The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault in New York. After the News Summary we go to two major ongoing stories. First we get some expert help in our focus on the search for clues in New York's World Trade Center bombing. Then the armed standoff in Waco, Texas. We have reporter Michael Burgess. Then as Somalia comes out of its bloodiest week since the U.S.-led forces arrived we have a Newsmaker interview with departing special envoy Robert Oakley, and finally we have a report on the Arizona flood. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Members of a heavily-armed religious cult continued their standoff of federal officers near Waco, Texas, today. It began yesterday when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to raid the cult's compound in a search for weapons. Four agents and at least two cult members were killed in the gun battle that followed. At least sixteen agents and three cult members were wounded. A spokeswoman for the ATF said their agents had been outdone. Authorities believe there are about 75 people still inside. The cult's leader has so far allowed ten children to leave. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Investigators said today they are pursuing a number of leads in New York's World Trade Center bombing. They said they received at least 55 calls since the explosion claiming responsibility. Some workers were allowed into smaller buildings in the complex this morning, but the main 110 story Twin Towers remained closed for at least a week while safety systems are restored. A new person was reported missing, bringing that total to two. Five died, and more than a thousand were injured in the explosion. The official said it may be two more days before they can safely examine the bomb crater. Finding those responsible could take even longer. New York's police commissioner briefed reporters this afternoon.

RAYMOND KELLY, Police Commissioner, New York City: Laborious painstaking process where you literally collect every piece of residue that you can, take a cursory look at it and then examine it in-depth perhaps at some other location, so I mean there's a lot of potential evidence to be gathered by going through the process, and this will be a long-term process.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Kelly said that investigators were reviewing vide tapes made at the garage entrance where the suspected bomb exploded. Kelly said that since the blast, the Department had received 224 bomb threats in New York compared with the typical 10 a day. Meanwhile, security was beefed up at other New York City buildings and at sites elsewhere in the country. President Clinton sought today to calm fears raised by the bombing. He spoke during a trip to New Jersey.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I certainly hope not. You know, we've been very blessed in this country to have been free of the kind of terrorist activity that has gripped other countries. I don't want the American people to overreact this time. I can tell you I have put the -- I will reiterate. I've put the full resources of the federal government, every conceivable law enforcement information resource we could put to work on this we have. I am very concerned about, but I think it's also important that we not overreact to it. After all, sometimes when an incident like this happens people try to claim credit for it who didn't do it, and if people, if sometimes if folks like that can get you to stop doing what they're doing, they've won half the battle, they forget they're bluffing, if they get us to change the way they we live and what we do, that's half the battle.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We'll have more on the story later in the program.

MR. LEHRER: There were differing opinions today on the success of the U.S. military airdrop into Bosnia. U.S. officials said many of the food and medicine parcels landed within walking distance of a targeted town. Reports from Bosnia said much of the aid missed the mark. Last night, three U.S. C-130 cargo planes released 4500 pounds of military rations and medical supplies over Eastern Bosnia. It was intended for Muslims in the region, but a Serb commander said some of it landed in Serb-held areas. We have a report narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

MS. BATES: The Hercules crews returning to Frankfurt reported Operation Provide Promise had been a success. But so far, it seems much of the food and medicine missed the targets in Eastern Bosnia. By mid-morning Bosnian time the only sources of information from the besieged areas, local radio hams, were reporting that nothing had been recovered. One report from Baraszda, monitored in Sarajevo, said not only had the aid gone astray, but thousands of leaflets giving details of the drop had fallen 12 miles away, near enemy territory. From Jepa, Strebanitza and Seska, the story appeared to be the same. With question marks remaining over the feasibility of airdropping relief to Bosnia, the more conventional method by road was continuing. Convoys organized by the Red Cross and the U.N. left Dovanatci and Serbia loaded with supplies for Serbs as well as Muslims. Maintaining credibility is one way of keeping the roads open, even more important if the U.S. strategy proves a failure.

MR. LEHRER: A new round of Bosnian peace talks began today. Representatives of the country's Muslim, Serb and Croat factions held bilateral sessions at the United Nations in New York. The leader of Bosnia's Serbs met for two hours with international mediators. He said discussion of maps to divide the republic along ethnic lines were very, very sensitive. A Palestinian killed two Israelis and wounded nine others in Tele Aviv today. The early morning knife attack took place in a crowded commercial district. Israeli police said the man was from the occupied Gaza Strip and was angry because he could not find work in Israel. Bystanders captured and beat the man before police took him away.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: President Clinton today outlined a pilot program for his national service plan. The $15 million program will create about a thousand jobs for young people this summer. They will earn a small stipend, help with college loans and other benefits. Mr. Clinton said he hoped to expand the program to include 100,000 participants in four years. He talked about it at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The national service plan I propose will be built on the same principles as the old GI Bill. When people give something of invaluable merit to their country, they ought to be rewarded with the opportunity to further their education. National service will challenge our people to do the work that should and, indeed, must be done and cannot be done unless the American people voluntarily give themselves up to that work. It will invest in the future of every person who serves.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In economic news, the government reported that the U.S. Merchandise Trade Deficit rose last year for the first time since 1987. It jumped 31 percent to more than 96 billion dollars. Separate reports out today showed personal income rose 1/2 percent in January, and consumer spending grew by .3 percent.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case which may clarify the definition of sexual harassment in the workplace. It involves a Tennessee woman who claimed her boss subjected her to constant verbal harassment. A lower court ruled against her, saying the man's words were annoying and insensitive but not psychologically damaging. In Arizona, water from an overflowing reservoir continued to flood homes and vegetable crops. Eight of the nine bridges across the lower Gila River have been washed out. The flooding was caused by record amounts of winter rain and snow. Southwestern Arizona produces 75 percent of the country's iceberg lettuce. We'll have the full report later in the program.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's it for the News Summary. Still ahead on the NewsHour, the search for clues in the World Trade Center bombing, the armed standoff in Waco, Texas, special U.S. Somalia envoy Oakley, and the Arizona floods. FOCUS - SEARCH FOR CLUES

MR. LEHRER: First tonight is the New York World Trade Center bombing. Five people died, hundreds more were injured in the Friday afternoon tragedy. The bomb went off in the underground parking garage beneath the Center's Twin Towers. It cracked a four-story crater in the underground complex and commuter train station and sent smoke pouring into the stairwells and air ducts of the building. Today as businesses scrambled to set up makeshift offices elsewhere, investigators pushed on to determine the exact cause of the explosion. Earlier this evening, I received a status report from James Fox of the FBI. He's the assistant director in charge of the investigation.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Fox, welcome.

JAMES FOX, FBI: Thank you, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: How close are you to determining who did this and why?

MR. FOX: I really couldn't say we're close at all at this point. We have no one we would term as suspect. We do have some legitimate leads that we have a lot of agents and a lot of detectives following out right now. However, the thing we really want to do that we're very anxious to do is get access to the seat of the explosion, where residue of the explosive, itself, and of the device will probably be found. Then we can reconstruct and tell an awfully lot about what kind of a bomb we're dealing with.

MR. LEHRER: Because explosives leave prints of their own in a way, do they not, sir?

MR. FOX: They do. They have their own telltale signal. We're confident that after we clear the rubble away that's what we will find here. In addition, we will haul the majority, probably 99 percent of the rubble, to an isolated location and comb through it with a fine tooth comb, looking for things as small as computer chips. In past investigations, things this small have really broken the cases wide open for us.

MR. LEHRER: Until that as done, and as we speak now, does it appear, the early information appear to be correct, that it was dynamite that did this?

MR. FOX: I think we're saying we think it was in the dynamite/TNT family of explosives as opposed to plastic. We haven't said for certain that it is dynamite, itself.

MR. LEHRER: Now what about this report that in order to do the damage that was done, it would have taken at least 500 pounds of explosive TNT, dynamite, or up to maybe 1500 pounds? Is that ballpark?

MR. FOX: Those are some of the guesses of some of the explosives experts. In any case, the blast was so immense that the device must have been a large one and a very heavy one. That's how we come to that conclusion.

MR. LEHRER: But, Ed, saying in this TNT/dynamite area, would this have been, how big a bundle would this have been? How huge would the explosive have had to have been physically?

MR. FOX: Some of our explosives experts have estimated that it would be equivalent to the size of four large footlockers, but again this is just a guess. Until we get to the seat of the explosion, itself, we won't be able to do any more than guess.

MR. LEHRER: But if, let's say for discussion purposes, it was that large, it would have had to have been brought into that parking garage probably in a heavy vehicle, a truck, a van, or something like that?

MR. FOX: That's very possible, and, indeed, we're strongly considering and closely examining the possibility of a van bomb or a car bomb.

MR. LEHRER: And, as I understand it, there are some, there's some video tape taken of vehicles going in and out of the other parking garage, is that correct?

MR. FOX: We just came into possession of some video tapes. We really don't even know what's on it at this point. Our best case would be for the video tapes to show entries at one of the public entrances to the parking garage. If that's what the tape shows, it would be a real breakthrough for us, but we aren't certain that's what's on the tape at this point.

MR. LEHRER: Now the video, as this the videotape as a result of a surveillance camera, or is that some tourist or somebody that was taking it? How did you come about this?

MR. FOX: There are possibly several tapes involved. Tourists did take some video tapes, at least one, right after the explosion, showing individuals existing the building after the blast. There is a second video tape apparently mounted inside the parking garage. That's the one that we're hopeful shows the entries at the parking garage at one of the public entrances.

MR. LEHRER: Do you know for a fact at this point, Mr. Fox, that the camera was working and that tape was actually taken and is now available?

MR. FOX: We don't know that at this point. We have the tape, and as we speak, our agents are reviewing it.

MR. LEHRER: Was there also a log taken of vehicles, the licenses plates of vehicles that went in and out of this parking garage routinely?

MR. FOX: The parking garage, fortunately, kept relatively thorough records, including license plates of vehicles that were entering, so we do have that record, and, of course, we're following out many leads in that regard.

MR. LEHRER: Does the fact that it is probably, now here again I realize everything at this point is uncertain, but that it's probably from the TNT/dynamite family rule out, not rule out but rule out the probability that it was done by foreign terrorists?

MR. FOX: No, I really don't think the type of device or the nature of the explosive, itself, rules out anyone who might be a suspect. It certainly doesn't rule out foreign international terrorists.

MR. LEHRER: Because even a group of foreign terrorists could, could just put the bomb together here in the United States from domestic sources, is that what you mean, sir?

MR. FOX: That's, that's exactly right.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Now these phone calls, there were supposedly 55 of them from various people and individuals who are claiming credit for this. How in the world do you --

MR. FOX: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: -- know, how do you go about sifting through those?

MR. FOX: Well, this is one of the mysteries of this case. If it had been done by a terroristic group, often they wish to give prior notice, and then when the blast occurs, the group has instant credibility and they get out their political message. In this case, there was no prior notice, just the blast followed by all of those phone calls. So perhaps we shouldn't give much credibility to any of those phone calls unless they contain some unique information about the blast site or the device, itself. And at this point, none of the phone calls have contained such unique information.

MR. LEHRER: At this point, are you certain that there were no before hand phone calls from somebody saying, look, if you don't do so and so by such and such a time, we're going to blow up the World Trade Center or a building in New York, or something like that?

MR. FOX: After a lot of consultation and conversation between the FBI and the New York City police, we're certain there was no prior warning.

MR. LEHRER: Based on the physical evidence, as you read it now, is it, is it a safe assumption that this wasn't done by one person? Would it have taken just theoretically at least more than one person to have pulled this thing off as massive as it was?

MR. FOX: Because of the size of the device it's likely it would have taken more than one person, but we aren't ruling out the lone bomber theory. I would say that theory is on the back burner for now. We're concentrating on the possibility of groups, terrorists, for instance, or the drug cartels.

MR. LEHRER: Now why would a drug cartel, what would be the motive of a drug cartel for blowing up that building?

MR. FOX: The drug dealers have felt some animosity towards the United States and towards New York City where we have prosecuted so many drug dealers for some time. They have issued threats in the past against elected officials and law enforcement officials, and any way they could make a mark to embarrass the United States and to embarrass New York City would make them very happy.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Fox, you and your colleagues have been through this kind of thing before. Does this particular investigation have an early solution smell to it, or do you feel that you're going to be at this one a while?

MR. FOX: Actually, Jim, I don't look for an early solution in this case at this time. We would certainly welcome a breakthrough that would give us an early solution. But our experience has shown that the joint terrorist task force composed of FBI agents and police detectives is a well oiled machine. Once it gets up and running it works its best over the long haul, and we anticipate that will be the case here. We will bring into play our forensics experts, talent from around the United States, from intelligence agencies throughout the world, and then I think we'll get to the bottom of this case.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Fox, thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: Now, the additional views from two terrorism experts. Noel Koch is the former director of the Pentagon's Special Planning Office which handles terrorism. He joins us tonight from Los Angeles. Clayton McManaway is a retired career foreign service officer who served as a counterterrorism adviser in the State Department. Mr. McManaway, what does it smell like to you at this point, an act of political terrorism, a lone bomber? Is there any, I realize that nobody knows for sure at this point, but based on your experience, what does it smell like?

MR. McMANAWAY: It's pretty early to draw any conclusions of that nature, but it certainly doesn't appear to be a typical international organization terrorist act so far.

MR. LEHRER: Why is that?

MR. McMANAWAY: Well, if you look at the, the different organizations that use car bombs as a technique, sort of as an MO, you look at the IRA, they certainly wouldn't seem to have much, indicated no reason for them to hit New York City. In fact, it would be counterproductive for them. Then there's the Shining Path.

MR. LEHRER: It would be counterproductive because there are some supporters --

MR. McMANAWAY: Supporters.

MR. LEHRER: -- of the IRA in New York.

MR. McMANAWAY: Of the IRA. Sure.

MR. LEHRER: And so it would look, all right.

MR. McMANAWAY: There's the Shining Path in Peru, which doesn't operate very much out of Peru. One of the ones that leaps to mind of course quickly is Hezbollah, which is the umbrella organization based in Lebanon, supported by Iran, and which is connected to the American embassy bombing and the Marine barracks bombing, but they typically make their statements out of Lebanon, and we've had nothing like that so far. As you run down the ones that have done this before, I'm not ruling it out, but it doesn't appear at the moment, anyway, to be, to be that.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Koch, do you go through that same list and come to the same conclusion?

MR. KOCH: I'm not sure. If you rule out international terrorism, then you have to assume it was a domestic incident, and it's very difficult to, to sort through the logic train and come to the conclusion that this was associated with any domestic group that had a purpose in bombing the World Trade Center, so I think when and if we come to the conclusion, to a solution to this thing, and I think it's, certainly I agree with Mr. Fox that that's a long way down the road, and I think there's a very strong possibility that we never will get it sorted out, but if we do, I would tend to possibly disagree with Clay on that point. I think that we will find that it is an international group. I don't think it's a Middle Eastern group. As it happens today, everybody uses car bombs. It's a development that's grown up over the last ten or twelve years, and so it's not particularly unusual to see this. It doesn't mean if somebody is using a car bomb that they can be associated with a particular group. It could be anybody. Certainly we have had operations from the Balkans in the United States. We had them in the '70s, with the Croatian terrorists here, and they did a great deal of damage. We had a number of people from those various nationalisms in former Yugoslavia who do provide a base from which to operate, and particularly in New York City, and we have a motive and we have a time, we have proximity in time to an event that would stimulate some activity, and so I think we should not exclude the possibility of an international operation, but we ought to focus, and I think the State Department probably is focusing very heavily on that area.

MR. LEHRER: But, Mr. Koch, if that were the case, why would they not claim credit for it? I mean, what would be the point of doing an anonymous bombing?

MR. KOCH: I think that you can see the interests of various groups served by deception in this case, that you set off a bomb and the Bosnians call in and claim that they're a Syrian group. We haven't heard a creditable group name yet, with one exception, which is sort of far fetched. So it looks like we have a disinformation effort involved with this process, and the object is to make it look like somebody else did it. And right now I think the group that everybody would like to see as the prime suspect are the Serbians, but I don't think that by any means that they should be singled out as the prime candidate.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. McManaway, back to you. If your theory, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, I mean, I realize we're all speculating, we're asking you to speculate, and I appreciate your doing this, but let's say you're correct, that it turns out not to have been an international terrorist attack. Then where does that go? Where does that leave you to go, if you were in charge of the investigation?

MR. McMANAWAY: Well, it leaves you, first of all, I didn't say it was not an international organization.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Right.

MR. McMANAWAY: You asked me a question. I tried to answer it.

MR. LEHRER: Exactly. And I appreciate that.

MR. McMANAWAY: I am not ruling out anything at this point, this point of fact, and Neil [Noel] is quite right. The State Department, I'm sure, is pursuing every, and all the other agencies are pursuing every possible lead. I think we'll know more when they get into this, get down to the site. And if they can find the timing device, if they can find parts of the detonator. If we can determine whether it was, in fact, dynamite or a combination of dynamite and something else, then we'll have a much better idea of what we're dealing with. So I'm not putting forth --

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. McMANAWAY: -- a theory that it was not --

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. McMANAWAY: -- an international organization.

MR. LEHRER: I paraphrased you poorly. You were just told by the preponderance.

MR. McMANAWAY: I'm saying it's too early really to say.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. McMANAWAY: But there are certain indications that are not normal to an international organization having done this so far.

MR. LEHRER: So what about the question I asked Mr. Fox. As he said, it could also be a drug cartel. Does that add up to you?

MR. McMANAWAY: Well, the drug cartel I wouldn't rule it out. The drug cartel normally hits something to do with law enforcement, a courthouse or a justice building, or something in that court, which is not the case here of course. But they do use, and there's been a lot of, particularly in Colombia, a lot of car bombing there, so I wouldn't rule it out.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Koch, what did you mean when you said that you thought this was going to take a, not only a long time to get to the bottom of, but it's even possible that it may never be completely resolved? Why do you say that? What is there about this that makes you say that?

MR. KOCH: Since the middle of 1986, it was April of 1986 when we bombed Tripoli, Libya, the Reagan administration and subsequently the Bush administration have been, and I should point out as you mentioned, that I was a member of the Reagan administration, but argued regularly that we had put an end to terrorism and that that threat had disappeared. That's just not the case. When you send that kind of signal to your intelligence organizations, to your bureaucracy, you've effectively enunciated the de facto policy that we're not worried about terrorism now, and so to a large extent, we are in Yugoslavia, if you believe and if we're right that this is a very strong candidate region for the source of this problem, that becomes like Lebanon was to us 12 years ago, where we're beginning from the beginning, trying to sort out the groups, trying to sort out who were flying under flags of convenience, such as in that case the Islamic Jihad organization, we will get a lot of deception, a lot of disinformation, and it'll be a long time before we are able to sort through who the groups are and a condition which approximates anarchy over there, and we're beginning virtually from a tabular area, we're not beginning from a base of hard information that has been laid down consistently over time by two administrations who have paid close attention to this problem. They haven't done that, and so we're beginning from the beginning in this area.

MR. LEHRER: But back to your point, Mr. McManaway, there may be, forget the political part because there are all kinds of people with all kinds of specialties involved in this investigation, but the forensic part of it, the going through the particles and all of that, that has been fairly successful in the past, has it not? If that part of it works, then you might be able to solve it that way and work back, rather than work at the political and then go the other way?

MR. McMANAWAY: I think you have to start with forensics, in my view, and keep in mind it took three years to get the indictment in Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie tragedy, and it was 18 months before they got a major breakthrough. But the breakthrough came from forensics. It came from the details. It came from the timing device.

MR. LEHRER: So and knowing, based on past experience, is it a fair statement to say that you could not create this kind of explosion without leaving some telltale signs that could be traced back, I mean, whether it's a detonator, whether it's a piece of this or a piece of that, it's impossible to do without leaving some kind of trace?

MR. McMANAWAY: I don't suppose anything is impossible in this regard, and I think we have to keep in mind that the explosion took place in a confined space so that it was aggravated or it was made even greater by the fact that it was confined by the, all the cement blocks around there, so you had a terrific explosion. But all explosions leave traces. And we usually find pieces. Who would have thought that we could have found, that they could have found, this marvelous job they did in the Lockerbie tragedy, covering 848 square miles I believe it was they had to cover.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Koch, do you agree that that's where, if this thing is broken fairly quickly, fairly quickly meaning anything from a few days to a few months, that that would be where it would come from, from the forensic end, rather than from the political end?

MR. KOCH: It might as well come from some group routing another group out. The, one always, you have to begin at the beginning. The beginning is the forensics. The problem is that we have proliferated certain types of explosives, certain types of detonators. Power sources, of course, you can get them anywhere, but there is that certain homogeneity about this technique, and when we, you know, we began the program talking about South America, Northern Ireland, all over England, the Middle East. This is a common usage, and it uses common materials, and so the only signature that you can get if you can recover it, and we may, is the distinctive signature of the bomb maker, itself, such as a man like Abu Ibraham, who's retired effectively now, but the May 15th group in Iraq, which we covered up from 1982 on. These people do leave signatures, but the actual contents of the bomb may not tell us as much today as they might have done earlier on, before this became such a common process of bombing.

MR. LEHRER: All right, Mr. Koch, Mr. McManaway, thank you both very much.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still ahead, the standoff in Waco, Texas, the American envoy to Somalia, and the Arizona flood story. FOCUS - CULT OF VIOLENCE

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Now the armed standoff between federal agents and members of a religious cult near Waco, Texas. Judy Woodruff has more. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: A cease-fire remains in effect at the ranch where yesterday's gun battle left six dead, four federal agents and two members of the branch Davidian sect. The violence erupted when agents tried to arrest the sect's leader and searched the ranch for weapons. Joining us now from the site is my Mike Burgess, a reporter with the Austin American Statesman. Mike, what is the situation right now there?

MR. BURGESS: Well, the most recent development occurred approximately an hour and a half ago when just behind me a car with what we could see two children, one maybe four, a four-year-old girl and a smaller child, we were told possibly an infant, were transferred from one vehicle to a van driven by an ATF agent and left the media area and took 'em to safety.

MS. WOODRUFF: The news wires are saying they've released, I guess, four children this afternoon, late this afternoon, added to the six others they released earlier. That's a total of 10. Is that your understanding?

MR. BURGESS: I'm at just a little less than that. All we could see was the two that came out. There has been no officials from any of the law enforcement agencies to come out and speak with the media at this scene, so really the estimates that we have is what we can see as eyewitnesses, and most of us could only see two children at the most in the vehicle driven by the, the federal agent out of the area here.

MS. WOODRUFF: How much law enforcement is there right now? I mean, what police cars, FBI, ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, and so forth?

MR. BURGESS: Well, continually since last night there have been convoys of police agencies from the suburban departments here, the state police, federal agents coming in at different groups, apparently looking at taking shifts. We've had tactical teams that have come in. It's rough really to give you a good estimate, but we have a real, I would say, an army of police from a variety of agencies, from local, state and federal. They, they look like they're here, going to be here for a while. I mean, they've started setting up things in a compound where they're at their communications area that just indicates that they plan to be here for a while.

MS. WOODRUFF: But as far as you know, nothing has happened? There have been no exchanges, other than the so-called "communications" that are underway, is that right? Is that what you mean?

MR. BURGESS: That's correct, but we have not heard any more gunfire or gunplay today, no more reports of casualties. Really the only action that we've seen was the release of the children about a little bit more than an hour ago. It's been pretty cold and rainy. There's been really virtually no activity. There has been no law enforcement officials coming out to brief us. There's really a thirst for information here, the media wanting to know what's happening inside there.

MS. WOODRUFF: Unlike yesterday, where the press was right in there with them when they attempted to go in. Mike, what information do you have about how many people are left inside, and how armed they are, still are at this point?

MR. BURGESS: Well, what we've heard is that there still may be about 70 people inside, different numbers in terms of children. Some reports are saying 30. There's others that are saying a very small handful. In terms of the amount of weapons, I don't believe that there would be any less than that they had yesterday. We're talking about automatic weapons that the ATF was interesting in seizing, an array of assault weapons that they had, and they inflicted a lot of damage on both life and property yesterday with the weaponry.

MS. WOODRUFF: Do you, have you, is this a sect -- the branch Davidians they're called -- is this a group that you in Austin were aware of before this incident?

MR. BURGESS: No, not in Austin. I had not heard of that group. It's an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. But our sister paper here in Waco, the Tribune-Herald, did an extensive investigation of this group, and those stories began appearing two days ago, before all of this began, but our understanding is there's no link between that and what took place.

MS. WOODRUFF: Is there some, you said it looks like the law enforcement folks look like they're preparing to stay there for some time. What does that say to you, I mean, that this could take some considerable time to, to work out, or what? Do you have any information on the communication? The wire, again, the wire reports are saying today there have been ongoing or I guess intermittent communications between inside the sect, inside the compound, and the Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearm people.

MR. BURGESS: We have no, we have not had anyone who's come out and told us that, but I would assume that to be correct that there is continued communications. We have not heard that there is otherwise. One thing that's interesting is we have not heard from the sect leader. He had appeared on several radio stations last night giving his messages. He has not been heard from since I believe about 2, 2:30 this morning, so it's unknown on his condition or communications from him, and, again, the federal agencies have not been very forthcoming with information. As a matter of fact, they cancelled the press conference that was called in downtown Waco today. So really we've been trying to gain as much as we can, and we're as close to the action as possible, and we certainly would like to know more.

MS. WOODRUFF: They, as you mentioned, he was giving several interviews, one yesterday on CNN Television, then there were several radio interviews. Is it your sense that they're just trying to, that the law enforcement folks are trying to have a blackout of information so they can't learn what they're up to in the outside? Or can you read it at all?

MR. BURGESS: No. I don't know if that really is the case because the media had been cooperative with federal agencies in terms of the radio, the interviews with, with the sect leader that, you know, if the radio stations were to read his messages that they would release children, and he seemed to have met that end of the bargain, at least as of last night. So I don't know. One colleague mentioned that he thinks that maybe since there was heavy questioning of the preparedness of the ATF and what happened, ATF might be trying to avoid further scrutiny at this point until at least maybe the operation is over.

MS. WOODRUFF: I understand that and just quickly, that's what I wanted to ask you about. Is there speculation around there at this point about why they went in not knowing how much fire power there was on the inside and ending up with four of their agents being killed?

MR. BURGESS: Well, there are certainly a lot of questions in terms of if they were prepared. Apparently they had done exercises on Saturday, the day before this all began, and how this could happen if they were prepared, knowing that, in fact, they were going in with a warrant for weapons. They had to have had an idea of the array of weapons there, but again, it's reported that they were, that the people in the sect were tipped off about the raid, and apparently ATF has come on and said that they were just overpowered.

MS. WOODRUFF: Okay. Well, Mike Burgess, thank you for being with us. Thank you. NEWSMAKER

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight, a Newsmaker interview with Amb. Robert Oakley, U.S. special envoy to Somalia. We spoke with him earlier today in the wake of one of the bloodiest weeks in the East African country since the arrival of the U.S.-led force in December. Somalis loyal to warlord Mohamed Farah Aidide thought running street battles with mostly U.S. forces in the capital, Mogadishu. An eight hour gun battle on Thursday left at least three Somalis dead and many wounded, including three U.S. Marines and three Nigerian members of the task force. The violence erupted after Aidide accused the U.S. of fighting with a rival warlord known as Morgan in the southern port city of Kismayu. Morgan's supporters had stormed the city last Monday and drove out some 3,000 supporters of warlord Omar Jes, an ally of Aidide. The U.S. ordered Morgan to withdraw last week or face attack, and yesterday they delivered a similar ultimatum to Jes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Amb. Oakley, thank you for joining us. The word that we hear increasingly with regard to the situation in Somalia is deteriorating. What's your assessment of the situation? Is that an accurate description?

AMB. OAKLEY: Well, as a matter of fact you might, if you wish, to say that there was a two or three day deterioration, but it was a test which was bound to come.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You say that it was a test that was bound to come. Whose test?

AMB. OAKLEY: The United States and the entire U.S.-led structure out here, and the United Nations have never made a secret of the fact that one of the objectives is to create a more secure environment, one in which the natural forces for community life and for political life will have a chance to come back. And that's happening. Those who feel that their rice bowl is being broken, or who feel that their power is eroding are bound to challenge a situation like that if they can. And that's what's been happening. In Kismayu, for example, you had two gentlemen who have been fighting each other off and on for a couple of years.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: General Morgan and --

AMB. OAKLEY: Gen. Morgan, that's right. And neither one of them is prepared to adjust to the peaceful resolution of disputes.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, the U.S.-led forces have given Col. Jes an ultimatum that he's supposed to be out of Kismayu what, some 80 miles by Tuesday night, or face attack, you are prepared to attack?

AMB. OAKLEY: Well, we delivered the same ultimatum to Col. Morgan and his forces when they moved into Kismayu the night of February 21st, started shooting around a six-block area, panicked everybody in the city. We told him the next day that we'd had enough, that he should move all of his forces and his weapons up to a place called Doble. He did so promptly, without any fuss, because he understands the realities of military power. The same thing is true with Col. Jes, and he's already agreed to move his forces well out of town, where we've asked him to move them.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It appears from this distance that the U.S. forces, led forces, have become more aggressive in the seizure of arms. Is that an incorrect perception, and has the mission changed in any way?

AMB. OAKLEY: The primary mission has not changed, Charlayne. It's just that the primary mission has been very largely accomplished, which is to put an end to the mass killing by war and to the very high rate of death by starvation and disease, which you saw while you were here. As we've been able to achieve that, we've been able to devote more time and more resources to the question of, to the issue of establishing a certain amount of stability and security, working with the United Nations to do this. And so we have, indeed, been working more aggressively to implement what the Somalis, themselves, agreed to in terms of the cease-fire and disarmament, and we have begun to help them enforce their own agreements, which has led to a much more aggressive approach to dealings first with heavy weapons and then trying to deal with the rest of it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As you know, Gen. Aidide, an ally of one of the warlords, Col. Jes down in Kismayu, has accused the United States of taking sides in the conflict because you've ordered Jes out of Kismayu. What, is that just posturing on his part? Because a U.N. aide over the weekend said that Aidide is deliberately trying to provoke an instability here. Do you agree?

AMB. OAKLEY: I, I think there was an effort to see how far he could push things with the U.S.-led forces.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that?

AMB. OAKLEY: Well, because Aidide, he has felt that the increasingly tight restrictions on weapons and their use and that the increasing degree of political freedom is hampering the activities of his party.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the clashes over the weekend, apparently the Nigerians, I believe, fired indiscriminately and, as you know, there were fatalities among the Somalis. Is the U.S. assisting in that preparation for the handoff, and are you confident that there will be the kind of restraint that has existed up to this --

AMB. OAKLEY: The sound on this side is breaking up and fading, but if you can hear me, I'll try to answer your question.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Yes.

AMB. OAKLEY: After what happened here in Mogadishu, we're much more confident than we were before in the sense that the entire UNITAF command of all nationalities is confident that they can work together well even during a period of crisis, that all units, not just the United States, are able to defend their positions and carry out their military assignments effectively. You had Nigerians, Botswanans, Zimbabweans, UAE, United States, the Italians, the Pakistanis, all of them were protecting various parts of this city, and they did it very, very well. During the two days of rioting that affected a part of the city, the rest of the city remained calm. The very vast majority of the people in the city underwent no inconvenience, much less any violent attacks. There were no lootings of any compounds or offices or warehouses of any of the relief agencies.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But there are reports in the press here in the United States today that the aid workers are worried and saying they are increasingly in jeopardy because of the confiscation of weapons. They're losing their body guards, and they feel that they are more at risk now than they've ever been. And earlier, before we went on the air, you were telling me now that foreigners are much more in jeopardy than, than Somalis. Is that a correct reading of it?

AMB. OAKLEY: Well, I do not believe that it is an anti-foreigner thing. I think it is the problem of the increase in the number of armed individuals who are engaged in banditry. These are people who are leaving the so-called "militias." The militias can no longer loot. They're no longer at war. Therefore, people with weapons, particularly in Mogadishu and right around it who don't have jobs are looking for a way to make a living, they would call it, and they're doing what comes naturally, they've learned over the years. They're using their weapons. But they're looking for people with money, and there's no way that you can take away all weapons in a big place like Mogadishu, or in the country as a whole. In a smaller city like Kismayu, I think that we'll have a fair amount of success in keeping weapons under control.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ambassador, as you know, peace talks are due to resume on March 15th. What is your assessment of the prospect for those talks, and do you expect that the representation will be broadened beyond the warlords to include women and other elements of the Somali society that have been excluded so far?

AMB. OAKLEY: Well, this is another reason why, strangely enough, I'm optimistic, even though a lot of people, particularly those farther removed, seem to be pessimistic. During the uproar of the last few days, when Aidide was screaming that the United States and UNITAF were terribly biased, at the same time he made a public statement saying that he was prepared to go to the meeting in Adis. As a matter of fact, he accused the United States, UNITAF and Col Morgan of trying to destroy national reconciliation, therefore, he insisted upon going. So whereas a month ago he had backed out of the preparatory talks because of some military action by Morgan down near Kismayu, this time he insisted upon calling a meeting of the preparatory committee, and at that meeting all the factions agreed that there should be the broadest possible representation of the Somali population, given the unique social, economic and political situation which existed in the century. And this is clearly an invitation to a much broader representation than was present at the previous meeting in Adis in January. That's a very good sign. Yesterday I had a good-bye conversation with Gen. Aidide, and his newspaper this morning said some nasty things about me, but it went on to say publicly what he had told me privately, that, indeed, he was going to attend the meeting in Adis, and he's prepared to work, as he calls it, democratically for a Somali solution to Somalia's problems.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And you believe that?

AMB. OAKLEY: So this is good news.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you believe that?

AMB. OAKLEY: I believe he'll be there, yes. But I don't believe he has much choice. I just want to repeat that behind all this bombast and shooting and shouting everyone is going to the meeting in Adis to try to work out some political solutions to Somalia's problems.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: When do you plan to leave, Ambassador?

AMB. OAKLEY: I'm leaving in two days, Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As you leave, and we just have a couple of seconds left, how do you, are you leaving with regrets, or what is your state of mind about the future of Somalia, and the job you've done?

AMB. OAKLEY: Well, I feel that Somalia has passed a tough test last week, as I said. UNITAF passed a tough test in learning how to work together to deal with eruptions, but we've known those were coming, and they were limited in scope. You didn't have any big fighting, as you had before.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And your own feelings --

AMB. OAKLEY: The areas --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: We just have a couple of seconds. Your own feelings about leaving, any regrets?

AMB. OAKLEY: I'm leaving feeling that we have accomplished a great deal.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Amb. Oakley, thank you very much for joining us. FOCUS - HIGH WATER

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, the story of a desert flood. Heavy rains have forced the Gila River in Southwestern Arizona over its banks. Spencer Michels of public station KQED, San Francisco, reports.

MR. MICHELS: Mention the state of Arizona and this is the image that most people conjure up, a dry, forbidding desert landscape, studded with swarrow cactus. But since January, the skies have opened up over a vast area of Central and Eastern Arizona, and much of this normally arid state has been deluged. The rising water caused this bridge under construction near Phoenix to collapse. This week, the waters from two months' worth of rain converged into the Gila River in the Southwest corner of the state, near the borders with California and Mexico. The river, which courses through the fertile Yuma Valley, was transformed from the sleepy, sometimes invisible stream, into a sometimes swift, often wide, torrent. This is not a heavily populated area, but in the last few days several thousand people have had to leave their homes. This unusual flood in dry country has broken roads, disrupted the economy and changed lives. And locals never suspected it could happen.

LYLE KING, Farmer: We've never seen water like this. We're from dry Arizona. This is a very unusual situation.

MR. MICHELS: Cotton farmer Lyle King and his wife, Doris, came to view the rising waters near their land.

LYLE KING: There's never been near this amount of water in this reservoir. Usually, it's a long dry, dry lake with a small, maybe a small trickle running down the middle, but it's done a lot of damage to the farm. There's been probably 7,000 acres here in this area that's been underwater that's never been underwater before.

MR. MICHELS: This giant lake wasn't even on the map a few weeks ago, and it's now the largest body of water in the state, covering farmland and brush behind the painted rock dam. Engineers thought the dam would be adequate to control the flow from the state's worst rainfall. Water poured through the dam's spillways for the first time since the dam's completion 34 years ago, and then made an end run around the dam, carving a gorge and surging into the swollen Gila River below. Farmlands along the normally secure riverbank were inundated, and valuable crops, including lettuce and cotton, were lost. It's a phenomenon that will continue for weeks as Arizona's river systems empty toward the Colorado River. Just outside Yuma, the region's hub, the flooding forced the country's largest fresh lettuce and vegetable packer to shut down six weeks early. Saturday night with rain pouring down, workers frantically loaded conveyor belts and other processing equipment for shipment to the next lettuce processing site in Salinas, California. The rising Gila River was on the verge of cutting off roads to the plant.

BOB WARNOCK, Lettuce Packer: This valley produces I would guess 80, 90 percent of the iceberg lettuce that's produced for the country.

MR. MICHELS: Bob Warnock is vice president of Fresh Express.

BOB WARNOCK: The salad bars that McDonald's and Burger King and some of these other people have, lettuce has become pretty inelastic, and so that when the supply goes down, the demand really doesn't drop that much because they've got to have it, so the result is that the price goes way up.

MR. MICHELS: Warnock predicts supermarket prices could jump several times to as much as $2.50 a head. While the packing operation could relocate, farmers along the Gila River could not. They desperately fought to save their threatened lettuce, cauliflower, and broccoli crops. They called in a virtual army to build dikes and keep the river away. Bob Enders is harvest manager of an operation that at peak season employs more than 1500 workers.

BOB ENDERS, Lettuce Harvest Manager: Well, we basically just came to save our crops, and when we first started, the water was hitting over there on the concrete ditch. We've, we came and we've dumped all this rock and aggregate stuff. We've got about a thousand loads on the ground probably now, pretty close. If it would have broke here in this particular area, we would have, the water would have ran all the way down on the paved road and taken everything out that way.

MR. MICHELS: So what would you have lost?

BOB ENDERS: About five or six million dollars.

MR. MICHELS: Is there still a chance that could happen?

BOB ENDERS: Yeah. But it's not.

MR. MICHELS: You're not going to let it happen?

BOB ENDERS: No.

MR. MICHELS: Bob Antle is one of the nation's most successful lettuce growers.

ROBERT ANTLE, Lettuce Grower: It's the 7 1/2 million cartons is being threatened by the inundation of the river.

MR. MICHELS: How much is it being threatened?

ROBERT ANTLE: Well, I think it's prudent to say that we'll probably lose a minimum of a million cartons.

MR. MICHELS: Somehow or another you don't look too worried about all this?

ROBERT ANTLE: No. If you're a worrier, you don't plant lettuce.

RALPH OGDEN, Sheriff: This is a disaster. These farmers' livelihood sit over there in those fields, and they're not going to be able to farm their fields, some of them, for six, eight months. The crops just stop and so does the income, as well as their homes being inundated.

MR. MICHELS: Yuma County's sheriff, Ralph Ogden, directed evacuation operations.

RALPH OGDEN: We have gone in and we have cut through the pavement and dug a trench in order for the water to relieve the pressure here on the bridge. The bridge is built a little bit higher than either of the on ramps. The bridge will take a couple of years to rebuild, whereas, the on ramps can be built on dry soil within the matter of a couple of weeks and get us back into operation.

MR. MICHELS: People aren't even going to be able to get around here for a while, are they?

RALPH OGDEN: No, sir. The closest way just across the river here, which is about a mile away, is either going to be to drive through Yuma into California and up the California side of the river, back across Colorado to the end, which would be about 60 miles, or go from here to Gila Bend, Gila Bend to Buckeye, and then back around the other way, which is about 130 miles.

MR. MICHELS: Forecasters expect the rains to continue into the spring, and nobody knows when the floodwaters will abate. One thing is for sure though, when this land does look like desert again, the residents won't forget a flood that's supposed to come only once in two hundred years. RECAP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Again, the main stories of this Monday, a standoff continued between an armed religious cult and federal offices near Waco, Texas. The FBI's New York director said on the NewsHour that investigators were pursuing a number of leads in the World Trade Center bombing. He said they were viewing a newly obtained video tape near where the bomb went off. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Charlayne. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.