The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening, I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is away this evening. On the "NewsHour" tonight: Kosovo, Day 24, the air war and the refugees, Spencer Michels has our summary; the administration's view from National Security Adviser Samuel Berger; our end-of-the-week political analysis with Mark Shields and Paul Gigot; and, as Premier Zhu Rongji wraps up his North American visit, mixed signals on the future of US-China trade. We'll have the other news of this Friday at the end of the program tonight.

FOCUS - CAMPAIGN FOR KOSOVO

MARGARET WARNER: On day 24 of the war over Kosovo, the refugee flood resumed. The Pentagon said it expects to activate 30,000 reservists, and NATO missiles and bombs pounded Yugoslav targets around the clock. Spencer Michels has our summary of the day's events.

SPENCER MICHELS: The flow of refugees entering Albania, Macedonia, and Montenegro is increasing dramatically, according to the International Red Cross. That group says up to 51,000 refugees poured across Macedonia's three border posts overnight, taxing aid agencies in the region. And an estimated 100,000 new refugees were believed headed for Macedonia.

ARBEN CAMI, International Medical Corps: The people are very tired. More of them are children and old woman and some of them, they was forced to left the hospitals in Kosovo. And they stopped the medical treatment. And, you know, without food and without shelter, everything is going to be worse.

SPENCER MICHELS: These refugees fleeing into Montenegro faced harsh terrain in the snowbound mountain passes where spring weather has yet to arrive. The UN Refugee Agency accused Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic of wanting to empty Kosovo of those who remained among the original 1.8 Million ethnic Albanians. Kris Janowski is spokesman.

KRIS JANOWSKI, UNHCR Spokesman: The expulsions of the Albanian ethnic population from Kosovo have now resumed with full force. We have got people streaming into northern Albania. As we speak, there are trains and buses arriving in Macedonia, there are also record numbers of people arriving in Montenegro. We spoke to a young woman late last night who she said she saw the entire city center of Kosovska Mitrovica burning and she saw 50 bodies lying on the streets. So from these bits and pieces of information, we can tell that terrible things are happening in Kosovo, and the brutality of the expulsions, as well as the scope of the expulsions is picking up.

SPENCER MICHELS: At the State Department, Spokesman James Rubin said that refugees and other sources have provided new evidence of significant numbers of mass grave sites.

JAMES RUBIN, State Department Spokesman: In West Central Kosovo, west of Pristina, there is a set of evidence of mass killings and graves associated with those mass killings. We are working with the prosecutor on this new information and we are hopefully, if possible, going to be able to release it in more detail, but this new information about mass killings in Kosovo is another example of the fact that president Milosevic's policies are aimed towards killing civilians.

SPENCER MICHELS: Rubin also said evidence shows that Serbian forces have damaged or destroyed more than 400 villages and towns in Kosovo, 45 of them in the last week to ten days. In the bombing war, NATO said today its planes hit targets throughout Yugoslavia, knocking out several tanks and artillery sites. A NATO spokesman said because of the successful air strikes, it was one of the best nights in the campaign. And at the Pentagon, Major General Charles Wald played 14 tapes from last night's attacks on targets in Serbia and Kosovo.

CHARLES WALD, US Air Force: F-16 continued to take down all their aircraft, as well as their integrated air defense, sustainment airfields. That's not a decoy, as you'll see in a moment, a lot of fuel in it. So that's destroyed.

SPENCER MICHELS: Serbian TV showed NATO missiles hitting a refinery in the Serb City of Novi Sad. A military barracks in the area was also hit, and there were pictures of civilian buildings in the surrounding area that were damaged as well. Bombs hit another bridge over the Danube, southeast of the capital, leaving the mile-long structure impassable. NATO officials were peppered with questions again today asking for clarification of Wednesday's mistaken NATO attack on a convoy in Kosovo, resulting in what the Serbs said were 75 civilian deaths. These pictures were taken under the strict control of the Serbian Media Center. Some reports had more than one attack. There was confusion over the exact location and over whether western reporters had been shown the actual attack site by the Serbs.

JAMIE SHEA, NATO Spokesman: I find it absolutely impossible to believe that you know nothing about the six-mile stretch of road with, for some reason, blown-up tanks and bodies on that road.

SPENCER MICHELS: Spokesmen said they could add nothing to their previous comments that a NATO plane had hit a civilian vehicle and neither could they provide video from the plane. Shea said it was time to move on.

JAMIE SHEA: NATO puts its setbacks behind it, and this is what we have done and are going to continue to do. We are not going to be blown off course. We are keeping our eye on the main issue, which is that Milosevic has to be stopped.

SPENCER MICHELS: At the NATO briefing, General Marani said the vehicle hit was probably a tractor, but the questions kept coming.

REPORTER: The General is saying that, you know, there was probably a tractor, but in the voice of the person that you told us is the voice of the pilot, yesterday, he clearly said that he saw with his own eyes -- the expression was eyeballed, three olive green military armored vehicles, trucks, trucks. And I -- how can you have tractors - I mean, tractors are not olive green. Most of them aren't. They are either bright yellow or bright green or red. Sure, if there was probably a tractor, you would know by now if there was one or not. Can you please clarify this?

BRIG. GENERAL GIUSEPPE MARANI, NATO Military Spokesman: What I'm telling you is based on other means of investigation that were surely not available to the pilot when he dropped the bomb -- and when he recognized what was on the road as tractors -- sorry as trucks.

SPENCER MICHELS: NATO Spokesman Jamie Shea claimed today the Kosovo Liberation Army is getting stronger in its civil war in Kosovo. Shea said the Serbs probably didn't expect harassment by the KLA.

JAMIE SHEA: Like a Phoenix which rises from the ashes, the Kosovo Liberation Army is able to mount a number of attacks still inside Kosovo. And of course, as NATO depletes the assets of the Serb armed forces, there will be more and more scope for those attacks by the Kosovo Liberation Army to be stepped up, with greater effectiveness. So the Serb armed forces are in something of a vice, and that vice will tighten as the days progress.

SPENCER MICHELS: Potential KLA recruits from Albania and other parts of Europe are reportedly gathering near the Albania-Kosovo border. That has prompted local residents fearful of more shelling attacks from the Serbs to call for a NATO presence in the area to protect them. Today a five-hour gun battle erupted between Serb and Albanian forces according to Albanian officials. At the Pentagon this morning, Defense Secretary William Cohen confirmed reports that within the next few days, he'll trigger the first call-up of military reservists and National Guard units for duty in the Balkans. The troops reportedly are needed in large part to support the additional 300aircraft requested by NATO this week.

WILLIAM COHEN, Secretary of Defense: I'll be meeting with the chairman and others during the course of the next couple of days to evaluate what would be involved in term of the call-up. But certainly there will be some the exact number I can't identify right now. We still have some examination to go through.

SPENCER MICHELS: Cohen did, however say the call-up would be substantial. Some reports have put the figure at more than 30,000. By comparison, a quarter of a million reservists served during the Persian Gulf War. Some of those troops participated in bombing missions- but for the most part, they flew the support aircraft, providing in-flight refueling and overhead radar information as well as maintaining aircraft on the ground.

NEWSMAKER

MARGARET WARNER: Now to our NewsMaker interview with National Security Advisor Samuel Berger. Elizabeth Farnsworth has that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Berger, thank you for joining us.

SAMUEL BERGER: Good evening, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: At this stage after three weeks of bombing and given all the developments that Spencer Michels just went through, what has the air campaign accomplished in your view?

SAMUEL BERGER: Well, I think the air campaign has been very effective. We have -- as we knew from the beginning, our first task, because of the very elaborate air defense system that the Serbs had, was to degrade that system so that we could fly in Kosovo and throughout Serbia with minimum risk to our pilots. That was our first task. We've now done that. There is still an air defense capability, but it's degraded to the point where we're now able to fly 24 hours a day and really unrelenting attacks as long as the weather is good. Second of all, we have substantially diminished his command and control capabilities so that his ability to really maintain control of his forces is degraded. You've seen from these pictures what we've done already to the infrastructure, to the bridges and the lines of communication, which enable him to resupply his forces in Kosovo. We've destroyed 100 percent of his fuel refining capability, and we know that there are now fuel shortages in Serbia. We've destroyed a good part of his modern air force. And we're now able to go into Kosovo and go after the Serb forces that are in Kosovo on a much more systematic basis. So I think enormous amount of progress has been made. This has always been seen as a sustained campaign. As a phase campaign that would move from air defense to his ability to sustain his forces to the forces and the command and the national command structure itself.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Berger, the ante is upped with more aircraft and a call-up of reservists. Were not enough committed in the beginning?

SAMUEL BERGER: No, I think in the beginning the military people had an initial job to do, which was, as I say, was to degrade his air defense system. I think we said from the very beginning, the President said the night this began, they had a very challenging and sophisticated air defense system. We could not send American and other planes into that environment until we had substantially degraded it. Now that we've done that, we can fly not just at night. We can fly 24 hours a day. That enables a substantial number of additional planes to be used. That requires obviously a significant number of additional personnel.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So it isn't that in the beginning the assumption was that Milosevic would fold quickly.

SAMUEL BERGER: No, I don't think anybody thought that was a likelyscenario. We had hoped, as the President said, by striking him that we might deter him from the kind of brutal assault that we've -- your earlier film highlighted again. But the President said, again on that first night, if we were not able to stop it, then we were going to systematically destroy his military capability. And that's what we're engaged in doing. And that's going to take time. We just have to have the patience, the determination, and the maturity as a nation to see this through. I believe NATO is united. I know we're determined and I believe the American people support -- are seeing this to a successful conclusion.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think this is the first and only call-up of reservists or might it be one of several?

SAMUEL BERGER: Well, I think we have to see what the commanders in field feel they need. This is a serious conflict in which we're engaged. And the President has been very responsive to the requests by his commanders, General Clark, General Shelton and Secretary of Defense, to what they think is necessary. We have not yet received a recommendation from the Secretary of Defense with respect to reservists. But when we do, we will act on it promptly. And if down the line they believe further activation is necessary, we will obviously consider that very favorably. I think the American people need to understand that unlike years ago when the reserves were sort of off on the side and didn't really have an integrated function, we've now, as we downsized the military over the last ten or twelve years, integrated the reserves into the ready army in a way in which there are many functions that we rely upon the reserves to carry out. So they are very much a part of our overall military.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Berger, how would you define victory at this point?

SAMUEL BERGER: I think the President has very clearly said what the goals are here. And that has been -- those have been adopted and echoed by the 19 NATO countries: Number one, to see the Serb forces leave Kosovo; Number two, to enable the Kosovar Albanians, the Kosovar refugees to return home; and Number three, to have in Kosovo an international security presence that would enable the Kosovar people to live with security and self-government and hopefully in peace.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Can this be done with Milosevic in power, or has his removal become a pre-condition for peace in the region? Some of what was said yesterday by various administration people including the President, seemed to indicate this has now become the case.

SAMUEL BERGER: Well, what the President said is that he cannot imagine in the context of looking down the road to what this region will look like, that the region can really thrive and enjoy the kind of prosperity that other parts of the former Soviet Bloc enjoy unless there's a democratic Serbia. That's something we've supported for many months and years through support of a democratic opposition and free press and, et cetera. So that is certainly a goal. But Mr. Milosevic -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Sounds like you're saying -

SAMUEL BERGER: Elizabeth, if I can just finish -- Mr. Milosevic can say tomorrow -- he has a fundamental choice here, it seems to me. Number one, he can either see his military and his country's infrastructure continually diminished every day to the point where he will not be able to exert control over Kosovo. We saw the KLA in your film getting stronger. He will lose control over Kosovo. If he doesn't, on the other hand, recognize that accepting the conditions that I outlined before, is the better course, it allows Kosovo to remain part of Serbia, although in a self-governing protected fashion. And I hope he makes that choice.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Speaking of the KLA, yesterday you and others, you here in San Francisco, referred to it as having increased in numbers and you seemed to indicate that it's a key part of strategic thinking at this point. Is that the case?

SAMUEL BERGER: No. What I was saying is that there are two ways that this really can end. One is that Mr. Milosevic can recognize that every day his military is driven deeper and deeper into a hole. It is diminished further, and he winds up with every day that goes by, with less and less; and therefore, come to the realization that he ought to accept a situation that the Kosovars can come back and his forces leave with an international peacekeeping force. But if he doesn't, he's going to face a growing insurgency in Kosovo because he hasn't destroyed the KLA. We know something about guerrilla wars. He hasn't destroyed the KLA. There are more now than there were before and they are stronger now and the balance of power is going to shift every day and every week. And he is going to lose control of Kosovo if he lets this bombing continue. So in many ways, the better choice for him is to end the bombing by agreeing to allow the Kosovars to come back with an international force.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Berger, yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Shelton acknowledged that the air war might fail to achieve some of the goals that you just laid out. He said with bombing alone, we could continue to degrade his capabilities but Milosevic still might not negotiate or withdraw his troops. Secretary Cohen said, "If we were acting alone," meaning the United States, "we would do things differently." What would the US do differently?

SAMUEL BERGER: Let me go first to General Shelton's comment. As I just said, I think this can end in two ways. Either Mr. Milosevic can realize that every day he loses more or -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's assume he doesn't.

SAMUEL BERGER: If he doesn't -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's assume the bombing does not achieve the result. What next?

SAMUEL BERGER: What I'm saying is the bombing will achieve de facto that result because he will lose his army in Kosovo. He will lose his ability to control Kosovo, and with a balance of power shifting and the balance of forces shifting, Kosovo will no longer be within his ambit. So it can end either by him agreeing or him losing control of Kosovo. And I think that's what General Shelton meant by that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, he seemed to be indicating that something else might be necessary, and I'm assuming it might be ground troops. Is that out of the question? What is the status of planning for ground troops now?

SAMUEL BERGER: Well, in the fall NATO looked at a number of ground options, permissive, they assessed the various non-permissive options. They made some judgments about what the numbers would be that would be involved. You know, that planning could be updated if we need do that, and if the commanders believe it's necessary. I think that we all believe at this point, that we should stay with an air campaign, that it's working, that it's going to take some time. We need to be, as a nation, I believe, mature and patient and recognize that not everything is a 30-second commercial or a one-hour made-for-TV movie; that these things take time. The Gulf War situation took months.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is the planning being updated?

SAMUEL BERGER: The planning could be updated. There is not at this point consensus in the NAC for a ground option. And I think there is a view that it will not be necessary.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This brings up something that Senator John McCain said yesterday. As you know, he complained "the vision of political leaders in Washington studying operational plans and eliminating targets brought to mind a painful analogy to Vietnam."

SAMUEL BERGER: I'm really glad you asked me that question because I watched your show last night and I heard him say that, and I - you know, it was one of those situations where you just wish you could jump into the television. I have great respect for John McCain but he is just wrong about this. Target selection is not being done by political leaders. The President has delegated that -- those decisions to his secretary of defense, to his chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, to General Clark, and only when there are particular sensitive target issues that, one the American people would expect the President of the United States to review -

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Like what?

SAMUEL BERGER: Situation where -- I really don't want to get too much into targeting, but a situation which might affect another country, a neighboring country, or a situation that might have some other kinds of effects. Only in those rare situations does General Shelton or Secretary Cohen ask for the President's concurrence. But he has -- he's not choosing targets. He shouldn't choose targets. The President understands that the military here ought to make those decisions. And I'm glad I have this opportunity, even a day late, to correct the record from my friend, John McCain.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: If you watched the show yesterday, you know that there was -- and you probably read it, too, a lot of skepticism in Congress about this operation. How do you in the administration read congressional sentiment on this matter now?

SAMUEL BERGER: Well, I spent all of Tuesday or Wednesday -- I can't remember now -- on the Hill with Secretary Cohen and with General Shelton. We went to the Democratic and Republican Caucus in the Senate and House, all four of them. We probably saw 80 percent of the members and listened to their questions. I think there is broad bipartisan support for what the United States is doing, what the American military is doing. I think there are always questions, and they are legitimate questions. And, obviously people would like to see is this move to a resolution. And so we were asked - and a lot of the members have been gone for a few weeks and I think they had a lot of questions. But what are the alternatives here? The alternative is - what were the alternatives? The alternative was to turn away, to watch this huge travesty that you've documented so well on your show, just one of the more pitiful chapters of our century, to watch that and to not -- and to have not responded. That was one option. Another option, on the other extreme, would have been to marshal a ground force and march into Serbia. You know, see saw in the Gulf that takes months to do. We would not even be close to being ready to doing that now. Or third, to launch a systematic unrelenting painful air campaign which every day takes a further piece out of his machinery of repression. I have no question that if we have the will to sustain this, the will of a nation, and the will as an alliance, that we will prevail.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Well, Mr. Berger, thank you for being with us.

SAMUEL BERGER: Thank you, Elizabeth.

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Shields and Gigot; and trading with China.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MARGARET WARNER: Now for our end-of-the-week political analysis we turn to "NewsHour" regulars Shields and Gigot; that's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. So, how good a case do you think Sandy Berger just made, Mark, for his argument that this has been a -- I think he said -- very effective campaign?

MARK SHIELDS: You know, don't know, Margaret. I thought there wasn't a lot of intensity or passion, it didn't strike me or Sandy Berger is more conversational than he is self-confident. But I think he is trying to -- this week was all about persuading Congress -- and trying to -- it isn't public opinion they have to deal with at this point -- the administration, nearly as much as it is the Congress.

MARGARET WARNER: How well do you think he dealt, Paul, with the various questions that have been raised? I mean, a lot of the questions Elizabeth raised are questions many members of the Congress have been raising.

PAUL GIGOT: I don't think he did a very good job at all, Margaret. I think he is still talking about a gradual escalation with no particular strategy to win the war. I don't think he refuted John McCain's points very well at all. I know that their briefings on the Hill this week, they are not having a great deal of success in persuading Congress that they have a strategy. And I think he put an optimistic gloss on what even the briefings describe as a much less satisfactory result of the bombing.

MARGARET WARNER: And as Elizabeth - go ahead.

MARK SHIELDS: Just one thing on the Congress. I mean, the Congress -- we're seeing now an institutional response. I don't care who the Congress is. It happens to be a Republican Congress.

PAUL GIGOT: I've got a lot to say on Congress.

MARK SHIELDS: Congress by its own inclination and great historical tradition qualify at times like this as Monday morning quarterbacks and backseat drivers. They really don't want it - they want it to be Johnson's war. They wanted it then. They wanted it to be Nixon's war. They didn't want to vote. They don't want to vote now. They want it to be Clinton's war. So I think that Congress, until it steps up, makes that debate. Paul's paper this week urged editorially a declaration of war. I mean, that's certainly a strong stand, but I mean the Congress has shown no inclination to become either a partner or co-captain. They like the sniping.

MARGARET WARNER: Some members of Congress, when they were returning this week said were going to come in here and try to shape policy. I mean, John McCain was talking about a resolution essentially authorizing ground troops. What happened to all of that?

PAUL GIGOT: He ran into a stone wall basically. He ran into the leadership of the House and the leadership of the Senate that is -- doesn't want to play that game. Mark is right. The word on a lot -- behind the scenes of a lot of Republicans is it's Clinton's war. We want that to be something that the public understands. Apart from being bad policy because it makes it easier for Milosevic to resist, I think it's, also is bad politics in the end. If this thing is -- what if the President wins? They'll look -- it will be completely his victory. What if he cuts a deal that's a bad deal with Milosevic? They won't have a lot to stand on to criticize, except for John McCain, because they weren't willing to ante up, steel his will. What you've got in Congress is you've got 400 people acting like little Clintons. The President isn't going to take responsibility for this. He's going to look at his polls. So are we. He's not going to come before us and ask what we need for ground troops, neither are we. After you, Mr. President. In a sense, the President is getting a Congress that is a mirror image of his own lack of willingness to spend political capital to move the country.

MARK SHIELDS: I think the President's on the line. I mean, I could argue about the tactics of making his case. But I don't think there is any question that politically he is vulnerable. And --

MARGARET WARNER: In the sense he has the responsibility.

MARK SHIELDS: He's there. It is Clinton's war. Trent Lott can play games with it. I think what has held back the Republicans as much as the political edge is they are really confounded by public opinion. I mean public opinion has outpaced both the Congress and the administration in this. The American people are not a silly people. The American people know that the principal products of war are destruction, are suffering and are death. They understand that. And somehow they've been treated I think by the leadership, particularly the congressional leadership, but the administration as well, as sort of children who, you know, at the first sight are going to turn tail and run. I don't think that's the case in this instance.

MARGARET WARNER: Paul, there are some members of Congress, are there not, that really do care about foreign policy and about the country and about what's happening here. I mean are you saying they are all -

PAUL GIGOT: No -

MARGARET WARNER: What about John McCain and Chuck Hagel and the people who signed this letter and who at least wanted a definition or expression, I should say, of congressional endorsement of the aims and what we should use, the United States should use to achieve those?

PAUL GIGOT: There are some of those. And even some of the people who are opposed to this are principled in their opposition. Don't get me wrong. There isn't too much from my point of view, too much political calculation going on particularly in the leadership but there are some who think this is a problem. I talked to Chuck Hagel, who I think has been out front with John McCain, a Vietnam veteran himself saying you know, we've got to win. And Hagel says when he is talking to his colleagues, to many of them, he can't get to the second and third and fourth level of argument here. Namely, he can't talk about NATO's interest; he can't talk about the example it sets for the world because they can't get past Bill Clinton. But he's the commander in chief a lot of Republicans say. And he's going to blow it. And we don't want to give him the cover because they think Bill Clinton is looking for a Gulf of Tonkenan Resolution of his own to get basically political cover so he doesn't have to have responsibility.

MARGARET WARNER: Why do you think, Mark, that the President, and we heard Sandy Berger again - they're insisting that no planning even for ground troops is necessary.

MARK SHIELDS: I don't know because I think again the public is out front. I understand at the outset that there was a fear that NATO would split if ground troops were mentioned early. I think it would have been a political -- problem in this country if you came up to Capitol Hill before this began and said ground troops are an option. I think there would have been a far bigger hue and cry than there was and might have been defeated.

MARGARET WARNER: Secretary Cohen made that point yesterday.

MARK SHIELDS: I think it's a good point. I think it's a reasonable point.

MARGARET WARNER: What about now?

MARK SHIELDS: Now I do not understand now unless there is a reluctance to admit that they were initially wrong, that they are not sure that the public would support them, back them up. One thing Sandy Berger did say, which I have to say I agree with him completely, and that is he talked about we're three weeks into this. I heard the network news this morning saying this is dragging on in the third week. Three weeks after Pearl Harbor, in December -- we weren't even to January 1st, New Year's Day of 1942. I mean you talk about wanting something over in a hurry and the church of what's happening now -- I mean we're in for a -- this is a war. This is not something that gets conveniently over in time for a long weekend. And I think that, quite frankly, has been in a certain attitude among some politicians, has been unfortunate.

PAUL GIGOT: But that's partly because of the strategy. I mean, the Powell Doctrine was maximum amount of force, minimum amount of time. This seems to be a minimum amount of force and the time, well, we'll see how long it goes. And, remember, the expectation of a short war, that this work was - on this program - fanned on this program by Madeleine Albright, who told Jim Lehrer -

MARGARET WARNER: The night the bombing started.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: -- we think this will be over in a very short time and we don't think it's going to have that big an impact on the Kosovars. Not meeting the initial goals is what has fanned so much of the skepticism about whether they are going to reach the later ones.

MARGARET WARNER: And if this is going to go on a long time, of course, the candidates in the Republican Presidential nomination battle, we saw a couple more this week, Elizabeth Dole and Dan Quayle try to use the Kosovo issue. Is this becoming an issue that these candidates cannot ignore and have to figure out a way to grapple with?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. And not only the Republicans -- the Democrats, too. Bill Bradley be has been mute on the issue and Al Gore has been sort of a defender and an apologist of the administration, not surprisingly. But I think on the Republican side -- in every presidential campaign something happens that is unexpected, unanticipated. And I recall the 1984 campaign one year before the Korean airliner was shot down with 283 Americans, including a Congressman, aboard wandered into Soviet air space. And they asked each of the presidential campaigners -

MARGARET WARNER: Korean.

MARK SHIELDS: Korean. I'm sorry, but in Soviet air space when it was shot down. - And asked each of the presidential candidates, what would you have done if you had been commander in chief -- Senator Gary Hart at the time said, said if I had been President, I would have ordered the jet fighters to look in -- if it were a Czechoslovakian aircraft flying over the United States - I'd ask him to look in the windows and if he saw them in military uniforms, I would have shot it down. And it was an absolutely factious silly answer, but it did give you an insight, it gave you a sense - on this one - which had an insight - the only two people with a consistent world view on the Republican side are Pat Buchanan and John McCain. You can argue with it. They know what they believe, there is no hesitation, there's no hedging, there's no kind of back and forth and calibrating and putting the finger in the air to see which way it's blowing. And I think, quite frankly, after this administration, when is is and what's sex and were we alone -- I think the sense of somebody speaking unambiguously, boldly, and unequivocally is welcome by people even if they don't agree with John McCain's prescription or certainly Pat Buchanan's.

PAUL GIGOT: I agree with that particularly on the part of McCain. Pat Buchanan, you know, he might allow the army to defend us if they invade Florida, make an exception for Miami. I don't know. But the rest of the Republicans have discovered they can't have it both ways. George Bush issued a statement that was tepid at first, and he's had to move over to the McCain side. Elizabeth Dole is cautious at first. Now she has moved over to the McCain side.

MARGARET WARNER: And, in fact, she's -- there is video on today, she is in the refugee camps and she's talking about, yes, I'd send in ground troops if NATO -

PAUL GIGOT: And give her credit at least for coming across and saying I'm willing to ante up on that on the means to greet the end. That seems to me to be the acid test if you are going to be the internationalist in this case.

MARK SHIELDS: That does makes sense for Elizabeth Dole to me. She was president of the Red Cross. I mean, she does has some familiarity presumably and officially and professionally with refugees. And I think that it makes an awful lot of sense for her. It is a legitimate mission for her as a candidate, but as a public figure as well.

MARGARET WARNER: And Dan Quayle this week, though, he announced for President simply said, well, we don't need a President with on-the-job training in foreign policy, but he -

MARK SHIELDS: Hitting George W. Bush unfairly.

MARGARET WARNER: Yes. Yes.

PAUL GIGOT: But I'm not so sure that he has laid out a clear position. At least as I listen to it, it seemed to me that he wanted to have it both ways. He said, "I want to have experience but I wouldn't have gotten us into this mess and no ground troops but let diplomacy work." And some of the other Republicans sound an awful lot like liberal Democrats used to sound. What about the Russians? What would they think? And let diplomacy work first. It's not a very pretty picture.

MARK SHIELDS: Vietnam analogy. Hate do it. George McGovern, Pat Buchanan, Barry Goldwater, John McCain, everybody else is in the middle. I mean, in other words, McCain, go get 'em, go get 'em. Take them out. So as a result, everybody sounds pale, pastel and namby pamby.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. We have to take this out. Thank you both very much. Have a great weekend.

FOCUS - TRADE OFFS

MARGARET WARNER: Now, mixed signals on the future of US-China trade. After more than a week in the united states, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji was in Canada today, where he'll be until returning to Beijing at the beginning of next week. Phil Ponce looks at the accomplishments and fallout from his trip.

PHIL PONCE: Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji came to Washington amid much fanfare during his nine-day US visit. Premier Zhu, known for his efforts to reform the Chinese economy, made stops at six American cities, including Chicago, where he opened trading on the Mercantile Exchange. His meeting last Thursday with President Clinton in Washington took place against a backdrop of continued allegations of Chinese spying and human rights abuses, whether Taiwan will remain autonomous, and Beijing's opposition to NATO strikes in Yugoslavia. But for Premier Zhu, the main issue was trade, specifically China's efforts to join the World Trade Organization, the WTO. China needs the endorsement of the US to do so. The WTO has 134 member nations. Although it was created only four years ago, the organization is the successor to the trade body known as GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, created in 1948. Organization members agree to limit trade barriers in a wide range of goods and services. Reports suggested the two sides were close to an agreement that would effectively bring China into the WTO. But the deal never came.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We have made significant progress toward bringing China into the World Trade Organization on fair commercial terms, although we are not quite there yet.

PHIL PONCE: In an interview with the "NewsHour" last Friday, the premier said US politics was to blame.

ZHU RONGJI, Premier, People's Republic of China: [speaking through interpreter] The discussions for China's entry into the WTO and our bilateral trade negotiations have been proceeding along to the point where we are very, very close to reaching an agreement, on the verge of signing an agreement. But because of the current political atmosphere, my understanding is that President Clinton feels that this would not be an opportune time to finalize such an agreement.

PHIL PONCE: In the days that followed, Premier Zhu continued a very public campaign for a WTO. Deal, including a trip to the NASDAQ market site and meetings with American business executives. In his final US speech at MIT he emphasized that China is not the one walking away from the table.

ZHU RONGJI: [speaking through interpreter] In negotiations on China's accession into the WTO, China has made very major concessions. I believe that such concessions are good for the Chinese people to participate in international economic cooperation and also good for enhancing the competitiveness, or promote the market competition in China and also the development of China's national economy. And they are more good for the WTO because without China's participation, the WTO will not be representative enough. And I think such concessions are all the more in the US interest.

PHIL PONCE: Zhu said President Clinton has called him and asked him to reconvene negotiations. Premier Zhu agreed, and trade officials will meet again in Beijing later this month. For analysis of the Premier's trip and US-China relations, we turn to Robert Kapp, president of the US-China Business Council, which represents more than 300 American companies; Ya Sheng Huang, professor at Harvard Business School, his research focuses on foreign investment in China; and Congressman Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio. He's on the House panel that oversees US-Asia pacific relations. Welcome everybody. Professor Huang, why is it that China wants into the World Trade Organization so badly? What is in it for China?

YASHENG HUANG, Harvard Business Council: China has been trying to join the WTO since 1986. See this has been a 13-year effort. So this didn't happen yesterday. What's unique this time is that China, for the first time, is willing to give major concessions to the United States in order to qualify for the membership in the WTO. One of the reasons for the drive into the WTO, a more eager drive into the WTO at this time is because Chinese economy is experiencing difficulties and the Chinese government realizes that the export is suffering, FDI is slowing down and these are the major drivers of the Chinese economy.

PHIL PONCE: I'm sorry. You said some initials there. The FTI?

YASHENG HUANG: Foreign direct investment. And joining the WTO is an effort to make the Chinese system, economic system more transparent, regulations more predictable for companies as a way to attract more foreign direct investment.

PHIL PONCE: So, Professor, you're saying that China wants to expand its own markets and also wants investors to come in; they want to give -- the country wants to give investors a stable and as you call it transparent system that allows foreign investors to do business?

YASHENG HUANG: Yes, that's one motivation. And the other motivation is that Premier Zhu Rongji realizes that almost the only way to make Chinese firms competitive is to introduce market competition. And Chinese firms now compete with each other but at a very low level of competition because they are not competing with the best of the corporations. If you open your own market, then you compete with these very powerful, very capable companies and competition is one way to make Chinese firms become more competitive in the future.

PHIL PONCE: And Congressman, we heard the Premier say in the introductory bees that the deal was killed by politics. Is that so?

REP. SHERROD BROWN, [D] Ohio: The deal was killed by Chinese Communist Party behavior over the last ten years. Every time we try to work with the Chinese, there is one more example of how they violate every accepted international norm -- shooting missiles at the Straits of Taiwan. Selling nuclear Hispanic ring technology to Pakistan; smuggling AK-47's in the United States illegally; forced abortions, child labor, slave labor and ultimately a trade deficit with the United States, a surplus on their part, a deficit with us. We sell only about $12 billion of our goods to China because they've closed their market. We buy about $75 billion worth of goods from China. So the President can claim and Charlene Barshefsky can claim and Premier Zhu, for that matter, can claim that they've made a good agreement but they've promised lots of things in the past. I don't think we look at what they promised. We look at their behavior in the last year. Let's see if they can stop doing the kinds of things and sticking their thumb in the eye of world opinion and world international accepted norms for a period of six months or a year before we so enthusiastically let them into this World Trade Organization.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Kapp, how about that?

ROBERT KAPP, US-China Business Council: Well, Phil, I think the main thing to remember is that we told the Chinese steadfastly for the last dozen years that we would not do a political deal with them. There were a lot of suspicions that the administration would do a political deal, lower the bar and so forth. But the list of Chinese agreements and so-called commitments that the US Trade Representative released on the day that Premier Zhu was in Washington was really a breathtaking list of American achievements in gaining Chinese commitments to open markets at a level that even the most optimistic American business people had not expected.

PHIL PONCE: Give an example of the kinds of concessions that the Chinese were -- put on the table?

ROBERT KAPP: The first thing the Chinese did was agreed to three so-called side agreements, which they have now signed and which are now in effect, which at a stroke opened the Chinese market to three agricultural markets, which have been prohibited before -- wheat from the Pacific Northwest; fruit, which was kept out because of contamination and the meat process that the Chinese said if unless we inspect your plants, we won't let your meat products into this country. Those are now off the table and they've opened the market. But beyond that, the Chinese have gone through a series of commitments to radically lower tariffs on American industrial exports to lower tariffs on agricultural exports, to permit American companies to move their own products inside China, something known as distribution rights. The list is very long, indeed. It covers telecommunications, financial services, banking, insurance and the American business sectors that have been the real drivers of the hard-line American position all this time, with a few exceptions yet to be worked out are very pleased with what the Chinese apparently have agreed to give us. The trouble is we don't get it until the deal is done and they enter the WTO.

PHIL PONCE: Congressman Brown, how about that, the concessions the least bit persuasive?

REP. SHERROD BROWN: Communist leaders like to quote V I Lennon when said - repeatedly used to say in the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution that promises are like pie crust. They're made to be broken. We haven't seen anything from the Chinese, other than more promises. They promised they wouldn't steal CD-ROM technology. They promised they wouldn't steal nuclear secrets. They promised they would quit shooting missiles into the Straits of Taiwan. They've promised and promised. We should see six months or a year of actual carrying out some of the things. They promised - they've still continued to close their markets to us. Of course, American business loves these deals. I, in my seven years in Congress, have never seen the level and the enthusiasm of lobbying of American corporations for Most-Favored-Nation status for China. All the major CEO's visit every office on Capitol Hill to the point that one major Chinese dissident said to a group of us on Capitol Hill, that the American business community serves as a vanguard of the Chinese Communist Revolution in Congress. I mean it's this group of people. Of course, they want this advantage, because China is not a billion consumers potentially for American business. China is a billion workers for American businesses to set up in China and sell back to the United States. That's the problem with Chinese trade today.

PHIL PONCE: Professor Huang, in addition to some of the concessions that the Premier may have made, how much did he have riding personally on this?

YASHENG HUANG: Let me get to the point that the congressman made about the Chinese trade deficit with the United States. One of the mechanisms to get down, to reduce the trade deficit is to incorporate China into WTO, so China can open up its market so US companies can sell its goods to the Chinese consumers directly. Secondly, lots of exports coming from China are produced by companies that are joint ventured with foreign companies going into China that have invested in China. Motorola, an American company, for example, accounts for anything between 15 to 25 percent of the Chinese electronic exports coming into the United States.

PHIL PONCE: Well, Professor, since you raised that theme, let's stick with it and get Mr. Kapp. What is it in it for American companies? Is it simply the access to 1.2 billion consumers?

ROBERT KAPP: Well, that's a pretty good chunk of it, Phil. This is a market opening on a scale not hitherto seen. China is not yet a country with a $20,000 per capita income. It's growing very rapidly and the American companies are beginning now to put the numbers to the implications of these concessions made by the Chinese.

PHIL PONCE: How about Congressman Brown's point, though, can the Chinese be trusted to keep their word?

ROBERT KAPP: Well, you know, one way is to say let them into the WTO and we'll not give them the normal trade - the normal tariff treatment that we have to give them if we're going to get the benefits out of all of this. We'll just let them in and we'll not treat them like WTO members ourselves; we'll give them a year or two to test their behavior. The trouble with that is that we get nothing in the way of benefits from it for our workers and our producers, and our exporters of agricultural products. In the meantime, the rest of the world, if China enters the WTO, is taking advantage of the opportunities for market access for their products. So, I think the main point about WTO is that it is a system of rules to prevent the state of nature and the law of the jungle in trade. And what they have is a universally subscribed to set of behaviors that China is now subscribing to, to a degree we've never seen before, and they also have dispute resolution. It's not perfect, but the WTO has worked very hard to create a system whereby if one country has a problem with another country's trade behavior, you take them to court, so to speak, in the WTO, and instead of having a bilateral trade war, you have an adjudication in a multilateral multinational frame work that is the way to pursue these trade grievances. And we will have trade grievances with China, no question about it.

PHIL PONCE: And very quickly, Congressman Brown, how about the argument that the WTO would provide -- would encourage further integration of China into the rule of law?

REP. SHERROD BROWN: There's no evidence for that. China -- if China is ever going to act appropriately in terms of human rights, in terms of stopping forced abortions and child labor and AK-47's and selling and stealing nuclear technology, if they are ever going to act right, you would think it would be in order for them to convince us to let them into -- encourage them to come into the World Trade Organization. If they act like this now when they, in a sense, are courting the United States, and courting other nations, how are they going to act once they get what they want, which is World Trade Organization membership? These rules don't have the kind of force of law to deal with the Chinese the way that people that are supporters of this claim. And we're not going to see a major change in Chinese behavior. Let them prove they will begin to abide by some international norms of standard accepted behavior. And then let them in the World Trade Organization. Make them show us something before we give them this huge, huge break.

PHIL PONCE: And, gentlemen, I'm afraid that's all the time we have. Professor Huang, I apologize for not getting back to you but we're out of time. Thank you.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: In the other news of this Friday, US military training flights over Italy will require the approval of both an Italian base commander and a US official. In addition, only one quarter of the flights will be allowed to fly below 2,000 feet. The rules were set today by a US Italian review panel after investigating the 1998 accident in which a low-flying Marine Corps jet severed a ski lift cable killing 20 people. Defense Secretary Cohen and his Italian counterpart, Carlos Gonjamillo, signed the report during a news conference at the Pentagon. Cohen had this to say.

WILLIAM COHEN: We again deeply regret this training accident ever occurred. Our military will do all that it can to prevent such an accident from occurring again and the recommendations in this report are an important addition to our safety procedures. And finally I want to add a word about the strong relationship between the United States and Italy. This accident clearly posed difficult challenges to both our countries. But we remain strong partners and very, very good friends.

MARGARET WARNER: Wildfires swept through Southern and Central Florida last night. The blazes, fanned by 30-mile-an-hour wind gusts, destroyed nearly 50 homes, and left as many as 500 people homeless. Whole neighborhoods lost power and water, but no deaths or serious injuries were reported. Wayne Gretzky, known to professional hockey fans as "the Great One," announced today he's going to retire. The New York Ranger Star said Sunday's season-ending game at Madison Square Garden will be his last. The 38-year-old Canadian-born Gretzky is the National Hockey League's all-time leading scorer.

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: To recap our major story, the war over Kosovo. 50,000 Ethnic Albanian refugees poured into Macedonia, with an estimated 100,000 more following them. The Pentagon said it expects to activate 30,000 reservists; NATO missiles and bombs pounded targets in Kosovo, Montenegro and Belgrade. And on the NewsHour tonight: National Security Adviser Berger said Pentagon leaders are selecting those targets, not President Clinton. As some members of Congress and news accounts have asserted. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Margaret Warner. Thank you and good night.