i will owe my office to no one but you. i don't owe anyone anything. i don't owe anyone anything. what's the worst that can happen? what's the worst thing that can happen? secrets of war, stunning new revelations of what happened in iraq, what the military really knew and the view from our own richard engel. campaign swing -- with ten days to go, the president on the road and fighting hard. tonight, why one of the most popular candidates running may still lose his race. after the quake -- ten months later. the new race against time in haiti. hitting home -- how the drug war next door is even closer than you think. and making a difference -- they say no one is giving during these hard times. tell that to this 5-year-old.

captions paid for by nbc-universal television good evening. it was just a little over 24 hours ago, we got our first glimpse at some of the thousands of secret iraq war documents released by the controversial website wikileaks. tonight a closer look at those pages, largely compiled from battlefield accounts is revealing a picture of the iraq war far more grim than what we were told. from a staggering civilian death toll to americans turning a blind eye to iraqi brutalities to iran's deep involvement in the conflict. they are stories that are rewriting much of the history of this war. in a moment, richard engel will tell us how it squares with what he saw on the ground, but let's begin with pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. jim, what's the pentagon's reaction? >> reporter: lester, pentagon officials have condemned the wikileaks release of military secrets.

nearly 400,000 reports from battlefield commanders on the front lines iraq, while much has been pretty much reported to some extent the massive leaks provides an even deeper look into the darkest side of the iraq war. the leaked documents cover the deadliest years of the iraq war and for the first time provide evidence iraqi civilians suffered the heaviest losses. the secret records show in all 109,000 iraqis were killed. but more than half, 66,000 were civilians, higher than previously disclosed. at a news conference today in london, wikileaks founder julian assange accused the u.s. of hiding the truth. >> iraq, as we can see, was a bloodbath on every corner. >> reporter: according to the documents, many died at the hands of the americans. 681 civilians were killed at u.s. military checkpoints alone. pentagon officials insist, however, u.s. military tactics

have improved. >> we have gotten better over the years at protecting ourselves while at ourselves while at the the same time protecting civilians approaching checkpoints, but we have not been perfect. >> reporter: it was also revealed that u.s. military knew that military forces were tortured detainees. it was reported up the chain of command. one document states an american soldier watched an iraqi officer strike a detainee with a baton and whip another detainee's feet and back with an electrical cable. the soldier reported the incident but the document shows there was no investigation. americans also obtained video showing iraqi soldiers and an officer executing a detainee. that incident was also reported, but nine days later, the case was closed. >> it is very good that this data has been collected. but it is wrong and unjustifiable that it has been kept secret for so long. >> reporter: perhaps more troubling in the long run, the

secret documents show that iran exerted more influence and had a bigger role in fomenting violence in iraq than first thought and is still flexing significant muscle in iraq today. >> the real irony here is that although the united states has overthrown saddam hussein and stabilized iraq to a certain degree, iranian influence has never been higher inside iraq. >> reporter: wikileaks say they released the stolen documents in the name of truth. >> there is a public right to know. >> but u.s. officials fear the details of u.s. military tactics contained in the documents will give the enemy a newfound advantage on the battlefield. >> they're looking for vulnerabilities, trying to exploit them in future attacks. that's why these documents are so dangerous to our forces. >> reporter: in addition, a document about those three american hikers taken into custody by iran indicates the three were clearly in iraq when grabbed but goes on to say the trio was warned in advance about traveling to that area, and they seemed intent on creating agitation and publicity. as for the overall leak,

pentagon and military officials don't expect any major fallout from these latest disclosures, but it's not over yet. wikileaks announced today it intends to release another 17,000 documents from the war in afghanistan sometime soon. lester? >> jim miklaszewski in washington. thanks. richard engel has covered the iraq war from the start. he's here in new york with us tonight. richard, do these reports jibe with what you saw in your years there? >> yes, they do. particularly during the worst years. you read these report, they're snapshots from the battlefield and describe some of the consistent problems that we saw with security contractors, with brutality by the iraqi security forces and american troops in the middle of it. the problem is they don't reflect what we were being told by the military at the time particularly before the surge, the military was saying that the situation on the ground was better than was being reported, that it was reporters who were exaggerating the problem. these documents show that the military knew full well how bad

the situation was and was telling itself and reporting it internally that there was a really serious situation in iraq. >> i know you spent the better part of the day going through as many documents as you could. did you get a sense as to how and why they were generated? >> every time a patrol goes out, soldiers gather information. if they go to a car bombing or an incident where civilians have been shot, they'll gather information, they'll talk to people on the scene and they'll write back a little cable to their commanding officers. these short messages about what they saw on the ground, their internal database, if you will, is just what just got leaked. >> richard engel, our senior foreign county, thanks. to politics now. with just ten days to go before the midterm elections, president obama has wrapped up an important western swing. tonight, he's heading back home after a last stop in minnesota. northbound's mike viqueira is on the road with the president tonight. mike, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, lester. another town, another rally, another big crowd for the

campaigner in chief. this time today here in minnesota as he wraps up a five state swing over the course of the last four days, his mission to fire up core constituency, many of those same groups that sent him to the oval office just two years ago, like young voters he had rallies on college campuses here, in washington state and in california. and with women, he had a backyard discussion in seattle on economic challenges that they face. all along the way, he was raising millions for democrats as he bashed republicans over and over again. another immediate goal, lester, to shore up senate democratic incumbents in blue states like patty murray and barbara boxer, and most importantly key ally harry reid. he had a fund-raiser last night for harry reid. there's more campaigning on the way for the campaigner in chief over the course of the next ten days. he'll go to ohio, illinois, connecticut and pennsylvania trying to close the deal with the voters or at least keep republicans from getting control of the senate.

a lot of democrats will privately tell you the house, pretty much at this point, lester is gone. >> mike viqueira, thank you. meanwhile in west virginia, a democrats has been called one of the most engaging and effective governors in the history of that state who many thought would be a slam-dunk in his race for u.s. senator. now finds himself in an extremely tight race, the reason is in a word -- obama. nbc's kelly o'donnell explains. >> reporter: the good news for governor joe manchin, he's more popular than almost every politician in the country. >> born and raised in farmington, west virginia, a coal mining town, i know the heart and soul of west virginia. >> reporter: but many of the same voters who praise manchin say they're ready to vote against him in a very tight senate race. >> i would love to see him be governor for life. >> reporter: is this election about your performance or the president's? >> it's not, right now -- you know it's not about my performance. >> reporter: at the first watch diner in charleston, voters

worry manchin as a democrat would support the president's agenda. >> my dad was a coal miner and my dad was a democrat. my grandfather was a coal miner, he was a democrat. if they knew i was going vote for some republican guys, they would probably roll over in their grave today. >> reporter: this race was never expected to be close. democrats have a long history of winning here, but being a democrat in west virginia is different than other places. voters say they're more conservative. republican senate candidate john raese built his whole campaign around linking manchin to president obama. >> will he go to washington and be a rubber stamp? i think west virginia thinks so and i know i think so. >> reporter: raese runs his fami family's mine and steel and media companies. he opposes the federal minimum wage and department of education. his fight against health care reform is popular here. >> i think it's unadulterated socialism. i think it's government control over our medical, over our health. i think it's totally unacceptable. >> reporter: his appeal, experts say, goes beyond this race. >> i think for those who are supporting him, it has more to do with sending a message to

washington that the current policies are not popular here. >> reporter: trying to move away from the president, manchin is opposing the cap and trade plan widely rejected in coal country. though he supports health care reform, manchin adopted the tea party label obamacare. >> i'll repeal the bad parts of obamacare. >> reporter: you call it obamacare. why? >> this is the president's health care. he fought to get health care. now, there's a lot of things he has overreached on that we don't in west virginia agree. >> reporter: for manchin to win, he needs voters to decide they like what he's done as governor more than they dislike what barack obama has done as president. kelly o'donnell, nbc news, charleston. for more perspective on all this, we're joined by david gregory, moderator of "meet the press." we just heard two different accounts of how the president is playing for and against members of his own party. how does he walk that tight rope? >> he goes to where he can actually help. and at this stage of the game, it's to go into states that he

won in 2008 or where he saw a high enough approval rating that he can turn out the democratic vote. those first time voters from 2008, younger voters, african-american, other minorities, women. so he'll go to california, nevada, with the hispanic vote very high and try to get voters concerned about change and republican rule. >> we saw sarah palin at an rnc rally in florida beating the drum against big government. she also cuts two ways for republicans but do they all benefit from the enthusiasm she's generating? we hear about the enthusiasm gap. >> i think there's no question about if. for conservatives, they're ready to send a message to washington, a message of opposition to democrats. sarah palin has gotten that group energized, gotten conservatives energized, got the tea parties energized. there's ups and there's down. the down part is there's christine o'donnell who sarah palin helped and now she's way behind in delaware and yet she's done more damage as frankly a poor candidate. she's also hurt the republican

brand and it's starting to infect the race in pennsylvania, helping the democrat there because there's some independent voters in that area who say, wait a minute, this is not the conservative movement that i want to be a part of. >> give us a status check in the final days. are there any signs this election may not follow the conventional script that many think it will of a big republican victory? >> well, there are some political advisers in the white house who argue that is the case, that there could be something of a split decision here. certainly they're focused on holding on to the senate. that's why you see the president going to where he's going. that firewall on the west coast -- california, nevada, washington state. they look at governors races like florida and ohio that are promising for democrats, perhaps california as well. and they'll look to democrats in congress who, though vulnerable, might be still fighting it out, doing okay in more conservative districts. these are, however, democrats trying to create distance between themselves and the democratic control of washington. >> all right, david gregory, thanks very much. the countdown to election

day will be the focus tomorrow morning on "meet the press" here on nbc. among david's guests, rnc chair michael steele. up next for us as we continue for this saturday, the war next door. what it is about one american city that makes it a major hub for mexican drug traffickers and the violence that follows them. later, random acts of kindness. who put thousands of dollars in a donation box at ground zero and then disappeared?

we are back now with a gruesome new development in the mexican war on drugs and the violence that goes with it. last night, 13 people were killed when gunmen attacked a 15-year-old's birthday party in the city of juarez, one of the world's deadliest places, just across the border from el paso, texas. authorities suspect the rampage was somehow connected to the ongoing turf war over drugs. tonight in his continuing series of reports about the war next door, nbc's mark potter has the story of an american city that finds itself under siege as a crossroads in this bloody drug trade. >> a few weeks ago, mexican authorities arrested la barbie, the reputed drug kingpin feared for his viciousness. right away officials in atlanta said they wanted the first crack at putting him on trial because atlanta is where la barbie is already charged with distributing tons of cocaine. >> it's possible there are more drugs that have come through gwinnett county in atlanta that ever came through miami during

the '80s, during the time of the miami vice era. >> reporter: drug agents say mexican cartels which are fighting a brutal war south of the border have now penetrated 270 u.s. cities. but it is atlanta that is their major smuggling hub with hundreds of mexican traffickers operating there. in this neighborhood near atlanta with well-kept homes and quiet street, u.s. drug agents make a shocking discovery. in a basement, a kidnapped drug dealer chanldz chained and beaten by members of a drug cartel. >> look around. a quiet tree-lined street, hard working people here going to work every day raising families, and next door you have members of the drug cartel torturing someone for not paying on a drug shipment. >> reporter: hardest hit is gwinnett county, northeast of atlanta. because of its large hispanic population, authorities say, mexican traffickers easily blend in. the reason the mexican traffickers are so atracked to

the atlanta area is the same reason many legitimate corporations are here. the web of interstate highways going in and out makes atlanta the southeast's most important transportation hub. mexicans smuggling drugs to the border truck their loads to atlanta for repackaging before driving them north to cities along the eastern seaboard. >> we'll see that load of drugs and tractor trailers arrive at the truck stop, be escorted typically to a warehouse, as you can see there's a sea of warehouses out there. >> reporter: authorities first realized they had a big problem nine years ago when a georgia state patrol car was rammed by mexican ugglers guarding a drug shixt. in this gwinnett county home, agents found a huge mexican methamphetamine lab. and down this dirt road hidden from the street they found another house with millions of dollars in mexican drug cash. but it's the soaring amount of mexican heroin and other drugs flooding the streets that has mary reiser, director of georgia's narcanon treatment

center fearing what she calls death by injection. >> there's a syringe instead of a gun but people are definitely dying at this end of the war on drugs by the mexican cartel. >> reporter: mexican traffickers now firmly entrenched across america, among unsuspecting neighbors. mark potter, nbc news, atlanta. there is much more of mark potter's extensive reporting of the war next door on our website nightly.msnbc.com. up next here tonight, a new health crisis is spreading in haiti and so are fears of a worst case scenario.

it has been an unusual day at one of america's most prestigious universities. police have arrested three men accused of creating a drug lab in a freshman dormitory at georgetown university in washington, d.c. police say the lab was set up to make a hallucinogenic drug. the bust happened after someone reported a strange odor. 300 students was evacuated from the dorm. ten months after port-au-prince was rocked by that massive and deadly earthquake, haiti tonight is experiencing another kind of aftershock. a widening cholera epidemic among quake survivors that has already claimed more than 200 lives. tonight inside crowded makeshift homeless camps, there's a race under way to prevent thousands of others from falling ill. it is a race against time. the government and international aid agencies are expanding efforts to contain an epidemic

that has already killed 208 people and sickened more than 2600. cholera is spread through contaminated food or water and is typically found in places where access to clean water is limited. >> the water they're drinking from the river is contaminated. >> most of the deaths have occurred in rural central haiti. nbc producer frank thorp visited a hospital there. >> there are mothers holding their children on the floor in the hospitals, people are sitting on chairs in the hallways, attached to iv drips. there just aren't enough beds in the hospitals here to hold the amount of people that have cholera. >> experts predict the number of cases will rise. the fear is that the disease may reach port-au-prince, haiti's capital. haiti is still struggling after the devastating earthquake in january killed 300,000 people and displaced over a million, many of them forced into makeshift camps. like those we visited while

covering the earthquake. an estimated 1.3 million people are still living in those camps. officials say the crowded conditions make people especially vulnerable to cholera and they're watching closely for any signs of the disease. and a quick program note, my colleague dr. nancy snyderman will be reporting from haiti starting tomorrow. when we come back, a little boy who just turned 5, but he's already making a difference. s

a new report released

earlier this week showed donations have dropped at america's biggest charities even as more people need more help in this difficult economy. tonight, we end our broadcast with a reminder that even in tough times a lot of people, including as you'll see a little boy, are still giving and making a difference. here's nbc's ron allen. >> reporter: at the ground zero visitors center, who in the crowd put $10,000 cash in the collection box and left without a trace? a donation to the new $300 million dollar 9/11 memorial set to open next year. >> i would love to say thank you to the person and it's a shot in the arm to everybody who is working on this project. >> reporter: it's also a big boost because fund-raising has been tough these days because of the economy. charities across the country report receiving less while people need more. fortunately, there are people trying to help. stephanie and shamari tillman know a lot about receiving and giving. they now own a graphics design business in kansas city, but it was just a few years ago, they

had hit hard times and had to move to a salvation army homeless shelter. >> it was the realization that, oh, my god, a week ago we got married and this is how we're getting ready to start our new life. >> it was very embarrassing. it was humiliating. it just made us feel low. >> reporter: slowly over the years, they got their life back on track and never forgot the people who helped. last month they pledged to give $25,000 to the salvation army over the next five years. >> when they pick you up at your most broken place, i think we will be forever loyal to them as an agency. >> reporter: magnus knusson felt that he was ready to celebrate his birthday. no gifts for him at the party he told his friends. >> i told my friends to make a small donation to the ronald mcdonald house. >> he raised $288. several acts of kindness during tough times -- one anonymous, one from a grateful family and one from a

small boy whose gift they said seemed as big as any other. ron allen, nbc news, new york. that's "nbc nightly news" for this saturday, i'm lester holt reporting from new york, i'll see you tomorrow morning on "today" and then right back here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening, i'm diane dwyer, in case you hadn't noticed, it's turning out to be a soggy weekend around the bay area. we're gng