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North Korea Restarts Nuclear Weapons Program; Sled Dog Race Minus Snow; What Gives Yoda the Force?

Aired March 02, 2003 - 16:00   ET

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

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


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: NEXT@CNN begins now with more of North Korea gearing up a nuclear program.
Alaska's Iditarod sled dog race, how can you mush without snow?

And what gives Yoda the force? We'll tell you as Oscars for technical achievement are handed out. That and more coming up on NEXT.

Hello, everyone and welcome to NEXT@CNN for this Sunday, March 2. We start today's show with more on the arrest of the man suspected of planning the September 11 attack, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. CNN national security correspondent David Ensor joins us now from Washington with more -- David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, as has been said all day and pretty much since the news came out, this is a very, very major victory for U.S. intelligence and for the fight against terror. It was done with a great deal of help from the Pakistanis, and there's a good deal of praise and thanks for them that is being handed out today. Although most Americans, if they were asked, would -- who's the most important person in al Qaeda would probably say Osama bin Laden, and many haven't heard of anyone else. A number of people in the intelligence community believe that this arrest, catching Khalid Shaikh Mohammed may actually be more useful than getting Osama bin Laden, which, of course, they'd also like to do. Here's Senator Jay Rockefeller, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: It is huge. Other than Zawahiri, who would be number two, I would think that arrest is as big or bigger than bin Laden because this was the brain, this is the guy who has been behind everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ENSOR: Because of that, clearly, the highest priority now is to interrogate Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to learn anything that can be learned about future planned operations against Americans, American targets or their allies. So that is the priority. He's been taken to an undisclosed foreign location. Not in Pakistan. Not in the United States. This is what they've been doing with other senior al Qaeda figures like Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh and others. They are being interrogated. Any kind of lawful pressure that can be used is being used because lives are at stake here.

Now, this is also a man who ease been indicted or has been accused, has been implicated, in a number of terrorist acts in the past. There was a first World Trade Center bombing. Then he was -- is also been implicated in the bombings at two American embassies in Africa. He is considered to have been involved in the attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, and he was also thought to have been involved in the 9/11 attacks themselves. But, as I said, officials say the priority is to get information out of this man.

That's more important than putting him on trial. And in fact, they want to keep him somewhere where he's not able at the moment to rely on the protections of U.S. law, protections that defendants in a court case would have -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, David. Thank you, from Washington.

Well, Iraq said it has moved ahead with destruction of its Al Samoud 2 missile arsenal, and North Korea continues to ramp up its nuclear program, restarting a five megawatt nuclear reactor in Yongbyon this week. Here to talk more about both those developments is David Albright, who heads up the Institute for Science and International Security, and he is an expert on nuclear nonproliferation and a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq. Good to see you, David.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: Good to be here.

WHITFIELD: All right, so Iraq now says that it has crushed or destroyed 10 Al Samoud 2 weapons in all. How are they going about doing that?

ALBRIGHT: Well, they use very simple procedures. I mean, they're using basically a bulldozer to smash the rocket body. I'm sure they are using something to destroy the guidance system and any -- you know, it isn't much more sophisticated. I mean, it's not -- but it is not rocket science to destroy rockets.

WHITFIELD: So, is this considered disarmament?

ALBRIGHT: Yes. It's an important disarmament step. I mean, Iraq has been cooperating on this issue and it deserves some credit. The U.N. ruled that these missiles are prohibited, and Iraq has agreed to destroy them.

WHITFIELD: All right. Now, it was just days ago that Iraq said it didn't know how, didn't have the means in which to destroy these missiles, and now starting this weekend, lo and behold, at least 10 missiles, according to them and their numbers, have since been destroyed. So, suddenly where did the know-how come from?

ALBRIGHT: I'm afraid Iraq is not going about its destruction in a quick way. I mean, the United Nations wanted to use explosives to destroy the missiles. I mean, you would -- if you were planning destruction, you would like the Iraqis to quickly bring you all the missiles and then put them in a field and blow them up fairly rapidly. It shouldn't take more than several days. At this pace, it'll take a couple of weeks and one can expect that Iraq will drag its feet.

WHITFIELD: And we are talking about 100 missiles, at least.

ALBRIGHT: Yes, it is not very many. Some of the missiles are deployed so they have liquid rocket fuel in them, and that fuel has to be drained out before they are taken to the place for destruction. Iraq has not made any steps to do that yet, which is also going to slow the process down.

WHITFIELD: All right, let's shift gears now to North Korea. This five-megawatt reactor, is it considered a rather significant reactor, and what's its potential?

ALBRIGHT: Well, it's the first step of North Korea restarting its frozen nuclear facilities, and so in that sense, it's very important. It shows that North Korea means what it says. It announced in December that it intended to restart this reactor, and it also said it intends to restart an associated reprocessing plant, or where plutonium separated from the spent fuel that is generated by this reactor.

WHITFIELD: Can it alone produce a dangerous piece of arsenal?

ALBRIGHT: No. The plutonium is very dilute inside this highly radioactive fuel, and the fuel has to be in the reactor for quite a period of time, and then it has to cool before it can be sent over to the reprocessing plant where the plutonium is extracted chemically from this fuel. And it is this concentrated form of plutonium that can be used in a nuclear weapon.

WHITFIELD: And quickly...

(CROSSTALK)

ALBRIGHT: So that really -- I am sorry...

WHITFIELD: No, I am sorry. Go ahead. Finish your thought.

ALBRIGHT: What that means is that the fate of this reprocessing plant is the thing to watch. It's probably true that the North Koreans are starting this plant already. And that's how there's been some indications learned by satellites and other means that this plant is on its way to being started. And that's going to be the critical issue.

WHITFIELD: And quickly, can you give us a sense as to how it can be detected? What kind of activity is officially been restarted there?

ALBRIGHT: Well, in terms of knowing the restart, I mean you want to look for plumes, kind of brownish plumes that show that nitrate acid is used, which is what is used to dissolve the fuel. More importantly, you want to look for radioactive emissions, and particularly krypton 85, which travels a great distance because it is inert, and there's many detectors around the region to detect this radioactive material. And if one of those detectors picks it up, then we'll know for sure that North Korea is separating plutonium to use in nuclear weapons.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much. David Albright. Appreciate it.

ALBRIGHT: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. And this just in. Ongoing developments involving the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who is believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was arrested in Pakistan yesterday. New pictures just now coming in. We are about to show you right now these pictures showing him shortly after his arrest. And that arrest took place as a result of a sting operation involving U.S. intelligence forces, as well as Pakistani authorities. That arrest taking place just outside of Islamabad. He has since moved out of Pakistan where he is being interrogated by U.S. authorities, so he is officially being considered in U.S. custody. That picture now just coming in and wanted to share that with you, of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Now, coming up, do Americans want to go to war with Iraq or not? Sometimes the numbers don't seem to add up, do they? When polls collide, coming up.

And later, find out how Yoda is brought to live. The winners of the sci-tech Oscars as NEXT@CNN continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Intelligence forces within the U.S. are calling it an ongoing investigation, I am talking about the arrest yesterday of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Well, now we have a photograph that was taken upon his arrest just outside of Islamabad yesterday. He is in U.S. custody; however, he is no longer in Pakistan because officials say they are continuing to interrogate him, but outside of his homeland of Pakistan.

Now, on to our other stories we're following you. Politicians and news organizations try to take the pulse of the people when there's an issue as dramatic as an imminent war. One way they do that is with polls, but if you wonder why there's so much variation between different polls. Joining us to talk about the science of polling or is it an art, in fact, Ray Teixeira, is a senior fellow with the Century Foundation. He's in our Washington bureau; and Robert Weissberg is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, and he is in Springfield, Illinois. Good to see you, gentlemen.

ROBERT WEISSBERG, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: Glad to be here.

RAY TEIXEIRA, THE CENTURY FOUNDATION: How are you?

WHITFIELD: So what example of different numbers from different sources, either 69, 66, or 63 percent of Americans favor military action in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein, but if phrasing changes just a bit, you can favor U.S. ground troops, the numbers change even more. How does that seem to happen? Ray?

TEIXEIRA: Well, a great deal depends on whether you put any conditions on the asking people whether we should send troops to Iraq. If you mention anything about how long they're going to be there or if they are going to sustain casualties, will we have the support of allies? Will we have the support of the U.N., all of these things change the amount of people who say they are in favor of an invasion. It can knock as much as 15 to 20 points off of support for invading Iraq.

WHITFIELD: So, Robert, sometimes it is the way in which the question is phrased, but, you know, it's difficult to find people who will say that they were actually polled. You have to wonder who was actually polled. How do these pollings take place? How are the subjects selected in which to answer these questions?

WEISSBERG: Well, first of all, you have to realize that about 40 percent of the people who are contacted don't respond. People who do not speak English don't respond. But the real question is not the numbers. We know the numbers bounce around. The real question is the relevance of all of this. And my feeling is when people don't have strong opinions and don't know very much about things, it's not very good advice. These are curiosities. They shouldn't be taken as proof that the war is good or justified or anything else like that. This is a game that is being played by advocates. Not serious, scientific polling.

WHITFIELD: So, Robert, you don't necessarily back a lot of these polls very much; however, we see in political races all the time, the candidates use them and certainly try to use them to their advantage.

WEISSBERG: You certainly can use polls. It is not a question of whether polls are good or bad. It's a question of appropriate. If I were a candidate, I'd certainly use polls. I've run polls. The question is, should polls be advising the president on a momentous decision like going to war or not? And my feeling is, we can play all the games we want, but bottom line is, Bush has to make that decision based upon what he feels is best for the country.

WHITFIELD: Well, Ray, do you believe in polls? Do you think that the public should have much credence in them?

TEIXEIRA: Of course I believe in polls. But it's not a question of whether I believe in them or not but whether they're relevant.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

TEIXEIRA: I think that polls should be taken fairly seriously. To the extent that we can get any sense of what the public really thinks about a given issue. It's probably through the mechanism of polling. That said, we have to realize that polling is sensitive to how you word the question, it is sensitive to how much people know about the issue, and as Weissberg was pointing out, it all depends, you know, in terms of making a decision, what the right decision is. Politicians, policymakers still have to decide what they feel is appropriate for the country. They can't just put their finger in the wind and then make a political -- then make a sound decision about what needs to be done.

But that said, I think you still can't discount the polls. The polls do give us a sense of how the public is feeling about an issue and certainly a sense of how their opinions are shifting on an issue, and if you follow the polling on Iraq, as certainly we've seen that over time. It does give us a sense of how the public mood evolving.

WHITFIELD: But, Ray, do they really -- do polls really give an indication of what people are feeling? Or do you find that the polls actually influence opinions, more than they reflect opinions?

TEIXEIRA: Well, that's a tough question. I think that by and large, the polls more measure public opinion than they -- instead of create public opinion. To the extent polls affect public opinion, it's really more to the mechanism of politicians reading polls and deciding that based on the polls, which are in a sense market research for them, this is how they can pitch a particular approach to an issue and get the public to be most responsive to it. So through that mechanism, that indirect mechanism, the polls may affect the public mood...

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Well, Robert, let me ask you real quick, if you can jump in. How do you see that polls may influence opinion more so than they actually reflect opinion?

WEISSBERG: Well, I mean, obviously, if it's a 95-10 percent, they probably will influence opinion, but most of them are around the middle some place, and politicians know that a key incident, an announcement, a plane crash, capturing of a terrorist, something like that, and that can be manipulated. That you can stage events, and necessary, release information; therefore, the polls are to a certain extent a reflection of what leads one to do. Another reason why they should not to be taken seriously. I want too also add that polls are a game for the wealthy. Anybody with $15,000 can run a poll. People complain all the time about money in politics. Here's a good example of where money counts in politics. Public opinion polling.

WHITFIELD: Well, Robert, how do you tell people, don't take the polls seriously when every time you turn around, whether it's on the front page of the newspaper or any source that you may want to check for the news, there's a poll that's being used?

WEISSBERG: Well, you can't tell people to behave intelligently. My own feeling is I don't take them seriously. I assume Bush and Cheney don't take them seriously either. But they're things to talk about. On a slow news day, you always have polls.

WHITFIELD: All right, Robert Weissberg and Ray Teixeira, thank you very much for joining us.

WEISSBERG: Thank you. TEIXEIRA: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, coming up next, we go north to Alaska where the Iditarod is off and running. Kind of. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Everybody knows about the weather phenomenon, El Nino. But another weather quirk could determine what topping to put on your pizza. Reported in the journal "Science," it's not El Nino or La Nina, but El Viejo and La Vieja. Old man and old lady. And these weather patterns last 25 years. A researcher at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium studied a century's worth of fishing records, finding a pattern. When Pacific waters heat up during an El Viejo, the ocean is packed with sardines; and when Pacific waters cool down, it's swimming in anchovies. The theory, we've just entered the cooler anchovy season. Good news for lovers of the world's squirmiest pizza topping.

Well, the Iditarod sled dog race had its ceremonial start yesterday in Anchorage, Alaska. Emphasis here on the word ceremonial. The actual start will be tomorrow in Fairbanks. For the first time ever, the actual start of the race has been moved because there isn't enough snow in Anchorage. So what is going on? Experts say El Nino is largely to blame. CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras has more.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Fredricka, a rough definition of El Nino is just a disruption in the ocean and atmospheric circulation across the tropical Pacific. The trade winds relax a little bit and allow the sea surface temperatures, the warm ones, to move farther on off to the east and that has a global influence.

Now, what this does to Alaskan winters is still somewhat loosely based, but here's what's happening this winter so far. High pressure has been anchored across the eastern Pacific, and winds rotate clockwise around high pressure systems. So our jet stream pattern has been pulling in the warmer temperatures from the south.

In an El Nino winter, typically, we can have warmer than normal temperatures along with drier than normal conditions in Alaska, and that's exactly what's been happening this season. In Fairbanks, temperatures in December were about 11 degrees above normal, 6.5 in January; and February, 15 degrees above normal, which is very significant. In terms of snow fall, about 15 inches down for the season.

But still, another couple of months to go. Across the lower 48, our jet stream then moves down across the west coast, across the southern tier of the country and then goes back on up to the north, and our storm systems follow along with this jet stream, which is why we've been having so many frequent winter storms bringing plenty of snow to the mid Atlantic and the northeast. Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks, Jacqui.

Well, while the winter's unusually warm weather in Alaska is most likely due to El Nino, experts say the arctic is in the midst of a long term warming trend that will likely have big some impacts in the coming decade. Here to tell us more about that is NASA researcher Jay Zwally, who is the lead project scientist for ISAT, a recently launched NASA project to study earth's ice sheets from space. Thanks for joining us, Jay.

JAY ZWALLY, NASA: Thank you. Good to be here.

WHITFIELD: Well, do you see this as warming? A winter warming, a global warming, or do you see it as an anomaly, really?

ZWALLY: Well, it is an anomaly to the extent that it is taking place in Alaska, but I also see it as part of the overall pattern of things that are happening in the arctic regions. This is some really exciting things that are happening.

WHITFIELD: Like what?

ZWALLY: Well, the sea ice from the Arctic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole is covered with sea ice throughout the year and the amount of sea ice has been decreasing significantly over the last 20 years. On average, it has been decreasing by about three percent per decade. But more significant than that, in the summertime, it has been decreasing by perhaps seven percent. And this has impacts because it opens the warmer ocean to the atmosphere.

WHITFIELD: And there are some real potential dangers that come with that as well, right?

ZWALLY: Yes. It has feedback affects because the warmer ocean absorbs heat and contributes moisture for snowfall in other regions. Other things that have been happening, the Greenland ice sheet has had more melt this past summer than any other period of observation, and the amount that melted on the surface of Greenland has been increasing in the last decade.

WHITFIELD: And what sort of dangers may potentially come to the sea life in the area, because most believe that if there are indicators that sea life isn't able to survive, then that's an indicator of what may be to come for humans as well.

ZWALLY: Well, a big potential impact on sea life is the polar bear population in the Arctic Ocean. The polar bears live near the sea ice edge, and if they spend too much time on land, as I think they have in the last summer, and the sea ice goes out, they get stranded there and that has been causing a problem in Alaska.

WHITFIELD: How do you draw the connection between this Arctic warming and global warming?

ZWALLY: Well, I think it's part of the pattern. The changes that are taking place in the Arctic, increases in temperature, decrease in sea ice extent, decrease in Alaska glaciers. There's been a significant decrease in the Alaskan glaciers in the last 20 or 30 years, and this has accelerated. In the last five years, the decreases in the volume of glaciers has tripled. The rate of decrease. So we're seeing unprecedented changes. Increased rate of change in the Arctic, and I think that this is part of the overall pattern of global warming.

WHITFIELD: Jay Zwally, thank you very much.

ZWALLY: You're welcome.

WHITFIELD: Well, still ahead, a new design for the site of the World Trade Center, and a debate over whether the plan is a good idea. That and more in the next half of NEXT@CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: After months of heated debate over height, safety and proper tribute to thousands of victims, there is now a design for buildings to replace the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind submitted the winning plan, a nearly 1800-foot tall spire on several angular towers, with a sunken memorial space to honor those killed on 9/11. Yet many questions remain. Joining us to talk about the future of ground zero is architect Beverly Willis, who's a founder of the community group Rebuild Downtown, Our Town. Also, in our New York studio, Jonathan Hakala, a businessman who lost many friends and his office in Tower One. And he's a spokesman for Team Twin towers.

Good to see both of you.

JONATHAN HAKALA, TEAM TWIN TOWERS: Good Afternoon.

BEVERLY WILLIS, REBUILD DOWNTOWN, OUR TOWN: Hello, Fredricka. How are you?

WHITFIELD: I'm doing good.

All right, Jonathan, let me begin with you because I understand it's you that really doesn't like this plan. You feel very strongly against it. Why complain at this juncture when this plan has already been approved?

HAKALA: Well, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's own site selection committee picked someone else. And poll after poll, both CNN's poll, as well as a lot of other polls here locally, have made it very clear that the Libeskind plan enjoys very little support.

And so, we're confident that we can build a politically effective coalition to make sure that this architectural atrocity never gets built.

WHITFIELD: We're looking at a drawing of it, right now. What is it that you have a problem with?

HAKALA: Well, the short, sharply angled buildings remind a lot of us of glass after an explosion. And that would just cause unnecessary, additional pain and suffering for millions of New Yorkers. Also, you've got that 30-foot pit that Libeskind proposes. And financial institutions and other companies have made it very clear that, like me, they'll never go to work anywhere near such a pit.

WHITFIELD: OK. Well, Beverly, how do you see it as we look at the designs?

WILLIS: Well, I think it's a wonderful design. I really do. This is the opinion of people who are basically very knowledgeable about these things, the critics, most all the critics have endorsed this plan as being the best plan. And, we urgently need to get on with the construction.

Right now, we have some 17 million square foot of empty office space in Downtown New York and we have no way of getting workers into Lower Manhattan and the sooner we can get the Path train and the infrastructure built in the Underground, the sooner we can get New York healthy again.

WHITFIELD: Well, Beverly, do you see this Monday quarterbacking as rather damaging, as people try to heal, try to move on with a yet new plan and now there is renewed criticism of it?

WILLIS: Well, I think it's very damaging because, number one, this poll thing is very misleading. Basically, none of the plans had much more than 20 percent of approval rating of the general public. And we also know, in architecture, that there are certain mind sets that people have that you're never, ever going to change.

For example, we have learned that some people like small spaces. They feel very uncomfortable in very large spaces. Some people like large spaces, and feel uncomfortable in small spaces. So, you are never going to please everybody.

WHITFIELD: Jonathan, that's an important point because if an architect says this is art. And this is something that is going to inspire thoughts. And it's likely there is always going to be someone that's not going to be in agreement with this kind of design. What is it, in particular, that you think is missing from this design that needs to be there at this, what was once the World Trade Center site?

HAKALA: Well, if they had put an updated version of the Twin Towers that we had lost, I'm pretty confident that that would have gotten an overwhelming majority of support in the New York community. Particularly, It's missing 110 stories of occupied height. I want to go back to the 77th floor where I was or higher. And I don't want to work in these short buildings. And a majority of the people in the World Trade Center Tenants Association agree with that assessment.

WHITFIELD: So, Jonathan, the objective was to memorialize and to symbolize a sense of resiliency. You don't think that this plan in any way, shape or form does that?

HAKALA: No. I think this plan would make it very difficult to bring any of the 100,000 jobs we lost back to Lower Manhattan and condemn this entire region to mediocrity and embarrassment across this country and this world.

WHITFIELD: Beverly, how do you respond to that point? WILLIS: Number one, if the World Trade Center buildings were built back today, I mean, basically you're talking about 10 million square feet of office space. We have 17 million square foot of office space empty today. It can accommodate far more than 100,000, you know, that Jonathan speaks of. Let's take a step back as it relates to the World Trade Center towers.

Downtown New York ...

WHITFIELD: Really quickly, though, we're running out of time.

WILLIS: ...started declining in 1920. The World Trade Center Towers were built to turn that around. And it failed. It failed. And there is no sense to redoing something that we've tried and it failed.

WHITFIELD: All right.

HAKALA: It didn't ...

WHITFIELD: Beverly Willis, you got the last word. Jonathan Hakala, you got the first word. Thank you very much to both of you for joining us.

HAKALA: Thank you.

WILLIS: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Straight ahead, some NEXT NEWS headlines including the test of a plane that just might have the right stuff.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Checking NEXT news headlines: A reproduction of the 1903 Wright flier was put through its paces in a NASA wind tunnel this week. The test at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, will help engineers determine how the Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first human powered flight 100 years ago.

Researchers plan to take this plane to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December to recreate that historic flight.

As the investigation into the Shuttle Columbia disaster goes on, so does the debate over who should be investigating the accident. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe has turned down requests to pull top shuttle officials out of the probe according to documents released yesterday, by the investigating board.

O'Keefe says removing people, like the program manager, would suggest they're being blamed for the loss of the shuttle. Earlier in the week, O'Keefe appeared at a congressional budget hearing and was grilled by New York Democrat Anthony Weiner about the release of an internal NASA e-mail suggesting the shuttle was at risk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We're trying to get it out as fast as possible.

REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: Sir, I have eight seconds left. I'm not really interested in when "The New York Times" got it. I'm interested in when you -- the guy that we put in charge of this -- got it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: On Friday, NASA released a piece of videotape that survived the destruction of the shuttle. The tape was shot inside the cockpit on February 1 as the astronauts cheerfully prepared for their arrival home. The video ends four minutes before the first signs of the problems that led to the loss of the crew and the orbiter. The tape was found three weeks ago in Texas.

Yesterday was the scheduled date for launching the next space shuttle after Columbia, instead the flee is grounded and the families of the seven Columbia astronauts are left grieving. CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien talked with the widows of Commander Rick Husband and Mission Specialist Michael Anderson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Little more than three weeks since she lost the love of her life, Evelyn Husband is drawing deep on her faith and somehow getting through an unbearable tragedy.

(on camera): How are things going?

EVELYN HUSBAND, WIDOW OF RICK HUSBAND: They're going OK. Some days are great, or some hours are great. I wouldn't say a whole day is great.

O'BRIEN (voice over): The dark moments come when the kids are tucked in and she is alone with her thoughts of that morning. The first of February, landing day for Rick and the six crewmates.

HUSBAND: You know, the whole time I was just very excited. Absolutely no anxiety because nothing had ever happened at landing before. So, launch is, I think, more stressful just because of Challenger. So, we've all seen how it cannot go well.

O'BRIEN (on camera): You figured you'd been through it?

HUSBAND: Exactly.

O'BRIEN (voice over): But exactly when the time came, there was no landing. And suddenly she was surrounded by ashen faces.

HUSBAND: That was the first sensation I had in my stomach -- just, you know, I just thought, you know, you get that panicked feeling. And I just thought something is wrong. I looked over at Rick's brother, he's a pilot. And I said, Keith, I think something's wrong. He said, I do, too. O'BRIEN (voice over): And so began the longest day of Evelyn Husband's life. It was the end of everything she, 12-year-old Laura, and seven-year-old Matthew, called normal.

HUSBAND: God has placed people in my life who has been standing by to help me in ways that I could never handle.

O'BRIEN (on camera): There's a lot said about this family that a crew becomes, and it is real, isn't it? Especially in this case?

HUSBAND: Absolutely. And it's -- it's difficult as this is to convey to all of my friends, there's nobody else on the planet that can fill that space than the crew families, because with them, we all completely and totally empathize with each other.

O'BRIEN (voice over): She's especially close to Sandy Anderson, wife of Mission Specialist Mike Anderson. Rick and he were in the same astronaut class, belonged to the same church, live a block apart.

(on camera): How are you shoring each other up?

SANDY ANDERSON, WIDOW OF MIKE ANDERSON: We've all have a tremendous amount of respect and love for each other. We've been together so long. We really actually do feel like family and we have a bond now that's just unbreakable.

O'BRIEN (voice over): Rick Husband was a family man in every sense of the word. Before he left on his mission, he left tapes for his children, prayers and a few words for each day.

RICK HUSBAND: We love you and we ask this in Jesus' Name. Amen. OK, Laura, so won't be long before I get to see you, whether it's today or tomorrow. And I love you very, very much.

O'BRIEN: During the mission, Rick was by all accounts beaming. Evelyn sent him a wake-up call sung by Laura's choir.

There were buoyant e-mails and a private teleconference. Everyone signed off with, I love you.

(on camera): Your strength is -- it bowls me over and I'm sure people told you that. Does it fail you ever?

E. HUSBAND: Oh, sure. But I mean, the thing that has not failed, I have not felt hopelessness. And I haven't felt that once. And I'm being very honest about that. I'm very thankful for that. There have been times through this that I don't think I can take it anymore. I mean the pain is horrible.

O'BRIEN (voice over): Evelyn eulogized Rick in his hometown of Amarillo, Texas.

E. HUSBAND: Rick was a wonderful man. A terrific father, son, and brother and he was my best friend.

O'BRIEN: Between the eulogies and the tears, there's time to think whether the risks were worth it in the end.

E. HUSBAND: This is something he wanted to do. He probably understood the risks better than I did. And he was willing to take those, so I willing to support him. And, of course, you never think it's going to happen.

I just cannot be angry. I mean, everything went -- if I had known the ending I would have written it exact same way it all occurred. So, I can't be angry.

O'BRIEN: Miles O'Brien, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, still to come on NEXT@CNN, technical wizards who usually work behind the scenes in movie making, get a taste of the limelight. The high tech Oscars, coming up. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well, you never see their faces in front of the camera, but there wouldn't be a movie business without them. Some of the people that work wonders with lighting, sound and special effects got some time in the spotlight themselves last night in Beverly Hills.

Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievement are given a few weeks before the big Oscars, like best picture. Visual effects have changed the movie world and here's a look behind the scenes now with one of the creators of a most beloved actor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got the storyboards and the scripts. We try and pin down exactly what this character's place in the film is. What part of the story he's supposed to tell and how he's supposed to tell it.

So you pose him out in a given frame, and this is how he's supposed to be posed on this frame. Jump ahead 10, 20 frames to the next sort of key moment in the shot. Create a new pose and we have to be sure that, you know, creating the right movement for the emotion of the line, for the story telling we're trying to carry forth.

We can view it from any angle and we're manipulating it like a puppet. When it is rendered, it will be from the same angle that the other elements in the scene were photographed from. At key moments throughout the shot, you'll create new poses that determine the character's position. And so there are controls on this character for all the different parts of his body, his head and hands.

The next stage is where we handle all of the surface stuff. Muscles, skin, facial expressions, cloth, all those things. We have for a character like Yoda, many, many facial shapes that control everything from a tiny little tick to really broad shapes that will do a big smile, a broad smile. This is our Yoda, sort of fully fleshed out with this high resolution geometry, which contains all of the little wrinkles and folds and things. The coloring of the shadow areas, it is a very involved process to match the lighting exactly. You can see the dramatic difference here in Yoda from, you know, what we were dealing with before, whereas here every fine little wrinkle and texture is reproduced in the final render.

It's a million little details we're trying to hit in a way that brings it to life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: So freaky, that looks so real. Visual effects are part imagination, part high-powered math and science. And one of the companies that brings that wizardry to us is AutoDesk. And Paul Lypaczewski joining us from Toronto to talk more about how it all comes together.

Good to see you.

PAUL LYPACZEWSKI, AUTO DESK: Thanks, Fredricka. Very happy to be here today.

WHITFIELD: Well, thank you.

Well, we saw how you're able to create characters but I understand that you can create backdrops. You can make things go away or make them appear through this kind of technology.

LYPACZEWSKI: That's the beauty about visual effects. In part, it's what you add to the story and in part, it is what you take away so that the story is complete. There's a great example from the film "Spider-Man" that is one of the nominees for the Academy Awards for visual effects. The day after Peter Parker gets bitten by the radioactive spider, he's figured out that he has these special skills. And he starts to jump from building to building.

WHITFIELD: Right.

LYPACZEWSKI: Needless to say, you can imagine that Tobey Maguire, who is playing Peter Parker, didn't actually do that. And so what they did, they would take the background plates, films of rooftops in Manhattan. They took -- Tobey Maguire had a green screen and they actually had him in a wire harness and they moved him from one place to other. And then using the visual effects, you have to put it together.

But it is really complicated because the rooftop were filmed at noon. The lights at the rooftop didn't match in the light that was at the green screen studio. You have to change the light, the shadows, the textures, so at the end of the day, there is about 30 different layers that you're putting together to put the whole shot together.

WHITFIELD: Well, aren't you kind of cheating, too? Aren't you putting a lot of stunt men out of work? LYPACZEWSKI: No. Well, you know, there are different ways of doing it. And sometimes we'll use stunt men, sometimes you will use digital processes. It's all about a well-told story that, you know, the director ultimately has a way that he wants to tell the story. And our job is to make sure if you can think it, you can do it.

WHITFIELD: I was one fascinated by "Star Wars" and the little bit of technology that was used in that and then came the "Matrix" and then now "Lord of the Rings." And it has really taken it to another level. The expectations are really high now, aren't they, for moviegoer?

LYPACZEWSKI: Exactly. Nowadays, there's been some talk that the moviegoers are beginning to get a little bit jaded about special effects. But actually, an interesting analogous situation is when color movies first came out. And first it was remarkable just to see films in color. But now everyone just takes that for granted.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

LYPACZEWSKI: So, the best effects are the ones where the people don't sit there and say, wow, what an incredible effects. The best effects are the ones where people sit there and say, wow, what an incredibly well-told story.

WHITFIELD: Yes, and hey, that looks so real.

LYPACZEWSKI: Exactly. An interesting example from a film that may not even be thought of as a special effects film but Roman Polanski's film, "The Piano Player (sic)," which is nominated for best director, so we're very pleased to be a part of the telling of that story.

WHITFIELD: All right.

LYPACZEWSKI: It was filmed in wartime Warsaw, but needless to say, when you are filming in Warsaw today, you have to take out the satellite dishes. You have to take out the telephone wires. You have to add a little bit of smoke and battle damage here and there.

WHITFIELD: Right.

LYPACZEWSKI: It's becoming a fundamental way that the stories get told nowadays.

WHITFIELD: Thank you very much for helping us to tell that story and enjoy the movie making.

LYPACZEWSKI: Entirely my pleasure.

WHITFIELD: Paul Lypaczewski, thanks very much, from Toronto.

LYPACZEWSKI: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: That's all the time we have for now. Here's a peek at what's coming up next on next week. Spy drones: The military uses them in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, but some want pilotless planes to fly over U.S. cities, as well. We'll look at the risks. That story and much more coming up next week on NEXT@CNN. Hope you'll join us.

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





Race Minus Snow; What Gives Yoda the Force?>


Aired March 2, 2003 - 16:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: NEXT@CNN begins now with more of North Korea gearing up a nuclear program.
Alaska's Iditarod sled dog race, how can you mush without snow?

And what gives Yoda the force? We'll tell you as Oscars for technical achievement are handed out. That and more coming up on NEXT.

Hello, everyone and welcome to NEXT@CNN for this Sunday, March 2. We start today's show with more on the arrest of the man suspected of planning the September 11 attack, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. CNN national security correspondent David Ensor joins us now from Washington with more -- David.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, as has been said all day and pretty much since the news came out, this is a very, very major victory for U.S. intelligence and for the fight against terror. It was done with a great deal of help from the Pakistanis, and there's a good deal of praise and thanks for them that is being handed out today. Although most Americans, if they were asked, would -- who's the most important person in al Qaeda would probably say Osama bin Laden, and many haven't heard of anyone else. A number of people in the intelligence community believe that this arrest, catching Khalid Shaikh Mohammed may actually be more useful than getting Osama bin Laden, which, of course, they'd also like to do. Here's Senator Jay Rockefeller, who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: It is huge. Other than Zawahiri, who would be number two, I would think that arrest is as big or bigger than bin Laden because this was the brain, this is the guy who has been behind everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ENSOR: Because of that, clearly, the highest priority now is to interrogate Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to learn anything that can be learned about future planned operations against Americans, American targets or their allies. So that is the priority. He's been taken to an undisclosed foreign location. Not in Pakistan. Not in the United States. This is what they've been doing with other senior al Qaeda figures like Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh and others. They are being interrogated. Any kind of lawful pressure that can be used is being used because lives are at stake here.

Now, this is also a man who ease been indicted or has been accused, has been implicated, in a number of terrorist acts in the past. There was a first World Trade Center bombing. Then he was -- is also been implicated in the bombings at two American embassies in Africa. He is considered to have been involved in the attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, and he was also thought to have been involved in the 9/11 attacks themselves. But, as I said, officials say the priority is to get information out of this man.

That's more important than putting him on trial. And in fact, they want to keep him somewhere where he's not able at the moment to rely on the protections of U.S. law, protections that defendants in a court case would have -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, David. Thank you, from Washington.

Well, Iraq said it has moved ahead with destruction of its Al Samoud 2 missile arsenal, and North Korea continues to ramp up its nuclear program, restarting a five megawatt nuclear reactor in Yongbyon this week. Here to talk more about both those developments is David Albright, who heads up the Institute for Science and International Security, and he is an expert on nuclear nonproliferation and a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq. Good to see you, David.

DAVID ALBRIGHT, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: Good to be here.

WHITFIELD: All right, so Iraq now says that it has crushed or destroyed 10 Al Samoud 2 weapons in all. How are they going about doing that?

ALBRIGHT: Well, they use very simple procedures. I mean, they're using basically a bulldozer to smash the rocket body. I'm sure they are using something to destroy the guidance system and any -- you know, it isn't much more sophisticated. I mean, it's not -- but it is not rocket science to destroy rockets.

WHITFIELD: So, is this considered disarmament?

ALBRIGHT: Yes. It's an important disarmament step. I mean, Iraq has been cooperating on this issue and it deserves some credit. The U.N. ruled that these missiles are prohibited, and Iraq has agreed to destroy them.

WHITFIELD: All right. Now, it was just days ago that Iraq said it didn't know how, didn't have the means in which to destroy these missiles, and now starting this weekend, lo and behold, at least 10 missiles, according to them and their numbers, have since been destroyed. So, suddenly where did the know-how come from?

ALBRIGHT: I'm afraid Iraq is not going about its destruction in a quick way. I mean, the United Nations wanted to use explosives to destroy the missiles. I mean, you would -- if you were planning destruction, you would like the Iraqis to quickly bring you all the missiles and then put them in a field and blow them up fairly rapidly. It shouldn't take more than several days. At this pace, it'll take a couple of weeks and one can expect that Iraq will drag its feet.

WHITFIELD: And we are talking about 100 missiles, at least.

ALBRIGHT: Yes, it is not very many. Some of the missiles are deployed so they have liquid rocket fuel in them, and that fuel has to be drained out before they are taken to the place for destruction. Iraq has not made any steps to do that yet, which is also going to slow the process down.

WHITFIELD: All right, let's shift gears now to North Korea. This five-megawatt reactor, is it considered a rather significant reactor, and what's its potential?

ALBRIGHT: Well, it's the first step of North Korea restarting its frozen nuclear facilities, and so in that sense, it's very important. It shows that North Korea means what it says. It announced in December that it intended to restart this reactor, and it also said it intends to restart an associated reprocessing plant, or where plutonium separated from the spent fuel that is generated by this reactor.

WHITFIELD: Can it alone produce a dangerous piece of arsenal?

ALBRIGHT: No. The plutonium is very dilute inside this highly radioactive fuel, and the fuel has to be in the reactor for quite a period of time, and then it has to cool before it can be sent over to the reprocessing plant where the plutonium is extracted chemically from this fuel. And it is this concentrated form of plutonium that can be used in a nuclear weapon.

WHITFIELD: And quickly...

(CROSSTALK)

ALBRIGHT: So that really -- I am sorry...

WHITFIELD: No, I am sorry. Go ahead. Finish your thought.

ALBRIGHT: What that means is that the fate of this reprocessing plant is the thing to watch. It's probably true that the North Koreans are starting this plant already. And that's how there's been some indications learned by satellites and other means that this plant is on its way to being started. And that's going to be the critical issue.

WHITFIELD: And quickly, can you give us a sense as to how it can be detected? What kind of activity is officially been restarted there?

ALBRIGHT: Well, in terms of knowing the restart, I mean you want to look for plumes, kind of brownish plumes that show that nitrate acid is used, which is what is used to dissolve the fuel. More importantly, you want to look for radioactive emissions, and particularly krypton 85, which travels a great distance because it is inert, and there's many detectors around the region to detect this radioactive material. And if one of those detectors picks it up, then we'll know for sure that North Korea is separating plutonium to use in nuclear weapons.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much. David Albright. Appreciate it.

ALBRIGHT: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. And this just in. Ongoing developments involving the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who is believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was arrested in Pakistan yesterday. New pictures just now coming in. We are about to show you right now these pictures showing him shortly after his arrest. And that arrest took place as a result of a sting operation involving U.S. intelligence forces, as well as Pakistani authorities. That arrest taking place just outside of Islamabad. He has since moved out of Pakistan where he is being interrogated by U.S. authorities, so he is officially being considered in U.S. custody. That picture now just coming in and wanted to share that with you, of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Now, coming up, do Americans want to go to war with Iraq or not? Sometimes the numbers don't seem to add up, do they? When polls collide, coming up.

And later, find out how Yoda is brought to live. The winners of the sci-tech Oscars as NEXT@CNN continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Intelligence forces within the U.S. are calling it an ongoing investigation, I am talking about the arrest yesterday of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Well, now we have a photograph that was taken upon his arrest just outside of Islamabad yesterday. He is in U.S. custody; however, he is no longer in Pakistan because officials say they are continuing to interrogate him, but outside of his homeland of Pakistan.

Now, on to our other stories we're following you. Politicians and news organizations try to take the pulse of the people when there's an issue as dramatic as an imminent war. One way they do that is with polls, but if you wonder why there's so much variation between different polls. Joining us to talk about the science of polling or is it an art, in fact, Ray Teixeira, is a senior fellow with the Century Foundation. He's in our Washington bureau; and Robert Weissberg is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, and he is in Springfield, Illinois. Good to see you, gentlemen.

ROBERT WEISSBERG, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS: Glad to be here.

RAY TEIXEIRA, THE CENTURY FOUNDATION: How are you?

WHITFIELD: So what example of different numbers from different sources, either 69, 66, or 63 percent of Americans favor military action in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein, but if phrasing changes just a bit, you can favor U.S. ground troops, the numbers change even more. How does that seem to happen? Ray?

TEIXEIRA: Well, a great deal depends on whether you put any conditions on the asking people whether we should send troops to Iraq. If you mention anything about how long they're going to be there or if they are going to sustain casualties, will we have the support of allies? Will we have the support of the U.N., all of these things change the amount of people who say they are in favor of an invasion. It can knock as much as 15 to 20 points off of support for invading Iraq.

WHITFIELD: So, Robert, sometimes it is the way in which the question is phrased, but, you know, it's difficult to find people who will say that they were actually polled. You have to wonder who was actually polled. How do these pollings take place? How are the subjects selected in which to answer these questions?

WEISSBERG: Well, first of all, you have to realize that about 40 percent of the people who are contacted don't respond. People who do not speak English don't respond. But the real question is not the numbers. We know the numbers bounce around. The real question is the relevance of all of this. And my feeling is when people don't have strong opinions and don't know very much about things, it's not very good advice. These are curiosities. They shouldn't be taken as proof that the war is good or justified or anything else like that. This is a game that is being played by advocates. Not serious, scientific polling.

WHITFIELD: So, Robert, you don't necessarily back a lot of these polls very much; however, we see in political races all the time, the candidates use them and certainly try to use them to their advantage.

WEISSBERG: You certainly can use polls. It is not a question of whether polls are good or bad. It's a question of appropriate. If I were a candidate, I'd certainly use polls. I've run polls. The question is, should polls be advising the president on a momentous decision like going to war or not? And my feeling is, we can play all the games we want, but bottom line is, Bush has to make that decision based upon what he feels is best for the country.

WHITFIELD: Well, Ray, do you believe in polls? Do you think that the public should have much credence in them?

TEIXEIRA: Of course I believe in polls. But it's not a question of whether I believe in them or not but whether they're relevant.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

TEIXEIRA: I think that polls should be taken fairly seriously. To the extent that we can get any sense of what the public really thinks about a given issue. It's probably through the mechanism of polling. That said, we have to realize that polling is sensitive to how you word the question, it is sensitive to how much people know about the issue, and as Weissberg was pointing out, it all depends, you know, in terms of making a decision, what the right decision is. Politicians, policymakers still have to decide what they feel is appropriate for the country. They can't just put their finger in the wind and then make a political -- then make a sound decision about what needs to be done.

But that said, I think you still can't discount the polls. The polls do give us a sense of how the public is feeling about an issue and certainly a sense of how their opinions are shifting on an issue, and if you follow the polling on Iraq, as certainly we've seen that over time. It does give us a sense of how the public mood evolving.

WHITFIELD: But, Ray, do they really -- do polls really give an indication of what people are feeling? Or do you find that the polls actually influence opinions, more than they reflect opinions?

TEIXEIRA: Well, that's a tough question. I think that by and large, the polls more measure public opinion than they -- instead of create public opinion. To the extent polls affect public opinion, it's really more to the mechanism of politicians reading polls and deciding that based on the polls, which are in a sense market research for them, this is how they can pitch a particular approach to an issue and get the public to be most responsive to it. So through that mechanism, that indirect mechanism, the polls may affect the public mood...

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Well, Robert, let me ask you real quick, if you can jump in. How do you see that polls may influence opinion more so than they actually reflect opinion?

WEISSBERG: Well, I mean, obviously, if it's a 95-10 percent, they probably will influence opinion, but most of them are around the middle some place, and politicians know that a key incident, an announcement, a plane crash, capturing of a terrorist, something like that, and that can be manipulated. That you can stage events, and necessary, release information; therefore, the polls are to a certain extent a reflection of what leads one to do. Another reason why they should not to be taken seriously. I want too also add that polls are a game for the wealthy. Anybody with $15,000 can run a poll. People complain all the time about money in politics. Here's a good example of where money counts in politics. Public opinion polling.

WHITFIELD: Well, Robert, how do you tell people, don't take the polls seriously when every time you turn around, whether it's on the front page of the newspaper or any source that you may want to check for the news, there's a poll that's being used?

WEISSBERG: Well, you can't tell people to behave intelligently. My own feeling is I don't take them seriously. I assume Bush and Cheney don't take them seriously either. But they're things to talk about. On a slow news day, you always have polls.

WHITFIELD: All right, Robert Weissberg and Ray Teixeira, thank you very much for joining us.

WEISSBERG: Thank you. TEIXEIRA: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, coming up next, we go north to Alaska where the Iditarod is off and running. Kind of. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Everybody knows about the weather phenomenon, El Nino. But another weather quirk could determine what topping to put on your pizza. Reported in the journal "Science," it's not El Nino or La Nina, but El Viejo and La Vieja. Old man and old lady. And these weather patterns last 25 years. A researcher at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium studied a century's worth of fishing records, finding a pattern. When Pacific waters heat up during an El Viejo, the ocean is packed with sardines; and when Pacific waters cool down, it's swimming in anchovies. The theory, we've just entered the cooler anchovy season. Good news for lovers of the world's squirmiest pizza topping.

Well, the Iditarod sled dog race had its ceremonial start yesterday in Anchorage, Alaska. Emphasis here on the word ceremonial. The actual start will be tomorrow in Fairbanks. For the first time ever, the actual start of the race has been moved because there isn't enough snow in Anchorage. So what is going on? Experts say El Nino is largely to blame. CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras has more.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, Fredricka, a rough definition of El Nino is just a disruption in the ocean and atmospheric circulation across the tropical Pacific. The trade winds relax a little bit and allow the sea surface temperatures, the warm ones, to move farther on off to the east and that has a global influence.

Now, what this does to Alaskan winters is still somewhat loosely based, but here's what's happening this winter so far. High pressure has been anchored across the eastern Pacific, and winds rotate clockwise around high pressure systems. So our jet stream pattern has been pulling in the warmer temperatures from the south.

In an El Nino winter, typically, we can have warmer than normal temperatures along with drier than normal conditions in Alaska, and that's exactly what's been happening this season. In Fairbanks, temperatures in December were about 11 degrees above normal, 6.5 in January; and February, 15 degrees above normal, which is very significant. In terms of snow fall, about 15 inches down for the season.

But still, another couple of months to go. Across the lower 48, our jet stream then moves down across the west coast, across the southern tier of the country and then goes back on up to the north, and our storm systems follow along with this jet stream, which is why we've been having so many frequent winter storms bringing plenty of snow to the mid Atlantic and the northeast. Fredricka, back to you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks, Jacqui.

Well, while the winter's unusually warm weather in Alaska is most likely due to El Nino, experts say the arctic is in the midst of a long term warming trend that will likely have big some impacts in the coming decade. Here to tell us more about that is NASA researcher Jay Zwally, who is the lead project scientist for ISAT, a recently launched NASA project to study earth's ice sheets from space. Thanks for joining us, Jay.

JAY ZWALLY, NASA: Thank you. Good to be here.

WHITFIELD: Well, do you see this as warming? A winter warming, a global warming, or do you see it as an anomaly, really?

ZWALLY: Well, it is an anomaly to the extent that it is taking place in Alaska, but I also see it as part of the overall pattern of things that are happening in the arctic regions. This is some really exciting things that are happening.

WHITFIELD: Like what?

ZWALLY: Well, the sea ice from the Arctic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole is covered with sea ice throughout the year and the amount of sea ice has been decreasing significantly over the last 20 years. On average, it has been decreasing by about three percent per decade. But more significant than that, in the summertime, it has been decreasing by perhaps seven percent. And this has impacts because it opens the warmer ocean to the atmosphere.

WHITFIELD: And there are some real potential dangers that come with that as well, right?

ZWALLY: Yes. It has feedback affects because the warmer ocean absorbs heat and contributes moisture for snowfall in other regions. Other things that have been happening, the Greenland ice sheet has had more melt this past summer than any other period of observation, and the amount that melted on the surface of Greenland has been increasing in the last decade.

WHITFIELD: And what sort of dangers may potentially come to the sea life in the area, because most believe that if there are indicators that sea life isn't able to survive, then that's an indicator of what may be to come for humans as well.

ZWALLY: Well, a big potential impact on sea life is the polar bear population in the Arctic Ocean. The polar bears live near the sea ice edge, and if they spend too much time on land, as I think they have in the last summer, and the sea ice goes out, they get stranded there and that has been causing a problem in Alaska.

WHITFIELD: How do you draw the connection between this Arctic warming and global warming?

ZWALLY: Well, I think it's part of the pattern. The changes that are taking place in the Arctic, increases in temperature, decrease in sea ice extent, decrease in Alaska glaciers. There's been a significant decrease in the Alaskan glaciers in the last 20 or 30 years, and this has accelerated. In the last five years, the decreases in the volume of glaciers has tripled. The rate of decrease. So we're seeing unprecedented changes. Increased rate of change in the Arctic, and I think that this is part of the overall pattern of global warming.

WHITFIELD: Jay Zwally, thank you very much.

ZWALLY: You're welcome.

WHITFIELD: Well, still ahead, a new design for the site of the World Trade Center, and a debate over whether the plan is a good idea. That and more in the next half of NEXT@CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: After months of heated debate over height, safety and proper tribute to thousands of victims, there is now a design for buildings to replace the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind submitted the winning plan, a nearly 1800-foot tall spire on several angular towers, with a sunken memorial space to honor those killed on 9/11. Yet many questions remain. Joining us to talk about the future of ground zero is architect Beverly Willis, who's a founder of the community group Rebuild Downtown, Our Town. Also, in our New York studio, Jonathan Hakala, a businessman who lost many friends and his office in Tower One. And he's a spokesman for Team Twin towers.

Good to see both of you.

JONATHAN HAKALA, TEAM TWIN TOWERS: Good Afternoon.

BEVERLY WILLIS, REBUILD DOWNTOWN, OUR TOWN: Hello, Fredricka. How are you?

WHITFIELD: I'm doing good.

All right, Jonathan, let me begin with you because I understand it's you that really doesn't like this plan. You feel very strongly against it. Why complain at this juncture when this plan has already been approved?

HAKALA: Well, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's own site selection committee picked someone else. And poll after poll, both CNN's poll, as well as a lot of other polls here locally, have made it very clear that the Libeskind plan enjoys very little support.

And so, we're confident that we can build a politically effective coalition to make sure that this architectural atrocity never gets built.

WHITFIELD: We're looking at a drawing of it, right now. What is it that you have a problem with?

HAKALA: Well, the short, sharply angled buildings remind a lot of us of glass after an explosion. And that would just cause unnecessary, additional pain and suffering for millions of New Yorkers. Also, you've got that 30-foot pit that Libeskind proposes. And financial institutions and other companies have made it very clear that, like me, they'll never go to work anywhere near such a pit.

WHITFIELD: OK. Well, Beverly, how do you see it as we look at the designs?

WILLIS: Well, I think it's a wonderful design. I really do. This is the opinion of people who are basically very knowledgeable about these things, the critics, most all the critics have endorsed this plan as being the best plan. And, we urgently need to get on with the construction.

Right now, we have some 17 million square foot of empty office space in Downtown New York and we have no way of getting workers into Lower Manhattan and the sooner we can get the Path train and the infrastructure built in the Underground, the sooner we can get New York healthy again.

WHITFIELD: Well, Beverly, do you see this Monday quarterbacking as rather damaging, as people try to heal, try to move on with a yet new plan and now there is renewed criticism of it?

WILLIS: Well, I think it's very damaging because, number one, this poll thing is very misleading. Basically, none of the plans had much more than 20 percent of approval rating of the general public. And we also know, in architecture, that there are certain mind sets that people have that you're never, ever going to change.

For example, we have learned that some people like small spaces. They feel very uncomfortable in very large spaces. Some people like large spaces, and feel uncomfortable in small spaces. So, you are never going to please everybody.

WHITFIELD: Jonathan, that's an important point because if an architect says this is art. And this is something that is going to inspire thoughts. And it's likely there is always going to be someone that's not going to be in agreement with this kind of design. What is it, in particular, that you think is missing from this design that needs to be there at this, what was once the World Trade Center site?

HAKALA: Well, if they had put an updated version of the Twin Towers that we had lost, I'm pretty confident that that would have gotten an overwhelming majority of support in the New York community. Particularly, It's missing 110 stories of occupied height. I want to go back to the 77th floor where I was or higher. And I don't want to work in these short buildings. And a majority of the people in the World Trade Center Tenants Association agree with that assessment.

WHITFIELD: So, Jonathan, the objective was to memorialize and to symbolize a sense of resiliency. You don't think that this plan in any way, shape or form does that?

HAKALA: No. I think this plan would make it very difficult to bring any of the 100,000 jobs we lost back to Lower Manhattan and condemn this entire region to mediocrity and embarrassment across this country and this world.

WHITFIELD: Beverly, how do you respond to that point? WILLIS: Number one, if the World Trade Center buildings were built back today, I mean, basically you're talking about 10 million square feet of office space. We have 17 million square foot of office space empty today. It can accommodate far more than 100,000, you know, that Jonathan speaks of. Let's take a step back as it relates to the World Trade Center towers.

Downtown New York ...

WHITFIELD: Really quickly, though, we're running out of time.

WILLIS: ...started declining in 1920. The World Trade Center Towers were built to turn that around. And it failed. It failed. And there is no sense to redoing something that we've tried and it failed.

WHITFIELD: All right.

HAKALA: It didn't ...

WHITFIELD: Beverly Willis, you got the last word. Jonathan Hakala, you got the first word. Thank you very much to both of you for joining us.

HAKALA: Thank you.

WILLIS: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Straight ahead, some NEXT NEWS headlines including the test of a plane that just might have the right stuff.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Checking NEXT news headlines: A reproduction of the 1903 Wright flier was put through its paces in a NASA wind tunnel this week. The test at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, will help engineers determine how the Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first human powered flight 100 years ago.

Researchers plan to take this plane to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December to recreate that historic flight.

As the investigation into the Shuttle Columbia disaster goes on, so does the debate over who should be investigating the accident. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe has turned down requests to pull top shuttle officials out of the probe according to documents released yesterday, by the investigating board.

O'Keefe says removing people, like the program manager, would suggest they're being blamed for the loss of the shuttle. Earlier in the week, O'Keefe appeared at a congressional budget hearing and was grilled by New York Democrat Anthony Weiner about the release of an internal NASA e-mail suggesting the shuttle was at risk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We're trying to get it out as fast as possible.

REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: Sir, I have eight seconds left. I'm not really interested in when "The New York Times" got it. I'm interested in when you -- the guy that we put in charge of this -- got it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: On Friday, NASA released a piece of videotape that survived the destruction of the shuttle. The tape was shot inside the cockpit on February 1 as the astronauts cheerfully prepared for their arrival home. The video ends four minutes before the first signs of the problems that led to the loss of the crew and the orbiter. The tape was found three weeks ago in Texas.

Yesterday was the scheduled date for launching the next space shuttle after Columbia, instead the flee is grounded and the families of the seven Columbia astronauts are left grieving. CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien talked with the widows of Commander Rick Husband and Mission Specialist Michael Anderson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Little more than three weeks since she lost the love of her life, Evelyn Husband is drawing deep on her faith and somehow getting through an unbearable tragedy.

(on camera): How are things going?

EVELYN HUSBAND, WIDOW OF RICK HUSBAND: They're going OK. Some days are great, or some hours are great. I wouldn't say a whole day is great.

O'BRIEN (voice over): The dark moments come when the kids are tucked in and she is alone with her thoughts of that morning. The first of February, landing day for Rick and the six crewmates.

HUSBAND: You know, the whole time I was just very excited. Absolutely no anxiety because nothing had ever happened at landing before. So, launch is, I think, more stressful just because of Challenger. So, we've all seen how it cannot go well.

O'BRIEN (on camera): You figured you'd been through it?

HUSBAND: Exactly.

O'BRIEN (voice over): But exactly when the time came, there was no landing. And suddenly she was surrounded by ashen faces.

HUSBAND: That was the first sensation I had in my stomach -- just, you know, I just thought, you know, you get that panicked feeling. And I just thought something is wrong. I looked over at Rick's brother, he's a pilot. And I said, Keith, I think something's wrong. He said, I do, too. O'BRIEN (voice over): And so began the longest day of Evelyn Husband's life. It was the end of everything she, 12-year-old Laura, and seven-year-old Matthew, called normal.

HUSBAND: God has placed people in my life who has been standing by to help me in ways that I could never handle.

O'BRIEN (on camera): There's a lot said about this family that a crew becomes, and it is real, isn't it? Especially in this case?

HUSBAND: Absolutely. And it's -- it's difficult as this is to convey to all of my friends, there's nobody else on the planet that can fill that space than the crew families, because with them, we all completely and totally empathize with each other.

O'BRIEN (voice over): She's especially close to Sandy Anderson, wife of Mission Specialist Mike Anderson. Rick and he were in the same astronaut class, belonged to the same church, live a block apart.

(on camera): How are you shoring each other up?

SANDY ANDERSON, WIDOW OF MIKE ANDERSON: We've all have a tremendous amount of respect and love for each other. We've been together so long. We really actually do feel like family and we have a bond now that's just unbreakable.

O'BRIEN (voice over): Rick Husband was a family man in every sense of the word. Before he left on his mission, he left tapes for his children, prayers and a few words for each day.

RICK HUSBAND: We love you and we ask this in Jesus' Name. Amen. OK, Laura, so won't be long before I get to see you, whether it's today or tomorrow. And I love you very, very much.

O'BRIEN: During the mission, Rick was by all accounts beaming. Evelyn sent him a wake-up call sung by Laura's choir.

There were buoyant e-mails and a private teleconference. Everyone signed off with, I love you.

(on camera): Your strength is -- it bowls me over and I'm sure people told you that. Does it fail you ever?

E. HUSBAND: Oh, sure. But I mean, the thing that has not failed, I have not felt hopelessness. And I haven't felt that once. And I'm being very honest about that. I'm very thankful for that. There have been times through this that I don't think I can take it anymore. I mean the pain is horrible.

O'BRIEN (voice over): Evelyn eulogized Rick in his hometown of Amarillo, Texas.

E. HUSBAND: Rick was a wonderful man. A terrific father, son, and brother and he was my best friend.

O'BRIEN: Between the eulogies and the tears, there's time to think whether the risks were worth it in the end.

E. HUSBAND: This is something he wanted to do. He probably understood the risks better than I did. And he was willing to take those, so I willing to support him. And, of course, you never think it's going to happen.

I just cannot be angry. I mean, everything went -- if I had known the ending I would have written it exact same way it all occurred. So, I can't be angry.

O'BRIEN: Miles O'Brien, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, still to come on NEXT@CNN, technical wizards who usually work behind the scenes in movie making, get a taste of the limelight. The high tech Oscars, coming up. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well, you never see their faces in front of the camera, but there wouldn't be a movie business without them. Some of the people that work wonders with lighting, sound and special effects got some time in the spotlight themselves last night in Beverly Hills.

Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievement are given a few weeks before the big Oscars, like best picture. Visual effects have changed the movie world and here's a look behind the scenes now with one of the creators of a most beloved actor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got the storyboards and the scripts. We try and pin down exactly what this character's place in the film is. What part of the story he's supposed to tell and how he's supposed to tell it.

So you pose him out in a given frame, and this is how he's supposed to be posed on this frame. Jump ahead 10, 20 frames to the next sort of key moment in the shot. Create a new pose and we have to be sure that, you know, creating the right movement for the emotion of the line, for the story telling we're trying to carry forth.

We can view it from any angle and we're manipulating it like a puppet. When it is rendered, it will be from the same angle that the other elements in the scene were photographed from. At key moments throughout the shot, you'll create new poses that determine the character's position. And so there are controls on this character for all the different parts of his body, his head and hands.

The next stage is where we handle all of the surface stuff. Muscles, skin, facial expressions, cloth, all those things. We have for a character like Yoda, many, many facial shapes that control everything from a tiny little tick to really broad shapes that will do a big smile, a broad smile. This is our Yoda, sort of fully fleshed out with this high resolution geometry, which contains all of the little wrinkles and folds and things. The coloring of the shadow areas, it is a very involved process to match the lighting exactly. You can see the dramatic difference here in Yoda from, you know, what we were dealing with before, whereas here every fine little wrinkle and texture is reproduced in the final render.

It's a million little details we're trying to hit in a way that brings it to life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: So freaky, that looks so real. Visual effects are part imagination, part high-powered math and science. And one of the companies that brings that wizardry to us is AutoDesk. And Paul Lypaczewski joining us from Toronto to talk more about how it all comes together.

Good to see you.

PAUL LYPACZEWSKI, AUTO DESK: Thanks, Fredricka. Very happy to be here today.

WHITFIELD: Well, thank you.

Well, we saw how you're able to create characters but I understand that you can create backdrops. You can make things go away or make them appear through this kind of technology.

LYPACZEWSKI: That's the beauty about visual effects. In part, it's what you add to the story and in part, it is what you take away so that the story is complete. There's a great example from the film "Spider-Man" that is one of the nominees for the Academy Awards for visual effects. The day after Peter Parker gets bitten by the radioactive spider, he's figured out that he has these special skills. And he starts to jump from building to building.

WHITFIELD: Right.

LYPACZEWSKI: Needless to say, you can imagine that Tobey Maguire, who is playing Peter Parker, didn't actually do that. And so what they did, they would take the background plates, films of rooftops in Manhattan. They took -- Tobey Maguire had a green screen and they actually had him in a wire harness and they moved him from one place to other. And then using the visual effects, you have to put it together.

But it is really complicated because the rooftop were filmed at noon. The lights at the rooftop didn't match in the light that was at the green screen studio. You have to change the light, the shadows, the textures, so at the end of the day, there is about 30 different layers that you're putting together to put the whole shot together.

WHITFIELD: Well, aren't you kind of cheating, too? Aren't you putting a lot of stunt men out of work? LYPACZEWSKI: No. Well, you know, there are different ways of doing it. And sometimes we'll use stunt men, sometimes you will use digital processes. It's all about a well-told story that, you know, the director ultimately has a way that he wants to tell the story. And our job is to make sure if you can think it, you can do it.

WHITFIELD: I was one fascinated by "Star Wars" and the little bit of technology that was used in that and then came the "Matrix" and then now "Lord of the Rings." And it has really taken it to another level. The expectations are really high now, aren't they, for moviegoer?

LYPACZEWSKI: Exactly. Nowadays, there's been some talk that the moviegoers are beginning to get a little bit jaded about special effects. But actually, an interesting analogous situation is when color movies first came out. And first it was remarkable just to see films in color. But now everyone just takes that for granted.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

LYPACZEWSKI: So, the best effects are the ones where the people don't sit there and say, wow, what an incredible effects. The best effects are the ones where people sit there and say, wow, what an incredibly well-told story.

WHITFIELD: Yes, and hey, that looks so real.

LYPACZEWSKI: Exactly. An interesting example from a film that may not even be thought of as a special effects film but Roman Polanski's film, "The Piano Player (sic)," which is nominated for best director, so we're very pleased to be a part of the telling of that story.

WHITFIELD: All right.

LYPACZEWSKI: It was filmed in wartime Warsaw, but needless to say, when you are filming in Warsaw today, you have to take out the satellite dishes. You have to take out the telephone wires. You have to add a little bit of smoke and battle damage here and there.

WHITFIELD: Right.

LYPACZEWSKI: It's becoming a fundamental way that the stories get told nowadays.

WHITFIELD: Thank you very much for helping us to tell that story and enjoy the movie making.

LYPACZEWSKI: Entirely my pleasure.

WHITFIELD: Paul Lypaczewski, thanks very much, from Toronto.

LYPACZEWSKI: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: That's all the time we have for now. Here's a peek at what's coming up next on next week. Spy drones: The military uses them in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, but some want pilotless planes to fly over U.S. cities, as well. We'll look at the risks. That story and much more coming up next week on NEXT@CNN. Hope you'll join us.

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