The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening, I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is off. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; an update on the devastating wildfires in southern California; what's behind the latest deadly attacks in Baghdad; excerpts from last night's Democratic debate; and the art of Romare Bearden.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: The worst wildfires in a decade burned across southern California today. The wind-driven flames have already killed 13 people and destroyed more than 800 homes, from northern Los Angeles to the Mexican border. Today, the fires threatened another 30,000 homes. Air and highway traffic were disrupted, and thousands of people were forced to flee. We'll have more on all this in a moment. In Iraq, suicide car bombings killed 35 people across Baghdad today, and wounded more than 200. The casualties included one American soldier killed, six were wounded. It was the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital since the U.S. Occupation began. We have a report from Neil Connery of Independent Television News.

NEIL CONNERY: The series of coordinated car bombs shook the Iraqi capital, the first was outside the headquarters at the Red Cross. An ambulance packed with explosives drove up to the security gait, a gun fight with Iraqi guards ensued. Second before the blast. At least ten people were killed, dozens wounded. Across town, another suicide car bomb, this time outside a police station, at least eight people were killed, many more injured: The capital under siege, the toll of victims rising. A few miles away, yet more destruction on the streets. Another bomb, another police station. More dead and injured to carry away. At the hospital, the relatives of the Red Cross workers wait for news. The list is read out of those who survived, those who haven't. This woman has just been told that her father has been killed. An organization that is here to save lives has found itself in the firing line.

NADA DOUMANI, International Committee of the Red Cross: I'm angry because such acts, it's only Iraqis who are paying the price for it, either Iraqis who have been killed or injured in front of this office or the Iraqis who need our assistance, and if, if and this I insist, if a decision is taken to maybe reduce the level of activities, then Iraqis will also pay the price.

NEIL CONNERY: Elsewhere in Baghdad three American soldiers have been killed in two incidents, two by a road side bomb, a third by a mortar attack on a prison.

GWEN IFILL: Iraq police prevented yet another car bombing and captured a suspect, they said he carried a Syrian passport. On Sunday, insurgents hit the hotel used by U.S. Occupation officials with a barrage of rockets. An American colonel was killed and 18 people were wounded. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was in the hotel at the time, but was unhurt. In Washington, President Bush said the attacks have made him more determined than ever. He met with Paul Bremer, the post-war administrator in Iraq, and said the U.S. will not back down.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thoughts of a free society. They hate freedom. They love terror. They love to try to create fear and chaos. And we're determined, and this administration is not to be intimidated by these killers.

GWEN IFILL: And Bremer warned again there will be rough days in Iraq. But he said, "the good days outnumber the bad days." We'll have more on all this later in the program tonight. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today, his government is not aiming to kill Yasser Arafat. Last month, the Israeli cabinet said it would "remove" the Palestinian leader, at some point. Today, Sharon said Arafat is still supporting terror, but he also said: "I don't see any plans to kill him." Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to calm financial markets today, after the arrest of the country's wealthiest man over the weekend. We have a report narrated by Vera Frankl of Associated Press Television News.

VERA FRANKL: The oil tycoon is being held here in one of Moscow's notoriously overcrowded jails. Russia's richest man, seen here in July, has been charged with fraud and tax evasion. He only supported and funded political parties opposed to many here say that was the real reason behind his arrest. Investors are already running scared. The Moscow Stock Exchange ceased trading for a time on Monday after a slump in share prices. Shares in Yukos, Khodorkovsky's oil company and Russia's biggest, dropped by more than a fifth. In an effort to bring calm, President Putin spoke on national television. He said the arrest was a purely judicial decision, but added pointedly that everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law, no matter how many billions they had in the bank. Meanwhile, Khodorkovsky is likely to remain in jail until at least the end of December, when the parliamentary elections will be over.

GWEN IFILL: Khodorkovsky's arrest could complicate potential merger talks with U.S. oil giants. There were reports he was in discussions with Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco. Bank of America announced today it will buy Fleet Boston Financial Corporation. The deal would be worth $ 47 billion, and create the second largest banking company in the nation, behind Citigroup. But the name "Fleet" would be eliminated. Its roots go back to 1784. The deal still has to be approved by regulators and shareholders. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 25 points to close at 9608. The NASDAQ rose 17 points to close at nearly 1883. Walter Washington died today. He was the first elected mayor of the nation's capital in modern times, and the first black leader of any major American city. He'd been hospitalized in the Washington area. President Johnson appointed Washington to be mayor- commissioner in 1967. He was elected in 1974, after home rule resumed, and served four more years. Walter Washington was 88 years old. That's it for the News Summary tonight, now it's on to, the California fires, deadly attacks in Iraq, a candidate face-off, and artist Romare Bearden.

FOCUS DEADLY ATTACKS

GWEN IFILL: A new wave of violence hits Baghdad. We start with "New York times" correspondent Dexter Filkins. Terrence Smith talked tom this afternoon from Baghdad.

TERENCE SMITH: Dexter, tell us about the targets today, the attacks, and what they were hitting and what the sequence was.

DEXTER FILKINS: Well, there were five attacks today, five successful attacks today. One unsuccessful. Four of those successful attacks were on Iraqi police stations. The fifth one was, hit the Red Cross headquarters here. All of those went within 45 minutes of each other between 8:30 A.M. And 9:15, one after another, bang bang bang. You could hear them throughout the city. The ground shook. I think at the end of the day we've got at least 34 dead, 244 wounded and just a lot of broken buildings, and terrible scenes all over the city.

TERENCE SMITH: Was it your sense or is there evidence that they were coordinated?

DEXTER FILKINS: It seems hard to believe that they weren't coordinated. I think there were five bombings today, and all of them were within 45 minutes of each other. In fact, today, this morning it must have been about 8:30 I was standing right at the foot of the Red Cross building that had just been bombed, and it was a terrible scene, and as I was making my way through there, I heard two other explosions go off. And I was just, well, it was a bad day. It's not easy in the best of circumstances, there were bodies all over the place, there were body parts, there were charred corpses, it was just terrible. And then the worst was to come for me, I mean, I went with some colleagues to a second bombing, the north end of Baghdad and we were attacked by a crowd of, must have been a crowd of 200 people when we got out of the truck. We were really lucky to get out alive. The photographer I was with, he got his head bashed pretty badly. We almost didn't get out of there today. I think we counted 27 bricks that smashed the windows in our car. And it was a bad scene. The crowd was very, very angry and very excited, and soon as they saw us they went at us.

TERENCE SMITH: Because you represent the Americans?

DEXTER FILKINS: Yeah. Yeah. I mean it may be kind of, you know, it may be a difficult logic to understand, but, you know, and I, we weren't doing a lot of talking out there. But I've heard this before. People get angry and they say the Americans brought the car bombs. We didn't have those before you got here, look what you've done. This was a rough neighborhood to begin with. But it was really ugly.

TERENCE SMITH: Why these targets? The ICRC, the police stations, why these targets?

DEXTER FILKINS: Well, the police stations, that's pretty obvious, they're trying to punish the people who were cooperating with the Americans. The Iraqi police force is something that the Americans are very proud of and they're very hopeful for that they'll be able to take over security one day. So these guys are in these little stations and they're just little buildings and they're doing the best they can, but they're very vulnerable. So they're sending a message to these guys, you cooperate with the Americans and you take a paycheck from them and we're coming after you. With the Red Cross it's, you know, it's hard to understand at all. One of the main things that the Red Cross is doing was helping Iraqi prisoners, and Iraqis who had been detained by the Americans to contact and communicate with their families. But the Red Cross is one of the few western aid organizations that's actually still here. I don't know how much longer they're going to be here, but they're one of the few aid organizations still standing and still operating. There are just not that maybe left.

TERENCE SMITH: Has anyone taken responsibility for today's attacks? Is there any evidence who might have done it?

DEXTER FILKINS: There is evidence, it's actually very interesting. There were five bombings today, but there was a sixth that didn't come off. And it was a car, guy driving a car, suicide bomber, I think he had bombs in the car, maybe some stuff strapped to his body. Tried to detonate, didn't go off, jumped out of the car, and the Iraqi police shot and wounded him. According to some American officials and some Iraqi officials that I talked to today, the guy told them that he was a Syrian and he actually had a Syrian passport. Now, you know, the overwhelming majority of these attacks have been carried out by loyalists of the old regime, and there's been a lot of suspicion, but not much evidence, that there are foreigners here and that there's Jihadis and Islamic fighters coming into the country, and that is kind of the first indication that may be true. Today after all is the first day of Ramadan, which is the Muslim holy month of atonement and fasting. So today was a very religious day, and the attacks had very much religious overtones to them.

TERENCE SMITH: So are the authorities concluding from that one would-be attacker that they captured that the others as well would fit in the same category?

DEXTER FILKINS: Well, that's what they said today. I mean, I have to say I'm a little skeptical until I see all the evidence. But they made a point today of saying the attacks that you saw today were the work of a different group of people than the people who carried out the attacks yesterday. That is the rocket attacks on the Al Rashid Hotel that almost hit the Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz. They firmly believe that was Saddam Hussein loyalists. And that this is a different bunch of guys, which is to say religiously motivated, possibly foreigners.

TERENCE SMITH: That attack yesterday on the Al Rashid Hotel occurred within what you I guess call the green zone, which is I gather sort of a super protected area in the heart of Baghdad, is that right?

DEXTER FILKINS: Well, you would think I was super protected. But, you know, there's an open door and they always find it. I have to say that it's puzzling. I was driving around last night, we heard some more explosions, they fired some more rockets in last night into the same compound in the same area, and I took a car out I was in the same place where those rockets were fired, I was maybe 400 yards from the hotel, there were no soldiers around, it was a clear shot. They could have done it again. They could do it tomorrow. I mean, it's hard to protect yourself in every conceivable way. In that sense they've got the advantage.

TERENCE SMITH: How do they get as close as what you're describing to such sensitive and protected targets? And where do they get the rockets and munitions to do this?

DEXTER FILKINS: Well, you know, I was talking to a soldier, just a few weeks back, but he said before we got here Iraq was an ammunition dump with a government, and now it's an ammunition dump without a government. There's just ammo everywhere here. All these guys have military training, there's huge ammunition dumps, they're finding this stuff all the time. And it's amazing, because they do find the stuff, they find gigantic stores of ammunition and guns and anti-aircraft missiles and it doesn't seem to be making a dent at all. As to how do these guys get close, you know, that's a good question. On this particular attack against the Al Rashid, there's a highway that more or less cuts through the middle of the American compound, they've built some very high cement walls, they were trying to do everybody a favor here because the traffic is very bad because so many roads are closed off and there's a lot more cars here than there used to be. So when they did that they made themselves a little vulnerable and soon as they did it these guys jumped at the opportunity.

TERENCE SMITH: Dexter Filkins, thanks so much.

DEXTER FILKINS: Thank you.

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Warner takes the story from there.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on the latest violence in Iraq and how the U.S. should respond, we turn to: Retired Marine Colonel and former Assistant Defense Secretary Bing West. He traveled with the marines to Baghdad during the war, and wrote a book about it. Retired Army Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a former Middle East intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency; and two Iraqi-Americans: Adeed Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University of Ohio, and Feisal Istrabadi, vice president of the U.S.-based Iraqi Forum for Democracy. He served on a State Department advisory group on Iraq before the war, and is now advisor to a member of Iraq's governing council. Welcome to you all, gentlemen.

Col. Lang, beginning with you, picking up on Dexter Filkins' report, what does the name of the attacks yesterday and today tell but the insurgents?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, I've been trying to follow the development of the military action in Iraq over the last few months, and it seems to me that the number of incidents is steadily building in number, and the complexity of the operations are becoming more and more impressive. The ones outside of town that involve attacks on convoys, things like this, involve both indirect fire and direct fire weapons, fairly elaborate scheme of maneuver in some cases in order to escape, they often do escape. In this case, the attack yesterday on the Rashid Hotel, the device that was constructed, I think, is not something that an Islamic terrorist group from outside would build, it's something that people with real military experience would put together in order to conduct that attack by fire, and it showed a good deal of planning. The other attacks are clearly things that an Islamic terrorist would do in the nature of suicidal attacks. So I think you have an emerging collection of forces opposed to us that are moving onto bigger and bigger things. And as Dexter Filkins said, I think there certainly is some degree of collaboration to some extent because of the near simultaneity of this, coinciding with the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan in which groups like, this including semi-secular former Iraqi soldiers would think it was a good thing to attack the unbeliever occupying an Arab country, so I think we're moving along steadily.

MARGARET WARNER: Colonel West, your view?

COL. BING WEST: We're moving more now toward what the Iraqis are going to do than the American soldiers, because the American soldiers are obviously a harder target, so they're shifting whom they're attacking, and that puts much more of a burden on the Iraqis and how the Iraqis are going to respond. And I noticed what Dexter Filkins said about how he was treated, and I think we're getting into a period of peril here in terms of which way the population will tilt. Will it be angry at those who are killing them, or will

they turn toward us and say you're the cause of it and if you weren't here it wouldn't happen?

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Istrabadi, give us your assessment. Do you agree that it appears that there are two groups, with maybe slightly different motivations, but that they are coordinating at this point?

FEISAL ISTRABADI: Yes. I fine very little to disagree with what your previous speakers have said. I think that the members of the prior regime are unlikely to have committed suicide. They were certainly willing to engage in any barbarous act to kill as many Iraqis as needed in their view, but not to commit suicide, whereas the suicide bombers represent a very different phenomenon, something with which we're very familiar in this country in light of September 11. So I think the evidence that there are two distinct groups, which however may be coordinating whether at what level I can't say. But that is certainly a possible that there is some degree of coordination between these groups.

MARGARET WARNER: Professor Dawisha, does this strike you, and I know you're far away from the scene, but as just a bad day, or do you agree with Colonel Lang that this nature, this violence seems to be getting worse?

ADEED DAWISHA: I think that this possible coordination between the Islamists and the remnants of the Saddam regime is a very disturbing sign. The fact that it all happened within 45 minutes does suggest a very large degree of coordination. And that doesn't auger well for the future. It's interesting that they actually chose the first day of Ramadan to do this, because generally speaking Muslims don't, they believe that violence is prohibited during Ramadan. The only group that actually perpetrates this are the Islamists or the Islamic militant groups because they think that a war against the enemies of Islam is legitimized even during Ramadan. That's what makes me believe that it's absolutely certain that the groups who have used the suicide tactics are Islamists. But if there is a coordination between them and the remnants of Saddam regime, then at least in terms of the violence inside cities, inside Baghdad, that that is disturbing.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Istrabadi, pick up on something Colonel West mentioned which is the reaction among the Iraqi people. What kind of psychological impact do you think attacks like this have on the Iraqi people?

FEISAL ISTRABADI: Well, I think that the danger is that from the perspective of the Iraqis it's going to look very much as though we may have had a brutal dictator ruling us six months ago, but we didn't have car bombs blowing up in our streets, and in residential areas. That is what I'm concerned about. I think that Iraqis understand that they have been alone for a very long time, that is to say that the world was largely indifferent to their suffering over the 35 years that Saddam Hussein ruled them. And it's an open game as to which way the populous is going to turn. But we know that regardless of the brutality on a day-to-day basis there was not this sort of absolute sense, and I'm using my words very carefully, of lawlessness; that is something we must take very seriously and deal with immediately in order to for close the possibility that the population will in fact say we may have been ruled by a dictator, but bombs weren't going off in our streets.

MARGARET WARNER: Colonel Lang, this is obviously also intended to have a psychological or political impact on the U.S..

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, I would say, and I'm a long time student of insurgencies of this kind and was, any number of them on various sides, and in a situation like this, the Iraqis who are structuring this effort, I think, seem to me to have a clear idea that the principal target in this case is the collective will of the American people and of the Congress, et cetera, to continue the struggle. And they are very aware of what the outcome was in Vietnam and Algeria is a thing which has particular significance to them.

MARGARET WARNER: Basically eventually the U.S. leaves?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, we and the French eventually departed from these places. So I think they know very clearly that if they can establish an image in the minds of the American people that this is a hopeless situation and that there is not, as the government says, a great majority of Iraqi those favor what we're doing but exactly the opposite, then eventually Americans will quit and go home. This is essentially a psychological process that we're involved in here, essentially a political process. So far they are moving along in that direction.

MARGARET WARNER: So Colonel West, what should the United States be doing about this? How do you combat this insurgency?

COL. BING WEST: If you notice that the weapon they're using is simply a terror weapon. It's not that they're trying to stand and fight against us, they're not going out there with rifles and engaging us. They're using, as was pointed out by the New York Times reporter, they're using these munitions and they're putting them in cars. There are two million cars inside Baghdad. So I think in terms of the tactics that are going to be turned against that, once you hit police stations once, you're going to find the others are protected. But you have those soft targets like the Red Cross, and so as Pat was pointing out I think you're into this issue, how much blood are they willing just to see running in the streets and which way does the Iraqi turn, and if the Iraqis turn against them, then it will become much more difficult to do. But if the Iraqis turn against us, it's a different story.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me ask, before I get back to you, Colonel Lang, I'm sorry, Mr. Adeed Dawisha, a forgive me -- your opinion on how the Iraqis are likely to react.

ADEED DAWISHA: Well, I actually share the same kind of arguments that have been said before. It's very clear that the target has been Iraqi, have been Iraqi targets. Out of the 35 who were killed there was only one American. It was very clear that they were actually moving against the Iraqis basically to punish anyone whom they deem to have cooperated with the Americans. I agree with Mr. Istrabadi when he said that this also kind of tends to show that there is far greater lawlessness today than there was before. After all, they are kind of trying to recreate images of the Saddam regime. What are they going to show. There was no political freedoms, there was no economic prosperity, the only thing that Saddam had been able to provide them was with security. People could go out in the street, they can walk by the river, they can go to restaurants. And if that is taken away from them, they might very well begin to blame the American presence on that.

MARGARET WARNER: Colonel Lang, back to you -- what can the U.S. do?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: What can we do? I think this kind of struggle on the ground in Iraq can really only be fought by the Iraqis. We don't have sufficient manpower to really deal with the many, many instances of this phenomenon around the country, which is outside the cities as well as inside the cities. So I think that the issue of getting the Iraqi military and security forces back up and running on our side, actually on their own side of this, is very important.

MARGARET WARNER: But the administration says they're doing that. They're training Iraqi police force what --

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, I think a very basic mistake was made at the beginning of all this, which I thought was not a good idea then, and many other people inside the government thought as well, which was to disband the existing Iraqi army. The kind of assumption was made that these people were people who were only loyal to Saddam, that they had no real integrity as soldiers. In fact most of the Iraqi army officers were nationalists and they don't want to see the country break up. And the suggestions have been made to have some carefully screened senior officers to bring their units and have them fight for the new Iraq under American supervision locally, and I think they would do much better against this enemy than we can.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Istrabadi, do you think that's the answer, get the Iraqi army back or large portions of it and operating?

FEISAL ISTRABADI: I absolutely agree with that. I think it was indeed a tremendous mistake made to disband the army, and many of us did say so. I think that you have to invest the people of Iraq in the process of rebuilding their own country. And the process of taking back law and order, of establishing security, must be Iraqi-ized, if I may use that term. Let me also mention very quickly something else that the United States can do and that is to make it very clear that the United States is committed to the at leastthe intermediate term and the long term for that matter of establishing a secure democratic and free Iraq. In other words, what Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are counting on is that the United States is going to bug out. We need to make it clear that that's not going to happen.

MARGARET WARNER: So just briefly because I want to get to the other two, you're not suggesting that the U.S. should leave right away, but you're saying at least in the security area put an Iraqi face on this, really get the Iraqi army back?

FEISAL ISTRABADI: Yes. I would use the, I would recall the Iraqi army and use it inside the cities. I would use the foreign troops to try to secure the borders. As I understand it, the one man that was caught came in through Syria, he may have been Yemeni, although the New York Times reporter said he was Syrian. In any event the foreign troops can secure the borders.

MARGARET WARNER: Does that strike you as a good plan, Colonel West?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, I was just going to say, I believe tonight that the government in Syria is sweating. If this man came from Syria and we have him alive, there will be consequences because of this. And I think we noticed that Ambassador Bremer had spoken about perhaps Iran meddling, and I think you're going to see another point that the Americans can bring up, our government, is to put more pressure on Syria and Iran and say, hey, we're going to hold you responsible if they're coming across those borders.

MARGARET WARNER: But Professor Dawisha, back on the ground what do you think the U.S. should do?

ADEED DAWISHA: Well, I think they should continue with the good work that they've been doing. We tend to forget that there's been a lot of positive developments going on in Iraq, and it may very well be that as a result of these positive developments, the attacks have been increasing in order to combat them. There is a lot of things that have been happening in terms of the infrastructure. I think if the money goes through, the $ 20 billion, there would be even greater economic activity. There's more money in Iraq, people are going out, the shops are open. People are staying out late. There was a lot of, let's put it this way. Baghdad today compared to what it was two or three months ago, there's been a lot of improvement. If the Americans can continue with that, at the same time continue with the political developments that they've been kind of working on, for example, the constitutional committee, efforts to create a democratic system, working out the census, working out an electoral system, all of these things that they've been doing just continue to show that the Iraqis are serious about staying in Iraq and not leaving it until it's democratic but also at the same time bringing some kind of a time line to convince the Iraqis that they're not there basically to dominate the area, but there's some perfect where they will leave after they have finished the job in Iraq.

MARGARET WARNER: Professor, gentlemen all, thank you.

FOCUS FIRESTORMS

GWEN IFILL: Now Ray Suarez has our report on the California wildfires.

RAY SUAREZ: The ten major fires across southern California have torched million-dollar homes like these. Many residents had to flee in a hurry.

WOMAN: I've lost all my family photos, my daughter's dance recital tapes I mean, everything was in the house. I have the clothes on my back, that's it.

RAY SUAREZ: In all, the fires cover 500 square miles, about half the size of Rhode Island. The infernos follow a hot, dry summer and spread in large part on the SantaAna Winds: An occasional fall and winter phenomenon that carries dry, desert air to the West Coast.

SPOKESMAN: It was branches, I would say six to eight to ten feet, just big, just flying overhead, just with the winds that the fire itself will cause. It was incredible. It was something I've never seen in 20 years on the job, and I've been through many brushfires.

RAY SUAREZ: The largest, and deadliest, is the Cedar Fire in San Diego County. It covers 100,00 acres and has taken at least eight lives. The cedar blaze, believed to have been started by a lost hunter, has destroyed more than 250 homes.

MAN: I was over saving my mom's house.

WOMAN: And he did save it.

MAN: I did save it. But mine went.

RAY SUAREZ: Outgoing Governor Gray Davis, who toured the fires today, has asked Washington for federal resources.

GOV. GRAY DAVIS: This is a terrible situation, these are the worst fires we've faced in California in ten years, and I want you the know that I'm mobilizing every available resource to combat these fires.

RAY SUAREZ: Of the 40,000 evacuees, many fled to the nearby Qualcomm Stadium, the home field for the NFL San Diego Chargers. Tonight's Chargers game was moved east to Tempe, Arizona. To the North and East in San Bernardino County, two large fires merged into one over the weekend. That created a line of flames 35 miles long, covering the skies with smoke and ash. Arson is suspected in this case, and authorities have taken two men into custody. There's another big fire in LA's northern suburb of Simi Valley. While many evacuated their homes, some are still there using garden hoses to fight nature.

Firefighters say the key to containment will be the seasonal Santa Ana Winds, which abated somewhat today. Still, the largest of the fires range from 0 percent contained to just 25 percent contained. And San Diego's fire chief is planning for a rough week.

JEFF BOWMAN: We look for this to be a least a five-day event from this day forward. We call containment of a fire, that term is thrown around very casually. Many people think this fire looks contained. It is absolutely not. Containment of a brush fire means we have a perimeter line around the entire fire. We do not have that. Control of the fire is after we have it significantly extinguished. We're not even close to that yet.

RAY SUAREZ: Tomorrow's forecast is for diminished winds as well, though authorities cautioned it could whip up in an instant.

RAY SUAREZ: For the latest on the fires, I'm joined by mayor Dick Murphy of san Diego. Mayor, welcome.

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: I understand in the last couple hours you've been out to the affected areas. What did you see?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: We saw total devastation. 150 homes burned to the ground. It looked like a war zone. It is the worst devastation that I personally have ever seen.

RAY SUAREZ: What are the losses so far in your area, both in people and property?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: In the city of san Diego, we lost a total of 160 homes, but no lives. In the San Diego County area altogether we're at four hundred to five hundred homes and at least eight reported fatalities.

RAY SUAREZ: Is this -- the fire so extensive that it's affecting life even far away from where the flames are actually burning? If you want to move around San Diego County, is it a tough thing to do today?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: We have basically shut down the county. We've asked employers to keep employees at home. The schools are closed. Several of the freeways are shut down. Everything is at a dead stop. The air quality is horrible, you can imagine with such extensive fires, it's not even healthy to be outside.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you've asked some people to leave their homes and you've asked some people to stay indoors. Are both groups cooperating?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: They have. We've asked between ten and fifteen thousand people in the city to evacuate their homes and the rest of them to stay in their homes. People cooperate in San Diego, this is a city of wonderful people. The police department had no problem in the city gaining the cooperation of our citizens.

RAY SUAREZ: Are there areas that are now really kind of on the knife end and need a little luck, a break from the weather, or else they may go too?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: I think that's correct. The fire is not contained, because the Santa Ana Winds have died down, the fire is not blazing out of control the same way it was yesterday. But if those Santa Ana Winds develop again tonight or tomorrow, there will be grave danger still for the people of San Diego.

RAY SUAREZ: Do you have enough water for your firefighters?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: You know, one of the first things I did yesterday as mayor is to ask the people of San Diego to conserve water, to turn off the irrigation systems, to use only minimum amounts of water. That allowed us to keep the water pressure high enough to fight the fires.

RAY SUAREZ: What about the fire crews themselves, with so many fires burning in so many different places, aren't the forces that you would have been depending on from neighboring jurisdictions so involved in their own problems that you're going to have some manpower problems?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: Our firefighter teams were stretched very thin yesterday. What happened is we had sent, San Diego had sent firefighters up to San Bernardino to help with the fires that started there earlier, so when the fires came into our region we not only were kind of overwhelmed by the fire, but were short staffed what we would normally have. There were situations where houses burned that we just simply could not stop because of inadequate resources.

RAY SUAREZ: So are there some potential problems waiting perform this current weather situation lasts for twenty-four/seventy-two hours with just the sheer supply of people to fight on the lines?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: No, I think we're in much better shape today. The governor has sent a number of fire engines, a number of firefighters into San Diego County. He has obtained support from both Arizona and Nevada, they are sending fire trucks and firefighters. If this fire flairs up again, we'll be ready.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's look down the road at the forecast. I guess you're getting updates all the time. Is there anything that's hopeful about tomorrow and the day after?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: I think the weather forecast is promising, the promise is that the winds will die down. And perhaps by at least Wednesday the winds will shift the other direction, so when the wind come from the West off the ocean they provide a marine layer that cools the area, provides high humidity and will be an enormous help. So we have our fingers crossed that the weather forecasters this time are correct.

RAY SUAREZ: Why are things so bad, did you have an unusually dry summer in San Diego County?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: First of all, San Diego is a desert. It rains in the spring. The brush grows, it dries out in the summer, every fall we have a fire risk in southern California. The brush was even more extensive this year, the fire hit so quickly, right in the middle of high Santa Ana winds blowing from the East, at a high temperature, low humidity, just all of the things came together to cause what is really the worst fire in San Diego County in at least three decades.

RAY SUAREZ: How many people do you have out of their homes now?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: Between 10,000 and 15,000 people have been evacuated. Many are staying with friends, but we have evacuation centers, the governor and I were just out this afternoon talking with evacuees that are at one of the high schools in the area. It's an extreme hardship on the evacuees who are unsettled about the status of their homes. But it's amazing the number of people that are there volunteering and helping and donating. That's about the only silver lining to a fire crisis like this.

RAY SUAREZ: They must be pretty anxious as well about getting to see what's happened to their homes?

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: They're anxious to find out what happened to their homes. The funny thing about a fire is it will go down the street and it will burn nine homes and leave one standing. So it's very unpredictable, and people don't know for sure what has happened to their home and their possessions.

RAY SUAREZ: Mayor Dick Murphy of San Diego, good luck, mayor.

MAYOR DICK MURPHY: Thank you very much.

FOCUS FACE-OFF

GWEN IFILL: Last night, the Democratic candidates for president came together once again to debate. The session, which I moderated, lasted 90 minutes and was seen on the Fox News Channel. Meeting in Detroit for their fifth debate in two months, the nine Democratic candidates for president agreed on one thing: One of them should replace President Bush. For that, the cheers from the partisan audience assembled by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute were long and loud. ( Cheers and applause ) But the candidates' disagreements about each other also surfaced repeatedly, especially over the war in Iraq and whether it was wise to support the president's request for $ 87 billion to finance postwar reconstruction. Howard Dean, who has raised the most money and is leading in some early polls, did not support the war or the request for funding.

CARL CAMERON: What do you say to service members and their families who view your position as something short of supporting the troops?

HOWARD DEAN: I don't think servicemen and women do view my position as short of supporting the troops. I've made it very clear that we need to support our troops, unlike President Bush, who tried to cut their combat pay after they'd been over there and he'd doubled their tour of duty, unlike President Bush, who tried to cut... who successfully cut 164,000 veterans of their healthcare benefits. I'd say all of us up here support our troops a great deal more than the President of the United States does.

GWEN IFILL: By contrast, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who voted for the war and for the $ 87 billion, criticized three of his rivals. Senators John Kerry and John Edwards supported the original war resolution, but voted against the $ 87 billion. And retired General Wesley Clark has in the past praised the president's handling of the war, but now maintains he would never have supported the resolution.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: We're trying to replace a president who doesn't level with the American people, who's not consistent. And we're not going to do it unless we also level. So I don't know how John Kerry and John Edwards can say that they supported the war but then oppose the funding of the troops who went to fight the war that the resolution that they supported authorized. I've been over Wes Clark's record and statements on this so many times. I heard him tonight. He took six different positions on whether going to war was the right idea. (Laughter) It took him four days to decide whether voting on the $ 87 billion was a good idea. General Clark?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Gwen. Well, I wasn't in Congress. I wasn't able to vote on the $ 87 billion, but I want to make it very clear that I would not have voted on $ 87 billion. I want to commend John Edwards and John Kerry and those who voted against this resolution. I didn't believe last year we should have given George Bush a blank check in Iraq. He said he was going to go to the U.N. Instead, he started a war.

GWEN IFILL: Edwards and Kerry were next to respond to Lieberman's charge.

JOHN EDWARDS: Here's my view, Joe. For me to vote "yes" on that would be to give this president a blank check, and I am not willing to give George Bush a blank check. ( Applause ) And I will never give George Bush a blank check. ( Applause )

GWEN IFILL: Senator Kerry?

SEN. JOHN KERRY: Well, Joe, I have seared in me an experience which you don't have, and that's the experience of being one of those troops on the frontlines when the policy has gone wrong. ( Applause ) And the way you best protect the troops is to guarantee that you put the troops in the safest, strongest position as fast as possible. Our troops are today more exposed, are in greater danger, because this president didn't put together a real coalition, because this president's been unwilling to share the burden and the task.

GWEN IFILL: Lieberman acknowledged Kerry's experience in Vietnam.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Okay, I want to say obviously I respect John Kerry's military service to our country, but that's not what this is about. This is about the votes that he's cast that I believe are inconsistent. In fact, what do we look back and wonder about our time in Vietnam? We didn't support our troops. If everyone had voted the way John Kerry did, the money wouldn't have been there to support our troops.

GWEN IFILL: And Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt explained why he voted "yes" on the additional funding for Iraq.

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT: I think we all try to do what we think is right. That's what I try to do. I thought the right thing to do, even though I want part of it to be alone and have a lot of other suggestions about where the money could come from, in the end you're presented in the Congress with a vote up or down on the $ 87 billion. And I can't find it within myself to not vote for the money to support the troops, our young men and women who are over there protecting us, dodging bullets in a very tough and difficult situation. And so I felt the right thing to do was to do that.

GWEN IFILL: The discussion also touched on domestic issues, with the candidates discussing deficit reduction, Medicare, Social Security and urban issues. All nine will meet several times in coming weeks, as campaigning intensifies in Iowa and New Hampshire.

FINALLY THE ART OF ROMARE BEARDEN

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, a new exhibition on the art of Romare Bearden. Arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports.

JEFFREY BROWN: In his 1964 collage called "The Street," Romare Bearden captured the Harlem faces around him. His portrayal of the rhythms of African-American life would become his best-known work. But here and elsewhere, Bearden, who died in 1988, also drew on his many interests: Old masters painting, sometimes a direct influence; literature-- this is a scene he did based on Homer's "Odyssey"; religious ritual; and much, much more. A retrospective at Washington's National Gallery of Art focuses new attention on an artist of wide learning and deep engagement with the past and his own time. Curator Ruth Fine:

RUTH FINE: There's something really beautiful about the work and seductive about the work. With Bearden, you know, whether you want to look at it in terms of religion, you want to read about sociology; you want to think of it through that lens; you want to think of it through the political lens; you want to think of it through the lens of how art is made, the process, there are so many places you can go with him.

JEFFREY BROWN: Romare Bearden was born in 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina. His parents were college- educated, part of an established black middle class. Early on, the family moved to New York, into the center of the Harlem Renaissance. Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Dubois, Duke Ellington and many others visited the Bearden home. For many years, Bearden worked for New York City's Department of Social Services and painted at night. From the start, he was a student of art history. His early work showed the influence of Picasso and other leading European figures. Renee Ater, an art historian at the University of Maryland, teaches a course on Bearden.

RENEE ATER: Bearden is fascinating in the sense that he looked... he was very conversant with all of kind of western art history, but also with other traditions. So Bearden is someone who looked at Dutch 17th century painting. But he's also, later on in his career, looking at the benign bronzes, looking at Ife terra cottas. So he is wide-ranging in the kind of artistic sources that he is wanting to kind of adapt to his own artwork. ( Jazz music playing )

JEFFREY BROWN: Music, especially jazz, was another important influence. Bearden said he learned about spacing between images from listening to the space between notes in jazz. His work, in turn, has inspired contemporary musician Branford Marsalis to release a CD called "Romare Bearden Revealed" to accompany the current exhibition. It was in the early '60s that Bearden began to work in collage almost exclusively, taking fragments of colored paper, magazines and other materials, cutting and pasting them together. He created a series of pieces on life in New York, from the time spent in Pittsburgh with his grandparents, and scenes from rural areas of Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. Earlier artists, like Picasso and Georges Braque, had used the collage technique. Bearden is credited with reinventing it.

RENEE ATER: When I talk about, you know, reinventing collage, he's harkening back, you know, all the way to cubist use of collage, and then transforming it into a completely new kind of medium by having it have a narrative context.

JEFFREY BROWN: One of the large Mecklenburg collages is "Sunday Morning Breakfast." Curator Ruth Fine:

RUTH FINE: It's a wonderful picture in which you really can see Bearden's concern with the geometric understructure. There are all of these square areas that provide the background. It's a wonderful picture to see his use of materials. The man's face on the left is composed of photographs of human faces. And then you come to a face that's primarily an African mask. And then on the far right, there's a woman whose face is just a flat piece of brown paper. And it really does show Bearden's extraordinary sense of humor. There's a cat in the lower right-hand corner that's essentially, again, a flat piece of paper, but these wonderful eyes and other catlike features come out.

JEFFREY BROWN: Bearden developed and variedhis collage technique over the years. His work made it into popular culture: Covers for Time Magazine and TV Guide, an album cover for Wynton Marsalis. He had gallery shows and several museum exhibitions. At the same time, he remained involved with the politics and culture of his time. He was a leading member of Spiral, a group of black artists formed in 1963 to respond to the civil rights movement. He thought and wrote often on questions facing black artists in 20th century America.

RUTH FINE: In the '30s, he wrote an essay basically saying that African-American artists should use African-American subject matter. It was one of the positions taken by a group of intellectuals in the Harlem Renaissance. By the 1940s, he was saying African-American artists should think of themselves as artists and not limit themselves. I think that's something he wrestled with all of his life.

JEFFREY BROWN: In 1987, a year before his death, Bearden talked to the NewsHour's Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How do you feel about always being defined as a black artist? Do you think you've transcended that now in your...

ROMARE BEARDEN (1987): I think no one should ever transcend what they are. Your art can do it sometimes, like African sculpture or other things. But you should always respect what you are in your culture, because if your art's going to mean anything, that's where it has to come from.

JEFFREY BROWN: In the art world, however, both Ruth Fine and Rene Ater think Bearden has long been pigeonholed as a black artist and left out of the mainstream story line of American art.

RENEE ATER: We keep coming to Bearden. I mean, Bearden has a major retrospective like every 15, 20 years. And we think, "oh, what a great artist; he's so wonderful; he should be part of the American canon." And then fifteen or twenty years go by and we reinvent the wheel all over again. And I think it's wonderful, the show at the National Gallery. But I think in some ways we have to rethink the way we talk about American art history.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you see that changing?

RENEE ATER: I do. That's what I'm hoping that I'm doing. I mean, I think we have to change.

JEFFREY BROWN: For scholars, and now for the public, the new exhibition is a chance to ponder such questions and to see how the fragments in his work add up to a full picture of the art of Romare Bearden.

GWEN IFILL: The Bearden exhibition will visit five American cities in all. After Washington, its next stop is San Francisco in February.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major developments of the day: The worst wildfires in a decade burned across Southern California, the wind-driven flames have already killed 13 people and destroyed more than 800 homes; and suicide car bombings killed at least 35 people across Baghdad, and wounded more than 200. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you, and good night.