The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Gwen Ifill covers today's White House summit on cyber security; political reporters David Broder, Ron Brownstein, and Lee Bandy assess the increasingly important Republican primary in South Carolina; Kwame Holman reports on today's House hearing on the U.S. drug war in Colombia; and Susan Dentzer and Elizabeth Farnsworth look at efforts to reform the prescription drugs system. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton held a high-level meeting on Internet security today. He met with business and government officials and even a computer hacker named Mudge. They talked at the White House about how to stop hackers from vandalizing sites on the world wide web. The meeting followed a series of such incidents last week. Mr. Clinton said this:

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The trick is going to be how to do what needs to be done on security and privacy and let...and still keep it flourishing and growing, but we ought to approach this with determination and we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be surprised that these things have happened. It's just a replay of what has always happened whenever there's a new way of communicating, a new way of making money throughout human society, there's always going to be somebody that tries to take advantage of it. We'll figure out how to deal with it and go on.

JIM LEHRER: Police in the Portland, Oregon, area said federal agents have seized a computer that may have been used in last week's attacks. And a Toronto newspaper said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have joined the hunt for the hackers. We'll have more on internet security right after this News Summary. The republican presidential candidates debate tonight in South Carolina. Polls show John McCain and George W. Bush are in a tight race there, with the state primary set for Saturday. Alan Keyes will also take part in the debate. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. In Northern Ireland today, the Irish Republican Army pulled out of disarmament talks. It accused the British government and the major Protestant Party in Northern Ireland of ignoring its proposals. Britain suspended the province's home-rule government last Friday. It said the IRA had failed to commit to giving up its weapons. Scientists began testing the Danube River and a major tributary today. They were looking for damage from a cyanide spill. It's killed thousands of fish in Yugoslavia and Hungary. We have a report from Philippa Meagher of Associated Press Television News.

PHILIPPA MEAGHER: The Danube river is Europe's main waterway, and a source of income for fishermen who live along its banks. But now their livelihood may be threatened. Yugoslavia has banned the sale of most freshwater fish following a cyanide spill which has polluted the river. The spill occurred in Romania at a gold mine. Now Serbian fishermen are scooping dead fish from the Danube and saying the disaster will cost them their jobs. This man says the catastrophe will affect all fishermen, and he believes the consequences will be felt for the next 20 years. The United Nations has assigned a special task force to clean up the spill.

SPOKESMAN: We are also taking the opportunity to collect information on the cyanide. Perhaps we are in the right place at the right time, and we have the experts with us.

PHILIPPA MEAGER: Scientists are taking water samples from the Danube to assess the exact damage. Earlier tests showed cyanide levels were 20 times higher than acceptable. Dead fish continue to be brought ashore, and many more are believed to be on the river bottom. Talks of compensation are now beginning. Hungary and Serbia want help for their fishermen and their damaged waterways.

JIM LEHRER: The World Health Organization warned that toxic metals may have escaped into the water as well. They could poison the food chain for years. Cocaine production in Colombia increased nearly 20% last year, according to White House drug policy chief, Barry McCaffrey. He testified at a House hearing on an anti-drug package for Colombia. The Clinton administration wants to spend $1.6 billion to help the Colombian army fight the narcotics war. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. Cleanup continued today after Monday's tornadoes in Southwest Georgia. Hundreds of volunteers worked in the hard-hit town of Camilla, clearing away the wreckage of smashed houses and trees. President Clinton declared the region a disaster area; state emergency officials said they hope to get storm victims into temporary housing by Thursday. The twisters killed at least 22 people and injured 100. And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to the cyber security summit, the South Carolina showdown, the U.S. drug war in Colombia, and a new way to handle prescription drugs.

FOCUS - CYBER SECURITY

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill has the Internet story.

GWEN IFILL: Today at the White House, topic "a" was cyber security.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What we're going to try to do today is to talk about what the government's responsibility is for our own systems and networks, what the private sector's responsibility is - and, as I said before, how to talk about having adequate security, how to protect privacy and civil liberties but also how to keep the Internet open. Keep in mind that one of the reasons this thing has worked so well is it has been free of government regulation.

GWEN IFILL: Two dozen technology executives, academics, privacy advocates, and public officials met with the President today. At issue: How to protect Internet web sites without encouraging unnecessary government interference.

HARRIS MILLER, Information Technology Association of America: In an automobile, certain standards get set. They meet these specifications and that sits in place for several years so everybody knows that. Unfortunately in the Internet, the security challenges are new every day. And every time someone comes up with a counter measure, then you have the possibility of someone coming up with a new threat. I think what happened last week and the last few weeks has helped to focus the attention of many people in the industry that they are going to have to put more resources into security.

GWEN IFILL: The FBI is still searching for hackers who flooded several popular web sites with information last week, clogging the Internet and taking several sites offline for hours at a time. Today's White House meeting, scheduled even before last week's breakdown, is part of a $2 billion Clinton administration cyber security initiative. That plan would provide training and better protection for government computers; it also would attempt to strengthen partnerships with the private sector. Meanwhile, the FBI reportedly has narrowed its search for those responsible for the hack attacks, interviewing potential suspects, and talking to a hacker known as Mixter, the man who wrote the software believed to be used in the attacks. This week, Mixter released technical information on that program, known as Tribe Flood Network. The program lets a computer user tap into perhaps hundreds of computers and secretly install software. That software acts like a time bomb, prompting the computers at a preset time to bombard online sites. The result: System overload, and in computer parlance, denial of service. In the last few days, the FBI has discovered that computers at several California universities, including UCLA and UC Santa Barbara were unwitting conduits for the last week's attacks. And at Stanford, the software infiltrated a piece of hardware known as a router, a central hub for the university's Internet data.

GWEN IFILL: For more on the intersection of government and the Internet, we are joined by Milo Medin, chief technology officer of Excite@Home, a company that delivers high-speed Internet access and provides news, entertainment, and communication services. Excite was one of several companies disrupted by hackers last week. And Phillip Lacombe, vice president of cyber assurance for Veridian Corporation, which performs network security management for private and public companies. He is also former executive director of the President's commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection. And Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America.

Philip Lacombe, what role does government really have in this kind of policing of the Internet or should have?

PHILLIP LACOMBE, Veridian Corporation: Well, I believe that the Internet is an infrastructure which supports a variety of America's critical infrastructures on which Americans rely for business, for all manner of economic activity and for the functioning of our daily institutions. That Internet must be available and, therefore, it is the responsibility of both the public sector, the government, and the private sector, which owns and operates those networks and those companies that provide the communications to provide security. So we believe it's a joint public and private, jointly shared infrastructure responsibility because our day-to-day economic health, our national institutions and our national security rely on the availability and the trustworthiness of the Internet and related networks.

GWEN IFILL: Milo Medin, is that workable?

MILO MEDIN, Excite@Home: I think so. Part of the challenge, of course, is that the network is run by different organizations. And there's no central management. But it's not in any of the companies' best interest to have the system be unstable overall. So we try and work together to assure the stability and connectivity of the system, but we also have to work for the government and law enforcement to be better able to identify problems and prosecute those who cause them.

GWEN IFILL: But, Mark Cooper, he just talks about how ungovernable basically the Internet is. Is that realistic to think that... it's one thing to talk about how everyone should work together. It's another thing to figure out how to do that.

MARK COOPER, Consumer Federation of America: Well, in fact, the Internet can, should and will be subject to social order. There will be rules, call them regulation, if you want. The question is how do we set those rules? And in our society, we get to choose the values that the Internet will maximize in our society: Freedom of expression is one, commerce is another, but privacy is another -- the ability to choose, to protect your own interests. And the key for us is to make sure that we do that in an open and democratic process. Do we make those choices consciously to demonstrate American values and let the companies make profits as long as they don't violate my free speech, my privacy, et cetera? And we constantly make those choices. The thing we have to do is know that we're making those choices and let people participate in those choices.

GWEN IFILL: That was part of the goal of this meeting today. The White House has already come up with a couple of proposals, among them it would like to develop a tracking system for federal and private-sector computer networks, also to make it easier to wire tap phone and data lines and also to slow the proliferation of companies' ability to encrypt their information which is to be able to provide more code-breaking access on the Internet. Is this something which you could imagine, Philip Lacombe, is this something that you could imagine the industry accepting?

PHILLIP LACOMBE: The industry is going to fulfill its responsibility to police itself to provide which is in its best interest secure networking capability for its customers. That's the purpose of the industry. That's what we're doing. And we intend to pursue that to the best of our ability. We believe that we have a relationship and a responsibility with the government to do that, and that there are things that the government has a responsibility for: Enforcing the law, tracking down people who do harm, whether they do it using cyber tools or physical tools. It's very much the same.

GWEN IFILL: That's after the fact. It sounds like these proposals are talking about....

MARK COOPER: Our concern is the problem is that you know, you can probably put a surveillance camera in every computer in the world and watch everything I do. This technology is powerful. I get so say, "wait a minute, find another way because that's too invasive." And the important point is technology can do whatever it wants to do. We have to tell it what to do. I'm sure a lot of people will say, that solution is just too invasive; find another way to track people down and maintain social order. And that's the point of making sure that we make these decisions. One of the hard parts is that old laws that apply in real space may be hard to apply in cyberspace, which is a new place. So maybe we need new laws or maybe the old laws just can't work. And what we have to work out is the principles of privacy that we had in real space, we may want in cyberspace. Technology is very powerful so we have to be very careful in solving one problem we don't create other problems.

GWEN IFILL: Milo Medin, one of the things the President was asked today during his little briefing was after last week's attacks, it became clear that a lot of bank computer experts had gotten advance warning about this but this was something that either wasn't sure with the government or other industries. Is that a weak link?

MILO MEDIN: I think, in general, some industries prefer not to disclose their security problems or break-ins for fear of upsetting the economic market's trust in the institution, et cetera. We have to work together to be information because the hackers work together, together in sharing tools and ways of breaking into systems. So the government and industry together have to be able to understand what's going on, what the attacks are, developing counter measures proactively and most importantly, I think, getting the word out to people about how to prepare their systems and how to be able to deal with these things, not reactively but before the attacks come.

GWEN IFILL: You all three are talking about the government working together with the private sector but I guess I just don't know what that means if the three specifics that I stated that anybody here is rushing to embrace.

MILO MEDIN: Part of the problem is because of the explosion in the Internet economy, a lot of people-- people like myself who used to work for NASA-- have left the government and are in the private sector. And it's very difficult particularly in law enforcement to hold on to people. A lot of the FBI agents, et cetera, are not given the set of tools and capabilities they need to actually go out there and help. We have to work with the agencies to be able to go out there and actually find these people and prosecute them. It's not something to be done by one person.

PHILLIP LACOMBE: If I might, Gwen, you mentioned the Federal Intrusion Detection Network that is actually a proposal contained in the national plan released by the White House and the critical infrastructure insurance office I think two weeks ago. That is actually a plan in which the government would protect its own networks. It would, in essence, lead by example, by providing the intrusion detection required so that it could insure that its networks were available when needed and secure. That seems to me to be a rather prudent step by the government, a way of, as I said, leading by example.

GWEN IFILL: And leading the way for the private sector who wants to protect itself rather than looking to federal government to do the same.

PHILLIP LACOMBE: As I said, I believe it's a joint responsibility but largely the private sector is responsible for protecting itself, yes.

MARK COOPER: The most important thing here is we're having a discussion about what government can do and should do. One of the difficulties we have is the minute we say we need a rule here, everyone says don't regulate the Internet. The Internet needs to be regulated and will be either by private sector, but also by public sector. So once you admit and recognize that you need rules for cyberspace, just like you have in real space, then we can start to address the problem in an open and educated, informed way.

GWEN IFILL: You talked a minute ago about playing by old rules with new rules out here to be pursued. For instance, how does the FBI police something that crosses international boundaries? We heard in the News Summary about the Canadian Mounties, the Royal Mounties getting ready to pursue these hackers. How do we do that?

MARK COOPER: The really new thing about the Internet is it makes the technologies control and the ability to speak and enter, it changes the balance. It destroys the old balance that we have in real space, and so we struggle to figure out how to control the freedom that it gave us, but, in fact, if we don't control it, we will end up with anarchy. And that's when people start to address the problem and say, look, we want this tremendously powerful economic and social institution but we have to put some rules in place. And now we're getting over the question of any rule is bad. No, we need some rules here. International is a big problem. If I get defrauded in the Internet, where do I sue? Well, what we have to do is agree on a place where we can impose that order. We would like it to be in our country. The other countries want it in their countries, international institutions, but we have to decide some way to impose order.

GWEN IFILL: How big a problem is it at its root that so many... there is such distrust between Silicon Valley and Washington...how do you begin to figure out what it is that the federal government and the private sector can work together on...

PHILLIP LACOMBE: This is a step in that direction.

GWEN IFILL: Excuse me.

PHILLIP LACOMBE: This is a step in that direction, the President's meeting, the fact that we have a Secretary Daly in the Department of Commerce leading a partnership of over 130 companies that are coming together later this month to work in that direction. I think we see those... evidence of the industry beginning to work together even more, and industry working with government.

GWEN IFILL: Milo?

MILO MEDIN: I would also say that while there is some hostility over certain issues, like encryption and other things regarding export controls, Washington and Silicon Valley both need to work together closer. I know we work with the government quite well, and, you know, the policy-makers, I think, have taken a position that says, "we're going to look first to see if the industry can deal with problems and solve them themselves before we step in" because predicting the future is a very, very hard thing to do. And the technology moves so quickly that by the time you put regulations and rules in place, it may only apply to something that used to be the situation.

GWEN IFILL: But aren't some of these rules already in place? Isn't it just a question of knowing how to use them?

MILO MEDIN: And the tools and the motivations to law enforcement to actually be able to exercise those rules and be able to prosecute people.

GWEN IFILL: And the resources.

MILO MEDIN: And the resources.

MARK COOPER: When you design the network, you're making the rule. If you make choices about infrastructure, about how you deploy your routers, about the way people access them, you're actually making the rules. The important point is that ifthe Internet and Silicon Valley wants to be the dominate institution in society, the super highway, if you will, then they have to meet the government because in our society, that government plays a role in insuring certain basic values. And they have now suddenly started to meet very reluctantly the government.

MILO MEDIN: We've done it for a while.

MARK COOPER: But they now understand that you need the government to impose these rules and we're getting over this notion that if it's government, it can't be good for us because in order to affect all of our lives, you have to start to accept those responsibilities.

GWEN IFILL: It sounds like a long and winding road yet. Philip Lacombe, Mark Cooper, Milo Medin, thank you very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the big South Carolina race, fighting drugs in Colombia, and reforming the prescription drugs system here.

FOCUS - SOUTH CAROLINA - SHOWDOWN

JIM LEHRER: That big one for the Republicans in South Carolina: There's a debate tonight, with the important primary vote on Saturday. Here to set the scene are David Broder of the "Washington Post," Ron Brownstein of the "Los Angeles Times," and Lee Bandy of the "State," a newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina.

David, your column today said-- and I paraphrase-- that Saturday's primary results could-- could-- decide this entire Republican nomination. Take us through the thesis.

DAVID BRODER: Well, it's setting up in a very interesting way. As you know, john McCain won a big victory over Governor Bush in their first head-to-head in New Hampshire on February 1. So if McCain can win here where the environment of conservative Republicans, strong religious group in the constituency and a massive campaign against him not only from George Bush and his own supporters but from the tobacco people, the anti-abortion people, the anti-tax people, if McCain can win here, then he has beaten Bush twice in very different environments, and the next round, Tuesday in Michigan and Arizona, set up very favorably for McCain. On the other hand, if Bush can stop McCain here, then Bush has won three of the four first contests, beating McCain once, losing to him once and beating Steve Forbes twice, running Forbes out of the race. At that point, George Bush begins to look again like the strong favorite that he was at the beginning of the year.

JIM LEHRER: So suddenly, David, the 400,000 people who are going to vote on Saturday and South Carolina become very important in this overall race.

DAVID BRODER: Very important. And, as you know, it's an interesting set-up because South Carolina does not have party registration. Anybody whose name is on the books as a registered voter-- be they Republican, independent or Democratic-- can go in and ask for a Republican ballot on Saturday. There is no Democratic contest here on the same day so it's wide open for anybody who wants to play.

JIM LEHRER: Ron, do you buy that theory, that thesis?

RON BROWNSTEIN: Well, generally South Carolina has been a critical primary, Jim, in settling the Republican nomination all the way back to 1980, whether it was Ronald Reagan in 1980, George Bush in 1988, Bob Dole in 1996, they all used this as a pivotal state on the road to the nomination.

JIM LEHRER: And that's because -- explain why. Because it comes right after New Hampshire and somebody continues to bounce or bounces back after new ramp, right?

RON BROWNSTEIN: Exactly. In each case, in 1980, 1988 and 1996, the front-runner stumbled in New Hampshire or Iowa and was restored to their status in South Carolina. It is a state that bends toward the establishment party traditionally but McCain's success really comes from expanding the electorate. And that's why it's a little unpredictable. Right now the latest polls clearly show Bush moving back ahead pretty consistently from poll to poll. But the question mark, the real issue here is who comes out to vote? Can McCain bring in an unusually large number of independents and Democrats to offset what Bush has done much better than he did in New Hampshire which is mobilize the conservative Republican base, polarize the election on a kind of left/right continuum and make himself the candidate of sort of the traditional conservative agenda. That is a construct that is difficult for McCain to get over in a state like this that is so conservative. If you look at the kind of coalition that McCain is assembling in other states where the basic center of gravity in the Republican Party isn't quite as far to the right, he may be able to come and compete say in a place like in Michigan even if he loses narrowly here.

JIM LEHRER: So, you wouldn't buy it carte blanche that it's over if you loses in South Carolina.

RON BROWNSTEIN: No, but again, there's a big difference between winning and losing. George w. Bush is pretty much ahead in most states. New Hampshire brought McCain into contention around the country but he still has ground to cover. And South Carolina is the last state with which you can change everything everywhere. By winning South Carolina, you can change the lay of the land really in every significant state. And I think that is a big, lost opportunity that may be fatal for McCain if you can't get over the hump, but, no, not in the sense that there's no-- tomorrow.

JIM LEHRER: Lee Bandy, are the people of South Carolina, of your state, seeing John McCain and George W. Bush at their best?

LEE BANDY: Well, I think so although there was a big controversy here for a while about the negative ads, the hard-hitting ads. South Carolinians by and large do not like those negative ads where you attack the candidate. We're a very genteel people down here. We like a good, hard-fought campaign, one that is fought squarely and fairly. I do think that there was one McCain ad that backfired on him. And that was the one ad where he likened Bush to Clinton. What a lot of people forget down here is that Bush family is very popular. And the South Carolina voters saw that ad and said, "that's a bit of a stretch" and I think it backfired on McCain. And he did finally pull it.

JIM LEHRER: But, in general terms, Lee, are the two men who are campaigning, are they... You've watched them from the beginning of this, not just since they've been in South Carolina. Do you think they're at their prime right now? I mean, the people they're going to choose, the people of South Carolina are going to choose between this man, George W. Bush and this man, John McCain, are they seeing the real people at this point?

LEE BANDY: I think they are. John McCain has campaigned consistently. He campaigned in New Hampshire the same way he's campaigning here. Bush kind of retooled his campaign when he came here. He became more aggressive. He was feisty. And he was hard hitting. And I think that paid off for him because I feel that McCain's momentum has stalled somewhat and that Bush has been able to regain his footing. I think it's been good for Bush that he had nearly three weeks between New Hampshire and here. He had time to turn around his campaign.

JIM LEHRER: David, how would you answer that question: Are these men at their peak right now?

DAVID BRODER: I've just come into South Carolina today, and I would yield to my colleagues who have been down here much longer, but everything I've seen suggests that Lee is right, that Bush is now delivering much more effectively than he did up in New Hampshire. You know, there was that sense in New Hampshire that Bush was somehow going through the motions, that his heart wasn't in it. Everything that I've seen and heard about this race suggests that his heart is in it, and clearly McCain with that boost that he got out of New Hampshire, McCain is on a roll. And talking with the reporters who have been going around with him, he's drawing big crowds and very enthusiastic receptions. And I think that Bush is getting the same kind of reaction here. I think the answer is that South Carolina is seeing two thoroughly competent, professional politicians going at it very hard.

JIM LEHRER: What would you add to that, Ron?

RON BROWNSTEIN: Jim, I've spent a lot of time here in the last week seeing both of them. I totally agree. I think they are both performing very well. I likened it last week a little bit to like Ali-Fraser. I mean, you have two political heavyweights who are really strongly making their case not only against each other but for themselves. In a number of these cities that I've been in and these towns, there's no venue big enough for the kinds of crowds they're generating. You're seeing very large, enthusiastic audiences. It's almost as if to some extent they are running parallel campaigns rather than really competing against each other. I really feel that McCain is doing a very good job at activating this unusual reform-oriented, almost parole-like coalition of independents, moderate Republicans and Democrats. They come out and love his message of reform, they love his message of paying down the debt. On the other hand, Bush is doing a much better job than he did in New Hampshire of mobilizing the core Republicans, the conservative Republicans. And they applaud just as loudly when he calls for cutting taxes as the McCain people do when he calls for using the surplus to pay down the debt. So you have almost a race that is moving on parallel tracks rather than always intersecting.

JIM LEHRER: Lee, how important is this debate tonight?

LEE BANDY: Well, I think the stakes are very high. And the outcome of this primary could depend on the performances tonight of the candidates. Both have a lot riding on this debate.

JIM LEHRER: And specifically, what does Bush, do you think Bush needs to do tonight that he hasn't done up to now or does he add to what he's been doing? What is your feeling about what he should do?

LEE BANDY: I don't think he needs to add much to what he's been doing. As Ron says, he's been attracting big crowds here. They respond to his message. They like his tax-cut plan. They've been responding to his message. They like his Social Security plan. I don't know what else he can do.

JIM LEHRER: What about McCain?

LEE BANDY: McCain, I think, is probably going to take the high road tonight. I think a lot of people think he's going to come out swinging. I don't think he needs to do that. I think he needs to continue to do what he's been doing.

JIM LEHRER: David, what about the point that lee made earlier that the people of South Carolina were turned off at the beginning by the negative advertising. You've been covering a lot of political campaigns. Is this really down and dirty in South Carolina?

DAVID BRODER: It's certainly much more of a kind of a slugging contest and a few blows below the belt than it was in New Hampshire. I thought that when Governor Bush stood there with a retired army general who questioned Senator McCain's willingness to fight for other veterans that that was a pretty low blow. As Lee has said, comparing Governor Bush to President Clinton was certainly in the eyes of Republicans a very low blow. So there have been some... but the stakes are high. And this is, I think, sort of what you have to expect because one of these two men is going to walk out of South Carolina with a really great marked advantage for winning this nomination. Both of them know it. And they're going at it very hard.

JIM LEHRER: Ron, do you feel that too that both of these men and their staffs know, hey, wait a minute, suddenly, we've got to win South Carolina -- Bush and McCain's people feel exactly the same way?

RON BROWNSTEIN: I was really struck in the time I spent with both campaigns the sense of anxiety on both sides. One, they understand the stakes here. Two, because of the nature of McCain's support no one can be really entirely sure of what's going on. The Bush people worry about a surge of non-Republican voters who will carry McCain over the top. I think the McCain people worry about the weight of, as both Lee and David has talked about, the advertising that's going on against them very heavily from the Bush campaign, a very negative message that is really pounding away on the air waves, but the other groups what they're hearing on talk radio, the sort of informal conservatives network, neither side is sure of the result. Both sides understand that the result matters a lot to their fate. You really feel the tension in talking to a lot of the people in both campaigns.

JIM LEHRER: Lee, you know the voters of your state. Do they tend to make up their minds at the last minute as they did in New Hampshire or do you think most people have already decided what they're going to do on Saturday?

LEE BANDY: I think most South Carolinians have already decided what they're going to do on Saturday. We're not like the voter in New Hampshire. We do have an independent streak here, but it's not as pronounced as it is in New Hampshire. Republican voters here tend to follow the leadership of the party. And of course the leadership of the party is with George Bush. We hear a lot about crossover votes. And I think McCain has the tougher job of getting his vote out. His strategy calls forgetting out veterans, getting out reformed-minded independents, getting out Democrats. In other words, his strategy calls for getting people out to vote in the Republican primary who don't ordinarily participate in the Republican primary. Now, I know the Bush people are saying a lot of Democrats are going to go in to create mischief. I don't believe that. I think that's a myth. I went to a Democratic county the other day and talked to the Democratic voters. Many said they were going to cross over and vote for John McCain because they genuinely like him. Then they said in the next breath, I will not vote for Al Gore or Bill Bradley in November.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. So, a lot of unknowns. Thank you, Lee, Ron, and David.

UPDATE - WAR ON DRUGS

JIM LEHRER: And the U.S. drug war in the South American nation of Colombia. Kwame Holman has the story.

KWAME HOLMAN: Throughout the last decade, Colombia led South America in producing most of the world's cocaine, much of it sold in the United States. Now a new report by the U.S. Government says the Colombian cultivation of coca, the raw material that makes cocaine, increased 20% in last two years. That report caught the attention of Congress and the Clinton administration, and both now appear ready to intensify efforts to combat Colombia's flourishing cocaine trade. The United States already has invested billions to assist anti-narcotics efforts in South America, much of it in the last three years. And over that time, Peru and Bolivia eliminated thousands of acres of cocaine and heroin fields within their borders. But the Central Intelligence Agency says new fields developed in neighboring Colombia more than made up for that lost drug production. Complicating the drug war in Colombia is its ongoing civil war between the government and at least three competing guerrilla groups, some of which are active in the drug trade. General Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's drug czar, was up on Capitol Hill today to outline the administration's plan to continue the drug war in Colombia. Testifying before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Drug Policy, McCaffrey first described the current state of the Colombian drug trade.

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY (Ret.) National Drug Control Policy Director: Cocaine production in Colombia has gone up 140% in a little less than four years. Today... yesterday we released the crop estimates for this year. Colombia produced, in our view, 520 metric tons of cocaine. It is astonishing. We're talking 70% or more of the world total. And that cocaine, we would argue, is the heart and soul of the incredible impact that 26,000 armed people are having on Colombian democratic institutions-- the FARC, the ELN, the AUC, so-called paramilitary terrorist groups, they're wearing shiny new uniforms. They have more machine guns than the Colombian infantry battalions have. They have planes and helicopters and wiretap equipment, and they are assassinating mayors and intimidating journalists and corrupting public officials.

KWAME HOLMAN: McCaffrey then detailed how the administration planned to spend $1.6 billion to assist the Colombian government's fight against the drug cartel.

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: If you look at the total package, essentially 85% of it goes to Colombia; the rest goes to Peru and Bolivia. Then the remainder of the program, if you look at it, half of it is a mobility package. That's what that is. It's 63 helicopters, 30 Blackhawks, 33 UH-1N's, rebuilt with the operational requirements of spare parts, the training package to get the crews; that's what it is. And that mobility package, in our view, in the Colombian plan, allows Colombian democratic institutions to regain sovereignty over their own terrain, particularly in the South.

KWAME HOLMAN: Massachusetts Democrat John Tierney said he was concerned the plan could drag the U.S. into Colombia's 40-year civil war with guerrillas who control the southern countryside where most of the coca is grown.

REP. JOHN TIERNEY, (D) Massachusetts: Ought we not insist that we show some signs to the real allocation or the different allocation of this money by more support to crop alternatives, to ways to get that crop to market, to the roads, to things of that nature? Shouldn't we build their confidence by putting more of the money in that direction?

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: There is, in our view, a coherent, well-thought-out Colombian plan to take all these issues into account. And then, in addition, even within our $1.6 billion piece, as I mentioned, there is a massive increase in alternative economic development support, support for the judicial system, prison reform, et cetera-- the peace process. It's a $240 million package that's in there, and it's gone up from 5% to 20% of the total.

KWAME HOLMAN: Republicans on the committee generally supported the administration's package of increased aid to Colombia. However some were concerned the Colombian military and police weren't getting the U.S. equipment they need fast enough.

REP. BENJAMIN GILMAN, (R) New York: General Serrano has been pleading for Blackhawk helicopters so he can get to the higher altitudes and eradicate the heroin crop and poppy crop. And he's said that if he's given the wherewithal to do that, he can eliminate that crop within a two-year period. How many Blackhawks have we delivered to General Serrano to do this work?

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: Well, he's got 47 aircraft...

REP. BENJAMIN GILMAN: I'm asking about Blackhawks, General.

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: He's got six Blackhawks. He's got three more en route. Let me just tell you, Mr. Congressman, you know, I've done this kind of thing my entire life. We do not wish to take the Colombian national police and turn them into a force capable of engaging in open combat with the FARC fronts regarding cocaine...

REP. BENJAMIN GILMAN: I'm not suggesting that, general McCaffrey. I'm just suggesting that let's give General Serrano the wherewithal to do what he wanted to do, and that's to eliminate the heroin crop, the poppy crop.

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: We'll have a plan over the coming years that will provide a trained, maintained, balanced force to support their army. That's what...

REP. BENJAMIN GILMAN: How long will it take us to do that, General?

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: Well, I mean, it takes 18 months to get a Blackhawk pilot. It takes ten months to build the plane. It takes two to five years to put together a credible system. I don't know. We'll be working at it for a long time.

REP. BENJAMIN GILMAN: Well, at the same time, don't the anti-narcotic police have 150 trained chopper pilots? They're now...

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: The Colombian national police do not have a system to support a sudden infusion of Blackhawks, period.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering was in Colombia's capital of Bogot yesterday. He and Colombian President Andres Pastrana inspected the U.S. Blackhawk helicopters that have been delivered. During his visit, Pickering reiterated that the U.S. role in Colombia's drug war will be limited to providing equipment and training to Colombia's anti-drug forces.

FOCUS - RX FOR REFORM

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, Susan Dentzer begins our coverage of the prescription drugs issue. She is a member of our health unit, which is a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

SUSAN DENTZER: 68-year-old Bessie Johnson has a raft of serious medical conditions ranging from heart disease to high blood pressure. Frequently in and out of the hospital, she has seen her health improve with the aid of prescription drugs. But that improvement has come at a steep price. Johnson pays about $450 a month for her medications-- that's a heavy load considering that she and her husband, Irvin, have an income of just over $13,000 a year.

BESSIE JOHNSON: If I don't have enough money to pay it, I just... Try to get the main ones that I really need. Most of the time I have been lucky so far to get half of it, when I can't get the whole.

SUSAN DENTZER: The Johnsons are beneficiaries of Medicare, the federal health insurance plan for 40 million elderly and disabled Americans. They're only too aware of what may be the program's biggest shortcoming. Although Medicare covers the lion's share of hospital bills and doctors' care, it offers almost no coverage for prescription drugs for patients not in the hospital. That's a huge drawback when prescription drugs are becoming an ever-more important way of preventing and treating disease. So last year, and again in last month's State of the Union address, President Clinton proposed allowing all Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in a new part of the program that would help pay for drug coverage.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: More than three in five of our seniors now lack dependable drug coverage, which can lengthen and enrich their lives. In good conscience, we cannot let another year pass without extending to all our seniors this lifeline of affordable prescription drugs. (Applause)

SUSAN DENTZER: Under the President's plan, beginning in 2003, beneficiaries would pay $26 a month in premiums. Low-income seniors would pay nothing or nominal amounts. In return, Medicare would pay half of beneficiaries' annual drug costs up to $2,000; in other words, as much as $1,000 a year. Those amounts would gradually increase, and eventually Medicare would pay as much as $2,500 toward $5,000 in beneficiaries' annual drug costs. When the President first unveiled this proposal last year, it ran into a wall of opposition. Many lawmakers feared that Medicare's long-term financial woes might only be worsened by adding drug benefits without making other changes in the program. That concern has grown with the projected costs of the President's proposal, now estimated at $160 billion over 10 years. And it was a dominant theme of Congressional hearings over the past two weeks. Democratic Senator John Breaux of Louisiana is the ranking Democrat on the Senate's special committee on aging.

SEN. JOHN BREAUX, (D) Louisiana: We have a program that we're adding prescription drugs to that this year has a $7 billion deficit-- $7 billion-- and it is projected to become insolvent in the year 2014. Adding prescription drugs to Medicare without reforming Medicare is like adding lead weights to a sinking ship. It's not going to help the ship float any better.

SUSAN DENTZER: Even more formidable opposition came from the pharmaceutical industry, which fears that a new Medicare drug benefit would trigger government regulation of drug prices. Ultimately, they argued, that would mean fewer life-saving drugs for consumers. The industry mounted a costly ad campaign last year to drive home the point, featuring a fictional Medicare beneficiary named Flo.

FLO: I don't want big government in my medicine cabinet.

SUSAN DENTZER: Recently the industry has made at least a partial turnabout. Pharmaceutical company executives said they had decided to work with the president and Congress on a bipartisan coverage plan. A new round of commercials emerged.

WOMAN IN COMMERCIAL: Seniors are joining hands to support new plans in Congress based on the work of the national bipartisan Medicare commission -- Plans that help seniors who have private drug coverage to keep it, and seniors who need it to get it. Knowing we are all covered-- that's peace of mind.

SUSAN DENTZER: Lawmakers in both parties now predict that Congress will work to pass some sort of drug benefit this year. But dozens of thorny issues remain; not the least of which is how to pay for drug benefits.

JIM LEHRER: And to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For more, we turn now to Marilyn Moon, a senior fellow at the Urban institute in Washington, and former director of public policy for the American Association of Retired Persons. She's also a member of the board of trustees at the Medicare TrustFund. And Mitchell Daniels, senior vice president of corporate strategy and policy at Eli Lilly and Company, a researched-based pharmaceutical corporation. Marilyn Moon, we just heard from Bessie Johnson in that piece. She's paying about $450 a month and only making $13,000 a year. How typical is that? How bad is the problem?

MARILYN MOON: That's pretty typical. About one in every seven Medicare beneficiaries actually have out-of-pocket costs exceed $1,000 a year, and that's going to get worse every single year.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: By out-of-pocket, you mean for the drugs.

MARILYN MOON: That's right. Just for the drugs alone.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Uh-huh. And how do you see the problem, Mitchell Daniels? How bad is it?

MITCHELL DANIELS: Bessie is the problem we should be worried about, and very much are. I think she's an outlier at $450 a month, as Marilyn's figures suggest, but it is unacceptable that anybody in this country, and particularly senior citizens for whom modern pharmaceuticals offer so much new hope, it's unacceptable that anyone should lack them for financial reasons, and therefore, coverage that makes that access possible and essential.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And when you say, "she's the problem we should worry about," you mean mainly very poor people?

MITCHELL DANIELS: Yes. We should be focused on those for whom drugs are truly not affordable. Marilyn gave the same data that we've seen, about one in 14 seniors running drug bills a little over $100 a month out-of- pocket, and that can be a real hardship for those on fixed incomes without other means. And we ought to tailor a solution that has them uppermost in mind.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Marilyn Moon, do you agree with that-- tailor a solution to people like Bessie Johnson?

MARILYN MOON: Actually, I think there's a lot to be said for the notion of insurance, and that is that we will have coverage for everyone, even though not everyone uses it extensively in any given year. In fact, that's the whole basis for having insurance.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you mean not just for people who are, whose income is as low as Bessie Johnson's.

MARILYN MOON: That's exactly right. I think there are a number of reasons to think about this as a universal benefit, that it will help in a number of different ways, not only in terms of protecting individuals, but it also means that we won't see a division of a, of the Medicare beneficiaries into the rich... rich and poor or sick and healthy, and that's not the way to go in this program, I believe.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So does... What does that mean about how you see the Clinton administration approach? Do you support it?

MARILYN MOON: I think the basic approach is a sound one. I think there are number of things that can be done to improve it or change it, but I think the idea of making it available to everyone and providing subsidies that are bigger for lower income individuals makes a lot of sense.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mitch Daniels, how do you see the Clinton administration plan?

MITCHELL DANIELS: First, let me indicate that I agree with Marilyn that we would like to see coverage be universal. Two-thirds of seniors and high percentages of those under 65 do have coverage today. We'd like to see that be universal. I simply said that I think those...we ought to concentrate with special care on those people like Mrs. Johnson. The Clinton administration...

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Actually, before I... I want to get back to the Clinton administration plan, but when you say two-thirds of seniors have coverage, they don't have consistent coverage all year, is that right?

MITCHELL DANIELS: That's correct. They have differing levels of coverage, and that's, to an extent, probably appropriate, because their financial and health care situations differ widely.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Go ahead with the Clinton administration plan.

MITCHELL DANIELS: I think we should give the President and the administration credit for keeping the spotlight on this important issue. I think the plan they have put forward is flawed in every fundamental respect. Our position is that Medicare reform is urgent and should be comprehensive, not piecemeal. That is to say, there are additional problems beyond the lack of a prescription drug benefit. We also think that the prescription drug coverage should be integrated with the rest of healthcare coverage, otherwise important health care tradeoffs are not made. It's a very backwards way of looking at health care to manage it component by component.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: From a... Mitch Daniels, you would not support a plan which just looks at the prescription drug unit or element.

MITCHELL DANIELS: We think that really should be viewed as a last resort, and only as a default position if Congress proves unable to do what, I think a bipartisan majority is coming together behind Senators like Breaux and Kerrey on the Democratic side, and Frist and Hagel and others on the Republican side seem to be coalescing and bringing a lot of their fellow legislators along. I would say that the most grievous conceptual error in the administration plan, however, is its denial of choice to those seniors it intends to cover, and pitching them into a one-size-fits-all system of local monopolies is really a prescription I think for poor health care, and for short- sighted health care decisions.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Marilyn Moon, let's take some of these points one by one. First, on the question of putting everybody together.

MARILYN MOON: I think that's particularly important, because if we see great differences in health care coverage, particularly on the prescription drug side as well as other basic benefits, it's a way of separating those who are healthy and those who are sick, and that's not a healthy way to have an insurance program. So I think you need a core set of benefits that are very constant and the same for everyone. I think hospitalization is one of those cases. Certainly prescription drugs now qualifies in that category as well. So I believe to allow a great deal of diversity is actually harmful to the program, because it would mean that you would find the people who know that they need prescription drugs seeking the highest level of coverage. They're going to be sicker than the average person, and it's going to become increasingly expensive for them to get that coverage. It's much better to pool all those risks in a reasonable way.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay, and before we go on to the other points, respond to that, Mitch Daniels.

MITCHELL DANIELS: No great disagreement. Marilyn makes a point we think is fundamental, which is that prescription medications are in some ways the heart of today's health care system, and probably deserve to be in any coverage plan worthy of the name. The choice I'm concerned about is that which would be denied if every senior were forced into a single prescription drug coverage plan, as the administration bill contemplates. This probably also would lead to the displacement of large numbers of seniors from the coverage that they have today, something more like the president himself and all federal employees have in which an array of health care plans, all of which might have these core benefits Marilyn is talking about, but provides some variety to suit individual financial circumstances I think would be preferable.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Marilyn Moon, briefly respond to that, please.

MARILYN MOON: I think there's nothing wrong with additional choice in the program. I don't think we're ready to chalk the existing program and start over again. We have a mechanism now to add additional private plans. We've had a troubled history, and we need to be very careful before we simply say we're ready to go wholesale into that direction. The troubling situation we have now with managed care, the great difficulty and confusion that many beneficiaries feel when they face a lot of, a large number of choices, suggests that we need to go pretty slow in this area.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Marilyn Moon, you're a member of the board of trustees of Medicare. What about the point that Mr. Daniels makes that the whole system needs reform and pieces of it shouldn't be pulled out for reform?

MARILYN MOON: Well, I think that we do need to look at a number of issues. This is a program that has never been sufficiently financed from its beginning, and that's going to be an important issue. It's going to take revenues, it's going to take changes in the Medicare program over time, but I'm not sure that we have a system for reform that's in place that really is ready to go from this point on. I would rather see a gradual transformation of this program over time.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mitch Daniels on that?

MITCHELL DANIELS: Well, I defer to Medicare experts about the best way to go forward, but it seems to me that the opportunity really is here to start afresh. No one that I know of believes we would design Medicare today in its present configuration if we were starting anew, and I'm just very encouraged, and I think all Americans should be that there seems to be real momentum in Congress for true reform, which would include prescription drug coverage, but also address the more fundamental defects.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You say there's real momentum. Has the situation changed, and do you believe there will be legislation this year?

MITCHELL DANIELS: I can't speak as a person from outside Washington about what is or isn't possible this year, but I sense that the hearing I was asked to appear before last week, a tremendous degree of interest and will in this subject, and an agreement about the fundamental problems that ought to be addressed, so I have to believe that at some stage this bipartisan sentiment will manifest itself in meaningful legislation.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Marilyn Moon, do you think it will?

MARILYN MOON: I'm a little more skeptical, because I think there are a lot of details that are really important, the changes of the type that are being discussed here. And I think the first thing we have to keep in mind is what will work well for the most vulnerable beneficiaries, and I'm not sure instantly moving to a system of opening up the program and requiring people to make choices among private plans and pushing them out of the basic Medicare program is the best way to go.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Marilyn Moon, Mitchell Daniels, thanks for being with us.

MARILYN MOON: Thank you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday. President Clinton held a high- level meeting on Internet security. The Republican presidential candidates prepared to debate tonight in South Carolina. And the Irish Republican Army pulled out of disarmament talks in Northern Ireland. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with an interview with George W. Bush, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.