The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; then, today in the presidential campaign; a look at the election struggle over control of the U.S. Senate, beginning with a report on the crucial race in South Dakota; an update of the drive to reform the U.S. system of intelligence; and the latest on the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush and Sen. Kerry traded charges today over who's best to lead the war on terror. In Waterloo, Iowa, the senator said Mr. Bush has weakened America's position in the world. He cited Iraq, and said: "It's not leadership if we haven't built the strongest alliance possible and if America is going almost alone." The president fired back in Mason City, Iowa. He said Sen. Kerry doesn't understand the nature of the fight, and he told the crowd: "You cannot lead a war when you don't believe you're fighting one." We'll have more on this campaign day right after the News Summary. The president today questioned whether members of Congress should get flu shots. He told Reuters if they're able- bodied, they ought to skip the shot this year, given the shortage of vaccine. The U.S. Capitol physician has advised lawmakers to get vaccinated. He says they could spread the virus to many others as they campaign. In Iraq today, American planes again struck targets in Fallujah. U.S. Marines said the strikes hit a key command center for militants. Residents said the raids hit a home, killing a family of six. To the north, two suicide car bombs in Samarra killed an Iraqi child and wounded 11 American soldiers. Earlier this month, U.S. and Iraqi forces said they had retaken control of the city. CARE International suspended operations today in Iraq today. Gunmen abducted the relief group's director in Baghdad on Tuesday. Her fate remained a mystery today as Iraqis appealed for her release. We have a report narrated by Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Without Margaret Hassan, they said, the disabled would have no treatment. Patients at Baghdad's spinal cord injury hospital demonstrated for her release today. It was she who organized the rebuilding of the hospital after it was damaged by a bomb last year. To patients and staff alike, Margaret Hassan isn't an anonymous aid worker, but someone who is known and loved personally, even more so because she didn't leave the country despite the danger. With no ransom demand and no clue about the group who seized her, Mrs. Hassan's husband told al-Jazeera Television what little he knows about her kidnap.

HUSBAND OF MRS. HASSAN (Translated): The kidnapping happened when my wife arrived at her office. Two cars intercepted her from front and back. They pulled out the driver and companion and took the car and drove away to an unknown location. This is according to what I heard from the people working in the organization. She was near her workplace.

LINDSEY HILSUM: There has been no news since this video was released yesterday. A complex web of criminal and political groups control hostage-taking in Iraq. Until it becomes clear who took Margaret Hassan, it is hard to predict the outcome.

JIM LEHRER: Meanwhile today, kidnappers released two Egyptian engineers; they were abducted in Baghdad last month. A U.S. Army reservist pleaded guilty today to abusing prisoners in Iraq. Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick is the highest-ranking U.S. soldier charged in the scandal. At a court martial in Baghdad, he pleaded to conspiracy, assault and committing an indecent act, among other charges. Frederick admitted he took part in abuse that was captured on photos and videotape. Those images surfaced last April. The African Union announced today it will send 3400 troops to the Darfur region of Sudan. They'll join several hundred AU troops and observers already on the ground. Their job is to watch a shaky cease-fire between rebels and government forces. An estimated 75,000 people have died since fighting began in Darfur last year. Another 1.5 million are now refugees. We'll have more on Darfur later in the program. Veteran diplomat and arms control adviser Paul Nitze died last night. He served under eight presidents from Roosevelt to Reagan. During the Cold War, he helped shape the policy of containing the Soviet Union. In the Reagan years, he worked on negotiating cuts in medium- range nuclear missiles with the soviets. Paul Nitze was 97 years old. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than ten points to close below 9887. The NASDAQ rose ten points to close just under 1933. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The presidential campaign; Daschle verses Thune, and other Senate races; reforming intelligence; and the latest on Sudan.

FOCUS - CAMPAIGN DAY

JIM LEHRER: Terence Smith has our report on the campaign day.

TERENCE SMITH: Both candidates were in Iowa today, speaking at the same time this morning in cities some 50 miles apart. The president began his day addressing a crowd of supporters in Mason City, where he touched on many topics, including the war on terror.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: This is America's first presidential election since Sept. 11, 2001. The security of our country is at risk in ways different from any we have before faced. We are in the midst of a global war against a well-trained, highly motivated enemy, an enemy who hates America for the very freedoms and values we cherish most. The next commander-in-chief must lead us to victory in this war, and you cannot win a war when you don't believe you're fighting one. (Applause) Sen. Kerry was recently asked how Sept. 11 had changed him. He replied, "it didn't change me much at all." And this unchanged world-view becomes obvious when he calls the war against terror primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation, rather than what I believe: A war which requires the full use of American power to keep us secure.

TERENCE SMITH: Sen. Kerry, in nearby Waterloo, said the U.S. was fighting dual wars, and he blasted the president for his record on both.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: My fellow Americans, America must fight and win two wars: The war in Iraq and the war on terror. President Bush likes to confuse the two. He claims that Iraq is the centerpiece of the war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against the enemy. (Applause) It was a profound diversion from the focus on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and the other terrorists that threaten us. But now we are fighting two wars, and we will prevail in both.

TERENCE SMITH: The president again defended his decision to go to war in Iraq and said it was no diversion, citing the violent insurgency led by Abu Musab al- Zarqawi.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Just the other day, Zarqawi publicly announced his sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden. If Zarqawi and his associates were not busy fighting American forces in Iraq, does Sen. Kerry think he would be leading a productive and peaceful life? Of course not. And that's why Iraq is no diversion, but a central commitment in the war on terror, a place where our military is confronting and defeating terrorists overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. (Cheers and applause)

TERENCE SMITH: The senator said the president was in denial about the situation on the ground in Iraq.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: My friends, all of these calculations, these weren't just minor miscalculations; these are major misjudgments, misjudgments by stubbornness. You know, the president keeps saying how certain he is about things. But you can't just be always certain and frequently wrong. It doesn't make sense. (Applause) Make no mistake, our troops are the best-trained, best-led forces in the world, and they have been doing their job honorably and bravely. And the problem... (applause) the problem is the commander-in- chief has not being doing his. If the president cannot recognize the problems in Iraq, he will not fix them. I do recognize them, and I will fix them. (Applause)

TERENCE SMITH: The president had two more events this afternoon -- one in Rochester, Minnesota, where he talked about the economy, and another in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The race is tight in those states and in Iowa. Sen. Kerry traveled on to Pennsylvania, another battleground, for a rally in Pittsburgh this evening.

FOCUS - BLACK HILLS BATTLE

JIM LEHRER: Now, some other important races in this election, those that will determine control of the United States Senate. We begin with a report by Kwame Holman from South Dakota, where Republicans would like nothing better than to knock off the Senate's top Democrat.

SPOKESPERSON: How are you?

KWAME HOLMAN: In Washington, he's the Democratic leader of the United States Senate. But to senior citizens in the tiny town of Lennox, South Dakota, he's simply Tom.

SEN.TOM DASCHLE: Hello, Iva.

KWAME HOLMAN: Many of his constituents have met Tom Daschle before, and he has used that personal approach to win three Senate terms in a state dominated by Republicans.

SEN.TOM DASCHLE: Thank you for being here.

KWAME HOLMAN: Now, as Daschle asks South Dakotans to send him back to the Senate for a fourth time, he gently reminds them of the power that flows from his leadership position.

SEN.TOM DASCHLE: I'm now fortunate enough to sit at one of most powerful desks in the world. Right now that desk belongs to people of South Dakota. I'm very fortunate to be able to put South Dakota's agenda on the national agenda.

KWAME HOLMAN: Daschle's Republican opponent also is well-known and well-schooled in the art of personal politics. John Thune served three terms as South Dakota's lone representative to the U.S. House, and two years ago narrowly lost his bid to take the seat of the state's other Democratic senator, Tim Johnson. The margin was 524 votes.

JOHN THUNE: It's like losing a game on a last second shot, you know?

KWAME HOLMAN: This time, Thune's locked in a statistical dead heat with Daschle, who has more resources and a superior statewide network.

JOHN THUNE: I think there are certain times in life where you just have to step up and do what you believe is right. And this race, to me, was a race that needed to be run.

KWAME HOLMAN: Thune accuses Daschle of leading Senate Democrats on an obstructionist assault against the policies of President Bush and the Republican Congress.

JOHN THUNE: By getting new leadership in there, we can get things going again, and we can begin to solve the problems and meet the challenges that many people here in South Dakota are dealing with.

KWAME HOLMAN: Daschle is unapologetic.

SEN.TOM DASCHLE: I think there are some things this administration has tried to do that are wrong. I think the Medicare drug bill that has passed was one I wish we could have stopped because now we know the consequences. That legislation is bad for South Dakota, and I feel badly that we weren't able to stop it. But there are occasions when bad law has... has really created circumstances that I think reflect exactly why we need to be there, and check the president and check this administration.

KWAME HOLMAN: South Dakota's 750,000 residents are sprinkled across the 400-mile length of the state. Political allegiance is largely Democratic in and around Sioux Falls in the East, but becomes increasingly Republican heading West toward Rapid City. Many we talked with said they've tired of an increasingly negative campaign. Still, they feel strongly about the issues being discussed, like the need for affordable health care. Pam Taylor runs a small oil company in Sioux Falls, and says she knows and likes Tom Daschle personally. Yet Taylor breaks with him over his opposition to a Republican plan that would allow small businesses to band together to provide cheaper employee health insurance.

PAM TAYLOR: It costs my company for 14 employees $131,000. That's average for health insurance. That's too much. So all we're asking for is the chance that big labor has, and that big corporations have to band together and try to find a better solution for a health insurance plan.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Daschle worries that the Republican plan could discriminate against companies with older workers.

SEN.TOM DASCHLE: Because it undermines the ability that states have right now to ensure that all people can be covered. But the concept makes a lot of sense, and I strongly support the concept.

KWAME HOLMAN: Kathleen Perkins runs the Coffee Roasting Company in Sioux Falls' Empire Mall. She, too, wants to provide health insurance for her employees.

KATHLEEN PERKINS: I feel ethically responsible for covering their health care.

KWAME HOLMAN: So Perkins, a longtime Democrat, contacted Daschle, accepted his approach to health care, and since has worked for Daschle's reelection.

KATHLEEN PERKINS: He looks out for the middle class, he looks out for the average guy. And I think, you know, as far as taxing and everything, the upper... you know, certain percentage of the population, they are getting the tax breaks right now, and that seems to be a Republican issue. Whereas Daschle tends to focus more on getting tax breaks for the middle class and focusing more on just the everyday person.

KWAME HOLMAN: Drive 65 miles west of Sioux Falls along Interstate 90, and the town of Mitchell pops up. For gas station owner Lance Carson, the most important campaign issues are social ones. He likes that John Thune supports a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Tom Daschle doesn't.

LANCE CARSON: Does it need to be a constitutional amendment? I don't know, you know, but I think that... I think that that is one way to correct it. I think that it's... are we going to put it on the back burner? No. I think it's an issue that needs to be dissolved right now.

JOHN THUNE: Two-thirds of the people in South Dakota are in favor of protecting marriage through a Federal Marriage Amendment. You know, two-thirds of the people in South Dakota, probably higher than that, are in favor of an amendment to protect the American flag. You know, the Second Amendment, gun owners' rights, abortion-- those are not wedge issues in South Dakota.

KWAME HOLMAN: Daschle insists they are.

SEN.TOM DASCHLE: It's the wedge issues that may motivate a certain group of people, but certainly don't reflect the overall concerns of the vast majority of the people of our state. I think those concerns are the cost of drugs, the cost of health care, access to health care, the cost of tuition, and the cost of gas prices.

KWAME HOLMAN: In recent federal elections here, Democratic and Republican

candidates have been separated by only a few hundred votes. But that balance could be upset this year by a big increase in the turnout of Indian voters. American Indians make up 8 percent of South Dakota's population, one of the largest Indian voting constituencies in the nation. One of the tribes of the great Sioux nation lives on a reservation in lower Brule, in the center of the state. Its tribal council headquarters sits on a hill high above the Missouri River. Some of the tribe's buffalo roam just 200 yards away. Michael Jandreau is the tribal council chairman. He expects nearly 10,000 more Indians will turn out to vote this year than did two years ago. 80 percent of them, he believes, for Tom Daschle.

MICHAEL JANDREAU: And they will support Tom Daschle probably more in opposition to the Republican Party than John Thune.

KWAME HOLMAN: John Thune acknowledges Republicans need to improve their standing with local tribes, but he argues Tom Daschle has done little to improve life on the reservations.

JOHN THUNE: If you look at the poverty, the unemployment, the addiction, the mortality, they're at record levels. I mean, things have not improved.

SPOKESMAN: Not because our senator, Sen. Daschle, hasn't tried.

KWAME HOLMAN: And Jandreau reminds that John Thune also served time in Congress.

SPOKESMAN: And those years, needless to say, were not very productive on his part for Indian affairs.

KWAME HOLMAN: Another 150 miles west is the town of Wanblee, where Republican support is strong. Stanley Porch has raised cattle and planted wheat for 50 years and today tends 10,000 acres with his son and grandson. Porch knows the two Senate candidates, and sees some good in both of them.

STANLEY PORCH: I like Tom Daschle, personally well. But the thing that bothers me about Tom Daschle is when he left South Dakota to be a senator, he was a relatively moderate Democrat. And what happens is pretty soon they'll take issues that are prevalent and popular in South Dakota, but they will vote according to the more liberal side. And so when they're back there, they vote... they say one thing, they come out here they say something else.

SEN.TOM DASCHLE: Given the way media works today, anything you say in Washington is heard almost instantaneously in South Dakota. So it would be impossible to say one thing in Washington, and say something else in South Dakota. People in our state just would never let anybody get away with that.

KWAME HOLMAN: Finally, on the western edge of South Dakota is Rapid City, the state's other large population center, and one that has been traditionally Republican.

MAN: I like Thune, definitely with Thune. I'm not a Daschle fan at all.

MAN: I've already voted. I voted absentee three weeks ago.

KWAME HOLMAN: Can you tell us who you supported?

MAN: Well, it wasn't Tom Daschle, I can guarantee you that.

KWAME HOLMAN: But even here at Tally's Cafe downtown, there still was the possibility of support for Tom Daschle.

WOMAN: I'm still undecided. I still... I need to sit down with issues and read it myself, and try not to watch the news so much.

KWAME HOLMAN: In a race that is essentially tied, John Thune is hoping that President Bush's near certain victory in South Dakota means more votes for him on Election Day; Tom Daschle is also counting on some of those same voters to split their ballot and vote for him.

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill has more on the Senate races.

GWEN IFILL: South Dakota's is one of several pivotal Senate races that could tip the balance in the closely-divided Senate. Republicans now control the Senate, 51-48. It would take a net shift of only two of the thirty-four Senate seats up for grabs this year to change that equation. Here to help us sort through this congressional battlefield are: Thomas Mann, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution; and Michelle Swers, an assistant professor of American government at Georgetown University.

Tom Mann, let's start with South Dakota since we just heard about it. How critical is it in the big picture that Tom Daschle either keep his seat, or how difficult would it be now for the Democrats to hold on to the Senate if he loses... I'm sorry, the Democrats do not have control of the Senate. I just --

TOM MANN: But to win control there, they would have virtually no chance of winning control if they can't hold Daschle's seat. This is one of the critical seats. It's the only Democratic incumbent who is threatened in this election. The other at-risk seats are in the South, open seats where Democrats retired. Tom Daschle is a very important figure to the Democratic Party. He is their leader, in some ways their inspiration. He runs in a very tough state, in a tough year, a presidential year. But they are counting on him to hold on by his fingernails.

GWEN IFILL: Michelle Swers, maybe you can help me. Why is it after three terms, being the Democratic leader of the Senate, at one point, the majority leader of the Senate, is he having such a tough time?

MICHELLE SWERS: Well, I think the difficulty comes from the fact that in Congress they talk about Tip O'Neill used to say, "all politics is local." So it's the tension between local issues and national issues. So South Dakota has trended Republican and Tom Daschle is a Democrat, and he holds this leadership position. Normally the people who take leadership positions are more safe in their seats, and he has been safe for a long time. But in this case, where the country has become so polarized between Republicans and Democrats, now this race has taken on national significance. So for Tom Daschle, what he wants to do is keep it to the issues of the local issues the drought relief, the ranchers, what they need, the farmers-- and then showing what he in his position of power has done and can do for those people, as opposed to focusing on national Republican versus national Democrat issues.

GWEN IFILL: There are about half dozen very critical seats which are up that could tip the balance in the Senate, not only South Dakota. Let's start with North Dakota, Carolina where we have Erskine Bowles, the former White House chief of staff, running against Richard Berg, who is a congressman from North Carolina, for John Edwards' seat.

TOM MANN: Exactly. Bowles ran the last time for Senate and lost to Elizabeth Dole quite handily was her victory. Bowles has done much better. He has become more of a genuine politician. He is not as stiff. He has raised a lot of money, and he led this race for month after month after month, but in the last couple of weeks, it's tightened up. And I would say it is one of the races where the presidential contest makes a difference, that if John Kerry and John Edwards can keep that presidential race close, then Bowles has a chance of winning that seat.

GWEN IFILL: Michelle, what are the issues in North Carolina that make this such a toss-up?

MICHELLE SWERS: Well, I think the North Carolina race is one of these things where we see that the Republican candidate is really trying to tie himself to President Bush and tie Bowles, who was Clinton's former chief of staff, to the Clinton administration, that was not popular in North Carolina. But this race also shows us something about the consequences for governing. Since this is such a tight, close Senate, in this case, one of the big issues is a local issue, is tobacco, and in North Carolina, they were very interested in seeing a tobacco buyout, and recently the Congress came together in a conference committee and at the last minute inserted this tobacco buyout, and there was a concern about whether the tobacco buyout would be linked to FDA regulation, which is what Democrats want. Now, Richard Burr was on the conference committee and was able to take credit for the tobacco buyout going through, but Erskine Bowles also played a role. Here is a guy who was not even in the Senate but he went to the Democratic Conference and said to them even though the FDA regulation is not linked, he lobbied them to accept the tobacco buyout for the consequences in the race in North Carolina.

GWEN IFILL: To South Carolina, not very far away, Inez Tenenbaum, currently the state superintendent of education of schools, and Jim DeMint, congressman from South Carolina, both competing for Fritz Hollings' Democratic seat.

TOM MANN: Again, Gwen, this points out a problem Democrats have. They're fighting on Republican territory. South Carolina is a very Republican state. It's true Fritz Hollings held that for five terms, but thatgoes back to when it was very Democratic, in the old days. Now Inez Tenenbaum, in order to have a chance of winning, has to separate herself from the national ticket and to find issues that show her to be as conservative as South Carolinians. She supports the war in Iraq, and now she has found a new issue because her opponent has become a champion of tax reform. That means doing away with the income tax, the payroll tax, estate tax, and substituting a sales tax. Well, Tenenbaum has gotten some policy analysis studies that shows, gee, that could mean a 23 percent sales tax for everyone, and it could mean that most Americans who now pay little in the way of income tax would end up in the state of South Carolina paying more taxes, not less. It's a big issue.

GWEN IFILL: Let's move south from there to Florida, where the former Housing Secretary, Mel Martinez, a Republican picked from the White House, is running for Bob Graham's Democratic seat against the former education commissioner, Betty Castor. What do you make of that one?

MICHELLE SWERS: This is a tight, tossup race because the other states in the South are clearly Republican, George Bush states. But Florida is a total tossup in the presidential race. If Kerry does well, Castor does well, and if Bush does well, Martinez does well. But Bush is counting on Martinez to help in the Cuban community. If he wins, he is first Cuban in Congress, the first Hispanic since the 1970s.

GWEN IFILL: And the drama involving Florida and the election campaign filters down to the Senate as well.

MICHELLE SWERS: Exactly. All of the polls thus far are too close to call. And you have an additional factor of the four hurricanes that hit Florida very recently, and so the Florida voters haven't been paying as close attention as maybe some of the other states. We don't know how that is going to break and the hurricane- affected polling stations, and there is a whole set of issues that you just don't know what is going to happen there. In the Florida race, they have been debating and so the most recent debates that were held on television has started to draw the attention to the race, and you have certain issues there with McCollum being the former president of USF -- University of South Florida in addition to the Florida education commissioner, and an issue with her support of a terrorist that they were concerned about that she didn't fire him quickly enough. That's been an issue in the campaign.

GWEN IFILL: Oklahoma, Tom Mann, we have former Rep. Tom Coburn and Representative Brad Carson, who's a Democrat, taking Don Nichols' Republican seat.

TOM MANN: A very Republican state that would have easily stayed in the Republican column. Then Brad Carson comes up, wins the Democratic primary. He's a Native American. He's a very conservative Democratic member of the House. But Tom Coburn, his opponent, who left voluntarily from the House because of self-imposed term limits, who is also a physician, is extremely conservative, and has gotten embroiled in controversies about whether he involuntarily sterilized young women, and he has taken a tremendous hit, and yet in spite of it, the race remains very close.

GWEN IFILL: Alaska: Sen. Lisa Murkowski who inherited the seat vacated by her father, Frank Murkowski, who became governor, running against Tony Knowles, the Democrat. She is trying to win outright election to her seat -- very tight.

MICHELLE SWERS: And here's one where you expect national trends. Alaska is not on the map for the national candidates. President Bush is very heavily favored in Alaska and it normally goes to Republicans. But have you a situation where Lisa Murkowski not only faces Tony Knowles in the general election but she had a difficult primary battle as well. Because so many Republicans in Alaska were concerned about the nepotism issue, that she was appointed by her father, the governor. And she has not run state-wide so she is the incumbent, but she hasn't won a state-wide race. She was in the state legislature, whereas the Democratic opponent the Democrats were able to recruit is a former governor of Alaska. So he is a Democrat, he's won state- wide, he's very conservative, equal with her in the support of drilling in Alaska and all those sorts of issues that you would normally point to Democrats on that would be a negative.

GWEN IFILL: Colorado: Pete Coors, the beer magnet, running against Ken Salazar, the attorney general.

TOM MANN: A fascinating race; if Salazar is successful, I predict he will join Barack Obama, who will certainly be elected to the Senate from Illinois as one of the two stars, new stars on the Democratic horizon. Salazar is a Latino. He is a state-wide elected official. His roots are in the rural parts of the state of Colorado. In some ways he runs to the right of Mr. Coors who is naturally more socially tolerant and liberal let's say than the Republican Party. At least his company is, because in the process of selling beer, they have found it useful to be more socially tolerant and liberal. Coors is very wealthy. He may in the end put a lot of money into this race. It's competitive in the presidential contest, unexpectedly so. It could go either way. I actually think Salazar has the advantage right now.

GWEN IFILL: Okay, well, there are other surprises we will all be watching for on election night. Thank you very much for helping us tonight.

TOM MANN: Thanks.

MICHELLE SWERS: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Fixing intelligence and a Sudan update.

UPDATE - INTELLIGENCE OVERHAUL

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez has our intelligence reform story.

RAY SUAREZ: Congress' plans to overhaul the way the government gathers, shares and analyzes intelligence are responses to the work and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. But the doggedness of the families of the 9/11 victims pushed members of Congress to resolve their differences and deliver an intelligence reform bill for the president to sign before the November elections.

CARIE LE MACK: The amount of resources this government has invested in past three years is astonishing, but what a shame to let it all end now. And it could be for naught, all of this work, if the Senate and the House conferees cannot come to a bipartisan bill that can be sent to the president's desk before the election, only 13 days from now.

RAY SUAREZ: Some of the victim families were front-row witnesses this morning as negotiators from the House and Senate tried to find some middle ground in the respective versions of their intelligence reform legislation. Peter Hoekstra is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

REP. PETER HOEKSTRA: We share much of the same constructs as to how we are going to solve this problem. So in many ways I think we have much more in common than what separates us.

RAY SUAREZ: But there are still significant differences. Both bills create a national counterterrorism center to act as a clearing house for terrorism-related intelligence. Both bills also establish the position of national intelligence director. But the Senate bill gives the new director strong authority over operational budgets and personnel decisions. The House bill does not. Susan Collins chairs the Governmental Affairs Committee that produced the Senate bill with unanimous bipartisan support.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: If we're not going to give strong authority to the new national intelligence director, he or she cannot possibly be effective.

RAY SUAREZ: Meanwhile the House bill, written solely by House Republicans, contains several controversial provisions the Senate bill does not. For instance, it speeds up deportation of illegal immigrants charged with crimes. House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier:

REP. DAVID DREIER: It's important that we do remember that securing our borders is one of the most important steps we can take in pursuit of safety and prevention.

RAY SUAREZ: The House bill also expands government surveillance of foreigners to those who may not have any connection to any foreign state or known terrorist group. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner:

REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER: We don't have the luxury to wait a year or two or twenty-five to address these vital reforms, as some have suggested. We need to be comprehensive, and we need to be unafraid.

RAY SUAREZ: Whether the additional provisions in the house bill survive these negotiations will determine whether a final bill can emerge. House Democrat Robert Menendez took immediate exception to the deportation provision.

REP. ROBERT MENENDEZ: This in essence could result in summary deportation of people who are at risk for serious harm if they are deported, including battered women, children, victims of human trafficking, all who have legal claims and have a right to make those claims before an immigration judge. And if we have someone in our detention, in our possession, and they happen to be a terrorist, I don't want to deport them; I want to prosecute them. I want them in jail.

RAY SUAREZ: Senate Democrat Richard Durbin argued there simply isn't time to debate the additional provisions in the house bill.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN: I don't disagree for a moment that we should have a vigorous, extensive and complete debate about the Patriot Act, but if we try to do this in this Conference Committee, my friends, we are going to be here for months without producing a product. I also think it's long overdue to have an extensive, thorough, honest debate about immigration in America. It's an important issue. But if we take that on in this Conference Committee, we're not going to finish the work of the 9/11 Commission report. We have to make a choice here.

RAY SUAREZ: The White House yesterday sent a letter to the negotiators urging they reach an agreement on an effective bill and offered suggestions on how to do that. And this afternoon, Chairman Hoekstra said he and his House Republican colleagues would take those suggestions and try to work them into a revised proposal.

REP. PETER HOEKSTRA: And we're preparing what we think is a good-faith global effort, a global product to give to the conference.

RAY SUAREZ: But that drew the ire of Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

REP. JANE HARMAN: Whatever you are planning to do has not been discussed with me, at all, and I object to this process. And I would question the usefulness of a Republican House product being introduced this late in the process.

RAY SUAREZ: Finally, Sen. Collins suggested that she and her committee's ranking Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, along with Representatives Hoekstra and Harman, meet in private to discuss how the conference can proceed in a bipartisan direction.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: This is just a way to start the process forward. And I think if we go in feeling that something has not been kosher... ( laughter) see, he's had a great influence on me... (laughter) ...then we won't accomplish what we firmly believe needs to be accomplished.

RAY SUAREZ: At that, this first meeting of the negotiators ended with no clear indication when they might next meet, when they might produce an intelligence reform bill, or even if they will.

FOCUS - CRISIS IN SUDAN

JIM LEHRER: Now to Margaret Warner for our look at the humanitarian crisis in the African nation of Sudan.

MARGARET WARNER: The situation in Darfur, which the U.S. has labeled genocide, is getting worse. The World Health Organization said last week the death toll in the refugee camps there had reached 70,000 and that U.N. member countries are not contributing the money needed for food and medical aid. That warning was echoed yesterday by the International Red Cross. It said the remaining villages in Darfur face an unprecedented food crisis. There have long been tensions over land in the Darfur region of western Sudan between nomadic Arabs and black African farmers. Those tensions exploded early last year, when two black African separatist groups took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government struck back by arming some Arab militias, called the Janjaweed, to help quash the rebellion. Yet the government denies responsibility for the Janjaweed's subsequent rampage against local black villagers. The violence has forced 1.4 million villagers out of their homes into camps in Darfur, and some 200,000 have fled into neighboring Chad. The United Nations Security Council has issued two resolutions demanding the Sudanese government stop the violence. But early this month the U.N.'s top envoy for Darfur told the Security Council little has been done.

JAN PRONK, U.N. Envoy: In terms of security, because no policies have been carried out to stop the Janjaweed-- they didn't do anything, disarming, and there are no third forces on the ground-- there is no improvement on the ground.

MARGARET WARNER: Yesterday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the international community to offer more than words.

KOFI ANNAN: The impression that... which has been gained in some quarters, that if you were only to label it genocide things will fall in place, I'm afraid, is not really correct. We know what needs to be done. We need to have the will and the resources and go in and do it.

MARGARET WARNER: On the civil war front, a cease-fire was declared in April between the government and the rebels. But there have been reports of violations by both sides. Leaders from other countries in the African Union have dispatched a few hundred cease- fire monitors and said today they would substantially increase that force.

MARGARET WARNER: an update on the situation in Sudan and Darfur and what today's announcement of additional African Union troops may do to help, we turn to John Prendergast, former director of African affairs on the national Security Council in the Clinton administration. He is now with the International Crisis Group and has written eight books on Africa. He was in Darfur last month. And Ali Ali Dinar, who was born and raised in Darfur and educated in Khartoum. He's now outreach director of the African Study Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He was in Darfur in August.

Welcome to you both.

Mr. Ali Dinar, what impact will this announcement today that the African Union is going to increase their force by tenfold really, what will that do for the situation on the ground in your view?

ALI ALI DINAR: I think that is... It has a very positive impact, along overdue step which has been waited for a long time from the people of Darfur, from the international community, to come and help, and I think it also reflects the issue of Darfur is not merely being considered by Africans, but the whole international community is fully concerned about it. Yes, the troops mainly from Africa, but the money being provided is coming from the EU and from the U.S., and this signifies that... shows Darfur is under the eyes of the whole international community.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Prendergast, what impact do you think it will have on the ground?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Well, I think it's a fantastic first step that the African Union has taken responsibility and offered these forces. The problem is that the force is going to go in to monitor the cease-fire, a cease-fire that is not really the problem. The problem is that the government of Sudan has armed these Janjaweed militias, which we've just seen, to attack civilian populations. Therefore, the force needs to go in to protect civilians from the attack. That is going to be a secondary objective of this force, not its primary objective. That needs to be clarified and worked on assiduously in order for this force to make a difference for people's lives in Darfur.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Ali Dinar, when you were in Sudan last, in Darfur, were the observers, were the African Union troops doing anything for the humanitarian situation or to protect the civilians from the Janjaweed?

ALI ALI DINAR: I mean, there is there no protection for civilians because that was not under their mandate. What they were doing there is mainly observing any cease-fire violations between the two parties. And I agree with John that the main purpose of these groups is just to provide security to the people who are now either displaced or refugees, but it never solves the questions of the internally displaced people and what is going to happen to them, what is their fate, what is the solution to the whole problem? It will just create a sense of security to people who are now living in camps.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think, Mr. Prendergast, though, as you read... and we just got wire reports today, but is this force really going to even go in and protect these camps? Is it big enough to do that?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: No, it's not... that's not the objective of the force. The force is going to go in with a number of cease-fire monitors to ensure there is separation between the government's forces and the rebel forces. Again, they're not... the deployment pattern is dictated by the mandate, and if the mandate is not protection of civilians, the deployment pattern, therefore, will not be to maximize the protection of civilians. So the women that are being raped every day as they venture outside the camps to find firewood and the men who are being attacked in their villages as they still remain living there, those are not people that are going to be prioritized. They can be; we can still change that and fix that with more pressure on the government of Sudan. But as of now, the deployment today, you are not going to get that kind of protection for people.

MARGARET WARNER: So why isn't the mandate broader, Mr. Ali Dinar?

ALI ALI DINAR: I think because there are a lot of national interests from the African governments as well as from other countries, because that is what they will do. And that also just brings the issue about what the international community could do in such situations in which... situation in which a country commits this horrendous act against its civilians and at the same time also to respect its sovereignty. That dilemma is, I think... the mandate of the peace force is just reflecting that issue.

MARGARET WARNER: Pursue this a little further, Mr. Prendergast. Who decided what the mandate is? And what would you add to what Mr. Ali Dinar said about why it isn't broader if the need is not so great?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Well, Ali is absolutely right. It's the issue of sovereignty that is the problem. And, of course, the foundation of our nation state system is the internal sanctity of what happens inside each country's borders. So the African Union initially wanted to establish a mandate that would protect civilians. They were very aggressive and assertive about that publicly, but then when the government of Sudan was allowed to shape that mandate through the bilateral consultations that ensued, they said "no way; you can come in and you can monitor the cease- fire but you cannot overtly protect civilians as the primary purpose of this deployment of force."

MARGARET WARNER: How bad, Mr. Prendergast-- staying with you for a minute because you were there most recently-- is the humanitarian situation? In other words, since we last looked at it in August or early September?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: I think we saw throughout the summer an improvement in humanitarian access because the international spotlight was so bright. I mean, you had Secretary Powell and the secretary-general of the United Nations visiting Sudan and putting a spotlight on those obstacles and those restrictions to providing assistance. Since August we've seen another sort of decline in that access as the spotlight has shifted to other issues like the issue of deploying cease-fire... these monitors from the African Union. There has been less effort undertaken to ensure that humanitarian access continues to improve. So what we have now: Increased numbers of people who are at risk. We're now in the order of 2.25 million people who need food assistance now, but we are only reaching about a million to a 1.25 million of these people. After all this information, all this attention, all this political pressure-- alleged political pressure-- we have still half of the people who are at risk of starvation, at risk of grave humanitarian need, not receiving assistance.

MARGARET WARNER: How do you explain that, Mr. Ali Dinar?

ALI ALI DINAR: I think the Sudanese government is just taking a chance because there is no teeth to all the international threats for it to respect what it signs, to respect what it says with regard to protecting the civilians. And to the extent that even at the time when we labeled what is happening in Darfur as genocide, but there's no active steps, which is mandated by the convention when a genocide like this occurs. So I think the Sudanese government is seeing that there is not much is coming against it, because for a time now we are consumed about the actors in the ground; we are consumed about depicting this thing as between Africans and Arabs; and consumed also by depicting this affair is mainly by Janjaweed, and we never go behind that. I think, who created the Janjaweed? Who brought the Janjaweed? Who orchestrated all these human disasters in Darfur?

MARGARET WARNER: A quick follow-up to you, Mr. Ali Dinar. What is your view, if you can sum it up in a nutshell, of why the government is taking this force? In other words, should we take at face value that they simply wanted to create these militias as a counterinsurgency against the rebels, or is there something else going on?

ALI ALI DINAR: I mean, the government, at some point it has miscalculation in doing this, but creating a militia, fighting the insurgency side by side against a rebel, this is not something new, because the government did the same thing with the same casualties in southern Sudan, in the Nuba Mountains and the world never said anything. So it was under that assumption that what it will do in Darfur, it will just go like... as it did in the past.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Prendergast, final quick question to you. After Rwanda, the western powers said "never again." Why hasn't the Security Council moved with more urgency to do whatever it takes to stop the violence, the killing, the ethnic cleansing?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: We have no system; we have no approach in the international community to deal with mass atrocities in peripheral zones of the world like Africa. So we just... we scramble around in an ad hoc way every time. But in the Sudan case I think we have two specific things. The first one is the sovereignty issue. That is, we are not going to go in there without the sovereign consent of the government of Sudan. And secondly, oil. A number of the Security Council members have investments in the oil sector in Sudan and they're not going to go against the Sudanese government. That's the sad fact.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, and we have to leave it there. John Prendergast and Ali Ali Dinar, thank you both.

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Thank you.

FINALLY - IN MEMORIAM

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, we recall a few words from diplomat and arms control negotiator Paul Nitze, who died last night. He served eight presidents during the Cold War. Along with George Kennan, Nitze was considered an architect of the policies of containing the Soviet Union. I talked with him in 1989, just two weeks before the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

JIM LEHRE (Oct. 26, 1989): You talked about the changes in the Soviet Union, that the Soviet Union is changing. Do you think that a new, a really new Soviet Union, a really new Eastern Europe, is going to emerge from all of this?

PAUL NITZE, Diplomat ((Oct. 26, 1989): I think it may, and certainly we want to do what we can to foster that kind of emergence of a new order. It is not to our interest, I believe, to have chaos in the Soviet Union, and I think there is a substantial danger of that coming about. The Soviet Union appears to be rather coming undone at the seams and you can't tell what's going to happen, and we've got to be ready for, you know, any one of a number of contingencies that are going to arise there. So I'd make two propositions: The first is the Soviet Union is bound to be different than it has been, and the Cold War as we've seen it for the last 50 years has finally succumbed to what George Kennan and I hoped would occur: That they'd begin to look inward and see what their expansionist policies have done to themselves internally. They've done that and they won't... they can't avoid that in the future, so there isn't going to be the same kind of a threat, but still there are enormous uncertainties and we've got to be ready for a lot of different contingencies.

JIM LEHRER: So if there was in fact a Cold War, we won it, is that what you're saying?

PAUL NITZE: That's exactly what I'm saying.

JIM LEHRER: Paul Nitze was 97 years old.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the other major developments of this day: President Bush and Sen. Kerry traded charges over who's best to lead the war on terror. And CARE International suspended operations in Iraq a day after gunmen abducted its Baghdad director. Iraqis appealed today for her release. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.