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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Tracking Hurricane Dennis; London: One Day After the Attacks

Aired July 08, 2005 - 22:00   ET

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

AARON BROWN, HOST: Whatever else Hurricane Dennis may turn out to be, when and where it makes landfall over the weekend -- and it most certainly will -- it will come ashore large and dangerous. This much we know. It's the earliest category 4 storm on record. In all of the Caribbean and all over the Gulf Coast tonight, people seem to be paying it the respect it deserves.
We begin with damage already done in Cuba and CNN's Lucia Newman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the worst case scenario for Cuban capital city: The eye of Hurricane Dennis plowing near or directly through Havana as it makes its way out to the Gulf of Mexico.

Even before Hurricane Dennis made landfall earlier this afternoon, 10 people were killed in two of Cuba's eastern provinces. At least twice that many died when Dennis passed through Haiti earlier, and there was major flooding and mudslides in Jamaica, too.

It's still impossible to tell how many more victims there may be in Cuba itself before this is over, because communications and electricity in much of southcentral Cuba have been totally cut off.

In one eastern town alone, nearly 10,000 homes were totally destroyed.

This is only the third hurricane to hit the Caribbean's largest and the most populated island in the month of July in 200 years. At least 600,000 people have been evacuated to shelters and to hospitals and government buildings, from -- people who live in low-lying areas. And in the case of Havana, people who live in buildings and houses which are simply not expected to survive the impact of this storm.

Most people have very little, if any, resources with which to protect their already dilapidated homes here. Authorities have warned that there could be severe flooding here in Havana, and in Havana Province in the next few hours.

Dennis has been downgraded to a category 3 hurricane, with winds of up to 125 miles an hour, and it's heading towards the Florida Keys, but as it does so, it's expected to increase its strength as it moves into open water. Landfall is now predicted for Sunday.

Lucia Newman, CNN, Havana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: It's early in the season for this sort of thing. Earlier, we've been talking to Max Mayfield at the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Florida. We spoke with him just a few moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Max, where is Dennis now?

MAX MAYFIELD, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR: Well, the center of the hurricane is just about 40 miles or so east of Havana, Cuba, moving toward the northwest about 14 miles per hour. It is weakening as it goes over Cuba, and may even come down to a category 2 hurricane when it exits the north side of Cuba tonight. But we're pretty confident it will regain some strength and will likely become a major hurricane before too long.

BROWN: The fact that it's gone from 4 to 3 and may go to 2 tell us much about what it might be in 24 hours?

MAYFIELD: I really don't want people to let their guards down here. What's happening, the low level of circulation is being disrupted by the friction (ph) of land, but it's so powerful, and the mid-level and upper level circulation are still very well pronounced here on the radar that it really will strengthen again once it gets into the Gulf of Mexico.

BROWN: What can -- you guys have gotten very good at predicting the track that these things will take. What are the influences now on a hurricane?

MAYFIELD: Well, in this particular case, we really are looking at a couple of things. We have a high pressure ridge over here, and a weak low pressure trough over in this area, and combined here it should stir it up, you know, into that north Gulf Coast again, close to where Hurricane Ivan hit land.

BROWN: And 14 miles an hour, fast, slow, average? What does that say?

MAYFIELD: That's fairly average, and we have a hurricane watch in place now from the Steinhatchee River over to the mouth of the Pearl River, that's the main area of concern after passing the Florida Keys.

What we really want to do is give people a full day or at least 12 hours of daylight to make their preparations. So we're likely to go with a hurricane warning early tomorrow morning.

BROWN: So if you were living in that area, would you be packing up right now?

MAYFIELD: Yes, sir, I would, or at least I would be thinking very seriously about what I would do if indeed the hurricane warnings go up tomorrow. BROWN: And what point -- do you think, if we are sitting here Monday night at this time, it will all be over?

MAYFIELD: Oh, yes, it will be. In fact, by Sunday afternoon, actually Sunday morning, the outer rain bands will be on the coast, so we really don't want people to think they can even, you know, have any of that time on Sunday to prepare. They really need to get all their preparations done on Saturday.

BROWN: Just one or two other quick things. We're going to talk more about this coming up on the program, but the fact that we're sitting here in July, still fairly early in July, talking about a major storm, tell us anything about what we can expect in August, in early September and beyond?

MAYFIELD: We are into a very active period here. All of the seasonal forecasts call for above-average activity.

BROWN: And above-average activity means we'll see how many of these, would you guess?

MAYFIELD: Well, we're forecasting 12 to 15 tropical storms, seven to nine hurricanes. We have not even gotten into the peak of the season yet, so we've got a long way to go.

BROWN: Max, good to see you. We'll talk again, I'm sure. Thank you.

MAYFIELD: Thank you, sir.

BROWN: Max Mayfield.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: At the National Hurricane Center, and we talked with him just before air tonight.

With all that in the forecast, a state of emergency in effect now in Florida. Governor Jeb Bush and the governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi join Max Mayfield in urging residents along the coast to get out early. In much of southern Louisiana, life is lived at or below sea level, where any storm can do enormous damage. In parts of the state, however, only the tiniest spit of land divides sea level from plain old underwater. Reporting for us tonight from Grand Isle, Louisiana, here's Peter Viles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the electricity was coming back -- Tropical Storm Cindy knocked it out Tuesday -- the mayor called for a voluntary evacuation, and folks in Grand Isle were asking an old question again: Will this storm be the one that washes this town away?

AMBROSE BESSON, GRAND ISLE RESIDENT: If this town, this Grand Isle washes away, a whole way of life is gone, gone forever. VILES: Aside from brief stints in the Army, Ambrose Besson and his cousin, Bobby Santinni, have lived her all their lives.

BOBBY SANTINNI, GRAND ISLE RESIDENT: My (INAUDIBLE) ticket. You see the movie "Roots?" (INAUDIBLE).

VILES: Here is a quiet old Cajun fishing village, where the fish really are jumping and where Bayou Lafourche spills into the Gulf.

BESSON: Bayou Lafourche is in this area here.

VILES (on camera): OK.

(voice-over): It's the kind of place where you can see the mayor without an appointment, where men carry knives, because you never know when you'll need to shuck an oyster.

SANTINNI: Now, there's your live oyster, right out of the water, fresh out of the water.

VILES: It's a place where old men like to gossip.

BESSON: People put Peyton Place to shame on this island. They don't have nothing on us.

VILES: And like to hold on to memories of simpler days.

BESSON: We wasn't raised with electric lights. Kerosene lamps, candles. We used to -- when you wanted to eat, you go right back down the street from where we started, and I went in to throw a -- cast a net and catch a mollusk.

SANTINNI: When we were kids, somebody would -- a young couple would get married in the neighborhood, everybody would grab a hammer and a handful of nails and go build them a house, and then you'd have a house to sleep in that night.

VILES: Even today, old-timers will study the birds and the oak trees that their grandfathers planted for signs of a coming storm.

SANTINNI: If the tree's got acorns, there's no hurricane.

VILES (on camera): Right.

SANTINNI: If they ain't got no acorns, then we got hurricanes.

VILES: Well, what have you got on the trees right now?

SANTINNI: Leaves, no acorns.

VILES (voice-over): The defining moment in the town's history was Hurricane Betsy in 1965. With winds of more than 125 miles an hour, it blew away 90 percent of the town.

BESSON: Nobody can explain what Betsy was like, unless you were here. VILES: The mayor was 7. His father's restaurant disappeared. It was later found 15 miles away.

DAVID CAMARDELLE, MAYOR OF GRAND ISLE: I remember asking my daddy when he was 37 years old with Betsy, and I was 7, and I looked up at him and said, what are we going to do? He said, we're going to start all over.

VILES: The whole town started over, knowing someday a storm could wipe it off the map.

BESSON: Sooner or later, I don't know when, but this island will go back to sea.

VILES: These two aren't going anywhere yet. If forced to evacuate, they will, but they'll be back.

BESSON: I can live off this land.

SANTINNI: Oh, yeah.

BESSON: I don't need air conditioning, I don't need -- I can live here.

SANTINNI: As long as there's a grain of sand left, I will stay on Grand Isle.

VILES: So don't write off this little town just yet.

Peter Viles for CNN, Grand Isle, Louisiana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Last year's hurricane season was a rough one, to say the least, and the fact that Dennis is looming so large so early this season is not a very good sign. The next chapter from CNN's Rob Marciano.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you thought last hurricane season was bad, bear in mind that last season didn't get bad until August the 13th, or Friday the 13th, as it happened, when Hurricane Charley took a sharp right turn, tore through the retirement town of Punta Gorda and raced across Florida, the first of four major hurricanes to hit the U.S. mainland in six weeks.

After Charley came Frances, Ivan and Jeanne.

(on camera): This year's first major hurricane is bearing down on the southeast U.S. coastline a month earlier. We're already down to the fourth named storm. That's the earliest we've ever seen four named storms in the Atlantic basin ever.

(voice-over): Just why is the Atlantic so active? Climate scientists point to the effect called the North Atlantic oscillation, a long-term weather pattern that's made conditions right for hurricanes since the mid-1990s. And this year, the waters of the Atlantic are unusually warm, the perfect conditions to grow hurricanes.

How bad can it get? Experts have said early and often, that we're in for an above average year, not that anyone expected Dennis so strong, so early in the season.

How many storms? In the alphabetical list of named storms, we made it to the letter O last year. And the farthest was 10 years ago, Tropical Storm Tanya in October, 1995.

And If you're keeping score, the annual storm names run through the Ws -- let's hope we're not talking about Wilma a few months from now.

Rob Marciano, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Straight ahead, they are monsters of nature, the greatest storms on earth. But can anything be done to stop them?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOSHE ALAMARO, MIT: If you reduce the wind speed by 10 percent, you reduce the power of the storm by 50 percent.

BROWN: OK, but how? Lots of ideas from the plausible to the preposterous.

MAYFIELD: This one requires the use of a (INAUDIBLE) resonator.

BROWN: In London, the race to find the killers.

PAUL SLAUGHTER, TERRORISM ANALYST: They're going through all of the devices trying to find out the fingerprint of the actual bomb makers.

BROWN: A race, some believe, against time.

They are young and poor, but does that make them potential time bombs?

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: The British government estimates that something between 300 and 600 Brits might have gone and received training in places like Kashmir or Afghanistan.

BROWN: A question for Islam in the new normal. Do moderates have a voice? Why isn't it being heard? We'll talk with a leading imam in California. At the end of a week, full of difficult questions, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: A lot of good stuff in the program tonight. More on the hurricane in a moment. Also, of course, the latest from London and the question a lot of people have been asking, where are moderate Muslims in all of this?

First, though, at about a quarter past the hour, here is Erica Hill in Atlanta with some of the day's other news. Good to see you, Ms. Hill. We missed you last night.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: And you as well, Mr. Brown. Thanks for having me back. Of course, a lot of other stuff going on last night.

BROWN: Yes, there was.

HILL: Yeah. We'll get to some of the other headlines happening tonight.

We start off in Iraq, where the U.S. commander in charge of Baghdad says Iraq could be turning a corner, at least, as far as the capital is concerned. According to Major General William Webster, coalition and Iraqi forces have crippled the insurgency, in fact, so much so he says it can no longer carry out sustained operations in Baghdad.

Insurgents did, however, strike in the city of Balad today, setting off a roadside bomb and killing an American G.I.

A jury will never see Lynndie England's written confession. A military judge ruled she did not understand her rights when she was initially questioned in connection with the abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison. PFC England faces a second court martial later this year. Her first, you may recall, ended in a mistrial when the judge threw out a plea deal.

Under Aruban (INAUDIBLE) an apology from Natalee Holloway's mother. Beth Holloway Twitty says she's sorry for verbally slamming two young suspects when they were freed from custody earlier this week. She chalks it up to frustration.

Her lawyer says the apology has nothing to do with the threat of a libel suit from two young men.

And back home, the FDA says labeling for Viagra, Cialis and Levitra should mention a rare form of blindness as a potential side effect. At the same time, the agency cautions it's impossible to know, at least not yet anyway, whether the pills are really to blame.

And because I wasn't here last night, Aaron. I didn't get to remind you about the new feature at cnn.com. Just log on, click on the video link. And you'll be able to watch CNN video as many times as you want, whenever you want, all for a price so low, we really can't mention on TV. But since this is cable TV, I'm going to break rules here and tell you -- free.

BROWN: You know, it's incredible. I make fun of this, in just that 24 hours, I didn't have you here to remind me, I had forgotten about that fine feature.

HILL: It's a good thing we have it. Actually a lot of people are logging on to watch a lot of the video from London yesterday. So it is a great thing for so many people.

BROWN: It's a terrific thing. Thank you. See you in a half an hour.

Right now, dealing with a hurricane involves radar, it also involves plywood and getting the heck out of the way as quickly as you can. But consider for a moment the what-ifs here. The weather service gets plenty of ideas, some of them pretty out there. Then again, so is standing in the rain with a kite and a key, once upon a time.

Here's CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take a whole bunch of jet engines, load them on barges and haul them out in the ocean. Simple, and, says MIT scientist Moshe Alamaro, the engines may be all that's needed to reduce a hurricane's punch.

MOSHE ALAMARO, MIT: So, if you reduce the wind speed by 10 percent, you reduce the power of the storm by 50 percent.

ZARRELLA: Alamaro's theory works like this: barges, each carrying about 20 jet engines would be positioned off the coastline. When a hurricane approaches, the engines pointed upward, are started.

ALAMARO: It is expected that the vertical jet would create plumes and updraft. And thunderstorm, and hopefully a tropical storm.

ZARRELLA: These storms would sap the energy from the ocean, cooling the water. When the hurricane passes over the cooled water, it would lose some strength, even if the hurricane and tropical storms hit, the damage would be much less than from a major storm.

Hurricane center director Max Mayfield has seen hundreds of ideas from, well-intentioned folks, many he neatly keeps in what he calls the X files.

MAX MAYFIELD, NATIONAL HURRICANE DIRECTOR: The harmonizer, which is connected to the nerve endings coming from the brain, I don't understand what he's talking about here.

ZARRELLA: Mayfield gets proposals from all corners of the world.

MAYFIELD: Here is one. This is from the Tupperville Correction Institution. This guy was in jail.

ZARRELLA: In South Carolina.

If only there was a silver bullet to drain a hurricane's power. In the 1960s, through the early '80s, the federal government went looking for it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there a way...

ZARRELLA: It was called Project Storm Fury. The plan: seed the hurricane with silver iodide crystals to induce precipitation, making rain would release heat, force the eye wall to expand and reduce the storm's strength. Project scientists hoped by up to 15 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, people think 10 percent to 15 percent is not knowledge, but that will halve the damage. I mean, that's now a $20 billion storm, it's a $10 billion storm.

ZARRELLA: In 1969 the work seemed to pay off. A hurricane was seeded twice, both times the wind speed was reduced. The problem was the team could never prove they caused the change. Many scientists felt man could not have done it. After all, a hurricane is monstrous. In a single day, it releases energy equivalent to hundreds of nuclear bombs.

MAYFIELD: It's a very large circulation. You can't just go in there and dump some ice or put a film on the ocean surface and expect, you know, a major change to take place. It's just -- it's the greatest the storm on earth.

ZARRELLA: And then the political winds came into play. The Castro government charged the U.S. was trying to steer storms to the island. And the Mexican government felt altering hurricanes would deprive them of rainfall. The project was shut down in 1983. The government has not tried again, so Max Mayfield keeps waiting.

MAYFIELD: This one, requires the use of (INAUDIBLE) resonator.

ZARRELLA: You know what that is? What's a quadruple (ph) resonator?

MAYFIELD: You don't have one of those?

ZARRELLA: I don't have one of those.

MAYFIELD: I don't have one of those.

ZARRELLA: Maybe someday a let we are a silver bullet will cross his desk.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Again along the Gulf tomorrow is the critical day to get out. The evacuation orders will probably go up, or the Hurricane watch and warning orders will go up earlier in the day. Sunday land fall.

Coming up on the program tonight, the latest from London, carrying on and carrying out the investigation into the terror bombings of a day ago. And could the terrorists have been home-grown? What drives Britain's radical Muslims. Young, angry, but why?

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: President Bush at the British embassy this afternoon in Washington, signing the condolence book, an act of friendship, for a good friend and important ally on this, the day after the terrorist attack in London. In places struck by terrorism, the day after is never easy, but inevitable. Today, London, a sturdy town, began the work of getting back to normal in the face of undeniable change.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): This was London today, a city going back to work the day after. And this was London today as well, that unmistakable sign that terror has struck: the signs, the posters, the hope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anyone seen this guy? He would have got on the bus around Houston area yesterday, 9:41, 9:42. If you seen him on the bus, if you have any information, please.

BROWN: The death toll rose from 37 to 50. 13 more people accounted for now. They were on the bus, blown apart in the last of yesterday's bombings. 20 people at least remain missing.

The queen visited some of the injured in hospitals today. So did her son. It is the sort of thing the royal family does in these moments. Hundreds remain in hospitals in London tonight.

DR. SIMON WITHEY, ROYAL LONDON HOSPITAL: There have been fractures, there have been head injuries, there have been chest injuries. Patients have had eye injuries from bits of debris being blown into their eyes and a lot of perforated eardrums.

BROWN: Most will heal. Surely none will forget what happened in London yesterday morning. Not the first terror attack in the city, to be sure, just the worst.

ANDY TROTTER, DEPT. CHIEF CONSTABLE: Regrettably, the metropolitan police anti-terrorist branch has huge experience in events such as this. They had some of the best professionals in the world. And they have access to the best advice in the world. So they will be painstakingly dealing with every item of potential forensic evidence.

BROWN: London isn't a different city tonight. It still looks and sounds the same. But it is a changed city. Changed by the bombs that exploded, changed by the people who died, changed by the ones who survived one of whom at least was very lucky, and not for the first time.

TRENT MONGAN, BOMBING SURVIVOR: I walked out of the Sari Club (ph) 10 minutes before it blew up. I was in Sri Lanka, even though I was not on the coast and then I just walked out of King's Cross station before it blew up behind me.

I don't know. I don't really know, maybe I'm put here to help others. I don't know. I'm seeing my life in a different light these days.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: What you'd like to be able to say on a night like this is that the suspects are in custody, their terror ring broken up, something that says the people who did this will not be able to do it again. You'd like to say, that but tonight, if police in London know much about the bombers, they aren't saying. What faces them is a complicated task: four crime scenes, three below ground and not all that stable. Much work to do. Here's CNN's Matthew Chance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): London is a city under watch, blanketed by nearly 2,000 security cameras -- every train station, every street corner, it seems, routinely videotaped.

Now, every face is a suspect.

Finding the bombers will be a painstaking search, but thousands of hours of these images are being closely examined, say police, to find and prosecute those responsible.

ANDY HAYMAN, LONDON METRO POLICE: We have the most experienced anti-terrorist officers on this case, and we have the best community here in London to help work with us to achieve that aim.

CHANCE: But with multiple bomb sites, three trains and a bus, this will be a complex and lengthy investigation.

So far, only a few fragments have emerged from the chaos. Police say initial forensic evidence suggests each of the four bombs contained less than 10 pounds of explosives, small enough to be carried in a backpack. They also believe the devices were placed on the floors or the seats of the trains and the bus, but there is no evidence so far, they say, of a suicide bomber, or of who carried out the well-planned and coordinated attacks.

IAN BLAIR, LONDON METRO POLICE COMMISSIONER: There is, likely, it would still be a cell. Whether these people are still in the United Kingdom is a question, and we will remain vigilant. We must remain vigilant. This is a national issue. It's not just for London and the Metropolitan Police Service.

CHANCE: And the specter of this man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been raised, not by the British police, but by a U.S. intelligence official to CNN. At this point, it's still just speculation, but Iraq's most prominent insurgent may be extending his reach, says one U.S. official, into Europe.

Terrorism analysts say the forensic search will now focus on how the bombs were made and what that says about who made them.

PAUL SLAUGHTER, TERRORISM ANALYST: What they're looking for is the evidence to actually put it on individuals, whether it's one person or two or three people. So, they'll be going through all the devices, trying to find out the fingerprint of the actual bomb makers. And once they've got that, then hopefully there will be sufficient evidence to try and trace them, and then to prosecute them.

CHANCE: But in the end, the best intelligence, say police, will come from the general public. Information on suspicious activity and tips that may help bring the London bombers to justice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHANCE: Well, the big intelligence operation is under way to try and get enough evidence as possible -- or as much evidence as possible to bring those responsible for these bombings to justice. But even as that investigation gets into full swing, police here are warning the public to stay vigilant, talking about the possibility of further attacks, because these London bombers, Aaron, that caused such devastation, such bloodshed yesterday, are still, as they remind us, the police, very much at large here.

BROWN: Just one of the things we learned today, and you just start putting pieces together, it raises intriguing possibilities. First, you have the timers, the possibility of timers at least, and the bombs, and then you had the bus driver's statement that his bus was diverted because of the flood of people coming into the streets from below ground when the bombs went off, the bus bomb being the last one to go off. And at least raises the possibility he was running behind schedule, which raises other possibilities.

CHANCE: That's right. There's all sorts of unanswered questions at this stage in the investigation. It is a very early stage in the investigation. And so, some of the detail that's coming out hasn't really quite been put into perspective yet, but certainly there's a lot of things that people will be asking, about why this bus was selected, for instance. It does seem to have been diverted from its original route because of the traffic, because of the people coming out of the train stations.

Was the bomber on board that bus destined for a train, or did he intend to attack that bus? These are questions that the police hope to build evidence around, find evidence to sort of build up a better picture, find all of the different pieces of the big puzzle to try to find out how and why this happened -- Aaron.

BROWN: Matt, thank you. Matthew Chance in London, early on a Saturday morning.

It should go without saying, we suppose, that not all British Muslims are terrorists or support terrorism or anything of the sort.

That said, there is this fact: The country has a significant number of radical imams and their followers, some perhaps involved in yesterday's attacks, and others you have already met in the course of the last few years. CNN's Charles Hodson tonight in London.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES HODSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Remember this man? Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, now serving life for trying to blow up a plane over the Atlantic.

How about this man, another would-be shoe bomber, Sajid Badat?

Or this man, Omar Sheikh, who organized the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002?

So what do these men have in common? This, a British passport.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: We've seen the British government itself has estimated that there are 10,000 al Qaeda sympathizers or people who sympathize with organizations that have similar world views to al Qaeda. That's a fair number of people. Also, the British government estimates that something between 300 and 600 Brits might have gone and received training in places like Kashmir or Afghanistan in the past several years.

HODSON: If so-called militant Islam in Britain has a face, this is it. Banned from his former mosque, the radical cleric Abu Hamsa has preached and prayed in the street, flanked by masked disciples, the police, and of course, the media.

Terrorism experts say 22 percent of young British Muslim men are unemployed -- that's way above national average -- making them susceptible to radical ideas.

Most Muslim leaders disagree, saying poverty does not necessarily lead to radicalism.

IQBAL SACRANIE, MUSLIM COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAIN: It is true that three times the national average of the young Muslims are unemployed. It is true that they suffer the most concern in terms of poverty. It is true that in terms of education achievement, they are pretty well low on the scale, but this is not a fertile ground for terrorism.

HODSON: But talk to young Muslims like these, attending a late- night prayer session at this East London mosque, and you'll wonder if it's as simple as that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any young person can go and do this sort of stuff. Makes you think why, and obviously they're doing it out of desperation, because of the foreign policies of America and Britain, but it does not in any way justify their acts, what they have done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you want to eradicate terrorism from the world, we have to eradicate the root, from the root. You have to stop killing in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Palestine, in Kashmir, wherever it happens, in America, everything. All terrorists, all terrorism are the same. Killing people in the world is bad, is a very bad thing.

HODSON: As investigators comb through every tiny detail of the wreckage, many security officials worry the bombers may not be far away, poised to strike again.

M.J. GOHEL, ASIA-PACIFIC FOUNDATION: I think the suspicion is that they are still in Britain, and they're just sort of disappeared into the fabric of society once again, and the worrying thing is, if there are going to be follow-on attacks. In Madrid, in Spain, the terrorists had intended to hit the British infant school later on, but Spanish intelligence were able to penetrate that cell. And this is a major concern for people in London, that will we see another atrocity, and if so, when?

HODSON: As long as some Muslims, even a small minority, view the war on terror as a war on Islam, the risk of home-grown terrorism is real.

Charles Hodson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: When we come back, we'll ask a leading cleric in this country if moderate Muslims are seen as too often silent, and in fact are too often silent, in the face of Islamic terrorism.

And then marijuana, the impact of a recent Supreme Court ruling is starting to be felt on those who have been using it for medical relief. But we take a break first on a Friday night. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's not always that the obvious question is also a provocative one, but one we ask now arose from a column today by Tom Friedman in "The New York Times." Mr. Friedman wrote, "To this day no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwah condemning Osama bin Laden." The question then becomes, where and who is the voice of Muslim outrage?

We're joined now by Imam Mostafa Al-Qazwini, of the Islamic Center in Orange County, California, one of the largest centers in the country, and we're glad to see you.

I think that there is a sense, not that Muslims in the country support terrorism, because I don't think that's it, but it's that for whatever reasons, they are not loudly condemning it.

IMAM MOSTAFA AL-QAZWINI, DIRECTOR, ISLAMIC CENTER OF ORANGE COUNTY: I don't think that's true. I think long before the attacks of 9/11, many prominent religious leaders, the highest authorities on both branches of Islam, the Sunnis and the Shias, they condemned and denounced terrorism, all acts of terrorism. After 9/11, we saw a unanimous voice of the Muslims worldwide condemning the heinous attacks in Washington and New York, and I think -- yes, it's true, they did not do enough. Still, we have some leading Muslim countries, their religious leaders are not doing enough.

But I think Muslims in America, in Europe, they did condemn terrorism. We believe that we are the first people who suffer from that. We suffer it twice, because we are American citizens, we are European citizens, and also we are Muslims, and whenever these things take place, they consider us as suspects.

BROWN: There is that...

AL-QAZWINI: I think I lost the voice, so.

BROWN: I'm sorry, can you hear me now?

AL-QAZWINI: I lost the voice. I need...

BROWN: OK. Imam, are you able to hear me now?

OK, we obviously lost the audio there. No? OK, we'll take a break. We'll see if we can fix it. We've got some other questions to ask. We'll see how we do. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: All right, we think we've fixed all the audio problems with the Imam Mostafa Al-Qazwini out in Orange County, California.

You had made the point that, yes, important clerics had condemned, perhaps not as loudly as they might, but had condemned, and that quite correctly, that Muslims suffer in many ways twice from these sorts of attacks.

I wondered, you know, there's a term in American race relations, Uncle Tom, when black Americans are seen as too comfortable with the white establishment. Is there something parallel in Islamic life, if you are seen as siding too much with the American government, or you are speaking too loudly against the radicals?

AL-QAZWINI: Yes, in fact there are many moderate Muslims who speak loud, but our voices have been overshadowed by the loud voices of the extremists. I think the mass media, whether in this country or worldwide, they are attracted to the voices of the extremists and the radicals. They are attracted to their voices, to their Web sites.

We have many Muslim moderates who speak about -- who speak against terrorism and radicalism, but you don't often hear about them. And therefore, people think that Muslims are not doing enough.

I think -- let's put it this way. I think the American government is not doing enough to reach out to the Muslims, especially American Muslims in this country. I think the American government has to enlist the Muslims in this country, especially the youth, on the war on terror, to bring them to the side of the American government, rather than alienating them. We feel that we have been alienated.

BROWN: OK, how do they do that? I mean, what is it that these young Muslims need to be persuaded of here? That slamming airplanes into buildings is wrong? I assume they know that.

AL-QAZWINI: They know that, but we did not do enough to build bridges of understanding and harmony between the law enforcement agencies, between the American government, between the American people and the Muslim people in this country. I think we need to do a lot of work to teach the American people that we are not the enemies of America. There is a small group of people who have been promoted and supported by the intelligentsia in the West, and now they are coming to us and attacking us, and in fact, we, the Muslims -- I'm from Iraq, I suffered from bin Laden and al Qaeda in Iraq. We are the Shia Muslims, are suffering from bin Laden in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, still in Iraq we are suffering. So I think we need to cooperate. We need to.

Muslims here, after 9/11, the quality of the life of the Muslims has been undermined, unfortunately. They are treated as suspects, and this is why they are very hesitant in coming and working with the American government to protect this country.

BROWN: You know, I have no doubt that there's a lot of truth in that, but I wonder if, on the other hand, people in your community are willing to say, not just in the quiet of their own homes or in their own mosques, but out loud, where everyone can hear it, including their own, "we have a problem here." You know, these attacks, again and again and again, are being perpetrated by the same people. They are young Muslims, and are people willing to say that, that this is our problem?

AL-QAZWINI: They are. Remember, Aaron, Muslims are 1.3 billion worldwide, and we have good Muslims. The majority of them are peaceful, harmonious, God-fearing, law-abiding, and we have a very small minority of them who are fanatics, who inherently fanatics, and whatever we do to them, we cannot change them. We cannot change Osama bin Laden's mind. We cannot change Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's mind. But we are also struggling in our own communities, Islamic centers, we have a conflict with them. We do not welcome them. We do not welcome their ideas. We'd like to protect this land, this country and ourselves, and we know that terrorism is not only bad for America, it is bad for the Muslims, and we are suffering every day.

BROWN: When you hear the news, as you did probably very early out on the West Coast yesterday morning of this attack, do you just shudder for what it means, not just for the people obviously in London, but for your community, too?

AL-QAZWINI: I was shocked. It reminded me of the morning of September the 11th, the 11th, that infamous day, and unfortunately, whatever we do to build the bridges of understanding to introduce ourselves in the good manner, an incident like that comes and shatters all of our efforts.

So we feel more sorry than the average American or European, because we know that at the end, we are the losers, because people will associate what's happening with the teachings of Islam. Although we know Islam, I mean, you asked me earlier that why religious leaders do not condemn bin Laden. I think God condemned him 1,400 years ago in the Koran. If we read the Koran, if we read Chapter 5, Verse 32, Chapter 17, Verse 33 -- God condemns all those mass murderers who kill innocent people, civilian people. There is no need for a special verdict to appear. We know that... BROWN: Well, that's a fair point, I suppose, and I would just add, it probably wouldn't hurt. It would make people feel a lot better.

AL-QAZWINI: Absolutely.

BROWN: It's good to see you. I'm sorry for the audio problem earlier. It's good to have you with us tonight. Thank you.

AL-QAZWINI: Thank you, Aaron. My pleasure.

BROWN: Just past -- we're running a little late tonight, passed a quarter to the hour. Erica Hill with us, and can update us on some of the other stories that made news. Ms. Hill.

HILL: Thanks, Aaron.

We start off in California, we're learning now the state will stop issuing I.D. cards to medical marijuana users. Now the move comes after last month's Supreme Court decision which ruled the federal government could prosecute those who smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes even if it's OK in their state.

California's health department is worried about the consequences for patients carrying those I.D. cards. The program will be suspended pending a legal review.

In New York, a joyful noise for a very solemn occasion. Fellow entertainers said good-bye today to singer Luther Vandross. He died last week. Stevie Wonder brought the congregation to its feet with his stirring rendition of a gospel favorite, "I Won't Complain." Vandross was 54.

Harry Potter still a popular guy, shocker. Advance orders for the latest installment of his magical life have already hit 1.5 million copies. "Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince" goes on sale at the stroke of midnight the 16th of this month.

And one for you to think about over the weekend, if you could log on to CNN.com, picture this, click on the video link, watch as much video as you want, as many times as you want, whenever you want, all for free, would you think it was a dream? Perhaps a little wizard magic at work from Harry Potter? No, no, it's just a little gift from us to you.

BROWN: Thank you. Maybe give me a call tomorrow or Sunday just to remind me of that feature so that I don't forget.

HILL: There you go. Enjoy your weekend of free video.

BROWN: Thank you very, very much.

We'll look at some of the international papers when we come back. London, again, the dominant headline.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BROWN: A couple of quick papers for you. You concentrate on the pictures. I'll do the headlines. This is "The Guardian" -- all right, kill the orchestra there. "Death Toll Passes 50." That's a picture by Martin Goodwin of "The Guardian" staff of a rescue worker yesterday, or actually today, looking through one of the subway stations.

"The Times" of London, also a photograph. This is a young woman searching for her boyfriend, holding a picture in her hand of the two of them. Look at her face, not much hope in that face.

And "The International Herald-Tribune" the headline, "Evoking Wartime, British vow to find the bombers," because some normal is required on all days even like these, the weather in Chicago tomorrow, bold.

As are we most nights. We'll wrap it up in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Is the Los Angeles homicide detective who found the infamous bloody glove, a key piece of evidence in the OJ Simpson trial.

MARK FUHRMAN, LA POLICE DETECTIVE: It looks similar to the glove on the Bundy scene.

COOPER: But Mark Fuhrman found himself on trial for denying he'd ever used racial slurs, until an audio tape proved him wrong.

FUHRMAN: The adrenaline started pumping.

JOHNNY COCHRAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Mark Furhman is a lying, perjurying genocidal racist.

FUHRMAN: I assert my fifth amendment priviledge.

COOPER: Furhman pled no contest to perjury.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; The fact that mark fuhrman is a racist and lied about it on the witness stand does not mean that we haven't proven the defendant guilty.

COOPER: After the trial, Fuhrman retired from the LAPD, moved to Sandpoint, Idaho and rebuilt his life.

Turning from cop to author, he wrote a book about the O.J. Trial called "Murder in Brentwood." Solving crimes remained Furhman's passion, and for his second book, "Murder in Greenwich," he found new evidence in the unsolved murder of Martha Moxley.

Michael Skakel, a relative to the Kennedy family, was eventually arrested and convicted for the murder.

FUHRMAN: The Skakel family has nobody to blame but themselves.

COOPER: Fuhrman penned three more books. And now hosts a crime related radio talk show in Spokane, Washington.

He's divorced with two children, and his hobbies include fishing, hunter and hot rods. But he says he still misses being a cop and a detective.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Good to have you with us. We'll see you next week. Good night.

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