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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Tsunami Death Toll Rises to 119,000; Donations Pour Into Relief Organizations

Aired December 30, 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.


TUCKER CARLSON, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Tucker Carlson sitting in for Aaron Brown.
We begin again tonight with the latest from South Asia where the scope of the devastation continues to grow. For the fourth straight day, the death toll rose dramatically to almost 119,000 people. In Indonesia, nearly 80,000 people are dead, in Sri Lanka, more than 24,000. Many more are still unaccounted for, including up to 3,000 American citizens.

As the human toll grows, donations are pouring into relief organizations. The U.N. says that $500 million have been pledged so far and private relief groups are reporting record contributions. All of it is needed desperately. How to get the aid to those who need it whose lives now depend on it, is a colossal challenge, one that we'll examine in some detail during the hour ahead.

First, though, the latest from the place that bore the brunt of Sunday's enormous undersea earthquake and subsequent tsunami, people on the western coast of Indonesia, down into Sumatra, never really had a chance. They were directly in the path of the monster wave.

In the last few days, though, the situation there has turned out to be even worse than we first imagined. Consider this. One reason the overall death toll spiked today was the discovery of nearly $28,000 more bodies in Sumatra.

CNN's Atika Schubert reports from Meulaboh, the largest town in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SCHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To understand the level of devastation here, see it from the air, more than 80 percent of the structures destroyed. Because of its location, this was the first area to be hit. Because of its isolation it was the last to receive help.

We flew in with two private planes that hoped to deliver food and water by being the first to land on the last one-quarter of the town's airstrip still intact. It was close but they made it.

There are few words to describe the total devastation on the ground. Multi-story buildings reduced to cement foundations, markets, schools demolished. Bodies swell in the baking sun. Death toll estimates are anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 sparking fears that anywhere between a quarter to one-half of the town's population may have been killed.

This survivor was so bewildered, so desperate, he turned to visiting journalists for comfort. "Everything is gone" this man cries. "All my children are gone."

Aid is finally trickling in by sea and by air. Now that pilots know they can safely land on the damaged airstrip, more will come. An Army helicopter has arrived with aid and a Navy ship unloads supplies in the harbor.

Because of the insurgency, there were already a lot of military personnel in the region. They are the only infrastructure left. Everything else has been destroyed.

Soldiers distribute what they can despite dwindling fuel supplies. They, too, have been hard hit, hundreds of their colleagues missing, believed dead, many of their wives and children gone.

But the biggest surprise in this isolated and decimated town is the will to survive. Surrounded by death and destruction with little or no aid from outside up until now, survivors still manage to pick through what is left looking for anything that will help them to carry on.

Atika Schubert CNN, Meubolah, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: The pictures you've just been looking at were taken in Aceh Province whose capital Banda Aceh took an enormous hit on Sunday. Take a look at these before and after pictures.

This was Banda Aceh before the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, pictures taken on June 23rd of this year. And here's the same place after. These were taken December 28th, just two days ago.

In Sri Lanka, no one felt the undersea earthquake when it happened on Sunday. It was, after all, 1,000 miles away. The giant wave that arrived on its shores an hour later, survivors say, seemed to come out of nowhere. The desperate minutes that followed were filled with loss and luck, often bittersweet.

Reporting that piece of the story is CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These devout Christian sisters had celebrated Christmas together the day before as they had done for the past 40 years. Even after they were married, they chose to live next door to each other.

And, on the morning of December 26th they woke up at 5:30, had a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast of rice and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and then three hours later watched as both of their husbands drowned in the tsunami while saving their children.

MARIANA SEBASTIAN FRANCIS, TSUNAMI WIDOW (through translator): When the second wave came, we were looking for our son and my husband went out to search for him and found him in a tree. He rescued him and both of them were running for their lives. Later, my son was found alive but my husband was missing. He had been drowned.

GUPTA: It all happened in less than 20 minutes.

M. SEBASTIAN FRANCIS (through translator): The water was rising and the sea was coming. We ran for our lives but it caught us and the water almost came up to our necks. We managed to escape from the first wave, which destroyed our house. The second wave came and took us by surprise. There was just so much water, I didn't know what to do.

GUPTA: Their story is not unique. Suehrna and Mariana Sebastian Francis are among the 3,000 displaced people in this town alone.

(on camera): So, what are they going to do now?

SUEHRNA SEBASTIAN FRANCIS, TSUNAMI WIDOW (through translator): We don't know what to do next. Right now, we don't have a source of income. We'll need to look for jobs but they are scarce.

GUPTA: Days later they had their health for the most part. Suehrna had her leg banged up pretty badly. Mariana has bandages all over her hand but they're not from the tsunami, she told me, but rather from carrying the coffin of her husband and then refusing to let it go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: A tale of two sisters, Tucker, and stories like that are not unique unfortunately. We are at one of these settlement camps, one of these camps for the displaced that we've been hearing so much about, a camp of 3,000 people, Tucker, some of them behind me now.

There's not enough room here to take care of all those people but somehow they are managing. Only three bathrooms in this entire place and one of the concerns, Tucker, that we've been talking so much about is the possible spawning of epidemics.

It's because of the unsanitary conditions, epidemics like cholera, dysentery, malaria. We haven't seen those yet here. We also haven't seen the medications needed to prevent them from happening in the first place -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Sanjay, we've been hearing all week about the possibility of outbreaks of the diseases you just mentioned. You said they haven't occurred yet. Why is that? Is there clean water available?

GUPTA: Yes. You know, first of all, Sri Lanka, you have to think of it not as one country but several different districts. They haven't occurred where we are right here in the south of the country, the southern tip of the country but on some of the coasts though you are starting to see some outbreaks of things like cholera, but also things like chicken pox as well.

There is clean water in many places, Tucker, to answer your question but it's more the unsanitary conditions, three bathrooms for 3,000 people. This is how diseases could potentially spread and that's why health officials continue to give their warnings -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Thanks, Sanjay, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the other side of the planet.

Well, new images of the horror on Sunday keep surfacing, including another home video, this one shot by a Norwegian tourist in Thailand who survived the tsunami. Like many other tourists from northern Europe, he was staying at a coastal resort in Phuket and captured the speed and the power of the first wave as it swept in. It was strong but it was nothing compared with the second wave, which annihilated virtually everything in its path.

The number of dead in Thailand is more than 4,000 and will almost certainly rise from there. Along with Thais, thousands of foreign tourists were also missing, including 2,500 Swedes.

In a week full of remarkable examples of courage and compassion, here is yet another reported by CNN's Aneesh Raman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, a moment of remarkable humanity. Eighteen- year-old (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fills out a name tag with the languages he speaks so that he can offer help and comfort to tourists. Every visitor here has a story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

RAMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) lives inland far from the shores consumed by tsunami waves. After hearing about the disaster he felt for the large number of foreigners among the casualties. Their faces surround everyone here as a constant reminder of who was lost. The missing now by many accounts presumed dead.

American Tony Carney has lived in Thailand for well over a decade. The sights he sees now are nothing new.

TONY CARNEY, AMERICAN RESIDENT OF THAILAND: There's a concept in Thailand, in Thai culture that doesn't even translate into the English language. The word is (UNINTELLIGIBLE), which translating loosely is an outpouring of the heart. Thai people have a great pride in this concept.

RAMAN: Around this tense city, scores of volunteers looking to help shocked and stranded tourists wandering a foreign land not speaking its language torn from their loved ones. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and many like him are the core of Thailand's relief effort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

RAMAN: Waving above the scene of sadness, Thailand's flag at half mast for its own people and the countless travelers who also perished here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAMAN: And, Tucker, the latest part of this effort are mental health teams, psychiatrists that are coming down to the south helping the relatives of those that are missing deal with what seemingly is the inevitable truth that the thousands of missing are now thought to be dead -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Aneesh Raman thanks very much.

We've seen some amazing pictures this week. We've heard some incredible stories but not, as far as I can tell, matches the one we saw tonight on CNN's "ANDERSON COOPER."

It was really a sit up and pay attention moment. Anderson spoke to the parents of Ed Aleo, Jr. whose father, Dr. Ed Aleo had gone to Thailand to try and find his son. Tonight, on our air live, Dr. Aleo learned from his wife that their son is, in fact, safe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUE ALEO, MOTHER OF ED ALEO, JR. (by telephone): He called me last night about eleven o'clock and he said that he and his fiancee are fine. They were on the island of Kopania (ph), which is where we thought they would be and that island was not hit.

They had just come off the island. I'm not sure where he was when he called me but they were on their way to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He knows that his father is coming there and also he knows CNN will be with him.

ED ALEO, SR. (by telephone): Well, I'm on a plane to Phuket and then I will go from Phuket. It should be about a one hour drive or so to (UNINTELLIGIBLE), if that's where he's coming to.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Ed, after...

ED ALEO: That would be my goal would be do that.

COOPER: Ed, you've been flying for some 24 hours at least. It's a long flight. You got to be exhausted but this is probably the best news you probably could have gotten getting off the plane.

ED ALEO: Well, I can honestly tell you right now I'm not tired at all.

COOPER: Yes, I can imagine that. What -- were you -- I mean how concerned were you? You know, you must have just been dreading this entire experience.

ED ALEO: Well, I was -- I was very concerned at first and then -- and I can honestly say that when I was in New York City I got scared even more. A reporter approached me and, you know, I tried to be very positive and she was very positive about this and he came up to me.

He said to me, "Do you think your son is dead?" And that was like, excuse me, that was probably the first shock that I really had. My concern was, you know, to find him. I knew he'd be OK. If he was hurt, we could solve that problem. I never thought that he would, you know, be, you know, not coming back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: I think a lot of other people did. If you've been following that story on CNN you know things didn't appear to look good for the Aleos, remarkable that their son is fine.

The week has brought an onslaught of images, overwhelming and many of them heartbreaking. Some of the most moving, perhaps because of their very stillness, are photographs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: All this week we've been almost overwhelmed with video showing the tsunami hitting distant shores, flooding villages, submerging whole nations. We've seen dramatic accounts of survival, heard the weeping over the tens of thousands who did not survive. This tragedy is still unfolding. We'll see much more video from the devastated areas in the days and weeks to come.

But as this terrible week draws to a close, we thought we'd pause to see in individual terms the human toll of this disaster. Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After all the home video of the tsunami, it is startling to see it in a photograph, to see what witnesses meant by a wall of water, to see captured in a frame what the monstrous waves did to resorts and villages in Thailand, southern India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, to see what the churning water did to people in these places only vaguely remembered from high school geography, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and Madras and Sumatra, Colombo.

It all happened so fast, the waves and mud and debris burying the old and the young, especially the young, those too small or too weak to hold onto anything as the water surged in or pull themselves to safety before the receding waves pulled them out to sea.

The still pictures could hardly show the scope of human losses in their mounting thousands but they could show the loss face by face, it all happened so fast so little time for ceremony, the marking of a life. Officials struggled to keep records of the dead. Volunteers hurried to build coffins, fill them, close them, and send the enclosed souls onward. Even days later, so many souls were still missing. Relatives searched for survivors. Survivors searched for their families. Dazed, battered tourists went home to Sweden and Norway, Germany and New Zealand, South Korea and South Africa. Dazed residents were evacuated by the thousands to higher, dryer ground. Those who could stayed where they were in what was left of home, collected water, collected food, stood in line for both and for fuel.

Slowly, rubbled airstrips were cleared. The first of the aid from around the world arrived, emergency water supplies, critical medicines, fat sacks of food, bundles of clothing.

Tent villages were set up for millions of the suddenly homeless. The wounded were treated in hospitals hastily cleared of debris, in open air clinics set up on beaches. Doctors readied for the next wave of the disaster, disease, with tetanus shots, anti-malarials.

There was little anyone could do to prepare survivors for the hardest part of what is to come, simply going on. Millions are still stunned by loss. So much life and hope washed away, so little to hold onto, except faith that those so violently wrenched from the world have found peace, faith that those left behind in the world will again find peace somehow, somewhere, someday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: As we've been reporting all week, it's thought that up to one-third of all tsunami victims are children. Of all the horrific numbers that are part of this story, that's probably the worst. It's also spurring record donations to relief workers.

Here's CNN's Mary Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Half a world away from the destruction in an affluent American suburb the phones don't stop ringing, people desperate to help the smallest victims of the tsunami.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you guys have a list of things that would be useful as donations?

SNOW: People walk in the door to give and Eileen Burke is heading out the door destined for Indonesia.

EILEEN BURKE, SAVE THE CHILDREN: I think you kind of tuck the emotional state at the door. This is the most dangerous time for children as well where they'll become victim to diarrhea, cholera, outbreaks of disease and that's why it's incredibly important for us to get in there.

SNOW: Burke is heading to help fellow staff members of Save the Children in Banda Aceh, where some of the group's own aid workers were killed.

BURKE: You realize what little it takes to make a difference. It's extremely motivating.

SNOW: The group says it's seen the biggest outpouring in its 70 year history, more than $2 million in the last few days, some of it from children.

CAT LYDOUN, SAVE THE CHILDREN: A man called in and the dollar amount was $713, so I said, "Oh, $13 sounds like the piggybank" and it was his kid's piggybank.

SNOW: But it's not just money.

LYDOUN: We had a truck driver call from the Midwest, Edward. He wanted to go drive a truck because that's what he could do.

CAROLYN MILES, SAVE THE CHILDREN: I took a couple calls from people who wanted to adopt children.

SNOW: With images that some here find hauntingly familiar.

MILES: I think also this has brought back maybe some memories about 9/11 with the pictures of people on the wall and looking for survivors.

SNOW: Eileen Burke considers herself fortunate to be able to help survivors firsthand. Others find comfort in witnessing the generosity.

LYDOUN: Just when you think the world is rotten and can't get any worse something horrible happens and you find out that people are OK and, you know, that there is good in people's hearts.

SNOW: Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: As you've doubtless gathered, if you've been watching our coverage over the last week, delivering aid to those who desperately need it is a huge effort, a mammoth effort. With at least 11 countries suffering from the effects of the tsunami, the sheer size of the task is awe inspiring and unfortunately time is running out.

Here's CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The RMT, the Response Management Team's Command Center, has been up and running since Sunday, a small room but one of the hubs of a huge worldwide rescue effort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're working on getting a plane for Sri Lanka, which might be hard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right that's on the way. OK, there's a C-12 that's gone.

FRANKEN: Secretary of State Colin Powell spent a part of the day at the embassies of devastated countries.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: As the need becomes better known and established you can expect that the United States will add more.

DEVINDA SUBASINGHE, SRI LANKAN AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: And I'm gratified to note again the secretary's comments that the U.S. will be with us in this for the long haul.

FRANKEN: But even with all the massive assistance pouring in from the outside, those who run the programs say the leadership must be local.

ANDREW NATSIOS, USAID ADMINISTRATOR: We need to help them with their response, not go in and take things over, which is the old way of doing things.

FRANKEN: The U.S. Agency for International Development coordinates, sending 44 members of its staff to the disaster areas to find out what relief efforts are needed, where. It's a struggle to get around and feed back the information.

KEN ISAACS, USAID FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE: This is a very remote area of the world. It takes time to fly there. It takes time to drive to different places once you're in the country and all of their infrastructure is destroyed.

FRANKEN (on camera): The operators of this command center are so far away yet so closely involved, trying to get a handle on a massive tragedy that is thousands of miles away, trying to provide help to vast regions that are largely helpless.

(voice-over): They coordinate with the United Nations and other governments, as well as charities, all working to relieve desperate conditions.

BRENDAN GORMLEY, BRITISH DISASTERS EMERGENCY CMTE.: There's a dreadful death toll but if each of those people who have died has five or six family members, you can quickly see how many people are at risk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had the version of the affected coastlines, right?

FRANKEN: The first priority simply to get the relief efforts organized.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Joining us now is Andrew Natsios. He's the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, otherwise known as USAID. It's America's lead agency for providing economic and humanitarian assistance to developing countries. Mr. Natsios, thanks a lot for joining us.

If there's one word that kind of rings in the ear after a week of coverage, it's stingy. The U.S. is stingy in its aid some have claimed. Give us briefly an overview, a sense of how much we're giving.

NATSIOS: The United States last year gave $2.4 billion in humanitarian assistance in emergencies, famine relief, civil wars and natural disasters around the world. It's 40 percent of the total that was given by all countries in the world, so we are by far the most generous country.

The comments, I think, were misinterpreted by (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who is a good friend of mine, by the U.N. He's tried to clarify but it's a highly charged political atmosphere in the United States and I think the comments were taken and misused unfortunately. But the United States has always been under Democratic and Republican administrations very generous, particularly in emergency situations.

CARLSON: Well, give us a more precise sense, if you would, of what that means in this case. What specifically will the U.S. government be doing for the victims of the tsunami?

NATSIOS: Well, the first thing we've done is dispatch our disaster assistance response teams. What you just saw on the screen, the RMT, is the hub in Washington that's the support structure for the people in the field who are in each of the countries where we're doing the response.

So, when they need more planes to come in, they need more tenting materials for displaced people, they call the RMT that you just saw from the field and say, "I need another shipment of this or that, water cans or medical supplies or more blankets."

We have a warehouse in Dubai that's the closest to the disaster and that's where the shipments are being made. We've done six C-130 planeloads of relief supplies. But they have to be call forwarded from the field by the disaster assistance response team and we coordinate very carefully with the local officials because they are the first responders.

I have to emphasize that. The notion that we go in and save everybody is not the way it works. We're there to support the Indonesians, the Thais, the Sri Lankans, the Indians to do their work.

CARLSON: Well, I was also reading today that in addition to donations from ordinary Americans across the country, industry, private companies are sending millions over to affected areas, FedEx and Pepsi and Coke and all sorts of airlines.

Here's my question. Given that the government of the United States and its people and its corporations seem to be ponying up quite a bit to help people who are suffering why doesn't the U.S. get credit for it? It seems to me pretty bad PR. Do you think that's fair? NATSIOS: The United States has a more mixed economy and more mixed aid system than the European model, which is more based on tax revenues. We have foundations. There are almost no foundations that give international relief in other countries. That's an American tradition.

Our corporations give a lot more money. Our church groups and synagogues and mosques tend to give a lot more money than other countries and so we have a huge private foreign aid program in the United States. We've only begun to understand that.

It's the size equal to what the public sector is and that doesn't mean we don't do the public sector but we have to understand the American economy and the American system of charity is both public and private.

CARLSON: But then, again, if the criticism is that the United States is hated abroad and, you know, viewed with suspicion by people in other countries, wouldn't it be very helpful to the United States, wouldn't it be in our national interest to be perceived as generous if indeed we are generous as you've just said? So, again, why don't we as Americans do a better job of selling our image abroad as generous?

NATSIOS: Well, I have to tell you I think there's been a lot of reporting that's simply inaccurate. I go all over the world and I've done this work for 15 years. I've been to villages where people say "Finally the Americans are here. They're the ones that are going to help us in this disaster" because the Americans have a tradition of doing this around the world.

It's not that other countries don't but we are visible in the developing world at the grassroots level, maybe not in the news media but where it counts in distributing food. Sixty percent of all the food distributed last year around the world in humanitarian emergencies came from the United States.

Half of the assistance in Darfur and Sudan, half of all of the international assistance came from the United States in Darfur and I was in Darfur three time this year and, if you go in the villages and you ask people in a very remote area of the world who is George Bush?

They say, "He's the president of the United States." Who is Colin Powell? "He's the foreign minister of America." Who am I? "I work for USAID." They know what USAID is in remote areas of Darfur and they all smile when they see us. They don't hate us.

CARLSON: All right, Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, thanks a lot for joining us.

NATSIOS: Thank you.

CARLSON: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the general in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq tells us what makes those wars different from those we have fought before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CARLSON: While the unrelenting agony of war remains the same from generation to generation, just like the casualties you've just seen, the way war is planned and fought changes with the time.

And, since 9/11, there's been a new element for military strategists to contend with, al Qaeda's new offensive on the Internet.

More now from CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, who is traveling with General John Abizaid in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Abizaid, the general who runs the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sat down with CNN for a conversation about how the West struggles to understand the terrorist threat it confronts more than three years after the 9/11 attacks.

It's a subject this 53-year-old four-star Arab-American military officer spends much of his time thinking about at his desert headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Abizaid believes his enemy has gained strength with unprecedented use of the Internet, using 21st century technology to fight a war aimed at returning to ancient Islam, a sort of virtual caliphate of Islamic rule by radical jihadists.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, CMDR., U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: It's connected for recruitment through the Internet. It's connected for finances through the banking system. It's connected again through the Internet for ideology. It's connected to the media in ways that are very interesting, as you see Al-Jazeera being the mouthpiece, for example, for Osama bin Laden.

STARR: There are real fighters, of course, but now the network is far broader than any one group, says Abizaid. They have no country, but that no longer matters.

ABIZAID: While it doesn't have a state, it never nevertheless manifests itself in the virtual world in a state-like fashion, where it spends money, attacks other states, gains recruits, and tries to extend its influence.

STARR: Abizaid says, Osama bin Laden's recent messages appear to be an effort to broaden his appeal, especially after the horrified reaction by the Islamic world to al Qaeda-backed attacks in Saudi Arabia.

ABIZAID: You see a certain lightning of the message, a certain "If you don't bother us, we won't bother you message" to the Western world.

STARR: Abizaid says, don't believe it, that Iraq is the newest home of radical ideologies.

ABIZAID: We should not expect this ideology to change, any more than we would expect Nazism to change in the mind of a person like Hitler. They won't leave us alone. And they're not going to leave other Muslims alone that don't want to follow their path.

STARR: Abizaid most strongly suggests that the fight now goes far beyond Osama bin Laden.

ABIZAID: It will be an important event when we get bin Laden, which we will.

STARR: But not a day to declare victory.

ABIZAID: It's not a matter of getting one guy. It's a matter of facing an ideology.

STARR: Three years after the day that changed the world, Abizaid acknowledges that the enemy has changed as well. But, as in all history, ideologues often do not change that much.

ABIZAID: It's an ideology that is not unlike what I would call a fascist ideology dressed in religious terms.

STARR: This head of head of the Central Command, which now has 200,000 troops in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, says a more permanent solution must involve economics and social change.

Barbara Starr, CNN, Doha, Qatar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Well, how dangerous is it in Iraq these days? You're about to see for yourself, not in dramatic footage, but in something more subtle. It's the way our next interview is conducted.

"TIME" magazine correspondent Chris Allbritton will be joining us by phone tonight. Why? Because, driving across town to CNN's camera position in Baghdad is simply too dangerous.

Chris Allbritton, are you on the line?

CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON, "TIME": I am on the line.

CARLSON: Well, thanks for joining us.

Now, obviously, you're not an overly cautious person or you wouldn't be reporting from and living in Baghdad. I get the sense...

ALLBRITTON: No.

CARLSON: No, clearly, you're not. Then the city sounds out of control to me, if you can't drive across to CNN at night. Is it?

ALLBRITTON: Well, it's 6:30 in the morning here. And some of the more dangerous times in Baghdad are between 4:00 and 7:00 a.m. That's when most of the real politics get done here in the city.

CARLSON: So, if it's too perilous to drive around early in the morning, do you think that people are going to be able to feel safe voting on January 30, when the election takes place? ALLBRITTON: Well, it depends on what part of the country you're in and even which part of Baghdad you're in.

I live in eastern Baghdad, which is dominated by the Shia here. And it's moderately safe. I say moderately, because we had a car bomb go off about a kilometer away when they tried to assassinate the leader of the Supreme Council For Islamic Revolution in Iraq about three, four days ago.

And we have outgoing mortar fire from our neighborhood, you know, pretty regularly. And there was a running gunfight near my hotel compound, oh, maybe a week and a half ago. So, moderately calm. And, at night, you can see people up until 8:00 or 9:00 walking on the streets shopping. And people out there sitting in cafes. There's the veneer of normalcy. In other parts of Baghdad...

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Chris Allbritton, I'm sorry. We're having audio difficulties with you.

From what I hear you saying, that apart from the mortar fire and the ongoing gunfights and the car bombing and the political assassinations, it's a pretty safe neighborhood. Hope to get you back on a clearer line. Thanks for joining us.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a mystery in the skies. Who is shining lasers into the cockpit of commercial airlines? Seven different planes in five day. The plot thickens. We'll try to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, laser beams beamed into the cockpits of commercial jetliners. But it's not science fiction. It never is in America. Over the past few days, there have been several incidents across the country where planes were targeted by lasers as they were coming in for a landing.

It's more than coincidence, security officials say. No kidding. But is it a new terror tactic?

CNN's Jeanne Meserve explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Monday night, the cockpit of a Continental Airlines flight approaching Cleveland's airport was illuminated by a laser beam.

ROBERT HAWK, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: This plane was targeted. It just didn't flash for a moment inside the cockpit. The plane was traveling at about 300 miles an hour, at about 8,500 to 10,000 feet, and it followed the plane inside the cockpit for two to four seconds.

MESERVE: The same night, green lights, possibly lasers, hit the cockpits of two flights landing at Colorado Springs airport. Pilots have also reported seeing what could have been lasers in Washington, D.C., and Teterboro, New Jersey, a total of at least seven incidents in five days, according to officials.

All the flights landed safely. But a recent FAA report concluded the potential for an aviation accident definitely exists because lasers could impair vision or distract a pilot, making landing difficult, at best. The report also notes that a laser could be quickly deployed and withdrawn, leaving no obvious collateral damage or projectile residue and would be difficult to detect and defend against.

Since the advent of big laser light shows in the 1980s, pilots have been concerned. And over the years, there have been hundreds of incidents involving airplanes and lasers. Commercial lasers strong enough to reach low-level aircraft are not hard to get, though the industry says it is working with government to regulate the strongest ones.

Experts say directing a beam into the eyes of a pilot in a moving plane hardly seems feasible.

RAFI RON, AVIATION SECURITY EXPERT: I don't think, though, at this point that we should consider this a major risk to our flights. And, in terms of our priorities, I think that this should not be at the top of our priorities.

MESERVE: In a bulletin last month, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI said the U.S. intelligence community has no specific or credible evidence that terrorists intend to use lasers, although they have expressed interest in them.

(on camera): An administration official says the recent incidents have not heightened the government's concerns. But the FBI is investigating to determine if they were pranks, accidents, or something malicious.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Funeral services were held today in Charlotte, North Carolina, for Reggie White, the star Green Bay Packer defensive end who died suddenly on Sunday. He was 43 years old. White, who was dubbed the minister of defense, was a part-time clergyman who played for the Packers from 1993 to 1998. He helped lead them to a Super Bowl champion in 1996.

Keith Jackson, one of his former teammates, described White today as -- quote -- "a pillar of the NFL."

And Artie Shaw, one of the biggest names in the era of big bands, died today. The legendary jazz clarinetist skyrocketed to fame in 1938 with his recording of "Begin the Beguine." Billie Holiday, Buddy Rich, and Roy Eldridge were some of the legendary jazz musicians who played with Shaw's bands in the '30s and '40s. Shaw describe himself as a difficult man and he had eight marriages to prove it. He quit playing the clarinet in 1954, explaining that he was obsessed with perfection and knew the level he sought was unattainable.

The thousands of fans he delighted over the years would disagree -- Artie Shaw, dead at 94.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Some of the other developments making news around the world today.

In Ukraine, there was another turn in the volatile political battle for prime minister. Viktor Yanukovych's efforts to hang on to his job were dealt a major setback when the Supreme Court threw out his complaints about election irregularities, supposed election irregularities. Today's move by the court further solidifies the victory of Viktor Yushchenko, who is expected to strengthen Ukraine's ties to the West.

And a political cliffhanger in this country, the governor's race in Washington state, is officially and finally over. Democrat Christine Gregoire was declared the winner today. The election took two months and three vote tallies, including a hand recount. Gregoire defeated Republican challenger Dino Rossi by only 129 votes out of 2.8 million cast. Rossi, however, has said he may contest the vote. Stay tuned. We'll bring it to you.

Meanwhile, in the other Washington, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said today he is debating whether or not to replace the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Congressman Joel Hefley of Colorado. Hastert said it's just a matter of procedure. Democrats said Hefley is being punished for co-authoring two admonishments of Majority Leader Tom DeLay last October.

Well, for the Democratic Party, the weeks following John Kerry's defeat has occasioned quite a bit of soul searching. As the exit polls piled up and the political analysis poured in, the party has grappled with some pretty basic questions, beginning with, what do we stand for and who's in charge?

Joining us tonight, a man who may have some of the answers, one of the Democratic Party's most charismatic and energetic leaders, former presidential candidate, the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Reverend Sharpton, thanks for coming.

AL SHARPTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.

CARLSON: Simple question: Who runs the Democratic Party?

SHARPTON: Well, I think that that's going to be determined in the next few weeks.

As you know, we are going to be meeting in February to choose a new chair and vice chair. And many of us are very active in that race. I think that will determine not only the leadership, but direction and message. I think one of the things that clearly we're challenged with is the message the party is bringing the American public and how we respond to the need for leadership in the ongoing years.

We're facing the 2006 midterm elections, the 2008 presidential elections. And I think, clearly, we need a leadership that can really bring a solid message and commitment to the American public.

CARLSON: Well, so what about Howard Dean? Here's a guy with a real following, grassroots following, who also ran a campaign much like yours, a bit of an insurgency against the party leadership in Washington, claiming it needs new ideas. Does he have a shot? Should he get it?

SHARPTON: I think he has a shot.

I have not endorsed anyone for chair. I think that he has a shot. I think Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver, has a shot. I think there are others in the race that have a clear shot. I have been supporting Marjorie Harris, our executive director, who has shown throughout the campaign the ability to attract young voters into registering and doing other things.

And I think it's important we bring in people like her that can deal with the disaffected and have shown real grassroots support. So, I'm supporting her for vice chair. I have not gotten into the chair's race, though I think that there are any number of candidates for chair, Don Fowler Jr., others that have shown an energy and a commitment that the party is going to need if we're going to turn the party into being, in my judgment, competitive to win, but focused on a message that is not trying to imitate the Republican Party.

CARLSON: Well, right. And before you can win, you have to figure out why you lost. Why do you think Kerry lost?

SHARPTON: Well, I think that the Republicans were better at getting their vote out. They got their people out. They connected better with their base.

And that's why I think we need some fresh faces, fresh ideas that can do that. That's why I'm supporting her. That's why I'm looking at people like Wellington Webb, like a Fowler, people that can connect. And I think that what we saw was more people vote than ever before Democratic, just not enough. Well, how do you add the difference? How do you make up that deficit? And I think that that's some of what we're going to have to wrestle with as we deal with the election of new leadership of the party.

CARLSON: Well, how is this for a fresh face, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton? Do you think she -- a lot of Democrats think she's the answer in 2008. You know her well. You're from New York, of course. What do you think?

SHARPTON: I think she's a very able legislator. She's disproven all of those that felt she could not do the job in the U.S. Senate. I think she'll be a very appealing candidate.

Whether or not she will be the candidate, whether or not all of us will support her, you have to see who's on the field. I haven't ruled out my running again. But she has made tremendous strides. She even got you to eat a shoe. So, I mean, that's certainly something that will help her in the Democratic primary.

CARLSON: And may I say that many in America's press corps are praying nightly for your entry into the race in 2008.

Were you struck, though -- Democratic Party always at a money disadvantage historically, this year, by some measures, had an advantage, more money. At least independent Democratically aligned groups were better funded than their Republican counterparts. What does that tell you?

SHARPTON: That it's going to be more than money.

It's not just how much money you have. It's how well you use it to connect, to organize your base. And I think that's why it's important we don't just have fund-raisers lead the party. We have to have a mixture of funds and organizing. Funds without organizing won't work. Organizing without funds, you operate at a disadvantage. I think you need a proper balance of the two. And I think that's the chord we're going to have to strike.

CARLSON: All right, the Reverend Al Sharpton, a leader in the Democratic Party, thanks very much for joining us.

(CROSSTALK)

SHARPTON: Thank you.

CARLSON: Appreciate it.

When we return, what is going on in the Western United States? Floods, winds, blizzards -- 2004 packs a nasty punch on its way out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Two thousand four seems to determined to go out with a bang. The weather out West has not been delightful. It's been horrifying. There have been blizzards, flash floods, high winds, creating an array of problems.

More now on the wicked winter storms from CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The rains came, and the snow fell and keeps on falling. A series of slow-rolling storms is hammering the western state. Near Sedona, Arizona, hundreds were evacuated as a creek flooded resorts, an R.V. park and a dozen neighborhoods.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's kind of frightening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's Mother Nature gone insane.

DORNIN: In the Sierra Nevada, blizzard-like conditions at one point closed every pass through California's main mountain range. Travelers to Lake Tahoe and Reno were told to head back where they came, creating massive gridlock on Interstate 80.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And, unfortunately, the weather has continued to go from worse to miserable, and so we had to close it again.

DORNIN: As winds topping more than 130 miles per hour whipped the mountaintop, many ski resorts were forced to close lifts. Four to seven feet of snow is expected through the new year's weekend.

To the south, pounding rain and high winds hit Los Angeles and San Diego counties, causing widespread power outages and snapping off 170 feet of a radio tower. Bits and pieces of that tower hit several cars below.

There was flash flooding in some areas in San Diego County, motorists had to be rescued from raging waters that swamped his van, all making western residents fret about just what the new year may bring.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Ten days ago, we told you about a sinkhole in Deltona, Florida, that opened up a gaping chasm 225 feet wide, 50 feet deep.

Some families were forced to leave their homes. And traffic had to be rerouted until the sinkhole was filled in. It took quite a bit of sand, 1,282 truckloads worth, to be exact, to fill in that sinkhole. The work was completed today. Florida, for those of you keeping score at home, has more sinkholes than any other state.

As you have seen tonight, NEWSNIGHT has a special respect for still photographs. Tomorrow, we'll devote the hour to a gallery of the photography pieces aired here in 2004, a New Year's Eve special, "NEWSNIGHT: A Year in Pictures," tomorrow at 10:00 moment Eastern on CNN.

Well, that's it for me. Aaron Brown will return Monday. Thanks for having me all week.

Have a safe New Year's, but, more important, have a happy New Year's.

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 30, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TUCKER CARLSON, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Tucker Carlson sitting in for Aaron Brown.
We begin again tonight with the latest from South Asia where the scope of the devastation continues to grow. For the fourth straight day, the death toll rose dramatically to almost 119,000 people. In Indonesia, nearly 80,000 people are dead, in Sri Lanka, more than 24,000. Many more are still unaccounted for, including up to 3,000 American citizens.

As the human toll grows, donations are pouring into relief organizations. The U.N. says that $500 million have been pledged so far and private relief groups are reporting record contributions. All of it is needed desperately. How to get the aid to those who need it whose lives now depend on it, is a colossal challenge, one that we'll examine in some detail during the hour ahead.

First, though, the latest from the place that bore the brunt of Sunday's enormous undersea earthquake and subsequent tsunami, people on the western coast of Indonesia, down into Sumatra, never really had a chance. They were directly in the path of the monster wave.

In the last few days, though, the situation there has turned out to be even worse than we first imagined. Consider this. One reason the overall death toll spiked today was the discovery of nearly $28,000 more bodies in Sumatra.

CNN's Atika Schubert reports from Meulaboh, the largest town in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SCHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): To understand the level of devastation here, see it from the air, more than 80 percent of the structures destroyed. Because of its location, this was the first area to be hit. Because of its isolation it was the last to receive help.

We flew in with two private planes that hoped to deliver food and water by being the first to land on the last one-quarter of the town's airstrip still intact. It was close but they made it.

There are few words to describe the total devastation on the ground. Multi-story buildings reduced to cement foundations, markets, schools demolished. Bodies swell in the baking sun. Death toll estimates are anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 sparking fears that anywhere between a quarter to one-half of the town's population may have been killed.

This survivor was so bewildered, so desperate, he turned to visiting journalists for comfort. "Everything is gone" this man cries. "All my children are gone."

Aid is finally trickling in by sea and by air. Now that pilots know they can safely land on the damaged airstrip, more will come. An Army helicopter has arrived with aid and a Navy ship unloads supplies in the harbor.

Because of the insurgency, there were already a lot of military personnel in the region. They are the only infrastructure left. Everything else has been destroyed.

Soldiers distribute what they can despite dwindling fuel supplies. They, too, have been hard hit, hundreds of their colleagues missing, believed dead, many of their wives and children gone.

But the biggest surprise in this isolated and decimated town is the will to survive. Surrounded by death and destruction with little or no aid from outside up until now, survivors still manage to pick through what is left looking for anything that will help them to carry on.

Atika Schubert CNN, Meubolah, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: The pictures you've just been looking at were taken in Aceh Province whose capital Banda Aceh took an enormous hit on Sunday. Take a look at these before and after pictures.

This was Banda Aceh before the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami, pictures taken on June 23rd of this year. And here's the same place after. These were taken December 28th, just two days ago.

In Sri Lanka, no one felt the undersea earthquake when it happened on Sunday. It was, after all, 1,000 miles away. The giant wave that arrived on its shores an hour later, survivors say, seemed to come out of nowhere. The desperate minutes that followed were filled with loss and luck, often bittersweet.

Reporting that piece of the story is CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These devout Christian sisters had celebrated Christmas together the day before as they had done for the past 40 years. Even after they were married, they chose to live next door to each other.

And, on the morning of December 26th they woke up at 5:30, had a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast of rice and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and then three hours later watched as both of their husbands drowned in the tsunami while saving their children.

MARIANA SEBASTIAN FRANCIS, TSUNAMI WIDOW (through translator): When the second wave came, we were looking for our son and my husband went out to search for him and found him in a tree. He rescued him and both of them were running for their lives. Later, my son was found alive but my husband was missing. He had been drowned.

GUPTA: It all happened in less than 20 minutes.

M. SEBASTIAN FRANCIS (through translator): The water was rising and the sea was coming. We ran for our lives but it caught us and the water almost came up to our necks. We managed to escape from the first wave, which destroyed our house. The second wave came and took us by surprise. There was just so much water, I didn't know what to do.

GUPTA: Their story is not unique. Suehrna and Mariana Sebastian Francis are among the 3,000 displaced people in this town alone.

(on camera): So, what are they going to do now?

SUEHRNA SEBASTIAN FRANCIS, TSUNAMI WIDOW (through translator): We don't know what to do next. Right now, we don't have a source of income. We'll need to look for jobs but they are scarce.

GUPTA: Days later they had their health for the most part. Suehrna had her leg banged up pretty badly. Mariana has bandages all over her hand but they're not from the tsunami, she told me, but rather from carrying the coffin of her husband and then refusing to let it go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: A tale of two sisters, Tucker, and stories like that are not unique unfortunately. We are at one of these settlement camps, one of these camps for the displaced that we've been hearing so much about, a camp of 3,000 people, Tucker, some of them behind me now.

There's not enough room here to take care of all those people but somehow they are managing. Only three bathrooms in this entire place and one of the concerns, Tucker, that we've been talking so much about is the possible spawning of epidemics.

It's because of the unsanitary conditions, epidemics like cholera, dysentery, malaria. We haven't seen those yet here. We also haven't seen the medications needed to prevent them from happening in the first place -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Sanjay, we've been hearing all week about the possibility of outbreaks of the diseases you just mentioned. You said they haven't occurred yet. Why is that? Is there clean water available?

GUPTA: Yes. You know, first of all, Sri Lanka, you have to think of it not as one country but several different districts. They haven't occurred where we are right here in the south of the country, the southern tip of the country but on some of the coasts though you are starting to see some outbreaks of things like cholera, but also things like chicken pox as well.

There is clean water in many places, Tucker, to answer your question but it's more the unsanitary conditions, three bathrooms for 3,000 people. This is how diseases could potentially spread and that's why health officials continue to give their warnings -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Thanks, Sanjay, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the other side of the planet.

Well, new images of the horror on Sunday keep surfacing, including another home video, this one shot by a Norwegian tourist in Thailand who survived the tsunami. Like many other tourists from northern Europe, he was staying at a coastal resort in Phuket and captured the speed and the power of the first wave as it swept in. It was strong but it was nothing compared with the second wave, which annihilated virtually everything in its path.

The number of dead in Thailand is more than 4,000 and will almost certainly rise from there. Along with Thais, thousands of foreign tourists were also missing, including 2,500 Swedes.

In a week full of remarkable examples of courage and compassion, here is yet another reported by CNN's Aneesh Raman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the aftermath of unthinkable tragedy, a moment of remarkable humanity. Eighteen- year-old (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fills out a name tag with the languages he speaks so that he can offer help and comfort to tourists. Every visitor here has a story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

RAMAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) lives inland far from the shores consumed by tsunami waves. After hearing about the disaster he felt for the large number of foreigners among the casualties. Their faces surround everyone here as a constant reminder of who was lost. The missing now by many accounts presumed dead.

American Tony Carney has lived in Thailand for well over a decade. The sights he sees now are nothing new.

TONY CARNEY, AMERICAN RESIDENT OF THAILAND: There's a concept in Thailand, in Thai culture that doesn't even translate into the English language. The word is (UNINTELLIGIBLE), which translating loosely is an outpouring of the heart. Thai people have a great pride in this concept.

RAMAN: Around this tense city, scores of volunteers looking to help shocked and stranded tourists wandering a foreign land not speaking its language torn from their loved ones. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and many like him are the core of Thailand's relief effort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE.)

RAMAN: Waving above the scene of sadness, Thailand's flag at half mast for its own people and the countless travelers who also perished here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAMAN: And, Tucker, the latest part of this effort are mental health teams, psychiatrists that are coming down to the south helping the relatives of those that are missing deal with what seemingly is the inevitable truth that the thousands of missing are now thought to be dead -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Aneesh Raman thanks very much.

We've seen some amazing pictures this week. We've heard some incredible stories but not, as far as I can tell, matches the one we saw tonight on CNN's "ANDERSON COOPER."

It was really a sit up and pay attention moment. Anderson spoke to the parents of Ed Aleo, Jr. whose father, Dr. Ed Aleo had gone to Thailand to try and find his son. Tonight, on our air live, Dr. Aleo learned from his wife that their son is, in fact, safe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUE ALEO, MOTHER OF ED ALEO, JR. (by telephone): He called me last night about eleven o'clock and he said that he and his fiancee are fine. They were on the island of Kopania (ph), which is where we thought they would be and that island was not hit.

They had just come off the island. I'm not sure where he was when he called me but they were on their way to (UNINTELLIGIBLE). He knows that his father is coming there and also he knows CNN will be with him.

ED ALEO, SR. (by telephone): Well, I'm on a plane to Phuket and then I will go from Phuket. It should be about a one hour drive or so to (UNINTELLIGIBLE), if that's where he's coming to.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Ed, after...

ED ALEO: That would be my goal would be do that.

COOPER: Ed, you've been flying for some 24 hours at least. It's a long flight. You got to be exhausted but this is probably the best news you probably could have gotten getting off the plane.

ED ALEO: Well, I can honestly tell you right now I'm not tired at all.

COOPER: Yes, I can imagine that. What -- were you -- I mean how concerned were you? You know, you must have just been dreading this entire experience.

ED ALEO: Well, I was -- I was very concerned at first and then -- and I can honestly say that when I was in New York City I got scared even more. A reporter approached me and, you know, I tried to be very positive and she was very positive about this and he came up to me.

He said to me, "Do you think your son is dead?" And that was like, excuse me, that was probably the first shock that I really had. My concern was, you know, to find him. I knew he'd be OK. If he was hurt, we could solve that problem. I never thought that he would, you know, be, you know, not coming back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: I think a lot of other people did. If you've been following that story on CNN you know things didn't appear to look good for the Aleos, remarkable that their son is fine.

The week has brought an onslaught of images, overwhelming and many of them heartbreaking. Some of the most moving, perhaps because of their very stillness, are photographs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: All this week we've been almost overwhelmed with video showing the tsunami hitting distant shores, flooding villages, submerging whole nations. We've seen dramatic accounts of survival, heard the weeping over the tens of thousands who did not survive. This tragedy is still unfolding. We'll see much more video from the devastated areas in the days and weeks to come.

But as this terrible week draws to a close, we thought we'd pause to see in individual terms the human toll of this disaster. Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After all the home video of the tsunami, it is startling to see it in a photograph, to see what witnesses meant by a wall of water, to see captured in a frame what the monstrous waves did to resorts and villages in Thailand, southern India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, to see what the churning water did to people in these places only vaguely remembered from high school geography, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and Madras and Sumatra, Colombo.

It all happened so fast, the waves and mud and debris burying the old and the young, especially the young, those too small or too weak to hold onto anything as the water surged in or pull themselves to safety before the receding waves pulled them out to sea.

The still pictures could hardly show the scope of human losses in their mounting thousands but they could show the loss face by face, it all happened so fast so little time for ceremony, the marking of a life. Officials struggled to keep records of the dead. Volunteers hurried to build coffins, fill them, close them, and send the enclosed souls onward. Even days later, so many souls were still missing. Relatives searched for survivors. Survivors searched for their families. Dazed, battered tourists went home to Sweden and Norway, Germany and New Zealand, South Korea and South Africa. Dazed residents were evacuated by the thousands to higher, dryer ground. Those who could stayed where they were in what was left of home, collected water, collected food, stood in line for both and for fuel.

Slowly, rubbled airstrips were cleared. The first of the aid from around the world arrived, emergency water supplies, critical medicines, fat sacks of food, bundles of clothing.

Tent villages were set up for millions of the suddenly homeless. The wounded were treated in hospitals hastily cleared of debris, in open air clinics set up on beaches. Doctors readied for the next wave of the disaster, disease, with tetanus shots, anti-malarials.

There was little anyone could do to prepare survivors for the hardest part of what is to come, simply going on. Millions are still stunned by loss. So much life and hope washed away, so little to hold onto, except faith that those so violently wrenched from the world have found peace, faith that those left behind in the world will again find peace somehow, somewhere, someday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: As we've been reporting all week, it's thought that up to one-third of all tsunami victims are children. Of all the horrific numbers that are part of this story, that's probably the worst. It's also spurring record donations to relief workers.

Here's CNN's Mary Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Half a world away from the destruction in an affluent American suburb the phones don't stop ringing, people desperate to help the smallest victims of the tsunami.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you guys have a list of things that would be useful as donations?

SNOW: People walk in the door to give and Eileen Burke is heading out the door destined for Indonesia.

EILEEN BURKE, SAVE THE CHILDREN: I think you kind of tuck the emotional state at the door. This is the most dangerous time for children as well where they'll become victim to diarrhea, cholera, outbreaks of disease and that's why it's incredibly important for us to get in there.

SNOW: Burke is heading to help fellow staff members of Save the Children in Banda Aceh, where some of the group's own aid workers were killed.

BURKE: You realize what little it takes to make a difference. It's extremely motivating.

SNOW: The group says it's seen the biggest outpouring in its 70 year history, more than $2 million in the last few days, some of it from children.

CAT LYDOUN, SAVE THE CHILDREN: A man called in and the dollar amount was $713, so I said, "Oh, $13 sounds like the piggybank" and it was his kid's piggybank.

SNOW: But it's not just money.

LYDOUN: We had a truck driver call from the Midwest, Edward. He wanted to go drive a truck because that's what he could do.

CAROLYN MILES, SAVE THE CHILDREN: I took a couple calls from people who wanted to adopt children.

SNOW: With images that some here find hauntingly familiar.

MILES: I think also this has brought back maybe some memories about 9/11 with the pictures of people on the wall and looking for survivors.

SNOW: Eileen Burke considers herself fortunate to be able to help survivors firsthand. Others find comfort in witnessing the generosity.

LYDOUN: Just when you think the world is rotten and can't get any worse something horrible happens and you find out that people are OK and, you know, that there is good in people's hearts.

SNOW: Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: As you've doubtless gathered, if you've been watching our coverage over the last week, delivering aid to those who desperately need it is a huge effort, a mammoth effort. With at least 11 countries suffering from the effects of the tsunami, the sheer size of the task is awe inspiring and unfortunately time is running out.

Here's CNN's Bob Franken.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The RMT, the Response Management Team's Command Center, has been up and running since Sunday, a small room but one of the hubs of a huge worldwide rescue effort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're working on getting a plane for Sri Lanka, which might be hard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right that's on the way. OK, there's a C-12 that's gone.

FRANKEN: Secretary of State Colin Powell spent a part of the day at the embassies of devastated countries.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: As the need becomes better known and established you can expect that the United States will add more.

DEVINDA SUBASINGHE, SRI LANKAN AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: And I'm gratified to note again the secretary's comments that the U.S. will be with us in this for the long haul.

FRANKEN: But even with all the massive assistance pouring in from the outside, those who run the programs say the leadership must be local.

ANDREW NATSIOS, USAID ADMINISTRATOR: We need to help them with their response, not go in and take things over, which is the old way of doing things.

FRANKEN: The U.S. Agency for International Development coordinates, sending 44 members of its staff to the disaster areas to find out what relief efforts are needed, where. It's a struggle to get around and feed back the information.

KEN ISAACS, USAID FOREIGN DISASTER ASSISTANCE: This is a very remote area of the world. It takes time to fly there. It takes time to drive to different places once you're in the country and all of their infrastructure is destroyed.

FRANKEN (on camera): The operators of this command center are so far away yet so closely involved, trying to get a handle on a massive tragedy that is thousands of miles away, trying to provide help to vast regions that are largely helpless.

(voice-over): They coordinate with the United Nations and other governments, as well as charities, all working to relieve desperate conditions.

BRENDAN GORMLEY, BRITISH DISASTERS EMERGENCY CMTE.: There's a dreadful death toll but if each of those people who have died has five or six family members, you can quickly see how many people are at risk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had the version of the affected coastlines, right?

FRANKEN: The first priority simply to get the relief efforts organized.

Bob Franken, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Joining us now is Andrew Natsios. He's the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, otherwise known as USAID. It's America's lead agency for providing economic and humanitarian assistance to developing countries. Mr. Natsios, thanks a lot for joining us.

If there's one word that kind of rings in the ear after a week of coverage, it's stingy. The U.S. is stingy in its aid some have claimed. Give us briefly an overview, a sense of how much we're giving.

NATSIOS: The United States last year gave $2.4 billion in humanitarian assistance in emergencies, famine relief, civil wars and natural disasters around the world. It's 40 percent of the total that was given by all countries in the world, so we are by far the most generous country.

The comments, I think, were misinterpreted by (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who is a good friend of mine, by the U.N. He's tried to clarify but it's a highly charged political atmosphere in the United States and I think the comments were taken and misused unfortunately. But the United States has always been under Democratic and Republican administrations very generous, particularly in emergency situations.

CARLSON: Well, give us a more precise sense, if you would, of what that means in this case. What specifically will the U.S. government be doing for the victims of the tsunami?

NATSIOS: Well, the first thing we've done is dispatch our disaster assistance response teams. What you just saw on the screen, the RMT, is the hub in Washington that's the support structure for the people in the field who are in each of the countries where we're doing the response.

So, when they need more planes to come in, they need more tenting materials for displaced people, they call the RMT that you just saw from the field and say, "I need another shipment of this or that, water cans or medical supplies or more blankets."

We have a warehouse in Dubai that's the closest to the disaster and that's where the shipments are being made. We've done six C-130 planeloads of relief supplies. But they have to be call forwarded from the field by the disaster assistance response team and we coordinate very carefully with the local officials because they are the first responders.

I have to emphasize that. The notion that we go in and save everybody is not the way it works. We're there to support the Indonesians, the Thais, the Sri Lankans, the Indians to do their work.

CARLSON: Well, I was also reading today that in addition to donations from ordinary Americans across the country, industry, private companies are sending millions over to affected areas, FedEx and Pepsi and Coke and all sorts of airlines.

Here's my question. Given that the government of the United States and its people and its corporations seem to be ponying up quite a bit to help people who are suffering why doesn't the U.S. get credit for it? It seems to me pretty bad PR. Do you think that's fair? NATSIOS: The United States has a more mixed economy and more mixed aid system than the European model, which is more based on tax revenues. We have foundations. There are almost no foundations that give international relief in other countries. That's an American tradition.

Our corporations give a lot more money. Our church groups and synagogues and mosques tend to give a lot more money than other countries and so we have a huge private foreign aid program in the United States. We've only begun to understand that.

It's the size equal to what the public sector is and that doesn't mean we don't do the public sector but we have to understand the American economy and the American system of charity is both public and private.

CARLSON: But then, again, if the criticism is that the United States is hated abroad and, you know, viewed with suspicion by people in other countries, wouldn't it be very helpful to the United States, wouldn't it be in our national interest to be perceived as generous if indeed we are generous as you've just said? So, again, why don't we as Americans do a better job of selling our image abroad as generous?

NATSIOS: Well, I have to tell you I think there's been a lot of reporting that's simply inaccurate. I go all over the world and I've done this work for 15 years. I've been to villages where people say "Finally the Americans are here. They're the ones that are going to help us in this disaster" because the Americans have a tradition of doing this around the world.

It's not that other countries don't but we are visible in the developing world at the grassroots level, maybe not in the news media but where it counts in distributing food. Sixty percent of all the food distributed last year around the world in humanitarian emergencies came from the United States.

Half of the assistance in Darfur and Sudan, half of all of the international assistance came from the United States in Darfur and I was in Darfur three time this year and, if you go in the villages and you ask people in a very remote area of the world who is George Bush?

They say, "He's the president of the United States." Who is Colin Powell? "He's the foreign minister of America." Who am I? "I work for USAID." They know what USAID is in remote areas of Darfur and they all smile when they see us. They don't hate us.

CARLSON: All right, Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, thanks a lot for joining us.

NATSIOS: Thank you.

CARLSON: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, the general in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq tells us what makes those wars different from those we have fought before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CARLSON: While the unrelenting agony of war remains the same from generation to generation, just like the casualties you've just seen, the way war is planned and fought changes with the time.

And, since 9/11, there's been a new element for military strategists to contend with, al Qaeda's new offensive on the Internet.

More now from CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, who is traveling with General John Abizaid in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Abizaid, the general who runs the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sat down with CNN for a conversation about how the West struggles to understand the terrorist threat it confronts more than three years after the 9/11 attacks.

It's a subject this 53-year-old four-star Arab-American military officer spends much of his time thinking about at his desert headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Abizaid believes his enemy has gained strength with unprecedented use of the Internet, using 21st century technology to fight a war aimed at returning to ancient Islam, a sort of virtual caliphate of Islamic rule by radical jihadists.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, CMDR., U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: It's connected for recruitment through the Internet. It's connected for finances through the banking system. It's connected again through the Internet for ideology. It's connected to the media in ways that are very interesting, as you see Al-Jazeera being the mouthpiece, for example, for Osama bin Laden.

STARR: There are real fighters, of course, but now the network is far broader than any one group, says Abizaid. They have no country, but that no longer matters.

ABIZAID: While it doesn't have a state, it never nevertheless manifests itself in the virtual world in a state-like fashion, where it spends money, attacks other states, gains recruits, and tries to extend its influence.

STARR: Abizaid says, Osama bin Laden's recent messages appear to be an effort to broaden his appeal, especially after the horrified reaction by the Islamic world to al Qaeda-backed attacks in Saudi Arabia.

ABIZAID: You see a certain lightning of the message, a certain "If you don't bother us, we won't bother you message" to the Western world.

STARR: Abizaid says, don't believe it, that Iraq is the newest home of radical ideologies.

ABIZAID: We should not expect this ideology to change, any more than we would expect Nazism to change in the mind of a person like Hitler. They won't leave us alone. And they're not going to leave other Muslims alone that don't want to follow their path.

STARR: Abizaid most strongly suggests that the fight now goes far beyond Osama bin Laden.

ABIZAID: It will be an important event when we get bin Laden, which we will.

STARR: But not a day to declare victory.

ABIZAID: It's not a matter of getting one guy. It's a matter of facing an ideology.

STARR: Three years after the day that changed the world, Abizaid acknowledges that the enemy has changed as well. But, as in all history, ideologues often do not change that much.

ABIZAID: It's an ideology that is not unlike what I would call a fascist ideology dressed in religious terms.

STARR: This head of head of the Central Command, which now has 200,000 troops in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, says a more permanent solution must involve economics and social change.

Barbara Starr, CNN, Doha, Qatar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Well, how dangerous is it in Iraq these days? You're about to see for yourself, not in dramatic footage, but in something more subtle. It's the way our next interview is conducted.

"TIME" magazine correspondent Chris Allbritton will be joining us by phone tonight. Why? Because, driving across town to CNN's camera position in Baghdad is simply too dangerous.

Chris Allbritton, are you on the line?

CHRISTOPHER ALLBRITTON, "TIME": I am on the line.

CARLSON: Well, thanks for joining us.

Now, obviously, you're not an overly cautious person or you wouldn't be reporting from and living in Baghdad. I get the sense...

ALLBRITTON: No.

CARLSON: No, clearly, you're not. Then the city sounds out of control to me, if you can't drive across to CNN at night. Is it?

ALLBRITTON: Well, it's 6:30 in the morning here. And some of the more dangerous times in Baghdad are between 4:00 and 7:00 a.m. That's when most of the real politics get done here in the city.

CARLSON: So, if it's too perilous to drive around early in the morning, do you think that people are going to be able to feel safe voting on January 30, when the election takes place? ALLBRITTON: Well, it depends on what part of the country you're in and even which part of Baghdad you're in.

I live in eastern Baghdad, which is dominated by the Shia here. And it's moderately safe. I say moderately, because we had a car bomb go off about a kilometer away when they tried to assassinate the leader of the Supreme Council For Islamic Revolution in Iraq about three, four days ago.

And we have outgoing mortar fire from our neighborhood, you know, pretty regularly. And there was a running gunfight near my hotel compound, oh, maybe a week and a half ago. So, moderately calm. And, at night, you can see people up until 8:00 or 9:00 walking on the streets shopping. And people out there sitting in cafes. There's the veneer of normalcy. In other parts of Baghdad...

(CROSSTALK)

CARLSON: Chris Allbritton, I'm sorry. We're having audio difficulties with you.

From what I hear you saying, that apart from the mortar fire and the ongoing gunfights and the car bombing and the political assassinations, it's a pretty safe neighborhood. Hope to get you back on a clearer line. Thanks for joining us.

Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a mystery in the skies. Who is shining lasers into the cockpit of commercial airlines? Seven different planes in five day. The plot thickens. We'll try to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, laser beams beamed into the cockpits of commercial jetliners. But it's not science fiction. It never is in America. Over the past few days, there have been several incidents across the country where planes were targeted by lasers as they were coming in for a landing.

It's more than coincidence, security officials say. No kidding. But is it a new terror tactic?

CNN's Jeanne Meserve explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Monday night, the cockpit of a Continental Airlines flight approaching Cleveland's airport was illuminated by a laser beam.

ROBERT HAWK, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: This plane was targeted. It just didn't flash for a moment inside the cockpit. The plane was traveling at about 300 miles an hour, at about 8,500 to 10,000 feet, and it followed the plane inside the cockpit for two to four seconds.

MESERVE: The same night, green lights, possibly lasers, hit the cockpits of two flights landing at Colorado Springs airport. Pilots have also reported seeing what could have been lasers in Washington, D.C., and Teterboro, New Jersey, a total of at least seven incidents in five days, according to officials.

All the flights landed safely. But a recent FAA report concluded the potential for an aviation accident definitely exists because lasers could impair vision or distract a pilot, making landing difficult, at best. The report also notes that a laser could be quickly deployed and withdrawn, leaving no obvious collateral damage or projectile residue and would be difficult to detect and defend against.

Since the advent of big laser light shows in the 1980s, pilots have been concerned. And over the years, there have been hundreds of incidents involving airplanes and lasers. Commercial lasers strong enough to reach low-level aircraft are not hard to get, though the industry says it is working with government to regulate the strongest ones.

Experts say directing a beam into the eyes of a pilot in a moving plane hardly seems feasible.

RAFI RON, AVIATION SECURITY EXPERT: I don't think, though, at this point that we should consider this a major risk to our flights. And, in terms of our priorities, I think that this should not be at the top of our priorities.

MESERVE: In a bulletin last month, the Department of Homeland Security and FBI said the U.S. intelligence community has no specific or credible evidence that terrorists intend to use lasers, although they have expressed interest in them.

(on camera): An administration official says the recent incidents have not heightened the government's concerns. But the FBI is investigating to determine if they were pranks, accidents, or something malicious.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Funeral services were held today in Charlotte, North Carolina, for Reggie White, the star Green Bay Packer defensive end who died suddenly on Sunday. He was 43 years old. White, who was dubbed the minister of defense, was a part-time clergyman who played for the Packers from 1993 to 1998. He helped lead them to a Super Bowl champion in 1996.

Keith Jackson, one of his former teammates, described White today as -- quote -- "a pillar of the NFL."

And Artie Shaw, one of the biggest names in the era of big bands, died today. The legendary jazz clarinetist skyrocketed to fame in 1938 with his recording of "Begin the Beguine." Billie Holiday, Buddy Rich, and Roy Eldridge were some of the legendary jazz musicians who played with Shaw's bands in the '30s and '40s. Shaw describe himself as a difficult man and he had eight marriages to prove it. He quit playing the clarinet in 1954, explaining that he was obsessed with perfection and knew the level he sought was unattainable.

The thousands of fans he delighted over the years would disagree -- Artie Shaw, dead at 94.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Some of the other developments making news around the world today.

In Ukraine, there was another turn in the volatile political battle for prime minister. Viktor Yanukovych's efforts to hang on to his job were dealt a major setback when the Supreme Court threw out his complaints about election irregularities, supposed election irregularities. Today's move by the court further solidifies the victory of Viktor Yushchenko, who is expected to strengthen Ukraine's ties to the West.

And a political cliffhanger in this country, the governor's race in Washington state, is officially and finally over. Democrat Christine Gregoire was declared the winner today. The election took two months and three vote tallies, including a hand recount. Gregoire defeated Republican challenger Dino Rossi by only 129 votes out of 2.8 million cast. Rossi, however, has said he may contest the vote. Stay tuned. We'll bring it to you.

Meanwhile, in the other Washington, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said today he is debating whether or not to replace the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Congressman Joel Hefley of Colorado. Hastert said it's just a matter of procedure. Democrats said Hefley is being punished for co-authoring two admonishments of Majority Leader Tom DeLay last October.

Well, for the Democratic Party, the weeks following John Kerry's defeat has occasioned quite a bit of soul searching. As the exit polls piled up and the political analysis poured in, the party has grappled with some pretty basic questions, beginning with, what do we stand for and who's in charge?

Joining us tonight, a man who may have some of the answers, one of the Democratic Party's most charismatic and energetic leaders, former presidential candidate, the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Reverend Sharpton, thanks for coming.

AL SHARPTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.

CARLSON: Simple question: Who runs the Democratic Party?

SHARPTON: Well, I think that that's going to be determined in the next few weeks.

As you know, we are going to be meeting in February to choose a new chair and vice chair. And many of us are very active in that race. I think that will determine not only the leadership, but direction and message. I think one of the things that clearly we're challenged with is the message the party is bringing the American public and how we respond to the need for leadership in the ongoing years.

We're facing the 2006 midterm elections, the 2008 presidential elections. And I think, clearly, we need a leadership that can really bring a solid message and commitment to the American public.

CARLSON: Well, so what about Howard Dean? Here's a guy with a real following, grassroots following, who also ran a campaign much like yours, a bit of an insurgency against the party leadership in Washington, claiming it needs new ideas. Does he have a shot? Should he get it?

SHARPTON: I think he has a shot.

I have not endorsed anyone for chair. I think that he has a shot. I think Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver, has a shot. I think there are others in the race that have a clear shot. I have been supporting Marjorie Harris, our executive director, who has shown throughout the campaign the ability to attract young voters into registering and doing other things.

And I think it's important we bring in people like her that can deal with the disaffected and have shown real grassroots support. So, I'm supporting her for vice chair. I have not gotten into the chair's race, though I think that there are any number of candidates for chair, Don Fowler Jr., others that have shown an energy and a commitment that the party is going to need if we're going to turn the party into being, in my judgment, competitive to win, but focused on a message that is not trying to imitate the Republican Party.

CARLSON: Well, right. And before you can win, you have to figure out why you lost. Why do you think Kerry lost?

SHARPTON: Well, I think that the Republicans were better at getting their vote out. They got their people out. They connected better with their base.

And that's why I think we need some fresh faces, fresh ideas that can do that. That's why I'm supporting her. That's why I'm looking at people like Wellington Webb, like a Fowler, people that can connect. And I think that what we saw was more people vote than ever before Democratic, just not enough. Well, how do you add the difference? How do you make up that deficit? And I think that that's some of what we're going to have to wrestle with as we deal with the election of new leadership of the party.

CARLSON: Well, how is this for a fresh face, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton? Do you think she -- a lot of Democrats think she's the answer in 2008. You know her well. You're from New York, of course. What do you think?

SHARPTON: I think she's a very able legislator. She's disproven all of those that felt she could not do the job in the U.S. Senate. I think she'll be a very appealing candidate.

Whether or not she will be the candidate, whether or not all of us will support her, you have to see who's on the field. I haven't ruled out my running again. But she has made tremendous strides. She even got you to eat a shoe. So, I mean, that's certainly something that will help her in the Democratic primary.

CARLSON: And may I say that many in America's press corps are praying nightly for your entry into the race in 2008.

Were you struck, though -- Democratic Party always at a money disadvantage historically, this year, by some measures, had an advantage, more money. At least independent Democratically aligned groups were better funded than their Republican counterparts. What does that tell you?

SHARPTON: That it's going to be more than money.

It's not just how much money you have. It's how well you use it to connect, to organize your base. And I think that's why it's important we don't just have fund-raisers lead the party. We have to have a mixture of funds and organizing. Funds without organizing won't work. Organizing without funds, you operate at a disadvantage. I think you need a proper balance of the two. And I think that's the chord we're going to have to strike.

CARLSON: All right, the Reverend Al Sharpton, a leader in the Democratic Party, thanks very much for joining us.

(CROSSTALK)

SHARPTON: Thank you.

CARLSON: Appreciate it.

When we return, what is going on in the Western United States? Floods, winds, blizzards -- 2004 packs a nasty punch on its way out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Two thousand four seems to determined to go out with a bang. The weather out West has not been delightful. It's been horrifying. There have been blizzards, flash floods, high winds, creating an array of problems.

More now on the wicked winter storms from CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The rains came, and the snow fell and keeps on falling. A series of slow-rolling storms is hammering the western state. Near Sedona, Arizona, hundreds were evacuated as a creek flooded resorts, an R.V. park and a dozen neighborhoods.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's kind of frightening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's Mother Nature gone insane.

DORNIN: In the Sierra Nevada, blizzard-like conditions at one point closed every pass through California's main mountain range. Travelers to Lake Tahoe and Reno were told to head back where they came, creating massive gridlock on Interstate 80.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And, unfortunately, the weather has continued to go from worse to miserable, and so we had to close it again.

DORNIN: As winds topping more than 130 miles per hour whipped the mountaintop, many ski resorts were forced to close lifts. Four to seven feet of snow is expected through the new year's weekend.

To the south, pounding rain and high winds hit Los Angeles and San Diego counties, causing widespread power outages and snapping off 170 feet of a radio tower. Bits and pieces of that tower hit several cars below.

There was flash flooding in some areas in San Diego County, motorists had to be rescued from raging waters that swamped his van, all making western residents fret about just what the new year may bring.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: Ten days ago, we told you about a sinkhole in Deltona, Florida, that opened up a gaping chasm 225 feet wide, 50 feet deep.

Some families were forced to leave their homes. And traffic had to be rerouted until the sinkhole was filled in. It took quite a bit of sand, 1,282 truckloads worth, to be exact, to fill in that sinkhole. The work was completed today. Florida, for those of you keeping score at home, has more sinkholes than any other state.

As you have seen tonight, NEWSNIGHT has a special respect for still photographs. Tomorrow, we'll devote the hour to a gallery of the photography pieces aired here in 2004, a New Year's Eve special, "NEWSNIGHT: A Year in Pictures," tomorrow at 10:00 moment Eastern on CNN.

Well, that's it for me. Aaron Brown will return Monday. Thanks for having me all week.

Have a safe New Year's, but, more important, have a happy New Year's.

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