ariel castro's life ends in death. the man convicted of kidnapping and raping three women for a decade commits suicide in his prison cell. a teacher who admitted to raping a 14-year-old student who later killed herself. a judge suggested the young girl was partially to blame. why the case may not be closed after all. >> we begin with the question of a red line, who set it, crossed it? the politics of it and what that means as the united states weighs taking military action in syria. the red line is, of course, the use of chemical weapons, the united states is accusing syria of using against its own people two weeks ago.

the use violates convention signed by nearly 200 nations, syria not included. it's a point president obama made on a stop to sweden on the way to the g20 summit. >> i didn't set a red line. the world set a red line. the world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty preventing their use, even when countries are engaged in war. congress set a red line when it ratified that treaty. >> so the president says he didn't set a red line, that raised a lot of eyebrows because keeping them honest that sounds like exactly what he did when you listen to what he said in august of 2012. >> we have been very clear to the assad regime and also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start

seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. that would change my calculous and equation. >> democrats and republicans have said the president boxed himself in with that statement last year and many wondered if today hearing president obama saying it for the first time, during the debate on the capitol hill eric cantor said any president would draw that red line and john kerry tried to drive home the point it wasn't something the president just made up. >> now some have tried to suggest that the debate that we're having today is about this president's red line. this is about president obama's red line. let me make it as clear as i can to all of you, that is just not true. this is about the world's red line. it's about humanity's red line, a line that anyone with a

conscience should draw, and a line that was drawn nearly 100 years ago in 1925 when the chemical weapons convention was agreed on. >> the secretary kerry in front of the house foreign affairs committee where he and chuck hagel and joint chiefs chairman general martin dempsey faced tough questions today and that was set against a vote by the senate committee passing a resolution authorizing limited military action. jim sciutto has more. >> reporter: today the syria debate moved to the less friendly territory of the gop controlled house foreign affairs committee. some members saying administration wants to do too much, others too little. >> why does america always need to be the world's policemen? >> our enemies don't know what our foreign policy is. our friends don't know what it is, and i'm not so sure americans know what our foreign policy is in the middle east. >> reporter: secretary kerry was

forced even to confront the ghosts of the administration's last troubled middle eastern intervention in libya. >> the same administration that was seemingly so quick to involve the u.s. in syria now was reluctant to use the same resources at it's disposal to attempt to rescue the four brave americans that fought for their lives in benghazi. >> we're talking about people being killed by gas and you want to talk about benghazi -- >> i absolutely want to talk about benghazi. four americans lost their lives. i have sympathy for the people of syria and i think there would be a world wide response but we should act cautiously. >> reporter: the administration's stance remained the same, framing the confrontation with syria not as a personal test for the president but congress, the country, and the world. >> this is not about getting into syria's civil war. this is about enforcing the principle that people shouldn't be allowed to gas their citizens with impunity and if we don't vote to do this, assad will interpret from you that he is

free to go and do this any day he wants to. >> reporter: many remain skeptical a limited u.s. intervention won't bring the u.s. in a civil war or leave it allied with the islamist elements of the opposition. >> do you trust these people? >> that's not my business to trust anybody -- >> it has to be the business because you're making decisions to go into war and put american lives at risk. so it's a simple concept. you either trust or do not trust. >> jim sciutto is joining me live. the balancing act between too much action, too little, you get a sense of that from lawmakers today. >> no question. you have two vastly different and contradictory arguments and against military action. you heard from members whant the administration to do more. the limited strikes don't go far enough and should be changing the actual operation on the ground and you heard from those who want to do less, repeatedly getting secretary kerry to promise no boots on the ground and the u.s. won't end up strengthening al qaeda.

in effect the goldie locks proposition here, authorizing military actions that are not too hot, too cold, too aggressive or soft. that's why we are seeing such a parsing on the wording and difficult to get wording that will get the votes on both sides of that debate. >> jim sciutto, good reporting. welcome to cnn. good to have you on the show. up next my panel. david, let me start with you, you heard the president say he did not set a red line, the world did and his credibility is not on the line, the world's is. do you buy that? >> not really. i give the credit -- the president credit today for taking a high ground and trying to shame the rest of the world into taking action. he did that effectively. but when it comes to this argument about a red line, there is a real difference.

international treaties do say you cannot use chemical weapons, but if you then -- if you then violate those treaties, those treaties are silent about military action. in effect, what the world says is if you violate an international treaty you go to the u.n. an that's where you decide on military action. what the president did and why he got -- there -- why this red line business got him in trouble in the context of saying whether he'll use military action or not in syria he said if they cross this line, i will recalibrate my position. he sent a clear message if they cross this line, he would use military action. that's very different from the treaties. >> right. >> and put his credibility on the line and as commander in chief, put the credibility of the united states on the line, and that's really important not just in syria but iran. >> mr. speaker, the fact that congress said its own red line

in chemical weapons use, how do you respond to that? >> the treaty doesn't require military action. if you go back to the 1980s, saddam was regularly using poison gas against his own people and in the iran, iraq war. you go back a few years earlier, president yas nasser of egypt used poison gas in yemen. nobody said was that a moral case for us. start with the fact 100,000 people have been killed in syria. a lot of children have been killed in syria. this is pretty horrifying stuff, but is it stuff which justifies the united states engaging in, frankly, a limited confused strike against a dictatorship which is not going to be very effective by a limited strike -- >> so you would vote no. >> i would vote no but say if assad is still sitting there after the strikes, he'll be in position to say the united states didn't do much to effect me. i'm in charge and then what do we do? >> what about that? you see the president struggling

and two different paths here. >> i think newt highlighted the great danger which is where you have a limited strike of this nature, you almost yield the initiative to the other side. if they survive that strike, and if assad is able to continue to do what he's doing, maybe he doesn't use chemical weapons again, you haven't really won because you have inched your way in to the civil war. you have taken a side and you are not winning. the united states can't put its credibility on the line and then say that's it. we did our three days of strikes. after this what happens doesn't matter. especially not when the secretary of state has compared this to munich. the president has compared it to the holocaust in sweden. in order to sell this limited strike, they are using language that has so inflated the stakes and dramatized it you have to wonder up won't the action have to catch up with this.

>> let's talk about the language. secretary kerry said, i don't believe we are going to war. i just don't believe. that aren't we going to war? >> of course we are going to war. assuming this is several days of dozens and dozens of cruise missile strikes by any definition of the word you are going to war. on the other hand, he said this is your munich moment. this is your chance to stop aggression by using military action. so, you can't have it both ways in a sense. it's either so dramatic that we have to go to war to stop this naked aggression or flagrant violation of international order or a teeny military action that doesn't qualify as war. >> you were saying how ambivalent you are, deeply ambivalent. did you hear anything to change your mind one way or the other. >> no it muddied the waters even more. the language, i believe. one of the most striking lines the president used, we believe

very strongly with high confidence that in fact chemical weapons were used but that mr. assad was the source. i guess the factor is not a fact. either you know or don't know it. this idea of talking about what we believe, we have it with high confidence that maybe as much as they can give with the intelligence that they have. however, as the public receiving this it sounds squishy. on the back end of it, what assures us if you slap a tieger that you don't plan to kill it that will retreat and not advance. if you go in and attack assad and you do not take him out what assures us he will not retaliate. even if it is not in the next month sometime in the future. >> do you have confidence that this administration has thought out what happens on day two, what happens on day three and beyond? we got involved in iraq and there hadn't been any plan considered the idea of there

being an insurgency. are you worried about a long-term plan? >> i think you always have to worry. you don't know what the iranians will do to defend and protect assad which has become in many ways their principal ally and you don't know what assad may end up doing. once the united states engages, you have a real obligation to win decisively or you look even weaker and dumber. i'm very dubious -- secretary hagel today, if i read it correctly, said at one point, oh, we can do this for tens of millions of dollars. well, each tomahawk costs a million dollars. is he talking 20, 30 of them? this is equivalent of sending a tweet by tomahawk. this is symbolic action in a way that is goofy and you see it in language. this is an act of war. for secretary to kerry to say i don't see us getting in to a war as he prepares to fire missiles

at a sovereign country is misleading language, firing those missiles is an act of war against a solven country. >> david gergen, there are only three republicans in the senate foreign relations committee that voted yes on the juarez luciwa . that can't be that encouraging? >> you have to give the president a victory out of the senate foreign relations committee. it could have been defeated in committee. instead it came out with 1 a-7. start with that proposition. but what is interesting if you project on the house and senate votes what happened in senate foreign relations, if you have republicans voting the same way proportionately and the democrats voting the same way the president would get a slim majority in each chamber, but interestingly he would fall short in the senate of 60. so we all assume his worst chances are in the house but based on today's vote he has a

climb to make in the senate to get to 60. >> you agree this is war? >> oh, i absolutely agree it is war. i -- the speaker said, let's talk about the tomahawk missiles. we should be very clear about what's going to happen. we keep talking about there won't be boots on the ground, but this will not just be missiles launched from ships. there are aircraft carriers in the red sea for a reason because you have to do some of the work with pilots in planes over syria. this cannot be a0 come published by drones. drones do not have the capability of doing air-to-air combat. the syrian military has some air defenses some they can fire surface to air. you can not do it with drones. you have to put american bodies above syrian air space. that holds a risk that some of them can be be shot down. that is a real thing. so no boots on the ground is not the truth. >> do you agree there has to be

in the world a red line with chemical weapons. some people say 100,000 people have died, children have been tortured to death. horrible things occurred here. is the use of chemical weapons a red line which the nations of the world cannot tolerate? >> it's a terrible thing. assad is incredibly brutal. but he has killed about 100,000 people have died throughout the causes, 1400 have died because of chemical weapons. in a strange way the chemical weapon con venge is a throw back to a time when conventional weapons couldn't kill that many people. now using bombs you can kill two or three times as many people as these chemical agents can. of course it is a terrible thing. i think if you look at the history -- it was included as a weapons of mass destruction really after the gulf war when we wanted to put saddam hussein in a bok. we wanted to make sure he wasn't doing anything bad.

we said you can't booild build nuclear weapons, biological or chemical weapons and then we kept anymore the box and emphasized chemical weapons. i think that, yes, of course you don't want these weapons used but the impulse behind it which is that you could kill a lot of people is actually no longer true. conventional war kills many more people. >> you already see mission creep. >> i see mission creep brauz because of the rhetoric. when mccain says he will support the resolution because he's been given private assurances this is not a limited strike, not symbolic, much bigger. there's to going to be more arms given to the opposition, an opposition that has not been given arms because the opposition hasn't been able to find the moderates. this suggests now we will relax the saturdays as to what qualifies for weapons and training. >> all of a sudden, john kerry yesterday the or the day before that, he said there are more

than we were thinking >> when the chairman of the joints chief, a week earlier said reaction can't find a lot of moderates. >> we have to leave it there. gentlemen, thank you. let us know what you think. follow me at twitte twitter @andersoncooper. a lot more to talk about. the mass destruction claims that led to the iraq war that turned out to be false. will that legacy affect president obama's chances of getting it passed through congress. i will speak to paul wolfowitz who is involved in president obama's policy en. ariel castro committing suicide in prison according to authorities. he was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison. he couldn't take a small portion of what he himself dished out. the interview with the castro family coming up.

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they want to be sure it is different this time. they want to be sure there are no holes in the intelligence about syria's use of chemical weapons. they don't want another iraq, they say. here's what secretary of state john kerry said in a house committee hearing today. >> i remember iraq. secretary hagel, who will soon be here, and general dempsey, also remember it, very well. secretary hagel and i both voted in the united states senate. so both of us are especially sensitive to never again asking any member of congress to vote on faulty intelligence. >> deputy secretary of defense under george w. bush paul wolfowitz was a major influence on the iraq policy in 2003. he was on capitol hill talking about plans for the u.s. invasion. paul wolfowitz is joining me now live. thank you for being here. there's disagreement on what the

objective is or should be. in your view, should it be to degrade and deter assad from using chemical weapons again, or do you think it should go further? >> there is a much larger issue here which is our theory of policy. we have been sitting on our hands doing nothing as assad slaughters his people over and over again, more than 100,000 syrians and now has taken it a step further with chemical weapons in a horrific way an i think it is doing nor mous mouse damage to american interests. i agree there's a parade of possible things that can go wrong and i don't want to pile on. i think the president has handled things very badly and we're in a bad situation because of that. the fact is, doing nothing has big consequences as well and i think they are bigger and one has to consider, too -- i wish the president hadn't thrown this in the lap of congress. it is looking for help for his own lack of leadership. but the fact is if the congress turns down the president now it is not only a blow to president

obama. i think it is a blow to the presidency, a blow to american credibility in an important part of the world. i am very much with those people who say to make this is a serious response it has to be more than blowing up some targets in syria. the focus should be on helping syrians. i haven't been there. people like senator mccain say there are syrians who can use our help and we are not letting them have gas masks. i think that has to change. >> you are concerned about the aftermath. your critics will say the same thing about the second iraq war, how do you respond to that? do you feel this administration has thought out steps two three and four? >> no, i don't. look, there was plenty of planning. there wasn't -- no one was predicting the kind of insurgency or al qaeda and the planning wasn't good and it took a long time to get

counterinsurgency strategy in place. that's a fact. i think in the case of syria we are looking at a situation that is more like what we had in iraq at the end of the first gulf war in 1991 when saddam slaughtered possibly 100,000, 200,000 shia with our planes flying overhead. we did nothing to help those people and the result was he suppressed that rebellion, remained in power another 12 years. the country was crippled, in some ways destroyed by sanctions and his misrule. >> you advocated of going after saddam then, right? >> not going after saddam. i advocated supporting the shia rebel ons. i they could have succeeded and saddam would have been taken care of by his own people. >> is chemical weapons a red line that the world cannot tolerate a regime crossing? >> i think 100,000 people being slaughtered and doing nothing is a red line. >> let me be clear -- >> it is important, anderson.

the critical difference is not about intelligence. it's about the fact we are not talking about actions that involve major risk to american lives. the people risking their lives are syrians and a lot of them have interests and values i believe. i don't know them. i'm taking this on the word of people who have been there. interesting and values common with ours. in that case -- it was once called the reagan doctrine to arm people fight your side so your people don't have to end up fighting. i think it is a sound, strategic and moral principal. >> fareed was saying his red line would have been the use of syria's air force against its own people. would that, for you, have been something that should have been responded to? >> yes, i believe so. but again, let me emphasize, i think the most important response is enabling the syrians to fight for themselves and more effectively. let me say something else. there's a distinct lack of

strategy here. to the extent there is a strategy it seems to be aimed at trying to find a peaceful resolution of this. i'm all for a peaceful resolution. i'm not sure it is impossible to get one. i'm sure it is impossible to get one until assad and the people around him realize that they are on the way out. then maybe you can get some negotiating going. so we need some real leverage. the leverage isn't going to come from a few days of missile strikes. it is going to come from much stronger syrian opposition. that has to be the key to the strategy. >> we heard skeptical members of congress saying the american public are war weary. do you understand -- >> absolutely. >> a lot of them say because of the second iraq war. >> we are war weary after the korean war. that didn't stop us from under taking things we needed to do later. i think the president should have been doing a better job for the last couple of years explaining to the american people, number one, that we have serious interests in syria, both

national interests and i think correctly moral interests and explaining our goal here is not to send more americans to die. we have had enough of that for as long as possible. the goal is to enable syrians to fight for their country so we aren't stuck with a problem later on. i think americans understand some of that reasoning, but it hasn't been presented to them by this administration. >> appreciate your time. thank you. >> up next, the prosecutor cut a deal with ariel castro to spare him the penalty and calls his suicide the coward's way out. his brother in law speaks out in an interview with our martin savidge. a teacher that raped his 14-year-old student may not get off easy after all. montana's attorney general is taking action. i am today by luck.

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welcome back. crime and punishment tonight, the prosecutor put ariel castro behind bars is calling it the coward's way out. the kidnapper and rapist killed himself according to authorities. he was found hanging in his prison cell a month after his sentence. the coroner ruled it a suicide. the crimes are so heinous, it is beyond understanding. he plead pd guilty to 900 counts. at his sentencing the judge said there was no place in the world for his brand of criminal. the women he held captive for a decade are not expected to make any statements about his suicide. according to one of their lawyers. one of castro's relatives is talking in an interview with martin savidge. >> at one point, prosecutors tlented the death penalty against castro. in the end, he delivered it to himself. ohio corrections officials

report castro committed suicide hanging himself in the prison cell. they found him 9:20 p.m. on tuesday. the question from many is how could it happen? castro was separated from the prisonen population and supposedly under pro-ektective custody checked every half hour. castro's family is shocked. they don't have suspicions but do have questions. >> the family has raised that question. it doesn't feel right. there's no note. we don't know that he wrote a suicide note. >> reporter: authorities aren't giving details an an investigation is underway. castro's mother and sister last visited him ten days ago and noticed a worrying change. the clear signs of depression. >> his body language, tone of voice, his conversation, he wasn't as conversational. >> reporter: a missed warning,

perhaps. good riddance say most on the street and on-line. their words summed up in the prosecutor. this man couldn't take even for a month a small portion of what he dished out for more than a decade. castro's family gets it. listen to his brother in law as he verbally walks a painful tight rope between justice and the family's love for the man they knew long ago. >> the world in general feels that they are rid of a monster. but to the family -- he family has lost a son, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a brother in law. and even though he did all of these bad things, and the family does not condone that, you can not change human behavior.

they will and must grieve the loss of their loved one. >> reporter: but they will do it privately. no funeral, no wake, no service. not wanting in any way to revive the suffering of his victims. gina dejesus, amanda berry and michelle knight. >> hope history remembers their names and not the name of that awful man. martin savidge is joining us live from cleveland. is there an investigation from cleveland how this man was apparently able to kill himself. >> apparently there are two investigations. one conducted by the ohio state highway patrol, and independent of that there is the department of corrections that has launched its own investigation. both are expected to take weeks. >> we are not expecting to hear anything from amanda berry or michelle knight or gina dejesus, right? >> we haven't heard it yet. we know they heard the news right away. their attorneys have not issued any statements. the girls have not publicly said

anything either. >> where are you located? are you at the former location of the house? >> yeah. i'm glad you asked. this was ariel castro's front yard. the house of horrors stood here. it was demolished and this is what was built in its place, a community park. it's now referred to as kind of a -- instead of the house of horrors, a place of hope. >> thank you very much. let's get caught up on the other stories we are following i'm shah is here with the 360 news bulletin. a 17-year-old stient was stabbed to death in a fight and three other students injured in houston. the school was put on lockdown leaving parents pran tick. the 17-year-old boy is considered the sole suspect. a custody battle over a little girl named veronica. the governor signed an extradition order for her father justin brown.

he faces custodial interconvenience in south carolina this is after the oklahoma supreme court issued an emergency stay giving brown temporary custody of veronica. george zimmerman's latest traffic stop caught on video. florida police said he was doing 60 in a 40 mile an hour zone and given a $256 ticket. in july after his acquittal in the trayvon martin killing he was stopped for speeding but let off with a warning. a second time this weekend eastern japan was slammed with tornados. the twisters damaged dozens of houses ripping off roofs and shattering windows. three people were injured. terrifying pictures there. >> thank you very much. the new fight for justice for a young rape victim in montana that ended up killing herself. he got just 30 days in jail what the top prosecutor is trying to do again. and flag raised on zero on

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welcome back, another crime and punishment report now. for more than a week outrage has been building over the light sentence given to a former teacher in montana admitting to raping his 14-year-old student. the judge that imposed the sentence made outrageous remarks about the young victim. the attorney general stepped in and took action. randi kaye joins me and jeffrey toobin. remind the viewers who happened. >> this case goes back to 2007 when montana teacher, stacey rambold raped shareece morlaes. he was charged with sexual intercourse without consent but before the case could go to trial, cherice morzlez took her life. prosecutors were concerned about

trying rambold without the star witness so offered him a deal if he admitted to a rape charge, complete add sex offender program and had no unsupervised contact with minors but he failed the treatment program, so the felony charges were refiled against him. last week, he was sentenced in the case, and the judge only sentenced him to 15 years with all but 31 days suspended. he got only a month, anderson, for admitting to raping a 14-year-old girl. that brings us to today when montana state prosecutors appeal the case calling the sentence quote illegal. the judge said he was never made aware of any mandatory minimum sentence of two years. >> this boggles my mind. how a judge could sentence this guy to 30 days. yesterday, he filed a report saying that his ruling may have been illegal but he basically blamed the prosecutor saying they didn't inform him about this mandatory minimum. >> the judge, i think the key fact to know about him is he is

up for re-election and he sees the public's reaction. i think you have to put it in context with how a lot of people unfortunately view rape in this country. you know, remember in the senate campaigns in indiana and missouri. >> right. >> you had people talking about it's not real rape. the idea that a 14-year-old is capable of consent to rape, to sex. that is an idea that a lot of people have in this country. >> the judge still has this idea. >> the judge had the idea. >> he said she was chronologically 14 but older in other ways. how is he peering in to the soul of this girl who's dead. >> who was by that point dead. it is bad enough that you would say that about any 14-year-old but one who had taken her own life as a result. i think it is indicative of how a lot of attitudes about rape have changed in this country but a lot have not. fortunately, this judge is

really being called on. >> randi, there's been strong reaction to this, protests, there is a lot of uproar over the case. >> absolutely. the judge may have brought it on himself. beyond his ruling. remember, in trying to explain himself, the judge tried to suggest that the 14-year-old girl, the victim was in charge of the situation and seemed beyond her chronological age, as you said. there was a media backlash. the protest took place all over montana and he apologized saying he regretted the commenting saying he didn't know what he was thinking or saying and calling it stupid and wrong and people are still calling for him to step down. >> how likely is it can get reversed. >> i think it is likely. remember, he did sentence him to 15 years although he suspended all but 30 days of it. it is possible to sentence him to more time. the prosecutors have come back today and said we want 20 years. the mandatory minimum, apparently, is two years. so somewhere between two and 15

years does seem very likely at this point. >> jeff, appreciate the update. up next a mystery connected to the immediate aftermath of 9/11 having to do with the american flag raised over the rubble of ground zero and now seen in the famous photograph. i will explain a mystery about where the flag is now just ahead. [ male announcer ] this is claira.

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welcome back. as the u.s. debates involvement in syria. tonight, immediately following this program, cnn presents the flag. it explores the mysteries

surrounding the american flag raised over the rubble of ground zero on that horrible day. a mystery most of us were not aware of. you may recall the iconic picture of firefighters lifting the flag. the flag was a proud reassuring symbol to the nation. or so it was believed. as tonight's documentary explains that flalg flag is actually missing. here's a preview. ♪ >> my goodness. that was quite a picture. >> do you remember the first time you saw that? >> i do. i probably saw it -- somebody probably showed this to me sometime on the 11th or 12th before it was in the paper, whoever actually thought of taking it at exactly that time were the firefighters in doing it performed a tremendous service to the country.

>> tom's photo comes in and we huddled around the computer and he brings up this photo. >> and that popped out because of the flag. everything had this grayish blue tent to it and there you saw the red, white and blue. >> and i sat there and i said, that's an incredible picture and daniel was standing behind me and she said, that's not a picture, it's an icon. >> about a year after 9/11, they asked for the flag back for a little ceremony on their boat the fdny and the city complied. they gave it to them. >> we knew right away it was the wrong flag. >> this is another flag that somehow became substituted for the original flag. where is the original flag? and they went back to the mayor's office. >> but the city never called, they never did anything. and they don't seem to care that are very happy to make it sound like the flag is here, and it's this big flag, and this is the flag, and that big flag has everybody's signature on it. so they are quite happy to say this is the flag and leave it

alone like that. >> to this day, no one knows what happened to that flag. >> my name is bill isengrin. i'm the firefighter on the right. on the left is george johnson and in the center dan mcwilliams. it was over in a few minutes. we found a spot, raised the flag. we looked at each other, looked at the flag and that was that. it was no big deal and i'm sure danny and george feel the same way. we just felt that we had other things that needed to be accomplished right then. you know, we were thousands of missing people that was our mission to try to find them and bring them home. dealing with the picture on the front of the paper really didn't matter at that point. >> it makes us all feel united. it makes us feel like we're bigger than just ourselves. >> it's not until we're challenged that we reach back at

what makes us americans and what that is and what the symbol is is the flag. >> as you see there, it says the flag is still missing. cnn received credible tips on what may have happened to it. jason carroll is here with that part of the story. i understand a dozen tips have come in. >> absolutely. speaking with the film maker saying a dozen coming in as we speak. they call them credible because many have in fact, led them to a flag, a flag at ground zero, just not the flag. >> and it's interesting, the people whose flag it was originally, they had a yacht, i guess, parked nearby ground zero and the firefighters grabbed the flag off that yacht and that's how they knew once it was returned to the yacht owners, wait, this flag doesn't fit. >> here is what is interesting.

shirley dreyfus and her husband, the original owners of this particular flag, they are basically the only ones who can tell what that flag looks like. there's some undisclosed mark. they are not revealing what that is. once they are able to get a flag in their hands through whatever means possible, that couple will then take a look at that flag and they will be the ones to make the determination. >> they are the only ones that can figure it out. >> they are the only ones. >> wow. when i heard about this documentary i had no idea about this missing flag. i'm wondering how some people may see the documentary -- and i haven't seen it yet. i guess there is a concern that it could miss the point. by focusing on the flag you miss the larger loss, the larger horror of the day. >> like you and most people did not know the flag was missing and there is a concern that when you talk about what is missing.

some people's loved ones were never found. i think that is a legitimate question. he recognizes that as well. their hope is that not only will people think of the flag that is missing but remember what the flag stood for during that critical moment in our history. hopefully this will remind them and hopefully this will be a way that people will not forget. >> i want to see. this the "new york times" gave it a great review in the paper and raised the same point, the idea that if they only focused on the flag it would have missed the larger point but there is so much more in this. >> when you look at this documentary -- i watched it last night for the first time. actually watched it more than once. >> how did you get a recording and i don't? >> i will send you a copy. for some of us who were here, you were here an i was here, it is easy to to forget and there are images to remind you of what

happened on that day. that what is striking about the documentary is not only does it go in to the search for the flag or people who think they may have it or think they may have come in contact with it. it is just about the feeling and mood of the country during that time. the first responders who were down there, how they put their lives on the line. the photographers down there during that period of time. all of that is part of this documentary, as well. >> thank you very much. look forward to it. there is a pursuit we all share. a better life for your family,

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welcome back. we ran out of time for "the ridiculist." sorry about that. that does it for us. appreciate you watching, up next the movie we were talking about, the flag, one of the great untold stories of the september untold stories of the september 11th attacks. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> one, two. >> there you go. >> let's go. >> all the brothers stepped up. got donations. put it together. it was just supposed to be for 2002 to show new york city what 343 firefighters looked like and it turned into a tradition now of the new york city fire department.