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In the Final Analysis, do Voters Care That Much About Who's No. 2 on the Ticket?

Aired July 07, 2004 - 14:30   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.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is LIVE FROM... I'm Miles O'Brien. Here is what is all new this half hour.
Terror on tape. A Western journalist gets an amazing glimpse inside insurgent groups attacking in Iraq.

But first here is what's happening "Now in the News."

Marine Corporal Wassef Hassoun is now safe in Lebanon. That's what a source close to the family told CNN just a little while ago. The source says Hassoun called his family to tell them he's OK. He sounded healthy and happy. There's still no confirmation, however, from the U.S. embassy in Beirut, the Pentagon or the State Department.

The Democratic duo of John Kerry and John Edwards on their first campaign swing as running mates. They are kicking off four days of campaigning this hour. The two are in Ohio. That's a key battleground state. Florida is next.

In Baghdad today, street battles raged between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and insurgents while the Iraqi government grants itself sweeping new powers to try to restore order in emergency situations.

Day two of a DEFCON 1 media blitz on the subject of one John Edwards. The question is, really in the final analysis, do voters care that much about who's No. 2 on the ticket? And we thought just the man to talk to is our No. 1 guy for political analysis, always at the top of our ticket, CNN's Bill Schneider. Bill, good to see you, sir.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hello.

O'BRIEN: Now, you know what amazing me is how quickly polls come out. You know? We have overnight polls where we could get sort of a snapshot, probably not the most precise indication of what is going on in the world.

But why don't you share with us some of these numbers on the CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, on this question of qualifications to serve as president. Which after all is the biggy, right?

SCHNEIDER: Well, yes, sure. That's the issue. You know, they always say you want to pick someone who is qualified to take over immediately should something happen to the president. People thought Gore and Kemp -- this was -- were polls taken immediately after they were selected in 1992 and 1996.

O'BRIEN: So this is apples to apples. These are fresh polls in every case, right?

SCHNEIDER: That's right. First impressions, Gore and Kemp over 60 percent said they were qualified. They were well-known, national figures.

Edwards pretty high, 57 percent. His experience is supposed to be an issue. But that's a pretty high number.

And by the way, right under him at the same number, 57 percent, is a man named Dick Cheney, who just happens to be the vice president. He was chosen in 2000 because of his experience. He was secretary of defense, he had been in government a long time.

And when the president and the Republicans say John Edwards doesn't have the experience to be president, he's considered just as qualified as Cheney was when he was chosen. How about that?

O'BRIEN: Well on the face of it, it makes no sense at all. Dick Cheney has a resume that's as thick as a telephone book. And compared to John Edwards' experience in government, first term senator, after all, there's no way that really in reality is true.

So the question is, what are people seeing? How are they responding to him? How are they getting the sense that he's capable?

SCHNEIDER: Because they saw him in a campaign very recently, they were impressed, he had a positive message. He had a populist message. That is he had a common touch similar to Bill Clinton's. He's a very natural politician, much like Clinton in a way, unlike John Kerry. No one has ever described John Kerry as a populist or as a happy warrior.

What people like about John Edwards is he's a happy warrior, and he's been in the Senate and people know that. So they're impressed by what they've seen recently which was a very impressive campaign.

O'BRIEN: Well, dare we say, it is a popularity contest.

SCHNEIDER: That's what it is. You know, it was interesting, "The Wall Street Journal" today said that when Kerry picked Edwards, he picked someone who was all sizing and no steak because they said he didn't have enough experience.

Well I guess Democrats would respond to that, we already have a steak. John Kerry's a pretty meaty guy.

O'BRIEN: All right, you're taking us back to "Where's the beef?" days there.

SCHNEIDER: You're right.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk about just in general what voters thought about the choice. And Kerry's getting good reviews on this one as well when you look at the same overnight poll that we conducted. Let's look at the numbers and run that through here. In recent times, top of the list, right?

SCHNEIDER: That's right. Good choice, people say. Sixty-four percent think Edwards was a good choice. Only 55 percent said that about Cheney just after he was selected four years ago. Fifty-three for Lieberman. Dan Quayle, well just 44 percent thought that was a good choice.

But here's a little secret, Dan Quayle got elected. Didn't matter.

O'BRIEN: All right, so just a final point here. Let's try to put this in some perspective. People really do not when they go to pull that or punch the pad or whatever they do, they're not thinking about John Edwards. What does this really mean to these campaigns?

SCHNEIDER: Well it means that people don't vote for vice president. I mean look, Lloyd Bentsen for Michael Dukakis was considered a brilliant choice. But Dukakis didn't win. Ferraro was considered certainly an interesting choice. But Mondale didn't win. And Bush won when he picked Quayle which was considered a controversial, if not disastrous choice.

People don't vote for vice president. But they do say something about the nominee. It's his first big decision. And I think what it says about John Kerry is that he's secure enough not to feel threatened by a man who was a rival, who is a attractive, competitive, ambitious. He doesn't seem to threaten John Kerry. And that says he's psychologically secure.

O'BRIEN: Bill Schneider, thank you very much. Always a pleasure having you drop by.

SCHNEIDER: Pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Coming up tomorrow night on "LARRY KING LIVE," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry. Don't miss it. 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 Pacific. "LARRY KING LIVE."

Up next...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you worry that you're getting too close? That one day they might shoot the messenger?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I worry about that every waking moment and every sleeping dream.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Iraqi insurgents sending a Western journalist video of their attacks. "TIME" magazine's Michael Ware in his own words on the perils of being the messenger.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The major political parties in the United States are set to hold their conventions. A lot of concern about security, understandably this summer as those conventions are upon us.

And we now have word that leaders of the House and Senate met at the White House in the situation room to discuss this very matter.

CNN's Ed Henry has some details for us on just what was discussed -- Ed?

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Miles.

Late yesterday, House and Senate leaders went over to the White House to meet with Vice President Cheney and other senior federal officials to discuss convention security, other homeland security matters, about what will occur over the next few months about a lot of concerns about terror threats -- the potential that terrorists will try to have a terrorist event here on American soil leading up to the election, try to affect the elections here as they were affected in Spain earlier this year.

What happened at this meeting is that early yesterday morning we understand that House and Senate leaders were called by the White House and said, come over to the White House Tuesday evening, don't put this on your public schedules. They wanted to keep this very quiet.

Vice President Cheney was there for the briefing, also FBI Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General John Ashcroft, CIA Director George Tenet, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Now, CNN spoke to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who told us that in fact convention security was discussed. He said that given the concern about what happened in Spain, everyone needs to have their guard up. That's the words from Senator Frist.

But I want to caution that Senator Frist did not indicate that there are any new threats, any specific threats. He is just saying that given the environment out there, federal officials want to make sure that Congress and the public are on alert, know what's happening.

And in fact, Senator Frist said either on Thursday or Friday he will have a briefing for all senators in a secure room of the Capitol in order to discuss this.

And more urgently, this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. all House members, all 435 House members will get a briefing, a secure briefing in the Rayburn Building; that is going to come from FBI Director Robert Mueller, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, also John Brennan, the head of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. They will all be there.

George Tenet, the CIA director -- the outgoing CIA director is tentatively scheduled to be there as well, Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Ed Henry on Capitol Hill.

Thanks very much.

Now let's move on to a captivating story from Baghdad that many in journalism see leading down a frightening and risky, slippery slope. A reporter gets very rare access to some dangerous events from even more dangerous sources.

Here's our senior international correspondent Brent Sadler.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a Baghdad hotel room, this Western journalist views horrifying video sent to him by an Islamic insurgent group in Iraq that carried out a recent terror attack.

MICHAEL WARE, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Oh, my God, I've not seen this. They've been filming this stuff from the beginning.

SADLER: Michael Ware, an Australian reporter working for "Time" magazine, is walking a professional knife edge, an unlikely go-between for anti-Western militants.

He's viewing what purports to be the gruesome attack that killed four American security contractors in Fallujah some three months ago, when the bodies were dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge.

WARE: This video is straight from the mujahedeen. This is the Blackwater killings. They talk about planning it.

This is the seventh tape I've received in the last three or four days.

SADLER: Including the release of this tape -- it illustrates how insurgent groups have developed the technique of using video to record attacks.

A group called Unity and Jihad, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted terror suspect in Iraq, claims to have made this presentation.

WARE: They have reached a level of organization and sophistication that we have not seen previously. They have become incredibly savvy.

SADLER: What's claimed to be a Zarqawi camera captures this disturbing sequence of a suicide bomber bidding farewell to fighters and boarding a tanker, wired to 3.5 tons of explosives, for start-to- finish coverage of the attack.

WARE: Something in the last few months has now got them filming the most intimate, graphic attacks, like, up close and personal. They're trying to tell the Western public, this is what your boys are dying for. This is what they're up against.

Terrorism is about instilling terror. That's a part of what this is doing.

SADLER: Ware says he holds secret meetings in dangerous places with wanted men.

WARE: Whether you think I'm fortunate or whether you think I'm doomed, the point is I've been given a window into something that no one else has.

SADLER: A window, he says, that opened after 12 months of contact, with access to unexplored territory, straddling a moral and ethical mine field.

WARE: This kind of thing is never easy or comfortable. It doesn't sit well with you as a human being on many levels, but that's what covering war is like.

SADLER: Ware denies he's being used by terror groups and says he filters what he learns regardless of the source.

WARE: This is a war. It has two sides. I feel an obligation to discover as much as I can about both sides. I feel that's what we're here to do.

SADLER (on-camera): Do you worry that you're getting too close to this, that one day they might shoot the messenger?

WARE: I worry about that every waking moment and every sleeping dream, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me on a personal level and it terrifies me in terms of what we're up against.

SADLER (voice-over): And the danger involved.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Michael Ware spoke with CNN's Aaron Brown last night as well. Here's an excerpt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE, "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN")

AARON BROWN, HOST: Are your editors at all uncomfortable with the relationships you are forming with the insurgents?

WARE: That's something that they like to try and monitor as closely as they can. We set very clear parameters for our contact with the insurgents here in Iraq. This is something that obviously we talk about a lot and we're very careful that we don't go beyond points that are not journalistically justifiable or that we're not personally comfortable with.

BROWN: Michael, what would be going beyond what you are comfortable with, or more importantly right now, what your editors are comfortable with?

WARE: I think that would be clearly becoming part of the process. More than just being a journalist revealing videotape or revealing some daring new statement that perhaps they want to make, it would actually be involved in promoting, encouraging, or actually involved in some of the processes of the hostage taking and other kinds of activity. There are certain things you just can't do.

BROWN: Let me try it this way, a little simpler. If your contact said, come with us, we're going to go out and film a suicide attack, and you just come with us and watch -- would that be crossing the line?

WARE: No, I have never done anything like that.

BROWN: Would it be crossing the line?

WARE: Certainly -- yes, I think if you had forewarning and you went to join them, I think that would be something very close to crossing the line.

BROWN: Is there a danger that you are becoming a part of the story in a way that always makes reporters uncomfortable or should?

WARE: Yes, I mean, certainly last weekend I felt that that had happened. A different group other than Zarqawi's actually gave me a hostage tape; the first Westerner as I know to receive a hostage tape giving some poor fellow three days to live.

That made me a participant and I made it very clear after that I want nothing more to do with hostage tapes; any you give me will not see the light of day.

BROWN: Any idea why you and why not any of the hundreds or so other journalists in the country?

WARE: Well, most of the other journalists don't leave their hotels or remain in fortified compounds, or any attempt they've made to develop contacts in Fallujah or -- these other insurgent hot spots in the past, they have simply let go.

This has required hard, unrelenting gumshoe journalism, just getting out there and doing the basics. Most people just aren't doing that.

BROWN: What's happening to the tapes? I'm a little confused about some of this. Someone said today that you've been selling some of the tapes to other news organizations; others say you're not. Can you clarify whether or not you are selling the tapes to others, the way stringers sell tapes all the time?

WARE: No. By and large, what I do is if the insurgents give me materials, I hand that out as a public record.

This tape, however -- this tape has crossed a certain threshold for me. This tape has come directly from Zarqawi's organization. This means that they are aware of me. That's a rather disconcerting thing. So, there's certain measures I need to take.

I allowed that tape to be used exclusively by one network for a short period, and then it's a free-for-all. That is a public document. Someone might want to have an exclusive first chop, but that's everyone's to use. Copy completely and make what they want of it.

I think the world needs to see it and make up their own minds.

BROWN: Danny Pearl comes to mind. Danny Pearl was out looking for the same kind of story you're looking for, and he ended up dead. You must be at some level concerned?

WARE: Absolutely, at all levels concerned. I mean, I've seen these guys. I've seen into their eyes. I find them terrifying. I mean, these are very committed men. And at any moment they could turn on me. I could suddenly be decided he's more valuable to us on a video being terrorized than he is, you know, discussing our movement and what we're showing him. It could happen to me in a blink of an eye. It's terrifying.

BROWN: Michael -- Michael, good to see you. Stay safe. Lots of ethical questions raised. And we suspect that your editors and our viewers are debating them now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Michael Ware with Aaron Brown last night.

Some news coming into CNN. Word of yet another hostage being taken, reportedly by an insurgent group in Iraq. This time, according to the Al-Jezeera television network, Arab language channel, the word is that there's a video showing a Filipino hostage, apparently a security consultant who is in Iraq working as a consultant.

And the hostage takers are indicating that the country of the Philippines has 72 hours to remove all Philippine nationals from Iraq or this hostage faces execution.

Just to recap, yet word of yet another hostage being held by insurgents facing a potential death sentence within 72 hours in Iraq. Back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired July 7, 2004 - 14:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, this is LIVE FROM... I'm Miles O'Brien. Here is what is all new this half hour.
Terror on tape. A Western journalist gets an amazing glimpse inside insurgent groups attacking in Iraq.

But first here is what's happening "Now in the News."

Marine Corporal Wassef Hassoun is now safe in Lebanon. That's what a source close to the family told CNN just a little while ago. The source says Hassoun called his family to tell them he's OK. He sounded healthy and happy. There's still no confirmation, however, from the U.S. embassy in Beirut, the Pentagon or the State Department.

The Democratic duo of John Kerry and John Edwards on their first campaign swing as running mates. They are kicking off four days of campaigning this hour. The two are in Ohio. That's a key battleground state. Florida is next.

In Baghdad today, street battles raged between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and insurgents while the Iraqi government grants itself sweeping new powers to try to restore order in emergency situations.

Day two of a DEFCON 1 media blitz on the subject of one John Edwards. The question is, really in the final analysis, do voters care that much about who's No. 2 on the ticket? And we thought just the man to talk to is our No. 1 guy for political analysis, always at the top of our ticket, CNN's Bill Schneider. Bill, good to see you, sir.

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hello.

O'BRIEN: Now, you know what amazing me is how quickly polls come out. You know? We have overnight polls where we could get sort of a snapshot, probably not the most precise indication of what is going on in the world.

But why don't you share with us some of these numbers on the CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, on this question of qualifications to serve as president. Which after all is the biggy, right?

SCHNEIDER: Well, yes, sure. That's the issue. You know, they always say you want to pick someone who is qualified to take over immediately should something happen to the president. People thought Gore and Kemp -- this was -- were polls taken immediately after they were selected in 1992 and 1996.

O'BRIEN: So this is apples to apples. These are fresh polls in every case, right?

SCHNEIDER: That's right. First impressions, Gore and Kemp over 60 percent said they were qualified. They were well-known, national figures.

Edwards pretty high, 57 percent. His experience is supposed to be an issue. But that's a pretty high number.

And by the way, right under him at the same number, 57 percent, is a man named Dick Cheney, who just happens to be the vice president. He was chosen in 2000 because of his experience. He was secretary of defense, he had been in government a long time.

And when the president and the Republicans say John Edwards doesn't have the experience to be president, he's considered just as qualified as Cheney was when he was chosen. How about that?

O'BRIEN: Well on the face of it, it makes no sense at all. Dick Cheney has a resume that's as thick as a telephone book. And compared to John Edwards' experience in government, first term senator, after all, there's no way that really in reality is true.

So the question is, what are people seeing? How are they responding to him? How are they getting the sense that he's capable?

SCHNEIDER: Because they saw him in a campaign very recently, they were impressed, he had a positive message. He had a populist message. That is he had a common touch similar to Bill Clinton's. He's a very natural politician, much like Clinton in a way, unlike John Kerry. No one has ever described John Kerry as a populist or as a happy warrior.

What people like about John Edwards is he's a happy warrior, and he's been in the Senate and people know that. So they're impressed by what they've seen recently which was a very impressive campaign.

O'BRIEN: Well, dare we say, it is a popularity contest.

SCHNEIDER: That's what it is. You know, it was interesting, "The Wall Street Journal" today said that when Kerry picked Edwards, he picked someone who was all sizing and no steak because they said he didn't have enough experience.

Well I guess Democrats would respond to that, we already have a steak. John Kerry's a pretty meaty guy.

O'BRIEN: All right, you're taking us back to "Where's the beef?" days there.

SCHNEIDER: You're right.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's talk about just in general what voters thought about the choice. And Kerry's getting good reviews on this one as well when you look at the same overnight poll that we conducted. Let's look at the numbers and run that through here. In recent times, top of the list, right?

SCHNEIDER: That's right. Good choice, people say. Sixty-four percent think Edwards was a good choice. Only 55 percent said that about Cheney just after he was selected four years ago. Fifty-three for Lieberman. Dan Quayle, well just 44 percent thought that was a good choice.

But here's a little secret, Dan Quayle got elected. Didn't matter.

O'BRIEN: All right, so just a final point here. Let's try to put this in some perspective. People really do not when they go to pull that or punch the pad or whatever they do, they're not thinking about John Edwards. What does this really mean to these campaigns?

SCHNEIDER: Well it means that people don't vote for vice president. I mean look, Lloyd Bentsen for Michael Dukakis was considered a brilliant choice. But Dukakis didn't win. Ferraro was considered certainly an interesting choice. But Mondale didn't win. And Bush won when he picked Quayle which was considered a controversial, if not disastrous choice.

People don't vote for vice president. But they do say something about the nominee. It's his first big decision. And I think what it says about John Kerry is that he's secure enough not to feel threatened by a man who was a rival, who is a attractive, competitive, ambitious. He doesn't seem to threaten John Kerry. And that says he's psychologically secure.

O'BRIEN: Bill Schneider, thank you very much. Always a pleasure having you drop by.

SCHNEIDER: Pleasure.

O'BRIEN: Coming up tomorrow night on "LARRY KING LIVE," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry. Don't miss it. 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 Pacific. "LARRY KING LIVE."

Up next...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you worry that you're getting too close? That one day they might shoot the messenger?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I worry about that every waking moment and every sleeping dream.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Iraqi insurgents sending a Western journalist video of their attacks. "TIME" magazine's Michael Ware in his own words on the perils of being the messenger.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: The major political parties in the United States are set to hold their conventions. A lot of concern about security, understandably this summer as those conventions are upon us.

And we now have word that leaders of the House and Senate met at the White House in the situation room to discuss this very matter.

CNN's Ed Henry has some details for us on just what was discussed -- Ed?

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Miles.

Late yesterday, House and Senate leaders went over to the White House to meet with Vice President Cheney and other senior federal officials to discuss convention security, other homeland security matters, about what will occur over the next few months about a lot of concerns about terror threats -- the potential that terrorists will try to have a terrorist event here on American soil leading up to the election, try to affect the elections here as they were affected in Spain earlier this year.

What happened at this meeting is that early yesterday morning we understand that House and Senate leaders were called by the White House and said, come over to the White House Tuesday evening, don't put this on your public schedules. They wanted to keep this very quiet.

Vice President Cheney was there for the briefing, also FBI Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General John Ashcroft, CIA Director George Tenet, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Now, CNN spoke to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who told us that in fact convention security was discussed. He said that given the concern about what happened in Spain, everyone needs to have their guard up. That's the words from Senator Frist.

But I want to caution that Senator Frist did not indicate that there are any new threats, any specific threats. He is just saying that given the environment out there, federal officials want to make sure that Congress and the public are on alert, know what's happening.

And in fact, Senator Frist said either on Thursday or Friday he will have a briefing for all senators in a secure room of the Capitol in order to discuss this.

And more urgently, this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. all House members, all 435 House members will get a briefing, a secure briefing in the Rayburn Building; that is going to come from FBI Director Robert Mueller, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, also John Brennan, the head of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. They will all be there.

George Tenet, the CIA director -- the outgoing CIA director is tentatively scheduled to be there as well, Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Ed Henry on Capitol Hill.

Thanks very much.

Now let's move on to a captivating story from Baghdad that many in journalism see leading down a frightening and risky, slippery slope. A reporter gets very rare access to some dangerous events from even more dangerous sources.

Here's our senior international correspondent Brent Sadler.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRENT SADLER, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a Baghdad hotel room, this Western journalist views horrifying video sent to him by an Islamic insurgent group in Iraq that carried out a recent terror attack.

MICHAEL WARE, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Oh, my God, I've not seen this. They've been filming this stuff from the beginning.

SADLER: Michael Ware, an Australian reporter working for "Time" magazine, is walking a professional knife edge, an unlikely go-between for anti-Western militants.

He's viewing what purports to be the gruesome attack that killed four American security contractors in Fallujah some three months ago, when the bodies were dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge.

WARE: This video is straight from the mujahedeen. This is the Blackwater killings. They talk about planning it.

This is the seventh tape I've received in the last three or four days.

SADLER: Including the release of this tape -- it illustrates how insurgent groups have developed the technique of using video to record attacks.

A group called Unity and Jihad, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted terror suspect in Iraq, claims to have made this presentation.

WARE: They have reached a level of organization and sophistication that we have not seen previously. They have become incredibly savvy.

SADLER: What's claimed to be a Zarqawi camera captures this disturbing sequence of a suicide bomber bidding farewell to fighters and boarding a tanker, wired to 3.5 tons of explosives, for start-to- finish coverage of the attack.

WARE: Something in the last few months has now got them filming the most intimate, graphic attacks, like, up close and personal. They're trying to tell the Western public, this is what your boys are dying for. This is what they're up against.

Terrorism is about instilling terror. That's a part of what this is doing.

SADLER: Ware says he holds secret meetings in dangerous places with wanted men.

WARE: Whether you think I'm fortunate or whether you think I'm doomed, the point is I've been given a window into something that no one else has.

SADLER: A window, he says, that opened after 12 months of contact, with access to unexplored territory, straddling a moral and ethical mine field.

WARE: This kind of thing is never easy or comfortable. It doesn't sit well with you as a human being on many levels, but that's what covering war is like.

SADLER: Ware denies he's being used by terror groups and says he filters what he learns regardless of the source.

WARE: This is a war. It has two sides. I feel an obligation to discover as much as I can about both sides. I feel that's what we're here to do.

SADLER (on-camera): Do you worry that you're getting too close to this, that one day they might shoot the messenger?

WARE: I worry about that every waking moment and every sleeping dream, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me on a personal level and it terrifies me in terms of what we're up against.

SADLER (voice-over): And the danger involved.

Brent Sadler, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Michael Ware spoke with CNN's Aaron Brown last night as well. Here's an excerpt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE, "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN")

AARON BROWN, HOST: Are your editors at all uncomfortable with the relationships you are forming with the insurgents?

WARE: That's something that they like to try and monitor as closely as they can. We set very clear parameters for our contact with the insurgents here in Iraq. This is something that obviously we talk about a lot and we're very careful that we don't go beyond points that are not journalistically justifiable or that we're not personally comfortable with.

BROWN: Michael, what would be going beyond what you are comfortable with, or more importantly right now, what your editors are comfortable with?

WARE: I think that would be clearly becoming part of the process. More than just being a journalist revealing videotape or revealing some daring new statement that perhaps they want to make, it would actually be involved in promoting, encouraging, or actually involved in some of the processes of the hostage taking and other kinds of activity. There are certain things you just can't do.

BROWN: Let me try it this way, a little simpler. If your contact said, come with us, we're going to go out and film a suicide attack, and you just come with us and watch -- would that be crossing the line?

WARE: No, I have never done anything like that.

BROWN: Would it be crossing the line?

WARE: Certainly -- yes, I think if you had forewarning and you went to join them, I think that would be something very close to crossing the line.

BROWN: Is there a danger that you are becoming a part of the story in a way that always makes reporters uncomfortable or should?

WARE: Yes, I mean, certainly last weekend I felt that that had happened. A different group other than Zarqawi's actually gave me a hostage tape; the first Westerner as I know to receive a hostage tape giving some poor fellow three days to live.

That made me a participant and I made it very clear after that I want nothing more to do with hostage tapes; any you give me will not see the light of day.

BROWN: Any idea why you and why not any of the hundreds or so other journalists in the country?

WARE: Well, most of the other journalists don't leave their hotels or remain in fortified compounds, or any attempt they've made to develop contacts in Fallujah or -- these other insurgent hot spots in the past, they have simply let go.

This has required hard, unrelenting gumshoe journalism, just getting out there and doing the basics. Most people just aren't doing that.

BROWN: What's happening to the tapes? I'm a little confused about some of this. Someone said today that you've been selling some of the tapes to other news organizations; others say you're not. Can you clarify whether or not you are selling the tapes to others, the way stringers sell tapes all the time?

WARE: No. By and large, what I do is if the insurgents give me materials, I hand that out as a public record.

This tape, however -- this tape has crossed a certain threshold for me. This tape has come directly from Zarqawi's organization. This means that they are aware of me. That's a rather disconcerting thing. So, there's certain measures I need to take.

I allowed that tape to be used exclusively by one network for a short period, and then it's a free-for-all. That is a public document. Someone might want to have an exclusive first chop, but that's everyone's to use. Copy completely and make what they want of it.

I think the world needs to see it and make up their own minds.

BROWN: Danny Pearl comes to mind. Danny Pearl was out looking for the same kind of story you're looking for, and he ended up dead. You must be at some level concerned?

WARE: Absolutely, at all levels concerned. I mean, I've seen these guys. I've seen into their eyes. I find them terrifying. I mean, these are very committed men. And at any moment they could turn on me. I could suddenly be decided he's more valuable to us on a video being terrorized than he is, you know, discussing our movement and what we're showing him. It could happen to me in a blink of an eye. It's terrifying.

BROWN: Michael -- Michael, good to see you. Stay safe. Lots of ethical questions raised. And we suspect that your editors and our viewers are debating them now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Michael Ware with Aaron Brown last night.

Some news coming into CNN. Word of yet another hostage being taken, reportedly by an insurgent group in Iraq. This time, according to the Al-Jezeera television network, Arab language channel, the word is that there's a video showing a Filipino hostage, apparently a security consultant who is in Iraq working as a consultant.

And the hostage takers are indicating that the country of the Philippines has 72 hours to remove all Philippine nationals from Iraq or this hostage faces execution.

Just to recap, yet word of yet another hostage being held by insurgents facing a potential death sentence within 72 hours in Iraq. Back with more in a moment.

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