The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Jim Lehrer is away. On the NewsHour tonight we focus on Iraq. First, a Newsmaker interview with U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, then a debate over containing versus removing Saddam Hussein, also two updates, on El Nino and on the 1968 Kerner Commission report on race and poverty in America. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. NEWS SUMMARY

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Russia today led opposition to any United Nations action that appeared to give the United States automatic approval to strike Iraq. The 15-member Security Council met in New York to consider a resolution endorsing the arms inspection deal brokered by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The resolution would hold Iraq accountable if it fails to comply with the terms of the agreement. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson spoke about the language of the resolution.

BILL RICHARDSON, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.: It sends the unmistakable signal to Iraq if there are violations of the Secretary-General's agreement: There will be severest consequences. This is a victory for us because the language was changed from very severe to severest. In diplomacy, this means something. This is a clear, strong resolution that we're very pleased with that now will go into force.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We'll have more on this story, including a Newsmaker interview with Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, right after the News Summary. President Clinton attacked a Republican-backed proposal to abolish the federal income tax code. He told the Mortgage Bankers Association it was irresponsible to do away with one system without knowing what the alternative would be. The GOP-backed plan was developed by the National Federation of Independent Business. It calls for the present tax code to expire in four years. President Clinton called the idea "reckless."

PRESIDENT CLINTON: No one concerned about fighting crime would even think about saying, well, three years from now we're going to throw out the criminal code and we'll figure out what to put in its place. No one would do that. That is what this proposal is. That is exactly what some people in Congress are proposing to do. Now, think about what repealing the tax laws with no known alternative would mean. It would mean that you would know there would be no home mortgage deduction, but you wouldn't know what would be in its place.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Last week, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said he supported doing away with the tax code. Today, after learning of the President's comments, House Speaker Newt Gingrich said this:

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: I can't believe he really defends the current IRS and the current tax code. It's too complicated. It's too hard for the average American, and it's just wrong. And so I'd like to know what's his plan. Does he just want us to live the rest of our lives with this very complicated, very inefficient, and I think increasingly oppressive tax code?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Commerce Department reported wages and salaries rose in January. Personal incomes were up .6 of a percent for the month. The number was bolstered by cost of living increases for Social Security recipients and pay raises for federal workers. Former Vice President Walter Mondale arrived in Indonesia today. He was sent by President Clinton to urge President Suharto to adopt economic reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF promised the country $43 billion in loans late last year, after the currency collapsed. Suharto has not yet implemented all of the recommended reforms. In Washington, U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin denied Mondale was sent to ask Suharto to resign. They are expected to meet tomorrow. In the part of the former Yugoslavia known as Kosovo riot police today tried to disperse thousands of demonstrators. We have more from Peter Morgan of Independent Television News.

PETER MORGAN, ITN: The most violent weekend in Kosovo's recent history, followed by street protests in the capital Pristina. The Serbian riot police used water cannon and teargas on ethnic Albanians. The immediate cause--the death of at least sixteen Albanians and four Serbs over the weekend. But trouble here has much wider implications for the Dayton peace deal in Bosnia and for neighboring Balkan states. Kosovo is where two conflicting claims come to a head. Serbs regard the region as their historic homeland, yet, ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of the population. Their demands for independence have taken a militant turn with the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army. In London, Albanians staged a protest outside the Yugoslav embassy. Supporters of the moderate Democratic League of Kosovo, the LDK, are afraid they're being outflanked by the Liberation Army. The LDK warn that political dialogue--favored by the United States--is giving way to direct confrontation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: State Department Spokesman James Rubin said the U.S. has called on Albanian leaders in Kosovo to condemn acts of terrorism and for Serb authorities to act with restraint. Historian Henry Steele Commager died today at his home in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was a prolific writer whose best-known book, "The Growth of the American Republic," was a standard college textbook for many years. He was 95 years old. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Iraq's U.N. ambassador, dealing with Saddam Hussein, El Nino, and race in America. NEWSMAKER

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Iraq story is first. At the United Nations there was debate over what follows the Kofi Annan deal with Iraq. We start with the Iraqi view and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And that view comes from Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Nizar Hamdoon. Welcome, Mr. Ambassador. The U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said last week that what made this deal credible in his view was that Saddam Hussein for the first time had personally been involved in negotiating this and agreeing to it. Why did Saddam Hussein agree to this?

NIZAR HAMDOON, U.N. Ambassador, Iraq: Well, I think that Iraq had to respond positively to the positive gesture from the Secretary-General of the United Nations. And Iraq has been calling for a peaceful resolution of this issue for quite some time. And we have to reciprocate it too--too--reciprocate with Mr. Annan, and the deal was done, and we intend to honor our word.

MARGARET WARNER: And let's look at the deal--and I just want to make sure we understand your understanding of the deal. Does it provide for full, unfettered access to all suspect sites, as the administration has insisted?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Absolutely.

MARGARET WARNER: And is this with no advance warning necessary, no time limits, no limits on repeat visits?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Absolutely.

MARGARET WARNER: And at the presidential sites does it include any buildings at all within the presidential sites?

NIZAR HAMDOON: All buildings, things, structure, whatever within the eight presidential sites will be provided with full access to the teams that are going to go in.

MARGARET WARNER: So, in other words, under this deal U.N. inspectors can go anywhere any time they want?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, on these eight presidential sites and the special teams that are going to be put together to look at these, what is your understanding of the role of the diplomats who are going to accompany the inspectors on these teams?

NIZAR HAMDOON: The diplomats will be part of the team. The team will consist of diplomats and of experts from the UNSCOM that will be appointed by the Secretary-General on consultation with the chairman, Mr. Butler, and the team will be headed by a commissioner from the special commission panel of commissioners that will also be appointed, which he has already been appointed by Secretary-General.

MARGARET WARNER: What is your understanding of who will be in charge of these teams? Is this any different from the other inspection teams in which Mr. Butler ultimately is in charge, and he does the reporting to Mr. Annan and the Security Council?

NIZAR HAMDOON: The man who will be in charge of the team and of the operational features of the team will be the commissioner, who has been appointed by the Secretary-General. And he has drawn upon the special commission to help that team. He will be in charge of the operations, and he will be doing the reporting which goes through Mr. Butler, then back to the Secretary-General, then to the Security Council.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, now, Mr. Butler said yesterday his understanding was quite different; that he was going to be in charge of these teams. He said, this commissioner is only overseeing the diplomatic members of the team, and he described the diplomats as simply observers. Do you disagree with that?

NIZAR HAMDOON: If you go back to the test of the agreement, you will find it over there, the composition of the team and the appointment of the head of the team by the Secretary- General.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, why don't you just tell our viewers what your understanding is, though? I mean, there seems to be a difference here. Mr. Butler on CNN yesterday directly disputed that, and he said, ultimately this team is run and operated, and the analysis comes through him, just as any other team does.

NIZAR HAMDOON: Well, I think that the major task of the operation will be done by the UNSCOM experts, who will be appointed to this team, and defined and checked, so to speak, by the diplomats, who are not experts, but at least they are there to witness, to make sure that everything goes along the lines that are being drawn by the secretary-general and by the chairman of UNSCOM and collaboration, and the chairman of that team will take care of all the operational aspects of the team. And then the reporting will be done by the commissioner under the text of the agreement, and again goes through the UNSCOM chairman, back to the Secretary-General, then to the Council.

MARGARET WARNER: So you still see Mr. Butler as the-- ultimately the point man who deals with, that it does come through him?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Well, he would have to, to have a major role in that. I'm not denying this, but I am saying that the Secretary-General for the first time in the history of our relations with UNSCOM on these eight sides operation would be overseeing it.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's move on to the issue of sanctions. What understandings, if any, do you have with the Secretary-General or other members of the Security Council about what may be done about lifting sanctions anytime soon as a result of this deal, or in relationship to this deal?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Well, we think that the last crisis that we have had is going to speed up the process of the lifting of the sanctions because of the awareness of the international community and the different governments throughout the last couple of weeks that something would have to be done. Otherwise, the world cannot continue to be under the threat of military force used or the threat of crisis at large.

MARGARET WARNER: Some Arab experts have suggested, following up on what you just said I think on this program and elsewhere, that, in fact, Saddam Hussein may well have generated this latest stand-off exactly for that purpose because he wanted to focus world and U.N. attention on the issue of sanctions and what he felt was the difficulty he was having in getting them lifted, is that correct, do you agree with that?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Well, I don't necessarily have to agree here, but obviously, Iraq has to have a strategy to try to face the continuation of the sanctions. When last October things started to even slow down a bit, when the reviews were turned from sixty days to six months period, the reviews only on the sanctions, when it looked like the United States is pushing towards the endless delay and the process. So I don't think that Iraq should have not strategized in a way that brings the attention of the international community to the problem. I don't see anything illegitimate about that.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, Bill Richardson, the U.N. ambassador, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said on this program last week that he felt that the lifting of sanctions was, as he put it, more remote than ever. What do you think that means? How do you interpret that?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Well, this is not a U.S. decision. This is a United Nations decision. Everybody refers to the United Nations when it comes to resolutions and that kind of stuff, and I don't think that Mr. Richardson is here to challenge the authority of the institution of the Security Council. And if you look into this latest British draft, though, it was amended by the pressures of the different Council members--

MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry. What are you referring to?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Today's draft--

MARGARET WARNER: Today's resolution.

NIZAR HAMDOON: --which is going to be adopted by the Security Council. It has been amended by many Council members to try to include something about the lifting of the sanctions when the work of the special commission will come to an end.

MARGARET WARNER: So, is it your understanding that once Iraq satisfies the weapons-related resolutions that that's enough, as opposed to I think the U.S. view has been that Iraq has other resolutions it must comply with dealing with Kuwaiti prisoners, human rights, other issues?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Well, if you read the letter of the Resolution 687, which was authored by the United States, it says that clearly in Section C once disarmament is done, then Paragraph 22 will be invoked, which is the lifting of the economic embargo on Iraq. I mean--

MARGARET WARNER: Let's turn finally to the subject that was being discussed at the U.N. today. What is your belief or understanding about what would happen if Iraq--again--for whatever reason--denied access to U.N. weapons inspectors?

NIZAR HAMDOON: That's very hypothetical. Iraq does not intend to violate this agreement. We intend to honor our word, and there is no reason to think otherwise.

MARGARET WARNER: And what is your interpretation of what the U.N. Security Council, which has not voted yet, but the draft that they are now considering?

NIZAR HAMDOON: Well, as I mentioned earlier, the draft--the British draft from the beginning was unacceptable to the majority of the Council members. Some amendments were done. I don't think it is satisfactory at large. But, again, I mean, Iraq is not involved in this process. It's up to them. Iraq has not been asked to provide its view on this. This is a matter that has to be discussed with them because of--

MARGARET WARNER: But just following up before we go, President Clinton said last Monday that if Iraq were to violate this agreement, he believed that the U.S. would then have what he put the unilateral right to respond at a time, place, and manner of its own choosing.

NIZAR HAMDOON: We don't intend to violate it. We have no interest whatsoever in violating it, but the Council have stressed--the majority of the Council members stress the need for the Council to take over the issue again if there is anything that is needed in the future and not to agree to what the U.S. and the U.K. wanted of automatic reaction once there is any problem, though I should say that's still very hypothetical because Iraq will not benefit from such incidents.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much.

NIZAR HAMDOON: Thank you. FOCUS - CONTAIN OR REMOVE

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now the Washington debate about dealing with Saddam Hussein. Phil Ponce has that.

PHIL PONCE: U.S. policy on Iraq was the subject of a Senate hearing today in Washington. Among the witnesses were a leader of the Iraqi opposition movement and a former CIA chief. Here are some excerpts.

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK, [R] Kansas: The problem is truly quite simple, if not very--if also very difficult to resolve. Despite Mr. Annan's statements that Saddam can be trusted, the truth is that he cannot. Why? Because he does not want to give up his weapons of mas destruction an desire for regional domination. So unless we're prepared to keep sanctions on Iraq forever, we must be prepared to do something about the root cause of the problem, and that is Saddam Hussein, himself.

AHMED CHALABI, President, Iraqi National Congress: The Iraqi National Congress asks your help in removing the threat of Saddam's doomsday weapons from our people, from the region, and from the world. Helping the Iraqi people regain their country is the only solution. Saddam cannot be trusted; Saddam cannot be negotiated with; Saddam has prove that he will starve and murder every Iraqi and every person with the misfortune to fall under his control until he has enough horror weapons to dominate the Middle East and threaten the world. It is time to help the Iraqi people remove Saddam from power.

JAMES WOOLSEY, Former CIA Director: In my judgment, beginning almost in the closing hours of the Gulf War, at the end of the Bush administration and for the first five plus years of this administration, our policy with regard to Iraq has been both flaccid and feckless. I believe it would be wise for us to recognize a government in exile. Probably the Iraqi National Congress is the only realistic place to start. We should use sea power to stop Saddam's smuggling of oil from which he gained substantial resources today. Insofar as it is possible, we should provide any frozen assets or loans based on such assets to such a government in exile, either to make it possible for it to arm itself, or to assist with arms, particularly some specialized arms, such as anti-tank weapons. I believe we should remove the sanctions from the liberated areas of Iraq and if those areas expand, continue to remove sanctions from areas that are not under Saddam's control. I think it is wise and important to bring charges against Saddam for war crimes and others senior in his government before international tribunals. I believe broadcasting into Iraq is an excellent idea. Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel both said that Radio Free Europe was the single most important thing that the United States did during the Cold War. What should we not do? I believe, first of all, we should not deceive ourselves that this agreement of the last few days is going to last. I believe that we should also not--at least at the present time-- consider invading Iraq with ground forces. I don't believe that is necessary, and also, I don'tbelieve there is the support here or in the Congress, or among our allies to do it. I also do not believe that we should attempt to assassinate Saddam or even arrange a coup against him. The United States has dealt with terrible dictators before over the course of many years, and we have triumphed. We are still here, and most of them are not.

PHIL PONCE: Now, among those testifying at today's hearing was Richard Haass, who served on President Bush's National Security Council staff. He's now director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. Also here is Robert Kagan, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department official in the Reagan administration. Gentlemen, welcome.Mr. Kagan, you've been writing lately on the question of removal of Saddam Hussein versus containment of Iraq. Those writings have been getting some attention. What do you advocate exactly?

ROBERT KAGAN, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Well, I think the first thing we need to do is get rid of the illusion that we can successfully maintain a containment strategy against Saddam. After all, what we've been seeing for the last few months has been the breakdown of containment strategy. To do containment you need two things: You need solidarity among your coalition partners to carry out all the necessary measures to contain Saddam Hussein. That's broken down over the last few months and shows no sign of being repaired now. The second thing is you need a military deterrent that is effective enough to coerce Saddam into behaving the way you want him to behave on weapons of mass destruction. I think it's clear the administration's practically acknowledged that their air strike option cannot do that. So you really have a breakdown of containment. And I think, therefore, you need to think seriously about developing a comprehensive political, military strategy aimed at removing Saddam Hussein.

PHIL PONCE: And by removal, what do you mean? Do you mean assassination?

ROBERT KAGAN: No, I don't think we should engage in assassination for a variety of reasons. I would argue that we should be supporting the political opposition that exists in Iraq, that has existed in Iraq, but I would say honestly that if you really are going to aim at getting rid of Saddam, as I think we should, we must be prepared to use American military force, including both air power and ground troops, to finish the job that was not finished in 1991.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Haass, unfinished business?

RICHARD HAASS, Brookings Institution: Well, I think Mr. Kagan has given the intellectually honest response. The only way I know for sure to get rid of Saddam Hussein--and we all would be better off if he were to go--would be to invade the country, occupy it, arrest them, get rid of him politically, and install a better government. It's the sort of thing we did in Japan and Germany, after World War II, the sort of thing say we did more recently in Panama. But we shouldn't kid ourselves. It would take a long time to do that, a lot of Americans would die in the process, and I don't think we have a lot of support in the region. What would begin as a liberation would very quickly begin to look like an occupation. There would be retaliation against those forces. We could expect terrorism there and here, so I would simply say while it's certainly desirable to get rid of Saddam Hussein, I would say that right now, that is simply not a doable option.

PHIL PONCE: How about that, the things he listed, are those--is that kind of a price worth paying, inyour opinion?

ROBERT KAGAN: Well, you have to ask yourself, what is the threat we face? The threat we face right now is a Saddam Hussein, who's arguably the most dangerous man in the world, armed with weapons of mass destruction, which will be used to intimidate his neighbors in the region who are our allies and can be used in a crisis against our troops. So if you think that's a serious threat--and I do--then I think you do have to be willing to take risks in order to deal with that threat. And I'm--you know, Richard points out that we have done this in the past. We did it in Japan and Germany. There are always risks attendant to taking serious action like this, but I think those risks are worth taking if, as the President says, this threat is going to affect us on into the 21st century. I think he's right.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Haass, how long can a country be contained?

RICHARD HAASS: Well, we've got two pretty good examples. One is the Soviet Union. Containment lasted for 50 years, not only ultimately kept them in a box but ultimately created conditions which led to the demise of the Soviet Union and to most of Communism. Secondly, we're seeing containment in action now on the Korean Peninsula. Containment there has worked again for nearly half a century. And we've seen containment in place for seven years in the Gulf. And during that time we've seen an extraordinary development. Most of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have, in fact, been located and eliminated. Iraq has not yet been again able to reconstitute a military threat to the region. So containment doesn't offer you a solution but it does offer you a way to protect your core interests and a manageable price. I think it has done that for the United States. The fact that containment, as Bob Kagan says, has deteriorated is true but that's not inevitable. That's the result of bad policy making. I think the choice for the administration right now is to really ask: Are they prepared to institute a serious policy of containment? And that'll take two things above all. One is if we are to use military force, it's got to be severe; we've got to aim at the basis of Saddam Hussein's power. We've got to hurt him. The only thing he cares about--he doesn't care about the Iraqi people but he does care about his Republican Guards and their equipment. Secondly, on weapons of mass destruction, I think we should be telling him this: If you should ever use your weapons of mass destruction-- nuclear, chemical, or biological--then we will make your ouster an explicit goal of American foreign policy. We will then bring about your removal. But until he uses them, I don't think we have either the domestic or international support to do it. What I'm hoping--and one of the reasons I support containment--is by threatening his ouster and linking it to any use of weapons of mass destruction, I think we can deter their use.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Kagan, do you think that kind of a threat would be effective?

ROBERT KAGAN: Well, I thought it interesting that a containment strategy needs to include a threat of his ouster, but if I ask you whether you want to support the ouster, you say, no. So the question is how credible is a threat of ouster as part of the containment strategy if we're not willing to carry out the necessary steps to do--to oust Saddam Hussein?

RICHARD HAASS: All I'm trying to say is at some point I would be. I don't think right now we have had the domestic or the regional support that would be necessary. We can't oust Saddam by ourselves. We need local states to support us. We need them as launching platforms. We need their political support. I don't think we have it yet. If, however, he ever were to use weapons of mass destruction--and I'm hoping the sort of threat I'm saying will deter him--but if he were, then we would have the domestic and regional willingness to run the extra costs.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Kagan, how about that, can--if the United States decided it wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power, could it realistically do it?

ROBERT KAGAN: Well, first of all, I would just like to say I don't want to wait for him to drop a weapon of mass destruction on an ally before I decide to get rid of him. I'd rather get rid of him before he drops his weapons of mass destruction. But the answer to whether we can get rid of him is, of course, we can get rid of him. At the end of the Gulf War we could have gotten rid of him. There were uprisings throughout his country in March of 1991. American forces were certainly prepared, if necessary, to go into Baghdad and get rid of Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration decided not to do that for a variety of reasons. Today Saddam Hussein's army is much weaker than it was seven years ago. I don't think, frankly, Iraqi soldiers are--would look forward to an opportunity to fight American soldiers again after the beating they took the last time. And so I do believe that, of course, we could do it. It's a question of having the will to do it. And I think Richard's right to question whether at least our political leadership has the will to do it. I'm not so sure about the American people. Polls that I've been reading suggest much more support for the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein than many of us might have expected.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Kagan, part of the scenario you just painted presupposes that the existing Iraqi opposition can be tapped into, that it's effective, that it's viable. Is it, in your opinion?

ROBERT KAGAN: Well, actually, my option doesn't presuppose that. I'd like to hope that it can. I think there is a great deal we can do with the opposition. And one of the criticisms that's made of the opposition, that they're divided; some have argued that they're corrupt. The only thing I would say about that is that's true of all opposition groups in history. It's endemic to being an opposition group that there are divisions and conflicts and even some shady dealings. That was true of the Nicaraguan opposition. It was true of oppositions in many countries. I think they could be united if the United States stood behind them in a serious way. But I just want to say, I don't want to put all my chits on a successful opposition overthrow of Saddam Hussein. I think to be serious in a policy like this, the United States has to be willing at the end of the day to go in with our own military force.

PHIL PONCE: How do you assess the strength of the existing Iraqi opposition?

RICHARD HAASS: I think it's even wrong to use the word "opposition" as though it were a singular entity. What you really have are multiple oppositions in Iraq, and to a large extent they're ethnically based and they're geographically based. And I think we have to understand that if we were going to get involved seriously on their behalf, it would cause all sorts of problems between us and their neighbors, particularly Turkey, which is very worried that this could lead to a separate Kurdish state. But I also think we have to be realistic. They are not very strong. They are not united. At some point, once again, we would either be leaving them in the lurch, which I think is morally indefensible, or we would have toend up with Bob's option. I just don't think there's somehow a cheap, easy route, somehow that between containment that I'm advocating and a serious use of ground forces and air forces that he's advocating, that there's cheap and easy option that simply by helping these people we can somehow empower them to do it by themselves. If it were true, I'd say great, I don't think it's realistic. So I think we have to really limit ourselves to the more serious choices, or we could get them, and we could get us in a whole lot of trouble.

PHIL PONCE: Expand on something you just said. And that has to do with the possible consequences or the possible ramifications of a replacement of Saddam Hussein. What are the concerns in the region, as far as the stability of Iraq?

RICHARD HAASS: Well, I think it's good you raised the question. Simply getting rid of Saddam is not the answer or the panacea. We have to make sure we put something better in his place. Afghanistan is a painful lesson. It's simply getting rid of the old. It should never be confused with installing the new. What I think worries most the Arabs in the area is that it would lead to a civil war in Iraq; it would lead to the breakup of the country so they would no longer have Iraq somehow as a shield against Iran. And I think the real threat to us is you could have a major civil and even regional war. I don't think it takes a big leap of imagination to imagine not simply Iraqis fighting Iraqis but Turks, Syrians, Iranians all fighting as well. So what began as a local problem very quickly could expand into an enormous regional problem.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Kagan, do you see that as a reasonable scenario?

ROBERT KAGAN: Well, there are lots of bad things that could happen. The law of unintended consequences would certainly be a play. And if our present situation were a good one, I would say these risks were not worth taking. The question is: Compared to what? There are some bad scenarios that Richard has painted. I can paint you a very bad scenario about trying to contain Saddam Hussein, failing, letting him essentially get out of the box in the Middle East and with weapons of mass destruction and a rebuilding of his military being able in a sense to get back to where he was before the Gulf War able to call the shots and cause us quite a severe amount of harm. And so I guess what I'd say is that I think the United States can go in and try to set up a free Iraq and maybe even make it a model for the Middle East. But, in any case, I don't think the alternative, which is to leave Saddam Hussein in power and let him do--work his will on the region--is an acceptable alternative.

PHIL PONCE: Gentlemen, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you both very much.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And still to come on the NewsHour tonight, two updates--on El Nino and on the Kerner Commission report. UPDATE - EL NINO

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles has the El Nino story.

JEFFREY KAYE: This winter's crop of storms in California and in Florida have taken on mythic proportions with the advent of El Nino. California has had twice its normal rainfall. Last week, rains flooded parts of Northern California. To the South, mudslides claimed two lives and rushing waters wiped out roads. In Central Florida, tornadoes ripped into communities with deadly fury. Climatologist Tim Barnett says El Nino is often misunderstood. Barnett, who is with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, says El Nino doesn't cause storms but it does steer and intensify them.

TIM BARNETT, Scripps Institute of Oceanography: There are storms every year, whether there's an El Nino or no El Nino, isn't there? What the El Nino can do is enhance storms, or change the places where they occur and where they have their biggest impact.

JEFFREY KAYE: The term El Nino refers to a warming of the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years but as the last big 1983 El Nino demonstrated with storms and droughts around the world, El Nino's reach is international.

TIM BARNETT: El Nino is best thought of as a short-term change in the global climate. It's a background under which the storms are generated. It's the background that helps steer them and direct them as to where they're going to be.

JEFFREY KAYE: El Nino involves a complex interplay between the atmosphere and the ocean.

TIM BARNETT: Normally, the warmest part of the world ocean is over here. And during an El Nino and particularly this El Nino, the warmest water on the planet shifted out into this region, and it's that warm water that really drives the atmosphere.

JEFFREY KAYE: How so?

TIM BARNETT: Heats it from beneath.

JEFFREY KAYE: In normal years trade winds blow from the East along the equator, piling warm water in the Western Pacific. The ocean heats the atmosphere, creating clusters of thunderstorms.

TIM BARNETT: Now, during an El Nino year these winds relax, and in some cases this year for a couple of months in the summer they actually reversed, rather than blowing this way over in this part of the world, they were actually blowing this way.

JEFFREY KAYE: And so the massive pool of heated water usually in the Western Pacific shifted East, along with its thunderstorm clusters, towards North and South America.

TIM BARNETT: The warmest waters in the ocean are no longer found here in the Indonesian region but are now found out by the dateline, or even further East, as it was this year.

JEFFREY KAYE: So just about everything that normally happens, happens further East?

TIM BARNETT: Yes. In the tropics.

JEFFREY KAYE: So this year, warmer than normal waters off the California Coast produced a bounty for sports fishing. Warm water fish, such as Yellow Fin Tuna and Yellowtail, migrated hundreds of miles North. And the heavy storms that normally fall over East Asia also move to California.

RHEINHARD FLICK, Scripps Institute of Oceanography: It's hard to imagine now, but, of course, up until last fall there was a beach here fifty to a hundred feet wide.

JEFFREY KAYE: Oceanographer Rheinhard Flick, also of Scripps, says El Nino generated storms, stripped the sand of many California beaches.

RHEINHARD FLICK: Because of the wave action and the water turbulence, essentially sucked out the fill from underneath the foundations, and then caused the foundations to settle and collapse.

JEFFREY KAYE: A number of beach homes in Delmar, just North of San Diego, were wrecked, testimony to the storm's intensity. Flick says the storms, along with ocean warming and low pressure, have raised sea levels along the West Coast by almost a foot. In addition, El Nino's pressure system and jet stream winds have steered the storms further South than normal. The waves they've generated have been choppier than usual and more hazardous.

RHEINHARD FLICK: Depending on exactly the location on the coastline, many areas along the coast are more vulnerable. In other words, exactly how the waves propagate, exactly how they move through the area between the offshore islands and the coastline is highly dependent on exactly which direction they come in.

JEFFREY KAYE: Humans are not the only animals facing El Nino-related problems. The Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro, South of Los Angeles, has taken in record numbers of stranded and injured seals and sea lions. Jackie Ott, the center's director, calls them "El Nino babies."

JACKIE OTT, Marine Mammal Care Center: We can make a couple of assumptions. They aren't able to swim in the heavy surf caused by the recent storms, and possibly they were still dependent on their mother. She has gone to colder waters to find the available food source, which is fish.

JEFFREY KAYE: Why did the fish move to colder waters?

JACKIE OTT: The fish are moving to colder waters after their food sources, so El Nino has disrupted the whole balance of the natural food chain in this area.

JEFFREY KAYE: At the bottom of the marine food chain a microscopic phytoplankton that normally thrive in the up-welling of colder water.

TIM BARNETT: The phytoplankton are fed on by zooplankton, which are little animals, again very small, but the zooplankton are the basic food for things like anchovies and sardines. And, you know, it goes on up the food chain from there. So if you cut the legs off the food chain, so to speak, by stopping that up-well and bringing that warm water in, no phytoplankton or reduced phytoplankton. There are going to be less zooplankton. That means less food for anchovies and sardines and such. And what eats the anchovies and sardines? Seals.

JEFFREY KAYE: Another El Nino- induced chain reaction is disrupting global weather patterns.

TIM BARNETT: Tornadoes in Florida, that was bizarre. I think that's happened very seldom in February. The storm was on a much more southerly track than it would normally have been. And that's what we've been seeing coming through California, down across Southern--Southwest, hitting Texas, pulling up moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, and then smashing the Southeast. That's not the normal storm track. So in the sense that you say El Nino moved the storm track into that position, you could blame it on El Nino.

JEFFREY KAYE: This winter hurricanes hit Baja, California, and the Southwest United States.

TIM BARNETT: If memory is correct, we've had eight landfalls of hurricanes since the turn of the century into the Southwest. Seven of those eight occurred during El Nino years.

JEFFREY KAYE: And the reason for that?

TIM BARNETT: The water along Central America and up along the Baja was just a lot warmer this year, five or six degrees Fahrenheit warmer, and, as you know, El Nino's need--I mean, hurricanes need warm to survive.

JEFFREY KAYE: Other dramatic weather phenomena have similar explanations. Indonesia experienced massive fires as a result of drought. The reason: Normal rainfall moved thousands of miles to the East to, in some cases, South America. This winter's torrential rains in Peru have caused more than 200 deaths--victims of mudslides and massive flooding after rivers overflowed their banks. All these weather patterns are for the most part textbook consequences of El Nino, according to Tim Barnett. But Barnett says there's much about the phenomenon scientists don't understand, such as how it starts.

TIM BARNETT: We know that the distribution of sea surface temperatures in the tropics affects the winds. We also know that the winds drive the oceans and change the sea surface temperature. So if you change the winds, you know you'll change the ocean temperatures, or if you change the ocean temperatures, you know you're going to change the winds. So it really is a chicken and egg. There's no beginning, no end to this kind of a thing. There may be triggers thatkick it off or start to energize the cycle, and there are probably at least three possibilities there, none of them known for sure, all controversial. The amazing thing is, in spite of the fact that we may not be able to know exactly what triggers say this event, we can still predict it pretty well.

JEFFREY KAYE: Barnett says this El Nino, which took more than a year to build up, should peter out over the next couple of months. By fall, scientists are predicting La Nina. The effects will be a reversal of El Nino conditions, with colder than normal Pacific Ocean temperatures. Where it's rainy now, it should be dry. Areas of drought should expect rain. UPDATE - SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, an update on the Kerner Commission report. Thirty years ago in the wake of the urban riots of 1967 a presidential commission headed by then Illinois Governor Otto Kerner concluded that the nation was "moving towards two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal." That prediction has come true according to a new report from the foundation set up to carry on the Kerner Commission's work. The study concludes the economic and racial breach is wide and growing wider, with America's neighborhoods and schools resegregating and child poverty up over 20 percent in the 1980's, a situation that disproportionately affects minorities. We get four views now on the new report. Lynn Curtis is the president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation and one of the authors of the new report; Hugh Price is president of the Urban League; Robert Woodson is the president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise; and Stephan Thernstrom is a professor of history at Harvard University and the co-author of "America in Black and White, One Nation Indivisible: Race in Modern America." Thank you all for being with us. Mr. Curtis, the Kerner Commission was set up to look at the riots of the summer of 1967 and the summer before riots in which a hundred people died--nearly a hundred people in 1967, and many hundreds were injured. What was your report looking at specifically?

LYNN CURTIS, Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation: We looked at what has happened in the 30 years since the original Kerner Commission report came out, and what we found is there's been good progress in many areas, for example, the African-American middle class has increased, and high school graduation rates for African-Americans have improved. We also found at the same time, though, that there have been a lot of negatives. For example, employment in inner cities is a Depression levels at the same time that we celebrate a supposedly robust economy. The rich have been getting richer at the same time the poor have been getting poorer. The working class has been getting poor. The middle class has also lost ground to the rich. You mentioned the increase in child poverty. Today, our child poverty rate is four times higher than in western Europe and today, for example, the rate of incarceration of African-American men is four times higher than in pre-Mandela apartheid South Africa. And so when you look at income, when you look at wealth, when you look at wages, when you look at employment, when you look at education, when you look at the bias of the criminal justice system, you see a growing breach, and that's why we have said, on balance, things are getting worse.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Woodson, what do you think about those conclusions?

ROBERT WOODSON, National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise: I don't agree with the conclusions. He mixes race and economics. We have made--the biggest income gap has been low-income blacks and upper income blacks. Also, what he fails to address in the report, if racism is the primary contributor to the problems of poverty, then why is that poor blacks have suffered over the last 20 years in cities where the programs are run by blacks, school systems, foster care systems, housing programs, in some of those cities that we have the highest per capita expenditure on programs to aid the poor, highest per capita expenditure in those cities? Yet, a black child born in Washington and Harlem has a lower life expectancy than a child born in Bangladesh, and only higher in Haiti. So the report doesn't really address why, if racism is the primary contributor, why are blacks failing in the hands of other blacks?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Did you conclude that racism was the primary problem?

LYNN CURTIS: No. We concluded that poverty and race are intertwined. And I might just respond to Bob in this way. In the late 70's, when I was working with the Carter administration, I gave Bob a grant, and it was to start up his own organization. It was a federal grant to empower him to sort of invest in human capital. And he has done very well. We are saying in this report, by the same token, that what we need to do is invest in the education and employment not only of the poor but of the working class and of the middle class.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Let me come back to both of you on what should be done in just a second, but first, Mr. Price, what do you think about the conclusions in this report?

HUGH PRICE, National Urban League: Well, I think the United States is not the racial cauldron that it was 30 years ago because we have made a lot of progress. Corporate work forces are vastly more integrated. College campuses are vastly more integrated. The middle class has grown, but neither is the United States in 1998 the melting pot that it ought to be, because we do have this tremendous stratification along skill lines that affects minorities disproportionately. We have a huge achievement gap in our society. We have serious pockets of deep unemployment and poverty, and we, therefore, have a long way to go but we have certainly come a long way from 1968.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you welcome this report? Do you think it's necessary?

HUGH PRICE: Oh, I think the report is necessary because it enables us to take stock some 30 years later, and it points the spotlight on areas that still need attention. In the prison system, in continuing conflicts between police and civilians, in the pockets of high unemployment, and hopelessness we certainly need concerted action there. I think the report does sort of under-sell the progress that we've made, which has been quite significant.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Thernstrom, what is your reaction to the conclusions of the report?

STEPHAN THERNSTROM, Harvard University: Well, I think it's deja vu all over again that the Kerner Commission report, itself, was a quite unbalanced and simplistic analysis of the social trends of the 50's and 60's, quite mistaken in many ways. But it, unfortunately, created a tradition of doom and gloom and simplistic analysis which, after the fifth anniversary, the tenth anniversary, the twentieth anniversary all provoked much comment unfailingly to stress that nothing has gotten better. Indeed, things have gotten worse. Now, the Eisenhower Commission report isn't quite as simplistic as that, but it does seem to me rather lurid and misleading in fundamental ways. For example, it stresses wealth disparities with some figures I find impossible to verify. It claims 1 percent hold 90 percent of the wealth. The latest Census Bureau study of this shows that the top 20 percent own only 43 percent. More important, in terms of the stress on continued black child poverty, that is, indeed, true and very alarming. The question is: What is causing it? We know, in fact, that it is very closely linked to the fact that 70 percent of all black children today are born out of wedlock. And there is an enormously close correlation between being born out of wedlock, growing up without a father in the household, and being poor. Indeed, 85 percent of all poor black children today are living with their mother and no father. And this is a problem--I would strongly stress--that obviously would not be ameliorated one wit if every white racist dropped dead tomorrow.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Curtis, you want to respond to these and specifically that criticism.

LYNN CURTIS: I'm a graduate of Harvard, and I've learned not to listen to Harvard intellectuals as much as my mom or David Letterman's mom. And I find some of those comments just not in keeping with what the statistics actually show. And I would ask the professor to talk to his colleague at Harvard, William Julius Wilson, who has many of the statistics we use.

STEPHAN THERNSTROM: I'm well aware--

LYNN CURTIS: The most important--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What about the family structure?

LYNN CURTIS: The most important point in our report is that unemployment is at Depression levels in inner city areas, and when you have unemployment, families fall apart. You have a social structure that is not in existence. You need a full employment policy and a lot of other things will follow.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. So let me just get this clear quickly. So, in looking at these problems which you enumerated, the main cause is unemployment. What other causes do you look at in the report specifically?

LYNN CURTIS: The main policy is full employment in the inner city, along with report of the public inner city school system. The causes of this go way back, for example, to the 1980's, when the administration practiced tax cuts for the rich and that resulted in the poor getting poorer, the working class getting poorer, the middle class losing ground.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Let's look at the causes now, Mr. Woodson. What do you think the causes are of some of the problems, or do you not think there are some of the problems that we enumerated?

ROBERT WOODSON: Let me just say that, first of all I think, Lynn, this is fantasy. For instance, saying that he gave us the money to start the organization is just patently untrue, as are elements of the report. For instance, if economics and full employment and race conditions were the sole predictor of a people, explain to me why the 10 years of the Depression that 82 percent of black families have a man and a woman raising children when there was a 25 percent unemployment and 50 percent in the black community, so historically--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you're saying that's not economics.

ROBERT WOODSON: Absolutely.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That's--

ROBERT WOODSON: And racial discrimination was rampant at the time, yet, black families maintained this. I would say absent in the report is any discussion of morality, of centers of moral influence, character; he almost exempts the poor of being responsible in part for their own condition. And so what works is when you invest in those moral centers of excellence that are indigenous to those communities, enable the poor to participate in the private market that Lynn Curtis says doesn't--he refers even to a white economy. I don't know what a "white economy" is that he has identified in the report. There is just an economy for which low-income blacks and others can participate if they have the resources and the will, but certainly their condition has never determined what white America does or liberal academics like Lynn Curtis decides is in their best interest.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Mr. Price, where do you come in here?

HUGH PRICE: I think it's very clear that urban economies have undergone a profound change over the last 30 years, and that the kinds of jobs that existed in factories that paid middle class wages for marginally-skilled people really no longer exist. And folks in inner cities have gotten caught in the switches, and their children are stranded in schools that don't function very well and don't equip them for a new economy. And that is where the pockets of severe poverty and despair exist. And we need concerted action on the part of the public sector and private sector to address that. I also think that there are some areas where people really may not be able to function in the private economy, in the private labor market, as we know it, and if we want them to work, we're going to have to take public action. And there's a long tradition of public action to close those kinds of gaps even as the economy revives and the unemployment rates are dropped. So I think that the report is correct in pointing out those pockets that require concerted action, and then obviously-- and I think everyone would agree--urban children and rural children need to catch up with everybody else academically and get on the up economic escalator.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Thernstrom, what about that, public action?

STEPHAN THERNSTROM: Well, first, let me say Mr. Curtis is, I think, just flatly wrong to maintain that the disintegration of the black family, the high illegitimacy rate is a function of black male unemployment. We have examined that theory very closely the better part of a chapter in our book, "America in Black and White," and I think we've demolished it. Mr. Woodson points out quite correctly that the black male unemployment rate in the Great Depression was several times higher than it is anywhere in the United States today, and yet, the black family was not disintegrating. That theory simply doesn't hold up.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Now, the few minutes we have left, what needs to be done?

LYNN CURTIS: What needs to be done is not talk about liberal versus conservative but what doesn't work versus what works. What doesn't work is prison building, supply-side economies, policies like that. They're failed. What we need to do is stop doing what doesn't work and invest in what does work: safe havens after school where kids come for help with their homework as evaluated by Columbia University, the James Comer E. L. University school development plan where teachers and parents take over inner city schools, the Ford Foundation's Quantum Opportunity program that mentors high schoolers; the Community Development Corporations like the New Community Corporation in Newark, which creates jobs; the South Shore Bank, which creates banking for the inner city and community-based policing by minority officers. Those are all proven scientifically-evaluated programs, and if we replicate what works at a scale that's equal to the dimensions of the problem, we can make an impact.

ROBERT WOODSON: Programs of the Eisenhower Center--let me just say in terms of remedies I really think that there are moral centers of economic and social influence, some of the major churches--Pastor Harold Ray in West Palm Beach--Buster Sorries in Somerset, New Jersey, these pastors are--Floyd Flake--Floyd Flake's church in Queens, New York, is the fourth largest employer, 840 people, where because he's able to call people to responsibility. So I think there needs to be support, private. We need to get tax incentives for individual taxpayers to contribute directly to these institutions. We do not need another massive poverty program, and for this report to be silent on the killing fields of the public schools, foster care, all of the major systems funded out of the $5.3 trillion over the last 30 years, there's no criticism of those institutions in this report, and there's not a word about those moral centers of influence that are rebuilding inner city neighborhoods where government and everyone else has failed.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Price.

HUGH PRICE: I think we need a mobilization to eliminate the achievement gap in our community and a lot of that responsibility rests in our community, and that's why we of the National Urban League are parting with the Congress of National Black Churches, Bob, with the black church and fraternities, and sororities. We've got to spread the gospel that achievement matters and close that gap. But we also have to sit on the public schools which have 93 percent of our children. The second thing we have to do is there may be areas where the private labor market can't quite reach yet because the skills aren't there, the market opportunities aren't there, and there may have to be interim public action, just as community development corporations are supported by government and by foundations, until the private sector caught up just as the economic development administration in the South in the 1950's spent a lot of money on infrastructure and job creation in order to provide the groundwork for economic recovery in the South.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I have to interrupt you--

HUGH PRICE: And I think we need to look at that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Thernstrom, we can't get to you. We'll come back to this. We're out of time. Thank you all very much. RECAP

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Again, the major stories of this Monday, on the NewsHour tonight, Iraq's ambassador to the U.N. said his country would honor the arms inspection agreement with the U.N. and allow access to weapons sites. The Security Council was expected to vote tonight on a resolution endorsing the deal. And President Clinton urged opposition to a Republican-backed proposal to abolish the federal income tax code by the year 2001. We'll be with you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Elizabeth Farnsworth. Thank you and good night.