The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is off tonight. On the NewsHour ahead four senators discuss how to proceed with the impeachment trial of President Clinton; Tom Bearden examines whether the U.S. Army is ready for war; Susan Dentzer briefs on the president's proposed tax credit for long-term health care; and Elizabeth Brackett reports on how some courts are handling pregnant women who abuse drugs or alcohol. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: The death toll rose to 49 today from winter storms that buried the Midwest and Northeast. Most died in traffic accidents or from heart attacks while shoveling snow. Buffalo, New York, took the brunt of the storms today. Blowing snow shut down the airport and closed the nearby interstate. In Detroit, Chicago, and elsewhere, thousands of airline passengers were still stranded from flights canceled over the weekend. Today Northwest Airlines canceled its morning flights to and from Detroit. President Clinton today proposed a $1,000-a-year tax credit for families providing long-term care for the elderly and disabled at home. It's part of a five-year, $6.2 billion health care initiative announced at the White House. The credit would compensate care givers for out-of-pocket expenses or the loss of income caused by working fewer hours at their regular jobs. The Secretary of Health & Human Services, Donna Shalala, later briefed reporters on the plan.

SECRETARY DONNA SHALALA: We responded in a very practical way to give support to the way long-term care is being provided in this country for the most part in people's homes, by care givers that are related to them. And this is a program that supports the major care givers in this country, who are often women, and people who are in the work force, who are trying to take care of loved ones, people with chronic illnesses that are disabled but also senior citizens, members of their own family who they need to take care of.

MARGARET WARNER: The proposal will be included in the president's fiscal 2000 budget, which is subject to congressional approval. We'll have more on this later in the program. On the impeachment story today White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said the president is proceeding with plans to deliver his State of the Union address January 19th. But Lockhart didn't rule out delaying the speech to accommodate a senate impeachment trial. Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter said the nation's business should continue even with a senate trial.

SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER: I'm prepared to attend the State of the Union speech. I'm prepared to continue to do the work I chaired, Appropriations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over this health care initiative, and I think we ought to keep the business of the country going. I think we can do that. That's my personal view. If the president wants to defer it, that's a call that I would respect, but I would not call for him to do it. In fact, I would encourage him to hold the State of the Union, and let's go ahead, carrying out the country's business.

MARGARET WARNER: We'll hear more from Senator Specter, among others, right after the News Summary. Elizabeth Dole resigned today as president of the American Red Cross, a post she's held since 1991. She told a Washington news conference she had no definite plans but would be considering some "exciting possibilities," including the possibility of running for president in the year 2000. Dole is a former cabinet secretary and the wife of former Senate Majority Leader and Republican Presidential Nominee Robert Dole. Trading in the new European currency, the euro, began today at major foreign exchanges worldwide. The euro closed the main European trading day at $1.18, slightly more than its opening point of just under $1.17. Israel ordered the deportation today of 11 members of an American dooms day cult. The group, which calls itself Concerned Christians, was accused of plotting millennium year violence in Jerusalem to hasten the second coming of Christ. Some members of the cult relocated to Israel from Denver last fall. Police said the group's leader, Mount Ken Miller, was not among those detained over the weekend. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the senate's impeachment trial; military readiness; long-term health care; and pregnant women who abuse drugs.

FOCUS - IMPEACHMENT TRIAL PREVIEW

MARGARET WARNER: As the 106th Congress convenes this week, senators are trying to decide what an impeachment trial for President Clinton will look like. Last week, Republican Senator Slade Gorton of Washington and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut floated a proposal for an abbreviated procedure that might avoid a full trial. Sen. Lieberman joins us now, along with three other senators: Republicans Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Robert Bennett of Utah, and Democrat John Breaux of Louisiana.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Lieberman, lay out your proposal for us.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, [D] Connecticut: Okay. This is a proposal that comes from my Republican colleague and friend from Washington State, Slade Gorton. It grows out of conversations we had not only with each other but with a number of colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the Senate that shared common goals - we want to fulfill our constitutional responsibility now that the House has passed articles of impeachment. We want to do it in a way that is fair to the Senate and to the president and does not create the kind of partisan rancor that will make it hard for the Senate once this trial is over to get back to work on the nation's business. So the proposal is to have a trial begin, but to allow there to be a test vote after both - each side has stated its case - members are allowed to question both the House prosecutors and the counsel for the White House, Senator Gorton and I - or two others - two of the others, if they want, will stand and essentially introduce what might be called a sense of the Senate resolution, which is that assuming that the House prosecutors can prove their case at trial, does that case merit removal of the president, and if 2/3 do not vote yes, then we have a clear indication that the conclusion of the trial - if it goes on - is clear and foregone, and so what we're seeing is why put the nation and the Senate through the time and the sordid details of this case, if the end of it all is clear, why not consider adjourning at that point? But I do want to stress that people have described us as a very truncated trial. This will go on for a week or two with plenty of debate by senators, plenty of opportunity for both sides to make their case before this test vote occurs, and if 2/3 indicate that they are prepared, giving the House case the benefit of the doubt to vote for conviction or removal, then, of course, the trial will go on and the House will have the opportunity to call its witnesses, and the president presumably will have the opportunity to both cross-examine and call his own witnesses.

MARGARET WARNER: What do you think of this proposal, Senator Bennett?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT, [R] Utah: Well, I am absolutely committed to the idea that we have a trial, and I've been distressed by people who've said, well, this is a deal to avoid having a trial, because if it is a deal to avoid having a trial, I'm against it. But, as Sen. Lieberman has indicated, this is a stop in the middle - we your finger - take some kind of sounding to see whether or not senators have so made up their mind that proceeding with the trial beyond that point is useless. Now, as I understand it - andyou can correct me if I'm wrong - but as I understand it - the vote will be if the House can convince you to your satisfaction that the president is guilty of the things he's accused of, would you vote to convict him? I think that would be a pretty tough vote for a lot of senators who will say even if I am convinced to my satisfaction that the president did the things the House accused him of, I still won't vote to convict him. I think that's a tough vote, and I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that it would automatically end the trial right there, but if, in fact, over a third of the senate says even if the evidence is clear and I am absolutely satisfied the House is right and I still won't vote to convict him, then, yes, I think we seriously ought to consider it. Now, I understand that the president's lawyers don't want this vote to go forward; they want the vote to end the trial to be a straight motion to dismiss. I would be opposed to that, and I think this proposal is a whole lot better.

MARGARET WARNER: Then explain what you mean by the difference between a straight motion to dismiss and Senator Lieberman's idea.

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: Well, under the senate rules, as I understand them, you could have a motion to simply dismiss the trial any time, and when you've got 51 senators, you can do that. And the White House lawyers or the president's lawyers, more properly, I understand, are saying we don't want senators to have to say whether they would vote to convict if they were convinced, we just want them to cast a straight vote to let the jury and trial and not have to explain their motives, and I don't want him to be in that position.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Senator Specter, you have been critical of this idea in recent days. Lay out your objections.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, [R] Pennsylvania: Well, Margaret, at the outset, I took the position sometime ago that the national interest would be best served by putting off holding President Clinton accountable until after his term ended and through the judicial criminal process, whatever a jury or a judge would say at that point. But once we face articles having been forwarded by the House to the Senate, then I think we have a constitutional obligation to have a trial. I do agree with the objective of doing it promptly, and my experience shows me that it is possible to narrow the trial, to have only a few key witnesses and the few abbreviated lines of questioning focusing very tightly on the charges with long trial days, something in the range of 9:30 to 5 o'clock, as we had when I was district attorney of Philadelphia and that we could complete this trial in the course of some three weeks. The short-term interest - and there's a lot of political pressure right now on the Senate to get it over with, and if we rush to judgment, we will not be doing our job. Alexander Hamilton laid out in the Federalist Papers holding this responsibility to the Senate to be above what the public may demand, and in the short-term, it would be nice to get it finished, and I think we can get it finished in short order to go along with Social Security and education and health care, but only if we do it by observing the Constitution, which is long-term a very, very important precedent that we have to be concerned about.

MARGARET WARNER: And why do you think it's important - why do you feel it's important to have witnesses?

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: It is important to have the witnesses so you really understand the case. Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote a book called "Grand Inquest" and picked up this verypoint, saying that when you have a hearsay document you do not have the demeanor, you do not have the flavor, you do not really understand exactly what is going on. Trials have witnesses. If you have a grand jury, which is the analogy of the House proceedings, you have hearsay, you have police reports, which are read into the record, but what is a trial without witnesses to really see exactly what went on? There are disputes here as to what happened on the issue of perjury and on the issue of obstruction of justice. And when you talk about doing a sounding, I think, as Senator Bennett just mentioned, I think that's a matter of concern. We have to find the facts and to make that determination you need to see and hear live witnesses, but not too many, and on the narrowly focused range of issues.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Senator Breaux, how do you see this?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX, [D] Louisiana: Well, we may well be headed for the trial of the century but it doesn't have to last a century or even seem like it's going to last a century. When you have a trial and you bring witnesses to provide evidence, it's to settle what issues are in dispute. And in this case we know what happened, we know when it happened, we know where it happened, we know how it happened, and we know what the president said about what happened. So I think that we will have a trial, yes, but I don't think that you need to go into a full-blown trial with witnesses if the prosecution calls witnesses, the president's teams will call witnesses, there could be witnesses called for rebuttal, and it could go on and on. I think we can fairly dispose of this matter with a trial, stipulate to the facts that the House heard are true, and make a decision on whether that constitutes grounds for conviction of the president. If it doesn't, well, let's move on to a censure resolution or whatever other penalty that would be appropriate.

MARGARET WARNER: Was Senator Bennett correct when he said that the White House doesn't much like this proposal? Have you spoken to anyone there?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: Well, really, the proposal is not for the White House to make any determination of whether it's good or not. I mean, this is a decision that is uniquely appropriate to the Senate only. Now, the White House may well like to call a bunch of rebuttal witnesses or defense witnesses. I would think that would serve no good purpose. I think if we could stipulate the facts, we could make a decision based on what an appropriate penalty is. And that is what the Lott-Gorton-Lieberman proposal does.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Lieberman, how is the censure possibility going to fit into - how does it fit into your picture or your proposal?

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Well, I personally see it as quite separate. I think we have a constitutional responsibility first to decide the question on the articles of impeachment that have been sent to us by the House. If we reach a conclusion on that and it does not involve the removal of the president from office, then the trial, as Senator Bennett has indicated, would be adjourned by 51 senators. It would have to take a bipartisan group. And then the Senate would go back into the regular order of its business. Then I presume - I would certainly try to work with colleagues to have the Senate then adopt a strong censure of the president because I don't think we should end this sorry episode in our history without a clear statement by the people's representatives in Washington that what happened here was wrong and it was hurtful. And I think we have to do that for ourselves, for history, and for our children.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you see - you have supported censure in the past but that is not where you are now on this.

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: I wanted to vote in the 105th Congress to censure the president, regardless of what happened with respect to impeachment. Let's make it clear - I did not offer censure as an alternative. I think what he has done is indefensible, reprehensible, whatever other adjective you want to find, and very much deserving of censure, whether it rises to the level of impeachable offense or not, so if the Senate were to convict, I'd say, okay, the question of censure is moot, but if the Senate doesn't convict, then I still want to go on record, cast a vote letting everybody know how I feel about the behavior of the president in three areas. I would want to censure him for his personal behavior with Monica Lewinsky, which if he had conducted as a military commander would have ended his career; I want to censure his lying, which I think clearly is censurable; and I want to censure him for the smearing that has gone on, people who have told the truth at some peril to themselves have been attacked out of this White House by people working for the president, and I think that's a censurable issue, and I want to debate that on the floor of the Senate if he is not removed. If he is removed, then you don't need to talk about that. But if he is not removed, I don't want people to say, well, he's acquitted, let's go on our way, and not talk about these things. I think these things are toxic that have come out of this White House, come out of this president, and they need to be dealt with and they need to be dealt with in public.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Specter, weigh in, if you would like, on censure but also help us understand now how you're going to actually come to a decision about the process. In other words, we have differences here among Republicans; there also are some differences among Democrats, but they're not reflected in these two particular Democrats. How were you all as a body going to come up with a process to proceed here?

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: We are going to talk over the various alternatives. My idea is that this ought to be structured like complex litigation where we've had a lot of experience, where there are pre-trial memoranda prepared by both sides listing the witnesses and motions approximating the time, have the number of witnesses limited, having a focus on the issues, and trying it with long days and I think we can finish it in a relatively short period of time, but the Constitution is the guide. You see, Margaret, when you talk about censure and you talk about punishment, you are talking about something that is not contemplated by the Constitution but expressly ruled out on an impeachment proceeding. The Constitution specifically states that judgment in cases of impeachment shall be limited to two things: number one, ousting the person from office, and number two, preventing the person from holding office in the future. It is not supposed to be a matter of punishment. And what the arrangement here is to finish it up in short order by this new procedure requiring a 2/3 vote is that the immediate following factor is going to be this resolution of censure, which will, in a political sense, give cover, which we're very good at in the Senate after we vote one way on a matter to have another resolution come up, which explains it when we have to run for election. But if you condense it, which is the reality, if you move away from impeachment, move to censure, you're really having a disposition for the president, which is not contemplated by the Constitution at all. And you really run afoul of a very, very basic principle, and that is separation of power. The Congress is not really in the business of censuring the president. If you do that, I think it's a very, very high precedent, and expressly the framers moved away from any punishment in an impeachment proceeding. We've got to follow the Constitution.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me get Senator Breaux in here before we run out of time.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Breaux, is there a consensus emerging, at least among Democrats, on how to proceed here?

SEN. JOHN BREAUX: I think the consensus that's emerging, as I see it, is the one that's been recommended by Lott and Gorton and Lieberman, and it does carry out our constitutional responsibilities. It would be an actual vote on the impeachment articles sent over from the House. If they do not have the requisite 2/3, then we would adjourn and then move to a censure resolution. And I would suggest that it should be bipartisan, and I would suggest that we look at what the Democrats crafted in the House. It is - was a very strong censure resolution, which they were prevented from offering, but I think we ought to look at that as a means of starting towards reaching a conclusion and on an appropriate censure resolution. And I think the Senate can do this in a bipartisan fashion, unlike what happened in the House.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you, all four of you, thanks very much.

FOCUS - READY FOR WAR?

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, military readiness, long-term health care, and mothers-to-be who abuse drugs. The military story is next. Over the weekend President Clinton announced his new budget proposal will seek the largest defense spending increases in more than a decade. The money would go for new equipment, pay, and pensions. Tom Bearden reports on some of the problems and pressures leading to Mr. Clinton's decision.

TOM BEARDEN: This is the army version of "Top Gun" -- the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Ten times a year the army's most powerful armored forces go head-to-head in the Mojave Desert, trying to sharpen their skills to a razor's edge. But everyone here agrees that the razor isn't as sharp as it used to be.

COLONEL JOHN ROSENBERGER: Here's what you're going to see. If you look out there -

TOM BEARDEN: Col. John Rosenberger is one of the key leaders of Fort Irwin's training cadre.

COLONEL JOHN ROSENBERGER: I've fought here and I was also here four years ago as a senior brigade trainer. There is a decrease in the level of proficiency of the units, the entry level proficiency of

forces when they come here - there's no question.

TOM BEARDEN: Military leaders say there are many reasons for that, not the least of which is far less manpower doing many more jobs. The entire military has been downsized considerably from its Cold War peak in 1988. Some of the biggest cuts have fallen on the army. Army chief of staff General Dennis Reimer.

GENERAL DENNIS REIMER, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army: We've taken out over 600,000 people out of the force since 1989. That's the active component, the reserve component, and also some dedicated DA civilians in that number, and I think that's an awful lot of change, it's an awful lot of drawdown to have take place. And at the same time the pace of operations have increased.

TOM BEARDEN: Even as the force was being cut, Congress and the administration were showing an increasing willingness to use the military in non-combat situations. Washington has sent troops to Somalia, present-day Kuwait, Bosnia, and Haiti for what the army considers peacekeeping missions -- missions one step short of the military's traditional purpose-to kill the enemy. The army is even being used for global relief efforts from Africa to Central America. Army commanders say all of that has had a considerable effect on the combat readiness of the entire force -- even in front-line units like those that train at Fort Irwin.

SPOKESMAN: From there up to objective - the complete destruction of the car --

TOM BEARDEN: On a blustery day in November, the third Brigade of the third Infantry Division, based in Fort Benning, Georgia, prepared to engage the "op-for"-the opposing force - that's the Eleventh Armored Cavalry Regiment permanently stationed at Fort Irwin.

SPOKESMAN: The MRB reserve, now, when is he going to commit the MRB reserve?

TOM BEARDEN: The task force commander walked his officers through a sand table model of the terrain features through which they would be maneuvering during the night. As usual, the opposing force

mimics the organization and tactics of a Soviet-style mechanized rifle unit -- equipment and methods

still used by many second and third world countries. Col. Rosenberger is the opposing force commander.

COLONEL JOHN ROSENBERGER: The op-for remains the best trained force that our army can sustain and provide. It's imperative that we do. The op-for must remain the anvil, if you will, upon which we forge the combat power of the heavy and light forces of our army here at the National Training Center.

TOM BEARDEN: An armored brigade on the move can be an irresistible juggernaut -- or a disorganized rabble ready for slaughter. Brigade Commander Col. John Gardner would be the first to say that the hardest thing about running a unit with some 4,000 soldiers and hundreds of vehicles is coordinating their actions. In previous years, brigades had the money to go out and train as a complete unit before coming to the national training center. But recently training funds have sometimes been diverted to overseas missions and new equipment.

COLONEL JOHN GARDNER: The last four or five years, the resources generally have not been available to do battalion and brigade level exercises. So your first opportunity to really pull the whole brigade conduct team together and try to synchronize all the operating systems is generally when you get here.

TOM BEARDEN: Gardner says that means his unit came here less prepared than in the past and consequently will leave the NTC less ready as well. On this day the third brigade wasn't rabble, but neither was it a juggernaut. The brigade attacked the op-for with laser-simulated weapons and blank ammunition, while high and low tech sensors monitored the progress of the battle. Despite painstaking preparations, the

brigade's innovative attack plan fell apart that day, a victims of the op-for's superior training and experience. That was frustrating for Staff Sergeant Paul Lollar. His M1A1 tank had been "knocked out" by enemy laser fire. Lollar has been to the NTC many times before.

STAFF SERGEANT PAUL LOLLAR: Over my time, the first time I came out to the national training center was 1985, and I have seen a lot of improvements in the equipment. On the same side I'm seeing a reduction in the actual time that soldiers stay out here in the maneuver box. My first trip we were out

here for almost 30 continuous days of operation, now it is down to about 14. And, understandably, you know, it is due to budget constraints.

TOM BEARDEN: And this type of training is very expensive. It costs more than $24 million to bring a brigade to the NTC for one month. Colonel J. D. Thurman says the third brigade's decline in readiness is far from unique. He commands the operations team responsible for the training exercises at the NTC.

COLONEL J. D. THURMAN: I've been the commander of the operations group for 17 months. Most units have not had the opportunity to train above the company team level.

TOM BEARDEN: Thurman says another factor in the decline of readiness is the constant rotation of soldiers out of units to overseas peacekeeping assignments, rotations that sap the institutional memory of those units.

COLONEL J. D. THURMAN: We got a small force, we got ten divisions; you take the operational requirements that are current in the army, one being in Bosnia; we keep folks in Kuwait. There is a

constant rotation of folks into those areas, so there's a lot on the plates out there of these division commanders.

TOM BEARDEN: That's a problem Captain Nathan Haas has been trying to cope with on this deployment to the NTC. Some of the slots in his unit are empty; others are filled with unqualified people.

CAPTAIN NATHAN HAAS: Usually the positions get filled by somebody who's not trained in that job. They are kind of amateurs compared to someone who is trained for it. So, there is a lot of critical systems that impact 600 and some people in a battalion. And, well, for instance we were talking about intelligence earlier, you know, if you don't have a good intelligence analyst during the orders process, the people who are there have to work harder with the products they have, and you end up, you know, possibly going into

battle without a clear picture of, you know, what the enemy situation is.

TOM BEARDEN: So this unit can't function to its full effectiveness without those people?

CAPTAIN NATHAN HAAS: Correct. Correct.

TOM BEARDEN: Some non-front line army units report staffing levels as low as 65 percent. Even when units have their full complement, there are still problems. This maintenance unit has all of the people it's supposed to have but has been assigned to take of twice as many vehicles as they're supposed to have. Their job is to keep these "HETS"-or heavy equipment transports-operating. The mammoth flatbed trucks are used to transport tanks and other vehicles around the desert training center. It costs 147 dollars a mile to drive an M1A1 tank, so they try to use the HETS as much as possible. As a result, the trucks get considerably more use than they would in a normal unit. Under these conditions, keeping a normal complement of HETS running would call for long days. Twice as many means long nights, too. And sometimes they run out of spare parts. Only 15 out of 24 trucks were in service this day. One had been out

of commission for more than 200 days because of lack of parts. Some non-front-line units have even worse problems with shortages of people and spare parts.

SGT. DON MILLER: If we can't put a truck on the road that means it is one less tank that gets moved; if we have 24 - do have 24 systems here that roll - as long as rotation's here - and if we can't put 24 trucks on the road, then we have to cut it down. And sometimes we will have missions where 100 pieces - 100 tanks have to be moved, and we might be only able to put 10 to 15 trucks on the road. And you are looking at maybe three hours for every trip that we have to pick up a tank, and even turn out to where we have to be here at 5 in the morning and not get out of here till 9 or 10 o'clock at night. And if we could have 24 trucks on the

road at all times, the days would be shorter and we would be able to do a lot more work.

TOM BEARDEN: Do you get frustrated when this happens?

SGT. DON MILLER: Yes sir, everybody gets frustrated; it rolls downhill, and it's due to the fact this is a high visibility area, and this is such an important mission that a lot of people get involved and want to know why things aren't working right.

TOM BEARDEN: Frustration is one of the reasons many young officers and senior enlisted personnel are leaving the army. So is what is viewed as an uncompetitive pay scale. And that worries Brigade Commander Gardner deeply.

COLONEL JOHN GARDNER: If I could change one thing, I probably would raise the pay for certain first classes and staff sergeants.

TOM BEARDEN: Why is that?

COLONEL JOHN GARDNER: I am not sure right now, just given the retirement, the views in the

military society and how things have changed in the last 10 years whether the talented people coming in now will stay, so that the brigade commander 15 years from now will be able to view things like I do.

TOM BEARDEN: This fall, Congress and the president answered the military's call for more money to try to deal with some of these problems. Congress devoted an extra $1.1 billion specifically to readiness. But some critics say the last thing the army needs is more money.

CHUCK SPINNEY: Adding money to the defense budget now is not going to fix the problem. In fact, it's going to set the stage for even worse problems in the future.

TOM BEARDEN: Chuck Spinney is an analyst in the Secretary of Defense's office who has been following the readiness problem since 1992. He prefaced his remarks by saying the opinions were his own. Spinney says efforts to modernize the force with new equipment are draining away money for readiness.

CHUCK SPINNEY: It's basically caused by an interaction of rising costs of modernization, rising costs of operating our equipment, so basically what we do is we make decisions today that create bills downstream that we can't afford to pay. So the only way we pay them, and this has been going on since 1957, is to shrink the force structure, and to reduce readiness.

TOM BEARDEN: Military analyst Lawrence Korb also thinks buying expensive new weapons should have a lower priority than readiness.

LAWRENCE KORB: There's no need for us to continue to buy new generations of sophisticated weapons systems. The ones we have are more than adequate, and what we all ought to do is doing research and development to guard against a breakout, say, by another major power.

TOM BEARDEN: In fact, Korb says the army is training people for the wrong mission at the National Training Center.

LAWRENCE KORB: The army is still ready to fight the Soviet Union, but they're not fighting the Soviet Union, they're doing much more of what we call operations other than war and peace-keeping, and

that's causing them some strains because they're spending all their money preparing for what they're not

doing.

TOM BEARDEN: Korb believes the army should restructure itself for the reality of its new missions.

LAWRENCE KORB: The army has ten active divisions. Six of them are heavy, to fight these large major land wars. They really ought to have maybe one or two heavy on active duty, put the rest in the reserves, and the active army should be trained, equipped and structured to deal with the Bosnias, the Haitis, the Rwandas, the Somalias.

TOM BEARDEN: Chief of Staff Reimer disagrees. He says the U.S. Army is tasked to be able to fight two wars simultaneously, and disputes the assertion that too much money is being spent on new technology.

GENERAL DENNIS REIMER: If you look at it, about 20 percent of our budget - 21 percent to be precise in the last few years has gone into technology and modernization. We realize that in order to make sure that these people who are serving that army today, when they get into the 21st century, that they have the best equipment and the best weapons systems in the world like we do today. We had to beef up that modernization account a little bit. So I would reject that argument that we're spending too much on technology and too much on weapons systems at the expense of people.

TOM BEARDEN: While policymakers debate priorities, maneuvers at the National Training Center and at

other military bases around the world continue. And units like the third brigade do what the U.S. Army

has always done -- try to do the best they can with what they have.

FOCUS - LONG-TERM CARE

MARGARET WARNER: Now new proposals to help pay for long-term health care. Phil Ponce has that.

PHIL PONCE: Americans are living longer than ever, but that means more now suffer from chronic illnesses or disabilities, ranging from severe arthritis to Alzheimer's. More than 5 million are now in need of long-term care either in institutions like nursing homes, or at home with the assistance of relatives and other care givers. Today at the White House President Clinton described the problem and announced some proposals to help.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Millions require the care that can only be provided in a nursing home. But millions more choose to remain at home with family and friends. Indeed, the elderly are remaining at home in record numbers. . Nearly half the people over 85 -- one of the fastest-growing segments of our population -- need help with everyday, basic tasks -- eating, dressing, going to a doctor. We cannot expect that every older American will be able to fend for himself or herself. And the real question is: What are our obligations to help every American get the care that is appropriate for each individual case? This is a complicated challenge that requires a range of responses -- First, to provide a long-term care tax credit -- $1,000 for people with long-term care needs or for the families that shelter them. It would help to offset the direct cost of long-term care, like home health visits and adult day care; as well as the indirect costs, like unpaid leave some caregivers must take. The care they provide is invaluable, but we can show that it is valued by our society. Second, we should create a family caregiver support program, a new national network to support people caring for older Americans. This initiative enables states to create one-stop shops, places caregivers can access the resources of the community, find technical guidance, obtain respite and adult day care services. I am proposing that the federal government, as the nation's largest employer, use its market leverage to set an example, offering private long-term care insurance to federal employees. By promoting high-quality, affordable care, we can encourage more people and more companies to invest in long-term care coverage. We must use this time now to do everything in our power, not only to lift the quality of life and the security of the aged and disabled today, and the baby boom aged and disabled, but to make sure that we do not impose that intolerable burden on our children.

PHIL PONCE: For an explanation of the proposals we turn to Susan Dentzer of our health policy unit, a partnership with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Susan, first of all, tell us a little bit more about the problem that these proposals are aimed at.

SUSAN DENTZER: Phil, the problem is the great and growing need for long-term care in this country. An estimated two out of five Americans are projected to need long-term care at some point in their lives now and in coming years. It's very costly. We now spend as a nation about $125 billion a year on all forms of long-term care. That's a low-end estimate. We're obviously going to spend more and more as the population of elderly and disabled people grows. The problem is that much of that cost is out of pocket; basically at least $50 billion worth of that $125 billion is paid by people themselves. It is not covered by the major insurance programs available to take care of other health care expenses. Medicare, for example, pays only for the cost of nursing home care that is related to short-term hospital stays. Medicaid pays a large share of the nation's nursing home bills, about half of them, but even so does not necessarily provide assistance certainly to people who are well enough to remain in their homes, even though they're greatly incapacitated. So it's a large and expensive problem that the president proposes to deal with.

PHIL PONCE: And the key component, the tax credit part of it, tell us more about that.

SUSAN DENTZER: That is the largest piece of the package that the president announced today. It's basically about 90 percent of the projected $6.2 billion cost over five years of all the proposals that he enumerated. In fact, what this would do, as the president said, would allow up to $1,000 of a tax credit to individuals who need long-term care or to the families or the care givers of those people who need long-term care. It's a tax credit. It's not a tax deduction. So it's a dollar for dollar offset to tax liability, therefore, it's more valuable than, for example, a tax deduction would be.

PHIL PONCE: So, in other words, if your tax bill is $2,000, if you're entitled to a $1,000 tax credit, that means your tax bill for that year would just be $1,000.

SUSAN DENTZER: That's right. And like tax credits, this would not be fully useable for all individuals; it would be phased out at income levels of $95,000 a year for individuals, $130,000 a year for married couples. So there is a ceiling on how much assistance that would provide. Nonetheless, it is significant, because to chop your tax bill by $1,000 would mean a lot to a lot of families struggling with the costs of caring for their chronically ill and disabled family members.

PHIL PONCE: So basically this $1,000 would, what, help offset the - what you call the out of pocket expenses involved in taking care of somebody over the long term. What kinds of expenses come to mind?

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, for example, having somebody come in to provide some additional care for an individual. Almost everybody who provides long-term care in the home to a family member or someone else can't be available to do that 24 hours a day, and there is a lot of assistance that's granted, that's given and paid for in the form of aides coming by to help, that kind of thing would be paid for - expenses for having adult day care would also be coverable. And the important thing about this proposal, at least from the standpoint of many families, is they would not have to provide records of those expenses. They would simply have to show a doctor's documentation of the fact that their loved one or family member had at least three difficulties with what are known as activities of daily living, three activities of daily living in this case would be required - the threshold of not being able to meet three activities would be required to be met to be eligible. That means, as the president said, can you eat by yourself, can you go to the toilet by yourself, et cetera? As long as a doctor's documentation were provided, the family could claim the credit. They wouldn't have to submit a long list of receipts to the IRS.

PHIL PONCE: So administratively it would be fairly simple for the taxpayer - just a letter from the doctor, as opposed to keeping track of all these receipts, as you point out. Some other parts of the proposal, these support centers that the president was talking about, quickly, what would that be?

SUSAN DENTZER: In effect, what the president proposes to do is take the existing mechanism of area agencies on aging that exist throughout the country and give more dollars to allow families to be reimbursed for direct assistance in many cases. For example, again, respite care, having somebody come in to provide some relief to a family care giver, those kinds of things - this is not a big budget item; it's $625 million over a five-year-period, but, nonetheless, it would make services available to an estimated 250,000 individuals and their families.

PHIL PONCE: And why is it important that the president wants to start with government employees? What's the point of that?

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, that is specifically a plan to try to encourage the growth of the private long-term care insurance market. That is a market that now sells policies to about 5 million individuals a year. It's small, but it probably needs to grow. One way to help that process is for the federal government, one of the nation's largest employers, to actually begin to offer that as an employee benefit. It can set standards, as it intends to do, about the things that must be inherent in those insurance policies; it can - it is hoped - raise the quality of those policies over time and in a way provide a kick to that market so that it grows more in the future and provides a mechanism for individuals to help cover some of their costs of their care that they may need in the future.

PHIL PONCE: Susan, how big of a deal is it that the president is addressing the whole issue of long-term care?

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, as a person in the White House said to me today this is the Clinton administration; our proposals are always going to be too big for some people and too small for many others. This proposal falls into that category. It's significant in the sense that it is the first time that this administration has weighed in on the subject of long-term care in a big way. It's actually the first time that the issue has really come back on the national agenda in a major way since 1988, when it was a big issue in the presidential campaign of that year, so it's significant in that respect. On the other hand, $6.2 billion over five years in the context of federal budgets that are inching up towards $2 trillion a year is not a lot of money and in the context of yearly expenditures of the nation of $125 billion a year on long-term care, it's not a whole lot of money.

PHIL PONCE: And for an individual family how much does the $1,000 tax credit do? What's the average cost of providing for somebody a year of long-term care?

SUSAN DENTZER: Well, keep in mind that a year in a nursing home now averages $41,000 a year, so you get some sense of the proportion of the assistance that would be provided, meaningful, but by no means exhaustive of all the needs that are out there.

PHIL PONCE: Susan, thank you very much.

SUSAN DENTZER: Thanks, Phil.

FINALLY - UNBORN CHILD ABUSE

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, tonight, should a pregnant woman be ordered into treatment if she is abusing drugs or alcohol? Wisconsin legislature said yes. Now other states are considering similar proposals. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: When this young Wisconsin mother was ordered into treatment for cocaine addiction while pregnant with this child, it set off a controversy whose impact is still being felt in the state. Physician Dr. Matthew Meyer discovered the cocaine addiction through blood tests.

DR. MATTHEW MEYER: There were repetitive positive tests showing cocaine exposure, and the social work department got concerned about it; we certainly did and advised her medically.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Dr. Meyer took his concerns about Angela Wolf to William Domina, Waukesha County's senior assistant corporation counsel.

WILLIAM DOMINA, Assistant Corporation Counsel, Waukesha County: It had a patient who he felt was violating the child abuse law. In Wisconsin, physicians have to report child abuse as a mandatory requirement. He felt that this - Angela's conduct was violative of that law because she was 36 weeks in gestation, and she was continuing to use cocaine during the course of that pregnancy, and he felt it had potential serious injurious effect on the to-be-born child.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Domina says Wolf was ordered into treatment because lower courts ruled that her fetus could be considered a child when enforcing child abuse laws. But that's not what the Wisconsin Supreme Court said.

WILLIAM DOMINA: The Supreme Court on a vote of four to three said that because the Wisconsin legislature had not expressly included the word "fetus" in the definition of child, under the child abuse statute, that it was not going to impute that, despite our arguments, and reversed the detention and basically said go to the legislature if you have any desire for, you know, remedy, and we did.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Domina went to State Senator Joanne Huelsman, who is from Angela Wolf's hometown. Huelsman agreed that legislation was needed to address the problem of drug and alcohol abuse by pregnant women.

JOANNE HUELSMAN, Wisconsin State Senator: And looking at the total number of people - number of kids that are born addicted to cocaine or alcohol, I decided that this was really something that was in the realm of a public health problem and that we should be doing something about.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Senator Huelsman was also influenced by a case involving alcohol in nearby Racine, Wisconsin. On March 16, 1996, Deborah Zimmerman, who was then pregnant, was served a drink by bartender Dennis Peterson.

DENNIS PETERSON, Bartender: Sat down at the bar, proceeded telling jokes and so forth, and then -

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: At that point did you think she was pregnant?

DENNIS PETERSON: No, not at all. In fact, my girlfriend was sitting right next to her, and she didn't think she was pregnant, and she wanted to tell me a secret, and she said she's going to have a baby. I took her glass away and gave her 7-Up. I said she shouldn't be drinking. She started crying, and I thought I offended her. But then she says no, you don't understand, she said, I'm going to have the baby now.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: When Deborah Zimmerman's mother brought her here to St. Luke's Hospital, she was reportedly very drunk. She allegedly ripped fetal heart monitors from her baby and reportedly said to hospital personnel, "If you don't keep me here, I'm just going to go home and keep on drinking and drink myself to death, and I'm going to kill this thing because I don't want it anyway." Zimmerman's blood alcohol level was .302 before delivery, well above the legal limit of .10. At birth, her baby had a level of .199 and was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. The assistant district attorney in Racine County, Joan Korb, filed attempted homicide charges against Zimmerman. It was the first time in Wisconsin that criminal charges had been filed against a pregnant woman for attempting to kill her fetus by abusing alcohol.

JOAN KORB, Assistant District Attorney, Racine County: We have to criminally charge some of these people because that's going to be the only way we're going to deter that behavior.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Zimmerman was represented by then public defender Sally Hoelzel.

SALLY HOELZEL, Former Public Defender: What she is alleged to have done is not a crime; it does not fall under the definitions that are listed in our criminal code.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Hoelzel appealed the court's decision to press criminal charges. The appeal is now pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Public outrage over Zimmerman and Wolf, dubbed "the cocaine mom," prompted Senator Huelsman to draft a cocaine mom bill.

JOANNE HUELSMAN: The bill is designed to provide treatment for women who are addicted to some sort of substance - alcohol or other drugs - who is unable to overcome that addiction on her own.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The bill sailed through the legislature and was signed into law this summer. It makes Wisconsin the second state - after South Carolina - to order a woman into treatment if she is abusing drugs or alcohol while pregnant. Despite the Zimmerman case, there are no criminal penalties and no termination of parental rights. Corporation counsel Domina says it is the bill he was hoping for.

WILLIAM DOMINA: If the woman will not go to that facility because she's in denial or because she is limited intellectually or socially or however, we need to be able to do something to promote the interest of the child.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But here at Meta House, a residential treatment center in Milwaukee for women who abuse drugs or alcohol, the impact of the new legislation is seen very differently. Francine Feinberg has been the director of the program for the last 15 years.

FRANCINE FEINBERG: The number one barrier to treatment and for getting prenatal care for substance-abusing women is the fear of being taken into custody and losing their children. And I know the bill is a treatment bill, but, in fact, it does take people into custody. If we had a barrier before, it was the size of a fence, and now we have a barrier the size of a mountain.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Normally, there are fifteen to twenty pregnant women in the Meta House program. On the day we visited after the bill was signed, there were three. Alice Logan came to Meta House just after she delivered a cocaine-addicted baby. Why didn't she come when she was pregnant?

ALICE LOGAN: I was scared. You know, I thought that I'd go to the doctor; they would arrest me until I had the baby; and after the baby, I would be arrested - you know - kept in custody and my child will be taken.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Logan was never in danger of being arrested. Under the new law she could have been ordered into treatment, but that distinction is often lost on the street, says this former cocaine addict and Meta House graduate who uses the name Kelly.

KELLY: I've heard a lot of different stories and saw a lot of different things happening because of women not getting a full understanding of the bill and being afraid that they're going to be arrested, and I've been around women that waited till the last minute, you know, when they're in labor, and I've known women to have their children in toilets, in basements on mattresses, different mattresses in different places - afraid to go to the doctor.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Angela Wolfe's mother says her daughter did not do well when she was ordered into treatment while pregnant. Sharon Wolfe has custody of her daughter's oldest son. The state took custody of the son she had after being ordered into treatment. The treatment was not successful, Wolfe continued to abuse cocaine, and again became pregnant, but this time she voluntarily sought help.

SHARON WOLFE: When you're being forced to do something, your intention that you're not going to do it. So, she actually proved to them that she can do it on her own if she really wanted to.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: And how long has she been in treatment now?

SHARON WOLFE: Well, she's been in since April.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: And how is she doing?

SHARON WOLFE: She's doing great. The baby's doing good.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Do you think she'll get to keep this baby?

SHARON WOLFE: Oh, yes.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Domina and Huelsman's experience with the cocaine mom bill brought them to Washington in July to testify before a House committee considering national legislation dealing with drugs and alcohol abuse by pregnant women. Legislators also heard from politicians and practitioners from South Carolina, the only state in the nation that imposes criminal penalties for women who abuse drugs or alcohol during pregnancy. The director of a residential treatment center in South Carolina says the law has made a difference in many women's lives.

PAULA KELLER, Residential Treatment Center Director: I really wish it could have been Amanda and her baby Amber or Jackie and her babies Whitney and Ray-ray. Each of those women would have said the same thing to you. I carry their message for them in the terminology which they used. If it wasn't for the law, I'd still be out there.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But she didn't convince Wisconsin's Francine Feinberg, who was also invited to testify.

FRANCINE FEINBERG: Recently, two pregnant women left treatment because we were unable to convince them that we would not turn them over to the authorities. In an attempt to help a few women and their children, these approaches will adversely impact many others who would have sought help but now will heighten fear.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The debate will continue as more states, as well as the Congress, consider legislation to protect the fetus from drug and alcohol abuse by their mothers.

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, the death toll rose to 49 from the winter storms that buried the Midwest and Northeast. Most died in traffic accidents or from heart attacks while shoveling snow. Thousands of airline travelers remained stranded. And President Clinton proposed a $1,000 a year tax credit for families providing long-term care for elderly and disabled relatives at home. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Thank you and good night.