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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Storms in the West; Heartbreaking Choices in Tsunami's Wake; Is Iraq Spinning Out of Control?

Aired January 11, 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.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And, it's nice to see you all again. Good evening again. It's been a while since we've been back here, a week's vacation and a week in Indonesia, so it's nice to be back with much ground to cover.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN (voice-over): In the western U.S. the story remains the weather, raging floodwaters, monster snowfalls, daring rescues, homes and lives lost, a major mess to clean up.

In South Asia, heartbreaking choices in disasters' wake, deciding who to save and who to leave behind, a young American sailor and his unthinkable job.

Is Iraq spinning out of control? Insurgents kill six more Iraqi police today. Fourteen hundred have died so far; the election now less than three weeks away.

And, in a small corner of Louisiana, the war in Iraq comes home, six lives lost in one roadside blast, their families united by grief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All that and more in the hour ahead, including morning papers.

But we begin tonight, again, with the weather. It's a lesson we learned many times over. Nature often unleashes its power without warning. Mercy isn't part of the equation.

The tsunami in South Asia, the most horrific reminder in recent history, we'll return to that region later in the program.

But we begin with the beating that nature is giving the western part of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): North of Los Angeles, rescuers are still searching for bodies in the hillside community of La Conchita. At least five people are known to have died. There an enormous mudslide crushed people, homes and cars.

Nearly ten years ago mudslides caused similar damage but homeowners rebuilt only to watch in despair as history repeated itself.

Normally this placid Southern California town is in the news only when the swallows return. Tonight, the residents of San Juan Capistrano are facing a flooding river, this road completely washed out and authorities say the water won't recede for another day or two.

The flooding moved inland as well. Here at the small airport in Corona, in normally dry San Bernardino County, the water swamped both airplanes and hangars.

And the heavy rains were not confined to Southern California. Nearly all of this house in southern Utah was swept away by the rain authorities saying one man was missing presumed drowned.

There have been some spectacular images from all this weather, an enormous boulder that tumbled down a hillside coming to rest on a highway in Malibu and perhaps the most spectacular pictures of a mother and her 8-week-old son in a raft along a swift-moving river rescuers trying to pull mother and child to safety. The raft tipped over and for a moment both were feared dead.

RICH ATWOOD, L.A. COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: For that short period of time the terror in my, you know, my heart just being torn apart thinking, you know, I have two small kids at home, you know. How would you feel? How would you feel?

BROWN: But firemen waded in and brought both mother and child to safety. The infant's body temperature had dropped sharply but tonight he reportedly is doing well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The drama isn't entirely over for the family of that 8- week-old baby we just saw rescued. The baby's father, Jeffrey Henderson remains trapped tonight in the family's cabin in La Verne, California, east of L.A., with him the couple's 19-month-old daughter.

And Mr. Henderson joins us now by phone, good to have you. This may sound like an odd question. Have you seen the pictures of your wife and infant's rescue?

JEFFREY HENDERSON (by telephone: Yes, sir. I saw them four or five hours after it happened on the TV and I tell you I didn't know what was going on until then, if she was dead or alive.

BROWN: So, that was how you discovered that they had, in fact, made it?

HENDERSON: Yes, sir. I had no idea and I still get emotional when I see it on TV.

BROWN: Yes. It's an unbelievable story. Let's talk about your own situation. You're there with your 19-month-old daughter. You got enough food, got enough water?

HENDERSON: Yes, sir. We're OK for food and water as far as riding out the storm but what we want to do is my neighbor and I are the last two left in the canyon. We want to wait until the water goes down a little bit before we go across the swift water.

BROWN: Obviously you're able to talk to us. You're obviously able to talk to the rescue units. What are they telling you, anything in particular in terms of just keeping your young daughter OK?

HENDERSON: They're saying that only -- the only way out right now is the swift water rescue and I just -- at the time when I was watching my wife go downstream and when they let her go, I just thought, you know, maybe we better wait and try again when the water is a little slower and I was hoping my wife was OK and, you know, I felt like she was OK. So, I thought, you know, let's wait and see what happened.

BROWN: Well, Jeffrey, all's well that ends well. It was nip and tuck there for your family for a bit. Hang in there. Be patient and this one will end well as well. Jeffrey Henderson who...

HENDERSON: Thank you so much.

BROWN: Thank you, sir, remains trapped still in the cabin but his wife and 8-week-old infant are safe and he and his 19-month-old daughter apparently doing OK.

The storms we've been seeing in the west are just the latest to take a major toll. The year behind us, it has seemed to us, has had this string of devastating storms of all strives.

So, tomorrow on a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, extreme weather, we'll take a look at the larger picture. What is going on here? Is there some pattern? Is there something science can explain or is it just, you'll excuse the expression, a freak of nature? That's tomorrow, a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, 10:00 Eastern Time.

In South Asia two weeks after the disaster struck there bringing order to chaos remains the considerable challenge. It is most daunting in Indonesia where more than 100,000 people died that in a small part of Indonesia and it's still unclear how many survivors need help.

Getting them the help they need is a complicated piece of business, we can tell you, constrained often by their remote locations, the lack of transportation, the lack of good clinics, the lack it seems of most everything that matters.

In that mess late last week we watched a young American do his job, which is the simple way he would describe it, a job that required making choices of the sort few of us would want to make.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): This is not one more story about what was lost but the west coast of Aceh lost much. Many villages lost everything. Some lost nearly everyone. It's not a story about delivering supplies, though that will happen. It is the story of a young American seaman, the job he does and the choices he must make.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That one looks pretty good. They got a tree stump in there but I think we can clear that (UNINTELLIGIBLE), a lot of people on that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that will work out pretty well.

BROWN: As the pilot and copilot wait, Petty Officer Second Class Charles Deery (ph) unloads the food and water to the survivors of the village. Indonesian soldiers help keep order, though in truth Deery could have done that too.

The longer we are on the ground more and more people show up. They stand and wait, some dazed and confused. Some smile. Some, many it seems, simply hurt. And now with the chopper empty the easy work for Charles Deery is over. Now he must decide who is just injured and who is injured enough to be evacuated.

Look at these faces. Think about that choice. It plays out powerfully and, save for the noise of the helicopter, silently. He looks. He moves from one face in the crowd to another.

He makes the first choice. In some eyes desperation, he makes another, then another. Space on the helicopter is running out. The last choice is made. All are now crammed in a space that's maybe 6 x 5. Deery is still working, diagnosing each.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-eight-year-old female (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to the upper right side.

BROWN: Bandaging one wound, setting a splint, it's hot and it's hard and it never stops. Maybe later he'll think about those choices. Maybe he'll wonder or question them. Maybe he will again, as we have, see the faces of those whose lives he saved or maybe he'll just do the same work again tomorrow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: More from Indonesia later in the program.

Also coming up the president has made his choice to be the new head of Homeland Security again, Michael Chertoff the name, the agency, 22 separate agencies molded into one, an enormous job. We'll take a look at it tonight.

And with three weeks to go before elections in Iraq, the unrelenting bloodshed brings a stark, public admission from the prime minister. We'll take a break first.

Back in New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With the election now three weeks away, the most dangerous job in Iraq these days seems to be that of an Iraqi policeman. They routinely lie to friends and neighbors about what they do and just as routinely wear black face masks on the job. About 1,400 have been killed in the last six months, more today in Tikrit, six died after a car bomb exploded near a police station, four others wounded in the attack.

In the southern city of Basra, two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously, both near police stations. The two suicide bombers were killed, no other casualties to report.

Towering flames and thick black clouds darken the sky after insurgents blew up a pipeline near Kirkuk in the north. Iraqi police helped firefighters try to put out the blaze.

And today, the Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi admitted for the first time that keeping people safe in certain cities will be a problem on the January 30th election day.

To bolster security, he says he'll increase the size of the army. He added that he's also contacted tribal leaders to see if they can get the insurgents to stop the bloodshed.

It has been a deadly period for Americans as well. The insurgents seem to have devised new ways to defeat American armor. That was clear in the attack last week that blew up a heavily-armored Bradley. What wasn't clear then is what that one attack would mean in one small part of the state of Louisiana.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): This is what it looks like when the war comes home, families trying to find comfort in each other as they bear the unbearable.

Twenty-five-year-old Brad Bergeron was driving the Bradley armored vehicle when it was blown up in Baghdad last Thursday. It was near midnight when his family got the news.

ANGELA BERGERON, MOTHER: When my husband woke me up and told me there was a soldier outside, I knew right away that he was gone.

BROWN: Bergeron was from Houma, Louisiana and so was Specialist Armand Frickey, 20 years old, who worked at the pizza place in town before he joined the National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 256th Infantry Brigade. Sent off with parades and speeches the six Louisiana soldiers who died together are now honored with flags flying at half staff.

Sergeant Kurt Comeaux was 34, a probation officer, when he was called up for duty in Iraq. His wife said she and her three sons usually tried to stay away from the TV news. Last week was an exception.

TIFFANY COMEAUX, WIDOW: They were showing pictures and he was like "Wait, look" and they said Bradleys and one of my twins, Brody (ph), was asking me "That's what daddy rides in a Bradley" and I would tell him, "No, that's not daddy. That's not where daddy's at" and then 45 minutes later I got the knock on my door that that was where his daddy was at and it was him.

BROWN: Specialist Warren Murphy, 29, worked as a tugboat hand before he went off to Iraq. At 24, Huey Fasbender worked at the restaurant. Ordinary jobs perhaps but hardly ordinary lives, to those who mourn them in four small Louisiana towns they are irreplaceable.

Christopher Babin was 27 and left behind a 9-month-old son.

CHARLOTTE BABIN, MOTHER: He wanted to be everybody's hero and he said he was going in this war to serve his country and he said he wore his uniform very proud and he says "Mom and dad, I will be back."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's just one incident.

Three weeks now and lots of questions about Iraq before the election, the Pentagon seems to have questions too about its own strategy. It's undertaken now a top-to-bottom review so there are questions in motion.

We're joined from Washington tonight by Rand Beers. In addition to being a former campaign adviser to Senator John Kerry, he was a senior director for combating terrorism on the National Security Council staff and it's good to see him again.

Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser under the first President Bush suggested the other day that elections may, in fact, make a bad situation worse by creating in the Sunni image that they are more disenfranchised than ever. Is there any way to avert that?

RAND BEERS, FORMER KERRY ADVISER: At this particular point in time, it's not at all clear to me that there is. There have been efforts to try to bring the Sunni in. They don't seem to have succeeded. It is a very difficult situation there now and quite frankly I agree fully with Brent in his judgment on that matter.

BROWN: So, Mr. Beers, we're trapped aren't we in a way? I mean on the one hand to not go forward with elections would be to alienate a huge part of the population, the Shias, 60 percent of the population. To go ahead with the elections is to alienate perhaps the Sunnis. So, if it were your call, your job, what would you do?

BEERS: Well, I think at this particular point in time the decision really has to be made by the Iraqi people and if the Shia in the Kurdish populations are intent upon going forward with the election then I think we're stuck with having to go forward and we're going to have to find a way through this election that doesn't make it as bad as it can possibly be.

We're going to have to find some kind of an accommodation that allows the representatives that are chosen from the election to write the constitution, to ensure that the Sunni population in the end is not disenfranchised. And in the end feels like it has an opportunity to be represented in the final formulation of that constitution, which will ultimately determine the government, the elected government in Iraq for some time to come. That's an enormous challenge. It's a challenge the Iraqis have to deal with and one in which we have to facilitate it.

BROWN: All right. Is there in this, as you look at it now, a way out for the American side, for the American troops or is it just more troops going to be sent in? Is there a formula in the post election that helps Americans get out of Iraq?

BEERS: Well, I think that one of the keys to an American exit is the degree to which and the speed with which Iraqi security forces, both police and military, can be trained and take over the jobs that Americans and other international forces are now carrying out.

There are sort of two ways to approach that problem. One is to simply say we will wait and we will see and we will judge when we have reached that point in conjunction with the Iraqi government.

The other way from the U.S. side is to set a date that's not unreasonable but which challenges the Iraqis and the government, which will result from this round of elections to make sure that they are focused and committed to providing enough security for themselves so that as the U.S. and international forces begin to withdraw there's a real prospect for stability.

BROWN: Just as quickly as you can, is that date a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, ten, as you see it?

BEERS: Well, I think that one of the things that we have learned clearly and sadly is that an American presence in Iraq has a negative effect.

BROWN: Yes.

BEERS: It has become a lightning rod for the forces of chaos in dissolution. But it's also become even to the people of Iraq who are interested in stability and in forming a new government a kind of signal that they're really not in charge.

And so, I would tend to favor a date that was earlier. I would think that we would be looking at either a date that said, if we're setting the date, the end of this calendar year. If you want to set it against a benchmark that would occur at the end of a process, you could say the next election that the U.N. would call for after the constitution is written.

BROWN: Mr. Beers...

BEERS: I would tend to favor setting a date.

BROWN: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Good to see you again, thank you.

BEERS: Thank you. BROWN: There's a lot to consider there, Rand Beers.

Still ahead on the program, the new leader of the Palestinian Authority wants to work with the Israelis, so he says. Does it mean the danger in Gaza has ended? Eleven young Palestinian boys caught in the crossfire, their stories coming up.

Also ahead, go back to South Asia, one man who survived the tsunami struggling now to make peace with what he lost.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On the "Security Watch" tonight, a new poll finds a number of -- this is really interesting -- a number of Americans concerned about a terrorist strike in the country is dropping.

Thirty-nine percent of those polled over this past weekend by CNN, "USA Today" and Gallup say that acts of terrorism over the next several weeks, that would include the inauguration, are likely. That's down from 51 percent in July. Fifty-nine percent believe attacks are unlikely.

The White House was embarrassed, of course, after the nomination of Bernard Kerik, President Bush's first choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security collapsed amid allegations of personal and professional misconduct.

So, while today's nomination of Judge Michael Chertoff may have surprised more than a few people in Washington, he's not the high profile type, he does bring some other, some would argue more important traits to the considerable task at hand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Michael Chertoff's resume is long and not without controversy. He helped put mob boss Anthony "Fat" Tony Salerno behind bars and Arthur Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, out of business.

He directed the Justice Department's Criminal Division in the aftermath of 9/11 and helped craft the Patriot Act strengthening the government's ability to watch and detain potential terrorists. The key to his nomination, however, may well have been his success in battles outside the courtroom.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's been confirmed by the Senate three times.

BROWN: A confirmation that appeared impossible for the president's first choice for Homeland Security, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who withdrew his name after he admitted to hiring an illegal alien.

BERNARD KERIK, FMR. NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: I want to apologize to my family, my friends, the president.

BROWN: Chertoff wasn't on the administration's short list and there are rumors that several other candidates, perhaps more prominent candidates, turned down the job.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: It was surprising in the most literal sense that nobody mentioned Judge Chertoff as a possibility, so I was surprised. I know him somewhat. I respect him. He's very widely respected as a lawyer, law enforcer and now for a short time as a judge.

BROWN: Most of those who reacted to Chertoff's nomination agreed that his legal credentials are impressive. What some find worrisome is his lack of experience as a manager and a politician.

MICHAEL GREEBERGER, CTR. FOR HEALTH AND HOMELAND SECURITY: Chertoff does not have the resume of somebody who can run a large bureaucracy.

BROWN: After all, he's faced with taming what some have termed dysfunction and chaos in the Department of Homeland Security, 18,000 people dealing with everything from emergency response to transportation security.

In addition, Chertoff will have to report to dozens of congressional committees, negotiate with governors, mayors, police chiefs and perhaps most important be able to communicate with a nervous public.

RICHARD FALKENRATH, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: He's not a public figure. He's never run for office to my knowledge and so we'll have to see what sort of public persona he establishes now that he's in this incredibly high profile position.

BROWN: A position where Senate confirmation could well turn out to be the easiest part.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A couple of points of view on this tonight. Paul Light, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, also a professor of public service at New York University and Stuart Taylor, well-known columnist at the National Journal and we're pleased to see them both.

Professor Light, let me start with you. If you have to, and you actually did participate in the discussions in Congress about what this job ought to be, if you had to pick a quality, expertise in homeland security or expertise in management to be the secretary, which would you choose?

PAUL LIGHT, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: I'd go management, management, management. It's an incredibly difficult job. This is a merger that is still in the making. It's far from complete.

About nine out of the ten problems that the new secretary will face involve simple managerial challenges, a new personnel system, for example. There's just a lot to be done on stitching this thing together and I'd put the focus on management for sure.

BROWN: Mr. Taylor, you know the judge well. You've known him for a long time. Do you have concerns on the management side or do you figure he'll either hire that out or he'll just rise to the task?

TAYLOR: Well, I think, first, it's important that he's a terrific public servant, one of the best we have, in my opinion, and a very, very smart man.

Now, on the management front, I'm not sure anyone alive could manage that agency, 180,000 employees, dozens of agencies cobbled together, could manage that successfully. But, to put it in perspective, of course, the first head of homeland security, Tom Ridge, came from the job of being governor of Pennsylvania. And I haven't heard rave reviews of his success as a manager at Homeland Security. The agency is widely judged to be functioning not very well after a couple years under Tom Ridge.

And I don't say that as an indictment under Tom Ridge. But I'm not sure that a lot of managerial experience guarantees success. And conversely, I'm not sure that a lack of big organization, managerial experience guarantees failure.

BROWN: One of the things that Secretary Ridge -- let me make this argument -- I believe it -- did pretty well -- and I agree there's lots of questions about how well he managed or how anyone can manage the agency -- is that part of the job that is communicating with the public, one of the things they seemed to learn, Stuart, is that they need one clear voice to send the message out.

Is the judge that clear voice or do you expect that he'll find someone else to do that task?

TAYLOR: I think -- my guess is, he'll do it. I've heard him give congressional testimony. He was probably the most successful mob prosecutor of my generation. He gave press conferences and the like. He's argued cases in court.

This is somewhat different, but I think it's a big part of that job, frankly, and my guess is he'll take it on and he'll do it well.

BROWN: Professor, have we learned enough about what we now call the Department of Homeland Security to think that we got it right when we put it all together?

LIGHT: You know, I think we're doing better than we would have if we had stayed with the old patchwork. It was a choice between doing something or continuing with the old mess. And I think we've done better.

We get a little better every day. We've got a long, long way to go. The level of expectation about how quickly this merger would form has been wildly out of sync with the reality of mergers, whether government or in the private sector, and we've got some distance. But I think it's actually doing a little bit better than other agencies of its size, of its range, at similar points in their histories. It's actually doing a little bit better than some of the old mergers that are 25-year-old mergers are doing. So, I think Ridge did a pretty good job getting this thing under way. We've still got a long way to go, and we've got to have breathing room here. This is going to take years, if not decades, to really form up tightly.

BROWN: Yes.

Stuart, let me give you the last word here. All of us, including you, who have thought about homeland security, what needs to be done, what would you like to see the judge do in the first -- I think confirmation is pretty much a foregone conclusion here -- in the first year or so on the job? What would you like to see accomplished?

TAYLOR: Well, I think probably there's going to -- first, he needs to appoint a whole echelon in the White House because they're hemorrhaging. Almost all their top officials are leaving or talking about leaving. So it's not only going to be a new director. It's going to be a new top organization staff.

I also hope that he'll get White House support to push for -- I think we need new legislation on some issues that have been handled very badly by this administration, in my opinion, in particular, deciding whether and whom to detain domestically in terrorism investigations. That's been done ad hoc by the administration on a kind of make-it-up-as-they-go-along basis.

Chertoff, since he left the government, has advocated that we need to hammer out a compromised legislation. And I think he's right.

BROWN: I do, too. Good to see you, Stuart.

Professor Light, good to have you with us tonight. Thank you both.

LIGHT: You bet.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

BROWN: Still to come on the program, we go back to South Asia, where the loss is so vast. One man's story tonight. His life changed forever in less than an hour. And now he struggles to put it back together.

And after a long absence -- my goodness -- the rooster is back, bringing with him morning papers. We'll see how that goes tonight.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Many people, President Bush among them, believe or at least hope -- and hope does count -- that the Israelis and the Palestinians will soon try to restart the peace process. Yasser Arafat is gone. Tomorrow, Mahmoud Abbas will be sworn in as president of the Palestinian Authority. Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, phoned Mr. Abbas to wish him well. The two leaders say they plan to meet at some point. Well, that's an encouraging sign. It's too late for a group of boys in Gaza.

Ben Wedeman has their story. We warn you now, this video is disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's time to change 13-year-old Isa Rabin's (ph) dressings on the bloody stumps that were once his legs. The pain, hard for his mother to bear.

There's nothing more dear to a mother than her child, she says. Isa and three other boys lost their legs early in the morning on January 4 when an Israeli tank round exploded near his home in northern Gaza. The blast killed seven other boys, ages 11 to 17, all from the same extended family.

Minutes beforehand, just up the road, Palestinian militants had fired mortar rounds at a nearby Jewish settlement. One person was injured in that attack. The people here, caught between militant attacks and Israeli retaliation, feel helpless.

Showing me where her 10-year-old son, Raji (ph), was killed, this woman says they knew the mortars were fired from around their houses, but could do nothing to stop it. The group that claims it fired the mortars makes no apologies.

"We're saddened by what happened," says this spokesman from the Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, "but we won't stop the attacks."

In a statement to CNN, the Israeli army says it's investigating the incident. In part, the army's statement said, -- quote -- "This group of terrorists purposely fired the mortars from amid innocent civilians who were working and living in the area."

The shattered families of the wounded aren't interested in placing the blame. Tempers flare as they try to convince hospital staff to send their sons to Israel for treatment, but they claim corrupt Palestinian Authority officials won't authorize a transfer until bribed.

Isa's father, Ramadan (ph), is beyond despair. "Let them put him out of his misery," he says. "It's better than watching him die every day." Three of Mariam Rabin's (ph) sons were killed, a fourth son, 18- year-old Mohammed (ph), lies semiconscious in the intensive care unit, his spine severed, right leg amputated, left eye gone. "We need to stop this bloodshed. This is enough," she says.

Enough and then some for 13-year-old Isa.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Gaza.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: I feel like I've, we've all seen enough misery in the last week to last a lifetime.

Ahead on the program, back to South Asia, where Nissen remains to bring us the story of one man's survival in the face of great uncertainty.

And we'll wrap it up tonight with morning papers.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It is not likely that we will soon, if ever, forget our week in Aceh. The destruction was so immense, the death at times so overwhelming. Now the task is to somehow rebuild, rebuild lives and families and neighborhoods, rebuild, in many respects, a city.

For now, there is money. Finding the will in the face of such grief sometimes is harder.

NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen remains in Aceh tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Those of us who find and tell stories know sometimes the story finds you. While visiting an elementary school in Banda Aceh too damaged to reopen this week, a man came up and introduced himself as Said Fahmi.

SAID FAHMI, ENGLISH TEACHER: Well, I am as a teacher of English at a senior high school, private senior high school, Tukuna Arif (ph), Banda Aceh.

NISSEN: Said said his school, his entire neighborhood looked like this, amok with thick mud. He was afraid, he said, that most of his students were gone. He said his family was gone.

(on camera): You lost family. Who did you lose?

FAHMI: My father, my mother, my sister and my oldest daughter and my niece and my nephew, seven -- seven all, yes. Seven all, and three lost now, and my wife and my two little kids.

NISSEN (voice-over): Two little girls, one age 7, one who just turned 4 on December 1, lost in the hellish churn of water and debris on December 26. Said's whole life changed in less than an hour that morning.

FAHMI: The story is like this. When -- after the earthquakes stopped, I never thought that there will be a huge -- I mean, there will be a flood water like that.

So I told my wife, be patient, honey. I will check whether our parents are all right. For just two minutes, I want to see their faces and then I'll be back soon, I said. So, you stand here. Don't enter our house. And then I went with my motorcycle. And then, on the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I reach the grand mosque. And there's hundreds of people running in panic and telling that the huge tidal water from the sea is coming.

I come back. I changed, come back home. So, when I reached the house, I don't see anything. And I call my wife and I call all four of my children, but nobody answered. I said, mommy, mommy, daddy. Go home now? Where are you? Where are children? No answer. I saw -- I just saw the quiet water, you know?

And then I saw the people. Beside the area of my house, I saw young people on the roof. I said, hey, why didn't you help my wife and my children?

We are sorry. That time just like the end of the world, they said. We cannot help ourselves even, you know.

They say it like that.

NISSEN: Somehow -- he doesn't know how -- Said's 13-year-old daughter survived, although she was badly injured and medevaced to Jakarta. The body of his eldest girl, age 14, was found and buried. But Said is still searching for his wife and his two youngest girls.

FAHMI: And then try to go up and down to see the dead bodies, even though most of the dead bodies still unfound. They're still under the ditch, under the wreckage of the buildings and houses and garbage.

NISSEN: He goes to look for them every day, every day.

FAHMI: Because I wish my wife still alive. And I believe they will come back to me again and my children, my two kids.

NISSEN (on camera): You think they're alive?

FAHMI: I believe God will give me, because my feelings said they're still alive, even though it's impossible, you know, to see the facts.

My second daughter is saved, rescued. Actually, she should have been drowned too, but he has -- God gives miracles. That's -- because of her, I feel optimistic that my wife are still alive. You know, perhaps they have been taken to, like, another victims -- taken to Malaysia or somewhere else. Yes, I want them come back to me, because it's hard to find the replacement of my wife. She's very fantastic.

NISSEN (voice-over): He prays for strength, he says, prays that God will let him sleep at night, so he can try to dream about his wife and his missing daughters.

FAHMI: Maybe they can tell where they are approximately, so I can try to find out, to find out them, to find them again. I hope God will give me the way to find them again. I don't want to lose, to stay alone like this, very hurt.

I hope and pray to God that they will come back to me again.

NISSEN (on camera): You have my prayers. You have my prayers.

FAHMI: Thank you very much.

NISSEN (voice-over): Those of us who find and tell stories know sometimes one story is the story of thousands, in this place, tens and tens of thousands, whose hearts were shattered, whose lives dissolved in the terrible waters that day.

Beth Nissen, CNN, Banda Aceh.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. This is where I usually take off my glasses. I couldn't find them. Just -- it's just nice to be back. There's something normal about in my life about being here. And it's been such a strange and difficult week. Just felt like saying that.

"Stars and Stripes." Something, honestly, normal about looking at the papers today as well. "Tsunami Relief Work Preempts Exercises." Everybody looks at this, I suppose, from their own vantage point, including "Stars and Stripes." "Spring Cobra Gold Training in Thailand May Be Scaled Down Because of the Tsunami." This is a picture of -- I believe it's the same picture we showed you in video earlier today of that rescue. That was something, wasn't it?

Man, can you imagine that guy watching that all, Mr. Henderson, Jeffrey Henderson, watching that all on television, knowing that that's his wife and his infant?

"The International Herald Tribune." "At Airbus and Boeing, Curtains Up on Flying Future." Airbus is going to make a plane that seats 555 people. Want to be in the last row of that plane? I don't want to be on an airplane for a while.

"Washington Times" gave an interview -- or, rather, the president gave an interview to "The Washington Times." "Bush Aims to Solve Big Problems, Promises Push on Second-Term Agenda." Already, there is some pushback on Social Security, for one thing. And has any politician ever said, no, I think I'm going to try and solve little problems.

Also, in an interesting sidebar to the story, "Religion Essential to Being President." The president talks about religion, how he sees religion in terms of public policy. That is -- it's interesting. That's "The Washington Times."

"Philadelphia Inquirer," speaking of religion, "Nation's Eyes on Christian Protesters. Four Who Disrupted a Philadelphia Gay Pride Event Face Felony Charges. Backers Say They Merely Voiced Their Beliefs." I guess both things could be true.

"The Detroit News." Don't know what happened there. "Big Three Brace For Tough Year." Something pretty normal about that lead.

This just struck me as odd. I don't know why. It's not funny. "Meat Raises Cancer Risk," according to "The Boston Herald." OK, next week, there will be a study that says it doesn't. That's the only saving grace in that. And if that doesn't get you, this will: "Children Face Danger of Mobile Phone Tumors." For some reason, kids use cell phones, and that's all kids do.

I haven't done this in so long, I barely remember how. Weather in Chicago tomorrow...

(CHIMES)

BROWN: That's how I do it -- is "gooey," according to "The Chicago Sun-Times," one of our favorite papers.

We'll wrap it up for the night in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Bill Hemmer now with a look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," following in the footsteps of Janet Jackson, actor Mickey Rooney could have been this year's Super Bowl flasher, but apparently not meant to be. His towel-dropping commercial has now been banned. We'll talk to the 84-year-old legend about his somewhat cheeky performance and all the fuss that's being made, too. Find out whether or not he's embarrassed by it or just having a great laugh. We'll have it for you tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Bill, thank you.

Before you write in worrying, I'm sure this is just a cold and not some exotic disease brought back from Indonesia.

Tomorrow on the program, we look at weather, lots of weather, from hurricanes to the rains out West and much more. So, we'll do that 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow.

Until then -- this feels good to say, too -- good night for all of us.

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


Aired January 11, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And, it's nice to see you all again. Good evening again. It's been a while since we've been back here, a week's vacation and a week in Indonesia, so it's nice to be back with much ground to cover.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN (voice-over): In the western U.S. the story remains the weather, raging floodwaters, monster snowfalls, daring rescues, homes and lives lost, a major mess to clean up.

In South Asia, heartbreaking choices in disasters' wake, deciding who to save and who to leave behind, a young American sailor and his unthinkable job.

Is Iraq spinning out of control? Insurgents kill six more Iraqi police today. Fourteen hundred have died so far; the election now less than three weeks away.

And, in a small corner of Louisiana, the war in Iraq comes home, six lives lost in one roadside blast, their families united by grief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All that and more in the hour ahead, including morning papers.

But we begin tonight, again, with the weather. It's a lesson we learned many times over. Nature often unleashes its power without warning. Mercy isn't part of the equation.

The tsunami in South Asia, the most horrific reminder in recent history, we'll return to that region later in the program.

But we begin with the beating that nature is giving the western part of the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): North of Los Angeles, rescuers are still searching for bodies in the hillside community of La Conchita. At least five people are known to have died. There an enormous mudslide crushed people, homes and cars.

Nearly ten years ago mudslides caused similar damage but homeowners rebuilt only to watch in despair as history repeated itself.

Normally this placid Southern California town is in the news only when the swallows return. Tonight, the residents of San Juan Capistrano are facing a flooding river, this road completely washed out and authorities say the water won't recede for another day or two.

The flooding moved inland as well. Here at the small airport in Corona, in normally dry San Bernardino County, the water swamped both airplanes and hangars.

And the heavy rains were not confined to Southern California. Nearly all of this house in southern Utah was swept away by the rain authorities saying one man was missing presumed drowned.

There have been some spectacular images from all this weather, an enormous boulder that tumbled down a hillside coming to rest on a highway in Malibu and perhaps the most spectacular pictures of a mother and her 8-week-old son in a raft along a swift-moving river rescuers trying to pull mother and child to safety. The raft tipped over and for a moment both were feared dead.

RICH ATWOOD, L.A. COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: For that short period of time the terror in my, you know, my heart just being torn apart thinking, you know, I have two small kids at home, you know. How would you feel? How would you feel?

BROWN: But firemen waded in and brought both mother and child to safety. The infant's body temperature had dropped sharply but tonight he reportedly is doing well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The drama isn't entirely over for the family of that 8- week-old baby we just saw rescued. The baby's father, Jeffrey Henderson remains trapped tonight in the family's cabin in La Verne, California, east of L.A., with him the couple's 19-month-old daughter.

And Mr. Henderson joins us now by phone, good to have you. This may sound like an odd question. Have you seen the pictures of your wife and infant's rescue?

JEFFREY HENDERSON (by telephone: Yes, sir. I saw them four or five hours after it happened on the TV and I tell you I didn't know what was going on until then, if she was dead or alive.

BROWN: So, that was how you discovered that they had, in fact, made it?

HENDERSON: Yes, sir. I had no idea and I still get emotional when I see it on TV.

BROWN: Yes. It's an unbelievable story. Let's talk about your own situation. You're there with your 19-month-old daughter. You got enough food, got enough water?

HENDERSON: Yes, sir. We're OK for food and water as far as riding out the storm but what we want to do is my neighbor and I are the last two left in the canyon. We want to wait until the water goes down a little bit before we go across the swift water.

BROWN: Obviously you're able to talk to us. You're obviously able to talk to the rescue units. What are they telling you, anything in particular in terms of just keeping your young daughter OK?

HENDERSON: They're saying that only -- the only way out right now is the swift water rescue and I just -- at the time when I was watching my wife go downstream and when they let her go, I just thought, you know, maybe we better wait and try again when the water is a little slower and I was hoping my wife was OK and, you know, I felt like she was OK. So, I thought, you know, let's wait and see what happened.

BROWN: Well, Jeffrey, all's well that ends well. It was nip and tuck there for your family for a bit. Hang in there. Be patient and this one will end well as well. Jeffrey Henderson who...

HENDERSON: Thank you so much.

BROWN: Thank you, sir, remains trapped still in the cabin but his wife and 8-week-old infant are safe and he and his 19-month-old daughter apparently doing OK.

The storms we've been seeing in the west are just the latest to take a major toll. The year behind us, it has seemed to us, has had this string of devastating storms of all strives.

So, tomorrow on a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, extreme weather, we'll take a look at the larger picture. What is going on here? Is there some pattern? Is there something science can explain or is it just, you'll excuse the expression, a freak of nature? That's tomorrow, a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, 10:00 Eastern Time.

In South Asia two weeks after the disaster struck there bringing order to chaos remains the considerable challenge. It is most daunting in Indonesia where more than 100,000 people died that in a small part of Indonesia and it's still unclear how many survivors need help.

Getting them the help they need is a complicated piece of business, we can tell you, constrained often by their remote locations, the lack of transportation, the lack of good clinics, the lack it seems of most everything that matters.

In that mess late last week we watched a young American do his job, which is the simple way he would describe it, a job that required making choices of the sort few of us would want to make.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): This is not one more story about what was lost but the west coast of Aceh lost much. Many villages lost everything. Some lost nearly everyone. It's not a story about delivering supplies, though that will happen. It is the story of a young American seaman, the job he does and the choices he must make.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That one looks pretty good. They got a tree stump in there but I think we can clear that (UNINTELLIGIBLE), a lot of people on that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that will work out pretty well.

BROWN: As the pilot and copilot wait, Petty Officer Second Class Charles Deery (ph) unloads the food and water to the survivors of the village. Indonesian soldiers help keep order, though in truth Deery could have done that too.

The longer we are on the ground more and more people show up. They stand and wait, some dazed and confused. Some smile. Some, many it seems, simply hurt. And now with the chopper empty the easy work for Charles Deery is over. Now he must decide who is just injured and who is injured enough to be evacuated.

Look at these faces. Think about that choice. It plays out powerfully and, save for the noise of the helicopter, silently. He looks. He moves from one face in the crowd to another.

He makes the first choice. In some eyes desperation, he makes another, then another. Space on the helicopter is running out. The last choice is made. All are now crammed in a space that's maybe 6 x 5. Deery is still working, diagnosing each.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-eight-year-old female (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to the upper right side.

BROWN: Bandaging one wound, setting a splint, it's hot and it's hard and it never stops. Maybe later he'll think about those choices. Maybe he'll wonder or question them. Maybe he will again, as we have, see the faces of those whose lives he saved or maybe he'll just do the same work again tomorrow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: More from Indonesia later in the program.

Also coming up the president has made his choice to be the new head of Homeland Security again, Michael Chertoff the name, the agency, 22 separate agencies molded into one, an enormous job. We'll take a look at it tonight.

And with three weeks to go before elections in Iraq, the unrelenting bloodshed brings a stark, public admission from the prime minister. We'll take a break first.

Back in New York this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: With the election now three weeks away, the most dangerous job in Iraq these days seems to be that of an Iraqi policeman. They routinely lie to friends and neighbors about what they do and just as routinely wear black face masks on the job. About 1,400 have been killed in the last six months, more today in Tikrit, six died after a car bomb exploded near a police station, four others wounded in the attack.

In the southern city of Basra, two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously, both near police stations. The two suicide bombers were killed, no other casualties to report.

Towering flames and thick black clouds darken the sky after insurgents blew up a pipeline near Kirkuk in the north. Iraqi police helped firefighters try to put out the blaze.

And today, the Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi admitted for the first time that keeping people safe in certain cities will be a problem on the January 30th election day.

To bolster security, he says he'll increase the size of the army. He added that he's also contacted tribal leaders to see if they can get the insurgents to stop the bloodshed.

It has been a deadly period for Americans as well. The insurgents seem to have devised new ways to defeat American armor. That was clear in the attack last week that blew up a heavily-armored Bradley. What wasn't clear then is what that one attack would mean in one small part of the state of Louisiana.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): This is what it looks like when the war comes home, families trying to find comfort in each other as they bear the unbearable.

Twenty-five-year-old Brad Bergeron was driving the Bradley armored vehicle when it was blown up in Baghdad last Thursday. It was near midnight when his family got the news.

ANGELA BERGERON, MOTHER: When my husband woke me up and told me there was a soldier outside, I knew right away that he was gone.

BROWN: Bergeron was from Houma, Louisiana and so was Specialist Armand Frickey, 20 years old, who worked at the pizza place in town before he joined the National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 256th Infantry Brigade. Sent off with parades and speeches the six Louisiana soldiers who died together are now honored with flags flying at half staff.

Sergeant Kurt Comeaux was 34, a probation officer, when he was called up for duty in Iraq. His wife said she and her three sons usually tried to stay away from the TV news. Last week was an exception.

TIFFANY COMEAUX, WIDOW: They were showing pictures and he was like "Wait, look" and they said Bradleys and one of my twins, Brody (ph), was asking me "That's what daddy rides in a Bradley" and I would tell him, "No, that's not daddy. That's not where daddy's at" and then 45 minutes later I got the knock on my door that that was where his daddy was at and it was him.

BROWN: Specialist Warren Murphy, 29, worked as a tugboat hand before he went off to Iraq. At 24, Huey Fasbender worked at the restaurant. Ordinary jobs perhaps but hardly ordinary lives, to those who mourn them in four small Louisiana towns they are irreplaceable.

Christopher Babin was 27 and left behind a 9-month-old son.

CHARLOTTE BABIN, MOTHER: He wanted to be everybody's hero and he said he was going in this war to serve his country and he said he wore his uniform very proud and he says "Mom and dad, I will be back."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That's just one incident.

Three weeks now and lots of questions about Iraq before the election, the Pentagon seems to have questions too about its own strategy. It's undertaken now a top-to-bottom review so there are questions in motion.

We're joined from Washington tonight by Rand Beers. In addition to being a former campaign adviser to Senator John Kerry, he was a senior director for combating terrorism on the National Security Council staff and it's good to see him again.

Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser under the first President Bush suggested the other day that elections may, in fact, make a bad situation worse by creating in the Sunni image that they are more disenfranchised than ever. Is there any way to avert that?

RAND BEERS, FORMER KERRY ADVISER: At this particular point in time, it's not at all clear to me that there is. There have been efforts to try to bring the Sunni in. They don't seem to have succeeded. It is a very difficult situation there now and quite frankly I agree fully with Brent in his judgment on that matter.

BROWN: So, Mr. Beers, we're trapped aren't we in a way? I mean on the one hand to not go forward with elections would be to alienate a huge part of the population, the Shias, 60 percent of the population. To go ahead with the elections is to alienate perhaps the Sunnis. So, if it were your call, your job, what would you do?

BEERS: Well, I think at this particular point in time the decision really has to be made by the Iraqi people and if the Shia in the Kurdish populations are intent upon going forward with the election then I think we're stuck with having to go forward and we're going to have to find a way through this election that doesn't make it as bad as it can possibly be.

We're going to have to find some kind of an accommodation that allows the representatives that are chosen from the election to write the constitution, to ensure that the Sunni population in the end is not disenfranchised. And in the end feels like it has an opportunity to be represented in the final formulation of that constitution, which will ultimately determine the government, the elected government in Iraq for some time to come. That's an enormous challenge. It's a challenge the Iraqis have to deal with and one in which we have to facilitate it.

BROWN: All right. Is there in this, as you look at it now, a way out for the American side, for the American troops or is it just more troops going to be sent in? Is there a formula in the post election that helps Americans get out of Iraq?

BEERS: Well, I think that one of the keys to an American exit is the degree to which and the speed with which Iraqi security forces, both police and military, can be trained and take over the jobs that Americans and other international forces are now carrying out.

There are sort of two ways to approach that problem. One is to simply say we will wait and we will see and we will judge when we have reached that point in conjunction with the Iraqi government.

The other way from the U.S. side is to set a date that's not unreasonable but which challenges the Iraqis and the government, which will result from this round of elections to make sure that they are focused and committed to providing enough security for themselves so that as the U.S. and international forces begin to withdraw there's a real prospect for stability.

BROWN: Just as quickly as you can, is that date a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, ten, as you see it?

BEERS: Well, I think that one of the things that we have learned clearly and sadly is that an American presence in Iraq has a negative effect.

BROWN: Yes.

BEERS: It has become a lightning rod for the forces of chaos in dissolution. But it's also become even to the people of Iraq who are interested in stability and in forming a new government a kind of signal that they're really not in charge.

And so, I would tend to favor a date that was earlier. I would think that we would be looking at either a date that said, if we're setting the date, the end of this calendar year. If you want to set it against a benchmark that would occur at the end of a process, you could say the next election that the U.N. would call for after the constitution is written.

BROWN: Mr. Beers...

BEERS: I would tend to favor setting a date.

BROWN: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Good to see you again, thank you.

BEERS: Thank you. BROWN: There's a lot to consider there, Rand Beers.

Still ahead on the program, the new leader of the Palestinian Authority wants to work with the Israelis, so he says. Does it mean the danger in Gaza has ended? Eleven young Palestinian boys caught in the crossfire, their stories coming up.

Also ahead, go back to South Asia, one man who survived the tsunami struggling now to make peace with what he lost.

Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: On the "Security Watch" tonight, a new poll finds a number of -- this is really interesting -- a number of Americans concerned about a terrorist strike in the country is dropping.

Thirty-nine percent of those polled over this past weekend by CNN, "USA Today" and Gallup say that acts of terrorism over the next several weeks, that would include the inauguration, are likely. That's down from 51 percent in July. Fifty-nine percent believe attacks are unlikely.

The White House was embarrassed, of course, after the nomination of Bernard Kerik, President Bush's first choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security collapsed amid allegations of personal and professional misconduct.

So, while today's nomination of Judge Michael Chertoff may have surprised more than a few people in Washington, he's not the high profile type, he does bring some other, some would argue more important traits to the considerable task at hand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Michael Chertoff's resume is long and not without controversy. He helped put mob boss Anthony "Fat" Tony Salerno behind bars and Arthur Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, out of business.

He directed the Justice Department's Criminal Division in the aftermath of 9/11 and helped craft the Patriot Act strengthening the government's ability to watch and detain potential terrorists. The key to his nomination, however, may well have been his success in battles outside the courtroom.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's been confirmed by the Senate three times.

BROWN: A confirmation that appeared impossible for the president's first choice for Homeland Security, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who withdrew his name after he admitted to hiring an illegal alien.

BERNARD KERIK, FMR. NEW YORK POLICE COMMISSIONER: I want to apologize to my family, my friends, the president.

BROWN: Chertoff wasn't on the administration's short list and there are rumors that several other candidates, perhaps more prominent candidates, turned down the job.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: It was surprising in the most literal sense that nobody mentioned Judge Chertoff as a possibility, so I was surprised. I know him somewhat. I respect him. He's very widely respected as a lawyer, law enforcer and now for a short time as a judge.

BROWN: Most of those who reacted to Chertoff's nomination agreed that his legal credentials are impressive. What some find worrisome is his lack of experience as a manager and a politician.

MICHAEL GREEBERGER, CTR. FOR HEALTH AND HOMELAND SECURITY: Chertoff does not have the resume of somebody who can run a large bureaucracy.

BROWN: After all, he's faced with taming what some have termed dysfunction and chaos in the Department of Homeland Security, 18,000 people dealing with everything from emergency response to transportation security.

In addition, Chertoff will have to report to dozens of congressional committees, negotiate with governors, mayors, police chiefs and perhaps most important be able to communicate with a nervous public.

RICHARD FALKENRATH, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: He's not a public figure. He's never run for office to my knowledge and so we'll have to see what sort of public persona he establishes now that he's in this incredibly high profile position.

BROWN: A position where Senate confirmation could well turn out to be the easiest part.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A couple of points of view on this tonight. Paul Light, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, also a professor of public service at New York University and Stuart Taylor, well-known columnist at the National Journal and we're pleased to see them both.

Professor Light, let me start with you. If you have to, and you actually did participate in the discussions in Congress about what this job ought to be, if you had to pick a quality, expertise in homeland security or expertise in management to be the secretary, which would you choose?

PAUL LIGHT, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: I'd go management, management, management. It's an incredibly difficult job. This is a merger that is still in the making. It's far from complete.

About nine out of the ten problems that the new secretary will face involve simple managerial challenges, a new personnel system, for example. There's just a lot to be done on stitching this thing together and I'd put the focus on management for sure.

BROWN: Mr. Taylor, you know the judge well. You've known him for a long time. Do you have concerns on the management side or do you figure he'll either hire that out or he'll just rise to the task?

TAYLOR: Well, I think, first, it's important that he's a terrific public servant, one of the best we have, in my opinion, and a very, very smart man.

Now, on the management front, I'm not sure anyone alive could manage that agency, 180,000 employees, dozens of agencies cobbled together, could manage that successfully. But, to put it in perspective, of course, the first head of homeland security, Tom Ridge, came from the job of being governor of Pennsylvania. And I haven't heard rave reviews of his success as a manager at Homeland Security. The agency is widely judged to be functioning not very well after a couple years under Tom Ridge.

And I don't say that as an indictment under Tom Ridge. But I'm not sure that a lot of managerial experience guarantees success. And conversely, I'm not sure that a lack of big organization, managerial experience guarantees failure.

BROWN: One of the things that Secretary Ridge -- let me make this argument -- I believe it -- did pretty well -- and I agree there's lots of questions about how well he managed or how anyone can manage the agency -- is that part of the job that is communicating with the public, one of the things they seemed to learn, Stuart, is that they need one clear voice to send the message out.

Is the judge that clear voice or do you expect that he'll find someone else to do that task?

TAYLOR: I think -- my guess is, he'll do it. I've heard him give congressional testimony. He was probably the most successful mob prosecutor of my generation. He gave press conferences and the like. He's argued cases in court.

This is somewhat different, but I think it's a big part of that job, frankly, and my guess is he'll take it on and he'll do it well.

BROWN: Professor, have we learned enough about what we now call the Department of Homeland Security to think that we got it right when we put it all together?

LIGHT: You know, I think we're doing better than we would have if we had stayed with the old patchwork. It was a choice between doing something or continuing with the old mess. And I think we've done better.

We get a little better every day. We've got a long, long way to go. The level of expectation about how quickly this merger would form has been wildly out of sync with the reality of mergers, whether government or in the private sector, and we've got some distance. But I think it's actually doing a little bit better than other agencies of its size, of its range, at similar points in their histories. It's actually doing a little bit better than some of the old mergers that are 25-year-old mergers are doing. So, I think Ridge did a pretty good job getting this thing under way. We've still got a long way to go, and we've got to have breathing room here. This is going to take years, if not decades, to really form up tightly.

BROWN: Yes.

Stuart, let me give you the last word here. All of us, including you, who have thought about homeland security, what needs to be done, what would you like to see the judge do in the first -- I think confirmation is pretty much a foregone conclusion here -- in the first year or so on the job? What would you like to see accomplished?

TAYLOR: Well, I think probably there's going to -- first, he needs to appoint a whole echelon in the White House because they're hemorrhaging. Almost all their top officials are leaving or talking about leaving. So it's not only going to be a new director. It's going to be a new top organization staff.

I also hope that he'll get White House support to push for -- I think we need new legislation on some issues that have been handled very badly by this administration, in my opinion, in particular, deciding whether and whom to detain domestically in terrorism investigations. That's been done ad hoc by the administration on a kind of make-it-up-as-they-go-along basis.

Chertoff, since he left the government, has advocated that we need to hammer out a compromised legislation. And I think he's right.

BROWN: I do, too. Good to see you, Stuart.

Professor Light, good to have you with us tonight. Thank you both.

LIGHT: You bet.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

BROWN: Still to come on the program, we go back to South Asia, where the loss is so vast. One man's story tonight. His life changed forever in less than an hour. And now he struggles to put it back together.

And after a long absence -- my goodness -- the rooster is back, bringing with him morning papers. We'll see how that goes tonight.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Many people, President Bush among them, believe or at least hope -- and hope does count -- that the Israelis and the Palestinians will soon try to restart the peace process. Yasser Arafat is gone. Tomorrow, Mahmoud Abbas will be sworn in as president of the Palestinian Authority. Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, phoned Mr. Abbas to wish him well. The two leaders say they plan to meet at some point. Well, that's an encouraging sign. It's too late for a group of boys in Gaza.

Ben Wedeman has their story. We warn you now, this video is disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's time to change 13-year-old Isa Rabin's (ph) dressings on the bloody stumps that were once his legs. The pain, hard for his mother to bear.

There's nothing more dear to a mother than her child, she says. Isa and three other boys lost their legs early in the morning on January 4 when an Israeli tank round exploded near his home in northern Gaza. The blast killed seven other boys, ages 11 to 17, all from the same extended family.

Minutes beforehand, just up the road, Palestinian militants had fired mortar rounds at a nearby Jewish settlement. One person was injured in that attack. The people here, caught between militant attacks and Israeli retaliation, feel helpless.

Showing me where her 10-year-old son, Raji (ph), was killed, this woman says they knew the mortars were fired from around their houses, but could do nothing to stop it. The group that claims it fired the mortars makes no apologies.

"We're saddened by what happened," says this spokesman from the Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, "but we won't stop the attacks."

In a statement to CNN, the Israeli army says it's investigating the incident. In part, the army's statement said, -- quote -- "This group of terrorists purposely fired the mortars from amid innocent civilians who were working and living in the area."

The shattered families of the wounded aren't interested in placing the blame. Tempers flare as they try to convince hospital staff to send their sons to Israel for treatment, but they claim corrupt Palestinian Authority officials won't authorize a transfer until bribed.

Isa's father, Ramadan (ph), is beyond despair. "Let them put him out of his misery," he says. "It's better than watching him die every day." Three of Mariam Rabin's (ph) sons were killed, a fourth son, 18- year-old Mohammed (ph), lies semiconscious in the intensive care unit, his spine severed, right leg amputated, left eye gone. "We need to stop this bloodshed. This is enough," she says.

Enough and then some for 13-year-old Isa.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Gaza.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BROWN: I feel like I've, we've all seen enough misery in the last week to last a lifetime.

Ahead on the program, back to South Asia, where Nissen remains to bring us the story of one man's survival in the face of great uncertainty.

And we'll wrap it up tonight with morning papers.

We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It is not likely that we will soon, if ever, forget our week in Aceh. The destruction was so immense, the death at times so overwhelming. Now the task is to somehow rebuild, rebuild lives and families and neighborhoods, rebuild, in many respects, a city.

For now, there is money. Finding the will in the face of such grief sometimes is harder.

NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen remains in Aceh tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Those of us who find and tell stories know sometimes the story finds you. While visiting an elementary school in Banda Aceh too damaged to reopen this week, a man came up and introduced himself as Said Fahmi.

SAID FAHMI, ENGLISH TEACHER: Well, I am as a teacher of English at a senior high school, private senior high school, Tukuna Arif (ph), Banda Aceh.

NISSEN: Said said his school, his entire neighborhood looked like this, amok with thick mud. He was afraid, he said, that most of his students were gone. He said his family was gone.

(on camera): You lost family. Who did you lose?

FAHMI: My father, my mother, my sister and my oldest daughter and my niece and my nephew, seven -- seven all, yes. Seven all, and three lost now, and my wife and my two little kids.

NISSEN (voice-over): Two little girls, one age 7, one who just turned 4 on December 1, lost in the hellish churn of water and debris on December 26. Said's whole life changed in less than an hour that morning.

FAHMI: The story is like this. When -- after the earthquakes stopped, I never thought that there will be a huge -- I mean, there will be a flood water like that.

So I told my wife, be patient, honey. I will check whether our parents are all right. For just two minutes, I want to see their faces and then I'll be back soon, I said. So, you stand here. Don't enter our house. And then I went with my motorcycle. And then, on the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I reach the grand mosque. And there's hundreds of people running in panic and telling that the huge tidal water from the sea is coming.

I come back. I changed, come back home. So, when I reached the house, I don't see anything. And I call my wife and I call all four of my children, but nobody answered. I said, mommy, mommy, daddy. Go home now? Where are you? Where are children? No answer. I saw -- I just saw the quiet water, you know?

And then I saw the people. Beside the area of my house, I saw young people on the roof. I said, hey, why didn't you help my wife and my children?

We are sorry. That time just like the end of the world, they said. We cannot help ourselves even, you know.

They say it like that.

NISSEN: Somehow -- he doesn't know how -- Said's 13-year-old daughter survived, although she was badly injured and medevaced to Jakarta. The body of his eldest girl, age 14, was found and buried. But Said is still searching for his wife and his two youngest girls.

FAHMI: And then try to go up and down to see the dead bodies, even though most of the dead bodies still unfound. They're still under the ditch, under the wreckage of the buildings and houses and garbage.

NISSEN: He goes to look for them every day, every day.

FAHMI: Because I wish my wife still alive. And I believe they will come back to me again and my children, my two kids.

NISSEN (on camera): You think they're alive?

FAHMI: I believe God will give me, because my feelings said they're still alive, even though it's impossible, you know, to see the facts.

My second daughter is saved, rescued. Actually, she should have been drowned too, but he has -- God gives miracles. That's -- because of her, I feel optimistic that my wife are still alive. You know, perhaps they have been taken to, like, another victims -- taken to Malaysia or somewhere else. Yes, I want them come back to me, because it's hard to find the replacement of my wife. She's very fantastic.

NISSEN (voice-over): He prays for strength, he says, prays that God will let him sleep at night, so he can try to dream about his wife and his missing daughters.

FAHMI: Maybe they can tell where they are approximately, so I can try to find out, to find out them, to find them again. I hope God will give me the way to find them again. I don't want to lose, to stay alone like this, very hurt.

I hope and pray to God that they will come back to me again.

NISSEN (on camera): You have my prayers. You have my prayers.

FAHMI: Thank you very much.

NISSEN (voice-over): Those of us who find and tell stories know sometimes one story is the story of thousands, in this place, tens and tens of thousands, whose hearts were shattered, whose lives dissolved in the terrible waters that day.

Beth Nissen, CNN, Banda Aceh.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. This is where I usually take off my glasses. I couldn't find them. Just -- it's just nice to be back. There's something normal about in my life about being here. And it's been such a strange and difficult week. Just felt like saying that.

"Stars and Stripes." Something, honestly, normal about looking at the papers today as well. "Tsunami Relief Work Preempts Exercises." Everybody looks at this, I suppose, from their own vantage point, including "Stars and Stripes." "Spring Cobra Gold Training in Thailand May Be Scaled Down Because of the Tsunami." This is a picture of -- I believe it's the same picture we showed you in video earlier today of that rescue. That was something, wasn't it?

Man, can you imagine that guy watching that all, Mr. Henderson, Jeffrey Henderson, watching that all on television, knowing that that's his wife and his infant?

"The International Herald Tribune." "At Airbus and Boeing, Curtains Up on Flying Future." Airbus is going to make a plane that seats 555 people. Want to be in the last row of that plane? I don't want to be on an airplane for a while.

"Washington Times" gave an interview -- or, rather, the president gave an interview to "The Washington Times." "Bush Aims to Solve Big Problems, Promises Push on Second-Term Agenda." Already, there is some pushback on Social Security, for one thing. And has any politician ever said, no, I think I'm going to try and solve little problems.

Also, in an interesting sidebar to the story, "Religion Essential to Being President." The president talks about religion, how he sees religion in terms of public policy. That is -- it's interesting. That's "The Washington Times."

"Philadelphia Inquirer," speaking of religion, "Nation's Eyes on Christian Protesters. Four Who Disrupted a Philadelphia Gay Pride Event Face Felony Charges. Backers Say They Merely Voiced Their Beliefs." I guess both things could be true.

"The Detroit News." Don't know what happened there. "Big Three Brace For Tough Year." Something pretty normal about that lead.

This just struck me as odd. I don't know why. It's not funny. "Meat Raises Cancer Risk," according to "The Boston Herald." OK, next week, there will be a study that says it doesn't. That's the only saving grace in that. And if that doesn't get you, this will: "Children Face Danger of Mobile Phone Tumors." For some reason, kids use cell phones, and that's all kids do.

I haven't done this in so long, I barely remember how. Weather in Chicago tomorrow...

(CHIMES)

BROWN: That's how I do it -- is "gooey," according to "The Chicago Sun-Times," one of our favorite papers.

We'll wrap it up for the night in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Bill Hemmer now with a look ahead at tomorrow's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.

Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," following in the footsteps of Janet Jackson, actor Mickey Rooney could have been this year's Super Bowl flasher, but apparently not meant to be. His towel-dropping commercial has now been banned. We'll talk to the 84-year-old legend about his somewhat cheeky performance and all the fuss that's being made, too. Find out whether or not he's embarrassed by it or just having a great laugh. We'll have it for you tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. Hope to see you then -- Aaron.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Bill, thank you.

Before you write in worrying, I'm sure this is just a cold and not some exotic disease brought back from Indonesia.

Tomorrow on the program, we look at weather, lots of weather, from hurricanes to the rains out West and much more. So, we'll do that 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us.

"LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow.

Until then -- this feels good to say, too -- good night for all of us.

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