The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'mMargaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of the day; the growing debate over gay marriage with legal experts and religious activists; Bosnia recovering from war; a new watchdog role in the aftermath of the New York Times scandal; and remembering legendary music producer Sam Phillips.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: The U.S. has lost two more soldiers in Iraq. One was killed today when a mine exploded on a road near the Baghdad airport. Another was shot dead last night, northeast of the city. In all, 166 U.S. troops have been killed in action in Iraq. 52 of those have died in attacks since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat. The U.S. Official leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq today reported solid progress. David Kay a former U.N. weapons inspector spoke to reporters outside his closed-door meetings with two Senate committees. He disputed an article in today's "Washington Post" that Iraqi scientists have provided no evidence. But Kay indicated it would be some time before his team reports anything publicly.

DAVID KAY, Iraq Survey Group: I think it's important that people understand we are gaining the cooperation, the active cooperation, of Iraqis who are involved in that program. We are, as we speak, involved in sensitive exploitation of sites that we are being led to by Iraqis. There is solid evidence being produced. We do not intend to expose this evidence until we have full confidence that it is solid proof of what we've proposed to talk about.

MARGARET WARNER: Later Kay said his team has found some physical evidence, but he would not say any more. And the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, cautioned that any progress was preliminary in nature. Iraq could hold elections for a new democratic government as early as the middle of next year. That was the word today from the U.S. Administrator running Iraq, Paul Bremer. "It is certainly not unrealistic to think we could possibly have general elections by midyear 2004," Bremer said, after a new constitution is written and approved by referendum. The Bush administration has said the U.S. would quickly cede authority to a democratic Iraqi government once it's elected. In other developments on Iraq, the State Department today approved paying a $30 million reward to the tipster who led U.S. troops to Saddam Hussein's sons. The brothers died in a firefight last week. The administration has not revealed the tipster's name or whereabouts. And two of Saddam Hussein's daughters took refuge in Jordan today. A Jordanian spokesman said King Abdullah decided to offer them refuge. Their husbands defected to Jordan in 1995. They were killed when they returned to Baghdad the following year. North Korea may accept the president's proposal for expanded, multilateral talks on its nuclear weapons program. The Russians said today a North Korean envoy expressed support for a six-nation format. In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. Officials were encouraged there were similar reports from China.

RICHARD BOUCHER, State Department Spokesman: We've certainly been hearing things from the Chinese, and so I think we're quite encouraged that the North Koreans are accepting the president's proposal for multilateral talks. We have a number of indications to that effect.

MARGARET WARNER: The North Koreans initially insisted on one-on-one talks with the U.S., but did take part in three-way discussions with the U.S. and China in April. The new format would add Russia, South Korea and Japan. West African leaders agreed today to send 1,500 peacekeeping troops into Liberia by early next week. Eventually, the force would grow to 5,000 troops from six nations with U.S. financial and logistical support. Meeting in Ghana, the West African leaders said it was agreed that Liberian President Charles Taylor would go into exile in Nigeria, within three days of the peacekeepers' arrival. It was not clear if Taylor himself had endorsed the announcement. Aid groups say more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in bloody civil conflict there. The Vatican opened a worldwide campaign today against legalizing gay marriage. In a 12-page document, it warned Catholic lawmakers that supporting same-sex unions would be "gravely immoral." The document said: "Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law." It also condemned letting gay couples adopt children. In Washington, a White House spokesman said the Bush administration would look at a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage after two pending state court decisions. We'll have more on all this later in the program. There was swift, sudden movement in the Senate today on an energy bill. It came after Majority Leader Bill Frist was criticized for a lack of progress on the legislation. Kwame Holman has the story.

KWAME HOLMAN: The criticisms of Frist were aimed at his decision to schedule time this week to debate and vote on four controversial judicial nominees. It was clear Democrats would block the nominations, as they did this morning and as they have done repeatedly this session. But the debates also interrupted progress on a major energy bill, which many senators had hoped to finish before the beginning of the August recess this weekend. Last night, Frist conceded the energy bill would not get done. In this morning's addition of "Roll Call," a Capitol Hill newspaper, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe said he thought "it was a mistake" to have brought the stalled judicial nominations to the floor this week. Idaho Republican Larry Craig said, "It was unwise." And Wyoming's Craig Thomas said, "I wish we hadn't gone off of the energy bill." Democratic leader Tom Daschle picked up on the criticism this morning.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE, Minority Leader: "Hurry up and wait" seems to me to have been the adage. Stop and start. Switch gears. That has been the pattern all week long.

KWAME HOLMAN: Frist took the floor and charged it's the Democrats who have delayed action on the energy bill by weighing it down with amendments.

SEN. BILL FRIST, Majority Leader: And I'm beginning to lose faith in the other side of the aisle because they are obstructing, flat-out obstruction.

KWAME HOLMAN: Daschle responded, arguing the Senate simply should have brought back the energy bill it passed last year, 88-11.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE: My guess is we could have avoided hundreds of amendments.

KWAME HOLMAN: Frist, suddenly and unexpectedly agreed.

SEN. BILL FRIST: Let's do that. Let's pass that bill. If it's the great bill that he says then I think we would be willing to do that.

KWAME HOLMAN: Assistant Democratic leader Harry Reid wanted to make sure.

SEN. HARRY REID, Assistant Minority Leader: If the proposal is that the bill that passed the Senate 88- 11 last year be brought to the Senate floor in the form that it passed, you've got yourself a deal.

KWAME HOLMAN: Senators on both sides spent the afternoon rereading last year's energy bill, which contains many of the provisions in the current legislation. If approved, the bill would have to be negotiated with the House version of an energy bill approved in April.

MARGARET WARNER: The man who gave Elvis Presley his first record contract is dead. Sam Phillips died yesterday in a Memphis hospital of respiratory failure. After founding Sun Records in the 1950s, Phillips helped usher in the rock 'n' roll era, recording early in their careers such music legends as Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and B.B. King. Sam Phillips was 80 years old. The U.S. economy gathered momentum in the second quarter. The Commerce Department reported today the Gross Domestic Product increased at an annual rate of 2.4 percent from April to June. That was the best showing in nearly a year. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 33 points to close above 9233. The NASDAQ rose 14 points to close at 1735. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the growing debate over gay marriage, Bosnia seven years after war, a watchdog in the newsroom, and music producer Sam Phillips.

FOCUS - GAY MARRIAGE

MARGARET WARNER: Spencer Michels begins our report on the hot debate over permitting gay marriage.

SPENCER MICHELS: In last two months, a flurry of activity in North American courtrooms and political arenas has raised anew the debate over the legal status of same-sex couples. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law against sodomy on grounds it violated personal liberty. In early June, an appeals court in Ontario, Canada, struck down a law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. The province then started issuing same-sex marriage certificates, and British Columbia followed suit soon after. That prompted some American couples to travel to Canada to get married.

SPOKESPERSON: Are you ready?

SPENCER MICHELS: Right now in Massachusetts, the state supreme court is considering whether Hillary and Julie Goodridge and six other same-sex couples can be legally married. The two women, who have been together for 16 years and have a daughter, cannot get a state marriage license. They sued Massachusetts, saying it denied them equal protection under the state constitution.

HILLARY GOODRIDGE: We are not considered kin to each other. We are not considered spouses. If Julie were to die, it is possible I would have to sell the house because I would have to pay tax on the inheritance, which most spouses would not have to do.

SPENCER MICHELS: Marriage licenses are granted by the states. None provides licenses to gay and lesbian couples, though Vermont has allowed what's called civil unions for the past three years. Under the law, signed by then- governor and now presidential candidate Howard Dean, same-sex partners qualify for the same state benefits and tax advantages given to heterosexual couples. At the federal level, gay marriages are not recognized either. That's a provision of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act signed by President Clinton. But last month, after the Supreme Court sodomy ruling, Senate Republican leader Bill Frist advocated going further: He called for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. President Bush has not specifically backed an amendment, but he made his general views clear yesterday.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I think it's very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country. On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other, and we've got lawyers looking at the best way to do that.

SPENCER MICHELS: Today the Vatican weighed in as well. In a document approved by Pope John Paul II, it said "homosexual acts go against the natural moral law." Meanwhile, the American public has given mixed signals, according to recent polls. One from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicates support for gay marriage has grown from 27 percent in 1996, to 38 percent today. A shorter-term, Gallup poll provides a contrast. In May, 60 percent of respondents said "homosexual relations between consenting adults" should be legal. Two months later, support fell to 48 percent.

MARGARET WARNER: To explore this growing debate in legal and church circles, we're joined now by Vincent Samar, adjunct professor at Chicago Kent College of Law, where he teaches a course on "sexual orientation and the law." Douglas Kmiec, dean of Catholic University Law School. Marianne Duddy, executive director of Dignity/U.S.A., the nation's largest organization for gay Catholics. And Maggie Gallagher, editor of marriagedebate.Com and co-author of the book "The Case for Marriage." Welcome to you all.

Doug Kmiec, explain why as a legal matter the president would be wading into this legal thicket over gay marriage. I mean, is it really such a pressing, imminent issue?

DOUGLAS KMIEC: Well, I think the issue got a tremendous boost with the Supreme Court's decision in "Lawrence V. Texas," which struck down a Texas statute that had criminalized homosexual sodomy. If you actually think about it as a legal matter that's not much of a boost, because Justice Kennedy was very careful in the opinion to say, "I'm just striking down a law that intrudes on intimate, private behavior in the home," and he was careful to say, "I'm not saying anything about the formal recognition of a particular relationship." Nevertheless, that created a political momentum. There's a couple of other things happening. There are cases pending and they're very close, in some cases, to decision, as your front piece mentioned. There's a case that's been argued called the Goodridge Case in Massachusetts that's waiting for a decision in the Massachusetts Supreme Court. It could be that they are going to decide in favor of gay marriage under the laws of Massachusetts. We don't have any way of knowing one way or the other, but if they do, then the rest of the federal structure has to be prepared to act, and I think that's why the president reacted.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Professor Samar, first of all, do you agree with that sort of analysis of where this is headed, and explain why other states, if Massachusetts were to enact gay marriage in some fashion, why other states would be under pressure or perhaps even the requirement to do the same.

VINCENT SAMAR: Well, hello, Margaret. Nice to meet you. I agree with it to this extent. It is the case that Justice Kennedy's opinion in "Lawrence V. Texas" did not directly address gay marriage, but he was very clear about saying that he was going to deal with the due process privacy element, because in order to deal with the equal protection would leave open the door to the possibility that if someone came across with a sodomy statute that prohibited same-sex and opposite-sex sodomy that that might fly. In doing that, he undercut what had been a longstanding argument of the law, namely that if we can make these behaviors criminal, we can therefore not allow any kind of recognition or any kind of protection for them. In giving that up, he opened the door to the possibility of same- sex relations now getting recognized, though he did not do that in that case. So I agree to that extent, but I also see where the direction has been set.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Doug Kmiec, back to you. Under this Full Faith and Credit Act of the Constitution, other states then might, what, have to recognize at least same-sex marriages in other states?

DOUGLAS KMIEC: Here's the problem the constitution presents us. We've got 50 different sovereignties. Marriage is typically defined at the state level. If one state recognizes a marriage, a valid marriage in one state is typically recognized in another state, and we have a constitutional provision, Article 4, that says each state will give full faith and credit to the acts and judgments of another state. But it's subject to a very important qualification. And the qualification is that Congress can define the manner and effect of the judgments from the other state. There's been a longstanding rule that if a judgment in another state violates the public policy in the receiving state, that that state can object, and Congress itself, as your front piece mentioned, passed a law to reaffirm the proposition that a receiving state does not have to acknowledge a gay marriage that is coming in from a place that does recognize it.

MARGARET WARNER: Let's set aside the legal discussion for a minute and let me bring in Maggie Gallagher. What is the Vatican trying to accomplish here with this new document out today? And I'll just quote one line saying, "There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to god's plan for marriage and family."

MAGGIE GALLAGHER: I don't think this is a kind of angels dancing on the heads of a pin theological issue. What the pope is saying is that marriage is about getting men and women into the kinds of sexual unions where their sexual acts are not harmful to each other or their children, that is, where any children that they make, you know, the mother and father who make them stay around and love them. So it's about getting mothers and fathers for children and babies for society. That's the common good. I think the pope's intention here is primarily to clarify the position of the Catholic Church, which, you know, I was up in Massachusetts during the hearings on this. A priest was saying that the Catholic Church demands that you recognize same-sex marriage and a representative of the diocese was saying no, and the legislators are saying, well, "who do we believe? What's the Catholic position?" I think that question has been answered.

MARGARET WARNER: Marianne Duddy, your reaction to today's document from the Vatican.

MARIANNE DUDDY: I think what the Vatican is trying to do in this document is tell legislators around the world, and certainly in this country, to do what the Vatican has not been able to do, which is to stem the growing tide towards justice. Efforts to secure same-sex marriage are really about reversing centuries of discrimination in which some families in society have had additional burdens placed on them and have not enjoyed the protections that most families take for granted.

MARGARET WARNER: And so do you take this to be really an instruction to Catholic politicians to, whenever they're confronted with a vote on this issue, to vote the Church's way?

MARIANNE DUDDY: That's what the document says. It says that Catholic legislators have a moral duty to uphold Catholic teaching when confronted with this issue. And I think that that's veryproblematic for democratic countries like our own, which are founded upon the separation of church and state in which the legislators' highest duty is to uphold the Constitution.

MARGARET WARNER: Ms. Gallagher.

MAGGIE GALLAGHER: I have to really object to the idea that there's something anti-democratic about people turning to religious leaders for guidance on moral or social issues. Certainly I don't think it was a violation of church and state when the Reverend Martin Luther King, you know, organized African American parishes to speak out against segregation. I really do think that this is a form of bigotry to imply that religious people are not entitled to listen to clergy or other religious leaders. And then like all of us in democratic societies you have to make up your own mind about what the right thing to do is.

MARIANNE DUDDY: I'm not saying that legislators can't appeal...

MARGARET WARNER: I'm sorry. Let me bring back in now our two professors here, because I want to get to the issue that lawmakers may face sooner rather than later. Professor Samar, why now is there this move for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage to put it very generally? I mean, why isn't the Defense of Marriage Act that was, as we said and we all discussed, signed in 1996 that's become the law of the land saying marriage is a union between men and women? Why is that not enough?

VINCENT SAMAR: Well, what happened was when Justice Kennedy rendered the decision in "Lawrence V. Texas," and opened the door, as I indicated a while ago, and opened the door to the possibility that if now Massachusetts has marriage for gays and lesbians, and a person like myself goes to Massachusetts with a partner, decides to get married, come back to Illinois where marriage is not recognized and asks for benefits from my employer, especially a public employer, the employer might deny those. If the employer denies those and I say, "well, this is a matter... I have a right to full faith and credit under the Constitution," DOMA kicks in.

MARGARET WARNER: That's the Defense of Marriage Act.

VINCENT SAMAR: That's the Defense of Marriage Act. Right. At that point, what I would do is I would say, "but DOMA is unconstitutional, because it violates equal protection of the laws." Since there no longer is the outing of saying that this is... the behavior is illegal, and that's okay, that there's a substantive due process to privacy now, that equal protection ground would probably stand and would probably kill DOMA. So I think the reality is that we can look forward down the pipe, about five years, maybe by the time it would go through the legal process all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, but five or six years down the pipe, we could look to the possibility that there will be same-sex marriage throughout the United States, and I think that's what the impetus before this amendment. I think the amendment's very dangerous, because the amendment is not just simply saying that states like DOMA have the right to accept gay marriage or not accept it; it's actually prohibiting them from doing it at least in the standard version of the amendment that is floating around. It defines marriage and limits all the indicia of marriage, which means all the legal protections, the right of inheritance, the right to make decisions for one's spouse if they're in the hospital or sick, the right to seek from a spouse help and assistance in taking care of children if you adopt children or have it by surrogate motherhood. All those matters, including inheritance rights, like we have, if you die intestate, without a will, all those things which are now at least provided for in Vermont under the common benefits clause of the Vermont constitution, since those would reflect indicia of marriage would under this interpretation not be allowed.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me get someone else back in here. Doug Kmiec, do you think this is heading to a battle over constitutional amendment, because only a constitutional amendment can trump this article of the Constitution -- is that... I know you made an argument why the Defense of Marriage Act might be enough. But do you think politically it's kind of heading this way.

DOUGLAS KMIEC: I think it may be heading this way. The Defense of Marriage Act is enough if the public policy agrees that each state should be able to go its own way. I disagree with professor Samar as to whether or not the Defense of Marriage Act is constitutional. I think it's fully constitutional. The federal Congress can define marriage for itself and it can allow the states to do that if it chooses. The question is whether or not a national answer, a national reaffirmation of marriage is needed. If it is needed, a constitutional amendment might be one way to go. Alternatively, the White House Council is exploring whether Congress could pass legislation under the 14th Amendment perhaps to protect marriage nationally.

MARGARET WARNER: Before we go I want to get all four of you on one final question. I'll begin first with Ms. Gallagher. Is there middle ground here, that is, the step that Vermont took, a civil union that doesn't call it marriage, it doesn't have all that sort of religious freight and traditional freight, but affords the legal benefits that usually come with marriage? Could that be a middle ground?

MAGGIE GALLAGHER: Well, I think there are a lot of people who are going to end up opposing gay marriage and settling on civil unions. But there isn't a lot of sense that this is a compromise on which both sides agree. Gay marriage advocates have been very clear that it's marriage they want, that it's not just about the legal benefits. It's about the affirmation of same-sex sexual relationships. I don't think that you're going to find among at least the traditional Christian, traditional Jews or Muslims on this issue that there's going to be a lot of enthusiasm for civil unions either.

MARGARET WARNER: Marianne Duddy.

MARIANNE DUDDY: Well, I think it's very important to know that we're separating out in this debate the issues of religious marriage and civil marriage. I think it is important for our community to be working towards marriage. I think our country has a lot of experience with the whole "separate but equal" concept, which civil unions represent a pathway towards. And we know that separate is not equal. It would continue to keep the gay and lesbian community, same- sex couples and our families in a second-class role in this society.

MARGARET WARNER: Professor Samar.

VINCENT SAMAR: Well, that's exactly the point. If you allow separate but equal but you don't give it the name, then there must be something significant in why the name is being withheld. That significance that when "Brown V. Board of Education," with regard to racial separation was recognized as a way of demeaning and giving disrespect and lack of dignity to a group of people based on their race or color. It is the case that marriage as a fundamental universal moral principle provides an opportunity for dignity, for self-respect and for involvement in each other's life in a way that is not easily done by... without the institution. And therefore I would have to say that we do not just want to have the indicia of marriage, like in Vermont, we want the whole institution. I disagree with...

MARGARET WARNER: Let me go to Professor Kmiec here on that point -- last point.

DOUGLAS KMIEC: Well, where Professor Samar and I would disagree is the proposition that this is discrimination. It's really not discrimination. It's redefinition. Marriage is fundamental, but it has fundamental qualities to it that require a man and a woman. And, by virtue of that, there isn't a violation of the equal protection clause. In civil unions, if civil unions are merely a disguised way to provide marriage, I think the culture will not accept that as an answer either. But it's important that we have laws that protect all people against arbitrary discrimination but it's not discrimination to preserve marriage for its intended purpose.

MARGARET WARNER: It doesn't sound like there's a middle ground here. Thank you all four very much.

FOCUS - AFTER THE WAR

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, postwar Bosnia, a watchdog for the New York Times, and remembering music producer Sam Phillips.

Seven years ago, an accord signed in Dayton, Ohio, ended the war in Bosnia. We have a report from Fred de Sam Lazaro of Twin Cities Public Television about rebuilding that war torn nation.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: This summer the small, war-ravaged city of Srebrenica held a party. For a week, there was music, poetry, a children's art contest-- all to signal a new start, said the mayor, who is Muslim, and his deputy. She's Serb.

MILKA RANKIC, Srebrenica Deputy Mayor ( Translated ): I am sick and tired of Srebrenica being called the last place on earth.

ABDURAHMAN MALKIC, Srebrenica Mayor ( Translated ): The main idea for this gathering is to show that there is a life, a future for Srebrenica and not to go back to the past all the time. Of course, keeping it in mind, not forgetting the past.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Almost every building bears pockmarks and scars seven years after the war ended. The only construction activity of any size is the new cemetery. Buried here are Muslim victims of one of the worst massacres of a war that gave rise to the term "ethnic cleansing." Even though Srebrenica had been declared a U.N. safe area, with a small contingent of Dutch peacekeepers, it was overrun by Serb forces, led by General Ratko Mladic, who has since been indicted as a war criminal. Muslim men were separated from women and children, who were allowed to leave the city. But an estimated seven to eight thousand men were shot and buried in mass graves. Nationwide, a quarter of a million people died. Two million people, about half Bosnia's population, were displaced from their homes in the four-year war. A peace accord was reached in Dayton, Ohio, and signed by Paris in 1995 by leaders representing the Serb, Croat and Bosniak, or Bosnian Muslim populations.

BILL CLINTON: In Dayton these three Balkan leaders made the fateful decision for peace. Tomorrow, you must turn the pages of this agreement into a real-life future of hope for those who have survived this horrible war.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The treaty recognized territory captured by Serb forces as an autonomous region, called the republic of Srpska, and a Bosnian federation, controlled by Muslim and Croat forces. A federal government in the capital, Sarajevo, would deal mostly with foreign affairs. But the treaty also stipulated that displaced people had a right to return to their prewar homes, no matter which sector they'd lived in. That brought Hatija Mehmedovic back to her home in Srebrenica. A Muslim woman, she is now living alone in a neighborhood that has become largely Serb.

HATIJA MEHMEDOVIC ( Translated ): I am not afraid of anything anymore, because the thing I was most afraid of has already happened to me.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: She last saw her husband and two teenaged sons in July 1995, when they, along with thousands of other Muslims, fled Serb forces, and she was coaxed into taking a bus ride out of the city. The men fled on foot through nearby forests, hoping to reach Muslim-held territory.

HATIJA MEHMODVIC ( Translated ): We were arguing about whether or not I should go with them through the woods or not. And when my younger son would not allow it, he was afraid that I couldn't walk through the woods as they could, so there we split.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Mehmedovic's family members are missing, likely killed. Like thousands of others, she must begin rebuilding her life on her own. With 13,000 peacekeeping soldiers, including about 1,600 Americans patrolling, international agencies have returned almost one million refugees to their prewar homes. The complex musical chair process of getting people back to their original homes has largely gone without incident, says Rhodri Williams, a legal advisor on property issues.

RHODRI WILLIAMS, Legal Advisor: One of the things that we can be proud of in Bosnia is that we will not face a situation in 10 years, in 15 years, where second and third generations of displaced and dispossessed people are still holding the keys to their old family home and saying, "when will we get it back?"

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: What they get back, however, is often, literally, just a shell of the home they left. Many choose or hope to sell their homes and move on. The mostly Croat village of Borovica had 1,500 residents before it was emptied by Muslim forces. Today some 110 families have returned. Peacekeepers-- Turkish soldiers in this case-- patrol regularly, but they are unable to make day- to-day life easier for returnees like Grga Vukancic.

GRGA VUKANCIC ( Translated ): We do not have phone; we do not have a network; we don't have a TV signal. We do not have a dispensary, and we do not have medical supervision and assistance.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: More than anything else, he says, they don't have jobs. Most people in rural areas must get by on subsistence farming or like Grga Vukancic, on small pensions. Bosnia's old industrial economy- - factories and mines built in socialist times-- were knocked out during the war. Today's they're either too expensive or uncompetitive to interest investors. There's a deceptive appearance of prosperity in the capital, Sarajevo. In fact, unemployment is as high as 40 percent. Most of the spending is done by the twelve to fifteen thousand foreigners, working for various international agencies. They put some $30 million into the local economy each month. The most visible evidence of foreign aid here are religious structures. In Borovica, for example, donations from German Catholics have helped rebuild the Catholic Church. In Tuzla, Saudi donations have brought this new mosque. Aside from the construction jobs, this has done little to relieve the dire economic conditions. Father Predrag Keftimir is a Serb orthodox priest in Banja Luka.

FR. PREDRAG JEFTIMIR ( Translated ): We are actually hardworking people, but when you don't have work and when you have such low employment rates, then you have people left with a lot of time. And then they start to think about other things, and it leads them to quarrels and conflict.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: But despite the frustrations of day-to-day life, Grga Vukancic says the war has left little appetite for fighting among ordinary people.

GRGA VUKANCIC ( Translated ): If the normal, plain people were asked, this evil would never happen. There is an old proverb that says the nationalism and chauvinism are created at the very top and they are implemented in the peasants' shoes. When a common man and a normal person is driven to situations when there is nothing to eat in the house, it was very easy to manipulate people in the way that they were manipulated.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Jakob Finci says another reason Bosnia hasn't moved forward is that elections, held just a year after the peace accord, kept much of the same leadership in power. Finci is a former corporate lawyer and head of the Jewish Community Federation in Sarajevo.

JAKOB FINCI: The same people are in the same positions, only in the status of peace, instead of the status of war. Officially, the war was ended by the Dayton Peace Accords, but unofficially in the heads of a lot of people, including voters, it was still on. And actually all of them voted for their national parties, for their national leaders who have been the same leaders who lead them during the war.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Former British politician Paddy Ashdown is the U.N.'s high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, overseeing the country's transition. He agrees international authorities were too slow to shake up the old order, allowing rampant corruption to take hold.

PADDY ASHDOWN, UN High Representative: Item number one is the rule of law. And if you wait weeks, I might even argue hours, before asserting the rule of law, then you pay a terrible price. The scale of the task we now have to do to rid this place of the effects of corruption-- it's at the highest level of politics; it's in your garage owner who sells you petrol-- to fight that, to get that infection out of the bloodstream is a very tough, tall order.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: And he acknowledges criticism that two of the most notorious leaders in the genocidal war, Serbian General Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, remain at large. Ashdown has made the capture of each a priority, but says it's a difficult task.

PADDY ASHDOWN: We're talking about a single man, moving amongst the population who, wrongly, but nevertheless do still regard him as a hero, in one of the wildest mountain vastnesses of the whole of Europe, in which, incidentally, Tito hid 15,000 troops from six German divisions. And you get a scale of the difficulty that it is to catch a single person.

HATIJA MEHMEDOVIC ( Translated ): This is my oldest son's notebook. You can see he got an excellent grade.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Hatija Mehmedovic belongs to a group called the Women of Srebrenica, which has campaigned for the capture of war criminals. To come to grips with her own loss, she says she most needs to see her husband and sons given a proper burial.

HATIJA MEHMEDOVIC ( Translated ): If there is a mother that can say that she prays not for daughters-in-law or a grandchild but coffins, I am that mother. I have to see their coffins. I have to see them before I die.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Thousands of Bosnians like her are still searching for the remains of their families. It is a tedious process, hampered by Bosnia's rugged mountainous terrain. Authorities rely mostly on anonymous tips to find mass graves, like this one in a clearing 4,000 feet high near the village of Vlasenica.

SPOKESPERSON: What you see is probably gold and jewelry, and earrings and two bullets.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Prosecutor Emin Halilcevic leads an international team of legal, medical and forensic investigators, trying to assemble what they can of an estimated 200 bodies here.

SPOKESPERSON: This guy still needs an upper body.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Each new gravesite seems to reopen war wounds. But Halilcevic says it's important to document the war's atrocities.

EMIN HALILCEVIC ( Translated ): From a moral perspective, all these victims deserve to be found. They deserve that their destiny is revealed, and they deserve to be buried in a dignified way. I don't think this should be a cause for hostility, or a feeling that old wounds are being hurt. On the contrary, I think it can give us all a feeling of calming down, so we can move on to other issues.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: But it may be a long time before Bosnia is economically independent enough to move on to other issues. And many Bosnians are unwilling to wait. It's estimated that hundreds of thousands of Bosnians failed to return after the war or have chosen to leave since. In a recent survey, 30 percent of those who have remained say they would leave if they had the chance.

FOCUS - POLICING PAPERS

MARGARET WARNER: And now, changing times at the New York Times and its effect on American journalism, and to media correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: This week has seen two important milestones at the "New York Times." Veteran journalist Bill Keller took over as executive editor, replacing Howell Raines who resigned June 5, in the wake of the Jayson Blair plagiarism and fabrication scandal. And yesterday, a review board, known as the Siegal Committee, released a detailed and unflinching report on the Blair episode and on the news room shortcomings that allowed it to happen. Among the committee's recommendations for improving the Times, the appointment of a public editor, or ombudsman, a position meant to encourage public access to the paper and accountability within the newsroom. In its 152 years, the New York Times has never had such a position.

Here to discuss that recommendation, the Siegal Committee report, and its implications for newspapers generally are Joann Byrd, who was one of three non-Times staff members on the Siegal Committee. She has served as editor of the editorial page at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and as ombudsman for the Washington Post. And Susan Tifft, a journalism professor at Duke University and the co-author of "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family behind the New York Times." Welcome to you both.

Susan Tifft, having written your book about the New York Times, what's your reaction to the changes that they have instituted now in the wake of this Jayson Blair scandal and related problems -- and especially the appointment of a public editor?

SUSAN TIFFT, Duke University: Well, I welcome it. I think it's a stunning change for the New York Times for two reasons. One is that it signals that the New York Times is finally entering the modern era. You know, there is... the first ombudsman in this country was in 1967 and it's only been 36 years to get the Times to catch up to that. But I think also what it does is, more importantly, is that it signals that the New York Times has taken this assault on its credibility, the Jayson Blair scandal, very, very seriously and is trying to do something very serious to address it.

TERENCE SMITH: Joann Byrd, you were a member of the 28-member Siegal Committee. What can you tell us about the process that you went through and the outcome?

JOANN BYRD, Former Ombudsman, The Washington Post: Thank you. I was a member, and the three outside people met with twenty-five people inside the Times, and we had very frank and open discussions. The committee, led by the three outside people, interviewed all the people who had had an encounter with Jayson Blair, his supervisors, et cetera. And our goal was to find out what happened in that case and then to make recommendations for how to see that that didn't happen again or anything like it. It was all very remarkably thorough and candid, and the people we worked with were very devoted to getting it right. It was a joy to be working with them.

TERENCE SMITH: Susan Tifft, in a memo to the staff yesterday, Bill Keller said the committee that Joann was on had concluded that the Blair fiasco was made possible in part by a climate of, "isolation, intimidation, favoritism, and unrelenting pressure on the staff by the top editors." That sounds like a pretty damning indictment of Howell Raines and his deputy.

SUSAN TIFFT: Well, I think it was. I mean, in some places the report, I think, was very harsh, but I think it also was not directed entirely just at Howell Raines, the former executive editor. I think what was really remarkable about the report was that it was really trying to get at a sort of systemic culture of the news room of the New York Times. You know, we often talk about how ugly it is when you see sausage being made. I think what this report was trying to get at was really getting down there in the weeds to sort of mix my metaphors here, and really try to see, you know, what was going wrong and trying at every level to fix it. So I don't think they were trying to affix the blame just on Howell Raines, although clearly in the Jayson Blair affair, it was the hierarchical management style that he fostered that was in part to blame for it.

TERENCE SMITH: Joann Byrd, you have served as ombudsman as a public editor. Tell us how it works and how you think it will work at the New York Times.

JOANN BYRD: There are many varieties of public editor and structures that are different. I think one thing that they all have in common and will certainly be the case at the New York Times is that there will be always someone at the paper who has a fairly high rank who will listen, who will hear from the public about what they think of the paper. It's also a place where people who find mistakes can call to complain about those, to point out the errors and that sort of thing. It's a very visible person who is available all the time to people who want to complain. The variety of public editor positions or readers' representatives ranges from people who serve long terms to people who serve short terms and who write a column or don't write a column, write on occasion or don't write at all. So there's a whole variety, but what they all are is a tool of accountability. The Siegal Committee was looking for a way to be conspicuously accountable, and there's simply no more conspicuous accountability than an ombudsman or public editor.

TERENCE SMITH: Susan Tifft, how well is that going to work at the New York Times? You know its culture. You know the newsroom has resisted that sort of arbiter of its performance for many years. How is it going to work?

SUSAN TIFFT: Well, I think it's probably going to be very, very different. It's going to be a sort of sea change in the culture of the New York Times. You know, I mean the New York Times has resisted for a long time having this kind of ombudsman, and they also effectively killed the NationalNews Council which was kinds of an arbiter of journalistic integrity in the 1970s and basically kind of killed it because it didn't participate. So they've resisted this kind of thing for a long time. They've always thought of themselves in a way as though they were on Mount Olympus and basically were signaling to their readers, listen, trust us. You know, you can trust us to be accurate, to be fair, to be balanced. And, in fairness, of course, the New York Times really was and still is the gold standard for those kinds of things. But I think with this new ombudsman, it's going to be a real change in culture. But I'm not so sure that those in the newsroom are going to, necessarily, as they get used to it, think of it as a bad thing. I mean, one of the things that happened with this Jayson Blair situation was that people who were quoted by Jayson Blair, but who never actually were interviewed by him, never contacted the paper - and in part why -- because they didn't know where to go. I think as Joann says, it's a way to have one-stop shopping, a place for readers to go and make their complaints known and hopefully to get them fixed.

TERENCE SMITH: Joann Byrd, what's going to be the result of this and the impact and the reverberations on newspapers generally in this country? Do you think there are lessons that they will or perhaps already have drawn from it? Do you think that there will be an explosion now of public editors or ombudsmen in papers around the country?

JOANN BYRD: I'm not certain we'll have an explosion of ombudsmen. The report that we submitted covered a lot of territory that newspapers around the country have been examining themselves in recent time, since the Jayson Blair scandal broke. I know that there have been lots of meetings in lots of newsrooms that have talked about all of the things that were exposed by the scandal at the New York Times, and so newspapers have been looking at their policies on crediting and their policies on bylines and datelines and those sorts of things. I think the fact that the "New York Times," which has not wanted an ombudsman for a very long time now has chosen to do so, will probably ask other newspapers to begin reexamining their own ideas about whether an ombudsman is a good idea for them. The fact that the New York Times has said it's going to be a good idea in their news department may get some other papers to consider it. But there's been a pretty steady number of ombudsmen or public editors at newspapers for a long time. It's not been a growth industry, I must say.

TERENCE SMITH: Susan Tifft, just very briefly. What about the role of the Sulzberger family in all of this? Was their hand felt, can you tell us briefly?

SUSAN TIFFT: I don't know personally, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised. The Sulzbergers feel about the New York Times as though it's their jewel. That's the way they talk about it. And they know that at the end of the day, what a newspaper has to sell is its credibility. Anything that damages the credibility of the New York Times is going to get their attention. They don't want the New York Times to be on late night comic talk shows. They want it to be the gold standard now and forever.

TERENCE SMITH: Exactly. All right. Susan Tifft, Joann Byrd, thank you both very much.

FINALLY - IN MEMORIAM

MARGARET WARNER: Finally tonight, we remember a legend of the music business. Sam Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis in 1952, recording mostly black musicians; many would become among the most famous names in rhythm and blues. In 1954, a young man by the name of Elvis Presley walked in to record a song called "That's All Right, Mama." The rest, as they say, is history. Here's Phillips talking about that moment in a 2001 documentary called "Good Rockin' Tonight: The legacy of sun records."

SAM PHILLIPS: I knew the power of the feel between these races, and I was not interested in forming another record company and trying to compete even with the bigger independents at that time. I had no interest in that. If I couldn't broaden the base of music and let white kids enjoy black music and black kids enjoy white music, now, who in the world thinks that's going to happen overnight, no matter if it was God came down and he was directing the orchestra or he'd built a studio. Mr. God would not have had, I don't believe, too much success. But I can tell you with the fervor I had and the feel that I had for this conviction that if that could be converted some way, that we could come up with something that would be absolutely, to say the least, very intriguing.

ELVIS PRESLEY (singing): That's all right, mama that's all right that's all right, mama, just any way you do that's all right that's all right that's all right, mama any way you do.

SCOTT MOORE, Elvis Presley's Guitarist: He's taking a break and deciding what to do, and the door to the control room was open. Elvis just started with nervous energy, started absolutely just jumping around and beating his guitar and singing "That's All Right, Mama." I had never heard the song. Billy had never heard.

SAM PHILLIPS: It was semi-off mike. He was just dancing around and I heard that both before I went through the door and then when I went in the door and just automatically slammed it, and the mikes were still open and I heard this and I heard this rhythm just by himself. I said, "Jesus! Elvis, what have you been..." you know, didn't just. "You've been holding out on me all this time and have cost me this much time and look how gray my hair is getting," or some crazy something, you know? He said, "You like that, Mr. Phillips?" I said, "Man, that thing is a hit." You know, you don't make statements like that. Even you don't know. I said, "that thing is a hit." By that time Scotty and Bill had gotten their instruments out. And, baby, I'm telling you, we may have taken three or four cuts-- I don't recall-- but I think either the first or the second one, it probably was the second one -- that was it. I mean, you could have cut for nine months and not gotten more out of what that song said "I want done to me" than that.

ELIVS PRESLEY (singing): I need your loving that's all right that's all right now, mama any way you do...

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again, the other major developments of the day: Two more U.S. soldiers were killed in central Iraq. And David Kay, the U.S. official leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, reported, "solid progress," but he said it would be some time before his team reports anything publicly.

MARGARET WARNER: And again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add names when the deaths are confirmed, and photographs become available. Here, in silence, is one more.

MARGARET WARNER: A note on our honor roll: Last night we showed the photograph of Sergeant Heath McMillan in marine dress uniform, but identified him as an army soldier. Sergeant McMillan was serving with the Army National Guard in Iraq. His family provided a picture when he was a marine in 1995. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with Shields and Brooks, among others. I'm Margaret Warner. Thanks for being with us. Good night.