The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the news of this Wednesday, then excerpts of the president's Iraq strategy speech with reactionfrom Senators Warner and Reed; a replay of today's Supreme Court abortion argument with audio tape and Jan Crawford Greenburg; and a look at Google, the search engine that could and did.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush laid out what he called the "strategy for victory" in Iraq today. It came in a major speech at the U.S. Naval Academy. Mr. Bush insisted Iraqi units are growing, and said U.S. troops will make fewer patrols and move out of cities. But he again rejected calls for a timetable to leave. He said, "America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins."

The White House also released a summary of U.S. efforts in Iraq. It said," We expect but cannot guarantee that our force posture will change over the next year."

Leading Democrats said the president failed to lay out a real strategy for success. Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts went first.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: All of us agree, no one is talking about running in the face of a challenge. We're talking about how to win, how to succeed, how do you best achieve our goals? That's the choice here. And what the president did not do today, again, is acknowledge the fundamental reality of the insurgency.

JIM LEHRER: Later, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi reversed course and endorsed a call to start withdrawing immediately. Democratic Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania made that proposal two weeks ago. He said a complete pullout could happen in six months.

On the Republican side today, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana said the president's speech was "important." But he called for more information.

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR: Everyone is going to ask how do you define victory? The president said we're not going to stop until we have victory. So the definition of "victory" then becomes very important. I'm suggesting this is a highly nuanced subject. Somebody asked what would you think ought to happen finally, and I said a stable, democratic Iraq, to pay its bills, defend itself.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have extended excerpts from the president's speech and more Senate reaction right after this News Summary. In Iraq today, U.S. troops launched another major offensive against insurgents in the West.

Some 1,500 U.S. Marines and 500 U.S. soldiers assaulted the town of Hit. They were backed by 500 Iraqi soldiers. But in Baqouba, a minibus came under fire from gunmen. Nine construction workers were killed. Also today, leading Sunni religious leaders in Iraq called for kidnappers to release five hostages. One is an American peace activist, Tom Fox of Clearbrook, Virginia.

Police in Belgium arrested 14 people today with alleged ties to suicide bombings in Iraq. The pre-dawn arrests involved a terror network that sent volunteers to Iraq. Police said one was a Belgian woman who carried out a suicide attack earlier this month.

U.S. officials may reverse a security rule for airlines, born of the 9/11 attacks. The Washington Post and others reported today passengers will soon be allowed to carry small scissors and tools onto flights again. The reports said screeners will focus more on looking for explosives now that cockpit doors have been reinforced against intruders. The formal announcement is expected on Friday.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard its first abortion rights case under new Chief Justice John Roberts today. At issue was a New Hampshire law that minors must tell a parent before an abortion. A lower court ruled it should have allowed exceptions to protect the mother's health. The two sides summed up their arguments outside the court.

JENNIFER DALVEN, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project: What this would require is that a doctor who the faced with a patient who is dangerously bleeding or is dangerously infected to not provide the immediate care that is necessary to protect his patient but rather to go to court and wait for a court order. All the while his patient is at risk of infertility, of kidney damage and of organ damage.

KELY AYOTTE, New Hampshire Attorney General: Our position today was that our law can be applied in a way to accommodate for that rare situation if it does arise in a medical emergency; that has been our position from day one in this case. And then the court is going to look at that issue. But what they got in this case was a complete invalidation of our law based upon one potential application.

JIM LEHRER: Later in the program, tonight we'll have complete coverage of this, including audio from the court arguments themselves.

In a separate case today, the court heard a new round of arguments on protests at abortion clinics. Two years ago, the justices ruled protests cannot be blocked under federal extortion and racketeering laws. Today's arguments focused on other legal grounds.

Winter began taking a toll on earthquake survivors in Pakistan today. Hospitals around the Kashmir region treated more than 700 people, many with pneumonia and hypothermia. And, there were eight deaths after a weekend of freezing rain and snow. It's estimated the October quake killed 87,000 people. Aid agencies have warned thousands more have no shelter from the cold.

The record-setting Atlantic hurricane season ended today, with one storm still active. Tropical Storm Epsilon was centered more than 600 miles east of Bermuda. But forecasters said it was not expected to threaten land. The season had 26 named storms, the most ever. Four major hurricanes hit the United States: Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

There was more evidence today the hurricanes did no lasting damage to the overall economy. The Commerce Department reported the Gross Domestic Product increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent from July through September, the most in more than a year.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 82 points to close below 10,806. The NASDAQ rose a fraction of a point to close above 2,232.

Doctors in France announced today they've done the world's first partial face transplant. The patient was a woman who lost her nose, lips and chin after a dog attack last May. She received grafts on Sunday, from a brain-dead donor. The hospital said today the woman is in "excellent" condition.

And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to, the president's Iraq speech, with reaction from Senators Warner and Reed, today's Supreme Court abortion argument, and the rise of Google.

FOCUS - IRAQ STRATEGY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush sets out his Iraq strategy to an audience of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. We begin with some excerpts.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Your service is needed because our nation is engaged in a war that is being fought on many fronts, from the streets of western cities, the mountains of Afghanistan, the islands of Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa. This war is going to take many turns. And the enemy must be defeated on every battlefield. Yet the terrorists have made it clear that Iraq is the central front in their war against humanity. And so we must recognize Iraq as the central front in the war on terror.

As we fight the enemy in Iraq, every man and woman who volunteers to defend our nation deserves an unwavering commitment to the mission and a clear strategy for victory.

A clear strategy begins with a clear understanding of the enemy we face. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists. Against this adversary there is only one effective response. We will never back down. We will never give in and we will never accept anything less than complete victory.

(Applause)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: To achieve victory over such enemies, we are pursuing a comprehensive strategy in Iraq. Americans should have a clear understanding of this strategy: how we look at the war, how we see the enemy, how we define victory and what we're doing to achieve it.

Our strategy in Iraq has three elements. On the political side, we know that free societies are peaceful societies, so we're helping the Iraqis build a free society with inclusive democratic institutions that will protect the interest of all Iraqis.

We're working with the Iraqis to help them engage those who can be persuaded to join the new Iraq and to marginalize those who never will.

On the security side, coalition and Iraqi security forces are on the offensive against the enemy -- cleaning out areas controlled by the terrorists and Saddam loyalists, leaving Iraqi forces to hold territory taken from the enemy and following up with targeted reconstruction to help Iraqis rebuild their lives.

And on the economic side, we're helping the Iraqis rebuild their infrastructure, reform their economy and build the prosperity that will give all Iraqis a stake in a free and peaceful Iraq.

Our goal is to train enough Iraqi forces so they can carry the fight. And this will take time and patience. And it's worth the time and it's worth the effort. Because Iraqis and Americans share a common enemy, and when that enemy is defeated in Iraq, Americans will be safer here at home.

(Applause)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The training of the Iraqi security forces is an enormous task and it always hasn't gone smoothly. We all remember the reports of some Iraqi security forces running from the fight more than a year ago. Yet in the past year, Iraqi forces have been made real progress.

At this time last year there were only a handful of Iraqi battalions ready for combat. Now there are over 120 Iraqi army and police combat battalions in the fight against terrorists typically comprised of between 350 and 800 Iraqi forces. Of these, about 80 Iraqi battalions are fighting side by side with coalition forces and about 40 others are taking the lead in the fight. As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down.

And when our mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will return home to a proud nation.

(Applause)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: My commanders tell me that as Iraqi forces become more capable, the mission of our forces in Iraq will continue to change. We will continue to shift from providing security and conducting operations against the enemy nationwide to conducting more specialized operations targeted at the most dangerous terrorists.

We will increasingly move out of Iraqi cities, reduce the number of bases from which we operate and conduct fewer patrols and convoys. As the Iraqi forces gain experience and the political process advances, we will be able to decrease our troop levels in Iraq without losing our capability to defeat the terrorists. These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timetables shed set by politicians in Washington.

(Applause)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Some critics continue to assert that we have no plan in Iraq except to, quote, stay the course. If by "stay the course," they mean we will not allow the terrorists to break our will, they're right. If by "stay the course" they mean we will not permit al-Qaida to turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven for terrorism and a launching pad for attacks on America, they're right as well.

If by "stay the course" they mean we're not learning from our experiences or adjusting our tactics to meet the challenges on the ground, then they're flat wrong.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the reactions of two leading members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The chairman, Sen. John Warner, Republican of Virginia, a former Marine and secretary of the Navy, he attended the president's speech in Annapolis. And Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island. He's a West Point graduate who served in the 82nd Airborne.

Sen. Reed, in general, what did you think of what the president said today?

SEN. JACK REED: Well, the president provided more details but I don't think those details yet amount to a plan that will provide the American people the confidence they need to continue to support these efforts.

And I think one of the major problems we face today unfortunately is the American public is questioning more and more the process that's going on in Iraq.

I think also the president wasn't as clear at defining what he meant by victory. Is it a stable Iraq or is it a democratic oasis in the Middle East that will be a transforming agent for the entire region?

I think also in terms of the plan, the resources aren't laid out. There wasn't a firm, definitive discussion of how long it would take and how much it would take. And I think that's what the American people are looking for. I was pleased, however, that he began to speak in terms of a conditional phased redeployment of American forces. That's something that the Senate, under the leadership of my colleague John Warner and Carl Levin passed a resolution which 79 senators on a bipartisan basis adopted. So I think at least in that sense we're making progress.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Warner, let's go through some of Sen. Reed's points. First, the definition of victory: The president said it many times in his speech. The National Security Council put out an accompanying document today and it all says victory, victory, victory. How do you define victory?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: I personally would stand back for a while and be cautious because Jack and I are students of military history. The last real victory was World War II. I was a young sailor then in the training phases of that war. And I remember the outpouring after VE Day and VJ Day into the streets of America and the parades.

But then I also served in Korea with the Marines. And I remember coming home and people really didn't want to know where we were. What's it all about? And then Vietnam; we all remember that. So I think we ought to continue, as the president has said many times, and pursue goals.

And when we achieve the goal, for example, which our president today outlined I think with great clarity of training sufficient Iraqi forces so that nation, which is a sovereign nation, can take over and maintain its own security and have the infrastructure improved and restore its economy, to me those are signs of successful missions, and that's what I anticipate will happen in due course; if we hold our support behind our troops, behind the Iraqis, I think those missions can be achieved.

JIM LEHRER: Do you believe then, Senator, if I hear you correctly, that forget this word "victory" and substitute "successful mission"?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Well, that's just one senator's view. I guess I've been around too long and been in too many experiences over the past half century. But I give the president credit.

I've got this book right here. It's entitled "Victory in Iraq." And let's have at it. I think it's achievable if, again, we, you know, if we made some mistakes in this thing, and I freely admit in my own shortcomings perhaps as chairman not probing more deeply but we're where we are, and we should be forward- looking.

And look at the accomplishments that the Iraqi people, with our support, have had: Two elections, a third one coming up in a matter of weeks, establishing, a new government, writing a constitution. We are making progress.

And today and I think my colleague would agree, the Iraqi forces are in there in numbers fighting alongside our own forces against I still call them insurgents because I think that's basically what they are.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Sen. Reed let's go back to the victory, the word "victory." Do you adopt that as a concept? And if you do, how would you define victory in Iraq?

SEN. JACK REED: Well, I think Sen. Warner's insights are very compelling; that is, this notion of a complete victory is too amorphous. I think it's too amorphous for the military commanders. They want an objective that is clear-cut, that is in some respects measurable.

And the president alluded to that in some respects when he talked about a stable country, one that's not going to collapse because of internal division, and one also that's not going to offer a haven to terrorists. Those are I think more achievable objectives but once again it undercuts the president's more grandiose theme of this democratic transformation of the Middle East. But I think that's a more clear-cut objective. I think you can plan for that. I think also you can dedicate resources.

And I also agree with the chairman in that this is not just a military strategy. It has to have an economic component and it has to have a political component. We've made progress, but I don't think we've made the kind of progress in the political field and the economic field that is going to complement our military efforts.

And I would also agree with Chairman Warner too about there has been progress made with respect to Iraqi security forces but there's still a huge challenge. And that challenge is not so much technical training. It's building a reliable, professional corps of leaders that will support the government of Iraq and not be swayed by sectarian or community issues because of the nature of Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Warner, back to an earlier point that Sen. Reed made when he listed his questions for the president after this -- about the president's speech, was the president did not accompany his victory declaration or his victory intentions with resources to get it done.

Do you agree with Sen. Reed that the resources are not there to get this job done that he wants done?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Right. But I had an opportunity to visit with the president right after the speech. We had a -- I think a very interesting conversation. The secretary of defense was there. And he's going to give three more speeches in the coming weeks. And today's emphasis was the Iraqi forces and how they're beginning to take up major responsibilities with ours.

Next week is how we can bring the Sunnis and the Shia and the Kurds together to form their nationand following that how we can get more support from the international community.

All of these issues, I think, will be carefully addressed by the president in the coming speeches. Right now I think it was important for this speech today, given the background and the intense debate we've had here in the Senate, a good strong debate, strong differences of opinions. That's democracy in action.

But it was necessary for the president to go out and reinforce to our troops and the other coalition forces and to the world that we have a resolve in these next four to six months in Iraq which are critical to bring about achievement of our goals.

JIM LEHRER: But with that resolve, Senator, are we putting the right resources and is the president asking for the right resources to accomplish that?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Correct. And I assure you that that is being done. I do not know of any hesitancy here in the Congress, unlike the Vietnam era where the Congress pulled back.

This Congress has been standing behind the president and his requests for resources as a manifestation of our tremendous support for the courage of the troops and their families here at home.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Reed, you made a point that one of the things that pleased you about the president's speech was he did talk about the --withdrawing American troops somewhere down the line. Do you think that is really the underpinnings, like it or not, of American policy right now?

SEN. JACK REED: Well, I think we face a reality -- we all do -- both the president and the Congress, that we cannot indefinitely over many, many years sustain 160,000 troops in that posture in Iraq. Also, we can't continue to do that because that will effectively take the Iraqi security forces off the hook.

We have to find a strategy, a force posture there that will protect these fledgling Iraqi forces but also give them incentives to take the lead in the fight so that reality I think is shaping a lot of what the president said. Indeed I think it's shaped our debate.

And one of the factors I want to emphasize again is that the chairman is right. We're prepared to give the president all resources he needs, but the area of economic development, the area of the civilian complement to military forces, I don't think the administration has sounded the claxon yet or the warning yet saying we need more and we've got to do more.

And without this political and economic dynamic, the military forces will just buy time but not success.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Warner, what do you feel about this issue of troop withdrawal? As Sen. Reed said, you crafted the compromise resolution that passed the Senate overwhelmingly.

Since then there's been the call by Senator -- I mean by Congressman Murtha. The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, for the first time today identified with that same call.

How much is the desire to start withdrawing U.S. troops driving the president's new look at this as well as everybody else's?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Well on a personal note, I've had the privilege of knowing this president and really my first president I was privileged to be with was Eisenhower when I was a youngster in the White House then.

I never saw a president with stronger resolve than our president today after he finished that speech and came down and talked with us.

But I'll go directly to your issue of the question of withdrawal. We should not at this time in these critical four to six months be worrying about a timetable to withdraw or even talking about it. We can debate but we should not send a message to the insurgents that they can wait us out. The enemy -- whoever they may be -- a lot of them unfortunately are Iraqis fighting each other but some from abroad -- have no regard for human life, none whatsoever.

They employ the human bombers. And they have a patience unlike anything we have in this country or really the western world. They'll sit it out and wait and wait if they think we're going to leave before we complete our goals.

And lastly, to those who say -- talk about withdrawal, think about the consequences if we don't do it under the right circumstances as the president said, condition-based. That whole region will implode into a civil war.

They'll have destabilizing effects on Jordan and all the bordering nations. They'll bring about a greater instability of the Israeli security. And that is not a consequence we want.

And in this book-- I'm not trying to sell books but it's written out in here very clearly the consequences of not succeeding in the basic goals and how it brings a greater degree of danger here at home to further terrorist acts.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Reed, do you agree with Sen. Warner that even to debate withdrawal right now is not good?

SEN. JACK REED: Well I think the term "withdrawal" is the wrong term because it seems to slant the argument to the cut-and-run theory, which is more rhetoric than I think reality.

I agree with the chairman. I think having committed forces there -- and I was opposed to such a commitment and the way it was done unilaterally -- but since we're there, we have to find a way out that will not create a worse problem: A more instable region, one that will be the source of continuing problems for the United States and the world, but I think it is appropriate and I think it's been proven so to have these debates in talking about how we begin to redeploy forces.

And frankly the reality is we're there for a period of time, a period of time with combat forces and probably a longer period of time with logistical forces and support forces. We have to recognize that. But if we don't have these discussions, then I think we're doing a disservice to the country.

JIM LEHRER: Okay -

SEN. JOHN WARNER: I don't want to finish without saying that I strongly the debates. That's our democracy in action. But we can debate it in such a way that we don't send a wrong message to our forces and the rest of the world.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask Sen. Reed a follow-up. Congressman Murtha, as you know, says that - to Sen. Warner's point that a precipitous withdrawal or whatever you want to call it of U.S. troops would promote more instability in the Middle East.

Congressman Murtha says just the opposite. The withdrawal of U.S. troops, in fact, would begin to stabilize things because the presence of our troops is an inciting factor in and of themselves. Where do you come down on that question?

SEN. JACK REED: I respect Jack Murtha immensely, both as a combat veteran and as a colleague in the House of Representatives when I served with him.

But my thought would be that our precipitous withdrawal would cause serious problems not because of the fact that we're -- our troops are targets. There are tensions in that country that have nothing to do with our presence. They're tensions between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish elements.

And if we were to leave and they felt unchecked, that could break out into a civil war or certainly complicating issues. So I would suggest that we have to find a way -- quicker rather than longer -- to do it in an orderly way.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask you, beginning with you Sen. Reed, finally, the public opinion, political question like it or not, whether or not you or any other members of the United States Senate or any other experts or whoever in the administration, is the American public moving toward this question of somehow withdrawing U.S. troops sooner rather than later, and you all are going to have to deal with it?

SEN. JACK REED: I think there's a great concern with the American public. And it's being translated not just in the polls but to the attitudes of people on the streets that I encounter in Rhode Island particularly and across the country. And it's an issue.

We cannot conduct any policy without the strong support of the American people.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Warner.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: I would certainly say the -- I respect the American public. And being a little older than the rest, I can remember their attitudes particularly during Vietnam when I was secretary of the Navy.

But that's why we need the strongest leadership at this point in time. That's why we need bipartisanship in the Congress. And as Jack said, we've got to support the Iraqis in getting that strong leadership in their military and address the question of how we can deal with the IEDS and how we can -

JIM LEHRER: That's the explosives on the roads.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Right, the explosives. And how we can better train and equip. You know, Jack and I know equipping the forces is just as important as training the Iraqi forces. I want to close out and I'm very cautious. I think we're making progress.

And I still think there's a great deal of confidence in this institution of Congress behind the men and women of the armed forces and a credit to them for doing a great job.

JIM LEHRER: I would assume you would agree with that, Sen. Reed.

SEN. JACK REED: Absolutely. I had the privilege of commanding soldiers.

JIM LEHRER: Thank you both very much.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Thank you.

SEN. JACK REED: Thank you.

FOCUS - HEARING THE ARGUMENTS

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: An abortion case before the Supreme Court; and that company called Google.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has our court story.

MARGARET WARNER: Today's arguments concerned the first abortion case the Supreme Court has heard in five years. At issue: A New Hampshire law that requires a minor girl's parents be notified before she can have an abortion. Here to walk us through the arguments, and some rarely- available audio from the court, is NewsHour regular Jan Crawford Greenburg of the Chicago Tribune.

Hi, Jan.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Hi.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, some 30 states have parental notification laws. Explain what it is about the New Hampshire statute that landed this one in the Supreme Court.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, the reason that this law is so controversial and the reason that Planned Parenthood challenged it in the lower courts as constitutional is that it does not contain a specific exception to allow doctors to perform an abortion without notifying the parent if the girl's health is in jeopardy. It's that health exception.

And Planned Parenthood and other people that attack this law have pointed to previous Supreme Court decisions that say that that health exception is necessary for these abortion regulations to be constitutional. Otherwise, they say that the Supreme Court has ruled it would be an undue burden on a woman's right to have an abortion.

MARGARET WARNER: And that's what the First Circuit Court of Appeals had found, that in fact the whole thing was unconstitutional because that did not happen.

JAN CRAWFORDGREENBURG: The First Circuit looked at a couple different things. It focused mainly on the health exception although it said a couple of other exceptions should have been better written as well.

But it struck down the entire law; it threw the whole law out as unconstitutional because it imposed this undue burden on the woman's right to choose.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. So going first with the New Hampshire attorney general, Ms. Ayotte, and the solicitor general of the United States, and it was a pretty quick and heated exchange between Ms. Ayotte and Justice Breyer, among others. Let's listen.

KELLY AYOTTE: New Hampshire's act can be applied to protect a minor's health if the rare case arises where a medical emergency occurs that requires an immediate abortion.

In that rare case, if it does arise, where an abortion has to be performed immediately and the child does not want to notify a parent, there is a judicial by-pass mechanism available which requires New Hampshire courts to act promptly and without delay and in the best interest of the minor.

JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER: Well, let's imagine a real circumstance. A 15-year-old walks in at 2:00 in the morning on Saturday into the emergency room and the doctor looks at her. She's pregnant. She has this very high blood pressure, whatever. And the doctor thinks to himself, he think, well, immediate abortion. No question. Immediately deliver the child. If I don't, I don't think she's going to die but she'll never have children.

And he's thinking that. What's supposed to happen? He calls up Pam Hedlagagio or Pam Livingston and there's no answer. It's 2:00 in the morning. And there's, you know, one of those things, leave a message. Okay? Shall I call your parents? No. They don't know I'm pregnant. Now, what's supposed to happen?

KELLY AYOTTE: Justice Breyer, in those instances the physician could perform the immediate abortion.

JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER: It doesn't say that in the statute. It suggests the contrary.

So what is the particular provision of New Hampshire law that tells that -- I mean, the doctor -- all these things are, you know, questions of probability. He doesn't want to risk being prosecuted and he doesn't want to risk losing his license.

And so what particular provision -- he happens to have his lawyer with him. (Laughing) What does the lawyer say? Okay. What's the provision that saves him? There's no health exemption in this statute.

MARGARET WARNER: Now several of the justices seemed to be looking for a way to make this health exemption without invalidating the entire statute.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: That's right. And as we just saw in that exchange, the attorney general of New Hampshire said, look, there are other provisions in New Hampshire law, different laws that would allow the doctor to perform an abortion; in that situation he would not be prosecuted so he had the discretion to go ahead and perform the abortion

But then in other exchanges with other justices, just as you said, there was this real effort to try to find a way to save this law, to have the lower court rethink the issue and maybe just look at the specific circumstance where the girl had come into the emergency room without throwing out the whole parental notification law.

MARGARET WARNER: I thought we would listen to one in which Justice Scalia and the solicitor general, Mr. Clement and Justice Souter argued about whether the court or the New Hampshire legislature was the best venue for doing that. Let's listen to that.

JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: Do you agree with Justice Breyerthat the legislature can draw this with more precision than a court could?

PAUL D. CLEMENT: No, I don't.

JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: That seems to be a solution -- that the legislature can make it precise although the court could not.

PAUL D. CLEMENT: I think the court could issue any order a legislature could issue. And I think the fact that the court would have some discretion is an answer to the argument that, oh, well, if you leave this to the courts you're cutting the legislature out of this.

JUSTICE DAVID SOUTER: Why wouldn't it be -- excuse me -- why wouldn't it be an abuse of discretion in this case -- because there seems to be an ample record here that the legislature or a majority of the legislature made a conscious choice that they would rather have no statute than a statute with a health exception in it?

They deliberately said the only statute we want is one without a health exception. Therefore, even if you touch all the bases that Justice Breyer has laid out, don't you end up with a position that if we were to craft such a limitation, we would be flying quite precisely in the face of the expressed legislative intent.

PAUL D. CLEMENT: I don't think that's right, Justice Souter. And I think it's because you have to be careful. I think it's easy to use a loose language about a health exception. And I think if you look at the First Circuit opinion, they seem to suggest there needs to be a health exception.

MARGARET WARNER: Jan, how did you read that exchange?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, Justice Souter today on the bench was clearly the most sympathetic to argument by Planned Parenthood that this law was just flatly unconstitutional; there was really no way to save it.

But the other justices, some of the more conservative justices, suggested that, let's look at some of the other provisions in the law, that judicial by-pass, for example, that the attorney general had mentioned in our earlier exchange in which, you know, the judge could see if perhaps there was a reason not to notify the parents.

Perhaps there are other areas in the law the lower court should have focused on before it just threw the whole statute out.

MARGARET WARNER: And, in fact, they kept wrestling with this issue particularly involving whether the lower court either should have decided it more narrowly or could be forced to. There was an exchange with Justice Ginsburg, the lawyer for Planned Parenthood and Justice O'Connor. Let's listen to that.

JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG: Why wouldn't it be entirely adequate to protect what you're concerned about to say, this New Hampshire statute is unconstitutional to the extent that it fails to provide an exception for situations where there's imminent danger to health and then all those imminent danger to health situations would be left unregulated? The statute doesn't reach them. But non-emergency cases would continue to be governed by the statute.

Why couldn't, in other words, why wasn't that the appropriate judgment for the First Circuit to have entered in this case, to say statutes apply to non-emergency cases but for emergency cases there is effectively no law.

JENNIFER DALVEN: Your Honor, that would solve the constitutional problem in this case but I believe it is not the best course for three reasons: First, as this court has already discussed, the states around the country have adopted at least ten different medical emergency definitions. And this court has no way to know which if any of those formulas --

JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR: But is there any objection by you to remanding this thing, to let it be more narrowly focused?

JENNIFER DALVEN: I believe it is not the better course. We can't tell what exception the New Hampshire legislator would have chosen.

In addition, I think there is real cause for concern about rewriting this law for New Hampshire. If this court says that that's the proper course, I believe that the federal judiciary would be faced with rewriting abortion law after abortion law.

MARGARET WARNER: So now what did you conclude from this particularly the role that O'Connor and Ginsburg played?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: First of all, you saw the lawyer for Planned Parenthood picking up on Justice Souter's point that, you know, the courts don't really need to be doing this. This law is unconstitutional.

MARGARET WARNER: Period.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Start over, legislature. Exactly.

But Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor suggesting what it seems like the court is wanting to do here which is just write an opinion, send it back down to the lower court and say, rethink it more narrowly, save part of the statute and move on.

Justice O'Connor's role also is very interesting because, as you know, she's retiring. She's only on the bench until her successor is confirmed. So we don't even know if her vote is going to count in this case because if she has retired or if her successor has been confirmed before this opinion has been released, her vote won't count.

And she's been the swing vote, the key vote in all of these abortion regulation cases. They've been decided -- a lot of them - five to four. So her vote, whether she's here or not, could be significant.

But today it looked like perhaps this wasn't going to be a five/four case because you saw some of the other justices coming together to try to reach this more narrow conclusion.

MARGARET WARNER: So, many of them interested in doing that.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, finally there was of course huge curiosity about where Chief Justice Roberts would come down in this case. And listening to the arguments he basically would just pepper with occasional questions.

And we're just going to play one and then just maybe you can decode it for us.

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: If your objection goes to the adequacy of the by-pass procedure, what is wrong with a pre-enforcement challenge by physicians presumably withstanding, challenging the by-pass procedure?

Why should you be able to challenge the act as a whole if your objection is so narrowly focused?

MARGARET WARNER: All right. So what did you take from that and the other things he said?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, he had -- his questions were very consistent throughout the argument. He was aggressive in making this point. And he kept coming back to it throughout the course of the argument. He was active from bench.

And he is again trying to narrow the focus, not only of how you challenge this law; he's saying that doctors should be perhaps challenging this had in the first instance.

MARGARET WARNER: Doctors who would actually face a true situation.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Right. And when that situation actually occurred as opposed to some, as happened in this case, Planned Parenthood sued before the law even took effect based on some hypothetical situation that could arise in the future.

So he's actually kind of looking to see a way of narrowing even the way you would challenge this law in the outset and on a more narrow way and perhaps save the law again in a more narrow way than the court had done below in the First Circuit.

MARGARET WARNER: And finally in your comments earlier about Justice O'Connor, so were you suggesting that you think there's a strong likelihood this may have to be reargued?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Margaret, I did going in. I mean, I thought that this case and I think a lot of people if you talk to them thought that this case looked like it was going to be five/four. Justice O'Connor has been one of the justices providing often the fifth vote saying that we need that health exception in these state abortion laws or we're going to strike them down.

That's been pretty consistent but after this argument it was just so interesting seeing justices looking for ways to maybe save the statute, send it back to the lower court, have the lower court perhaps rethink it in a more narrow way.

So we may not get that five/four. And, as a result, it wouldn't be the four/four if she retired before her successor were confirmed, which would mean it would have to be reargued. So we could actually get a decision that lasts in this case.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Jan, thanks so much.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: You're welcome.

FOCUS - GOOGLE'S GROWH

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the secrets to Google, Jeffrey Brown has our media unit story.

JEFFREY BROWN: Only seven years, Google was little more than a funny name and a big idea. Today some are seeing it as the most important company in the next phase of the information age. The idea is still big: To organize information on the worldwide web and allow users an easy way to search for the particular information they're seeking.

The company began as a project of two Stanford grad students, Larry Page or Sergei Bryn. Today it's worth $120 billion, more than Ford, General Motors, Disney, Amazon, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal combined, thanks to a stock that has risen from $85 to over $400 since it went public in August of 2004.

Google is so popular that it's now not only a name but a verb. From 10,000 search queries each day in the beginning, Google now fields more than 3,000 searches per second. It's easy and fast. Type in the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, for example, and you get more than 500,000 references in a fraction of a second.

And the company is adding new features all the time. Google now offers free email called G-mail, on-line shopping called Froogle, mapping, news aggregation, and digital photo management.

It also offers instant messaging and maybe even entering markets such as Internet-based phone systems like these. But as Google grows and goes mainstream, it's also raising some new hackles. Privacy advocates worry about innovations such as Google Earth, which provides satellite imagery that allows user to hone in on various addresses.

And some authors and publishers are crying foul over potential copyright violations in Google's book search, a plan announced last December to make the text of millions of books from collections at Harvard, Oxford and elsewhere searchable online.

Two new books look at Google and search technology and their authors join us now. David Vise, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post is co-author of the Google story. John Battelle was a founder of Wired and the industry standard Magazines. He now heads Federated media, an on-line publishing company and is the author of "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture." And welcome to both of you.

Starting with you, Mr. Battelle, why is search technology so important and what is Google's role in it?

JOHN BATTELLE: Well, it's funny but once you get on the Internet, of course, you need to find things that you might be interested in. And this has been true ever since the Internet, you know, came of age in the mid 1990s. But toward the late 1990, a lot of companies forgot that and they tried to build little portals within the Internet which kept you on their sites.

What Google managed to do is remember that the reason we search is to find things, potentially things that aren't in an antiseptic portal like Yahoo or Excite or Lycos, and Google did a good job of bringing people on to their site to search and putting them off to the rest of the Internet to find what they might be looking for. Many other sites gave up on that in the late 1990s. It turns out Google had the right approach. And we can see the results today.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, David Vise, you've written of Google as having a, quote, passion for disruptive technology. What do you mean by that? And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

DAVID VISE: Well, that all depends on where you sit whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. By disruptive technology I mean technology that changes the way business operates.

Google has come up with an entirely new way for people to advertise on the Internet. That's very disruptive to newspapers. It's very disruptive to television programs because lots of advertising dollars are moving to the Internet because that's where eyeballs are.

Google also has other disruptive aspects of its technology. For example, Google has a price comparison that it does through Froogle. And Wal-Mart, among others, recently said it was very concerned because people would have access to information instantly about where to buy products at the cheapest price.

So disruptive doesn't mean bad for the consumer; it just means it's a shake-up in the world of business.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mr. Battelle, how do you see Google seeping its way into the broader economy?

JOHN BATTELLE: Well, what David mentioned in terms of the advertising model is absolutely true. I mean, the entire media business is supported, of course, by advertising.

And it's quite disruptive when you have an approach where people pay only when they're advertisements yield results, which is exactly how Google has made its fortune. There are other companies that have done the same.

Google, of course, built a very large technology platform when it built its search engine and is using that platform to create even more disruptive technologies like Internet telephony, which of course could disrupt the entire telecommunications business.

So there are a host of industries that are concerned about what Google might do next including retail, as David mentioned, media and many others.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, David Vise, Google has this very unusual corporate logo: Don't be evil. You wrote your book as a sort of biography of the company. Its founders see it as a force for good in the world, right?

DAVID VISE: They absolutely see it as a force for good. And "don't be evil" has a special meaning to software engineers and others. It's a way of distinguishing Google from Microsoft.

Microsoft began to be seen as the evil empire particularly after the Justice Department filed the antitrust suit. Google uses "don't be evil" as an effective recruiting tool but more than that I think Google tries -- and this is why I wrote the Google story -- Google tries to do things I think that are innovative and very different. And they see that as progress.

One example of that is Google in your genes. Chapter 26 of the Google story is all about a very ambitious project that Google has secretly launched to enable people to Google their own genes, to be able to take the genetic code, which is a very good match for search engine technology and to enable the individual to sit down and actually learn about all of the world's information, not just on the outside but inside our own bodies, our own biology and find out about diseases, find out what medicines or foods we may be allergic to and lots of other information but all of this, of course, raises potentially troubling privacy questions.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, what about those privacy questions, Mr. Battelle? You have followed the rise of technology out there in Silicon Valley and up in Redmond as Microsoft grows. How do you see Google?

JOHN BATTELLE: Well I think this is Google's potential DOJ suit. David is right that Microsoft was the golden company of the mid '90s. As a matter of fact, it was the Goggle of the mid '90s, until about '95 or '96 when the early adopters of technology started worrying about Microsoft having too much power and the worm really turned when Microsoft overreached and tried to do too much.

As a matter of fact in 1997 in a Wall Street Journal article, the chief technology officer at Microsoft talked about how Microsoft was going to make a tiny little transaction fee on everything on the Internet. That scared a lot of partners off and led to the DOJ investigation.

So Google does, you know, stands at a very important point in its corporate history where it has a lot of power and it is working with a lot of world governments as well as large corporations and hundreds of thousands of small businesses as well that depend on it for revenue. And how it handles this new found fame and wealth and it's trove of personal data it has on many individuals is going to be, you know, critical to whether or not it succeeds.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, one of the most amazing things in reading both of your books, David, starting with you, is that this notion that Google saves every search that each of us does.

DAVID VISE: I think one of the most important things for all of your viewers to be aware of is that every time they do an Internet search on Google, Google saves it on its computers. Every time, if they happen to use email on Google through what's called G-mail or Google mail, all of those get saved indefinitely as well.

Think about for a moment billions and billions of searches being saved and being matched to your Internet address. Federal government investigators operating under the Patriot Act could get access to that kind of information all in one database about people. And it's a scary prospect to a lot of privacy advocates.

And what they advise is that people who -- I mean most people are not going to stop using Google because of a fear of privacy because it gives them free information fast. And it gives them relevant information fast. Most of the privacy advocates say that if you're going to continue to use Google actively as a search engine, you might be well advised to put your email account someplace else because it won't be long before a divorce lawyer or someone else comes along and tries to subpoena the information that's in Google's database to try to prove that a betrayed spouse who has been betrayed has actually got an Internet trail behind them of G-mails and searches that shows just how shadowy they were.

JEFFREY BROWN: John Battelle, what's the other side of that though for all those saved searches; in theory they're saving them to help marketers reach us or us reach marketers? What's going on?

JOHN BATTELLE: Well there's always more than one side. Google is saving all of this information because they're trying to make services and products that are better, more efficient, more -- make you more productive, that gets you the right answer at the right time to your search.

The more they know about you, they believe, the more they'll be able to give you not only the right answer to your search but also provide you with advertisements that are targeted to you, that are highly relevant and useful and of course very profitable to them.

But we are as a culture -- and that's why I created this idea of the database of intentions in the book-- we are creating records of our, you know, the bread crumbs through our use of the web that can be discovered by all sorts of entities.

And while we may trust Google -- and certainly most of us do right now -- it is a corporation. And corporations change management over time and change policies over time.

So "don't be evil" is a wonderful sentiment but it's not necessarily going to guide the company forever.

DAVID VISE: I think, Jeff, that the points that John makes are excellent ones. And I would just add a simple thought for everyone who is going online, Googling all day and all night, and that is Google knows a lot more about you than you know about Google.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. I guess you both agree -- still in its infancy. David Vise's book is "The Google Story" and John Battelle's is "The Search." Thank you both very much.

DAVID VISE: Thank you.

JOHN BATTELLE: Thank you.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: President Bush laid out what he called the "strategy for victory" in Iraq. He said Iraqi forces are growing, but he rejected any timetable for a U.S. pullout. And the U.S. Supreme Court heard an abortion case involving parental notification by minors. The arguments focused on granting exceptions to protect the mother's health. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.