Ceasefire in Fallujah, Terrorist Attack Foiled in Jordan
Aired April 26, 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.What is it about the war in Vietnam that we can't as a country get over? For a week now we've spent nearly as much time on a war 30 years old as a war going on today.While the candidates went back and forth on this two more Americans died in Iraq. The ceasefire in Fallujah has yet to take hold. There seems no acceptable solution to the problems in Najaf and U.S. soldiers are still unable to get safe Humvees to move from place to place.You might think that would be enough to keep both campaigns in the present but nope. Now neither side, I acknowledge, wants my advice, though I offer it now just the same. Stop it. At best it is a standoff, a tie.The president and the vice president both managed to use the system to avoid service in Vietnam. John Kerry surely said some things after his service there that were too harsh and unfair to most American soldiers fighting the war.We can do this tit-for-tat until November and no one will gain a thing, so our advice let's get on to today.Iraq and the shaky ceasefire begins the program and the whip in the present. CNN's Jane Arraf has the watch, Jane a headline.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, the Marines give that fragile ceasefire in the volatile city of Fallujah a little more time and south in the holy city of Najaf the U.S. warns an armed militia group to get its weapons out of the mosque.
BROWN: Jane, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.On to the Pentagon and the problem that may not yet have a good solution but needs one badly just the same. Jamie McIntyre, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent with the story, Jamie the headline.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, as the Pentagon is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into getting new, more heavily armed Humvees to Iraq one of the Pentagon's top generals say even the new, improved Humvees aren't getting the job done.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you. And finally to the campaign and what's shaping up. It was a week for trading haymakers and uppercuts. At ringside CNN's Candy Crowley, Candy a headline.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as you know, John Kerry has spent much of his campaign talking about his actions in Vietnam but today the questions and the controversies were about what he did on the homefront.
BROWN: Candy, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.Also coming up on the program for a Monday night, a terrorist attack foiled in Jordan. Officials say it could have been worse than 9/11, an extraordinary look at the plot and the plotters tonight on NEWSNIGHT.Plus, he is a moderate Republican and he's fighting for his political life. Is Arlen Specter Republican enough for today's conservative Republican voters?And, as always, the rooster will swing by with what you can expect to see on your doorstep or at least in your paper in the morning, all that and more in the hour ahead.We begin tonight in Iraq with the ceasefire in Fallujah. It is in many ways a ceasefire in name only but, for the moment at least, the administration prefers it to the alternative.Late this afternoon the secretary of state said the Marines surrounding Fallujah will hold fast for a while to give joint Iraqi- American patrols a chance to work in the city but anyway you look at it treading lightly hasn't stopped the fighting so far nor the dying.So we begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.
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ARRAF (voice-over): It doesn't look much like a ceasefire. One coalition soldier died and ten Marines were wounded in a three and a half hour firefight on Monday that killed eight Iraqi fighters in Fallujah officials said. The intense but sporadic firefights though are nothing compared to what could happen if the shaky agreement for the U.S. not to attack first falls through. In the south, the U.S. Army locked in a standoff with the Shia militia group that seized control of Najaf this month is moving into a base camp vacated by Spanish troops withdrawn in a political move by their government.P
HIL KOSNETT, CPA NAJAF REPRESENTATIVE: The Spanish groups are withdrawing and American troops are moving in to maintain a presence in the bases and to demonstrate to the people of Najaf that we have not forgotten them.ARRAF: The Army is careful not to go into Najaf itself but a senior military official said across the river from Najaf and Kufa Monday night the Army was attacking forces from Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. The military has warned insurgents to remove stockpiles of weapons they say are located in schools, shrines and mosques.And, in Baghdad, an explosion at a suspected chemical arms factory killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded five others. The blast leveled part of the building as U.S. troops searched it setting military vehicles on fire. A group of Iraqis cheered that the vehicles burned.
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ARRAF: The city is just waking up with a lot of people worried about what the day will bring. Now the vast majority of Iraqis long for a good night's sleep and an end to the violence but a small but effective minority are supporting these attacks and coalition officials say effectively keeping the rest of the country hostage -- Aaron.BROWN: Just as best you can guess and when you're looking at a situation like Najaf, what sort of support within the city does the -- do the Americans have or does the coalition have there?
ARRAF: Najaf is such a fascinating and difficult example of the challenge that the Americans are facing here. It's a holy city, one of the holiest in the world. It's the holiest in the world for Shias and it has a variety of Shia leaders there.Now the man who is in control, we have to remember, is a very young and by most accounts radical cleric who effectively has held that city hostage. A lot of people, we're told, would like to see him gone. They can't open their shops. The pilgrims aren't coming. They're worried about increasing violence. They're terribly worried about the U.S. going in but they're also worried about what will happen if the U.S. does come in and there is fighting in the streets of this holy city.So, a lot of people while they don't want to see the Americans in the city of Najaf they don't want to see Muqtada al-Sadr either. It's so far a stalemate -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf in Baghdad this morning for her now.To the problem of protecting soldiers and Marines as they go about their job. On the one hand, the Americans need to be out there on patrol dealing with security. On the other hand, every time they do go out there they are at risk.Right now a company in Ohio was working literally around the clock, three shifts a day, refitting Humvees with armor plating to make the soldiers they carry safer but today an Army general says the fix may not really fix anything.Again, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.
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MCINTYRE (voice-over): With U.S. troops still dying in deadly roadside attacks, the Pentagon is spending $400 million racing to replace the Army's basic thin-skinned Humvees with reinforced up- armored versions. But the better armor is still not providing adequate protection, writes a four-star general in a memo obtained by CNN."Commanders in the field are reporting to me that the up-armored Humvee is not providing the solution the Army hoped to achieve," writes General Larry Ellis, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Forces Command in a March 30th memo to the Army chief of staff.Critics say even with better armor, the Humvee's shoulder-level doors make it too easy to lob a grenade inside. Its four rubber tires burn too readily. At two tons it's light enough to be overturned by a mob.General Ellis wants to shift Army funds to build twice as many of the Army's newest combat vehicle, the Striker, which has eight wheels, weighs 19 tons and when equipped with a special cage can withstand an RPG attack.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, MILITARY ANALYST: The Striker is going to take too long to produce that many, so I'd get something out there now during this very intense period in Iraq.
MCINTYRE: Critics like General Grange say the Army is overlooking an even cheaper, faster solution than the $3 million Striker, thousands of Vietnam Era M113 armored personnel carriers that the Army has in storage and which can be upgraded with new armor for less than $100,000 a piece.
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MCINTYRE: In his memo to the Army chief, General Ellis pleads for quick action and expresses some frustration, saying that while the nation is at war some of the Army seem to be in a peacetime posture -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.The best defense is a good offense they say and the Bush campaign seems to be buying. On a week when the president and vice president will go before the 9/11 commission, on a week when the Supreme Court will hear a case to open the records of the vice president's energy task force and, on a week that will end on May 1st, the anniversary of the president's speech declaring major combat over in Iraq, the vice president took to the stump today to say John Kerry's judgment on national security is questionable.He also made light of the Senator's claim that he enjoys the support of many foreign leaders where Iraq is concerned.
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DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Senator Kerry said that he has met with foreign leaders, and I quote "who can't go out and say this publicly but boy they look at you and say you've got to win this. You've got to beat this guy. We need a new policy, things like that." In any case, come November, the outcome of the election will be determined by the voters of the United States not by unnamed foreign leaders.
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BROWN: Senator Kerry, meanwhile, was dealing with other comments, comments made long ago that will not go away.Here again, CNN's Candy Crowley.
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CROWLEY (voice-over): Hit hard by job drain, West Virginia could be fertile ground for John Kerry's economic pitch but Monday the Senator was going over old ground.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It has nothing to do with this election whatsoever and if these guys want to argue about Vietnam 35 years ago let's go do it.
CROWLEY: 1971, Washington, D.C., Kerry a decorated Vietnam Vet is part of a weeklong protest culminating with vets tossing their medals over a capital fence.
KERRY: In a real sense, this administration forced us to return our medals.
CROWLEY: In fact, Kerry returned his ribbons not his medals.
KERRY: I didn't have them with me. It was very simple and I threw some medals back that belonged to some folks who asked me to throw them back for them.
CROWLEY: It took several years for that to become clear but the Senator says he never misled anyone into thinking differently. And then the "New York Times" and ABC found this, an interview Kerry gave to local Washington station WRC shortly after the protest.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many did you give back, John?
KERRY: I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you were awarded the Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.
KERRY: Well, and above that I gave back my others.
CROWLEY: Faced with the newly-discovered tape, Kerry shoved back.
KERRY: This is a complete distraction by the Bush administration. It's their attack method. This is what they do and it's coming from a president who can't even prove that he actually showed up for duty in the National Guard.
CROWLEY: It is the news media looking through the Kerry records but Republicans are happy to stoke whatever is there.
KAREN HUGHES, ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BUSH: Now I can understand if out of conscience you take a principled stand and you would decide that you were so opposed to this that you would actually throw your medals but to pretend to do so, I think that's very revealing.
CROWLEY: Kerry now says he never made any distinction between medals and ribbons and returning one is the same as the other.
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CROWLEY: Kerry's critics say this has nothing to do with ribbons or medals and everything to do with the character of a man they say does one thing and says another, which as you know, Aaron, is exactly what the Kerry campaign says about the president.
BROWN: Just one very quick question. Have you in all the time you've been out on the campaign heard a single voter ask a single question about this topic?
CROWLEY: I've heard a single voter -- I rarely hear voters talk about a lot of the things that we talk about.
BROWN: Yes.
CROWLEY: Generally it's about the economy and the war. Those are the two things you hear out on the campaign trail.
BROWN: I suspect so. Thank you, Candy, Candy Crowley tonight.We've long believed, as you know, in the power of the unscripted moment. If nothing else, it is the power to fascinate. Nearly four years ago that moment came when candidates George Bush and Dick Cheney were talking about a certain major league reporter for the "New York Times."Today, Senator Kerry had some choice words for his interviewers while unplugging from his pretty tough appearance this morning on "Good Morning America." The tape was rolling. The microphone was hot.
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KERRY: Yes, they're doing the work of the Republican National Committee.
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BROWN: Well, I suspect Charlie Gibson would take some exception to that. It is a somewhat strange set of circumstances that 33-year- old questions are being asked of a candidate who volunteered to go to Vietnam and served with distinction however briefly. How can that be, we wondered? And, as we often do when we wonder, we asked Jeff Greenfield for his thoughts.
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ANNOUNCER: The decisions that he made saved our lives.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It was a key to John Kerry's success in the primaries, ads that fused past bravery in Vietnam with current conviction and compassion. Indeed it was his Vietnam record...
KERRY: Men who encouraged body counts.GREENFIELD: And his striking 1971 denunciation of the war before a Senate committee that formed the basis of his entire political career. So, how is it possible that Kerry now finds himself facing such tough questions about what he said and did during the Vietnam Era?In large measure it's because these questions aren't really about Vietnam at all but about the battles the United States is fighting now, as well as about the kind of public person John Kerry is.Take the whole question about what Kerry said back in 1971 about Americans who committed atrocities, perhaps war crimes, in Vietnam, language Kerry says he now regrets.
KERRY: The words were honest but, on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top.
HUGHES: Senator Kerry and Vietnam...
GREENFIELD: When top Bush adviser Karen Hughes attacks such comments, she's really asking voters to view them through the prism of today when Americans are in harm's way in Iraq and in Afghanistan.What Kerry's critics now want those words to imply is that he is somehow disdainful of today's troops. That's an impression the Bush campaign means to drive home with a series of ads attacking his votes against weapons systems and defense spending.
CHARLIE GIBSON, ANCHOR, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": I saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out until later that those were...
KERRY: No, you didn't see me throw...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...those were someone else's members.
KERRY: Wrong, Charlie.
GREENFIELD: Or look at the new controversy over just what Kerry did during a 1971 demonstration whether he ever claimed he threw his medals back or just his ribbons. The word for word parsing of Kerry's 33-year-old comments may seem like a stretch but they go to the heart of the Bush campaign theme that their man is a steady leader while Kerry says different things on different days. It's why this comment from Kerry keeps showing up in Bush's commercials.
KERRY: I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Now there is some risk here for the Bush campaign. For instance, the effort to throw doubt on one of Kerry's three Purple Hearts wound up reaffirming his record of bravery and all but one of his crewmates back his military service and indeed back his bid for the presidency.But it is the post combat record of John Kerry during those Vietnam years that his foes now believe can be used to undermine both his personal and political appeal.Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
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BROWN: Still on NEWSNIGHT tonight getting the news out of Iraq never easy when you're in an unstable country getting harder by the day. We'll talk to three reporters who are just back.Also coming up...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KERRY: I came here to undertake one last mission to search out and to destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war.
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BROWN: More tonight on John Kerry the antiwar activist and how those days are back again.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: Journalists, the cliche goes, write the first draft of history. The first drafts by their very nature are imperfect. In war zones, that first swipe at history comes with a good dose of danger. The danger often limiting access to the story making the fog of war a good deal thicker.Iraq has never been an easy place to report from but the past few weeks have been especially hard for all reporters, television and print, who are working there. Our guests tonight know that firsthand.Brian Bennett is "Time" magazine's Bureau Chief in Baghdad. Colin McMahon reports for "The Chicago Tribune," and Jeff Gettleman does the same for the "New York Times," and it's good to have them all safe and with us tonight.Brian, let me start with you. How in a month or in six weeks has it changed?
BRIAN BENNETT, "TIME" MAGAZINE, BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: It's changed dramatically just in the last four or five weeks since the uprising of Sadr and the events in Fallujah. It's been very, very difficult to travel on the roads outside of Baghdad. Most journalists I've spoken with have been -- we had a very difficult time traveling along the roads out to Fallujah and even down to Najaf to cover the story there.I just returned about a week ago from Baghdad and over the last two weeks that I was there I only traveled once out of the city of Baghdad and that was to go down to Najaf and try to do some reporting there on Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia.
BROWN: Jeffrey, how is your -- how is it different from you? You actually have been getting out there a fair amount. Are you editors all together pleased with how much you've been getting out there?
JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, "NEW YORK TIMES" CORRESPONDENT: Well, the risks have really gone up. I was in Fallujah about two weeks ago and then I was there with the Marines as an embed and that allowed me access to the city that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to get.But Brian is absolutely right. It's the roads that are most dangerous. That's where we've had a number of kidnappings, a number of shootings, and one of the real conundrums of covering this is sort of what approach to take. Should you be very conspicuous and well protected and well armed, not as a journalist individually armed but maybe travel with armed guards in an armed car that sort of stands out like a sore thumb? Or, should you travel inconspicuously in an unarmored car and try to blend in but, if anything happens, then you're in big trouble?
BROWN: Is it possible for someone light-skinned to blend in?
GETTLEMAN: Well, you could blend in. You could try to blend in a little bit.
BROWN: OK.
GETTLEMAN: By the way you dress or just by traveling, let's say, in a beat up taxi or a plain Mercedes as opposed to a big SUV. That's sort of a signature car for any foreigner there.
BROWN: Colin does it -- what kind of stories aren't getting covered because of this? Obviously we're getting coverage from the embeds in places. We're getting the war covered. Are we missing the sidebars to the overall story?
COLIN MCMAHON, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE" FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: I think the big story, I mean the big story that's not covered right now is just kind of what havoc and what destruction and what kind of casualties were in Fallujah.And I don't think that that's a story that you can do unless you're there and you're talking to people and you're seeing the numbers that come from various sources. Because you've got on one side, you know, you've got on one side the hospital people. You've got on the other side the Marines.
BROWN: This is the other side of the lines kind of reporting, how many Iraqi casualties have there been?
MCMAHON: Exactly and you can kind of put together bits and pieces depending on what you get from the television stations, the Arab television stations that are talking to the doctors in the city. You can try to mesh those with what the Marines are saying but to get a real clear picture that's impossible unless you're there.
BROWN: Is anybody really trying to go out and do the sewer project story, the school story, the sort of more upbeat story? Is it worth -- are those stories seen as worth the risk?
MCMAHON: Yes, I think that, you know, that's the kind of story that you do when you're working on other things. You're working on daily and you have time during the day to do those little, nice little features or those little quick hits that tell you something about the place but when there's so much news and there's so much risk to doing that kind of story you just don't even have time or the inclination to do it.
BROWN: Brian, are you delegating some reporting out to local staff?
BENNETT: Yes, we have. Just in the last couple of weeks we've done something different in Iraq in order to get into some of the neighborhoods that are considered too dangerous for foreigners to travel to. We've delegated some of the reporting to our local staff and trained them to get all the necessary information that we need and bring it back so that we can get some reporting inside Sadr City, for example, inside Najaf, places where during certain times over the last few weeks it's just been too dangerous for someone with a foreign passport to travel.
BROWN: I think every reporter at some point in their life has felt safe simply because they're reporters and that who would harm a reporter? We just want to tell your story. Obviously reporters and every other American there does not feel safe. Is it an anti-American thing? Are they anti-media? What is it?
BENNETT: Well, I think there's a strong rumor right now that a lot of the reporters are spies and working for foreign companies and working for foreign governments and certainly in Fallujah it seems like when reporters have been kidnapped and detained around Fallujah and in Najaf once the insurgents were convinced that the reporters were not spies, were actually just trying to get the story they let them go.
BROWN: Jeffrey.
MCMAHON: It also depends on, I think it also depends on the group that's taking you. I mean I think that part of what's so difficult for anybody who has been in a situation where there's kidnappings and there's abductions is that you -- sometimes that you have one group that's doing it and you can kind of figure out where they're coming from.
BROWN: Yes.
MCMAHON: But then all of a sudden other groups get involved and then the whole thing becomes so impossible to predict.
BROWN: Just, we've got about 90 seconds left. Jeffrey, talk to me a bit about when you were embedded with the Marines in Fallujah. This is really, this is the urban combat. What was it like?
GETTLEMAN: It was incredibly intense. It was like a replay of a war movie. It was something that I was not prepared for at all. There's actually a front line where the Marines have dug into a number of houses and established positions and there's constant firefights between them and insurgents and they're perched over the roof aiming down with their guns shooting back and forth.We were there one day and a mortar shell sailed over our heads about that far over our heads and these guys just kind of like, you know, wiped the sweat off their forehead and jumped right back into it. I mean it's really intense.
BROWN: Do you ever say to yourself what am I doing here?
GETTLEMAN: Almost all the time.
BROWN: Welcome home.
GETTLEMAN: Thanks, Aaron.BROWN: You've done terrific work as you all have.
GETTLEMAN: Thanks.
BROWN: Thanks for being with us tonight. We look forward to talking to you all again. Thank you very, very much.Ahead on the program tonight, terrorism foiled in Jordan, how the secret police got their man, confession on tape, a break first.Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: When Jordan's secret police broke up an al Qaeda attack in the making last week they were met with a certain degree of public skepticism. The plot, they said, targeted Jordanians and Americans and involved makeshift chemical weapons. We know this because the secret police, who are very good at what they do and sometimes pretty ruthless about it, managed to get the alleged plotters to confess and the government to answer the skeptics ran those confessions on state TV.Here's CNN's John Vause
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A nighttime raid in a back street of Amman, Jordanian special forces heavily armed move in on what they say is a terrorist cell possibly just days away from an attack. Authorities here claim the suspects were plotting to use thousands of pounds of chemicals and explosives in an attack which the government says was potentially more deadly than anything al Qaeda has done before, including 9/11. Inside, four men shot dead, at least three others arrested, including Azmi Jayousi, the cell's alleged ringleader. Jordanian intelligence told CNN he was responsible for planning and recruiting. On state-run Jordanian television, he made an extraordinary confession, admitting he took orders from Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, a terrorist leader who has been linked to al Qaeda, the same man U.S. officials say is behind some of the terrorist attacks in Iraq.
AZMI AL-JAYOUSI, ACCUSED PLOTTER (through translator): I took advanced explosives course, poisons, high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning.
VAUSE: Jordanian intelligence believes Jayousi returned from Iraq in January after meeting with Zarqawi. There, it is alleged they plotted to hit three targets in Amman, Jordanian intelligence headquarters, the prime minister's office and the U.S. Embassy. In a series of raids, the Jordanians say they seized 20 tons of chemicals and explosives, three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades. Their first alleged target, the intelligence headquarters.
JAYOUSI (through translator): According to my experience as an explosives expert, the whole of the intelligence department will be destroyed and nothing will remain of it, nor anything surrounding it.
VAUSE: All of the details of plot played out on Jordanian television Monday, including detailed graphics of how Jayousi's cell said it intended to carry out the attack. Hussein Sharif says he was recruited by Azmi Jayousi as a suicide bomber.
HUSSEIN SHARIF, ACCUSED PLOTTER (through translator): The aim of this operation was to strike Jordan and the Hashemite royal family, a war against the crusaders and infidels. Azmi told me that this would be the first chemical suicide attack that al Qaeda would execute.
VAUSE: According to Jordanian authorities, the attack would have mixed 71 lethal chemicals, a combination which they say has never been used before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a very, extremely, massive core attack.
VAUSE: This man can't be identified for security reasons. He's the government's scientist who analyzed the mix of explosives and chemicals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There made maybe 100 of experiments until they got the right amount of explosive to do just the shattering effect to spread these chemical around without affecting the agents.
VAUSE (on camera): In other words, the blast would not burn up the poisonous chemicals, instead, produce a toxic cloud, the government says, possibly spreading a mile, maybe more. (voice-over): The Jordanian intelligence buildings are within a mile of a large medical center, shopping mall and residential area, all a potential dead zone, according to this government scientist.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no one combination of antidote to treat nerve agents, choking agents, and blistering agents. VAUSE: Zarqawi, a Jordanian national, has been accused of plotting chemical attacks before and authorities say this is not his first attempt to strike Jordan. In 2000, a Jordanian court charged him in absentia with planning to blow up this hotel and attacks on tourist destinations. The U.S. believes he was behind the assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley.
ASMA KHADER, JORDANIAN MINISTER OF STATE: Jordan was fighting these type of plans years now. And the security forces were able to confirm them.
VAUSE: According to the televised confessions, $170,000 came from Zarqawi via messengers from Syria. In last Tuesday's raid, Jordanians seized cash, bomb-making equipment and weapons. It was during that raid that the Jordanians say Jayousi was injured. On TV, he was only shown in profile and appeared to have marks on his face, neck and hand. (on camera): CNN was not given access to any of those arrested, but the videotape confessions offer a rare insight into an alleged terrorist operation. A Jordanian government says the videotapes were made with the cooperation of the suspects and their lawyers. Meantime, here in Amman, U.S. officials have been meeting with their Jordanian counterparts to assess the evidence and they say the plot did pose a serious and grave threat. John Vause, CNN, Amman, Jordan.
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BROWN: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, a so-called Republican dinosaur fighting for his political life in Pennsylvania. Does the moderate wing of the party still have a place in the party? A break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: Every family has its power struggles. This is especially true it seems in politics. In Pennsylvania, Republican voters go to the polls tomorrow in what has become one of the most closely watched Republican primary races in the country in years. It is widely seen as a test of a revolt within the party. And its outcome will have ramifications either way. Here is CNN's Joe Johns.
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REP. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Believe it or not, she does support me.
(LAUGHTER)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The conservative right and Congressman Pat Toomey have turned this Senate race into a test of whether moderate Republicans like Arlen Specter still have a place in the party. S
EN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: They said they want my scalp on the wall, nailed to the wall, just that rude and that crude.
TOOMEY: I believe that all the energy and enthusiasm and passion is on our side of this race.
JOHNS: Both candidates spent this stormy day flying around the state trying to motivate their voters in what is expected to be a low- turnout primary. Toomey, who has campaigned with prominent anti- abortion activists like James Dobson of Focus on the Family, is counting on strong support from the right-to-life movement. Specter, who supports abortion rights, says, if Toomey wins the primary, Republicans will lose the seat in the fall and could lose control of a closely divided Senate.
SPECTER: My opponent is a surefire loser.
JOHNS: The president is worried, too, because he needs this all- important swing state for his own reelection. Mr. Bush is prominently featured in a new Specter ad.
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GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Arlen Specter is the right man for the United States Senate.
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TOOMEY: President Bush was in Pennsylvania campaigning for Arlen Specter. Now, here is what I think. I think everyone is entitled to make a mistake.
(LAUGHTER)
TOOMEY: Everybody.
JOHNS: A new poll shows Toomey within striking distance of knocking off Specter. And one key group of supporters, the Conservative Club For Growth, has poured in more than $1 million to help him.
STEPHEN MOORE, PRESIDENT, CLUB FOR GROWTH: If you look at the record of Arlen Specter, he's really the last of a kind of Republican dinosaur.
JOHNS (on camera): But even with all the national attention, political observers expect only one-third of the state's registered Republicans to vote. Joe Johns, CNN, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
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BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, back then, he was an anti-war activist. Today, he's running for president, how what John Kerry said then is affecting the now. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: We will concede if pressed the program has a certain schizophrenic quality tonight. We began decrying this tit-for-tat over Vietnam and since have run two pieces centered on it and are about to run a third, proving yet again we don't make the news, we just report it. And since the news in part seems to center on John Kerry's anti-war activities, we take a look at them now in some detail and in context. And here's part of the context. Before John Kerry began his protest against the war, he fought that war. There are people alive today who wouldn't have been if he had acted differently in that war. It is just one of the things worth remembering when looking at everything that happened after.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): John Kerry came home from Vietnam with a chest full of medals and a growing sense the war was wrong.
GEORGE BUTLER, FRIEND OF JOHN KERRY: John's evolution was fairly gradual and it was very deliberative. He asked a lot of questions.
BROWN: Filmmaker and photographer George Butler has been friends with Kerry since the mid '60s and documented this period in Kerry's life.
BUTLER: The veterans, not just John Kerry, but thousands of them, saying that war is a major mistake and it has got to be ended.
BROWN: In 1970, Kerry asked to be discharged so he could run for Congress in Massachusetts. He ran as a peace candidate and he lost. And by the next year, Kerry was a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
KERRY: We came here to undertake one last mission, to search out and to destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war.
BROWN: His experience and education and his passion made him a star of the anti-war movement.
KERRY: What we have to decide is that we're going to keep coming back until this war ends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BROWN: Kerry alone was invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
BUTLER: It was packed with veterans, with members of the press and this wall of television cameras.
BROWN: Kerry memorably asked the senators, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" He questioned the military's tactics and the president's motivation.
KERRY: We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken and after losing one platoon or two platoons, they marched away to leave the hill for the reoccupation of the North Vietnamese, because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose and we couldn't retreat and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point.
BROWN: But the most controversy was generated when Kerry publicized the dark notion of some American soldiers raping and randomly shooting civilians, decapitating the enemy, poisoning food stock, atrocities that he never saw.
MACKUBIN OWENS, VIETNAM VETERAN: He cast dispersions on the rest of us.
BROWN: Naval War College instructor Mack Owens led a Marine platoon in Vietnam the same year Kerry commanded his swift boat.
OWENS: We all know that atrocities happened in Vietnam. But to claim as Kerry did and some of the people that he operated with that these were a normal occurrence day to day, accepted as part of policy, that offended me, and it enraged me, as a matter of fact.BROWN: Thirty-three years later, now a candidate for president, John Kerry apologized a bit.
KERRY: Look, I think American soldiers served with unbelievable distinction and courage. I'm proud of them. And I regret words that I may have used that were words that were sort of, you know, very angry and reflected the feelings that we had about the war. But they were honest. They were honest expressions of the passion that we brought to the cause.
BROWN: In what was perhaps the most anguished moment of the 1971 protests in Washington, some soldiers threw away their medals. Kerry, his own medals at home, tossed ribbons that he had worn before the Senate and tossed the medals of soldiers who couldn't be there.
KERRY: We wanted to say to America, you've got to stop and think about what is happening over here. And it is not just kids at college who think this thing is wrong. It is also some of us who served there. And we want you to know that this is how strongly we feel about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that John Kerry is contrary to everything that I stand for and my country stands for.
BROWN: Even 33 years later, some veterans cannot forgive John Kerry for his words and for his protests.
OWENS: I thought that what we had undertaken there was the right thing to do. I think it was a noble cause. It was an attempt to ensure that a part of the world did not come under the control of communism.
BROWN: The crew that stood with Kerry in the war defends his actions protesting it.
MICHAEL MEDIEROS, VIETNAM VETERAN: A lot of people would have just said, well, I'm not going to jeopardize my reputation. I'm going to go into politics. I don't want anybody to use this against me. I'll just let it lie and I won't make any waves. He didn't do that. At the time, I thought it was wrong. Now I realize that was probably the most courageous thing he could do.
DEL SANDUSKY, VIETNAM VETERAN: History has proven John Kerry right. Whether they agreed with him or not in '70 or '71, we shouldn't have been in that war. What John Kerry said was true.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's Kerry the anti-war activist. There is also the story of Kerry the sailor. And we'll tell that story this week as well. Morning papers coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. If you were with us Friday, you know the crew acted up a bit. But we fired them all, so that wouldn't be happening again. No, we didn't. You knew that, right?
"Christian Science Monitor" starts us off. This is an interesting off-news lead, I would say. Well -- yes. "Democracy Spreads Across Africa 10 Years After Apartheid. Political Freedom Faces New Pressures." It certainly does. Anyway, it's bylined out of Johannesburg, South Africa.
And also on the middle of the front page of "The Christian Science Monitor," give me a shot, "Sadr the Agitator, Like Father, Like Son," a look at the young cleric who is causing so much trouble. And also they put the vice president's Supreme Court case on the front page. "In Cheney Case, Court Reviews Executive Power." More on that tomorrow.
"The Washington Times" leads with Iraq, "Baghdad Blast Kills Two Soldiers," but runs pretty hard with politics on the front page, given that we are in April. "Cheney Criticizes Kerry for Anti-Military Votes. Democrats Rip Cheney's Record, Tie Wife's Pregnancy to Vietnam." I guess it's that they got pregnant so he could avoid going to Vietnam. He had used a lot of student deferments and other things and said it wasn't a priority.Anyway, they put a lot -- also, "Kerry Hits Back on Medals, Calls it a Phony Controversy." Let's get on with today, guys. "Philadelphia Inquirer," speaking of today, which in this case is tomorrow: "Specter-Toomey Race Goes to the Voters. Stakes High in Senate Primary."
This is "The Philadelphia Inquirer." Leads with that. And is there anything else here? "Air Friendly Paint Soon in the Can." I don't know what that means, but I just like the headline. That's all.
"Chattanooga Times Free Press," a lot of local stories leading newspapers, which I always like. It makes the segment a little bit more fun. And we appreciate when editors make the segment more fun.
"City's Blue Law Up For a Vote. County to Address Ordinance Keeping Stores Closed 12 Hours On Sunday." I didn't realize honestly there were many blue laws left in the country. I remember when they were everywhere. Also down here, can you get a shot of that? That's the new Iraqi flag. Can you see that? And it's caused a bit of a furor because it is largely the same colors as the Israeli flag, which makes for some unease in that part of the world. How are we doing on time? Thirty? Oh, my goodness. That's OK. We can live with that.
"The Dayton Daily News" leads with "Iraq, Soldiers Killed in Baghdad, Marine Dies In Fallujah." Over here, "Violent Girls Alarm Society." We were talking about this today, maybe want to do a story on this. But there is some evidence that girls are acting more like boys, I think is what it comes down to. We should probably save this for tomorrow, "The Burt County Plaindealer," shouldn't we?
I think so.So let's go right on to "The Chicago Sun-Times." "Rosemont Casino Faces New Delay." This story seems to be on the front page about every two weeks. But here is the one we care about. "We'd Know Our Friends By Any Name." This is the countdown to the final episode of "Friends." I have yet to see one. The weather in Chicago, "hat- flapper."
(CHIMES)
BROWN: Thank you for that. That's "The "Chicago Sun-Times." That's morning papers. We'll wrap up the day in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Before we leave you for the night, one more bit of business. Here is Bill Hemmer with a look at what's coming up tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.Tomorrow here on "AMERICAN MORNING," Senator John Kerry has been called a Vietnam War hero. But, suddenly, his war record is called into question. Can Republicans use it against him? And what about those lingering questions about that Purple Heart and other war medals? We'll talk to DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe about all these matters and the president's new campaign ads as well, tomorrow morning, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time on "AMERICAN MORNING." Hope to see you then -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Vietnam still.That's our report for tonight. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We're all back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us then. Until then, 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 April 26, 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.What is it about the war in Vietnam that we can't as a country get over? For a week now we've spent nearly as much time on a war 30 years old as a war going on today.While the candidates went back and forth on this two more Americans died in Iraq. The ceasefire in Fallujah has yet to take hold. There seems no acceptable solution to the problems in Najaf and U.S. soldiers are still unable to get safe Humvees to move from place to place.You might think that would be enough to keep both campaigns in the present but nope. Now neither side, I acknowledge, wants my advice, though I offer it now just the same. Stop it. At best it is a standoff, a tie.The president and the vice president both managed to use the system to avoid service in Vietnam. John Kerry surely said some things after his service there that were too harsh and unfair to most American soldiers fighting the war.We can do this tit-for-tat until November and no one will gain a thing, so our advice let's get on to today.Iraq and the shaky ceasefire begins the program and the whip in the present. CNN's Jane Arraf has the watch, Jane a headline.
JANE ARRAF, CNN BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: Aaron, the Marines give that fragile ceasefire in the volatile city of Fallujah a little more time and south in the holy city of Najaf the U.S. warns an armed militia group to get its weapons out of the mosque.
BROWN: Jane, thank you. We'll get to you at the top tonight.On to the Pentagon and the problem that may not yet have a good solution but needs one badly just the same. Jamie McIntyre, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent with the story, Jamie the headline.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, as the Pentagon is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into getting new, more heavily armed Humvees to Iraq one of the Pentagon's top generals say even the new, improved Humvees aren't getting the job done.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you. And finally to the campaign and what's shaping up. It was a week for trading haymakers and uppercuts. At ringside CNN's Candy Crowley, Candy a headline.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as you know, John Kerry has spent much of his campaign talking about his actions in Vietnam but today the questions and the controversies were about what he did on the homefront.
BROWN: Candy, thank you, back to you and the rest shortly.Also coming up on the program for a Monday night, a terrorist attack foiled in Jordan. Officials say it could have been worse than 9/11, an extraordinary look at the plot and the plotters tonight on NEWSNIGHT.Plus, he is a moderate Republican and he's fighting for his political life. Is Arlen Specter Republican enough for today's conservative Republican voters?And, as always, the rooster will swing by with what you can expect to see on your doorstep or at least in your paper in the morning, all that and more in the hour ahead.We begin tonight in Iraq with the ceasefire in Fallujah. It is in many ways a ceasefire in name only but, for the moment at least, the administration prefers it to the alternative.Late this afternoon the secretary of state said the Marines surrounding Fallujah will hold fast for a while to give joint Iraqi- American patrols a chance to work in the city but anyway you look at it treading lightly hasn't stopped the fighting so far nor the dying.So we begin tonight with CNN's Jane Arraf.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF (voice-over): It doesn't look much like a ceasefire. One coalition soldier died and ten Marines were wounded in a three and a half hour firefight on Monday that killed eight Iraqi fighters in Fallujah officials said. The intense but sporadic firefights though are nothing compared to what could happen if the shaky agreement for the U.S. not to attack first falls through. In the south, the U.S. Army locked in a standoff with the Shia militia group that seized control of Najaf this month is moving into a base camp vacated by Spanish troops withdrawn in a political move by their government.P
HIL KOSNETT, CPA NAJAF REPRESENTATIVE: The Spanish groups are withdrawing and American troops are moving in to maintain a presence in the bases and to demonstrate to the people of Najaf that we have not forgotten them.ARRAF: The Army is careful not to go into Najaf itself but a senior military official said across the river from Najaf and Kufa Monday night the Army was attacking forces from Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. The military has warned insurgents to remove stockpiles of weapons they say are located in schools, shrines and mosques.And, in Baghdad, an explosion at a suspected chemical arms factory killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded five others. The blast leveled part of the building as U.S. troops searched it setting military vehicles on fire. A group of Iraqis cheered that the vehicles burned.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF: The city is just waking up with a lot of people worried about what the day will bring. Now the vast majority of Iraqis long for a good night's sleep and an end to the violence but a small but effective minority are supporting these attacks and coalition officials say effectively keeping the rest of the country hostage -- Aaron.BROWN: Just as best you can guess and when you're looking at a situation like Najaf, what sort of support within the city does the -- do the Americans have or does the coalition have there?
ARRAF: Najaf is such a fascinating and difficult example of the challenge that the Americans are facing here. It's a holy city, one of the holiest in the world. It's the holiest in the world for Shias and it has a variety of Shia leaders there.Now the man who is in control, we have to remember, is a very young and by most accounts radical cleric who effectively has held that city hostage. A lot of people, we're told, would like to see him gone. They can't open their shops. The pilgrims aren't coming. They're worried about increasing violence. They're terribly worried about the U.S. going in but they're also worried about what will happen if the U.S. does come in and there is fighting in the streets of this holy city.So, a lot of people while they don't want to see the Americans in the city of Najaf they don't want to see Muqtada al-Sadr either. It's so far a stalemate -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jane, thank you, Jane Arraf in Baghdad this morning for her now.To the problem of protecting soldiers and Marines as they go about their job. On the one hand, the Americans need to be out there on patrol dealing with security. On the other hand, every time they do go out there they are at risk.Right now a company in Ohio was working literally around the clock, three shifts a day, refitting Humvees with armor plating to make the soldiers they carry safer but today an Army general says the fix may not really fix anything.Again, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE (voice-over): With U.S. troops still dying in deadly roadside attacks, the Pentagon is spending $400 million racing to replace the Army's basic thin-skinned Humvees with reinforced up- armored versions. But the better armor is still not providing adequate protection, writes a four-star general in a memo obtained by CNN."Commanders in the field are reporting to me that the up-armored Humvee is not providing the solution the Army hoped to achieve," writes General Larry Ellis, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Forces Command in a March 30th memo to the Army chief of staff.Critics say even with better armor, the Humvee's shoulder-level doors make it too easy to lob a grenade inside. Its four rubber tires burn too readily. At two tons it's light enough to be overturned by a mob.General Ellis wants to shift Army funds to build twice as many of the Army's newest combat vehicle, the Striker, which has eight wheels, weighs 19 tons and when equipped with a special cage can withstand an RPG attack.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, MILITARY ANALYST: The Striker is going to take too long to produce that many, so I'd get something out there now during this very intense period in Iraq.
MCINTYRE: Critics like General Grange say the Army is overlooking an even cheaper, faster solution than the $3 million Striker, thousands of Vietnam Era M113 armored personnel carriers that the Army has in storage and which can be upgraded with new armor for less than $100,000 a piece.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MCINTYRE: In his memo to the Army chief, General Ellis pleads for quick action and expresses some frustration, saying that while the nation is at war some of the Army seem to be in a peacetime posture -- Aaron.
BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight.The best defense is a good offense they say and the Bush campaign seems to be buying. On a week when the president and vice president will go before the 9/11 commission, on a week when the Supreme Court will hear a case to open the records of the vice president's energy task force and, on a week that will end on May 1st, the anniversary of the president's speech declaring major combat over in Iraq, the vice president took to the stump today to say John Kerry's judgment on national security is questionable.He also made light of the Senator's claim that he enjoys the support of many foreign leaders where Iraq is concerned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Senator Kerry said that he has met with foreign leaders, and I quote "who can't go out and say this publicly but boy they look at you and say you've got to win this. You've got to beat this guy. We need a new policy, things like that." In any case, come November, the outcome of the election will be determined by the voters of the United States not by unnamed foreign leaders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Senator Kerry, meanwhile, was dealing with other comments, comments made long ago that will not go away.Here again, CNN's Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY (voice-over): Hit hard by job drain, West Virginia could be fertile ground for John Kerry's economic pitch but Monday the Senator was going over old ground.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It has nothing to do with this election whatsoever and if these guys want to argue about Vietnam 35 years ago let's go do it.
CROWLEY: 1971, Washington, D.C., Kerry a decorated Vietnam Vet is part of a weeklong protest culminating with vets tossing their medals over a capital fence.
KERRY: In a real sense, this administration forced us to return our medals.
CROWLEY: In fact, Kerry returned his ribbons not his medals.
KERRY: I didn't have them with me. It was very simple and I threw some medals back that belonged to some folks who asked me to throw them back for them.
CROWLEY: It took several years for that to become clear but the Senator says he never misled anyone into thinking differently. And then the "New York Times" and ABC found this, an interview Kerry gave to local Washington station WRC shortly after the protest.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many did you give back, John?
KERRY: I gave back, I can't remember, six, seven, eight, nine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you were awarded the Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts.
KERRY: Well, and above that I gave back my others.
CROWLEY: Faced with the newly-discovered tape, Kerry shoved back.
KERRY: This is a complete distraction by the Bush administration. It's their attack method. This is what they do and it's coming from a president who can't even prove that he actually showed up for duty in the National Guard.
CROWLEY: It is the news media looking through the Kerry records but Republicans are happy to stoke whatever is there.
KAREN HUGHES, ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BUSH: Now I can understand if out of conscience you take a principled stand and you would decide that you were so opposed to this that you would actually throw your medals but to pretend to do so, I think that's very revealing.
CROWLEY: Kerry now says he never made any distinction between medals and ribbons and returning one is the same as the other.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: Kerry's critics say this has nothing to do with ribbons or medals and everything to do with the character of a man they say does one thing and says another, which as you know, Aaron, is exactly what the Kerry campaign says about the president.
BROWN: Just one very quick question. Have you in all the time you've been out on the campaign heard a single voter ask a single question about this topic?
CROWLEY: I've heard a single voter -- I rarely hear voters talk about a lot of the things that we talk about.
BROWN: Yes.
CROWLEY: Generally it's about the economy and the war. Those are the two things you hear out on the campaign trail.
BROWN: I suspect so. Thank you, Candy, Candy Crowley tonight.We've long believed, as you know, in the power of the unscripted moment. If nothing else, it is the power to fascinate. Nearly four years ago that moment came when candidates George Bush and Dick Cheney were talking about a certain major league reporter for the "New York Times."Today, Senator Kerry had some choice words for his interviewers while unplugging from his pretty tough appearance this morning on "Good Morning America." The tape was rolling. The microphone was hot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KERRY: Yes, they're doing the work of the Republican National Committee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, I suspect Charlie Gibson would take some exception to that. It is a somewhat strange set of circumstances that 33-year- old questions are being asked of a candidate who volunteered to go to Vietnam and served with distinction however briefly. How can that be, we wondered? And, as we often do when we wonder, we asked Jeff Greenfield for his thoughts.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: The decisions that he made saved our lives.
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST (voice-over): It was a key to John Kerry's success in the primaries, ads that fused past bravery in Vietnam with current conviction and compassion. Indeed it was his Vietnam record...
KERRY: Men who encouraged body counts.GREENFIELD: And his striking 1971 denunciation of the war before a Senate committee that formed the basis of his entire political career. So, how is it possible that Kerry now finds himself facing such tough questions about what he said and did during the Vietnam Era?In large measure it's because these questions aren't really about Vietnam at all but about the battles the United States is fighting now, as well as about the kind of public person John Kerry is.Take the whole question about what Kerry said back in 1971 about Americans who committed atrocities, perhaps war crimes, in Vietnam, language Kerry says he now regrets.
KERRY: The words were honest but, on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top.
HUGHES: Senator Kerry and Vietnam...
GREENFIELD: When top Bush adviser Karen Hughes attacks such comments, she's really asking voters to view them through the prism of today when Americans are in harm's way in Iraq and in Afghanistan.What Kerry's critics now want those words to imply is that he is somehow disdainful of today's troops. That's an impression the Bush campaign means to drive home with a series of ads attacking his votes against weapons systems and defense spending.
CHARLIE GIBSON, ANCHOR, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": I saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out until later that those were...
KERRY: No, you didn't see me throw...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...those were someone else's members.
KERRY: Wrong, Charlie.
GREENFIELD: Or look at the new controversy over just what Kerry did during a 1971 demonstration whether he ever claimed he threw his medals back or just his ribbons. The word for word parsing of Kerry's 33-year-old comments may seem like a stretch but they go to the heart of the Bush campaign theme that their man is a steady leader while Kerry says different things on different days. It's why this comment from Kerry keeps showing up in Bush's commercials.
KERRY: I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.
GREENFIELD (on camera): Now there is some risk here for the Bush campaign. For instance, the effort to throw doubt on one of Kerry's three Purple Hearts wound up reaffirming his record of bravery and all but one of his crewmates back his military service and indeed back his bid for the presidency.But it is the post combat record of John Kerry during those Vietnam years that his foes now believe can be used to undermine both his personal and political appeal.Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still on NEWSNIGHT tonight getting the news out of Iraq never easy when you're in an unstable country getting harder by the day. We'll talk to three reporters who are just back.Also coming up...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KERRY: I came here to undertake one last mission to search out and to destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: More tonight on John Kerry the antiwar activist and how those days are back again.From New York this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Journalists, the cliche goes, write the first draft of history. The first drafts by their very nature are imperfect. In war zones, that first swipe at history comes with a good dose of danger. The danger often limiting access to the story making the fog of war a good deal thicker.Iraq has never been an easy place to report from but the past few weeks have been especially hard for all reporters, television and print, who are working there. Our guests tonight know that firsthand.Brian Bennett is "Time" magazine's Bureau Chief in Baghdad. Colin McMahon reports for "The Chicago Tribune," and Jeff Gettleman does the same for the "New York Times," and it's good to have them all safe and with us tonight.Brian, let me start with you. How in a month or in six weeks has it changed?
BRIAN BENNETT, "TIME" MAGAZINE, BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF: It's changed dramatically just in the last four or five weeks since the uprising of Sadr and the events in Fallujah. It's been very, very difficult to travel on the roads outside of Baghdad. Most journalists I've spoken with have been -- we had a very difficult time traveling along the roads out to Fallujah and even down to Najaf to cover the story there.I just returned about a week ago from Baghdad and over the last two weeks that I was there I only traveled once out of the city of Baghdad and that was to go down to Najaf and try to do some reporting there on Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia.
BROWN: Jeffrey, how is your -- how is it different from you? You actually have been getting out there a fair amount. Are you editors all together pleased with how much you've been getting out there?
JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, "NEW YORK TIMES" CORRESPONDENT: Well, the risks have really gone up. I was in Fallujah about two weeks ago and then I was there with the Marines as an embed and that allowed me access to the city that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to get.But Brian is absolutely right. It's the roads that are most dangerous. That's where we've had a number of kidnappings, a number of shootings, and one of the real conundrums of covering this is sort of what approach to take. Should you be very conspicuous and well protected and well armed, not as a journalist individually armed but maybe travel with armed guards in an armed car that sort of stands out like a sore thumb? Or, should you travel inconspicuously in an unarmored car and try to blend in but, if anything happens, then you're in big trouble?
BROWN: Is it possible for someone light-skinned to blend in?
GETTLEMAN: Well, you could blend in. You could try to blend in a little bit.
BROWN: OK.
GETTLEMAN: By the way you dress or just by traveling, let's say, in a beat up taxi or a plain Mercedes as opposed to a big SUV. That's sort of a signature car for any foreigner there.
BROWN: Colin does it -- what kind of stories aren't getting covered because of this? Obviously we're getting coverage from the embeds in places. We're getting the war covered. Are we missing the sidebars to the overall story?
COLIN MCMAHON, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE" FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: I think the big story, I mean the big story that's not covered right now is just kind of what havoc and what destruction and what kind of casualties were in Fallujah.And I don't think that that's a story that you can do unless you're there and you're talking to people and you're seeing the numbers that come from various sources. Because you've got on one side, you know, you've got on one side the hospital people. You've got on the other side the Marines.
BROWN: This is the other side of the lines kind of reporting, how many Iraqi casualties have there been?
MCMAHON: Exactly and you can kind of put together bits and pieces depending on what you get from the television stations, the Arab television stations that are talking to the doctors in the city. You can try to mesh those with what the Marines are saying but to get a real clear picture that's impossible unless you're there.
BROWN: Is anybody really trying to go out and do the sewer project story, the school story, the sort of more upbeat story? Is it worth -- are those stories seen as worth the risk?
MCMAHON: Yes, I think that, you know, that's the kind of story that you do when you're working on other things. You're working on daily and you have time during the day to do those little, nice little features or those little quick hits that tell you something about the place but when there's so much news and there's so much risk to doing that kind of story you just don't even have time or the inclination to do it.
BROWN: Brian, are you delegating some reporting out to local staff?
BENNETT: Yes, we have. Just in the last couple of weeks we've done something different in Iraq in order to get into some of the neighborhoods that are considered too dangerous for foreigners to travel to. We've delegated some of the reporting to our local staff and trained them to get all the necessary information that we need and bring it back so that we can get some reporting inside Sadr City, for example, inside Najaf, places where during certain times over the last few weeks it's just been too dangerous for someone with a foreign passport to travel.
BROWN: I think every reporter at some point in their life has felt safe simply because they're reporters and that who would harm a reporter? We just want to tell your story. Obviously reporters and every other American there does not feel safe. Is it an anti-American thing? Are they anti-media? What is it?
BENNETT: Well, I think there's a strong rumor right now that a lot of the reporters are spies and working for foreign companies and working for foreign governments and certainly in Fallujah it seems like when reporters have been kidnapped and detained around Fallujah and in Najaf once the insurgents were convinced that the reporters were not spies, were actually just trying to get the story they let them go.
BROWN: Jeffrey.
MCMAHON: It also depends on, I think it also depends on the group that's taking you. I mean I think that part of what's so difficult for anybody who has been in a situation where there's kidnappings and there's abductions is that you -- sometimes that you have one group that's doing it and you can kind of figure out where they're coming from.
BROWN: Yes.
MCMAHON: But then all of a sudden other groups get involved and then the whole thing becomes so impossible to predict.
BROWN: Just, we've got about 90 seconds left. Jeffrey, talk to me a bit about when you were embedded with the Marines in Fallujah. This is really, this is the urban combat. What was it like?
GETTLEMAN: It was incredibly intense. It was like a replay of a war movie. It was something that I was not prepared for at all. There's actually a front line where the Marines have dug into a number of houses and established positions and there's constant firefights between them and insurgents and they're perched over the roof aiming down with their guns shooting back and forth.We were there one day and a mortar shell sailed over our heads about that far over our heads and these guys just kind of like, you know, wiped the sweat off their forehead and jumped right back into it. I mean it's really intense.
BROWN: Do you ever say to yourself what am I doing here?
GETTLEMAN: Almost all the time.
BROWN: Welcome home.
GETTLEMAN: Thanks, Aaron.BROWN: You've done terrific work as you all have.
GETTLEMAN: Thanks.
BROWN: Thanks for being with us tonight. We look forward to talking to you all again. Thank you very, very much.Ahead on the program tonight, terrorism foiled in Jordan, how the secret police got their man, confession on tape, a break first.Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When Jordan's secret police broke up an al Qaeda attack in the making last week they were met with a certain degree of public skepticism. The plot, they said, targeted Jordanians and Americans and involved makeshift chemical weapons. We know this because the secret police, who are very good at what they do and sometimes pretty ruthless about it, managed to get the alleged plotters to confess and the government to answer the skeptics ran those confessions on state TV.Here's CNN's John Vause
.(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A nighttime raid in a back street of Amman, Jordanian special forces heavily armed move in on what they say is a terrorist cell possibly just days away from an attack. Authorities here claim the suspects were plotting to use thousands of pounds of chemicals and explosives in an attack which the government says was potentially more deadly than anything al Qaeda has done before, including 9/11. Inside, four men shot dead, at least three others arrested, including Azmi Jayousi, the cell's alleged ringleader. Jordanian intelligence told CNN he was responsible for planning and recruiting. On state-run Jordanian television, he made an extraordinary confession, admitting he took orders from Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, a terrorist leader who has been linked to al Qaeda, the same man U.S. officials say is behind some of the terrorist attacks in Iraq.
AZMI AL-JAYOUSI, ACCUSED PLOTTER (through translator): I took advanced explosives course, poisons, high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning.
VAUSE: Jordanian intelligence believes Jayousi returned from Iraq in January after meeting with Zarqawi. There, it is alleged they plotted to hit three targets in Amman, Jordanian intelligence headquarters, the prime minister's office and the U.S. Embassy. In a series of raids, the Jordanians say they seized 20 tons of chemicals and explosives, three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades. Their first alleged target, the intelligence headquarters.
JAYOUSI (through translator): According to my experience as an explosives expert, the whole of the intelligence department will be destroyed and nothing will remain of it, nor anything surrounding it.
VAUSE: All of the details of plot played out on Jordanian television Monday, including detailed graphics of how Jayousi's cell said it intended to carry out the attack. Hussein Sharif says he was recruited by Azmi Jayousi as a suicide bomber.
HUSSEIN SHARIF, ACCUSED PLOTTER (through translator): The aim of this operation was to strike Jordan and the Hashemite royal family, a war against the crusaders and infidels. Azmi told me that this would be the first chemical suicide attack that al Qaeda would execute.
VAUSE: According to Jordanian authorities, the attack would have mixed 71 lethal chemicals, a combination which they say has never been used before, including blistering agents to cause third-degree burns, nerve gas and choking agents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a very, extremely, massive core attack.
VAUSE: This man can't be identified for security reasons. He's the government's scientist who analyzed the mix of explosives and chemicals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There made maybe 100 of experiments until they got the right amount of explosive to do just the shattering effect to spread these chemical around without affecting the agents.
VAUSE (on camera): In other words, the blast would not burn up the poisonous chemicals, instead, produce a toxic cloud, the government says, possibly spreading a mile, maybe more. (voice-over): The Jordanian intelligence buildings are within a mile of a large medical center, shopping mall and residential area, all a potential dead zone, according to this government scientist.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no one combination of antidote to treat nerve agents, choking agents, and blistering agents. VAUSE: Zarqawi, a Jordanian national, has been accused of plotting chemical attacks before and authorities say this is not his first attempt to strike Jordan. In 2000, a Jordanian court charged him in absentia with planning to blow up this hotel and attacks on tourist destinations. The U.S. believes he was behind the assassination of American diplomat Laurence Foley.
ASMA KHADER, JORDANIAN MINISTER OF STATE: Jordan was fighting these type of plans years now. And the security forces were able to confirm them.
VAUSE: According to the televised confessions, $170,000 came from Zarqawi via messengers from Syria. In last Tuesday's raid, Jordanians seized cash, bomb-making equipment and weapons. It was during that raid that the Jordanians say Jayousi was injured. On TV, he was only shown in profile and appeared to have marks on his face, neck and hand. (on camera): CNN was not given access to any of those arrested, but the videotape confessions offer a rare insight into an alleged terrorist operation. A Jordanian government says the videotapes were made with the cooperation of the suspects and their lawyers. Meantime, here in Amman, U.S. officials have been meeting with their Jordanian counterparts to assess the evidence and they say the plot did pose a serious and grave threat. John Vause, CNN, Amman, Jordan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come on NEWSNIGHT, a so-called Republican dinosaur fighting for his political life in Pennsylvania. Does the moderate wing of the party still have a place in the party? A break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: Every family has its power struggles. This is especially true it seems in politics. In Pennsylvania, Republican voters go to the polls tomorrow in what has become one of the most closely watched Republican primary races in the country in years. It is widely seen as a test of a revolt within the party. And its outcome will have ramifications either way. Here is CNN's Joe Johns.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. PAT TOOMEY (R-PA), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Believe it or not, she does support me.
(LAUGHTER)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The conservative right and Congressman Pat Toomey have turned this Senate race into a test of whether moderate Republicans like Arlen Specter still have a place in the party. S
EN. ARLEN SPECTER (R), PENNSYLVANIA: They said they want my scalp on the wall, nailed to the wall, just that rude and that crude.
TOOMEY: I believe that all the energy and enthusiasm and passion is on our side of this race.
JOHNS: Both candidates spent this stormy day flying around the state trying to motivate their voters in what is expected to be a low- turnout primary. Toomey, who has campaigned with prominent anti- abortion activists like James Dobson of Focus on the Family, is counting on strong support from the right-to-life movement. Specter, who supports abortion rights, says, if Toomey wins the primary, Republicans will lose the seat in the fall and could lose control of a closely divided Senate.
SPECTER: My opponent is a surefire loser.
JOHNS: The president is worried, too, because he needs this all- important swing state for his own reelection. Mr. Bush is prominently featured in a new Specter ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Arlen Specter is the right man for the United States Senate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TOOMEY: President Bush was in Pennsylvania campaigning for Arlen Specter. Now, here is what I think. I think everyone is entitled to make a mistake.
(LAUGHTER)
TOOMEY: Everybody.
JOHNS: A new poll shows Toomey within striking distance of knocking off Specter. And one key group of supporters, the Conservative Club For Growth, has poured in more than $1 million to help him.
STEPHEN MOORE, PRESIDENT, CLUB FOR GROWTH: If you look at the record of Arlen Specter, he's really the last of a kind of Republican dinosaur.
JOHNS (on camera): But even with all the national attention, political observers expect only one-third of the state's registered Republicans to vote. Joe Johns, CNN, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT tonight, back then, he was an anti-war activist. Today, he's running for president, how what John Kerry said then is affecting the now. A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
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BROWN: We will concede if pressed the program has a certain schizophrenic quality tonight. We began decrying this tit-for-tat over Vietnam and since have run two pieces centered on it and are about to run a third, proving yet again we don't make the news, we just report it. And since the news in part seems to center on John Kerry's anti-war activities, we take a look at them now in some detail and in context. And here's part of the context. Before John Kerry began his protest against the war, he fought that war. There are people alive today who wouldn't have been if he had acted differently in that war. It is just one of the things worth remembering when looking at everything that happened after.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): John Kerry came home from Vietnam with a chest full of medals and a growing sense the war was wrong.
GEORGE BUTLER, FRIEND OF JOHN KERRY: John's evolution was fairly gradual and it was very deliberative. He asked a lot of questions.
BROWN: Filmmaker and photographer George Butler has been friends with Kerry since the mid '60s and documented this period in Kerry's life.
BUTLER: The veterans, not just John Kerry, but thousands of them, saying that war is a major mistake and it has got to be ended.
BROWN: In 1970, Kerry asked to be discharged so he could run for Congress in Massachusetts. He ran as a peace candidate and he lost. And by the next year, Kerry was a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
KERRY: We came here to undertake one last mission, to search out and to destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war.
BROWN: His experience and education and his passion made him a star of the anti-war movement.
KERRY: What we have to decide is that we're going to keep coming back until this war ends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BROWN: Kerry alone was invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
BUTLER: It was packed with veterans, with members of the press and this wall of television cameras.
BROWN: Kerry memorably asked the senators, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" He questioned the military's tactics and the president's motivation.
KERRY: We watched while men charged up hills because a general said that hill has to be taken and after losing one platoon or two platoons, they marched away to leave the hill for the reoccupation of the North Vietnamese, because we watched pride allow the most unimportant of battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn't lose and we couldn't retreat and because it didn't matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point.
BROWN: But the most controversy was generated when Kerry publicized the dark notion of some American soldiers raping and randomly shooting civilians, decapitating the enemy, poisoning food stock, atrocities that he never saw.
MACKUBIN OWENS, VIETNAM VETERAN: He cast dispersions on the rest of us.
BROWN: Naval War College instructor Mack Owens led a Marine platoon in Vietnam the same year Kerry commanded his swift boat.
OWENS: We all know that atrocities happened in Vietnam. But to claim as Kerry did and some of the people that he operated with that these were a normal occurrence day to day, accepted as part of policy, that offended me, and it enraged me, as a matter of fact.BROWN: Thirty-three years later, now a candidate for president, John Kerry apologized a bit.
KERRY: Look, I think American soldiers served with unbelievable distinction and courage. I'm proud of them. And I regret words that I may have used that were words that were sort of, you know, very angry and reflected the feelings that we had about the war. But they were honest. They were honest expressions of the passion that we brought to the cause.
BROWN: In what was perhaps the most anguished moment of the 1971 protests in Washington, some soldiers threw away their medals. Kerry, his own medals at home, tossed ribbons that he had worn before the Senate and tossed the medals of soldiers who couldn't be there.
KERRY: We wanted to say to America, you've got to stop and think about what is happening over here. And it is not just kids at college who think this thing is wrong. It is also some of us who served there. And we want you to know that this is how strongly we feel about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that John Kerry is contrary to everything that I stand for and my country stands for.
BROWN: Even 33 years later, some veterans cannot forgive John Kerry for his words and for his protests.
OWENS: I thought that what we had undertaken there was the right thing to do. I think it was a noble cause. It was an attempt to ensure that a part of the world did not come under the control of communism.
BROWN: The crew that stood with Kerry in the war defends his actions protesting it.
MICHAEL MEDIEROS, VIETNAM VETERAN: A lot of people would have just said, well, I'm not going to jeopardize my reputation. I'm going to go into politics. I don't want anybody to use this against me. I'll just let it lie and I won't make any waves. He didn't do that. At the time, I thought it was wrong. Now I realize that was probably the most courageous thing he could do.
DEL SANDUSKY, VIETNAM VETERAN: History has proven John Kerry right. Whether they agreed with him or not in '70 or '71, we shouldn't have been in that war. What John Kerry said was true.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: That's Kerry the anti-war activist. There is also the story of Kerry the sailor. And we'll tell that story this week as well. Morning papers coming up.
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(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydokey, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. If you were with us Friday, you know the crew acted up a bit. But we fired them all, so that wouldn't be happening again. No, we didn't. You knew that, right?
"Christian Science Monitor" starts us off. This is an interesting off-news lead, I would say. Well -- yes. "Democracy Spreads Across Africa 10 Years After Apartheid. Political Freedom Faces New Pressures." It certainly does. Anyway, it's bylined out of Johannesburg, South Africa.
And also on the middle of the front page of "The Christian Science Monitor," give me a shot, "Sadr the Agitator, Like Father, Like Son," a look at the young cleric who is causing so much trouble. And also they put the vice president's Supreme Court case on the front page. "In Cheney Case, Court Reviews Executive Power." More on that tomorrow.
"The Washington Times" leads with Iraq, "Baghdad Blast Kills Two Soldiers," but runs pretty hard with politics on the front page, given that we are in April. "Cheney Criticizes Kerry for Anti-Military Votes. Democrats Rip Cheney's Record, Tie Wife's Pregnancy to Vietnam." I guess it's that they got pregnant so he could avoid going to Vietnam. He had used a lot of student deferments and other things and said it wasn't a priority.Anyway, they put a lot -- also, "Kerry Hits Back on Medals, Calls it a Phony Controversy." Let's get on with today, guys. "Philadelphia Inquirer," speaking of today, which in this case is tomorrow: "Specter-Toomey Race Goes to the Voters. Stakes High in Senate Primary."
This is "The Philadelphia Inquirer." Leads with that. And is there anything else here? "Air Friendly Paint Soon in the Can." I don't know what that means, but I just like the headline. That's all.
"Chattanooga Times Free Press," a lot of local stories leading newspapers, which I always like. It makes the segment a little bit more fun. And we appreciate when editors make the segment more fun.
"City's Blue Law Up For a Vote. County to Address Ordinance Keeping Stores Closed 12 Hours On Sunday." I didn't realize honestly there were many blue laws left in the country. I remember when they were everywhere. Also down here, can you get a shot of that? That's the new Iraqi flag. Can you see that? And it's caused a bit of a furor because it is largely the same colors as the Israeli flag, which makes for some unease in that part of the world. How are we doing on time? Thirty? Oh, my goodness. That's OK. We can live with that.
"The Dayton Daily News" leads with "Iraq, Soldiers Killed in Baghdad, Marine Dies In Fallujah." Over here, "Violent Girls Alarm Society." We were talking about this today, maybe want to do a story on this. But there is some evidence that girls are acting more like boys, I think is what it comes down to. We should probably save this for tomorrow, "The Burt County Plaindealer," shouldn't we?
I think so.So let's go right on to "The Chicago Sun-Times." "Rosemont Casino Faces New Delay." This story seems to be on the front page about every two weeks. But here is the one we care about. "We'd Know Our Friends By Any Name." This is the countdown to the final episode of "Friends." I have yet to see one. The weather in Chicago, "hat- flapper."
(CHIMES)
BROWN: Thank you for that. That's "The "Chicago Sun-Times." That's morning papers. We'll wrap up the day in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Before we leave you for the night, one more bit of business. Here is Bill Hemmer with a look at what's coming up tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Aaron, thanks.Tomorrow here on "AMERICAN MORNING," Senator John Kerry has been called a Vietnam War hero. But, suddenly, his war record is called into question. Can Republicans use it against him? And what about those lingering questions about that Purple Heart and other war medals? We'll talk to DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe about all these matters and the president's new campaign ads as well, tomorrow morning, 7:00 a.m. Eastern time on "AMERICAN MORNING." Hope to see you then -- Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Vietnam still.That's our report for tonight. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We're all back here tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. We hope you'll join us then. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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