The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening and welcome to this special edition of the NewsHour. On this Thursday of the Persian Gulf War, air raid sirens sounded again in Israel in what turned out to be a false alarm. Pres. Bush praised Israel's restraint so far in not responding to last night's Iraqi missile attack. He cautioned Americans against euphoria about how the air war is going, the Pentagon raised the number of allied planes lost to seven. We'll have the details in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: This is what you'll see in this special edition of the NewsHour, a full round-up of war news with reports from Israel and Charlayne Hunter-Gault in Saudi Arabia, Israeli and Arab views of the Iraqi missile attacks, an overview from Henry Kissinger, analysis by Mideast diplomatic experts of the risks of a wider war, then Pres. Bush and the U.S. commanders on the threat from Iraq missiles still operational. Missile experts explain how hard it is to find and destroy them, a report from Seattle on American reaction at home, and two congressional views of the war from Les Aspin and Pat Schroeder.GULF NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Air raid sirens went off in Israel again today but it was a false alarm. Israeli military officials said no incoming Iraqi missiles were detected. They said there had been indications a missile would be fired, but none were. Last night, at least eight SCUD missiles were launched against Israel. Several fell in downtown Tel Aviv, causing only a few injuries. Israel has so far not retaliated for the attack. We have a report by Colin Baker of Independent Television News.

MR. BAKER: The sound of impending attack. Air raid sirens wail across the country as Saddam Hussein fires his missiles against Israel. At least eight were launched. I followed the end of the journey of one of them as it crashed out of the clouds into a Tel Aviv suburb and exploded. Two houses disappeared. The blast left a crater 20 feet deep, demolished the front of a block of flats, and in what seemed a miracle, only seven people were slightly hurt. Part of a rocket landed on the roof above a child's bedroom. The family inside was unhurt, but five were injured elsewhere.

WOMAN: I run away to the hospital because I don't have the mask. I come to the hospital and I see the people coming from near Tel Aviv with the blood and all these things.

MAN: [Speaking through Interpreter] My sister was supposed to be asleep in her room. I saw her room was crushed. I started to tear away the rubble and call her name, but then I saw her standing safe outside the house.

MR. BAKER: This wasn't an attack against military targets. It was indiscriminate. It was against the people who live in the most densely populated area of Israel. Soldiers and police in protective suits and gas masks swamped the streets in readiness for more strikes.

MR. LEHRER: Late today, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens said in a television interview there would be retaliation. British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd called the attack on Israel "a reckless ploy to widen the conflict," but he asked the Israelis not to respond. Soviet Pres. Gorbachev sent a personal message to leaders in the Middle East. He said the Iraqi attack was an effort to provoke and Arab-Israeli conflict. He called on the leaders to show restraint. Pres. Bush speaking at a news conference in Washington thanked the Israeli government.

PRES. BUSH: I want to say here publicly how much I appreciated Israel's restraint from the outset, really from the very beginning of this crisis, Prime Minister and his government have shown great understanding for the interests of the United States and the interest of others involved in this coalition.

REPORTER: Mr. President, has the United States asked Israel not to retaliate against Iraq for the attack? What commitment has the United States received in these consultations that we've had with Israel, and how long do you think Israel can stay on the sidelines if these attacks continue?

PRES. BUSH: Well, these questions, questions that we're talking to Israel about right now, I'm going to keep confidential. No question that Israel's, the attack on Israel was purely an act of terror. It had absolutely no military significance at all. And it was an attack that is symptomatic of the kind of leader that the world is now confronting in Saddam Hussein and that again I repeat the man will be defeated here, but Israel has shown great restraint and I've said that, and I think we can all understand that they have their own problems that come from this, but I don't want to go further into it, because we are right in the midst of consultations with Israel. I think they like us do not want to see this war widened out and yet they are determined to protect their own population centers, and I can tell you that our defense people are in touch with our commanders to be sure that we are doing the utmost we can to suppress any of these missile sites that might reek havoc not just on Israel but on other countries that are not involved in this fighting. So I'm going to leave it there and I'm confident that this matter can be resolved.

REPORTER: Are you worried that it could change the course of the war?

PRES. BUSH: Well, I think that we ought to guard against anything that can change the course of the war and so I think everybody realizes what Saddam Hussein was trying to do, to change the course of the war, to weaken the coalition, and he's going to fail.

MR. LEHRER: Later Mr. Bush went to the Pentagon for a briefing on the war from Defense Sec. Dick Cheney and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell. Vice Pres. Quayle was also at the meeting. Afterward, Mr. Bush went to Camp David for the weekend. At his news conference, the President said U.S. forces were making what he called the darndest search and destroy effort that's ever been undertaken to find and destroy Iraqi SCUD missile sites. He acknowledged many of the remaining missiles were on mobile launchers. This afternoon a top military officer briefed reporters at the Pentagon. Army Gen. Tom Kelly was asked if the mobile missiles might be near civilian populations.

LT. GEN. TOM KELLY, Director of Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff: We are searching insidiously for all of the SCUD launchers, as a matter of fact. But so far we haven't seen any that have been hidden in civilian population centers. Those we've encountered have been out in the countryside or hidden in open areas.

REPORTER: Why is it hard to find the SCUD missile sites in Western Iraq? What is the terrain like?

LT. GEN. KELLY: Pretty flat, pretty wide open. There are a number of fixed sites out there. We don't think they were used. What is difficult for us to find are the mobile ones which can be hidden, they can be put in buildings, they can be put in aircraft shelters, and that's why we're keeping them out there looking for them all the time. That really represents what I think the challenge is, to find the mobile assets.

MR. MacNeil: Use of the Iraqi attack on Israel touched off celebrations in several Arab countries. The Syrians were gleeful, even though some of their soldiers are confronting Iraq. In tunisia, there was dancing in the streets and in Jordan, with Israel on one flank and Iraq on the other, the news was also cause for celebration. We have a report from Glenn O'Glaza of Independent Television News.

MR. O'GLAZA: In the Jordanian capital Amman, news of Iraq's missile attack on Israel was greeted with celebrations in the streets, while a population that is at least 60 percent Palestinian and fervently supports Saddam Hussein. But the prospect of an Israeli counter-strike has worsened an already tense atmosphere. If the Israelis do decide to drive through or fly over Jordan to get to Iraq, they will be resisted.

CROWN PRINCE HASSAN, Jordan: Clearly we have to defend also our integrity and the integrity of the people to the best of our ability. We will not be a corridor or walk-over for anyone.

MR. O'GLAZA: Jordan is hastily recruiting and training a people's militia, 200,000 volunteers, to defend the country. Jordan's 100,000 strong regular army and its air force are already on full alert. King Hussein has been reviewing troops near the Israeli border and tonight the Jordanian parliament is meeting in emergency session.

MR. MacNeil: The Jordanian parliament went on to back Iraq in the war and branded the United States a great Satan. The American commander in Saudi Arabia met reporters today and gave them a summary of operations so far in the Gulf War. Our correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault was there and here is her report.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In his first public appearance since the Persian Gulf War began, the U.S. commander, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, told reporters the campaign was going exactly as planned.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, U.S. Commander: I would tell you that we probably have a more accurate picture of what's going on in Operation Desert Storm than I have ever had before in the early hours of a battle. As far as air operations were concerned, we are flying a total of about 2,000 air sorties of all types each day. More than 80 percent of all of those sorties have successfully engaged their targets. To date, we have lost seven aircraft, two United States Navy aircraft, one F-18 and one A-6, one air force F-15, one Kuwaiti A-4, two British Tornadoes and the most recent one was an Italian Tornado. With regard to the disposition of the pilots, we are carrying all the pilots as missing in action, although we now have pretty good information that the Kuwaiti pilot is probably safe in the hands of the Kuwaiti resistance.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In the first official statement of Iraqi air force losses, reporters were told that eight Iraqi warplanes had been shot down in combat with unconfirmed information that two more had been down. Schwarzkopf also reported on the latest developments on the sea and on the ground.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: This morning the Navy has engaged three enemy patrol boats and either disabled them or sunk them. In addition to that, we have increasing numbers of amphibious ships moving into the Gulf area at this time. On the ground, of course, the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps is continuing to defend Saudi Arabia. We are also repositioning our forces for further action. To date, there has been no direct hostile confrontation on the ground, however, yesterday, there was a slight artillery duel, artillery on the part of the enemy that was immediately reacted to by our air and the artillery was silenced during that duel. We had two Marines that were lightly wounded in action.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Lt. Gen. Charles Horner, commander of air force operations, showed dramatic videotape of bombs flying through a SCUD missile storage bunker in Kuwait. Schwarzkopf said locating the fixed SCUD missile launchers had been relatively easy but that detecting mobile launchers was like finding needles in a haystack. Still, he said allied forces would continue to attack the mobile launchers relentlessly.

REPORTER: You mentioned finding 11 mobile missile launching sites. If you managed to destroy all of those sites, how much of the enemy's ability to launch these missiles will the U.S. have destroyed?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: That's a very tough question to answer because the estimate of the number of, total number of mobile launchers he has varied widely even within the intelligence community, but based upon the most recent numbers that we have, I would tell you that it is a rather considerable tonnage of mobile launchers. I'd like to just leave it at that.

REPORTER: The fact that the SCUDs that were used against Israel didn't appear to be chemical or biological, does that tell you anything about the capacity of the Iraqis to use that kind of a warhead on a SCUD?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: I think we could speculate about that all day long. I would say frankly that I'm quite encouraged by the fact that chemical weapons were not used and I hope if he has the capability, he does not use them at all.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: If, indeed, Israel does get into this campaign, how will it be coordinated with the allied forces already in theater?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Charlayne, I have no information at all about any entry of Israel into the campaign. That's something that's being handled at the governmental level and I really couldn't answer any questions in that regard.

MR. MacNeil: In Turkey, the parliament has authorized the use of that nation's air bases for attacks on Iraq by the United States Air Force. Today American planes took off from the Turkish base at Engerlich but the foreign ministry said they were only on a training mission. Our report is narrated by Louise Bates of Worldwide Television News.

MS. BATES: F-111, F-15, and F-16 fighters prepare for flights over Turkey, their deadly payloads ready to engage Iraqi fighters. The Engerlich NATO base lies about 250 miles Southeast of Ankora, not far from the Iraqi border. It's likely to play a key part in air deals and bombing raids as dozens more jets are deployed here. Patriot missiles so effective over Dhahran are being flown in to protect the base in the event of a second front opening up. Engerlich only became operational after the Turkish parliament authorized its use in Operation Desert Storm on Thursday. That order brought a sharp response from Istanbul with anti-American protests. Many fear Turkey, like Israel, may become a target for SCUD missiles. Lined up along the border to rebuff any attack are more than 180,000 Turkish troops. The Iraqis at many points along the 150 mile front are actually in sight. Iraq closed the main crossing here at Harboor onTuesday and mined much of their side of the border, both for security and to stop thousands of refugees who've tried to flee into Turkey since the conflict began.

MR. MacNeil: Turkish officials on the Iraqi border said at least five Iraqi soldiers have deserted to Turkey since the war began. That's our summary of today's Gulf developments. Now we go on to a series of talks about the war with Henry Kissinger and others. President Bush and American military commanders consider the continuing threat from Iraqi missiles, and missile experts explain how hard it is to destroy them. We also have a report on reaction in Seattle and two views from members of the House of Representatives, Les Aspin and Pat Schroeder. FOCUS - ISRAELI RESPONSE? - OPERATION DESERT STORM

MR. MacNeil: We go first to the question of Israel, the real and false alarms, the possibilities of an Israeli response and what it could mean and lead to. Earlier today, air raid sirens sounded again in Tel Aviv. As the sirens howled over the darkened city, the Israelis again dashed for cover and the streets were empty. Everyone had been instructed to take shelter in a sealed room in case there was a gas warhead on an incoming Israeli SCUD missile. But the first precaution was to put on gas masks, which these staffers for Worldwide Television News hastened to do. Joining us now for an overview of the emerging Gulf situation is former Sec. of State Henry Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger, thank you for joining us. How do you evaluate the risk that Saddam can provoke Israel into attacks that could break up the coalition?

DR. KISSINGER: The plan of Saddam is so transparent that I have every confidence that all the members of the coalition, as well as the Israeli government will conduct itself in a way believe me that should some embarrassing event occur that it will not lead to a break up of the coalition and Israel knows that the attack on it has no military significance and it's designed to trigger it into doing something excessive that will enable Saddam to present it as an American-Israeli plot, and I would be really disappointed -- and I have no reason to believe I will be -- if when they do retaliate, they do it in a way that would lend itself to that sort of attack.

MR. MacNeil: There was on good authority a sense of real crisis late last night in the White House when those first reports of the Israeli -- of the Iraqi missiles landing in Israel came in.

DR. KISSINGER: No doubt about it, because they're engaged in a difficult operation that the President undertook with great courage and to see an essentially terrorist act turn it potentially into something entirely other than what it was intended to be was of course worrisome, but as it turned out, the attack on Israel was really very ineffective. They did not use chemical or biological weapons and I think that if we stayed within present bounds, that either Israel will not retaliate or retaliate in a token way.

MR. MacNeil: Is there a sort of psychological reality here that Israel's need to be, because of its traditional policy, its need to be seen by its neighbors to be defending itself and retaliating, could outweigh the caution it feels, as you described earlier?

DR. KISSINGER: It's a very tough problem for Israel.

MR. MacNeil: I mean, it's right on the edge.

DR. KISSINGER: It has no margin of survival. It has a very narrow territory. And if it creates the impression that even retaliation becomes a problem for it, it may encourage all kinds of attacks. That's the threshold -- on the other hand --

MR. MacNeil: Just so I understand you, come back for a moment, it would be a success for Saddam if he could even achieve some inhibition in Israel's traditional willingness to --

DR. KISSINGER: That's right. If he can create the impression, it is clear that the world would be very dubious about an Israeli preemptive attack and Israel has been discouraged in a series of crises, including when I was in government, for launching a preemptive strike.

MR. MacNeil: And they've said on this occasion they've agreed to restrain --

DR. KISSINGER: And they've agreed before. Now if on top of it, after a clear cut provocation they have to think twice about retaliating, and if that becomes a pattern, then Saddam can claim he has achieved something, and if one looks at the demonstrations on your show before, it indicates that there are masses of Arabs who don't care who provoked whom as long as it's an assault on Israel.

MR. MacNeil: The administration is saying in one way and another but one phrase was, everyone, including the coalition, will understand if the Israel response is measurable. I think they meant measured. What is measured and what is not in a case like this?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I suppose that an Israeli attack that produces a large number of civilian casualties, would be one that would be difficult to contain. On the other hand, an Israeli attack on air bases, missile installations, are clearly military installations would be within the frame work of what would probably be understood.

MR. MacNeil: Going after Saddam, himself, personally would not be measured.

DR. KISSINGER: Oh, I don't know. I am -- I think going after a leader personally is usually a mistake because these are -- one has to focus on the underlying realities and not simply on the immediate problem.

MR. MacNeil: How vulnerable is the coalition to an Israeli retaliation, to being set apart by an Israeli retaliation?

DR. KISSINGER: We have to look also at the problem that Israel almost becomes a pariah nation if alone among all the nations of the Middle East it is singled out for being prohibited to engage in retaliation, when its mere existence becomes a semi- justification for an attack, I believe that it doesn't appear to me that Israel is retaliating for the first attack. If the retaliation is measured related to military, then I believe that it will not break up the coalition because after all, our allied partners are not fighting for us; they're fighting for their own survival.

MR. MacNeil: So in that sense, the more extreme members of the coalition and perhaps Syria would be an example, would be holding Israel hostage to the unity of the coalition, their willingness to stay in?

DR. KISSINGER: Three members of the coalition also hate Saddam the most. I mean, Assad has been in a mortal conflict with Saddam for reasons totally unconnected with Israel, and it is unlikely that he will give up the blood feud just because Israel does to Saddam what he would like to do to Saddam.

MR. MacNeil: Let's talk about Saddam for a moment. How do you explain to yourself what we're all trying to explain, Saddam's intransigence in the face of this overwhelming assault?

DR. KISSINGER: I tell you, it is a puzzle to me, because I thought that if Saddam had accepted the U.N. proposal or the French proposal, he would have come out as the winner. Our forces would have left the area; his forces obviously would have remained in the area. Kuwait would have been put under the jurisdiction of friendly government like Algeria, and --

MR. MacNeil: And he would have created great problems for President Bush.

DR. KISSINGER: It would have been nearly impossible in my view for President Bush to go to war over the issue of who would represent the U.N. force in Kuwait. And I expected, frankly, and one shouldn't admit one's fallibility on a program like this, I expected until the last day that at the last minute he would accept one of the proposals. And I find it very difficult to understand what he believes he's doing unless he had no idea that what it is like to confront a high tech opponent because basically he's confronting the army and the air force and the navy that we created to resist the Soviets in Central Europe.

MR. MacNeil: Well, he's had two days of tasting that now. Baghdad Radio said today the war has just started, it will be a long-term confrontation, could only be decided on the battlefield. Despite all the U.S. technical brilliance in the air and with missiles, could the Iraqis be right, that the end will only be decided on the battlefield, on the ground?

DR. KISSINGER: My impression is that his hope is that if and when we attack his 45 positions in Kuwait, then we will suffer casualties of the magnitude that would change public opinion. I believe that the administration has had so much time to study this problem that I find it difficult to believe that Saddam's hope will be fulfilled. I believe that the Iraqis will crack before this happens.

MR. MacNeil: We talked about the Israelis having to be measured in attacking Iraq. Is there a reason for future stability in this region for America to be measured now in the amount of force it uses against Iraq?

DR. KISSINGER: I think it is important for America to win. I think a stalemate would be the worst possible outcome. After we have won in constructing a peace, we should not repeat the mistake of the Iran-Iraq War in which we weakened Iran to a point that Iraq became the dominant country. And I believe that after we have deprived Iraq of the capability to threaten its neighbors by destroying its nuclear and chemical facilities and its missiles, that then we should not object -- in fact, we should enable it to retain a defensive capability lest Iran and Syria would replay the Iraqi script in the Iran-Iraq War. In that sense, we have no interest in the break up of Iraq as a state, but while military operations continue, the most important objective is to win.

MR. MacNeil: Yesterday the State Department and the White House said it is too late for Saddam merely to withdraw from Kuwait. Saddam must surrender. How do you understand the goal now in this? Should he be pounded with all this high tech munitions until he surrenders, or is there some other way to play the end game?

DR. KISSINGER: The principal objective now is to destroy his offensive military capability. The next stage we have to destroy his army in Kuwait or induce his army in Kuwait to withdraw. In my view, if those objectives are achieved, destruction of Iraq's offensive capability and withdrawal from Kuwait, we have achieved the essential goals that our national interest requires and that a balance of power in the area requires, and I would not pursue the war beyond that point.

MR. MacNeil: So a surrender, an abject surrender by Saddam Hussein, is not necessary, in your view?

DR. KISSINGER: And I also would be very leery about having an American occupation force in a hostile Arab country. After we've achieved our victory, I think our ground forces should be withdrawn from the area as rapidly as possible, and the policing of the enterprise should be left to friendly Arab nations.

MR. MacNeil: Some people have raised the question since the air war began of whether the United States not only in terms of future friendships and sympathies in the region but also on humane grounds should limit the extent to which he is pounded. I mean, do we increase future problems with each ton of high explosives we drop, or do we make things simpler?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't think it's the tons of high explosive that matter, but the targets. My impression is that the targeting has been extremely selective, that there has been no attack on civilian populations, and that unlike the Vietnam War, we now have ammunition that is sufficiently accurate so that we can really conduct operations in which there are very, very few, if any, civilian casualties. With respect to the military targets, I see no great sense in limiting the amount of force we use against them. With respect to civilian populations, we should be extremely careful not to engage in something that looks like an assault on civilians and causes huge or even significant casualty.

MR. MacNeil: Two days into this actual warfare, and we've talked to you a number of times before this point was reached, do you find yourself uneasy about the enterprise, or confident?

DR. KISSINGER: I find myself confident about the enterprise, and I have felt all along that one of the objectives of this end game of this crisis had to be to produce a balance of power in the Gulf. And as long as Iraq's military capability remained undamaged, I did not see how that could be achieved by negotiations. So I think this gives the possibility for a constructive diplomacy in the Gulf and in the end for a constructive diplomacy between the Arabs and Israel.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Dr. Kissinger, thank you very much for joining us. Now to the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, who talks with Judy Woodruff. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: With us is Yoran Aridor, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. He's a former member of the Israeli parliament, a former chairman of the ruling Harut Party, and a former cabinet minister. Mr. Ambassador, welcome. What is the current situation in Israel and Tel Aviv? There was yet another siren air raid alarm that went off, what, 45 minutes or so ago. Was that another false alarm, or what? Can you give us any information?

AMB. ARIDOR: According to the information that I got, there was no renewed missile attack against Tel Aviv, but it was Russian satellite that just flashed in the atmosphere above the Middle East and was just evaporated in that area.

MS. WOODRUFF: And that was enough to set off the sirens, the air raid alarms?

AMB. ARIDOR: We have to be cautious, because we had experience of last night and we had threats by Iraqis about the future and we have -- it has been proved that the threats by the Iraqis means launching missiles against Tel Aviv and Haifa and other areas.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, what about this false alarm earlier today, some hours ago? Pentagon officials have evidently told reporters there that it was faulty U.S. intelligence that led to this false alarm. What's behind that? Can you tell us?

AMB. ARIDOR: The information that I know, that it was a false alarm. I don't know what was the background behind this false alarm. But I am happy that it was false.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, one of your Israeli officials over in Israel said it was somehow related to information about a missile launch.

AMB. ARIDOR: I can't comment on this information.

MS. WOODRUFF: And the information, the other comment from the Pentagon about fault US intelligence, no comment? You can't say anything more about that?

AMB. ARIDOR: Well, I really don't know what is behind Pentagon information and well, I suppose they know what they're talking about.

MS. WOODRUFF: All right. Well, of course, there was a real attack, as you just said, on Israel last night. You had seven missiles, did some damage, injured twelve people. The Iraqi ambassador said today in an interview that I saw that this was justified because Israel has been involved in the planning and the consultation of the allied attack on Iraq.

AMB. ARIDOR: Everyone knows that Israel all the time wanted to make no linkage between any Israeli-Arab conflict and the Gulf problem and especially the war in the Gulf. It was against our interest. It was against the interests of other countries that our involved in the Gulf War. And we know that the lies of the Iraqi government, we know the behavior of Saddam Hussein. We know his activities. We know the kind of tyrant he is, and we know the danger that he expresses and of course, Israel has nothing to do with anything related to the Gulf crisis. We must remember that the Gulf crisis started with the invasion of Kuwait. Then the problem was created and not now, when there is a united force in order to oust Iraq out of Kuwait.

MS. WOODRUFF: So when Iraqi -- again this was an interview on CNN -- so when he says that it was justified because Israel's involved --

AMB. ARIDOR: Well, everyone remembers the reply by the Iraqi foreign minister when he was asked if Israel will be attacked once it will be battle for liberation of Kuwait, and he said, yes, absolutely yes. It seems that the excuse for attacking Israel is really the existence of Israel, and before we, because we exist there, then we are to be attacked and to be annihilated, and of course, we will not be a sacrifice goat there and we have the right and ability to defend ourselves.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well your defense minister, Mr. Arens, has said that Israel will respond in some manner and yet there are other commentators who are now saying, former Sec. of State Kissinger just suggested just a moment ago that because this was relatively a mild, an attack with mild casualties, only seven people hurt and so on, a dozen people hurt, that Israel probably won't retaliate.

AMB. ARIDOR: The fact that Israel showed self-restraint unsurpassed by any other country and we said we will not make a preemptive strike and really we did not make it, and already 24 hours after the Iraqi attack against us and we did, for the time being, we did nothing. But of course, it doesn't mean that in the future we will stay in the same position because no country can be asked or requested to give up its right to exercise self-defense.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, did the fact that the attack wasn't any more serious than it was affect your decision?

AMB. ARIDOR: Well, I cannot really get into the considerations of the Israeli government. The fact is that we suffer this attack and until now there has been no retaliation against Iraq. Of course, it doesn't mean in the future what we will do and this will be done according to the best interests of the people of Israel.

MS. WOODRUFF: And what about the pleas you received from other governments, from the Soviets, from the Americans, the Europeans, the Egyptians and others not to retaliate, has that had an effect on Israel's decision not to retaliate?

AMB. ARIDOR: If I am speaking in general terms about these pleas, these pleas were accompanied with appreciation for the position that Israel has taken so far and even these pleassaid, okay, don't do anything now, wait until these missiles are being destroyed by the Americans and the other forces there, but it doesn't mean that we asked you not to consider any retaliation even if you are attacked and attacked again. And it is my opportunity here just to say how we appreciate the position of the President of the United States and the position and courage by the American people and by the American soldiers, as well as by other soldiers in order to demolish this Iraqi force and danger in the Middle East.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, are you confident that the Americans are going to be able to find -- the President today talked about the Americans doing their darndest in a search and destroy mission to find these missile launchers. Are you confident that the U.S. forces are going to find them?

AMB. ARIDOR: I am sure that the U.S. is doing whatever is possible within its power to destroy these missiles as fast as it can. And I hope that it will be before another missile attack is being launched against Israel.

MS. WOODRUFF: Do you think the Israeli military will do a better job of finding them?

AMB. ARIDOR: Well, I think that the U.S. can do the job. I think that we also can contribute to the job, but we really took care not to get involved in any way in the Gulf War, but of course, if we have no other choice but to defend ourself, then we have to defend ourself without being involved in the Gulf War. But maybe this will bring certain people to understand better the grave security problems that Israel confronts and how when we have such a crazy ruler like Saddam Hussein and such brutal nation like the Iraqi army and without any restraints against anyone, we stand in danger and we would like this danger and these security problems of ours will be understood by civilized nations.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, Mr. Ambassador, we thank you for being with us.

MR. LEHRER: Now, five more perspectives on all of this. There are those of Eugene Rostow, a former under secretary of state for President Johnson and arms control agency director for President Reagan, now a fellow at the United States Institute of Peace; Rita Hauser, head of the International Center For Peace in the Mideast, a group promoting reconciliation between Israel and Arabs; Marvin Feuerwerger, a senior strategic fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. Ziad Abu Amr, a professor of political science at Bearzeit University on the West Bank, he is teaching this year at Georgetown University, and Khalil Jahshan, executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans, the largest Arab-American group in this country, he was born in Nasra. Rita Hauser, should Israel retaliate?

MS. HAUSER: At this stage, no. I think it's quite clear what Henry Kissinger said. I share those views. If there are subsequent attacks, I have little doubt that Israel will retaliate.

MR. LEHRER: Eugene Rostow, should Israel retaliate?

MR. ROSTOW: Well, I wouldn't undertake to make the tactical decision. There are all sorts of forces at play here. I think the President and the Israelis equally understand the restraints which President Bush would prefer to operate here because war is complicated enough without an extra complication, but also that both sides understand that Israel cannot stand by indefinitely and ignore gratuitous terrorist attacks. Its whole position is too fragile and its security too vital.

MR. LEHRER: But based on what's happened until now, as we speak tonight, which is one missile attack lastnight and et cetera, should they retaliate now?

MR. ROSTOW: Oh, I don't think so. I think I agree with what Henry Kissinger just said, but I think it should be very clear that anything serious -- I mean, the attack last night was a dud. But the SCUDs aren't all duds. And so that anything serious, they should respond to and make their weight felt.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Feuerwerger, what's your view of that?

MR. FEUERWERGER: I think we have to distinguish between a response to take out this capability and retaliation. There's no urgency for retaliation for any kind of punishment of Iraq. There is an urgency that we are currently working on to try to take this capability that Iraq has out, and I think, as my colleagues have said, if we can't take that out, if the Iraqis do hit the Israelis again and again, then Israel owes it to its own citizenry to do its utmost to take that capability out.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Jahshan, how do you read the demonstrations in the streets in many Arab capitals in Jordan and elsewhere saying right on, Saddam Hussein, for launching these missiles in Tel Aviv and Haifa last night?

MR. JAHSHAN: I think these demonstrations basically reflect the increased despair and frustrations as a result of this crisis, particularly as a result of the last, you know, 48 hours, and they reflect a frustration of, you know, increased expectations, which was built up by Saddam Hussein. Many people around the Arab world, particularly among the Palestinians, were expecting something positive as a result of this crisis, some attention being paid to their own dilemma, out of the despair that they have experienced over many, many years, and now seeing that dream being destroyed with the destruction of Iraq, they are going to the streets and expressing their frustration.

MR. LEHRER: But why would they go -- the firing of the missiles, even though it wasn't a successful raid, is considered a positive development for them?

MR. JAHSHAN: Well, basically, I think that reflects another attitude, if you will, that has developed throughout this crisis, which is hope among many Arabs in the Arab world that somehow one of these days, some Arab country is going to emerge and establish some sort of parity with Israel on the military level in order to incite Israel into coming to the negotiating table or in order to deal with Israel one way or the other among those who believe in a military solution and those who believe in a peaceful solution. And they were hoping that Iraq might emerge as that power potential to establish parity with that state of Israel. That dream has also collapsed the last 48 hours.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree that dream has collapsed, Mr. Amr?

PROF. AMR: Well, I think the Arab people don't view Saddam Hussein the way he's viewed in America. For many Arabs and Muslims and definitely for many Palestinians, Saddam Hussein is not a villain, and this explains the kind of sentiment which is being expressed in the Arab street today. And many Arabs too look at Iraq being subjected to this very devastating fire power by an alliance of over 28 nations and just abhor the idea. I mean, this is not the heroic action conducted by the United States and all of these powers against Iraq. Iraq is a small country. Iraq is a third world country. And this explains why those people express sympathy, in addition to the points which have been expressed by my colleague.

MR. LEHRER: Explain why there would be right on for an attack on Israel which is not where these planes are coming from. They're coming from Saudi Arabia and from other Arab-- it's Syria and Saudi Arabia and Egypt that are supporting the U.S. effort. Israel's not involved so explain why that would be seen this way.

PROF. AMR: Well, the Israeli planes and rockets have been hitting a number of Arab countries and a number of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and elsewhere. They have attacked Tunisia. They hit Iraq in 1981, and I think the, many Arabs and Moslems have grudge against Israel for doing these things and furthermore for being very intransigent about reaching a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli issue, especially after the Palestinians have recognized Israel's right to exist and accepted UN Resolutions 242 and 338.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Rita Hauser about this point, that like it or not, missiles or not, false alarms or not, retaliation or not, Israel is involved in what's going on in the Middle East, involved in the Persian Gulf War. That's what I think Mr. Amr is saying. Do you agree with that, Rita Hauser?

MS. HAUSER: Oh, I think that's absolutely clear in all the efforts of the President to keep distance on what he called linkage between Kuwait and an international peace conference, while understandable, really didn't go to the heart of the matter. All of the issues of the Middle East are inter-related and Saddam reached for the Palestinian issue because the one that he knew would resonate the deepest in the Arab world, it remains the unsolved dilemma of the entire Middle East. Indeed, there are deep angry feelings toward this Israeli government about the way in which it has dealt with the intifada, with the uprising of the Palestinians, the brutality and so on have registered deep in the Arab psyche. And whether one wants to put them together or not, they're there in the same cake; they're all baked together in the same oven. And I really believe that the issue of an Arab-Israeli, Arab-Palestinian resolution will have to be addressed at the end of this conflict. How it will be addressed is going to depend on how this conflict unfolds.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Rostow, do you agree that Israel is in the cake, whether they like it or not?

MR. ROSTOW: Well, Israel's interests are profoundly involved, as everyone else's are. They have the same stake that we do in the vindication of the rules of the charter, the return to achievement of a rule of law and international affairs certainly and I think when this is over, the United States will have an enormous opportunity based on its victory and on the demonstration of its military power to say now to the various problems of the Middle East, certainly including the Palestinian problem, we've made great sacrifices to vindicate the rule of law and we want to continue that. Now about the Palestinian problem, but let's approach it in the perspective of the rule of law. The Security Council has said over and over again, especially after the Yom Kipper War, that the Arab states must in a legally binding resolution make peace with Israel. So far only one state, Egypt, has done so. Now if the Arab states want equity, want the powers of the United States to be pressed forward in behalf of their just claims, they must do equity, they must obey these rules. And there's no difficulty for Saudi Arabia or for Morocco or for a good many of the other states to establish diplomatic relations with Israel and begin to change the atmosphere, because after all, we mustn't play with -- we could understand in the middle of the war, the President doesn't want to rock the boat on these Arab illusions that Israel could be destroyed. It can't be destroyed. And itwon't be destroyed. But then the true magnitude of the problem must be faced, which is the troubles there do not derive from the difficulties of the last year, trying to negotiate the settlement in the West Bank; it derives from the refusal to make peace.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Jahshan, let me ask you that. I mean, are there still great segments of the Arab world who believe that it's only a matter of time and a matter of circumstances, but Israel will one day be destroyed?

MR. JAHSHAN: I don't think so. This used to be the case. The problem with a lot of critics of Arab attitudes in the Middle East is basically they tend to look at him in a static way. I mean, you could describe Arab politics or Arab society in many characterizations or adjectives, but being static is not necessarily the case, and there has been changes in over the past thirty, forty years in terms of Arab attitude towards Saudi Arabia whereby, as far as I'm concerned, only hindrance to Arab state having or signing a peace treaty with Israel is the core problem, i.e., the Palestinian question. If the Palestinian question is solved in the context of a just and lasting peace or resolution is found for the issue of Palestinian self-determination, then very few Arab countries would hesitate to basically sign a peace treaty with Israel.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Amr, what's your view of that? How would you read the basic Arab position about Israel? Is there still overwhelming, an overwhelming desire to get rid of Israel and not make peace on the streets and elsewhere?

PROF. AMR: I think -- let me start first frame of reference which concerns you most and that's the Arab governments, and I would like Mr. Rostow to tell me which Arab government, including the PLO, itself, today, has an avowed attitude and position to destroy Israel. We all recall that it is the Palestinians and the PLO leadership which agreed in a national conference to recognize Israel and they have been acting upon that ever since the 19th session of the PNC in November 1988. And it is the Palestinians who were rebuffed by the Israelis and the American administration knows that very well, and they have expressed dismay more than one time at the Israeli response to the Palestinian peace overtures. As far as the Arab people are concerned then let me start by the Palestinians. I think and I live in the West Bank, I think there is a widespread genuine attitude and inclination among the Palestinians to live in peace with Israel in a two state solution, and the Palestinians will not accept some kind of settlement which would deny them their equal rights.

MR. LEHRER: But they don't want to destroy -- Mr. Feuerwerger, how do you read that situation now?

MR. FEUERWERGER: I think the saddest aspect of this problem today is what I see as the reverse linkage. If we go back to last summer, after the collapse of the Baker initiative and the establishment of a new Israeli government, it was clear the United States government was determined to work actively on this problem. There was a lot of discussion about the prospects of pressure on Israel, who visited foreign minister Levy and so forth. As soon as Iraq invaded Kuwait, this was put on the back burner and only when this problem is taken care of can we turn again to this important issue with peace making in the region.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Feuerwerger, do you see a scenario -- I'm going to ask you the impossible question, but don't get upset, I'm going to ask all the others the same one -- do you see a scenario coming out of this, of this war, that could, in fact, lead to a settlement of this overall problem? I know we're sitting here with bombs being dropped and people putting on gas masks and all the other, but what do you think?

MR. FEUERWERGER: I think it's possible, although I don't know if I can describe it. I think that once you enter into a war that once you enter into a war, a lot of things can happen. One's aims can change, the attitudes of the various actors can change. If one can imagine a situation here in which the United States forges an alliance with Egypt, with Saudi Arabia, with other Arab countries and the United States has come to the aid of Israel indirectly in taking out these missiles, our position if we should win here rapidly and if we are able to establish a more stable region will be enhanced certainly in Israel and among these Arab countries, and I think that if at that point we turn with determination to the Arab-Israeli dispute and ask all of our friends to work on this and to chip in, that we may have an opportunity to work here.

MR. LEHRER: Rita Hauser, do you agree that we might come out of this, "we" meaning the United States, with a power to make peace, force peace on people who may not otherwise want it or may not be otherwise able to do it?

MS. HAUSER: Well, since we've debated this so many times, our capacity to impose anything is very small and there's an anterior question in my view as to whether or not we even have any idea of what it is that we want, which I think is somewhat distressing. A lot of us who are looking beyond the war to what the region will look like after, yes, there are positive scenarios, but there are also some terribly negative scenarios that might emerge. If Saddam Hussein is destroyed and his power base eliminated altogether, who will be the protector of the PLO? That's the first and immediate question. They are the current, today protector of the PLO, even though they have their own factional divides, as was seen at the assassination of Abu Iad. Will this mean that Arafat and his group are out of business, or will they then return to Syrian protection? Syria would be the only logical power to give them any kind of support and there's bitter hatred between Assad and Arafat. Maybe this means the end of the PLO as the significant force in the area. Maybe there's the emergence of the local leadership finally on the West Bank and Gaza. But I'm not very sanguine that this Israeli government -- and I use that phrase because I don't think it reflects Israel, this Israeli government is not inclined to deal with any of the Palestinians in a way that will lead to accommodation.

MR. LEHRER: Is she right, Mr. Rostow?

MR. ROSTOW: No, she's quite wrong. She's quite wrong. I think first of all events will govern possibilities very much, but I think any Israeli government can and should take advantage of the opportunity that's emerging by making a very strong and bold solution to the Palestinian problem, and I think the only one that could possibly work in the long run is the idea that's been put forward by every international mission that's ever studied this problem, namely a federation or confederation within the entire area of Palestine, that is, the geographical definition of Palestine, in the mandate, some sort of an economic union between whatever state there will be, what's now Jordan and parts of the West Bank, and special arrangements with Jerusalem. That's been the official Israeli position for many years and I think it'll always be the official position.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Amr, as a Palestinian who lives on the West Bank, would you buy that? Is that a solution?

PROF. AMR: I think before we indulge in making scenarios, I think the Palestinians should be allowed to exercise the legitimate right of self-determination. Once that privilege and right is extended to the Palestinians, I can assure you that they will be very forthcoming in seeking some kind of mutually relatively accepted arrangement in the area.

MR. LEHRER: What is your response to what Rita Hauser said about where the Palestinian leadership now and the problems that this presents, the PLO having gone with Saddam Hussein, well, you heard what she said, there may be a new, may be a power vacuum, a leadership vacuum, that we don't know what's going to happen, what do you say?

PROF. AMR: Well, not sadly because the Palestinian national movement did not start with the PLO. The PLO is significant; any national movement needs historic leadership. The absence of the leadership would definitely impede the Palestinian movement and the Palestinian cause, but I think the Palestinians have demonstrated over the years some kind of resilience. You know, they have been through a number of similar difficult times, assuming this situation is going to be a difficult time. But I agree that it is too much premature to judge at this point what is going to happen, not only to the PLO, but to a number of states in the region.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Jahshan, what is your view of what -- did the PLO back the wrong horse and are they going to pay a price for it?

MR. JAHSHAN: There is no doubt in my mind that as a result of this crisis the Palestinians are going to emerge wounded and they will lose some credibility in a way for the position or at least the way the position was interpreted, reflected, or perceived in the West on paper, the position does not necessarily reflect the same perception as we view it from Washington.

MR. LEHRER: Explain that.

MR. JAHSHAN: For example, quite often, people in the media here, and also officials in Washington perceive the Palestinian position as one that has supported Iraq in its occupation of Kuwait. And looking at the Palestinian position officially in terms of, on paper, in terms of whatever few decisions have been taken by responsible PLO institutions since the beginning of this crisis, I do not see that reflected in the position. It may be the way they articulated it or the way the behavior of Palestinian leaders was interpreted during that period, the way that certain Palestinians did not necessarily reinforce, rearticulate that position in an unequivocal, you know, manner to the world community, maybe that helped misrepresent the position.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, gentlemen, Ms. Hauser, thank you very much for being with us.

MR. MacNeil: At this point, some public television stations will be cutting away. For those who do not, our special coverage of the war in the Gulf will continue in a moment. Once again, the main stories of the day, air raid sirens howled again over Tel Aviv, but it was a false alarm. No Iraqi missiles were detected. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens said Israel would retaliate for the attack last night. British Foreign Sec. Douglas Hurd called that attack a reckless ploy to widen the war and urged the Israelis to show restraint and President Bush hailed Jerusalem's restraint up till now. In Saudi Arabia, the U.S. command said eight Iraqi aircraft have been shot down with two more probable. American air attacks against Iraq continued at the rate of 2,000 sorties a day. So far the only threat Iraq has offered tomorrow, the almost textbook perfect high tech war the Pentagon has mounted, comes from a modern but high tech weapon, the SCUD missile. Now from several perspectives, we examine what remains of that threat. News that Iraq had it Israel with seven missiles early today reportedly transformed the mood in the White House from controlled confidence to sudden anxiety. This morning, President Bush acknowledged that Saddam Hussein still has some SCUDs in his arsenal.

PRES. BUSH: He may well have been holding his mobile missiles back, for example, wheeling them out there when he thinks they'll be undetected, and then firing a few of these missiles into the heart of downtown Haifa to try to make some political statement, but there may be some more of that ahead for maybe India and other countries, but in terms of his ability to respond militarily I can guarantee the world that as every hour goes by, he is going to be less able to respond, less able to stand up against the entire world, the world opinion, as expressed in these United Nations resolutions.

MR. MacNeil: In Saudi Arabia, the U.S. commanders went into more detail on the elusive mobile SCUD launchers and their efforts to destroy them. We have more from Peter Allen of Independent Television News.

MR. ALLEN: Every one of America's fighter bombers engaged in the ferocious bombardment of Iraq carries a video camera, providing a pilot's eye view of a bombing raid. The objects targeted here are bunkers which house SCUD missiles, Iraq's most feared weapon. The U.S. Air Force Commander takes up the story.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, Commander, Persian Gulf Forces Again, the pilot releases bombs about two miles away, he's banking away from the target, leaving the target area, lasing the target, and you'll see two bombs fly into the door of the storage bunker.

MR. ALLEN: The laser on the aircraft remains fixed on the target as the aircraft banks away.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, Commander, Persian Gulf Forces You can almost get air sick watching this.

MR. ALLEN: The missile follows the beam of the laser with pinpoint accuracy onto the appointed target.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, Commander, Persian Gulf Forces You'll be able to count each bomb, one, two.

MR. ALLEN: It's that kind of accuracy which has enabled the air force to inflict such damage on Iraq. Following the attack on Israel, target No. 1 is the SCUD missile.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, Commander, Persian Gulf Forces This morning the United States Air Force found three mobile erector launchers with missiles on board inside the Iraq, these launchers were obviously aimed at Saudi Arabia, given their positions. Those three mobile launchers have been destroyed. In addition to that, at the same time, we found eight more mobile erector launchers in the same location. We are currently attacking those launchers and we have confirmed the destruction of three more of those mobile erected launchers and we are continuing to attack the others, and I assure you we will attack them relentlessly until either we are prevented from attacking them any further by weather or we have destroyed them all.

MR. MacNeil: Now we look more closely at the SCUD threat and the problems of eliminating it. Leonard Spector is a specialist on proliferation of advanced weapon systems at the Carnegie Endowment. Steven Zeloga is an expert on Soviet weapons with the company Video Ordinance. He has written the history of the SCUD missile. Dan McKinnon, a former Navy pilot and author of a book on Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor, has been advising us all week. Mr. Zaloga, Congressmen who were briefed today say they were told by the Pentagon briefers that they thought the Iraqis had 30 mobile SCUD missile launchers left after two days. Does that number make sense to you?

MR. ZALOGA: It probably does. They started the war with two brigades, about 36 launchers, plus an additional 12 fixed launchers. So if they're left with about 30 mobile launchers after a day of fighting, it does make sense.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Spector, is that figure a good figure for you?

MR. SPECTOR: That seems to be consistent with what we've been hearing.

MR. MacNeil: And so by simple arithmetic, if they destroyed six of them today, according to Gen. Schwarzkopf, that would leave twenty-four, roughly two dozen left. Now, Gen. Schwarzkopf earlier in the program in that same briefing said that these are located largely not -- he was asked are they near civilian, areas of civilian concentration in Iraq, or are they out in the open, in the Western and more open parts of the country, and they said so far, the ones they found located in the more open parts of the country. Tell us the difficulty of finding these things. How do the Iraqis hide them, hide the missile launchers?

MR. SPECTOR: Organizationally --

MR. MacNeil: We have a picture of a SCUD on a launcher to show it's a big truck, isn't it?

MR. SPECTOR: It's so large that the Soviet crews call them "cashelet", which means sperm whale. So that gives you some idea of the size of them. But they also have a regular policy for how to camouflage them. The usual method, at least the Soviet practice and probably the Iraqi as well, is to dig a large trench, a berm, and hide the rector launcher --

MR. MacNeil: Drive the launcher into the ground.

MR. SPECTOR: Down into the trench when it's not being used.

MR. MacNeil: And cover it over netting.

MR. SPECTOR: Camouflage nets or any local cover. The alternative style, if you're in a built up area, for example, a town in an area where there's trees or any other high obstructions, is to place the vehicle within the buildings, so that it's hidden within the buildings.

MR. MacNeil: Now it's not only the mobile launcher, itself, but isn't it true, Mr. Spector, that it has a lot of stuff that goes with it in order to make it operable?

MR. SPECTOR: That's right. You have the fueling aspects and various tenders and so forth that have to be part of those.

MR. MacNeil: So any one mobile launcher would have, Mr. Zaloga, how many other sort of attendant vehicles?

MR. ZALOGA: They organize it by brigades. A brigade has nine launchers and it has roughly 200 vehicles for the nine launchers, so you can even them out.

MR. MacNeil: So out in open country, Dan McKinnon, this is not a simple thing to hide presumably, an assembly of vehicles that should be fairly apparent. What is that terrain like and how apparent would they be?

MR. McKINNON: Well, they should be very apparently, particularly from satellites, if they're in the open. Robin, the problem comes, of course, if they are hidden. One of the things that is important on this, and we've discussed it, is the time it takes to fuel one of these. It takes about six hours to get it all set up and transported. Then you fuel it and takes about an hour, and then it takes a bit longer to launch it.

MR. MacNeil: Slow down for a moment about this six hours to get it all set up. Suppose they've fired one, one launcher has filed a missile at Israel last night and then quickly they've started up the engine and driven it off somewhere else to get it away from the site, because as we said last night, American satellites would be able to pick up very quickly from the plume what the trajectory was and everything, they drive it off, do they drive it to another fixed position, Mr. Spector, that they know about, or did they drive it anywhere?

MR. SPECTOR: Well, I assume they'll try to go to another fixed position where they can try to get into the camouflage mode once again. At that point, however, it's going to be giving off a lot of heat and you're going to have this massive vehicle that may be much easier to detect from the air than would have been the case otherwise.

MR. MacNeil: So while it's driving are our satellites capable of seeing these large vehicles, red satellites and so on, while they're actually on the move?

MR. SPECTOR: That's hard to say, especially if you've got serious cloud cover, which I gather has been an increasing problem now in parts of Iraq.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Zaloga, what about infrared capacity in the planes or satellites nowadays to find these things?

MR. ZALOGA: Well, certainly we have the technical capability of seeing them from the aircraft, but the problem is the surface area that you have to cover, if you're checking over the whole area, for example of Western Iraq, the actual surveillance area that one single aircraft can cover at one given time is fairly limited, and so they may try to use a coarser method, for example, side looking radar on a surveillance aircraft, try to get us into the neighborhood. Then when you get into the neighborhood, then you might use infrared at that point.

MR. MacNeil: I see. All right. Now supposing the same mobile launcher that fired a missile at Tel Aviv last night, it took off from that site to get out of the way, maybe it hid for the day under some netting in a trench and now it's nighttime again and they want to go off and fire another one, and you say it takes them about six hours to get it all set up to do that?

MR. McKINNON: Robin, it's going to take them the time to transport and get set up and then you have to load it and it takes about an hour to load the liquid fuel in it with the oxygen components. Now there's been some discussion as to whether you can load it and then just lay it down and let it sit there for a while till you decide to shoot it.

MR. MacNeil: Let's ask Mr. Zaloga. He knows all about SCUDs. Can you do that?

MR. ZALOGA: It goes through what's called six readiness phases, right from the beginning when you take it out of its launch canister to the moment that you fire it, and what they can do if they have a certain amount of practice is that they can try to get through the three early readiness phases during the daytime so they can get it out of the canister, they can load it up, they can put it on the transloader, they can get it ready. They get to readiness level three which means putting on the launcher and getting it ready to fire. Now if they do that during the daytime, they cut it from six hours down to three hours. Assuming that it's the nighttime, they go, they take this prepared missile, they move it by crane, or transporter vehicle onto the launcher, they move it into the target area, they erect it, and then they have to do the data transfers and other preparations.

MR. MacNeil: Data transfers means they've got to -- we were discussing this last night, they have to do, in effect, a survey to tell the missile launcher where it is geographically exactly, where it is, so that it can then, its guidance system can then take it?

MR. McKINNON: Correct. And it takes a while to get the guidance system up to speed. You know, Robin, as we talkabout the SCUDs, last night, just 24 hours ago was the first attack, and we entered a new era in warfare and on that it directly involves the SCUDs, and that is the missile age of warfare and that they were now launched into Jerusalem, and this raises some grave questions about our capability to defend and any other country's like Israel to defend against us.

MR. MacNeil: I'm going to come back to that in a moment, the Patriot missile system and so on, but I just wanted to know a little bit more about the SCUDs first. And once they got it into position, when they used them against Iran during the war, they could keep it one position, they could keep loading the same launcher and get off -- Mr. Spector, how many could they get off in a day?

MR. SPECTOR: The top number they got off during that war was 11 in one day, but the typical number was closer to five or six, not necessarily from one launcher. This would be the number that would actually fall on Iran, as I understood it, on Tehran at any one time. So I have the feeling for individual launchers obviously it was a good deal less.

MR. MacNeil: But trying to hide them from probably, as the Americans said today, the most assiduous air search and destroy operation that has ever been launched anywhere, they can't launch more than, fire more than one from a launcher likely, they're going to have to fire one and just get out of there fast, right?

MR. ZALOGA: That's correct. There's a technical reason for it also. When you fire the missile itself it has an enormous heat plume of hot exhaust gas which goes down onto the base plate and onto the launch assembly as it goes up. Now you can't send a crew to go and prepare the equipment afterwards. You have to let it sit for a number of hours until the heat basically --

MR. MacNeil: You have to let the launcher sit there.

MR. ZALOGA: You don't have to let the launcher sit there. There are hydraulics that allow you to pull it up so you can scurry away, but you can't then immediately go back and reload it immediately and fire one again, so generally, there's a real limit to the number of times a single launcher can file missiles during the course of one day.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Let's talk about for a moment about the destructiveness of these things. Mr. Spector, what kind of warhead and damaging potential do these things carry now?

MR. SPECTOR: Well, of course, we've been very concerned about chemical warheads, and I think in the public domain, at least, there has been speculation that Iraq, in fact, does have chemical warheads for some of these missiles. We certainly didn't see any last night, thank goodness, and it may be that these have been overblown characterizations of the capability. As far as the actual warheads are concerned, the normal SCUD can carry about a ton of high explosives. It seems what we observed last night in those film clips that were seen on television, about a ton of high explosive was not really present. We were seeing smaller quantities, and that would be appropriate for the longer range SCUDs, the so-called Al Husseins and Al Abas missiles.

MR. MacNeil: We have another illustration of the original SCUD and then the way the Iraqis modified it to give it a greater range.

MR. SPECTOR: The Al Hussein, which was the first modification, in effect, substituted more fuel and just, and reduced the warhead so that the Iraqi would have a greater range, moving it from about a 180 mile range to around 400 miles or so. The Al Abas in theory they've gotten a bit more potent so that it can carry close perhaps to the original ton of the SCUD and still have the range of about 400 miles.

MR. MacNeil: But without any chemical content, what we're talking about here is the kind of explosive that the German B-2s visited on London during the second world war, is that right, something like that, or less?

MR. SPECTOR: We're, in fact, dealing with a smaller warhead.

MR. MacNeil: Smaller warhead.

MR. SPECTOR: The warhead now, the Al Hussein, the original SCUD, is 135 kilometers. Most of its damage last night was actually not done by the warhead, it was done by the enormous energy of the missile coming in and impacting. The missile comes down at a speed of almost 2 kilometers a second. It's very very fast, 4,000 miles an hour. You have almost a ton of metal left in the missile, the fuel's all been expended, and it impacts in the ground a very high speed and does a great deal of damage simply by the impact.

MR. MacNeil: Dan McKinnon, you came up with an interesting point last night. Do you know where all those reports that later turned out not to be true, we understand that there was nerve gas or something or some chemical agent in this, and you said, say it again, that during the Iran-Iraq War a lot of people thought that, but it was actually just the volatile fuel of the SCUD.

MR. McKINNON: The initial phase in Tel Aviv last night, they thought it was a chemical weapon and what I supposed and I think it's turned out to be accurate, that wasn't chemical, but it was the residual fuel left in the missile which brought up the discussion about what type of missile, whether it was the Al Hussein or the SCUD and also the range it went as a result. It had leftover fuel if it didn't go as far and burn up all the fuel, so like Steve says, it was the massive missile and the fuel exploding and it's a toxic fuel that creates the effect of a chemical stink and problem but it wasn't true chemical.

MR. MacNeil: And could give the illusion to people that there was a gas or something like that. Does that make sense to you, Mr. Zaloga?

MR. ZALOGA: Yes, it does to some extent. The occident that's used in the fuel is a type of nitric acid, and if --

MR. MacNeil: Which is very acrid when --

MR. ZALOGA: Yes, it is very much so. It's a corrosive.

MR. MacNeil: Gives off fumes?

MR. ZALOGA: And so when the missile struck, if it had even trace amounts of nitric acid left in the oxygen tank, it could go up into the air much as a chemical warhead might go up into the air. People nearby might inhale a bit of it. There probably wouldn't be much of the fuel left, but if there was any, it would certainly give that kind of a reaction.

MR. MacNeil: Right. Now, Dan McKinnon, tell us about the problems for U.S. pilots in finding and destroying these and how long with that problem, the kind of cloudy weather and everything that's there now, we could be faced with this kind of potential. Suppose there are 24 launchers left, and how many missiles, incidentally, would they have left, roughly speaking? Mr. Spector, do you have a guess at that?

MR. SPECTOR: I had the impression that we were talking much larger numbers of missiles, and really the constraining aspect here is the launcher.

MR. MacNeil: But how many missiles roughly would you --

MR. SPECTOR: I've heard hundreds, multiple hundreds being potentially available.

MR. MacNeil: I'm sorry. And you think how many?

MR. ZALOGA: The figures that I've seen here range from 300 to 800, although it looks as though the United States Air Force attacked many of the storage bunkers, so the number's probably smaller. It's probably in the low hundreds.

MR. MacNeil: Let's talk about the problems of even with all this high tech equipment and everything of finding those things and destroying them.

MR. McKINNON: Robin, by the time the pilots get ready to launch the targets are going to be designated for them, so through satellite imagery and those techniques, the targets will be indicated. The pilot gets ready to take off. When we started this situation a couple of days ago, the weather was very nice there. Today the weather's deteriorated and it's very poor. So when a pilot goes in and his target was designated and with this bad weather, it's going to create a lot of problems. One, it's going to create some more losses for us, because the pilot's going to try to get down low under the weather so they can drop the bombs actively on the target which brings him into range to the AAA, the anti-aircraft fire that's going to be firing, it brings him into the range to the handheld missile, the Sam 7's and Sam 14's that can shoot him down, so it creates a real problem for him.

MR. MacNeil: Because he has to be able to see these targets and this kind of thing to get them, he can't use the smart bombs or the laser guided weapons or anything?

MR. McKINNON: He can, but the difference is here, these fancy pictures we saw today on television, the laser guided missiles --

MR. MacNeil: We're going to go into that a great deal later in the program this evening yet.

MR. McKINNON: But not all the airplanes that are flying over there are that type of armament, so as a result, you may fly just regular iron bombs in there from the F-16 or A-6s and that type of thing.

MR. MacNeil: The pilot's got to see his target.

MR. McKINNON: He's got to see, he's got to get down low, when he gets down low, he gets into trouble. We've also noticed in the last couple of days that the radar sites, that they're getting clever like they did in Vietnam, they're not turning on the radar till the last minute to try to track the airplanes to shoot them down which the Iraqis are not. As a result, we'll have to send the fighter escorts in with the anti-radiation airplanes to shoot out the missile sites.

MR. MacNeil: There's a report out of Moscow today from the Independent News Agency Interfax, it quotes somebody in the Soviet military command as saying that the allied air power so far has eliminated only half of the Iraqis' anti-aircraft potential system and since they installed it and trained them, they presumably have some knowledge of that.

MR. McKINNON: I don't think there's any question. That's probably accurate.

MR. MacNeil: Well, look, just in a second or so, if there are that many missiles left, several hundred, and there are a couple of dozen launchers and they're that hard to find and it may be that risky finding them, would each of you say, Mr. Spector, is there the possibility that this threat to Israel and Saudi Arabia could exist for some weeks?

MR. SPECTOR: I would think we're going to get to it before that, but certainly in a number of days ahead, a week perhaps, we're going to have to worry about this and of course, there is this other element, we haven't talked about the inaccuracy of these missiles. When you fire them, you're lucky to hit within a kilometer of where you aim. We might find actually that we're going to have Arab casualties in Israel, and this may have a very unusual twist to it that people really haven't anticipated.

MR. MacNeil: What would you say the parameters of time are on how long we might have this threat with us, with these numbers and things?

MR. ZALOGA: I think that we've seen from today's press broadcast that what they've managed to do is to take out the brigade that was located in the Basra area. We have two organizational structures to launch brigades. It sounds like they eliminated the brigade down around Basra that fired into Dhahran last night. The real question and something that they haven't answered in the press briefings today is the missiles that were being fired out of the West Iraq area.

MR. MacNeil: Here.

MR. ZALOGA: Exactly. In order to reach Israel, they can't be fired from Basra. They have to be fired from the air bases around the Western part of Iraq. There's been no indication that we found those launchers, those mobile launchers yet, and so my concern would be the brigade or the organization out in the Western part of Iraq. When they finally do attack it, it's not a matter of having to wipe out every single launcher. There's many pieces of very important support equipment if they knock out certainly the cranes, certainly the support equipment, they don't have to eliminate every launcher, although I'm sure they'd feel a lot more comfortable if they did.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Well, Mr. Zaloga and Mr. Spector, Mr. McKinnon, thank you for joining us. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Meanwhile the argument about the war and the argument about the argument goes on in the United States. In Seattle, city officials have decided the best way to cope with the growing public protest is not to argue. Lee Hochberg of public station KCTS- Seattle reports.

MR. HOCHBERG: The anti-war movement in Western Washington State has been a strident one. In one of the largest rallies in the country this week, an estimated 30,000 protesters convened for a solemn march across the city.

MAYOR NORM PRICE, Seattle: As we move through the week, we also recognized the anger that was beginning to grow and among a lot of individuals and we felt that if we weren't able to channel that anger, we may very well have situations where there would be confrontation that wouldn't be good for this city.

MR. HOCHBERG: Seattle Mayor Norm Price says the city's challenge has been to prevent the rising tensions in the city from exploding into violence as happened at similar rallies in cities like San Francisco. Police are trying a pacifist approach to dealing with the protests. On Tuesday and Wednesday, they peacefully escorted groups of younger protesters who had been blocking Seattle's Interstate 5 for upwards of half an hour off the freeway. Yesterday they came up against a protest group of about 300 demonstrators who barricaded the federal building in downtown Seattle, preventing up to 800 employees from entering.

DEMONSTRATOR: This represents the U.S. government is doing a very horrible thing in the Persian Gulf. The people here, the people in this city are peaceful people and are people that will not tolerate that kind of deplorable, I think criminal behavior in our name.

MR. HOCHBERG: For the employees who couldn't get in, it meant missed appointments and according to the Veterans Administration's Dennis Carlson one injury.

DENNIS CARLSON, Veterans Administration: One of the things that was most disturbing to us was one of our employees was actually injured attempting to go to work and ended up having to be hospitalized overnight because of her injuries.

MR. HOCHBERG: To de-fuse the situation, the police decided to allow the demonstrators to prevent employees from entering. Police Chief Patrick Fitzsimons.

PATRICK FITZSIMONS, Seattle Police Chief: A lot of the leadership of the demonstration groups are truly committed to non-violence. They don't believe that violence solves anything. That's what they're protesting and we want to work with them on that theme as well, because violence isn't going to prove anything here.

MAYOR PRICE: If we rush in and we move people, then that becomes the target and if it becomes the target, then the action could be even greater and the anger can rise.

MR. HOCHBERG: The city got a promise from the demonstrators to allow full access to the federal building today. The protest did resume today without incident. Protester Nathan Santory, who carries a donated cellular phone with him so he can communicate with police authorities when tempers flare, calls the city's policy thus far enlightened and pragmatic.

NATHAN SANTORY, Protester: There have been some tense spots, especially when spontaneous events have popped up and occurred around town by just providing some really simple information that it doesn't spoil the plans, if you know what I mean. We're able to reduce that tension and once it's more relaxed, people are definitely more in a spirit of non-violence and peace.

MAYOR PRICE: I think that today was a lost day overall, but I think that today was a lost day in a lot of office buildings and a lot of homes throughout the world.

MR. HOCHBERG: Price warns demonstrators not to test the city's good will by returning to the freeway. As the potential for anti- war activity grows, however, he hopes Seattle's non-confrontational approach is successful enough that it becomes a blueprint for city leaders nationwide.

MR. LEHRER: The public protest is causing reaction in Washington, D.C. as well. Today the House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting the President and the troops in the Persian Gulf. The vote was 399 to 6, with 6 abstentions. Here's a sampling of that debate.

REP. FLOYD FLAKE, [D] New York: Last night's events in Israel indicates to us very clearly that compromise will not come and therefore, I'm asking the President of the United States to go forth, let us end this quickly, let's get our troops back home, let's get it over with so that our people might be able to know the joy of peace once again.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER, [R] California: But let us also remember that it was the Reagan policy of a strong national defense, it was the Reagan policy of providing our men and women in the military the weapons and technology they needed to defend this country that is permitting our military people to do their job and to come home safely. And as our military shrinks in the years ahead because we are entering into a post cold war world, let us pray that that trend continues, but let us ensure that our military people continue to have the weapons that they need, because we have a smaller military, it behooves us as members of Congress to allocate the funds necessary so that they never face a technologically superior enemy and that they too can do their job and come home safely.

REP. ROBERT TORRICELLI, [D] New Jersey: Hiding in his basement bunker, Saddam Hussein may believe that the American Air Force is his principal problem, or he may have concluded the Navy and its Cruise missiles are the major threat. In truth, it is neither. The ultimate demise of Saddam Hussein lies in the seamless web of 250 million Americans resolute, united, determined, and speaking with a common voice and ordering but one command from this capital, to every ship, every aircraft and every army unit, end this menace, win this war, restore the peace that the world and all of its people so richly deserve.

REP. WILLIAM DANNEMEYER, [R] California: Mr. Speaker, I wonder why we have been called back today to vote on a new resolution that simply confirms last week's resolution to support the President and the inevitability of Operation Desert Storm. Could it be the Democrat leadership in the House has been watching public opinion polls supporting the President in Desert Storm? Could it be that the Democrat leadership has been caught with our sanctions down and it has divined the political necessity to undertake their own strategic operation, Operation CYA?

REP. MAXINE WATERS, [D] California: Mr. Speaker and members, I rise with pain in my heart, tears in my eyes, and with profound support for the safety of the young men and women in the Persian Gulf, however, if it was wrong to go to war against Iraq before hostilities began, it is wrong now that war has begun. The commission of an immoral act does not remedy its morality.

REP. BOB MICHEL, Minority Leader: In this resolution, we're telling Saddam Hussein deep in his bunker that the real differences we have as members of Congress with each other are nothing compared to the differences all of us have with him, Saddam Hussein. The men and women of our armed forces are showing the world what they can do and the very least we can do for the present is to say, well done to our troops and of course to the commander in chief, Pres. Bush.

REP. DANTE FASCELL, [D] Florida: Let me add one final thought on this matter. The question that arises now, two attacks on two independent countries, leaves little doubt in my mind -- this is a personal opinion and I don't ask anybody to agree with me -- that as far as the dictator of Iraq is concerned not only was his mind made up and not only is he not going to give up easily, this war is not over tomorrow, the other shoe has yet to drop, the Iraqis have considerable capability yet which has not been expressed or deployed and there's more coming and that's why this resolution is so important. This war is not over tonight. It's not a two day or a two week or a two month war. I don't know how long it is. It can only be expressed in the words of the President that we will continue until our objectives are achieved.

MR. LEHRER: Nowhere are the congressional differences over the Gulf War seen clearer than within the Democratic leadership of the House Armed Services Committee. And back to back interviews from Capitol Hill, we now see it with Committee Chairman Les Aspin of Wisconsin and Committee Member Pat Schroeder of Colorado. Congressman Aspin is first. In the three weeks prior to the eruption of hostilities, he authored three white papers detailing among other things the probable course a war would take. Congressman Aspin, is it going about the way you thought it would?

REP. ASPIN: Yes, it is. And in fact, if anything, the casualties on the bombing part, the early part of the campaign, the strategic bombing part, are lower than was anticipated. It is really a very, very low number of casualties of planes being shot down. You'd think we'd lose that kind of number of planes just in practice runs against no enemy at all. So that is the remarkable thing about it.

MR. LEHRER: Do you have a theory as to why the response from Iraq and the resistance from Iraq has been so meager and meek up to this point?

REP. ASPIN: My theory is that the electronic counter measures shut the Iraqi communications down, that we have a lot of capabilities that were developed over the years against the communications in the Soviet Union designingto shut those down if we ever had a war, and we used it against Iraq, which of course has less sophisticated communication than the Soviets had and in the case of either country, the Soviet Union or Iraq, they operate a very, very highly centralized military command, which means that if a commander gets instructions, he does exactly what he's told, no more, no less, and when he finishes that, he waits for instructions from central command as to what he's going to do next. If you shut down the command and control there, which I think they did early in this process, what that means is people are waiting for orders to fire, waiting for orders to take off, never came.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush warned today against euphoria. Do you think the facts up till now justify some euphoria?

REP. ASPIN: No. I think it's going to be a longer process. I said from the beginning that I thought it was going to be a war of weeks, that there would be casualties. I believe that ultimately we will have to use ground forces, you know, there's that debate as to whether air forces can use it alone, and we'll see, but I ultimately believe that ground forces will be needed to push the Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

MR. LEHRER: You supported the President's decision to do this.

REP. ASPIN: Yes.

MR. LEHRER: A couple of days later, are you having any second thoughts?

REP. ASPIN: No. I think that's the right decision and no second thoughts.

MR. LEHRER: When you look ahead, based on what has happened already and superimpose it or whatever you would like on your own scenarios, the research you did before, what are the most difficult military things coming up and when are they coming up?

REP. ASPIN: I think the air part of the thing is pretty well in hand. The fact that we were able to get through those first couple of days with as few casualties as we did and that we are well on our way towards establishing air superiority, I think that means that the air part of it is well in hand. The one still remaining big problem is the SCUD missiles which you've already talked about on the show, and incidentally, at the briefings, they talked about more launchers than your experts talked about tonight.

MR. LEHRER: So they had talked about there were 30 and Gen. Schwarzkopf had said six had been destroyed.

REP. ASPIN: Right.

MR. LEHRER: But you're saying there's still more than that out there?

REP. ASPIN: Well, those 30 were the ones that came with the SCUDs when they bought from the Soviet Union. What we've heard in the briefings is the Iraq's have the ability to make erectors and they put them on the back of trucks and they launch a missile off of the back of a truck. Now the problem with that is it destroys the truck. But it's kind of a flatbed truck, like maybe more like a railway car than a truck. But they have an undetermined number of those that are handmade. I say hand made, made by the Iraqi indigenous forces, not bought from the military of the Soviet Union or some other country, and they don't know how many, they meaning the United States military has no idea how many of those are.

MR. LEHRER: I mean, are they talking a hundred?

REP. ASPIN: I think they're talking tens anyway. So what I'm saying is that the missile launchers that we were talking about earlier in the show essentially are missile launchers that were bought from the Soviet Union. Each one of those launchers can launch over and over again, in other words, the rocket goes off of the launching pad. You can reload it with another missile and use it again, so what that means is it's a target that you have to get with the Air Force, because as long as they keep, as long as they have missiles and as the experts said, it's possible into the hundreds, each of those launchers launch many, many missiles, but there's a whole another set of launchers out there that were made and are being constructed for one shot firings and they frankly don't know, have any idea how many those are, but any way, get back to the problem, that's the real major problem that I see is the possibility of an attack on Israel from those mobile SCUD launchers which leaves again the question of what happens to the coalition. But in the early phases of the campaign, the air phases of the campaign, that's the one remaining issue.

MR. LEHRER: I see.

REP. ASPIN: Now the second part is of course when the ground forces get there, that raises a whole new set of uncertainties.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman, how do you feel about this growing war protest movement in the country?

REP. ASPIN: I think it's part of the cost of doing business in this country. It's part of the way in which people have to express their opinions. It's becoming commonplace. You remember at the time it began back in Vietnam people were kind of surprised and shocked that people would actually do things like burn flags and protest and whatever, but I think it's part of the process. It's the way people have of exhibiting their opinions about things, and I'm not bothered by it. I think it's healthy and it's part of the system that we have here and other countries maybe don't understand that and maybe Saddam Hussein gets the wrong message, et cetera, but that's too bad for him. We shouldn't change our way of doing business just to suit some foreign idea, foreigner's idea about how government ought to work.

MR. LEHRER: Well, as you know, the anti-war movement in Vietnam had terrific effect in the final analysis over how that war was ended and when it was ended. Do you see a similar thing happening in this case?

REP. ASPIN: No. I think this is going to be a much shorter war. Clearly, the anti-war movement in Vietnam built upon something that was real which was that the war was going on and on and there was a lot of American casualties and there was no end in sight, and clearly, if that were to develop in another situation, you would see people turning against the war too. In fact, I think the evidence was that towards the end of the Korean War, there was a lot of unhappiness with what was going on in Korea, there was no protest like there were in Vietnam, but the public opinion polls clearly showed that the public had turned against it. I think that's -- if the outcome of any conflict in the future is we get bogged down, no end in sight, a lot of casualties, I think that's what's going to happen, that people are going to turn against it and they're going to turn against it whether there's protesters or not.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Congressman Aspin, thank you very much.

REP. ASPIN: Thank you very much.

MR. LEHRER: Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Now to Rep. Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, another Democratic member of the Armed Services Committee, and chair of its subcommittee on military installations and facilities. She's been a member of the panel since 1973 when she was first elected to Congress on a platform opposing the Vietnam War. Congresswoman, do you pretty much agree with the scenario of how the war is going so far, as laid out by Congressman Aspin?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, I think that there's no question that the air war's going very well. I never supposed it would do anything but go very well. I think what we're finding out is that Saddam Hussein is much more of a paper tiger than people thought and that also it shows you how very difficult it is to be a dictator. When you're a dictator, you're terrified of coups. When you're terrified of coups, what do you do? You don't allow your military to do anything without your controlling it. If they do anything at all different than what you tell 'em, you shoot 'em, and so what he's really done is hoisted himself on his own rules by saying no one could do anything without central command, you hit central command, and he's then got to disperse military that can do nothing because they can't get his word.

MS. WOODRUFF: How concerned are you about the ground combat that most people are saying lies ahead?

REP. SCHROEDER: I'm very concerned about that, Judy. I think that that's the part where it all breaks down. We have seen wonderful air superiority in other conflicts, as you know, Vietnam and many others. We've had great air superiority. I think the real question is the moral of the Iraqi troops and how ideologically bound they are to their leader. We're not quite sure about that. Obviously your intelligence never lets you know, so our psychological warfare is working on that, but if we have to go and fight bunker to bunker and ground hole to ground hole, we're in real trouble.

MS. WOODRUFF: Why?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, because I think you're going to see very high casualties, very high casualties, and I think a lot of people are going to say if our air war was so successful in taking out biological weapons, taking out chemical weapons, taking out any potential nuclear capacity, taking out missile sites, taking out his air superiority, then all he has are really almost guerrilla type forces left on the ground. And the real question is why don't those in the neighborhood then solve that, why is that still an American problem at that point, because the things that can spill over into the other countries and expand this are now gone. We've now really narrowed and defined the problem and I think there will be an awful lot of questions of why American lives are being expended to go that route.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, do you think at that point that it will not be an American problem, that it's something that ought to be handled by the neighborhood, as you put it?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, if you look at our Arab allies in the neighborhood, they have over a million men in uniform. That's a lot. And it's their neighborhood and he's their bully. And I think it's incumbent upon us to try and help with the things that we have talent and they don't have or we have capacities they don't have, but I'm not sure we have to make it our war, and I've had a lot of trouble on seeing us run in there and say this is our war, and then the question is if we do the ground war, Judy, does that mean we're then going to stay there and guarantee the peace and occupy for a while and make sure Iraq is not run over by the Syrians or the Iranians or whoever else wants to come in? I mean, what are we talking about long-term? So I would like to see us do our part and then say to the people in the area the threat of any kind of expansion has now been taken away and I think it's incumbent upon the neighbors here to get this neighborhood back in order.

MS. WOODRUFF: Now what are you suggesting? Are you suggesting they ought to be more involved in the ground combat, or are you talking about after that phase?

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, I'm saying they ought to start with ground combat, because I think if we do all the ground combat and you see phenomenal casualties from it and we're very apt to see that, then I think it gets harder and hard to extricate ourselves from there and we become the policemen of the region. I've said one of the big problems is America's been the 911 number for the world and we could be the 911 number for things that we have capabilities and the world doesn't, but they've got ground troops and they've got a million and they could get there and they can do a lot of this, and I think at that point our expertise isn't needed.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, do you think that's what the Pentagon plans to do, or do you think they're planning a mostly American effort on the ground?

REP. SCHROEDER: One of the things that troubles me, Judy, is, as you know both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and of course Gen. Schwarzkopf are both army and I think every, you know, one of the problems we always have is every segment of the services want their piece of the action. Now the army does some very good things, but I hope they don't feel that they have to do a land assault equivalent to the air assault so that everybody gets their piece. The army's been very supportive and done good things, but hopefully they could train our allies in that region to go forward with the latest tactics for the ground war and not have Americans do it. I don't think that's what they're thinking about. But that's what I would like to see them think about.

MS. WOODRUFF: You obviously voted against this authorization last weekend. Do you still -- it sounds like you're saying at this point that you still have grave misgivings about this whole endeavor.

REP. SCHROEDER: Well, absolutely. I still think the sanctions would have worked. I think he was really a paper tiger. I think we tend to take these people and blow them into these great, huge, 10 foot tall monsters and as we've seen from the air war, he really wasn't that equipped.

MS. WOODRUFF: And yet, you voted today, is that correct, for the resolution supporting the troops, is that right?

REP. SCHROEDER: You bet! Let me tell you -- I lived through the Vietnam War -- that was my generation -- and a lot of my friends were in Vietnam. I never again, even though I protested the policy of Vietnam, I don't want to see people take the protest from the war and attach it to the people who were sent to enforce the policy. If you don't like the policy, come after the policy makers, the Pat Schroeders, but don't go after the people who were sent over to enforce the policy. They didn't have any choice. So I think it's very important this time we never allow that mistake to be made again and that we say to our men and women over there we're supporting you on the mission you've been sent to do even though I may disagree with the mission.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, and just quickly, the vote was overwhelming, 399 for, 6 against and 6 abstentions. Of the 12 no and abstentions, I understand 10 were black Democrats. How do you explain that?

REP. SCHROEDER: I think obviously they could do a better job of expressing it and there are many of them with different views, but I think they also feel they're bearing an unfair burden here when you look at the percentage of the blacks in the population and the percentage of who's on the ground defending us, and I think that there's a lot of that mixed in. This is a country where the President vetoed the Civil Rights Act, where they tried to undo the scholarships for young men and women going on to college, and I think that they were really kind of rankled by some of the President's policies. He's willing to commit them to war but not open doors for them to other ways.

MS. WOODRUFF: Well, Congressman Schroeder, we thank you for being with us.

REP. SCHROEDER: Thank you.

MS. WOODRUFF: Robin.

MR. MacNeil: One of the things that makes this war different is the result of another technological development, affordable home video cameras. Many soldiers in the Gulf are using them to send video letters home, and a couple of weeks ago a young Marine Corporal did just that. He tried to tell his mother what it felt like to be where he was waiting for something to happen. His mother, Virginia Diaz, shared his report with Correspondent Betty Anne Bowser.

MS. BOWSER: These are the home video pictures a young Houston man's mother took of her son in the summer of 1989 when he graduated from basic training at Camp Pendleton, California. On that August day, 19 year old Vincent Nicholas Hernandez became a Lance Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, hoping some day to become an embassy guard in a far away country. Now, a year and a half later, Nicky Hernandez is in a far away country. He is serving in a Marine unit somewhere in Saudi Arabia, and once again, he's in a home video. Some months ago, his mom wrote him a letter and said, "Nicky, I want to know where you are, what you are doing over there. I want to hear the truth." These are excerpts from Corporal Hernandez's video reply to his mother. It was taped by a buddy in their quarters in an undisclosed location in Saudi Arabia. [HOME VIDEO OF LANCE CORPORAL VINCENT HERNANDEZ]

MR. MacNeil: As we said, Corp. Hernandez taped that video letter a few weeks ago. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, here are today's developments in the war, Israeli air raids sounded in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, but it was a false alarm. Defense Minister Moshe Arens said his nation would retaliate for last night's missile attack from Baghdad, allied air sorties continued against Iraq, the Pentagon said at least eight enemy planes have been shot down, while allied losses were put at seven. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good-bye, Robin. That ends this round of our special coverage of the Gulf War. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good-bye for now.