Did Mercy Killings Happen During Hurricane Katrina?; New Orleans Airport Workers Hired Without Background Checks; Terrorism at University of Oklahoma

Did Mercy Killings Happen During Hurricane Katrina?; New Orleans Airport Workers Hired Without Background Checks; Terrorism at University of Oklahoma?

Aired October 14, 2005 - 22:00 ET

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

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.It's supposed to happen, but did it? And did helpless people die? 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

ANNOUNCER: Did desperate times during Hurricane Katrina call for desperate measures? Stunning accusations of mercy killings at a New Orleans hospital. Tonight, did doctors euthanize patients? A CNN exclusive interview with the doctor who says he was urged to kill. Workers are hired at the New Orleans Airport without background checks or proper I.D. Tonight, is New Orleans' rush to reopen putting us all at risk? And a quiet student at the University of Oklahoma blows himself up. But what drove this young man to take his own life? Is it a sad story of a depressed young man or was he part of a terror network? 

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN AND ANDERSON COOPER. 

BROWN: So, there's lots of ground to cover tonight. First, a quick look at what's happening at this moment. Saturday morning now in Iraq -- after two days of early voting in some locations, all Iraqis can go to the polls in just about two hours to cast ballots in the country's draft constitution vote. Insurgents began their expected campaign to disrupt the elections Friday night. They blew up a tower on the main power line that brings electricity to Baghdad. About 70 percent of the city was in darkness. Pakistan's government today officially called off rescue operations six days after a powerful earthquake killed at least 23,000 people. That's the new death toll from Pakistan's president, much lower than the 41,000 earlier in the week. The numbers still could change, of course. Relief workers continue to race against time, trying to reach remote villages and settlements, to provide aid for many of those who remain hungry -- hungry -- and homeless. Turkish doctors are testing nine people for possible bird flu, just one day after health officials confirmed the deadly strain of the disease in the country. At the same time, the European Union has strengthened biosecurity measures to try and prevent the deadly disease from spreading. And White House aide Karl Rove still does not know tonight if he'll be indicted in the name -- in the leak of a CIA's agent, or operatives', name. Rove testified for the fourth time in Washington before a grand jury today. The grand jury's term expires on the 28th of October. It should be clear by then if any indictments are going to be handed up.That's a quick look at what's happening now. We begin tonight in New Orleans. The promise goes back to the beginning of medicine: Do not kill. Do not even suggest it. The question came up no sooner than the waters began to recede. Did doctors at Memorial Medical Center do either, or both?Tonight, we will ask the doctor who was there. First, the allegations of that doctor, what he heard and what he saw. Here's CNN's Jonathan Freed. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There was no power. Patients and staff thought they were stranded in 110-degree sweltering heat. It was desperate. 

DR. BRYANT KING, PRACTICED AT MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER: I was really upset that it had come to this. And we were -- we were a hospital, but we -- we weren't really functioning as a hospital. We were functioning as a shelter at this point. 

FRAN BUTLER, NURSE MANAGER, MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER: It was battle conditions. I mean, it was as bad as being out on the field. 

FREED: They were running out of food and water. Workers carried patients into the parking garage to wait for evacuations. But there were too few rescuers and often too late. 

KING: There's no electricity. There's no water. It is hot. I mean, people are dying. We thought it was as bad as it could get. All we wanted to know is, why aren't we being investigated yet? I mean, that was our biggest thing: We should be gone by now. 

FREED: Nine days after the hospital was finally emptied, there were dozens of bodies -- in the morgue, in the hallways, and in the chapel. In all, hospital officials now say 45 bodies were found at Memorial. Some patients, already near death when Katrina hit, may have succumbed to their ailments. Others may have given in to the terrible conditions. (on camera): But a CNN investigation reveals that doctors and nurses grew so desperate that some of them openly and repeatedly discussed euthanizing patients, whom they believed would not survive their ordeal, so desperate, there was talk of mercy killings, talk of mercy killings by health professionals as a serious option as an American hospital. 

BUTLER: My nurses wanted to know, what was the plan? Did they say to put people out of their misery? Yes. Did they say to actually -- they wanted to know how to get them out of their misery. 

FREED (voice-over): To be clear, Butler says she didn't see anyone perform a mercy killing. And she says, because of her personal beliefs, she never would have participated.But at least one doctor there, Bryant King, is convinced it went beyond just talk. 

KING: Most people know that something -- something happened that shouldn't have happened. 

FREED: What Dr. King says he witnessed is a key element of an investigation by the Louisiana attorney general. The state constitution expressly forbids euthanasia. And prosecutors say charges could include manslaughter. In exclusive interviews with CNN, Dr. King says he was approached at about 9:00 a.m. on Thursday in the despair three days after the hurricane by another doctor. According to King, that doctor recounted a conversation with a hospital administrator and another doctor, who suggested that patients be put out of their misery. 

KING: I mean, you got to be 

(EXPLETIVE DELETED) kidding me, that you actually think that that's a good idea. I mean, how could you possibly think that that's a good idea? And she said, well, you know, we talked about it, and this other doctor said she'd be -- she'd be willing to -- she would be willing to do it. I was like, you're crazy. 

FREED: King says, at the time, he dismissed the talk, because the doctor who had told him of the mercy-killing conversation indicated that, like him, she opposed it. (on camera): Then, about three hours later, King says he noticed an uneasy quiet. The triage area, where he was working, on the second floor had been cleared of everyone, except for patients, a second hospital administrator and two doctors, including the one who had first raised the question of mercy killing. (voice-over): King says the administrator asked if they wanted to join in prayer, something they had not done since the ordeal began. 

KING: I looked around. And one of the other physicians, not the one who had the conversation with me, but another, had a handful of syringes. I don't know what's in the syringes. I don't know what is -- and the only thing I heard her say is, I'm going to give you something to make you feel better. I don't know what she was going -- what she was going to give them. But we hadn't been given -- we hadn't been giving medications like that, to make people feel better or any sort of palliative care or anything like that. We hadn't been doing that up to this point. 

FREED: King says he decided he would have no part of what he was saying. He grabbed his bag to leave. And he says, one of the other doctors hugged him. King says he doesn't know what happened next. He boarded a boat and left the hospital. As for nurse manager Fran Butler, she says she never saw any patients euthanized. However, she said the physician who had expressed opposition to euthanasia to Dr. King also spoke to her about it. 

BUTLER: She was the first person to approach me about putting patients to sleep. 

FREED (on camera): Were you stunned? 

BUTLER: Just kind of -- I kind of blew it off because of the person who said it. But when this doctor approached me about that, she made the comment to me on how she was totally against it and wouldn't do it. 

FREED (voice-over): Tenet Healthcare, the company that owns Memorial, told CNN that many of the 45 patients who died were critically ill. Tenet said, as many as 11 patients who were found in the morgue had died the weekend before the hurricane. Twenty-four of the dead had been patients of a long-term acute care facility known as LifeCare, that rented space inside Memorial. 

KING: And there was only one person that died overnight. The previous day, there were only two. So, for there to be -- from Thursday to Friday, for there to be 10 times that many just doesn't make sense to me. 

FREED: Earlier this month, King repeated his account to investigators from the attorney general's office. At the request of the attorney general, coroner Frank Minyard is performing autopsies and drug screens on all the Memorial dead. He confirmed to CNN that state officials have told him they think euthanasia may have been committed. 

DR. FRANK MINYARD, ORLEANS PARISH CORONER: Well, they thought that someone had -- had -- was going around, injecting people with some sort of lethal medication, yes. 

FREED: Minyard says that, because of the condition of the bodies, it may be difficult to determine why so many patients died at Memorial. In early October, Tenet Healthcare said that the state had executed search warrants of Memorial Center records and that the independent LifeCare facility operated inside the hospital. Over the course of several weeks, CNN has reached the three people King says were in the second-floor area with him at the time he saw the syringes. The hospital administrator told CNN, "I don't recall being in a room with patients or saying a prayer," later adding that King must be lying. The doctor King identifies as having first broached the subject of euthanasia with him said she would not talk to the media. The doctor King alleges held the syringes spoke by phone with CNN on several occasions, emphasizing how everyone inside the hospital felt abandoned. "We did everything humanly possible to save these patients," the doctor told CNN. "The government totally abandoned us to die, in the houses, in the streets, in the hospitals. Maybe a lot of us made mistakes, but we made the best decisions we could at the time."When told about King's allegation, this doctor responded that she would not comment either way. Nurse manager Fran Butler says that, while some nurses did discuss euthanasia, they never stopped caring for the patients. 

BUTLER: The people who were still there, they really and truly took and put their heart and souls into every patient, whether that patient lived or died.

FREED: For his part, King regrets leaving the hospital and wonders whether there was anything he could have done. 

KING: I'd rather be considered a person who abandoned patients than someone who aided in eliminating patients. 

FREED (on camera): The two health care companies we mentioned in this piece both chose to give CNN prepared statements. Tenet Healthcare corporation said: "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the physicians and staff at Memorial Medical Center performed heroically to save the lives of their patients under incredibly difficult circumstances." The statement goes on to say: "We understand that the Louisiana attorney general is investigating all deaths that occurred at New Orleans hospitals and nursing homes after the hurricane. And we fully support and are cooperating with him."Jonathan Freed, CNN, Atlanta. 

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN: And then there's this from LifeCare, which rented space and ran a clinic inside the hospital. It will sound familiar: "LifeCare employees at Memorial Medical Center during that week exhibited heroism under the most difficult of circumstances. LifeCare has been fully cooperative with the Louisiana attorney general's office since the inception of their investigation and is unable to make any on matters related to the investigation."We're joined now by Dr. Bryant King. Dr. King, good evening to you. 

KING: Good evening. 

BROWN: It's just, there are so many questions. Was there, just to set the scene, a sense of desperation in the hospital among the staff and among those patients who were well enough to sense anything? 

KING: I don't know if there was so much a sense of desperation, as there was a sense that everyone was really concerned about the fact that we weren't evacuated.Being one of the major hospitals in the New Orleans metro area, we thought that we -- we would have been evacuated in a logical, procedural manner, and which -- which you would expect from a normal hospital -- sickest patients first. The people who aren't sick stay around until the end. And that -- when that didn't happen, people became very concerned. 

BROWN: If there was wasn't a sense of desperation, what is it, then, that you think led people, the people you have described, to conclude that mercy killing was an appropriate action? 

KING: I don't -- the sense -- I think that -- that, as time progressed, people became more and more concerned.And their concern bordered on desperation. But, I don't -- I don't know if everyone reached that point. But there were certainly people who decided that they would rather be out of there. And they wanted to be evacuated as quickly as possible. And I'm -- I'm not sure if that qualifies as a sense of desperation or not. 

BROWN: Do -- do you believe that any -- any patient would be alive today and recovering today had they not had these activities that you suspect happened, happened? 

KING: Well, I think that, if the -- the evacuation and the rescue effort had been conducted in a manner that we were prepared for...

BROWN: That's a different question. 

KING: Meaning -- I understand that. I understand that. 

BROWN: OK. 

KING: Then -- then -- then -- then that would have -- that would not have -- then this situation would not have never even occurred in the first place. So, I can't answer the second question, because the first question is the -- the impetus for the second question, to begin with. 

BROWN: All right. Let me -- let me try it differently. I -- I -- I -- I think you can, because I -- because -- but I just -- I'm not sure I framed it correctly. So, let me try again. The condition of the patients who you believe may have been euthanized, was it such that, if they had been given appropriate care on Thursday or Friday of that week, they might have survived and recovered? 

KING: There's -- I think the patients that were -- that were particularly ill could have been given appropriate care in a different location, which brings us back to the initial -- my initial point, that we couldn't provide the care that they needed in that facility, so they needed to have been evacuated, and that evacuation needed to have occurred in the -- in -- in -- and what we were prepared for...

BROWN: Were they terminal, Dr. King? 

KING: ... in order for -- there were patients that were terminal, absolutely. There were definitely patients there who were terminal. And they were -- they were labeled as DNR patients. Some of whom level-three patients, based on our triage system. There were definitely patients who, if they stayed there without any further care, would have died. That -- that -- that probably goes without saying. And any physician would have come to that same conclusion. 

BROWN: All right. 

KING: However...

BROWN: So, just -- I'm not -- I'm not asking this at all to justify or to make judgments on what they did. I'm trying to understand, to a certain degree, who it is we're talking about. So, you had a set of patients who had DNRs, do not resuscitate. 

KING: That's correct. 

BROWN: These are very sick people, people who were terminal. And these are the people that you and they, the doctors and the administrator, are sort of focused on; is that right? 

KING: Well, we -- we focused on all the patients. We treated all the patients the same, with the -- the same degree of care. But the DNR patients that were there, they were mixed in the population with the patients who weren't DNR. We didn't separate them out and say, the DNRs are here. We gave them DNR status. But we didn't give -- we didn't separate them out and say, sit them over here and we will take the other patients...

BROWN: Yes. 

KING: ... to some area of the hospital. BROWN: You believe patients were euthanized. Do you believe a patient who was not DNR was euthanized? 

KING: I think that the patients that were on the second floor, probably, at some point, things -- there were things done that shouldn't have been done. Right now, I'm -- I'm -- I'm attempting to not impugn in any way the investigation being undertaken by the state's attorney's office in Louisiana. So, I don't really want to say anything that -- that might under -- that might undermine their investigation. 

BROWN: OK. I was interested in the -- in -- in Jon Freed's piece, you said that there was no palliative care being given to these people. So, you have these patients who were in considerable pain, and they weren't getting any pain medication at the time? Is that right? KING: Well, well, the -- the -- the -- the assumption that they were in considerable pain, I don't know that that's necessarily true. 

BROWN: OK. 

KING: There were people there that may have -- may or may not have been in some degree of pain. But we didn't have people there with metastatic cancer or large groups of patients of that type. We had people who were suffering because it was 110 degrees, and they weren't being monitored the way we normally monitor patients, because we didn't have electric -- electricity. So, monitors weren't available. We had no air-conditioning. So, things were a lot -- they were uncomfortable, but I don't know if they were necessarily in pain. Therefore, I don't think that it was necessary to treat them palliatively, so to speak. 

BROWN: So, this wasn't a situation -- these were people who, in -- in your estimation, were simply really uncomfortable. It wasn't a case where you might give someone routinely, a doctor appropriately might give someone a morphine injection, for example, to alleviate pain? Is that right? 

KING: Not in large -- not en masse, absolutely not, absolutely not. These were patients who -- we triaged these patients every day. Starting Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, every day, or a couple of times a day, we went around and we said, this patient is tachycardic...

BROWN: Yes. 

KING: ... or this patient's blood sugar is elevated or whatever. But they weren't -- these weren't patients who were -- were terminally ill en masse. There were a couple people there. There were a few, absolutely, who were terminally ill. But, for the most part, these were people who, if we had been able to evacuate them to other medical facilities, who would have survived and would have been fine, for the most part. Or they -- not that they would have been fine, but they would have survived and gotten back to their level that they were before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. 

BROWN: Why, then -- to the extent that you would venture a guess on such a thing, why, then, if these people could have been -- if they were not terminal, why, then, do you think this discussion, let alone this action, this discussion took place at all? 

KING: That's really difficult to say, because I wasn't there at the -- at the -- the conversation that was had. I only have the conversation that was brought to me. The conversation that was brought to me, no background for why their -- their -- their input or their discussion was ever presented to me. It was just presented to me as, this is what's being discussed. I don't know why they had the discussion in the first place. 

BROWN: At the end of the day -- just a last question -- we appreciate your patience tonight -- is there -- is there any doubt in your mind, not that things went on that shouldn't have gone on -- I want something more specific -- is there any doubt in your mind that people were euthanized in that hospital during those days? 

KING: I don't think it's fair for me to answer that question, because that would be accusing someone of something that I really wasn't there at the hospital at the time that that happened. 

BROWN: Dr. King, it's good to...

KING: When I left the hospital, when I was at the -- when I left the hospital, as I stated before, I had seen only what I stated, that there was a person with syringes, not that I saw them give anything. 

BROWN: Dr. King, it's nice to meet you. And it's good to talk to you again. Thank you for your patience. I know that some of the questions were a little complicated, in the way I asked them. And I appreciate your patience with them. Thank you. 

KING: No problem. 

BROWN: Thank you, sir.

KING: No problem. 

BROWN: Dr...

KING: Thank you. 

BROWN: Dr. Bryant King, who was in Memorial Hospital most of the week that Katrina isolated the hospital. And you have heard what he had to say and can sort through some of it. But others will have to sort through a lot of it. Still to come tonight, natural causes or mercy killings, we will look at the procedures that must come next inside the autopsy lab. This is not necessarily the easiest stuff to deal with, but, we shall -- a true crime scene investigation now under way. We will take a break first. And, later, in a rush to pick up the pieces after Katrina, procedures weren't followed as always, sometimes by choice. CNN investigates questionable immigrant hirings in New Orleans, too. It's a very busy Friday night in New York. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: It's one thing to accuse. It is quite another thing to prove. If there were, in fact, mercy killings at Memorial Hospital, there will be no shortage of challenges in making that case. The hospital was anything but a sterile crime scene. But difficult is not the same as impossible. Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Randi Kaye. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than 1,000 miles from New Orleans, in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Dr. Cyril Wecht, the county coroner, is following the case closely. 

DR. CYRIL WECHT, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: It is a real mystery and it is going to be a real legal quandary. 

KAYE: Wondering if it will become a real-life crime scene investigation, a CSI that could take months to resolve. 

WECHT: Bodies are brought into the back of the building or entrance. 

KAYE: Dr. Wecht gave us an exclusive look inside his autopsy room to help us understand how the mystery down South may unravel. 

WECHT: See this? This is the -- this is marbling, greenish- black discoloration. See, these, we call subepidermal blisters are beginning to form. You -- you can see it there. This is already early decomposition. After a while, he'll balloon up and he'll look like a sumo wrestler. And you will say, boy, where did you get this 450-pounder? 

KAYE: The bodies from Memorial will be far more decomposed than this one. It's likely they had not been refrigerated for more than a month. Dr. Wecht says, to determine cause of death, Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard will collect blood, bile and urine. They'll be tested to determine if drugs like morphine or potassium chloride may have been used to euthanize patients. 

WECHT: If you find any morphine in a patient for whom morphine had never been ordered, now, in my opinion, from a forensic, scientific, legal, investigative standpoint, that's enough, because what are they doing with morphine? 

KAYE: Testing for the drugs is complicated. And Wecht admits, what happened at Memorial may never be known. With a temperature of 110 degrees, Wecht says the organs are useless to a coroner. 

WECHT: The body first begins to swell and become discolored. And, then, inside, the organs and tissues begin to become decomposed. The bacteria go to work. And, after a while, all you will have will be shrunken, totally discolored, blackened organs and tissues. 

KAYE: The best chance at knowing how these patients really died is through toxicology tests, like this one. 

WECHT: She's placing in a -- a solvent solution. And -- and that is going to lead to the -- picking up the absorption, the extraction of whatever it is that is contained in the blood. Some extraction has taken place, because blood from you or me wouldn't have this non-bloody component. That has already been accomplished. 

KAYE (on camera): So, it will be further...

(CROSSTALK) 

KAYE: .... separated in there? 

WECHT: Yes. And now it will be further separated in this centrifuge, a rapid spinning. And this will lead to further extraction. 

KAYE: So, it's one step closer to figuring out this whole mystery? 

WECHT: Exactly. Right. 

KAYE (voice-over): After the blood is separated, it is tested. 

WECHT: This is going to show, as the specimens go through that Connie (ph) and Julie (ph) extracted, whether or not there are drugs present. And they will give you some blips.

 KAYE (on camera): So, if, down in New Orleans, they find that there's morphine or potassium chloride, or whatever there might be, this is what they will see on the screen? 

WECHT: Sedatives, barbiturates, tranquilizers, the different kinds, morphine and related analgesic drugs, right. Then, blips will appear. 

KAYE (voice-over): Those blips still won't be enough to determine if mercy killings took place. Next, the amount of drugs found in the patients, if any, must be measured. 

WECHT: And you say, hey, how could they have possibly have needed this much morphine or this secobarbital? 

KAYE: Remember, most of these patients were elderly and may have been taking pain medications, like morphine. But drugs like that only stay in the body for 24 hours. If it shows up now, especially in high doses, mystery solved. Randi Kaye, CNN, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN: Up next, what will happen to the man the critics call the president's brain? And what kind of hole does Karl Rove create if he's indicted by a federal grand jury? And, later tonight, he committed suicide. Was he also a would-be suicide bomber? A break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The president's top political adviser and deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, made his fourth appearance before a federal grand jury today. Mr. Rove spent four-and-a-half hours testifying about the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to at least two reporters. There's no question Mr. Rove talked to the reporters. That does not mean he committed a crime. The lawyers insist he is not the target of the investigation. But he has been put on notice that his testimony could be used against him.The White House is bracing itself for bad news out of the grand jury. And for a president long associated with Mr. Rove, an indictment would be about as bad as it gets. Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The day after he won reelection, George Bush thanked the team.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT: The architect, Karl Rove.

CROWLEY: He has been called a lot of things, "Boy Genius," "Bush's Brain," "Dr. Evil." Rove calls himself a complete geek who first tasted politics when a high school teacher told him his grade depended on it. 

KARL ROVE, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: So I went and got involved a political campaign because the only thing in life I had that was worth having was a good grade card. Couldn't get a date. But I could get an A in history and I could get an A in government.

CROWLEY: By the early '70s, Rove landed here, at the Republican National Committee run by a Texan named George H. W. Bush who had a son.

WAYNE SLATER, AUTHOR, "BUSH'S BRAIN": He says the first time he ever met George W. Bush, he says, the man he would ultimately link his life with, he thought, this guy is cool. Standing there with a leather jacket, smacking gum, looking charismatic, he was everything that Karl was not.

CROWLEY: Bush-Rove is a formidable team. A little more than a decade after meeting, George W. Bush ran for governor of Texas and won. Six years later, he was president.

BUSH: Karl is a - has got a fantastic mind. He is one of the reasons why I was elected governor and one of the reasons I was elected the president.

CROWLEY: Political guru, policy adviser, friend to the president. Some historians are hard-pressed to find an equivalent in White House lore.

PROF. BRUCE BUCHANAN, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: You can find this or that relationship in history that has one facet that would be similar to the relationship between Bush and Rove but not all three of those facets, politics, policy and personal

CROWLEY: They hate the yin and yang analogy and bristle at the suggestion that Rove is the mastermind, but certainly he knows the president's mind. Friends prefer the term alter ego.

CHARLES BLACK, GOP CONSULTANT: I think Karl one of the smartest people, both politically and policy wise to come to Washington in many years and so I think having a smart, strong decisive president plus Karl Rove is terrific. It's two plus two equals 10.

CROWLEY: But no matter how you add it up, four times in front of a grand jury equals worrisome times in the Oval Office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, as we hop around to the Valerie Plame investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Getting back to the leak investigation just for a moment.

CROWLEY: Rove denies doing anything wrong and no one has proven otherwise but it is clear that Rove's fate and the fortunes of the president will be hard to separate. Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.BROWN: Still ahead on a Friday night, Katrina. Illegal immigrants. The threat of terror. Did the storm make your next flight more dangerous?And later, the lights going out, bombs going off and Iraqis ready to vote on the (constitution. We'll take a break, first. Around the world this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: 9/11 changed a lot of things to be sure. Among them, the way we look at immigrants, legal and otherwise. Workers without valid documentation are no longer welcome at security sensitive places like airports. That's the law. But at the airport, in New Orleans, it is not the reality. Here's CNN's John King.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outside the window, a flight taxing for takeoff. Inside, some gates still closed. "Sangre" is blood, these stained tiles removed from area of the New Orleans airport used as a triage clinic just after Hurricane Katrina.Gerado Torres (ph) was issued this I.D. by the New Orleans Airport Authority. Same with this temporary cleanup worker Lopez Marcello (ph). Both men say they're from Mexico and crossed the border illegally. Both say they also plan to eventually go home.Nothing, Torres answered if asked if he's been questioned about the residency. Marcello says it's hard to find work in Mexico and seems amused he is being paid, indirectly, anyway, by the government here.Pure green, man, pure dollars he says about the eight bucks an hour work. No background checks and yet both walk freely on the airport tarmac. Active flights filled with passengers just a few steps away.

CLARK ERWIN, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: It shows that we are an open target and we are far more vulnerable than we have to be and we're not taking the threat of terrorism seriously.

KING: The men sleep here, a barracks for temporary workers at an abandoned YMCA. A makeshift ladder to get upstairs. Tents outside and visible through a giant hole in the hurricane damaged wall.This video was shot by CNN during a visit to the site early Thursday. These pictures and the airport scenes were recorded by a bilingual photojournalist, Alfredo De Lara, who stopped at the site earlier in the week and was promptly offered a $10 an hour job as a supervisor.Tom Trimble runs the operation and says this stack of papers proves it's all by the books.(on camera): Every single person, that's without fail?

TOM TRIMBLE, MANAGER, BALANCE: No. If they don't have an I.D. and a Social Security Number or a work number, then we don't put them to work.

KING: Are you positive about that?

TRIMBLE: Could somebody slip through? I won't say that's not the case. Yeah. We're trying to do it -- mountains of this stuff. This is just like a couple of days.KING (voice-over): But De Lara man says that's not how he was hired.

ALFREDO DE LARA, PHOTOJOURNALIST: I filled out no paper work. I wasn't asked to fill out any paperwork. I wasn't asked to show I.D .KING: We asked Trimble and two other supervisors at site to match up some of the forms with workers or otherwise confirm documentation. But they declined.

TRIMBLE: We're doing the best we can to make sure we're doing it right. You know? Are some of the folks here illegally? I don't know. I suspect they are.

KING: Trimble works for a company called Balance, it's one of many temporary staffing agencies working as subcontractors for cleanup companies including Instar Services of Texas. Instar's contracts include the airport cleanup work. The Transportation Security Agency tells CNN workers must have a U.S. issued I.D. or work permit to get an airport job and any temporary workers must be escorted when in secure areas but these workers showed Mexican I.D.s to get the passes and were allowed on an active tarmac unsupervised.

DE LARA: I was basically in charge of keeping an eye on them. As a supervisor. But there was nobody -- no airport official, no TSA officials, no government officials at all supervising our work.

ERWIN: It is absolutely astounding, nearly five years after 9/11 this thing continues to happen. That's the first point. The second point is it is not an isolated incident.

KING: Instar's manager in Louisiana said the company would not answer any questions about its contracts. The airport wasn't the only secure location where these workers were sent for cleanup. A security officer at the V.A. Medical Center initially raised objections when they showed up and one could only produce a Honduran I.D. card. But after several minutes of discussions, they were allowed in.

KING: That night, an organization called Mission of Mercy visited to offer the workers vaccinations and other medical care. As he volunteered as a translator, Manny Ochoa-Galvez asked where they were from.

MANNY OCHOA-GALVEZ, MISSION OF MERCY: Most of them from Mexico. A lot of them from Honduras. I did meet a fellow countryman from El Salvador. But the vast majority are from Honduras and Mexico

.KING: Ochoa-Galvez owns a restaurant here and says the city needs the workers, legal or not but is convinced that what he saw can only happen to illegal immigrants with no rights or resources.

OCHOA-GALVEZ: The irony of the first world country that we live in. That we're seeing the situation, the company, the entity is indeed taking advantage of the need in both directions. From the employer and from the employee. You know, the need is there. It needs to be fulfilled.

KING: Ten to 12 hours a day at eight bucks an hour. John King, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And a quick postscript, many of the workers told our freelance photographer they crossed the border illegally, however, we don't know what steps if any they might have taken since arriving in the United States to become legal workers.From New Orleans and handicraft to Washington and stagecraft. The president surrounded by the image makers who only want you to see certain things, but every now and then it doesn't turn out just that way. We'll explain as NEWSNIGHT continues on a Friday night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: Now the people of Iraq are going to get to vote once again on a constitution, in this case. I want to thank you for providing the security necessary for people to exercise their free will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: In "Wag the Dog," a Washington insider recruits a Hollywood producer to produce a war. I'm in show business, the producer says. Why come to me? War is show business, the insider replies. And besides, we're not going to have a war. Just the appearance of a war.Well, in Iraq, we do have a war. Also, at times it turns out, the appearance of show business. We saw a bit of it this week and we also saw the machinery backstage. That's part of a larger story, call it the opening act. Here's CNN's Jeff Greenfield.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what American viewers were supposed to see, the president talking with American officers serving in Iraq. Getting some spontaneous, upbeat assessments. This is what they weren't supposed to see. Defense Department official Allison Barber running through what sounded like a meticulous rehearsal, previewing who would get which questions and how they would be answered?

ALLISON BARBER, PENTAGON OFFICIAL: And in the last 10 months, what kind of progress have we seen?

GREENFIELD: Including guidance on what to do if a spontaneous moment, in fact, popped up.

BARBER: If there's a question that the president comes up with that we haven't drilled through today, then I am expecting the microphone to go right back to you, Captain Kennedy and you to handle.

MIKE ALLEN, "TIME MAGAZINE": This is embarrassing for the White House. It was unintended. You and I are talking about stage craft instead of about how motivated the troops are.

GREENFIELD: For "Time Magazine's" Mike Allen, the idea the White House stages an event is about as shocking as a revelation that the sun rises in the east.

ALLEN: Any White House, not this one in particular, is about control. These people just seem to be better at it.

GREENFIELD (on camera): Which may be the real story here. That a White House that has managed to launch a thousand stories about its carefully-staged events and its carefully-crafted photo opportunities managed to pull off a carelessly staged event.One thing for sure, any indignation about a White House that stages the news comes about a century too late.(voice-over): It was President Roosevelt, Theodore, not Franklin, that brought the press photographers along on hunting and camping trips making his vigor and physicality a key element in his political appeal. Those endearing pictures of John Kennedy's family didn't happen by accident but politicians have gotten a lot more blatant about it.Back in 1972, Republican officials were embarrassed when the press got hold of a script for one of their convention nights. Spontaneous applause moments and all.By 1996, Democratic operatives briefing the press every day about their scripted convention moments. The Clinton White House took some heat in 1994 when critics charged they staged an emotional moment at a D-Day commemoration at Normandy with President Clinton forming a cross out of stones.But this White House has taken staging to a whole new level. From the mission accomplished presidential landing aboard an aircraft carrier in 2003.

BUSH: Thank you very much.

GREENFIELD: To town hall meetings and other events where pay they had to sign pledges that they were in fact backing the president. As a tactical matter, it has worked. Until recently when a series of events seemed to have gone awry. This picture of president bush looking down at Hurricane ravaged New Orleans last month seemed to symbolize not engagement but distance.Repeated visits to the Gulf and the highly dramatic solo walk to the podium from magically lit Jackson Square in New Orleans did not improve the president's job approval numbers.

BUSH: Good evening.

GREENFIELD: Some have even suggested that the entanglement of Karl Rove and other White House aides with the grand jury investigation may be distracting the political team.(on camera): Or maybe it's just a case of trouble begetting trouble. The country is in a pessimistic mood. Iraq remains troubled. Gas prices are high. The president's Supreme Court pick has angered the base and now inflation may be rearing its ugly head again. As basketball legend and philosopher Bill Russell once said, when things go bad, they go bad. Even public relations.Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on the program tonight, could an explosion outside of an University of Oklahoma football game be a botched terror attack?Also tonight, officials in law enforcement are scoffing at such an idea but others are not. You'll hear from both sides after a break. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Was it a suicidal act of a depressed college student or was it an attempt at terrorism? This story is so rich with questions.Two very different versions of events are emerging in the wake of an explosion outside of a packed football stadium at the University of Oklahoma in Norma. Authorities quickly ruled the death of Joel Henry Hinrichs a suicide. And then the bloggers started weighing in. We begin our coverage with CNN's Joe Johns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Friday prayers at the Islamic Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Anxiety is running high.A stone's throw from here, a young student at the University of Oklahoma sat down on a bench two weeks ago and blew himself up in the shadow of a football stadium where thousands of people were attending a game.Was it terrorism? No, authorities say, but that hasn't stopped the blogosphere from running wild with conspiracy theories.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One or two mere coincidences, I would be comfortable accepting but when you have three or four or more, it becomes very difficult for me to accept the lone suicide scenario

JOHNS: Here's what we know. A sophomore of Joel Hinrichs with a history of depression died when his backpack containing explosives blew up. The rest is pure speculation. But that speculation has many people here alarmed and confused.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's scary because I do think his intentions were different. Than just him going for himself. But I mean, I don't know for sure.JOHNS: Here's how the conspiracy theory goes. Hinrichs lives three blocks from the Islamic Center. He once had a beard, he had a Pakistani roommate, leading some to speculate he was part of an Islamic terror ring. Nonsense, says the university president and former U.S. Senator David Boren.What goes through your mind when you see what you know versus what's being reported on this story?

PRESIDENT DAVID BOREN, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: Tremendous frustration. I happened to watch one news report on television the other night and I think there were nine things said and I knew for a fact that eight of them were wrong.

JOHNS: We checked it out. First stop, Hinrichs' fraternity house.So you can't talk to us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

JOHNS: We stopped by the apartment. Empty. Scrubbed clean by the FBI. At the Islamic Center, no one had ever heard of Hinrichs until they saw the picture in the newspaper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's jumping to conclusions. If they don't know something about a certain aspect of Islam, you just have to come and ask about it. You shouldn't like listen to the media. The media isn't a good source for anything honestly.

JOHNS: What about allegation to kill others? After the son's death, Hinrichs' father spoke out on that.

JOE HINRICHS, FATHER: I really I regret everything about what he did. I think he went to the largest open space he could conveniently reach. There's nothing around. And happened to be outside of a football stadium. But he chose it for the reason that it was open.JOHNS: In the newsroom of the "Oklahoma Daily," reporters are dumbfounded at what's been put out there on the Internet, in print and on TV.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're taught here to get the facts. You know? Named sources. Anonymous sources.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three sources rule. What about the one source rule? I mean, you need to have somebody. It showed me that the Internet is making it so anybody's opinion is as valid as the next persons and without sounding elitist, that's just not true.

JOHNS: Talk of terrorism strikes a raw nerve here. The Oklahoma City bombing happened just 20 miles away. But in this case, all signs suggest the fear doesn't match the facts. Joe Johns, CNN, Norman, Oklahoma.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: But that doesn't end the story. You heard a bit from Mark Tapscott, the blogger, the Heritage Foundation in Joe Johns report. We talked to him earlier tonight as well as Pat D'Amuro, a CNN security analyst and former assistant director of the FBI.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Mark, let's start with you. Can you give us a fact that says to you, a fact, that says to you that this -- a reasonable person would conclude this was an attempted act of terrorism?

MARK TAPSCOTT, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: On the first would be simply the proximity to 84,000 people. In a football stadium on Saturday. The second thing that I would note as a fact would be the fact that a substantial amount of bomb making material and other material was found in his apartment.

BROWN: OK.

TAPSCOTT: A sufficient amount to indicate a will to kill many people. Not simply one. The third fact I would cite is the fact that very early on the joint task force on terrorism became the lead agency in the investigation of the incident and if it was simply a lone suicide by a disturbed young man I don't understand the necessity for the joint task force to remain on the investigation.BROWN: Let me ask Pat but my immediate reaction is to find out what it is. Because you have a kid blowing himself up proximate to 84,000 people with a lot of bomb making stuff in the apartment. But you would say what?

PAT D'AMURO, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Exactly, Aaron. When I was down in Washington with the bureau, there was a whole restructuring and an agreement with the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that any bombing that took place would be presumed a terrorist attack until proven differently.So it is not unusual that the joint terrorism task force would go in at a very early stage to take a look at an event like that. Once it's determined that it is a terrorist event, the joint terrorism task force would take primary jurisdiction. If it was not, and it was a lone bomber, it will be turned over to Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

BROWN: Mark, the things you outlined would you agree they're all circumstantial? None of them is -- none of them says this is a terrorist tack? All of them say, well, add it all up and sounds like it could be?

TAPSCOTT: Joel Henrichs did not leave a suicide note. My contention from the beginning is that as the facts have been uncovered, the most reasonable explanation is some kind of a terrorist connection. I would say with regard to Pat's explanation, just a minute ago that, again, if it was simply a lone terror -- excuse me, a lone suicide, that would not take two weeks to establish. And I wouldn't think that we would almost two weeks later have the joint task force involved in the investigation.

D'AMURO: That I disagree with. It takes a while to determine. What they are going to look at is a vast array of information regarding this individual. They're going to look at contacts, they're going to look at phone calls. They're going to look at Internet connectivity that he may have had. Conversations with some people. They are going to look at a lot of information before they come to a final decision whether or not it's a terrorist attack.

TAPSCOTT: But evidently before they look at that evidence in this case, Pat, the FBI and President David Boren of the University of Oklahoma both said there was no evidence of any kind of a terrorist activity or terrorist link. And in fact, that was the thing that got me interested in it as a newspaper journalist first was the literally within hours of the incident they were pronouncing it a lone suicide.

BROWN: Do you know as a matter of fact that he had any ties to Islamic groups at all?

TAPSCOTT: No. That has not been established.

BROWN: OK. Is it -- Pat, let me ask you, is it possible we tend to think of terrorism as an almost single entity sort of thing. Islamic terrorism. Columbine was a kind of terrorism in my view. Is it possible that this young man, in fact, strapped a bomb to his body intending to walk into that stadium, kill a lot of people for no political reason other -- at all, for reasons that we do not know or may never know?

D'AMURO: You are right. I'm not here to say that this is not potential terrorist attack. The points that were made, there's reasons why the bureau would go into a certain time and there's reason why an investigation would take that route but you're right. This could be a situation where this individual was distraught and going to kill himself and other individuals. We don't know that yet. We have to see what the investigation comes up with.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Sometimes we're better at raising questions than we are providing answers and that may have been one of those cases here. There's lots of questions and we'll keep asking. Much more ahead on the program tonight. An update from Iraq where bullets and ballots and bombs all make up the headline of the day.And who's getting the biggest chunk of the money you're forking over at the gas pump?And she might be third string, I love this story so much, but she is also the first. A high school quarterback. She is, and this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Pregnant Woman Attacked; New Jersey Declares a State of Emergency; Price Gouging At The Pump; Election Day In Baghdad; Lethal Bird Flu Now In Europe; New Orleans' French Quarter Endures Nightly Curfew; Police Beating From A Cop's Point of View; Witness To Suffer in Quake Zone But Unable to Help; High Stakes Vote In Iraq

Aired October 14, 2005 - 23:00 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. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT. Much ahead in the hour, including the French Quarter and the blue wall of silence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The beating victim has spoken, but why are the cops keeping quiet? Tonight the police code of silence. Are they choosing loyalty over justice?An inconceivable crime -- a woman accused of trying to cut out an unborn baby from her neighbor's womb. Tonight, what would drive someone to commit such unthinkable horror?And shocking findings. The lethal bird flu now in Europe. Is it on its way to the U.S.? Tonight, what you need to know to safeguard your health.Live, from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is NEWSNIGHT with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Anderson is off tonight, and lots of ground to cover. Here's a quick look first at what's happening at this moment. Rescue workers have abandoned the search for survivors trapped in the rubble of last weekend's deadly earthquake in South Asia. A top U.N. official says reconstruction of the devastated area will cost billions and take up to a decade. The death toll in Pakistan alone now stands at 23,000 people. Hurricane Katrina's deadly toll rises higher as well. Today the coroner for Baton Rouge Parish raised the death toll for Louisiana to 1,035. That brings the overall death toll from Katrina to 1,271.The state of New Jersey has declared a state of emergency tonight to respond to rising flood waters. The National Guard, state police and special water rescue teams will be dispatched to severely hit areas. The state has opened a 24-hour emergency operations center as well. More than 500 New Jersey residents have been evacuated because of heavy rain and rising flood waters. And consumer prices skyrocketed last month, energy prices surging to record levels after Katrina. The consumer price index jumped 1.2 percent in September. That is the largest single monthly increase in 25 years. Those are a few pieces of the day. This, however, is something yet again, something rare and for that we can be thankful, but something that does happen. And when it does, it touches on everything we hold dear and is terrifying.This time it happened in a small town in western Pennsylvania, not far from Pittsburgh. Reporting the details, CNN's Randi Kaye.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Peggy Jo Conner and Valerie Oskin --neighbors and friends -- good friends. Both, apparently pregnant. The women were enjoying a special bond, until this week when investigators say Conner beat Oskin with a baseball bat, then tried to cut Oskin's baby out of the womb.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS WILKS, PEGGY JO CONNER'S HUSBAND: We met right here. This is the first place I met her, right here

.(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Thomas Wilks is Conner's husband. He took us to the park outside Pittsburgh, where the two first met a year and a half ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE (on camera): So what's it like for you to come back here, knowing that she's in jail and you're trying to figure out what life will bring next?WILKS: It's hard. It's a horrible thing to think of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: For the last eight months, Wilks says he watched his wife's belly grow. She took pregnancy vitamins and suffered through morning sickness. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILKS: I put my hands on her stomach and it would move. And then the baby would kick. I'd lay my head on her stomach and my head would move where the baby would kick.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: But investigators say medical tests show Conner is not pregnant now, nor had she been. There is no evidence of a miscarriage. Police say Conner knocked Oskin unconscious at home while Oskin's 7-year old son was there. Then dropped the boy off at a relative's and took Oskin to this remote wooded area. Here, they say, Conner sliced open Oskin's belly to steal her baby. A well thought out crime, prosecutors say, until a teenager on an all-terrain vehicle spotted the women in the woods and called police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT ANDREASSI, WITNESS: When I first saw it, I knew it was, you know, foul play, because it just, it was very suspicious happening. The lady acted really weird. I mean, she came around the front of the car and she's like, everything's fine here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Oskin was air-lifted to a hospital, where her baby boy was delivered by emergency c-section. Both mom and son survived.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She did indicate that in fact it was the defendant who had attacked her at the trailer and also in the wooded area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Still, parents like Rick Priester (ph) are outraged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED WIFE: It's disgusting. My wife has been pregnant a couple summers here. That could have been my wife. It makes me sick.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Conner group up here and became a nurse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILKS: She wanted to love to help people. She'd help anybody. It didn't matter who it was, she'd help them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Conner cared for the elderly here. She quit to become a stay-at-home mom, after announcing her pregnancy. Even with three kids from a previous marriage, Conner appeared to be anxiously awaiting her new baby.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE (on camera): Do you think she did this?

WILKS: Nope.

KAYE: Knowing what know you, though -- or not within your heart, but do you think that it's possible?

WILKS: No. 

KAYE: You won't believe it?

WILKS: I won't believe it until she tells me she did it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Conner is being held here at the Armstrong County Jail. She is now charged with attempted with homicide and two counts of aggravated assault. She is expected to enter a plea on Tuesday. As for the victim in this case, Valerie Oskin, she apparently is doing much better. Her breathing tube has been removed. Her newborn baby boy is in stable condition. And apparently, Aaron, according to prosecutors, the victim is remembering much of this attack and putting her attacker, Peggy Jo Conner, at the scene -- Aaron.

BROWN: Randi, thank you. That's an odd sort of good news and bad news, I think, that she remembers it all. There is a need we're supposed to make sense out of things like this, even as we know they are senseless. We are joined tonight from San Francisco by Candice DeLong, a former FBI profiler. And here with us in New York, Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner. We're glad to have you both.Ms. DeLong, why would a woman do this?

CANDICE DELONG, FORMER FBI PROFILER: Usually in cases like this we find that the motivation on the part of the offender is to replace a baby that she has lost, either through a miscarriage or stillbirth, or oftentimes we find that the woman has -- she's worried that she might lose her husband or boyfriend and so she makes up a story that she's pregnant to keep him around and as time marches on, and it's getting into the ninth month, she's got to come up with something.

BROWN: All right. Doc, do you agree with that essentially?

MICHAEL WELNER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: The driving force -- and it's perhaps something that your viewers can relate to other crime. We're used to the things people would kill for -- money, people they love. There is that very rare individual who it matters so much to her to be able to demonstrate to someone she particularly cares about that she has reproductive success, that she would kill to show that.

BROWN: Ms. DeLong, is this the -- I want to not use the legal definition of sanity, because that takes us into a whole different area. Is this the action of a sane person?

DELONG: Well, it certainly isn't very rational. If one wants a baby, there are easier ways to get one, where the mother of the child wouldn't have to be hurt.

BROWN: Is there a need to commit violence as part of this?DELONG: No. There is no need to commit violence to get a baby. That's what makes this whole thing so irrational. Your reporter said that the prosecutor said it was, you know, looked like a very well planned out crime. I think it looks like a horribly planned out crime, which speaks to her confused mental state.

BROWN: It sounded pretty messy to me. You talked to me, Doc, earlier about the mentality that drives the crime. This is a very rare occurrence. I mean, when we were talking, you said to me, we almost talked about it -- count them on hands of the fingers in one hand -- the mentality that drives this crime.

WELNER: Well, it's very important for our viewers to know that in the American cases that have been documented -- and they're well documented in the United States -- somewhere between five and 10, that the victims unfortunately were victims of opportunity, someone that the assailant could get access to. So this is something that is planned and it's orchestrated and executed in a remote location where one can't be discovered. So the amount of calculation and preparation around the crime is very organized. And it's what we as forensic psychiatrists don't typically associate with insanity. But what distinguishes it -- our culture doesn't attach as much to the notion of being able to say I am able to bear a child, such that a woman would kill to demonstrate it. There are other markers of successful womanhood, identity. This is an identity crime. This is something where someone says it matters enough to me -- perhaps in order to keep someone that she loves, whom she's falling apart with, in order to do that, where the rights embody integrity of a person doesn't matter, and an otherwise peaceful person becomes violent.

BROWN: About a half a minute, honestly for both of you, though. I want t get both of your view on this. Assuming she's guilty and she's found guilty, do we send her to prison? Is that the right course of action, Doc?

WELNER: Well, there is no method right now for standardizing how do we distinguish the worst of attempted murderers? Right now there is research people can participate in at www.depravityscale.org to distinguish the worst of attempted murders. BROWN: Ms. DeLong, do you think she knew the difference between right and wrong?

DELONG: Yes, because there were a few moments where she did try to hide her crime. Of course, if she really wanted to hide it, she could have done it in privacy and chose not to. I think she should certainly serve out a prison term and then probably go to a mental facility for the rest of her life.

BROWN: Just an awful story. It's good to, in any case, to meet you both. And we appreciate a Friday night, your willing to talk to us about it. Thank you. It's an unimaginable story, actually. Thank you, both.This seems almost in some respects trivial by comparison, but more now on the waterlog northeast. Not only has the state of New Jersey declared a state of emergency, as of 4:00 o'clock this afternoon, Central Park, here in New York City, had received almost 13 inches of rain. That makes October the fifth wettest month on record, the third wettest October on record. Are you writing all this down? Even though the month is but half over. CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano is in Greenwich, Connecticut tonight, with more on the flooding there. Rob, good evening.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hi Aaron. As you mentioned, just a bunch of rain. Eight days in a row of rainfall across the northeast. All that rain at some point needs to get back to the ocean, and the rivers are struggling. Much of them are rising, many are flooding, and the Byram River behind me is pushing up against this dam that was built in 1917 and there is a torrent or water pouring over this dam. They shored it up last summer, so it's not that much of an issue. As this Byram River rips through Glenville, down through Pemberwick and out into Long Island, but there are over 4,000 dams like this across the state that are struggling to hold back the water. Also struggling to hold back water -- in come cases, losing the battle -- the state of New Jersey, where a state of emergency has been ordered. In places like Spring Lake, where waist-deep water prevails, people out in rowboats, the National Guard trying to help the cause as well. Loch Arbour, New Jersey, same deal. In some cases, cars buried in water up to their hoods. Slightly hillier terrain in Montville, Connecticut; and some of those hills gave way. A mudslide there -- bulldozers and front- loaders out to try to clear some of that mud and debris.All of this rain, after what some folks were starting to call a drought. It was an extremely dry late summer and early fall. Here's why: High pressure and control across the northeast, yielding nice dry weather. Actually, that steered the hurricanes, as you may remember, into the Gulf of Mexico. Well, there's been a pattern shift. Now that tropical moisture heading this way and now it's -- to the record rainfall. Typically 1.6 inches of rain would be accumulated month to date in Central Park. As you mentioned, the fifth wettest month on record so far -- and we're only halfway through it, Aaron.The good news is: drier weather patterns set to take hold tomorrow. And everybody wants to hear that for sure.

BROWN: Rob, we all do. I must say, as dreary as it's been around here for the last two weeks, I think most of us have kept in mind how much worse it was down in the Gulf and for the people and what they went through. So, while it's been unpleasant, it has only been unpleasant. Thank you for your efforts tonight.Still to come on the program in less than an hour, an historic moment in Iraq. The country's draft constitution goes before the voters, rather. We'll be live in Baghdad.Later, disturbing new information on the Avian Flu, signs the deadly virus has made its way to Europe. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: A sliver, and we do mean a sliver of good news tonight for anyone who needs to fill their gas tank. AAA reporting that in the last two days the average price of a gallon of self-service regular gas fell two whole cents. Really, two cents, down to about $2.82. Boy, get it while you can. Katrina and Rita and China and a lot of other factors go into the price of gas. But so, too, it seems is profit and perhaps a fair amount of greed. Here's CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The luck ran out downtown for Steve Thomas.This can't be good.

STEVE THOMAS, MOTORIST: Yes, it can be.

FOREMAN: He was shopping for the lowest gas price, when his tank ran dry. (on camera): So you actually ran out of gas, trying to get here?THOMAS: Never in my life have I seen gas this high. We can't drive, we can't heat our homes. We can't do business. Nothing can be done without this energy. 

FOREMAN: So you think there are people who are just flat out taking advantage of this?

THOMAS: Of course. I think it's price gouging.FOREMAN (voice-over): With that accusation flying everywhere these days. We broke down the average price of a gallon of gas so far this year. Around $2.29, to see where the pennies go. According to the American Petroleum Institute, you can start by giving $1.34 of that pump price for crude oil, paid to the company or country that pumps it from the ground. Next, give federal, state and local government about 43 cents a gallon in taxes. Gas stations get about 10 cents a gallon; the entire distribution chain, about 12 cents. They have their own ideas about who's getting much more.

TONY HAWKINS, FUEL DELIVERYMAN: I guess the people who are running the oil 

(UNINTELLIGIBLE). 

FOREMAN (on camera): Maybe those people?

HAWKINS: Yes.

FOREMAN: But you're not getting rich?

HAWKINS: No.

FOREMAN (voice-over): The refineries indeed get the remaining 30 cents. But what about the oil companies? Well, for any gallon, they're raking in money from the ground all the way to the tank. Rayola Dougher is with the Petroleum Institute and she gave us all these numbers. 

RAYOLA DOUGHER, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE: This is a huge industry. They're making billions of dollars, billions. They're spending hundreds of billions. And the energy that we're consuming right now is brought to us by investments made many years ago.

FOREMAN: She has many explanations about how rising demand among the Chinese, consumption by Americans and hurricane damage in the Gulf may mean even with all those billions coming in, the oil business may not be all that lucrative in the long run.

(CROSSTALK)

DOUGHER: Do you?

FOREMAN (on camera): I'm trying to understand this. But it sounds like everybody's saying it's not our fault. But people are getting fabulously wealthy while other people are paying. Is that fair?

DOUGHER: Well, no. It's really not. Because there are winners and losers, as I said. And we're going to have to add them up.

FOREMAN: Yes, the losers are the people buying the gas and the winners are the ones selling it.(voice-over): Still, she points out that commodities brokers are also cleaning up. What in the Dow Jones is a commodity broker? Well, you already know the most famous.

RANDOLPH DUKE: Randolph Duke.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How you doing, Randy? What's happening?

DUKE: My younger brother, Marver (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He, Monte, what a 

(UNINTELLIGIBLE).

FOREMAN: Remember in "Trading Places," how the Duke brothers wanted to buy all the oranges in Florida because they knew the harvest would be small. The short supply would drive up demand and they could resell at a much higher price.Anyway, the same thing is happening right now with oil. But if that's all part of keeping big oil companies rolling, Marisa Paul says, so what.

MARISA PAUL, MOTORIST: When we see it at the pump, it's a little shocking to us. But I think, in their long-term business, that they're trying to protect themselves.

FOREMAN (on camera): Really?

PAUL: I do.

FOREMAN: Well, they're posting like record profits.

PAUL: Right now.

FOREMAN: Doesn't that seem a little odd when you're paying record amounts?

PAUL: Are they going to be posting record profits in year from now and two to three years from now? I think that's what they're thinking about.FOREMAN (voice-over): Finally, a voice of calm and understanding in the beleaguered populous. Oh, by the way --(on camera): What do you do for a living?

PAUL: I'm a lobbyist.

FOREMAN (voice-over): On the other side of the pump, Steve Thomas says it all comes down to fear, fear of shortages, fear of natural disasters, fear of what brought him here -- running out of gas.

THOMAS: Fear -- people would spend all that they have to consider themselves safe.

FOREMAN (on camera): They'll just pay and pay and pay?THOMAS: They'll pay and pay and pay. At least he remembers. 

FOREMAN (voice-over): Just like Steve knows, he'll pay and others will profit when he rolls up to the pumps again in just a few days. Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up tonight, Iraq, where an historic vote is about to get underway. Plus, Avian Flu crops up closer to home. Signs of the deadly virus now in Europe. Dr. Sanjay Gupta makes a house call. And later, you've all seen the disturbing video from Bourbon Street -- Robert Davis beaten by New Orleans police. You have, if you've been with us. Tonight, inside the mind of a cop, with the help of a former New York police captain. Break first. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: That's Baghdad on a Saturday morning. It is election day. Another important day in a series of important days if that country -- and it's hardly certain -- if that country is going to find its way down the long road to democracy. After an especially dark night, Iraqis are heading to the polls. We don't know in what numbers yet, but they will cast their vote -- their second vote in two years. The polls officially open in about 45 minutes. The country's proposed new constitution on the line. Our Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour is with is from Baghdad.Christiane, good evening.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening and in fact, good morning, here. About 35 minutes from now the polls will open, 7:00 a.m. local time. And as you say, this is historic. For the optimist, this is an opportunity to see perhaps Iraq get on some kind of more permanent path towards political stability. For many, many people, however, they are worried. They don't know whether it will get worse or better after this constitution. And for everybody, the question is legitimacy. If this constitution and if the political process here has a hope, it must be viewed as legitimate. If you look down at our camera, showing not far from where we are is a school, which is being turned into a referendum polling station for the day, there are some Iraqi police and Iraqi soldiers out there. And the security, according to the U.S. forces will be taken by the Iraqis this time, with American forces obviously around, but not in the forefront.The question, of course, is: Do the Sunnis, who form an important but minority here, do they feel included? And will they feel that the constitution favors the majority Kurds and Shiites? Not just in terms of giving them the power, but also the all important natural resources and economic powers, such as the oil, which is concentrated in the Kurd and Shiite areas. And that is going to be what everybody's going to be looking at after this referendum.We spoke to the chief of the U.S. forces here, General George Casey, and he says definitely, the next 60 days or so are going to be crucial to see how this things turns out -- Aaron.

BROWN: Christiane, we're going to come back to you a little bit later in the program, just before the end. And just think about this question, if you don't mind: How this day compares to the election you were at and you covered all those months ago when they elected a government, how the country's changed, how the attitude has changed, what the anxiety level is, and we'll get your answer a little bit later, okay? Thank you.Christiane Amanpour, who's in Baghdad. The European Union's worst fears could soon be realized. It will find out as early as tomorrow if Bird Flu found in Romania is the lethal strain that's already killed over 60 people in Asia. In its current form, the lethal strain does not easily -- underscore easily -- infect humans, but officials fear it may mute into something far worse, creating a global pandemic. The E.U. is already taking protective measures. And earlier tonight we talked with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta about the outbreak and what's being done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Sanjay, we have Bird Flu now in Europe. The significance of that is?

SANJAY GUPTA, SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't think this was a surprise the way the people that have been following this for some time. This particular virus spreads by birds that migrate around the world. So, I think that this was sort of expected and predictable. What it's going to mean now, is you're going to see some significant changes in the importation laws of live and recently deceased birds, you know, birds that are frozen, being sent over to several countries. But you're not going to be able to stop these migration patterns. That's just going to continue. And you'll probably see this pop up in other places as well.

BROWN: Just a couple questions on that and the actions that the European nations took. Do they strike you as aggressive enough or does it fall under the category of well, there's not much else they can do?

GUPTA: I think it's sort of the latter, Aaron. There isn't really much else you can do. That's the right thing to do, probably, to limit some of the importation. But again, it's the migrating birds. You just can't control that.

BROWN: We've talked over the last week, week and a half, that we've been talking about this a fair amount. A lot about Tamiflu and the degree to which it actually is effective. How effective is it really?

GUPTA: You know, that's a great question. And the reason is that, you know, this has not been tested in humans. Aaron, in order to be able to know the answer to that question for sure, you'd have to knowingly expose people to Avian Flu, test Tamiflu on them and test them in a control group. That would be a true scientific study and no one's going to do that.

BROWN: One more thing on Tamiflu before we leave. There's a report of a Tamiflu resistant case in Vietnam. This is the sort of thing that happens. I mean, these viruses outsmart the antivirals at some point, right?

GUPTA: That's right. And, you know, this is a 14-year old girl in Vietnam. She had a partial resistance. And I should add that she, you know, she survived as well. That's exactly what happens. The same thing with antibiotics -- you use too many of them, eventually the bacteria figures it out. You use too many antivirals, eventually the virus figures it out as well. What this means is two things. One, is that we have to be diligent about who we give Tamiflu to. Not everyone should run and start stockpiling the stuff. And two, is we probably already have to start thinking about another antiviral. Lorens (ph) is one that's out there. We may need to start making more of that as well, Aaron.

BROWN: Does the fact that its made its way to Europe tell you that it's closing in on us, in a sense?

GUPTA: Yes, you know, I think that the sense really in talking to the folks at the CDC and the World Health Organization is that we are going to see case of Avian Flu in poultry populations, probably a lot of places around the world. It's just, the migrating bird patterns are somewhat predictable and they're going to -- as the season moves on, you're going to see this pop up in several places. The crucial step, though, the sentinel step, though, Aaron, is if this thing mutates into a form that becomes more easily transmissible. So not only is it going to migrating birds, but it's hitching rides on planes as well.

BROWN: And we're not there yet?

GUPTA: We're definitely not there yet. And an important point, you know, less than 120 cases so far. So, I mean, people are concerned, but certainly not panicking right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was Dr. Sanjay Gupta. We talked with him earlier tonight. In a moment, what were they thinking -- literally thinking? What goes through a police officer's mind in that moment when things get out of hand? And what's being talked about now behind the blue wall of silence? Later, another story entirely, the best one we've seen all day, in fact, that I'm the father of a daughter. She saved the game. She did. Not he, she. We take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: French Quarter in New Orleans tonight looks like the French Quarter in New Orleans tonight, doesn't it? I mean a very normal night. There is a curfew in effect, at about 2 in the morning, but people there have some time to party and they appear to be doing so. Coming up a victory for bar owners in New Orleans, as it turns out. But first a look at what's happening at this moment. Pakistani authorities today officially abandoned their efforts to find survivors of the earthquake that hit last Saturday. Instead relief workers are now working at a fever pitch to rush supplies to hardest-hit and hardest-to-reach areas; it remains a mess.The White House says top aide Karl Rove still has the president's confidence, this after Rove spent a fourth session, four and a half hours, with a grand jury in Washington today. The grand jury wants to know what Mr. Rove knows about the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity. Harriet Miers continues to draw fire from conservatives. The National Pro-Life Action Center is calling on the president to withdraw his choice for Supreme Court nomination. But the White House continues to stand firmly behind Ms. Miers. Now the police beating capture on tape in the French Quarter over the weekend. By now, you and I, all of us, have seen it and talked about it. You've listened to the arguments back and forth. Take a slightly different approach tonight, but we wanted to lay out first a set of what we hope are some relevant, not all, but some of the relevant questions. When police had Robert Davis up against the wall there was a punch, right there. As Mr. Davis called it, a sucker punch. Or was it a legitimate attempt to subdue a suspect? Then there is this: At the point when Mr. Davis -- or when police had Mr. Davis down on the ground, they appear to be trying to handcuff him. Is Mr. Davis resisting there? Or is he just stuck? Or this, by now it looks like a real mess. See the officers' foot there, is that a kick, of Mr. Davis while he was down. Or is that a step down, in the words of the lawyer for the three officers involved. There are lots of questions that ultimately will be decided by a judge and by the police department itself. We can't pretend to know what to make of all of them, but we'll talk about some of them. And here's one: What goes through a cop's mind in moments like this. We are joined by Joe Lisi, who served for 24 years on the New York City Police Department, New York's finest. And we're glad to have him with us.Just take a little time and tell me, if there was one thing -- you looked at this tape a bunch -- there is one thing a police officer might see in that tape, that a civilian might not see on that tape that is relevant, it would be what?

JOE LISI, NYPD, RETIRED: Well, the first thing was that Mr. Davis did not submit to the handcuffing procedure in the very first place. 

BROWN: It's that point where he seems with his left arm to be resisting.

LISI: No, I think it is even before that. When the police officer stops and we first see him putting him against the wall with his face to the wall, his back to the officer. Just before the horse, mounted officer comes by, you see him spin in what could -- and I wasn't there -- be a confrontation situation. 

BROWN: The police officer, which is what you can speak to, the police officer in that moment doesn't know necessarily what he's got in his hands. 

LISI: He doesn't know what he's got in his hands, but he does know that somebody is not following the instructions that he is giving to him. So naturally, he becomes concerned and even excited, at one point, because his primary job is to take care of his own safety first. 

BROWN: No, his heart's pumping?

LISI: Yes, it's pumping.

BROWN: Even as this might have, in some respects, be a routine activity by police, taking someone into custody. 

LISI: Yes. 

BROWN: At what point does it not become routine. 

LISI: It's never routine. 

BROWN: Oh, come on. 

LISI: Because you know the most dangerous job in all of policing is the police officer on the street in uniform. Because every person that you come up with, every job that you handle, there is always the element of the unknown. 

BROWN: But at some point, this situation gets out of hand. I mean, just in the tape we were just showing -- and this is one of the areas, I'll be honest, I have a problem. If he's trying to turn over on his stomach to submit, if at that point, this point. He's got a guy on top of him, he's got a guy pulling him one way. He's got another guy pulling him another way, I'm honestly sure he could turn over there. 

LISI: Well, he shouldn't turn over. What he should do, if he intends to submit, is just do nothing. And if the officer want to roll him over to put the handcuffs on him, that's fine. If they want to lift him up, that's fine. He should be like a mannequin at that point. 

BROWN: Does it appear to you that they, the officers, are working in a coordinated way, or is it a mess at this point? 

LISI: Well, there are four people in the tape. Two of them are New Orleans police officers, the other two are FBI agents. So I'm not so sure that the FBI may have even had the same field tactical training as hopefully the New Orleans police have. 

BROWN: Is that a nice way of saying they're not acting in -- in -- they're not working together? 

LISI: Well, yes. It didn't appear that at all times they were working together. 

BROWN: It's nice to meet you. Thank you, nice job tonight. 

LISI: OK, thank you. 

BROWN: Do you miss the police force?

LISI: I do. I miss it. I miss know what's going on. BROWN: Yes, thank you. I could tell. Thank you. You could make a case not a happy one that corruption and allegations of police brutality mark a kind -- not a great kind -- but a kind of return to normalcy in New Orleans. Maybe this is another sign. A fight between bars in the French Quarter and city hall about whether you can stay out drinking until midnight, or 2 or all night long in the city. The French Quarter made it through Katrina pretty well, high and dry, you might say. It may in the end, bring the city back to life; but only, say the bar owners, if you keep the high and lose the dry. Here's CNN's Ed Lavandera. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready to close. You got two minutes to make it to your hotels, it's curfew. Please exit Bourbon Street! 

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hurricane Katrina couldn't shut down Johnny White's on Bourbon Street, but the bar that boast it never closes has met it's match. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got to go.

LAVANDERA: About a dozen officers showed up to enforce the city's curfew, a mandatory last call. Free-spirited French Quarter residents don't like the idea of curfews, no matter what time they make you go home. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the last stand in the Alamo. This is what we need to bring back this city. Nobody is going to be here for us. There is going to be no city. 

LAVANDERA: For the last week officers have been strictly enforcing a midnight curfew. It has been pushed back to 2 a.m. now, but French Quarter business owners say they can only put up with the curfew for so long. 

JIM MONAHANS, BAR OWNER: We have a lot of people here that are go-getters and people that really want to see this place come back. And we're going to do that. But we just need to know that we're not going be impeded by our own government from helping to put the place back together. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. 

LAVANDERA: Jim Monahans owns Molly's At The Market Bar, the kind of place where a pope's portrait hangs over the jukebox and Jim's father, who died four years ago, still sits over the bar. 

MONAHANS: He requested that his ashes be put above the cash register at Molly's so that he could watch the money. 

LAVANDERA: Monahans knows a thing or two about New Orleans. Molly's is the city's proverbial political back room. He's mobilizing neighborhood business owners to get the curfew lifted. After all, he says, getting back to business was the mayor's idea. 

MONAHANS: You asked us to come back. You want us to keep our businesses going. You want -- then give us some straight answers. If it is five weeks, six weeks, a year, before we can operate normally. Let us know what the time table is.

LAVANDERA: City officials say they are trying to balance public safety and the needs of business. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand their frustration and I hope they can just bear with it and we can take care of the problem. 

LAVANDERA: The sound of jazz fills the night time landscape of Bourbon Street. But for a city not used to playing by the rules, it is a frustrating time when the music has to end. 

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

LAVANDERA: We can show you a live picture of Bourbon Street tonight. The street has changed quite a bit in the last week. Many more people showing up here, Aaron. But they only get a couple of extra hours of revelry tonight. And bar owners say while they do welcome the couple of extra hours they do view it as a temporary solution. They say anymore loss of business will be very painful for them. They have been losing money for the last month and a half, and they're ready to start cashing in again -- Aaron.

BROWN: Ed, thank you very much. Ed Lavandera, who got the good duty tonight, down on Bourbon Street. They'll probably just drink faster down there tonight. Coming up, covering the South Asian quake, a reporter's notebook. Matthew Chance's thoughts on covering so much devastation. And a third stringer throws three TDs in a high school football game in California. So what's so unusual about that? A lot, as it turns out, because this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: With the official search for victims called off, the victims of last weekends deadly earthquake in South Asia, the focus now turns on helping the survivors pick up the pieces of their lives. Covering the quake has been an important, but as you can imagine gut- wrenching assignment. Here is CNN's Matthew Chance with a reporter's notebook. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INT'L. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Covering an earthquake is an emotional ordeal, the destruction is overwhelming. The pain of families dragging their loved ones from the rubble can be too much. Pakistan has been no different. (on camera): The aftermath of earthquake has been hard to watch and it has put all of us here under a lot of pressure. Being surrounded by this devastation and the ever present stench of death takes its toll. But part of this job is being able to put yourself in other people's shoes, because from there, it looks much worse. (voice-over): We found Muhammad Wasseem (ph) picking through the debris of his school. When the earthquake struck he was the only one in his class to get out alive. At 14, he's just a kid. Imagine his life with no friends. Add to that, no food, no water, no shelter, and you start to get a picture of what 10s of 1,000s of people in Pakistan now face. In the remote town of Balakot we arrived by helicopter well before the relief efforts. And we were mobbed. They thought we had supplies they desperately needed, tried snatch out bags. It's hard to explain to people who have lost everything you've nothing to give, but we had to. (on camera): It is at times like that I really start to think about what it is that we do and whether it's right. Our seats up board the helicopters could have been filled by injured survivors waiting to be evacuated. Maybe we should have brought medicines to be distributed, we could have saved lives. (voice-over): It is an agonizing dilemma and the reporter's curse. To witness events and only hope it makes a difference. Matthew Chance, CNN, Mazaffarabad, in Pakistan controlled Kashmir.

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN: Still ahead tonight, she's daddy's little girl, but mamma, can she through a football. And we'll catch you up on voting on the new constitution in Iraq. This is a polling station in the capital, on the sidelines, around the world, all over the place tonight. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: You don't have to be a football fan to appreciate this next story, you don't even have to be a dad. It helps, though, to be a dad, it's even better though to be a certain father of a certain young girl in Torrance, California. A pioneering daughter, the first ever in the state, or as the local paper put it, boy can this girl through a football. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN (voice-over): Take a look at the quarterback over there, number 10. The one who throws tight spiral passes, and has the tendency for understatement. 

MIRANDA MCOSKER, QUARTERBACK, BISHOP MONTGOMERY H.S.: It's a sport that not a lot of girls have the opportunity to play, so I wanted to try it. BROWN: And she has, and done quite well it turns out, for the fathers of young girls everywhere another reason to be grateful for changing times and attitudes. 

TIM MCOSKER, MIRANDA'S DAD: They say that there is not training for becoming a parent and there certainly is not training for having a 15-year-old daughter decide that she wants to play football and having her actually go into games a the quarterback. 

BROWN: Technically Miranda is still on the JV team, but when the starting quarterback got hurt last week, with her team, Bishop Montgomery High, already 28 to nothing before half time, the coach sent her in. 

ARNOLD ALE, HEAD FOOTBALL COACH, BISHOP MONTGOMERY H.S.: She did real well. She ended up executing the offense, and you know, opportunities came to where she had to throw the ball. And when she did, she was right on the mark.

M. MCOSKER: I threw three touchdown passes. I did one of the best games I've ever had. And it was just a lot of fun. Just everything happened how it was supposed to. 

ALE: If you throw three touchdown passes in a varsity game it is an accomplishment, yes. I mean we definitely weren't expecting it. 

BROWN: Bishop Montgomery has a rule. You try out for the team and come to practice, you play. And in Miranda's case, that means you throw passes, make handoffs, run the offense. 

T. MCOSKER: I'm totally surprised. I've asked her, maybe 100 times, how do they treat you? Do they treat you good? 

BROWN: So far the answer seems to be yes. She's treated like, well, like one of the guys. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You put on pads, she's a football player, you know? You don't look this is a girl, you don't let up, because you know what I'm saying, she just like us.BROWN: No, she's not. And she's mature enough at 15 to know this probably won't last. It is something, she says, she probably won't repeat next year. 

M. MCOSKER: It's something I've tried and it is something that I'm -- I've kind of got over it. Like I don't know, football is not a really a realistic sport for me to play. 

BROWN: The boys, she says, don't tease her much, no rough stuff so far. And for now she's still suiting up with the varsity, for a game tonight in fact. Living a dream very few girls reach for, let alone experience. 

M. MCOSKER: It was something that I would never know unless I tried. Everyone has been really supportive, so it was something that I knew I had to do, because if I didn't then it would just bother me for the rest of my life. 

(END VIDEOTAPE) 

BROWN: That kid will make the papers when she grows up, just as she did when she was a kid. She's got moxie, doesn't she. Quick look at morning papers around the country, "The Washington Post" starts it off, down in the corner, "Rove Pressed on Conflicts, Sources Say". You get so few leaks on this story, it drives me nuts. Questions said to focus on differing accounts. You mean Mr. Rove gave differing accounts to the grand jury? I can't imagine. Why would he do that. Just go in there tell the truth, one story. Not differing accounts. The "Daily News", here in New York, yikes, "Tattoo Horror". Brooklyn man gets a last rites design on his arm and drops dead in parlor. Would you buy that paper on the street in New York? "Hurricane Blows Hole in the Economy," says "The Washington Times", but this is the story that caught my eye, down at the bottom. "Never Mind Your Manners: Parents cited in rude poll." It turns out, but you knew this didn't you? That the country is getting more rude all time. You should see my e-mail. Whether in Chicago tomorrow, if you happen to be traveling to the Windy City, according to "The Chicago Sun-Times", will be spirited. We'll check in one more time in Iraq, after the break. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BROWN: Well, right now, in Iraq, history is being made. Security is very high, everybody is on edge, Iraqis are heading to the polls to decide whether to vote in favor of, or to oppose a constitution. Our Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour is back in back in Baghdad for all of it -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Aaron, indeed. You know it is just a simple ballot with a yes/no, unlike what happened last January when the voted in parliamentary elections, huge lists of names and parties. This time, yes or no. We can show you a few of our live camera locations, which are showing some of the polling stations. They have a couple of schools, there is the convention center in the green zone, where the dignitaries and the civil servants and officials will vote. Question of course is, what is this going to mean for this country? And that's all that anybody is focused on. Is this going to mean and end to the violence, a proper political stable structure and a unified Iraq. Some hope, yes. Many believe that it might make the situation worse. 

BROWN: It might make the situation worse. It is such a weird thing, really.

AMANPOUR: It is. 

BROWN: I mean, it could pass and make it worse, it could fail and make it worse. It is hard to know what -- I mean, I know what the administration wants, its just hard to know how this going to play out regardless of what happens. 

AMANPOUR: Well, it is hard. Look, back in January everybody was really optimistic because 8.5 million Iraqis braved the threat of the insurgents, who threatened to behead them and kill them an savage them in every way, and went out an voted. It was a really great day. We were there, we witnessed it. It was fantastic to see these people go out and just take part. And now people are going to come out again and take part, but the stakes have changed somewhat. Because the constitution is seen, despite all the best efforts, as favoring two groups, the Kurds and the Shiites, the majority part of this country. There has been a last-minute effort to bring in the Sunnis, who sat out the January elections, with rather devastating consequences. An effort to try to bring them in this time; we're going to see whether that succeeds. The test of this constitution, as I said, will be legitimacy. Whether they can feel that the whole country is partaking in this political system. Or whether it is a recipe for the beginning of the fragmentation of this country into a powerful Shiite and a powerful Kurd block, with the oil resources, and the Sunni stuck in the middle of the desert with a bunch of sand; and then what that will mean for the insurgency.

BROWN: Christiane, we'll look forward to your reporting throughout the day and over the weekend. It is an interesting time. Thank you, Christiane Amanpour, who is in Baghdad tonight. Good to have you with us today. We hope your weekend is terrific as well. And we'll see you back here on Monday. Larry King is coming up next. Until Monday, good night for all of us. 

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