What's Next for Saddam?; Interview With James Risen
AARON BROWN, HOST: We have talked so many times of the crimes of Saddam Hussein. We have seen all the mass graves, the thousands of people buried there, another few thousand here. But somehow hearing of one crime against one person makes it all more real in an odd sort of way. A guest you'll hear from tonight. You will hear from him as he calmly says how he was arrested and tortured not once, not twice, but three different times. He tells his story, where also telling with his meeting with Saddam over the weekend, the questions he asked, the answers Saddam gave. We can and should continue to debate the policy and the timing of the war and all the rest, but we ought not forget who this man Saddam Hussein was and what he did, and how, despite all that is troubling about Iraq today, and there is plenty, it is still a world better than it was. But catching Saddam hasn't brought calm to Iraq. So we go first to the Pentagon and CNN's Barbara Starr. Barbara, a headline from you tonight.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, as Saddam Hussein settles into captivity, Iraq does remain a complex environment for U.S. troops.</s>BROWN: Today proved that. We'll get to you at the top tonight. Next to Iraq, and a day that saw a major raid that netted another big prize. Nic Robertson is there. Nice, a headline.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, that prize a high-value Fedayeen target and 73 associates in what could have been a Fedayeen-run bomb-making cell in Tikrit. Another of those bombs went off, injuring three soldiers.</s>BROWN: Nic, thank you. Politics next and the beating Howard Dean is taking on Iraq and foreign policy generally. Call this one a friendly-fire incident. CNN's Kelly Wallace on that for us tonight. So Kelly, a headline from you.</s>KELLY WALLACE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Howard Dean stumping throughout the Southwest, finding himself the target of a new Democratic attack ad. This ad accusing himself of not being able to compete with President Bush on foreign policy. Dean says the attacks, though, will not hurt his campaign -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Kelly, thank you. Finally, to Virginia and the sniper trial. CNN's Jeanne Meserve had the watch in the courtroom today and is with us tonight. Jeanne, a headline.</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In closing arguments, the prosecution says Lee Malvo was not insane at the time of the sniper shootings. The defense says he was. The jury must now weigh their arguments and weeks of testimony and evidence and reach their own conclusion. Back to you.</s>BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly. Also ahead on the program tonight, an FDA panel gives the go- ahead to Plan B, the first over-the-counter morning after birth control pill. But the FDA still must act. In "Segment 7" tonight, a very powerful homecoming. An Iraqi exile who just went home, just as the dictator who terrorized him and his family was captured. And for dessert, of course, a giant helping of morning papers and a bit of rooster as well. All of that and more in the hour ahead. We begin with Iraq. When the first frames of video came in of Saddam Hussein in custody, it was hard not to wonder what the next pictures out of Iraq would be, what the next few days would bring. Tonight things have started to take shape. There is progress against the insurgency to report, defiance on the part of Saddam, and a messy and mixed reaction from the people he once ruled. We begin tonight with CNN's Barbara Starr.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At a pro-Saddam Hussein rally, a gun battle breaks out. In Fallujah, a train carrying supplies to U.S. forces is attacked. The Iraqi people still absorbing what it means for their former leader to be in captivity. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asked the Central Intelligence Agency to oversee what could be years of questioning of Saddam Hussein. CIA director George Tenet will be in charge.</s>DONALD RUMSFELD, DEFENSE SECRETARY: He and his people will be the regulator over the interrogations. Who will do it, the questions that will get posed, the management of the information that flows from those interrogations.</s>STARR: If they find Saddam Hussein was directing the insurgency that has killed dozens of U.S. troops, Rumsfeld held open the possibility the U.S. may take a role in Saddam Hussein's prosecution. The Pentagon also defending these pictures, saying it was no violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits displaying prisoners.</s>RUMSFELD: If lives can be saved by physical proof that that man is off the street, out of commission, never to return, then we opt for saving lives. And in no way can that be considered even up on the edge of the Geneva Convention protections.</s>STARR: And Aaron, the secretary also said that Saddam Hussein is now, in his word, "resigned" to his fate as a captive. One final postscript today, you'll remember those pictures, of course, of the physicians taking a swab from Saddam Hussein's mouth, a bit of saliva for a DNA test. Well, the official DNA results came back today and officially it is Saddam Hussein that they're holding -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Wouldn't that have been a kick in the pants, though? Do they really anticipate the questioning going on for years?</s>STARR: Well, they don't know. That's a very interesting point. I mean, you know, so far, when you look at some of the al Qaeda prisoners they've had, the track record has been, Secretary Rumsfeld says, that they question the people extensively for some extended period of time, months at least, and then suddenly they give up the goods. No one's really sure why. And it was quite interesting today, Secretary Rumsfeld was asked what motivation, what might motivate Saddam Hussein to actually tell the truth? What might motivate him to talk if he understands that he would be facing a death penalty, perhaps in an Iraqi tribunal? The secretary saying he didn't know what would motivate Saddam. That would be a question he would look at. The only potential answer he offered is if there was something perhaps that would benefit Saddam's immediate family if he was to talk. So very early days. No one's really predicting at this point how it all might go.</s>BROWN: Barbara, thank you. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon tonight. More now on the question of how you go about interrogating a dictator, which as Barbara Starr just reported, will now be overseen by a team from the CIA. James Risen is reporting the story for "The New York Times" already filed for tomorrow. He joins us tonight from Washington. Good to see you again.</s>JAMES RISEN, "NEW YORK TIMES": Hi.</s>BROWN: Just on this question of what they learned or what they are learning from their interrogations of al Qaeda biggies and how that might help them here, do you have anything on that?</s>RISEN: Yes. I think one of the interesting questions is why the Pentagon turned Saddam over to the CIA. And I think the reason is because the CIA has been the ones handling almost entirely by themselves the interrogations of top al Qaeda leaders, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and others like that. They have not been held as widely as assumed. Those top leaders have not been held at Guantanamo. They've been held in secret locations around the world in groups of one or two, away from military interrogators, away from kind of a broad number of other agencies. And the CIA has learned how to do those very quietly and very efficiently, and I think -- so they've decided to handle Saddam the way they've handled the top al Qaeda leaders.</s>BROWN: So far, he chats with them, it sounds like. He doesn't give them what they want, which may or may not be the seem as he's not telling the truth.</s>RISEN: Well, I think there's a little bit of dispute in the first day between different administration officials about exactly the status of what he said so far. Some people have told us that he has, in fact, talked about some substance. He did deny having any weapons of mass destruction. He's denied leading the insurgency. He's denied knowing the status of Scott Speicher, the Navy pilot. At the same time that we've been told he said these things, other administration officials are denying that he's saying anything. And I think there is some dispute, some disappointment within the administration that maybe he's saying things that aren't really helpful to the Bush administration.</s>BROWN: That's going to be -- I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but ultimately I suppose it's going to end up that way. He could be telling the truth. I'm not suggesting he is or he's not. But he could be telling the truth and not saying what they want him to say, and that's a problem.</s>RISEN: Exactly. And I think there's some -- what I've heard today is that in the first day or so, after he was captured, the product of his debriefings was fairly widely known within the Pentagon and the intelligence community, and then we began and other media outlets began to report on what he was saying. Today, we were told that they were narrowing dramatically the distribution list about his debriefings. And it's going to be much more closely held in the coming days, I believe.</s>BROWN: Do you know, can you describe at all how he's being interrogated? I mean, what methods they're using, where he's being kept, how often he eats? Is he seeing anyone else? Do you know any of that?</s>RISEN: Not in detail, no, I don't. But I believe that what I was told today, or at least indicated to me, was that, while the CIA has learned a lot about how to deal with al Qaeda leaders, using behavior modification techniques that are in some ways short of torture, that they're going to be more careful in how they deal with Saddam. They're not going to use the same coercive techniques, I don't believe, from what I've been led to believe, with him that they used with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah because they know that in the end he's going to have to face some kind of court. Whereas Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will probably never see the light of day again.</s>BROWN: Jim, it's good to see you again. We look forward to reading the piece in the paper tomorrow. Thank you.</s>RISEN: Thank you.</s>BROWN: Jim Risen of "The New York Times." We alluded at the top of the program to the complicated state of play in Iraq since the capture of Saddam as if it were a picture of simplicity before. It certainly wasn't. But military commanders say they like the scene a whole lot better today. They now have a new batch of solid intelligence to work with, they claim, momentum on their side. And tonight another victory. For the latest on that and other developments of the day, we turn once again to CNN's Nic Robertson, who is still in Tikrit -- Nic.</s>ROBERTSON: Aaron, that raid you referred to came at 4:30 in the morning in Samarra, 25 miles south of here. Coalition troops were looking for a high-value target. They found him at his house. He is believed to be a cell leader, a Fedayeen financier. In his house along with him were 73 young men. We are told they were all young men, all of military age. We were told there were no women and no children in that house. Along with all these people, and the Fedayeen financier, were armaments, 135 pounds of gun powder, detonation caps, artillery shells, mortar rounds, and all of the equipment, we are told, for making these improvised explosive devices, the roadsides bombs that are proved so deadly against the U.S. and coalition troops throughout Iraq. This find is important, coalition officials say, because they believe they may have found a bomb-making cell. And that is important in Samarra because there have been many, many attacks against coalition troops there. In Tikrit today, there was a similar attack, as well as outbreaks of protests on the streets.</s>ROBERTSON (voice-over): Raising schoolbooks bearing Saddam Hussein's picture, children angrily denounce President Bush. The apparently organized protest in Adwar, where Hussein was captured. "He was our pride, he was our beloved leader," she screams. A few miles away on the outskirts of Hussein's hometown, Tikrit, police search for his hard-core supporters. This police officer, who doesn't want to be identified, telling me, since Hussein's capture, security has worsened, although he thinks it will improve with time. "Most in this town," he says, "opposed to Hussein's capture, and those who aren't remain quiet." In the center of Tikrit, plenty of people want to talk when we show up. "Saddam's capture is no good," says Nori (ph), the cigarette vendor. "What are the people celebrating for?" adds his friend Hussein (ph). "Celebrating their shame and occupation?" As we talk, helicopters circle, and U.S. tanks roll by. A massive show of U.S. force following violent demonstrations the day before.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's been some demonstrations. We're just trying to let the people know and reassure them that everything is fine and we're just out here to protect them and to help them establish the economy and get back on its feet.</s>ROBERTSON: Along with the U.S. troops, Iraqi soldiers from the Civil Defense Corps. "Saddam's relatives sold him," out says this soldier. "The demonstrations will do these people no good. Saddam Hussein's gone." Away from the crowds, and close to the patrolling troops, passerby, Abu Muhammad (ph), is brave enough to speak his mind. "In general, it's a good thing Saddam is gone," he says, "and my view is the same as everyone else's." (on camera): Even with shows of force like this, the dangers for U.S. troops here remain very real. Just hours before this patrol went out, three U.S. soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb, two of them seriously.</s>ROBERTSON: And commanders here say they are hoping -- they hope this raid in Samarra, just south of Tikrit, will be another piece in their information jigsaw, allowing them to reach out from these individuals to other people to begin to roll up more of these cells -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson in Tikrit. Now to winning the hearts and minds in Paris and Berlin. Hearts and minds and euros. The issue on the table, of course, debt relief for Iraq. To that end, James Baker met today with the French president, Jacques Chirac. The former secretary of state winning a commitment in principle from Mr. Chirac. He also apparently provided a welcome bit of diplomacy. Said one French observer, "He's a sign the adults are back in Washington, not the ayatollahs." From there, Mr. Baker traveled on to Germany, which is owed about $5 billion by Iraq. After meeting with Germany's prime minister, the German government also promised to help, but again registered its disagreement over the decision to lock French and German companies out of any contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq. Still to come on the program: the sniper trial. The jury gets the case in the trial of the accused teenage gunman. And then an over-the-counter morning after contraceptive gets one step closer to your drug store shelf. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.