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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Fires Burn Southern California; Katrina Upsets Lives; Family Members Missing; Construction Boom; Bennett Comments Stir Up Washington Ire; Many Questions Linger as Judith Miller Released from Jail; Katrina Overshadowed Many Big Stories

Aired September 30, 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: Good evening. Again, everyone, Anderson will take the second hour tonight. We begin this hour in New Orleans, with visions of a grand future for a city one day, set against the facts on the ground right now.
On fact, a welcome one, signs of life returning tonight to the French Quarter. This is the scene at Molly's Bar, where a number of locals got together for an informal meeting of sorts to talk about rebuilding, and a lot more we expect.

People were officially permitted back in neighborhoods covering eight zip codes in the city today, with many more to follow by the middle of next week. Not, however, in the Lower Ninth Ward -- not there, not for a very long time.

And around the region, officials say it may take a year just to haul away the debris -- 50 million cubic yards worth in southeast Louisiana alone. That's more than a million dumpster loads, more than a million refrigerators and other appliances on the ground. About a quarter of a million cars, wasted. About 22,000 cubic yards of debris have been removed so far. That's all.

Mayor Nagin, meanwhile, unveiling a commission for rebuilding, along with the outlines of a plan, or a wish list, if you will. Rebuilding the levees eventually to handle a Cat 5 storm, federal tax breaks for city residents, and a light rail system that connects the city, the airport, and Baton Rouge.

Also today, they took a few moments at the New Orleans Fire Academy to honor the heroes of the storm, and there were many. Their stories, many of them yet to be told.

There are also stories to be told of the police, literally, good cop, bad cop stories. Those who did their duty, those who did not, and those now suspected of breaking the law. In a moment, we'll talk to the district attorney of the city of New Orleans. First, a moment to lay out the facts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The New Orleans Police Department has undoubtedly had better weeks, indeed, it's had better months. The resignation of the chief, Eddie Compass, the face of the department through the worst days of the post-Katrina nightmare, became an exclamation point.

The real problem surfaced before. Even as the floodwaters were rising, when looters seemed to own parts of the city, there were charges that 15 percent of the department, as many as 250 officers, deserted their posts. Something that at least one freely acknowledged.

LT. HENRY WALLER, POLICE OFFICER WHO DESERTED: I defend it by saying that I left them in a bad situation, but I would have been leaving my wife in a worse situation.

BROWN: And then there is this, the allegations of a hotel manager, that a small group of cops holed up on the 10th floor of his hotel were looting everything, including this generator stolen from Tulane University Hospital. It was used, according to the allegation, to keep the beer cold for the cops.

SUPT. WARREN RILEY, INTERIM POLICE CHIEF: I have ordered an immediately internal investigation by the department's Public Integrity Bureau, which will focus on at least 12 police officers who are being accused of misconduct.

BROWN: By weeks end, four officers were suspended, another reassigned. The investigation in New Orleans just beginning.

EDDIE JORDAN, NEW ORLEANS DISTRICT ATTORNEY: There is no question that the police department has had challenges with its personnel. And my office has indicted some police officers during the course of my administration.

BROWN: At a news conference today, Mayor Ray Nagin tried to minimize the damage.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: You know, there is going to be lots of stories that come out at the end of the day. It is unfortunate that a small group of police officers are kind of starting to taint some of the heroism that we saw during the event. But, you know, I guess that is normal group dynamics.

BROWN: It has been a troubled department for years, and few seem surprised at the new allegations. The interim chief defended his department by saying, in a sense, it is not as bad as you may think.

RILEY: The department is not dysfunctional. We have 1,400 plus officers that are on the street.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Eddie Jordan, as you just saw, is the district attorney in New Orleans, and he joins us from there tonight. It is good to see you.

EDDIE JORDAN, NEW ORLEANS DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Good evening, Aaron.

BROWN: Good evening, sir. I am confused how many investigation there are. The state said it is investigating. Is your office investigating, and are the police conducting a separate investigation?

JORDAN: Actually, the police department is conducting its own internal investigation of a number of the police officers who were apparently involved in perhaps looting or violation of their own rules and regulations.

The Louisiana attorney general is also involved in an investigation of police officers who may have been involved in the taking of Cadillacs from a car dealership in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

BROWN: Did these sorts of -- we asked this question of former Chief Pennington last night. Do these allegations surprise you?

JORDAN: I must say that we have had issues involving the police department over a number of years. And, of course, even during my tenure as district attorney, we have had a number of rogue police officers who have broken the law. And during the time period during which I was the U.S. attorney, of course, we prosecuted a number of police officers as well. So it is not totally surprising.

BROWN: I mean, in fairness, no police department or very few big city police departments are absolutely, 100 percent squeaky clean. But as you know far better than I, the New Orleans Police Department has had a very troubled reputation for a very long time.

Is there something in the system itself, do you think, that leads to corruption, setting aside for a minute whether any officers in this case did something illegal or not?

JORDAN: Well, I think in part, there was a long period of neglect of the police department where that kind of problem was allowed to fester and a number of police officers were able to get away with wrongdoing of a wide variety without being punished, basically, with impunity.

BROWN: Someone -- excuse me -- someone told me once that part of the problem in New Orleans was that police officers were moonlighting, in some senses, protecting the very places where crime was going on.

JORDAN: I think that that may have been part of the problem as well. But I know there were segments of the community that had long complained about police brutality, and police corruption.

I do believe that that problem had gotten better during the last few years. However, I think we may have been in another cycle where police officers are again turning to the dark side.

BROWN: I don't know that you will have any input in this, but are you comfortable with the interim chief? Would you like to see a nationwide search, someone brought in from the outside? If you had your druthers, how would this play out?

JORDAN: Well, that's not really my call to make. That is the mayor's decision to make. But I do have a close working relationship with Chief Riley, I have worked with him very closely during the time period that he served as the deputy chief. And I am certainly prepared to work with him or any other person that's selected as the superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department.

BROWN: Finally, I mean, all these other things aside, you, your office, all the people in New Orleans have tremendous challenges ahead, law enforcement and otherwise and we wish you nothing but the best. Thanks for your time tonight.

JORDAN: Thank you so much.

BROWN: Thank you. We mentioned a bit ago about the clean up, the physical clean up at the top of the program. The priorities goes something like this: emergency facilities first, then roadways, then curbside trash, then eventually private property.

There is an enormous problem in the city -- there are many of them -- but there's an enormous problem with termites and a larger problem with mold, houses literally covered in it. Here is CNN's Chris Lawrence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim Landis is getting his first look at this mother's apartment.

JIM LANDIS, RESIDENT'S SON: I expected a whole lot worse than this.

LAWRENCE: Her room at the nursing home has mold covering the sofa, growing out of the ceiling.

LANDIS: A lot of the is gone. Pictures, and you know, things she has had a long time, the importance stuff.

LAWRENCE (on camera): That wasn't that bad, but some of these units are so much worse. This is the apartment of John Gish (ph). He is 90 years old. You can still see his walker sitting right here on the floor.

Right underneath with the water soaked through the roof, collapsed the ceiling, and there is mold everywhere in his apartment. Literally, it's not a matter of trying to find a place in here where there is mold, but finding a place where there is no mold. From the walls to the back to the front of this place it is completely covered.

DR. FRANK RABITO, EAST JEFFERSON HOSPITAL: The mold could end up causing a significant medical problem for them.

LAWRENCE (voice-over): Dr. Frank Rabito says even mild forms of mold can cause chronic sinus and respiratory problems.

RABITO: As we get older, our immune systems tend to fall apart, and as a result become susceptible to infections.

MIKE CALHOUN, NURSING HOME OWNER: When I walked in and saw the rain pouring down, I said, oh god, this is it. LAWRENCE: Mike Calhoun owns the nursing home, says the roof's gone on one side of the building, the apartments will have to be gutted. The clean-up crew Calhoun hired would not even walk through the door without hazmat suits. Mold is saturated the ceilings, which have to be ripped out and replaced to protect elderly residents who want to move back.

CALHOUN: That's why we wouldn't let anybody come back until we're sure it is safe.

LAWRENCE (on camera): Calhoun said his residents are scattered all over the country from New Mexico to New Jersey. Some have started to call and ask when they can come home. First he has to gut and replace half that building. Then the city inspectors have to come in and sign off before he gets the authorization to reopen. Chris Lawrence, CNN, New Orleans.

BROWN: It is not simply the mold or dislocation or economic losses, of course; we have all learned much about the word disaster and what it covers. To this day, there is no official count of the missing. People, nobody knows how many, still don't know where their relatives are, and whether or not they are dead or alive. Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fifty-six year old Carmen Bennett decided to stay in her home with her dog during Hurricane Katrina.

JOSE FERRAND, BROTHER OF CARMEN BENNETT: The wind was loud. She was hearing trees falling and she was obviously panicked.

ROWLANDS: Her brother, Jose, who evacuated, was on the phone with Carmen until the line went dead.

FERRAND: She was in her bathroom with her pet, she had loaded up on water, filled up the bath tub, the officials tell you to do. As it turned out, it may have been the wrong thing to do.

ROWLANDS: Jose said, when she saw on television homes in his sister's neighborhood under water, he knew she was in trouble and called everyone he could think of, including the Coast Guard.

FERRAND: We told them where she was, in the bathroom at this house.

ROWLANDS: Two weeks later, still no word. Until a relative e- mailed Jose a photo of Carmen's home; painted on the side a number one and the word dead. Jose says he wants his sister's body, but he doesn't know where she is. He says he's done everything he could think of: he has given a DNA sample and talked to every agency involved in the recovery process. Still, nobody has told him anything about Carmen.

FERRAND: We don't believe in leaving your relatives sitting in a box in the morgue for a month, not having access to her, to give her a proper religious burial. It is inhumane. It is immoral. ROWLANDS: We went long with Jose and his family on their first visit to Carmen's house in St. Bernard Parish. Water had gone up to the ceiling.

FERRAND: She had no chance. This was a surge. Took the ceilings off.

ROWLANDS: He showed up us the bathroom where his sister was huddled with her dog. He thinks she probably died here. Jose needed a break and went to his car.

FERRAND: They told us how bad it was. We didn't have any idea. No amount of words could explain what happened in that house. You saw for yourself, it's catastrophic.

ROWLANDS: With tears in their eyes, the family looked for things to keep. They found a silver wedding glass, photos and some of Carmen's other keepsakes. They also found her dog dead in the house.

Jose says he's very angry that Carmen's body wasn't discovered until September 16th, more than two weeks after the storm. He's also very angry that nobody has called to say that she was found or that she is even believed dead.

FERRAND: I just wish every government official could have been in that house today. Shame on all of them.

ROWLANDS: Jose said he wanted to have a funeral for Carmen and bury her next to her husband, who died last year. He can't do anything until he finds his sister's body.

(On camera): Of the 900 confirmed dead in this state, less than 50 have been positively identified. The pain and frustration that Jose and his family are feeling are being felt by hundreds of families in Louisiana. Aaron?

BROWN: It is almost overwhelming to think about. Do officials believe that this process is just going impossibly slow or do they think, we are just doing the best we can?

ROWLANDS: Publicly, they are doing the best they can; it is a monumental job. There are rumors that the bodies were not properly tagged. It is chaos. Their take on it is, this is just a massive project and it's going to take some time to weed through while these families will have to wait.

BROWN: They have a massive project on their hands, but to the individual's this is a sister, mother, single brother and it's incredibly painful. Ted, thank you -- nice job. Ted Rowlands out in Louisiana.

Tonight, coming up on the program, high school football season in the Gulf -- a lot of big fish in new ponds.

First, at about a quarter past the hour, time for other news of the day, which means we go to Miss Hill in Atlanta. (NEWSBREAK)

BROWN: More to come in the hour ahead. We'll update the fires burning tonight in Southern California. These are live pictures coming out of Burbank, California, so kind of closing in on the near San Fernando Valley. It is a hellish scene, that. We'll have more on it; that's coming up.

And so is this. A helluva thing to say. He called it reprehensible. About the two most inflammatory topics in public life, abortion and race. Was he thinking out loud? Was he thinking at all?

Also, tonight, the stories overshadowed by the storms.

Later, their homes are gone. Helping the high school stars of Louisiana build a new home team in Texas. From the Gulf to Iraq, to New York, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Hurricane Katrina dealt a blow to the country's economy: incomes have fallen and $3-a-gallon gasoline whacked consumer confidence, which is at it's lowest point in 12 years. The bright side, at least in bottom line terms, someone has to do all that repair work. Here is CNN's Tom Foreman.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With 350,000 homes destroyed by Katrina alone, the building industry expecting a windfall. By comparison, Hurricane Andrew was once considered a monster and took only 28,000 homes.

JERRY HOWARD, NATIONAL ASSN OF HOME BUILDERS: We know another half a million homes in the area have significant enough damage, they will need major renovation. So, it is pretty big. It's the biggest thing we have ever seen.

FOREMAN: Automakers will likely benefit from replacing an estimated 200,000 sunken cars. The gambling industry is lobbying to move Gulf Coast casinos, previously kept on boats, on to shore where they can be expanded. And the furniture business is expected to take in millions, but with so much damage in low-income areas, Chinese furniture companies may benefit most.

ROBERT CONNOLLY, UNC AT CHAPEL HILL: Especially in the lower or moderately priced furniture, they are in a position to benefit substantially. Most of the remaining U.S. manufacturers of household furniture tend to be at the higher end.

FOREMAN: The soaring need of the Gulf Coast is so great, some American industry groups are arguing for lower trade barriers for Canadian lumber, Mexican cement and Brazilian plywood. The cost of plywood in the U.S. has jumped more than 50 percent in the past few weeks.

(On camera): Still, people involved in all of these businesses say they honestly cannot figure out how much they are going to make off Katrina because they can't figure out what it will cost for labor, transportation, material and insurance.

(voice-over): The American Insurance Association says all those estimates about how much insurance companies will pay and how high premiums rise, are pure fantasy, until the damage is tallied and the disputes are settled over what's covered.

JULIE ROCHMAN: There will be litigation, and we don't know how that litigation will come out. Cost of rebuilding is an unknown. We don't know what the cost to insurers will be.

FOREMAN: Consider this, these storms were so big, many of the southern companies that may benefit from them were also victims, and balancing their books between profit and loss will take a long time.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

BROWN: Friday night is high school football night across the country. That means homecoming, which in most towns is still a quaint tradition. And in some parts of the Gulf, the idea of coming home is just a dream. Hundreds of kids, young athletes with dreams, have found themselves in new schools, new towns and new teams. It isn't easy.

(Voice-over): Back in New Orleans, Ryan "Hollywood" Singleton, number 87, was a star. The starting quarterback on his high school football team, most valuable player in the league. Dreams of scholarships and college, and a future. He was all of that before Katrina.

RYAN SINGLETON, KATRINA EVACUEE: The hardest part is coming from a team, where you were up here, you come to the middle, trying to work your way in, learning a whole new system.

LARRY DAUTERIVE, HEAD COACH, EAST ST. JOHN WILDCATS: These guys walked off the streets that were studs and stallions at their school, that are down, they're second and third team now. But you know what, they still come to practice. They still believe that there's a ray of hope.

BROWN: Hope counts, when that is all you have, when your family is scattered from Canada to Texas, when you're just one of 20 new kids on a team that was already second in the state.

DAUTERIVE: They come from private school, they come from the Catholic school, parochial schools, public schools -- some schools not even left standing, they won't ever go back.

BROWN: Dauterive now has 144 players. Jerseys are worn backwards, numbers doubled up. Football is huge here. But even the kids seem to get that Katrina was bigger. They try to make the kids from New Orleans, 25 mile to the west, feel at home.

SINGLETON: No, I don't feel outside at all. I felt welcome. Everybody, everybody on the team you know, like brothers. Everybody comes together. One person goes down, everybody will go down. One person get up, everybody come up. A lot of love there. BROWN: A lot of love, maybe, but not a lot of playing time, which, for a former MVP with dreams, is tough to take.

SINGLETON: A Peyton Manning go to any other team, he might be better than the quarterback that's playing -- he's not going to play, because he doesn't know the system yet. You don't know it, you can't play.

BROWN: He's working on learning a new play book, working on getting his life back to together. Working to trust a coach he is just starting to know.

DAUTERIVE: The college coaches will come and they'll know where those kids are, because I will make it known where Ryan Singleton is, and he will have a chance to shine and get on the field and get national exposure.

BROWN: There are two seasons, they say, in Louisiana, crawfish season and football season. But even a football senior knows it's more complicated than that, knows that football or not, much has been lost that cannot be replaced. The simple things kids count on.

SINGLETON: It's hard because you want to graduate with your senior class, that you been with four years, go to your prom. All that good stuff. You have to do it with different people. you can't wait because life is not going to wait for you.

DAUTERIVE: In the big scope of things, football is just a minute thing. But I think we have given them a new lease on life, a new sense of belonging and we've accepted them.

BROWN: Across Louisiana and Texas and Mississippi, there are many Ryans -- some played football, others played in the band, some just played X-box. All are scattered about, working with a new play book. Starting over.

BROWN: Just ahead, the fires burning in the hillsides of southern California. These pictures out of Burbank, California, still in flames, not far from an awful lot of people. We will update that. Much more ahead on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: "Morally reprehensible," "impossibly ridiculous," these are the caveats that syndicated radio host Bill Bennett used as disclaimers when he posited a theory linking race and crime. Few heard the caveats, though, because of the other phrases, black babies and abortion. They were just way too loud.

Two days later, Mr. Bennett is still on the defensive, saying he's the one that's owed an apology, apparently for having a tin ear.

Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The president thinks it's inappropriate. Howard Dean calls it hateful. Congressman John Conyers wants an apology. Conservative values guru Bill Bennett says he's been misunderstood.

BILL BENNETT, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I was dealing with this doubly noxious hypothetical about abortion and race to illustrate a point about just how noxious and horrible it is.

CROWLEY: For sure, doubly noxious hypotheticals don't make good sound bites.

It began when a caller to Bennett's radio show suggested that Social Security would be more solvent if there had not been so many abortions over the past 30 years.

Bennett responded that was not a good anti-abortion argument, because hypotheticals can work both ways.

BENNETT: I do know that it's true if you wanted to reduce crime you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do. But your crime rate would go down. So these far out, these far-reaching, you know, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

CROWLEY: It became a runaway train, spread across the Internet, picked up in the halls of Congress.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: These are shameful words, Mr. Speaker. I'm appalled to have to say them on the floor of the House of Representatives.

CROWLEY: A noisy, oncoming explosion of unhypothetical divides.

ROLAND MARTIN, JOURNALIST/RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Again, to say that it's a hypothetical situation, to suggest that you could abort every black child, which would include me and my nieces and nephews and mothers and fathers to lower the crime rate. How about a jobs program?

DR. JOHN MCWHORTER, THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: In a very strict, logical sense, what he's saying is true. He's certainly not advocating that what we do about it is to abort all black babies. It's a hypothetical that he was referring to, because he was making a logical point about his opposition to abortion.

CROWLEY: Stunned by suggestions that the Bush administration was slow to help Katrina victims because most were black, Republicans treated this like the plague, declining comment on camera.

(on camera) But there is some off camera fuming. "Look," said one top Republican, "it was goofy and it was inappropriate."

But what you are hearing from Democrats is full anger, and that is clearly how Bennett plays it. BENNETT: What's the line from Butch Cassidy, these guys are shooting at us, you know. These guys are -- these guys are trying to kill me.

REV. AL SHARPTON, DEMOCRATIC ACTIVIST: I'd like to see those that have supported him, those that financed him and the radio stations that carry him, have to really look at whether or not they can afford to stand with a guy who blatantly says and confirms he believe that blacks and crime are synonymous.

CROWLEY (voice-over) Bennett supporters say on his web site and at the headquarters of his radio distributor, many of the calls promising never to listen to Bennett again are from Washington and New York, where the program cannot be heard.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: "New York Times" reporter Judith Miller spent nearly three months in jail for refusing to reveal a source. She got out of jail today, agreeing to talk to a grand jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. Story pretty straightforward so far.

For a start, Judith Miller didn't write a story, complication No. 1. And two reporters who did, did not see the inside of a jail cell. Then there's the timing of Ms. Miller's decision to testify. Why did it happen today? Why she need to go to jail in the first place?

Many questions. Some answers from CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Judith Miller is exhausted but happy.

JUDITH MILLER, "NEW YORK TIMES": I heard directly from my source that I should testify before the grand jury. This was in the form of a personal letter and most important, a telephone conversation, a telephone call to me at the jail.

ARENA: Though she wouldn't say, Miller's source was Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. That's according to Libby's lawyer.

Miller says she was also given assurances from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he wouldn't go on a fishing expedition and instead would limit questioning to specific discussions she had with her source.

MILLER: The special counsel agreed to this, and that was very important to me.

ARENA: Miller had received permission from Libby in the form of a waiver to testify more than a year ago, but she didn't because she says it may not have been voluntary. Libby's lawyer says that he made it clear from the start that it was. But Miller wasn't convinced until her lawyer recently approached Libby.

ROBERT BENNETT, JUDITH MILLER'S ATTORNEY: We had reason to believe that he was prepared. He had made those representations to some third parties.

ARENA: As long as the grand jury was sitting and Miller refused to talk, she had to stay in jail. There was speculation Fitzgerald would ask to for an extension or even empanel a new one, meaning even more jail time.

Now that Miller has testified, Fitzgerald may be able to wrap up his two-year probe.

(on camera) Knowingly divulging the name of a covert CIA operative is a federal crime. But it's unclear whether Fitzgerald has found any evidence that anyone did that, in the White House or anywhere else.

ROSCOE HOWARD, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: But certainly one of the options is that yes, we've got all this evidence. And yes, we found out that certain after activities happened. But nevertheless, we've just decided that we're not going to go forward with it.

ARENA (voice-over): The controversy started when columnist Bob Novak revealed Valerie Plame's name in one of his articles as the wife of diplomat Joe Wilson, who openly criticized the president's policy in Iraq.

It's not clear who Novak's sources were or why he wasn't held in contempt.

BOB NOVAK, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST/CNN COMMENTATOR: My lawyer says I -- I cannot answer any specific questions about this case.

ARENA: Libby isn't the only senior White House staffer who admits to having discussions with reporters. So did Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff. But both he and Libby say they never mentioned Plame's name to reporters.

Kelly Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: After her release, Judy Miller said she hopes that her, quote, "very long stay in jail would strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources."

There's another important bond in the news chain, the most important one, the one between the public and those of us who report the news.

We're joined tonight by old friend Floyd Abrams, who was one of Ms. Miller's attorneys.

Do you know why what happened in the last 10 days is actually -- I guess it played out over a 10-day period?

FLOYD ABRAMS, ATTORNEY FOR JUDITH MILLER: Yes.

BROWN: Why didn't it happen three months ago?

ABRAMS: Why didn't it happen? Because at that point, there was no personal waiver from the source to Ms. Miller. That is to say, no phone call, which did occur. No letter, which did occur, and no deal, so to speak, with the special prosecution.

BROWN: Did you know -- can you say if she tried to obtain that sort of waiver from the source prior to her incarceration?

ABRAMS: Yes, I can tell you that, prior to the incarceration, because I was the one doing it. I did speak to counsel for Mr. Libby at that time. And we had, what I think is fair to say, a mixed conversation.

He said it was OK for her to testify. At the same time, he said, it was inherently coercive for the government to give her a form -- to give him a form and ask him to sign it.

And for that and other reasons, Ms. Miller concluded that it was just not clear enough that her source was really willingly saying, go ahead and talk.

BROWN: And when she gets hauled off to jail, I mean, literally was hauled off to jail, you know, Mr. Libby has an attorney, so I don't know if you can answer this. Did he ever think, maybe I should pick up the phone that day and call her and say, "Judy, I said you could talk."

ABRAMS: Yes. That's what never happened. And all the time, from the time we lost in the court of appeals, to the time the Supreme Court didn't hear it, to the time she went to jail, not a call, not a communication, nothing.

And that also led her to think, as well, not that her source wished her ill, but that the source wasn't prepared to say in a sort of a full-throated way, "Look, it's really OK. I want to you testify."

BROWN: You've -- this is your area. I mean, you represent -- you do a lot of First Amendment cases, have for a long time. Do you think that the essential relationships here between reporters, sources and reporters and public, have been damaged significantly by this case?

ABRAMS: No, I don't. The law has been hurt by this case. We lost an important case. And the District of Columbia, at least now, it's pretty clear that there's no protection for journalists in grand juries.

In terms of journalists and the public, I think Judy Miller's willingness to go to jail sends the right signal. And from the letters I've seen and the communications I know about, I think people are more likely to have more respect and regard and trust in journalists because she was willing to take a very severe punishment.

BROWN: I hope you're right. And I hope that people who think you're wearing some sort of bolero across your chest today appreciate that no, actually, your arm is in a sling.

ABRAMS: That's right.

BROWN: And just as another reminder, Floyd, that the good ones play hurt. Thank you.

ABRAMS: Thank you.

BROWN: Appreciate you coming in tonight.

Still to come on the program, the gulf is reeling, but the world keeps spinning. The stories that Katrina over-shadowed.

And standing guard and hoping for the best, trying to keep the flames at bay. We take a break first on a Friday edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We say it a lot: "in other news." We normally mean it as a transition. Tonight, after a month on hurricanes, we mean it more as a reminder. In other news. Here's NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are stories that would otherwise have led newscasts: an especially a bloody month in Iraq; a major U.S. offensive in the town of Tal Afar near the Syrian border. Offensives in Ramadi, retaliation by insurgents. Since Katrina hit, 55 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, 38 of them by improvised explosive devices.

IEDs took civilian lives, too, almost 100 in car bombings in Baghdad on September 14, another 30 three days later when a car bomb ripped through a market just east of Baghdad, at least 60 more Thursday, when three pickup trucks detonated just north of Baghdad in Balad.

There was news about other wars, other conflicts. Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation. Bands of Palestinians set flags in the rubble of former Jewish settlements, set fire to former synagogues.

Hamas militants fired rockets into Israel territory. Israeli aircraft fired back into Gaza.

A disarmament monitor confirmed that the Irish Republican Army had given up its entire arsenal of weapons after more than 30 years of armed struggle.

There was news from battlegrounds of other kinds, over gay rights. The Vatican announced a massive investigation to find and dismiss homosexuals in U.S. seminaries.

The Massachusetts legislature resoundingly defeated a constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This one is very sweet.

NISSEN: In California, the legislature passed a bill approving gay marriage. The bill was promptly vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who then announced he will run for reelection in 2006.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: I'm in there for seven years. Yes, I will run for governor.

NISSEN: In Dover, Pennsylvania, the court battle began over the teaching of evolution versus intelligent design in public high school biology classes.

In Washington, an unflappable John Roberts faced down frustrated Democratic senators...

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES: So help me God.

NISSEN: ... was confirmed as chief justice of the Supreme Court, elevated as the nominee of that position after the September 3 death of Justice William Rehnquist.

There were other notable deaths: Simon Wiesenthal, the famed Nazi hunter.

BOB DENVER, ACTOR: You don't have to.

NISSEN: Bob Denver, best known as the hapless Gilligan.

A plane crash in Indonesia killed 117; a commuter derailment in Chicago killed two.

Delta and Northwest, America's third and fourth largest airlines, filed for bankruptcy protection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And lift off!

NISSEN: And NASA unveiled plans to, by 2018, again send humans from the turmoil of Earth to the tranquil surface of the moon.

Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, an update from the fire lines of Southern California. We'll take a break first. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A quarter till the hour, NEWSNIGHT time. Once again, time to check on some of the other stories that made news today. Erica Hill again with us from Atlanta. Good evening, Erica.

ERICA HILL, ANCHOR, HEADLINE NEWS: I like NEWSNIGHT time. It's got its own time zone?

BROWN: Yes, it does. We're running about two minutes slow.

HILL: All right. Good. That works for me.

We're actually going to start off the news headlines in the Pacific Time zone tonight, where fire is still burning the Los Angeles area. The Ventura fire is almost under control. Good news there.

But unfortunately, this one is not. This is the Northern Burbank fire, where the San Fernando Valley gives way to the Verdugo Mountains. The Associated Press reporting that residents on Country Club Canyon Road are being encouraged to leave.

And you're actually looking at live pictures here, provided to us by KCAL of this fire in Burbank.

So far, flames across the area have burned more than 20,000 acre. California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, toured some of the damage today.

Meantime in Britain, an independent inquiry into the police shooting of a Brazilian man mistakenly identified as a tourist (sic) was delayed by the metropolitan police commissioner. Sir Ian Blair said a counter-terrorism investigation has to take priority.

Back stateside, a congressional inquiry says the Education Department broke the law when it hired conservative columnist Armstrong Williams to promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars was spent on what the inquiry described as propaganda, and it says the money must now be returned.

And more than 50 schoolchildren and adults endangered when a school bus overturned on an expressway in New York City today. Nobody was critically hurt, but as a precaution, all 42 children were taken to the hospital, Aaron.

And that is going to do it for us. Have a wonderful weekend.

BROWN: Have a good weekend yourself. Thank you very much. We'll see you on Monday -- actually, we'll see you on Tuesday.

"Morning Papers" coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. I wish to tell you there was a theme in morning papers today, but if there is, I can't find it, except that Bill Bennett made the front page of a lot of papers. We'll get to that in a minute. It's in "Stars and Stripes," even. "Ex-Education Secretary's Racial Remark Causes an Uproar." More on that coming. The big story in "Stars and Stripes," though more important, "New Army Warning Issued to Army Bloggers." Some of the most interesting stuff actually coming out of Iraq is written on soldiers' blogs. You ought to, if you like to goof around on that stuff, take a look.

"Furious Finish," Red Sox, Yanks face off. The Red Sox won today. Baseball, no matter how hard it tries to screw things up, can't in the end. And it's going to be a great weekend.

"The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition" kind of sticks a little knife into the side of CEOs, "Jet Green, The CEO's Private Golf Shuttle. Corporate planes meant to save time also ferry executives to top courses." I'm sure the shareholders don't mind that.

Wish I had a deal like that. I know someone who does.

"He said what?" "Rocky Mountain News" headlines. This is actually several things. Anyway, the Bill Bennett thing, I don't know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime you could abort every black baby in the country and your crime rate would go down. I suppose you could make the argument if you aborted every baby in the country your crime rate would go down. If you aborted every white baby your crime rate would go down.

It was an inelegant way to say something. You can't do that. You're a smart man, most of the time.

Let's just do the weather in Chicago. What do you say? The weather in Chicago tomorrow, if you're traveling that way, for whatever reason, perhaps to celebrate Chicago White Sox, is cordial. You'll be greeted warmly.

We'll take a look at 30 days of hurricane coverage, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was the first Greek American to be nominated for president.

MICHAEL DUKAKIS, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The best America is a nation where the son of Greek immigrants, with your help, can seek and win the presidency of the United States. Thank you all very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Dukakis won the 1988 Democratic nomination against some big names in his party. He struggled with image nightmares in the campaign against George Bush.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's against most defense matters, and now he wants to get an army of IRS auditors going out there. I'm against that. I oppose that. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bush won the election, and Dukakis returned to Massachusetts to finish out his term as governor.

Meanwhile, his wife Kitty went public with her struggles with alcohol, diet pills and clinical depression. She's now writing a book about her experiences and works with a refugee and immigrant organization, Relief International.

Dukakis is now 71 and calls himself a missionary for public service. After he left the governor's office, Dukakis found his niche teaching, dividing his time between Northeastern University in Boston and UCLA.

The father of three, grandfather of six says he enjoys nurturing the love of public service in young people but cautions his students to talk to him first before they run for president.

Politics aside, Dukakis says he'd simply like to be remembered as a guy who loved his country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Good to have you with us all week. It feels like we've been together for a month straight. And we've appreciated you being with us. Special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER: 360" coming up next. Anderson reviews 30 days of hurricane coverage. We'll see you next week. Good night for all of us.

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