John Allen Muhammad Found Guilty; U.S. Troops Conduct Military Offensive in Tikrit
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone. Among the things we will do together this week is remember. Forty years ago this week John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the country was changed. Forty years later most Americans continue to believe it is a mystery unsolved. Forty years later it will still light up the switchboard of radio call in shows as it did back in the days when I did that sort of program and often said, on those nights when the switchboard was dead, I was thinking about the Kennedy assassination. For whatever reason we still want to think about it, know about it and talk about it and this week we shall. But, as always, the other news of the day comes first and the whip comes before that and that starts in Virginia Beach with the sniper case, a verdict today in the trial of John Muhammad. CNN's Jeanne Meserve has been there from the start, Jeanne a headline.</s>JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the jury chooses guilt over innocence. Now they must choose between life and death. The defense says John Muhammad is a man worth saving. The prosecution says he deserves the very harshest penalty -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Jeanne, thank you. We'll get to you tonight at the top. Next to Iraq where it is looking like a war right down to the war correspondents. CNN's Walter Rodgers is there for us again, Walt a headline.</s>WALTER RODGERS, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The headline, Aaron, is the Army's calling it "a massive military offensive in Tikrit" Saddam Hussein's hometown, the objective bloodying the Iraqis the way they've recently made the Americans bleed -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Walter thank you. On to the Pentagon and the search for those giving the orders up to and including Saddam Hussein, our Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre with the watch tonight, Jamie a headline.</s>JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the things that the Pentagon is saying that among the targets in these raids in Tikrit is a key Saddam deputy who is believed to be orchestrating the attacks but what sources are telling me is that the ultimate target may be Saddam Hussein himself -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Jamie, thank you. And get used to it, Governor Schwarzenegger, CNN's Candy Crowley was there for the inauguration today, Candy the headline.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You took the words right out of my mouth, Aaron. It is a two word headline tonight out of Sacramento, Governor Schwarzenegger.</s>BROWN: Thank you very much, Candy, back to you and the rest shortly. Also tonight on NEWSNIGHT we'll talk with California Senator Barbara Boxer who is among the Democrats upset over the new energy bill they are just now getting a look at. We'll also mark the return to the airwaves of Rush Limbaugh after his stint in rehab for an addiction to painkillers. A bit later in Segment 7, some remarkable, remarkable photographs of President Kennedy, photographs that were feared lost in the destruction of the World Trade Center. And, fresh from a weekend on the farm, hum, the rooster returns along with morning papers, all that and more in the hour ahead. We begin a little more than a year and a month since the Washington, D.C. area slipped into a waking nightmare, no exaggeration there. For 20 days ordinary people getting shot and killed while going about their everyday lives. No rhyme, no reason. The shots came almost literally from out of the blue or a nightmare and when it ended ten people were dead, three more wounded, and two men in custody. Today came the first verdict. The next will decide a man's life. Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.</s>MESERVE (voice-over): If John Muhammad felt anything he showed nothing as the verdict was read, guilty on all four counts, including terrorism and capital murder each of which carries a possible death penalty. The sister of Hong Im Ballenger who was gunned down outside a Baton Rouge beauty supply store sobbed as the verdict was read. She made it clear afterwards what she thinks should happen next.</s>SWANG SZUSZKA, SISTER OF HONG BALLENGER: I'm glad they found him guilty and I'm still looking for death penalty for justice.</s>MESERVE: As the jury moved on to consider whether Muhammad should die or spend the rest of his life in prison, defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro acknowledged the obvious. "Your decision will put John Muhammad in a box of one sort of another. One is made of concrete and one is made of pine." Saying it is not necessary to extinguish one more life, Shapiro characterized Muhammad as "a man of worth and value" who had friends, admirers, and loving children. But, prosecutor Richard Conway said Muhammad was one of the "worst of the worst" saying: "He sits right in front of you without a shred of remorse." The first witness in the penalty phase Isa Nichols (ph) a former friend and business associate of Muhammad's whose niece was shot, prosecutors contend, after Nichols alienated Muhammad by giving support to his ex-wife Mildred.</s>MESERVE: When Mildred Muhammad regained custody of her children and moved with them to the Washington, D.C. area, Nichols refused to tell Muhammad where they were because "Mildred felt that he was going to destroy her." Mildred Muhammad is expected to take the stand tomorrow -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Where does the defense go? What does the defense show this jury that might save his life?</s>MESERVE: They're going to talk some about his childhood, a difficult childhood according to the opening statements they made here today in the penalty phase. They're also going to tap people who have liked and admired John Muhammad. They say they are out there that he has some people who are faithful friends to him still and they're going to talk about the kind of father he was. We already heard from a reverend who ran the mission out in Washington state where Muhammad stayed for a while with his three children. He nearly cried on the stand explaining what good care Muhammad took of them. We'll hear more from him and from others who will testify along the same lines -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Jeanne, thank you very much, Jeanne Meserve. Also later in the program we'll talk with Bob Tarver, a legal analyst, about where the defense goes, where the prosecution goes and how, if at all, this affects the other case, the Malvo case which is underway. On to other things now in this case the show of force in central Iraq. In a moment you'll see pictures of artillery firing in the night, rockets hitting buildings, flames shooting in the air. That much is perfectly clear to see. Less clear, though, what exactly is being hit whether the insurgents are in fact feeling any pain. Also hard to say, so far at least, is whether the message being sent is the right one or whether it's reaching the right ears. Reporting for us tonight CNN's Walt Rodgers.</s>RODGERS (voice-over): Punishing Iraqi insurgents for their increasingly deadly attacks on U.S. soldiers here, two more killed Monday, the 4th Infantry Division's big guns boom away around Tikrit. The U.S. military believes Tikrit to be a stronghold of Saddam Hussein loyalists and the anti-American resistance. These 155-millimeter shells are seeking out the hideouts of Iraqi paramilitary groups. Sometimes they just shoot at patches of ground from which the Iraqis previously fired mortars at U.S. forces.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We fired two so far. Both hit. We should be firing about nine more during the course of the night.</s>RODGERS: Only a reduction in the number of attacks on U.S. forces in the weeks ahead will determine the success of this offensive but its minimum goal is to keep the insurgents off balance.</s>COL. JAMES HICKEY, U.S. ARMY: This brigade and all the soldiers in and around in a defensive footing have been that way since June. We think we have a pretty good handle on the enemy in this area. We're noticing a definite trend that is getting weaker.</s>RODGERS: Still the American offensive in and around Tikrit has also raised the wrath of many Iraqi civilians. This young Iraqi said them more they treat us this way the more of us will join the resistance. Part of this operation was the destruction of four houses belonging to Iraqi families whom the U.S. Army said had husbands or sons involved in the shoot down of a U.S. helicopter November 7th. "They blamed my son. My son is innocent. I swear to God" this woman said. She claims someone is trying to settle an old score with her family and they told the Army her son was an insurgent. This Iraqi mocked the U.S. military offensive saying: "The Americans came promising freedom. Now look what they've done to us." On this Arab street the sentiment clearly favored the Americans leaving. Unstated, however, is the real possibility an Iraqi civil war would result if the Americans actually left.</s>RODGERS: Like it or not, U.S. forces now appear to be slipping into a classical guerrilla warfare situation and it's still an open question whether a conventional military exercise, the kind that's going on in Tikrit, can put the insurgents out of business -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: That was exactly the question I was going to ask. This is -- we stay away from Vietnam analogies here and we're mostly staying away from one here but in military history, recent military history, have these sort of conventional tactics ever worked against guerrilla or insurgent actions?</s>RODGERS: I've been trying to ask myself that question all day and I can't think of an example where helicopters and tanks and armor have put guerrillas out of business. Still, this is not Vietnam. A better analogy would be the Soviets in Afghanistan. What we're seeing here is the Americans, except when they go out on exercises like this, being confined behind concrete barricades in their bunkers, in their fortresses and not coming out. One other very discouraging sign we have seen the war that is the reach of the insurgents spreading. Remember the 19 Italians killed in Nasiriya last week. That's way outside the Sunni Triangle and then the Americans who died up in Mosul over the weekend well outside the Sunni Triangle. That was supposed to be a safe city -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: Walt, thank you, good to have you again, Walt Rodgers in Iraq tonight. Retired General Wesley Clark says the Bush administration is making the right choice in speeding up the handover of power to the Iraqi government. The Democratic presidential hopeful was talking to reporters over the weekend but he said the Iraqis will have a very tough go of it as long as Saddam Hussein stays on the lam. So far he has and so far, at least, toppling his statue has proven a whole lot easier than finding the man. Our Senior Pentagon Correspondent now, Jamie McIntyre.</s>MCINTYRE (voice-over): It is supposedly the voice of Saddam Hussein on a new audio tape aired over the weekend by Al-Arabiya Television but the CIA is not convinced the speaker exhorting Iraqis to fight the U.S. occupation is really Saddam. Its technical analysis is inconclusive. However, the U.S. is convinced the former Iraqi leader is alive and in Iraq and that neutralizing him would take much of the fight out of his sympathizers. Pentagon sources say the U.S. hopes to find Saddam by getting his top deputy, Izzak Ibrahim al-Douri, King of Clubs in the deck of the most wanted who is believed to be the brains behind the insurgents.</s>BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY: We are getting more intelligence which suggests that he was directly implicated in the killing of some coalition soldiers. Are we any closer? We're getting closer every day.</s>MCINTYRE: The stepped up raids against dozens of suspected guerrilla hideouts are not based on any new intelligence as to Saddam Hussein's whereabouts, sources say, but they are designed to develop new leads for the elite units hunting him down.</s>KIMMITT: Every day we continue to seek intelligence to find him. Every day we continue to work to go after him and that is daily business and we will not stop the hunt for Saddam Hussein.</s>MCINTYRE: And the Pentagon says it will not stop using helicopters as the main means of moving U.S. troops around Iraq despite the loss of 39 lives in five crashes since October 25th. But even before the latest deadly Black Hawk collision, the Army's acting secretary ordered a review to ensure the most effective defensive systems are on all U.S. helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan, adding a handwritten postscript "this is urgent."</s>MCINTYRE: That order came in response to congressional questions about why half the fleet of CH-47 helicopters didn't have the latest missile defenses. That half is now being upgraded with the newest version of flare and chaff dispensers and the Army had ordered that all the helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan be reviewed to see if they have the best protection available -- Aaron.</s>BROWN: I guess this begs the question why weren't they protected by the most sophisticated defensive measures that are available?</s>MCINTYRE: Well, they did have -- these CH-47s did have working pretty good systems for dispensing flares and chaff to divert missiles but a lot of these were used as -- were considered troop carrying helicopters that wouldn't necessarily be sent behind enemy lines. So they didn't have things, some things like armor under the seats in some cases or the latest version of the missile protection system but as is clear now there's no place in Iraq that can't be considered behind enemy lines and the Pentagon's got to think about these helicopters in a different way.</s>BROWN: Jamie, thank you, Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon tonight. Moving on now from questions of hardware and intelligence and the like to husbands and heartache and the knock on the door that comes in wartime. More than 400 times since this war began, too many times recently, for the families of the 101st Airborne. Their story tonight from CNN's Gary Tuchman.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Last week, Katrina Sullivan received two dozen roses from her husband serving in Iraq. This week she received two visitors at her door in military uniforms.</s>KATRINA SULLIVAN, WIFE OF BLACK HAWK VICTIM: I didn't want to answer the door because I pretty much knew what they were going to tell me.</s>TUCHMAN: Army Specialist John Sullivan was one of 17 soldiers killed in the crash of two Black Hawk helicopters in Iraq on Saturday all part of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The 26-year-old left behind a daughter and twin sons he never got a chance to hold. Gavin (ph) and Aden (ph) were born in September. Their father left for Iraq two months earlier.</s>SULLIVAN: He loved them so much even though he hadn't met them yet.</s>TUCHMAN: Private First Class Joey Whitener also just had a baby but as his wife Beth mourns his death she treasures the fact her husband came home from Iraq for an R&R; break and witnessed the birth of his son.</s>BETH WHITENER, WIFE OF BLACK HAWK VICTIM: I was so happy to see him and about a week, maybe a little over a week after he got home I had the baby and he was so happy.</s>TUCHMAN: With this loss of life this fort that straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee state line has now lost 52 soldiers in Iraq since March.</s>LT. COL. CJ BUCHE, FT. CAMPBELL: The 101st suffered a terrible loss the night of the 15th and it may be that we will suffer more losses before we all return to Fort Campbell.</s>SULLIVAN: To me he's just gone and it doesn't matter how. It just -- that's the only thing that I know that he's not here and he's not coming home.</s>TUCHMAN: There is much pride in the Fort Campbell community but there is also increasing sadness. Gary Tuchman CNN, Fort Campbell, Kentucky.</s>BROWN: Ahead on NEWSNIGHT, California has itself a new governor, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sworn in and takes action to repeal an unpopular tax in the Golden State. And popular radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh returns to the air after five weeks off for treatment for drug addiction, a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.