The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, thousands of people fled from an erupting volcano in the Philippines and the Soviet republic of Russia held its first presidential election. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Judy Woodruff is in New York tonight. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: On the NewsHour tonight we start with a debate underway in the U.S. Senate this week over where to spend federal transportation dollars. After a background report, we hear from three Senators, Moynihan, Bonn, and Durenberger, and from advocates for trucking and mass transit. Next, excerpts of today's testimony by Desert Storm Commanding Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf before Congress. Then a Roger Mudd report on efforts to close down military bases. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: A volcano erupted in the Philippines today. It happened at Mount Pinatubo, 60 miles North of Manila. Several huge explosions shot plumes of ash and steam 15 miles high. It was the volcano's first eruption in 600 years. Officials told everyone within a 15 mile radius to flee. More than 30,000 people evacuated the area earlier in the week. It included 15,000 U.S. military families from Clark Air Base. Only one death has been reported, a Filipino serving in the U.S. Navy. His car crashed on an ash- slicked road. Judy.

MS. WOODRUFF: Russians voted today in their republic's first direct presidential elections. We have a report from Tim Ewert of Independent Television News.

MR. EWERT: As Boris Yeltsin went to vote, the first Exit Polls in Moscow were giving him a clear lead. Yeltsin, of course, said this man so he can smash the system and throw Gorbachev out of power. Mikhail Gorbachev is a candidate and he'll remain the Soviet leader whoever wins, but he knows that with a popular mandate Mr. Yeltsin will be even more of a threat. Mr. Gorbachev didn't say who got his vote but he admitted his daughter, Arena, and wife, Raisa, chose different candidates. The strongest challenger is the former prime minister, Nikolai Rishkov. He'll gain ground in rural areas and will appeal to conservatives. Whatever the outcome, the mood was optimistic, food was on sale at most polling stations, a certain vote catcher on this historic day. Never before in their thousand year history have the Russians elected their leader. Mr. Yeltsin is the only candidate who represents radical reform and if he does win, it'll be an extraordinary comeback. Four years ago sacked from the Kremlin's ruling Politburo, he wasin the political wilderness. Tonight he's poised to take on what could become the most influential role in the country.

MS. WOODRUFF: Sec. of State James Baker said today the U.S. is ready to provide further help to Soviet Pres. Gorbachev's reform efforts. Yesterday Pres. Bush approved $1 1/2 billion in farm credits for the Soviet Union. Baker said the President was moving toward granting most favored nation trade status and asking the Senate to approve a U.S.-Soviet trade agreement. Appearing before a Senate committee, Baker also talked about Soviet political and economic reform known as perestroika.

SEC. BAKER: Perestroika presents opportunities for new thinking not only in foreign policy but also in defense policy and economics, in politics and in relations between the Soviet center and the republics of the Soviet Union. Having begun this revolution, we hope, of course, that Pres. Gorbachev will, as he said he would in Oslo, stay the course on perestroika. For our part, we do not intend to stand idly by if the Soviets come to grips with these questions of political and economic legitimacy. Perestroika could be the most important revolution of this century and all of us, Mr. Chairman, have a profound stake in its outcome.

MS. WOODRUFF: At that hearing, Baker also said the administration has warned China not to go through with planned missile sales to Syria and Pakistan. He said the sales would constitute grave threats to the region and could have profound consequences for U.S.-Chinese relations. Baker refused to say if those consequences included cancellation of China's most favored nation trade status.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush had good words today for the president of El Salvador. After meeting with him at the White House, Mr. Bush praised Alfredo Cristiani for trying to end El Salvador's civil war. He said Salvadoran rebels were to blame for the lack of progress in those negotiations.

PRES. BUSH: How many more Salvadorans must die before the guerrillas understand that Salvadorans want peace and freedom, not violence and war? I urge the guerrillas to return to the negotiating table and stay there until a cease-fire is reached. Mr. President, difficult steps lie ahead, but the world understands your commitment to peace and democracy. The United States and the international community fully support your efforts for peace and we will support sound peace accords in your brave land.

MR. LEHRER: Salvador's rebels issued a statement on their clandestine radio today. They called on Pres. Bush to support negotiations which lead to the dismantling of both the government and the rebel armies. Operation Desert Storm Commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf testified on Capitol Hill today. At the Senate Armed Services Committee, he was asked if women should be allowed in combat.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: I think we would lose something in the ability to defend our nation if we had women being required to be down there in the trenches with bayonets, you know, fighting hand to hand with the enemy forces. So therefore, I guess I de facto come out on the side of some sort of a combat exclusion not based upon women's rights or anything like that, but based upon the fighting ability of the armed forces. I think that it's important that there be a line some place in the interest of national defense, but I think that each service has to look at where that line is and come up with their own conclusions as to how they can best defend our country.

MR. LEHRER: We will have extended excerpts from Gen. Schwarzkopf's testimony later in the program.

MS. WOODRUFF: There was news today of a possible new approach in the treatment of AIDS. It uses a vaccine to boost the body's immune defenses after the AIDS virus takes hold. Until now, vaccines have been used only before infection to prevent it from occurring. In tests on 30 people at Walter Reed Army Institute, a genetically engineered vaccine was found to halt at least temporarily the loss of disease fighting white blood cells. Researchers said the vaccine will require years of follow-up study to determine whether it actually helps AIDS patients live longer.

MR. LEHRER: The General Accounting Office released a report today saying progress has been made in cleaning up the Department of Housing & Urban Development. But underlying problems still remain. It said management, accounting, and computer problems could allow a recurrence of the influence peddling and theft that took place during the Reagan administration. But at a hearing today members of Congress praised the current HUD Secretary, Jack Kemp, for the reforms he has made. The nation's 2200 privately run savings & loans earned more than $600 million in the first three months of 1991. It was their first quarterly profit in four years. Timothy Ryan, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, said the improvement was mainly due to the government's seizure of the nation's worst institutions.

MS. WOODRUFF: That's it for our News Summary. Just ahead on the NewsHour, where to spend U.S. transportation dollars, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, and trying to close military bases. FOCUS - ROAD BLOCK

MR. LEHRER: The transportation bill is our lead story tonight. It is one of two major pieces of domestic legislation Pres. Bush wanted enacted into law by his 100 days post Gulf War deadline. That 100 days is up Friday and there is no chance it will be met, a fact President Bush is expected to cite when he beats up on Congress on a speech this evening. Why the delay and what is it all about anyhow are questions we will pursue with three Senators, a transit executive, and a trucking industry official right after this backgrounder by Roger Mudd.

MR. MUDD: If ever a country, a government, a people, had a love affair with the open road, it is America. From the 18th century Lancaster Pike, 62 miles of wood, stone and gravel between Philadelphia and Lancaster, the National Road from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, the Lincoln Road from New York to San Francisco, the celebrated Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica, America has loved being free to move and the country's governments, federal, state and local, have always regarded road building as one of their primary services for the constituent. It was in 1955 when President Eisenhower told Congress that what the nation needed was a modern road network.

PRESIDENT EISENHOWER: A modern highway system is essential to meet the needs of our growing population, our expanding economy, and our national security.

MR. MUDD: What Ike wanted was a fully integrated and connected highway system and that's what he got, 42,500 miles of limited access high speed, four lane highways linking Holton, Maine to San Diego; Bellingham, Washington to Miami, tying together the great cities of America: New York, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angles, and connecting 90 percent of all the cities with a population of more than 50,000. But what President Eisenhower also got was a system that drew down on the cities, pulled the very heart of them out to the suburbs, paved over great swathes of the country -- helped convert farm land to shopping mall, and very nearly determined where millions of Americans lived, worked, learned, ate, and played. Today the interstate system is virtually finished totalling, less than 2 percent of the nations road milage but carrying 25 percent of its highway traffic. So what's next? What's the next step for transportation? Attract people back to the cities with modernized subways? Save energy by laying down light rail out to the suburbs? Embark on a policy of moving people not vehicles? Well, that's not quite what Pres. Bush had in mind when he announced his plan back in February.

PRESIDENT BUSH: We've designed new legislation, The Surface Transportation Assistance Act, to reform existing highway programs and increase funding for what works to prepare for the next American century. And to do it, we must invest in our future. So we're investing 105 billion dollars in our transportation infrastructure over the next five years.

MR. MUDD: What those words add up to is a 40 percent increase in funding for roads and the creation of an enlarged two-tiered national highway system with the interstates and 107,000 miles of primary roads in the first tier and roughly 700,000 miles of federal aid roads in the second tier. Washington would continue paying for most of the cost of maintaining and rebuilding roads in the first tier but would cut back on its share for the second tier. Also cut back would be federal funding for mass transit, only a 2 percent increase over five years and no more federal money for helping run those transit systems where the population was more than a million. In addition, federal help for mass transit capital improvements would be cut from 80 percent to 60 percent of the cost. So important was the transportation issue to the President that he used his momentum from the Persian Gulf War to challenge Congress.

PRES. BUSH: If our forces could win the ground war in a hundred hours then surely the Congress can pass this legislation in one hundred days.

MR. MUDD: The 100 days end on Friday and Democratic leaders are bristling, knowing the President plans to reissue that challenge in his speech tonight. The full Congress will not finish action on the transportation bill by Friday, but the Senate could, and its version could easily bring the threat of a Presidential veto.

SPOKESMAN: New York got --

MR. MUDD: Senator Patrick Moynihan is chairman of the subcommittee on transportation and being from New York, a state where mass transit is just as important as highways, Moynihan wrote a bill that differs considerably from the administration's bill. Moynihan's bill puts the President's two-tiered national highway system on hold for two years for further study. It dramatically increases the amount of flexible money that states can shift from highways to mass transit projects. It restores the 80 percent federal share of mass transit matching funds. It restores federal operating expenses for mass transit systems with populations over 1 million. And assuming adoption of a banking committee proposal, the Moynihan bill increases the amount of direct mass transit funding by $5 billion over five years. Final passage was expected last week, but action was held up by Senators from about 20 states where more money is paid into the highway trust fund than is taken out in highway projects.

MR. LEHRER: And now for our debate in the Senate. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, is the sponsor of the transportation bill now on the Senate floor. Sen. Dave Durenberger, Republican of Minnesota, is the author of an alternative backed by the administration, Sen. Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, is leading an effort to change the way the transportation money is distributed to the states. They are all in studios on Capitol Hill. Sen. Moynihan, what is your analysis of why the 100 days deadline was not met?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Well, Jim, we're meeting it. We shall have done that by the end of this week and other than that, the most important fact is to have a bill in place when this program expires, which is September 30th.

MR. LEHRER: In other words, you mean the Senate is going to meet it? You don't think the House is going to pass it as well, do you?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: We will have a good surface transportation bill on the President's desk and he'll be able to sign it well in advance of the expiring date, and that's what matters. The rest is, you know, talk.

MR. LEHRER: Is that what it is, Sen. Durenberger, the rest is talk?

SEN. DURENBERGER: Well, there's, I think there's an objective that Pat intends to meet and I think he's worked very, very hard to meet the Senate's end of it, and I think he believes that by sending over a good Senate bill, the House will feel the imperative to act in July, work out the compromises in September, and meet that expiration deadline.

MR. LEHRER: So if the President beats up on the Democratic leadership for not meeting his 100 day deadline on the transportation bill, that's a cheap shot, or that's unfair, or that's justified, or how would you read that, Senator?

SEN. DURENBERGER: Well, I would hope that the President isn't going to use the 100 day analogy. A lot of things have changed since the end of Desert Storm. There are a lot of things on the agenda and I think the challenge that the administration gave us was a fairly substantial challenge. I think Pat has taken us substantially beyond the administration's challenge and right now some part of this delay is going to be caused by Pat's moving us even farther and somewhat faster in the direction of devolving a national system of highways into something that is more of a state's choice kind of program.

MR. LEHRER: All right. I want to get back to that in a moment. Sen. Bond, your group of 20 states which wants to change the formula to accommodate the amount of money going out to the amount of money coming in, to put a simple way on it, has been blamed for the delay. Would you take the blame?

SEN. BOND: No, Jim. We were presented by a bill that came out of the environment committee that continued to rely on a dinosaur of a formula. Now I commend Pat Moynihan for having some innovative ideas, looking at needs in the 20th, 21st century, but he's trying to do that based on a formula that was developed in part over 70 years ago. Back when the federal highway program started, they used things like postal roads. Those are totally irrelevant now. We've built our interstate systems. People can speed across great expanses of the country, but when they get to my state of Missouri, they find bridges that are in disrepair, that are narrowed down to a single lane, they find two lane highways where there are very dangerous levels of traffic which contributes to traffic fatalities and accidents, and really is an impediment. We're saying that a formula should be included in the bill much like the President had proposed which is based on the usage of highways and the extent of highways. What we object to as donor states, and Missouri over the last five years got back only 80 cents on every dollar that it sent to Washington, we are suffering because our bridges are deteriorating, our roads are overcrowded and our highways are inadequate. We say develop an objective, fair formula, because that and several other problems in the Moynihan bill must be addressed for us to have a decent highway program, surface transportation program in place October 1 of this year.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Moynihan, do you have any sympathy for the concerns of Sen. Bond and his group?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: I have complete sympathy with them. Kit's not wrong in what he says at all. I've not got a lot of sympathy with people, however, who just want to talk about this and not about what our bill is about. We have an extraordinary piece of legislation. We think it came out bipartisan.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah, but, Senator, we're going to do that. I just want to clear -- what is your position on Sen. Bond's and Sen. Warner's and the 20 states? Are you willing to change your bill to accommodate that, or do you want to stay with your formula?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: We may be able to add to the spending that comes out of the appropriations committee and in that way accommodate the -- we've been talking about it all day long. No one's mad at anyone around here. We're talking about money and that's something you can resolve a lot more easily than principles. And what we're trying to do is change the principles of this program.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let's go to that. Sen. Bond, do you agree with Sen. Moynihan that this thing may be resolved from your point of view?

SEN. BOND: I certainly hope so. Money obviously is important. We need the money to build the highways, but as long as -- 1986 the GAO put out a study saying the formulas for highway fund distribution are totally outmoded and they said get rid of postal roads and other things, develop an objective formula that will be useful into the 21st century, and that I would like to see in the bill. We're going to have to address it at some point I believe.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Sen. Moynihan, let's go to the basic, what I guess you would call philosophical differences here between you and Sen. Durenberger and some other members of the Senate and particularly the administration. Your bill would give more money to mass transit or at least give the states the flexibility to use the mass transit if they wanted to. Why have you gone that way?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Now, Jim, first of all, Dave Durenberger voted for this bill. It came out of our committee 15 to 1. Two, what we're trying to deal with here is the principal example you have in the federal government of public sector disease. For the last era, a third of a century, more if you want to count the real beginning in 1944, federal highway moneys have been spent as a free good and that means they have been wasted. There is no such thing as a free lunch. There is no such thing as a free way. Here is the basic number. Productivity in transportation in the United States over the last 15 years has grown at a rate of 0.2 percent. That's a medieval rate. That's about the rate at which the economy of Western Europe grew from the year 1000 to 1350. It takes 350 years to double. What we're trying to say is productivity, cost effectiveness, accountability, those have got to be the terms by which we decide whether and what to do. And we're saying the best way to get that pricing competition into the system is to say to the states, all right, here's the money, you spend it well or badly and you will live with the consequences, because there's a limited amount, our real spending on highways will be down by 75 percent from the year 1965, which was the peak. But we're saying, get the most out of the money you've got and think competition, think competition free modes, think things and people, not particular forms on which you move them, and try to get some of the energy into this system that always reaches out of public sector enterprises in one generation or two, gone very soft here in the United States. I think Kit agrees. I know that Dave Durenberger agrees because he's been with us on the committee for the four years we've been talking about this. We knew this bill was coming.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Durenberger, do you agree?

SEN. DURENBERGER: I agree with a lot of what he said, but I think to a degree it's slightly off the point of the amendment that the President and I have agreed on and we're going to present tomorrow. There's a way for 50 states to transition from a system of 3 million miles of highways, 800,000 of those having been built with some federal assistance, to a system of state and local highways in competition with other forms of state and local transportation systems, but maintaining the heart of the federally financed portion of this system, which is a system of highways of national significance or interstate highways, including the interstate system that we built over the last 35 years. But that interstate system needs to include all of what they call the principal arterials, the -- like the arteries that connect the rest of the big body in the system. You can't have a national system. You can't move goods and people in interstate commerce unless you have what is approximately now about 185,000 out of those 3 million miles of highways in this system, and that's the argument we're going to be making on the amendment.

MR. LEHRER: And in simple terms, your argument is that okay, it's all right for the states to have some flexibility after the national commitment to this national highway system is met. Is that what you're saying?

SEN. DURENBERGER: Yes. And to put that, Jim, into dollar terms and to show you where Pat and I both stand on the issue, his bill provides that about $45 billion out of $105 billion are going to the states for surface transportation and, in effect, he let's the states make the decisions about what modes of transportation will end up with that money. We're saying that 30 percent of that money in each state or about $13 billion out of $105 billion needs to be committed to the national system of highways and we simply do it on the theory that people don't pay a federal gas tax so that they can enjoy the federal portion of their trip.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Moynihan, what's wrong with that idea?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Nothing wrong with it. The problem is that the administration has not yet specified which highways are. I think Kit wants to say something here and let's hear from him.

SEN. BOND: Thank you, Pat. I would agree with you that the administration has not really been active in helping in this matter, so it's made it more difficult for us to know where they stand, but I would agree with Dave Durenberger that we ought to have some requirements for a national system and I believe in flexibility but Sen. Moynihan's bill mandates where moneys are spent within the state between urban and non-urban, it requires a 3 percent cut-off if state legislatures don't pass certain laws Congress would like to see them pass, and it has a penalty if traffic goes up in certain metropolitan areas, if, for example, they had a major economic development project there.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Moynihan, why are you pushing and why are you sponsoring the flexibility? You've heard what the other two Senators have said. Why are you going the way you are going?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: The way our committee is going, a 15 to 1 vote, now get that clear, I'm not sure we got Kit here, but --

MR. LEHRER: I'm interested in your position, Senator. What is your position?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: A competitiveness with respect to cost and effectiveness and productivity, that's what's got lost in this public sector. It's called public sector disease and it'll kill you.

MR. LEHRER: And you disagree with their basic idea that a certain amount of money, 30 percent to use Sen. Durenberger's figure in his amendment, should be reserved for the national highway system?

SEN. MOYNIHAN: Look, the national highway system exists. Those are primary arterial roads. The states have so designated them. They'll spend that money whether they're required to or not because they are, those are their most important roads.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

SEN. MOYNIHAN: But we do need to legislate knowing which roads we're legislating now.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Now into this fray over the substance of the legislation come two representatives of two very interested interests, transit and trucking. Lana Batts is senior vice president for the American Trucking Association, a trade group representing more than 34,000 companies. Louis Gambaccini is chief operations officer and general manager of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority which runs mass transit for Philadelphia and the surrounding area. Mr. Gambaccini, you support the Moynihan approach. Why?

MR. GAMBACCINI: Well, I think it's a major step forward. To Sen. Moynihan's credit -- and I think his actions have been exceptionally statesmanlike -- he, in effect, is saying to the nation we've completed the interstate system, its cost exceeds 120 billion when it initially was estimated at 27 billion, it's virtually complete, it's changed the whole nature of our country. It's time to pause and look at where we are as a nation: energy consumption, dependency on imported oil, extreme congestion and problems of immobility in metropolitan areas, both in the suburbs and in the city, where 80 percent of the population of the United States resides. The administration proposal not only continues the dominance of the highway, but it increases dramatically the gap between the funding for highways and transit. Our industry is not opposed to increased funding for highways. We think increased funding is necessary to maintain a system that is really the base system of the country, but we must understand that the transit system is a complimentary part of the entire nation's surface transportation system. We believe that increased support to transit and increased decision making authority in the region will do a number of major beneficial things for the country, reduce the dependency on energy, unclutter the highways, ease the problems of air pollution, ease the pressure to build more highways, more parking garages, reduce the incentive to burn energy. Indeed, the very formula is drawing from Sen. Bond's description of the formula as an anachronism, the very dependency of the automobile and the worsening efficiency, we are actually declining in the occupancy per car at a time when energy consumption is up so dramatically. We've got to try to ease those kinds of pressures. By all means increase highway funding but don't do it at the expense of transit, don't do it at a percentage of growth greater or with matching ratios that make decision making skewed in favor of highways and against public transportation.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Batts, the choice comes andapparently the choice is there between highways and transit. You would choose highways, is that right?

MS. BATTS: Well, highways are the backbone of America's commerce and we have to have a highway bill. People keep talking about transportation, but understand the majority of goods in this country are moved by truck, are moved on highways. The majority of people in traveling to and from their job are moved on the highways. Highways are the backbone of our nation's economy and they're the backbone of our national defense. They're also the backbone of our international competitiveness. So we must have a highway bill. We have to have a highway bill that is national in scope. While each state or each individual community may maximize their interest, we may not end up with a national system, and we have to have those highways of national significance.

MR. LEHRER: But what about Sen. Moynihan's point that those highways are already there, we already have that system?

MS. BATTS: But Sen. Moynihan's bill really only goes to the interstate system, 42,000 miles of highways. We have to have something that goes to 150,000 miles of highways or more. It's important because, for example, 70 percent of all the truck traffic would be on those 150,000 miles. If we only go back to the 42,000, you're only picking a very small percentage of America's highways. We've got to have a system which reflects the national interest and a system which allows us to move the nation's commerce. Now what Mr. Gambaccini is saying is correct. We have to be able to deal with the cities. The cities have particular problems, but again, America's commerce moves by highways, and unfortunately, in the Moynihan bill, there is too much emphasis that goes into mass transit and not enough goes into not only maintaining our highways, but also building on a system that we have today.

MR. LEHRER: What from your perspective would be the down side of the Moynihan bill becoming law?

MS. BATTS: The down side is that America's highways go on hold and indeed, there will be some deterioration in America's highways. Also there is far too much reliance paid on tolls and new toll facilities which means that we're going to end up with double taxation of the American highway user in order to subsidize the public transit user. There has to be some balance between it. The highway user should not be viewed as a piggy bank for all of transportation

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Moynihan, how do you respond to Ms. Batts? SEN. MOYNIHAN: Well, that's called public sector disease. They've been living off free goods, what you call highway money, for so long they can't think about competitive modes of transportation, they can't believe that we're actually asking them to measure what we get for the money we spend. The public has to do this. We will. They'll get used to it. They compete with themselves finally after deregulation, let them -- it's a learning process. I expect people to be upset when they first hear these things.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask Mr. Gambaccini the same question. If the administration bill, the Durenberger approach, is enacted into law rather than the Moynihan approach, what would happen in Southeastern Pennsylvania?

MR. GAMBACCINI: The thrust of the administration bill is to walk away from federal involvement or support of transit almost in its entirety. The ratio of highway funding to transit has gone from 2 to 1 ten years ago to 5 to 1 today. At the end of the period, the administration bill would have it at a 6 or 8 to 1 ratio. It would dry up general fund support. It would givesignificant advantage through more favorable matching ratios. In a variety of ways, it spells the death knell of the transit systems as we know it today in a context of 10 years of funding shrinkage.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Let me --

MR. GAMBACCINI: Transit funding is down over 50 percent in the last 10 years.

MR. LEHRER: Sen. Durenberger.

SEN. DURENBERGER: Well, two points. Mr. Gambaccini is wrong about my amendment. He may be right in characterizing the original administration proposal. My amendment just says that 30 percent of the 47 or 45 billion dollars in the surface transportation section must be used on this primary system of highways that connects all of the states. As far as the balance is concerned, the other 70 percent of that money, if you want to spend -- in Philadelphia, you'll want to spend it all on mass transit, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania can make that decision. You can spend it on operating as well as capital On Pat Moynihan's point, and this is pretty important, we all believe in competition, but if you, if you turn to a lot of the states in this country and you say here are so many federal dollars, now you compete for it, their first interest is going to be the interest served by the state legislators in that particular state, not the national interest, not those primary highways that connect Minnesota with Missouri and Missouri with New York and so forth. Their first interest is going to be to take care of their own districts and so competition is an inappropriate word to use in the context of a limited amount of federal money going back or federal taxes going back to the states to be shared between a system of national highways and a system of state and local transportation systems.

MR. LEHRER: All right. We have to leave it there. Ms. Batts, gentlemen, thank you very much.

MS. WOODRUFF: Still ahead on the NewsHour, Gen. Schwarzkopf before Congress and the base closing battle. FOCUS - SPEAKING OUT

MS. WOODRUFF: Next tonight the congressional testimony of Desert Storm Commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. He spoke before the Senate Armed Services Committee today about women in combat, diplomacy in the Middle East and the controversial question of whether the allies stopped the war against Iraq too soon. He recounted two conversations with Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell on the timing for a cease-fire.

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Gen. Powell said what are your plans and I said my plans are to continue the attack, quite frankly, you know, we have, the enemy is on the run, they have almost been totally destroyed, however, if we were to continue with the plans as they're currently written, we would continue on for probably one more day and we would stop everything at the end of the day tomorrow and I -- I said this would be, you know -- it would probably go down in the history books as a five day war. And at that time he said, well, have we accomplished our military objectives, and I said, yes, we have accomplished our military objectives now. So the question was asked, in this case, you know, would it be prudent or could we stop sooner, is there any problem with stopping sooner, and I said, no, there's no problem with stopping sooner and subsequently he called me back later on the phone and said we are considering now having the war cease at what would have been effectively 0800 hours in the morning our time in Saudi Arabia tomorrow and he said, do you have any problem with that, and I said, no, I've already told you that I have no problem with that, we've accomplished our military objectives and that's as good a time as any other to cease the war. I would tell you, Senator, quite frankly that some of my subordinate commanders have told me that they're thankful that the war was stopped when it did because we were really at a point where we were really reeking great destruction on the enemy and we were taking a lot of lives that didn't necessarily have to be taken.

SEN. JOHN WARNER, [R] Virginia: And it continued for a brief period thereafter. Would that have result in some mitigation of the problems in the South for the Sunis, in the North for the Kurds?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: I think it would have made absolutely no difference at all in the outcome one way or another had we -- when we stopped. The question always comes up, you know, we should have prevented the Iraqi retaliation against the Kurds and the Shiites. I didn't see us doing anything to prevent the Iraqi retaliation against the Kurds after the Iran-Iraq War. The exact same thing happened. I'm not saying that that makes it right. I'm just saying that the legitimacy for our being over there was the United Nations resolutions and none of those United Nations resolutions called for us to invade Iraq. We could have invaded Iraq easily. You know, we could have taken the whole country and I'm not too sure what we would have had then, maybe a tar pit. But that was not, that was not our charter. That's not what we were asked to do. That was not our military mission. Our military mission was to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, and that's exactly what we did.

SEN. WARNER: General, let's turn to Saddam Hussein. Did you anticipate that by now he would have been either deposed or in some other manner stripped of his authority by internal forces?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Yes, I did. But I will tell you, Senator, when I was taking that into -- when I made that determination, I had not accounted for open rebellion on the part of the Kurds, and more importantly, the rebellion on the part of the Shiites. My personal opinion again is the fact that because you have had these rebellions, it has done a great deal to keep Saddam in power. I think in the long-term, probably not too long a term, I do think that he will be removed from office by the Iraqis, themselves, because I think the Iraqis -- Iraq is not going to recover economically, Iraq is not going to recover in a world trade arena, and Iraq is not going to recover as a member of the international community so long as Saddam Hussein is its leader.

SEN. WARNER: How do you believe that the outcome of this war affected Iran and what is likely to be their role in the immediate future?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Well, I think Iran in a minor sense was the all around winner. First of all, Iran no longer has to worry about the Iraqis. The Iranians and the Iraqis have hated each other for thousands of years. They're going to keep right on hating each other, and it was only a matter of time before the Iran-Iraq War were to re-erupt. The Iraqis had the upper hand beforehand and now the Iraqis no longer do. So the Iranians have gained tremendously from the fact that the Iraqi military machine has been crushed. On the other hand, the Iranians were considered pariahs by all the other Arab nations who were concerned about the Islamic fundamentalism and quote, quote, the term that's used, it's really more Islamic radicalism. They were very concerned about that, but they had to accommodate, come to accommodation with Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, so Iran gained in having better relationships with all the Arab world and Iran has gained in having a better relationshipwith the Western world as a result of the position they took.

SEN. SAM NUNN, [D] Georgia: General, you may have thought you were going to escape this question, but I think I'd better ask it because we're going to be dealing with the subject, and that involves women in the military, and particularly women in combat. Where do you think we are and where should we draw the line? Should the line be moved on women in combat?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: The fundamental question when you deal with women in combat, unfortunately, sometimes gets thrown in the arena of women's rights, and I think that's -- I have two daughters and I'm very much in favor of women's rights, but I think that's the wrong arena for this question to be addressed in. I think the question has to be addressed in the arena of what's in the best interest of our national defense. I have for a very long time said that I do not believe that we want all of our infantry battalions to be 50 percent men and 50 percent women. I just, I think we would lose something in the ability to defend our nations if we had women being required to be down there in the trenches with bayonets, you know, fighting hand to hand with the enemy forces. What we need to do is when we look at this question, we evaluate it in terms of the capability of whomever we're talking about to, in fact, fly or use that particular weapons system or perform that particular role and does that in any way denigrate our national readiness? If it does, then they should not be in that role. If it doesn't, then they should be in that role.

SEN. NUNN: If you had to vote, which we're going to have to, how would you vote on the permissive kind of authority to let women fly combat missions?

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: Senator, one of the advantages of being a general --

SEN. NUNN: You don't have to --

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: -- is I don't have to answer that question. FOCUS - TAPS

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight closing down military bases, that act of government economy everyone likes until they close one close to home. Roger Mudd reports.

MR. MUDD: Ask Sec. of Defense Cheney. He knows. He knows the one thing that will in a single stroke infuriate the local congressional delegation, devastate the town, cripple the school moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, near the Mexican border, and that Huachuca's computer driven information systems command be moved to Devens, where it would be close to the Boston area's concentration of big high-tech firms and universities. The burgers of Ayer breathed easier believing that the army's only remaining New England base had been saved. But the army wasn't so sure Devens could be or should be saved and the transfer has never been completed. When air learned this spring that Fort Devens was back on the Pentagon's hit list, the townspeople were distraught.

CHARLES McKINNEY, Town Official: People were actually walking around this town dumbfounded. They could not believe that an institution, Fort Devens, which had been here for so many years, was going to leave us, and there's no other way to put it. We were dumbfounded and I felt personally betrayed.

MR. MUDD: Charles McKinney, a retired army master sergeant and one of Ayer's three town selectmen, is trying to help mobilize the people to save Fort Devens once again. He's co-chairman of DIG '91, the Devens Impact Group, which in May staged a rally to raise money and hear speeches.

GOV. WILLIAM WELD, [R] Massachusetts: [Rally] You know how important this base is to the Massachusetts economy. It's not just Ayer, it's not just a handful of towns. The closure of this base would punch a huge hole in Central Massachusetts, and in some sense, it's not merely the commonwealth of Massachusetts that needs this base, it's the United States of America. [applause]

MR. MUDD: Like so many other towns threatened by the loss of their bases, the leaders of the Save Devens Group came to Washington to lobby the government. Their first call was on their local congressman, Democrat Chester Atkins, who was preparing to testify that day before the base closing commission.

SPOKESMAN: What we're trying to do and what we've coordinated with the whole delegation is to make the argument not from the point of view of Fort Devens and Ayer, or Massachusetts, but rather to make the argument from the point of view of the army and not the army of today, but the army of tomorrow.

MR. MUDD: The Commission's hearing drew more than 100 members of the Congress, all pleading that their base be kept open. There was Bradley of New Jersey pleading for Fort Dix, Cranston of California for Fort Ord, Nunn of Georgia for Moody Air Force Base. The list went on and on and on. Late in the afternoon of the second day, the Commission reached Massachusetts.

CHAIRMAN COLATER: We'll move on to the great state of Massachusetts, an important installation there. We'll start out with Sen. Kennedy.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, [D] Massachusetts: In recent years for reasons that defy logic, the army has been a kind of mule, stubborn mule, and its judgment and decision to close Fort Devens is unwise, unjust, and unfair, and we hope that this Commission will reverse it.

MR. ROONEY: We don't want to fall into the trap of relying on an emotional argument.

MR. MUDD: The Devens people, just as other towns have done, hired themselves a Washington consultant, James Rooney, a former Pentagon lobbyist and an artful strategist, to help them plead their case.

MR. ROONEY: And what we have to do is stress all the time is the mission, the mission, the mission.

MR. MUDD: Back in Ayer, the town followed developments in the local paper and on television, and they talked about it each day at Tony's Restaurant & Lounge a few doors down Main Street from Town Hall. TV crews setting up to interview Tony's grandson, Nick Sifakis, became commonplace.

NICK SIFAKIS, Restaurant Owner: Probably 20 percent of most of the retail businesses around here are associated with direct military personnel or personnel that work on post, civilian employees. Not only that, you also have considerable retirement, retiring community here that were military and they retire here for that reason, close proximity to the base, the facilities up there available to them, medical, the commissary.

MR. MUDD: Selectman Charles McKinney would agree. He retired from the army in 1971 and settled in Ayer to be near those services, medical, dental and social.

CHARLES McKINNEY, Town Official: I'm very active on the post. I go to the post frequently and I use the woodworking shop. I use the gym. There's a gas station. There's a PX. The wife uses it, the children used those facilities when they grew up. So a lot of those facilities if Devens closes, they will leave.

MR. MUDD: Meanwhile, the base closing commission went on the road for a series of regional hearings. When it convened in Boston, three dozen members from the Devens Impact Group rode in from Ayer on a bus chartered by the Chamber of Commerce to listen and applaud as their representatives gave the army unshirted hell.

SEN. JOHN KERRY, [D] Massachusetts: We sent 4,000 people over to the Gulf through Fort Devens. But we have seen a gradual stripping away of the core of New England's capacity to train its own and to provide for the service of this country.

MR. MUDD: Finally the commissioners took a look at Fort Devens, itself, one of at least thirty site inspections they've been making around the country. The bus tour lasted less than an hour. Commissioners Courter and Arthur Levitt got rolling glimpses of the wooden barracks, the 18 hole golf course, the rifle ranges, the intelligence school, and a briefing and a slide show at the 116 bed hospital.

SPOKESMAN: If this closes, what is going to, from a medical point of view, what'll be the impact on both military personnel and retirees?

HOSPITAL SPOKESMAN: Individuals will have to travel to another military facility. The closest facility is probably a five hour drive away.

KATHY CASEY: [Teaching Class] Raise your hands if you're from Fort Devens.

MR. MUDD: Then on the way out of town, the commissioners spent about five minutes at the Hilltop Elementary School, but did not question the teachers about the impact on them of closing Devens.

MS. CASEY: This little third grade teacher wouldn't be here anymore. I have 18 years and I wouldn't have enough seniority to keep my job. Massachusetts is in terrible shape. Teachers are being laid off in every town.

MR. MUDD: The commissioners' last stop was a 10 minute walk along Main Street in Ayer. There was a brief chat with William Marshal, who runs the North Middlesex Bank and with Ubert Cormier, who operates a lingerie shop. With that, the on site inspection was over and the boosters of Fort Devens in Ayer could only hope they had made their case. Congressman Atkins is reluctant to predict the outcome.

REP. CHESTER ATKINS, [D] Massachusetts: I would hesitate to lay odds on it. I don't think this is the kind of thing that you want to be involved with making book on.

MR. MUDD: How would you describe the performance of Army Sec. Stone during this whole period vis a vis Fort Devens?

REP. ATKINS: Well, I would say this. I would say that we're trying to make a case and a positive case for the army for Fort Devens and right now we need friends and not enemies, so I don't want to --

MR. MUDD: You're not going to bite on that worm, are you?

REP. ATKINS: I'm not going to bite. It's not your worm. It's your hook I'm worried about. For the last 18 years, the army has been trying to shut down Fort Devens and not shut down Fort Devens for any reasons of cost accounting or reasons of efficiencies, but rather shut down Fort Devens because just for some reason, the army culture didn't want to be in Massachusetts.

MICHAEL STONE, Secretary of the Army: I would not agree with the Congressman on that. I guess that's not surprising.

MR. MUDD: Michael Stone is Secretary of the Army.

MICHAEL STONE: I personally have been very involved in the Devens case for the last two years, not for the last eighteen years, in that I have looked at every opportunity to try to keep Devens open, every opportunity that made management sense to the army, and I simply have not been able to do that. But I can assure you and Congressman Atkins and the citizens of Ayer and the citizens of Massachusetts, of the commonwealth, that we have no disposition against Massachusetts.

MR. MUDD: And there's no general who really likes Ayer golf, Massachusetts golf?

MICHAEL STONE: I truly don't know any general, I can't think of one, but I do not know any general in the army who plays golf. We are not the golfing service.

MR. MUDD: It could be that Fort Devens will dodge the bullet once again. If it does, if it remains open, if the base closing commission reverses the army and the Pentagon, then the people of Ayer undoubtedly will congratulate themselves on having beaten the system. But if it does not, the people of Ayer undoubtedly will blame the system for being stacked against them. Whatever the outcome, it was Nick Sifakis of Tony's Restaurant & Lounge who spoke not only for the village of Ayer, but also for those base towns all over America whose love affair with the military may soon be ending.

MR. SIFAKIS: Ayer's a unique town. It's quite different. It benefited over the years by the fact that it had a military population nearby. It was accommodating people from all over the world and that added something to the community I think in terms of education, the way people think, how people learn to accept other people, different ideas, and that'll be something that will be very lacking in not only this community but all the other communities if they close all these bases. RECAP

MS. WOODRUFF: Again, the main stories of this Wednesday, a volcano erupted in the Philippines, forcing thousands to flee, and the Soviet Republic of Russia held its first presidential elections. Early returns showed reformer Boris Yeltsin leading by a wide margin. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Judy. We'll see you tomorrow night with a look at where matters stand in Congress on the crime bill. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.