The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the news of the day; then a look at the problems building an Iraqi security force; a John Merrow education report on military recruiting at high schools; the story behind the withdrawal of the Kerik nomination; and a conversation with Judy Blume, author of books for young people.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A suicide car bomber killed 13 Iraqis in central Baghdad today; 15 others were wounded. It happened outside the heavily fortified green zone, which houses Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy. A group linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility. There were no U.S. casualties. But over the weekend, eight U.S. Marines and one American soldier were killed in a series of attacks. And tod ay, gunmen killed three Iraqi national guardsmen and wounded three others north of Baghdad. Iraqi President al-Yawer warned today the violence could lead to a new dictator. He told an Arabic newspaper people may get desperate for security. And then, he said: "An Iraqi Hitler could emerge like the one created by the defeat of Germany and the humiliation of Germans in World War I." Al-Yawer also told the BBC that U.S. officials made a "big mistake" disbanding Iraq's security forces after the war. We'll have more on Iraq's new security forces right after this News Summary. Iraq's foreign minister said today Saddam Hussein will go on trial after the January elections. The former Iraqi dictator was captured a year ago today. Last Dec.13, U.S. troops found him hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit. He remains in U.S. custody, awaiting trial in Iraqi courts for crimes against humanity. Pakistan denied today the CIA now has bases inside its territory to hunt for Osama bin Laden. The New York Times reported the agency set up the bases late last year, but it said Pakistani authorities have hindered the effort. In Islamabad today, a spokesman for Pakistan's foreign ministry disputed the account.

MASSOUD KHAN: There are no operations being conducted by the U.S. forces inside Pakistan. These are just rumors, and this is a disinformation campaign. I don't know what the source of this information is. There are lots of contradictory pieces of information floating around.

JIM LEHRER: The spokesman insisted bin Laden has not been sighted anywhere in Pakistan. Yesterday, Afghan President Karzai said bin Laden is "definitely" in the border region. But he did not say where. Israel warned today the Palestinians still aren't doing enough to stop attacks by militants. On Sunday, five Israeli soldiers died when a bomb exploded in a tunnel under their checkpoint in Gaza. Hamas claimed responsibility, and even released a video of the attack. We have a report narrated by Bill Neely of Independent Television News.

BILL NEELY: Deep underground beneath an Israeli army post, three men prepare a huge bomb and a fourth one films them. It has taken them four months to dig the tunnels and shore up the walls. The results will be deadly. Into the tunnels goes a ton and a half of explosives, this is an assault they wanted the world to see. Breathless, the militants named the dead leaders that inspired them.

SPOKESPERSON: (Speaking in Arabic) ...Yasser Arafat.

BILL NEELY: They set a fuse. Two of them shake hands. These men, it seems, remained underground when the bomb detonated. Beside them, four barrels of explosives. Above them their target: A dozen or so Israeli soldiers in their posts. They had no idea they were also being filmed by militants from two angles above ground as the attack began. Five Israeli soldiers were killed, many more injured. For their attackers in Hamas, the propaganda value of the video is immense. Hamas say they used four cameras to film their assault. They want to portray Israel's pullout from Gaza next year as their victory.

JIM LEHRER: Despite the attack, Israel announced it will pull troops from Palestinian towns for 72 hours next month. The period includes the Palestinian presidential election. On Sunday, the jailed leader of the Palestinian uprising, Marwan Barghouti, dropped out of the election campaign. That removed the strongest challenge to former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in the vote to succeed Yasser Arafat. In Chile today, former dictator Augusto Pinochet was indicted for political kidnappings and killings. The alleged crimes were committed during his rule from 1973 to 1990. He was indicted on similar charges once before, but in 2001, he was declared too sick to stand trial. Pinochet is now 89 years old. His lawyers are expected to appeal the indictment. Ukraine's parliament reopened an investigation today into the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko. The opposition presidential campaign fell ill in September, and his face was severely disfigured. Over the weekend, doctors in Vienna, Austria, concluded he was poisoned with dioxin. Ukraine's prime minister is also running for president. Today he accused the United States of financing the opposition campaign. A State Department spokesman denied it. Back in this country today, President Bush nominated Michael Leavitt to be the new secretary of Health and Human Services. He's been running the Environmental Protection Agency for the last year. Before that, he was governor of Utah. At HHS, Leavitt will take the place of Tommy Thompson, if he's confirmed by the Senate. White House officials today defended their process of checking out potential nominees. That's after Bernard Kerik withdrew Friday night to be secretary of homeland security. He acknowledged he failed to pay taxes for a nanny who was in the U.S. illegally. Today White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration did all it could.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: We have a thorough vetting process in place. It's a process that looks closely at a candidate's professional, personal, and financial background. And based on our solid record on nominations, we remain confident in that process. I would point out that this vetting process is something that continues once the intention to nominate is made. And it was through this vetting process that this issue came to the attention of Commissioner Kerik. He brought it to our attention. He indicated that he should have brought it to our attention sooner.

JIM LEHRER: Kerik was a former police commissioner in New York City. Since his nomination, he had also faced growing questions about his business dealings and public service record. We'll have more on this story later in the program. The administrator of NASA, Sean O'Keefe, resigned today. His three-year tenure included the loss of the space shuttle Columbia last year, and all seven astronauts on board. O'Keefe is now a leading candidate to become chancellor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Members of the electoral college gathered around the country today to make the presidential results official. Ohio's 20 electors cast their votes for President Bush. Congressional Democrats asked the republican governor to delay the vote, but he refused. And several groups asked the state Supreme Court to review the election outcome. They claimed "manipulation or fraud." China announced today it will impose a new tax on its textile exports. The U.S. and European nations sought the move. They feared low-cost Chinese goods will overwhelm the world market starting Jan. 1. That's when world trade quotas on textiles expire. The bush administration still has until February to impose temporary limits on Chinese imports. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 95 points to close at 10,638. The NASDAQ rose 20 points to close above 2148. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to making Iraq secure with Iraqis; selling the military life at high schools; the Kerik withdrawal; and a prize-winning author for young people

FOCUS - SECURING IRAQ

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez has our look at the Iraqi security forces.

RAY SUAREZ: Scenes like these plagued Iraq for months, attacks targeting Iraqi security forces. As Iraqis approach next month's nationwide election, insurgents are working hard to derail them, killing those who cooperate with the Americans. For months, the U.S. has struggled to rebuild the Iraqi security forces after the Bush administration decided to dissolve Saddam Hussein's Army, a move that drew recent criticism from Iraqi interim President Gazi al Yawer. Getting Iraqis to take responsibility for their own security is a key element of the U.S. exit strategy, as President Bush recently noted.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We'll help the Iraqi government build a force that no longer needs coalition support, so they can defend their own nation. And then American soldiers and Marines can come home with the honor they have earned.

RAY SUAREZ: But up until now the record of Iraqi forces has been mixed. In the battle to regain control of the insurgent stronghold Fallujah last month, Iraqi forces fought alongside American troops with much success. But even before the assault began, a number of Iraqi forces deserted. And as that battle raged to the north in Mosul, Iraqi police stations were under attack, prompting hundreds of Iraqi police and National Guard there to disappear, to abandon their posts. In their place, masked men were brazenly roaming and controlling the streets. In Samarra, also north of Baghdad, U.S. forces along with Iraqi troops led a brief offensive to take the city back from insurgents in early October. Despite the success of that operation, devastating attacks have continued there. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld recently conceded more Iraqi forces were now being targeted.

DONALD RUMSFELD: It's reasonably clear to me that the extremists have decided that the Iraqi security forces are a danger to them. Elsewhere, why would they be running around trying to kill so many of them? Iraqi security forces have lost considerably more people killed in action than have the coalition forces in recent months.

RAY SUAREZ: That was violently apparent in October when the bodies of 49 new members of the Iraqi Army were found on a remote road in eastern Iraq, ambushed and gunned down execution style by suspected insurgents.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on the successes and challenges of training the new Iraqi security forces, we get three perspectives: Peter Khalil was director of national security policy for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from August 2003 to May 2004, with a major role in the building of the new Iraqi Army. He's now a visiting fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Marine Corps Col. Thomas Hammes was responsible formanaging bases, facilities, and logistics that supported the training and operations of Iraqi armed forces in early 2004. He is the author of "The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century." The views he expresses are his own and don't represent the views of the Defense Department. And Sevan Lousinian was born in Iraq and left there when he was 12. From June 2003 to June 2004, he was an Arabic interpreter and advisor for the U.S. military in Iraq. And welcome to you all.

Col. Hammes, you heard President Bush a moment ago talk about the ideal of a force that doesn't need coalition support. Are there any units that are ready to take on that kind of work?

COL. THOMAS HAMMES: I can't really comment on specific units without more current information, but it would be very surprising if large numbers could. Remember, these forces are less than a year old. The U.S. forces, when we've gone into our first year of war in the revolution, in 1812, of course first Manassas in the Civil War, Tassarine Pass, and the problems in Korea, in our first year we've had a number of units that have broken and run too. So I think the Iraqi forces are progressing. They're getting better. It's encouraging that some are staying to fight.

RAY SUAREZ: Peter Khalil, do you agree with that view?

PETER KHALIL: Well, Ray, I think there are many different types of Iraqi security forces with different levels of training. The police and the National Guard have limited training and therefore less than capable of dealing with the insurgency head on. The Army has better training, basic boot camp, but the special forces in the Army do an extra seven weeks so they're a bit more capable of dealing with the insurgents but there are plans for training special police units, specifically training counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. They are going to be quite critical in defeating the insurgency eventually.

RAY SUAREZ: You talk about the different kind of training that these different forces get. Has that process improved? Is someone hitting the street in a new uniform this month, next month, likely to be properly trained for job they're heading out there to do?

PETER KHALIL: Well, there are more numbers of National Guard and police because they're training cycles are actually shorter so you can get more out of the training pipeline to go out and be operational quicker. The forces which have the specialized training take longer obviously to train. There's a smaller number of those. They've been quite effective on taking on the insurgents both in Samarra and also Fallujah. There were some operations in Kirkuk where they rescued some Iraqi hostages.

RAY SUAREZ: Col. Hammes, what, in your view, have been the biggest impediments, to getting forces trained and in the pipeline and serving?

COL. THOMAS HAMMES: Well, I think one of the problems has been our failure to properly man the training staffs. Gen. Petreus was sent in, in March with the idea of taking over training of all the security services. Previously we had just been training the Army with the U.S. forces. We have not provided a number of trainers. We have not provided sufficient equipment. You'll notice the police are out there with AK-47s and open pick-ups facing people armed with machine guns and RPG's, so that would be the biggest thing I think we need is to provide proper equipment and sufficient trainers.

RAY SUAREZ: I want to return to that issue of equipping later. But Sevan Lousinian at this point let me bring you in and have you talk a little bit about the men you saw joining up.And what they thought they were getting into and whether they stuck around.

SEVAN LOUSINIAN: The men that joined are very, very weak people. We recruit the desperate people unfortunately. We need to recruit leaders. We can go back to the Army and get some leaders from the Army and recruit them and brief them. We have lack of leadership within the Iraqi police force. The Iraqi police force will follow the Iraqi leaders much more than following the American officers. So, we need to do that.

RAY SUAREZ: When you say "desperate men," what do you mean? They just needed a job so they signed up?

SEVAN LOUSINIAN: Exactly. These are teachers. They are engineers. They're starving to death. Two weeks ago on national TV, on the news, a reporter was interviewing a police officer who was injured. He asked him why did he join this program; this is a very dangerous program. The guy answered I was desperate. I was starving to death. These are the type of people we're recruiting. We have to get the Army officers back and make them get involved in the issue of security.

RAY SUAREZ: Peter Khalil, how do you respond to that observation? Is he right about the desperate men showing up to enlist?

PETER KHALIL: I'll make a note about that many of the people that have joined up to state security services, there were over 100,000. It's significant to note that that's a far greater number than the numbers of insurgents operating. Many obviously as Sevan has said do join up to get a job. That's certainly true. As far as the leadership challenge I do agree. I mean, it was one of the greatest challenges finding military leadership who weren't tainted by the former regime. But the opportunity that it did present in building a new institution, a new military was allowing Kurdish and Shiite and many different other ethnicities to become officers in the new Army which is formerly dominated by Sunni Baathists if you like. Another element which will help with training but over a longer period of time is the training of some of these military leaders in many of the military colleges around the world, the coalition has put up exchange programs for. So these are all good, positive steps.

RAY SUAREZ: So you note that some men who wouldn't have made it in the old Army are being allowed to rise. But what about Sevan's suggestion that they go back to the old Army and get some of those old officers back into uniform?

PETER KHALIL: Well, it's important to note that there were 11,000 general officers in the old Iraqi Army. It was a very bloated institution. Compare that with the 385 general officers in the U.S. Army. A lot of them were obviously political ideologues and some just illiterate members of the Takoradi clan that Saddam gave two stars for example. So it's important to find good leadership but also to train and educate that leadership in the new culture of the future Iraqi democratic state, so an army that doesn't repress its own people or is used as a tool of repression but defends and proceed techs them.

RAY SUAREZ: Col. Hammes, what do you do from now on? I mean, you've talked a little bit, given us sort of your assessment of where things are now. You've heard some suggestions put on the table. Where do you go to get the kinds of things that the forces, as

they are today, are still lacking?

COL. THOMAS HAMMES: Well, I think it's both things and leaders, as Peter said. One of the things we've done well under Gen. Eaton, under the Army, is he carefully selected and built a leadership program. I think one of the reasons the Army battalions are more successful is not just more training but their leaders were carefully selected and groomed. And most of them were former members of the Iraqi Army. As far as equipment, we already have problems equipping our U.S. forces with U.S. industry. But there's a lot of people who make first-class light armored vehicle, police-type vehicles, the South Africans have superb vehicles, the Turks have superb vehicles. We could be buying those and equipping the, particularly the Iraqi special police units, but also those units who are going to have to hold out in their police stations until they can be relieved by National Guard or Army. They've got to have somewhat heavier weapons and rifles and pistols.

RAY SUAREZ: Reports are coming out of Iraq, Colonel, of men who very much need bullet proof vests. They can't get badges, ID cards. How is it that we embarked on this mission to build native forces in Iraq without some of the basics of even big city police work in the United States?

COL. THOMAS HAMMES: One of the problems you have with police forces is we don't have a national police in this country so we have no pool of one place you go for trainers. That's where we need our allies. The Italian Cabinari and other Italian police forces that are national have the procedures and the training processes. They have provided some help. We're providing military police trainers and some U.S. police trainers. But this is almost a paramilitary police requirement as opposed to peer police requirement.

RAY SUAREZ: Sevan Lousinian, were these men that you saw close up more likely to leave when their lives were in danger, more likely to leave when the fighting got bad?

SEVAN LOUSINIAN: No, they will just take off. You can't put somebody in a situation without weapon or protection. And they had neither. When I was there, they had neither. Another issue that we don't give them weapons is the issue of trust. From the first weeks we saw people turn around and sell their uniforms, sell their weapons, light weapons. So that created an issue of trust. Now we are more careful of giving this light weapons to the police, so -- to stand in front of the opposition with light weapons and no armors and no vehicles, no communication, just having the blue uniform, that's not enough. That's not going to do the job. They will leave.

RAY SUAREZ: Peter Khalil, police have important work to do. I know you've been clear about the distinction between the police and the Army. The Army can't be everywhere, but police are supposed to be the eyes and ears on the sidewalks of the cities of Iraq.

PETER KHALIL: That's true. But their role is to provide basic law and order. It should be noted that even the best trained western police force would have a great deal of difficulty dealing with RPG's being lobbed at their stations, terrorist attacks by vehicle or suicide bombers or whatever at the police forces. So it really isn't the role of the police to deal with the insurgency or do a counterinsurgency role head on. What's critical is the more high end internal security forces, those specifically trained in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism -- and as I said earlier, there was a policy shift to start training these forces although it takes a bit longer to do so. But ultimately it's the quality of the Iraqi security forces not the quantity of the forces which is what is going to eventually defeat or at least contain the insurgency.

RAY SUAREZ: Col. Hammes, have you heard that all this violence like Peter mentioned that has been unleashed on police forces has made it harder to get new recruits who replace those who are sort of dying on the front line against the insurgents?

COL. THOMAS HAMMES: I have not heard that. But remember this attack on the police department goes back to August of 2003. Some of the first bombings were targeting police academy graduations, police stations, police officials. I think you've got to give the Iraqi police some real credit for having the courage to come back to work all the time. Now there are some places that are breaking and running. I think that's understandable. But it's also very encouraging that some are staying and fighting. We give them the proper equipment, proper training, they will be the nucleus of a force that can hold its own.

RAY SUAREZ: So, Sevan Lousinian, let's talk about who shows up to join up even when they know that there's a possibility that they're risking their lives for a new Iraq. There are men, as Col. Hammes pointed out, who are doing that.

SEVAN LOUSINIAN: Yes, those are the previous police officers and the Army who switched from the police... from the Army to the police. They are not the new recruits. They are not coming back. You cannot put somebody's life in danger for $50 a month. They're not coming back. But those who have been all their life police officers and have no other job, they know their work, those are the ones who are coming back.

RAY SUAREZ: Are they going to be able to help, Peter Khalil, with the elections, all these forces, the National Guard; will they be ready for new duties, the Army, the police?

PETER KHALIL: As I said, the National Guard and the police are not specifically trained to deal with the insurgents but they are trained to do basic security so I think they will have a very important role during the election period setting up perimeter type security around polling booths and center with coalition support, stand-off coalition support. So they will play a very important role. In the longer term, the forces that will deal with the insurgents are those counterterrorism forces. It's a very small number of those at the moment. I think three battalions but there are plans and a lot of actually in training. There are plans to have almost 30 battalions in the future. But the National Guard and the police and the Army will play a very important role in securing election sites, if you like.

RAY SUAREZ: Just seven weeks away.

PETER KHALIL: Yeah, it is a very short period of time. The real problem I think is more actually setting up the conditions which will allow elections in those towns and cities rather than the security plans themselves. I think they sit in stone. They're quite right. But allowing Iraqis or Sunni Iraqis especially to come out and vote in a seven-week period is going to be a tough, tough task.

RAY SUAREZ: Thanks a lot, all of you.

PETER KHALIL: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Army recruiting in U.S. high schools; the Kerik dropout; and author Judy Blume.

FOCUS - HIGH SCHOOL RECRUITING

JIM LEHRER: Special education correspondent John Merrow has the recruiting story. (Gunfire )

JOHN MERROW: This might look like fun and games, but to the Army it's serious business.

SPOKESMAN: Check your airspeed. Go ahead and bring it on back. You want to get it to 200 feet on that altitude.

JOHN MERROW: We're inside the Army's aviation van. It's equipped with cutting-edge flight simulators, virtual reality systems, and video war games that take you to the front lines.

SPOKESMAN: Watch out, watch out, watch out.

JOHN MERROW: Here, you can even take the controls of anApache helicopter. This $1.1 million tractor trailer travels to schools all across America looking for recruits for our nation's all- volunteer Army. On this day, the van is stationed at Hoover High School in an urban section of San Diego. It's career day for the Army.

SPOKESMAN: I'm here to talk a little bit about what the Army can do for you today as a person. America needs outstanding young men and women that are smart, that are hard-working, like yourselves, to join the Army because we are a nation at war and we need outstanding people like you.

JOHN MERROW: Students get to ask questions and hear stories about life in the Army from a soldier of the year, officers, and recruiters.

SPOKESMAN: All right, let me see you do between 15 and 20. Let me see.

JOHN MERROW: Some brave students will even get a physical taste of life in the Army.

SPOKESMAN: All right you're doing good. Good job, man.

JOHN MERROW: Today the military has access to high school students because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Schools receiving federal funds must give the military the same access that college and career counselors have or risk losing their federal money. Unless parents specifically request otherwise, schools must give the military personal contact information, addresses and telephone numbers, for their students.

SPOKESMAN: You know, I joined because I was seeking some adventure, all right? And I've been to a lot of different countries, Athens, Greece, Ireland, Rome. Been to Egypt twice, to the pyramids. All sorts of fun stuff. And that's what it's about.

JOHN MERROW: Why is it necessary to you go on high school campuses?

LT. COL. DAN DAOUST, U.S. Army: The primary reason is access to young people that don't even have a concept of what military service might be.

JOHN MERROW: Lt. Col. Dan Daoust was recruiting battalion commander in California for the past two years.

LT. COL. DAN DAOUST: There's no substitute for that one-on-one communication of actually talking to a soldier that's wearing that uniform. It would be great if we had all the resources in the world to be able to go out throughout all the neighborhoods and contact them in their homes, but they simply don't. The easiest way to make contact with them is when they are all in one location.

JOHN MERROW: According to Lt. Col. Daoust, access to high schools slows down escalating costs. The U.S. General Accounting Office found that the military's recruiting advertising budget doubled from $300 million to nearly $600 million between 1998 and 2003. And the overall recruiting budget last year approached $4 billion.

SPOKESMAN: I mean, where else can you get paid to jump out of airplanes, shoot cool guns, blow stuff up, and travel seeing all kinds of different countries? I put on the green Army uniform, and everywhere you go in the world wearing that uniform as a soldier, you're representing every man, woman and child.

JOHN MERROW: Having access to a large pool of potential enlistees is critical because recruiters have yearly goals to meet. During this past year, the goal was increased from 72,500 to 77,000. And the pressure is only going to grow. Congress recently approved increasing the Army's troop strength by 20,000 soldiers.

SPOKESMAN: How many here are thinking about the military after they get out of high school? Wow. Outstanding.

JOHN MERROW: Are you trying to sign kids up here today?

SGT. HOWARD MISENER, U.S. Army: No, what we're doing here today is giving them a career orientation on... you know, talk to them about different ways that they can learn a career, whether it's through the military or through college.

SPOKESMAN: The outstanding recruiters out here, they can tell you how much money you're going to get for college, you know, what kinds of options you have. Everything like that.

JOHN MERROW: Some students at Hoover think the Army's visit gives them good exposure to future career options. What do you think about the Army being on the campus, the military being on the campus?

STUDENT: I really don't care.

STUDENT: I mean, they're not here to force us to join. They're just giving us an idea of, like, what you get in the Army.

STUDENT: Just giving us opportunities to see what our future is in front of us.

JOHN MERROW: Is there pressure? Is this what you call high pressure?

STUDENT: No.

STUDENT: I don't feel any need to go and sign up for the Army. This is just helping us open up our options about what we want to do later in life.

JOHN MERROW: But other students in San Diego don't like the military having this much access.

STUDENT: I've seen a lot more recruiters at my campus since my freshman year.

STUDENT: I get phone calls all the time from the military trying to recruit me, because...

JOHN MERROW: What do they say?

STUDENT: They just say it's a great opportunity and they can provide me with job skills for the future.

JOHN MERROW: These high school seniors attend Patrick Henry High School, located in a wealthy area of San Diego. Unlike the students at Hoover, some students oppose the military's presence on their campus.

STUDENT: The significant difference between colleges recruiting and even vocational schools recruiting and the military recruitment is the culture you're setting up. We're trying to bring military presence on to the campus and kind of glorify and make people feel like they can be heroes for being involved in something that is inherently violent. And I think that school is not a place.

JOHN MERROW: Rick Jahnkow agrees. He's the head of a local San Diego peace group which has serious problems with military recruitment at high schools.

RICK JAHNKOW: A recruiter goes into the school, essentially when you strip it all the way down, that man is there to find people to send to Iraq. That's what it is. And yet he's presenting himself as a college counselor.

SPOKESMAN: All right. Good morning. Another point of view.

SPOKESPERSON: You can tell your school you want their name off their list, otherwise they'll call you at home.

JOHN MERROW: Your group was outside of the school protesting, handing out leaflets. What did you hope to accomplish?

RICK JAHNKOW: I think what we hoped to do is just to make sure that young people knew that there was another side to what they were going to see and hear.

SPOKESMAN: Sophomores? They believe us as being their counselors and that's what we are. We guide them and they're new soldiers to us, whether they've enlisted to us.

JOHN MERROW: But you are recruiting. That's different from counseling. You guys want people in the Army. Is that really counseling?

SPOKESMAN: No, because you don't want everybody in the Army. It's just like any employer hiring somebody. You go through a process of hiring somebody. Not everybody is qualified for the Army.

JOHN MERROW: In order to qualify for the Army, a student must pass a military administered aptitude exam, a physical and a criminal background check.

SPOKESMAN: Have you received any other citations?

JOHN MERROW: Afterwards, the applicant takes an oath and is officially enlisted.

SPOKESMAN: Congratulations. Welcome to the United States military.

RICK JAHNKOW: Kids are very sophisticated and very bright. What they lack is experience. They lack information and they're not going to find out about the realities talking to a recruiter.

JOHN MERROW: In that meeting did they mention Iraq or Afghanistan?

STUDENT: They mentioned that we were a nation at war.

JOHN MERROW: Did they say anything about... that you might be sent to Iraq or...

STUDENT: The only mention of Iraq was they were actually recruiting people. They'll be giving us an example of what we'd be going through if they were recruited, but they're not. They're only giving us, like, an explanation of what they do.

JOHN MERROW: Is it fair to talk to high school kids and not tell them about the wars that are going on?

SPOKESMAN: Well, actually, I was in here all morning, and they did bring a couple of those questions up. But I think it's really not a concern to students anymore because they watch the news, they know what's going on. I'm not CNN, so... they watch the news. They know what's happening and why ask the question if they already know what's going on?

LT. COL. DAN DAOUST: I'm sure that the recruiters that you saw, they wanted to focus on the positive sides of the Army and Army service or military service that the students don't get exposed to 24/7 on TV.

JOHN MERROW: If the United States is committed to having an all-volunteer Army, Lt. Col. Daoust says the military must have access to high school campuses.

LT. COL. DAN DAOUST: We don't have unfettered access any time to just reach in and pluck a student out to give them a spiel about joining the Army. We try to show a partnership with the schools that the Army is a viable partner, not an alternative to education, but a partner in education.

JOHN MERROW: It's difficult to evaluate the success of military recruiting on high school campuses. The military does not track how or where high school students enlist.

FOCUS - KERIK WITHDRAWAL

JIM LEHRER: Next, a look at what led Bernard Kerik to withdraw his nomination to head the Department of Homeland Security, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: It was the boldest of President Bush's second term cabinet picks, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik as secretary of Homeland Security. But late Friday night, the White House sent a terse two-sentence e-mail to reporters, saying Kerik "is withdrawing his name for personal reasons." Kerik also issued a statement, saying he'd just recently "uncovered information" that he had not paid taxes for a household worker who may also have been an illegal immigrant.

For more on the collapse of the Kerik appointment, we turn to Elisabeth Bumiller, White House correspondent for the New York Times.

Welcome, Elisabeth.

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER: This is the only hiccup in what has been an incredibly smooth changeover in this second-term cabinet. What happened? I mean, why wasn't this problem caught in the vetting process?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Well, that's the question of the hour which we've been trying to answer. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said today that the vetting process had gone on for weeks-- he used the word "weeks"-- before the president nominated Mr. Kerik on Dec. 3. And so it's very unclear why they couldn't find a lot of this information. It's out there publicly. It's also unclear exactly when Mr. Kerik was asked by White House lawyers whether he had a nanny problem. And he said he didn't. And then this information came out later. So, there are a lot of unanswered questions right now about why none of this surfaced after weeks and weeks of White House, basically, investigation.

MARGARET WARNER: And hadn't also a lot of other problems surfaced in regards to his past, professionally and otherwise?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: That's true. Now, the White House said they knew about some of them. For example, on Friday night, Newsweek reported that the real reason that Kerik was stepping down was because there was an arrest warrant that had been issued against him in connection with some debts on a condominium in New Jersey. Now the White House said, "Oh, we knew all about that, and we thought we could certainly explain that in a confirmation hearing." Lately, there were other things that surfaced specifically that the... that Mr. Kerik had some connection to a company in New Jersey that was suspected or accused of having ties to organized crime. It's unclear how he would have explained that. But at this moment, the White House is still saying it was the nanny problem and none of the other issues.

MARGARET WARNER: Is it fair to say that Kerik was certainly aware that-- particularly the New York papers had been incredibly aggressive on this one case you talked about the New Jersey company and also some things in his personal life that he knew they were working on that?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Yes he did. He knew that the New York Times and the Daily News were working on stories about the New Jersey construction company. He was aware of that. But I can't explain, perhaps he thought this was all... this could all be explained in a confirmation hearing.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, is it absolutely clear that he voluntarily withdrew? He wasn't asked to?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Well, it's as clear as I'm able to say. I mean, the White House says he withdrew on his own. And he says he withdrew on his own. And there's no distance between them on that, so we've been reporting that for several days now. I think it's fair to say the White House did not encourage him to stay. It was a very brief conversation he had with President Bush, about 8:30 on Friday night when he told the president he wanted to withdraw his name and it was a very, very short conversation.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, you wrote an interesting story today about Rudy Giuliani's role in all this, and what an embarrassment this is also for Mr. Giuliani. Describe that.

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Well, the mayor... Bernard Kerik was the mayor's police commissioner, when Rudy Giuliani was mayor up until 2000. And the mayor had also gone into business with Mr. Kerik at Giuliani Partners. And the White House was well aware of how highly Mr. Giuliani thought of Mr. Kerik. And so Mr. Giuliani over the weekend apologized to the White House for basically vouching for Mr. Kerik. He called Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, on Saturday morning to apologize and then last night at a dinner at the White House he apologized to the president.

MARGARET WARNER: Does this cause any kind of strain? I mean, does it really reflect on Rudy Giuliani, or is it just a one day story as far as Giuliani is concerned?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: We'll see. The mayor, of course, says that this is... this has not caused a strain with the White House. That's interesting he said that that he felt the need to so publicly apologize and make his apologies known to the chief of staff and the president. It doesn't help him at all with the White House. The White House... but on the other hand the White House feels some degree of loyalty to him because Giuliani campaigned very, very hard for President Bush in the fall, and during the presidential campaign. The president liked having the former mayor at his side. He was a great reminder of how much of defending the country after Sept. 11, you know, the mayor was... rallied New Yorkers in a way that really turned around his political fortunes at that time.

MARGARET WARNER: What did... in retrospect, what did the choice of Bernard Kerik say to you about what the White House is looking for in a new secretary of homeland security?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: They're looking for, I think, they were looking for a symbol of strength and a reminder of how the country stood up on 9/11 and rallied. Certainly Bernard... you know, Rudy Giuliani has said many times he does want a cabinet job, and I don't think one would ever actually have been offered, but if you don't have Rudy Giuliani, Bernard Kerik is a pretty good second choice. He was right next to the mayor that whole day on 9/11 when the mayor ran from the, you know, in the dust and the rubble from the falling buildings. And, you know, he was the city's police chief at one of the worst moments in the city's history.

MARGARET WARNER: Would you also say... I read somewhere that even though there's a brand new department the White House feels it's already kind of cumbersome and it really needed the toughness and street smarts that they thought someone like a Bernard Kerik would bring to that.

ELISABETH BUMILLER: They need a good manager. Bernard Kerik had been in charge of the New York City Corrections Department. That is a very tough management job. He had been in Iraq. The White House sent him to Iraq to help train Iraqi security forces over the summer. There were some mixed reports of his job there, but basically the White House thought he was the kind of manager and, you know, sort of street smart, street savvy guy they could count on.

MARGARET WARNER: So how are they doing on the search for somebody like that to become the new nominee?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Well, I don't think they're going to reach into New York City anytime soon for a new nominee. I think they learned that it's complicated in New York City. If I had to guess I would say they would reach for a safe choice. But there's a lot of names floating around. You know, Joe Lieberman, the senator from Connecticut, Fran Townsend who is the president's domestic security advisor at the White House, you know, Asa Hutchinson, who is the deputy homeland security. There's a lot of names floating around. None of them are quite like, you know, Bernie Kerik, however.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you get the sense that the White House feels a great urgency -- that speed is of the essence here?

ELISABETH BUMILLER: I have sense, yes. But I don't think they want to go too quickly this time given what's happened to them with Bernard Kerik. You know, the White House spent a lot of the day on the defensive about its vetting process and why it failed in this instance.

MARGARET WARNER: Thank you very much.

ELISABETH BUMILLER: Thank you.

FOCUS - YOUNG AT HEART

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a conversation about writing for young people. Arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown has the story.

JEFFREY BROWN: If you're between the ages of, say four and 40, chances are you know the books of Judy Blume. Beginning in the early 1970s with works such as "Are You There, God? It's me Margaret," in which an 11-year-old girl worries about puberty and religion; the "Fudge" series, about a fourth grader and his baby brother; and books that address teen sexuality head-on, Blume has written about the real lives of young people. And young people have responded, with more than 75 million of her books sold. Blume, 66, began writing as a wife and mother living in the New Jersey suburbs. Now, she's been honored by the National Book Foundation for her "distinguished contribution to American letters," the first author of young people's literature ever to win that award. We spoke the morning after the ceremony in the children's section of a New York bookstore.

Judy Blume, welcome and congratulations to you.

JUDY BLUME: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: You said in your speech that when you were young, you loved to read literature for children, but you didn't find there the reality that you knew, that you experienced as a child.

JUDY BLUME: I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning. But I longed to find in books children like me with... thinking what I was thinking about -- families like my family which wasn't perfect; it was a loving family, but it wasn't perfect. And I knew, you know, there were secrets within families. I never read anything like that when I was growing up.

JEFFREY BROWN: So you decided, "I'm going to do it myself?"

JUDY BLUME: (Laughs) I didn't decide it at nine or ten. I decided it much later. And when I did, that was the only thing I knew. I wanted to write what I remembered to be true.

JEFFREY BROWN: One of the things that strikes me in reading your books is that it's sort of a reminder that young people, as much as they want to be special, mostly they want to be normal.

JUDY BLUME: Yeah. I don't know about all children, but I was certainly like that. And I gather from the letters that I get, a lot of children are like that. We do feel that surely we're alone, we're the only ones. And for me, I kept that inside. I wasn't going to tell anybody, "Guess what I'm really like? What I'm really thinking about?" You keep that inside, you keep that very private. And you pretend to the world that you are normal.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you remember being ten, thirteen, fifteen?

JUDY BLUME: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Oh, yes?

JUDY BLUME: Oh, yes, especially ten. I mean, 12 and under is, is very vivid still. It never occurred to me, when I started to write to write for any other group. The voice in my head was the voice of a child, and the voice that came out spontaneously on paper was the voice of a child. And also I think, because at 27, when I really started to write, I felt that life was over for me. I had made my...

JEFFREY BROWN: Over for you?

JUDY BLUME: Over. I had made my choices. I married very young. I had my children, as we did then. And this was going to be it. I didn't know that there were any opportunities around the corner. You know, I mean, it...

JEFFREY BROWN: You mean, you felt trapped.

JUDY BLUME: Well, yes, I guess I did feel trapped. But I thought... looking back, that was the life that interested me, the child that I was when it seemed that everything was still possible, everything was new and exciting, everything was a first.

JEFFREY BROWN: And then writing became a way to a new life?

JUDY BLUME: It certainly did. What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters. And I just went from book to book to book because it... it gave me my life, again. It gave me my inner life, that connection that I had lost. It's all much, much harder for me now.

JEFFREY BROWN: Much harder?

JUDY BLUME: Much harder. You know, nobody knew who I was. I just sat there. I had little kids. I worked... I was very focused. I worked when they were at school. I've lost that focus because my life is very exciting and there's a lot going on all the time and there are a lot of projects, and I love that. I love the excitement of that. But for writing, it isn't good. It isn't good. I have to lock myself up and say, "I am going to start writing a book."

JEFFREY BROWN: You read a very funny letter at the book awards. Someone asked you to send... what was it, the facts of life?

JUDY BLUME: "Please send me the facts of life, in number order."

JEFFREY BROWN: In number order.

JUDY BLUME: (Laughs) Yeah, I love that. Yes. I'm still trying to figure that out. What is the number order?

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you feel some special responsibility? I mean, if kids are asking you to send them the facts of life, they're looking to you for some things that maybe they aren't getting elsewhere.

JUDY BLUME: I feel totally responsible to them when they write to me. When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside. You've got to write, I think, as truthfully, as honestly as you can. I mean, that was always my feeling.

JEFFREY BROWN: For some, Judy Blume has gone too far. Her books have faced restrictions or outright bans in some school districts after complaints from parents. The American Library Association says Blume is the second most censored author of the past 15 years.

JUDY BLUME: Well, I think there are parents who don't feel comfortable talking to their kids about puberty or sexuality, anything to do with sexuality. I used to get letters that said, "You told my son about puberty, and I wanted to be the one to tell him." Well, his son was 12. What was he waiting for? You know, you can't wait for that moment. You have to be able to talk to them and answer their questions. I mean, I certainly think that children have a right to read widely, and that to restrict the books that they have access to is ridiculous because you're sending the kids a message: There's something in these books we don't want you to know about, there's something in these books we don't want to talk to you about.

JEFFREY BROWN: I'll bet when you go to book signings now, you have mothers along with their children, and the mothers have read your books.

JUDY BLUME: Yes, I do. And I tell those mothers, "Don't tell them you read these books because then they won't want to. Let them find them on their own."

JEFFREY BROWN: There's a letter you read at the Book Foundation award from one of your readers that sort of expresses some of this relationship that you have with them. Could you read that for us?

JUDY BLUME: Yes, I love that letter, yes. "Dear Judy, my mom never talks about the things young girls think most about. She doesn't know how I feel. I don't know where I stand in the world. I don't know who I am. That's why I read, to find myself. Elizabeth, age 13." And Elizabeth is the reason that I keep writing.

JEFFREY BROWN: Judy Blume, again congratulations and thank you.

JUDY BLUME: Thank you so much for having me here. Thank you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: A suicide car bomber killed 13 Iraqis and wounded 15 in central Baghdad. Iraqi President al-Yawer warned the violence could lead to a new dictator, if people get desperate for security. And President Bush nominated Michael Leavitt to be the new secretary of Health and Human Services. He's now running the Environmental Protection Agency. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.