The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer has the day off. On the NewsHour tonight, a summary of today's news; a discussion of the crisis confronting the Catholic Church; a Newsmaker interview with the Prime Minister of Lebanon; a report on the aftermath of the fighting in the West Bank; and a look at the environmental fallout from the attack on the World Trade Center.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: Secretary of State Powell reported progress today in his Middle East peace mission, but it was unclear if Israel and the Palestinian Authority would agree to a cease-fire or some lesser step. Powell met again with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon. He has more talks tomorrow with Palestinian leader Arafat before leaving the region. In Washington, a White House spokesman was asked if President Bush expects a formal cease- fire.

ARI FLEISCHER: As Secretary Powell himself said, he thought that would be a difficult thing to achieve on this trip. His trip is not quite over. He has additional important meetings that remain. The whole purpose of his trip was to try to bring about a diminution in the violence so that the chances of having meaningful political talks that can begin can be enhanced, and that's the goal of his mission.

GWEN IFILL: Secretary Powell also discussed a possible international peace conference on the Middle East. Prime Minister Sharon said today he expected it to convene in June, possibly in the US. Also today, there was heavy gunfire around the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Some 200 Palestinian gunmen have been holed up there for nearly two weeks. And Israeli forces returned to the West Bank town of Tulkarem and several villages. They arrested at least a dozen Palestinian militants. The Vatican confirmed today it has formally summoned all 13 American Cardinals to Rome for meetings next week. They will discuss the growing scandal of sexual abuse involving US priests and children. The Vatican statement said the focus will be on setting guidelines to reassure families and restore trust. Church leaders in the US, including Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, welcomed the announcement.

CARDINAL THEODORE McCARRICK, Archdiocese of Washington: I'm hoping that there will be a strong statement. I'm sure there will be. I'm hoping that there will be the guidelines for a policy that the Bishops then can put together at their June meeting. I'm hoping that we will be able to assure the Holy Father that we are striving for holiness ourselves, and our people. I'm sure we'll assure him that the mistakes of the past will not be continued, will not happen again. I think all of those things I'm hoping will happen, and I believe they will.

GWEN IFILL: We'll have more on this story in a few minutes. The Supreme Court today struck down a federal law banning so-called "virtual" child pornography. It ruled the First Amendment protects the use of computer- generated images of simulated sex involving children. By a 6-3 decision, the Justices said the 1996 child pornography law was too broad and vague. The Justice Department had argued it would help eradicate the market for real images of child sex. Inflation at the retail level was less than expected in March. The Commerce Department reported today consumer prices gained 0.3%, that in spite of a sharp spike in gasoline prices. Not including energy and food costs, the core rate of inflation increased just 0.1%. On Wall Street, stocks rose after upbeat forecasts from technology companies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 207 points to 10,301, a gain of about 2%. The NASDAQ added 63 points, to finish at 1,815. That was a gain of 3.5%. Chrysler will recall more than one million Jeep sport utility vehicles, to fix an engine problem that could result in fire. The company made the announcement today. The recall affects Jeep Cherokees from model years 2000 and 2001; Grand Cherokees from 1999 through 2002; and Wranglers from 2000 through 2002. All have four-liter engines. A company spokeswoman said no injuries had been reported as a result of the problem. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the crisis in the Catholic Church, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, the aftermath of fighting in the West Bank, and cleaning up lower Manhattan.

FOCUS - CHURCH IN CRISIS

GWEN IFILL: Now, the crisis in the Catholic Church. Vatican Radio said today that next week's summit of American Cardinals is designed to clear up "shadows cast" by the spreading reports of pedophilia among Catholic priests. All 13 American Cardinals have been invited. They will leave behind a Church coping with these revelations and with evidence that Church leaders protected the priests accused of and in some cases found guilty of the abuse. Is this a turning point for the Church? To address that and other questions, we turn to: Gustav Niebuhr, a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University; the Reverend Richard McBrien, a Catholic priest and professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, he has written books on Catholicism and the history of the papacy; and Raymond Flynn, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican from 1993 to 1997. He is also the former mayor of Boston. Gus Niebuhr, how unusual is it for the Pope to get involved in this way with what seems to be a last-minute fairly urgent call for American Church leaders to come to Rome?

GUSTAV NIEBUHR: Well, it's highly unusual. This sort of meeting on such a short notice is virtually unprecedented. And it certainly shows that the Vatican has an idea of the dimensions of the crisis that has erupted here in the United States. I think that what has been crucial here in alerting the Vatican and persuading the Pope and the people around him to call this meeting has been the outrage of laypeople, particularly in the archdiocese of Boston. It's often said accurately that the Catholic Church isn't a democracy, but on the other hand, it's not entirely the hierarchy. That goes against both the practical state of the Church and also against the Church's own theology, which holds that the Church is the whole people of God and not just its senior members.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Flynn, you were at the Vatican for a while. You were there during your stewardship and saw at least one of these kinds of meetings called. How unusual does it seem to you?

RAYMOND FLYNN: it's rare, but Gus is right. It's not exactly unprecedented. But this is a... I think a sign from John Paul II himself that he is not satisfied with what has been going on in the Church in the United States, and he is stepping in, taking full control hopefully -- putting everybody on notice that he wants a policy that is general in scope across the United States, if not across the world, that protects young, innocent children. So what happened in Boston and other areas, molesting of young people at the hands of sexually abusive priests, never happens again. I would predict -- I would hope, I would pray -- that the Pope's role in this will be the first important signal, first important message that there's going to be a policy that will be a no-tolerance policy, and never again will this happen to any innocent young person. It will be treated not just as a sin, as a sickness, but also a crime.

GWEN IFILL: Father McBrien, does the Pope's role constitute a turning point in this, I guess, scandal?

REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: I wouldn't characterize it as a turning point. It's a positive development. I surely would want to say that, and I would agree with what Raymond Flynn and Gus Niebuhr have said about that, but one has to look realistically at the composition of the delegation, both the American delegation and the Vatican delegation. It is almost monochromatic in its approach to issues in the Church, theological, pastoral. It's hard to predict that out of this group, this particular group, there will come a great deal of creative energy, of openness to adopt new approaches to some systemic and institutional problems and crises in the Church. I'm always prepared to see the work of the Holy Spirit break through -- what a political analyst might say could not... never happen -- but even the Vatican representatives recently named Cardinal Rotzinger, Cardinal Ray, Cardinal Castion Hoyes, they come from the far right of the Vatican curial spectrum. And most of the Cardinals are also on that spectrum, Cardinal Mahoney being a major exception, Bishop Skillstad, the vice president of the conference also being an exception, but it will be interesting to see just how this particular group can break through some traditional lines of thinking and really look at this crisis in its broader dimensions, and with fresh thinking.

GWEN IFILL: Gus Niebuhr, it was Bishop Skillstad and Bishop Gregory, from the US Council of Bishops, who actually were in Rome last week, and perhaps prevailed on the Pope to have a meeting like this, what can realistically be expected of a meeting like this, in a Church, which takes so long to get things done as the Catholic Church?

GUSTAV NIEBUHR: Well, I think one of the things that will certainly bear watching is the Bishops' meeting, which is to take place in June. At that point, the question of perhaps adopting a uniform policy governing the reporting of child sexual abuse and how to deal with accused offenders throughout the diocese of the United States, something more or less binding, could be adopted. One thing that I think we have to realize, too...

GWEN IFILL: Could I just ask you, binding in what way?

GUSTAV NIEBUHR: Well, I think in terms of it being officially required, as much as they can be. Now, of course, each Bishop runs his own diocese, but there could be a much more definite statement about what needs to be done, because if there isn't, then the momentum will lie with prosecuting attorneys rather than with the Bishops themselves. One thing I just want to stress here, too, is I think the Bishops are certainly aware of the urgency of the situation not just in terms of dealing with the grief of laypeople and certainly of victims, but also they're aware that the moral credibility of the Bishops themselves is at stake in this. And as long as it is, as long as the story in the American Church is of this crisis that prevents the Bishops from speaking to domestic and foreign policy issues in the United States, it really ties up the Church in a knot and removes it as a public player from the American scene.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Flynn, we were referring to the American Church. Until today, in fact, until yesterday when we began hearing about this meeting and the Pope's involvement, the signals from the Vatican from Rome had been very much that this was an American problem, this was a U.S. problem, and it would have to be fixed here. What do you think changed?

RAYMOND FLYNN: Well, it certainly is not just an American problem. It's not even a new problem. This problem has been going on in the Catholic Church for a long period of time. But as Gus Niebuhr says, and Father McBrien as well, the Church has... Bishops have local autonomy in many respects. They kind of run their own shop in the various diocese or the archdiocese. I think the Holy Father has recognized the fact that this doesn't work. It's too embarrassing for the Church, too many innocent victims, too many young people have been hurt, and many... there are a lot of victims here, a lot of good priests who do a lot of good work. They're victims as well because of their reputation, just the image of the Catholic Church. Holy Father says, "Look, this is the time to step in. It's going to be a policy." I believe this will happen. This type of situation is long overdue.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Flynn, has the Church fundamentally mishandled this in not stepping in to punish Cardinals or Archbishops who assisted or evidence exists that they helped to cover up some of the actions of these priests?

RAYMOND FLYNN: Well, see, I don't really believe-- and I've studied this and looked at this carefully, and I might be wrong-- but I don't really believe that Cardinal Law in Boston did anything intentionally to put children, innocent children, in harm's way. But yes, in fact, you're right. A serious error of judgment was made. He originally probably relied on a lot of erroneous medical information, and later on, he probably delegated a lot of this assignment to other people in the Chancery -- big mistakes. He has to take full responsibility for it. And I think therein lies the crisis.

GWEN IFILL: Father McBrien, is the hierarchical nature of the Church that Ambassador Flynn describes, has that fed this problem in your opinion?

REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: No, it's not the hierarchical nature of the Church. It's the kinds of men appointed to fill those hierarchical posts. When this Pope's Pontificate ends, by death or resignation, we're going to be doing the plus and minuses, doing an overall evaluation of this very long and very dominant Pontificate. There are many positive things to be said about Pope John Paul II. One of the highest negatives that will be identified will be the kind of men that he has appointed to the hierarchy. That's the problem. It's not the structure. It's the personnel. There has been too much of an ideological test that has been placed on these appointments. When you go back to the second Vatican Council, which was the great reforming Council of the Catholic Church in the 1960s, the great reforming Bishops were appointed by Pope Pius XII, who was the Pope in my childhood. He was a very conservative Pope, but he always gave the other side some of the major appointments. In this Pontificate, that almost never happens. And so the kind of men who have been appointed for the hierarchy are not people who are generally out ahead of the curve. They are people who look up waiting for marching orders, as in this case by the way. They didn't put in a national policy on their own. They have to wait for the Vatican to press them to do it.

GWEN IFILL: In that case, Father McBrien, are the people who are going to Rome for the meeting with the Pope, these Cardinals, are they the men to fix the problem? And if not they, who?

REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: Well, as I said, this may sound pious -- I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to break through what otherwise is a very, very thick wall of obstacle. They're not really the best men to do it because they happen to think too much alike. And they're much the products of this regime. They're not Vatican II types. They're more restorationists -- that is, as they seems to do, they hark back to the good old days when the Church... when the Pope was really in charge, the Bishops were his loyal subordinates and priests and theologians and lay people kept their place. That day is over, and the Second Vatican council announced it being over.

GWEN IFILL: Gus Niebuhr, let's talk about the structure of the Church. Are these the men to fix the problem?

GUSTAV NIEBUHR: Well, if they don't, who will? I think one thing they have to, with all due respect to Father McBrien, I believe they have to be aware of the laypeople within the Church, too, and that if they do not respond in some way to the crisis now, then they do risk losing all credibility. And I think that they must realize this in some way. When is the last time... and I really can't answer this question, I'm just wondering, that a large group of outraged Catholics demanded the resignations of at least one Cardinal or Archbishop? This may well grow around the country. I think... one thing I would just like to add about the American Catholic Church is that it really is an extremely important component of this international organization, the Catholic Church. I'm sure Rome must be aware of this. It is the single largest group of educated, affluent, and committed Catholics certainly on a lay basis anywhere in the world, and it's a truly ethnically diverse population, which should be very dear to Pope John Paul II's heart. You just don't want to risk alienating large numbers of people in such a very important population.

GWEN IFILL: Ambassador Flynn, do there have to be resignations in order to get to the bottom of this? You just heard what Gus Niebuhr said about the calls from the laity in Boston for the resignation of your Cardinal, Cardinal law.

RAYMOND FLYNN: It's a very painful period of time, Gwen, and I think people are oblivious to the situation in terms of the "what to do." They want to have faith in the teaching of Jesus Christ and their Church and have that confidence, so there's no crisis of faith. There is, in fact, however, a crisis in confidence. And I think once the Holy Father orders the implementation of a policy that will protect innocent young minors, I think that will be a step in the right direction. But Gwen, to use a baseball analogy -- the Red Sox beat the Yankees yesterday by the way -- to use a baseball analogy, this is the first inning. This kind of debate is going to take place. The Church is at a crossroads, and you're going to see a lot of contentious discussion and debate going on in the Catholic Church and within the laity.

GWEN IFILL: In the long term, does that debate start in Rome or does it end in Rome?

RAYMOND FLYNN: No. I think in this particular case, the Catholic laity have been empowered and mobilized as they never have before, and I think they feel that finally they're going to be given a seat at the table. The Church learned the hard way unfortunately, but there's a new set of rules that are starting to be developed.

GWEN IFILL: And, Father McBrien, a final word on that same question. Does the long-term solution have to come from Rome or go to Rome?

REV. RICHARD McBRIEN: The longest-term solution does have to come from Rome because there are certain systemic and institutional changes that have to be made in the way the Catholic Church operates that can't be decided upon by local hierarchy. They can put pressure, they can give advice, they can give input, but ultimately, it's a decision of a Pope. I don't expect major changes under this Pope, whose Pontificate is now in its twilight. If changes are to come of a more systemic, long-term nature, they will come in the Pontificate of his successor.

GWEN IFILL: Father McBrien, Gus Niebuhr, and Ray Flynn, thank you all very much.

NEWSMAKER

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The Prime Minister of Lebanon; the aftermath of fighting in the West Bank; and toxic fallout from the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers.

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Warner has the Lebanon story.

MARGARET WARNER: Another Mid East flashpoint is heating up again, the Lebanese Israeli border. Late last month the day after Israel launched its west bank offensive, the based-based militant group Hezbollah stepped up rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli military posts to the South. Separately Lebanese-based Palestinians launched attacks at Israeli civilian areas near the border. Israel has responded by hideouts in Lebanon. So far no one has been killed but fears of a wider war led Secretary of State Powell to travel yesterday to both Lebanon and its main backer Syria to urge calm.

COLIN POWELL: It is essential for all those who are committed to peace to act immediately to stop aggressive actions along the entire border.

MARGARET WARNER: Home to more than 300,000 Palestinian refugees, Lebanon has been a battlefield for 30 years among regional powers particularly Israel, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In 1982, responding toll Palestinian attacks launched from Lebanon, Ariel Sharon, then Israel's defense minister, led an invasion of southern Lebanon, killing an estimated 14,000 people. During two decades of Israeli occupation after that, resistance was led by Hezbollah fighters backed by Syria and Iran. Israel's unilateral pullout in May 2000 triggered celebrations among the Lebanese and UN certification that Israel had fully withdrawn to the recognized border or blue line. But Lebanon still lays claim to a six-mile-wide area called Shebaa Farms. Israel said it captured it in 1967 from Syria, not Lebanon and Israel still maintains military posts there. Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who met with Powell yesterday in Beirut, reportedly defended Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli posts in Shebaa Farms. Hariri, a billionaire businessman, was reappointed prime minister in 2000 after his party won a landslide majority in parliament.

MARGARET WARNER: And with me now is Prime Minister Hariri. He'll be seeing President Bush tomorrow. Welcome Mr. Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER: Are the news accounts correct that you told Secretary Powell Lebanon will not do anything to try to restrain Hezbollah attacks on Israel?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: I said that we respect the blue line, which is equivalent to the borders but Shebaa Farm is a Lebanese territory. And because it is Lebanese and because it is occupied by Israel so the Lebanese people had the right to have it back, by all means including the resistance.

MARGARET WARNER: So the fact that the UN even has certified this line and has said that Israel has fully complied and that the status of Shebaa Farms should be settled when Israel negotiates with Syria, that just has no meaning as far as you're concerned?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Well, you know, this is a Lebanese territory. And the Syrians are saying it is Lebanese. The Israelis are saying it is not Israeli. So it is a matter of our land or Syrian land. But one thing is sure -- that it is not an Israeli land and it is occupied by Israel.

MARGARET WARNER: Israel has said that if these attacks continue that it may retaliate against not just Hezbollah targets, which it's been doing now but against Lebanese forces and Syrian forces. And this is why, of course, Secretary Powell is concerned of a wider war. Does he have reason to be concerned that this could spin out of control?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes, I think he has. I think he has. But also we cannot forget that we have a land occupied by Israel. We don't want an escalation. We have told the Secretary that we don't want an escalation; we will try to restrain the situation as much as we can, but also we don't want to be forgotten because this land is our land. Some people, they said it is big, it is small, but anybody here is ready to leave his backyard because his neighbor likes it and he wants to take it or he claims it is not for you, it is for the other neighbor - for sure, it is not an Israeli land.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, people in Israel who are opposed to compromise with the Palestinians point to the Lebanon situation. They say Israel unilaterally withdrew, that they withdrew to the line that even the United Nations says is the line though, of course, as you said there's a dispute, and the fact is they got no peace in return. The attacks have been going on ever since May of 2000, and they say this shows that we cannot ever have real peace, that the Arab states don't want real peace with us, they'll always keep moving the goal post. That is the American phrase.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: That is not true. It's not true. You know, before they withdraw we used to have a war every day. We used to have an attack almost every day. We used to have a bombardment in our villages and retaliation from our side on the Israeli where they are in the occupied territory. Since they withdraw from Lebanon in May year 2000, the blue line, which is very equivalent to the borders, nothing happened, and between Lebanon and Israel on the blue line, on the borders, but what happened is only in Shebaa Farm because it is a disputed area, so we asked them to withdraw. At that time I wasn't in the government. The previous government asked them to withdraw from this territory. They refused. I was in the opposition. I asked also to be... to the Israeli through the United Nations to withdraw. They did not listen and they kept their forces there. If they withdraw from Shebaa Farm, things will be completely different.

MARGARET WARNER: The Israeli say that the attacks that have really intensified in the last -- what is it -- 19 days, aren't only on their military posts in Shebaa Farms, that it's also there are Palestinian attacks coming from your territory on some Israeli civilian areas. Are they right?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: They are right and we put these people in jail. We have now about over 20 Palestinians; they are in jail and they will send them to court because we don't allow anybody to attack over the borders. The border is not to be violated at all. And Hezbollah, during two years, did not violate the borders. As a matter of fact, Israel violated the borders by flying over our sky almost every week, if not every day sometimes -- and intensity of the attack in Shebaa Farm in the recent weeks, in the recent days because of what is going on in West Bank.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's talk about what's going on in the West Bank. You met with Secretary Powell yesterday. You're meeting with President Bush tomorrow.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: What is your basic message to them about what it's going to take to calm down this Israeli-Palestinian violence and then to resolve it?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: You know, first of all, I want to say to the American public opinion that aggression of the Israeli government against the Palestinians in the recent days did not hurt the Palestinians only but most important, it hurt the peace process and the idea of peace itself. It shows the Arabs when they start accepting the idea of peace since the Madrid Conference that Israel doesn't want peace. They want only to destroy all the efforts related to peace. And what the Israeli government have done in invading the camps and especially now what we have seen in Jenin and church -- you know, this church is 1500 years old.

MARGARET WARNER: You're talking about the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes, 1500 years old, one thousand five hundred years old. So many people came through that period, so many invaders came to Palestine but none of them, none of them came and started to hurt that church.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. But what are you asking President Bush and Secretary Powell to do? What is your idea?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: My idea is, first, they have to recognized that what happened in West Bank hurt the peace process and the idea of peace itself.

MARGARET WARNER: I think they've said that themselves.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes, and this needs a big word from the United States and they have to do something very important, and they have to do not only condemning the action of the Israeli government or asking the Arabs to condemn other attacks from the Palestinians, condemnation is not enough anymore. They have to move the Israeli immediately from the land occupied in Palestine, and they have to work immediately to achieve the peace through the UN resolutions, and we have the Arab summit, which gave a plan... a peace plan for the first time since the foundation of Israel.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me just ask you about one idea Secretary Powell has suggested in the last couple of days is some sort of a regional peace conference. What do you think of that and would Lebanon and Syria want to participate?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: You know, we spoke about it. And I don't know the details of it. If it is to push forward and implement the resolutions, it is something. If it is only to discuss and discuss and negotiate and dilute the obligations we have toward the peace, our self and the United States in particular, I don't think it is a good idea. We have to know what is the goal out of it. If it is to push forward Israel to withdraw from the Arab- occupied territory and to establish security and orders and to create Palestinian states under occupied territory by Israel in 1967ccording to the Resolutions 242 and 338, this is something surely that will be welcome.

MARGARET WARNER: So it sounds as if you're open to the idea if the goals set include a political settlement.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: A comprehensive political settlement, not only between the Israeli and the Palestinian because if really you want to see the peace taking place in the region, we have to include Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians as well.

MARGARET WARNER: Secretary Powell has said after his meeting with Chairman Arafat tomorrow, then he's going to Cairo, he's going to head home. If when he comes back here he doesn't have a cease-fire will you consider his mission a failure?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: No. You know, I have my own idea about cease-fire. In Lebanon during the war we had 1,200 cease-fire and didn't work. One of them worked when we had a peace agreement -- a political agreement I mean -- among ourselves, among the Lebanese. But all the rest did not help because, you know, now they are calling for disengagement. That's right? They will make a disengagement. I'm sure they will. Today, tomorrow, after one week, two weeks, they will. But why did they have the engagement in the first place? Have the reasons -- has been not to exist anymore? What if anything happened? So we have to come to the root of the problem -- the root of the problem that there is an occupation. Yesterday I saw a demonstration here in Washington saying, yes for peace, I am with them, no for terrorism. True -- no for terrorism -- but what about occupation? I say yes for peace and no for occupation, because the root of the problem is the occupation. There is a regular, normal old- fashioned occupation like the 19th century. We should get rid of it, and then hold the people accountable. If there is a Palestinian state, sovereign state with all the regulations of any normal state, with a constitution, with everything, institutions, then we can hold them responsible.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you very much.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Thank you.

FOCUS - AFTERMATH

GWEN IFILL: Next, the aftermath of the Israeli incursion into the West Bank. We start with reports from the cities of Nablus and Jenin.

LINDSEY HILSUM: They were burning the garbage in Palatka Camp. Allover Nablus, people defied the curfew and came out on the street to look at the debris of the battle. They've moved the bodies now, but the stench of uncleared rubbish is everywhere. Passing the watchful Israeli tanks, we drove cautiously to the hospital. This man, shot through the liver, has been on a respirator for a week. His chances of survival are slim. Another was having an operation to close a bullet wound in his hand. He'd been patched up in a field hospital in the old town before being brought here. Two doctors took us to that field hospital, to the scene of greatest destruction, the historic Casbah at the center of Nablus. This is where the battle raged for nearly two weeks, where up to 100 Palestinians may have been killed, and dozens wounded. They still pray in this mosque, but for two weeks, under fire, the doctors saved lives here. They carried out major operations with rudimentary instruments, treating gunmen and civilians alike. Now they've come to see themselves as more than medical staff.

DR. ZAHRA ALWAWI, Palestinian Medical Relief: In my job, I'm a soldier. I must defend my people. I'm from the old city. All the people are my family.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Some did not survive. At one point, 35 bodies were stacked in the courtyard. We climbed to the garden of an old house where they buried 14 of them in shallow graves. Some of the dead still lie beneath the rubble. They were being pulled out by rescue workers. The Israeli defense forces say one of their soldiers lost his life in Nablus, despite the booby traps the Palestinians laid, pipe bombs planted under the paving stones, an explosive charge in a gas canister with a simple electrical fuse. Today the doctors are worried about the living. The water's contaminated. There's no electricity. We found this child scavenging in the rotting garbage.

BILL NEELY: Into Jenin with the Israeli army, scene of the bloodiest battle of this campaign so far -- the place this army calls the ground zero of its war with terrorism. The Israeli army tore through this camp in a hunt for terrorists. Dozens of Palestinian gunmen fought back.

SPOKESMAN: You can see here there's an explosive device.

BILL NEELY: The Israelis showed us booby traps, trip wires in the trees and in the houses. Nearly every house, they said, was a deadly trap. Their answer to this? Bulldoze the houses and anyone inside.

BILL NEELY: But it was necessary to bulldoze this whole area?

MAJ. RAFI LADERMAN, Israeli Army: It was necessary, eventually, to bulldoze because the fighting kept on going from house to house, from room to room.

BILL NEELY: One of the toughest battles Israeli troops have fought in a quarter of a century. In this street alone, 14 soldiers died. Hundreds of buildings are wrecked, some flattened. As we go in still further, it's like a scene from an earthquake, except this destruction is wholly manmade. The Israelis say this was no ordinary refugee camp; this was a terrorist camp. No one disputes that Jenin was, in effect, the suicide bombing capital of the West Bank, but the Palestinians here say the Israeli assault on the camp killed not dozens, but hundreds; that this was a massacre. Today we saw what the Israeli army wanted us to see. We saw no bodies, no evidence of atrocities, but civilians did certainly die here, a few bulldozed alive in their homes. Exactly what's under all this rubble has yet to be discovered. Today the Israeli army was still attacking Palestinian targets in Jenin, and as we left, Israel was sending still more reinforcements in.

GWEN IFILL: Elizabeth Farnsworth takes the story from there.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For more, we turn now to Jessica Barry of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Swiss-based organization which monitors treatment of civilians in wartime and under occupation. She joins us by phone from Jerusalem. Thanks for being with us, Ms. Barry. We've seen pictures of the camp, but tell us what your objectives were there today and what you found.

JESSICA BARRY: We went in today with ambulances and our own vehicles for the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Primarily, the first objective is to look for the wounded and the sick who might be in the houses and need treatment. Secondly, the important thing to focus on is assistance to the civilian population who are still there, and we found a lot of people there today. And then the third objective is to bring out the dead and to take them out and to give them a decent burial. What was very striking today was that we went around... it was very quiet to begin with, signs of devastation are quite extraordinary. The camp itself is only one- square kilometer. And you have this enormous area with the destruction. And then if you walk a little bit further up the hill, you come across other parts of the camp, which are not damaged, and people are still there living a so-called normal life sitting outside in front of their houses. There are children playing. And the contrast between those areas and what you see down below with this massive destruction, that is very, very striking.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us more about the area down below. Did you find many dead bodies?

JESSICA BARRY: Well, no. This is also very important to say. We asked people whether they were sick and wounded. We found some people who were sick. We didn't find any wounded people. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society put up a little first-aid post and a lot of women and children came for minor injuries, but no, we don't find a lot. There are certainly dead bodies there. The smell is terrible when you walk around. Quite definitely there are dead people there. And this was also what the authorities there... the Israelis told us that there are bodies to be taken out. But the difficulty is that they are under the rubble or they are under collapsed buildings or half-collapsed buildings, and it's extremely dangerous. It's a risk to be able to even try and pull them out. So what is very important to say is that the scale of this disaster is too big just for one organization. It has to be a coordinated effort. There will be the UN agencies, United Nations' agencies, who will look after the food and the water and the blankets; the assistance for the civilians. There's ourselves, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, who will look after the medical side. And then the Israeli authorities themselves will look after getting out the dead bodies and taking them to the hospital, where we will also be present and assist to ensure that those bodies can have a decent burial, and that the families can mourn those bodies, those loved ones they've lost, in the appropriate way, and a decent way.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And are you able now... is the International Committee of the Red Cross able now to do that work?

JESSICA BARRY: Yes, indeed. I mean, it took us six days to get permission to go into the camp but we continually worked with the authorities, and this is the way we work anyway. We always work with the authorization of the authorities to go in. And just yesterday was the first day we got in. Today we got in, and what is very important to focus on is that the work can now continue.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Are there other situations besides Jenin that you're very concerned about now -- Nablus, for example?

JESSICA BARRY: Yes, indeed. It's very important to put it into the context. Jenin is a horror case, but Nablus also has been under curfew for a long time. Bethlehem as well -- there's an area around Manger Square where civilians... people are living under curfew for days at a time. And this is a tremendous burden on people. To give you just one small story: There was in Jenin again, also under curfew, there was a man who was shot in the head and was taken to the hospital. The doctor in the hospital didn't have the skills to operate on this man. The specialist who did, the surgeon who did, lived somewhere else, but because the curfew was on, the body... the patient couldn't go to the specialist, and the specialist couldn't come to help the man. So what happened was, we have a surgeon working with us on war surgery who happened to be in Jerusalem. The doctor where the patient was rang up our surgeon and said, "What do I do now?" And so our surgeon actually talked him through the operation over the telephone step by step. I mean, these are the sort of difficulties that not only the people are living under, but those surgeons, the doctors, everybody who is caught up in this terrible situation are living under these enormous pressures.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jessica Barry of the International Committee of the Red Cross, thanks for being with us.

FOCUS - TOXIC FALLOUT

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, Ray Suarez reports from lower Manhattan on the environmental concerns provoked by the collapse of the World Trade Center.

RAY SUAREZ: Mary Perillo and Pat Moore are neighbors in an apartment building just 300 feet from where the Trade Center Towers once stood. Perillo and Moore had to buy moon suits and respirators just to enter their apartment building, and six months after 9/11, their apartments are still covered in a thick layer of gritty dust.

WOMAN: As you can see, the dust has gotten into every nook and cranny, nothing was spared.

RAY SUAREZ: The women want to know what's in that dust, and if and when it will be safe enough to move back into their homes, where they've lived more than 20 years.

PAT MOORE, Lower Manhattan Resident: If you look out of my windows you'll see 16 acres of what was the World Trade Center complex. And look how much work has been done out there. And you look 300 feet away across the street into our little building that we've lived in for almost 25 years, and nothing's been done. It looks exactly the way it looked six months ago.

RAY SUAREZ: An estimated 20,000 people lived in the neighborhood within half a mile of the World Trade Center before the terrorist attack. When the Towers collapsed, they brought down with them materials like asbestos, fibrous glass, and other potential cancer- causing toxins. The toxic materials in tens of thousands of fluorescent light bulbs and computer screens covered lower Manhattan in a cloud. From the outset, local residents have wanted to know how dangerous their neighborhood really is, and who's responsible for cleaning it up. Just two days after the attacks, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman reassured New Yorkers about the air.

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN, EPA Administrator: Well, if there's any good news out of all this it's that everything we've tested for, which includes asbestos, lead, and VOC's, have been below any level of concern for the general public health.

RAY SUAREZ: Whitman's agency monitored air quality throughout the New York area, and the EPA cleaned the streets and public buildings of lower equipped trucks that remove Manhattan with specially equipped trucks that remove hazardous materials. The declaration that this was a disaster area triggered a federal response plan. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, became the lead agency, divvying up responsibility for lower Manhattan. Environmental tasks were split into three: The EPA focused on outdoor air, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, was in charge at ground zero, and the New York City departments of health and environmental protection were charge of indoor air in office buildings, homes, and public places. Congressman Jerrold Nadler's district includes the World Trade Center site and surrounding neighborhoods. He says putting outdoor and indoor air in different categories made no sense.

REP. JERROLD NADLER, (D) New York: Outdoor air becomes indoor air not only the minute you open a window, the minute that the force of that cloud broke open the windows, which they did in many places, and when that cloud, or dust from that cloud got into ventilation shafts and air conditioning inlets. What we need now is a systematic use of EPA people and people contracted by EPA to go into every apartment, every small business that hasn't been inspected, and test systematically thousands and thousands of apartments and workplaces and remediate where necessary.

RAY SUAREZ: But the EPA's Whitman says her agency did the best it could -- given the plan it had to work with.

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: We don't regulate indoor air. But there were a number of businesses that came to us and said, you know, "Is it safe to go back in?" Or they wanted to go in and get things. We provided them with the suits, the protective gear to wear, for them to go into the buildings. We were there with them, or they would tell us what they wanted, and where, and we would go in and get things for them. And then subsequent to that, they were advised... again, the city as being the primary responder here was the one that worked with people more directly than we did as far as the indoor, but we did all the outdoor air sampling.

RAY SUAREZ: Many residents found the whole business confusing and frustrating.

MARY PERILLO, Resident: And what there was, was systematic run around; not quite disinformation, but the lack of information. "Call the EPA," And they'd say, "call the DEP, call the DEP" And they'd say, "call the Department of Health," they'd say, "call the EPA." Six months I did that circle with these guys. And they left us in a situation to fend for ourselves in a dangerous situations, dressed like amateur tier 2 OSHA workers, doing stuff that really civilians should not be doing.

RAY SUAREZ: Five months after the attacks, New York City's Department of Health and the federal government's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR, released preliminary results of one of the few tests inside buildings in lower Manhattan. There is no level of regular asbestos exposure considered "safe," but in samples, ATSDR found asbestos contamination -- at low levels -- in more than 16% of indoor spaces, and more than 40% of outdoor spaces. At the same time, over 40% of homes and over 60% of outdoor spaces contained fibrous glass, widely considered to be cancer- causing when broken into small, inhalable fibers. And in March, twin task forces, formed by the EPA and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, came up with a plan for the city's Department of Environmental Protection to remove debris from rooftops and facades with EPA's guidance. But the obligation to clean up inside buildings in lower Manhattan was left in the hands of landlords, and a majority of New Yorkers are renters. Some tenants decided to do their own private testing, including bond analyst Sharon McGarvey and her investment manager husband Paul Martin who live in nearby Battery Park City with their two children. When we visited with them last September, they were in temporary quarters, and McGarvey wasn't sure her old neighborhood was a safe place to breathe.

SHARON McGARVEY: (September 2001) I'm just really scared. I mean, it's a serious health hazard. I need to know that it's safe, it's safe for my kids to be there; that ten years from now, they're not going to have cancer because of this. That's what I need to know.

RAY SUAREZ: When we met them again, the couple said the government never provided the information they needed to make an informed decision about their future.

SHARON McGARVEY: By withholding information, they decided how much risk we would take -- not us. And that was clearly wrong.

PAUL MARTIN: It should have been us... up to us to figure out the scenarios, right? Give us the data. We're all intelligent people; let us decide how we want to react to that. But the fact was, there was no data and we were forced to come up with it on our own.

RAY SUAREZ: Their own tests, done in March, showed low levels of asbestos, so McGarvey, Martin and their two children have decided to move further uptown. Jane Kenny, the EPA Administrator for region two, which includes New York City, concedes that there has been some confusion.

JANE KENNY, EPA Administrator, Region 2: I think the confusion is so justifiable, and I think people want answers, and we always want answers from science. But I'd like to use the example of just medical... the medical profession, if we've had an ailing relative or had been sick ourselves, and sometimes people say, "Go get another opinion." And you might get a totally contradictory opinion from a second or third doctor. And then you have to use your own judgment.

RAY SUAREZ: The EPA ombudsman, Robert Martin, and Hugh Kaufman, his chief investigator, have held two hearings so far at Congressman Nadler's request. The ombudsman's office ensures that the EPA is doing its job, and works to resolve disputes. They heard criticism from residents...

RESIDENT: The general issue is the discrepancy between the official and unofficial accounts, or a phase of assessments of the air and dust quality down there, they kept telling us that everything was fine. But also, there are other unofficial levels that have indicated that they are clearly very different than that.

RAY SUAREZ: ...And charged that their own agency did not tell the truth.

SPOKESMAN: The administrator of the EPA's statement to the public after the World Trade Center catastrophe was a lie.

RAY SUAREZ: Hugh Kaufman says local and federal mishandling of contamination from the terrorist attacks will bring a second set of victims.

HUGH KAUFMAN, Chief Investigator for EPA Ombudsman: The first set of victims are the people who were killed when the attack happened. The second set of victims are the people who are exposed to the chemicals: To lead, to mercury, to cadmium, dioxin, benzene, asbestos, all these chemicals that have spread throughout lower Manhattan and have landed in their apartments, in their schools, in the office buildings -- and these Americans who are also suffering from the attack have been abandoned by the government. And that's not right. It's our job at EPA not to count the dead bodies ten or twenty years down the line, not to operate on people to get rid of cancer. It's our job to prevent cancer. And we fell down on the job.

RAY SUAREZ: EPA Administrator Whitman insists that 9/11 presented many new challenges, which will be met before people suffer any harm.

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: If there is an area where there is a "hole," this is where it is, in response, because it's just a little murky here as to who has the responsibility, who is responsible for the cleanup. We need to ask for more legislative authority, a change in the statute from Congress perhaps, to give us clear responsibility -- or FEMA, or whomever they want it to go to. The problem you have in things like asbestos and fine particulate matter is the length of the exposure. It's not so much one hit; it's if you live with it over time. And I believe that with the kind of effort that's being undertaken now to cleanup the window sills, to clean the roofs, to find the money from FEMA if we can do it, or however we find the dollars to help with the indoor cleanup, that that will take away a lot of that concern because while you may feel uncomfortable for a bit -- short-term breathing -- it's the long-term health impact that we're really concerned about. If we get at it soon, as we are now, that should alleviate much of that concern.

RAY SUAREZ: But isn't there a long-term presence if there's not a coordinated...

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: If they don't do a right cleanup.

RAY SUAREZ:...Thorough, professional abatement?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: If they don't do a right cleanup, yes.

RAY SUAREZ: It's not yet clear that the indoor cleanup attempts will be coordinated so that already clean areas don't become recontaminated. But city contractors will begin the decontamination of outdoor roofs and facades within weeks.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major developments of the day: Secretary of State Powell reported progress in his Middle East mission, but it was unclear if Israel and the Palestinian Authority would agree to a cease-fire. On the NewsHour tonight, the Prime Minister of Lebanon said his government would not stop guerilla attacks on disputed land along the border with Israel despite the risk of a wider war. And the Vatican confirmed it has formally summoned all 13 US Cardinals to Rome to discuss the growing sexual abuse scandal. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you, and good night.