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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
10 Die in California Mudslides; Heads Roll on CBS
Aired January 10, 2005 - 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: That's where we begin tonight, Larry thanks so much, on the West Coast where nature is unleashing her fury. Rain and snow have been pummeling the region and today the death toll from the storms has reached ten. The latest victim was caught in a colossal mudslide. Look at this, northwest of Los Angeles. We have several reports tonight on the deadly winter weather.
We start in La Conchita, California with our own Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than 160 rescue workers are working through the night here searching and listening for survivors in a massive 30-foot pile of mud and rubble. At least nine people have been pulled from the rubble. At least three of those were kept alive by pockets of air.
BILL HARDISON, GOOD SAMARITAN: People were in voids like corners of the home, under a doorway, under some furniture and stuff and so what it was is the mud and the debris that collapsed the house and they had just this little cubicle that they were in. And so, the crews were able to go in there, get that off of them.
ROWLANDS: In an instant, a rain-soaked hillside gave way sending an avalanche of mud and debris into more than a dozen homes below.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just popped and just came rushing down like a freight train and just plowed through probably over a dozen houses.
ROWLANDS: Crews were in the area at the time of the slide. As the residents ran for cover, firefighters tried frantically to rescue survivors. They plan to keep searching but there is concern tonight about the possibility that there may be another slide.
HARDISON: The geologists are concerned that that mud flow may start pushing more of the hill down and as it releases that part of the hill the other parts of the hill that are unstable then may also start sliding down.
ROWLANDS: Homeowners were in the process of being evacuated when the hillside gave way. La Conchita, a seaside community between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, has a history of mudslides. The most significant one until now was in 1995 when nine homes were destroyed.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ROWLANDS: And, Paula, two people have been confirmed dead, both adult males. They do plan to continue to search throughout the night. The last survivor to be pulled out a few hours ago told searchers that she believes her neighbors are still in that pile and rescuers plan to do everything they can to try to pull them out, hopefully alive -- Paula.
ZAHN: We hope that is the case. Ted Rowlands thanks so much, Ted pointing out in a very clear way how challenging those conditions are for those rescue workers.
Meanwhile in the mountains of northern California, the problem is snow, too much of it. The region around Lake Tahoe hasn't seen this much snow in nearly 90 years. Now, combine that with high winds and a winter wonderland turns very dangerous.
Jason Bellini has that part of the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are two views, up here and down there. Up here high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains crystal cathedrals thanks to the string of powerful storm systems dumping as much as 19 feet of snow.
Down there, Lake Tahoe, communities whose winter economies survive on snow were nearly suffocating in the four and a half feet of it that fell over the weekend. With visibility at zero, transit officials Saturday shut vast stretches of highway linking California and Nevada fearing avalanches.
LEL TONE, SQUAW VALLEY SKI PATROL: A lot of accidents happen. The winds are absolutely screaming on the ridges. We had winds last night of 163 miles per hour.
BELLINI: At a ski mountain, north of Las Vegas, a 13-year-old boy died Sunday when an avalanche knocked him off a ski lift and buried him. Monday, the snow let up for a little while long enough for a silver lining to come into view.
CHRIS BURKE, ZEPHYR SNOWMOBILE CENTER: From our standpoint this will guarantee us a great winter season and that helps us on a lot of fronts. Not only will it extend the snowmobile and ski season but the lake has been dangerously low. We've been in drought levels the last couple of years and this will help bring the level of the lake up.
BELLINI: This is Chris Burke's 18th year leading snowmobile tours.
BURKE: This is like nature sculpting our trees up here. You don't see this very often. I've only seen this twice before.
BELLINI: The dark side, road closures for some ski resorts to close. Others suspended operations due to high winds and avalanche danger. The bright side skiers brave enough to tackle the slopes are experiencing the powder of a lifetime. BURKE: This is where you get your perspective and you kind of find your place and your sense of what Lake Tahoe is all about.
BELLINI: Lake Tahoe is expecting up to another five feet of snow Monday night into Tuesday lots more shoveling before the perspective down there changes.
Jason Bellini CNN, Lake Tahoe, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: But one of the most dramatic images out of the west was this. A man trapped on the top of his car after driving off the freeway into a raging torrent that was once a creek. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to have more on his dramatic rescue. The pictures are absolutely incredible.
Now on the opposite side of the country thousands of people in South Carolina are waiting to return to their homes five days after a train wreck resulted in a deadly chlorine leak. Nine people died in the accident. Hundreds more were injured.
Tonight in our CNN "Security Watch," Heidi Collins has the latest from Graniteville.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My family and my friends that are displaced our community I went through it the other night, it's like a ghost town. I haven't seen that in 53 years.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If anyone can speak for his friends, family and an entire town for that matter, it would be Graniteville Fire Chief Phil Napier.
PHIL NAPIER, FIRE CHIEF: I've got to be tough. I've got to stand up and I'm not too proud to cry before them and I have.
COLLINS: There have been many tears since 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning. A 42-car Norfolk Southern freight train slammed into another train parked in the siding of the tracks. Three cars on the larger train were carrying deadly liquid chlorine.
Four of Chief Napier's men who lived close by the accident headed directly in to ground zero. They had no idea that chlorine was leaking and rushed in to a cloud concealing a toxic enemy with no protection at all. Chief Napier heard it on his radio.
NAPIER: One of the men started screaming "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I need help." And I started hollering for them to get out of there and I proceeded around in the opposite direction and not knowing that I was going right to the accident.
There was (sic) two men standing there. One was laying on the ground and I stopped and I rolled my window down and the gentleman says "We've had a head-on collision with the train. We've got a chemical leak. I can't breathe" and he went down.
And about the same time it hit me. I couldn't breathe and it was just like all I remember from that point was just like my life ended. I made a U-turn and I don't know where I went or how I got there. I mean it's just like there's a blank in my life like I was dead and I found out at a later time that the man I talked to was the engineer and the conductor of the train.
COLLINS: Twenty-eight-year-old engineer Christopher Selig (ph) of West Columbia, South Carolina died moments after Chief Napier watched him fall to the ground. Leaving the men behind is not something the chief handles well.
NAPIER: It's rewarding to be able to help people but it's -- it's bad when there's incidents that you can't.
COLLINS: But in a community like this help comes in many ways, shelters for the more than 5,000 people ordered to leave their homes, food for hundreds of law enforcement officials and even financial help directly from Norfolk Southern Railroad.
LORIE BROWN, RESIDENT: She's my little 9-year-old's dog, you know.
COLLINS: Yes.
BROWN: And we love her and we want her to be alive.
COLLINS: Lorie Brown lives on the outskirts of the mandatory evacuation zone. She didn't expect to be gone so long.
BROWN: And we would have never left our dog. I feel so guilty for leaving her. I shouldn't have left her. I didn't know this was going to happen.
COLLINS: Many pets were left stranded in their homes. Others ran free through parts of town happy to stop for food that sheriff's deputies started leaving out in fields.
BROWN: I'm sorry, sir. I haven't slept in several days. I just want to take her home.
COLLINS: Sheriff's deputies put the health rules aside and decided to go beyond the barricades. No one knew if the dog had survived.
BROWN: She's alive. Oh, my God. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with us (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BROWN: Oh, God, thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're welcome. You're welcome.
NAPIER: Our community will recover. We have a strong community. We've got good people. We will pull together and we will be back where we were as strong if not stronger.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: But it just might take a little bit longer than people here thought. Over the weekend they were told that they might possibly be able to move back into their homes by Wednesday but now investigators and officials on site here at the command center are saying they really don't want to define any sort of time frame whatsoever. So, now the questions are still very open-ended as to when they'll go back -- Paula.
ZAHN: And, Heidi, you've described some of what the railroad plans to do for the displaced. I understand there might even be more in store for those so affected by this accident.
COLLINS: Yes, Paula, they really have reached out to the community. They are helping them with hotel reservations, with hotel costs and also even with some lost wages. They are handing out checks for people who have not been able to go to work and not collect money but unfortunately now some officials are having to look into people who are taking advantage of that.
There are those who have been actually going to the Department of Motor Vehicles and changing their addresses so that they will read Graniteville so that they may fraudulently try to pick up one of those checks and so they're really having to look out for that, especially at a time like this.
ZAHN: Yes, it never takes long for the system to be abused. Heidi Collins thanks for the update, appreciate it.
Moving along now to the tsunami that destroyed so many lives in so many places, now almost two weeks passed and across much of South Asia the colossal job of bringing order to chaos continues, delivering food and medicine to survivors, providing shelter for the homeless, recovering the bodies of the dead and in spite of all of this taking the first small steps back to normal.
Reporting from Banda Aceh, Indonesia here's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Notices appeared in local newspapers and on TV over the weekend. Monday morning Banda Aceh schools were to reopen. It seemed impossible. The churning waters of the tsunami mired many schools in mud and muck, erased other schools completely.
GORDON WEISS, UNICEF SPOKESMAN: We have a vague idea, a rough idea that in the areas that were hardest hit by the tsunami 75 percent of the schools were wiped out. We know from anecdotal assessments that large numbers of teachers killed, I mean half to three-quarters of the teachers in those areas were killed.
NISSEN: It seemed impossible. No one knew how many school children in Aceh were alive. On the last day of school before Christmas vacation, two days before the disaster, this Islamic elementary school had 1,650 students.
"We estimate that we've lost about 350 students" says the school's vice principal. He's been trying to collect names of pupils who survived. So far he has a list of only 20.
Add one more story of the impossible to the many that have come from this place. This was the scene at the Gugaja (ph) Elementary School and at least two other Aceh schools when schools reopened.
There they were in their school uniforms with their Barbie and Power Ranger backpacks. Teachers combined classes, first, second and third grade together, took quick attendance. Of their usual 120 students half were absent, displaced or dead.
But there were a few new faces, children from the nearby refugee camp, then a few more wearing the mismatched uniforms of the suddenly homeless. School aides brought in extra chairs, a bench. It was, said the school principal, a flood of children.
Within an hour this classroom was standing room only with more than 100 students. School, said a group of mothers who had walked their children here from the camp, was almost as important as shelter and food.
"Here they study and play with their friends," said this mother. "In the tents, they can only feel fear and they don't have anything to do."
Experienced aid workers saw the opening of even a few overcrowded, under supplied schools as a vital part of emergency relief here.
WEISS: You know for people who (UNINTELLIGIBLE) traumatized, psychologically damaged, shocked, recovering from the deaths of loved ones, you need some semblance of normal life to be able to grip onto. Routine is extremely important for children.
NISSEN: Routine and the comfort of the familiar, the sight of a lesson book, a teacher at the chalkboard. Before lessons began in this combined fourth, fifth, and sixth grade class, the teacher led the children in Acehnese folk song they know by heart. For a few minutes, just a few minutes, they forget all the hardships and horrors and pay attention to something else.
They do what their staggered parents, their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) neighbors, their broken community are all trying to do, learn face the future, go on.
Beth Nissen, CNN, Banda Aceh.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And in the face of all this loss there is the occasional miracle. Early today a container ship rescued an Indonesian man adrift in the Indian Ocean and brought him to Malaysia. Back on land he told reporters how he survived for 14 days after being swept out to the sea by the tsunami. First he clung to a small fishing boat. When it sank he found a raft.
And ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a discredited "60 Minutes" report created even more fallout. Four people lose their jobs or are expected to. Is that fair? Is it enough?
Also ahead, one of the most dangerous missions in Iraq driving supplies north from Kuwait. Tonight the soldiers tell their story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: There are now less than three weeks to go before elections are held in Iraq and the insurgents are stepping up their unrelenting campaign of violence killing more than a dozen people today and, once again, the assassination of a high level official. Gunmen killed Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son, who was also a police officer, as they left their home this morning.
Also in Baghdad, two American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing.
Britain is sending an additional 400 troops between now and the January 30th elections. Eighty-five hundred British troops are currently stationed in Iraq.
And, President Bush said again today that he's looking forward to the Iraqi elections and that he believes most Iraqis are excited about the process. He condemned the insurgents saying they're trying to stop the spread of democracy in Iraq.
Of course getting supplies to the troops is still a very dangerous task. The route is often hundreds of miles long. The convoy generally heads out from Kuwait and ends up wherever supplies are needed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPT. JEFF SCHNEIDER: My name is Captain Jeff Schneider (ph). I'm from Rockwell, Texas and I'm the company commander of the 227th Transportation Company. We do line haul transportation operations moving all kinds of supplies from Kuwait all over Iraq.
The first day it's driving through a lot of open desert, not a whole lot around. Our biggest challenge was some of the loads we were having problems with. We had to pull over a couple of times.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? They can't send these crap loads, you know. They got to find a much better way to package this stuff.
SCHNEIDER: I'm married. My wife's name is Meredith. We have two children, Benjamin who is two and a half, and Rachel (ph) who was born August 20th this year. I was home on R&R when she was born, which was probably the highlight of my year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's our fuel? SCHNEIDER: Spent about eight hours on the road. Hen we got to a camp where we spent the night or a little bit of the night. Yes, I have 142 different personalities to deal with and they're all great people.
All right, latest intel, no change. Rough Rider 9, this is Road Dog 6, over. Have all elements be alert when we get in Baghdad there have been two IEDs within the last 20 minutes that detonated, over.
We missed the turn to go on to Tampa. They missed the (expletive) turn. No MPGs. They don't know where the (expletive) they're going.
The visibility was a little tough with some dust that was blowing around this morning and that one turn is a tricky turn, so the lead vehicle, you know, right as you went past the turn, I said "Oh, he missed the turn."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just trying to decide which -- whether to go to the left or the right at this intersection.
SCHNEIDER: You need to go north which would be to the right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger that.
SCHNEIDER: Hey, Wolf Pack, do you copy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I'm right in behind you all. You all just keep going. We'll get around when we can.
SCHNEIDER: Hey, this is Road Dog 6. I'm not part of your convoy. I'm going the other way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's up Road Dog 6?
SCHNEIDER: Not a whole lot just taking a little trip. I'll see you all at home in a few days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck then and we'll see you when you get back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last fall, CBS appointed an independent review panel to investigate how a flawed story about President Bush's National Guard service was allowed to air on the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes." Today, the panel reported its findings and CBS took disciplinary action against a number of CBS News employees.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: And three of those people were asked to resign. They are the executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday," his deputy and a senior vice president. The producer of the story Mary Mapes was fired and today she said the story wasn't false or misleading.
She also said: "I am terribly disappointed in the conclusions of the report and its effects on the four of us. I am disappointed as well for the entire organization."
Dan Rather, who reported the story, escaped any punishment many believe because he decided to step down on March 9th marking his 24th year as the anchor of "CBS Evening News."
Jeff Greenfield has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS: Tonight, we have new documents and new information in the president's military service.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It took 12 days for Dan Rather and CBS to go from this smoking gun story about President Bush's National Guard service...
RATHER: After further investigation, we can no longer vouch for their authenticity.
GREENFIELD: ...to this acknowledgement that the documents CBS relied on were at best unreliable, maybe even forgeries. Today, more than 100 days later, CBS released its commissioned independent report on the story, which concluded that the network failed to follow basic journalistic principles. A producer and three news executives lost their jobs in the wake of the findings.
HUGH HEWITT, AUTHOR "BLOG": It's tough to say how this is going to damage CBS' reputation. We're going to have to watch this a year or two years from now and see whether the public is willing to forgive and forget and move on.
GREENFIELD (on camera): But this is not just a story about another black eye for a big news organization. It's a dramatic illustration of how a new kind of information and opinion outlet, the so-called blogosphere, is changing the whole dynamic between those who produce news and those who receive it.
(voice-over): Consider the time line of how the controversy erupted, a time line drawn last fall by Jonathan Last of the conservative magazine "The Weekly Standards."
Rather's report on "60 Minutes" aired at 8:00 p.m. Just before midnight, a writer calling himself (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sent a post to FreeRepublic.com, a conservative Web site suggesting the documents couldn't have been written on a typewriter back in the early '70s.
That post was reprinted on Power Line, then showed up on another Web site called Little Green Footballs, along with a demonstration that such documents could be created with Microsoft Word, which didn't exist back in the early '70s. By the next afternoon, the Drudge Report, one of the most widely read sites on the web, reprinted the story and the argument was now out in full public view.
It was over the next several days that the mainstream media, papers like "The Washington Post," "The Dallas Morning News," and the "Los Angeles Times" locked onto the story.
Now ask yourself without such a variety of Web sites, many with a clear political impulse to raise doubts about CBS' story, where would a viewer with a particular knowledge of typewriter fonts go to air his suspicions? Would any mainstream newspaper have listened or followed up on such a story?
HEWITT: If someone who was just a normal reader had written into, you know, the news station or a newspaper with this same story with their concerns, I really doubt that they would have listened to this, you know, one individual, lone voice in the wilderness crying out about it.
GREENFIELD (on camera): We don't yet really know how effective the blogosphere will be in correcting its own misleading or false information. Some blogs do. Some don't. But what journalists now know, mainstream journalists in particular, is that their work is being seen and judged by people who have access to a place where their doubts can be quickly and effectively distributed.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And joining me now from Washington, D.C. is a man who knows this subject inside out, Howard Kurtz, media columnist for "The Washington Post" and host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES," always good to see you Howie.
HOWARD KURTZ, MEDIA COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Same here.
ZAHN: Are you surprised Dan Rather and the president of CBS News survived this?
KURTZ: A little bit. The report certainly lays out lots of ways in which Dan Rather, for example, didn't even see this piece before it went on the air, continued to doggedly defend it, as Jeff Greenfield noted, for ten days after everybody, not just in the blogosphere, not just in the mainstream media but everybody at home could see that the foundations of this story were crumbling.
And Andrew Heyward, who presided over this and approved the piece before air but Hayward did ask some of his top lieutenants to double check and triple check some of the facts and, according to the report, that didn't get done.
ZAHN: That's what I find so interesting, because I spoke with the chief executive of CBS today, as well as the two investigators who did this investigation. And they suggested that the most egregious error was what was done in the aftermath, when Dan Rather defended this report. And had he not done so, so fiercely and had apologized swiftly, they said this whole thing would have gone away. KURTZ: As somebody who was on the phone virtually every day during that period, with Rather, with CBS executives, with Andrew Heyward, it was amazing to me that they dug in their heels and said we authenticated these documents, we're not going to do an internal investigation or an outside investigation, which later, of course, they changed their minds.
And I think they compounded the damage and dug themselves quite a deep hole by not immediately recognizing that these questions raised both by bloggers and mainstream newspapers were valid and that they had a lot of explaining to do. Instead, they really compounded their original error of airing that report, of rushing it to air, I should note, in just five days in the height of the reelection campaign.
ZAHN: But the other point, I think, is well worth mentioning, is the fact that these investigators told me, yes, they agreed that the vetting process was seriously flawed, but they could not tell me today whether they think this report was true or false.
KURTZ: They could not say for sure because it's hard to prove a negative that these documents were forgeries. But there's a long big, wide, wide difference between saying you can't prove something's a forgery and thinking that it's solid enough to put on your gold-plated program, "60 Minutes," and broadcast it to the nation and make charges against a president of the United States.
CBS didn't have it. And what's more, as we reported at the time and as this report gives us in more detail, its own document examiners, the people they hired, the supposed experts, couldn't authenticate it and raised red flags, which somehow got ignored. So, just because we don't know for sure they're forgeries doesn't mean it was worthy of being broadcast on the air.
ZAHN: I posed the question to Les Moonves, the head of CBS, about Dan's leaving in March of this year. And I said, can you honestly tell me that his deciding to step down had nothing to do with this controversy? And he maintains that they started talking about Dan's departure months in advance of this controversy. What do you think is the real truth here?
KURTZ: Well, Rather maintained that to me as well. He did acknowledge, however, that the timing of it, that he wanted to get out in front of this report. He knew that, if he had not yet announced his resignation plans before this report came out, that there would just be all of these calls for him to step down.
Of course, he's going to continue as a correspondent for "60 Minutes." I think that's going to draw some criticism in light of this report. I can't say what was in his mind. But, clearly, if he had not taken this step beforehand, CBS would be under enormous pressure to remove him from the anchor chair.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Howie Kurtz. Always appreciate your time.
KURTZ: Thank you. ZAHN: And still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, she defended one of the most wanted terrorists in U.S. history. Now she's on trial, accused of abetting terrorism.
Also ahead, a scene of a heart-stopping drama, a man caught in a fast-moving flood and saved, barely.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Anybody who travels knows that tighter security has made flying a vastly different experience since 9/11. But what about railroads?
Well, that's where CNN's "Security Watch" picks up. Railroads crisscross the country moving passengers and freight through small towns and big cities. And as we found out on 9/11, if there's a weakness terrorists can exploit, they will.
Here's Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An accidental release of chlorine gas from a train going through Washington, D.C., potentially deadly to thousands and crippling to the government, is for now not much of a concern.
We invited former Railroad Administration official George Gavalla to the nation's capital to help assess railroad security just 10 days before the inauguration, the big fear, that terrorists could blow up a tank car full of deadly chemicals. A security gap was easy to find.
(on camera): This is the extent of security here?
(voice-over): A gate next to a track just blocks from the Capitol, wide open.
(on camera): Is there by your estimation any sign at all that this place is being policed by railway employees?
GEORGE GAVALLA, FORMER RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, at the moment, no. I guess it depends on how long we actually stay here.
JOHNS (voice-over): After a citizen called to report us, police showed up; 40 minutes after we arrived, they kicked us out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys really can't be out here.
JOHNS: The rail company CSX won't comment on what substances it transports and by which routes, so as not to tip off terrorists. But after the Madrid train bombings, pressure from local officials led CSX to voluntarily reroute the most dangerous chemicals around Washington, according to D.C. Council Member Carol Schwartz. Schwartz tried to make the rerouting a law, but now says the voluntary action is working. CAROL SCHWARTZ, D.C. COUNCIL MEMBER: Of course, I would prefer that it be a mandate, but as long as it's being done, I feel like the intent of the legislation is being accomplished.
JOHNS: Good news for Washington, says Gavalla.
GAVALLA: Some of the most dangerous commodities are being rerouted away from the district. That's certainly the safest course that can be taken.
JOHNS: But rerouting means higher risk for surrounding communities, a hard fact. When it comes to protecting urban populations from railway disasters, one city's safety can end up putting others in more danger.
Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And in the wake of this deadly accident in South Carolina, this question: Has the time come to focus more security resources on the nation's railroads to make them less vulnerable to the threat of terrorism?
Joining me tonight from Boston is Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.
Welcome, Congressman. Good to have you with us tonight.
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
ZAHN: Our pleasure.
So, what vulnerability does this accident expose?
MARKEY: Well, what it does tell us is that whether it is an accident or an al Qaeda attack, that these tankers, such as that which contained the chlorine, is a highly vulnerable target that could wind up, if it was in an urban area, in Washington, in New York, in Boston, killing not a small handful, as they did in South Carolina, and that was a tragedy, but tens of thousands of people when that attack would be successful.
ZAHN: So where are we in protecting or safeguarding hazardous materials on railroads?
MARKEY: Unfortunately, the railway industry itself objects to my legislation, which would empower the administration to reroute trains to improve security, to strengthen the tanks, so that there was a greater likelihood that al Qaeda could not be successful. But, unfortunately, both the railway industry and the Bush administration oppose my legislation.
ZAHN: So where does that leave, you think, the safety of the U.S. public?
MARKEY: Well, it is not in good condition at all.
For example, the Transportation Security Agency spends so far $4 billion on aviation security, but only $10 million on rail security. And it's that disparity which unfortunately gives an opening to al Qaeda if they want to commit a terrorist act that leads to catastrophic consequences.
ZAHN: Do you see any opening when it comes to any potential piece of legislation that you think would lead us further down the path to making Americans safer along railway lines? Any hope?
MARKEY: I think unfortunately that this incident over the past weekend in South Carolina is opening up a discussion which we really have been too late in having in our country. And it gives us a chance now to perhaps dedicate the resources that is necessary in order to protect against a rail catastrophe.
We arrested, in fact, in the United States just two years ago an al Qaeda advance man who was scouting out railways for attack. In Spain, al Qaeda two years ago in fact was successful in killing many people in an attack upon a rail system. So, we know it's out there. We know that they're targeting it. And this gives us the chance perhaps to work in a bipartisan fashion. But I'm afraid still at this moment the Bush administration and the railway industry opposes those changes.
ZAHN: Congressman Ed Markey, we've got to leave it there tonight. Thanks so much for your perspective. Appreciate it.
MARKEY: Thank you.
ZAHN: Also ahead on NEWSNIGHT, he lost his car and almost lost his life, a nail-biting rescue right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Before Osama bin Laden, before al Qaeda, America's No. 1 terrorist enemy was a blind Egyptian sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman. His followers bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 and planned other attacks on New York that were thwarted. Rahman went on trial 12 years ago and was sentenced to life in prison.
Now the lawyer who represented him is defending herself against charges that she too is a terrorist. This week, a jury in New York will begin deliberating her fate.
Our "Security Watch" continues tonight with Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Prosecutors considered the radical Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman so dangerous they wanted him to disappear. After he was found guilty in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York bridges, tunnels, and landmarks, Rahman was locked away in solitary confinement. He was banned from communicating with anyone, except his immediate family and his lawyer, civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart. Now it's Stewart who's on trial.
LYNNE STEWART, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: The notion that in these cases the lawyer becomes the defendant, now, that didn't happen when people defend the mob or drug dealers or even, you know, Nazi war criminals.
FEYERICK: Stewart's alleged crime, in June 2000, she visited Rahman in prison. Afterwards, she issued a statement on his behalf, saying Rahman was withdrawing his support for a cease-fire between his militant Islamic followers and the Egyptian government.
Prosecutors say, by publicizing Rahman's message, Stewart deliberately broke prison rules. They say it amounted to a jailbreak, describing Rahman's words as more dangerous than weapons. Stewart denied any link to violence, saying she only wanted to keep her client in the public eye.
STEWART: If he had said to me, I want you to tell them that the blood shall flow and you must attack them and all, I would not have delivered that message.
FEYERICK: But that's just what prosecutors feared might happen. In 1997, Rahman followers opened fire on tourists in Luxor, Egypt, killing 58. There's no evidence that the later prison message triggered any other attacks. Legal scholars say that's not the point.
DAN RICHMAN, FORDHAM LAW SCHOOL: She's not charged with conspiring to murder. She's charged with making somebody available to a terrorist enterprise. That's what she did. And the fact that there were no grievous consequences from that action really is not a part of the legal and to my mind even the moral analysis.
FEYERICK: More troubling to some defense lawyers, videotapes of prison meetings between Rahman and his lawyer, made with a court order, but without Stewart's knowledge.
STEWART: It's one of the real sacred precincts of the law, that you know, your client should feel absolutely free to tell you whatever he needs to tell you and that you should be free to give whatever advice you think you need to give.
FEYERICK (on camera): Stewart lost the fight to keep the tapes from being shown to a jury. She faces up to 20 years in prison and says, if she is convicted, it will have a chilling effect on all defense lawyers and who they choose to represent.
Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And here's a quick look at some of the other stories from around the world. The trial of Army Specialist Charles Graner is now under way. He is the alleged ringleader of the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison. Witnesses testified today that they saw him punch an Iraqi inmate and made other prisoners pose naked. But his lawyer said he was just following orders.
President Bush reached out to newly elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. He said he looks forward to working with Abbas and extended him an invitation to visit Washington, something the president never offered Yasser Arafat.
Stacks of new information about the oil-for-food scandal at the U.N. have now been released. The documents show how the U.N. agencies in charge of the program lost millions of dollars through questionable overpayments and employee fraud.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, where's Ross Perot today? A look back at a man who encouraged millions of Americans to care about politics and to understand 1-800 numbers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Ross Perot became a household name more than a decade ago when he ran for president. And as part of CNN's anniversary series, "Then and Now," we take a look back at his impact on American politics.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSS PEROT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you so much.
When I go to Washington...
ANNOUNCER: H. Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire with an eye on the bottom line, a nose for shaking up politics, and an ear for a catchy phrase.
PEROT: I don't mean subsidize business. I don't mean burp them and diaper them. But, I mean, let's stop breaking their legs first thing every morning.
ANNOUNCER: Perot appeared on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE" in 1992 and announced he would run for president if the people wanted him.
PEROT: I will not run as either a Democrat or Republican, because I will not sell out to anybody but to the American people.
ANNOUNCER: Millions of Americans responded by signing petitions to get him on the ballot.
PEROT: Thank you very much.
ANNOUNCER: Perot became the candidate and leader of the Reform Party. Using $57 million of his own money, Perot captured 19 percent of the popular vote in the '92 election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you swear to tell the truth...
ANNOUNCER: Nearly a decade after his last run for president in 1996, Perot champions the cause of veterans and POWs, something he's worked on since the Vietnam War. PEROT: We need to be sure we can protect our men and treat our men in future wars.
ANNOUNCER: Perot turns 75 this year, and recently received the Eisenhower Award in honor of his work with veterans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And throughout this year, CNN will be looking back at the major stories from the last 25 years, as we mark 25 years of broadcasting. We'll revisit some of the stories that affected our lives and find out what happened to yesterday's newsmakers.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, back to the West Coast and a touch-and-go rescue mission. We'll show you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: We leave you tonight with a remarkable story of survival from outside of Los Angeles.
Here's Miguel Marquez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on now, come on now, come on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on!
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hit the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hit the water.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a rescue that almost didn't happen. The minutes leading up to the rescue are an example of training, ingenuity, sweat, and pure luck. The man on top of the BMW is William McRee (ph), an eye surgeon from central California. He and his Beamer are floating down a rain-swollen drainage canal called Coyote Creek in suburban Los Angeles. How he got there is a story in itself.
(on camera): McRee, his two kids, and his BMW, started off about a mile upstream, where he slid off the Santa Ana Freeway into the Coyote Creek Wash, and it was here only minutes later where he ended up and was eventually rescued.
(voice-over): McRee's 11-year-old daughter and her 12-year-old friend were hoisted to safety right after the car went in the creek. But that's when McRee and his car headed south.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grab the rope! Grab it tight! Grab it tight!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get off the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over here, over here!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on, dude!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is he?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got him over here.
MARQUEZ: McRee held tightly to a rope, the water rushing so fast it pulled his pants down around his ankles. For a moment, firefighters think they lost him. Then they did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's in the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hit the water. A vest!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grab a vest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, there you go. Hold on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on, hold on!
MARQUEZ: A closer view shows McRee literally at the end of the rope. As firefighters tried desperately to pull him to waiting hands, the rope runs out.
Right about the time that we were attempting to stop the pull on the rope and go -- and grab him was when he let go. He just didn't have the strength any longer.
MARQUEZ: McRee is able to grab a life vest tethered to a rope on the far side of the bridge.
CAPT. MARK TUBBS, SANTA FE SPRINGS FIRE DEPARTMENT: Right about the time that we were attempting to stop the pull on the rope and go and grab him was when he let go. He just didn't have the strength any longer.
MARQUEZ: Finally, McRee grabs a life vest tethered to a rope, and rescuers inch him to the side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes! Yes! Right on!
TUBBS: We'll be talking about this for a long time. We'll critique our actions. We'll try to better, we'll improve. But it was just a great day. It's a once-in-a-lifetime career incident. And I can't wait to go home and, you know, kiss my wife and the kids and tell them, You know what? We did a great job today.
CAPT. THOMAS MCGAULEY, SANTA FE SPRINGS FIRE DEPARTMENT: It's an unusual feeling. I mean, that's not something we feel in this line of work a lot. You know, even now, I feel a little emotional about it, you know. But it's a joy that you can't really describe.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles. (END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Bravo. And that was one lucky man.
That wraps it up for all of us here. Aaron is back tomorrow. Thanks for joining us tonight.
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 January 10, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: That's where we begin tonight, Larry thanks so much, on the West Coast where nature is unleashing her fury. Rain and snow have been pummeling the region and today the death toll from the storms has reached ten. The latest victim was caught in a colossal mudslide. Look at this, northwest of Los Angeles. We have several reports tonight on the deadly winter weather.
We start in La Conchita, California with our own Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than 160 rescue workers are working through the night here searching and listening for survivors in a massive 30-foot pile of mud and rubble. At least nine people have been pulled from the rubble. At least three of those were kept alive by pockets of air.
BILL HARDISON, GOOD SAMARITAN: People were in voids like corners of the home, under a doorway, under some furniture and stuff and so what it was is the mud and the debris that collapsed the house and they had just this little cubicle that they were in. And so, the crews were able to go in there, get that off of them.
ROWLANDS: In an instant, a rain-soaked hillside gave way sending an avalanche of mud and debris into more than a dozen homes below.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just popped and just came rushing down like a freight train and just plowed through probably over a dozen houses.
ROWLANDS: Crews were in the area at the time of the slide. As the residents ran for cover, firefighters tried frantically to rescue survivors. They plan to keep searching but there is concern tonight about the possibility that there may be another slide.
HARDISON: The geologists are concerned that that mud flow may start pushing more of the hill down and as it releases that part of the hill the other parts of the hill that are unstable then may also start sliding down.
ROWLANDS: Homeowners were in the process of being evacuated when the hillside gave way. La Conchita, a seaside community between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, has a history of mudslides. The most significant one until now was in 1995 when nine homes were destroyed.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ROWLANDS: And, Paula, two people have been confirmed dead, both adult males. They do plan to continue to search throughout the night. The last survivor to be pulled out a few hours ago told searchers that she believes her neighbors are still in that pile and rescuers plan to do everything they can to try to pull them out, hopefully alive -- Paula.
ZAHN: We hope that is the case. Ted Rowlands thanks so much, Ted pointing out in a very clear way how challenging those conditions are for those rescue workers.
Meanwhile in the mountains of northern California, the problem is snow, too much of it. The region around Lake Tahoe hasn't seen this much snow in nearly 90 years. Now, combine that with high winds and a winter wonderland turns very dangerous.
Jason Bellini has that part of the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are two views, up here and down there. Up here high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains crystal cathedrals thanks to the string of powerful storm systems dumping as much as 19 feet of snow.
Down there, Lake Tahoe, communities whose winter economies survive on snow were nearly suffocating in the four and a half feet of it that fell over the weekend. With visibility at zero, transit officials Saturday shut vast stretches of highway linking California and Nevada fearing avalanches.
LEL TONE, SQUAW VALLEY SKI PATROL: A lot of accidents happen. The winds are absolutely screaming on the ridges. We had winds last night of 163 miles per hour.
BELLINI: At a ski mountain, north of Las Vegas, a 13-year-old boy died Sunday when an avalanche knocked him off a ski lift and buried him. Monday, the snow let up for a little while long enough for a silver lining to come into view.
CHRIS BURKE, ZEPHYR SNOWMOBILE CENTER: From our standpoint this will guarantee us a great winter season and that helps us on a lot of fronts. Not only will it extend the snowmobile and ski season but the lake has been dangerously low. We've been in drought levels the last couple of years and this will help bring the level of the lake up.
BELLINI: This is Chris Burke's 18th year leading snowmobile tours.
BURKE: This is like nature sculpting our trees up here. You don't see this very often. I've only seen this twice before.
BELLINI: The dark side, road closures for some ski resorts to close. Others suspended operations due to high winds and avalanche danger. The bright side skiers brave enough to tackle the slopes are experiencing the powder of a lifetime. BURKE: This is where you get your perspective and you kind of find your place and your sense of what Lake Tahoe is all about.
BELLINI: Lake Tahoe is expecting up to another five feet of snow Monday night into Tuesday lots more shoveling before the perspective down there changes.
Jason Bellini CNN, Lake Tahoe, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: But one of the most dramatic images out of the west was this. A man trapped on the top of his car after driving off the freeway into a raging torrent that was once a creek. Coming up on NEWSNIGHT, we're going to have more on his dramatic rescue. The pictures are absolutely incredible.
Now on the opposite side of the country thousands of people in South Carolina are waiting to return to their homes five days after a train wreck resulted in a deadly chlorine leak. Nine people died in the accident. Hundreds more were injured.
Tonight in our CNN "Security Watch," Heidi Collins has the latest from Graniteville.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My family and my friends that are displaced our community I went through it the other night, it's like a ghost town. I haven't seen that in 53 years.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If anyone can speak for his friends, family and an entire town for that matter, it would be Graniteville Fire Chief Phil Napier.
PHIL NAPIER, FIRE CHIEF: I've got to be tough. I've got to stand up and I'm not too proud to cry before them and I have.
COLLINS: There have been many tears since 3:00 a.m. Thursday morning. A 42-car Norfolk Southern freight train slammed into another train parked in the siding of the tracks. Three cars on the larger train were carrying deadly liquid chlorine.
Four of Chief Napier's men who lived close by the accident headed directly in to ground zero. They had no idea that chlorine was leaking and rushed in to a cloud concealing a toxic enemy with no protection at all. Chief Napier heard it on his radio.
NAPIER: One of the men started screaming "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I need help." And I started hollering for them to get out of there and I proceeded around in the opposite direction and not knowing that I was going right to the accident.
There was (sic) two men standing there. One was laying on the ground and I stopped and I rolled my window down and the gentleman says "We've had a head-on collision with the train. We've got a chemical leak. I can't breathe" and he went down.
And about the same time it hit me. I couldn't breathe and it was just like all I remember from that point was just like my life ended. I made a U-turn and I don't know where I went or how I got there. I mean it's just like there's a blank in my life like I was dead and I found out at a later time that the man I talked to was the engineer and the conductor of the train.
COLLINS: Twenty-eight-year-old engineer Christopher Selig (ph) of West Columbia, South Carolina died moments after Chief Napier watched him fall to the ground. Leaving the men behind is not something the chief handles well.
NAPIER: It's rewarding to be able to help people but it's -- it's bad when there's incidents that you can't.
COLLINS: But in a community like this help comes in many ways, shelters for the more than 5,000 people ordered to leave their homes, food for hundreds of law enforcement officials and even financial help directly from Norfolk Southern Railroad.
LORIE BROWN, RESIDENT: She's my little 9-year-old's dog, you know.
COLLINS: Yes.
BROWN: And we love her and we want her to be alive.
COLLINS: Lorie Brown lives on the outskirts of the mandatory evacuation zone. She didn't expect to be gone so long.
BROWN: And we would have never left our dog. I feel so guilty for leaving her. I shouldn't have left her. I didn't know this was going to happen.
COLLINS: Many pets were left stranded in their homes. Others ran free through parts of town happy to stop for food that sheriff's deputies started leaving out in fields.
BROWN: I'm sorry, sir. I haven't slept in several days. I just want to take her home.
COLLINS: Sheriff's deputies put the health rules aside and decided to go beyond the barricades. No one knew if the dog had survived.
BROWN: She's alive. Oh, my God. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She (UNINTELLIGIBLE) with us (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
BROWN: Oh, God, thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're welcome. You're welcome.
NAPIER: Our community will recover. We have a strong community. We've got good people. We will pull together and we will be back where we were as strong if not stronger.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: But it just might take a little bit longer than people here thought. Over the weekend they were told that they might possibly be able to move back into their homes by Wednesday but now investigators and officials on site here at the command center are saying they really don't want to define any sort of time frame whatsoever. So, now the questions are still very open-ended as to when they'll go back -- Paula.
ZAHN: And, Heidi, you've described some of what the railroad plans to do for the displaced. I understand there might even be more in store for those so affected by this accident.
COLLINS: Yes, Paula, they really have reached out to the community. They are helping them with hotel reservations, with hotel costs and also even with some lost wages. They are handing out checks for people who have not been able to go to work and not collect money but unfortunately now some officials are having to look into people who are taking advantage of that.
There are those who have been actually going to the Department of Motor Vehicles and changing their addresses so that they will read Graniteville so that they may fraudulently try to pick up one of those checks and so they're really having to look out for that, especially at a time like this.
ZAHN: Yes, it never takes long for the system to be abused. Heidi Collins thanks for the update, appreciate it.
Moving along now to the tsunami that destroyed so many lives in so many places, now almost two weeks passed and across much of South Asia the colossal job of bringing order to chaos continues, delivering food and medicine to survivors, providing shelter for the homeless, recovering the bodies of the dead and in spite of all of this taking the first small steps back to normal.
Reporting from Banda Aceh, Indonesia here's Beth Nissen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Notices appeared in local newspapers and on TV over the weekend. Monday morning Banda Aceh schools were to reopen. It seemed impossible. The churning waters of the tsunami mired many schools in mud and muck, erased other schools completely.
GORDON WEISS, UNICEF SPOKESMAN: We have a vague idea, a rough idea that in the areas that were hardest hit by the tsunami 75 percent of the schools were wiped out. We know from anecdotal assessments that large numbers of teachers killed, I mean half to three-quarters of the teachers in those areas were killed.
NISSEN: It seemed impossible. No one knew how many school children in Aceh were alive. On the last day of school before Christmas vacation, two days before the disaster, this Islamic elementary school had 1,650 students.
"We estimate that we've lost about 350 students" says the school's vice principal. He's been trying to collect names of pupils who survived. So far he has a list of only 20.
Add one more story of the impossible to the many that have come from this place. This was the scene at the Gugaja (ph) Elementary School and at least two other Aceh schools when schools reopened.
There they were in their school uniforms with their Barbie and Power Ranger backpacks. Teachers combined classes, first, second and third grade together, took quick attendance. Of their usual 120 students half were absent, displaced or dead.
But there were a few new faces, children from the nearby refugee camp, then a few more wearing the mismatched uniforms of the suddenly homeless. School aides brought in extra chairs, a bench. It was, said the school principal, a flood of children.
Within an hour this classroom was standing room only with more than 100 students. School, said a group of mothers who had walked their children here from the camp, was almost as important as shelter and food.
"Here they study and play with their friends," said this mother. "In the tents, they can only feel fear and they don't have anything to do."
Experienced aid workers saw the opening of even a few overcrowded, under supplied schools as a vital part of emergency relief here.
WEISS: You know for people who (UNINTELLIGIBLE) traumatized, psychologically damaged, shocked, recovering from the deaths of loved ones, you need some semblance of normal life to be able to grip onto. Routine is extremely important for children.
NISSEN: Routine and the comfort of the familiar, the sight of a lesson book, a teacher at the chalkboard. Before lessons began in this combined fourth, fifth, and sixth grade class, the teacher led the children in Acehnese folk song they know by heart. For a few minutes, just a few minutes, they forget all the hardships and horrors and pay attention to something else.
They do what their staggered parents, their (UNINTELLIGIBLE) neighbors, their broken community are all trying to do, learn face the future, go on.
Beth Nissen, CNN, Banda Aceh.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And in the face of all this loss there is the occasional miracle. Early today a container ship rescued an Indonesian man adrift in the Indian Ocean and brought him to Malaysia. Back on land he told reporters how he survived for 14 days after being swept out to the sea by the tsunami. First he clung to a small fishing boat. When it sank he found a raft.
And ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a discredited "60 Minutes" report created even more fallout. Four people lose their jobs or are expected to. Is that fair? Is it enough?
Also ahead, one of the most dangerous missions in Iraq driving supplies north from Kuwait. Tonight the soldiers tell their story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: There are now less than three weeks to go before elections are held in Iraq and the insurgents are stepping up their unrelenting campaign of violence killing more than a dozen people today and, once again, the assassination of a high level official. Gunmen killed Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son, who was also a police officer, as they left their home this morning.
Also in Baghdad, two American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing.
Britain is sending an additional 400 troops between now and the January 30th elections. Eighty-five hundred British troops are currently stationed in Iraq.
And, President Bush said again today that he's looking forward to the Iraqi elections and that he believes most Iraqis are excited about the process. He condemned the insurgents saying they're trying to stop the spread of democracy in Iraq.
Of course getting supplies to the troops is still a very dangerous task. The route is often hundreds of miles long. The convoy generally heads out from Kuwait and ends up wherever supplies are needed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAPT. JEFF SCHNEIDER: My name is Captain Jeff Schneider (ph). I'm from Rockwell, Texas and I'm the company commander of the 227th Transportation Company. We do line haul transportation operations moving all kinds of supplies from Kuwait all over Iraq.
The first day it's driving through a lot of open desert, not a whole lot around. Our biggest challenge was some of the loads we were having problems with. We had to pull over a couple of times.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? They can't send these crap loads, you know. They got to find a much better way to package this stuff.
SCHNEIDER: I'm married. My wife's name is Meredith. We have two children, Benjamin who is two and a half, and Rachel (ph) who was born August 20th this year. I was home on R&R when she was born, which was probably the highlight of my year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's our fuel? SCHNEIDER: Spent about eight hours on the road. Hen we got to a camp where we spent the night or a little bit of the night. Yes, I have 142 different personalities to deal with and they're all great people.
All right, latest intel, no change. Rough Rider 9, this is Road Dog 6, over. Have all elements be alert when we get in Baghdad there have been two IEDs within the last 20 minutes that detonated, over.
We missed the turn to go on to Tampa. They missed the (expletive) turn. No MPGs. They don't know where the (expletive) they're going.
The visibility was a little tough with some dust that was blowing around this morning and that one turn is a tricky turn, so the lead vehicle, you know, right as you went past the turn, I said "Oh, he missed the turn."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just trying to decide which -- whether to go to the left or the right at this intersection.
SCHNEIDER: You need to go north which would be to the right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger that.
SCHNEIDER: Hey, Wolf Pack, do you copy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I'm right in behind you all. You all just keep going. We'll get around when we can.
SCHNEIDER: Hey, this is Road Dog 6. I'm not part of your convoy. I'm going the other way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's up Road Dog 6?
SCHNEIDER: Not a whole lot just taking a little trip. I'll see you all at home in a few days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck then and we'll see you when you get back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last fall, CBS appointed an independent review panel to investigate how a flawed story about President Bush's National Guard service was allowed to air on the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes." Today, the panel reported its findings and CBS took disciplinary action against a number of CBS News employees.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: And three of those people were asked to resign. They are the executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday," his deputy and a senior vice president. The producer of the story Mary Mapes was fired and today she said the story wasn't false or misleading.
She also said: "I am terribly disappointed in the conclusions of the report and its effects on the four of us. I am disappointed as well for the entire organization."
Dan Rather, who reported the story, escaped any punishment many believe because he decided to step down on March 9th marking his 24th year as the anchor of "CBS Evening News."
Jeff Greenfield has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS: Tonight, we have new documents and new information in the president's military service.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It took 12 days for Dan Rather and CBS to go from this smoking gun story about President Bush's National Guard service...
RATHER: After further investigation, we can no longer vouch for their authenticity.
GREENFIELD: ...to this acknowledgement that the documents CBS relied on were at best unreliable, maybe even forgeries. Today, more than 100 days later, CBS released its commissioned independent report on the story, which concluded that the network failed to follow basic journalistic principles. A producer and three news executives lost their jobs in the wake of the findings.
HUGH HEWITT, AUTHOR "BLOG": It's tough to say how this is going to damage CBS' reputation. We're going to have to watch this a year or two years from now and see whether the public is willing to forgive and forget and move on.
GREENFIELD (on camera): But this is not just a story about another black eye for a big news organization. It's a dramatic illustration of how a new kind of information and opinion outlet, the so-called blogosphere, is changing the whole dynamic between those who produce news and those who receive it.
(voice-over): Consider the time line of how the controversy erupted, a time line drawn last fall by Jonathan Last of the conservative magazine "The Weekly Standards."
Rather's report on "60 Minutes" aired at 8:00 p.m. Just before midnight, a writer calling himself (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sent a post to FreeRepublic.com, a conservative Web site suggesting the documents couldn't have been written on a typewriter back in the early '70s.
That post was reprinted on Power Line, then showed up on another Web site called Little Green Footballs, along with a demonstration that such documents could be created with Microsoft Word, which didn't exist back in the early '70s. By the next afternoon, the Drudge Report, one of the most widely read sites on the web, reprinted the story and the argument was now out in full public view.
It was over the next several days that the mainstream media, papers like "The Washington Post," "The Dallas Morning News," and the "Los Angeles Times" locked onto the story.
Now ask yourself without such a variety of Web sites, many with a clear political impulse to raise doubts about CBS' story, where would a viewer with a particular knowledge of typewriter fonts go to air his suspicions? Would any mainstream newspaper have listened or followed up on such a story?
HEWITT: If someone who was just a normal reader had written into, you know, the news station or a newspaper with this same story with their concerns, I really doubt that they would have listened to this, you know, one individual, lone voice in the wilderness crying out about it.
GREENFIELD (on camera): We don't yet really know how effective the blogosphere will be in correcting its own misleading or false information. Some blogs do. Some don't. But what journalists now know, mainstream journalists in particular, is that their work is being seen and judged by people who have access to a place where their doubts can be quickly and effectively distributed.
Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And joining me now from Washington, D.C. is a man who knows this subject inside out, Howard Kurtz, media columnist for "The Washington Post" and host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES," always good to see you Howie.
HOWARD KURTZ, MEDIA COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Same here.
ZAHN: Are you surprised Dan Rather and the president of CBS News survived this?
KURTZ: A little bit. The report certainly lays out lots of ways in which Dan Rather, for example, didn't even see this piece before it went on the air, continued to doggedly defend it, as Jeff Greenfield noted, for ten days after everybody, not just in the blogosphere, not just in the mainstream media but everybody at home could see that the foundations of this story were crumbling.
And Andrew Heyward, who presided over this and approved the piece before air but Hayward did ask some of his top lieutenants to double check and triple check some of the facts and, according to the report, that didn't get done.
ZAHN: That's what I find so interesting, because I spoke with the chief executive of CBS today, as well as the two investigators who did this investigation. And they suggested that the most egregious error was what was done in the aftermath, when Dan Rather defended this report. And had he not done so, so fiercely and had apologized swiftly, they said this whole thing would have gone away. KURTZ: As somebody who was on the phone virtually every day during that period, with Rather, with CBS executives, with Andrew Heyward, it was amazing to me that they dug in their heels and said we authenticated these documents, we're not going to do an internal investigation or an outside investigation, which later, of course, they changed their minds.
And I think they compounded the damage and dug themselves quite a deep hole by not immediately recognizing that these questions raised both by bloggers and mainstream newspapers were valid and that they had a lot of explaining to do. Instead, they really compounded their original error of airing that report, of rushing it to air, I should note, in just five days in the height of the reelection campaign.
ZAHN: But the other point, I think, is well worth mentioning, is the fact that these investigators told me, yes, they agreed that the vetting process was seriously flawed, but they could not tell me today whether they think this report was true or false.
KURTZ: They could not say for sure because it's hard to prove a negative that these documents were forgeries. But there's a long big, wide, wide difference between saying you can't prove something's a forgery and thinking that it's solid enough to put on your gold-plated program, "60 Minutes," and broadcast it to the nation and make charges against a president of the United States.
CBS didn't have it. And what's more, as we reported at the time and as this report gives us in more detail, its own document examiners, the people they hired, the supposed experts, couldn't authenticate it and raised red flags, which somehow got ignored. So, just because we don't know for sure they're forgeries doesn't mean it was worthy of being broadcast on the air.
ZAHN: I posed the question to Les Moonves, the head of CBS, about Dan's leaving in March of this year. And I said, can you honestly tell me that his deciding to step down had nothing to do with this controversy? And he maintains that they started talking about Dan's departure months in advance of this controversy. What do you think is the real truth here?
KURTZ: Well, Rather maintained that to me as well. He did acknowledge, however, that the timing of it, that he wanted to get out in front of this report. He knew that, if he had not yet announced his resignation plans before this report came out, that there would just be all of these calls for him to step down.
Of course, he's going to continue as a correspondent for "60 Minutes." I think that's going to draw some criticism in light of this report. I can't say what was in his mind. But, clearly, if he had not taken this step beforehand, CBS would be under enormous pressure to remove him from the anchor chair.
ZAHN: Thanks so much, Howie Kurtz. Always appreciate your time.
KURTZ: Thank you. ZAHN: And still to come on NEWSNIGHT tonight, she defended one of the most wanted terrorists in U.S. history. Now she's on trial, accused of abetting terrorism.
Also ahead, a scene of a heart-stopping drama, a man caught in a fast-moving flood and saved, barely.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Anybody who travels knows that tighter security has made flying a vastly different experience since 9/11. But what about railroads?
Well, that's where CNN's "Security Watch" picks up. Railroads crisscross the country moving passengers and freight through small towns and big cities. And as we found out on 9/11, if there's a weakness terrorists can exploit, they will.
Here's Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An accidental release of chlorine gas from a train going through Washington, D.C., potentially deadly to thousands and crippling to the government, is for now not much of a concern.
We invited former Railroad Administration official George Gavalla to the nation's capital to help assess railroad security just 10 days before the inauguration, the big fear, that terrorists could blow up a tank car full of deadly chemicals. A security gap was easy to find.
(on camera): This is the extent of security here?
(voice-over): A gate next to a track just blocks from the Capitol, wide open.
(on camera): Is there by your estimation any sign at all that this place is being policed by railway employees?
GEORGE GAVALLA, FORMER RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, at the moment, no. I guess it depends on how long we actually stay here.
JOHNS (voice-over): After a citizen called to report us, police showed up; 40 minutes after we arrived, they kicked us out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys really can't be out here.
JOHNS: The rail company CSX won't comment on what substances it transports and by which routes, so as not to tip off terrorists. But after the Madrid train bombings, pressure from local officials led CSX to voluntarily reroute the most dangerous chemicals around Washington, according to D.C. Council Member Carol Schwartz. Schwartz tried to make the rerouting a law, but now says the voluntary action is working. CAROL SCHWARTZ, D.C. COUNCIL MEMBER: Of course, I would prefer that it be a mandate, but as long as it's being done, I feel like the intent of the legislation is being accomplished.
JOHNS: Good news for Washington, says Gavalla.
GAVALLA: Some of the most dangerous commodities are being rerouted away from the district. That's certainly the safest course that can be taken.
JOHNS: But rerouting means higher risk for surrounding communities, a hard fact. When it comes to protecting urban populations from railway disasters, one city's safety can end up putting others in more danger.
Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And in the wake of this deadly accident in South Carolina, this question: Has the time come to focus more security resources on the nation's railroads to make them less vulnerable to the threat of terrorism?
Joining me tonight from Boston is Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.
Welcome, Congressman. Good to have you with us tonight.
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
ZAHN: Our pleasure.
So, what vulnerability does this accident expose?
MARKEY: Well, what it does tell us is that whether it is an accident or an al Qaeda attack, that these tankers, such as that which contained the chlorine, is a highly vulnerable target that could wind up, if it was in an urban area, in Washington, in New York, in Boston, killing not a small handful, as they did in South Carolina, and that was a tragedy, but tens of thousands of people when that attack would be successful.
ZAHN: So where are we in protecting or safeguarding hazardous materials on railroads?
MARKEY: Unfortunately, the railway industry itself objects to my legislation, which would empower the administration to reroute trains to improve security, to strengthen the tanks, so that there was a greater likelihood that al Qaeda could not be successful. But, unfortunately, both the railway industry and the Bush administration oppose my legislation.
ZAHN: So where does that leave, you think, the safety of the U.S. public?
MARKEY: Well, it is not in good condition at all.
For example, the Transportation Security Agency spends so far $4 billion on aviation security, but only $10 million on rail security. And it's that disparity which unfortunately gives an opening to al Qaeda if they want to commit a terrorist act that leads to catastrophic consequences.
ZAHN: Do you see any opening when it comes to any potential piece of legislation that you think would lead us further down the path to making Americans safer along railway lines? Any hope?
MARKEY: I think unfortunately that this incident over the past weekend in South Carolina is opening up a discussion which we really have been too late in having in our country. And it gives us a chance now to perhaps dedicate the resources that is necessary in order to protect against a rail catastrophe.
We arrested, in fact, in the United States just two years ago an al Qaeda advance man who was scouting out railways for attack. In Spain, al Qaeda two years ago in fact was successful in killing many people in an attack upon a rail system. So, we know it's out there. We know that they're targeting it. And this gives us the chance perhaps to work in a bipartisan fashion. But I'm afraid still at this moment the Bush administration and the railway industry opposes those changes.
ZAHN: Congressman Ed Markey, we've got to leave it there tonight. Thanks so much for your perspective. Appreciate it.
MARKEY: Thank you.
ZAHN: Also ahead on NEWSNIGHT, he lost his car and almost lost his life, a nail-biting rescue right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Before Osama bin Laden, before al Qaeda, America's No. 1 terrorist enemy was a blind Egyptian sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman. His followers bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 and planned other attacks on New York that were thwarted. Rahman went on trial 12 years ago and was sentenced to life in prison.
Now the lawyer who represented him is defending herself against charges that she too is a terrorist. This week, a jury in New York will begin deliberating her fate.
Our "Security Watch" continues tonight with Deborah Feyerick.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Prosecutors considered the radical Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman so dangerous they wanted him to disappear. After he was found guilty in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York bridges, tunnels, and landmarks, Rahman was locked away in solitary confinement. He was banned from communicating with anyone, except his immediate family and his lawyer, civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart. Now it's Stewart who's on trial.
LYNNE STEWART, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: The notion that in these cases the lawyer becomes the defendant, now, that didn't happen when people defend the mob or drug dealers or even, you know, Nazi war criminals.
FEYERICK: Stewart's alleged crime, in June 2000, she visited Rahman in prison. Afterwards, she issued a statement on his behalf, saying Rahman was withdrawing his support for a cease-fire between his militant Islamic followers and the Egyptian government.
Prosecutors say, by publicizing Rahman's message, Stewart deliberately broke prison rules. They say it amounted to a jailbreak, describing Rahman's words as more dangerous than weapons. Stewart denied any link to violence, saying she only wanted to keep her client in the public eye.
STEWART: If he had said to me, I want you to tell them that the blood shall flow and you must attack them and all, I would not have delivered that message.
FEYERICK: But that's just what prosecutors feared might happen. In 1997, Rahman followers opened fire on tourists in Luxor, Egypt, killing 58. There's no evidence that the later prison message triggered any other attacks. Legal scholars say that's not the point.
DAN RICHMAN, FORDHAM LAW SCHOOL: She's not charged with conspiring to murder. She's charged with making somebody available to a terrorist enterprise. That's what she did. And the fact that there were no grievous consequences from that action really is not a part of the legal and to my mind even the moral analysis.
FEYERICK: More troubling to some defense lawyers, videotapes of prison meetings between Rahman and his lawyer, made with a court order, but without Stewart's knowledge.
STEWART: It's one of the real sacred precincts of the law, that you know, your client should feel absolutely free to tell you whatever he needs to tell you and that you should be free to give whatever advice you think you need to give.
FEYERICK (on camera): Stewart lost the fight to keep the tapes from being shown to a jury. She faces up to 20 years in prison and says, if she is convicted, it will have a chilling effect on all defense lawyers and who they choose to represent.
Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And here's a quick look at some of the other stories from around the world. The trial of Army Specialist Charles Graner is now under way. He is the alleged ringleader of the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison. Witnesses testified today that they saw him punch an Iraqi inmate and made other prisoners pose naked. But his lawyer said he was just following orders.
President Bush reached out to newly elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. He said he looks forward to working with Abbas and extended him an invitation to visit Washington, something the president never offered Yasser Arafat.
Stacks of new information about the oil-for-food scandal at the U.N. have now been released. The documents show how the U.N. agencies in charge of the program lost millions of dollars through questionable overpayments and employee fraud.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, where's Ross Perot today? A look back at a man who encouraged millions of Americans to care about politics and to understand 1-800 numbers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: Ross Perot became a household name more than a decade ago when he ran for president. And as part of CNN's anniversary series, "Then and Now," we take a look back at his impact on American politics.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSS PEROT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you so much.
When I go to Washington...
ANNOUNCER: H. Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire with an eye on the bottom line, a nose for shaking up politics, and an ear for a catchy phrase.
PEROT: I don't mean subsidize business. I don't mean burp them and diaper them. But, I mean, let's stop breaking their legs first thing every morning.
ANNOUNCER: Perot appeared on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE" in 1992 and announced he would run for president if the people wanted him.
PEROT: I will not run as either a Democrat or Republican, because I will not sell out to anybody but to the American people.
ANNOUNCER: Millions of Americans responded by signing petitions to get him on the ballot.
PEROT: Thank you very much.
ANNOUNCER: Perot became the candidate and leader of the Reform Party. Using $57 million of his own money, Perot captured 19 percent of the popular vote in the '92 election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you swear to tell the truth...
ANNOUNCER: Nearly a decade after his last run for president in 1996, Perot champions the cause of veterans and POWs, something he's worked on since the Vietnam War. PEROT: We need to be sure we can protect our men and treat our men in future wars.
ANNOUNCER: Perot turns 75 this year, and recently received the Eisenhower Award in honor of his work with veterans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And throughout this year, CNN will be looking back at the major stories from the last 25 years, as we mark 25 years of broadcasting. We'll revisit some of the stories that affected our lives and find out what happened to yesterday's newsmakers.
Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, back to the West Coast and a touch-and-go rescue mission. We'll show you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: We leave you tonight with a remarkable story of survival from outside of Los Angeles.
Here's Miguel Marquez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on now, come on now, come on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on!
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hit the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hit the water.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a rescue that almost didn't happen. The minutes leading up to the rescue are an example of training, ingenuity, sweat, and pure luck. The man on top of the BMW is William McRee (ph), an eye surgeon from central California. He and his Beamer are floating down a rain-swollen drainage canal called Coyote Creek in suburban Los Angeles. How he got there is a story in itself.
(on camera): McRee, his two kids, and his BMW, started off about a mile upstream, where he slid off the Santa Ana Freeway into the Coyote Creek Wash, and it was here only minutes later where he ended up and was eventually rescued.
(voice-over): McRee's 11-year-old daughter and her 12-year-old friend were hoisted to safety right after the car went in the creek. But that's when McRee and his car headed south.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grab the rope! Grab it tight! Grab it tight!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get off the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you guys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Over here, over here!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on, dude!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is he?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got him over here.
MARQUEZ: McRee held tightly to a rope, the water rushing so fast it pulled his pants down around his ankles. For a moment, firefighters think they lost him. Then they did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's in the water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hit the water. A vest!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Grab a vest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, there you go. Hold on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on, hold on!
MARQUEZ: A closer view shows McRee literally at the end of the rope. As firefighters tried desperately to pull him to waiting hands, the rope runs out.
Right about the time that we were attempting to stop the pull on the rope and go -- and grab him was when he let go. He just didn't have the strength any longer.
MARQUEZ: McRee is able to grab a life vest tethered to a rope on the far side of the bridge.
CAPT. MARK TUBBS, SANTA FE SPRINGS FIRE DEPARTMENT: Right about the time that we were attempting to stop the pull on the rope and go and grab him was when he let go. He just didn't have the strength any longer.
MARQUEZ: Finally, McRee grabs a life vest tethered to a rope, and rescuers inch him to the side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes! Yes! Right on!
TUBBS: We'll be talking about this for a long time. We'll critique our actions. We'll try to better, we'll improve. But it was just a great day. It's a once-in-a-lifetime career incident. And I can't wait to go home and, you know, kiss my wife and the kids and tell them, You know what? We did a great job today.
CAPT. THOMAS MCGAULEY, SANTA FE SPRINGS FIRE DEPARTMENT: It's an unusual feeling. I mean, that's not something we feel in this line of work a lot. You know, even now, I feel a little emotional about it, you know. But it's a joy that you can't really describe.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Los Angeles. (END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: Bravo. And that was one lucky man.
That wraps it up for all of us here. Aaron is back tomorrow. Thanks for joining us tonight.
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