The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Friday, the White House rebuffed an appeal by Iraqi rebels to help overthrow Saddam Hussein. A key economic barometer rose for the first time in eight months while new home sales hit a five year high. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff's in Washington tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: On the NewsHour tonight we go first to Pres. Bush's decision not to help Iraqi rebels overthrow Saddam Hussein. Five experts join us to argue the pros and cons. Then comment on that and other events of the week from our Friday political analysis of Gergen & Shields. Next, a report from Seattle on what happened when a group of homeless people were put in charge of their own shelter, and we close with essayist Jim Fisher's story of one Kansas town that should be an inspiration to the people of Kuwait.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: The White House today refused to intervene in the fighting in Iraq, despite a direct appeal from rebel leaders. That fighting continued today, much of it in and around the Northern oil city of Kirkuk. Both the rebels and the government claimed to control the city. In Paris, Kurdish rebel leaders called on the U.S. to stop the Iraqi government forces from using its aircraft against them. They also complained that the allies had encouraged their rebellion but were not supporting it.

SPOKESMAN: We are disappointed really not only by them but also by the allies' position. Even some of them, they ask Iraqi people to uprise, to go out and get rid of Saddam Hussein, but when the Iraqi people have an uprising in all parts of Iraq, they got away and they said this is an internal affair, we don't interfere.

MR. MacNeil: White House spokesmen said the U.S. regrets the killing and suffering taking place in Iraq, but he said the fighting is an issue that has to be settled between the government and its people. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf said he apologized to Pres. Bush for his comments on ending the war. He said he agreed 100 percent with the President's cease-fire decision and that his remarks apparently to the contrary in a television interview were simply a poor choice of words. The President before leaving for Camp David today said he fully supported the general, and there was no need for any apology. In Riyadh, the general told reporters the President called him yesterday after learning how badly he felt about the controversy.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: He had great confidence in me and he knew that I no way intended to cast any dishonor or even to criticize him in any way, and that made me feel great. And I apologized to the President. I said, "I am extremely sorry that a poor choice of words on my part in any way would result on dishonor cast upon you." And, once again, he's my commander-in-chief, and he said, I'm telling you just forget it, it's not important. Since he's my boss and he told me to forget it, I'm going to forget it.

MR. MacNeil: When reporters asked Gen. Schwarzkopf whether the U.S. should assist Iraq's rebels, he said that was up to the White House. "Generals aren't in the business of commenting on the correctness or incorrectness of the President's decisions," he said. We'll have more on the story after the News Summary. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: There were two government reports today suggesting that the clouds may be lifting over the economy. The Commerce Department reported its closely watched Index of Leading Indicators reversed course last month, rising 1.1 percent. It was the first increase since June and the largest monthly advance in nearly three years. The index foreshadows the course of the economy. Much of the increase reflected a resurgence on Wall Street and improved consumer confidence. At the same time, the government reported sales of new homes shot up more than 16 percent in February, the biggest gain in nearly five years. Analysts said milder weather and lower mortgage rates helped get the buyers out.

MR. MacNeil: Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin delivered a blistering attack on the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev today. In a speech to the Russian Congress, Yeltsin outlined a 10 point plan representing his vision for the future of the republic. But earlier, the Congress dealt Yeltsin a blow. It refused to approve his proposal to open debate on a new popularly elected presidency for the Russian republic. Yesterday tens of thousands of Soviet people showed their support for Yeltsin at a massive rally held in defiance of a ban by Mikhail Gorbachev. The president of the Soviet Baltic Republic of Estonia said he wants Pres. Bush to arrange a world conference on Baltic freedom. Pres. Arnold Rutel made the statement before meeting with Mr. Bush in Washington today. At that meeting, Mr. Bush reiterated his support for good faith negotiations between Moscow and the independent-minded Baltic republics.

MS. WOODRUFF: Lee Atwater, the manager of George Bush's 1988 Presidential campaign, later made chairman of the Republican National Committee, died this morning at the age of 40. A hard driving political tactician, Atwater was stricken by an inoperable brain tumor just over a year ago. Pres. Bush called him a great friend and said the Republican Party will miss his energy, vision and leadership.

MR. MacNeil: Good Friday and the first day of Passover was celebrated throughout the world today. In Rome, Pope John Paul held a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate Good Friday. And in Jerusalem, Christians marched through the streets to recreate Christ's crucifixion route. The traditional observance took place under heightened security because of a series of fatal stabbings against Jews. It drew the poorest attendance in years.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's it for our News Summary. Just ahead on the NewsHour, should the U.S. aid the rebels in Iraq, Gergen & Shields, a novel way to help the homeless, and essayist Jim Fisher on how one Kansas town pulled itself together after disaster struck. FOCUS - TOPPLING SADDAM

MR. MacNeil: Our lead story tonight is the U.S. refusal to help the Iraqi rebels overthrow Saddam Hussein. Can the United States stand by and watch the slaughter? We'll debate that in a few months after an update on the fighting in Northern Iraq narrated by Vera Frankel of Worldwide Television News.

MS. FRANKEL: The battle for Iraqi Kurdistan raged on Friday but that's about all that could be said with any certainty. Reports from Kurdish sources in Baghdad were characterized by conflicting claims. These pictures from the town of Dahouk brought out through Syria showed Kurdish fighters in control and plenty of evidence of fierce fighting. Baghdad has claimed loyalist forces have recaptured the town, but foreign journalists in the area said there had been no sign of any government attack. These pictures inside a local hospital allege to show children who've been injured in airborne chemical attacks. There's been no independent confirmation of use of chemical weapons by Baghdad, but Saddam's use of air power against the Kurds is already well documented. That Kurdish fighters have scored dramatic gains against Saddam's troops is beyond dispute. Here from earlier in the wheat we see Iraqi soldiers who surrendered apparently without a fight. And here, high in the Gora Mountains North of Dahouk stand the battered remains of one of the Iraqi ruler's many palaces. But the question remaining is can the poorly trained and equipped Kurds hold onto their gains without outside help? Among Kurdish leaders, it's an issue generating much anger.

MAHMOUD OSMAN, Kurdish Leader: We are disappointed really not only by them but also by the allies' position. Even some of them, they ask the Iraqi people to uprise, to go up and get rid of Saddam Hussein, but when Iraqi people go and have uprising in all parts of Iraq, they walked away and they said this is an internal affair, we don't interfere. Do you think for someone whom they call criminal of war, they call a Hitler, to kill the whole people in the South, in the North, is it internal, then what's external?

MS. FRANKEL: The biggest prize so far for Kurdish rebels has been the capture of the oil city of Kirkuk, but again there's doubt over who controls it now. These Iraqi TV pictures allege to show the city under Baghdad's control and with Saddam's righthand man is at Ibrahim taking a guided tour. Kurdish sources say the pictures are old. But in Baghdad, there's no doubt Saddam Hussein still rules. His citizens have begun receiving international aid. This convoy of European medical supplies was among the first to arrive under a loosened UN embargo which permits the sending of humanitarian aid. Few expect much of it ever to reach rebel areas.

MR. MacNeil: In Southern Iraq today government forces recaptured Samawa, the last major town thought to be held by Shiite rebels. Rebels fleeing to U.S. lines said Saddam's troops advanced behind a human shield of captured women and shot town residents on sight. This past week an estimated 35,000 Iraqis entered U.S. Army refugee camps after fleeing from savage reprisals by Saddam's forces. We turn now to Samir Al-Khalil. He's an Iraqi who wrote the recent book "Republic of Fear, the Politics of Modern Iraq". Mohammed Said Dosky is a Kurd and a former member of the Central Committee of the Kurdish Democratic Party. Abe Rosenthal is a columnist with the New York Times. Nicholas Veliotes is the former assistant secretary of state for Mideast affairs in the Reagan administration. And Sen. John Warner, the Virginia Republican, sponsored the Senate resolution authorizing the use of force to liberate Kuwait. Mr. Dosky, how do you react to the White House refusal today to help the rebels?

MR. DOSKY: It is very disappointing for both Arabs and Kurds in Iraq that they really made their move after various statements came out of the White House and of the Pentagon that the last statement of February 15th, which was a call by Pres. Bush, he, himself, said that the region had the right of stopping the bloodshed and called on the people of Iraq and the army to overthrow Saddam and that's when the people rose up and against Saddam and they knew that they could not alone go and fight the mighty power of Saddam, who should not be very broken down to a point for them to be able to handle it, but they hope that at least United States is not going to take a neutral position or just no position. They believed that they would at least implement, implement a cease-fire, a temporary cease-fire that has been signed between United States generals and Iraqi army.

MR. MacNeil: And they believed that in implementing the temporary cease-fire that would mean insisting that Iraq ground the helicopters, is that what your understanding was at that time?

MR. DOSKY: Well, the understanding of anybody that has followed it really, the permission was given to Iraq to use helicopters for the purpose of moving supplies and troops, but not the permission to use gunship airplanes against, especially against civilians or military.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Mr. Al-Khalil in Boston, what is your reaction to the White House refusal?

MR. AL-KHALIL: I'm shocked, just as your previous speaker was. I believe not only should those helicopters be grounded and all forms of combat aircraft be stopped from flying, but that this regime should be declared the outlaw regime that it is. It was an outlaw regime for having done what it did to the people of Kuwait. It is no less an outlaw regime for doing, waging the kind of butchery it is on the people of Iraq today.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Warner, you believe the President's right to refuse, is that right?

SEN. WARNER: Yes, very clearly. I had the privilege of working with him throughout this conflict beginning in August together with other leaders from the Congress, and you'll recall there was a very narrow vote in the Senate and their five vote margin which the Congress gave him the authority to use our armed forces pursuant to the 12 UN resolutions. Today in anticipation of this program I went back and researched carefully the debate. The Esras 2 that I put in myself together with many co-sponsors and Sen. Dole, and it's clearly that the thrust of the debate was directed towards fulfillment of the resolutions, once the mission was accomplished, pack up and come home. Ten days ago I was in the Gulf visiting our troops in Iraq and indeed, I think it would be extremely difficult to order our soldiers in there today to get involved in the civil war. Now they would do it, but bear in mind, the pictures upon your screen tonight and last night were the welcoming of other soldiers back here in the United States, and so it'd be asking a great deal of them, and thirdly, the Arabs made it clear that they were members of the coalition to participate in the liberation of Kuwait, but if we went into Iraq, we'd have to go it alone, perhaps the British and the French, as we did, but go it alone, and I think the Congress would have to have a voice in this matter, perhaps not pursuant to the War Powers Act, but certainly in the consultative process should our President make a decision to the contrary.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Veliotes, would it be exceeding the UN resolution and the intentions of the Congress for Mr. Bush to order the helicopters grounded, as he once did?

MR. VELIOTES: Oh, I believe so. This is really part and parcel in this country of a continuing debate not on what our policy is. Our policy is, as the Senator has described it, but what our policy should be. And there are those who from the beginning have said our policy should be to depose Saddam Hussein and, in essence, to dictate the successor government of Iraq. I believe that would be not only wrong, but impossible. Now this is a tragedy because of what we see before us. But to get us involved in it would compound it, I believe, and although you can interpret some of the things that perhaps the President or others have said as calling on people to rise up, I think it's inevitable that after we gave the Iraqi army the pasting we did that the forces opposed to Saddam were going to rise up. So I don't like the implication that this is America's fault, sort of a Hungarian Revolution type of look-a-like, which it is not.

MR. MacNeil: Is this the American fault now, Abe Rosenthal?

MR. ROSENTHAL: Whether Mr. Veliotes likes it or not, the fact is that the United States went in and destroyed Iraq militarily, Saddam Hussein. The President of the United States then urged the Iraqi people to rise. The full expectation was that we would remain at least neutral and probably help them. Gen. Schwarzkopf, himself, said that the permission to give the Iraqis authority to fly their helicopters was a mistake, he was suckered into it. He was honest and decent. Now I think it is the time for Mr. Bush to recognize that he's made a mistake. That is a tragedy not only for the Iraqis, but for the United States. We urge these people to fight this man that we call Hitler. The minute that they did so, we turned our back on them. And we think we will be remembered for this sadly for a long, long time. I think that all the arguments about how American troops should not be called back into action are somewhat of a red herring, with all due respect, but no more, that what is called for is exactly what we did with the fixed wing planes. We told those planes, the Iraqis, not to fly those planes, two went up, we shot them down. The war did not start again. We have the authority and the right and the moral duty, I believe, simply to stop those helicopters from bombing and burning the Iraqi rebels and their families.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Warner.

SEN. WARNER: Well, I strongly disagree. Two points. One, our government has a great deal of compassion for those being slaughtered and murdered in this fight. And I think within a matter of a few days you'll see steps taken by the President and the administration to try and rush aid, perhaps through the International Red Cross, to the assistance of these people. But let's not seize upon one military asset, mainly helicopters. In order to suppress this military operation being mounted by Saddam Hussein and the remnants of his military force, you'd require fixed air wing on our part, helicopters, perhaps ground, reintroduction of certain Naval forces, certainly through with our carrier aircraft. This would be an all out effort. We couldn't send a handful of people in there, risk them being taken POWs or perhaps if our airmen were shot down a POW, this thing would break open again. We're sorry, but we cannot do it that way.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Dosky, is that what the Kurds are asking for, a full U.S. participation, or merely grounding the helicopters?

MR. DOSKY: No. Actually, the Kurds don't believe they need any help to come from the United States soldiers to fight for them. All what they want is to ground the helicopters and airplanes. Airplanes are flying right now and helicopters are using napalm on civilian people. Now this is a man that threatened American soldiers, to have them drowned in their blood. Luckily, he couldn't do that to Americans, but he's doing that to civilian Iraqis. And I believe there is a moral point, that since -- I mean, there is no other way to say it better -- these people started their civil war on the belief that there was at least -- at least approval of United States to do such a thing.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Warner, you heard what Mr. Dosky just said. They're only asking for the helicopters to be grounded, not a full --

SEN. WARNER: Yes, but remember, our military leaders would have to make the decision how to suppress these attacks by the Red Guard and other elements of the Iraqi military. And I'm certain, given the tactics we used, which were air, sea, and ground, that we would not risk simply our airmen going in to suppress only helicopters. We just heard about this human wave of unfortunately civilians being driven ahead, presumably, of armor and massed infantry. Perhaps the helicopters had some role in that, but to turn this tide back at this time would require, if we're to protect our people, and that's essential, it would require a massive use of our military, in my judgment.

MR. MacNeil: Do you see --

SEN. WARNER: That's not on the scale that we've done thus far.

MR. MacNeil: Excuse me.

SEN. WARNER: But it's substantial.

MR. MacNeil: How do you see it, Mr. Al-Khalil? How much U.S. help would be needed?

MR. AL-KHALIL: A considerable amount, in my opinion, but I want to make one important comment. Simply declaring that this is an outlaw regime and that it will not be dealt with in the future would enormously decrease the kind of support that Saddam Hussein would be able to get from his own troops. It would lead to the loss of morale amongst Republican Guard troops and the dispersion of those troops, I believe, which would make it harder for them to wage the kind of destructive war that they are waging at present. We have to remember that the underlying premise of the Bush administration at present is that only Saddam Hussein can hold Iraq together. I believe that to be a completely false statement about Iraq. I do not think that to be the case. The barrier of fear has been broken in Iraq. We are going to witness the continuing fragmentation of Iraq in the coming months, even years to come. If the policy of the Bush administration that it wants a sovereign Iraq, that the purchase of the sovereignty of Kuwait was not done at the expense of the sovereignty of Iraq, then the current policy is wrong on practical apart from moral grounds.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Veliotes, isn't that one of the other arguments that is behind administration refusal to get involved, that success by either the Kurds or the Shiites would mean either an administration by one of them or the dismemberment of Iraq?

MR. VELIOTES: Well, being concerned about the dismemberment of Iraq does not automatically translate into support for Saddam Hussein. I think that's wrong.

MR. MacNeil: But, in effect, isn't that what the administration has decided privately, that it's better to let him win this and then have his army overthrow him?

MR. VELIOTES: Well, I'm not sure what the administration has decided privately. It may be a lesser of two evils.

MR. MacNeil: I'm basing that question on a lot of private, anonymous briefings that have been given to reporters.

MR. VELIOTES: Well, it could be, but let me address something Mr. Khalil said. If he thinks it would be important for the administration to state frankly that they won't deal with Saddam Hussein, they've already said that, I don't think there is a ghost of a chance, for example, that the oil embargo will be lifted until he's gone. And if the Turks and the Saudis keep the embargo on, nothing gets into Iraq, because they won't have any money. Now a lot of these things have already been said. The issue is: Should we intervene militarily in "a minor way" to try to help the rebels? I don't think that's possible. You have to make a decision. You are going to intervene. You are going to be the arbiter of the next government of Iraq and then you're going to take responsibility for this, and I don't believe we should.

MR. MacNeil: Abe Rosenthal.

MR. ROSENTHAL: The argument that's being made right now has been made by others, is simply a repetition of an argument that's been made for years and years now under the Reagan administration and for a long time under the Bush administration that we needed Saddam Hussein to maintain the stability in Iraq and that part of the world. We have seen that absolutely the opposite is the truth, that Saddam being the kind of person he is, an aggressive and a serial murder by nature by record, is the cause of instability in Iraq. The only chance of removing the cause of instability is to get rid of Saddam Hussein. I don't think -- I think the question is really put wrong. We do not have to move in - - full scale into Iraq. I think the real question is: Is the President of the United States going to live up to the clear indications that he gave not only the Iraqis but the whole world in Ottawa and in Washington and everywhere in his statements that the impression wanted the people of Iraq to rise against Saddam Hussein and now that the majority, apparently, of the people of Iraq have risen against him, we are permitting him to use the helicopters and airplanes that we allowed him to keep by mistake, according to our own commander in the area, against his own people. That's what history will record I'm afraid.

MR. MacNeil: What do you think history will say about this, Sen. Warner? I mean, on the sort of humanitarian grounds, the President did say, start a rebellion, to the Iraqis, and they have, and now Saddam is slaughtering them. The U.S. has the means nearby to stop the slaughter. If it doesn't, what is history going to say about that?

SEN. WARNER: Robin, two quick points. One, let's not keep referring just to our President. He is but one head of state of thirty nations that supplied military forces to bring about the results thus far, the successful results of the liberation of Kuwait.

MR. MacNeil: He is kind of the 850 pound gorilla at this point.

SEN. WARNER: Well, I understand, but let's be respectful of the other nations, all smaller. They fought valiantly, including the Arab nations. And secondly, let us not forget that our goal is to remain -- that is the boundaries of Iraq to remain, that a new government to take place and in due course somehow Saddam Hussein get out of there, but most significantly, vast reconstruction funds and assistance will be needed from outside of the boundaries of Iraq, presumably from other coalition forces, to come in and rebuild that nation. Therein is the leverage to help in due course form that government in such a way as to remain the integrity of that country and not let it project force beyond its borders again.

MR. MacNeil: How do you see that as the kind of appropriate U.S. leverage, Mr. Dosky?

MR. DOSKY: Well, I don't believe that's the right way for the foreign policy of this country to go because, first of all, it's goal and it states that Saddam is not going to stay there. Saddam is not going to stay there, but how many thousands of innocent people are going to get killed until he gets out? And before he gets out, no Arab nation, nobody is going to extend the hand of help to Iraqi people, not even United States. They will not normalize relations with Iraq as Pres. Bush said as long as Saddam is calling the shots. Now then why so many people should get killed? For simple thing of worrying Saddam and believing he is not going to fly those helicopters, and he is not going to shoot down any American airplane.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Al-Khalil.

MR. AL-KHALIL: I have not a shadow of doubt in my mind that the reason Saddam Hussein is able to wage such a war against his own population with the strength that he has been able to show in recent weeks is because he believes that the United States will accept him back, will accept him back sooner or later as part of a legitimate leader of Iraq and a member of the world community of states. And moreover, the United States of all the allies has steadfastly refused to speak to the Iraqi opposition far more so than other countries like Britain, France, or the Arab allies, all of which are hosting meetings of the different opposition groups. So there seems to be a very strong conviction on the part of the United States that somehow it can live with this regime which it has so pillared in the past, and this, this type of, this position seems to me to be disastrous and in quite exceptionally characteristic of U.S. in particular as opposed to other members of the coalition.

MR. MacNeil: Is that right, Sen. Warner?

SEN. WARNER: Well, I'd have to say that again I come back to the point -- and I hope we conclude on this -- that we in this country grieve the loss of innocent victims, but again, in the future, that Iraq will have to turn to other nations to come in and assist, and therein is the force which we can apply fairly to let them reconstitute some form of government, and I assure you, it will not be Saddam Hussein for a long period of time.

MR. MacNeil: You wrote in a column the other day, Abe Rosenthal, that this policy, coupled also with arms sales, could dishonor this country, the United States, and turn military victory into a political debacle. Do you think that not intervening can undo the enhanced prestige and influence the United States has gained in the world as a result of the liberation of Kuwait?

MR. ROSENTHAL: Perhaps not undo but seriously damage it. People are not fools. They know what the United States has said. They know that although there may be 30 presidents, it's basically the President of the United States who's deciding policy. They also know that other countries, including some of the Arab countries, want him out, and I believe they also know that it's simply illogical to say that while we do not -- will never deal with him as long as he is there and at the same time help him stay in power, which is what we are doing -- all we are doing is prolonging the agony of the Iraqi people. I think that for once we ought to listen to them, and to these voices that you hear today and many others like them who have never had a chance to try freedom in their own country. And now they may not achieve it, but I don't think we ought to stand in their way.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Veliotes, is there a risk that the President's stand could undo the good he's done by liberating Kuwait?

MR. VELIOTES: I think if we get into this, it's going to be another example of the law of unintended consequences at work, we're going to be drawn in, and before we know it, we're going to be cheek by jowl with the Iranians for a period of time that neither we nor they want. This is a formula not for stability but for instability and it's, I think it would be foolhardy and dangerous. I regret the tragic loss of life, but I believe our going in will not straighten it out.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Mr. Veliotes, Sen. Warner, Mr. Dosky, Mr. Al- Khalil, Abe Rosenthal, thank you. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still ahead on the NewsHour, Gergen & Shields, having the homeless run their own shelter, and thoughts from essayist Jim Fisher. FOCUS - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MS. WOODRUFF: It is Friday and we get our regular dose of political analysis from Gergen and Shields. That is David Gergen Editor at Large of U.S. News and World Report and Mark Shields Syndicated Columnist with the Washington Post. Gentlemen just picking up on the discussion that we just had. Is the President right in his decision not to intervene to help the rebels in Iraq. David.

MR. GERGEN: I have to confess to you Judy. I don't think that I understand the situation in Iraq well enough to know whether we would be off to go in or stay out. I do think that the President at the moment would not have the support of the American people to go back in. I think they feel that our mission was to liberate Kuwait.

MS. WOODRUFF: But not at any level, major, minor?

MR. GERGEN: Well I think that people feel the original mission was to liberate Kuwait. We were not trying to dictate the future of Iraq and I think they feel that has been accomplished and why not get out boys home as soon as we can. I also feel he does not have the authorization from Congress nor does he have the authorization from the United Nations which was after all the original authorizing body to go in. So I think that it is hard to fault the President at this point. It seems to me that he also deserves the benefit of the doubt. I mean, he has figured out the Middle East pretty well in the last few months. he proved to a lot of his critics that he knew what he was doing.

MS. WOODRUFF: But Mark the President also called Saddam Hussein Hitler and now we are saying in effect that he is the best person to hold Iraq together.

MR. SHIELDS: He is the pacifier. I can't argue with what David said but I think that is a key point. What we have now is not a specific objective. There is not clear agreement and that has led to misunderstanding certainly on the part of the American people. Just what are our objectives there? And we see people who are rebelling with our encouragement, with our stated encouragement getting no help, being brutally suppressed once again but the fear of course remains that the Shiite's taking over and Lebanonization, the Kurds taking their share the Shiites taking theirs. I think domestically politically it is having a fall out. The unity that the President enjoyed and the absolute quiescent agreement on part of the conservatives has broken. He is getting increasing criticism and restlessness.

MS. WOODRUFF: Because?

MR. SHIELDS: Because of the failure to go all the way and clean out. I mean not only Abe Rosenthal but Paul Gago today in the Wall Street Journal who suggested that 42 days of the bombing creates and obligation and compared it to Eisenhower not aiding the Hungarian Rebels in 1956 and I think that you are starting to hear that sort of criticism.

MR. GERGEN: I actually think that is a false analogy. I don't think that we promised the Iranian Shiites that we would come in to save them or help them to power or something like that. It doesn't seem to me that we've created a moral obligation to go in. It is a very difficult call but I think that the President has a sense of where he is going. As we talked about this last week they do hope that they can see Saddam Hussein thrown out.

MS. WOODRUFF: But there is an inherent contradiction at this point because on the one hand saying he is the bad guy but on the other hand we are saying he is going to run the show for the time being?

MR. GERGEN: Well I think what is being done here is to let his army go ahead and put these rebellions down and then the hope is there will be a lot of pressure on to have the Army over throw Saddam Hussein. I think that the United States has a good record supporting pluralism in other societies. It is a very different question we are going to start playing God to separate out the parties and put our own regime in power. I think that has a lot of consequences down the road that we want to think about three or dour times.

MR. SHIELDS: We may well have but Judy is absolutely right, We did say that he is worse than Hitler and we did say that we have encouraged the people of Iraq to take care of him. Certainly we have encouraged it every step, popular revolt and his removal.

MS. WOODRUFF: Do you think this disagreement or wasn't there a disagreement between General Schwarzkopf and President Bush and the other high ranking folks in Washington when the war should end. It was a big story this week, Schwarzkopf did the interview with David Frost and told him that I thought that we should continue to fight and the president courageously said no stop. The Secretary of Defense said the next day not he didn't tell us not to stop we all agreed. And now tonight on the Program we see Schwarzkopf sheepishly acknowledging.

MR. GERGEN: Playing the role of a good general again?

MS. WOODRUFF: That is right. What is the real story here Mark?

MR. SHIELDS: The real story is totally unique. That is what we are told. Colin Powell thought Dick Cheney was better than sliced bread and Cheney thought Schwarzkopf was terrific this happy family. And once that unity was pierced just at the slightest especially at a time when there is a disagreement what our precise objectives are in Iraq at this point. I thought the rush to get the mother of all briefers as some once described Schwarzkopf to get him back in and back on the team to show team initiative I think that became important.

MS. WOODRUFF: Was there a difference of opinion on when the war should end?

MR. GERGEN: I think reading between the lines Schwarzkopf and some of those around him would have preferred the war to go on a little longer. I don't think that they voiced it in such a way toward the end that the President felt that he had a lack of unity on his decision and I think that we have to recall at the time there was a lot of pressure to not hit these Iraqis and shoot them in the back in effect as they walked out. What surprised me frankly after the Schwarzkopf interview were the shots take against Schwarzkopf by people at the White House on a background basis and in various newspapers calling him a media maniac. It seemed to me that was a fairly ungracious response to a fellow.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well there is some concern that he might run for President as a candidate on the Democratic ticket.

MR. GERGEN: I don't think that is going to happen.

MR. SHIELDS: There is a vacancy there.

MR. GERGEN: There is a vacancy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Former President Reagan was in town this week and eh endorsed the Brady Bill the seven day waiting period before you can purchase a handgun. This puts him in a position opposite President Bush. Is Mr. Reagan's position going to change anything?

MR. SHIELDS: It is the National Rifle Associations worst nightmare, Judy. I mean, here you have Ronald Reagan a life time member and all the rest of it saying that all this makes good sense. The common sense is the wedge that has put the NRA on a very much defensive on this. Just a seven day waiting period. You want buy a handgun all we want is a seven day waiting period. We are not saying you can't have it. It seems to make a lot of sense and especially when the President is at George Washington University where he recovered from an assassination attempt and sitting in the front row Jim Brady, his Press Secretary who still carries with him the scares and the trauma of those events. Ronald Reagan's timing even at the age of eighty politically is impressive. I mean he became a Democrat at the time of the new deal. He became a Republican to lead the anti government, anti tax insurgency in the country. I think that he has George Bush ready right now to fall in behind him.

MR. GERGEN: Judy it is interesting Ronald Reagan is getting headlines right now but the real heroin behind this whole story is Sarah Brady. She has been working relentlessly, diligently on this problem since 1985. She had gone to bat in various forms, she has just spoken out on it, she has testified, tried to organize things.

MR. SHIELDS: Jim Brady's wife.

MR. GERGEN: Jim Brady's wife. And I think that she had done a marvelous job. They failed the last time around in a vote in the House. Reagan has come in and Sarah told me this afternoon she thinks that he has now created a momentum to win in both the House and the Senate. They are looking at a vote in the House before Memorial Day and they think that they will get a vote in the Senate shortly thereafter. She thinks that this is now going to push it over.

MR. SHIELDS: Howard Kobel, who is a good old conservative Republican from North Carolina, said when Sarah Brady who has been absolutely right has been button holing members of Congress said that I would rather have seen the devil himself in my office than Sarah Brady. he said that I couldn't vote against her and he changed his vision and voted for the Brady Bill in the last Congress.

MS. WOODRUFF: Just finally we've got less than a couple of minutes but Lee Atwater a major force in Republican Party politics in the last decade died today of a brain tumor. David what is the legacy that Lee Atwater leaves.

MR. GERGEN: Well I think that all of us are effected now by the tragedy of cancer cutting down some one at a such young age. Some one with so much promise and who has already brought so much vitality to American politics. In many ways I think there were two stages to Lee Atwater's political life. In the early years he believed in hard ball. he played a tough game. You know he saw politics as being a cut throat business and he didn't mind holding the blade. He got a lot of victories from 1978 to 1988. He was also I think a strong strategist understanding the importance of baby boomers, the South bringing in the populism in to Republican Party politics. In his last year when he was afflicted by cancer there was a very different Lee Atwater that emerged and it one he was seeking redemption. he apologized to a lot of people. He tried to square his accounts.

MS. WOODRUFF: Including Dukakis

MR. GERGEN: Including Dukakis. And my hope is that the legacy for Republicans and others will be to remember Lee Atwater in his last year and what he represented his last year.

MR. SHIELDS: David is right he faced up to actions that he had taken and tried to make amends for them. And it reminds us and I think Lee Atwater reminded us that abuses and cruel negative politics don't simply the target of them they hurt the perpetrator and he carried that pain with him. And I think he tried to make amends for what he had done.

MS. WOODRUFF: Mark Shields, David Gergen thank you both. FOCUS - HOMELESS NO MORE

MR. MacNeil: Next tonight an unusual approach to a lingering problem, how to provide shelter for the homeless. Correspondent Lee Hochberg of public station KCTS in Seattle has our report. [HOMELESS MEETING]

MR. HOCHBERG: It's a Sunday night in a dank, smoky, ramshackle building in Seattle. Doug Castle, who's been homeless for a year, is helping 98 other homeless people determine the rules they'll live by for the next week.

RESIDENT: Out of respect for your other residents, please, when you come out of the bedding area, please be fully clothed.

MR. HOCHBERG: This is the first shelter in the country actually run by the homeless.

HOMELESS PERSON: Because we're establishing how it's going to be done nationwide for the next 20 years. And if we do it right, then we'll have people coming to us, asking how you do it.

MELVIN GORMIER: It's kind of amazing, you know, that homeless people can take care of each other without having a paid staff or, you know, people walking around saying, you can do this or you can do that. We're just helping each other. It's totally fascinating.

MR. HOCHBERG: The Seattle story actually began last fall when 200 of the city's homeless drew attention to their plight by pitching tents on a lot across from the King Dome where Seattle's pro football team plays. As temperatures dropped below freezing and the number of tents grew, embarrassed city leaders searched for some emergency shelter for the inhabitants. They offered an abandoned city bus barn through March 31st, a roof, four walls, and heat. It was up to the new residents to figure out what to do with it.

DOUG CASTLE: The first day was great. The first week we were here was utter chaos. We had no formal plan. There was no precedent for a bunch of homeless people running their own shelter. I was assaulted. I had my nose broken. I got a concussion, five stitches in my left eye, a detached retina in my left eye.

MR. HOCHBERG: Castle emerged as the group's leader after the assault. He made security an immediate priority.

MR. CASTLE: The morning I came back from the hospital I walked in, was the very first person in the place to check my weapons, and I demanded then that everybody else should too, and we filled up a good sized knapsack in about a five minute time period.

WARDELL WASHINGTON: We got razors, knives, guns, rocks, sticks, pipes, tools that could conceivably be used as a weapon.

MR. HOCHBERG: Since then, Wardell Washington has headed a 28 person volunteer security force, all shelter dwellers, patrolling the door 24 hours a day. He says there are no weapons in the building.

MR. WASHINGTON: [Talking to People Entering Shelter] I want you to respect yourself and I want you to respect everybody in this building, okay? No drugs, no alcohol.

MR. HOCHBERG: Shelter residents also established a no alcohol, no drug policy, and elected an executive committee to administer their shelter. The executive committee decided to turn away no homeless person. Those for whom the bus barn has no bed at least receive a meal and a bus pass to an overflow shelter a few miles away. What's on the menu, what are you guys making?

SHELTER RESIDENT: We'll, we're going to scramble the eggs and I'll saute these vegetables here.

MR. HOCHBERG: Acquiring and preparing food for the 99 residents and up to 80 overflow homeless every day has been a massive task. The homeless solicited 50 Seattle residents and 17 responded with steady contributions.

NORDRAIN CAREY: The one reason that I actually became a cook is because I like to eat.

MR. HOCHBERG: Ray Washington and Nordrain Carey are the homeless chosen to cook hot meals for the other shelter residents. Since the bus barn has no kitchen, a nearby church makes theirs available once a week. Carey says he always wanted to be a chef.

NORDRAIN CAREY: Instead of me actually going out and just committing some crimes and stuff to try and make it, I decided I'd come here to the bus barn, contribute which ever way I can, which as you see I do some cooking, so it gives me a chance to think about what I really want to do to get back, you know, on the main stream of life.

RAYMOND WASHINGTON: The last shelter I was in all I used to do was sit in a chair and look at the people walking around, you know, and just sit there, play cards, and waiting for somebody to bring a meal in to you, and if they didn't bring that meal in to you, you wasn't going to eat. But here we gets out and get our own, you know. That's the difference.

MR. HOCHBERG: That difference though hasn't impressed some neighborhood residents and merchants. They don't want the shelter in their community, period, no matter who's running it. Laurie Pfliiger is manager of KITS Cameras.

LAURIE PFLIIGER, Store Manager: My business, my customers, I hear stories from them, people just driving by my store because they do not want to stop because there's someone from the bus barn out by this door accosting, you know, whoever's walking by.

MR. HOCHBERG: Police say there may be more beggars on Queen Ann neighborhood streets because of efforts to crack down on vagrants in adjoining neighborhoods, which has driven them into Queen Ann. In response to the criticism, bus barn residents organized teams of street patrols fan out through the neighborhood and flush out the beggars and panhandlers.

BOB ELLER: What's going on? We've been getting a bad rap about people up here panhandling and they're taking it back and they're taking out on us. Yeah. But I mean they're taking it out on us.

PANHANDLER: I don't know anything about that. I don't know anything about that.

MR. CASTLE: See, we're homeless ourself and you're giving us a bad name.

MR. HOCHBERG: Only once, Castle says, have the four times daily patrols found a bus barn resident on the neighborhood streets, and they gave him the same treatment as they do non-residents, a lecture and encouragement to leave.

RESIDENT: We are adults, we are responsible, we are an asset to the community.

MR. HOCHBERG: In the last weeks, as the March 31stdeadline for closing the shelter approached, bus barn leaders have tried to convince the neighborhood community council to allow their promising experiment to continue.

DOUG CASTLE: The increase in the homeless people, the transients that they seen in Queen Ann, in lower Queen Ann, has something more to do with the economic situation of this country than it does to do with the bus barn being there. Approximately a third of our population since the day this place has opened has moved on to more permanent type of housing, have bettered the situation.

MR. HOCHBERG: But fighting stereotypes of the homeless has been a tough battle, with the bus barn leaders unable to control what residents do after they leave the shelter.

JOHN ROSSI, Community Leader: I have been led to believe that there is, was, in fact, somebody who was living at the bus barn shelter when he committed a murder and turned himself down to the authorities at Tacoma, am I correct, or am I incorrect?

MR. CASTLE: No, you're not. You are mistaken about that. The Queen Ann News had the facts incorrect and you are mistaken. We have documented when the man was living in our shelter, and it was long before the incident occurred.

MR. ROSSI: Can I imply that possibly you brought that man into our community?

MR. HOCHBERG: Today Seattle Mayor Norm Rice gave the residents of the bus barn the support they sought.

MAYOR RICE: We're still dotting the i's and crossing the t's, but we are confident that we will be able to move forward.

MR. HOCHBERG: The city announced it's close to completing a $2 million purchase of the 60 unit motel which would become new transitional housing for the bus barn homeless run, again, by them.

MAYOR NORM RICE, Seattle: Emergency shelter alone and just building more emergency shelters without really looking at a long- term vision for how we move the people to the empowerment and self- sustaining on their own, own measures. That's what really has to really be also kicking in, otherwise, we have not really answered the problem.

MR. HOCHBERG: Rice says their new home will be a more dignified place for the residents to transition to the mainstream. Nordrain Carey is already making plans to do that. He says he's talked to bus barn leaders about taking a paid job in the motel's own full kitchen.

NORDRAIN CAREY: A full kitchen will not only be serving the people that are in-house, but they'll also be serving overflow people and other homeless people that are on the street and just need to come by and get something to eat.

MR. HOCHBERG: And you'd be --

MR. CAREY: The chef. I'd be the kitchen administrator, that's my title.

MR. HOCHBERG: City leaders say the Seattle experiment has shown self-governance isn't for everyone, but with the right balance of city support and self-motivation, homelessness doesn't have to mean hopelessness. ESSAY - REBUILDING HESSTON

MS. WOODRUFF: Finally tonight essayist Jim Fisher of the Kansas City Star thinks the people of Hesston, Kansas, have a reassuring message for the people of Kuwait.

MR. FISHER: The pictures of the Persian Gulf and Kuwait bring with them their own buzzwords, calamity, ruin, devastation. Other words follow -- rebuilding, reconstruction, cleanup. Still, all that seems far away, brought near only by electronics and satellite technology. Surely such things couldn't happen here in Central Kansas where March means greening wheat, longer days and, as always, traffic headed to who knows where on the interstate just to the East of the farm town of Hesston, or could they? Last year, a local guy, Dean Allison, set up his camcorder and shot this -- havoc, death, and pillage out of the Southwest, for people on the plains, their worst nightmare. Vortex speeds in this tornado were later estimated to be between two hundred and two hundred and fifty miles an hour. No army came trashing homes, killing, blowing things up. But it was roughly the same, only quicker, more violent. These words from Allison's son, Matthew, age five years who was standing next to the camcorder could have come from a child in Kuwait or Lebanon, Sri Lanka.

MATTHEW: Send it out of her, God! Send it out of here!

MR. FISHER: Eventually the tornado went away. Amazingly, only two died. The swath in Hesston was flattened. People came out of their basements or out from under tables and couldn't believe what they saw.

RESIDENT: In about five seconds it was over and I come upstairs and there's just nothing. The car's gone.

MR. FISHER: The police, sheriff's deputies, fire departments, Red Cross, Salvation Army, and National Guard all showed up. The tragedy of Hesston made the national news that night and local news for a few weeks after that. Eventually though Hesston faded away. There was other news, the S&L crisis, various and sundry mass murders, baseball season, vague rumblings from the Middle East. But while the cameras were away, this happened -- a house after the tornado, then six months later, the pizza joint, unrecognizable, but look now, the lumber yard, sticks and debris, now brand new. Hesston was rebuilt. Today except for a few empty lots and some oddly shaped trees, it's hard to tell anything happened here on a late afternoon in March 1990. What happened? Well, several things. People moved a board at a time, swept up the glass from one window before moving on to the next, made up their minds to put things back together, which will be the first step in Kuwait. There was money, no, not oil money, insurance money. Out here people are acquainted with the vagaries of nature. They prepare. And there was something that Kuwaitis don't have, a Mennonite Disaster Service founded 40 years ago right here in Hesston, and now building its new state headquarters on a lot blasted clean by last year's tornado. MDS, never heard of them? Well, if you've been in a earthquake in California, a hurricane in South Carolina, or just about any other natural disaster in recent years, you know MDS. They're the folks who just show up, unbidden, unassuming, and undemanding, and go to work, as corny as it sounds, to help folks they see as their brothers and sisters, no matter who they are, who by their very presence seem to bring order out of chaos not just with their hammers and saws, but also with a pat on the back, saying things will surely get better. A thousand MDS workers flooded into Hesston following the tornado and went to work. In Kuwait, the celebrations and shooting in the air will eventually have to stop. The work will have to start, hard, grubby work. There will be scars. Be it Kansas or Kuwait, people are people, ones who still wake up nights remembering terrifying moments -- but who put things such as that mostly out of their minds with work and effort and most of all hope, knowing that this can go to this. I'm Jim Fisher. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Friday, the White House rebuffed an appeal by Iraqi rebels to help them overthrow Saddam Hussein. A key economic index rose for the first time in eight months, while sales of new homes hit a new five year high. Good night, Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Good night, Robin. That's our NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back Monday night with a NewsMaker interview with the president of Turkey. I'm Judy Woodruff. Thank you and have a good holiday weekend.