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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Suicide Bomber Source of Mess Hall Explosion; Interview with Bathseba Crocker

Aired December 22, 2004 - 22:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSNIGHT: Good evening, again. The idea that the Mosul attack was a rocket or a mortar, what soldiers fear was a lucky strike was bad enough. The fact that investigators now believe the attack was a suicide bombing, that an insurgent beat the force protection security apparatus at a good sized U.S. base, in a dangerous and volatile part of Iraq, makes yesterday's attack more significant and raises far more questions.
The defense secretary today argued you can't stop them all. Fair enough to a point. But how could someone apparently wearing a suicide bomb vest, a bomb powerful enough to inflict the casualties it did, the damage it did, that can't be swatted away with a simple answer. We begin tonight at the Pentagon and CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The camp Marez mess hall had already been targeted by mortars more than 30 times this year. But the Pentagon says this time a bomb was carried right into soldiers' midst as they sat down for lunch.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, CHMN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We have had a suicide bomber, apparently strapped something to his body, apparently to him and go into a dining hall. We know how difficult this is to prevent suicide - people bent on suicide and stopping them.

KOCH: An Iraqi militant group on Tuesday claimed responsibility. And an individual on Wednesday posted on an Islamic website that the suicide attack was carried out by a 24-year-old newly-wed Mosul resident, who worked inside the base for about two months and provided the group with information about where soldiers and ammunition were located inside the base. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

The coalition says one unidentified non-U.S. person is among the dead. The Pentagon says it does not yet know whether or not that person was the bomber. Investigators say they found no evidence of a rocket or mortar, only evidence associated with improvised explosive devices, like ball bearings used to increase the deadliness of a bomb. Small, circular holes were found in metal kitchen equipment in the mess hall. Secretary Rumsfeld, under fire recently for perceived insensitivity to troops and their families, tried to wipe the slate clean.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I am truly saddened by the thought that anyone could have the impression that I or others here are doing anything other than working urgently to see that the lives of the fighting men and women are protected and are cared for in every way humanly possible. And I hope and pray that every family member, of those who have died so bravely, knows how deeply I feel their loss.

KOCH: Iraqis work at U.S. military installations throughout the country, as interpreters, janitors, doing construction and cooking and cleaning in mess halls. The Pentagon is now reexamining their background check process. The multinational force spokesman says they do have to show IDs to gain entry, but are not always bodily searched. Nor are they always accompanied once on U.S. military facilities.

(on-camera): Those are the types of things that could potentially change because of this attack but won't as large numbers of troops gathering for meals. General Myers saying quote, it's not a viable strategy to ask everybody to separate. Kathleen Koch, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Many of the wounded are traveling a familiar route now from aid stations and field hospitals in Iraq, by air, to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. They arrive at Ramstein air base nearby. About 50 patients arrived today. Their wounds vary we're told. About a dozen were able to walk off the plane. At least eight troops however are said to be critically injured. For them, the road home will be long and uncertain, except for this, which our regular viewers know from our reporting here. They will be in good and caring hands every step of the way and they'll have the prayers of their comrades over there, and their country men and women over here.

For all the hard work and the sacrifice of American soldiers, large chunks of the war and the rebuilding are if you will outsourced or privatized. Sadly so is the dime. Scores of civilian contractors have been killed in Iraq since the war began in mess halls and on road crews and in supply convoys. And today international construction company became the first to terminate a contract for work in Iraq. So it's really two stories reported by CNN's Chris Huntington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The blast that ripped through the mess tent at the U.S. military base in Mosul killed four employees of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root and wounded 16 others who also work for the company. In a statement, Halliburton called the Mosul attack, quote, the worst for KBR and our subcontractors in almost two years of the war in Iraq. Halliburton and KBR which have been under constant fire for their contracts in Iraq, have also been literally in the line of fire. The company says that 59 employees have been killed in Iraq, more than any other single contractor. For now, Halliburton says it has no plans to pull out of Iraq. But the cost of security for contractors there in lives and in dollars, continues to rise.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: We've been hearing for months about how much money has to be spent on security and these companies are still losing people again, just this week, in Mosul. So, I think a number of firms could reconsider whether they want to be in Iraq.

HUNTINGTON: One firm already has reconsidered. Contract International of Arlington, Virginia, says the Defense Department has agreed to release it from a project to repair roads and bridges, a job potentially worth $325 million. In a statement, the company said the work that was envisioned could not be executed in a cost-effective manner under the present circumstances. Contract's president told CNN that quote, security had nothing to do with it, that it was a mutually-agreed upon business decision with the Defense Department to replace expat American engineers with local Iraqis to fill potholes. A spokesman for the Defense Department's project contracting office in Baghdad, however, told CNN that Contract's business model was too expensive and that security costs were a component. But he added no U.S. companies were pulling out of projects solely for security concerns. John Sullivan, who recently surveyed businesses in Iraq, found security was still the major issue.

JOHN SULLIVAN, CENTER FOR PRIVATE INVESTMENT: The security is the primary obstacle. There's no question about that.

HUNTINGTON: The U.S. government does not keep official statistics of contract workers killed in Iraq. But the website, icasualties.org posts what it calls an incomplete list of 192 contract workers killed there, 66 of them American, most of them working as security agents. Chris Huntington, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Jeremy Redmon reports for the "Richmond Times Dispatch." He and a photographer were embedded with troops in Mosul yesterday where this awful story began and Mr. Redmon joins us now on the phone from Mosul. It's good to hear from you. What was it like there today?

JEREMY REDMON, REPORTER, "RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH": On the base here at forward operating base Marez, it's very somber. The troops are struggling to keep focused on their missions while they're trying to grieve. You had a mortar round strike near forward operating base Marez here and it startled folks that were already still rattled from the explosion on Tuesday. I spoke to one soldier who was in the chow hall when the explosion occurred. He was sort of hobbling around, looking hunched over and stressed out, wondering how this could happen. How an insurgent can infiltrate a place you do not expect to have an attack like that.

BROWN: Twenty four hours ago, we were less clear, Jeremy, on sort of what happened, whether it was a rocket, whether it was a mortar. The fact that they now believe it was a suicide bomber -- has it changed the way soldiers see yesterday's tragedy?

REDMON: Yes. It's brought home to them that, in the words of Lt. Colonel Ed Morgan (ph), the commander of the unit I'm with, the 276th engineer battalion from Richmond, Virginia. The war is outside the wire and on the inside of the wire. It's everywhere.

BROWN: How many people were in the mess hall when the explosion hit?

REDMON: I was in the mess hall with my photographer Dean Hoffmeier (ph). We were getting our food. In fact, I was getting a plate of spaghetti when this explosion occurred. There were more than 100 soldiers in there at the time.

BROWN: And today, when they sat down to eat, were they eating in smaller groups? Was there still a large congregation of soldiers in one place?

REDMON: Just to give you an idea of what this -- they call it D- Fac (ph) or dining facilities. It's like a football field-sized tent, a huge white tent. There's long, white tables in each area where soldiers and civilians and Iraqi national guardsmen will mingle. There are two entrances into the tent. And you get your food at a cafeteria-style line. Then, you enter from that line into the -- into the area -- the seating area, where the four, large-screen TVs, seem to be perpetually switched on to sporting events. The groups, the soldiers, where the bomb occurred, seemed to be the most crowded area if I recall correctly. Most soldiers seem to sit right outside the line where we get the food although some will go further and sit near the TVs. But most of the soldiers were congregated around the area where the explosion occurred.

BROWN: And today? Did they sit differently? Were they still in groups or were people more scattered about?

REDMON: Well, sir, the chow hall's closed. It has been since the explosion. They brought in pallets (ph) of MREs and bottled water for folks to live on. They hoping to get KBR, the contractor to get hot food by Christmas.

BROWN: Is there today a noticeable difference in the way the American soldiers are interacting with the Iraqis -- whether they're Iraqi soldiers or contractors, people working on the base?

REDMON: I haven't really observed that. I spent the morning with a group of striker assault vehicles. They mounted a major offensive, a preemptive strike against the insurgents. So I guess you can say there has been a change in the relationship here in some respects. They've closed down five bridges in the city of Mosul, hoping to stop the insurgents from traveling across one end of the city to the other and mounting more attacks. They want to stop this activity before Christmas.

BROWN: Up to the point where the explosion hit yesterday, did you -- did you have a sense, that where you were, that tent, that base, was a dangerous place to be?

REDMON: Yes, I did. We knew that the insurgents had been mortaring the chow hall for some time. In fact they've mortared it more than 30 times this year alone. There was a soldier from a different unit that I'm not embedded with that was killed, a female soldier, in October. She was running out of the chow hall when a mortar round -- a second mortar round hit her, as she was trying to get into this concrete barrier. Soldiers have known that to be a dangerous setting for some time. In fact, the dining hall is visible from numerous points off the base and around the city. It's quite large. It seems to be on a part of the base that maybe is a little higher than other parts. From that vantage point, you can see all parts of Mosul.

BROWN: Just a final question -- I imagine that since this happened you have been pretty much working nonstop. Have you had a chance to step back and just process emotionally, what you witnessed, what you wrote about, what you experienced yesterday?

REDMON: Well I've just been keeping busy, to be honest with you. I've really tried to keep the focus on the soldiers. They are the brave ones and they're the heroes. I was just doing my job and so was the photographer. I was really struck watching these soldiers rush into this building and picking up their comrades on the backs of dining room tables and carrying them out, soldiers, medics rushing in, pulling the rest out on stretchers. It was a very disturbing scene. But the soldiers acted very heroically.

BROWN: Jeremy, you told their story really well yesterday. And your colleague, Dean, shot the pictures that I think have given us all a greater sense of what happened and both the heroism of the young soldiers there and the tragedy that occurred. We appreciate your time tonight. Stay safe.

REDMON: Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Thank you very much. Jeremy Redmon, who was one of two reporters near the location. Jeremy was actually in the mess hall, as he said. There was a reporter from a Portland, Maine, newspaper, who was about a quarter mile away and it is their reporting that has given us collectively the sense of what happened yesterday.

A report caught our eye today. It was prepared by the very well- respected analyst, Tony Cordesman (ph) for the Center for Strategic International Studies. It is one of those reports that does not mince words.

Denial as a method of counterinsurgency is how one chapter is titled. Washington, he goes on to say has failed to honestly assess the facts on the ground in Iraq in a manner reminiscent of Vietnam. Something to talk about with Bathsheba Crocker, who is also of CSIS, and with Colonel Thomas Hammes, the author of "The Sling and Stone, Warfare in the 21st Century" and we're pleased to have you both with us.

Ms. Crocker, let me start with you if I may. An event like yesterday, has -- it's like throwing a stone in a pond, in a sense. There's these ripples that go out that touch the morale of the Americans, that touch the morale of the Iraqis and arguably touch the morale of the insurgents. How does this all play as you see it?

BATHSHEBA CROCKER, FELLOW, CTR. FOR STRATEGIC AND INTL STUDIES: I think it certainly is a devastating development, from many different perspectives as you just described. I think we shouldn't view it as a surprise in the sense that this isn't the first time, as we heard earlier in your report, that mortars and other things have happened inside military bases and in fact inside the green zone. But I think what it really points to is the fact that the insurgency remains able to carry out these activities. It remains effective. And we have not yet been able to really break the back of this insurgency and I think that continues to be incredibly worrisome, as it looks to just be gaining in strength.

BROWN: Let me come back to that point in a second. Colonel, does the fact that it was a not a rocket. It was not a mortar, that it appears to have been a suicide bombing, that someone was able to infiltrate that base, change in any way how you see that tragedy?

COL. THOMAS HAMMES, INST. FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES: I think it's a continuing effort, whether it's rocket mortar or suicide bombing. They will continue. It was a tragic incident. But we've got to keep in mind that insurgencies last generally about 10 years. At a minimum, 30 years is a long insurgency. So we've got to consider that and that the other side's going to get better, as we get better. So, it will be a continuing -- sometimes they'll get lucky. Sometimes we'll do better.

BROWN: I read -- someone today, Miss Crocker, say that what happened in Mosul yesterday was a sign of desperation by the insurgents, their last gasp. I'll confess, that sounded to me like someone who wanted to see a glass even more than half full. Is there any sign that this insurgency has weakened over the last -- I don't know -- six months?

CROCKER: I certainly don't see any sign. I don't think we really have seen any signs that the insurgency is weakening. I think, in fact, what we're seeing is probably quite the opposite. I think there have been several points throughout the 20, 21 months of the occupation or the post-Saddam period, where we have heard explanations that suggest that maybe the activities we're seeing are a sign of desperation. But I think in fact, these are not a sign of desperation, as I was suggesting earlier. I think they are a sign that the insurgency continues to be incredibly strong.

BROWN: Colonel, is it that we're doing something wrong or that this is just tough work and it's going to take 5, 10, 15, 20 years, whatever it is, to beat it back?

HAMMES: It will take a long time to beat it back. I think the thing that worries me most is that we have not given full effort to the Iraqi security forces. We keep saying that they're our ticket out of there. But then when we look at them, they don't have any armored vehicles to move around in. We just had a big flap about American soldiers not having armored vehicles and that was correct. They should not, they should have armored vehicles. There's no excuse for that not happening. But no one is talking about the fact that the Iraqi security forces, our ticket out of there, are not receiving the same equipment and training that we should be giving them.

BROWN: You know, that -- I -- it begs the question Colonel, a bit. We aren't giving them what they need and to some extent, they aren't giving us what we need, are they? HAMMES: Well, keep in mind as army, the security forces are essentially about six months old. So the fact that some of them stayed and fought is very encouraging. If you look at U.S. military record, in the revolution in 1812, in the civil war, in World War II at (INAUDIBLE) pass and in the Korean war, in our first battles, we did not do that well. In fact very often, significant segments of our forces broke and ran. But we built an army out of the nucleus that stayed and fought and I think there's encouragement that they have stayed and fought. Now I agree that the insurgency is also learning and getting stronger. What we have got to do is put more effort into their Iraqi security forces, in terms of first-class training teams and giving the equipment they need and giving the armored protection they need.

BROWN: Miss Crocker, I was struck in looking at the report today by -- in their respects how blunt Tony was in the way he characterized it. He called it a failure by the Pentagon, a failure by the State Department, failures all over the place. Are we correcting mistakes or are we repeating failures?

CROCKER: Well, I think probably a little of both to be fair. I think what Tony's report points out very well is that the early efforts at the training and equipping of the Iraqi security forces as was just suggested, really can be looked at as a failure. I think there have been some improvements since then, but we certainly still have a long way to go. And I think even as President Bush himself acknowledged just the other day in his press conference, the Iraqi security forces are not proving themselves to be where we'd like them at this point. And I think a lot of that does point back to mistakes along the way in our training and equipping efforts.

BROWN: Colonel, let me give you the last word. It's the question that sort of lingers out there in every one of these conversations -- are there enough American boots on the ground to do what has to be done?

HAMMES: I can't really say for sure because you can't make a tactical judgment from Washington, D.C., although a lot of people like to. The key question is, how fast are we bringing the Iraqi forces on? That's the real long-term solution is Iraqi forces that can, are the only people who can really provide security.

BROWN: In the mean -- look -- if you take the most optimistic view of that, you're talking about another year. I think that's the most optimistic view I've heard, the end of 2005. In the meantime life has to go on there and security -- there's an election that has to be held. And it can't be held in many places, given the security situation that's there. So, to some extent, we do have to come back to the question -- the Americans provide the security, are there enough there to do it?

HAMMES: I don't think any number of Americans can provide genuine security in an active insurgency simply because an insurgent knows where you live. It know where your families live. The Iraqis who worked for me used to get notes on their cars that told them they were going to be killed if they continued to work for us. They had the courage to go ahead and do that. It's going to be Iraqis deciding that. The elections should go ahead. Any legitimacy, and there will be legitimacy from even a partial election, is a positive step. I think one year is wildly optimistic. I think if in one year, the security forces are performing fair well, that would be good. But keep in mind that the British stayed with the Arab legion in Jordan for almost 20 years before they were a fully-trained, fully effective military force.

BROWN: Rhetorically, I'm not sure that the country in its own mind signed on for that. But that will be a test in the years ahead. Thank you both for joining us tonight. Have a good holiday. Thank you.

Still ahead tonight, what the sight of injured troops and how they got that way is affecting morale back at home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they're going to get much worse before they get better. And the sooner things are brought to a halt, the better it will be for the entire world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Policymakers used to worry about the Vietnam syndrome, the notion that seeing a war play out in their living rooms every night, Americans would quickly tire of it or any other war to come. In fact it took years for a majority of the public to sour on Vietnam and despite some recent polling done before the bombing of Mosul, in which 56 percent say the war in Iraq is no longer worth it. We ought to be very careful with this sort of stuff. A single poll is but a snapshot. It is not a trend. People's take on the war is much more complicated than a simple yes or no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty sad that the U.S. has gotten involved as deep as it is especially after yesterday's attack. It's a no win situation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's good that we're there. But we need to re-evaluate that position and determine if, in fact, it's worth the cost of lives to maintain democracy for (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really made me angrier and think that we really need to go in there and maybe just fight a little harder. I think we're being too kind, maybe, to some of these people. We just really need to go in there and end it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a situation where they're not thinking. They had the situation in Lebanon how many years ago with the Marine barracks that were just filled with people that nobody -- they forget what's happened in the past and they're not looking -- doing any efficient planning.

They just have to play possum. Saying that OK, I'm an Iraqi and I'm cooperating. The next thing you know he comes in with a briefcase and he blows up the place. That's another level of insurgency. The -- how -- are they going to have to have, you know, bomb-sniffing everything on every, single person we make friends with over there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So close to the holidays having something like this happen just really drives the point home that we shouldn't be there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The atrocity that happened yesterday, just to think and to imagine things get worse -- to get worse than that. But I think that's what we're headed for. I think they're going to get much worse before they get better. The sooner things are brought to a halt, the better it will be for the entire world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a misstep that has led us to an intractable situation. And now, the answer is just -- stick the course and do the best we can.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It makes me feel that it was an ill-planned war and I think that it's escalating. I think that we're going to see more attacks of that kind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of this was predicted. Bush was told by many, many good advisers that this is exactly what he was getting into here. Colin Powell told him. If you break it, it's yours or it's ours and it's all coming to pass.

BROWN: A sampling of opinion around the country today. We're joined by Kristen Scharnberg of the "Chicago Tribune" who recently got back from Iraq part of that time embedded in Mosul. Welcome. Talk a bit about who was in that mess hall. How did those -- that brigade, those strikers, how did they end up in Mosul?

KRISTEN SCHARNBERG, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE" NATL CORRESPONDENT: Right. You're dealing with the largest force in Mosul from the 25th infantry division out of Ft. Lewis, Washington. They constitute about 50 percent of the troops that are there now. The base is a very large, spread out base. This time of year, it's extremely muddy. To get up to the mess hall, you're tromping through quite of bit of mud and it's interesting. I looked back at my notebooks from when I was in Mosul shortly after this tragedy happened and one of the very first entries that I had in there was from a couple of soldiers who had been joking to one another that the surest way to get a purple heart in Mosul was to make that journey up to the mess hall because it really was considered a very exposed route to walk to the center of the camp.

BROWN: But when they would sit and eat, they weren't wearing body armor. They weren't wearing -- so, there was a sense, at least, of safety or of less risk.

SCHARNBERG: I think that when you look at these mess halls in Mosul or throughout the country, they really are -- there's an effort to make them a social setting for a base. It's -- there's an effort to make them a place of normalcy. One of your previous guests mentioned the sporting events that were always on. They do attempt to do that. However, when I first arrived there, I would watch soldiers rush into the mess halls, grab a cheeseburger, put it on a plate, cover it with tin foil and rush out. I remember thinking oh they must be so busy that they aren't taking time to eat. I found out later it was exactly the opposite. They had time to eat but they preferred not to do it in this dining facility. They were -- I naively thought it was safe when you walked in there and you could sit down to a nice meal. They knew better and they were used to rushing out.

BROWN: The - let me ask this really simply. Could any Iraqi join the army or the National Guard, the Iraqi army or National Guard essentially without being vetted? Is there anything that could stop a would-be insurgent from signing up today?

SCHARNBERG: There's very little vetting going on.

The truth of the matter is, we're absolutely desperate over there to encourage people to join the security forces. In Mosul, for example, where these local forces have been struck hard by insurgents, killed by the dozens, you have having people in the security forces, local Iraqis, drop like flies from their jobs. We are offering them at points bonuses every 15 days to kind of keep them a couple weeks at a time.

BROWN: Yes.

SCHARNBERG: And there is no vetting because we need these Iraqi soldiers.

BROWN: And that's what it's been like there in Mosul, where -- it's terrible, but there have been these beheadings and these murders of anyone cooperating with the Americans, signs left on their bodies as warnings.

SCHARNBERG: Right.

What we were seeing in Mosul -- I was there at the time where -- when these killings were reaching a very fevered pitch. And, basically, what was happening, every morning, we would go to the command center of the battalion that I was embedded with. And they would have body counts from the previous night.

And these bodies would be left on street corners, very busy street corners, traffic circles, near bus stations, visible places where locals would see these signs that were oftentimes knifed into chests. And the signs would say, to the effect, this same fate will befall any of you who work with the coalition forces.

And people were terrified, visibly terrified from seeing these bodies on the streets, to the degree that they wouldn't pick them up themselves because they thought that there would be repercussions for them.

BROWN: When you heard about what happened yesterday, were you surprised?

SCHARNBERG: I wasn't surprised. The truth of being on these bases is that mortars come in constantly. Attacks happen all the time. This takes it to a new level, if the intelligence is correct, that it appears to be an inside job and that it appears to be a suicide bomb. It certainly takes it to another level. But the truth of the matter is, soldiers in Mosul and elsewhere are being attacked with absolute regularity. And it's terrible, but it's not surprising.

BROWN: Thanks for coming in tonight.

SCHARNBERG: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Nice job over there.

SCHARNBERG: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. It's a good paper.

Still to come on the program tonight, how the next of kin are provided for when a soldier falls in combat.

We'll take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are, in the wake of stories such as the bombing in Mosul, two groups of people whose courage stands out, even as it breaks your heart to see, the next of kin and the service men and women whose sober duty it is to bring them the news that shatters their lives, to do it gently and respectfully and then do whatever they can and whatever the military allows to help the next of kin piece their lives back together again.

With that, here's CNN's Jason Bellini.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Janet Johnson, the knock on the door came Easter Sunday. It was three people in uniform, the ones your see here. Their first words were scripted: "The U.S. Army regrets to inform you that your son..."

JANET JOHNSON, MOTHER OF KILLED U.S. SOLDIER: Specialist Justin W. Johnson was killed in action. My casualty assistance officer had a little harder time because I wouldn't give her time to say all that stuff. I kept saying, Justin's dead, isn't he? Justin's dead. She finally said, yes, ma'am. Justin is dead.

BELLINI: With a knock, the survivors' benefits, spiritual, ceremonial, and financial, kick into motion. Survivors receive a $12,000 tax-exempt death gratuity, sometimes right on the spot. The government reimburses up to $6,900 of expenses for the funeral and burial. Families quickly receive the victim's military awards, symbols and personal property.

JOHNSON: The belongings and stuff come back from wherever they're at. Then they actually bring them to you and deliver them. And they go through it with you piece by piece, to make sure everything is there.

BELLINI: Condolence letters from the U.S. military and government officials, one by one, fill an entire photo album. The military helps subsidize up to $250,000 of life insurance. Military personnel can opt out or choose less coverage to lower their premiums.

If a service killed in the line of duty is married, his or her spouse receives $993 monthly compensation. The government provides an additional $241 per month per child under 18. The designated next of kin of service members overseas is except from taxes for one year. Justin's parents say they received a total of around got $200,000 in total death benefits.

JOHNSON: You know what it took to get those checks. And my husband and I both said, we'd give every dime of it back if we could have him back. But we know that's not possible.

BELLINI: The Johnsons are a military family going back to the Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, Korea. Justin is the first in the family to not come home alive. Justin's brother is in the Army. Justin's father, Joe Johnson, who is 47 years old, is preparing to serve in Iraq with the Georgia National Guard.

JOHNSON: I told my husband, I said, you better not put me through this again, because I can't do it again. And he's promising me that he'll come back. But there's no guarantee.

BELLINI: He'll depart almost a year to the date his son died.

Jason Bellini, CNN, Lyerly, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Politics now and a sign, perhaps, that the people in the great state of Washington may finally know who they elected governor more than a month and a half ago. The latest count of the latest ballots after the latest court battle shows a new front-runner by the narrowest of margins.

So the latest everything now from CNN's Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): How many ballot counts does it take to elect a governor of Washington state? Give up? The answer appears to be three. That's presuming we get an official result on Thursday, two days before Christmas, 50 days after the election.

Some 2.9 million ballots for governor were cast on November 2. The result? Republican Dino Rossi led Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes. That result triggered a machine recount. Count two, Rossi by 42 votes. A squeaker got squeakier. Rossi was ready to take over as Washington's first Republican governor in 20 years.

DINO ROSSI (R), WASHINGTON GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, we have waited 20 years.

SCHNEIDER: Not so fast, Gregoire said.

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE (D), WASHINGTON GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I am coming back down here.

SCHNEIDER: The Democrats demanded a hand recount. The hand recount was just about complete when, lo and behold, 735 uncounted ballots turned up in heavily-Democratic King County, which includes Seattle.

DEAN LOGAN, DIRECTOR, KING COUNTY ELECTIONS BOARD: There were mistakes that were made in this election process.

SCHNEIDER: Too late, Republicans said. They got a court order barring the county from counting those ballots.

CHRIS VANCE, WASHINGTON STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY: And we know of hundreds of people around the state who say they voted for Dino Rossi and their votes were not counted. But we didn't think we could do anything about that because there was a statutory deadline.

SCHNEIDER: Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the court ruled unanimously that King County should include the disputed ballots in its recount.

GREGOIRE: There is a sacred American right that every legitimate vote must be counted. The Washington State Supreme Court today reinforced that fundamental principle.

SCHNEIDER: Meanwhile, the hand recount, not including the disputed ballots, showed Democrat Gregoire ahead by 10 votes. Squeak. Democrats are confident that, when officials count the disputed ballots on Thursday, Gregoire's margin will grow. Is it finally over?

GREGOIRE: I leave the decision about conceding to Mr. Rossi. I've been called on many times to concede.

SCHNEIDER (on camera): Gregoire was favored to win big. Why was this race so close? There was a third candidate, Ruth Bennett, a Libertarian who ran as a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage. Bennett got about 63,000 votes, most of which probably would have gone to the Democrats.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, a story about children, Christmas, teeth and music. See if you can name that tune. (MUSIC)

BROWN: Well, if you can't, we got a problem, don't we?

We'll take a break and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We try to report on the passing of notable people and often mark those passings each year as it comes to a close. When we saw a small notice on the death of a man named Donald Gardner a few months back, we decided to add him to the list of those who will be missed and remembered, especially at Christmastime.

His story and his song from NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Don and Doris Gardner were married in 1939. By 1944, they were both music teachers in small public school in Smithtown, New York. One day that December, Don filled in for Doris in the second-grade class. Decades later, he was still telling the story.

DON GARDNER, COMPOSER: So, I went into the classroom. And the teacher had given each child a chance to stand up and say what each one wanted for Christmas. Well, they started with the expression of, all I want for Christmas is a dog or a sled or skates, whatever it happened to be.

NISSEN: Don noticed that many of the second graders seemed to lisp their answers. He soon found out why.

DORIS GARDNER, WIFE OF DON GARDNER: He told them a little Christmas joke and they all laughed; 16 out of the 22 had no front teeth.

NISSEN: It took Don Gardner about half-an-hour that night to write the words and music to a song for the school Christmas pageant. It took a few more years for the song to be published. And it was 1948 before release of the first recording by band leader Spike Jones. Don and Doris were astonished that a major recording had been made and horrified by how it sounded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, see, my two front teeth.

DON GARDNER: We both thought it was god-awful. I said, my God, that won't even sell 100 copies.

NISSEN: Almost two million copies were sold in eight weeks. Two front teeth made that year's Billboard top 10 list and was soon a standard on Christmas albums recorded by artists ranging from the London Sympathy to the Muppets.

DORIS GARDNER: And this is "Christmas with the Platters." We loved that one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): See, my two front teeth.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

DORIS GARDNER: And this is Arthur Godfrey.

ARTHUR GODFREY, SINGER (singing): Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth, then I could wish you merry Christmas.

NISSEN: John Williams and the Boston Pops recorded the song. So did Alvin and the Chipmunks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gosh, oh, gee, how happy I'd be if only I could whistle.

NISSEN (on camera): Did Don have a favorite recording?

DORIS GARDNER: I think Nat King Cole. He loved it, the way how he sang that.

NAT KING COLE, SINGER (singing): All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth.

NISSEN (voice-over): Gardner, an accomplished of choral anthems and other works, wearied of being known only for one 90-second song about missing frontal dental appendages. But after he retired, he had cards made that he handed out to almost everyone he met identifying himself as the song's author and composer.

DICK GARDNER, SON OF DON GARDNER: It really helped sustain my dad. It was a wonderful gift that he had and a wonderful gift that he could give others.

NISSEN: This is the Gardner's first family Christmas without Don. He died in September at the age of 91. But his catchy little Christmas song about a child's wistful wish plays on.

Beth Nissen, CNN, Massachusetts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was great. Morning papers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers around the country, around the world. Kind of a short edition of papers today, not for a lack of trying.

"The Washington Times." This just struck me as an odd headline, not this part. "Attack Called a Suicide Bombing." "Rumsfeld Reiterates Support for the Iraq War." Well, yes, I guess so. He's the secretary of defense, for goodness sakes. "Cropp Hit For Caving to MLB," Major League Baseball. "Ballpark Foes Critical of Deal." Caved like a cheap suitcase.

"Richmond Times-Dispatch," they've done a terrific job on an awful story. "Suicide Bombing Likely," filed by Jeremy Redmon, who was there. And you heard him earlier in the program. "Little Time For Mourning," the subheadline on the story. Nice work by that fine newspaper.

"The Cincinnati Enquirer."

How we doing on time in there? Thank you.

"Storm Slams Region. Some Areas Could See Record Snowfall," 20 inches of Snow in the Cincinnati area. My goodness. Love this story down at the bottom. "Prosecutor Spreads Thousands of Dollars in Bonuses," OK? "Hamilton County prosecutor Mike Allen Bestowed $198,000 in bonuses to staffers, including $711 to a woman who is suing him for sexual harassment." And if that's not generous, I don't know generous.

"Philadelphia Inquirer." "No More Goodies For the Teacher. Many Schools Restricting Holiday Gift-Giving By Students." This does not apply to your local news anchor, by the way. Gifts are accepted.

"Time Herald Record." "Kerik Quits Rudy's Firm." Talk about the fall of Bernard Kerik. He quit, was thrown out. I don't know what happened. Anyway, "Ex-Cabinet Nominee Was the CEO of Mr. Giuliani's Consulting Firm." He made millions, OK? He's not exactly going to be homeless tomorrow. The -- I should leave him alone, now, shouldn't I? It's the season for leaving people alone, not kicking them when they're down.

The weather in Chicago tomorrow, "arctic," 14 degrees.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tomorrow on the program, we'll update the news of the day, of course, and then spend the bulk of it looking back at the fight for Falluja, some of the stories that captured that extraordinary couple of weeks in Iraq. That's tomorrow here on NEWSNIGHT.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. Good to have you with us. We'll see you tomorrow.

Until then, 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 22, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSNIGHT: Good evening, again. The idea that the Mosul attack was a rocket or a mortar, what soldiers fear was a lucky strike was bad enough. The fact that investigators now believe the attack was a suicide bombing, that an insurgent beat the force protection security apparatus at a good sized U.S. base, in a dangerous and volatile part of Iraq, makes yesterday's attack more significant and raises far more questions.
The defense secretary today argued you can't stop them all. Fair enough to a point. But how could someone apparently wearing a suicide bomb vest, a bomb powerful enough to inflict the casualties it did, the damage it did, that can't be swatted away with a simple answer. We begin tonight at the Pentagon and CNN's Kathleen Koch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The camp Marez mess hall had already been targeted by mortars more than 30 times this year. But the Pentagon says this time a bomb was carried right into soldiers' midst as they sat down for lunch.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS, CHMN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We have had a suicide bomber, apparently strapped something to his body, apparently to him and go into a dining hall. We know how difficult this is to prevent suicide - people bent on suicide and stopping them.

KOCH: An Iraqi militant group on Tuesday claimed responsibility. And an individual on Wednesday posted on an Islamic website that the suicide attack was carried out by a 24-year-old newly-wed Mosul resident, who worked inside the base for about two months and provided the group with information about where soldiers and ammunition were located inside the base. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

The coalition says one unidentified non-U.S. person is among the dead. The Pentagon says it does not yet know whether or not that person was the bomber. Investigators say they found no evidence of a rocket or mortar, only evidence associated with improvised explosive devices, like ball bearings used to increase the deadliness of a bomb. Small, circular holes were found in metal kitchen equipment in the mess hall. Secretary Rumsfeld, under fire recently for perceived insensitivity to troops and their families, tried to wipe the slate clean.

DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I am truly saddened by the thought that anyone could have the impression that I or others here are doing anything other than working urgently to see that the lives of the fighting men and women are protected and are cared for in every way humanly possible. And I hope and pray that every family member, of those who have died so bravely, knows how deeply I feel their loss.

KOCH: Iraqis work at U.S. military installations throughout the country, as interpreters, janitors, doing construction and cooking and cleaning in mess halls. The Pentagon is now reexamining their background check process. The multinational force spokesman says they do have to show IDs to gain entry, but are not always bodily searched. Nor are they always accompanied once on U.S. military facilities.

(on-camera): Those are the types of things that could potentially change because of this attack but won't as large numbers of troops gathering for meals. General Myers saying quote, it's not a viable strategy to ask everybody to separate. Kathleen Koch, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Many of the wounded are traveling a familiar route now from aid stations and field hospitals in Iraq, by air, to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. They arrive at Ramstein air base nearby. About 50 patients arrived today. Their wounds vary we're told. About a dozen were able to walk off the plane. At least eight troops however are said to be critically injured. For them, the road home will be long and uncertain, except for this, which our regular viewers know from our reporting here. They will be in good and caring hands every step of the way and they'll have the prayers of their comrades over there, and their country men and women over here.

For all the hard work and the sacrifice of American soldiers, large chunks of the war and the rebuilding are if you will outsourced or privatized. Sadly so is the dime. Scores of civilian contractors have been killed in Iraq since the war began in mess halls and on road crews and in supply convoys. And today international construction company became the first to terminate a contract for work in Iraq. So it's really two stories reported by CNN's Chris Huntington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The blast that ripped through the mess tent at the U.S. military base in Mosul killed four employees of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root and wounded 16 others who also work for the company. In a statement, Halliburton called the Mosul attack, quote, the worst for KBR and our subcontractors in almost two years of the war in Iraq. Halliburton and KBR which have been under constant fire for their contracts in Iraq, have also been literally in the line of fire. The company says that 59 employees have been killed in Iraq, more than any other single contractor. For now, Halliburton says it has no plans to pull out of Iraq. But the cost of security for contractors there in lives and in dollars, continues to rise.

MICHAEL O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: We've been hearing for months about how much money has to be spent on security and these companies are still losing people again, just this week, in Mosul. So, I think a number of firms could reconsider whether they want to be in Iraq.

HUNTINGTON: One firm already has reconsidered. Contract International of Arlington, Virginia, says the Defense Department has agreed to release it from a project to repair roads and bridges, a job potentially worth $325 million. In a statement, the company said the work that was envisioned could not be executed in a cost-effective manner under the present circumstances. Contract's president told CNN that quote, security had nothing to do with it, that it was a mutually-agreed upon business decision with the Defense Department to replace expat American engineers with local Iraqis to fill potholes. A spokesman for the Defense Department's project contracting office in Baghdad, however, told CNN that Contract's business model was too expensive and that security costs were a component. But he added no U.S. companies were pulling out of projects solely for security concerns. John Sullivan, who recently surveyed businesses in Iraq, found security was still the major issue.

JOHN SULLIVAN, CENTER FOR PRIVATE INVESTMENT: The security is the primary obstacle. There's no question about that.

HUNTINGTON: The U.S. government does not keep official statistics of contract workers killed in Iraq. But the website, icasualties.org posts what it calls an incomplete list of 192 contract workers killed there, 66 of them American, most of them working as security agents. Chris Huntington, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Jeremy Redmon reports for the "Richmond Times Dispatch." He and a photographer were embedded with troops in Mosul yesterday where this awful story began and Mr. Redmon joins us now on the phone from Mosul. It's good to hear from you. What was it like there today?

JEREMY REDMON, REPORTER, "RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH": On the base here at forward operating base Marez, it's very somber. The troops are struggling to keep focused on their missions while they're trying to grieve. You had a mortar round strike near forward operating base Marez here and it startled folks that were already still rattled from the explosion on Tuesday. I spoke to one soldier who was in the chow hall when the explosion occurred. He was sort of hobbling around, looking hunched over and stressed out, wondering how this could happen. How an insurgent can infiltrate a place you do not expect to have an attack like that.

BROWN: Twenty four hours ago, we were less clear, Jeremy, on sort of what happened, whether it was a rocket, whether it was a mortar. The fact that they now believe it was a suicide bomber -- has it changed the way soldiers see yesterday's tragedy?

REDMON: Yes. It's brought home to them that, in the words of Lt. Colonel Ed Morgan (ph), the commander of the unit I'm with, the 276th engineer battalion from Richmond, Virginia. The war is outside the wire and on the inside of the wire. It's everywhere.

BROWN: How many people were in the mess hall when the explosion hit?

REDMON: I was in the mess hall with my photographer Dean Hoffmeier (ph). We were getting our food. In fact, I was getting a plate of spaghetti when this explosion occurred. There were more than 100 soldiers in there at the time.

BROWN: And today, when they sat down to eat, were they eating in smaller groups? Was there still a large congregation of soldiers in one place?

REDMON: Just to give you an idea of what this -- they call it D- Fac (ph) or dining facilities. It's like a football field-sized tent, a huge white tent. There's long, white tables in each area where soldiers and civilians and Iraqi national guardsmen will mingle. There are two entrances into the tent. And you get your food at a cafeteria-style line. Then, you enter from that line into the -- into the area -- the seating area, where the four, large-screen TVs, seem to be perpetually switched on to sporting events. The groups, the soldiers, where the bomb occurred, seemed to be the most crowded area if I recall correctly. Most soldiers seem to sit right outside the line where we get the food although some will go further and sit near the TVs. But most of the soldiers were congregated around the area where the explosion occurred.

BROWN: And today? Did they sit differently? Were they still in groups or were people more scattered about?

REDMON: Well, sir, the chow hall's closed. It has been since the explosion. They brought in pallets (ph) of MREs and bottled water for folks to live on. They hoping to get KBR, the contractor to get hot food by Christmas.

BROWN: Is there today a noticeable difference in the way the American soldiers are interacting with the Iraqis -- whether they're Iraqi soldiers or contractors, people working on the base?

REDMON: I haven't really observed that. I spent the morning with a group of striker assault vehicles. They mounted a major offensive, a preemptive strike against the insurgents. So I guess you can say there has been a change in the relationship here in some respects. They've closed down five bridges in the city of Mosul, hoping to stop the insurgents from traveling across one end of the city to the other and mounting more attacks. They want to stop this activity before Christmas.

BROWN: Up to the point where the explosion hit yesterday, did you -- did you have a sense, that where you were, that tent, that base, was a dangerous place to be?

REDMON: Yes, I did. We knew that the insurgents had been mortaring the chow hall for some time. In fact they've mortared it more than 30 times this year alone. There was a soldier from a different unit that I'm not embedded with that was killed, a female soldier, in October. She was running out of the chow hall when a mortar round -- a second mortar round hit her, as she was trying to get into this concrete barrier. Soldiers have known that to be a dangerous setting for some time. In fact, the dining hall is visible from numerous points off the base and around the city. It's quite large. It seems to be on a part of the base that maybe is a little higher than other parts. From that vantage point, you can see all parts of Mosul.

BROWN: Just a final question -- I imagine that since this happened you have been pretty much working nonstop. Have you had a chance to step back and just process emotionally, what you witnessed, what you wrote about, what you experienced yesterday?

REDMON: Well I've just been keeping busy, to be honest with you. I've really tried to keep the focus on the soldiers. They are the brave ones and they're the heroes. I was just doing my job and so was the photographer. I was really struck watching these soldiers rush into this building and picking up their comrades on the backs of dining room tables and carrying them out, soldiers, medics rushing in, pulling the rest out on stretchers. It was a very disturbing scene. But the soldiers acted very heroically.

BROWN: Jeremy, you told their story really well yesterday. And your colleague, Dean, shot the pictures that I think have given us all a greater sense of what happened and both the heroism of the young soldiers there and the tragedy that occurred. We appreciate your time tonight. Stay safe.

REDMON: Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Thank you very much. Jeremy Redmon, who was one of two reporters near the location. Jeremy was actually in the mess hall, as he said. There was a reporter from a Portland, Maine, newspaper, who was about a quarter mile away and it is their reporting that has given us collectively the sense of what happened yesterday.

A report caught our eye today. It was prepared by the very well- respected analyst, Tony Cordesman (ph) for the Center for Strategic International Studies. It is one of those reports that does not mince words.

Denial as a method of counterinsurgency is how one chapter is titled. Washington, he goes on to say has failed to honestly assess the facts on the ground in Iraq in a manner reminiscent of Vietnam. Something to talk about with Bathsheba Crocker, who is also of CSIS, and with Colonel Thomas Hammes, the author of "The Sling and Stone, Warfare in the 21st Century" and we're pleased to have you both with us.

Ms. Crocker, let me start with you if I may. An event like yesterday, has -- it's like throwing a stone in a pond, in a sense. There's these ripples that go out that touch the morale of the Americans, that touch the morale of the Iraqis and arguably touch the morale of the insurgents. How does this all play as you see it?

BATHSHEBA CROCKER, FELLOW, CTR. FOR STRATEGIC AND INTL STUDIES: I think it certainly is a devastating development, from many different perspectives as you just described. I think we shouldn't view it as a surprise in the sense that this isn't the first time, as we heard earlier in your report, that mortars and other things have happened inside military bases and in fact inside the green zone. But I think what it really points to is the fact that the insurgency remains able to carry out these activities. It remains effective. And we have not yet been able to really break the back of this insurgency and I think that continues to be incredibly worrisome, as it looks to just be gaining in strength.

BROWN: Let me come back to that point in a second. Colonel, does the fact that it was a not a rocket. It was not a mortar, that it appears to have been a suicide bombing, that someone was able to infiltrate that base, change in any way how you see that tragedy?

COL. THOMAS HAMMES, INST. FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES: I think it's a continuing effort, whether it's rocket mortar or suicide bombing. They will continue. It was a tragic incident. But we've got to keep in mind that insurgencies last generally about 10 years. At a minimum, 30 years is a long insurgency. So we've got to consider that and that the other side's going to get better, as we get better. So, it will be a continuing -- sometimes they'll get lucky. Sometimes we'll do better.

BROWN: I read -- someone today, Miss Crocker, say that what happened in Mosul yesterday was a sign of desperation by the insurgents, their last gasp. I'll confess, that sounded to me like someone who wanted to see a glass even more than half full. Is there any sign that this insurgency has weakened over the last -- I don't know -- six months?

CROCKER: I certainly don't see any sign. I don't think we really have seen any signs that the insurgency is weakening. I think, in fact, what we're seeing is probably quite the opposite. I think there have been several points throughout the 20, 21 months of the occupation or the post-Saddam period, where we have heard explanations that suggest that maybe the activities we're seeing are a sign of desperation. But I think in fact, these are not a sign of desperation, as I was suggesting earlier. I think they are a sign that the insurgency continues to be incredibly strong.

BROWN: Colonel, is it that we're doing something wrong or that this is just tough work and it's going to take 5, 10, 15, 20 years, whatever it is, to beat it back?

HAMMES: It will take a long time to beat it back. I think the thing that worries me most is that we have not given full effort to the Iraqi security forces. We keep saying that they're our ticket out of there. But then when we look at them, they don't have any armored vehicles to move around in. We just had a big flap about American soldiers not having armored vehicles and that was correct. They should not, they should have armored vehicles. There's no excuse for that not happening. But no one is talking about the fact that the Iraqi security forces, our ticket out of there, are not receiving the same equipment and training that we should be giving them.

BROWN: You know, that -- I -- it begs the question Colonel, a bit. We aren't giving them what they need and to some extent, they aren't giving us what we need, are they? HAMMES: Well, keep in mind as army, the security forces are essentially about six months old. So the fact that some of them stayed and fought is very encouraging. If you look at U.S. military record, in the revolution in 1812, in the civil war, in World War II at (INAUDIBLE) pass and in the Korean war, in our first battles, we did not do that well. In fact very often, significant segments of our forces broke and ran. But we built an army out of the nucleus that stayed and fought and I think there's encouragement that they have stayed and fought. Now I agree that the insurgency is also learning and getting stronger. What we have got to do is put more effort into their Iraqi security forces, in terms of first-class training teams and giving the equipment they need and giving the armored protection they need.

BROWN: Miss Crocker, I was struck in looking at the report today by -- in their respects how blunt Tony was in the way he characterized it. He called it a failure by the Pentagon, a failure by the State Department, failures all over the place. Are we correcting mistakes or are we repeating failures?

CROCKER: Well, I think probably a little of both to be fair. I think what Tony's report points out very well is that the early efforts at the training and equipping of the Iraqi security forces as was just suggested, really can be looked at as a failure. I think there have been some improvements since then, but we certainly still have a long way to go. And I think even as President Bush himself acknowledged just the other day in his press conference, the Iraqi security forces are not proving themselves to be where we'd like them at this point. And I think a lot of that does point back to mistakes along the way in our training and equipping efforts.

BROWN: Colonel, let me give you the last word. It's the question that sort of lingers out there in every one of these conversations -- are there enough American boots on the ground to do what has to be done?

HAMMES: I can't really say for sure because you can't make a tactical judgment from Washington, D.C., although a lot of people like to. The key question is, how fast are we bringing the Iraqi forces on? That's the real long-term solution is Iraqi forces that can, are the only people who can really provide security.

BROWN: In the mean -- look -- if you take the most optimistic view of that, you're talking about another year. I think that's the most optimistic view I've heard, the end of 2005. In the meantime life has to go on there and security -- there's an election that has to be held. And it can't be held in many places, given the security situation that's there. So, to some extent, we do have to come back to the question -- the Americans provide the security, are there enough there to do it?

HAMMES: I don't think any number of Americans can provide genuine security in an active insurgency simply because an insurgent knows where you live. It know where your families live. The Iraqis who worked for me used to get notes on their cars that told them they were going to be killed if they continued to work for us. They had the courage to go ahead and do that. It's going to be Iraqis deciding that. The elections should go ahead. Any legitimacy, and there will be legitimacy from even a partial election, is a positive step. I think one year is wildly optimistic. I think if in one year, the security forces are performing fair well, that would be good. But keep in mind that the British stayed with the Arab legion in Jordan for almost 20 years before they were a fully-trained, fully effective military force.

BROWN: Rhetorically, I'm not sure that the country in its own mind signed on for that. But that will be a test in the years ahead. Thank you both for joining us tonight. Have a good holiday. Thank you.

Still ahead tonight, what the sight of injured troops and how they got that way is affecting morale back at home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they're going to get much worse before they get better. And the sooner things are brought to a halt, the better it will be for the entire world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Policymakers used to worry about the Vietnam syndrome, the notion that seeing a war play out in their living rooms every night, Americans would quickly tire of it or any other war to come. In fact it took years for a majority of the public to sour on Vietnam and despite some recent polling done before the bombing of Mosul, in which 56 percent say the war in Iraq is no longer worth it. We ought to be very careful with this sort of stuff. A single poll is but a snapshot. It is not a trend. People's take on the war is much more complicated than a simple yes or no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's pretty sad that the U.S. has gotten involved as deep as it is especially after yesterday's attack. It's a no win situation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's good that we're there. But we need to re-evaluate that position and determine if, in fact, it's worth the cost of lives to maintain democracy for (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really made me angrier and think that we really need to go in there and maybe just fight a little harder. I think we're being too kind, maybe, to some of these people. We just really need to go in there and end it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a situation where they're not thinking. They had the situation in Lebanon how many years ago with the Marine barracks that were just filled with people that nobody -- they forget what's happened in the past and they're not looking -- doing any efficient planning.

They just have to play possum. Saying that OK, I'm an Iraqi and I'm cooperating. The next thing you know he comes in with a briefcase and he blows up the place. That's another level of insurgency. The -- how -- are they going to have to have, you know, bomb-sniffing everything on every, single person we make friends with over there?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So close to the holidays having something like this happen just really drives the point home that we shouldn't be there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The atrocity that happened yesterday, just to think and to imagine things get worse -- to get worse than that. But I think that's what we're headed for. I think they're going to get much worse before they get better. The sooner things are brought to a halt, the better it will be for the entire world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a misstep that has led us to an intractable situation. And now, the answer is just -- stick the course and do the best we can.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It makes me feel that it was an ill-planned war and I think that it's escalating. I think that we're going to see more attacks of that kind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of this was predicted. Bush was told by many, many good advisers that this is exactly what he was getting into here. Colin Powell told him. If you break it, it's yours or it's ours and it's all coming to pass.

BROWN: A sampling of opinion around the country today. We're joined by Kristen Scharnberg of the "Chicago Tribune" who recently got back from Iraq part of that time embedded in Mosul. Welcome. Talk a bit about who was in that mess hall. How did those -- that brigade, those strikers, how did they end up in Mosul?

KRISTEN SCHARNBERG, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE" NATL CORRESPONDENT: Right. You're dealing with the largest force in Mosul from the 25th infantry division out of Ft. Lewis, Washington. They constitute about 50 percent of the troops that are there now. The base is a very large, spread out base. This time of year, it's extremely muddy. To get up to the mess hall, you're tromping through quite of bit of mud and it's interesting. I looked back at my notebooks from when I was in Mosul shortly after this tragedy happened and one of the very first entries that I had in there was from a couple of soldiers who had been joking to one another that the surest way to get a purple heart in Mosul was to make that journey up to the mess hall because it really was considered a very exposed route to walk to the center of the camp.

BROWN: But when they would sit and eat, they weren't wearing body armor. They weren't wearing -- so, there was a sense, at least, of safety or of less risk.

SCHARNBERG: I think that when you look at these mess halls in Mosul or throughout the country, they really are -- there's an effort to make them a social setting for a base. It's -- there's an effort to make them a place of normalcy. One of your previous guests mentioned the sporting events that were always on. They do attempt to do that. However, when I first arrived there, I would watch soldiers rush into the mess halls, grab a cheeseburger, put it on a plate, cover it with tin foil and rush out. I remember thinking oh they must be so busy that they aren't taking time to eat. I found out later it was exactly the opposite. They had time to eat but they preferred not to do it in this dining facility. They were -- I naively thought it was safe when you walked in there and you could sit down to a nice meal. They knew better and they were used to rushing out.

BROWN: The - let me ask this really simply. Could any Iraqi join the army or the National Guard, the Iraqi army or National Guard essentially without being vetted? Is there anything that could stop a would-be insurgent from signing up today?

SCHARNBERG: There's very little vetting going on.

The truth of the matter is, we're absolutely desperate over there to encourage people to join the security forces. In Mosul, for example, where these local forces have been struck hard by insurgents, killed by the dozens, you have having people in the security forces, local Iraqis, drop like flies from their jobs. We are offering them at points bonuses every 15 days to kind of keep them a couple weeks at a time.

BROWN: Yes.

SCHARNBERG: And there is no vetting because we need these Iraqi soldiers.

BROWN: And that's what it's been like there in Mosul, where -- it's terrible, but there have been these beheadings and these murders of anyone cooperating with the Americans, signs left on their bodies as warnings.

SCHARNBERG: Right.

What we were seeing in Mosul -- I was there at the time where -- when these killings were reaching a very fevered pitch. And, basically, what was happening, every morning, we would go to the command center of the battalion that I was embedded with. And they would have body counts from the previous night.

And these bodies would be left on street corners, very busy street corners, traffic circles, near bus stations, visible places where locals would see these signs that were oftentimes knifed into chests. And the signs would say, to the effect, this same fate will befall any of you who work with the coalition forces.

And people were terrified, visibly terrified from seeing these bodies on the streets, to the degree that they wouldn't pick them up themselves because they thought that there would be repercussions for them.

BROWN: When you heard about what happened yesterday, were you surprised?

SCHARNBERG: I wasn't surprised. The truth of being on these bases is that mortars come in constantly. Attacks happen all the time. This takes it to a new level, if the intelligence is correct, that it appears to be an inside job and that it appears to be a suicide bomb. It certainly takes it to another level. But the truth of the matter is, soldiers in Mosul and elsewhere are being attacked with absolute regularity. And it's terrible, but it's not surprising.

BROWN: Thanks for coming in tonight.

SCHARNBERG: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Nice job over there.

SCHARNBERG: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. It's a good paper.

Still to come on the program tonight, how the next of kin are provided for when a soldier falls in combat.

We'll take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There are, in the wake of stories such as the bombing in Mosul, two groups of people whose courage stands out, even as it breaks your heart to see, the next of kin and the service men and women whose sober duty it is to bring them the news that shatters their lives, to do it gently and respectfully and then do whatever they can and whatever the military allows to help the next of kin piece their lives back together again.

With that, here's CNN's Jason Bellini.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Janet Johnson, the knock on the door came Easter Sunday. It was three people in uniform, the ones your see here. Their first words were scripted: "The U.S. Army regrets to inform you that your son..."

JANET JOHNSON, MOTHER OF KILLED U.S. SOLDIER: Specialist Justin W. Johnson was killed in action. My casualty assistance officer had a little harder time because I wouldn't give her time to say all that stuff. I kept saying, Justin's dead, isn't he? Justin's dead. She finally said, yes, ma'am. Justin is dead.

BELLINI: With a knock, the survivors' benefits, spiritual, ceremonial, and financial, kick into motion. Survivors receive a $12,000 tax-exempt death gratuity, sometimes right on the spot. The government reimburses up to $6,900 of expenses for the funeral and burial. Families quickly receive the victim's military awards, symbols and personal property.

JOHNSON: The belongings and stuff come back from wherever they're at. Then they actually bring them to you and deliver them. And they go through it with you piece by piece, to make sure everything is there.

BELLINI: Condolence letters from the U.S. military and government officials, one by one, fill an entire photo album. The military helps subsidize up to $250,000 of life insurance. Military personnel can opt out or choose less coverage to lower their premiums.

If a service killed in the line of duty is married, his or her spouse receives $993 monthly compensation. The government provides an additional $241 per month per child under 18. The designated next of kin of service members overseas is except from taxes for one year. Justin's parents say they received a total of around got $200,000 in total death benefits.

JOHNSON: You know what it took to get those checks. And my husband and I both said, we'd give every dime of it back if we could have him back. But we know that's not possible.

BELLINI: The Johnsons are a military family going back to the Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, Korea. Justin is the first in the family to not come home alive. Justin's brother is in the Army. Justin's father, Joe Johnson, who is 47 years old, is preparing to serve in Iraq with the Georgia National Guard.

JOHNSON: I told my husband, I said, you better not put me through this again, because I can't do it again. And he's promising me that he'll come back. But there's no guarantee.

BELLINI: He'll depart almost a year to the date his son died.

Jason Bellini, CNN, Lyerly, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Politics now and a sign, perhaps, that the people in the great state of Washington may finally know who they elected governor more than a month and a half ago. The latest count of the latest ballots after the latest court battle shows a new front-runner by the narrowest of margins.

So the latest everything now from CNN's Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): How many ballot counts does it take to elect a governor of Washington state? Give up? The answer appears to be three. That's presuming we get an official result on Thursday, two days before Christmas, 50 days after the election.

Some 2.9 million ballots for governor were cast on November 2. The result? Republican Dino Rossi led Democrat Christine Gregoire by 261 votes. That result triggered a machine recount. Count two, Rossi by 42 votes. A squeaker got squeakier. Rossi was ready to take over as Washington's first Republican governor in 20 years.

DINO ROSSI (R), WASHINGTON GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, we have waited 20 years.

SCHNEIDER: Not so fast, Gregoire said.

CHRISTINE GREGOIRE (D), WASHINGTON GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I am coming back down here.

SCHNEIDER: The Democrats demanded a hand recount. The hand recount was just about complete when, lo and behold, 735 uncounted ballots turned up in heavily-Democratic King County, which includes Seattle.

DEAN LOGAN, DIRECTOR, KING COUNTY ELECTIONS BOARD: There were mistakes that were made in this election process.

SCHNEIDER: Too late, Republicans said. They got a court order barring the county from counting those ballots.

CHRIS VANCE, WASHINGTON STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY: And we know of hundreds of people around the state who say they voted for Dino Rossi and their votes were not counted. But we didn't think we could do anything about that because there was a statutory deadline.

SCHNEIDER: Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the court ruled unanimously that King County should include the disputed ballots in its recount.

GREGOIRE: There is a sacred American right that every legitimate vote must be counted. The Washington State Supreme Court today reinforced that fundamental principle.

SCHNEIDER: Meanwhile, the hand recount, not including the disputed ballots, showed Democrat Gregoire ahead by 10 votes. Squeak. Democrats are confident that, when officials count the disputed ballots on Thursday, Gregoire's margin will grow. Is it finally over?

GREGOIRE: I leave the decision about conceding to Mr. Rossi. I've been called on many times to concede.

SCHNEIDER (on camera): Gregoire was favored to win big. Why was this race so close? There was a third candidate, Ruth Bennett, a Libertarian who ran as a staunch supporter of same-sex marriage. Bennett got about 63,000 votes, most of which probably would have gone to the Democrats.

Bill Schneider, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: In a moment, a story about children, Christmas, teeth and music. See if you can name that tune. (MUSIC)

BROWN: Well, if you can't, we got a problem, don't we?

We'll take a break and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We try to report on the passing of notable people and often mark those passings each year as it comes to a close. When we saw a small notice on the death of a man named Donald Gardner a few months back, we decided to add him to the list of those who will be missed and remembered, especially at Christmastime.

His story and his song from NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Don and Doris Gardner were married in 1939. By 1944, they were both music teachers in small public school in Smithtown, New York. One day that December, Don filled in for Doris in the second-grade class. Decades later, he was still telling the story.

DON GARDNER, COMPOSER: So, I went into the classroom. And the teacher had given each child a chance to stand up and say what each one wanted for Christmas. Well, they started with the expression of, all I want for Christmas is a dog or a sled or skates, whatever it happened to be.

NISSEN: Don noticed that many of the second graders seemed to lisp their answers. He soon found out why.

DORIS GARDNER, WIFE OF DON GARDNER: He told them a little Christmas joke and they all laughed; 16 out of the 22 had no front teeth.

NISSEN: It took Don Gardner about half-an-hour that night to write the words and music to a song for the school Christmas pageant. It took a few more years for the song to be published. And it was 1948 before release of the first recording by band leader Spike Jones. Don and Doris were astonished that a major recording had been made and horrified by how it sounded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, see, my two front teeth.

DON GARDNER: We both thought it was god-awful. I said, my God, that won't even sell 100 copies.

NISSEN: Almost two million copies were sold in eight weeks. Two front teeth made that year's Billboard top 10 list and was soon a standard on Christmas albums recorded by artists ranging from the London Sympathy to the Muppets.

DORIS GARDNER: And this is "Christmas with the Platters." We loved that one.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (singing): See, my two front teeth.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

DORIS GARDNER: And this is Arthur Godfrey.

ARTHUR GODFREY, SINGER (singing): Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth, then I could wish you merry Christmas.

NISSEN: John Williams and the Boston Pops recorded the song. So did Alvin and the Chipmunks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gosh, oh, gee, how happy I'd be if only I could whistle.

NISSEN (on camera): Did Don have a favorite recording?

DORIS GARDNER: I think Nat King Cole. He loved it, the way how he sang that.

NAT KING COLE, SINGER (singing): All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth.

NISSEN (voice-over): Gardner, an accomplished of choral anthems and other works, wearied of being known only for one 90-second song about missing frontal dental appendages. But after he retired, he had cards made that he handed out to almost everyone he met identifying himself as the song's author and composer.

DICK GARDNER, SON OF DON GARDNER: It really helped sustain my dad. It was a wonderful gift that he had and a wonderful gift that he could give others.

NISSEN: This is the Gardner's first family Christmas without Don. He died in September at the age of 91. But his catchy little Christmas song about a child's wistful wish plays on.

Beth Nissen, CNN, Massachusetts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was great. Morning papers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers around the country, around the world. Kind of a short edition of papers today, not for a lack of trying.

"The Washington Times." This just struck me as an odd headline, not this part. "Attack Called a Suicide Bombing." "Rumsfeld Reiterates Support for the Iraq War." Well, yes, I guess so. He's the secretary of defense, for goodness sakes. "Cropp Hit For Caving to MLB," Major League Baseball. "Ballpark Foes Critical of Deal." Caved like a cheap suitcase.

"Richmond Times-Dispatch," they've done a terrific job on an awful story. "Suicide Bombing Likely," filed by Jeremy Redmon, who was there. And you heard him earlier in the program. "Little Time For Mourning," the subheadline on the story. Nice work by that fine newspaper.

"The Cincinnati Enquirer."

How we doing on time in there? Thank you.

"Storm Slams Region. Some Areas Could See Record Snowfall," 20 inches of Snow in the Cincinnati area. My goodness. Love this story down at the bottom. "Prosecutor Spreads Thousands of Dollars in Bonuses," OK? "Hamilton County prosecutor Mike Allen Bestowed $198,000 in bonuses to staffers, including $711 to a woman who is suing him for sexual harassment." And if that's not generous, I don't know generous.

"Philadelphia Inquirer." "No More Goodies For the Teacher. Many Schools Restricting Holiday Gift-Giving By Students." This does not apply to your local news anchor, by the way. Gifts are accepted.

"Time Herald Record." "Kerik Quits Rudy's Firm." Talk about the fall of Bernard Kerik. He quit, was thrown out. I don't know what happened. Anyway, "Ex-Cabinet Nominee Was the CEO of Mr. Giuliani's Consulting Firm." He made millions, OK? He's not exactly going to be homeless tomorrow. The -- I should leave him alone, now, shouldn't I? It's the season for leaving people alone, not kicking them when they're down.

The weather in Chicago tomorrow, "arctic," 14 degrees.

We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tomorrow on the program, we'll update the news of the day, of course, and then spend the bulk of it looking back at the fight for Falluja, some of the stories that captured that extraordinary couple of weeks in Iraq. That's tomorrow here on NEWSNIGHT.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. Good to have you with us. We'll see you tomorrow.

Until then, good night for all of us.

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