The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news in the Persian Gulf War this Friday, Defense Sec. Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Powell arrived in Saudi Arabia, Britain's defense secretary said a ground war will begin when 50 percent of Iraq's forces have been neutralized, and Pres. Bush accused Jordan of moving way over into Saddam Hussein's camp. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After our summary of Gulf news, we look at the allied bombing campaign in terms of damage to civilians in Iraq. We have interviews with U.S. pilots, a report from Baghdad, interviews with journalists who left Baghdad today, and a look at the relics of past civilizations threatened by bombing of nearby military targets, and we have our weekly political analysis by David Gergen and Mark Shields. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: America's top two defense officials arrived in Saudi Arabia today. Defense Sec. Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Colin Powell were sent by Pres. Bush to get a firsthand assessment of how the war is going. Cheney told reporters limited ground and amphibious assaults may be needed to make Iraqi troops more vulnerable to air strikes. Later Cheney and Powell praised several hundred American troops at an air base in Western Saudi Arabia.

SEC. CHENEY: When you think about all we've achieved in three weeks, when you think about the fact that you are the heart and soul of the most successful air campaign in the history of the world, it's all something you can be enormously proud of, because we certainly are.

GEN. POWELL: A little over three weeks we have made his air force combat ineffective, his air defense system combat ineffective, destroyed what little lead he had, tearing up his lines of communication, and now the focus of the battle will shift to the Iraqi army in Kuwait, which is what we came here to do, take 'em out. We tried to give him some good advice a few months ago, told him move it or loseit. They wouldn't move it; now they're going to lose it.

MR. LEHRER: Cheney and Powell are due back to greet Pres. Bush on Monday. Britain's defense secretary, Tom King, today said allied forces would wait to launch a ground offensive until about half of Iraqi's forces had been knocked out. He said that figure stood now at 15 to 20 percent. U.S. military officials said allied planes continued to strike Iraqi positions in Kuwait and Southern Iraq today. Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly said six hundred or more Iraqi tanks had been knocked out during the ongoing air campaign. Some U.S. pilots returning from missions said Iraqi targets had become easier to find.

PILOT: We had a great day. We finally went to a target closer up to the front of the line. We had an A-10 that was circling the area, pointing out specific targets for us to hit, and when they actually it stacked up, going in and hitting an area that was really lucrative, targets all over. We had guys in front of us who got a chance to watch their bombs drop. They were dropping on top of some of the armor and they had secondaries, they had explosions.

MR. LEHRER: There have also been border skirmishes between U.S. Marines and Iraqi artillery units. One occurred last night. We have a report from network pool reporter Mark LaMage with the First Marine Division.

MR. LaMAGE: First Marine Division ground troops were active against Iraqi forces Thursday night. An artillery raid designed to silence a battery of Iraqi artillery. The First Marine Division is spread out near the Kuwaiti-Saudi border. There is nothing but empty sand between them and the well dug in Iraqi army. The nerve center for the division, the spot where it is decided what the Marines will do next, is nothing more than a large tent crammed with radio gear and large maps. All of the military operations for the First Marine Division are controlled from here. That includes all artillery and tank support and it controls all air support for those ground operations. Thursday night's operation involved only a handful of the First Marine Division's military might and was conducted several miles from the combat operation center, several miles to the North.

MARINE: There were three things that happened early Friday morning, one very early in the morning. Four Iraqi soldiers crossed over the border and surrendered. We believe at least one of those was an Iraqi officer. Later on Friday morning, very early again, we conducted a battalion sized attack by firing artillery on a suspected Iraqi artillery position across the border. We believe those positions were hit. We don't have any definitive battle damage assessment on that yet. In addition, Friday morning, there were some air strikes run on a position that was firing on Marines, or attempting to fire, not very well, and we believe those positions were destroyed by Marine air as well.

MR. LEHRER: The U.S. Central Command said an Iraqi Scud missile was destroyed by a Patriot missile over Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last night. Debris fell on the city but there were no injuries. Marine Maj. Gen. Robert Johnston said allied forces destroyed a mobile Scud launcher last night. He said Iraq appears to be trying to repair some of the launchers, but he said the allies would hit them again. Military briefers also said 147 Iraqi planes have now fled to Iran, 13 in the last 24 hours. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: In Baghdad, allied bombs destroyed a major communications center today. British warplanes destroyed three more key Iraqi bridges in the past 24 hours. British commanders released pictures of one of those raids carried out by Buccaneer and Tornado jets. We have a report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

MR. AUSTIN: It's an aging warrior of the sky, but the RAF's Buccaneer is proving its worth in a high-tech war. Precision bombing is its business, guiding the Tornados' smart bombs to the target, at the moment, Iraq's bridges. This morning, one crew returned from a mission and explained their role.

PILOT: It's still a manual system and it depends on the navigator's ability to track it. Tornadoes are fine in company with the Buccaneer, I can't say exactly where, but basically once the pilot sees the target and puts his site on the bridge, the navigator who's looking through the television screen and the back seat then takes control of the laser designator pod. The bombs are already airborne, the laser's fired, and the bombs will then seek the spot.

MR. AUSTIN: This bridge was hit but only damaged a few days ago. Now it's destroyed. As the planes headed for home, the white specks raising across the picture were anti-aircraft fire.

SPOKESMAN: It's an immense team effort and it's nice to see when we get the end results, because there's a lot of ifs and buts going with us. If all the "ifs" come together, we'll take it out.

MR. MacNeil: The alleged Iraqi baby formula factory was back in the news today. The facility which the U.S. claims used biological weapons was destroyed two weeks ago by allied bombers. Iraq maintains that it was the only factory in the country that produced infant formula. Today the Baghdad government officially asked the United Nations to send a fact finding team to verify its claims.

MR. LEHRER: More than 900 Iraqi prisoners have been taken since the start of the war. Allied commanders in Saudi Arabia said 11 more gave themselves up in the last 24 hours. At this morning's briefing in Riyadh, a Saudi spokesman said he thought more Iraqi troops want to surrender but are afraid of being killed by Iraqi execution squads. The Red Cross has been refused access to allied prisoners of war in Iraq. A Red Cross official said in London today the refusal is in violation of Geneva Conventions. He said allied facilities holding Iraqi POWs in Saudi Arabia and in Britain have been visited and inspected.

MR. MacNeil: Pres. Bush said today that Jordan has chosen to side with Iraq in the war. He said they seemed to have moved over, way over, to Saddam Hussein's camp totally. Jordan's King Hussein harshly criticized the U.S. and its allies Wednesday for attacking Iraq. He called it a war against all Arabs and Muslims. The State Department announced late yesterday it was reviewing U.S. assistance to Jordan in light of the speech. The President spoke about the situation this afternoon during a photo opportunity with Argentina's foreign minister.

PRES. BUSH: There's concern now that there appears to be a shift in the Jordanian position and that we're concerned about it and would understand some of the rhetoric. We've always had a historically good relationship; this complicates things.

MR. MacNeil: Growing anti-American sentiment was evident on the streets of Jordan today. Large demonstrations took place in several Jordanian cities. We have a report narrated by Tom Browne of Worldwide Television News.

MR. BROWNE: Across the Middle East, Friday prayers is an occasion for people to vent their feelings and their frustrations. Jordan is no exception. After this service, hundreds of people marched out of the mosque in the latest anti-Western protests by worshippers who sympathize with Iraq. Feelings have been running high in Jordan since allied planes bombed Jordanian oil tankers in Iraq. At a separate rally by students, thousands of placard waving children carried their message to the United Nations offices in the capital. While some in the West have compared Saddam to Hitler, for these young Arabs, it was Pres. Bush who resembled the Nazi leader more closely. Jordan has grown more tense as it's economy has deteriorated. The country's international trade has been all but destroyed by the blockade against Iraq. Most of the blame has fallen on Washington, but not all of it. These lorries on their way to Saudi Arabia had to be given a police escort after an earlier convoy had been stoned. The reason, local people are angry because of the Saudi ban on Jordanian trucks entering its territory, part of the price King Hussein has paid for his support for Saddam.

MR. MacNeil: In Israel, government troops killed three Arab infiltrators in Jordan who ambushed two Israeli buses today. The bus attack took place in Israel's Southern desert about a mile from the Jordanian border. Police said the Arabs were on a suicide mission. Four people on the buses were slightly wounded by grenades. The infiltration was the second from Jordan since the start of the Gulf War. It came amid growing concern in Israel over Jordan's tilt toward Iraq.

MR. LEHRER: Oil in the Persian Gulf forced the closing of a water desalination plant on the Northern Saudi coast today. Saudi officials said it was done as a preventative measure before oil reached its intake valves. The spill threatened the plant, is the smaller of two in the Gulf, the larger spill remains about 40 miles from another and larger Saudi desalination plant.

MR. MacNeil: That's our summary of the news. Now assessments of bomb damage to Iraqi civilians and Gergen & Shields. FOCUS - IN HARM'S WAY

MR. MacNeil: We focus first tonight on a question that has cropped up repeatedly since the war began, how much damage to Iraqi civilians and their neighborhoods is being caused by the allied bombing campaign. While Iraq claims the damage has been extensive, many eye witnesses dispute that and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the allied commander, insists that pilots flying bombing missions are endangering their own lives in an effort to avoid civilian casualties.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, Commander, Allied Forces: We are absolutely doing more than we ever have, and I think any nation has, in the history of warfare to use our technology and I would point this out, and everybody should clearly understand this, we are probably endangering our pilots more than they would otherwise be endangered by following this course of action. This is something that hasn't been stated, but by requiring that the pilots fly in certain direction of flight or use a certain type ammunition that requires them to go to altitudes that they normally wouldn't be required to go to, those pilots are at much more risk than they would be otherwise. But we have deliberately decided to do this in order to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties, in order to avoid destroying these religious shrines and that sort of thing.

MR. MacNeil: Nevertheless, the videotape that Iraqi censors have permitted to leave the country has emphasized the destruction in areas that authorities claim are non-military, bombing in downtown Baghdad, missile wreckage in Babylon and Basra. Out of the rubble, the wounded, the dying, the dead.

GEN. PETER DE LA BILLIERE, Commander, British Forces: All I would say is this, that every effort has been made to avoid civilian casualties. We have used weapons wherever possible, precision weapons, and we particularly used those in areas where there are civilians nearby the targets. And you have to remember that a lot of these targets of nuclear centers, his development center, centers for loading up chemical weapons, are in civilian areas, and occasionally I'm afraid something has gone wrong, the bombs land in the wrong place, and undoubtedly, as we've seen in some of the press photographs from Baghdad, there have been casualties.

MR. MacNeil: The Iraqi government may be putting its citizens at even greater risk by moving anti-aircraft guns and other military equipment into civilian areas, as pilots returning from bombing missions told pool reporter Scott Pelley yesterday.

MR. PELLEY: Returning pilots are reporting military vehicles hiding in neighborhoods. Many believe these will make civilian casualties more likely.

LT. COL. DEWEY CLAWSON, U.S. Air Force: If you're going to drop bombs on a military target that's in the middle of the city, there's, obviously, there's going to be some collateral damage to the civilians. Everything that I've seen we'd do everything we can to avoid them.

MR. PELLEY: U.S. pilots are under orders to avoid civilians. More attacks are being broken off because of civilians near targets.

CAPT. TED LIMPERT, U.S. Air Force: We did go against some areas that looked to be civilian, but we didn't drop on 'em because we didn't see any military targets in the area, so we went back further South in Iraq and found some military targets.

CAPT. TOM SPRATT, U.S. Air Force: If that's the way he wants to play, I'm not going to roll in and bomb a housing area just because there's guns there.

MR. PELLEY: Some pilots here claim to be taking extra risks just to avoid civilians. In order to verify their target, a few say they are flying lower and slower. Others claim to be making one pass through anti-aircraft fire.

MR. MacNeil: The issue of civilian casualties came up again at a Pentagon briefing today.

LT. GEN. TOM KELLY, U.S. Army: What you're seeing coming out of Iraq, of course, is very closely controlled and I don't know what the situation is there because we don't have a free press in Iraq like we do other places. Having said that, is there a possibility that there have been civilian casualties? Yes, there is. We are doing everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. We've said that every single time we've been asked the question, but I think the briefer in Riyadh yesterday or the day before said war is a dirty business. And it is. And I've said before when a bullet comes out of a gun, it doesn't have any friends; it's going to hit whoever is in the region. But one thing I find personally extremely interesting is when we are broadcasting, you know, when one of the networks is broadcasting from Iraq and the sirens go off, that people continue to go about their business and they don't throw any great sense of urgency, which leads me to believe at least a little bit that we are working very hard to avoid civilian casualties and they know that.

REPORTER: Is there a problem with Iraq putting military targets or military facilities in civilian regions, or moving its Scud launchers or what not to intentionally try to undermine that ability and force civilian casualties?

LT. GEN. KELLY: We know there's some of that. It has not reached the point yet where we think that we have to go after targets that are in civilian facilities or religious facilities or archaeological facilities and there's a great deal of interest in that as well. Most of its strategic and tactical capability is still available to us in a target rich environment. It's interesting to note that no information of a military nature is authorized to be broadcast from Iraq, only information on civilian casualties and whether they're trumped up or not, I don't know. I know there's a possibility that there might have been collateral damage. That's what we refer to it as. We hope there has not been, but there can't be any guarantees.

MR. MacNeil: Meanwhile, Iraqi censors continued to approve reports like this today from Brent Sadler of Independent Television News. His report begins in the town of Nassaria, which the Iraqis say was hit by allied bombers on Tuesday.

MR. SADLER: The systematic destruction of Iraq's river links by allied bombing is aimed at cutting off Saddam Hussein's army in the South, a tactic which cannot fail to hurt the military and seriously affect ordinary life. Here is the proof that vital bridges lie in ruins. The Euphrates divides the provincial capital of Nassaria and its 1 million inhabitants. A shaky, one lane crossing built on floats is the only remaining way over the river. Nasar Bridge is used by civilians and military. It reportedly fell into three sections on Monday after a rocket and bomb attack. This is what happened nearby after a bomb missed the Baghdad to Basra expressway over the same river, extensive civilian damage. We were later taken to Nassaria's Saddam Hospital during another raid. Of all the hospitals I've seen so far, Nassaria's casualty room and wards were the bloodiest. Iraq consistently overplays civilians losses to those of the military. Indeed, we have never been given access to any army hospitals or even a military spokesman during any of these government organized tours. Nassaria is a five hour drive from Baghdad. Moving by night is the worst possible time. Last night, as every night this week, Baghdad was under attack. Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general and the voice of the American anti-war movement, has spent a week in Iraq.

RAMSEY CLARK, Former Attorney General: I'm a person who's seen a lot of damage. I went out to war, saw it right after the end of the war, and I saw shrines in Berlin in all those places. I'm not saying that the damage that was that extensive but within an area of three blocks, it looked like anything you saw in Europe in World War II, except the Warsaw ghetto where engineers went in and leveled it with dynamite.

MR. MacNeil: All these reports, of course, have been subject to Iraqi censorship. Today a group of Western journalists who had operated in Baghdad under the eye of Iraqi censors have left the country through Jordan. I spoke with two of them, Patrick Cockburn of the London Independent, and Antonia Rados of Austrian Television Network ORF this afternoon from Amman. Thank you both for joining us. Mr. Cockburn, from seeing the damage yourself in Iraq, how do you assess the casualties and the damage the bombing is causing civilians?

MR. COCKBURN: I think the number of civilians being killed and wounded is beginning to rise quite sharply now, now that the focus of the allied air attack is on the bridges and roads. Although these may have military use, they are primarily used by Iraqi civilians, and going around the hospitals, one could find a lot of people who are being hit on the roads or during this major bridge interdiction program.

MR. MacNeil: So you see a change from the first week or so of the bombing to this week, do you?

MR. COCKBURN: Yes. I think there is a shift. The first buildings suddenly we saw blow up in Baghdad were large public buildings, telecommunications towers. They're well away from civilians. Now they're hitting, for instance, the big Germaria Bridge over the Tigress, the type of things which are used by ordinary people in Baghdad to go to work or go to the market. And I think there's a definite change in emphasis.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Rados, how would you assess from what you've seen the damage that is being done by the bombing to civilians?

MS. RADOS: Well, you know, I have a slight different opinion. I agree with Patrick that of course hitting the bridges, and especially in the South, which we have not visited -- don't forget that the real fight is going on in the South of Iraq -- hitting the bridges and the streets will cause much more civilian than it did until now -- but on the other side, don't forget that there was heavy bombing for three weeks. They were moving troops South and sorties having been flown against Iraq and in comparison to this heavy bombing as a quantity and so that the civilian damage is quite low honestly. I think you have to put it in perspective. I give you some examples. We have been seeing seven Tomahawk missiles getting into Baghdad, and we could not see five of the targets; we were not allowed to see them, but we could see two of them, and there were civilian houses who have been hurt and in one place there has been a woman killed and in another place there was apparently nobody killed, if I remember correctly, but it was in a residential area and the damage was very big, but basically there was one woman killed there. Another thing the other night before we left, there was about one hour, one hour and a half of bombing at night and still the next day we wanted to see the victims and the minister of information brought us to see the civilian damage, we found one house with five people killed, which of course was awful, a family that has been killed, and a couple of houses damaged, but this was after one and a half hour of heavy bombing at night, so I agree that I don't know what will go on when the ground attack starts, and certainly there will be a lot of civilians hurt, but still I think things I have seen and the relation between military targets and the civilians, I think that the forces are very accurate bombing. I think it's in comparison to other wars quite accurate.

MR. COCKBURN: Oh, I just simply wouldn't agree if I could just come in on that.

MR. MacNeil: Sure.

MR. COCKBURN: I was in Southern Iraq three days ago in the city of Nassaria and they hit three of the four bridges in the town and one pedestrian bridge they hit, which was very crowded, because it was just the time people go to the market and come from the market, 47 people have been killed. They thought that more missing were in the river. There were 102 injured. I've interviewed a number of the survivors in hospital. I talked to eye witnesses, and there seemed no question that four big bombs had hit this bridge, bringing down a number of spans and given the way that the bridge had been shattered, I don't think many people could have survived what happened, so I think that in some cases there's a much higher level of casualties being inflicted than Antonia mentioned just now.

MR. MacNeil: Let me ask you each this, starting with you, Antonia, does the evidence that you've seen support the claims of the allied spokesman that they -- who continue to say that they are doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties?

MS. RADOS: Well, I think basically I have to say there is no warwhere you can avoid civilian casualties. This is one point. So saying something like that sounds quite stupid. Of course, war is very cruel, it's very tough, and the population is suffering. On the other side, comparing the situation in Iraq and don't forget that we have been more or less brought by the minister of information to all the civilian houses and casualties, we were not allowed to see the military damage there officially, but I think again in comparison to other wars, even if you don't like war, you have to say this is a different kind of war that is fought there, and there's another thing -- I think I talked to one man the other day and he said in a very critical way that he said there is practically no defense about -- in Baghdad. So the people are very afraid because they see the rockets and the missiles and the airplanes coming and there is nothing to protect them against it. But at the same time, going around in Baghdad, and after three weeks of bombing and all that, I have to say that I have the impression the civilian houses hit were quite low. I have to insist on that, and I think -- I agree that the moment you start to bomb bridges and the moment to start to bomb roads, it's a different thing. I can only say what we have seen.

MR. MacNeil: Patrick Cockburn, what is your answer to that question, from what you've seen, how well are the planes of the British and American and other allied spokesman and the pilots, that they're doing everything in their power to avoid hurting civilians?

MR. COCKBURN: Well, I think what Antonia is referring to is inside the earlier phase in the bombing program. I think that initially it was impressive the way that they were hitting major telecommunications and other headquarters in Baghdad. But over the last week or ten days, I think there's been a definite shift in the type of target they're going for and they're going for targets where civilians are much more likely to be armed, and certainly in the South, I think the casualty figure is now rising much faster than it did in the first two weeks of the war. I really would insist there has been a major change in the type of objective that they're going for.

MR. MacNeil: One would presume, Antonia Rados, that it being in Iraq's interest to show the maximum number of civilian casualties that they haven't been hiding any civilian casualties from you, you agree with that.

MS. RADOS: Yes, that's one of my points. I mean, one of my points is also that, for example, we have been seeing every day civilian casualties, but sometimes we have to travel three or four hundred kilometers to see them, so we were just wondering, some of my colleagues and me, why do we have to go so far if the Iraqi government says that the main targets are the civilians. The other thing is that I think that we have not seen really the damages done on the military installations. We have not been able to see really concrete damage on the military things. We have been walking and driving around in Baghdad, and we saw, of course, the communication centers hit, we saw certain ministries hit, which are considered, of course, military strategic targets. I think what is important is that you have to see Baghdad today as a town which is basically not destroyed. Baghdad is working, it's a town that has been decertified of people. A lot of people have gone away. And the biggest thing is that people are very afraid because the bombs are also a psychological terror that lies on the population. But it's certainly not a destroyed city and it is after three weeks of bombing, nightly bombing in Baghdad, so I am very cautious about, not having seen all the military damage, and having seen the city casualties, I'm afraid that it's very difficult to have the right balance and to say civilians are really hurt there. I think that there are much more military things hit until now.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have that same difficulty, Patrick?

MR. COCKBURN: I don't think we really disagree but I mean I still think that what Antonia's referring to is a slightly earlier period. What I've seen the last week or so is more strafing attacks on roads a couple of days ago; I met a shepherd who had been herding his sheep, with his son, they said that four planes had come over, the son had been wounded. That's how I met them, in hospital. Some of the sheep had been killed, other incidents on the road. This wasn't happening before and I think that this is a change. I would agree Baghdad is not in ruins. I don't think the city is deserted. In fact, I think in some way people are coming back into the city because they're having difficulty in the provincial cities they went to, but I think that it is getting more dangerous and even this morning on the road from Baghdad to Amman, you could see the number of road tankers that have been hit on the road and quite a number of civilian lorries that hadn't been hit a week ago. So I think that this change in emphasis is going to make life more dangerous for Iraqi civilians. And as more bridges are hit, then this is bound to produce significant civilian casualties.

MR. MacNeil: I also asked about the possible damage to Iraq's famous archaeological sites. We'll go back to the reporters after Kwame Holman backgrounds the relics of ancient civilizations with the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Robert McCormack Adams.

MR. HOLMAN: Archaeological sites abound here in Iraq. It is the land of ancient Mesopotamia, the so-called "cradle of civilization", and there is concern that its invaluable historical legacy cannot escape damage from even the most precise bombing.

ROBERT ADAMS, Smithsonian Institution: You're talking about a landscape which has been densely occupied by civilizations succeeding one another over more than 5,000 years. And to the point where there are very large regions in Iraq where there's no way in which you could drop a bomb and not hit an archaeological site.

MR. HOLMAN: Archaeologists like Robert McCormack Adams point to collections in the renowned Iraq Museum as an example. The museum houses what's been called the world's most important collection of antiquities from Mesopotamian civilizations dating back thousands of years. The museum is located in Baghdad, between a railroad station and a television tower, both obvious bombing targets.

MR. ADAMS: The single point of the greatest potential destruction is of course the museum. In addition to the objects in the museum, there are hundreds of thousands of texts, of clay tablets that haven't yet been read and that are, have come out of a century of explanations, and the loss of that would be absolutely indescribable, as far as I'm concerned.

MR. HOLMAN: During Adam's archaeological career, he walked or rode over most of Iraq, mapping ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. Adams says when he thinks of the bombing of Iraq, his first concern is for the people he's known over four decades. He also worries about what will happen to the land.

MR. ADAMS: The whole surface is just composed of the remains of these past civilizations. Is that value? It certainly is for me. It certainly is for the continuous record of human achievement that goes on through time, because a lot of it came out of here. There are a lot of major discoveries in mathematics and early science and philosophy and so on, a lot of the sort of groping for a meaning in human life, and I really do believe that it -- that a sense of that lying behind them or lying under their feet is partly where these Iraqis are going to be tough to deal with. It's pride there. It's a sense of who they are or ought to be.

MR. HOLMAN: That pride, Adams says, is born of the Iraqis' knowledge they are descended from civilizations such as the Samarians and the Acadians who peopled Iraq some 5,000 years ago. Adams calls such periods moments in time.

MR. ADAMS: The first and most extraordinary moment, although it was a moment that certainly lasted for some centuries and perhaps even for more than a millennium, was the one in which cities got going and institutions like kingship and all of the other things that you might imagine going with that, hierarchies of officials, and perhaps the central institution being writing, the development of writing, all that goes on through most of the third millennium, and it's no accident then that you find early in the second millennium Hamrabi and his code of laws as one of the later manifestations of that same kind of intellectual and I guess one could say cultural leadership.

MR. HOLMAN: For Adams, the second most important period began in the 8th Century AD when the Abosid Kalifat, a powerful Islamic dynasty, controlled most of the non-European world.

MR. ADAMS: Muslim armies had swept all across North Africa and into Spain, in the other direction, and into Afghanistan and the central Asiatic part of what is now the Soviet Union, and the capital of that great extraordinary empire for a period of time was Baghdad, and this is the Baghdad of Herulo Rashid and the Thousand and One Knights and so on. But it was a time again of extraordinary cultural fluorescence with the collection and systematization of a good part of Greek learning, and it was then later transmitted by way of Spain on to the European renaissance.

MR. HOLMAN: But Adams says that the ancient is today dangerously intertwined with modern military targets of the allied air campaign. He knows that a chemical weapons plant was built near the site of the ancient Islamic City of Samarra.

MR. ADAMS: The destruction of the great mosque in Samarra would be a loss to world culture of extraordinary proportions, the Arch of Tessafon. There are individual standing rooms that clearly would be a loss if they happened to be bombed by accident.

MR. HOLMAN: The 12th Century Abbasid Palace, perhaps Baghdad's most precious monument, lies next to the Iraq defense ministry, which was bombed aggressively by the allies. Mosul is the site of Nineveh, the 8th century BC capital of Assyria and the center of the civilized world at the time. It is also home to a major air base and chemical weapons plant bombed by the allies.

MR. ADAMS: The fact that you can guide a bomb down an air shaft doesn't mean that all bombs get guided down air shafts, and it's only after the wars are over that you discover what the destruction, the collateral destruction has really been. I hope they're as good as they say they are. I have no way of knowing.

MR. MacNeil: I asked Antonia Rados and Patrick Cockburn if they had seen or heard of any bombing damage to any of the famous archaeological sites in Iraq.

MS. RADOS: Well, I have not seen the Baghdad museum damaged. I have not been there, so I cannot tell you about that. What I have seen is the mosque that is damaged. I can see that the dome of the mosque has been hit. Again, I'm afraid that you should try to correct your image of the city. Baghdad is not destroyed. There are certain things Patrick knows more about the damage of the museums and all that but it is not a town that is in ruins. It's not like the second world war, and life still goes on, and I have not seen in the other cities -- I have seen, for example, in a town called Divinia in the South, where we have been visiting there, I have seen the old part of the town destroyed in the center, the bazaar for the Arab cultures they import, it has been destroyed. I have not seen other big damages that I can talk about at the moment.

MR. MacNeil: Patrick Cockburn, do you know anything about damage to any of the archaeological sites or the museums?

MR. COCKBURN: I went to look at the museum. I couldn't see where the bomb damage was. So if it was hit, I don't think the damage was significant. Certainly, it wasn't on the front or side walls, and I couldn't see any shrapnel, even if you could see the heart of the explosion. I don't think that the significant, most significant archaeological artifacts are still in Baghdad Museum, because it's been closed since the beginning of the crisis. Other museums in Baghdad were open after August 2nd. They closed the main Baghdad museum that has the most famous archaeological treasures early on, and I was told that they were keeping those treasures in deep vaults, so I doubt if anything has been damaged or destroyed.

MR. MacNeil: Has anybody you've talked to said that anything had happened to the great mosque at Samarra, for example, or the ruins of Nineveh near Mosul, or any of those famous areas?

MR. COCKBURN: Nobody has told me that, and I think that if that had happened, the Iraqi government would certainly have heavily publicized it, so I'd be very doubtful if that's occurred.

MR. MacNeil: Can I just ask each of you, give me, starting with you, Antonia, give me your assessment of the way the civilians you talked to in Baghdad feel about this and what do they understand is the purpose of the coalition bombing?

MS. RADOS: Well, you know, the Iraqi society is a very close society, as you know. It's very, very difficult to make an assessment in the moment and say this is a general opinion. There are different opinions. Of course, when you talk to people after a bombing of the city targets, people will be very upset and will ask you why are you doing all that, and they're angry at that, but we never have been really attacked or aggressed by any Iraqi people and for example, in comparison to the Jordanian situation, where people are openly pro-Saddam Hussein, I have not found a demonstration of joy or support for Saddam Hussein open. That's only because the city is in a war and there's no reason to have a lot of joy. On the other side, I have the impression that some people start to talk a little bit opener. I don't say that they are representative, because I at least have not entered this inner circle of power in Iraq. It's very difficult to know what is going on, because the communication is destroyed. There is only one newspaper in Baghdad. We don't know how the flow of information goes from the top to below, to the people. There are some people who are very worried what will come after the war and I had the general impression that people are waiting. Nobody is openly anti- Saddam Hussein. Nobody is really in the mood to have a lot of demonstrations for the President, so I have the impression everybody is waiting and seeing what is going to happen and keeping quiet.

MR. MacNeil: What is your impression, Patrick Cockburn?

MR. COCKBURN: I think the opinion is sharply divided. I think that you have, particularly maybe among intellectuals and middle class people, a sense that this, the invasion of Kuwait was an adventure started by the president, that it's an adventure which has not gone well, that the infrastructure of the country is being destroyed, and that they're engaged in a hopeless struggle. But you talk to many other people who feel they have a fatalistic attitude, they feel they're involved in a war, they say Kuwait is no longer the issue, it's the future of Iraq, it's the future of what happens here, and we'll fight. So I think there's a real divergence of opinion within Iraq, and there's not a single public opinion which one can identify at the moment.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Patrick Cockburn and Antonia Rados, thank you both very much for joining us. FOCUS - GERGEN & SHIELDS

MR. LEHRER: Now to Gergen & Shields, our regular analysis team. David Gergen is editor at large of U.S. News & World Report. Mark Shields is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. And he joins us from Raleigh, North Carolina, tonight. First, gentlemen, just coming off of what we have just been watching, there is a Washington story today involving Peter Arnett of CNN, who is the reporter still in Baghdad, he was there by himself for a long time, Alan Simpson, Mark, the Senate Minority Leader, Republican, called his reporting repulsive and said, "Here is a man who is reporting from a country in which we are at war, the same people who are trying to kill our young men and women." What do you think about that?

MR. SHIELDS: I think what he said was reprehensible. What Alan Simpson said was reprehensible. I like Alan Simpson. I think he's a superb legislator like most people in Washington have covered him, I enjoy his company, enjoy his humor, admire his legislative skills. What he said about Peter Arnett was reprehensible. He suggested that Peter Arnett's former wife's brother had something to do with the Vietcong, an allegation that he has, according to Sen. Simpson from some 30 years back, that he learned last week for the first time. I mean, this is just the most pernicious and worst form of McCarthyism, and I think Alan Simpson owes Peter Arnett an apology. Peter Arnett as a journalist takes a back seat to nobody. He is uniformly respected. He won a Pulitzer for his coverage of Vietnam. The Washington Post tried to hire him. The New York Times tried to hire him. Maybe that's a black mark on his record, but he is respected. He has the respect of his peers. Every time he comes on, CNN flags it, he says it, this is an Iraqi approved report, as are the other reports out of the war zones. They are, in fact, approved by the censors of those countries.

MR. LEHRER: But David, what about an overriding issue about whether or not the press as an institution, that includes the three of us, as well as everybody else, whether our role in covering something like this has been properly explained, why a Peter Arnett or those two reporters that Robin just talked to, why they would want to go to Baghdad, why they would report from Baghdad in the heart of the enemy's country, et cetera.

MR. GERGEN: That's an interesting question. I've thought a lot about whether we should have explained our role better than we have. Clearly, while I agree with Mark, I thought Alan Simpson's comments about Peter Arnett were below the belt, an attack which was totally unjustified. There are a lot of people out in the country who feel the way Alan Simpson does. Indeed, a more polite expression of the same thing came in the New York Times column today from Abe Rosenthal, who took CNN to task for not editing what Peter Arnett was putting on the air. It was a pretty strong attack, actually, for Mr. Rosenthal, so there are a lot of people out there, and the radio talk shows around the country, I was on some this weekend, and a lot of chatter about how strongly people feel about it, but I think the country does not fully appreciate the fact that in our society information and understanding is what we live by and it's the way we should understand the world. It's, of course, it's not disloyal to the troops to understand what's happening on the other side. I imagine a lot of our troops would like to know that. I think we in journalism sometimes need to perhaps, as your question suggests, Jim, ought to make it clear, you know, American truth is sort of the essence of what our society is all about, and the understanding of what is the way the world works. It's the only way we're going to make ourselves a better society. I happen to think that Peter Arnett is contributing to that. I thought that conversation that Robin just had with Antonia Rados and Patrick Cockburn was one of the most fascinating insights I had into the war since the whole thing started of what's happening on the other side.

MR. LEHRER: But Mark, how do you feel about this question of whether or not -- if you were still in the Marine Corps and you were in on the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, would you want the people back home getting propaganda from the enemy?

MR. SHIELDS I think, Jim, that I have enough confidence in the people back home that they can make a judgment. They see it as it comes through. You know, it's truth in packaging. I mean, there's no question that we're not going to see the Iraqi armaments, they're not going to show that to us, any more than we're going to tell the Iraqis where those Scud missiles are landing in Israel that aren't hitting downtown Tel Aviv as they had hoped they would. That's understood, but I agree with David. I think David said it better than I could and that's the first time I've ever said that on this broadcast. But he really did. I think it is the truth. I think Peter Arnett is performing not only an international service. I think he's performing a service for this country and that's what this country is about.

MR. LEHRER: But David is also right, would you not agree, Mark? There's an awful lot of people in this country who do not understand that. In other words, we stood here and we all nod and agree with each other, however, there may be a lot of people watching there tonight who are going like this instead of like this.

MR. GERGEN: Well, I had experience when I was on a radio talk this week of being called a banana peel.

MR. SHIELDS Banana peel.

MR. LEHRER: I'm going to ask you a follow up on that.

MR. GERGEN: Could I add one thing to the talk show, Jim?

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. GERGEN: It seems to me from Saddam Hussein's point of view, when you call this propaganda, I have never seen a propaganda campaign that has backfired as badly as this one has. Every time this fellow has tried to do something since the time he went into Kuwait he has alarmed people and the Saudis, he goes out and with these human shields and pats these little kids on the head and shows how kind he is and we all conclude he's a monster. Everything he has done is done to draw us and I think that (a) it's backfired on him, if he thought it was going to work, and secondly, just as Antonia Rados said tonight on your show, you know, I think the big story out of Iraq is, despite all this bombing, we've had now these sorties, we have more than one plane every minute has gone out, more than one a minute since this war started. Three weeks ago we got more than one a minute, and yet, we have so few civilian casualties. I think it's a tribute to the fact that our military really is trying to conduct a very intelligent I think war and also trying to minimize civilian casualties.

MR. LEHRER: That brings us to the next big question, of course, this week, which is the ground war. The ground war is coming, the ground war is coming, and in a couple of days, in the last 24 hours, I said, hey, wait a minute, we're not quite ready yet. It may be two or three weeks or whatever. Do you have a read on that, David?

MR. GERGEN: Well, my reading is it's coming, but --

MR. LEHRER: Sooner rather than later?

MR. GERGEN: Sooner rather than later. I think possibly as early as next week, more likely a little later than that, but within the next month to three weeks, but I would also suggest him -- Dick Cheney on his way to Saudi Arabia today said something very revealing which is consistent with what I've been picking up this week from other sources, and that is we may be mislabeling this as a coming ground war, that what we are looking at more likely is an extension of the air war in which ground and perhaps amphibious components will be added in. Our ground forces will go into Iraq, will go into possibly Kuwait, but they're going to rely very heavily on continued bombing every time the Iraqis come out to fight, and that's what we hope we'll do, is our air force is really going to take them out.

MR. LEHRER: But not a huge invasion kind of thing.

MR. GERGEN: Right.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, do you think the American people are ready for a ground war, have been prepared for a ground war by the President and our military leaders?

MR. SHIELDS Well, I don't think that our experience of the first three and a half weeks, just as David described it, really the remarkable small number of casualties on our side and a collateral damage I guess as we call it, the military always comes up with euphemisms for casualties on the other side in our bombing, but it really has, I think by most accounts been remarkably low, lower than certainly would be expected from that kind of volume of engagement. I don't think we are ready if, in fact, it is a ground war that would come to expect going ahead a couple of months at a time and sustaining casualties and he being willing to expend his own troops to achieve a victory by at least inflicting upon us casualties, I don't think we're ready for that. I don't think that the United States is. David, I believe David has information or insights that suggest that it will not be the traditional ground war, and that the casualties will not be as great, but I don't think we are. I think this has been a war, quite frankly, that has asked 500,000 Americans and their loved ones and their families virtually everything, the ultimate, and the rest of us it's asked nothing except perhaps to listen to Mr. Rogers and understand how to be sensitive and caring about explaining the war to the children at home. But it hasn't been a sense of involvement that we're all in this together. What I think is most revealing to me is that the military has been consistent, or the military leadership has been the most reluctant to first of all go to an engagement, unlike Vietnam, there haven't been rosy scenarios emanating from the brass, and they condemn their troops or people with faces, not to say the politicians, they aren't, but it's a little bit different. You look at these guys and women every day. There is a great reluctance to take unnecessary chances.

MR. LEHRER: But, David, what about Sec. of State Baker's appearances this week before the House Committees and the Senate Committees? He kept saying hey, the worst is yet to come, there's going to be heavy casualties still to come. Is that part of it?

MR. GERGEN: I think it is, and I think that Jim Baker, who likes to love all, he likes to make expectations perhaps, you know, some people think the worst is coming, they'll get by with less, I think that's sort of his stock and trade, one way he approaches it, and I think that's what he's trying to do. There is no question the number of casualties is going to go up. You know, so far as I understand it, we've only had five confirmed Americans killed by the enemy. That's quite low. We've got some missing in action; we've got some people killed by friendly fire, but the number of casualties, as we all know, is low. That's clearly going to go up, and there is clearly a concern that he's going to do some nasty things to us, he may pull some nasty surprises, a chemical attack, other things he might have up his sleeve, but Jim, what I was trying to get at was the idea when you all say ground war, we sort of have this sense in our minds of two great armies facing each other, cross a divide and coming together and locking horns.

MR. LEHRER: Big desert war.

MR. GERGEN: Big desert war. And that is not my sense of what's anticipated at this point inside the administration and inside Congress. It is more of a perhaps flanking movement, one in which we don't go straight up and perhaps go around, but we bring in ferocious, massive air attack on them every time they move.

MR. LEHRER: Mark, you know, I asked you the question and I realized, what am I talking about when I say, preparing the American people for a ground war, what is that can be done, other than to say hey, we may have a ground war and there may be thousands of people that die, what else can be done?

MR. SHIELDS Well, I think that certainly, Jim, what could be done is to prepare us in the sense of -- a sense of shared sacrifice.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. SHIELDS None of which has been prepared yet. I mean, in other words, this has been a war very much on the cheap so far. It's been a war where we have seen these marvelous bombs that do go in and out the chimney and we have been spared -- we're three and a half weeks into this war and we have yet to see the first Life Magazine type photo of a dead American, you know, that we grew up with in World War II.

MR. LEHRER: But, David, that was exactly what the administration wanted. I mean, this is exactly the --

MR. GERGEN: That's right.

MR. LEHRER: -- war that they wanted. They wanted a war that was not -- I mean, that's what the President said, we're going to get in there quickly, we're going to get out quickly and as cleanly as possible.

MR. GERGEN: I think they are very much going according to schedule. I think that's what the President has been talking about. I think he anticipated an air war of a few weeks duration. It may be extended now because of the Scud problem and a couple of other things we've had to go after. But, nonetheless, I think the whole anticipation right in the beginning was we'll try to do it through the Air Force and if that doesn't work, then we're going to have this combination attacks, which is still going to rely heavily upon air power and see if that works. Of course, you know, there is the hope, continuing hope, Jim, and there is some evidence of it now that there are a number of people on the Iraqi side who would like to desert if they're given the opportunity, if they have a path to safety. Now the hope is of course that will happen, but I'm not sure, to take Mark's point, I think the Cheney trip and the Baker speech -- or Baker's testimony this week is beginning to lay the ground work for preparing the country for war.

MR. LEHRER: All right. We have to leave it there, gentlemen. Thank you both very much. See you next week. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, recapping the top stories of this Friday, Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell arrived in Saudi Arabia. They will confer with local commanders on when to proceed with a ground offensive. Britain's defense secretary said a ground war will not begin until at least 50 percent of Iraq's forces are neutralized. He said the allies had knocked out about 15 to 20 percent of Iraq's fighting capability so far. And Pres. Bush accused Jordan's King Hussein of aligning his country with Iraq. He said the king was complicating U.S.-Jordanian relations. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you on most public television stations with our special Saturday night edition and then again on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.