The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, a summary of the news; administration leaders talk about attacking Iraq, four newspaper opinion writers react to the talk; Ray Suarez profiles the new President of Colombia; Margaret Warner surveys the lay of the primaries land; and essayist Anne Taylor Fleming ponders the future of Los Angeles.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush promised today to be cautious about any military action against Saddam Hussein. He did not refer to Iraq by name. Instead, he spoke of countries that develop weapons of mass destruction, with leaders who poison their own people. He told an audience in Madison, Mississippi, the United States must act, but with great care.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I promise you that I will be patient and deliberate, that we will continue to consult with Congress, and of course we'll consult with our friends and allies. And I will explore all options and all tools at my disposal: Diplomacy, international pressure, perhaps the military. But it's important for my fellow citizens to know that as we see threats evolving, we will deal with them.

JIM LEHRER: And in California today, Vice President Cheney voiced doubts the Iraq problem could be resolved, even if the United Nations resumes weapons inspections there. We'll have more on the Iraq story in just a moment. The new President of Colombia took office today as explosions rocked the capital city, Bogot . Three huge blasts shook the area near the parliament building just minutes before Alvaro Uribe was sworn in. At least 12 people were killed. Security had been tight to prevent Marxist guerrillas from trying to kill Uribe. He's promised to crack down on the rebels. We'll have more on this later in the program. The International Monetary Fund signed a deal with brazil today worth $30 billion. It's the largest bailout in the history of the IMF, and it's designed to contain a spreading economic crisis in South America. The new loans will help Brazil meet its foreign debt obligations. In Afghanistan today, gunmen attacked an Afghan army post on the outskirts of Kabul. 16 people were killed, including 12 guerrillas, three Afghan soldiers, and a civilian. It was the worst incident in Kabul since the Taliban's defeat last year. Also today, near the town of Khost, a U.S. Special Forces soldier was wounded in the chest. No other details were available. Israeli soldiers killed six Palestinians in separate raids today. Israeli officials said at least two were leaders in militant groups. Amid the raids, the Palestinian cabinet tentatively approved an Israeli offer to withdraw from parts of the west bank and Gaza. A Palestinian delegation flew to Washington for talks later this week. Vice President Cheney today defended his association with Halliburton Company. He was CEO of the oilfield equipment firm from 1995 to 2000. Its accounting practices are now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In California, Cheney called Halliburton a fine company, and he said he was pleased to have been part of it, but he would not discuss the investigation.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: I am of necessity restrained in terms of what I can say about that matter because there are editorial writers all over America poised to put pen to paper and condemn me for exercising undue, improper influence if I say too much about it since this is a matter pending before independent regulatory agency, the SEC.

JIM LEHRER: Cheney said the facts of the case are available on the Halliburton web site. At one point, he was heckled by a protester who shouted, "corporate crook!" Samuel Waksal, the former CEO of Imclone Systems, has been indicted in an insider trading case. A federal prosecutor in New York said today the charges included bank fraud, perjury, and obstruction of justice. Waksal was arrested in June. He allegedly tipped off family members to sell their company stock late last year, just before the price sank. On Wall Street today, stocks had an up and down day, ending with a late afternoon rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 182 points, or 2%, to close at 8456. The NASDAQ was up 21 points, nearly 2%, at 1280. The senior member of the United States House of Representatives has survived a major hurdle to reelection. Democrat John Dingell of Michigan defeated fellow house incumbent Lynn Rivers in Tuesday's primary. Redistricting had left them running for the same seat. Also in Michigan, Attorney General Jennifer Granholm won the Democratic gubernatorial primary. She's the first woman ever nominated for governor in the state. We'll have more on the primaries later in the program. Also coming, attacking Iraq talk and a debate about it, the new President of Colombia, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay.

FOCUS THREAT AND RESPONSE

JIM LEHRER: Now, the administration talk today about attacking Iraq, and some reaction to it. Terence Smith reports.

TERENCE SMITH: Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, said Iraq's leader Saddam Hussein posed enough of threat to justify an attack.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: What we know now from various sources is that he has continued to improve, if you can put it in those terms, the capabilities of his chemical and biological agents, and he continues to pursue a nuclear weapon. He sits on top of 10% of the world's oil reserves. He has enormous wealth being generated by that. And left to his own devices, it's the judgment of many of us that in the not to distant future he will acquire nuclear weapons. And a nuclear armed Saddam Hussein is not a pleasant prospect, I don't think, for anyone in the region or anyone in the world, for that matter. Sooner or later the international community is going to have to deal with that. But again, I think it's important for us to remember that the transgressor here, the one who's not complied with the UN Security Council resolutions and has not lived up to the commitments that were undertaken at the end of the Gulf War is Saddam Hussein. And I think the burden ought to be on him to prove that he is in fact in compliance. And I'm not sure at all that that's likely to happen, so the international community will have to come together in some fashion and figure out how we're going to deal with this growing threat to the peace and stability of the region, and obviously, potentially even the United States itself.

TERENCE SMITH: The Vice President said international weapons inspections alone were not sufficient to deal with the Iraqi threat.

REPORTER: If Iraq agrees to international weapons inspections, would we call off the war, would we not move forward in that effort?

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Well, let me emphasize that the President has not made a decision at this point to go to war. We're looking at all of our options. It would be irresponsible for us not to do that. But the issue here isn't inspectors; that's a secondary item, if you will. The issue is the fact that he's required to dispose of his weapons of mass destruction, and the inspectors are merely the device by which the international community can assure itself that he's done so. So many of us I think are skeptical that simply returning the inspectors will solve the problem.

TERENCE SMITH: But if the U.S. does launch strikes on Iraq, one ally in the region apparently won't cooperate. In an interview with the associated press, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud said, "We have told them we don't want them to use Saudi grounds" for any attack on Iraq. That would seem to rule out the use of Saudi air fields. Today at a Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked about the Saudi position.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I have not seen the comments. I have been told that such a statement was made. You asked what my reaction is. The President has not proposed such a thing. Therefore, I don't find it really something that has been engaged as such. We have had a long, close relationship with Saudi Arabia. We have a good number of troops stationed there. We have an ongoing political and economic and military-to- military relationship which is constructive and helpful to both countries-- has been for a long time.

TERENCE SMITH: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers was asked about a "Washington Times" article which reported the chiefs had reached a consensus to use military means to oust the Iraqi leader.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: From where I sit and the people that I talk to on a daily basis, meaning the Joint Chiefs of Staff, other senior military officials, the things that are said and portrayed in the article simply aren't said or said to me; they are not accurate portrayals of what I see on a daily basis and what I hear. And beyond that, the kind of advice that the military provides to Secretary Rumsfeld and the President and the rest of the National Security Council is certainly privileged communications, and I'm not going to share that with you here.

TERENCE SMITH: Meanwhile, in Baghdad, in an emergency session of the Iraqi parliament, legislators vowed to stand as one united army against a potential U.S. strike.

SADOUN HAMADI, Assembly Speaker, Iraqi Parliament (Translated): The Iraqi people are not frightened by the United States' evil threats, which are doomed to failure. Our spirits and capabilities are high and the enemy will bear the consequences of this aggression.

TERENCE SMITH: Saddam Hussein will address the Iraqi people on national television tomorrow.

TERENCE SMITH: To further discuss potential regime change in Iraq, we're joined by Trudy Rubin, columnist for the "Philadelphia Inquirer"; John Diaz, the editorial page editor of the "San Francisco Chronicle"; Jay Bookman, columnist and deputy editorial page editor for the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution"; and Joseph Perkins, a columnist for the "San Diego Union-Tribune."

Joseph Perkins, let me begin with you. You've just heard the President, the Vice President, others making the case. Have they persuaded you that it's necessary for the United States to intervene militarily to displace Saddam Hussein?

JOSEPH PERKINS: I've been persuaded for sometime now. So they don't need to persuade me. They need to persuade the masses of the American people. Let me say this. The polls show that a majority of Americans fully appreciate the threat that Saddam Hussein represents and are supportive of military action to oust his regime in Baghdad.

TERENCE SMITH: Jay Bookman, what's your view? Is it necessary ton the thing for the United States to do?

JAY BOOKMAN: I don't think it's necessary at this moment based on what we know. It's always possible that more information will come out. But as of today, no, it is not necessary. It would probably cause us more problems than it would cure.

TERENCE SMITH: What sort of problems?

JAY BOOKMAN: What would happen in... I mean the Saudis today came out and said that we can't use their territory. Jordan has come out against it. Turkey has come out against it. They are fearful of what the reaction will be in a very fragile, unstable part of the world. I trust their judgment. They know what's going on there.

TERENCE SMITH: Trudy Rubin, what's your view particularly when you hear the arguments as outlined by Vice President Cheney?

TRUDY RUBIN: I think there's a long way to go in making the case for this. Let me start by saying, having spent a lot of time in Iraq, including right up until the bombings started, having come back afterwards and seen what Saddam did to his own people, I would be delighted, as would most of the world, to see him gone. But what I find unsettling is the way the administration has gone about leaking, hinting and dropping bits of information. This is not just your usual war. When the Gulf War occurred, people knew why America had to fight. Kuwait had been invaded. This was a reckless act by a reckless man. In Afghanistan, I think most Americans understood it instantly. We had been attacked on our soil and Afghanistan was harboring the criminals. This time, Saddam, yes, is making weapons of mass destruction but we don't have the direct connection with terrorism. This is a new kind of war, a preventive war. For that reason, I think the United States has to very carefully explain to the American people why this is necessary, which I don't think it has done fully, and then what the costs are. I think that that part the American public is still very much unaware of.

TERENCE SMITH: John Diaz has the threshold been reached in your opinion? Is it justified and necessary for the United States at this point?

JOHN DIAZ: Terry, I don't think the administration has made the case. There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant, that he's a source of instability in the Middle East and potentially a threat to other nations. But there's a big distinction between being an actual threat and a potential threat. Historically this country has really found war justified only when either we've been attacked or we can see an imminent threat to the country. That may be the case in Iraq, but the administration has not made it at this point. They've not been able to establish that there's any connection between Iraq and 9/11, and they certainly have not shown that these weapons of mass destruction are really at this point an imminent threat to the United States. In fact, we had General Myers before our editorial board last week, and he talked about we know that Saddam possesses some chemical and biological weapons and has interest in nuclear weapons, but there is a big difference between having some of those weapons and having the capability to really pose a threat to our country or some of our allies.

TERENCE SMITH: Joseph Perkins, what if the United States has to do this alone or largely alone without the support of allies or others in the region? Would you still support it?

JOSEPH PERKINS: Well, I've heard those fears expressed. Let me say this. You know, I hear these recriminations about attacking Iraq. I would pose it this way. I believe that Saddam Hussein today represents as much a threat as Osama bin Laden did on September 10. And we can either meet that threat now or we can meet it later. Let me say also, I do believe that the administration has to make the case to the American people. We want to bring along our European allies including France, which has seven succor to our enemy in Iraq, and also our Arab allies. One thing that we have found in previous military actions is that victory is the mother of all... alliances and I believe that the Arab world as well as ourEuropean allies will fall into line once it becomes obvious that we mean to meet the threat that Saddam Hussein poses to the stability of the Gulf region and to the people of the United States.

TERENCE SMITH: Jay Bookman, what about that? Do you think the others will fall into line as Joseph Perkins suggests?

JAY BOOKMAN: No, I don't. The only nation that has... the only major nation that has expressed any support for us is Britain. Even there Tony Blair's Labor Party is very nervous about that so I'm not sure even we can count on British support. If you look back during the Gulf war we had Saudi Arabia and Japan funded much of that battle, much of that war. We had active bases all... nations surrounding Iraq. None of that is true this time. If we do this, we are doing it alone. It's interesting that we cite the United Nations' resolutions as a reason Iraq's failure to abide by them is a reason to invade. The United Nations is against our taking military action in this. So on one hand while we cite that as a reason for going in, on the other hand we choose to ignore it if we do decide to invade.

TERENCE SMITH: Trudy Rubin, should that be a pre-condition, the support of either important allies or the United Nations?

TRUDY RUBIN: I think that the United States should be doing more to try to get allies on board instead of assuming that once the decision is made they're going to clamor on board. For example, the issue of Saudi Arabia. Saudi air space is incredibly important. Now Prince Faisal said that ground bases wouldn't be available but I know that military people are very worried about not having air space and they're worried about the... not having all bases available in the Middle East for this kind of war. Now, one of the issues involved here is whether you let the Israeli-Palestinian conflict go on as is and handle or try to handle Iraq first. I think the administration could have done a lot more, taken a much more active role to try to get some peace talks going simultaneously with being very harsh on the issue of Palestinian terrorism. But they have taken a different track. And I think that will create real problems if we go forward with the Iraq war. I also think that there's even a remote possibility we could get a Security Council resolution endorsing some kind of military action for Saddam's having failed to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. But then we would have to be cultivating allies especially Russia in a way that I'm not sure we're willing to do.

TERENCE SMITH: John Diaz, is that necessary, some sort of international expression of support?

JOHN DIAZ: Well, that was essential to the success in the Gulf War, and I think not only do we need to get support of allies but I think consent of Congress is important here too because we have to be very clear eyed about how we're going to define victory in this war with Iraq. Regime change may be a reason for going in but that is not necessarily going to mark the end of the war when the opposition rushes in to Saddam's palace or palaces and takes over the country. This is a country that is very factionalized, that is much more complicated to govern than Afghanistan, and I dare say that if we do go to war with Iraq, the long-term solution is going to involve a word that President Bush did not much like to use during the 2000 campaign, and that's "nation building.

TERENCE SMITH: Joseph Perkins, if this becomes a situation in which the United States takes a pre-emptive strike, in other words, to effect a regime change, it moves first, and does so militarily in another country, would that give you any pause?

JOSEPH PERKINS: No, it would not. No, it would not. I think that we need to do it. I share the reservations that the other panelists do about what happens after we effect a regime change. I think that was one of the failings of the Gulf War, and that is that after the war was concluded we did not march into Baghdad and replace Saddam Hussein and our Arab allies are, I think, understandably wary that once we have supplanted Saddam that we won't be around for the clean-up. That's some of the fears expressed in Afghanistan, but I think that this administration recognizes that and I think that they have taken that into account in terms of the overall plan towards Iraq. I mean, we want a different regime in Baghdad and we want... I mean, I believe Iraq could become a model of the Middle East. It was before Saddam Hussein became the dictator. And I believe it could become the first truly Democratic republic in that region of the world. I think that a lot of Arab states would like to see or at least a lot of citizens of Arab states would like to see that regime or that government move in that direction.

TERENCE SMITH: Jay Bookman, that would sound something like nation building.

JAY BOOKMAN: Yes, it would.

TERENCE SMITH: A phrase that this administration did not support. When you think about that and you think about the possibility of having to occupy and in effect rebuild the country, what do you think about that?

JAY BOOKMAN: I think that's a incredibly difficult proposition. We would be there for years with thousands of soldiers. The expense would be great. The exposure of our troops to terrorism, all kinds of attacks, guerilla attacks, would be extreme. Mr. Perkins mentions Iraq as a model. I think it's important to note that what's happening in the world right now is we are coming to grips, I think, for the first time with the idea that we are an empire, that America is unchallenged in any sphere of influence in the world. What we are in the process of defining is how we govern that empire as a nation, and I think it's... if we engage in a cold-blooded invasion of another country, unprovoked, that... it will set a model for how we act as an empire in the future. So I think there's a lot here at stake, not just the fate of Saddam Hussein and Iraq in this particular thing. We are deciding what kind of nation we are and how we're going to rule this empire that has come to us.

TERENCE SMITH: Trudy Rubin, you talked about the need for the administration to make its case to the American people. What about Congress? Should that be a pre-condition to get the specific approval of Congress?

TRUDY RUBIN: I think it should be a pre-condition. I can tell you that when I was in Baghdad before the bombings started for the Gulf War, the Iraqi regime and Saddam Hussein did not believe that the Americans were really going forward with this until the congressional vote happened, which was practically on the eve of the bombing. So I think that it is very important if we were to do this that Congress be seen and the public be seen to be behind it. And I just would like to add one thing about nation building and empire building. I think that if we were to go in there-- and this is something that legislators are worrying about, you could hear it at the Biden-Lugar hearings last week-- we really would have to think through very carefully what is the role we wanted to play afterwards because we, even now in Afghanistan, have made clear that we don't want to be involved in nation building. And if we're not, then we shouldn't be going in.

TERENCE SMITH: Trudy Rubin, and the rest of you, thank you very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a new President of Colombia, the primaries, and an Anne Taylor Fleming essay.

FOCUS NEW LEADER

JIM LEHRER: A new leader for a troubled South American nation; Ray Suarez has the story.

RAY SUAREZ: Despite intense security in Bogot today, explosions rocked the area outside the parliament building, killing at least ten people. Inside, the people of Colombia celebrated a new President, a man promising to win a very old war. 50-year-old Alvaro Uribe Velez is Colombia's eleventh President since 1964. That's the year the western hemisphere's longest and deadliest insurgency began. In the last two decades, the war among various guerrilla groups and the Colombian army has largely been fought over the country's drug trade. The conflict is taking an average of ten lives per day; that s triple the rate of the current MidEast conflict. It's also created more than two million refugees who have poured into neighboring countries or have been uprooted inside Colombia's borders. Today's ceremonies come on the heels of several days of surging violence. Mortar attacks heavily damaged an airport, and clashes between military forces and guerrilla rebels left 36 people dead. The new President pledges to bring law and order to this country of 40 million. (Speaking Spanish)

PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE (Translated): Our concept of Democratic security demands that we apply ourselves to finding an effective protection for our people, our political beliefs, and our standard of living. The whole nation is shouting out for calm and security. No crime has a direct line of justification; no kidnapping has a political end that explains it.

RAY SUAREZ: During the campaign, Uribe staked out a hard-line position against Colombia's guerrilla rebels-- rebels who assassinated his father and who tried to kill Uribe himself more than a dozen times. While his predecessor, Andres Pastrana, invited rebel leaders to the peace table, Uribe says he wants to attack them, and he's pledged to double the size of the army. It's a strategy that Uribe has said fits in the context of the world's newest war.

PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE (Translated): Acts of terrorism in Colombia have the potential to destabilize South American democracy. It's a conflict that could affect 380 million citizens, so Europe and the U.S. and the Democratic world need to help us in our fight.

RAY SUAREZ: That fight has escalated in the past year. In February, outgoing President Pastrana ended peace talks with the main left wing rebel group. It's known by its Spanish acronym, FARC. 17,000 strong, the rebels have close ties with Colombia's drug growers, who provide 90% of America's cocaine. Talks broke down when, according to Pastrana, the guerrillas hijacked a plane carrying a Colombian senator. Pastrana then told his army to invade rebel territory, and he sent this warning to the FARC:

PRESIDENT ANDRES PASTRANA (Translated): It is you who will have to answer to Colombia and to the world for your arrogance and your deceit. This is why I've made the decision of not continuing with the peace process with the FARC.

RAY SUAREZ: Around the same time, the FARC stepped up its own attacks. The rebels eluded their pursuers and took the war to the cities.

CYNTHIA ARNSON, Woodrow Wilson Center: I think absolutely the war is going to get worse before it gets better.

RAY SUAREZ: Cynthia Arnson is deputy director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

CYNTHIA ARNSON: The guerillas have mounted an urban terror campaign in an explicit effort to take the war to the cities. They have attacked the economic infrastructure systematically. They have threatened local and municipal officials, threatening them with death if they don't resign their posts. And I think the explicit purpose of these kinds of measures is to make the country ungovernable.

RAY SUAREZ: Colombia's armed forces outnumber the FARC by five to one, but the army has long been absent in many rural areas. That void has been filled by right-wing paramilitary squads, sworn enemies of the FARC. All the combatants have been linked to war atrocities. Since 1997, the State Department has labeled both the FARC and the paramilitaries as "terrorist organizations." These attacks have taken a heavy toll on civilians, who do not want their identities known.

WOMAN ON STREET (Translated): It was around 7:00 in the morning, and Guillermo, my husband, they tied him up. And I begged them, "don't hurt him. Let him go. He's a worker, a farmer. He works so hard. Let him go." My husband, my dear husband, he was my life, the most important thing in my life over everything else. I could lose anything else, but not my husband.

MAN (Translated): We were completely terrified. The paramilitaries had broken my teeth, they broke my hand, and I knew they were going to kill me. So I decided I would throw myself into the river the first chance I got. I did, and this was how I saved my life.

RAY SUAREZ: Colombia's ambassador to Washington, Luis Alberto Moreno, recalls one particular civilian tragedy at the hands of the FARC.

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: The civilians in this population in this town of Bojaya went to the only place they could go to where they thought was safe, a church. And there were 100 people inside this church. What the guerrillas did was to shoot a bomb into this church and kill almost all of those people. And that's the kind of thing that is totally against humanity.

RAY SUAREZ: In late May, the public responded to the growing war by electing Uribe, who pledged to get tough on the rebels. Uribe's win and his agenda was also welcomed at the White House. It had reportedly grown impatient with the slow pace of peace talks. Ambassador Moreno and others say Washington and the new Colombian regime now share a single issue at the top of their agendas: Fighting terror.

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: We have in the case of our country really perhaps the test case in this hemisphere of the fight on terror. Colombia cannot afford to lose. It will have huge destabilizing effects throughout the hemisphere.

RAY SUAREZ: Already the U.S. has provided the South American nation with nearly $2 billion in military aid under a program dubbed "Plan Colombia." It pays for modern combat helicopters, resources to spray and kill coca crops, and hundreds of American military trainers. Initially, plan Colombia was meant only to help Bogot fight drugs, not rebels. But last month, Congress voted to remove that distinction.

CYNTHIA ARNSON: It means that if there's a massing of guerrillas, that helicopters can be brought in to bomb those positions, and it's an explicit approval of the use of U.S. military assistance to fight a counterterrorism war.

RAY SUAREZ: Arnson says September 11 changed the politics of Colombia in the U.S. Congress, which previously had little appetite for joining a South American civil war. Secretary of State Colin Powell and others in the administration promoted the new policy. Powell spoke before the council ofthe Americas in May.

COLIN POWELL: While there is clearly no military solution to all of Colombia's problems, there must be a more robust military and security component to U.S. Policy. We are prepared to expand the scope and nature of our assistance.

RAY SUAREZ: Still, some lawmakers say the U.S. is being drawn into a familiar quagmire. Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor:

REP. GENE TAYLOR: That means American troops are going out on patrol with the Colombians, which is how we started off in Vietnam. This is a real live and extremely nasty war, but it's a civil war. It's not a war against America.

RAY SUAREZ: A separate criticism is that plan Colombia is failing to win the drug war. The country's cultivation of heroin and cocaine has gone up rather than down lately, often because farmers whose crops are destroyed simply replant them somewhere else. Arnson says it's a simple case of supply and demand.

CYNTHIA ARNSON: There is an enormous profit motivation for peasants who grow coca to stay growing coca. It's much more profitable. And as long as there is a demand from the United States, from Europe, from other places in the world that is seeking to consume cocaine, there will be an incentive to continue to produce it.

RAY SUAREZ: On the other hand, Ambassador Moreno says Plan Colombia is working.

LUIS ALBERTO MORENO: People tend to concentrate on areas of cultivation, but are not looking at production. And that's key, and the production is beginning to drop. The quality of the coca that is coming to the U.S., according to U.S. authorities, is beginning to drop. Something is happening, and we're beginning to make a difference now. This is not something that is fought overnight the same way you cannot get a consumer to drop consuming cocaine overnight.

RAY SUAREZ: For the near term, President Alvaro Uribe has now inherited Colombia's two-front war on drugs and guerrillas, a war that Washington is backing more than ever.

FOCUS ELECTION SEASON

JIM LEHRER: The season of primaries; Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: 76-year-old John Dingell has been a Congressman since 1955.

REP. JOHN DINGELL: I've been there. I've done that.

KWAME HOLMAN: He has served longer than any other member of the House but not long enough, according to voters in Michigan's heavily Democratic 15th Congressional district. Yesterday, they almost assured Dingell a 24th term in Congress by handing him a resounding victory in Michigan's Democratic primary. Dingell has a powerful voice in Congress. He's the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and, representing much of Detroit and it suburbs, is a friend of labor and the automobile industry. Dingell's opponent was a fellow Democrat, 45-year-old Lynn Rivers, a four-term Congresswoman from Ann Arbor. That Dingell and Rivers, both incumbent Democrats, had to run against each other is a consequence of redistricting. Every ten years, states are obliged to add, subtract, or at least redraw the boundaries of their Congressional districts because of population shifts determined by the census. As a result of the 2000 Census, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Arizona each picked up two Congressional seats. North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada and California each picked up one. Ten states lost population and therefore seats. Connecticut, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Oklahoma each lost one seat. New York and Pennsylvania each lost two. Lynn river's district was eliminated in the new Congressional map drawn by Michigan's Republican-controlled legislature. Rather than retire, Rivers chose to challenge John Dingell in his newly redrawn district, which contained many of Lynn Rivers' old constituents. But when voters chose, the man known as the dean of the House survived. Among the other notable outcomes in the run-up to election day, yesterday's convincing victory by Michigan attorney general Jennifer Granholm in the state's Democratic primary race for governor. She won a bruising battle, defeating former Governor James Blanchard and Congressman David Bonior, the second highest ranking Democrat in the House.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM: You know, we've all been good friends. Some had to go in different directions. Like a family, we are going to be back together again.

REP. DAVID BONIOR: Well, I think we'll be able to move on. We're grown up and we know what's at stake here, and what's at stake here is the state of Michigan.

KWAME HOLMAN: Granholm hopes to become Michigan's first female governor. She faces Michigan s lieutenant governor, Republican Dick Posthumous, in November. And in Tennessee, Lamar Alexander is the Republican choice to succeed retiring Fred Thompson in the Senate. Alexander is the former governor and a two-time Presidential candidate. He won his party's primary last week and will face Bob Clement, the seven-term Congressman from Nashville who is the Democratic nominee. Control of both Houses of Congress is in play this election year. Republicans have a 13-seat advantage over Democrats in the House of Representatives. Democrats hold a one-seat margin over Republicans in the Senate.

JIM LEHRER: And to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: For a closer look at this primary season and the election year landscape, we turn to two Congress watchers: Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; and Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Welcome to you both.

All right, Norm, picking up on Kwame's piece that we just saw, if you look at the country overall, how has redistricting affected this year's elections?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: We have really two almost contradictory trends here. The first is something that's been going on through the last several cycles of redistricting, which of course occurs every ten years. And that is a tendency in most states to make all incumbents safer. We're probably at a point now where the number of truly competitive, almost toss-up seats, has dwindled to barely more than 5% of the House and more and more incumbents are put in safer and safer places but at the same time in a number of states some that have gained seats, some that have lost seats, they have moved to throw incumbents against one another. That's of course what happened in Michigan where the Republicans threw two Democrats together. We'll see an instance in Georgia, a primary coming up in just a couple of weeks where the Democrats put two Republicans together, but then we also have a number of states where, as they've lost seats and they haven't been able to deal with it otherwise, they've thrown incumbents of one party against incumbents of the other. There are at least nine in this instance, this election cycle, where we're going to have incumbents who have been forced to run against one another and of course somebody is going to lose.

MARGARET WARNER: Is that unusually high for one of these years?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: It's around the same as 1992 but it's higher than what we had seen previously. Usually the parties work out a kind of gentleman's agreement where you try and protect everybody and you aim for the seats so if you have to lose one where somebody is certain to retire but this time it didn't quite work that way.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Tom, now let's look at, we've had the primaries yesterday and we've had quite a few through the spring. Can you see any real trend or any identifiable fault lines in either of the parties where you can say, well, it's the old guard versus the new guard or this wing of the party versus that?

THOMAS MANN: Well, certainly the Dingell-Rivers race showed us the classic fault line within the Democratic Party. John Dingell is blue collar, socially conservative, bread and butter government programs. Lynn Rivers is more upscale, suburban, socially liberal, environment, abortion rights, gun control. That is a division that exists within the Democratic Party and for Democrats to succeed nationally, they have to pull that coalition together. On the Republican side, it's more of a matter of the movement conservatives, the Bob Barrs who are....

MARGARET WARNER: This is in Georgia.

THOMAS MANN: ...Advancing a cause. This is in Georgia versus just the regular conservative business-oriented "let's get the job done" Republicans. His opponent, John Lindher, represents that wing of the party. What we're looking at fascinating races in Kansas, for example, we saw that the more moderate Republican won the primary to challenge the Democratic incumbent for the House but in the governor's race, it was very different. It was the most conservative Republican candidate who won the contest, and he's going to have to go up against a very attractive, moderate Democratic woman who is now favored to win that seat.

MARGARET WARNER: What would you add to that in terms of the fault lines you're see inning these primaries?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Well, of course what we would normally have expected if you look at the dynamics in Washington on the Republican Party the focus has been around the small group of moderate Republicans coming under enormous pressure from the conservatives to tow the party line. And we have had in the past a series of primaries where the moderate Republicans have been challenged from the right. One Marge Roukema of New Jersey who faced an enormous challenge the last time decided to retire instead. But the real focus is as tom has said. It's not so much on the moderates versus the conservatives. It's the mainstream business- oriented conservatives, establishment types, who say, "We have to govern now" against the movement types. Partly the reason we haven't seen this moderate conservative fault line as much is the stakes are so high that people recognize that each seat could matter here. If you as a matter of principle knock off an incumbent, you might jeopardize the seat, and that might in turn jeopardize Tom DeLay becoming the majority leader. So we've seen a little bit of a toning down in most cases. We don't see it on the Democratic side when you have the two candidates incumbents pitted against one other.

MARGARET WARNER: Especially forced to run against each other.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: But all around the country has been toned down, the normal kind of rhetoric that you get in primaries has been toned down. One example: The trade issue for Democrats which is an enormously difficult one. We just had the President sign the trade promotion authority into law. 25 Democrats in the House supported that. Labor, which uses it as the most important issue, would normally be out there ripping them apart in primaries -- toned down right now for that reason.

MARGARET WARNER: We're let going in, Tom, into the final big group of primaries through, wouldn tyou say, mid September?

THOMAS MANN: That's correct.

MARGARET WARNER: What are the really... you don't have to get into all the details of the races but are there some big ones coming up?

THOMAS MANN: There are. We still have 21 states that haven't yet held their primaries. There's some important Senate primaries, for example, North Carolina. Liddy Dole will almost certainly be the Republican nominee but the former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, Erskine Bowles, is running for the Democratic nomination favored by challenged by two other candidates and perhaps the most interesting one of all is in New Hampshire where incumbent Senator Bob Smith is being challenged by Congressman Sununu in the Republican primary and the Republican Party establishment is pretty much lined up against Sununu. This is a case where Smith represents, I would argue, more of the movement kind of conservative, Sununu is a more acceptable mainstream Republican.

MARGARET WARNER: What else would you add to that about the upcoming primaries?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Well New York for the gubernatorial race where the Democrats are going through an extremely bitter contest to take on Governor George Pataki. He's sitting back with glee watching Andrew Cuomo and Carl McCall go at one another. There's an interesting more symbolic race because it doesn't pit an incumbent against another. But in Georgia Cynthia McKinney, a highly controversial figure and a race that's taken on enormous national proportions.

MARGARET WARNER: House member, Democrat, African American.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: House member, Democrat, African American who has taken a very strongly anti-Israel position and suggests that perhaps President Bush knew about September 11 in advance. There's a very attractive African American candidate running against her getting enormous support from supporters of Israel while McKinney is getting tremendous support from Arabs but also Republicans alienated about what she said about bush are putting in a lot of resources to encourage their own people to vote against McKinney.

THOMAS MANN: Margaret, two other primaries we should let pass. One the Florida gubernatorial Democratic nomination where Janet Reno is running against Bill McBride. That's an important race to watch. In a House one right here in the suburbs of Washington, Connie Morela is the most threatened House Republican running for re-election. And Mark Shriver part of the Kennedy clan is running against two other Democrats and a very hotly contested primary.

MARGARET WARNER: Now let's... in the brief time we have left let's look at the lay of the land because all of this is aiming toward November. What's the lay of the land for the House?

THOMAS MANN: It's a very narrow Republican majority. Democrats need only six seats to pick up the majority. Republicans now hold 223 seats. Democrats have 211. And add the vacant seat and you see what it takes. Of those seats, though less than 10% are really in play, Margaret -- 40 to reach. And of those 40 I'd say probably a dozen are toss-ups where we wouldn't be prepared to say who is likely to win. So if you were to look at the race from the bottom up, it looks like we'd see very little change because both parties are exposed to roughly the same degree.

MARGARET WARNER: How about in the Senate?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Let me add Margaret that in the dozen or two dozen very close seats we're going to get as much spending as in many Senate races. The Senate of course we have a margin of one -- 50 Democrats 49 Republicans -- Jim Jeffords switching to independent status. The Democrats should be at an advantage here because of the 34 seats that are up. Republicans have 20 so they have more to hold, more to lose, more to protect. But if you look at the close contests, we could narrow it down to 8 to 10. They're pretty evenly divided between the two parties and there will be plenty of resources on both sides. Idiosyncrasies can occur. We had just this last week a seat that most observers would have said was pretty safe for the Democrats in new jersey where, of course, incumbent Bob Torricelli suddenly is now embattled and facing the fight of his life.

MARGARET WARNER: And the governorships.

THOMAS MANN: That's where you find real competition, Margaret. You don't see huge proportion of seats uncontested. Republicans now hold 27 of the 50 governorships. 21 held by Democrats, two by independents. Republicans are exposed. They have 23 seats up. Even though more of their members are safe in this race, they are the ones exposed. They are going to lose some seats. The question is, is it one or two or is it four or five?

MARGARET WARNER: It's a tough year. You both I agree for incumbents in governorships.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: It's a tough year because of the state of the economy. They benefited from the national economy the last time they ran. Now they're going to have greater trouble. The mood is turning a little bit sour more generally out there.

MARGARET WARNER: We have to leave it there. Thank you, both.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Thank you, Margaret.

ESSAY BREAKING UP

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming looks at the future of Los Angeles.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: On a clear day, you can see forever. All right, so there aren't all that many of them, but enough, and then it does seem as if you can see right to the edge of the Pacific and back again, to the edge of the mountains, and way out into the valley and over there to the Hollywood sign. My big, messy city of 3.7 million people in 465 square miles. Who could love such a place? It has no center, no soul, and it is just so outsized, like our signature basketball star, Shaquille O'Neal. As a native Angelino, I have heard these criticisms all my life. No, Los Angeles doesn't cosset or curry favor. There is nothing sentimental or cozy about it. But its very centerlessness always seemed apt to me, a kind of challenge. From its earliest days, LA was expansive, a place where you could find your own center, define your own boundaries, and, yes, your own bliss. There were no old world rules, no old world roles, and that's what we liked. You could stretch out here. You could reimagine yourself, chase the American dream California-style. You could be a mogul, a surfer dude, or both; a starlet or an evangelist. There were always gurus to follow and fads to try. Everything seemed possible, and people came by the millions. On a warm summer night, looking out at the sparkling vastness from atop Mulholland Drive, it was hard not to be stirred by the audaciousness of such a civic undertaking, and hear, if only in your imagination, the buoyant, multilingual din rising up from the city floor. But in the cold light of day, that view became increasingly smoggy and increasingly troubling. The city was maxing out. It had sold its soul-- and yes, it did have one-- to the automobile. The freeways were becoming jammed, the mini-malls endless, and cookie-cutter, tile-roofed subdivisions stretched mindlessly every which way. All that we loved about LA, all that freedom, that thrust in energy, was bringing it to its knees. Small wonder, then, that the city has, it seems, reached a breaking point-- rather, the breaking-apart point. Secession fever is in the air. On November 5, the citizens of Los Angeles will vote whether to let big chunks of the city pull away, notably the San Fernando Valley, which would instantly become the sixth largest city in the country, its own suburban sprawl of 222 square miles and 1.35 million people. Little Hollywood, with its fabled sign and sidewalk stars, is also agitating to become its own small city of 160,000. Together, the two would-be seceders make up 40% of the city's total population. Seceders say smaller is better, that they want their own governments, police and pothole fillers. It isn't about white flight. The new valley city would, in fact, be 41% Latino. It's about livability and self- rule, and it's actually hard to blame them for seeking both. Though the rest of us-- the potentially abandoned-- tend to feel a little churlish at their chutzpah and ingratitude, and a little sad and a little ashamed-- not a usual emotion for this city-- that we didn't protect all that we've been given. What becomes ever clearer is that if you don't tend your city, don't make a virtue of civic citizenship, don't pay attention to the things that hold a city together, then it might, by dent of unbridled growth and non-allegiance, fall apart from mere centrifugal force. The center will not hold-- but what center? Yes, we have a downtown skyline, but in effect, LA has many downtowns. Century City, Universal City, none any more the real downtown than another. And yes, we come together around the Lakers for a minute and a half, but the frantic, localized sports sentiments evident in many other urban areas simply don't exist here in this land of sunny, self-fulfillment. In taking care of ourselves, we didn't take care of our city. The so-called city of the future didn't plan for that future. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of the day: President Bush promised to be cautious about any military action against Saddam Hussein; the new President of Colombia took office as explosions killed at least ten people near the parliament building; and Vice President Cheney defended his tenure as CEO of Halliburton-- accounting practices at the oilfield equipment company are now being investigated. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.