The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I`m Jim Lehrer.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Friday; then, a look at the suicide bomber, the growing weapon of choice in Iraq and elsewhere; a Judy Woodruff report about young American Muslims, excerpted from Robert MacNeil`s new PBS series, "America at a Crossroads"; the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks; and another conversation about climate change, tonight, changing the way we live.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: A group tied to al-Qaida claimed responsibility today for bombing the Iraqi parliament. It came as the U.S. military lowered the death toll to one, a Sunni lawmaker.

Today, flowers were placed at the victim`s desk, as parliament held a special session in a show of defiance. The speaker insisted the government will stay unified.

MAHMOUD AL-MASHHADANI, Speaker of Parliament, Iraq (through translator): The Iraqi parliament government and people are all one unit. They cannot be torn apart. They all sail in one ship, and if this ship had to sink, all will sink with it, and that will never happen. The only ship that will sink is the terrorists` and criminals` ship.

JIM LEHRER: The number-two U.S. commander in Iraq said today the bombing showed there`s a long way to go to stabilize Iraq. But Army Lieutenant General Ray Odierno said U.S. troops will not be taking over security at the parliament complex. He said the Iraqis have to be able to do it themselves.

LT. GEN. RAY ODIERNO, U.S. Army: The prime minister appointed the minister of interior to take over the security of the parliament building. And he`s going to do that. And think they`ll come up with an increased plan, and we`ll support them in doing that.

But it doesn`t help them for us to provide that security. They have to do that. And I believe, I have confidence that, in fact, they can and they have the capability and capacity to do it.

JIM LEHRER: In another development, three more U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi translators were killed in separate attacks south of Baghdad; 52 Americans have died in Iraq in the first two weeks of April. The overall death toll is nearly 3,300 since the war began.

The Associated Press reported today American casualties in Baghdad are up 20 percent since a security crackdown began two months ago. Iraqi deaths are down sharply in the capital, but up in the rest of the country.

The attorney for Karl Rove denied today the White House aide deliberately erased e-mails on firing U.S. attorneys. The e-mails were written on Republican party accounts. White House and party officials now say they may have been deleted by mistake.

Rove`s attorney said today, "His understanding, starting very, very early in the administration, was that those e-mails were being archived." House and Senate committees want the e-mails to understand who discussed what on the firings. Also today, the Department of Justice released more documents related to the firings.

The World Bank`s board of directors promised quick action today in a furor involving its president, Paul Wolfowitz. Yesterday, he apologized for giving his girlfriend a raise and a transfer. He said he`d made a mistake.

The bank`s staff association demanded he resign. At the White House today, spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president stood behind Wolfowitz.

DANA PERINO, White House Spokeswoman: The president has full confidence in Paul Wolfowitz. He`s done a remarkable job at the World Bank, where they are working to lift people up out of poverty from around the world. He has apologized for the matter, and his board is undergoing an internal review. And we expect him to remain as World Bank president; he has the president`s support.

JIM LEHRER: Before joining the bank, Wolfowitz was deputy U.S. defense secretary and a chief architect of the Iraq war strategy.

The women`s basketball team at Rutgers University accepted an apology from Don Imus today. Last night, the radio show host met with the players. He apologized again for using a racist and sexist slur to describe them. Today, coach Vivian Stringer read a statement that said in part, "We are in the process of forgiving. We hope that this will be a catalyst for change." Imus lost his job just before the meeting, when CBS canceled his radio program.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine was in critical but stable condition today after a serious car crash. It happened yesterday as he was traveling to the meeting between Imus and the Rutgers women`s basketball team.

The governor`s official vehicle wrecked after it was hit by another vehicle that swerved to avoid a pickup truck. The truck drove away. Corzine broke his leg, six ribs, his sternum and a vertebrae. A spokesman said it appeared he was not wearing his seat belt. It could be months before he walks normally again.

In economic news, wholesale inflation was up sharply in March. The Labor Department reported today producer prices gained a full percentage point, but it was due almost entirely to food and fuel.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 59 points to close at 12,612. The Nasdaq rose 11 points to close at nearly 2,492. For the week, both the Dow and the Nasdaq gained less than 1 percent.

And that`s it for the news summary tonight. Now: the growth of suicide bombers as weapons; young Muslim Americans; Shields and Brooks; and changing for climate change.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Brown has our suicide bomber story.

JEFFREY BROWN: As the Iraqi parliament met today, a moment of silence for their colleague, a Sunni lawmaker who was killed yesterday when a suicide bomber attacked the parliament lunchroom. Twenty-two others were injured by the bombing in the heart of what was supposed to be Iraq`s most secure place, the Green Zone.

It wasn`t the only suicide attack of the day in Iraq; this bridge over the Tigris River was destroyed by a truck bomb. In fact, attacks elsewhere this week showed that the phenomenon of suicide bombings is not at all limited to Iraq. From Afghanistan, where seven NATO troops were injured in Kandahar yesterday, to Algeria, where on Wednesday the capital city of Algiers shook with the deadliest attack there in 10 years. Thirty-three people were killed and more than 200 injured in two bombings, one aimed at the office of the prime minister. He survived.

Islamic Maghreb, one of North Africa`s most active terrorist groups and a wing of the al-Qaida organization, said it planned and carried out the attacks. These images of the bombers were proudly displayed on an Islamic Web site, which hailed them as martyrs.

Women have also taken lives in suicidal attacks. Just this week, a female bomber approached a line of police recruits outside of Baghdad and killed more than 15 of them. Suicide bombings became a regular occurrence in Israel during the second Palestinian Intifada at the turn of the decade. They were often the work of a single bomber at a bus stop or cafe...

JOURNALIST: We are just absolutely stunned...

JEFFREY BROWN: ... but they`ve also been carried out on a more spectacular scale outside the Middle East, including, of course, 9/11 in the United States and the multiple attacks on London subways and buses two years ago. Those attacks killed 52 rush-hour commuters and injured more than 700 others.

For some analysis of the suicide bombing phenomenon, we`re joined by Mohammed Hafez, a visiting professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. His new book, called "Suicide Bombers in Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom," will be published next month.

And Daniel Byman, director of the security studies program at Georgetown University, he`s written widely about terrorism and Middle East politics.

Professor Hafez, starting with you, is it correct to see this as both a growing and more widespread phenomenon?

MOHAMMED HAFEZ, Visiting Professor, University of Missouri: Definitely. What we have seen is that more and more countries are experiencing suicide attacks. And the number of organizations that are carrying these attacks has increased.

Since the 1980s, some studies point out that about 40 countries have experienced suicide terrorism, and the number of groups that have engaged in those attacks reach up to 50. So this is a growing phenomena, and the trend line is going upward, not downward.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, Daniel Byman, why?

DANIEL BYMAN, Former CIA Mideast Political Analyst: A couple of reasons. The most obvious is that suicide terrorism works. As Ayman al- Zawahiri, bin Laden`s number-two said, that we can inflict a lot of casualties and involve very few of our fighters as a result. And we see this as a far more deadly tactic, that the bomber himself is smart and can move around and, at the last minute, find the place of most damage.

But the other shift is in the zeitgeist of much of the Muslim world, where these bombers in some circles are idolized. The media portrays them as heroes, and there is a growing cult that supports their actions and operations.

JEFFREY BROWN: Professor Hafez, do you want to add to that, the question of why this is happening, why its rising?

MOHAMMED HAFEZ: Well, I agree with Professor Byman that this is partly because it`s an effective tactic. It`s an innovation in terrorism that has been adopted by others. And there has been a legitimization of this tactic by clerics, by even secular leaders.

But one thing we also need to add is, these attacks are increasing in the context of the global war on terrorism. And what this tell us, that the global war on terrorism isn`t working. We need to shift strategies; we need to shift tactics; and we need to change our rhetoric to be able to de- radicalize the Muslim world.

And we cannot just simply look at this outside of the context of the global war on terror.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, is that the way you would put it, in that context?

DANIEL BYMAN: I would actually disagree slightly. In my judgment, this tactic is growing to a degree independently of U.S. actions. Iraq is a turning point, where we`ve seen it initially used extensively against U.S. forces, but increasingly against Iraqi targets, and we`re seeing the spread of targets that have nothing to do with the United States.

So I think, even if the United States shifts its rhetoric, shifts its policies in the war on terrorism, this tactic is here to stay and may continue growing.

JEFFREY BROWN: Let me ask you both a little bit about what common threads you see, starting with you, Professor Byman. In terms of the religious or cultural barriers to doing this kind of thing that one would think would be there, how is it justified today? How has it become more acceptable?

DANIEL BYMAN: The justification has been largely in terms of pragmatism, where you`ll have a cleric, you`ll have someone who is an authoritative figure say, "Of course, Islam forbids suicide, but this is not really suicide. This is much more akin to a soldier, a warrior, who is taking out an enemy target. And you should think of it in those terms, rather than as a desperate individual giving up his life."

So they would portray it not as an individual who wants to kill himself, but rather as someone heroic who`s in battle and sacrifices himself for his comrades.

JEFFREY BROWN: Professor Hafez, how would you answer that?

MOHAMMED HAFEZ: Well, I would agree with that, but I would also add that much of the justification of attacks, say in Iraq, with regards to the Iraqi police and the Shiites, what the suicide bombers argue is: These people are collaborators. They are the eyes and ears of the occupation. And if these people weren`t doing -- if they weren`t joining the police services, if they weren`t joining the security services, then the Americans would leave, they would be defeated. And so part of the justification is linked to the fact that there is an occupation in Iraq.

JEFFREY BROWN: Is it, Professor Hafez, correct to think of it -- or how should one think of it, in terms of a Muslim phenomenon, an al-Qaida phenomenon, a religious phenomenon, nationalistic phenomenon? What`s the right way to think of it?

MOHAMMED HAFEZ: Well, if we start our perspective by looking in the last four or five years, then certainly this would appear to be an Islamic phenomenon. Most of the suicide terrorists are Islamists. Most of the countries where the conflict is taking or where the attacks are taking place are in the Muslim world, and there is obviously the exception of the London attacks, but generally this appears to be a Muslim phenomenon.

But if we expand the perspective, the historical perspective, say, to the early `80s, we would recognize that this is actually much more of a secular phenomenon.

And there have been non-Islamists or non-Muslims that have engaged in this tactic, specifically the Tamil Tigers. There have been some Marxist groups, like the Kurdish Workers Party, or the PKK. These groups are more secular, more nationalistic, and there`s little justification that relates to Islam and Islamism.

JEFFREY BROWN: But what about the bombers themselves, Professor Byman? What do we know about them, who they are, how they`re recruited?

DANIEL BYMAN: The bombers themselves come from a wide variety of backgrounds. What many people often fail to realize is that these are not poor, deluded, insane individuals, but rather people who are often well- educated, by the standards of their communities, relatively wealthy, and almost always highly idealistic.

And they see themselves as willing to sacrifice for the broader cause and are willing to go to great lengths, not only to kill themselves, but often to travel far away, to train for years to do so. And it`s quite a contrast with the more popular image of these people as deranged fanatics.

JEFFREY BROWN: How do you see that, Professor Hafez? In terms of the people who are doing this, do you see changes in who`s being recruited or how well organized they are?

MOHAMMED HAFEZ: Definitely. What we`re noticing now is the phenomena of martyrs without borders. What we`re talking about are transnational volunteers, a Tunisian living in Italy that makes his way to die in Iraq, a Belgian woman, a Christian convert to Islam, who makes her way to Iraq to carry out a suicide attack.

So this phenomena of the transnationalization or the globalization of martyrdom is really of concern, and this is one of the market shifts from the early `80s and even mid-`90s.

JEFFREY BROWN: So staying with you, what about attempts to stop it? Have those responded or changed over the last few years?

MOHAMMED HAFEZ: Frankly, I`m pessimistic that there are any effective policies that could be taken at this point to reverse the strand of increasing suicide attacks. To borrow a line from the respected terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, a colleague of mine, he says, "al-Qaida is on the march, it`s not on the run."

And there doesn`t appear to be any effective policies at this point to reverse this radicalization that is penetrating the Muslim world and, frankly, even Europe, the Muslim communities in Europe.

JEFFREY BROWN: What do you see, in terms of thinking, evolving, in terms of how one stops this phenomenon?

DANIEL BYMAN: It`s exceptionally difficult. It was in Israel in 2002 during some of the height of the bombings there, and you saw really desperate attempts to avoid this. When you`d go to a restaurant, you had to be buzzed in, because they wanted to avoid having individuals come in who couldn`t be stopped and searched first. When you walked along the beach, people scattered rather than clustered, because they were afraid that, if they came together, they`d be targeted.

These are social adaptations. From a broader, national perspective, you can do things like build a security barrier and so on, but these disrupt daily life in a tremendous way, and that`s what makes this tactic so effective, is because it`s so hard to stop.

JEFFREY BROWN: Do you see this as part of a kind of cyclical pattern of terror, where this is a phenomenon, then it subsides, and then comes back again, or more as a kind of growing trend?

DANIEL BYMAN: So far, it`s been a growing trend, but terrorism, like almost all phenomena, does have certain tendencies. And it`s quite possible that another form of attack -- hostage-taking, for example, which was quite prevalent in the 1970s and still exists, of course, today -- could become more prominent 10 years from now or 15 years from now.

But, unfortunately, because of suicide bombings` effectiveness, I think it`s going to be hard to eradicate.

JEFFREY BROWN: Professor Hafez, one more thing that came up. It came up in our set-up. That`s the Internet. How much does that play a role in what we`re seeing, in terms of either recruiting people, or organizing them, or carrying out these kinds of attacks?

MOHAMMED HAFEZ: The Internet is becoming increasingly important, not in the direct recruitment of individuals to carry out a suicide attack, but in setting the atmosphere, the veneration of martyrdom, providing the religious justification for these attacks, the demonization of the enemies, and also of sharing practical manuals and information on how to create suicide belts, how to rig a car for a car bombing.

So these things help facilitate the process of recruitment, but I don`t think we are at the point where individuals can simply turn on the Internet, learn some information or read a manual, and then go ahead and carry out a suicide attack. Hopefully, we don`t come to that point any time soon.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Mohammed Hafez and Daniel Byman, thank you very much.

DANIEL BYMAN: Thank you.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: "America at a Crossroads." That`s the title of a new PBS series hosted by Robert MacNeil. It begins Sunday and airs every night next week. The series looks at the challenges facing the United States in a post-9/11 world.

In this excerpt, Judy Woodruff examines what life is like for young Muslims in this country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The sound is distinctly American, but at this Chicago street fair, it`s purpose is not merely to entertain.

RAMI NASHASHIBI, IMAN Executive Director: A very important segment of our work in our community is our young people.

Our challenge is very distinct from what may be emerging or what has emerged on some level in Europe. And I think -- I don`t think young Muslims growing up in America are going to have to grapple with sleeper cells. I don`t think they`re going to have to grapple with recruitment into terrorist camps.

I think that is, for the most part, a fiction of, you know, FOX`s "24" and other series, and doesn`t reflect the real, lived experiences of 99 percent of the young Muslims growing up in America.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A Palestinian American raised in a secular Muslim home, 33-year-old Rami Nashashibi mixes pop culture and Islam to inspire and unite young immigrant and indigenous Muslims with people of other faiths.

RAMI NASHASHIBI: Islam became something that I engaged much later in my life. And I was a very die-hard agnostic skeptic, and I spent a great deal of time reading the Koran purely to debate the Koran and debate Muslims who I found very small-minded.

JUDY WOODRUFF: While attending Chicago DePaul University, Rami reconnected with Islam. And expanding the Islamic values of brotherhood, service, charity and faith to include all in need, he co-founded IMAN, the inner-city Muslim action network. Its goal: to address social problems facing disenfranchised residents of Chicago`s southwest community, by forging alliances across religious and ethnic boundaries.

Along with its organizational work, IMAN provides computer training and other career development services in both Spanish and English and an opportunity for expression at its bimonthly community cafe.

AMINAH MCCLOUD, Professor of Islamic Studies, DePaul University: Everything Islam is about the thing that many of us transitioned into Islam for. Everybody feels free to come in and out of here, Muslim and non, male and female.

There are Latinos in here; there are black folk in here; there are white folks in here; there are Arabs; and there are South Asians. I mean, that`s the face of Islam in America.

JUDY WOODRUFF: At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the Muslim Student Association is also reaching out to non-Muslims, developing relationships with other faith-based groups, like the Jewish community on campus.

Prior to 9/11, Muslim Student Association members largely stayed within their own community. But now, in an attempt to be ambassadors for Islam, they have held interfaith events and begun a dialogue about each others` beliefs and practices.

NURA SEDIQUE, MSA President, University of Michigan: In the post-9/11 environment, I think (inaudible) understand the importance of prioritizing the need to communicate and explain what Islam is to those who are unaware of what Islam as a religion really holds.

We invite members of the non-Muslim community to come and engage with us and discuss these issues, such as the role of jihad in Islam or the role of women in Islam, certain things that they may have misconceptions of.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Such gatherings can sometimes lead to some difficult questions.

STUDENT: One of the prevailing viewpoints from a lot of people who seem to be attacking Muslims in this country is, I guess, the overall failure to sort of, quote, unquote, "Muslim moderates" to denounce terrorism.

DR. MUNIRAH CURITS, Former MSA President, University of Michigan: The truth is, Islam does not support terrorism, period. That is the truth. Now, how many more moderate Muslims do they want to say that more than once?

JUDY WOODRUFF: While today`s Muslim Student Associations` present a moderate face opposed to terrorism, critics charge they were backed by Saudi Arabian money in their early years and promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist, dogmatic interpretation of Islam.

Hadia Mubarak was the first woman to head the Muslim Student Association`s national office.

There are those who`ve spoken out and said MSAs are really one of the hotbeds of Muslim dissent in the United States. Is that fair, unfair?

HADIA MUBARAK, Former MSA National President: It`s unfair. I mean, these right-wing bloggers that have made these allegations against Muslim Student Association and other mainstream Muslim organizations are really exploiting the fear and ignorance that exists and are trying to basically silence and marginalize the voices of moderate Muslims.

JUDY WOODRUFF: By the late 1990s, the national office of the Muslim Student Association no longer accepted funding from overseas. And today, local chapters rely on financial support from their schools and members.

Many young, urban Muslims have grown up worshipping only with those from their own culture. For them, joining an MSA is the first time they are navigating the ethnic and cultural differences facing Muslims in America.

DR. MUNIRAH CURITS: Yes, there`s difference among people. No, not one is superior to the other. Please familiarize yourself with the other person`s culture, and then let`s also find what`s common ground. And for us, it`s Islam.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Muslim Student Associations are also providing an important training ground for young leaders and offering an opportunity for young men and women to meet.

NIDA JAVAID, MSA Member, University of Michigan: As Muslims in America, there`s a lot of personal negotiation. And you can`t kind of make a blanket statement about everyone. There are people who date in the conventional sense that, you know, you and I would understand, and then there`s people who go the more, like, orthodox Islamic route. And people are just figuring it out for themselves and what works for their beliefs and their lifestyle.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Dating or hanging out with people of the opposite sex?

SARAH ALBANI: We`re going to follow our religion, be true to our faith, and, when the time is right, we`ll do what`s right in our religion, which is marriage.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Born and raised in Northern Virginia, Sarah and Farah Albani balance the typical daily lives of American teenagers with their faith. A year after 9/11, at the age of 11, Sarah faced one of her first decisions as a young Muslim girl: whether to begin wearing the traditional head scarf, or hijab, a symbol of modesty for women.

SARAH ALBANI: I was afraid of every one, you know, everyone`s eyes, and everyone thinking, just because I wore the hijab, that I was a terrorist or some evil person, you know?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Her parents, Wafika and Deen Albani (ph), emigrated from Syria in 1986. Though Muslim, Wafika rarely wore a headscarf in her home country or in the states.

WAFIKA ALBANI: I knew I should wear it, but I didn`t have the courage. I liked the way I dressed, and I was not very well-educated about the necessity of wearing it, either.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But Sarah`s decision inspired her mother to become more visibly observant. In the wake of 9/11, many young Muslims are embracing their faith with more enthusiasm, often influencing their parents and others to follow.

But the first time she went out the door, were you worried? Were you worried?

WAFIKA ALBANI: I`m going to tell you why: because I asked her, what are you going to tell your friends? She said, I`m going to tell them this is my religion, and I felt, "This is American girl. This is American freedom. This is American value." And I felt so proud of her.

SARAH ALBANI: My favorite, let`s say, like say adventure, action, would be Harry Potter. My favorite books, definitely Harry Potter.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Whether it`s enjoying the magic of Harry Potter or mentoring others, working on the school newspaper or working out with classmates, Farah and Sarah seemed to navigate Islam and being American teenagers with relative ease.

For Rami Nashashibi, the challenges facing young Muslims revolve around embracing who they are and how they fit into the larger fabric of America.

RAMI NASHASHIBI: I think the challenge is going to continue to be one around grappling with multiple narratives about who Muslims are, what Islam should be, and who are the authoritative voices that these young people should listen to. But for young people, sorting that out, while having to contend with the day in, day out life of just being a young person in America, that in and of itself may be a struggle that can be overwhelming.

JIM LEHRER: The NewsHour special that includes Judy`s report airs on Wednesday. The entire "America at a Crossroads" series begins Sunday night. Check your local listings for the time.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

David, what do you think of this idea that`s going around of creating a war czar for Iraq and Afghanistan?

DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, New York Times: Well, when the patriots threw the tea over the Boston Harbor in 1775, or whenever that is, they tried to get rid of a king. I don`t think they wanted a czar to replace it.

And we have a president. We have a secretary of defense. We have people who are supposed to be running this war. What do we need a czar for? I just don`t understand. We`ve got generals; we`ve got a whole apparatus. They`re supposed to be running the war. The president should be obsessed about the war. Why do we need czar?

And the only reason I can think of is that they think the president doesn`t have credibility to talk about it in public and they want another public face.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think is going on, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Jim, the problem with Iraq and the United States policy in Iraq is not an organizational chart. And it`s not whether there`s vertical lines or horizontal lines or whatever else.

First of all, I thought General Petraeus was the answer to all the prayers, that he was totally in charge, that he had the roadmap to success and all the rest of it. When you have an idea, which is a bad idea, I think, and then you float it...

JIM LEHRER: You mean the czar idea?

MARK SHIELDS: ... the czar idea, by being rejected by three people, including the general, General Keane, who had been the principal advocate of the surge, and you get Jack Sheehan, Marine general, saying...

JIM LEHRER: Those guys don`t know what they`re doing over there.

MARK SHIELDS: ... these guys have no idea what they`re doing over there, I mean, it`s just one more "the gang that couldn`t shoot straight."

JIM LEHRER: Yes. What about the announcement a couple of days ago about extending the troop tour of duty from 12 months to 15 months for the U.S. Army? What does that say about where we are?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, it says, first of all, that Bob Gates, the secretary of defense, is being more honest in dealing with the realities of where we are and how close the Army is to the breaking point.

JIM LEHRER: He even used the term -- what was it -- he used the word "stretched."

MARK SHIELDS: "Stretched," that`s right. I always have attributed that to him, but he`s being more honest about, we`re going to have to do 15 months...

(CROSSTALK)

MARK SHIELDS: ... have to keep them there longer and so forth, not doing just stop-loss orders at the end of somebody`s tour.

JIM LEHRER: Explain what a stop-loss is.

MARK SHIELDS: A stop-loss order is that your time of duty is up, your time of enlistment is up, and instead of letting you leave and return to civilian life, as you may have planned to get married, or go to school, or whatever, they just extend your stay. That`s a stop-loss order, and they`ve done that in thousands and thousands of cases.

But on this one, George Wilson, who`s a wonderful military journalist, did a book called...

JIM LEHRER: Used to work with the Washington Post.

MARK SHIELDS: That`s right, and now writes for the National Journal, called "The Infantryman." And it was really a landmark book. And (inaudible) man in there, Colonel Steve Siegfried, combat veteran of Vietnam. And he made the argument that, in a time of war, extended war -- this is four years -- that the country had to have a draft.

And Steve Siegfried said this: Armies don`t fight wars. Countries fight wars. And if a country isn`t willing to fight a war, it should never send an army.

This is one more example of all the burden, all the suffering, all the sacrifice in this war being borne only by those in uniform and their families and their loved ones. And the rest of us, 98 percent plus, hey, you know, it`s an inconvenience on the news, but that`s it.

JIM LEHRER: How do you see that?

DAVID BROOKS: I don`t disagree with any of that. I do think that you`ve got to tell people how long they`re going to be serving as early as possible, and I think there`s still a problem with that, where they`re letting people go into the theater, and they`re not telling them upfront that it`s going to be longer, because the problem -- the short-term problem is, if they think it`s 12 months and it turns out to be 15, then morale suffers.

And you just can`t fight a war effectively that way. So I still think there`s a problem -- Gates has made it better -- of not telling people earlier enough.

But the other issue as far as morale is -- and we did a story in my newspaper about the effect of this on morale, which was, it`s hurt, but they`re stoic is about it -- is how it`s going in Iraq. And if they feel there`s a sense that the surge has turned some things around, then it will have been worth it for them and for us as a country.

JIM LEHRER: So then the extension of three months will be less important, you think, if the...

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think -- I mean, anybody who`s fighting a war wants to feel it`s going well. And I do have to say, the signals from Iraq are extremely mixed, but, you know, for 2006 it was all bad news. And now there`s a mixture of good and bad.

I think, in Anbar, where you have a lot more Sunni cooperation, there is some genuine good news. In Baghdad, extremely mixed. There`s some terrible violence, still at a very high level. There`s some calmer neighborhoods, still at a much better level.

So there`s a mixture there which we didn`t have a year ago. And if that continues, if you actually get a surge in the right direction, then morale will recover from these hardships, which Mark is absolutely right -- and you hear it all the time from the troops, "It`s just us."

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, one thing...

JIM LEHRER: And the families. The families...

(CROSSTALK)

MARK SHIELDS: The families. I mean, it`s missed anniversaries. It`s missed graduations. It`s missed high school plays and high school games that the mothers and dads and husbands and wives are going to be missing further.

But add to that -- to say this Army`s stretched, we paid six times as much money in bonuses, re-enlistment bonuses, between 2006 over 2003. We had six times as many naturalized -- in other words, foreign-born -- come into the United States military and become citizens.

You can argue the wisdom of that. We`re waiving drug convictions and drug problems and alcohol abuse. We`re waiving no high school graduation to fill out the ranks at this point. And, you know, whatever case you want to make, the Pentagon, according to Brian Bender of the Boston Globe, was considering -- or at least is apparently considering -- opening up recruitment offices overseas.

And, you know, that would be kind of the final statement, that, you know, we might as well...

(CROSSTALK)

JIM LEHRER: I hadn`t seen that. Had you heard that story?

DAVID BROOKS: I hadn`t heard that. The underlying lesson is the lesson we all have to remember. There`s total war, and there`s not war, but you don`t do half war. And that was sort of a problem we learned before, but we`re learning it again.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of learning, what was learned by this successful suicide bombing inside the Green Zone and Baghdad?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, you know, obviously, it was a blow to the idea that we`re securing Baghdad. Nonetheless, I think, as I said before, I think that it was one negative shot, but there`s a lot of positive. There are actually families moving back into some of the neighborhoods. There seems to be some progress on the political front with oil and other things.

So, as I say, I think the message is much more mixed than it was. And I just think it`s -- you know, I saw an e-mail from John Edwards` campaign, "Edwards says the surge fails." How does he know? The fact is, nobody knows yet.

And there`s a lot more good news than a lot of us would have expected. And the fact is, this deserves a shot to play out over a few months, until August, and then we can, I think, make other decisions.

JIM LEHRER: John Edwards brings up politics. Where does John McCain -- his speech this week, he`s had many things to say about Iraq -- how does where he is fit into this?

MARK SHIELDS: I just want to point out, the American casualty rate right now, since the surge began, mortality rate is higher than it`s been at any time since the first 30 days of the war.

DAVID BROOKS: That`s because we`re actually occupying neighborhoods...

(CROSSTALK)

MARK SHIELDS: No, well...

JIM LEHRER: I reported in the news summary a moment ago...

MARK SHIELDS: That`s right.

JIM LEHRER: ... that the death rate among Iraqis is way down sharply in Baghdad among Iraqis, but way up, 20 percent up, by the American troops.

MARK SHIELDS: By Americans.

JIM LEHRER: But as you say, there`s more action.

MARK SHIELDS: John McCain...

JIM LEHRER: OK, John McCain.

MARK SHIELDS: John McCain, and David wrote about him this week and his speech at VMI, was it a necessity, out of conviction, whatever. I mean, there`s a sense of fatalism, maybe even tragedy about John McCain. This is a man who, one year ago, one year ago, was the Republicans` best hope. He represented at that point a party trying to hold the White House for a third term, change, which obviously voters were looking for in 2008, but also continuity and they could keep the party.

Now John McCain has come to represent fairly or unfairly the candidate of the surge. He`s the most effective advocate the administration has for its policy -- the only effective advocate I would say, including the cabinet -- but, Jim, he`s lost the support of independents, who were his base. John McCain used to kid in 2000 that his base was the political press corps.

You know, but his real base of that campaign, as David remembers, were independent voters. They have turned almost as strongly against the war as Democrats, and they`ve deserted John McCain.

JIM LEHRER: But the Republicans are still with him on this, are they not?

DAVID BROOKS: They agree with him on the issues. They haven`t agreed with him because they haven`t liked him because of his stand on global warming and campaign finance and all that other stuff.

You know, I had lunch with a Republican consultant who is unaffiliated in this campaign, and we were talking about McCain`s financial troubles, which are severe, his slide in the polls, which is troubling. And the guy said, you know, at the end of the day, David, you`ve got to remember, he is a great man.

And I have to say, I agree with that. I spent eight hours with him on Wednesday, and he is a damn impressive man.

JIM LEHRER: You mean at the VMI?

(CROSSTALK)

DAVID BROOKS: We flew down to VMI together and rode in a van and then back. He is just an impressive man. I think he`s doing this for the highest of reasons, because he understands the suffering of the troops, he believes there`s still a chance of success. How high, I don`t know. I don`t think he knows.

But he thinks the surge is necessary to avoid a really cataclysmic future. And his attitude is, if I ruin my political chances, hey, I`ve had a wonderful life. So be it. I`m going to do this because I see young men and women who are suffering everyday.

And so I admire him for this. And I think politically it may not kill him, because 10 months from now, when we`re voting, the surge will either work or not, but we will be in a dangerous world. And we know McCain`s character. And I don`t think people are going to toss a guy like that away lightly.

MARK SHIELDS: I don`t know where we will be 10 months from now. I`m an admirer of John McCain`s and have been, but I look at that L.A. Times- Bloomberg poll this week, which he falls to third behind Fred Thompson who`s not even in the race, at 12 percent.

And what`s the most distressing, and has to be, 74 percent -- three out of four Republicans say they support George Bush`s policies in Iraq. And Rudy Giuliani is leading among those voters by two to one. I mean, here`s John McCain, who`s been the strongest...

JIM LEHRER: That doesn`t make sense, does it?

MARK SHIELDS: No. He`s been the strongest -- whatever it is, he`s paying dearly for his position on Iraq with Democrats, having lost Democrats who liked him, and independents, he hasn`t picked up Republicans.

Today, Jim Webb, another Vietnam veteran with credentials -- I mean, John McCain`s credentials are unmatched. His come awfully close, as you know, company commander, platoon commander, two Bronze Stars, Silver Star, two Purple Hearts and a Navy Cross.

JIM LEHRER: As a Marine lieutenant...

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. He said, "I think that John McCain has been impugning the patriotism of those who disagree with him on Iraq, and I really regret that he`s doing that."

JIM LEHRER: What`s he talking about?

MARK SHIELDS: He`s talking about John McCain suggesting in the speech at VMI that Democrats are endorsing defeat, that they are embracing defeat, that they`re laughing on the vote on the House floor, and that somehow that they wanted to see America fail.

And, you know, I think that`s a misreading. It`s not typical of John McCain. It`s not characteristic of John McCain. I mean, he was far more accepting and high-minded when he was savaged by George Bush and his minions in the 2000 South Carolina primary.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, you know, he was given, after he made that speech, people -- it jarred people, that section about the Democrats. And he was given many opportunities to back off it, including by me. He didn`t want to, because he said, when the Democrats in the House pass this withdrawal legislation, he said they were laughing and celebrating.

MARK SHIELDS: They cheered.

DAVID BROOKS: And his attitude was, you can be for the withdrawal or against the withdrawal, but this is a terrible moment for America, and you shouldn`t be laughing and celebrating. And he thinks that they -- including some Republicans, but a lot of Democrats -- have shifted their policy on Iraq to meet primary voters, which is something he has not done. And so he`s offended by that.

And this John Edwards -- I think highly of John Edwards. But to declare the surge a failure already, it`s like you`re looking for failure. It`s like you want failure.

MARK SHIELDS: These people ran against the war. I mean, for six years, they had been unheard on the war. They finally passed a resolution in the House.

JIM LEHRER: You all keep talking; I`m good to go. Thank you all very much.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, another of our conversations on what to do about climate change. In his previous interviews, Ray Suarez looked at a cap-and-trade system and at a carbon tax to cut emissions. Tonight`s proposal has a more local approach.

RAY SUAREZ: Nearly two decades ago, writer and activist Bill McKibben was among first nonscientists to sound the alarm about global warming and the need to take action.

His newest book, "Deep Economy," is a manifesto for attacking the problem locally. In it, he argues for creating a sustainable future by changing the way we eat, the way we use energy, and how we organize our communities. Bill McKibben joins me from New York.

And, Bill, the earlier guests in our series of conversations have talked about big institutional and industrial responses to global climate change. You`re talking to people about where they live and how they live.

BILL MCKIBBEN, Writer and Activist: I think probably what I`m talking about are the longer-term ways that we`re going to deal with this. You know, the economy that we have, the lifestyle that we have is built on the cheap fossil fuel that we`ve been using for 200 years. If we`re going to get serious about getting off that fossil fuel for the global warming problems that it`s causing, then the world that we inhabit is going to look a little different when we`re done.

RAY SUAREZ: So does this mean redefining how we think about comfort and prosperity?

BILL MCKIBBEN: Well, I think it actually will mean asking deeper questions about how we think about those things. We for a very long time believed very fervently that more is better. In the last little while, we`ve begun to suspect that more may be causing deep environmental problems.

And one of the things I talk about in my book is the new work that economists and sociologists and others have done to sort of show us that more isn`t actually making us all that happier, all that much happier anyway.

The point of "Deep Economy" is to suggest that there may be an answer to both these problems, the ecological and the social, in trying to scale down some of what the size of our economies, to think more legally than we think at the moment, to spend the next 100 years slowly reeling back in some of the endless lines of supply that we`ve spent the last century flinging out across the globe.

RAY SUAREZ: So what would that mean on a practical, daily life measure?

BILL MCKIBBEN: Let`s take food, the most basic commodity we have. The fastest growing part of our food economy right now is farmers` markets. The sales are growing 10 percent, 12 percent a year.

That`s really good news environmentally, because you use a lot less energy. I mean, where I live on the East Coast, if I want to eat a head of lettuce today, to bring one calorie of that lettuce back east from California takes about 36 calories of fossil energy to grow it and to transport it. I can eat close to home for a lot less energy and, in fact, in the book, describe the winter that my family and I spent eating out of the valley where we live in northern Vermont.

RAY SUAREZ: So do you want people to pay a different amount of money for biting into that Chilean plum in February or have them do without it altogether?

BILL MCKIBBEN: Well, I think that, in a sense, the answer is sort of the same: All the work that you`ve been talking about all week with people figuring out how we`re going to deal with global warming has something to do with changing the price of energy.

We need very much to make the cost of coal and gas and oil reflect the incredible damage it`s now doing ecologically. And if we do that, then things will start to change, in some ways of their own accord.

We won`t be flying in, you know, fresh fruits and vegetables from around the globe. We won`t be ordering takeout from 2,000 miles away every night. Instead, we`ll be rediscovering how much we can do closer to home, and food is just one example.

RAY SUAREZ: What are some of the others?

BILL MCKIBBEN: Well, you can make the same argument with almost anything, almost any commodity you can think of. I mean, think about energy itself.

We`re used, like food, to thinking of it as a very centralized thing. You know, Exxon-Mobil and Peabody Coal provide our BTUs and our electrons. But it doesn`t need to work that way.

The roof on my house in Vermont has solar panels on it. They`re tied into the grid. When the sun comes out, I`m a utility. I`m sending electrons down the line for other people to use. My neighbor`s fridge runs off the sunlight falling on my shingles. When the cloud goes over, I suck electricity up the grid myself.

In the end, not only is that a lot better ecologically, it allows a much more durable form of energy than the one we have at the moment.

RAY SUAREZ: But I`m wondering if you aren`t asking for something that`s just too big for people to do, since we`ve spent so long building this other life. There are people watching you right now, sitting in a chair that was made in Asia, drinking a glass of orange juice from an orange that was grown in Brazil, watching you on a TV that was made in Singapore, and you`re asking that person to now think locally.

BILL MCKIBBEN: Well, I should say, first, that I`m not, you know, the absolute biggest optimist that there ever was. I mean, I wrote a book called "The End of Nature," the first book that there was about this crisis long ago. I`m not certain it`s going to come out right.

I know, however, that the physical forces we`re confronting are so large that we`re going to have to start changing some things if we have any hope of dealing with them.

RAY SUAREZ: So there`s one set of arguments that goes to Americans, the most intense users of fossil fuels on the globe. What do you say to aspirational Indians and Chinese who are seeing in this globalized economy the possibility of climbing into the world middle class and living a lot better than their parents and grandparents did?

BILL MCKIBBEN: A lot of the book takes place in China, where I`ve done a lot of reporting in recent years. And, you know, it`s the perfect question. They aren`t to blame yet for the global warming crisis that we confront. We`ve been doing this for 100 years and getting rich in the process.

We`re going to need to help them figure out some other path toward development. It can`t look exactly like ours, because there simply isn`t enough atmosphere to make that possible. But unless we give them some real options and unless we re-engage in the international discussion that we have dropped out of for the last six years, then there`s very little chance of getting this right in the end.

RAY SUAREZ: In the reporting in your book, you point out that simply stopping the increase in the amount of emissions put into the air not only isn`t enough, it`s not even close to enough. How do we not just stop the increase, but turn it around and start decreasing, in order to have any effect on the wider environment?

BILL MCKIBBEN: And the problem`s even harder than you imagine, because we have to do it -- we don`t just have to do it, we have to do it darn fast, something like the next 10 years, according to the best science.

Look, the only way that it`s going to happen is if we have a strong political movement in this country demanding that kind of change. So far, Congress has been embarked on a 20-year bipartisan effort to accomplish nothing, and it`s been highly successful.

That`s why Saturday we`re having 1,350 demonstrations in every state in the union around the country, the biggest demonstrations about climate change that there yet have been. People are joining together to ask that Congress commit to cutting carbon 80 percent by 2050, with the hope that we can send a really strong signal, a really strong signal to anyone anticipating any kind of investment in the next 40 years, any kind of economic planning, that they better not count on carbon being the free good that it`s been for the last 100.

The name of these demonstrations that we`re doing, a place for people to find out about them, is StepItUp07.org.

RAY SUAREZ: Bill McKibben, thanks for joining us.

BILL MCKIBBEN: Ray, thank you so much.

JIM LEHRER: We`ll have more conversations in this series next week. You can find Ray`s earlier ones on our Web site at PBS.org.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day.

A group tied to al-Qaida claimed responsibility for bombing the Iraqi parliament.

The attorney for Karl Rove denied the White House aide deliberately erased e-mails on firing U.S. attorneys.

And the Rutgers women`s basketball team accepted an apology from Don Imus. The radio host was fired yesterday over a slur he used to describe the players.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And, once again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 14 more.

"Washington Week" can be seen later this evening on most PBS stations. We`ll see you online and again here Monday evening. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.