The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I`m Judy Woodruff.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Thursday; then, the showdown between Islamic militants and government forces in Pakistan; an encore report about grounding airline pilots when they turn 60; a look at the changing roles for women on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a conversation with editorial cartoonist Walter Handelsman about his vanishing art.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The number-two leader of al-Qaida tried to rally support for his terror network today. Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared in a lengthy video released on the Internet. He made a staunch defense of the Islamic State of Iraq, the insurgent group headed by al-Qaida, against its Islamic militant critics. And he outlined plans for the future, calling on Muslims to unite and prepare for the next holy war.

AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI, Al-Qaida Number-Two Leader (through translator): As for the second half of the long-term plan, it consists of hurrying to the fields of jihad, like Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, for jihadi preparation and training. Thus, it is a must to hurry to the fields of jihad for two reasons: The first is to defeat the enemies of the Muslim community and repel the Zionist crusade; and the second is for jihadi preparation and training to prepare for the next stage of the jihad.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In Washington today, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the U.S. would continue to fight terror everywhere, including in Iraq.

SCOTT STANZEL, White House Spokesman: It`s just yet another reminder of their determination. They see Iraq as a central front in the war on terror. They would see precipitous withdrawal by the United States as a victory for them. The president made comments yesterday and believes it`s very important that we stay on the offense against these people.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In Iraq today, a car bomb in Baghdad killed 17 Iraqis outside a photographers` shop in a Shiite part of the city.

And two American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad.

Another NATO soldier died in Afghanistan today. It happened when a convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in the eastern part of the country. No nationality was given, but most of the troops there are American. To the south, 10 policemen at a checkpoint were killed when a suicide bomber set off his explosives in their lunchroom.

In Pakistan, a loud explosion and sustained gunfire rang out near a besieged mosque today. At least 19 people have been killed at Islamabad`s Red Mosque since Tuesday in a stand-off with Pakistani security forces. Some of the militant Islamic students in the mosque surrendered today, but hundreds more stayed holed up inside.

Pakistan`s deputy information minister called on them to surrender immediately.

TARIQ AZIM, Deputy Information Minister, Pakistan: Enough time has already been wasted trying to persuade them, although it`s been our policy that this matter should be resolved amicably through dialogue, but unfortunately this did not bring the required results, so there will be no more dialogue. It has to be an absolutely total surrender, unconditional, total surrender.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The mosque`s cleric was arrested last night as he tried to escape wearing a woman`s burqa. We`ll have more on this story right after the news summary.

Israeli troops moved into Gaza today and killed 11 Hamas militants. The fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip drew in Israeli aircraft, tanks and bulldozers. It is the fifth time since mid-June when Hamas took control of Gaza that Israel has moved into the area.

In Scotland today, police searched a house for evidence in the terror plots in London and Glasgow. British news media widely reported that the house near the Glasgow airport was used by two suspects as a bomb-making factory.

Also today, community leaders in Glasgow appealed for calm. There have been almost 40 racially motivated crimes there since the airport attack.

The Bush administration made a renewed defense of the president`s use of clemency today. On Monday, Mr. Bush commuted Lewis "Scooter" Libby`s prison sentence in the CIA leak case. On the campaign trail, both Senator Clinton and former President Clinton criticized the move. Today, White House press secretary Tony Snow responded to them, saying, "I don`t know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it." In the waning hours of the Clinton presidency, 140 people were pardoned.

The son of former Vice President Gore faced felony drug possession charges today. Al Gore III was arrested yesterday in California. Sheriff`s deputies said they found marijuana and prescription drugs inside his car. He had been pulled over for speeding. Today, Vice President Gore told NBC that it was a private matter and said he is glad his son is getting treatment.

In the western United States, a heat wave touched off warnings today. Temperatures topped 100 degrees from Washington State along the coast to California and inland to Nevada. In Las Vegas, the high today was 116 degrees, and Californians were asked to conserve energy to avoid brownouts.

Russia won its bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympic games. Last night, the Black Sea resort town of Sochi was awarded Russia`s first Olympics since Moscow in 1980. Crowds celebrated a narrow victory over South Korea. Russian President Putin lobbied heavily for the games and pledged $12 billion for their construction.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 11 points to close below 13,566. The Nasdaq rose more than 11 points to close at 2,656.

That`s it for the news summary tonight. Now: the standoff at the Pakistan mosque; pilots over the age of 60; women on the front lines; and the disappearing art of editorial cartoons.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: An embattled mosque, an embattled president in Pakistan. Ray Suarez has that story.

RAY SUAREZ: Sporadic explosions and gunfire pierced the pre-dawn darkness near the Red Mosque in the heart of Pakistan`s capital, Islamabad. The mosque, long a bastion for Islamic militants, is now surrounded by Pakistani security forces.

Police used loudspeakers to urge hundreds of students holed up inside to surrender. Over the past three days, hundreds of Pakistani troops have tightened their grip around the mosque and its adjoining religious schools. It`s the strongest attempt to end months of efforts by student militants who were going out in the streets to impose a Taliban-style version of Islamic law in the capital city.

The worst violence erupted Tuesday, with clashes between security forces and armed students. Ten people were killed; scores more were injured; and another six are reported dead today.

The confrontation around the mosque in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation is just the latest political challenge to Pakistan`s president, General Pervez Musharraf. He already faces emboldened militants near the Afghan border and a pro-democracy movement triggered by his suspension of the country`s chief justice.

On Wednesday, the government ordered the Red Mosque militants to lay down their arms and surrender. Hundreds, mainly male and female students from the mosque`s madrassas or religious schools, obeyed the call. Yesterday, the Red Mosque`s top cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, was captured while trying to escape wearing a woman`s burqa. During an interview broadcast on state television, Aziz had this message for those still inside the mosque.

MAULANA ABDUL AZIZ, Head Cleric, Red Mosque (through translator): If they can get out quietly they should go, or they can surrender if they want to.

RAY SUAREZ: Authorities have imposed a curfew and cut off power to the area around the Red Mosque. It`s just a few blocks from Islamabad`s main government buildings. Pakistani officials said they`re holding back from storming the complex to avoid civilian casualties.

JAVED IQBAL CHEEMA, Interior Ministry Spokesman, Pakistan: We have to be patient. There are human beings inside; there are people inside; there are girls and women inside; there are children inside. So we have to take all these things into account. I mean, let`s not straightaway storming into the building.

RAY SUAREZ: Officials say dozens of fighters, armed with guns and grenades, may still be holed up inside the mosque.

For more on all of this, we get two views. Steve Coll is a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001." He also served in South Asia for the Washington Post during the early 1990s.

And Hasan-Askari Rizvi is a political scientist and is currently a visiting scholar at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

And, Hasan-Askari Rizvi, given everything that`s been going on in Pakistan in the last couple of months, former prime ministers threatening to return and lead the opposition, lawyers rioting in the streets, fighting on the border, even with all of that, is this stand-off in the heart of the capital an extraordinary event?

HASAN-ASKARI RIZVI, Johns Hopkins University: It is an extraordinary event, and it represents a dilemma the Pakistani state faces at the moment, because some of the extremists and hard-line groups have become very powerful in Pakistan, and they want to play an oversized role.

The other aspect is that the government of Pakistan is not all the time very clear how to deal with these kinds of groups, so sometimes they get a lot of space for doing their activities that undermine the order and peace in the country.

RAY SUAREZ: Steve Coll, what do you make of what you`re seeing?

STEVE COLL, Staff Writer, The New Yorker: Well, I think Dr. Rizvi is right. This is something that`s been brewing for some time. Islamist religious parties have always been present in Pakistan, even some extreme ones. They`ve never been very prominent in the country`s national life or in its politics. That`s begun to change.

Twenty years of warfare on both Pakistan`s western and eastern borders with jihadi groups playing prominent roles in those wars has changed some of the outlook of these parties. They have become emboldened; they`ve gained resources. And the Red Mosque episode is a kind of microcosm of this problem, one mosque in the heart of an otherwise pristine and preplanned and kind of anodyne capital, where a really militant group has taken hold and has created a confrontation of a sort that Islamabad, certainly as a city, has never known before.

RAY SUAREZ: But you also heard Dr. Rizvi refer to a dilemma on the part of the Pakistani government. What`s in the interest of those people still hunkered down inside that mosque, to further inflame the encounter, to bring on an armed incursion on the part of the police and army?

STEVE COLL: They seem to be of divided mind about that question. Maulana Aziz has gone out and asked for a peaceful resolution. He has preached and his followers have preached the glories of martyrdom, but he doesn`t appear himself to wish to see many martyrs made in this episode.

However, there is clearly a hardcore still down on the mosque, perhaps led by his younger brother -- it`s unclear -- who do seem determined to fight until the end. And we`ve seen many siege situations involving militants from this movement and in other contexts, as well, who do see bloodshed as their goal. I think the government is trying to minimize the number, to isolate those who are determined to fight it out to the end, and then evaluate it from there.

RAY SUAREZ: Dr. Rizvi, does the location of the Lal Masjid, the Red Mosque, put it on a stage for the entire country? Does it raise the stakes for both the government and those inside?

HASAN-ASKARI RIZVI: Well, those people who are inside are in very small number. They may be 100 or maybe more. Most of them have surrendered, and it seems that they will contest the state authorities.

But the basic issue is that, if such challenges emerge in other parts of the country, how would the government deal? In this case, the government allowed the matter to fester for about six months, and then these people got so emboldened that they kidnapped Chinese living in the capital city, and that caused the crisis. They in a way crossed a red line, and that led the government to take action; otherwise, the government was suffering from inaction to deal with these kinds of people.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you refer to them as "emboldened." The longer this goes on, is there a heightened chance that this will start to break out in other places in the country? And do rank-and-file Pakistanis grow in sympathy for those inside the mosque the longer this goes on?

HASAN-ASKARI RIZVI: Well, this group has not enjoyed support elsewhere, because this matter has been going on for the last six months, and this encounter for the last three days, and other Islamic groups have not really come out in their support.

But there are extremist groups, small groups, which have created enclaves in different parts of the country, especially in the frontier province and the tribal area. In the tribal areas, they can challenge, but in the province of Punjab or Sindh, I don`t think they can muster enough challenge to threaten the government.

RAY SUAREZ: Do you agree with that, Steve Coll, that there`s not so much danger?

STEVE COLL: Up to a point. I think Dr. Rizvi is right in the sense that, in mainstream Pakistan, in the Punjab and the Sindh, these kinds of institutions and certainly a siege of this character would remain quite unusual, but there is a change that is underway in the western side of the country in provinces like northwest frontier province, where militant groups have been carrying out attacks on civil police, civil authorities.

They attempted to assassinate a senior government minister quite recently. They have, in a sense, been coming down from the tribal areas and carrying out violent attacks on the state in areas where this was unusual, even a year ago. So, in that sense, I don`t think that the Red Mosque episode is entirely isolated.

RAY SUAREZ: Does this confrontation find General Musharraf, America`s ally in the area, in a weakened condition?

STEVE COLL: He has played his political hand poorly, in my judgment, because he hasn`t built up the natural political alliances with political parties, like the Pakistan People`s Party or the Muslim League, that could come to his aid in a moment like this.

He is isolated, and he has isolated himself now both from militant Islamists, on the one hand, and from liberal parties and movements that have been traditionally opposed to groups such as the one that have taken this mosque.

RAY SUAREZ: Hasan-Askari Rizvi, would you agree with that terminology, "isolated," for the president of Pakistan?

HASAN-ASKARI RIZVI: Yes, I would say that he is more isolated now because the Islamic groups are now against him and the mainstream political parties were also against him. And at the moment, he faces a greater challenge in the form of the movement, political movement, led by lawyers and others, which want to change the system all together. So he`s isolated and also under a lot of pressure.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let me follow up and close with this. This week, writing from Islamabad, Ayaz Amir, a Pakistani political analyst, said, "If extremism in Pakistan has a mother, it`s military rule." Is Pakistan in danger now? Is the state becoming more unstable?

HASAN-ASKARI RIZVI: Well, there is a lot of pressure from the extremists to the Pakistani state. They can create serious problems for the administration, but these extremists are not in a position to overwhelm the state of Pakistan.

Yes, they have enclaves in the tribal areas. They have enclaves in the frontier province, but in the mainstream provinces, Sindh and Punjab and Islamabad, I think they can cause problems, but they can`t take over Pakistani state.

RAY SUAREZ: How about you, Steve Coll?

STEVE COLL: I think that`s true, but this change has been building up over 10 years. The Talibanization of Pakistan is something that civil servants inside the Pakistani government, inside the foreign ministry began to warn the army about in the late 1990s.

We`re about a decade on, and we can see the results. There is a creeping strength and growth of these organizations and movements that, if it`s not checked, may yet change the character of Pakistani politics. It hasn`t happened yet, but the change is significant over the last 10 years.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, is the state moving closer to becoming ungovernable, not just from the mosque siege, but from a combination of many things that are going on across a range of the country`s life?

STEVE COLL: Well, there are multiple crises going on simultaneously, and what they have in common is a search for a sustainable political order that is true to Pakistan`s history, its constitutional traditions, and to the existence of large political parties in the country.

This is a country that has a robust politics. It`s just that that politics isn`t working under military rule, and the president is isolated. And unless he draws out more partners and opens up the process in a way that allows him to build these alliances, I`m afraid this pressure that Dr. Rizvi refers to is going to continue to build up.

RAY SUAREZ: Steve Coll, Dr. Rizvi, gentlemen, thank you both.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, an encore report about changing the rules on who`s too old to fly a plane. NewsHour correspondent Tom Bearden has our Science Unit story.

TOM BEARDEN, NewsHour Correspondent: Southwest Airlines Flight 1 had an engine on fire.

PILOT: Declare an emergency, please.

TOM BEARDEN: Pilots Bob Torti and Ron Sparks had just lifted off from the runway when the warning sounded.

PILOT: Southwest, turn back to the airport, please.

TOM BEARDEN: No excitement. No panic.

PILOT: Fire trucks are standing by, is that correct?

CO-PILOT: That is correct.

PILOT: Roger that. Speed brake is on. V-Light, flash 15, please. Landing gear is down, three green, thousand feet, 140, 800. Coming back on the speed just a little.

TOM BEARDEN: They went through the checklist for a one-engine flight and brought the 737 safely back to the ground. Well, sort of. They never actually left the ground in the first place. This 737 cockpit is a simulator at Southwest Airlines` training facility in Dallas.

PILOT: All right. Piece of cake.

TOM BEARDEN: Both pilots have decades of experience. They`ve practiced this emergency procedure, and many others, countless times. But neither one will ever fly passengers again. A Federal Aviation Administration regulation forced both men to retire the day they turned 60 years old.

How would you assess individually yourselves, your skills as pilots today?

BOB TORTI, Director of Flight Training, Southwest Airlines: Well, I think I just demonstrated that we actually flew almost a perfect approach and take-off with an engine failure. And I feel right now that I am at the prime of my career, with 30 years` experience at Southwest Airlines. And it`s a shame that the law is what it is.

TOM BEARDEN: For some pilots, like Dwight Langsdale, the regulation is particularly onerous, because financial turmoil in the airline industry has led to dramatically reduced pensions for many pilots. He and his wife, Patti, would have liked him to be able to work longer to boost his savings, particularly because there just aren`t many other jobs in the offing.

DWIGHT LANGSDALE, Former Pilot: I went to a career counselor to try to see if I could create a new career or something like that. And that didn`t work out too well, in general. In generalization, airline pilots don`t recycle very well.

PATTI LANGSDALE, Wife of Former Pilot: I think he really feels lost more than anything. He doesn`t know what -- what am I going to do now? Because, you know, we`re 60. We`re not 80.

TOM BEARDEN: This year, the FAA will explore raising the retirement age to 65 to bring the U.S. into line with international rules, which already allow foreign pilots over 60 to fly in U.S. skies. Congress also has bills supporting the change. But some say there isn`t any more justification for picking 65 than there was for 60.

SEN. TED STEVENS (R), Alaska: I`m 82 this year. I think I`m in better shape than I was when I was 60. I can run faster.

TOM BEARDEN: And despite years of research, science doesn`t have a definitive answer about how old is too old. Using a small-scale flight simulator, researchers at Stanford University and the Veterans Administration in California are testing private pilots who can fly past 60.

PILOT TRAINER: The first emergency is a traffic emergency. When you see traffic...

TOM BEARDEN: Don Mackenzie volunteered to take periodic tests to measure his skills as he gets older. Somewhere in the flight, the engine oil pressure begins to drop, just as controllers begin to barrage McKenzie with bursts of information.

DON MACKENZIE, Former Pilot: Two-four-zero, 1,500, and 123.1.

TOM BEARDEN: It`s designed to test a key piloting skill: the ability to remember and handle several short-term tasks at once.

DON MACKENZIE: It`s really, really hard, and it`s very frustrating. It`s impossible to get everything right all the time. Too much is thrown at me too fast, and that`s the design of the test.

TOM BEARDEN: Stanford Professor Joy Taylor says her studies show it`s an ability that often declines with age, but not always.

JOY TAYLOR, Stanford University: Rather what we see, which we were not surprised, is the wide individual differences.

TOM BEARDEN: If the individual variability is as large as you say it is, does a retirement age at 65 make any more sense than a retirement age at 60?

JOY TAYLOR: What some of the pilots have argued is that pilots in this day and age are much healthier than they were in 1959, when the rule was first developed and enforced. So if they can pass the same medical tests at age 65 that a 55-year-old or anyone is passing, and if we can show that our cognitive abilities are at the same level as what you expect for a younger pilot, then we should be able to fly.

TOM BEARDEN: But it gets more complicated. Stanford Professor Jerome Yesavage says some older pilots can compensate for loss of cognitive ability with increased experience.

JEROME YESAVAGE, Stanford University: If you can imagine that people are slowing down with aging at the same time as they`re gaining experience, there`s a trade-off between the two as you age. And it`s not quite clear what the optimum age is, where the two of those things meet.

TOM BEARDEN: Dr. Donald Hudson, who advises the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest pilots union, says there`s no clear scientific answer.

DR. DONALD HUDSON, Adviser, Air Line Pilots Association: The scientific literature regarding aging and performance in pilots and medical incapacitation risk is mixed. And groups with different agendas tend to kind of cherry pick the data that`s out there to support their position.

The problem you get into, though, is looking at, not just individual stuff, but also a population or a group of people, and that risk does increase with age, even if you`re in the best of health.

TOM BEARDEN: Pilots unions for American and Southwest Airlines, headquarters just a few miles from each other in Dallas-Fort Worth, have diametrically opposing viewpoints on the age question.

Scott Shankland is a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots. They oppose raising the age limit.

SCOTT SHANKLAND, Allied Pilots Association: It is arbitrary. We do acknowledge that. But that age has worked for 47 years, and we`ve never had an accident attributed to the effects of aging.

TOM BEARDEN: If it`s not broke, don`t fix it.

SCOTT SHANKLAND: Exactly. Exactly.

TOM BEARDEN: American`s union argues that older pilots are more at risk of having medical problems, like the pilot of this Continental jet.

TV REPORTER: An emergency landing at the McAllen-Miller International Airport this afternoon. Passengers tell us their pilot had a heart attack.

TOM BEARDEN: The flight had taken off from Houston and was bound for Mexico when the 58-year-old pilot collapsed and died, apparently from natural causes. The co-pilot was able to land the plane without incident in McAllen, Texas.

SCOTT SHANKLAND: It is a statistical fact that, as people get older, you start having more of these events, both the sudden catastrophic events and the subtle effects of aging. So it`s not maybe these things are going to occur. I mean, these already are occurring, and they will occur with more frequency as people continue to fly for a longer age.

TOM BEARDEN: In a recent poll, 80 percent of Allied Pilots Association members voted in favor of retaining the age 60 rule. A majority of the members of another union, the Air Line Pilots Association, also voted to retain the current retirement age, although acknowledging the issue has become divisive. ALPA has now set up a blue ribbon committee to study the question.

In contrast, SWAPA, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, has gone to the courts trying to get the rule overturned.

JOSEPH EICHELKRAUT, Former President, Southwest Airlines Pilot Association: Aging is not an illness. That`s the key point here. Everybody ages on their own time schedule. There`s no magic bullet, if you will, that occurs at age 60.

TOM BEARDEN: Joe Eichelkraut is the union`s past president.

Is 65 just as arbitrary as 60?

JOSEPH EICHELKRAUT: Absolutely, but it`s certainly in the right direction. It`s a step in the right direction.

TOM BEARDEN: He says increasing the retirement age would actually enhance safety, because the most proficient and experienced pilots would get to fly longer. And Southwest pilots don`t get a traditional pension from the airline. They have a 401(k) program and profit-sharing instead. If they can work longer, they can build a bigger nest egg.

But at American, pilots have a defined benefit pension plan, where monthly payouts are theoretically guaranteed for life. That could be an incentive to retire earlier.

JOSEPH EICHELKRAUT: It basically comes down to economics. I can`t say that more plainly than that.

TOM BEARDEN: It all comes down to economics for David Mann, too. He spent 23 years flying for Southwest. He retired last April with the traditional water display from airport fire trucks. Mann is part of a class-action lawsuit against the government, asserting the current law is age discrimination.

DAVID MANN, Former Pilot: We think we`ve been discriminated against by the federal government. They have a rule, age 60, that you can no longer fly. Because they have no scientific basis for that and because they`ve deprived me of my right to do my job, you know, that`s basically the basis of it.

TOM BEARDEN: The suit asks for damages from the government for lost income.

In the meantime, the FAA will seek public comment on the proposal to raise the retirement age. No matter what is eventually decided, David Mann and all the other retired pilots won`t be able to go back to work. Any change will not be retroactive.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, our look at the evolving role of women in combat.

One more casualty of the war in Iraq brought home to Decatur, Illinois, last weekend. In this case, the soldier`s vehicle was hit in Baghdad on June 21st by a rocket-propelled grenade. But this death is one of those that makes this war unique, for it was a woman, 22-year-old Army Specialist Karen Clifton.

She is one of the most recent of more than 80 women who have so far been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, a figure nearly double the number of American military women killed in Desert Storm, Vietnam, and Korea, combined. Some 500 have been wounded, many grievously.

American women are serving in the U.S. military today in ways and numbers unthinkable a few decades ago. They are now eligible to fill more than 80 percent of military jobs, 250,000 different assignments, often serving side-by-side with men.

So far, women have served some 167,000 tours of duty in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than four times the number in the first Gulf War. They are not assigned to infantry units, to tanks or submarines, and Pentagon policy officially precludes them from serving in so-called "combat occupations." But in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, where no clear frontlines exist, such distinctions are often hard to make.

Women in both theaters today drive Humvees and trucks, escort military convoys, serve as military police, even pilot helicopters and planes on the battlefield, all of it done under the very real -- and constant -- threat of attack. And like men, many women of the U.S. Armed Services have by now served several tours in the war zones.

For more, I`m joined now by: Kirsten Holmstedt, author of "Band of Sisters," a book profiling 12 female soldiers and Marines during their tours in Iraq; Carolyn Schapper, a sergeant in the Virginia Army National Guard, she participated in nearly 200 combat missions in Iraq from October 2005 to September 2006, as part of a tactical human intelligence team; and Lory Manning, she is a retired U.S. Navy captain and director of the Women in the Military Project at the Women`s Research and Education Institute, a public policy research group in Washington.

Thank you all three for being with us.

And, Kirsten Holmstedt, I want to begin with you. You`re the one who`s written the book about this. Why are there more women serving now in the military?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT, Author, "Band of Sisters": Well, I think because there are so many more roles open to women in the military, and they`re serving, like you said in the opening, they`re serving on trucks. They`re driving trucks. They`re pilots. They`re medics. More than 80 percent or 90 percent of the positions are open to women now, so they`re all over the battlefield.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And women are enlisting to fill these positions?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: They are, absolutely.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And in the numbers the military is looking for or is there a way to tell?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: Well, I think they`d like more men and women, but there are many, many women in the military now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Captain Manning, what are the jobs these women are doing? How has their role changed from what it used to be?

LORY MANNING, Retired U.S. Navy Captain: Well, they used to be mostly not in a combat zone, except for the medical women, the nurses, the physicians, that`s how it was, say, in Vietnam. During Gulf War in the early `90s, we used a lot more women, but not on the frontlines.

There are a lot more women in the military now since the changes that were made after the Gulf War, and women are doing what they call "combat support jobs," driving trucks near the front line, MPs, those sorts of things.

One of the reasons we`re seeing them in so many roles now and so many casualties is because there is no frontline in this war. It a whole different kind of war than the U.S. has fought before and because the laws and the policies have changed, that changed in the mid-`90s.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Help us understand a little bit better about what is permitted, in terms of the roles that women may fill, and what`s not permitted?

LORY MANNING: That`s a good question. And allow me a little time, because there are some little complexities. The basic policy comes from a memo written in 1994 by the secretary of defense. And it says, "Women can serve in any role in the military except for units smaller than brigades" - - so those are things like battalions or companies -- "that have a primary mission of ground combat," which boils down to infantry, tanks, short-range field artillery and special forces.

And that`s the basic secretary of defense level, but each service refines it. And what the Army did, and to an extent the Marine Corps, is say, "We`re going to narrow it a little bit further and say that women also cannot serve in units or positions who normally would co-locate with infantry units." That`s a very technical term, co-locate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Meaning live with?

LORY MANNING: Live with, essentially meaning a woman medic can`t be serving with the infantry. That`s the thing that has gotten so garbled in Iraq; it`s impossible to really enforce that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Kirsten Holmstedt, what we`re talking about, then, is, yes, there are restrictions, but women are doing so many of these jobs, and they`re firing weapons.

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: And they`re co-locating, just like she said.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They are co-locating, you`re saying?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: Yes, yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Meaning they`re living, they`re in the same...

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: The first story of my book is about two young women, lance corporals in a Marine Corps, who were in a firefight. They attached, I think is the word they used, to an infantry unit so that they could help the infantry when they went house-to-house to search women and children. And so they co-located, and they stayed in the same house or they stayed outside with them, wherever they were sleeping.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Carolyn Schapper, you were in Iraq, we said, from 2005 to 2006. What did you do? What was your assignment? And was it clear to you going in that you were going to be how close to combat or not?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER, Sergeant, Virginia Army National Guard: I`ll start with the second part first. I was aware that there was never any surprise that military intelligence, which is what I do, goes out and talks to the locals. And that was my primary mission, was to talk to the local people and find out what their concerns and address those issues.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And that meant, what, you were armed?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: I was armed. I would go out almost every day, and I would go into the villages and the cities, and get out of my truck, and walk into their homes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you were in dangerous situations.

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: Yes, I was.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How often?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: Oh, every day is a dangerous situation. You never know what`s going to happen. But I had seven significant events occur to me. That includes IEDs, sniper fire, and mortars, not to me personally, to my team.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And how did you -- do you think that you and other women you were alongside in Iraq deal with these things differently from the men?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: Your training comes into play. I`d say you almost have a lack of emotion. You do what you need to do to get your people out and safe and back to the base or take care of the enemy. But, unfortunately, there`s rarely an enemy to take care of.

And I would assume that`s true for every individual, not necessarily a woman or a man, that your emotions are put aside and your training comes to the front.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Even when your comrades are hurt?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: Yes, even more so, I would say so, because your first priority is to make sure they`re safe.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Captain Manning, what does your research show? How are women doing in these jobs?

LORY MANNING: That`s the biggest surprise of the war. Before this, people only guessed, and they guessed that the women would fall to pieces, that they wouldn`t be able to rescue fallen comrades, that, if they were shot at, they wouldn`t be able to shoot back because they`d be so nervous.

None of those bad guesses that women would go to pieces have happened: The women have held their own. They`ve done brilliantly well. And there`s been no obvious differences, either over in Iraq or when people come back, the women`s rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and those sorts of things are not that different from the men`s. So what we have learned is, through real experiences, that women can hack it in the military.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Ms. Holmstedt, how are the men who, of course, make up the vast majority, how are they receiving, how are they accepting or not these women?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: That`s interesting, because I think, no matter what their age, you will find men who accept the women and find men who don`t accept the women. I`ve talked to young lance corporals, male lance corporals and corporals, who don`t accept the women and some who do, all the way up to generals, some who do accept women and some who don`t.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you mean by accept and not?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: Well, I talked to one general on the phone, and he said that, at a cocktail party, he might say that he`s opposed to women in combat and doesn`t like it, but, really, he does believe in women in combat and he thinks they`re doing wonderful things.

So there is an outward support or lack of support. There`s a contradiction right now. I just think people are really -- some men, and the ones who have been around for a while in the military, the older echelon -- I think they`re more resistant to supporting women openly. And I think that that reflects all the way down, because women are still, I believe, treated like second-class citizens because of that male mentality.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me ask Ms. Schapper. Was that your experience? Were women treated differently? Were you treated like second- class citizen or not?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: It depends who I was working with. Within my team, which was other military intelligence and the infantry that worked for us, no, we were team members. We rely on each other. You can`t think anybody is not going to save your life if necessary. So there was a lot of mutual respect within my team.

But since I was on a small infantry base, I did have difficulties at first with the commanders I had to go brief or get debriefed by. But, over time, I proved myself.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Difficulties in what way?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: Just that I didn`t really know what I was talking about maybe because I was a female. But it all turned around one day when one of my gunners got shot, and I took command of the convoy to get him back. And I got high praise from the infantry sergeant major when we got back, and that`s when it turned around. So I had to prove myself to them that I was capable of doing the same job as a man.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How much of an issue -- you mentioned in our talking with you ahead of time sexual harassment to some degree for the women. How much of a problem is this, do we know, Captain Manning?

LORY MANNING: We know it`s a problem, but I don`t think we have any idea to what extent. It`s a problem for women of that age group on college campuses, no matter where they are. And it`s more difficult to deal with over there, because particularly when it gets to full-blown sexual assault, you need to be able to have the evidence to prosecute a criminal in a court. And that has caused problems. I don`t think it`s like half the women over there or anything of that extent, but nobody knows for sure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you see, just quickly, Captain Manning, for the future? I mean, does this mean that women are now inevitably going to be fighting wars?

LORY MANNING: It`s inevitable, and it`s not happening just in the U.S. There have been British women, Australian women, Ukrainian women in Iraq, a lot of Canadian women in Afghanistan. It`s going on around the world, and, yes, they`re going to be fighting wars, because they can. And most countries these days have all-volunteer forces, so that`s who`s volunteering.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Ms. Holmstedt, the restrictions that exist, are they the kind -- do you think they`ll stay?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: Maybe those restrictions for a little longer, but I think women are really -- they like the roles that they`re in right now. And some definitely want to push the boundaries. I`ve talked to some who...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Some women who want to do more, you mean?

KIRSTEN HOLMSTEDT: Some women who want to possibly be in infantry. But a lot of the women who are in the roles that they`re in right now are very happy with those roles, as MPs and pilots and medics and logisticians.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Captain Manning, the fact that women can`t technically, by the rulebook, serve in combat, how does that affect their ability to move all the way up through the ranks, to serve in the highest ranks of the military?

LORY MANNING: Well, it`s not a factor at all for Air Force or Navy women, because they can, in fact, serve in every aspect of combat and in those services. It is a factor for Marine Corps and Army women who might want to be, say, the command sergeant major of the Marine Corps or chief of staff of the Army without a combat specialty. That`s not going to happen.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mrs. Schapper, I`m going to give you the last word. What should the public know about what women are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan right now?

CAROLYN SCHAPPER: Women are doing the same jobs as men, the majority of the time, and they`re doing them very well.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, thank you all three, Ms. Holmstedt, Ms. Schapper, and Captain Manning, thank you very much, all three of you.

(BREAK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight, the fine and threatened art of editorial cartooning. Jeffrey Brown has our Media Unit look.

JEFFREY BROWN: For a traditional bastion of journalistic humor, it`s no laughing matter. As financial pressures continue to plague the newspaper industry, one feature most affected has been the editorial cartoon, as full-time positions have dwindled, and more of the action moves online.

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists is holding its annual meeting this week in Washington, and we invited one prominent member to join us. Walt Handelsman won this year`s Pulitzer Prize in his field, for cartoons on a wide range of subjects, including Iraq. In this one, a reporter in Baghdad says, "When asked if this is sectarian violence or a full-blown civil war, many Iraqis were unable to answer."

And the frustrations of modern life. Here, a man going through airport screening is left wearing nothing but his boarding pass. The caption reads, "After seven hours of wading through heightened airport security, Larry faced one final challenge."

This was Walt Handelsman`s second Pulitzer. He draws for Newsday in New York, and his work is nationally syndicated to more than 200 other newspapers.

Welcome to you.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, Editorial Cartoonist: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: First, explain the problems. In what ways is cost- cutting affecting your profession?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Well, 20 years ago, there were 200 editorial cartoonists in America. There were a lot more daily newspapers. And over the last 20 years, as the daily newspapers have begun to shrink and as cable news has become more popular, and now with the advent of the Internet, more and more newspapers have decided they have no need for an editorial cartoonist.

JEFFREY BROWN: So what is lost? I mean, you are one of the prominent ones. You`re seeing red all over the place. Is the local emphasis?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Well, I think what is lost is that the readers that open up their newspapers don`t see a familiar style of cartooning every day. They also lose out, as you said, on the local cartooning, which is very important to all of us.

For instance, I live on Long Island. I draw a lot of cartoons about Long Island, about New York City, as well as national and international stuff. So as soon as you begin using only syndicated editorial cartoons, your readers lose that. And readers, by far, love editorial cartoons; that`s a proven fact.

JEFFREY BROWN: That`s well-known.

WALTER HANDELSMAN: That`s well-known. And, you know, there`s just a lot of cost-cutting in newspaper right now. And so one of the things that I guess publishers and editors, I think in many cases reluctantly think they can do without is an editorial cartoonist, because they can buy a syndicated package.

JEFFREY BROWN: The Pulitzer that were given this year was the first, I understand, for submissions that include animation, and that means that you, like others in your field, have gone online.

WALTER HANDELSMAN: That`s true. I decided at the end of 2006 that I thought it would be very important to begin doing animated editorial cartoons. Obviously, everything is trending towards the Internet, and I went to my publisher and had a meeting with him, and he was very open to the idea. I said, "I think I`m going to try and learn animation."

I had never tried it before. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours at home trying to figure out how to make stuff move and eventually had a few "eureka" moments. And the next thing I knew, I had created a few animated editorial cartoons, which then blossomed into a whole series of animated editorial cartoons.

JEFFREY BROWN: So now it`s a regular feature?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: It`s a regular feature.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, let`s look at one recent one. This is part of a recent campaign season animation, and it`s called "Political Reality Show." Let`s look at part of it.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Narrator: You`ve seen these reality stars fight their way to the top. Now they go head-to-head in the most incredible reality show of all, "So You Want to be America`s Next Top Contender to Survive the Amazing Race For President?" With Obama from "The Apprentice: Los Angeles."

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Barack Obama: What I lacked in experience, I made up during the charisma challenge.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Narrator: John from "Survivor: Vietnam."

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As John McCain: I was beaten, brutalized and tormented, but I`m going to run again anyway.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Narrator: Hillary and Bill from "Trading Spouses."

JODIE HANDELSMAN, As Hillary Clinton: I want to finish what Bill started.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Bill Clinton: I just like the name of the show.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Narrator: Mitt and John, from "America`s Next Top Model."

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As John Edwards: You know, there are two Americas, and I`m counting on the female half to vote for me.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Mitt Romney: Two words, ladies: shirtless speeches.

WALTER HANDELSMAN, As Narrator: And Rudy from "American Idol."

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, do you have to change your brain or your thinking a little bit to go from the drawing to animation?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Absolutely. It was a huge change for me. Editorial cartooning, you`re synthesizing all this information into a single point in time.

JEFFREY BROWN: It`s really direct, isn`t it?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: It`s very direct, and you`re taking tons of information, and you`re saying, in this particular second in time, this is the point you want to make. I realized immediately with animation the game had completely changed. I had to look at much broader issues.

For instance, in that one, I`m looking at a whole campaign, a whole series, a reality show, so you`re really writing a little miniature movie rather than commenting on one tiny issue. And it took a lot of time to train my brain. I consider it like drawing a 50-panel editorial cartoon, lots of different points, lots of humor, and on top of that, trying to do the voice impersonations and learning how to draw and make stuff move.

JEFFREY BROWN: That is your voice, for all the animation?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: All except for Hillary, who is my wife, Jodie.

JEFFREY BROWN: The animation, to my eyes, of course, is also -- I guess it`s less subtle, is a way of putting it. It`s a little bit -- it hits you over the head.

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Well, I`ve also found -- and I`m still trying to drive myself towards this -- that you can get away with a lot more on the Internet. And you can be more crass, more crude, and not only can you be, but people expect that. When you look at stuff on the Internet, I mean, if you look at YouTube, if you look at all the wide variety of stuff that`s offered out there, it`s way over-the-top compared to what you`d get in a daily newspaper.

JEFFREY BROWN: For better or worse, you say that`s what people expect.

WALTER HANDELSMAN: For better or worse, right, right.

JEFFREY BROWN: What makes a cartoon work for you, whether it`s animation or a drawing? What does it have to have to work?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: One thing. I`ve always said a cartoon has to have one thing: impact. And by that, it could be the impact of a very, very funny punch line or a very dark drawing, one of the ones that you showed about Iraq.

So you really don`t want it to be bland. If the readers open up the cartoon, and they`re, "It`s boring," then you`ve lost the game that day. Luckily, you have 290 other times during the year to do a better job. But I think cartoons should have an impact, and I tend to do cartoons with a lot of humor in them. That`s just my approach.

JEFFREY BROWN: One of your favorite subjects has been President Bush for the last six-plus years. You brought a pen and paper.

WALTER HANDELSMAN: I did.

JEFFREY BROWN: Want to do a little drawing for us?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Sure, sure. OK, well, when you`re drawing George Bush, generally it`s best to start with a nose. And he`s got these flared nostrils here, so it looks a little bit like that. And then he`s got a long lower lip, so I like to put it in like this, and it kind of goes up and down like that, and we`ll throw his teeth in, a little bit like that.

Then we put the little George Bush eyes in, and he`s got the patented George Bush eyebrows, the same eyebrows that his dad had that ran in the family. Here are the cheekbones. Throw that in. And he`s got the little chin. Put that in there, another cheekbone.

Now, when you draw a caricature of a politician, they all have sort of a signature feature. With Ronald Reagan, it was the bouffant hair. And with Bill Clinton, it was his chin, among other things. With George Bush, it`s the ears. So we throw those in last, a little shading in there.

And as I said, with my animations, I have trained myself to do some impersonations. So in this particular case, just throw his jacket in, give him a little miniature body. Make sure we can see that, the bottom of his jacket in.

Now, of course, I don`t draw this quickly at work. If I drew this quickly at work, my boss would say, "Why are we paying you to do this? You`ve been at work for 15 minutes."

JEFFREY BROWN: Paid by the hour here.

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Paid by the hour.

JEFFREY BROWN: So the George Bush voice for the animation?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: So in this particular cartoon, I would put this little scowl in here, and I`d have him saying, "You know, I mean, Handelsman, I mean, I just don`t look like that. I mean, where do I get this from? You know what I`m trying to say?"

JEFFREY BROWN: And now a campaign season started, so you`ve got a whole cast of contenders that`s fodder for the future, right?

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Oh, yes, absolutely.

JEFFREY BROWN: OK, Walt Handelsman of Newsday, thanks very much.

WALTER HANDELSMAN: Thank you very much.

(BREAK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Again, the major developments of the day.

The number-two leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called on Muslims to unite and prepare for the next holy war.

In Pakistan, hundreds of Islamic militants defied calls by security forces to surrender and remained holed up inside a mosque.

And across the western United States, a heat wave set off warnings, with temperatures topping 100 degrees.

(BREAK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 11 more.

We`ll see you online and again here tomorrow evening, with Mark Shields and David Brooks, among others. I`m Judy Woodruff. Thank you, and good night.