Alleged Audio Of Zawahiri Calls For Pakistanis To Revolt; Democratic Party Dinner Attempts To Unite Party; 2,000 More Marines Head To Afghanistan
Aired March 25, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.Al Qaeda made it official today. It wants the head of Pakistani President Musharraf, his sin, of course, cooperating with the United States, the infidels. The kill order comes from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the terror group's number two, and we'll have more on that in a moment.On the other hand, and this seems to be the life Musharraf leads, there are a good many moderates in Pakistan, supporters of the president, and his attempt to steer his country, a complicated one, on a moderate course who are really unhappy with Washington believing the administration is pushing the Pakistani president too hard to do too much too fast in a country where Osama bin Laden enjoys a 65 percent favorable rating.It sometimes seems Musharraf is a man walking a high wire with gale force winds blowing. His problems, and al Qaeda, top the news and the whip again tonight, CNN's Nic Robertson in Islamabad, Nic a headline from you.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the man Pakistani officials thought they might have had cornered in their tribal region last week, issues a call for the president of Pakistan to be removed, this at a time when a military offensive in that area is stalling -- Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, thank you. We'll get back to you at the top.Next to the White House where the Bush administration is still grappling with Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 commission, John King our Senior White House Correspondent has the duty, John a headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well tonight, Aaron, the White House officially requested that Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, once again go before the 9/11 commission. She says she wants to correct "mischaracterizations" made by Mr. Clarke and by Democrats on the panel but the White House is drawing and holding firm on this line. She will meet with them in private not in public.
BROWN: John, thank you. I don't think I've ever done that before, called it the 911 commission.A big day for John Kerry, back on the campaign trail Kelly Wallace back with him, Kelly a headline.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a political observer said tonight Democrats are notorious for subdividing so the goal of this Democratic Party dinner putting differences aside to unite behind John Kerry to try and win back the White House -- Aaron.BROWN: This is going to be a challenge, Kelly.And finally to Gaza and the 14-year-old face of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, CNN's Ben Wedeman there for us, Ben a headline.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron. Israel's capture earlier this week of a Palestinian boy rigged to explode highlights for some people here what appears to be the beginning of the collapse of Palestinian society after three and a half years of unrelenting mind numbing bloodshed.BROWN: Ben, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.Also on the program tonight, we meet again Captain Clay Lyle. You'll remember him if you were with us a year ago during the war, as he and the 7th Cav raced across the desert. The captain is home a changed man. You'll hear from him tonight.Plus a new lifestyle magazine that focuses on the Muslim lifestyle.
That's tonight in our "On the Rise" segment.And he doesn't really read magazines or newspapers or much of anything at all but he does help us with morning papers. The rooster is back and so are papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.We begin tonight with a not-so-gentle reminder of where we were a week ago. We were in Pakistan, which in addition to struggling politically with Islamic extremism is also waging a war against it along the border with Afghanistan with the help of the United States.
As the days wore on, we began getting hints that the quarry, al Qaeda's number two, might have slipped the noose if, in fact, he had ever been there at all. Today it became all but crystal clear, reporting tonight CNN's Nic Robertson.
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ROBERTSON (voice-over): Ayman al-Zawahiri, the man Pakistani officials thought a week ago they might have holed up on their border, is now believed to be on an audio tape calling for the overthrow of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
PURPORTED VOICE OF AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI (through translator): Every Muslim in Pakistan must do his or her best to get rid of this government which cooperates with the enemy. This government will continue to surrender to the Americans until it destroys Pakistan.ROBERTSON: Not clear if the recording was made since Pakistan's army began its military offensive in the tribal region of Waziristan a week and a half ago but the message seems intent to build local resistance against the army operation.
AL-ZAWAHIRI (through translator): The United States has told Musharraf to seek revenge from the border tribes, especially the honorable Pashtun tribes, that is to defeat the grassroots efforts to support jihad against its crusader movement, so he began by destroying houses, jailing many, and killing people in markets.
ROBERTSON: As the Pakistani offensive has fizzled into stalled negotiations and newly-discovered tunnels hint whatever high value targets may have been holed up in the border region have escaped, anti-government protests, particularly in the intensely independent tribal regions near the Afghan border have been picking up.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: It is into this potentially volatile mix that Ayman al-Zawahiri's message comes. It may find support within the tribal regions. It may even make it harder for Pakistan's army to try and clear out those foreign fighters and al Qaeda members in that border region. That will be something that would worry U.S. forces on the Afghan side of the border hunting down al Qaeda but few people here doubt that President Musharraf will flinch from his commitment at this time to the United States and the war on terrorism -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just to be clear on that, that's the problem for Musharraf there not that the tribal area poses any particular threat to him but that it sides with the al Qaeda fighters, the Taliban fighters who may be hiding there.
ROBERTSON: That's right. They have been there. Some of them have been there. Some of them may still be there. Some of them set up residence there more than a decade ago. There is a feeling within the tribal areas that they don't want Pakistani government troops in there. They've led a life independent from Pakistan's government. They're described by some people as no-go areas.They want to maintain that independence. That's why the message may have, Ayman al-Zawahiri's message may find some support there. The reality is they are likely to rise up effectively against this government -- Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, thank you, Nic Robertson in Islamabad.The Pentagon is planning to send 2,000 additional Marines to Afghanistan in the next few weeks. They'll have the job of reinforcing 11,000 troops already on the ground, many of whom will be taking part in the spring offensive against al Qaeda and the Taliban.For them, and especially though for their counterparts in Iraq, it is dangerous, lonely duty far from home, one reason perhaps, though no one is quite certain, why a number of soldiers every month decide to take their own lives. An Army report on the matter today, tonight, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
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JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The death of 20-year-old Army Private First Class Cory Small (ph) in Baghdad July 3rd began a statistical spike in reported suicides that alarmed Army leaders and prompted the dispatch of a 12-member mental health team to Iraq.An average of two U.S. soldiers a month commit suicide in Iraq but in July of last year that number jumped to five in a single month. The Army team has concluded that while the suicide rate for 2003 was higher than recent historical rates, the high incidence during July did not signify an escalating rate of suicide.
COL. BRUCE CROW, CHIEF PSYCHOLOGIST, MADIGAN ARMY MEDICAL CENTER: The Army is always concerned about suicide and the number of suicides that occurred in Iraq and Kuwait is by no means an epidemic.
MCINTYRE: In 2003, 63 U.S. soldiers committed suicide, 23 while deployed in Iraq or Kuwait, seven more after they returned home but just over half the total number, 33, was among other troops who weren't in the war zone.And after the spike in July the suicide rate dropped back to two a month until November when it jumped to four but so far this year there's been only one confirmed suicide. The fluctuations among troops serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom appear to have no unusual explanation.CROW: The number one trigger or stresser associated with soldier suicide is a failed intimate relationship, followed by financial problems and legal problems.
MCINTYRE: And even with the increase, military personnel are less likely to kill themselves than civilians. For civilian men between the ages of 20 and 34, the rate is 21.5 per 100,000 people. The five deaths in July were enough to push the rate for troops serving in Iraq or Kuwait to 17.3 per 100,000 troops, higher than the Army average of about 12 per 100,000 over the previous eight years.
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MCINTYRE: So, what did push the suicide rate up in July? The Army doesn't know but among the possible factors, it was blazing hot in Iraq in July. The mission was turning more dangerous and deadly. Soldiers were learning that their tours of duty were being extended to a year and those soldiers had ready access to loaded firearms -- Aaron.BROWN: But the psychologist says that the reason the soldiers killed themselves are basically the same reason that civilians kill themselves, something, you know, some huge disappointment or worry.
MCINTYRE: That is the -- as I said, they looked for a common thread. They looked for things like was there a greater incidence among soldiers who just transferred into a unit.
BROWN: Yes.
MCINTYRE: They didn't find it. They looked to see if people who had been there longer under more stress had a higher incidence of suicide. They didn't find that. They basically found that it basically tracks the same reasons as in civilian life, so that's why they say they don't think it's a crisis.You know the Army's got a little bit of a problem. They can't say there's an acceptable rate of suicide. There's no acceptable rate but yet the rates seem to be basically tracking normal except for this spike in July that they can't explain and it's a small number from two to five.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.President Bush may be on the road but he hasn't gotten away from questions about his handling of the war on terrorism. Yesterday, his former counterterrorism chief threw some heavy punches before the commission investigating the attacks of 9/11. Today, new polling shows that a vast majority of Americans are aware of the allegations and the White House is acting like it knows they are, again our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
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KING (voice-over): The president's focus in New Hampshire was the economy but first a response to former adviser Richard Clarke's assertion that Mr. Bush ignored warnings and perhaps missed a chance to thwart the 9/11 attacks.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people.KING: Secretary of State Powell also joined the counteroffensive, recalling a detailed briefing he received from Clarke even before the new Bush team took office.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: This isn't the sign of somebody who didn't have an interest in terrorism. It was also something the president made clear he had to be interested in.KING: The White House says Clarke has a credibility problem. Democrats see character assassination.
SEN. TOM DASCHLE, DEMOCRATIC LEADER: The president came to Washington four years ago promising to change the tone. The people around him have done that. They've changed it for the worse.KING: In his testimony to the 9/11 commission, Clarke said the new administration ignored warnings al Qaeda was planning major strikes and Wednesday night he suggested at least two of the 9/11 hijackers could have been apprehended if Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had taken a greater interest in terrorism.
RICHARD CLARKE, FORMER COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISER: That kind of information was shaken out in December, 1999. It would have been shaken out in the summer of 2001 if she had been doing her job.
KING: A new Pugh Center poll underscores the political urgency for the White House. Nine in ten Americans have heard at least a little about Clarke's allegation the Bush White House all but ignored the al Qaeda threat.Dr. Rice calls Clarke's assertions scurrilous and says she personally tasked him in July, 2001, two months before the strikes, to make sure the FBI, the FAA and other domestic agencies were on alert for possible attacks.In this e-mail four days after 9/11, Clarke told Rice he had alerted FBI, Secret Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard and Immigration and asked that special measures be taken.
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KING: Now the commission had already said it plans to meet with Dr. Rice again and the administration tonight officially requested such a meeting saying that Dr. Rice wants to correct "mischaracterizations" made by Mr. Clarke, as well as mischaracterizations, she says, made by Democrats on the commission.Still though, Aaron, the White House not budging, many on the commission say come meet with us. Do it in public. The White House says no. It has to be in private.
BROWN: And I want to ask two questions but just on that one that is a -- that is the executive privilege argument, correct?
KING: It is. She is a staffer to the president. She is not confirmed by the Senate like Secretary Powell, like Secretary Rumsfeld. It is a longstanding tradition. Many on the commission say break it, 9/11 was the day that changed everything. The White House says no.
BROWN: Just on another matter, has the White House responded at all to this flap over the president's appearance last night at the correspondents' dinner and the jokes he made about finding WMDs or not?
KING: The Kerry campaign issued a statement today saying they found that grossly insensitive by the president to be making jokes about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction at a time many of the troops sent into Iraq are being killed or certainly facing hostile fire.
The administration says the president has every respect for the troops. He was trying to have a light moment at what is traditionally a comic dinner, a stepping back if you will from the day-to-day affairs. The White House says the president thinks it was appropriate. BROWN: John, thank you, our Senior White House Correspondent John King tonight.Democratic presidential candidate, eventually the candidate at least, John Kerry, was skiing in Idaho when this nasty dispute between the White House and Richard Clarke erupted. He has avoided, he, Kerry has avoided the mess pretty much during his five day vacation.But today the Senator returned to the campaign trail to launch a major fundraising drive. He also picked up an important, though hardly unexpected, endorsement from the man who not so long ago was whipping him pretty good in the polls.Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.
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WALLACE (voice-over): It was to be a Democratic show of force, former presidents, a former vice president, and most of this year's presidential candidates. The body language shows there may still be differences but the goal trying to put those aside to win back the White House.
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't support John Kerry. President Carter didn't support John Kerry. President Clinton didn't support John Kerry. Terry McAuliffe didn't support John Kerry in the primaries. John Kerry earned the nomination of this party. He won it the hard way.
WALLACE: And this from the country's most popular Democrat.
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, if people think in this election, if they think about the choices that have been made and the vision John Kerry offers, we win.
WALLACE: Former President Jimmy Carter was a crowd pleaser, this message to third party candidate Ralph Nader.
JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ralph, go back to umpiring softball games or examining the rear end of automobiles and don't risk costing the Democrats the White House this year as you did four years ago.
WALLACE: And then it was John Kerry's turn. He praised those he battled to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am so personally grateful for what they have taught me during this process and far more, all of us, every single one of us here as Americans and Democrats are grateful to what each and every one of them gave this nation in this primary campaign.
WALLACE: Earlier, another photo op that had the Kerry camp beaming, Howard Dean once one of John Kerry's sharpest critics sending this message to the hundreds of thousands of supporters backing Dean.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know who I trust. I trust John Kerry and that's who I'm voting for and that's who I'm working for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Kerry's immediate challenge raising cash, his campaign trailing the Bush team by more than $100 million. Tonight's dinner a start, Democratic officials saying it brought in more than $11 million for the Democratic Party what the Democratic officials are saying is a record for a Democratic fundraiser -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly, thank you. We won't try and compete with the background there. Kelly Wallace.Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, they're barely teenagers but they're ready to die, they say, disturbing new twists to say the least in the Middle East.And later, one town in Alabama, millions of dollars from a class action lawsuit the lawyers getting a lot of it, a break first.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: To the Middle East now. It has been a dismal week in the region. The assassination of the spiritual leader of the terrorist group Hamas setting off a new round of rage and retaliation or at least the promise of it. The threat and the reality of violence is hardly new but the age of those getting caught up in it seems to be. They are disturbingly young.Here again, CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (voice-over): It has come to this, a Palestinian boy rigged with explosives caught at an Israeli checkpoint. Interviewed by his captors, he said he was 14, that he did it to go to heaven and be happy. His mother says he's 16. She thought he was in school."If I knew what was happening" she says, "I would have done the impossible to stop him."Gaza psychiatrist Iyad Sarra has studied traumatized Palestinian children.
IYAD SARRA, PALESTINIAN PSYCHIATRIST: Because this is not only one child trying to explode himself or being used. This tells you that this environment now is so disturbed and so chaotic that it becomes very, very dangerous.
WEDEMAN: Disturbed enough for children to become easy prey for those with a violent agenda. Thirteen-year-old Yasser Tafish (ph) weeps over the grave of his brother Hatin (ph) killed three weeks ago attacking an Israeli position in Gaza."If I could I'd become a martyr too" he tells me. "But you're young. You have your whole life ahead of you" I say. "I'd do it now if I could," he responds.Yasser's mother, Umma (ph), shows us old pictures of her dead son. I asked her if she'd prevent Yasser from following in his brother's footsteps."No, I wouldn't" she says. "I'd be lying if I told you I'd stop him."Yasser had a photo studio down the street make computer generated pictures of him in one dream out of reach and another closer to home, old symbols of parental authority replaced by the new.
SARRA: The martyr, the militant, the Kalashnikov, the sword, usually in a normal environment the father is the hero of the children for a long time but the father in our case is demolished.
WEDEMAN: A society increasingly militarized and the innocent swept up in the madness pay the price.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN: And for one group of Palestinian intellectuals and officials a price far too high. They've put out a statement calling on Palestinians to lay down their arms and make their revolt against Israel's occupation a peaceful one -- Aaron.BROWN: Well, that's a start. Has anyone in the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian government such as it is condemned the use of children for terrorist activities?
WEDEMAN: Yes. The Palestinian Authority has and interestingly enough Hamas and Islamic Jihad have as well. It's not clear really who put this boy up to this act, this act that's really shocked a lot of people here given that the Palestinian factions at least are on record as saying that they're against the use, not only of children, but women as well in these sort of attacks -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ben, thank you. That's a terrific piece of reporting, Ben Wedeman tonight.A quick look at some other stories that made news around the world today, here's a picture we're surprised to see, in Tripoli, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Moammar Gadhafi pledging to work together to oppose militant Islamists. It was the first visit to Libya by a British leader since 1943. Earlier this week, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns became the highest U.S. official to go to Libya in more than 30 years. The visit, of course, follows Libya's announcement in December that it will abandon its WMD program. In eastern Mexico, British Navy divers have rescued six explorers who have been trapped for more than a week in a complex of caves. The group, which included four members of the British Navy, got into trouble when flash floods blocked the exit.And in Athens where the Olympic games were born, an ancient ritual today began the countdown to the 2004 Summer Games. More than 6,000 runners will carry the torch around Greece before it travels around the world on trains and planes and cars, even elephants and camels. After five continents and 75 days the torch returns to Athens, the host city this time around.Still ahead on the program tonight, former Defense Secretary William Cohen on his testimony and others before the 9/11 commission, take a break first.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: It's fair to say, it seems to us at least, that there were no absolute bombshells emerging in the two days of the 9/11 hearings that ended yesterday but the public testimony did give the country a chance to weigh what it had heard and what it saw and what we did learn, the specifics that were out there from the witnesses.One witness we heard from was William Cohen, the former secretary of defense during President Clinton's second term, before that, of course, a Republican Senator from Maine. Today, he is the chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group. We spoke with him earlier tonight.
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BROWN: Secretary Cohen, just give me, you were before the commission and I assume you paid attention to what came before and followed. Give me a sense of how you view what you've seen so far.
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, the commission has very important work that it's undertaken and I hope in the coming weeks as they prepare to write their report they're able to reach if not a unanimous conclusion at least a substantial majority with some dissenting members.But it's important that they look back over what did we know, to paraphrase Howard Baker, what did we know, when did we know it, what did we do, what did we fail to do and were there reasonable factors involved in the decisions not to take certain actions and then where do we go from here?I think it's important that we look back but most importantly we have to look forward and say what are the systemic, what are the institutional prohibitions that prevent faster and more serious and substantive action to deal with terrorism. That really ought to be the function of the commission.
BROWN: Do you worry that for a variety of reasons the political landscape of the moment being one of them, pressure from the families who are obviously a powerful and important force in this, that there is a pressure to blame?
COHEN: I think there is always going to be some pressure to try to point fingers at individual -- or individual decisions. But I think, as the record will show, there is a lot of blame to go around, all the way around. And so when the finger of blame is pointed, it will go in a 360 degree arc. There are many factors involved, certainly some on the part of the executive branch, the congressional branch, some in the media for example, when there were disclosures made about satellite communications being conducted by bin Laden and thereby jeopardizing our ability to find out where he was. So there's a lot of blame. But the point is not so much to find blame but to find solutions. And I think that if you take the chairmen of the commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, those two gentlemen and the other members I think are in a position to really try to point the country to the future, learn from past mistakes, but build upon them and say do what we can to prevent it from taking place again.
BROWN: How ought people evaluate this whole flap over Mr. Clarke and what's gone on over the last couple of days? How do we figure out where the truth lies here?
COHEN: Well, I think the first thing that needs to be done is not to engage in any kind of character assassination. I think Dick Clarke from my experience with him, was a very dedicated public servant. I never questioned his credibility or his convictions. I did disagree with at times on some proposed recommendations. And that's the nature of our democratic system. That's why you have people in high positions to challenge certain assumptions and activities. But I never found any basis to challenge him personally out of what his personal convictions were or his credibility was. So I think the commission has to make a judgment what did he see in the way of reaction by the Clinton administration and then by the Bush administration. But look at the facts as best we can and then see where the truth lies or where the perception really lay in the way of both administrations.
BROWN: And, just finally, going back to your time as secretary of defense and looking at where we are now, do you think that the impediments to taking the kind of action against organized terror groups, al Qaeda or others that existed, some which were political, I think, back then, still exist today?
COHEN: I do think they exist today. I think that we still are in a state of complacency, not certainly as much as they were prior to 9/11. But there are many more things that are going to have to be done if we're going to protect our citizens. And I think that the notion that somehow because there have been no further attacks against the American people at home since 9/11 that the threat is not there, it is there. It is here today, just as much as it was prior to 9/11. And I think that we have got to really come together as a country and drop the Republican vs. Democrat partisanship and say, where do we go as a country? We're all at risk and we all to have to face this danger together here at home and certainly throughout the world.
BROWN: The last 48 hours don't suggest that we're at that point yet. OK.
COHEN: Will do. BROWN: Thank you,
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Former Secretary of Defense, Senator from Maine, William Cohen tonight. Still to come on the program, anger at lawyers who won a huge settlement for their clients, then walked away with a huge chunk of it. Is that right? Is it fair? A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: You can travel the length of the Hallmark aisle and not find a single thank you card for trial lawyers, nothing about, you've taken a percentage of my heart, or, you'll always be my top contingency. Kidding aside -- and I'm pretty sure we were -- without lawyers working on spec, a lot of cases, some of them hugely important cases involving corporate wrongdoing and more, might never be heard. In this case, the injury was great and the payout enormous. But there are questions, too, about who got how much and why. Here's CNN's David Mattingly.
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DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every day of her life, Sylvia Curry of Anniston, Alabama, has lived in the shadow of a chemical plant. Her strongest memories are of the smell.
SYLVIA CURRY, PLAINTIFF: You can't describe the smell, it was so bad.
MATTINGLY: But Curry and her neighbors now know there was something much worse in the air, in the soil and in the water, dangerous amounts of PCBs, a chemical Curry believes killed her husband with cancer, caused her son's skin disorder and gave her cancer as well.
CURRY: And I'm very tired, like I'm just drained a lot.
MATTINGLY: But last September, Curry and thousands of others in two class-action lawsuits were awarded a staggering $700 million paid by plant owner Solutia and previous owner Monsanto. (on camera): Anniston residents wanting long-term health care and the means to move out of this contaminated neighborhood were elated. Some believed that their problems were over. They were wrong.
BEVERLY CARMICHAEL, PLAINTIFF: We didn't get nothing but stiffed. That's exactly what we got.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): What started at $700 million soon diminished; $100 million earmarked for environmental cleanup and a free health clinic. Then it was split between two sets of plaintiffs. The judge awarded attorneys on one side $120 million, leaving some plaintiffs an average of only about $7,000. Compare the $29 million alone to Johnnie Cochran, who handled the litigation, and $34 million to the lead Alabama attorney, Jere Beazley.
JERE BEAZLEY, ATTORNEY: The judge found that the fee was necessary, reasonable, and because of the complexity and the difficulty, set the fee at this figure.
CARMICHAEL: They didn't come in here for the community. They came in here for themselves. And they got it, and they are gone.
MATTINGLY: Angry plaintiffs are complaining to the judge and the attorneys. In a letter, Johnnie Cochran said he'd consult with other attorneys and the judge to provide clarification. Meanwhile, had her husband lived, Sylvia Curry would now be celebrating her 33rd wedding anniversary. Instead, she wonders if she'll see enough of the settlement to move away, in hopes of prolonging her own life. David Mattingly, CNN, Anniston, Alabama.
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BROWN: A few other business notes to take care of before we head to break, starting with a corporate outsourcing deal that apparently went bad. Capital One, the giant credit card company, has canceled its home marketing agreement with India's largest call center, this according to "The Financial Times." The telemarketer reportedly made credit offers to customers it was not supposed to. Yikes. About 600 people were involved with the Capital One account. No word yet if any of those jobs will come back to the states. The broadest measure of economic activity grew at a moderate pace in the final three months of last year. The country's gross domestic product rose a little more than 4 percent. Corporate profits also rose by double digits for the year, jobless claims holding steady, all of that good news for the economy and good enough to drive the markets into the green, seriously into the green for the first time in a long time, substantial gains across the board, with the Nasdaq leading the way. It had been a tough month there for the markets, so a good-news day today. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a year later, after the sandstorms and snipers and worse, Captain Clay Lyle comes home. You meet him again. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: In segment seven tonight, a reunion of sorts. A year ago, all of us, you and I, spent a lot of time with the men of the 3rd Squad, 7th Cavalry Apache Troop. CNN's Walter Rodgers was embedded with them as they raced across the desert to Baghdad. You'll recall they were led by a young captain, Clay Lyle, a tank commander who had trained for war of the nastiest sort and found it in Iraq. A lot has happened between now and then and it may be an overused expression, but that may be because it's true. War changes you, they say. And it did.
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WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At what range were they shooting at you? How far were you from them?
BROWN (voice-over): This is how we met Captain Clay Lyle, he and his men and our crew racing through the desert to Baghdad live.
RODGERS: The pictures you're seeing are absolutely phenomenal.
BROWN: These were the early days. No shots had been fired. Tension was high, but Captain Lyle had yet to see and feel his first war. In those days, there were moments like this. We connected the captain in Iraq with his wife in Georgia.
STEPHANIE LYLE, WIFE OF CLAY: We've all been watching you and we're all very proud of you.
CAPT. CLAY LYLE, U.S. ARMY: Good to hear your voice.
S. LYLE: We've all been watching and we're proud of everything you're doing. You're in our thoughts and prayers.
C. LYLE: As long as you and Emily (ph) are doing OK, I'm doing OK.
S. LYLE: We're fine. We love and miss you.
RODGERS: We have been under heavy fire for the past couple miles.
BROWN: The joyride to Baghdad was over pretty quickly. There were days in the sandstorms. There were days and days on end of being fired upon and firing back, days of war for the captain and his men, all the way to the outskirts of Baghdad, where we met an older Clay Lyle.
BROWN: Would you just ask him if combat was as he expected combat would be?
C. LYLE: It's hard to tell now. We've been getting shot at for so many days, it's hard to tell -- to remember what I thought it would be. It's not anything anyone wants to ever do.
BROWN: Today, Captain Lyle drives a Honda, not a tank to his job at Fort Irwin near Barstow, California, in the desert. He trains soldiers to do what he did in Iraq.
C. LYLE: And go up again.
BROWN: Clay Lyle is older still and wiser.
C. LYLE: It's probably just what happened over there, with the fighting and the things we saw and did., I'm just -- I don't take anything for granted in life anymore. And a lot more -- I try to be a lot more humble and enjoy the times with my family. And that's truly my priority now.
S. LYLE: This will be his first year he'll be around for his daughter's birthday in four years.
BROWN: Today, she plans a birthday. A year ago, she watched her husband at war.
S. LYLE: It was excruciating to watch on TV at times, because you didn't know what to expect. But, at the same time, in a way, it was nice to know that they were OK.
C. LYLE: And we'll continue to work our way.
BROWN: Clay Lyle a year ago led his men into combat. For days, they fought and completed their mission. And they all, every last one of them, survived. War changed Clay Lyle, as it changes everyone. There are things you never want to see again, lots of those, and things you know you'll never experience again that you miss.
C. LYLE: When you develop the kind of team and the organization you want to, it's just very -- it's probably the most fulfilling thing in life. And I kind of miss that. And it's just a different kind of work at Fort Irwin and a different kind of pace in life. But it's preparing guys to go to Iraq and do what we did. So it's very important. BROWN: But with a daughter's 4th birthday around the corner and a baby boy on the way, Clay Lyle is content for now to be at home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A year later. Still ahead on the program, a magazine "On the Rise." It has fashion and food, even art, why "Emel" magazine is finding a home all over the world. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When I was overseas last week, someone walked up to me in the hotel and said they were really a fan of the program and they especially liked our "Up the Rise" segment. I didn't bother to tell him it's actually "On the Rise." It didn't seem that important. It was good enough to hear that he liked the series. If idioms speak to cultural differences, they also can be points of contention, which brings us to a new magazine called "Emel," which focuses on lifestyle from a Muslim perspective. It debuted last fall in the U.K. and there are hopes to expand it to other countries, including the United States. So the magazines and its editors are "On the Rise."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARAH JOSEPH, "EMEL": "Emel" is a Muslim lifestyle magazine. It's derived from the letters M and L, standing for Muslim life. The word that we created, emel, actually has deep roots in the Arabic and Turkish languages, meaning hope, aspiration. You have the current affairs in "Emel," the important issues of the day. But you also have the education, the finance, the environment, the health issues, the parenting issues. And then you have this other completely different element to the magazine in which you have the home interiors, the clothing, the food, the gardening, which is so different for a Muslim magazine to have these things. It's the type of magazine I wanted to read, but didn't exist. We felt that there was nothing there which brought together the ideas of Muslim life in a whole way, a holistic way. There was nothing that showed Islam as a living reality.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The really important thing is to bring out the color, really make the food look good enough to eat.
JOSEPH: Islam is not just one single culture. It's not a monolithic culture. It's from all around the world. So you've got food from China and you've got food from Afghanistan, food from India, which is all the time drawing on that heritage, showing how you can cook different foods from the different places in the world. We look at how modern-day artists are using their faith, drawing on that, drawing on their heritage to create something beautiful and express themselves through painting, through ceramics, through mosaic.
RUH AL-ALAM, "EMEL": Basically, we do contemporary Islamic art. And the ethos behind Islamic art is about the oneness of God and about the unity of the Muslim community. It's become a very up-and-coming art movement of its own. And I think "Emel" wants to represent that or reflect the development of that. JOSEPH: When we created the first, it was trying to create a magazine against all odds and against time and against people thinking, what is this? What are you trying to do?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to get some good images.
JOSEPH: Of the studio and maybe of them filming.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
JOSEPH: It's sold through a number of independent news agents. It's in Borders, the book shops. A lot of American Internet sites took it and sold it through their networks. We are slowly getting it throughout the world. But, primarily, we have focused on getting it strong in Britain and then branch out. We print about 20,000, 30,000. Hopefully, that number will increase. It's a really nice, good piece.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes. JOSEPH: It's a really fantastic story.It's a small operation that's creating something bigger than the team, in a way. It's about showing that Islam can be a positive contribution to the world today.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And that is "On the Rise."Morning papers next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country. Kind of an odd mix of papers. I don't know, not a bad mix. These are all excellent newspapers, but it's just kind of an odd mix. Well, you can probably judge that for yourself.
"The Detroit News" starts it off. This is a good story, a good local story. And it's not a bad national story either. "Judge Stalls Race Preference Petition. In Setback For Affirmative Action Critics, Language in Ballot Proposal Is Ruled Invalid." This is an attempt to roll back affirmative action in the state of Michigan and it has got some problems now. And they'll have to apparently redo it. Also on the front page, how many times have you asked yourself, what's in a Slurpee? Many times, right? Well, "7-11 University Dispenses Slurpee Secrets." So there it is. If you want to know, get "The Detroit News." Maybe it's online. It is online at detnews.com. So you'll probably read that Slurpee story.
"The Chattanooga Times Free Press." There must have been a reason that I chose this. Oh, "Comair Slashes" -- yes, I was here. "Comair Slashes Airfare to Cincinnati." I don't know why that's on the front page of the Chattanooga paper. But it is. It's right there. And also a good local story, "Debating Lines Of Authority. County Commissioner School Board Disagree Over Contract Proposals," who gets to decide how to -- who is going to pay to build new schools or how much to pay to build new schools. And that's in Chattanooga on your doorstep. We were in Anniston, Alabama, a little earlier tonight and we're back there again for "The Anniston Star," a home-owned newspaper. "Fetus Rights Bill Passed. Senate OKs Legislation That Would Make it a Separate Crime to Harm an Unborn Child." This is a front-page story in lots of places. And, honestly, I think we should have mentioned it earlier, but we didn't because I probably forgot to mention it earlier. They put basketball on the front page, though the game's not over yet, although, if you're watching the replay, the game is over. How confusing is that?
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." "As Dean Endorses" -- they lead with politics -- "As Dean Endorses Kerry, Bush Visits Foe's Backyard. Senate OKs Crime Bill on Harm to Fetus." But I like this on the front page. They put the new Tom Hanks movie. I love him. Anyway, "Ladykillers." We're debating whether he plays a grifter or a really bad guy. But, apparently, he plays a bad guy. And I'll see it when they show it on an airplane.
"The Oregonian" puts Tom Hanks on the front page and "Fetus Harm Legislation Clears Congress. "Dying to be Heard. School Officials Suspected Abuse, But State Failed to See the Danger Facing a Battered Kindergartner." These stories break my heart and make me angry.
"The Chicago Sun-Times," of course and always. The weather tomorrow in Chicago tomorrow, in case you care, and I hope you do.
(CHIMES)
BROWN: "Umbrella" -- thank you for that -- "but no coat," 60 degrees. I'll be in the Midwest tomorrow. Here's Soledad O'Brien with a look ahead at "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron. Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," a spectacle in the sky, five planets lined up together. If you go outside right now, you just might see them. Tomorrow, the people's planet gazer, Jack Horkheimer, is back with us to tell us about this rare astronomical event. That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. -- Aaron.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Soledad, thank you. I'm off to Minneapolis to make a couple speeches this weekend. If you're out there, come say hi.Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 25, 2004 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.Al Qaeda made it official today. It wants the head of Pakistani President Musharraf, his sin, of course, cooperating with the United States, the infidels. The kill order comes from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the terror group's number two, and we'll have more on that in a moment.On the other hand, and this seems to be the life Musharraf leads, there are a good many moderates in Pakistan, supporters of the president, and his attempt to steer his country, a complicated one, on a moderate course who are really unhappy with Washington believing the administration is pushing the Pakistani president too hard to do too much too fast in a country where Osama bin Laden enjoys a 65 percent favorable rating.It sometimes seems Musharraf is a man walking a high wire with gale force winds blowing. His problems, and al Qaeda, top the news and the whip again tonight, CNN's Nic Robertson in Islamabad, Nic a headline from you.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the man Pakistani officials thought they might have had cornered in their tribal region last week, issues a call for the president of Pakistan to be removed, this at a time when a military offensive in that area is stalling -- Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, thank you. We'll get back to you at the top.Next to the White House where the Bush administration is still grappling with Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 commission, John King our Senior White House Correspondent has the duty, John a headline.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well tonight, Aaron, the White House officially requested that Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, once again go before the 9/11 commission. She says she wants to correct "mischaracterizations" made by Mr. Clarke and by Democrats on the panel but the White House is drawing and holding firm on this line. She will meet with them in private not in public.
BROWN: John, thank you. I don't think I've ever done that before, called it the 911 commission.A big day for John Kerry, back on the campaign trail Kelly Wallace back with him, Kelly a headline.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a political observer said tonight Democrats are notorious for subdividing so the goal of this Democratic Party dinner putting differences aside to unite behind John Kerry to try and win back the White House -- Aaron.BROWN: This is going to be a challenge, Kelly.And finally to Gaza and the 14-year-old face of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, CNN's Ben Wedeman there for us, Ben a headline.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron. Israel's capture earlier this week of a Palestinian boy rigged to explode highlights for some people here what appears to be the beginning of the collapse of Palestinian society after three and a half years of unrelenting mind numbing bloodshed.BROWN: Ben, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.Also on the program tonight, we meet again Captain Clay Lyle. You'll remember him if you were with us a year ago during the war, as he and the 7th Cav raced across the desert. The captain is home a changed man. You'll hear from him tonight.Plus a new lifestyle magazine that focuses on the Muslim lifestyle.
That's tonight in our "On the Rise" segment.And he doesn't really read magazines or newspapers or much of anything at all but he does help us with morning papers. The rooster is back and so are papers, all that and more in the hour ahead.We begin tonight with a not-so-gentle reminder of where we were a week ago. We were in Pakistan, which in addition to struggling politically with Islamic extremism is also waging a war against it along the border with Afghanistan with the help of the United States.
As the days wore on, we began getting hints that the quarry, al Qaeda's number two, might have slipped the noose if, in fact, he had ever been there at all. Today it became all but crystal clear, reporting tonight CNN's Nic Robertson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON (voice-over): Ayman al-Zawahiri, the man Pakistani officials thought a week ago they might have holed up on their border, is now believed to be on an audio tape calling for the overthrow of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
PURPORTED VOICE OF AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI (through translator): Every Muslim in Pakistan must do his or her best to get rid of this government which cooperates with the enemy. This government will continue to surrender to the Americans until it destroys Pakistan.ROBERTSON: Not clear if the recording was made since Pakistan's army began its military offensive in the tribal region of Waziristan a week and a half ago but the message seems intent to build local resistance against the army operation.
AL-ZAWAHIRI (through translator): The United States has told Musharraf to seek revenge from the border tribes, especially the honorable Pashtun tribes, that is to defeat the grassroots efforts to support jihad against its crusader movement, so he began by destroying houses, jailing many, and killing people in markets.
ROBERTSON: As the Pakistani offensive has fizzled into stalled negotiations and newly-discovered tunnels hint whatever high value targets may have been holed up in the border region have escaped, anti-government protests, particularly in the intensely independent tribal regions near the Afghan border have been picking up.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTSON: It is into this potentially volatile mix that Ayman al-Zawahiri's message comes. It may find support within the tribal regions. It may even make it harder for Pakistan's army to try and clear out those foreign fighters and al Qaeda members in that border region. That will be something that would worry U.S. forces on the Afghan side of the border hunting down al Qaeda but few people here doubt that President Musharraf will flinch from his commitment at this time to the United States and the war on terrorism -- Aaron.
BROWN: Just to be clear on that, that's the problem for Musharraf there not that the tribal area poses any particular threat to him but that it sides with the al Qaeda fighters, the Taliban fighters who may be hiding there.
ROBERTSON: That's right. They have been there. Some of them have been there. Some of them may still be there. Some of them set up residence there more than a decade ago. There is a feeling within the tribal areas that they don't want Pakistani government troops in there. They've led a life independent from Pakistan's government. They're described by some people as no-go areas.They want to maintain that independence. That's why the message may have, Ayman al-Zawahiri's message may find some support there. The reality is they are likely to rise up effectively against this government -- Aaron.
BROWN: Nic, thank you, Nic Robertson in Islamabad.The Pentagon is planning to send 2,000 additional Marines to Afghanistan in the next few weeks. They'll have the job of reinforcing 11,000 troops already on the ground, many of whom will be taking part in the spring offensive against al Qaeda and the Taliban.For them, and especially though for their counterparts in Iraq, it is dangerous, lonely duty far from home, one reason perhaps, though no one is quite certain, why a number of soldiers every month decide to take their own lives. An Army report on the matter today, tonight, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The death of 20-year-old Army Private First Class Cory Small (ph) in Baghdad July 3rd began a statistical spike in reported suicides that alarmed Army leaders and prompted the dispatch of a 12-member mental health team to Iraq.An average of two U.S. soldiers a month commit suicide in Iraq but in July of last year that number jumped to five in a single month. The Army team has concluded that while the suicide rate for 2003 was higher than recent historical rates, the high incidence during July did not signify an escalating rate of suicide.
COL. BRUCE CROW, CHIEF PSYCHOLOGIST, MADIGAN ARMY MEDICAL CENTER: The Army is always concerned about suicide and the number of suicides that occurred in Iraq and Kuwait is by no means an epidemic.
MCINTYRE: In 2003, 63 U.S. soldiers committed suicide, 23 while deployed in Iraq or Kuwait, seven more after they returned home but just over half the total number, 33, was among other troops who weren't in the war zone.And after the spike in July the suicide rate dropped back to two a month until November when it jumped to four but so far this year there's been only one confirmed suicide. The fluctuations among troops serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom appear to have no unusual explanation.CROW: The number one trigger or stresser associated with soldier suicide is a failed intimate relationship, followed by financial problems and legal problems.
MCINTYRE: And even with the increase, military personnel are less likely to kill themselves than civilians. For civilian men between the ages of 20 and 34, the rate is 21.5 per 100,000 people. The five deaths in July were enough to push the rate for troops serving in Iraq or Kuwait to 17.3 per 100,000 troops, higher than the Army average of about 12 per 100,000 over the previous eight years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: So, what did push the suicide rate up in July? The Army doesn't know but among the possible factors, it was blazing hot in Iraq in July. The mission was turning more dangerous and deadly. Soldiers were learning that their tours of duty were being extended to a year and those soldiers had ready access to loaded firearms -- Aaron.BROWN: But the psychologist says that the reason the soldiers killed themselves are basically the same reason that civilians kill themselves, something, you know, some huge disappointment or worry.
MCINTYRE: That is the -- as I said, they looked for a common thread. They looked for things like was there a greater incidence among soldiers who just transferred into a unit.
BROWN: Yes.
MCINTYRE: They didn't find it. They looked to see if people who had been there longer under more stress had a higher incidence of suicide. They didn't find that. They basically found that it basically tracks the same reasons as in civilian life, so that's why they say they don't think it's a crisis.You know the Army's got a little bit of a problem. They can't say there's an acceptable rate of suicide. There's no acceptable rate but yet the rates seem to be basically tracking normal except for this spike in July that they can't explain and it's a small number from two to five.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.President Bush may be on the road but he hasn't gotten away from questions about his handling of the war on terrorism. Yesterday, his former counterterrorism chief threw some heavy punches before the commission investigating the attacks of 9/11. Today, new polling shows that a vast majority of Americans are aware of the allegations and the White House is acting like it knows they are, again our Senior White House Correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): The president's focus in New Hampshire was the economy but first a response to former adviser Richard Clarke's assertion that Mr. Bush ignored warnings and perhaps missed a chance to thwart the 9/11 attacks.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people.KING: Secretary of State Powell also joined the counteroffensive, recalling a detailed briefing he received from Clarke even before the new Bush team took office.
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: This isn't the sign of somebody who didn't have an interest in terrorism. It was also something the president made clear he had to be interested in.KING: The White House says Clarke has a credibility problem. Democrats see character assassination.
SEN. TOM DASCHLE, DEMOCRATIC LEADER: The president came to Washington four years ago promising to change the tone. The people around him have done that. They've changed it for the worse.KING: In his testimony to the 9/11 commission, Clarke said the new administration ignored warnings al Qaeda was planning major strikes and Wednesday night he suggested at least two of the 9/11 hijackers could have been apprehended if Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice had taken a greater interest in terrorism.
RICHARD CLARKE, FORMER COUNTERTERRORISM ADVISER: That kind of information was shaken out in December, 1999. It would have been shaken out in the summer of 2001 if she had been doing her job.
KING: A new Pugh Center poll underscores the political urgency for the White House. Nine in ten Americans have heard at least a little about Clarke's allegation the Bush White House all but ignored the al Qaeda threat.Dr. Rice calls Clarke's assertions scurrilous and says she personally tasked him in July, 2001, two months before the strikes, to make sure the FBI, the FAA and other domestic agencies were on alert for possible attacks.In this e-mail four days after 9/11, Clarke told Rice he had alerted FBI, Secret Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard and Immigration and asked that special measures be taken.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Now the commission had already said it plans to meet with Dr. Rice again and the administration tonight officially requested such a meeting saying that Dr. Rice wants to correct "mischaracterizations" made by Mr. Clarke, as well as mischaracterizations, she says, made by Democrats on the commission.Still though, Aaron, the White House not budging, many on the commission say come meet with us. Do it in public. The White House says no. It has to be in private.
BROWN: And I want to ask two questions but just on that one that is a -- that is the executive privilege argument, correct?
KING: It is. She is a staffer to the president. She is not confirmed by the Senate like Secretary Powell, like Secretary Rumsfeld. It is a longstanding tradition. Many on the commission say break it, 9/11 was the day that changed everything. The White House says no.
BROWN: Just on another matter, has the White House responded at all to this flap over the president's appearance last night at the correspondents' dinner and the jokes he made about finding WMDs or not?
KING: The Kerry campaign issued a statement today saying they found that grossly insensitive by the president to be making jokes about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction at a time many of the troops sent into Iraq are being killed or certainly facing hostile fire.
The administration says the president has every respect for the troops. He was trying to have a light moment at what is traditionally a comic dinner, a stepping back if you will from the day-to-day affairs. The White House says the president thinks it was appropriate. BROWN: John, thank you, our Senior White House Correspondent John King tonight.Democratic presidential candidate, eventually the candidate at least, John Kerry, was skiing in Idaho when this nasty dispute between the White House and Richard Clarke erupted. He has avoided, he, Kerry has avoided the mess pretty much during his five day vacation.But today the Senator returned to the campaign trail to launch a major fundraising drive. He also picked up an important, though hardly unexpected, endorsement from the man who not so long ago was whipping him pretty good in the polls.Here's CNN's Kelly Wallace.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE (voice-over): It was to be a Democratic show of force, former presidents, a former vice president, and most of this year's presidential candidates. The body language shows there may still be differences but the goal trying to put those aside to win back the White House.
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I didn't support John Kerry. President Carter didn't support John Kerry. President Clinton didn't support John Kerry. Terry McAuliffe didn't support John Kerry in the primaries. John Kerry earned the nomination of this party. He won it the hard way.
WALLACE: And this from the country's most popular Democrat.
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, if people think in this election, if they think about the choices that have been made and the vision John Kerry offers, we win.
WALLACE: Former President Jimmy Carter was a crowd pleaser, this message to third party candidate Ralph Nader.
JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ralph, go back to umpiring softball games or examining the rear end of automobiles and don't risk costing the Democrats the White House this year as you did four years ago.
WALLACE: And then it was John Kerry's turn. He praised those he battled to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am so personally grateful for what they have taught me during this process and far more, all of us, every single one of us here as Americans and Democrats are grateful to what each and every one of them gave this nation in this primary campaign.
WALLACE: Earlier, another photo op that had the Kerry camp beaming, Howard Dean once one of John Kerry's sharpest critics sending this message to the hundreds of thousands of supporters backing Dean.
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know who I trust. I trust John Kerry and that's who I'm voting for and that's who I'm working for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Kerry's immediate challenge raising cash, his campaign trailing the Bush team by more than $100 million. Tonight's dinner a start, Democratic officials saying it brought in more than $11 million for the Democratic Party what the Democratic officials are saying is a record for a Democratic fundraiser -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelly, thank you. We won't try and compete with the background there. Kelly Wallace.Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, they're barely teenagers but they're ready to die, they say, disturbing new twists to say the least in the Middle East.And later, one town in Alabama, millions of dollars from a class action lawsuit the lawyers getting a lot of it, a break first.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: To the Middle East now. It has been a dismal week in the region. The assassination of the spiritual leader of the terrorist group Hamas setting off a new round of rage and retaliation or at least the promise of it. The threat and the reality of violence is hardly new but the age of those getting caught up in it seems to be. They are disturbingly young.Here again, CNN's Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (voice-over): It has come to this, a Palestinian boy rigged with explosives caught at an Israeli checkpoint. Interviewed by his captors, he said he was 14, that he did it to go to heaven and be happy. His mother says he's 16. She thought he was in school."If I knew what was happening" she says, "I would have done the impossible to stop him."Gaza psychiatrist Iyad Sarra has studied traumatized Palestinian children.
IYAD SARRA, PALESTINIAN PSYCHIATRIST: Because this is not only one child trying to explode himself or being used. This tells you that this environment now is so disturbed and so chaotic that it becomes very, very dangerous.
WEDEMAN: Disturbed enough for children to become easy prey for those with a violent agenda. Thirteen-year-old Yasser Tafish (ph) weeps over the grave of his brother Hatin (ph) killed three weeks ago attacking an Israeli position in Gaza."If I could I'd become a martyr too" he tells me. "But you're young. You have your whole life ahead of you" I say. "I'd do it now if I could," he responds.Yasser's mother, Umma (ph), shows us old pictures of her dead son. I asked her if she'd prevent Yasser from following in his brother's footsteps."No, I wouldn't" she says. "I'd be lying if I told you I'd stop him."Yasser had a photo studio down the street make computer generated pictures of him in one dream out of reach and another closer to home, old symbols of parental authority replaced by the new.
SARRA: The martyr, the militant, the Kalashnikov, the sword, usually in a normal environment the father is the hero of the children for a long time but the father in our case is demolished.
WEDEMAN: A society increasingly militarized and the innocent swept up in the madness pay the price.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN: And for one group of Palestinian intellectuals and officials a price far too high. They've put out a statement calling on Palestinians to lay down their arms and make their revolt against Israel's occupation a peaceful one -- Aaron.BROWN: Well, that's a start. Has anyone in the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian government such as it is condemned the use of children for terrorist activities?
WEDEMAN: Yes. The Palestinian Authority has and interestingly enough Hamas and Islamic Jihad have as well. It's not clear really who put this boy up to this act, this act that's really shocked a lot of people here given that the Palestinian factions at least are on record as saying that they're against the use, not only of children, but women as well in these sort of attacks -- Aaron.
BROWN: Ben, thank you. That's a terrific piece of reporting, Ben Wedeman tonight.A quick look at some other stories that made news around the world today, here's a picture we're surprised to see, in Tripoli, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Moammar Gadhafi pledging to work together to oppose militant Islamists. It was the first visit to Libya by a British leader since 1943. Earlier this week, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns became the highest U.S. official to go to Libya in more than 30 years. The visit, of course, follows Libya's announcement in December that it will abandon its WMD program. In eastern Mexico, British Navy divers have rescued six explorers who have been trapped for more than a week in a complex of caves. The group, which included four members of the British Navy, got into trouble when flash floods blocked the exit.And in Athens where the Olympic games were born, an ancient ritual today began the countdown to the 2004 Summer Games. More than 6,000 runners will carry the torch around Greece before it travels around the world on trains and planes and cars, even elephants and camels. After five continents and 75 days the torch returns to Athens, the host city this time around.Still ahead on the program tonight, former Defense Secretary William Cohen on his testimony and others before the 9/11 commission, take a break first.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It's fair to say, it seems to us at least, that there were no absolute bombshells emerging in the two days of the 9/11 hearings that ended yesterday but the public testimony did give the country a chance to weigh what it had heard and what it saw and what we did learn, the specifics that were out there from the witnesses.One witness we heard from was William Cohen, the former secretary of defense during President Clinton's second term, before that, of course, a Republican Senator from Maine. Today, he is the chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group. We spoke with him earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Secretary Cohen, just give me, you were before the commission and I assume you paid attention to what came before and followed. Give me a sense of how you view what you've seen so far.
WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, the commission has very important work that it's undertaken and I hope in the coming weeks as they prepare to write their report they're able to reach if not a unanimous conclusion at least a substantial majority with some dissenting members.But it's important that they look back over what did we know, to paraphrase Howard Baker, what did we know, when did we know it, what did we do, what did we fail to do and were there reasonable factors involved in the decisions not to take certain actions and then where do we go from here?I think it's important that we look back but most importantly we have to look forward and say what are the systemic, what are the institutional prohibitions that prevent faster and more serious and substantive action to deal with terrorism. That really ought to be the function of the commission.
BROWN: Do you worry that for a variety of reasons the political landscape of the moment being one of them, pressure from the families who are obviously a powerful and important force in this, that there is a pressure to blame?
COHEN: I think there is always going to be some pressure to try to point fingers at individual -- or individual decisions. But I think, as the record will show, there is a lot of blame to go around, all the way around. And so when the finger of blame is pointed, it will go in a 360 degree arc. There are many factors involved, certainly some on the part of the executive branch, the congressional branch, some in the media for example, when there were disclosures made about satellite communications being conducted by bin Laden and thereby jeopardizing our ability to find out where he was. So there's a lot of blame. But the point is not so much to find blame but to find solutions. And I think that if you take the chairmen of the commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, those two gentlemen and the other members I think are in a position to really try to point the country to the future, learn from past mistakes, but build upon them and say do what we can to prevent it from taking place again.
BROWN: How ought people evaluate this whole flap over Mr. Clarke and what's gone on over the last couple of days? How do we figure out where the truth lies here?
COHEN: Well, I think the first thing that needs to be done is not to engage in any kind of character assassination. I think Dick Clarke from my experience with him, was a very dedicated public servant. I never questioned his credibility or his convictions. I did disagree with at times on some proposed recommendations. And that's the nature of our democratic system. That's why you have people in high positions to challenge certain assumptions and activities. But I never found any basis to challenge him personally out of what his personal convictions were or his credibility was. So I think the commission has to make a judgment what did he see in the way of reaction by the Clinton administration and then by the Bush administration. But look at the facts as best we can and then see where the truth lies or where the perception really lay in the way of both administrations.
BROWN: And, just finally, going back to your time as secretary of defense and looking at where we are now, do you think that the impediments to taking the kind of action against organized terror groups, al Qaeda or others that existed, some which were political, I think, back then, still exist today?
COHEN: I do think they exist today. I think that we still are in a state of complacency, not certainly as much as they were prior to 9/11. But there are many more things that are going to have to be done if we're going to protect our citizens. And I think that the notion that somehow because there have been no further attacks against the American people at home since 9/11 that the threat is not there, it is there. It is here today, just as much as it was prior to 9/11. And I think that we have got to really come together as a country and drop the Republican vs. Democrat partisanship and say, where do we go as a country? We're all at risk and we all to have to face this danger together here at home and certainly throughout the world.
BROWN: The last 48 hours don't suggest that we're at that point yet. OK.
COHEN: Will do. BROWN: Thank you,
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Former Secretary of Defense, Senator from Maine, William Cohen tonight. Still to come on the program, anger at lawyers who won a huge settlement for their clients, then walked away with a huge chunk of it. Is that right? Is it fair? A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: You can travel the length of the Hallmark aisle and not find a single thank you card for trial lawyers, nothing about, you've taken a percentage of my heart, or, you'll always be my top contingency. Kidding aside -- and I'm pretty sure we were -- without lawyers working on spec, a lot of cases, some of them hugely important cases involving corporate wrongdoing and more, might never be heard. In this case, the injury was great and the payout enormous. But there are questions, too, about who got how much and why. Here's CNN's David Mattingly.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every day of her life, Sylvia Curry of Anniston, Alabama, has lived in the shadow of a chemical plant. Her strongest memories are of the smell.
SYLVIA CURRY, PLAINTIFF: You can't describe the smell, it was so bad.
MATTINGLY: But Curry and her neighbors now know there was something much worse in the air, in the soil and in the water, dangerous amounts of PCBs, a chemical Curry believes killed her husband with cancer, caused her son's skin disorder and gave her cancer as well.
CURRY: And I'm very tired, like I'm just drained a lot.
MATTINGLY: But last September, Curry and thousands of others in two class-action lawsuits were awarded a staggering $700 million paid by plant owner Solutia and previous owner Monsanto. (on camera): Anniston residents wanting long-term health care and the means to move out of this contaminated neighborhood were elated. Some believed that their problems were over. They were wrong.
BEVERLY CARMICHAEL, PLAINTIFF: We didn't get nothing but stiffed. That's exactly what we got.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): What started at $700 million soon diminished; $100 million earmarked for environmental cleanup and a free health clinic. Then it was split between two sets of plaintiffs. The judge awarded attorneys on one side $120 million, leaving some plaintiffs an average of only about $7,000. Compare the $29 million alone to Johnnie Cochran, who handled the litigation, and $34 million to the lead Alabama attorney, Jere Beazley.
JERE BEAZLEY, ATTORNEY: The judge found that the fee was necessary, reasonable, and because of the complexity and the difficulty, set the fee at this figure.
CARMICHAEL: They didn't come in here for the community. They came in here for themselves. And they got it, and they are gone.
MATTINGLY: Angry plaintiffs are complaining to the judge and the attorneys. In a letter, Johnnie Cochran said he'd consult with other attorneys and the judge to provide clarification. Meanwhile, had her husband lived, Sylvia Curry would now be celebrating her 33rd wedding anniversary. Instead, she wonders if she'll see enough of the settlement to move away, in hopes of prolonging her own life. David Mattingly, CNN, Anniston, Alabama.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A few other business notes to take care of before we head to break, starting with a corporate outsourcing deal that apparently went bad. Capital One, the giant credit card company, has canceled its home marketing agreement with India's largest call center, this according to "The Financial Times." The telemarketer reportedly made credit offers to customers it was not supposed to. Yikes. About 600 people were involved with the Capital One account. No word yet if any of those jobs will come back to the states. The broadest measure of economic activity grew at a moderate pace in the final three months of last year. The country's gross domestic product rose a little more than 4 percent. Corporate profits also rose by double digits for the year, jobless claims holding steady, all of that good news for the economy and good enough to drive the markets into the green, seriously into the green for the first time in a long time, substantial gains across the board, with the Nasdaq leading the way. It had been a tough month there for the markets, so a good-news day today. Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, a year later, after the sandstorms and snipers and worse, Captain Clay Lyle comes home. You meet him again. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: In segment seven tonight, a reunion of sorts. A year ago, all of us, you and I, spent a lot of time with the men of the 3rd Squad, 7th Cavalry Apache Troop. CNN's Walter Rodgers was embedded with them as they raced across the desert to Baghdad. You'll recall they were led by a young captain, Clay Lyle, a tank commander who had trained for war of the nastiest sort and found it in Iraq. A lot has happened between now and then and it may be an overused expression, but that may be because it's true. War changes you, they say. And it did.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At what range were they shooting at you? How far were you from them?
BROWN (voice-over): This is how we met Captain Clay Lyle, he and his men and our crew racing through the desert to Baghdad live.
RODGERS: The pictures you're seeing are absolutely phenomenal.
BROWN: These were the early days. No shots had been fired. Tension was high, but Captain Lyle had yet to see and feel his first war. In those days, there were moments like this. We connected the captain in Iraq with his wife in Georgia.
STEPHANIE LYLE, WIFE OF CLAY: We've all been watching you and we're all very proud of you.
CAPT. CLAY LYLE, U.S. ARMY: Good to hear your voice.
S. LYLE: We've all been watching and we're proud of everything you're doing. You're in our thoughts and prayers.
C. LYLE: As long as you and Emily (ph) are doing OK, I'm doing OK.
S. LYLE: We're fine. We love and miss you.
RODGERS: We have been under heavy fire for the past couple miles.
BROWN: The joyride to Baghdad was over pretty quickly. There were days in the sandstorms. There were days and days on end of being fired upon and firing back, days of war for the captain and his men, all the way to the outskirts of Baghdad, where we met an older Clay Lyle.
BROWN: Would you just ask him if combat was as he expected combat would be?
C. LYLE: It's hard to tell now. We've been getting shot at for so many days, it's hard to tell -- to remember what I thought it would be. It's not anything anyone wants to ever do.
BROWN: Today, Captain Lyle drives a Honda, not a tank to his job at Fort Irwin near Barstow, California, in the desert. He trains soldiers to do what he did in Iraq.
C. LYLE: And go up again.
BROWN: Clay Lyle is older still and wiser.
C. LYLE: It's probably just what happened over there, with the fighting and the things we saw and did., I'm just -- I don't take anything for granted in life anymore. And a lot more -- I try to be a lot more humble and enjoy the times with my family. And that's truly my priority now.
S. LYLE: This will be his first year he'll be around for his daughter's birthday in four years.
BROWN: Today, she plans a birthday. A year ago, she watched her husband at war.
S. LYLE: It was excruciating to watch on TV at times, because you didn't know what to expect. But, at the same time, in a way, it was nice to know that they were OK.
C. LYLE: And we'll continue to work our way.
BROWN: Clay Lyle a year ago led his men into combat. For days, they fought and completed their mission. And they all, every last one of them, survived. War changed Clay Lyle, as it changes everyone. There are things you never want to see again, lots of those, and things you know you'll never experience again that you miss.
C. LYLE: When you develop the kind of team and the organization you want to, it's just very -- it's probably the most fulfilling thing in life. And I kind of miss that. And it's just a different kind of work at Fort Irwin and a different kind of pace in life. But it's preparing guys to go to Iraq and do what we did. So it's very important. BROWN: But with a daughter's 4th birthday around the corner and a baby boy on the way, Clay Lyle is content for now to be at home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: A year later. Still ahead on the program, a magazine "On the Rise." It has fashion and food, even art, why "Emel" magazine is finding a home all over the world. This is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: When I was overseas last week, someone walked up to me in the hotel and said they were really a fan of the program and they especially liked our "Up the Rise" segment. I didn't bother to tell him it's actually "On the Rise." It didn't seem that important. It was good enough to hear that he liked the series. If idioms speak to cultural differences, they also can be points of contention, which brings us to a new magazine called "Emel," which focuses on lifestyle from a Muslim perspective. It debuted last fall in the U.K. and there are hopes to expand it to other countries, including the United States. So the magazines and its editors are "On the Rise."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARAH JOSEPH, "EMEL": "Emel" is a Muslim lifestyle magazine. It's derived from the letters M and L, standing for Muslim life. The word that we created, emel, actually has deep roots in the Arabic and Turkish languages, meaning hope, aspiration. You have the current affairs in "Emel," the important issues of the day. But you also have the education, the finance, the environment, the health issues, the parenting issues. And then you have this other completely different element to the magazine in which you have the home interiors, the clothing, the food, the gardening, which is so different for a Muslim magazine to have these things. It's the type of magazine I wanted to read, but didn't exist. We felt that there was nothing there which brought together the ideas of Muslim life in a whole way, a holistic way. There was nothing that showed Islam as a living reality.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The really important thing is to bring out the color, really make the food look good enough to eat.
JOSEPH: Islam is not just one single culture. It's not a monolithic culture. It's from all around the world. So you've got food from China and you've got food from Afghanistan, food from India, which is all the time drawing on that heritage, showing how you can cook different foods from the different places in the world. We look at how modern-day artists are using their faith, drawing on that, drawing on their heritage to create something beautiful and express themselves through painting, through ceramics, through mosaic.
RUH AL-ALAM, "EMEL": Basically, we do contemporary Islamic art. And the ethos behind Islamic art is about the oneness of God and about the unity of the Muslim community. It's become a very up-and-coming art movement of its own. And I think "Emel" wants to represent that or reflect the development of that. JOSEPH: When we created the first, it was trying to create a magazine against all odds and against time and against people thinking, what is this? What are you trying to do?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to get some good images.
JOSEPH: Of the studio and maybe of them filming.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
JOSEPH: It's sold through a number of independent news agents. It's in Borders, the book shops. A lot of American Internet sites took it and sold it through their networks. We are slowly getting it throughout the world. But, primarily, we have focused on getting it strong in Britain and then branch out. We print about 20,000, 30,000. Hopefully, that number will increase. It's a really nice, good piece.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes. JOSEPH: It's a really fantastic story.It's a small operation that's creating something bigger than the team, in a way. It's about showing that Islam can be a positive contribution to the world today.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: And that is "On the Rise."Morning papers next.
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(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: OK, time to check morning papers from around the country. Kind of an odd mix of papers. I don't know, not a bad mix. These are all excellent newspapers, but it's just kind of an odd mix. Well, you can probably judge that for yourself.
"The Detroit News" starts it off. This is a good story, a good local story. And it's not a bad national story either. "Judge Stalls Race Preference Petition. In Setback For Affirmative Action Critics, Language in Ballot Proposal Is Ruled Invalid." This is an attempt to roll back affirmative action in the state of Michigan and it has got some problems now. And they'll have to apparently redo it. Also on the front page, how many times have you asked yourself, what's in a Slurpee? Many times, right? Well, "7-11 University Dispenses Slurpee Secrets." So there it is. If you want to know, get "The Detroit News." Maybe it's online. It is online at detnews.com. So you'll probably read that Slurpee story.
"The Chattanooga Times Free Press." There must have been a reason that I chose this. Oh, "Comair Slashes" -- yes, I was here. "Comair Slashes Airfare to Cincinnati." I don't know why that's on the front page of the Chattanooga paper. But it is. It's right there. And also a good local story, "Debating Lines Of Authority. County Commissioner School Board Disagree Over Contract Proposals," who gets to decide how to -- who is going to pay to build new schools or how much to pay to build new schools. And that's in Chattanooga on your doorstep. We were in Anniston, Alabama, a little earlier tonight and we're back there again for "The Anniston Star," a home-owned newspaper. "Fetus Rights Bill Passed. Senate OKs Legislation That Would Make it a Separate Crime to Harm an Unborn Child." This is a front-page story in lots of places. And, honestly, I think we should have mentioned it earlier, but we didn't because I probably forgot to mention it earlier. They put basketball on the front page, though the game's not over yet, although, if you're watching the replay, the game is over. How confusing is that?
"The Philadelphia Inquirer." "As Dean Endorses" -- they lead with politics -- "As Dean Endorses Kerry, Bush Visits Foe's Backyard. Senate OKs Crime Bill on Harm to Fetus." But I like this on the front page. They put the new Tom Hanks movie. I love him. Anyway, "Ladykillers." We're debating whether he plays a grifter or a really bad guy. But, apparently, he plays a bad guy. And I'll see it when they show it on an airplane.
"The Oregonian" puts Tom Hanks on the front page and "Fetus Harm Legislation Clears Congress. "Dying to be Heard. School Officials Suspected Abuse, But State Failed to See the Danger Facing a Battered Kindergartner." These stories break my heart and make me angry.
"The Chicago Sun-Times," of course and always. The weather tomorrow in Chicago tomorrow, in case you care, and I hope you do.
(CHIMES)
BROWN: "Umbrella" -- thank you for that -- "but no coat," 60 degrees. I'll be in the Midwest tomorrow. Here's Soledad O'Brien with a look ahead at "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Aaron. Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," a spectacle in the sky, five planets lined up together. If you go outside right now, you just might see them. Tomorrow, the people's planet gazer, Jack Horkheimer, is back with us to tell us about this rare astronomical event. That's CNN tomorrow, 7:00 a.m. -- Aaron.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Soledad, thank you. I'm off to Minneapolis to make a couple speeches this weekend. If you're out there, come say hi.Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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