RET): Aaron, the Pentagon people in Iraq are still trying to sort through whether there's a bomb crater. Certainly the shrapnel that went out, pellet-sized really causes me to question. The location of the fire ball reported. If you look at the suicide that we've seen -- suicide bombers we've seen in Israel, some of the reports were very similar. But this could have been done by a proximity fuse that went off fairly high and then caused a rain of small pellets throughout the area, resulting in these deaths. So we're just going to have to wait until we get the conclusive results back. But what I'm most concerned about if in fact this was a bomb placed there, that means penetration has taken place and then anyone that is at all suspect must be kept off that facility.

BROWN: Peter, the problem is that to some degree, everybody is suspect these days. We know don't we, that there's been considerable infiltration of the Iraqi security forces by the insurgents.

PETER KHALIL, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: That's true, Aaron. It is a great concern, as far as vetting of those forces. Part of the problem of course is that the Iraqi National Guard and the Iraqi police, local police have very limited training, an average of three to four weeks. Vetting hasn't been standard across the country and I think the Army is better trained and has a longer training cycle, so that the Iraqi army soldiers are much better capable of dealing with insurgents and also providing security for elections, if that's what they're going to be used for.

BROWN: Is this just a -- Bob, we talked in introducing you about this balance between protecting the force and allowing them to do the work. An awful lot of effort has gone into force protection, particularly in the last year in Iraq. Does this -- I don't mean this as naively as it sounds. Does this mean there's a long way to go?

MAGINNIS: It is a long way to go, Aaron.

It's interesting that Dave Petraeus, the lieutenant general that is in charge of the training of all the Iraqi security forces, was the division commander of 101st up in Mosul when I was there a year ago. And a great success story. He was being touted all over the place.

Now he's in charge of training these people. And, of course, one of the first thing we hear six weeks ago is that we had thousands, as reported earlier in your program, of police that abandoned their stations. You know, we've got to somehow put a stiff backbone. But, at the same time, we have to give them enough motivation to be willing to take on these insurgents, who are deadly.

And, unfortunately, Saddam Hussein didn't leave a legacy that really has helped us to really bolster these forces, wherever they may be in that country. BROWN: I want to broaden this in a minute.

But, Bob, let me just ask you one more question before I do about that point. Not quite a year ago, nine months, when I was in there with General Abizaid, one of the things he kept saying over and over again is, we can find privates. We can't find leaders. We can't find captains and lieutenants and I suppose, ultimately, colonels and generals.

MAGINNIS: That's right, Aaron. That is the problem.

And John knows that as well, as all these other generals over there. You know, the units that fought the best in Najaf and in Falluja, the Iraqi units, were those units that had good leaders. But we just can't create leaders out of whole cloth overnight. And, unfortunately some of the better leaders were tainted with some terrible, bloody, you know, background with Saddam Hussein. So, we don't bring them back.

So, we're really between a rock and a hard place here.

BROWN: All right, Peter, let's step back from all of this today. The importance of Mosul. We talked a moment ago about the potential ethnic s there. Is Mosul going to become the new Falluja?

KHALIL: I don't think it will become the new Falluja. But it's certainly a target of the insurgents, particularly the jihadists, I think, to try and foment as much ethnic and sectarian violence as possible.

As you have heard earlier, Mosul is a multiethnic and multireligious city. And they want to derail the political process. It's a perfect place to do that by stirring up trouble among different ethnic groups.

BROWN: Is it a place where elections, should we be able to pull them off in that area, will calm things down?

MAGINNIS: Well, I think elections have to be legitimate. And legitimacy comes from having Sunnis participate in the elections. And adequate Sunni voter turnout is absolutely necessary to have legitimate government post-January 30.

And, of course, the insurgents are going to do everything they can to derail that political process. And they will target election centers, polling booths. And, of course, even Sunnis who want to come out and vote might not do so because they fear for their lives.

BROWN: Yes.

Bob, let me give you the last word. Does your instinct tell you one way or another whether this was a -- that horrible expression, a lucky strike, by the insurgents? They throw enough of these things out there and eventually they get a target? Or it was a more sophisticated intelligence; they knew exactly where to throw it, exactly when to throw it? MAGINNIS: Aaron, yesterday, Mr. Allawi announced that there were some sophisticated rockets that he intercepted coming in, I believe, from Syria, that were remote-controlled and very accurate. I hope he got them all.

If, in fact, this was a lucky shot today, then we won't see this again. But it's hard to bet on either way.

BROWN: Gentlemen, thank you both. Have good holidays. We appreciate your time tonight.

MAGINNIS: Thank you.

KHALIL: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

Today's attack in Mosul was a reminder, in one sense, of the obvious. American soldiers are safe nowhere in Iraq. From the moment they cross into the country, there is danger, considerable danger.

Another reminder of that tonight from CNN's Barbara Starr, who is embedded with an Army Reserve unit from North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just before sunrise, these soldiers quietly gather to pray for a safe journey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.

STARR: This is the 227th Transportation Company, an Army Reserve unit from North Carolina. They call themselves the Road Dogs. On this cold morning in the Kuwaiti desert, they are about to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the military, drive a supply convoy north into Iraq.

CNN had an exclusive look this morning at what is known here as the Iraqi express. It gets underway every morning at dawn, driving fast to avoid attacks. Today, the convoy has more than 30 military and civilian trucks with armor protection plates, and its own heavily armed Humvee escorts with 50-caliber machine guns.

It is just five minutes to the Iraqi border, and the shooting can start the minute they cross the line. Scores of U.S. troops have already been killed or injured driving convoys into Iraq. Many were in armored vehicles. These young soldiers, and they are very young, all have their own way of coping with the threat of insurgent attacks, the instant when a normal day can become a disaster.

Specialist Gabrielle Curtis is just 19 years old. Today, she is smiling.

(on camera): How many times have you driven convoys into Iraq so far?

SPC. GABRIELLE CURTIS, U.S. ARMY: This will be the first time.

STARR (voice-over): She says she is ready.

CURTIS: Pray. Ask God for strength.

STARR: Specialist Anna Galbraith drives a supply truck. She is 20 years old.

SPC. ANNA GALBRAITH, U.S. ARMY: You just kind of drive and hope nothing happens. That's really basically all I do. Just drive and hope nothing happens.

STARR: But she knows the worst is possible. One buddy was hurt recently.

GALBRAITH: Oh, I'm afraid every time I go out, every time. I mean, it's exciting, but it's scary, because you never know if you're going to come back.

STARR: Staff Sergeant Gregory Duncan says presenting a tough face to the Iraqis is essential, and his weapon is always ready.

STAFF SGT. GREGORY DUNCAN, U.S. ARMY: You're always afraid. Always afraid. It's a job, you've got to do it and you do it.

STARR: A final briefing, and then the convoy moves out as the sun begins to rise.

On this day, soldiers of the 227th include heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and prayers in their arsenal.

(on camera): The Iraqi express has now pulled out and is on its way north to its destination, Falluja. It will be a two-day drive. Already, another convoy is getting ready to go.

Barbara Starr, CNN, on the Kuwait/Iraqi border.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been said, if you're taking heat from all sides, you must be doing something right. Of course, one could also argue it might be a signal you are dead wrong.

The new normal in many ways is a balancing act for the government and for us. How much freedom are we willing to give to stay safe? How do you protect lives while respecting individual freedoms?

On the security watch tonight, CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was a lyricist for the Grateful Dead.

JOHN PERRY BARLOW, FORMER GRATEFUL DEAD LYRICIST: I've been a fairly pesky civil libertarian for a long time.

MESERVE: She was a fire-breathing congressional conservative.

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: I think the only thing that I've ever terrorized are liberals.

MESERVE: Helen Chenoweth-Hage may be from Venus, John Perry Barlow from Mars, but they have found a common enemy -- secrecy at the Transportation Security Administration. Chenoweth-Hage is irate that TSA personnel at the Boise, Idaho, airport refused to reveal the regulations allowing them to pat her down.

CHENOWETH-HAGE: I was absolutely astounded at the fact that they thought that they could violate my Fourth Amendment rights, violate my privacy, violate my body because of some secret law.

MESERVE: John Perry Barlow believes his constitutional rights were violated too when a TSA screening for explosives allegedly turned up drugs in his checked bag.

BARLOW: If it is, in fact, the case that when you decide to travel in America, you have automatically consented to having an extremely thorough, warrantless, nonspecific search on you for any kind of criminality, then I think we need to know that.

MESERVE (on camera): Both Perry Barlow and Chenoweth-Hage asked to see the rules and regulations under which TSA was operating. Both were told it was designated sensitive security information, or SSI, to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

MARK HATFIELD, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION: So you can come see the stadium, and you can meet the players, but you can't photocopy the playbook.

MESERVE (voice-over): The problem, as some see it, is that too much information is being kept secret, limiting the capacity for oversight and masking abuses.

STEVEN AFTERGOOD, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: It's self- evident that in an open, democratic society governed by the rule of law, we have to be able to know what the law is.

MESERVE: While TSA says SSI has been used inappropriately in the past, it believes it now has the appropriate balance between protecting freedoms and protecting us, though some of those being protected beg to disagree.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we remind you, as we do, to stay tuned to CNN all the time for the most reliable news about security, a story of which there is no larger.

Ahead on the program, the power of a paper clip. This is a great tale -- six million paper clips, actually.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDRA ROBERTS, EIGHTH GRADE TEACHER: ... tolerance reigns and when prejudice goes unchecked...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: We'll explain it all after the break.

This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's been said that pity drowns in numbers, which is another way of saying, some numbers are so large, so incomprehensible, they lose their capacity to overwhelm.

To say six million Jews died in the Holocaust is true. But to say one Jew died six million times, as someone wise once put it, shifts the frame of the fact, which brings us to a group of children in a small Southern town trying to connect with something enormous.

Their story became a film which is now playing in Los Angeles and New York and this past weekend in Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE FAB, PRODUCER, "PAPER CLIPS": "Paper Clips" is a film about a small town in Tennessee, 1,600 people who are pretty much, each one, like the others, in that they are all Christian. They are all white. And they have very little diversity.

At the middle school there, they noticed that the children were really having problems when they would leave Whitwell, because they had only met people who were like themselves.

LINDA HOOPER, PRINCIPAL, WHITWELL MIDDLE SCHOOL: So, in 1998, we began an adventure.

ROBERTS: We decided that our goal was to teach children what happens when intolerance reigns and when prejudice goes unchecked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will remind you before we start that what we're going to cover in this project is very, very graphic.

FAB: They decided to start a Holocaust study group.

HOOPER: Of course, one of the first things that the kids had to learn and one of the hardest things for them to comprehend was that Hitler murdered six million Jewish people.

CASEY CONDRA, STUDENT, WHITWELL MIDDLE SCHOOL: The idea for the paper clips came when a student said, what is six million? I've never seen six million. Ms. Hooper is like, well, neither have I. If you can find something to collect, we'll try it.

ELLIOT BERLIN, DIRECTOR, "PAPER CLIPS": They did some research on the Internet. And it came out that the Norwegians invented the paper clip. And during the Second World War, they took to wearing paper clips on their lapels as forms of silent protest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seemed a the perfect symbol. So, the paper clip project began.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And they came and they said, can we write some letters to people we know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Originally, the letters they got back were from somebody like Uncle Steve saying, that's a great project. And here's a box of paper clips.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go Tigers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But everything really changed when a pair of German journalists came to Whitwell, saw what the kids were doing and decided to report on it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got something for you here from Germany.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now the letters had postmarks from Italy and from Poland and from Germany. And the letters said things like:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Dear students, many members of my mother's and father's families died at the camps. I've enclosed 14 paper clips for four grandparents, a brother, seven aunts and uncles and two cousins."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A group of survivors in Cedarhurst, New York, heard what the children were doing. And they wanted to come down and visit.

SAM SITKO, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: I asked them. I said, please, tell me. We arrived last night. And I arrived with my mother and my brother. Where are they? What happened to them? And that man shows me smoke coming out from a chimney. I did not understand what that means until I found out that that chimney is from a crematorium.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was so much emotion in the room as the survivors talked. You watch the children's faces in the film. You can almost see they're now attaching real human beings with the atrocities of the Holocaust. Other media learned what the children were up to and came and began to report on this project. After that, the mail just flooded in.

CONDRA: Over a period of six weeks, we ended up with 24 million paper clips.

FAB: The idea came to build a memorial, that a railcar, one of the cars that carried people to the concentration camps, might be the perfect way to exhibit the paper clips. It had to be carried across Germany. It had to be shipped to the United States, carried to the school. Now the memorial stands in the schoolyard as a permanent testimony to what happened during the Holocaust.

HOOPER: One of them said to me, Ms. Hooper, when you touch these, can you feel the souls? Well, yes, you can feel the souls, because most of them came with a letter that told you about the soul that paper clip represented.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a description that's been applied to the film that the things that draw us together are actually stronger than the things that separate us. I hope that, for people who go and see the film, that they look at the town and they recognize that, while it might look like an unlikely place for a paper clip project to happen, it's really a perfect place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: God bless those kids. On a pretty nasty day, we needed that.

Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

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

We'll start things off with a couple of papers we don't normally get. And we're very pleased that they sent them our way today. They certainly are the newspapers of the day, not the biggest. But, on this day, they turned out to be the best.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch." "Deadliest Strike. Mosul Dining Hall Attack Kills as Many as 19 U.S. Troops, at Least Seven Others." It was reporter Jeremy Redmon and Dean Hoffmeyer who took those pictures and gave us this account. That picture, which is an unbelievable photo, isn't it, graces many front pages and may grace the newspaper in your town tomorrow. Thanks to the work of these young reporters. I assume they're young. It's young man's work over there, and women's.

Also, "The Portland Press Herald," also, Bill Nemitz, the reporter up there. "Carnage in Mosul." We especially appreciate their sending the paper down. They clearly hadn't finished putting up the front page. But they sent it to us anyway. Papers don't really like to do that. You can understand why. But we appreciate it. Nice work for them.

"The Des Moines Register." Everybody's going to lead with this. It's the lead. "Mess Tent Blast Kills 20." It's been hard to nail down the right number -- "60 Hurt in Horrific Lunchtime Attack at Northern Iraqi Base." One or two other quick items. "The Washington Times" leads with the Mosul attack, but, as I told you, "Deal Puts District Back in the Ball Game. Council, Baseball Officials Agree on Financing." Caved in.

The weather -- well, not totally.

The weather in Chicago tomorrow is "shivery," if I remember.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If not today, then over the last, I guess, few weeks, Iraq has sort of faded away, that we all, after a while, get tired of reporting it. You all get tired of hearing about it, in some respects. Today was one of those horrible snapbacks into reality. It's a bad day.

But we're glad you were with us for it. We're all back tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" is next.

Good night for all of us.

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