The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: A summary of today's news, a pre- Arab summit update from the Middle East, a report from Boston on the beginnings of the Catholic Church's sex scandal, a look at President Bush's choices for the federal government's top two health jobs, a discussion of ways to fix the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and a salute to basketball by poet Robert Pinsky.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced today he would not attend the Arab summit. It's set to begin tomorrow in Beirut and is expected to focus on a peace initiative from Saudi Arabia. A spokesman said Arafat would stay home and not submit to Israeli conditions. Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon said if Arafat wanted to travel, he must call a halt to violence, in Arabic. Sharon also asked U.S. support to bar Arafat's return if he did attend the summit and the violence continued. In Washington, a State Department spokesman rejected that idea.

STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: We have always discussed this with both the parties or with others who are talking about it as a round trip. We think he should be able to go to Beirut but also he needs to return and work on the implementation of the Tenet security work plan. We continue to believe the focus need to be on moving down the road, of ending the violence and returning to talks.

JIM LEHRER: In a further setback, Egyptian President Mubarak said he would not attend the Beirut summit. Egypt was the first Arab nation to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. In the West Bank today, the Israeli military said two international observers were killed by Palestinian gunfire near the city of Hebron. And a car exploded near a shopping mall in Jerusalem, after Israeli police stopped it. The two Palestinians inside were killed. We'll have more on the Middle East in a few minutes. Earthquakes overnight killed at least 1,800 people in northern Afghanistan. Thousands were injured, and an unknown number were buried under rubble. We have a report from Tristana Moore of Independent Television News.

TRISANA MOORE: Bagram air base north of Kabul-- all day long UN helicopters have been sent to the remote valleys of the Hindu Kush where the earthquake struck. The U.S. Army has sent a team to the city of Nahrin to assess the damage. The priority: To send tents and blankets for the thousands of people who've now been made homeless. This pilot, who's just flown over Nahrin, said the earthquake had flattened whole towns and villages. There's no shortage of foreign troops in Afghanistan who could help the relief effort. The government in Kabul has already admitted it can't cope. The earthquake, measuring six on the Richter Scale, first struck yesterday evening. Since then, there have been more aftershocks. Its epicenter was south of Nahrin. The region has already been affected by drought and saw some of the fiercest fighting between the Taliban and Northern Alliance. After today's earthquake, many roads are reported to have been cut off, so getting aid through will be difficult.

SPOKESMAN: Give us some information about the earthquake, over.

TRISTANA MOORE: Tonight, as aid workers try to get news about the earthquake, the Afghan government is appealing for more help.

JIM LEHRER: In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said no U.S. troops were hurt in the quakes. In economic news today, consumer confidence rose in March, to the highest level in seven months. The private Conference Board reported the finding in its monthly survey. It said recent growth in the economy and the job market were the main factors. Energy Secretary Abraham met eight times last year with energy executives, including key financial donors to Republicans. The Energy Department made the disclosure last night, in papers related to the Vice President's energy taskforce. The documents showed Abraham never met with consumer or conservation groups. Today, a White House spokesman said they got to meet with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, among others. President Bush today announced nominees for two top health policy jobs. For Surgeon General, he chose Richard Carmona, a trauma surgeon from Arizona. For Director of the National Institutes of Health: Elias Zerhouni. He's an administrator at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Both nominees must be approved by the Senate. We'll have more on them later. The Supreme Court today upheld federal power to evict whole families from public housing, if even one member uses drugs. Four elderly Californians challenged the zero-tolerance policy. They said it was too harsh. In a unanimous decision, the high court said the government has a right to control tenants' activities to provide safe, drug-free federal housing. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the latest from the Middle East, the Boston angle, the President's health

nominees, fixing INS, and Pinsky on basketball.

UPDATE - RESTRICTING ARAFAT

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has our Middle East update.

MARGARET WARNER: Joining me is Serge Schmemann, who's reporting from Jerusalem for the "New York Times."

Serge, this situation about whether Yasser Arafat is going to the Arab summit seems to change hour by hour. The latest report we're getting is Palestinians saying Arafat has decided not to go. What's your understanding? Is that a firm decision?

SERGE SCHMEMANN: Well, in this part of the world, everything is a firm decision, and they often change, so you can never trust this being the last words, but the day's events basically were that Sharon set fairly stringent conditions on Arafat's trip. He said Arafat would have to announce in Arabic that there is a cease-fire, and that he, Sharon, would have to have permission from the United States to bar Arafat from returning if he... if there are terrorist acts in his absence. After that, about an hour later, the Palestinians angrily said that this was provocative and that Arafat would not go, that he would not meet any such conditions. And now, as we approach midnight, we hear from the West Bank that Arafat may be preparing some kind of very stern statement. We will see what he has to say.

MARGARET WARNER: From what you understand, what is Arafat's thinking here? Does he even want to go, or could he be afraid to go at this point?

SERGE SCHMEMANN: Arafat is in a curious position. According to most of the commentators here, the thinking here is that he is in a win/win situation. If he is prevented from going by the Israelis, he will be perceived by his people, by the Palestinians, as a hero. He stood up to Israeli pressure, he's staying with his people, he's being humiliated. They will rally around him as they have throughout the siege on him over the past three months. And of course, if he is allowed to go, he gets to speak to the Arab world. He gets to come back to Beirut, from which it was Sharon who kicked him out in 1982. His fear had been that he might not be allowed back, or that he would, for example, be allowed back only to Gaza. And of course, that had been one of the things Sharon spoke about today, that he hoped to prevent Arafat from returning. So that would have been his only fear. But I think otherwise he stood to gain either from going or from being blocked.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, what's your understanding, if we turn now to Sharon, what he was thinking or calculating in adding this new condition today, as you described; that he wanted the U.S. to essentially give him the green light, the right to refuse or block Arafat's return. What was that about?

SERGE SCHMEMANN: Yeah. Well, from the beginning of this mission by Zinni and by Vice President Cheney, there's been a question who decides when Arafat has met or not met a given condition. And basically, the Americans have insisted that in most cases they will be the judges of whether Arafat should go, whether he should come back. And of course, Sharon was wary of releasing this sort of authority, because he is under intense pressure from his right wing and from the Israeli public to do something about the continuing terror attacks. So in his position, if Arafat does leave, and if terror attacks do continue-- which, frankly, they will -- there are constant reports of more suicide bombers trying to get into Israel. There was a pair of bombers who blew up today on their way to the shopping mall. There are threats of major attacks in coming days. So Sharon wanted to have the authority to punish Arafat, to prevent him from returning if this happened, and thereby to really become serious about destroying the Palestinian Authority and Arafat's entire structure.

MARGARET WARNER: Sharon also-- I think I read this on the "New York Times'" web site-- made a rather provocative comment to an Israeli newspaper today about promises he had given to President Bush. Tell us about that.

SERGE SCHMEMANN: Yes, speaking to one of the newspapers here, he said he regretted that he had given a pledge to President Bush that he would not harm Arafat. Prime Minister Sharon, is not a man who conceals his feelings about Arafat. He has given previous interviews in which he said he wished that he had killed Arafat back in 1982. And much of what's happening right now has the quality of a very personal feud between these two old warriors, almost a vendetta that each one is waging, that, you know, may be one reason that Arafat particularly wanted to go back to Beirut. That may be one reason that Sharon feels so strongly about this. There is no doubt that they both feel very, very strongly about each other, and that there's something very personal here.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, meanwhile, of course, the Bush Administration has been pressing both Arafat to go, but more importantly, Sharon to let him go. It appears... or does it appear to you that both sides are perfectly willing to essentially, you know, deny the U.S. what it... what it wishes here, and what's their political calculation there?

SERGE SCHMEMANN: Well, this certainly is one of the problems that both Vice President Cheney and General Zinni have confronted. The Americans are not having their way quite automatically. And there are many reasons that are discussed for this here. One, of course, is the fact that the violence has reached a very, very intense... or had reached a very intense level, so the passions are enormously high, and each side feels that it has the right to strike the last blow. But I think there's another factor here that is sometimes mentioned by commentators by people here. It's that this Administration is not perceived to be entirely neutral in the sense that it has its own agenda. There is a sense here that President Bush's real goal is to go after Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and that what he is trying to do, essentially, is to park this conflict. That's the word, I guess, diplomats use. They want to park this conflict so that the Administration would have a clear hand with Iraq. And that here diminishes, I think, the authority of the Administration, or at least in the eyes of people who are watching this.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Serge Schmemann, thank you so much.

FOCUS - CHALLENGING THE CHURCH

JIM LEHRER: Now back in this country a press angle to the priestly abuse scandal that continues to rock the Catholic Church. It had its origins in Boston, from where media correspondent Terence Smith traces how the story became public.

TERENCE SMITH: St. Patrick's Day in south Boston. Few cultural traditions are more sacred and festive in this, the fourth largest Catholic diocese in the nation, and the most Catholic city per capita amongst the large dioceses. But during this Lenten season, the Catholic Church is reeling from a national scandal. At least 55 priests in 17 dioceses have been removed, suspended, put on leave, or forced to resign or retire because of molestation of children and minors. Here at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, Bernard Cardinal Law presides over the troubled archdiocese of Boston. Earlier this month, it agreed to pay up to $30 million to 86 victims of Father John Geoghan, who was convicted in January of sexually molesting a ten-year-old boy more than a decade ago. In a dramatic statement earlier this month, Cardinal Law apologized to Boston Catholics for the pain of the Church scandal.

BERNARD CARDINAL LAW, Archbishop of Boston: And I stand before you recognizing that the trust which many of you had in me has been broken, and it has been broken because of decisions for which I was responsible, which I made. I heard you say that. With all my heart, I am sorry for that. I apologize for that, and I will reflect on what this all means.

TERENCE SMITH: The Cardinal's mea culpa followed a remarkable example of dogged reporting by another of Boston's venerable institutions, the 130-year-old "Boston Globe." The paper broke the Geoghan story in January by using an unusual but deceptively simple approach: It went to court to unseal these previously confidential documents, ranging from legal depositions to internal Church correspondence. They demonstrate that the Church knew for years that Father Geoghan was continuing to molest children for decades as he was moved from parish to parish. Despite the Church's initial attempt to hush the Geoghan case, the story has mushroomed. After pressure from the "Globe" and the public, the archdiocese handed over to local prosecutors the names of more than 90 priests as possible sexual offenders of minors. Neither the Church nor the authorities have made the names public, but the "Globe" has been able to identify 70 of the priests, and so far has published 35 names. The reporting resonated positively and negatively, even among those attending the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

LORI KIESEL: Well, I encourage the "Boston Globe" to keep doing the coverage that they've been doing. I think it's important that we're informed of what's going on. Maybe this is going to finally produce the changes that are necessary if the Catholic religion wants to continue to keep its followers.

JAN CUNIO: Reading in the paper, I just think it's been unfair as far as all the publicity.

BERT DURAND: Some Catholics feel it's just a witch hunt. They are trying to go after every priest that has ever looked at a kid sideways.

TERENCE SMITH: The first stories raising questions about the Geoghan case appeared last year in the alternative paper the weekly "Boston Phoenix." For the "Globe," reporting on the story started in earnest last July, when a "Globe" columnist noted that all of the legal discovery in the Geoghan case continued to be under a confidentiality order.

SPOKESMAN: What kind of setup piece are you expecting?

TERENCE SMITH: As it happened, the day after the column appeared, a new editor, Martin Baron, arrived at the "Globe" fresh from the helm at the "Miami Herald." Accustomed to the open-document, so-called "sunshine laws" of Florida, he said for him it was a simple decision on how to proceed.

MARTIN BARON, Editor, Boston Globe: Well, I thought it was an extraordinary story. Here was a priest who had been accused by 130 people of having abused them as minors. That was just an extraordinary number in and of itself. I was just struck by the fact that I hasn't heard of the case. I said have we considered challenging that confidentiality order? Maybe we should do that. I said I didn't know what the laws of Massachusetts were. I was coming from Florida where things were generally more open. We decided to go into court. We thought that the chances were reasonably good and more important we thought that there was a public interest at stake here.

SPOKESMAN: So who are the kids?

TERENCE SMITH: The "Globe" petition took months, but in November, a superior court judge agreed with the paper and ordered the Geoghan documents unsealed. The Church continued to stonewall, and appealed, and lost again. The "Globe" had what it needed.

MARTIN BARON: The key issue here was not that there had been a priest who had abused a lot of... a lot kids. There had been many cases like that around the country, as we all know. The issue here was that the Church apparently knew that this was a priest who had abused children, and yet reassigned him.

TERENCE SMITH: Walter Robinson, a 30-year "Globe" veteran, now heads the paper's spotlight investigative team.

WALTER ROBINSON, Spotlight Reporter/Editor, Boston Globe: The documents to me were breathtaking in the extent to which they knew the cordiality of the correspondence between the Cardinal and Father Geoghan and the other bishops and Father Geoghan. Here's a fellow who they knew was accused of and had committed these acts against scores of kids, and the letters were, "Dear Jack, we hope you're coping with your problem."

TERENCE SMITH: They were very sympathetic.

WALTER ROBINSON: They were very sympathetic. And I think what was stunning to us - what was not in the documents -- virtually no reference to the children, to the victims.

TERENCE SMITH: On January 6, the "Globe" published the first story in a series with the headline, "Church allowed abuse by priest for years." At the same time, the paper printed the phone number of a confidential call-in line, asking readers for further information. More than 2,000 e-mails and phone calls have been received so far, including many that contained allegations of abuse. In addition to the call-in line, the "Globe" has utilized so-called computer-assisted reporting in researching some of its dozens of stories. The paper's spotlight investigative team culled 18 years of annual Church directories to track over 900 active and retired priests. The team then created a database, which allowed it to match a target list of 100 priests with allegations of abuse. They honed in on priests who had been moved from a parish, sent on sick leave, or otherwise were removed from active service, and left "unassigned."

WALTER ROBINSON: That was the clue that the dimensions of the problem were as substantial as we had been led to believe, and then we set about to try and put a number on it.

TERENCE SMITH: Initially the Church dismissed the "Globe's" reporting.

WALTER ROBINSON: They did not even care to know what our questions were.

TERENCE SMITH: And Cardinal Law would not concede the problem. When he was publicly questioned at this January press conference, he chastised the press.

BERNARD CARDINAL LAW: As I have indicated, there is no priest or former priest working in this archdiocese in any assignment whom we know to have been responsible for sexual abuse. I hope you get that straight.

TERENCE SMITH: The Church maintains that from the beginning, it has been trying to protect the confidentiality of victims and the accused priests. Father Christopher Coyne is the archdiocese spokesman.

FATHER CHRISTOPHER COYNE, Spokesman, Boston Archiocese: Any kind of institution likes to protect itself from public scandal and controversy like this. Whether it's a religion or corporation or a civic institution likes to protect its self-from scandal, public scandal and controversy like this.

RAY FLYNN, Former Ambassador to the Vatican: Good afternoon Boston. Thanks for joining us here today.

TERENCE SMITH: Amidst the controversy, some prominent voices in Boston have accused the "Globe" of an anti-Catholic bias. Former Boston Mayor and Ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn, who has been at odds with the "Globe" in the past, hosts a radio talk show. Defending the Cardinal has become a mainstay of his broadcast.

RAY FLYNN: I think the icing on the cake here for some of the people who have been calling for his resignation is that if he resigns, then the "Boston Globe" can get their Pulitzer Prize. I think that's what this is all about. They have to bring him down in order for them to get their prize.

TERENCE SMITH: Many of his callers agree with him.

CALLER: Good afternoon, ambassador. You hit the nail on the head once again.

RAY FLYNN: Thank you.

CALLER: I'll tell you, it's amazing, and people can't see it, that these people in the media have an agenda. They've had it for a long time. They never miss an opportunity

to attack the Church.

TERENCE SMITH: Father Coyne says the media have been guilty of overkill.

REV. CHRISTOPHER COYNE: At times it does appear as if stories are being kind of created. There is a certain kind of momentum going on here, so it's very difficult for any of us who are involved in the Church to get up every day and see these stories in the press, whether they're on the front page of the paper or front page of the "B" section. It's very wearing, and it does cast an awful cloud over all of us.

TERENCE SMITH: But the "Globe" editors, who have run scores of readers' letters, say there is no story more important to their Catholic readers at this time.

MARTIN BARON: I think that a newspaper is a very powerful institution, and we should exercise our power in judicious ways, but we should not be afraid to exercise our power either. And this was an instance where we exercised it by going to court and by dispatching our reporters throughout the region, and I think that the results were largely beneficial.

TERENCE SMITH: And the Church, though not happy with the coverage, has adopted a more forthcoming public relations strategy. Father Coyne:

REV. CHRISTOPHER COYNE: If we want to start pointing a finger in terms of like pointing blame at the way the story is going out, I think we have to start by pointing it right back at ourselves. We're the ones who created this story. If we had done what we're supposed to do as a Church, if we had lived the life that we're supposed to live as Christians, if we had not made the mistakes that we had made in terms of the way we've handled the story, then the media would not have had a story, and they would not... and we wouldn't be in this fix that we're in now.

TERENCE SMITH: Meanwhile, the "Globe's" reporting has led papers around the country to investigate similar claims. And Church authorities, previously reluctant to even discuss the subject, have confirmed numerous cases of priestly misconduct.

WALTER ROBINSON: There's no story, no local story in my memory, in this city, that approaches this in the intensity of interest by readers.

TERENCE SMITH: Editor Martin Baron says the Boston story is far from over.

MARTIN BARON: This is not just a Boston story. It is very much a national story, and in many ways a story of the entire Catholic Church. And we plan to stay on this story for as long as necessary.

TERENCE SMITH: In Boston, the archdiocese has already taken an enormous emotional and financial hit. The "Globe" has estimated that the Church may eventually pay more than $100 million to settle dozens of pending sexual molestation claims against priests.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Choices for Surgeon General and the NIH head; trying to fix the INS; and some basketball poetry.

FOCUS - HEALTH CHOICES

JIM LEHRER: Two health policy positions get filled. President Bush spoke this afternoon at the White House.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: It is my honor to nominate two fine men to head important government institutions to take important jobs. My nominee to lead the National Institute of Health is Elias Zerhouni, and my nominee as the next Surgeon General is Richard Carmona. Dr. Zerhouni shares my view that life is precious and should not be exploited or destroyed for the benefits of others. And he sharesmy view that the promise of ethically conducted medical research is limitless. As director of the NIH, Dr. Zerhouni will be at the forefront of our efforts to promote biomedical research with a careful regard for the bounds of medical ethics. When I first learned that Dr. Richard Carmona once dangled out of a moving helicopter, I worried that maybe he wasn't the best guy... (light laughter) to educate our Americans about reducing health risks. (Laughter) But that turned out to be just one of several times that Dr. Carmona risked his own life to save others. As an Army Green Beret in Vietnam, a decorated police officer in Pima County, Arizona, a swat team member, a nurse, and a physician, Dr. Carmona has redefined the term hands-on medicine.

JIM LEHRER: More now from our health correspondent, Susan Dentzer.

Susan, let's take these two nominees one at a time. Dr. Carmona of Tucson to be Surgeon General -- the man who damaged out of an airplane. What was he doing dangling out of an airplane?

SUSAN DENTZER: This was in 1992, Jim, and he was apparently trying to rescue somebody who was stranded on a mountain. It's just part and parcel of a long career that he's had, which has straddled the areas of law enforcement on the one hand and also medicine. He has spent a good part of his career in emergency response and swat team. He's actually a member of the swat team in Pima County, Arizona. And before that, of course, as the President noted today, he was a medic in Vietnam and earned the purple heart and the bronze star in that capacity.

JIM LEHRER: What do we know about his views on health policy at this point?

SUSAN DENTZER: Not a great deal. We do know that he does have long experience in the field of emergency response and bio terrorism, and in fact, as a faculty member at the University of Arizona he was instrumental in helping to draw up that university's emergency response and bio terrorism preparedness plan. So that suggests that he's got a keen interest in helping to shape the public health service's ongoing ability to respond to bio terrorist and other emergency attacks.

JIM LEHRER: Does he have known positions on things like abortion, stem cell research, or are those kinds of views even relevant to this job as Surgeon General?

SUSAN DENTZER: Not strictly speaking. One suspects that if he has views on abortion, whether he's pro choice or on the other side of the fence, he is keeping it very quiet because of course it's understood that the President's position is against abortion. In his position as Surgeon General, however, it's not likely he would have to step up to the plate very often on those kinds of issues. The Surgeon General is a key person in the Administration -- every Administration in isolating important public health and health issues for the American public and he shows every sign of being keenly interested in doing that as far as it regards preventive medicine, basically doing as much to help Americans get as healthy as possible to avert serious diseases.

JIM LEHRER: Is it a policy position, or is it more of a kind of broadcast position, in other words spreading the word, that comes from other elements in the health care system? How would you explain the job?

SUSAN DENTZER: It's both. It's both overseeing the 5,0000 commissioned officers of the public health service, they are in effect a standing army of public health officers who will respond to epidemic outbreaks in some instances - there were PHS officials on hand for the attacks of 9/11 to actually carry out some response efforts there. So it's that -- it's a management job to that degree, but it's also a job of basically identifying and holding up to the limelight some of the important public health problems that we face. The prior Surgeon General, David Satcher, for example, issued some very important reports in the fields of mental health, children's mental health and so on. There's every expectation that Dr. Carmona will do much the same thing in terms of honing in on these key issues.

JIM LEHRER: Many of course remember that it was a Surgeon General of the United States who started the whole anti-smoking thing many, many years ago with a report...

SUSAN DENTZER: Absolutely right.

JIM LEHRER: ....and a health connection.

SUSAN DENTZER: Yes, indeed, and a subsequent Surgeon General, Dr. Koop, was a signal person in identifying the AIDS threat, so Surgeon Generals have a long history of doing exactly that.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Now Dr. Zerhouni to head the NIH, the National Institutes of Health - first give us a picture of that institution.

SUSAN DENTZER: The National Institutes of Health is the premiere entity in the nation that essentially dedicates large amounts of money for biomedical research, conducts some of that in house at what's known as intramural research, but funnels most of it out of door to universities, to medical schools, to hospital across the country to conduct both basic biomedical research and also what's called translational research - turn that into clinical treatments, therapies for individuals. There are 27 institute and centers at the National Institute of Health. They include the National Cancer Institute, the National Heart, Blood & Lung Institute, as well as centers in complimentary and alternative medicine. The budget of the NIH has been doubled with the President's request to fund it to the tune of $27 billion in fiscal 2003. The budget will have been doubled since fiscal 1998. So there's a very large management challenge in terms of getting much of that money out the door into the hands of biomedical researchers.

JIM LEHRER: Now, that leads us to Dr. Zerhouni. What do we need to know about him?

SUSAN DENTZER: What we do know is that he is a very highly regarded individual coming out f Johns Hopkins University, which not - perhaps coincidentally - is the nation's number one institutional recipient of NIH funding. It's receiving close to $500 million a year now in NIH funds to conduct its premiere research. He is an Algerian immigrant. He obtained his medical degree in Algiera -- came to the United States to continue his training, went through his residency program in radiology at Hopkins. Except for a short stint at another institution he's been at Hopkins for most of his career. He's risen through the ranks there to become what people now call a quadruple threat. He's a premiere clinician, actually a person who treats patient, he's considered a very good teacher. He's an excellent researcher, particularly in the area of radiology. He's made some innovations in applying magnetic resonance imaging technology to actually detect changes in the heart at the cellular level that can signal heart disease down the line. On top of that he's said to be excellent administrator as well and that's the job he currently holds at Hopkins as executive vise dean.

JIM LEHRER: What do we know about his views on stem cell research? You heard what the President just said - that they're in sync on this.

SUSAN DENTZER: Right.

JIM LEHRER: What does that mean?

SUSAN DENTZER: Much of that remains to be seen. We know that Dr. Zerhouni was instrumental in creating at Hopkins the Institute for Cell Engineering, which is the home, among other things, of the stem cell research that takes place at Hopkins. He has already been attacked by some on the far right for being a proponent of stem cell research, although people close to him say that he's quite prepared to live within the President's guidelines, as announced last August, which, in effect, would allow embryonic stem cell research on lines of stem cells that were created before August.

JIM LEHRER: Both of these men have to go - quickly - to the United States Senate for confirmation. Any rumblings today one way or another about problems for them?

SUSAN DENTZER: Yes. There's a great desire to press Zerhouni on exactly where he stands on stem cell research. He in particular -- it is said by some that he signed a letter saying that was also supportive of the President's position against cloning. That is troubling to some in Congress because that would include what's called therapeutic cloning.

JIM LEHRER: All right. But as we sit here now, is there any major thing already brewing that could cause either Dr. Carmona or Dr. Zerhouni to have a problem, or do you know?

SUSAN DENTZER: I doubt it. In fact, the Congress has signaled that it intends to move quickly appointing them. I think there will be intensive grilling because most of the people who are keenly interested in NIH funding are also keenly interested in what funding is going to be coming forth in this whole area of therapeutic cloning and stem cell research. That's why he's going to be grilled very closely on where he stands, but in the end I suspect he will be confirmed.

JIM LEHRER: Thank you very much.

SUSAN DENTZER: Thanks, Jim.

FOCUS - POLICING IMMIGRATION

JIM LEHRER: Next: A most embattled federal agency, and how to fix it. Gwen Ifill has that story.

GWEN IFILL: 350 million foreign visitors enter the U.S. every year. But even the people who run the nation's Immigration and Naturalization Service admit no one is doing a very good job of keeping track of them. The INS is responsible for securing about 8,000 miles of U.S. border and some 250 ports of entry, a task so daunting, with backlogs that stretch so far, that two of the terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks received their student visa approvals, mailed to this Florida flight school, six months after they died. The incident sparked an uproar in the Bush Administration, and several proposals to overhaul, divide, or abolish the INS have now emerged.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, it got my attention this morning when I read about that. I was stunned and not happy. Let me put it another way. I was plenty hot. It's inexcusable. And so we've got to reform the INS, and we've got to push hard to do so. This is an interesting wakeup call for those who run the INS

JOHN ASHCROFT: Fortunately, I only damaged the television set in a minor way... when I got the news, which was rather infuriating, that the letter had been sent to the flight school. I've asked the Inspector General of this Department to investigate, to clarify this situation, and I will hold individuals accountable. I've discussed the potential of disciplinary action regarding individuals who are responsible and accountable with the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A breakdown of this kind is inexcusable, in my judgment.

GWEN IFILL: Four top INS officials were reassigned shortly after. This is not the first time the INS has been targeted for overhaul. But the September 11 attacks have brought the agency increased scrutiny. All 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks arrived in the U.S. legally, with visas. Three had invalid visas by September 11. Now Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge has proposed merging parts of the INS, Like the border control, with the Customs Service, combining functions now managed by the Departments of Justice and Treasury. President Bush has not yet signed off on the plan. In Congress, some lawmakers say merely restructuring the agency is not enough, that the INS needs to be broken up entirely.

REP. F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER: Every immigration commissioner has always restructured the agency, and things have gotten worse rather than better, as a result of an administrative restructuring.

GWEN IFILL: House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner's plan would split the INS in two, with one agency handling immigration services, and the other, border enforcement. Most interested parties, including INS Commissioner James Ziglar, concede some change is needed. But it is still an open debate what reform will mean for one of the nation's most beleaguered agencies.

GWEN IFILL: And we'll open up that debate now to four immigration experts. Doris Meissner was the commissioner of the INS during the Clinton Administration. She is now senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Peter Nunez was the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement in the first Bush Administration. He is now a political science lecturer at the University of San Diego. Angela Kelley is the Deputy Director at the National Immigration Forum, an immigration advocacy group. And Mark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an immigration think tank in Washington.

GWEN IFILL: So Doris Meissner, how big a problem are we talking about here?

DORIS MEISSNER: In terms of restructuring the agency has needed to be restructured for quite a few years and Congress has had proposals before it from the Clinton Administration and now from the Bush Administration, essentially the same proposal. And it need to be done. It's a difficult agency. It has grown enormously but it has grown in a very uneven way. The resources have been given heavily to the enforcement side of agency. There are tremendous needs, the benefits granting side of the agency. It's an agency that was chronically neglected for decade by both the executive branch and the Congress. It developed very bad habits because of that negligent but it's also an agency that is really at the center of many critical things to the future of this country that we have to pay attention to. It is critical to our labor force growth. It is critical to many constituencies, the business community, our economic productivity. And now we see as of 9/11 what a critical role it plays in national security.

GWEN IFILL: Peter Nunez when you worked with the INS, when you were in the first Bush Administration, did the problems strike you as dire then as they seem to be now?

PETER NUNEZ: Well, it's been dire for longer than the time I worked with the Bush Administration. I started in federal law enforcement in 1972. It was a problem then. It has continued unabated for the last 30 years. I don't quarrel with what Commissioner Meissner just said, although I think the problem goes way beyond restructuring INS. We need to look at the Customs Service, all the border management agencies and consider doing all of the fixes at one time not piece meal.

GWEN IFILL: Mark Krikorian, we just heard John Ashcroft and the President talk about how shocked and surprisedthey were about the surprising revelations about of the visa status of the two terrorists, Were you surprised?

MARK KIRKORIAN: I wasn't surprised, and they shouldn't have been either. The Congress and successive White Houses have not given INS the resources and even more importantly the political back-up, the commitment that the Immigration Service needs in order to do its job. There are two things that need to be done before any reorganization takes place or for any reorganization to actually work. One is a commitment from Congress and White House to actually enforce the law. This has not been the case in the past. The INS has, in fact, attempted to enforce the law and been told to stop. And the second thing that has to be done is INS's workload needs to be reduced wherever possible so they can get their act together: legal immigration, the admission of students and foreign workers, new amnesties, for instance. All of these things need to be either reduced or avoided in the future so the INS can focus on putting its own house in order.

GWEN IFILL: Angela Kelley we are talking here about reducing amnesties and about reducing the INS workload. Is that the solution, or is it the beginning of the solution?

ANGELA KELLEY: Well, I think that the basic thinking is this: We are a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. And the INS needs to do a better job at both welcoming immigrants that are coming to this country to build the American dream and at the same time enforce laws and stop the bad guys from coming in. Right now it is badly in need of reform. There are proposals on the table that I think need to be thoroughly vetted and thought through. It's very important to separate the functions of service and enforcement. And I think that's a common thread in most of proposals that you have seen. What we have to have though is a strong leader at the top. It can't be a guidance counselor the way Representative Sensenbrenner suggests. We need a general who can lead the troops, not somebody who can just advise them. We need a strong central office that can coordinate both of those functions and ensure that the visa debacle of last week doesn't happen again.

GWEN IFILL: But how do you do that? You laid out what sounds like a conflicting mission here welcoming people, yet keeping the terrorists out. How do you do that?

ANGELA KELLEY: I think it can be done, as I said, by separating service from enforcement. Right now those are very differing functions that are mixed up - that there's not adequate resources; there's not adequate accountability or authority. The INS is very decentralized. There are 35 district offices that are really run like fiefdoms -- by district directors, so you have varying results depending on quite frankly what office you happen to be in front of. That simply has to stop. We need a strong leader at the top. We need a strong central office so that we can have policies and accountability that runs through the two separate chains - between service and enforcement. I think it can be done and I think that Immigration has been an asset to this country; it is the genius of this nation. And we do ourselves a gross disservice by simply saying we have to stop immigration now, that somehow that's going to solve the problem.

GWEN IFILL: Doris Meissner, is there as always -- it's always said that there's a money problem whenever people talk about remaking agencies, the INS, the IRS. Is there a money problem here too?

DORIS MEISSNER: Of course, there's a money problem but there are all kinds of other problems. You don't solve these things just with money but money is an essential element of it. There has been dramatic growth in the immigration arena in the last five years but it's been outpaced by the pace of immigration. We are at an absolutely peak period of immigration. The 1990s brought the largest number of people to this country ever in our history even with the fact that we are a nation of immigrants. There has been a lot of money and there have also been very are dramatic reforms of the INS on many, many fronts. There is very much improved performance but it is outpaced by the demands and by the turmoil that surrounds the issue. We haven't decided as a country how we really feel about immigration. We constantly switch our view. There is not much of a consensus on many aspects of immigration. There is I think quite a consensus on effective border enforce. But many other aspects of immigration are very uncertain. And agencies have a difficult time performing when they are constantly reacting to very dramatic shifts in public opinion and priority.

GWEN IFILL: So Peter Nunez, is this a cultural debate we're having about what we really believe about immigration and its value to us, or is it a more practical debate about who is going to take charge as Angela Kelley was talking about, for instance, is Congress going to take charge?

PETER NUNEZ: Well, it's probably both. But I think let's remember here Congress has created this problem by the way it has enacted immigration and policy law over the last 30 years or more. They have created the problems or failed so solved the problems within the various border agencies. So, yes, there are some philosophical call issues to be resolved. I would disagree a little bit with Commissioner Meissner's statement that there's no consensus. I mean every poll that has been take money in this country in memory demonstrates that the American public want less immigration and they don't want any illegal immigration. It's the special interests that profit from increased immigration, that have made these laws such a hodge podge and have made it almost impossible for INS to solve the problem.

GWEN IFILL: When you talk about special interests are you also talking about corporate interests who are interested in -- have an interest in border control or tourism interests?

PETER NUNEZ: All of the above. The business community has been involved in developing immigration policy since 1882. They clearly are more interested in cheap labor than they are in any other aspect of what happens when we let people come here. But the tourism industry, the travel industry, ethnic lobbies, the immigration lawyers, I mean there's just an unending list of people who have prevented any real immigration reform going back to the debates in the early 80's that led to IRCA, the Immigration and Reform and Control Act of 1984.

GWEN IFILL: I'm going to give Angela Kelley a chance to respond since she's the immigration lawyer.

ANGELA KELLEY: I'd like to. I'm not sure about these special interests that he's talking about. The way see it is quite frankly from the left to the constituencies from across the country are saying that immigration is a good thing for this country. Yes, it's business, yes it's labor, yes, it's low skilled, yes, it's high skilled; it's religious communities; it's ethnic communities. The country is a different place, but we would argue that it's a stronger place as a result of it. And now the INS needs to be adequately funded and it needs to quite frankly keep up and be able to enforce our laws so that we're a safer nation and at the same time a welcoming nation as a nation of immigrants.

GWEN IFILL: Mark Krikorian -

PETER NUNEZ: Then we should limit the immigration, the amount of immigration to the ability of the government to manage it, not the other way around. Let's not just throw the doors open and sacrifice some INS Officials at the threshold. Let's match what we're going to what the resources are available to deal with it.

GWEN IFILL: Mark Krikorian, since September 11 has the debate changed or altered?

MARK KIRKORIAN: It seems to have altered in the minds of the public clearly, and to some degree within Congress also. Before September 11 there was the idea developing in Congress promoted by these special interest groups that benefit from high immigration that borders were pass , they were an anachronism, they're more an obstacle to be overcome. I think the people always understood and now even most of Congress now understands that borders really are not obstacles -- they are tools to promote America's national interest. And if that consensus has in fact percolated thoroughly into Congress, then we might see some more consistency in immigration legislation and less of the kind of constant changes and exceptions that Doris was referring to but really more importantly, I think the point here is that whatever the debate we have over immigration, and I have a point of view on this, we don't have an instrument to implement our immigration policy, and it's almost moot to argue whether we're a nation of immigrants or not or anything else, because we have no tool to carry out a immigration policy.

GWEN IFILL: Let me bring Doris Meissner in on that point. Is the solution -- are the solutions that are being proposed, merging, splitting, abolishing, are they just a matter of rearranging the deck chairs as it were or can they actually get to the root of the structural problem, which Mark Krikorian just outlined?

DORIS MEISSNER: You need to do reform on a variety of fronts, but the restructuring is essential as an element or as a foundation. This is an agency now that is largest armed law enforcement agency in the federal government. This is an agency that has workload and adjudications that is similar to the Social Security Administration, to the Internal Revenue Service. We're in that tier, in that rank of workload. And so it has outgrown its management. It needs to have these focused professionals -- the technology and expertise to manage those workloads without being constantly diverted by differing agendas, so establishing an institutional framework within which these workloads can be handled is critical and then of course you have new procedures; you have all kinds of other reform measures including training and better communication, but it's time now and way past overdue for this new framework to be established.

GWEN IFILL: Okay, Angela Kelley, if it's time now and it's way past overdue and we have all known the problem has existed for years, why does it still exist?

ANGELA KELLEY: Well, I think there's a number of things that need to happen. We need to have smart and safe borders and the Bush Administration has taken great strides in doing that since September 11, by partnering with our neighbors to the North and South, Mexico and Canada, we can be not only a stronger country, but a stronger continent, and that's a smart way to stop terrorism while keeping us open as a nation of immigrants. Secondly we need to pass the border and visa security legislation that's stalled in the Senate that will add layers of security for both the INS and the State Department so that they can keep the bad guys out while letting the people in to build this country the way they have done for generations. Thirdly, we need to revamp the INS. There are good proposals out there. There's the will and the way that it's never existed before, and we need a strong person at the top with adequate funding, so we don't starve services and they wither on the vine, and have a beefy border patrol that can't keep out people who shouldn't be coming in. And finally I think we need to follow the lead of President. The President just returned from Mexico and wisely said that it's our neighbors to the South who are the key in terms of what we need in the future, a labor force, knowing who's in this country, opening up legal channels for people to come in the future so we can keep us a safe nation and a functioning nation. It's the genius of this country, as I've always said, that as a nation of immigrants we let people in. We need to continue to do that and then treat them well.

GWEN IFILL: With that we're out of time for tonight. Thank you all for joining us.

ANGELA KELLEY: Thank you.

FINALLY - THE COURTS AT LAWTON STREET

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, in the midst of March Madness, the annual college basketball tournament, a poem about the game at street level. Here is NewsHour contributor, Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

ROBERT PINSKY: The poet Alan Shapiro played on his high school and college basketball teams. Now he teaches poetry at basketball powerhouse North Carolina. In fact, legendary coach Dean Smith once invited Shapiro to serve as official timekeeper, a role Shapiro found too pressured. Here are some passages from Alan Shapiro's poem, "The Courts at Lawton Street."

"Soon when the sun drops over the rim of buildings across this small tar court, the out of work, the working, students and dropouts will be running till dark. But now they are only gathering in a loose arc before the basket, in a fog of heat where they forget what they forget, lazily shooting. A slow, impersonal music winds through their voices; a great friendliness so casual, nobody needs to notice. They talk of this and that, old games, miraculous old moves." The ending: "Now there are three balls, three drab moons turning through the gold soot of evening, colliding on the bent rim, making the metal chain net whisper applause. At the other end someone dribbles behind his back, between his legs, while two small kids chase him till they stumble, lunging at that ghost between his hands. And when singing, 'got to sweeten up my jams,' he lopes slowly to the hoop and stuffs the ball in over his head, the kids knowing they watch a god they could become, with solemnity slap each other's palms and say, 'nasty, nasty," as though the word meant only fame to them, and all there is of hope."

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of the day. Palestinian leader Arafat announced he will not attend this week's Arab summit in Beirut. Earthquakes overnight killed at least 1,800 people in northern Afghanistan, but no U.S. troops were hurt. And late today Joseph Beredino said he would resign as CEO of Arthur Andersen, the auditing firm that is charged with obstructing justice in the Enron investigation. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.