The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: A summary of today's news; an interview with joint chiefs chairman General Richard Myers; the latest on the case against the Arthur Andersen accounting firm; a discussion of the Middle East conflict among college students at UCLA in California; and the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The FBI today warned of another possible terrorist act in the United States, this time, targeting banks. It issued a statement saying it had unsubstantiated information that unspecified terrorists were considering attacks on financial institutions in the northeast. It did not say when the attacks could occur. In Pittsburgh, Attorney General Ashcroft outlined the concern.

JOHN ASHCROFT: It's important to note that there is no specific threat being communicated to any specific institution. We are not changing our assessment of the overall national threat level, and we are not asking banks to close or urging people to stay away from banks. We are alerting law enforcement and financial institutions and the American people to be vigilant and to be aware of anything that appears suspicious.

JIM LEHRER: The national threat status remained at yellow, in the middle range of the new color-coding system. It means the risk of an attack is significant. A full-scale investigation was under way in Italy today after a small plane hit a building in Milan on Thursday. Officials still did not suspect terrorism but the transport minister said the incident was strange, just the same. We have a report from Julian Rush of Independent Television News.

JULIAN RUSH: The search for clues today inside the Pirelli building. The death toll: Three-- the pilot and two government lawyers. It could easily have been higher but the accident happened after office hours and the floors above were empty, closed for refurbishment. With terrorism ruled out, the questions begin, not least, why was the pilot flying so low over the city? Standard restrictions keep aircraft above 1,000 feet. The Pirelli Tower is less than half that. The pilot, 67-year-old Luigi Fasulo, was very experienced. So the authorities are divided between three explanations: A technical problem, or Fasulo became ill and lost control, or suicide. Suicide is backed by Fasulo's son, Marco. He told an Italian newspaper his father faced financial difficulties. The 20-minute flight from Locarno had, it seems, been uneventful. As Fasulo approached for landing, he radioed: "Control tower, I have a problem with my undercarriage." The tower responded: "Received. Circle around ATA." That's the small general aviation terminal on the west side of the airport. Then a helicopter pilot radioed in: "Request permission to begin landing procedure." The control tower replied: "No. Go away. Go away." Fasulo then said, "Copied, will do," perhaps thinking the instruction was for him. "No, no, that's not for you, that's for me." But Fasulo seems to have already turned away towards the city. The tower called after him: "Look out, you're off course." Minutes later, he hit the Pirelli Tower.

JIM LEHRER: At least one witness has said the plane was on fire before it crashed. The U.S.S. "Cole" returned to sea today, 18 months after a terror bombing. The destroyer was crippled by the attack in Aden, Yemen, in October, 2000. 17 sailors died when a small boat exploded alongside it. Today, hundreds of people waved and cheered as the "Cole" departed a Mississippi shipyard. The repairs and refit cost about $250 million. The ship is now bound for its home port of Norfolk, Virginia. The violence in the Middle East spread to Gaza today. A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up at a checkpoint, wounding two soldiers, and Israeli troops killed two gunmen trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement. In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinian boys in Ramallah. The army said it was investigating. In Maryland, President Bush faced new questions about his Middle East policy. On Thursday, he called Israeli Prime Minister Sharon "a man of peace." Today, he dismissed any suggestion he had eased up on Israel.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I think what people need to do is to read my speech in the Rose Garden where I laid out a vision for peace and called upon all parties to uphold their responsibilities. In order for there to be peace, leaders must lead and people must be responsible. There is joint and shared responsibility for peace.

JIM LEHRER: Palestinian leader Arafat offered today to prosecute the alleged killers of Israel's tourism minister last fall. He said they would be tried in a Palestinian court. They're now in Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, surrounded by Israeli forces. Israel has said the siege will continue until the men are handed over. In Florida, heavy equipment began clearing wreckage today after an Amtrak train derailed Thursday. Four people were killed, more than 150 were injured. The train was on its way to a destination in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington. Kwame Holman narrates our report.

KWAME HOLMAN: Federal investigators said this morning they were looking into a range of possible causes of the deadly derailment, from faulty brakes to track misalignment to human error. Yesterday afternoon at about 4:00, the popular Amtrak auto train left Sanford, Florida-- just north of Orlando-- carrying more than 400 passengers and crew. About one hour and 45 miles later, near Crescent City, passengers said they started falling into the aisles.

PASSENGER: I was sitting in the train and it started to rock side ways and more and more.

PASSENTER: I felt this rumbling, going, going, and the next thing you knew the train was over on the side.

KWAME HOLMAN: Fourteen of sixteen passenger cars jumped the tracks, as did seven racks carrying cars and trucks. While many passengers walked away from the scene, others stuck in the overturned cars had to be lifted out by firefighters. The scores of injured were taken to nearby hospitals. Most now have been released. Eight hours before the wreck yesterday, the CSX Rail Company inspected the tracks near Crescent City and deemed them in "good condition." Several other trains crossed those tracks before the Amtrak auto train, one by just six to eight minutes. Investigators said the Amtrak engineer told them he pulled the emergency brakes but they said sudden breaking alone probably did not cause the derailment since the train was traveling relatively slowly.

GEORGE BLACK, National Transportation Safety Board: We've seen the event recorder on the locomotive. The brakes went on on the locomotive in emergency and the locomotive engineer, I understand-- and we're interviewing him-- did that as a reaction to something he saw wrong with the tracks.

KWAME HOLMAN: Before yesterday, Amtrak trains had derailed 309 times in the past five years resulting in just one fatality, according to federal statistics.

JIM LEHRER: This was the seventh anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Survivors and families of victims gathered at the site where a truck bomb destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. They laid flowers and observed 168 seconds of silence, one for each person killed. The ceremonies also included victims' relatives from the September 11th attack in New York City. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to General Myers; an Arthur Andersen update; the Middle East on campus; and Shields and Brooks.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: And to Air Force General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is with us now for a Newsmaker interview.

General, welcome.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Good evening, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Front page story in the "New York Times" this morning that said senior military officers want 50,000 more troops, 50,000 more military personnel. Is that correct?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Well, obviously we're working pretty hard right now. We came out of the starting blocks, if you will, for Afghanistan at a full sprint. We're very concerned about operational tempo and the impact it has on families and for the reserve component, for their employers. We're concerned about the impact it has on equipment. That's sort of normal but we're in increased operational tempo right now. So the services have some concerns. They're working with Secretary Rumsfeld's office to determine what those needs may be. A couple of points. As Secretary Rumsfeld said-- and I think in that same article-- we've got to stop doing things that we shouldn't be doing, that the military should not be doing. That will help in some cases. We're also realizing that this war on terrorism is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. So we've taken some actions to reduce, for instance, carrier presence in the central command area of operation.

JIM LEHRER: Aircraft carriers.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Aircraft carriers. And that will ease the operational tempo.

JIM LEHRER: Well, the story also said that Secretary Rumsfeld has told you all no way. Is that right too?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Not to my knowledge. We've been in these discussions with the Secretary before, and I think he is willing to listen to the issues and they're being debated right now and put on the table to see what the real needs are.

JIM LEHRER: Is the bottom line on this, General, that you don't have enough people to do what you anticipate the needs are going to be for the U.S. Military?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: I certainly wouldn't characterize it that way. I've said on several occasions I think we have the people we need both in the active component and in the reserve component to do what the President calls upon us to do. I think what the services are reflecting are, as we have new missions, you know, can we shed old missions fast enough to free up people to do some of the new missions? That's a piece of it. And there's some other -- just some things that have come up since September 11 that are absolutely brand new that we need to address.

JIM LEHRER: What about the concern over, if there is military... I realize this is not a decision you're going to make, the military is going to make. But if there's military action involving Iraq that that would just spread the U.S. forces too thin with everything else that's already on the table, all the things that you're already still involved in?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Without getting into specifics of any potential future operations since we have... the President has many decisions on things certainly like Iraq, I can guarantee you, and I can guarantee the American people, that we're ready for anything the President might ask us to do.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Now you mentioned the war on terrorism. Now the big news that you and Secretary Rumsfeld made this week as well was an announcement of a north command that would be basically to protect the United States. Well, now how does that fit in to the earlier issue about having enough people to do what you have to do now?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: What -- the stand-up of northern command is for the defense... for the responsibility for the defense of the United States. And previously this has been done by several different agencies within the government and services. And what we're trying to do is take and consolidate that and put one person in charge so we can bring unity of focus to that particular mission area.

JIM LEHRER: Now give me some specifics here. Who and what gets combined of the existing forces into this new command?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: That's a good question. And the first part is the North American aerospace defense command currently in Colorado Springs -

JIM LEHRER: That's so-called NORAD.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: NORAD - so-called NORAD -- with bi-national command, U.S. and Canadian, that will fold under it. There's a joint task force for civil support that has stood up a couple of years ago. Its responsibility is to respond for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or major conventional explosion. And it would stand up to support civil authorities usually a federal lead agency but it could be a state or local agency, that it would go support with special expertise and manpower that the military would bring to the problem. And the third piece is support that the military and the armed forces provide for natural disasters, fires, floods and hurricanes. I think most people know we do that routinely-

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: -- and so we're trying to focus this effort under one command.

JIM LEHRER: But is there a new mission involved in this?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: There are no new roles and missions for the United States armed forces with the stand up of this new command. There's a new focus, of course, on this mission. And we think it will be easier to respond to incidents and so forth in the future.

JIM LEHRER: Well as I'm sure you're aware, there's already been op-ed page pieces and questions raised about, hey, wait a minute, going back to the beginning of the United States of America, the military was not supposed to be involved in what will basically civilian, policing matters. And the military is supposed to fight foreign wars and protect the United States overseas but not here. Is this a major... should this be seen as a major change?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: No it's not. That premise that you just you just outlined is exactly the premise we're going to operate under today. This is not the military getting involved in civilian law enforcement efforts. As I said, all the things we do under this command with the exception of the North America aerospace defense piece, the air defense piece and sea defense, and so forth is under the... is in support ofcivil authorities, so. Let me just finish.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Finish there -

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: There are provisions where the military can be used to augment law enforcement, but it takes the President to authorize that. And that's been done a couple times in the past. It is not done very often and it's not... it has nothing to do with the stand up of this particular command. As I said before the roles and missions of the Department will not change under this new command.

JIM LEHRER: What prompted then, the stand up, the creation of this command?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Well it's something we've talked about now for several years and I think the events of September 11 highlighted the need to have one command that focused on the security of this country in the appropriate roles for the military. That was the impetus.

JIM LEHRER: If this command had been in place on September 11, what would have gone differently?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: I think what would have gone differently would have been the support to some of the efforts at the World Trade Center. There were many people trying to offer support, and I think it would have been a much better coordinated effort in terms of how we supported them. I think we would have had forces to stand up for other potential events. You know, at the time, we didn't know that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the first of many acts or the first and last of an act. We just didn't know. And so we would have organizations and forces ready to respond. As it was we had to build those out of scratch, stand up some temporary command and control arrangements and be ready for the next act. In this sense we'll be ready all the time.

JIM LEHRER: Be ready all the time but not doing anything different. In other words it would be almost a stand-by organization in terms of the civilian possibilities, terrorist acts here in the United States, et cetera?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Well, I mean that's one way to put it. The other way is to be trained and ready to do whatever it is we're called upon to do. Training is a big part of it. Equipping is a big part of it. For instance we have now mainly in the reserve component a little bit in the active component special units that are trained to detect and treat biological and chemical incidents. And we would probably do more training, more equipping of these units and make sure we're ready for the next event.

JIM LEHRER: What would you say to people who say wait a minute, this isn't the job of the military -- military people are trained to fight wars. They're not trained to protect a homeland, homeland security. That's the job of the police. That's the job of the civilian authorities.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: We absolutely agree with that. And that's why I said we're in support of civilian authorities in any case. But in many cases civilian authorities could be overwhelmed. And that's when you'll want the military to come in. Forest fires are a good example. We have people, civilian authorities that are designated to fight forest fires but inevitably every year in the summer, your U.S. armed forces are asked to devote several battalions to fighting forest fires around this country. The same for hurricanes and floods and so this is... it's just trying to organize ourselves better for those kinds of tasks where we know the Department of Defense will be asked to respond.

JIM LEHRER: Where will this be headquartered?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Right now, the preferred alternative is going to be in Colorado Springs but there's an environmental assessment that has to take place before the final decision can be made.

JIM LEHRER: The commander would be what, a four star?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: That's correct.

JIM LEHRER: That could be an admiral in the Navy. It could be an Air Force or a Marine or an Army General.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: It could be any service. And as I've alluded to in some of my remarks there's going to be a heavy reserve component piece of this command as well because many of the responders on the armed forces side are in fact in the reserve component.

JIM LEHRER: Moving on to Afghanistan what's known tonight about what happened with that Canadian, the bomb, the U.S. fighter plane, the U.S. plane dropped on bomb on the Canadian forces yesterday killing four, wounding many. What happened?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Well, first of all, let me offer condolences to these families in Canada who had loved ones killed or injured. This is a terrible tragedy, and I think we understand that and we are very, very sorry for that particular incident. In terms of what happened, General Franks has appointed the Air Force to do an investigation board. It will be headed by a one star officer, an F-16 pilot. This will be a Canadian general officer as well on that board. It will be all services will participate. They - in the next 36 hours, they'll be in the Middle East looking at the evidence in that area and talking to people that are responsible for the various parts of that whole effort to try to piece together that exact question. I don't think we know tonight and I don't think it would be good to speculate tonight on exactly what happened because we don't have all the pieces yet.

JIM LEHRER: But the question about why it happened. But what did happen was that these Canadians were involved in a live firing training exercise, and the U.S. planes thought they were being shot at. Is that correct? And they responded. Is that much of it known?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: That was the first report. And I think -- as we know --sometimes first reports are just a little bit inaccurate.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Or not always totally accurate is another way of saying it. I think we need to wait and see. That's what's been reported, yes.

JIM LEHRER: From a professional military standpoint, does it get any worse than that sort of thing?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Friendly fire, it never gets any worse than friendly fire. Certainly it can't get any worse than the United States and Canadian forces being involved in a friendly fire incident. No, it cannot.

JIM LEHRER: On Afghanistan in a more general way, General, how would you describe what the U.S. mission, military mission, is there now on the ground as we speak tonight?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: The mission there is pretty much the same as it was at the beginning, and that is to continue to hunt down al-Qaida and Taliban forces that are left inside Afghanistan. We know there's some leadership still left inside Afghanistan or at least we suspect there is. We know there are pockets of al-Qaida and Taliban that want to disrupt the new Afghan interim administration, would go to any lengths to do that. And so the mission is to find those pockets and destroy them. The other mission is a mission that will be coming online in the next week or two, and that is training an Afghan national army. The President has said he wants to make this a priority for the United States, and we are working through the elements... to move the elements in that direction to help facilitate training the Afghan national army.

JIM LEHRER: Just on a personal level, you've been with this from the very beginning, how frustrated are you over the fact that you have not been able to find Osama bin Laden?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Well, personally?

JIM LEHRER: Um-hum.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Not very frustrated because one person has never been the objective. It would be nice to find UBL, and we are hunting for him and other leadership targets continually. I mean, it's a 24 hours a day seven days a week, 365 day a year effort and will be until we do away with al-Qaida. But even if we got Osama bin Laden, there are other operatives; they're a very flat decentralized compartmented organization, the al-Qaida I'm speaking of now, they're in many countries; taking down the absolute leader would not necessarily thwart all their efforts. So we've got to keep this wider effort going, trying to hunt them down wherever they are, to ensure weapons of mass destruction don't fall into terrorist groups' hands and to make sure there are no nation states out there or others who will support them.

JIM LEHRER: How many U.S. troops are there now on the ground?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: We have approximately 6,000 troops right now inside Afghanistan.

JIM LEHRER: And that number is going to decrease rather than increase at this point, right?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: It's going to stay about the same for the near future and we have several thousand coalition troops in there as well as part of the effort for hunting down the remnants of Taliban and al-Qaida.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. General Myers, good to see you. Thank you very much.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Nice to see you, sir, thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Now, an Arthur Andersen update, and to Ray Suarez.

UPDATE - COMPANY IN CRISIS

RAY SUAREZ: After almost three weeks of negotiations, accounting company Arthur Andersen and the Justice Department called off settlement talks yesterday. The company now faces a May 6 trial date on obstruction of justice charges. Andersen has been under legal scrutiny for its role in the collapse of energy giant Enron, a former Andersen client. Joining me now is Kurt Eichenwald, a reporter for the "New York Times".

Was there still a lot of back- and-forth in these negotiations or had a final deal begun to take shape, one that was offered by the Justice Department and then a response demanded from Andersen?

KURT EICHENWALD, The New York Times: Well, to a degree what happened here is they built the ship and had an argument over what kind of varnish to use on the deck. Really, you had two sides that had different imperatives. The government needed to get this negotiation over with. They have a trial in two weeks. It was already on an expedited schedule. They need to prepare for it. They can't be negotiating a settlement and getting ready for a trial at the same time. So they put a deadline on it. They said they wanted an answer by yesterday morning. Andersen has a different problem. Andersen is not a company like General Motors. It doesn't have a chairman and a board that can simply make a decision and move on. It's a partnership with thousands of people who are all owners, who all want to have their input, and ultimately it's a little bit like herding cats. I mean, they just had... did not have the ability to get the kind of quick answers that the government needed. So the breakdown... while there were issues that still needed to be negotiated from Andersen's side, the breakdown really was one of two different imperatives: The government wanted a resolution and Andersen needed more time to get all its partners lined up and to make sure that, you know, every jot and tiddle was at the way they wanted it.

RAY SUAREZ: What do you know about what was in the Justice Department offer and would it have allowed Arthur Andersen to stay in business?

KURT EICHENWALD: Well, the second question is more of an economic question, which really goes to, would the firm continue to maintain the client base it still has? I think so. The offer was actually rather good. It was what's called a deferred prosecution agreement and under that, the government would use its indictment that has already been handed up, but would defer the prosecution. In exchange, Andersen, at a court hearing, would acknowledge that it had engaged in wrongdoing in the destruction of documents related to Enron. That acknowledge is just shy of a guilty plea. There's not a guilty plea that's entered. Instead what happens is a judge puts off the prosecution of the indictment for months, years, usually around three years. During that time, if Andersen violates the terms of what would effectively be probation, the admission can then be used against them to try the underlying indictment. So effectively Andersen would be able to, if it behaved itself, would be able to walk away from the indictment, have it ultimately dismissed, never have a guilty plea, never have a verdict against it. The government would have gotten its acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and would have been then able to turn its attention to pursuing potential defendants in the Enron collapse. That now is going to be postponed. Now you have these two sides that are really in the form of a death match right now.

RAY SUAREZ: When Andersen's indictment was first announced, the company engaged in a fierce counterattack. Has the admission of guilt by one of its auditors, Duncan, change the legal landscape for Andersen and what it's able to do once it does go to trial.

KURT EICHENWALD: Duncan's guilty plea changed everything. Prior to that, Andersen's strategy was very clear. They said it a thousand times: There was no crime here. People did destroy documents. It was not with the intent to obstruct an official investigation, which is what's required for there to be a crime. Once Duncan stood up and said, "Yes, I destroyed the documents. Yes, I did it with the intent to obstruct an official inquiry," there no longer was an argument that there was not a crime here. Now the argument shifts. The argument that Andersen has left is, "Well, maybe Duncan committed a crime, but should the actions of this one individual be assigned to the entire firm?" Now the government is going to be making an argument that there was a form of what's called a collective intent, that effectively there was enough information throughout the firm that the firm knew what was going on. It's sort of a strange legal argument. It's been used before, but there are also....

RAY SUAREZ: I'm sorry. We talked a little bit about why Arthur Andersen might want to avoid going to trial. With this waning number of days left until May 6, does the federal government also want to avoid a trial?

KURT EICHENWALD: It's hard to say. I mean, prosecutors always want to avoid a trial. It's, you know, a trial is for everybody a very iffy position. Somebody is going to win; somebody is going to lose. That's why there are always settlements. Effectively, a trial is the outcome of two sides that aren't able to make a resolution. So the government certainly had an interest in making a resolution. They certainly had an interest in getting on to Enron. That's why they were offering a deal that didn't involve, ultimately, a verdict of any sort. Now, they really don't have a choice. They can't just drop the indictment. When they had their discussion yesterday, the government presented its withdrawal of the offer-- and they officially withdrew the offer-- and they presented that as final -- that Andersen couldn't come back and seek the same deal later on.

RAY SUAREZ: Kurt Eichenwald in Dallas, thanks for joining us.

KURT EICHENWALD: Thanks for having me.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: UCLA students debate the Middle East, and Shields and Brooks.

FOCUS - ECHOES OF CONFLICT

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Kaye of KCET/Los Angeles has the report from UCLA

JEFFREY KAYE: The University of California at Los Angeles may be half a world away from the Middle East, but that region's tensions resonate here. This week at UCLA, Jewish students celebrated Israel's 54th year of independence. The celebration was accompanied by messages about solidarity with the Jewish state.

SPOKESMAN: Let's remember to stay strong. Remember to support Israel. Write letters, stand out, stay strong and be activists.

JEFFREY KAYE: Only steps away from the pro-Zionist demonstrators, an equal number of students came out for a silent counter protest to show their support for an independent Palestine and to call for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza. Signs and banners competed for attention. Muslims said a celebration was wrong during a time of conflict.

STUDENT: I can't celebrate that while, you know, they're massacring people. When torture is happening, there is nothing to celebrate.

JEFFREY KAYE: Relations between the two sides have been non- violent and civil, but marked by occasional shouting matches.

MAN: There's no doubt people are suffering but you don't put children into the conflict

WOMAN: My family is in Bethlehem. They're suffering. So it's on both sides.

JEFFREY KAYE: Beyond the shouting and the rallies, each side maintains literature tables on the campus walk to influence student opinion. Yesterday, we brought together UCLA students from the Arab American and Jewish communities to discuss their views of the Middle East conflict. Palestinian Yara Dahud, a political science major, was born in Jerusalem. Fadi Amir, a sociology student, was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. Panthea Haverim was studying in Israel until last week, when the University of California canceled her program for safety reasons. Mickey Bergman is a former captain in the Israeli defense force, the IDF. He's studying political science. Ghaith Mahmoud is an Iraqi-American active with the Muslim students association. He is studying international development. And Nicole Guzik is a Jewish studies major who plans to become a rabbi.

JEFFREY KAYE: Thank you all very much for being here. How have you been affected by what's been going on in Israel and the territories?

YARA DAHUD: I was born in Jerusalem, and my family lives in Bethlehem. And for the last two weeks, our family home in Bethlehem has been under siege. It's been occupied by the IDF. They've been using it as a base to fire from because it's very close to the Church of the Nativity, and my family has been confined to one single downstairs room for the last two weeks, locked in, no electricity, no power, absolutely nothing.

MICKEY BERGMAN: I am an officer in the IDF.

JEFFREY KAYE: Israeli Defense Forces.

MICKEY BERGMAN: And I am a reserve officer, an officer in the reserves. Obviously, a major effect of it is the option that might be called back every day, every moment. I have an emergency phone number that I can be called and in matters of hours go on the plane and leave everything that I have here in order to go back.

FADI AMER: I've been in a constant state of depression you can say from ever since the Intifada started. My grades have gone down. I'm glued to the TV. I read three or four newspapers every day. It's very depressing. It's a very depressing situation. It's affected me in so many ways. I don't go out. I don't have as many friends. You can say I'm a lot more isolated and a lot more depressed about this whole conflict.

JEFFREY KAYE: Have your perspectives about what's been going on, your political ideas, have they changed in the last few weeks? Nicole?

NICOLE GUZIK: I think, definitely. I always considered myself a very right wing person. And when I just look at the atrocities that have gone on on both sides, it makes me really realize how much there is a need for more respect and to understand the preciousness of humanity, and for me, that's completely changed the way I've looked. I've always seen myself as a Zionist, a Jew. And now I'm seeing myself as a human. And that's a completely new thing in my life.

PANTHEA HAVERIM: Watching the news and knowing that Sharon entered or the IDF entered the West Bank, the cities, there was a sense of fear from... that more damage was going to be created, but also this sense of relief that, okay, at least we're doing something. And then again questioning myself, is that sick that I'm relieved at this, but at the same time I was scared to leave the house. So when you fear for your own life, it's hard to let your ideals, your dream for peace, to ease that.

GHAITH MAHMOOD: We can't just look at it and say, "Oh, my people were killed. My people are being slaughtered. I can't believe this is happening." Because on the same respect, without humanizing the other side, whatever the other side may be, without taking that time to look at how do my actions affect the people, how are the actions of the IDF in terms of occupying another country, in terms of entering cities and villages setting up checkpoints to prevent people from moving one area to another. How have these, in essence, escalated the conflict?

JEFFREY KAYE: Both sides have been accused of acts of brutality. Does one side enjoy a moral advantage?

YARA DAHUD: I've seen all sorts of things about... of course, it's terrible. Anyone's loss of life is terrible. But when I see human interest stories on the news about Israeli soldiers and their families and their funerals and then "A hundred Palestinians died today in Jenin, most of them militants," you know, it's very depressing. It's very depressing. It leaves me feeling really helpless knowing that people buy into what they're told and buy into the media spin.

MICKEY BERGMAN: From the flip side of the same thing with the media, and I'll give an example, the fact that in the last two weeks, Israel has been attacked from the northern border by Hezbollah, shooting over 100 Katyusha missiles into Israeli cities is not mentioned anywhere. My point is that every side seems to think that the media is not representing his side correctly. And we need to understand that the way is somewhere in the middle.

JEFFREY KAYE: Nicole, a lot of this is about land and who is entitled to that land. From where you sit, as a religious person, do you see Jews as having entitlement to that land?

NICOLE GUZIK: Well, Jews have had a very strong presence throughout the land for thousands of years, but I'm also a realist. And I understand that co-existenceneeds to happen. And I think any biblicist would agree that in order to achieve peace, different measures need to be undertaken.

YARA DAHUD: There's a very simple solution to achieving security, and that is the establishment of a Palestinian state, the right of return or compensation for refugee...

NICOLE GUZIK: I don't agree.

YARA DAHUD: Well, I know you don't agree on that. But the right of return, the compensation for refugees and the right of self-determination.

JEFFREY KAYE: We come back to the question I asked before about who is entitled to the land.

YARA DAHUD: I think this issue of entitlement is ridiculous and it has no basis for what's going on here.

JEFFREY KAYE: You just talked about the right of return.

YARA DAHUD: Entitlement as in like, there's no, like, Jews are entitled or Palestinians are entitled. Whoever was living there, whoever feels like living there is entitled to live there. That's just plain fact. But the Palestinians are entitled just as the Jews are entitled to the right to self- determination.

FADI AMER: Personally I have a problem with, you know, it's very painful for me as someone who, is from Haifa whose families and great-grandparents were from Haifa and I know I could never be able to return, while someone from Russia or Brooklyn can go back, get citizenship, and get land. It's a very painful thing. The sad reality is that might makes right. Israel is more powerful and it can dictate. To do that and then to claim that it's a democracy and claim it's a great country I think there's fundamental flaws with that, to say that my grandparents can go back, but you're from Russia you can go back and this is a great country. I'm not saying it exists. I'm saying there's something we should look at, at least.

JEFFREY KAYE: Nicole.

NICOLE GUZIK: The difference between having the co-existence of two states and allowing the right of return which would then eliminate one state altogether.

JEFFREY KAYE: Do you think your generation is going to do a better job than the previous generation in resolving all of this?

YARA DAHUD: No, not necessarily.

NICOLE GUZIK: It's hard for me to see a clear solution. I can't accept the right of return. To me, then, my homeland doesn't exist any longer. But I don't know. I need to hear a proposal, a solution. I don't know what another solution is.

PANTHEA HAVERIM: I think that the solution comes from education, and people focusing towards teaching compromise and teaching peace. I mean, teaching their ideals, not compromising your ideals, but understanding that in the end in order to live together, we're going to have to do this together.

FADI AMER: I totally agree with that. I think education has to be part of the... I really do hope that our generation will be better able to educate both our kids and hopefully each other, but there is fundamentals that we have to keep in part. I don't think it's realistic for any Israeli to expect the Palestinians to educate their kids and get along with the Israelis when their houses are being seized, when there's settlements, when there's occupation.

JEFFREY KAYE: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the chance?

GHAITH MAHMOOD: When we talked about an end to apartheid, did we say how can the Afrikaners and the African people who are in South Africa... no, we said how can the world end it? Until we take this vision of how to end this conflict, I don't really think it's going to end.

JEFFREY KAYE: To what extent do you think your vision of the future, your hope or lack of hope has been influenced by living here?

YARA DAHUD: Oh, it's given me a lot more hope, and it's definitely allowed me... I've had the luxury of being able to see the American perspective, the Jewish perspective, just going to this school, and you know, then you have the Palestinian perspective obviously. And it's allowed me to see that there are a lot of doors. There are a lot of doors that are just waiting to be opened. I can imagine if I was living in Gaza, you know, I might think there's maybe only one door I can take, and that's to resist violently.

MICKEY BERGMAN: We can sit here and talk. The rallies that are going outside are peaceful. Yes, there is screaming, there are lots of emotions, but they're talking. It doesn't happen in Israel and between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

JEFFREY KAYE: This kind of dialogue.

MICKEY BERGMAN: This kind of dialogue.

JEFFREY KAYE: Do you have hope?

MICKEY BERGMAN: I really have hope. That is the first generation who will bring peace.

FADI AMER: Ultimately, there's no choice but to really solve it. We really have to solve it in a peaceful light.

JEFFREY KAYE: We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you all very much indeed.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the analysis of Shields and Brooks. And to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And that's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and the "Weekly Standard's" David Brooks.

MARGARET WARNER: Mark, the President yesterday, when Secretary of State Powell came back and they sat down to talk about their trip told reporters he considered Israeli Prime Minister Sharon a man of peace and that, in fact, he felt Sharon had met the timetable for withdrawal. What did you make of that? It caused something of a stir. What did you make of it?

MARK SHIELDS: I thought President Bush stumbled badly, Margaret. And what George Bush talked about in terms of people who admire him, it's not for his encyclopedic knowledge of the area, his mastery of detail or history or sociology like his predecessor Bill Clinton who was sort of masterful and, a little show-offy in his knowledge. It was always because George W. Bush says what he means and means what he says. There's a candor straight from the shoulder. You don't get double talk from this guy. We got a lot of double talk yesterday that was muddled. George W. Bush did not want to appear ineffectual. He said immediate withdrawal. I mean now. That was two weeks ago. We sat on this set two weeks ago and praised his speech or he got kudos for it, for his directness. Now we find out that there was some secret timetable that still is not explicit and that Sharon is a man of peace on the very day that the UN is inspecting the rubble and the damage and the human suffering in Jenin, and criticizing the Israelis for not allowing rescue operations in there. So I think it was tough for the President and I think it hurt him politically.

MARGARET WARNER: David, did you see it as a sign of a muddled message?

DAVID BROOKS: Last week I saw it as a sign of a muddled message. This week I saw it as a return to clarity, a return to the clarity of September 11 that either you're for terrorism or against it. I thought that he saw that what Sharon was doing in Jenin and the other places was defeating terrorist militias.

MARGARET WARNER: So you think he meant to send that signal?

DAVID BROOKS: Oh, absolutely. I think what happened was that at some point two weeks ago, they got a little panicked that the government of Jordan would fall, that they'd lose control of the process, and they sent Powell off to see if he could make some progress with his method. And it didn't really work. Nobody listened to Powell. People rebuffed him at every stop. There was a return to the September 20 language, which was the language against terror, the language which is the core to Bush's whole approach to this, which is that terrorism has no place. As a political tool you have to get rid of the terror or reduce it before you can have some sort of negotiated process.

MARGARET WARNER: Mark, at the same time at very same meeting, Powell said he thinks the withdrawal should be accelerated because it was getting in the way of getting on to the settlement. So how do you square what the President is saying with what Powell was saying?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think for the first time, Margaret, in this administration that has been noted by friends and foes for its iron discipline of speaking with one voice, I mean, you're seeing the Administration speaking with several voices. Not only the President more or less contradicting what Secretary Powell or Secretary Powell dissenting from what the President has said but in addition to that you had last week as Secretary Powell went on the President's mission former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a world-class hawk by anybody's standards meets with Republican Senators on Capitol Hill and basically trashes the Powell mission and says it's doomed to failure with Joe Lieberman the Democrat there as well as the co-sponsor and never does one single Senator stand up and say wait a minute you're talking about our Secretary of State and our President an important message. At a rally for Israel here in Washington a huge rally on Monday there's the deputy Secretary of State, Paul Wolfowitz... Defense, excuse me -- who is the most persistent and consistent voice in the Administration for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, the official Presidential spokesman saying I stand with Sharon. Now I think if there had been a similar rally for the victims of the Palestinian suffering, I don't think you'd have a similar Administration message. I'm not talking about moral parity. I'm talking about an administration speaking with inconsistent and contradictory messages.

MARGARET WARNER: Would you agree with that, David, that there is a split there?

DAVID BROOKS: I think they have different world views. I mentioned that Bush has a paradigm of the war against terror, that we have to defeat terrorism. Colin Powell's paradigm is a little different; it's that we're in a cycle of violence and that any act of violence makes the cycle worse. And you have to use negotiations to reduce the violence. Sometimes when they talk -- they use the same words Bush and Powell -- but if you put the statements side by side, you realize the words have different meanings. A process for Bush means after terror. A peace process for Powell means to reduce terror. So there really is some difference there. I wouldn't want to exaggerate the differences though. Remember we are dealing with the Middle East peace process. This is a four-dimensional chess game where everybody's time frame gets narrowed to the next week and that basic approaches get thrown out the window and people of opposite approaches find they can work together quite well. This coming week the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia coming to Crawford Texas -- they might find that after the verbal fire works of this past week between Arabs and Americans and Europeans, they might all find it useful for their all different reasons to have some sort of peace conference or announce a peace conference in Crawford next week. And so,despite the differences, they may come together on something.

MARGARET WARNER: David, what was your interpretation of the Paul Wolfowitz appearance at this pro Israel rally? Both the "New York Times" and conservative Bill Kristol said it was intended by Bush as an answer to his conservative critics that he's been too tough on Israel. Was there that dynamic going on, do you think?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, conservatives are certainly very supportive of Israel. Paul Wolfowitz was booed at... at the pro Israel rally this week. I think that has to go to the mentality of American Jews at the moment. This is a population, a community, that has been aroused has never since maybe 1973, 1967, it's a community that sees anti-Semitism on the rise around the world, that sees Europe becoming reflexively anti-Israeli in their view. It's a community that sees the media biased against them -- very defensive, very riled up community. Wolfowitz came in at that rally and gave both-sides language, neutral language. They were in no mood for it. I'm sure it helped Paul Wolfowitz incredibly because suddenly he's the dove and I'm sure it was good for Bush that he took one for the team. But I do think the key to that was the Jewish community's mood right now, which really is quite remarkable.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think, Mark, that President Bush... do you sense that he feels the pressure from the right of his party on this?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, I do. I think the obvious.

MARGARET WARNER: Or do you think he's in sync with them?

MARK SHIELDS: I think he is in sync - I mean, Margaret -- and I think he feels the pressure both. I think if you look at... if you look at the support for Israel in this country, it is led, just as David described, by the American Jewish community. They've been strong and forceful and in support of Israel. They've been quite passionate. There's no doubt about it. Their allies-- and these are people, American-Jews who overwhelmingly vote Democratic and liberal, but they have been joined at this time by conservatives and Republicans. It's interesting -- Gallup did a poll that showed that the support for Israel falls off dramatically among Democrats and liberals. There's still support for Israel over the Palestinian Arabs but by conservatives it's 8-to-1 for the Israelis instead of the Palestinians, and Democrats it's down to 2-to- 1. So you've got a break here where the natural allies... you've got the American Jewish community joined at the hip, joined to the hip... at the hip with the conservatives, particularly religious conservatives.

MARGARET WARNER: Why is that, David?

DAVID BROOKS: It is, as Mark describe it. I've had American Jews telling me they're now watching Fox News they've become so conservative. (Laughter) There's a multi-layer of reasons. One, in the evangelical dispensationalist tradition, Christianity didn't replace Judaism, that at the end of days there will be a reconciliation between the religions and that the settlements of the land of Israel by Jews brings -- is another step in the process of the second coming. So there is some theological support for that. And that idea only grew up in the 19th century -- this dispensationalist view. But I wouldn't want to overstress that because while that is the base if you listen to Christian Radio, talk to evangelical Christians, they sound very much like the American Jewish community. They talk about Israel's democracy, we're a democracy. They're under attack by terrorists. We're under attack by terrorists. We share their values. Evangelicals are also very familiar with Israel. Millions or tens of thousands of evangelicals go to Israel every year. Even during the war when the Jewish groups were not going the evangelicals have continued to go. So they're very informed about Israel. The final thing I'd say is it strikes me that it's eerie how Cold War debates or Cold War lines of debate are replicated here. The super hawks in the Cold War are the super hawks in Israel. The people who are sending peace missions to Moscow are now spending peace missions to Ramallah. The people who are stuck in the middle in Europe are stuck in the middle now. It's weird. I haven't quite figured that out.

MARGARET WARNER: Let's go -- before we close -- to another issue this week that mixes I guess religion and politics, Mark, and that is, the Pope's decision to convene an emergency meeting in Rome next week to deal with this growing scandal about priests and sexual abuse. Some American Cardinals have actually been meeting with reporters on and off the record, giving reporters a chance to do maybe a little more reporting than they've been able to in the past about the inner workings of the Church and the hierarchy. And I know you've been one of those who has talked to some members of the hierarchy. What's your reading about the intention of the hierarchy here in terms of really dealing with this? How far do you think next week's meeting will go?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't know how far next week's meeting will go, Margaret. I think the fact that certain Cardinals are asking laypeople what they think, their opinions, which is not characteristic of prime ministers, it's not characteristics of public television, it's not characteristic of leadership in many institutions when they say tell me, what do you think, outside critic? I've written rather condemnatory, highly critical of the Church hierarchy in this. I think that trust has been shattered. I think that the Church... the hierarchy has demonstrated far greater concern for the priests involved, the predator-priests, than they have for the victims, for the reputation of the Church than they have for the hurt and damaged done to these young people. And I think Rome is important. I'm not sure the question is how important is it to Rome in the sense do they understand that if, in fact, coming out of that conclave of American Cardinals, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston is still the face of the American Catholic Church, I mean, Boston, the most conspicuous archdiocese where I grew up but the most conspicuous offender and with offenses that cry to heaven for forgiveness and vengeance against children, if that's the case, then I think that nothing will have been accomplished.

MARGARET WARNER: David, your take on this and why if you look at the Church as a political institution for just a minute, why do you think it's finally responded to this way?

DAVID BROOKS: Well I think in part because the lay leaders, just watching it's been fascinating how lay Catholics have led the protests, forced the media to cover this and forced the leadership to respond. The other thing that's so striking is this scandal is about sin, temptation, remedy. I mean, this should be the Catholic Church's core business. They should know how to handle this sort of thing. And they have looked adrift like an accounting firm, you know, suddenly accused of trashing documents. One hopes that with this rather dramatic meeting at Rome they will somehow get some initiative, get some control over this process the leadership has been reactive to.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. David and Mark, thank you both.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of the day: The FBI warned it had unsubstantiated information that terrorists were considering attacks on banks in the northeast United States. And on the NewsHour tonight, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, said a U.S.-Canadian military board would investigate this week's friendly fire deaths in Afghanistan. An American plane accidentally bombed and killed four Canadian soldiers. A reminder: That "Washington Week" can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online, and again here Monday. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.