The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is away on visits to public television stations and a book tour. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; then, the Michael Jackson verdict; a debate on debt relief for African nations; the tactics used at Guantanamo to get the "20th hijacker" to talk; an encore look at wireless technology; and one of the stories behind today's Senate apology on lynching.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: Michael Jackson was acquitted today on ten counts of child molestation and conspiracy. A jury in Santa Maria, California, found the pop singer not guilty, after deliberating for seven days. Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy, and plotting to keep the boy and his family at his Neverland Ranch. After the verdict, Jackson emerged from the courthouse and acknowledged cheering fans, but he did not speak. His lead lawyer said, "Justice was done. The man is innocent, always was." Jackson was accused of molesting another boy in 1993. He paid a multimillion-dollar civil settlement to end that case. We'll have more on today's verdict later in the program. The Bush administration faced new pressure today over allegations of detainee abuse at the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The latest involved Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused of trying to join the 9/11 hijackers. Time Magazine reported interrogators deprived him of sleep, forced him to stand naked, and, on occasion, bark like a dog. A pentagon statement said the interrogators used approved techniques and gained valuable information. And today, Vice President Cheney again rejected calls to close Guantanamo.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Does this hurt us from the standpoint of international opinion? I frankly don't think so. My own personal view of it is that those who are most urgently advocating that we shut down Guantanamo probably don't agree with our policies anyway and that from the perspective of how we proceed there, I think these people have been treated far better than they could have expected to be treated by virtually any other government on the face of the earth.

GWEN IFILL: A White House spokesman said again today all options on Guantanamo are still open, but he insisted the vice president and the president are "saying the same thing." We'll have more on the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo right after this News Summary. Bombings and other attacks killed at least 14 more people in Iraq today and wounded 22 others. Suicide car bombers struck in Baghdad, killing a soldier and a six-year-old girl. And nine policemen died in attacks in Tikrit, Samarra, and near Baqouba. Over the weekend, authorities found 28 bodies in and near Baghdad. Most were blindfolded, tied up, and shot. Four U.S. Soldiers died in roadside bombings in Iraq on Saturday. That puts the Associated Press count of U.S. Deaths in Iraq at over 1,700. At least 36 Americans have been killed just this month. The tribunal set to try Saddam Hussein released new video today. It showed the former dictator being questioned about a mass killing in 1982. We have a report narrated by Bill Neely of Independent Television News.

BILL NEELY: This is Saddam Hussein looking casual and relaxed and facing questions about the mass murder of his own people on his direct orders. The video has no sound, but the tribunal that released it says Saddam is being questioned by the investigating judge. He seems to respond to questions. His chief lawyer is at his side. They're talking about a massacre in a village where Saddam was nearly assassinated and on which he took terrible revenge, killing more than 100 people. At least that's what the tribunal says. The former dictator seemed calm, in stark contrast to the defiant, finger-pointing defendant of a year ago who questioned the court's right to exist at all. And he's a far cry from the fugitive pulled out of a hole 18 months ago. In Baghdad, they watched his latest appearance, and are waiting for his trial with relish. Also shown today, his henchmen, including his cousin, but none of them yet knows when their trial will begin. Iraq's government wants Saddam's to begin within months. That's unlikely, but Saddam does knows the death penalty awaits him if he's convicted.

GWEN IFILL: It was not clear when the interrogation tape was made. A tenth person died in Iran today after a spate of bombings. The attacks Sunday were in Tehran and the southwestern oil city of Ahvaz. In addition to the dead, more than 100 others were wounded. Iran blamed groups tied to Saddam Hussein's former regime in Iraq. Officials said the groups hope to influence Iran's upcoming elections. President Bush pointed to five elected leaders today as symbols of Africa's future. The presidents of Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, and Niger visited the White House. They discussed a plan by wealthy nations to forgive the debt of 18 poor countries, mostly in Africa. To qualify, they must commit to democratic and economic reforms. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Jury selection began today in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, charged with killing three civil rights workers in 1964. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were killed near Philadelphia, Mississippi, while working to register black voters. Killen is an alleged Ku Klux Klansman who's now 80 years old. He arrived at court in a wheelchair today. He was tried on federal civil rights charges in 1967, but the jury deadlocked. The case was reopened in recent years. The Senate stood ready this evening to apologize for failing to act against racial lynching. More than 4,700 Americans, most of them black, were lynched from the 1880s to the 1960s. The House passed several anti- lynching bills, but the Senate refused. We'll talk to a descendant of one lynching victim, later in the program. The Supreme Court today threw out the conviction of a black Death Row inmate in Texas. The majority sharply criticized prosecutors who stacked the jury with whites. The court also refused an appeal from terror suspect Jose Padilla, pending a lower court ruling. He's challenged federal power to arrest Americans on U.S. soil and hold them as "enemy combatants." More than one million Americans are now living with HIV, the virus that causes aids. The Centers for Disease Control announced that today, based on figures from December, 2003. The numbers indicate prevention campaigns have fallen short. But the CDC said they also show infected people are living longer. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained nearly ten points to close at 10,522. The NASDAQ rose nearly six points to close just under 2069. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The Michael Jackson verdict; debt relief for Africa; Guantanamo interrogation tactics; wireless technology; and the Senate apologizes for a shameful time in American history.

FOCUS - INSIDE GUANTANAMO

GWEN IFILL: Now a rare look into interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay and to Jeffrey Brown.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mohammed al-Qahtani is believed by U.S. officials to be the so-called 20th hijacker, the one who was barred entry into the U.S. in August 2001 and kept from participating in the Sept. 11 attacks. Four months later, al-Qahtani was captured in Afghanistan, and has been held at Guantanamo Bay ever since as detainee 063. Now amid a growing controversy over the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, comes the release of a detailed internal log that describes part of the interrogation of Qahtani. The log was obtained by Time Magazine. One of its reporters, Adam Zagorin, joins me now. Welcome to you.

First set the context so we can understand what this law gives. When was it made, who made it, and why?

ADAM ZAGORIN: The log begins on December... excuse me, Nov. 23, 2002. It comes in a sequence in the interrogation. The first interrogation of Qahtani was done by the FBI. That produced not a lot of information, or not enough to satisfy them. The military took over. They began interrogating him using the army field manual, which is a set series of protocols that they use for an interrogation. When that did not produce enough results, on Dec. 2, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld okayed a harsher series of protocols for the interrogation, and so that's what you have here. The interrogation begins at one level and it's ramped up on Dec. 2, and then it concludes on Jan. 11. And on Jan.12, Rumsfeld rescinded the harsher protocols and they have not to our knowledge been applied since at Guantanamo.

JEFFREY BROWN: This log, do we know who made it?

ADAM ZAGORIN: Yeah. The log was produced on laptops, not contemporaneously, but someone would write what had happened immediately after each sort of episode. Sometimes it's hour by hour, sometimes it's minute by minute, and it would be people who were either observing or participating in the interrogation, typically uniformed military personnel, although whether they'd be wearing the uniform at the time I don't know.

JEFFREY BROWN: And it's not a transcript to be clear. There are gaps.

ADAM ZAGORIN: Yeah, it's not a transcript. It is a log. It records events. There's not a -- quotation marks around the various remarks that various parties to the interrogation make. And the other thing is that there is another, at least one other record of this entire session that no one has ever seen filled with more minute, classified details of the specific intelligence.

JEFFREY BROWN: Can you tell us how you obtained it?

ADAM ZAGORIN: No, I'm not able to do that.

JEFFREY BROWN: Can you tell us that you know that it is authentic?

ADAM ZAGORIN: Yes. Its authenticity was verified by Lawrence Dorita, the chief spokesman of the Pentagon, and by numerous or a number of other senior Pentagon officials. We discussed the log with them.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, you said that this happened at a critical time when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld approved some new methods to be used on certain detainees, including this one. What kind of methods are we talking about? What do the logs tell us?

ADAM ZAGORIN: What the logs show is that they would allow more stress and a number of other tactics that had not heretofore been used. For example, the length of the interrogation extends during a given day. The detainee... sleep deprivation had been used prior, but it was extended. So on some occasions, he would be interrogated for 20 hours. There would be little breaks and so forth, but not sleep. This would be maintained. They would play music to him to keep him awake, for example-- Christina Aguilera was one of the music that they played to keep him awake-- but they also would get him to stand up and sit down two or three times in sequence to just sort of animate himself. Or they would walk him and exercise him, just keeping him going, keeping him awake, keeping him under pressure.

JEFFREY BROWN: So it becomes a kind of the battle of wills that unfolds in this log, that you could see in the log.

ADAM ZAGORIN: Yeah. You can actually see that. Sometimes they're arguing over big issues like religion. What does God want from al-Qahtani? Does God want-- the interrogators ask him-- does God want you to reveal to us the secrets of al-Qaida and bin Laden? Other times they argue about "Are you going to take a drink of water? And if you don't, we're not going to let you pray." Much of the interrogation took place during Ramadan. So he apparently felt an obligation to pray at that time.

JEFFREY BROWN: There were some moments when things get quite tense. He's made to bark like a dog at one point.

ADAM ZAGORIN: Yeah, there's a lot of... more than tense moments...anger. There's even violence. He lashes out at them. At one point, they're giving him, involuntarily, fluids, intravenous fluids because he's refusing liquids. And so he actually bites the IV tube in half at one point. They restrain him. And you get a lot of conflict. He gets angry, he yells. At other times he cries. He cries repeatedly through the log.

JEFFREY BROWN: One of the tactics was to have a female interrogator with him?

ADAM ZAGORIN: Yeah. They had... it's not clear the extent to which she's present in every scene because the interrogators, by the way, work in shifts. So he's always on, but they work in shifts. The female interrogator enters his personal space. It's not clear what that means in every case, but he objects to it very, very strongly, and at one point, he actually threatens to commit suicide rather than have this woman violate his personal space, according to the log.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do the logs indicate whether any of this was successful? In other words, do we know what was obtained in terms of information from this man?

ADAM ZAGORIN: Well, we do to some extent. The logs cite very specifically quite a number of names of contacts that he gave up in the various locations that he was in. But the logs do notspecifically cite some of the items that the Pentagon has highlighted as being the most valuable intelligence that he produced. So we have that from the Pentagon, but we don't have it directly from the logs.

JEFFREY BROWN: As you said in January, 2003, these harsher methods were rescinded.

ADAM ZAGORIN: Correct.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do we know... and the logs at that time, I think, this is around the time the log is coming to an end.

ADAM ZAGORIN: That's correct.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do we know what's happened to al-Qahtani up to this point? He's still being held.

ADAM ZAGORIN: He's still being held. He's not been charged with anything, and he has no legal counsel. As to what might happen to him going forward, I have no idea.

JEFFREY BROWN: And there are investigations ongoing into his treatment.

ADAM ZAGORIN: Yes, there are. The FBI, you'll recall that it was the FBI who first interrogated him after they determined that he was the likely 20th hijacker. Various FBI agents informed their superiors that they observed various detainees, including Qahtani, being abused. That exchange from the FBI has been made public. So there is an investigation in the Justice Department into the circumstances of all that, and there's also a separate one by the Pentagon. And I should also point out that Mr. Qahtani has identified twenty or thirty others who he has said are al-Qaida or whatever. And these statements of his have been used to prolong their detention. There is a lawyer who represents one of those whose detention has been prolonged who is challenging that on the basis that Mr. Qahtani's statements are unreliable because they have been extracted under torture.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Adam Zagorin of Time Magazine, thank you.

ADAM ZAGORIN: Thank you.

ENCORE - UNWIRED

GWEN IFILL: Now, an encore report from Spencer Michels on the new wireless technology used to connect computers to the Internet.

SPENCER MICHELS: At San Francisco International Airport, Diana Shea, a trade show specialist at a high-tech Silicon Valley firm, doesn't want to waste time while waiting for her flight. In the food court, she has logged onto the Internet to transact business without attaching her computer to a wire. She is using a technology called Wi-Fi, wireless fidelity. And for her, it has become almost a necessity.

DIANA SHEA: I mean, these days, there's not much you can do if you don't have connection to the Internet. I can connect back to work and get access to my e-mail, all my documents, everything I'm using.

SPENCER MICHELS: Before wireless connections, business travelers who wanted to go online had a tough time.

DIANA SHEA: You'd try to find places where you can get a phone line and dial in, you know, but that's really slow. I mean, you managed as best you could, but this is just so much better.

SPENCER MICHELS: Wireless technology is becoming ubiquitous. To attract travelers, companies like Way Port and T-Mobile have installed access points that broadcast Internet signals in hotels and airports. Those who want to be connected subscribe and pay a fee. Wi-Fi is also now available at certain restaurants, the Seattle Mariners' ballpark, on a few airline flights, and in homes and offices where laptop computers can be moved from room to room, or even outdoors. Here's how it works. The Internet signal that a private user subscribes to and pays for arrives by TV cable or telephone line. Instead of being plugged directly into a computer, it is connected to a device that converts it to radio waves, which are broadcast for a distance of 100 feet or so.Computers equipped with wireless receivers pick up the signals and are then connected to the Internet. Many new computers come with Wi-Fi built in. Older models can use the technology by inserting an adapter card with an antenna into the computer. The equipment that converts and broadcasts the Internet signal costs a minimum of about $100. For some techies, the world of Wi-Fi has become a hobby.

MAN: Wow, did you see how many just popped up?

MAN: I got, like, three.

SPENCER MICHELS: These two tech workers drove the dark streets of Palo Alto recently, their computers in their laps, searching for free Internet connections. Their laptops pinged as they passed so-called hot spots, where they picked up radio signals from homes and businesses equipped with Wi-Fi.

MAN: Okay, here's one. Riley's funky network.

MAN: Riley's funky network, nice.

MAN: So now we're connected to the Internet. We're on. I mean, we can pretty much do whatever we want on the Internet.

SPENCER MICHELS: Scott Crochere and Boris Popcoff were doing what's called war driving.

BORIS POPKOFF, "War Driver:" I mean, it blew my mind when I found out that you can be connected to the Internet without any wires, you know, and that these hot spots were popping up everywhere.

SPENCER MICHELS: Reporter: One research firm predicts that there will be 28 million Wi-Fi users in America this year, and triple that worldwide by 2008. Companies that make wireless equipment expect the technology to take off and revive an industry that has been in the doldrums. Intel recently showed off its wireless system, called Centrino, at this well-attended gathering of high-tech developers. The company, which makes chips for computers, is spending $300 million just promoting its wireless system. Julie Ask, an industry analyst, attended the forum. Says consumer demand for wireless will soon catch up to industry hype.

SPENCER MICHELS: You talk about the hype for Wi-Fi. What has that hype been?

JULIE ASK: That it will change our lives, that it's the next big thing. And the truth is, it probably is the next big thing. Wi-Fi is huge. I think it's going to be a great big market. I think whether or not it's a great big profit center is left up to the company themselves.

SPENCER MICHELS: Reporter: Intel is one of very few companies providing wireless access throughout its headquarters. Employees can go online wherever they are. Kurt Senert got the system running. This is like a radio wave coming into the computer here.

KURT SENERT: There's antennas in the notebook here, and they're connected to the access point in the ceiling. So, I'm on the Internet.

SPENCER MICHELS: For officials of the South San Mateo fire department, Wi-Fi means better coordination at an emergency. They are pioneering the use of wireless Internet in fighting fires. Command vehicles have recently been outfitted with Wi-Fi computers, which allow fire officials to talk to each other, control mobile remote cameras placed near the fire, and plan strategy. Richard price engineered the system.

RICHARD PRICE: I do believe that this will become a standard operating procedure in the next year or two. It's inexpensive technology, it's relatively easy to deploy, and it gives us a lot more capability to see all the way around an incident, to see above an incident.

SPENCER MICHELS: But using Wi-Fi brings up questions of security that the fire department has yet to deal with. Last year, the Department of Homeland security said terrorists could easily gain access to company and government secrets by using wireless Internet. It recommended the government not use Wi-Fi until it became more secure. The department later backed off from that position. But Stanford Law Professor Jennifer Granick says wireless shouldn't be used for confidential communications until the technology improves.

JENNIFER GRANICK: I think that's a wise thing to do, just not just for our government, but also for individuals and for companies because of security problems in wireless. It may not be the best way to transmit highly confidential data.

SPENCER MICHELS: Arthur Keller, who teaches computer science at the University of California in Santa Cruz, agrees that wireless connections can be breached.

ARTHUR KELLER: Inherently wireless networks are not as secure as wired networks because you can listen in to the network. It is relatively easy to break into a Wi-Fi network, and either to snoop on our computers or to steal our Internet access.

SPENCER MICHELS: Keller is also concerned that a hacker could use someone else's wireless Internet connection to spread a computer virus or steal personal information. That's one reason he refuses to have Wi-Fi in his own home. Intel admits that security is a valid concern and was a problem. But now the company says business and home networks can be made secure. Popkoff and Crochere found that while war driving, most wireless users don't bother with even the simplest security fixes like passwords and encryption.

SKOT CROCHERE, "War Driver:" It's easy, it's so easy to lock your network. It's password protected. Basically we can see the network, but we can't get access to it because it's locked. You kind of almost have to assume that people who don't lock it are welcoming you to at least use it.

SPOKESMAN: All right, this is the main Palo Alto Freenet web page.

SPENCER MICHELS: Paul Gregg welcomes everyone to use his wireless connection for free. As founder of Palo Alto Freenet, he and cohorts in other cities say Internet access costs too much, and should be available to everyone.

So that's the antenna up there?

GREGG: Right, the...

SPENCER MICHELS: A big antenna on Gregg's roof sends his Internet signal more than a mile.

GREGG: It's like, you can imagine there's like a donut of signals going out. >> Reporter:

SPENCER MICHELS: Freenet has put another powerful antenna on top of a tall redwood tree in a nearby neighborhood, serviceable only by climbing the tree. The signal emanates from a single Internet service provider.

PAUL GREGG, Palo Alto Freenet: If I can take A... you know, a single connection and show that I can hook up dozens of people, or even treads of... hundreds of people to it, that it's much better than having to drag wires all over the place.

SPENCER MICHELS: Greg admits that if more people, or even hundreds of people began sharing their Internet connections with multiple users, it could have economic implications. Several large Internet service providers, companies like Comcast, Earthlink, SBC, and Verizon, hope to play a profitable role in the expanding wireless market. Yet they are uncomfortable with their subscribers sharing their Internet service for free, although they don't like to talk about it publicly for fear of being perceived as greedy. Granick, who directs the Stanford Center for Internet and Society says enforcing rules against sharing Internet connections is difficult.

JENNIFER GRANICK: It would be kind of like if a cable TV company said, "we don't want you to have your friends over to watch TV with you. Each one of you has to buy a separate cable TV subscription."

SPENCER MICHELS: The use of wireless technology is so new, Granick says, that the law regulating its use is undeveloped and technology is changing and expanding.

SPOKESPERSON: This is an access point, so here...

SPENCER MICHELS: Wi-Fi entrepreneurs are betting that this technology will soon control a plethora of economic gadgets in and outside the home. Appliances, TV's, stereos, even vending machines, all connected to the Internet any time, any place, without wires.

FOCUS - AFRICAN DEBT

GWEN IFILL: Now, new aid for Africa. Ray Suarez has the story.

RAY SUAREZ: At a White House ceremony today, President Bush congratulated the presidents of Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia and Niger on their commitments to democracy. The president also endorsed a weekend agreement by the finance ministers of major industrialized nations known as the G-8 to scrap the debt of eighteen of the world's poorest countries, four in Latin America, the rest in Africa. The countries owe money to wealthy western nations and international lenders like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the African Development Bank.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The countries eligible for this relief are those that have put themselves on the path to reform. We believe that by removing a crippling debt burden we'll help millions of Africans improve their lives and grow their economies.

RAY SUAREZ: Under the deal more than $40 billion in debts would be forgiven right away and the wealthy donor countries would pay the interest on the loans. Yet even with the debt forgiveness deal, only one-sixth of the total debt owed by African countries would be erased. In the past many poor countries have spent more on debt service on international loans than on health and education services for their people. After the White House meeting, the president of Niger, one of the countries to have its debt written off told reporters his nation appreciated the help.

INTERPRETER FOR PRESIDENT TANDJA MAMADOU, Niger: Any commitment from any friendly countries is very necessary and urgent at this point.

RAY SUAREZ: Twenty more countries could be eventually eligible for the debt relief, leading to a total relief package of more than $55 billion. The British and American-backed deal had to overcome objections from other G-8 members like Germany who often don't agree with blanket debt forgiveness plans. The debt relief announcement came on the heels of a meeting last week with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair where President Bush announced the $674 million U.S. aid package to help African nations with humanitarian emergencies. The British leader had wanted $25 billion from wealthier nations for African aid.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on the debt agreement and whether it addresses Africa's economic needs, we turn to George Ayittey, economics professor at American University and president of the Free Africa Foundation. His most recent book is "Africa Unchained: The blueprint for Development." And Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and professor of development and health policy at Columbia University; he is also a special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Professor Sachs, is this method for debt relief what these heavily indebted countries need and if it is, is it enough?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, it's a small step in the right direction. I'm hearing a bad echo, Ray. It's a small step in the right direction, but it's also only a very modest way towards what Tony Blair rightly said Africa needs, which is funds to be able to invest in overcoming extreme hunger, disease, lack ofinfrastructure. Without the doubling of aid that Prime Minister Blair spoke of and that President Bush rejected, Africa won't get out of this massive crisis that it's in.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Ayittey, do you agree with Jeffrey Sachs' assessment, a small step in the right direction?

GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, it is a step in the right direction. I think everybody knows that Africa is in a very deep crisis. There is economic misery and social deprivation and that Africa needs help but the question then is how and also we have to make sure that we don't repeat old mistakes; this help is only short term. It doesn't address Africa's long-term fundamental needs and how to put Africa on the right track to development. What Africa needs to do is to grow, to grow out of debt. What this does is simply stabilize the situation.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, when you say not repeat old mistakes, what about this agreement builds in some protection against those old mistakes or does anything?

GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, true, there has been some conditionalities in the sense that this debt relief is supposed to release resources to be devoted to education, healthcare and infrastructure, for example. In the past African government made such promises but they never carried them out. And also we all know the big elephant in the room. The big elephant in the room is African governments. Africa has been totally mismanaged and misruled in the past decade, but nobody wants to talk about that because of political correctness. Africa's begging bowl leaks horribly. As a matter of fact, the African Union itself estimated that every year corruption alone costs Africa $148 billion. If African leaders could cut that in half, they'll find more money than what Tony Blair is trying to raise for them.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Sachs, are there built-in oversight provisions or as Professor Ayittey calls them conditionalities to make sure that some of the mistakes of the past aren't repeated?

JEFFREY SACHS: What's happened, Ray, is that part of this debt was canceled earlier. And what the world saw and what the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank reported was that not only did every dollar of saving go into health and education but more than a dollar went in because the increased funding of those key sectors was amplified by new commitments within the recipient countries. The fact of the matter is that this kind of debt relief has worked. The tragedy is that when President Bush says he's not giving more aid of the up-front kind that Tony Blair called for, the result will be millions of children continuing to die of malaria every year because the United States is not doing what it promised to do, and millions dying of other preventable and treatable diseases because the United States assistance is so tiny; that's the real tragedy here.

RAY SUAREZ: So to be sure I understand you, when you cite these earlier efforts at debt relief, the countries have gone ahead and done what's been asked of them without people forcing them to do so?

JEFFREY SACHS: Oh, there were conditionalities, and they worked. In other words, you make a plan. Half of the debts of these countries and more were already canceled. This is just completing the process. And in the first stage the saving was to be channeled to health and education. That's exactly what happened more than dollar for dollar because the countries not only took the saving and invested, but they added some extra of their own domestic resources. So that's what has proven that this process works. Similarly, when we've tried to control diseases, like river blindness or trachoma or Jimmy Carter's work on guinea worm eradication or Rotary International's work on polio, it always worked. It's been dramatic; the tragedy is we're not putting in the resources to get the job done, not that it doesn't work, but we spend so little. When George Bush said no to Tony Blair, that's the real tragedy.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Ayittey, with the record that Jeffrey Sachs is talking about, when we look at Ghana, when we look at Niger, Mozambique, and others, is democracy a necessary precondition for these kinds of schemes coming out all right, having the record that they do?

GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, it is definitely a necessary condition for many Africans because we know that the African regimes, many African regimes have failed their people and many Africans want regime change, and there are a lot of African leaders who make promises but don't carry them out. I mean, the progress - I mean, it is noble for the rich countries to help Africa, but then the question is: What are African leaders themselves doing to help their own people? When Uganda got debt relief in 1999, the first item President Museveni bought was a presidential jacket for himself. I mean, look at Ethiopia, for example. Smart aid is what will empower the African people to instigate reform from within. The United States and rich countries cannot change Africa from within. It has to impose reform on Africa; it has to come from within. And civil society people - these are the people - civil society groups are the people who need to monitor the aid to ensure that the aid is directed to what it is supposed to. And in order for them to do so they need to have the space, they need to have the freedom, and they need to have the right to demonstrate, and to petition their government. They can't do that in Ethiopia; they can't do that in Eritrea; and so this is why I was cautioning that we may be repeating some of our old mistakes.

RAY SUAREZ: Are those rights guaranteed to citizens, Professor Sachs, in the countries that are up front for getting this phase of debt relief?

JEFFREY SACHS: Take the case of Ghana, where President Kufuor was at the White House; he was just reelected, he's a popular man, just reelected in a multi-party election late last year -- and Ghana is exactly that, it's a place where people can speak out, where there is a democracy. It is just an impoverished country. It needs help. And malaria is everywhere. They need help to fight malaria. The children are dying. We could help not only save the children but help the children to grow up productive enough for a bright future for the country but we are not doing it light now.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Ayittey, if you are in the finance ministry in an African capital today, what practical difference, as you look out at the coming year, does it make not to have to make those interest payments or principal payments on that burden of debt?

GEORGE AYITTEY: Well, I mean, we have to find the origin of the problem. The origin of the problem in many African countries is that you've got state bureaucracies which are too bloated. I mean, if you take Ghana, for example, Ghana has 88 ministers and deputy ministers. Take Uganda; Uganda has 70 -- for a country of 25 million people, Uganda has 70 ministers. Uganda's budget is 40 percent aid-dependent. Ghana's budget is 50 percent aid-dependent. Even if you cancel the debt, you don't eliminate that aid-dependency. This is what I mean by getting to the fundamental root causes of the problem. Government, the state sectors in many African countries need to be slashed so that, you know, you put a greater deal of reliance on the private sector. The private sector is the engine of growth. Africa's economy needs to grow but they're not growing.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Sachs, the public sector in these countries needs to be slashed?

JEFFREY SACHS: Absolutely not, because the public sector right now in Ghana is $10 per person per year, $10 for health. That's why life expectancy is so low, why children are dying of malaria, why people can't get treated for the most basic preventable and curable diseases, why life expectancy all over Africa is so low. So, no, don't use the broad slogans to slash the public sector. The public sector includes the healthcare; it includes primary education. It includes the basic road building. It includes safe drinking water and sanitation. And the problem is that these places are impoverished. If we helped instead of giving food aid, we helped indeed to make farmers more productive; instead of giving emergency relief, we helped them to have a health system where the children could survive, then they would get out of poverty.

RAY SUAREZ: It seems like you two gentlemen aren't disagreeing on some of the facts, just some of the emphasis. Isn't Professor Sachs talking about money that's better spent, not less money?

GEORGE AYITTEY: Yes. But in the past we entrusted money to the government sector and the government sector simply did not spend the money wisely. And that is why we need reforms but the government sector is not being reformed. So in the meantime, people are dying. We want to save the people especially those, the children who are dying of malaria. If there's a way by which we can... as a matter of fact, if we can get to the people directly rather than passing through these corrupt governments, it would be better for the people.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let me get an answer from you on a question I asked Professor Ayittey earlier. From your point of view, how does planning, how does the day- to-day running of the government look different when you're relieved of the burden of debt payments?

JEFFREY SACHS: These countries will have an estimated saving of $1.5 billion per year. That's what it really comes down to. But as Tony Blair indicated in order to make the basic investments in health, in primary education, safe drinking water, paved roads and so forth, the need is actually about $25 billion a year. This is a very small step. The big step is to help make those investments in saving the children. That's what George Bush has said no to last week. He has to reconsider for this step to make the difference that it should be part of.

RAY SUAREZ: Now on that point, Professor Sachs has said several times in the last couple of minutes that more money needs to be sent to Africa. Do you back that proposition, or are you still worried about where it is going to go?

GEORGE AYITTEY: More money, we need-- Africa needs help, no question about that but U rather prefer that the money is channeled. That's what I call smart aid; it's channeled through African civil society groups. These are the groups which can be held more accountable. These are the groups which will sort of monitor how the aid money is spent. In the past when money was given from government to government, there was no accountability, especially the World Bank loans. Nobody was held accountable for the misuse of World Bank loans. That is why it is important to channel some of the money through civil society groups. And that's a matter of fact. You know, there has to be transparency -- one of the most, the true most effective antidotes against corruption, an independent free press, as well as an independent judiciary. In Africa, you only have an independent media in only eight African countries, so there is very little transparency. The best gift that rich countries can give Africa is Radio Free Africa and Radio-Free Africa will do for Africa what Radio Free Europe did for Europe.

RAY SUAREZ: Professors Ayittey and Sachs, gentlemen, thank you both.

GEORGE AYITTEY: Thank you.

JEFFREY SACHS: Thank you.

FOCUS - LYNCHING APOLOGY

GWEN IFILL: Now the Senate apologizes.

GWEN IFILL: It was a shameful period in American history. Between 1882 and 1968, at least 4700 people, most of them black, were lynched, many of them set upon by mobs, shot, hanged. The images captured here in the book "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" are indelible and it haunts many families as well. One is Doria Johnson, the great, great granddaughter of this man, Anthony Crawford, a prosperous landowner who was lynched in Abbeville, South Carolina in 1916. Nearly 200 pieces of anti-lynching legislation have been introduced into Congress, but over the years, the Senate thwarted by filibusters led by southern lawmakers has never condemned the act, until today when the Senate offered a formal apology in the form of a non-binding resolution sponsored by two southern senators, Democrat Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican George Allen of Virginia. Doria Johnson, descendants of other lynching victims, and James Cameron, a 91-year-old lynching "survivor," came to Capitol Hill to witness the vote. I sat down with Johnson earlier.

GWEN IFILL: How did you first hear the story of your great-great-grandfather?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: In my aunt's home there's a big picture of him. And he just looks so dignified. In addition to that, my school was being integrated. So I would go home and my grandfather would talk about how much he hated white people, so he sat down and told me the story of Grandpa Crawford.

GWEN IFILL: What did he say?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: He said that, "You know your great-great grandfather was lynched." I go, "what's a lynching?" And then he proceeded to tell me what happened to him.

GWEN IFILL: How old were you?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: I was probably in kindergarten. After you got older in the family, you were handed the story, which was the NAACP investigation. And you were also told to walk with your head up, that you come from good stock, and of course these things don't mean a lot, but you know you're not to bring any shame upon the family because you are a Crawford, you're someone special.

GWEN IFILL: Was this something that your family talked about a lot?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: Yes. At my generation, we can talk about it. But for the first generation of children, Anthony Crawford's children that it affected, they couldn't talk about it. It was too painful. They lost so much. They were run out of town. So they had to start all over again and from what I understand, talking about it was very painful for them.

GWEN IFILL: Tell me about it. Tell me what happened, what led to the lynching.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: Yes. Grandpa Crawford was able to accumulate 427 acres of prime cotton land. In addition to that, he was president of the Black Masons of South Carolina. He started a school on his land, called the Abbeville School, for black children. He was a voter. He served on the federal jury and started a union of black farmers, so he was just a very prosperous man. He also had 13 children who all lived onhis property and worked for him and had their own homes. Well, Oct. 21, 1916, grandpa Crawford went to downtown Abbeville, South Carolina, to sell his cotton seed. He stood in line with the rest of the farmers. But when he got to the front of the line, W.D. Barksdale, who was the storekeeper, offered Grandpa Crawford 85 cents for his cotton seed when it was worth 90 cents.

GWEN IFILL: This was a white man.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: Grandpa told Mr. Barksdale that he was cheating him and Mr. Barksdale called Grandpa Crawford a liar. At that point someone else in the store came in after Grandpa Crawford. He fought them; in fact, he fought with 12 people backing out of his store and towards the square. But a sheriff arrested him for accusing a white man and he was taken to jail.

GWEN IFILL: We've heard so much about lynchings that usually arise out of a black man whistling at a white woman, in the case of Emmett Till or other cases. In this case, this was about property; this was about land; this was about resources.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: Yes.

GWEN IFILL: Very different.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: Well, no. I don't think so. I think that if you really do the research you're going to find that a lot of people who were lynched were community leaders, business owners, people who threatened the ethos of white supremacy, people who were going to be respected. These are the people that were lynched.

GWEN IFILL: So how many people were involved in this lynching and how did it occur?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: The governor's report says 400 people. But what they did was probably it had gotten up to 200 people when Grandpa Crawford was finally taken from the jail. The jail was overtaken from the sheriff. He was drug down the stairs to the back of a buggy...

GWEN IFILL: And he was killed. He was hanged. He was shot.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: He was stabbed, beaten and hung from a tree. And his children were ordered to leave town. And they had to start all over again wherever they ended up. Sorry.

GWEN IFILL: So all the land that he owned went away. The family inherited nothing. How...

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: That's right.

GWEN IFILL: How did the community react of Abbeville?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: A lot of blacks of Abbeville left.

GWEN IFILL: Because they felt unsafe there?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: That's right. If Mr. Crawford were lynched like that, then how safe are the rest of us?

GWEN IFILL: In 1990, you decided to visit the scene of the lynching.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: I did.

GWEN IFILL: What was that like?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: It was mixed feelings I was so excited to find out I have family members in Abbeville and surrounding areas and I was going to finally have an opportunity to meet everyone. I was surprised at the number of us that were there, but I remember driving in from Anderson, South Carolina, which was the largest town close to Abbeville. It's a two-lane highway which goes into Abbeville. I also remember it being very, very hot that day. And I just became very aware that, you know, that's where 20,000 slaves once lived. I could just look out in the fields and could see pregnant women and children and men out there working in the hot sun, and here I am in this air conditioned car. And then I became aware of what had happened there, the history there. And then I felt terror for some reason. I felt a little better once I got to the town square and met my cousin. But it was just a real feeling for me that day.

GWEN IFILL: And when you met your relatives down there, were they still talking about it, those who remain?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: Yes, it was still the number one subject and it still is today at our family reunion some 15 years later, the number one subject for the Crawford family.

GWEN IFILL: After 200 efforts over the years to try do this, finally this is on the floor of the Senate, in part because of your efforts. Why didn't you just walk away from it? It would have been so easy just to say well that's part of history but this is now.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: It's not easy for a Crawford. None of us have walked away this. Never. We were told to never do that. To honor Grandpa Crawford. When you see his picture you're going to see he was a very dignified man. He died for us. When he said "give my book to my children," that meant not only his bank book but his heritage. We are to honor that and to talk about it as much as we can.

GWEN IFILL: Are you surprised that the Senate is acting on this now?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: I'm not surprised by anything anymore, no. Again, Grandpa Crawford's blood has never dried. And as far as we were concerned we were going to get something for this, vindication, apology, this is something we prayed for. So we are not surprised that our prayers are being answered.

GWEN IFILL: What do you get out of this? If they decide to pass this on a voice vote, it's a hugely symbolic act. What difference does it make?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: I mean, for every victim it makes a difference when someone apologizes for something that they could have done something about. If you don't you have blood on your hands. It's never too late to make amends.

GWEN IFILL: What do you say to people who say, "Let's move on. That was then, this is now?"

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: I would say that because of Anthony Crawford's demise, someone got rich. And the Crawford family suffered behind that. So that needs to be discussed.

GWEN IFILL: How does that get discussed?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: By one way is to start with this apology from the United States Senate but certainly we'd like to sit down with the state of South Carolina and hear an apology from them, the city of Abbeville and possibly people who know that their families were involved in this.

GWEN IFILL: What do you say to people who say that an apology is not enough?

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: I would say that we need to start with an apology and then perhaps if you admit that you're wrong, perhaps you're open to dialogue about some of the other atrocities that have happened and how they affect people. But I certainly think it's okay to start with the apology.

GWEN IFILL: Doria Johnson, thank you so much for telling us your story.

DORIA DEE JOHNSON: Thank you very much for having me.

GWEN IFILL: Senators agreed to pass the anti-lynching resolution by a voice vote. That means there will be no roll call record of who was for it or against it.

ESSAY - WORLD OF FAITH

GWEN IFILL: We had hoped to bring you the Michael Jackson story, but we we've had production problems in California. So instead we have a Roger Rosenblatt essay. He considers the rise of religion in American life.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: As a secular Jew, a distinction in Judaism as unspectacular as that of a lapsed Catholic it fascinates me how religious the world seems to be growing, or if not growing, at least showing a religious face more boldly. That face was most recently observed in the TV coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II. And then the ascension of Pope Benedict XVI. You can tell me otherwise, but I do not recall such worldwide attention paid to the Vatican, even when the ecumenical Pope John XXIII came and departed. But the assertion of other religions seems equally strong. Americans and Europeans are more aware of militant Islam since Sept. 11. But in contradictory response, Islam has been eager to show its benign and spiritual identity as its true nature. Judaism too has become more committed to itself. Not long ago, American Jewish leaders were concerned that the faith was disappearing by assimilation as the hands of secularists like me. Now young Jews assemble in greater numbers than ever to pray not in reformed synagogues but in the much stricter and more ritually austere and orthodox temples.

SPOKESMAN: A number of united states senators are preventing the confirmation of appellate court nominees not because of their professional qualifications but because of their faith.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Elsewhere in America the political power of the evangelical churches is so much in evidence that it is spoken of as one used to speak of the political power of labor unions. But evangelism's apolitical emotional identity shows a separate power of its own. Religion is everywhere. The president avers his faith frequently.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yet I have found my faith helps me in the service to people.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Members of Congress, once leery of the subject, are almost defensively eager to announce their faith. Separation of church and state, be, you should pardon the expression, damned. Were I an atheist or agnostic, I might feel isolated or even imperiled by such a turn of events. My faith being real but inquiring, I'm more curious than anything else. History often displays periods of overheated religious activity as heading towards wars and mass murder. Leaving those dire possibilities in abeyance, I simply don't know what to make of the phenomenon. It's not that one can't come up with reasons. All these manifestations are arising at a time of individualism shown in everything from the I-pod and bloggers to efforts towards the perfectibility of one's appearance, one's health, one's sex life. So religion may offer the countervailing force of community and of dependence on a higher perfection.

SPOKESMAN: The body of Christ.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Or it may arise out of the power of ceremony in reaction to decades when ceremony was abandoned, or in reaction to a time of threat. Terrorism can make believers of us all because it's so random and sudden. God may be random and sudden as well, but one feels that God has our welfare at heart. Finally there's another possibility. Religion may be on the rise because of secularists like myself, who, it may be thought, have been in charge of public life too long. We certainly don't feel in charge these days. I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again the major developments of the day: Michael Jackson was acquitted on ten counts of child molestation and conspiracy. U.S. Officials defended interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, and Vice President Cheney rejected calls to close the prison site. And bombings and other attacks killed at least 14 more people in Iraq.

GWEN IFILL: And again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 17 more.

GWEN IFILL: We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you, and good night.