Debian :: Perl Script - Converting Unicode To ASCII?

I'm trying to write a Perl script that will convert text to ASCII. I'm particularly interested in converting files created with MS Windows, so I used Notepad to create a few test files.

I have had some success with the following script:
[[ Script Deleted -- see subsequent posts ]]

After coming back /home/ to Debian, I used file to examine the file types:
$ file ansi.txt unicode_big-endian.txt unicode.txt utf8.txt
ansi.txt: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
unicode_big-endian.txt: Big-endian UTF-16 Unicode character data, with CRLF line terminators
unicode.txt: Little-endian UTF-16 Unicode character data, with CRLF, CR line terminators
utf8.txt: UTF-8 Unicode (with BOM) text, with CRLF line terminators

After running:
$ uni2ascii.pl -i ansi.txt -c ASCII -o new_ansi.txt
$ uni2ascii.pl -i unicode_big-endian.txt -c utf16 -o new_unicode_big-endian.txt
$ uni2ascii.pl -i unicode.txt -c utf16 -o new_unicode.txt
$ uni2ascii.pl -i utf8.txt -c utf8 -o new_utf8.txt

Everything appears good:
$ file new_ansi.txt new_unicode_big-endian.txt new_unicode.txt new_utf8.txt
new_ansi.txt: ASCII text
new_unicode_big-endian.txt: ASCII text
new_unicode.txt: ASCII text
new_utf8.txt:�ASCII text

But the "little-endian file" does not convert properly:
$ md5sum new_ansi.txt new_unicode_big-endian.txt new_unicode.txt new_utf8.txt
c4def7932bc151b9e786b6ca1299162c new_ansi.txt
c4def7932bc151b9e786b6ca1299162c new_unicode_big-endian.txt
5b62a013dced4f2c2c0af45ea6388c1e new_unicode.txt
c4def7932bc151b9e786b6ca1299162c new_utf8.txt

When I use cat to print the new_unicode.txt file in an Emacs terminal, a ^@ appears on the last (empty) line. When I open the new_unicode.txt with KWrite, a warning message tells me that the file is a "binary" and "saving it will result in a corrupt file."