[Unidentified Male:] Detail, attention.
[Colleen Mcedwards, Cnn Anchor:] A final ceremony; after months of nonstop work, the cleanup at the World Trade Center in New York comes to a finish. A symbolic end to the cleanup, but the beginning of a growing debate over what comes next
[Donald Rumsfeld, U.s. Def. Sect:] The United States has, as I say, a good relationship with each of those two countries. It has been a set of relationships that have been improving over time, I hope, and our efforts will be aimed to see that it continues to improve with each of those countries, and that they stand-down from the tensions that exist today.
[Mcedwards:] Rumsfeld's visit follows one by British Foreign Sect. Jack Straw. He met with Indian and Pakistani officials this week. In a show of his country's shifting priorities, Pakistan's president says he is considering withdrawing troops from the Afghan border, where they have been helping to track down al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
[Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani President:] I think all that I can do is to give my own assurance that we will try to avoid conflict. It will be my utmost endeavor to avoid conflict. And I have been saying that all along, that conflict will only take place here if it is initiated by India. We will not be the initiator. This is my guarantee.
[Mcedwards:] Gen. Musharraf made his comments during a news conference after signing a gas pipeline agreement with the leaders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Well, the attacks on New York last September killed more than 2,800 people, more than 1,700 victims have never been found. There were no speeches or sermons in the ceremony that marked the end of the recovery effort, but if it was short on words, it was long on symbolism. CNN's Brian Palmer was there.
[Brian Palmer, Cnn Correspondent:] The day began like any other, with New Yorkers making their way to work. A dense spring fog settled briefly over lower Manhattan. Emerging from the crowds, firefighters and police officers in dress uniforms, and thousands of ordinary people filing downtown, to mark the end of the World Trade Center recovery effort. Among the mourners and commuters, tourists, a crush of reporters, on- duty police officers, and other people who felt a need simply to be near Ground Zero on this day.
[Unidentified Male:] I came to simply be part of it, and as I said, heal myself, and attempt to heal all others.
[Unidentified Female:] It's part of our life now. We can't change it. We can't go back.
[Palmer:] The ceremony began at 10:29, the time the first tower imploded. Voices from the crowd, and the usual city sounds, suddenly stopped. At the head of the procession, a single stretcher, symbolizing those who died in the attack, followed by the last steel beam from the Trade Center. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani marched north with the current mayor and the governor. The ceremony itself was brief, under an hour. Family members filed out, some holding up photos of loved ones they lost in the attack. Others offering support to strangers. They leave as they came, solemnly, tearfully. Brian Palmer, CNN, New York.
[Mcedwards:] With the recover over, the debate over what to do with the 16 acre plot will pick up steam. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has been given until the end of June to come up with six options, which will be narrowed down to one by the end of the year. CNN's Maria Hinojosa has more.
[Maria Hinojosa, Cnn Correspondent:] We have seen this site transformed. It's been called Ground Zero, the site, the pile, the pit, and now a new phase begins.
[Louis Tomson, Lower Manhattan Dev. Corp:] Today is an opportunity to pay homage to the people who lost their lives here, and the survivors, and the rescuers, and also a chance to build a good thing.
[Hinojosa:] A good thing for a community that has been so badly wounded. The recovery has been slow, and neighborhood scars remain. And for the site itself, nearly 2 million tons of debris hauled away. [on camera]: So, when you look at this, and you think about possibilities, there is sadness, but there is also...
[Unidentified Male:] A lot of promise. A lot of hope. A lot of anticipation. This is going to be great, whoever does it, it's got to be done right. It's got to build that infrastructure back, so that from that, rises great architecture in a great part of the city.
[Hinojosa:] A part of the city so many are vested in.
[Unidentified Female:] It is important that affordable housing be considered.
[Unidentified Male:] Where is Chinatown in your proposed blueprint?
[Hinojosa:] There will be six forums so the public's voice can be heard, but in the end, how do you rebuild tastefully, respectfully, measuredly? And how does a new generation of Americans build a memorial? There is the Pearl Harbor, large and expansive, the Vietnam Memorial, covered with names, the 168 empty chairs of Oklahoma City. But no modern memorial of this scale for this new millennium.
[Paul Gold Berger, "new Yorker":] There is this sort of feeling, this belief, that the memorial is just a way to make the survivors feel better. And, in fact, while we all want them to feel better, the purpose of a memorial has to be to transcend that. It's also about the broader social mission of helping everyone feel a sense of awe and respect.
[Hinojosa:] And for Monica Liken, who lost her young husband, Michael, on September 11th, the only reason to rebuild anything on this site is for the memorial.
[Monica Liken:] I'd love to see the whole site be a memorial for the lives that were lost. I'd love to see that. But that's not reality. Reality is that we need to rebuild, and I would love to see it incorporate everything along with a memorial, that it reflect that we have a place to heal in the future, and a place to go.
[Hinojosa:] Maria Hinojosa, CNN, New York.
[Mcedwards:] And there are many families still holding out hope of identifying a lost ones remains. The coroners office in New York says the task of identifying nearly 20,000 body parts is going to continue for at least six months. Anything that can't be identified will be saved just in case improved DNA technology can be used for identification even years from now. But there are others who simply do not want to know. Here's CNN's Michael Okwu.
[Michael Okwu Cnn Correspondent:] For families who lost lives here, it is the site of a massacre. For some, it is also a final resting place.
[Anna Gertsberg, Mother Of Wtc Victim:] We came to this country to have a better life, and we did have it, for 22 years. It was a fairy tale, now it's reality.
[Okwu:] Russian immigrants Anna and Roman Gertsberg lost their only child, 25-year-old Marina. None of her remains have been identified. She arrived for work at Cantor Fitzgerald in Tower I early on 911. It was only her seventh day.
[Roman Gertsberg, Father Of Wtc Victim:] That day, she had to go to school, and that's the reason she was early. She is with us. She can hear us. She's just in a different state.
[A. Gertsberg:] We see her in dreams, and we talk to her, and we hug her. Usually, when a person has a dream, they want to wake up and say, you know, thank God it was a dream, but we have the opposite thing. We don't want to wake up.
[Okwu:] Every morning, for 91 days, retired firefighter Lee Ielpi woke up to search for his son, 29-year-old Jonathan, a firefighter with Rescue- 2. Ielpi continued to come, long after he lost hope that his son was alive.
[Lee Ielpi, Father Of Wtc Victim:] I helped out in a lot of situations where people were found. We didn't find them alive, but we found them. And when we found somebody, that made it easier for somebody out there. But I said I'm staying here until I find my son.
[Okwu:] He said searching for his son was agonizing, day after day, back when residents here said the air carried the scent of unsettled souls. To get through it, he talked to his dead son. [on camera]: What did you say to him?
[Ielpi:] That I missed him. I missed his 5 and 6 and 7 phone calls every day of the week. I miss him. I told him we're going to bring him home.
[Okwu:] On December 11th, he did. One of 289 intact bodies recovered. Without remains, the Gertsberg's hold on to remnants, photos of a life, young, developing, and still full of promise. A video of their joint 50th birthday party, watched here for the first time since 911.
[Marina Gertsberg, Wtc Victim:] But their lives have not been in vain, because I have turned out to be a great person, don't you guys think?
[R. Gertsberg:] I spoke with the general examiner's office, I speak with them very often. They have a lot of, you know, parts which still have to be DNA'ed and I still hope they will find something.
[Okwu:] But Anna now says she'd rather they not find anything at all.
[A. Gertsberg:] I have a story, that she vanished. She burned, and that's it. That's why they can't find the pieces nothing. But if they're going to find the pieces, it's means...
[R. Gertsberg:] She suffered.
[A. Gertsberg:] She suffered. And I don't want to I don't want her to suffer. She didn't deserve to die.
[Okwu:] Michael Okwu, CNN, New York.
[Mcedwards:] We have to take a short break here. When we come back, what the FBI is trying to do to prevent a repeat of September 11th. Stay with us. The FBI is changing the way it does business the day after announcing a major shift from chasing criminals to preventing terrorism. The Justice Dept. says the FBI will now have more authority to do the job.
[Kelly Arena, Cnn Correspondent:] The Justice Dept. is easing restrictions on domestic surveillance, giving FBI agents the freedom to monitor anything open to the public, including Internet sites, mosques and political organizations to look for terrorism clues, even if agents are not pursuing a criminal investigation.
[John Ashcroft, U.s. Attorney General:] Under the current guidelines, FBI investigators cannot, for example, surf the Web in the same way that you and I can, to look for information. Nor can FBI investigators simply walk into a public event or a public place to observe ongoing activities.
[Arena:] The old guidelines were put in place back in the 70's in reaction to the FBI keeping intelligence files on civil rights figures and anti-government protesters. The attorney general says those restrictions give terrorists an unfair advantage, but civil rights groups say the rule changes go too far.
[Unidentified Female:] People who go to places of worship, people who go to libraries, people who are in chat rooms, are going to have Big Brother listening in, even though there is no evidence that they're involved in anything illegal whatsoever.
[Arena:] What's more, critics contend the new powers could be easily abused. Ashcroft says the limits are clear.
[Ashcroft:] It's very simply stated, for the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities.
[Arena:] The changes, which do not require congressional approval, also give FBI field offices the authority to open terror investigations, undercover operations, and seek search warrants, without going to headquarters first.
[Robert Mueller, Fbi Director:] To free up our extremely talented law enforcement agents to aggressively investigate possible terrorist plots without unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles or hurdles.
[Arena:] The new guidelines are a part of a wholesale reorganization aimed at helping the bureau anticipate, not react to, acts of terrorism. And as one senior justice official put it, we will never return to the bad old days. Colleen, back to you.
[Mcedwards:] Kelly, thanks very much for that. For more now on these changes to the FBI and the possible clues it may have missed, we're joined by Michael Weisskopf. He's a senior correspondent for "Time" magazine. Michael, thanks so much for being here. Give us your analysis, if you would. I mean, what do these changes do to the FBI?
[Michael Weisskopf, "time":] Well, certainly Dir. Mueller has thrown more bodies at the problem of terrorism. He's shifted them, mostly from the narcotics division of the FBI. So it will have more people watching and working on this issue. Probably the most significant change, however, is bringing in CIA agents to aid in the intelligence work, in the analysis particularly. And this is where the FBI fell down on the job in the period leading up to 911.
[Mcedwards:] So does it sort of become like a domestic version of the CIA?
[Weisskopf:] It's intended to, in the sense that it looks for the same thing, and it, of course, does not operate overseas, as the CIA does. There will be no duplication of effort because of the boundary that separates the different functions.
[Mcedwards:] What about that hole that you just alluded to, the fact that some of these more run of the mill crimes, the bank heist, that kind of thing, might go unsolved and un-prosecuted.
[Weisskopf:] The thinking is that the Drug Enforcement Agency, which is another division of the Justice Dept., will pick up on the narcotics cases. And, in fact, the FBI has not been that successful in stopping drug smuggling and drug distribution in this country. The DEA has. As far as bank heists and even organized crime, the thinking is that local police will have to take over some of this responsibility, and will be given stronger powers.
[Mcedwards:] Is it possible to go too far on this issue of mandate; that this newly empowered FBI, an organization that has been accused of messing up in the past, essentially can't be trusted with that kind of power?
[Weisskopf:] You could come to that conclusion, but that wouldn't leave you with much alternative. Problems cry out for reform. Dir. Mueller has come up with some. It's all dependent upon the capabilities, I guess, of the agents. We've seen tremendous failures leading up to 911. Hopefully, that was a wakeup call.
[Mcedwards:] And you know a lot about the organization. You say a lot of it depends on how this is done, how it's implemented. Does it seem to be an organization that is ripe for this kind of change?
[Weisskopf:] Well, it's certainly ripe for this type of change. Whether it's right for this type of change is another question.
[Mcedwards:] Right.
[Weisskopf:] But the failures to synthesize, to bring together pieces of intelligence leading up to 911 was tragic, and terribly costly. Probably the most articulate critic has been this Coleen Rowley, who is an FBI agent in Minneapolis, and her view was partly that the agency is so hide-bound and conservative and operates in a climate of fear, that it really can't act creatively. I think Mueller is trying to change that culture.
[Mcedwards:] And has she got a point, because I've heard that same criticism, not from just her, but from others, that this isn't a structural issue. This is a cultural issue. This is an organization that doesn't seem to share well. There's some arrogance here, even. Is there something to that?
[Weisskopf:] That's true, and the other difference is that intelligence has been used not for itself so much, but as part of solving a crime, as opposed to CIA which is just generate intelligence for the sake of generate intelligence. And there's a difference. I think that will change. Also, this is an agency, the FBI, a bureau, which has undergone tremendous shock in recent years, failure after failure, ranging from harboring a soviet spy, like Hanssen, to McVeigh materials disappearing, and to Ruby Ridge and down the line. And so this has contributed to greater sense of fear and eventually mediocrity, perhaps in other bureaucracies in this town.
[Mcedwards:] Understood. Michael Weisskopf, thank you very much. Appreciate it. We're going to take another break here, and then one last look at Ground Zero, through the eyes of one man and his camera. Stay with us, it's amazing stuff. There were 343 New York firemen who lost their lives on September 11th, more than 10 percent of the victims that day. To say their surviving colleagues were protective of Ground Zero would be a major understatement.
[Gary Suson, Photographer:] I began chronicling the early days of Ground Zero in September, because artist can't go out to the hole and dig. Artist do what they do best. They contribute through their emotional talents. And so like any artist, I wanted to contribute. I just wanted to tell the story of 911, but at the same time, I was extremely upset. I was really I was very distraught. So I kind of buried myself in the camera. And it was a nice place to hide for a while, you know, to try and disappear. I've been shooting photography since age 13. Originally what I loved shooting were people. I loved capturing emotion in people. And I got down into that hole, it was like a hotbed of human emotion, pain, brotherhood, togetherness, and people working together with a common goal to bring people home. I respect the firemen more than they will ever know. Imagine going down there every day and raking through the mud and the dirt, looking for any sign of your loved one? It was a really cold night in January when I saw these two firemen digging. They were all alone, and I said to them aren't you going to go do dinner, and they said no, we're looking for our brother. A New York City firemen showed up at Ground Zero, and it just so happened that his son-in-law is a New York City police officer, and he approached his son-in-law and he said, "Are they making any recoveries today?" His son-in-law said, "Actually, I think we have your son." And he marched his son out along with son-in-law. It was a very emotional moment. What's great about these guys, the police and the firemen, is they never forget, they never forget where they are. And they are very gentle and sensitive to what they are doing. This firemen could have sat in the comfortable mud, but he made like a little La-Z-Boy recliner out of the different wires, and it captures to me the humbleness of the firemen. It was early morning, about 7:00 in the morning, and I saw Chief Ritchie standing on a ridge overlooking Ground Zero, and I knew that obviously he was looking for his son. The irony to this photograph is that three weeks after this photograph, they found his son, and they found his son directly underneath where he's standing in the photograph. A lot of the things that I saw down at Ground Zero took my breath away. They were symbolic things. A plug-in clock, which was stuck at 10:02 and 14 seconds, which is when the very first tower came down. It upset me. It was emotional to see it, because so much life stopped at 10:02 and 14 seconds. I was walking in the path controllers room. The room was completely destroyed. But there was a calendar on the floor, and it said today is Tuesday, September 11th. I saw a lot of things that I didn't that bothered me, and I was considering packing it in. So it was right around then that I found this Bible page in the rubble. And I took a picture of it. So the next day I got the proofs back and I just lost it, because the verse was Genesis 11, the tower of Babylon. I looked at the symbolism of the 11 and the tower, and I took that as a positive message and a positive sign that there's a higher power, God was watching down on both the people when they passed away and then the recovery. This is the honor guard. That's where the firemen is covered in a flag and marched out by their brothers from the fire department, and they allowed me to walk with them, so it was very special for me. When I saw the things down there, I would go home at night and I'd cry. A lot of the things that made me cry are in these images, and so I tried to shoot them in the most tasteful, respectful way. But I shot them in a way that got to my heart. And if it got to my heart, odds are it will get to other people's heart. If you can't connect you can't heal, so I am hoping that these images will serve that purpose.
[Mcedwards:] And that's INSIGHT. I'm Colleen McEdwards. END TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com