The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MS. WARNER: And I'm Margaret Warner in Washington. After the News Summary we go first to Hillary Rodham Clinton's Capitol Hill testimony about the administration's health care plan. Then we talk to Defense Sec. Les Aspin about the role of U.S. troops in Somalia and Bosnia. We get an update on an approaching deadline in Moscow, and we hear the ear the Lebanese view of peace developments in the Middle East. NEWS SUMMARY

MS. WARNER: First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton pitched a double header on Capitol Hill today. She testified before two House committees that are considering the administration's health care reform plan. She appeared inher role as head of the presidential task force that created the plan. She had this to say during her first stop at the House Ways & Means Committee.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: We may disagree on the exact formula for achieving reform, but I hope we can and trust we will agree on one thing from the outset, that when our work is done, when the Congress has done what only the Congress can do to bring all of the disparate voices of America into these rooms to hammer out the choices that confront us. Every American will receive a health security card guaranteeing a comprehensive package of benefits that can never be taken away under any circumstance.

MS. WARNER: We'll have extended excerpts from Mrs. Clinton's testimony after the News Summary. The Senate today upheld the 17- year ban on federally funded abortions for poor women, but it eased the regulations slightly by allowing payments for abortions if the pregnancy results from rape or incest. Medicaid would continue to pay for abortions when a woman's life is at risk. The vote was 59 to 40. Robin

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton said today the United Nations needs to find a political solution to end its military involvement in Somalia. The U.S. currently has about 5,000 troops in the East African nation as part of the U.N. force. The President said the goals of ending factional warfare and starvation had been accomplished but he indicated U.S. troops sent in to hunt down warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid would remain for the time being. During a White House photo opportunity the President talked about wrapping up the mission.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: There has to be a political strategy that puts the affairs of Somalia back into the hands of Somali and give every country, not just the United States, every country that comes into that operation since they're rotating in and out, that there is a fixed date for their ultimate disengagement in Somalia because there are so many other peacekeeping operations in the world that have to be considered, and that we owe that to all the nations that we asked to participate in peacekeeping over the long run. So there's been no change in the enforcement strategy, but I have tried to raise the visibility or the urgency of getting the political track back on, on pace because in the end every peacekeeping mission or every humanitarian mission has to have a date certain when it's over, and you have to in the end turn the affairs of the country back over to people who live there. We were not asked to go to Somalia to establish a protectorate or a trust relationship, or to run the country. That's not what we went for.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Clinton also talked about the possibility of sending U.S. troops to Bosnia. The United Nations plans to send about 50,000 NATO troops if the warring parties reach a peace agreement. About half are expected to be from the U.S., but yesterday Mr. Clinton said he would set a number of conditions before committing U.S. troops. He had this to say today.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The United States is in a much better position to, to establish I think the standards and have some discipline on the front end. I think, to be fair, I think that everyone involved in Bosnia is perhaps more sensitive than, than was the case in the beginning of the Somalia operation, about the magnitude of it, the dangers of it, and the need to have a strict set of limitations and conditions before the involvement occurs.

MR. MacNeil: The Pentagon announced today that Defense Sec. Aspin has ordered 600 mostly unarmed troops to Haiti to aid in the transition to a democratic government. The force will include engineers, doctors, and military trainers to help Haiti rebuild its infrastructure. The troops will arrive at the Caribbean nation October 6th for a six-month tour. We will interview Sec. Aspin later in the program. The House today voted to adopt a version of President Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military, but they added more restrictive language, calling homosexuals "an unacceptable risk to military moral." The Senate passed the same wording earlier this month. The President's directive is scheduled to take effect Friday.

MS. WARNER: In Moscow today, hundreds of heavily armed riot police took up positions around the Russian parliament building. They were ordered there by Boris Yeltsin in a bid to end his week- old political standoff with hard-line lawmakers. Police set up barbed wire barricades and used loud speakers to demand that the lawmakers end their occupation of the building by morning. Despite the police presence, an aide to Yeltsin denied that any attack was imminent. We'll have more on the story later in the program. The president of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, vowed today to recapture the Black Sea port of Sukhumi. Its fall to separatist rebels yesterday was a major step back for Shevardnadze. He blamed Russia for the defeat and said he would reject any further Russian proposals for Georgia to join the commonwealth of independent states.

MR. MacNeil: Democratic Sen. Donald Riegle of Michigan today announced that he will not seek reelection next year. The three- term Senator was investigated in 1990 by the Senate Ethics Committee for his involvement with the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal. The committee concluded Riegle broke no laws but used bad judgment. Riegle joins five other Senators who've decided not to run in 1994. Retired Gen. James Doolittle has died. Doolittle led the first daylight air raid on Japan during World War II and set a string of aviation records in the 1920's and '30's. Doolittle died yesterday in California after suffering a stroke earlier this month. He was 96.

MR. MacNeil: At least 50 people were killed and 40 injured in the explosion of a gas pipeline near Caracas, Venezuela, today. The blast occurred underneath a busy highway during the morning rush hour. The pipeline was apparently ruptured by workmen installing telephone lines. Flames shot dozens of feet in the air, burning people up to 200 yards away. That ends our summary of the day's top stories. Ahead on the NewsHour, Hillary Rodham Clinton before Congress, Defense Sec. Les Aspin, the situation in Moscow, and Lebanon's prime minister. FOCUS - A PRESCRIPTION WRITER

MR. MacNeil: Health care is first tonight. As we reported, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton testified today before two congressional committees considering the Clinton administration's health reform plan. Kwame Holman has more.

MR. HOLMAN: The primary reason for today's hearing, consideration of sweeping health care legislation, was upstaged somewhat by the novelty of its first witness. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosalyn Carter as the only First Lady to testify before a congressional committee.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee: Mrs. Clinton, I want to compliment you. I hope that you set the pace for the rest of the cabinet when they testify before our committee. It's very unusual that a witness comes in early to testify.

MR. HOLMAN: But unlike her predecessors, Mrs. Clinton was not invited to testify in support of one of her husband's programs. As head of the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform, Mrs. Clinton came to present a program she played a major role in designing.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI: Mrs. Clinton, you have developed a very significant, comprehensive proposal. You and your staff are to be congratulated. At the same time, you and I are both aware that many members of Congress and many Americans have honest concerns about the plan you have developed.

MR. HOLMAN: In an attempt to accommodate Mrs. Clinton's tight time schedule, Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski gave members only two minutes to ask a question and get a response.

REP. SAM GIBBONS, [D] Florida: What I want to hear from you is how do we expect to achieve national savings in this program.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: We believe there are savings in both the private and the public systems that can be realized and better used. And let me just give you one example of that. Currently, because we have so many uninsured Americans who do show up at the emergency room to achieve care at the last possible moment, we provide, as you well know on this committee, something that's called disproportionate payments to hospitals that have a disproportionate burden of individuals who are neither privately nor publicly insured. Once everyone is insured, we will no longer have to be spending those federal dollars to reimburse hospitals that will now be able to obtain reimbursement through the insurance that everyone will be required to have. That money then can be used to help provide the kind of support and subsidy for low wage workers and their employers that will enable everyone to be in the system. So we think that it's these kinds of reallocations within the system that will make a difference.

REP. FORTNEY STARK, [D] California: Now, you mentioned personal reference, and my reference is my mom. And she's concerned that you're going to cut 200 billion bucks out of Medicare from providers and beneficiaries. She knows she's going to get a pharmaceutical benefit and some minor increase in long-term care, but she'll have a benefit that's worth about thousands of dollars less than mine and yours under this plan, and her costs are going to go up, RP premium and her Medigap. I said, mom, trust me, trust Mrs. Clinton. But what can you add to reassure mother?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, let me start, I have a mother too, Mr. Stark, so if we can't pass the mother test, we're not going to be --

REP. FORTNEY STARK: We're in trouble.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: What I would look to though, and what I will tell your mother and hope to tell your mother is that one of the struggles that you have had and the federal employees who have run the Medicare system is that although it is a system that does provide care, it does so at very different rates in different parts of the country, and we have countless examples of this, which you know better than I, where you have, for example, Medicare recipients in a city like New Haven, Connecticut, being served at one half the cost as a Medicare recipient in Boston just a hundred miles away. You can look at a 300 percent differential in the service cost provided to Medicare recipients between Miami, Florida, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now, there is something that is not working in the Medicare system to make the delivery of health care to our mothers cost effective while remaining high quality. And what we believe is that as we begin to organize our health care delivery system better, as we put some of the initiative into the hands ofphysicians and hospitals to make some of these choices and move away from what we tried to do, which is to tell them exactly how much to charge, but then give them a big bump if they say they're in an area that costs more even though it's hard to justify that differential in cost, that we can reduce the rate of increase in the Medicare program without in any way undermining quality.

MR. HOLMAN: Part of the Clinton health plan calls for a so-called "global budget," a maximum amount the government and private sector would be allowed to spend on health care. Some Republicans, like Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, oppose that sort of restraint.

REP. NANCY JOHNSON, [R] Connecticut: Because when coupled with your assumption that growth will be 5 percent in the economy, I wonder whether or not we will be able to avoid an absolutely skyrocketing payroll tax, or the global budget as a heavy-handed back stop to make your projections come true.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Well, Congresswoman, I think that those are very important questions but the way that we look at this is starting from a base that is much higher than it needs to be when we spend 14 percent of our GDP, we know that we're spending more than we need to spend. When we have a Medicare program that even after the budget will grow at 11 percent next year, and a Medicaid program that will grow at 16 percent next year, when neither the populations nor the morbidity statistics affecting those population groups are growing anywhere like that, we know we can get savings. Now, the real issue is how much and how fast, when can we realize them, and how much can they be stabilized over time.

REP. RICK SANTORUM, [R] Pennsylvania; You responded to one of the questioners that your full plan would not be implemented for several years and that there would be certain reforms that could take place immediately like insurance reform and others that we could act on. Would you be amenable or would the administration be amenable to actually doing that in two phases, doing something immediately, getting something up and going that we can implement right away, and then waiting down the road, possibly for a longer debate, maybe next year or the following year to pass a more comprehensive reform of the system?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: No.

REP. RICK SANTORUM: Okay. See, I ask easy questions.

REP. LEWIS PAYNE, [D] Virginia: I have some 5,000 tobacco farmers in my district who rely on their product to support their families, and I would like to ask this question: Can we continue to work together, will the administration be open to discussing the source of financing for the health care system, and open to discussing the amount of the increase of tax on tobacco and tobacco products?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Mr. Payne, I want to assure you and the tobacco growers in your district that the President and the administration are sensitive to the economic burdens that they will confront when faced with additional taxation, but it is the President's belief that tobacco is the only product that if used as directed can have such damaging health consequences, and it's particularly damaging to young people. And we hope that price sensitivity about tobacco products will discourage young people from using them.

MR. HOLMAN: Hillary Rodham Clinton answered questions for about two hours, and the unique nature of the First Lady's appearance was not lost on Chairman Rostenkowski, the committee members, and spectators.

REP. DAN ROSTENKOWSKI: I hope that your experience here has been as pleasant as I found you a pleasant witness. I'm tempted to applaud you, but then again that would be only -- [applause in room] -- that would be, that would truly be only if you didn't perform as exceptionally as you did, and you were marvelous. You're a marvelous witness.

MR. HOLMAN: But Mrs. Clinton's work on Capitol Hill wasn't finished. This afternoon she spent two more hours before the House Energy & Commerce Committee. She was asked how the Clinton health plan would affect various parts of the economy.

REP. JIM GREENWOOD, [R] Pennsylvania: The concern that is probably expressed by our side of the aisle a little bit more frequently, and that is the concern for the impact of this proposal on employment, particularly on small employers and the ability of a, of a small employer with relatively low wages, labor intensive business, with small profit margins. It seems inevitable that when you impose a mandate such as this on employment, you have to have a downward pressure on employment. You have to be hundreds of thousands of decisions about, should I expand my workforce beyond 50 or not, should I bring on a part-time employee, a temporary employee. All of those decisions have to be reweighed in consideration of the cost of providing health care, and I'd like your comments on that.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: If we did not believe this was a net job increaser, we would not be here. We believe very strongly that removing the unnecessary and burdensome costs of health care from this economy will result in new and growing employment, but having said that, I think I also want to stress how sensitive we are to the small business side of this. If you look at Hawaii, which has during this entire time that it's had an employer mandate, had an unemployment rate below the national average, and has had some of the fastest growing small business job creation, you know, we certainly can't look to Hawaii as supporting the concerns that a lot of small business advocates have presented. Also, if we look at the minimum wage increase over the past years, under both Republican and Democratic Presidents, it has never had the kind of depressing impact on small business development as some people have feared. And what we are talking about is much less than the usual increase in the minimum wage.

REP. MARJORIE MARGOLIES-MEZVINSKY, [D] Pennsylvania: My question has to do with pap smears and mammograms. How do you reconcile the pap smear and mammogram regimen in the, in the basic benefits package that falls short of the recommendations from the American Cancer Society and other women's health groups?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: As you know, there are many insurance policies now that do not cover diagnostic services like pap smears and mammograms, which means that the woman bears the entire cost if she should obtain such a service. What we have done is to absolutely include them in the comprehensive benefits package. I want to assure every woman -- you know, my mother-in-law has had a struggle with breast cancer over the last several years -- I like most women have tried to do what I should do with respect to mammograms, and I paid the full cost because they were not a covered service in the past. And so I take this very personally. They will be covered. No woman will be turned away. They will be part of the guaranteed benefits package, and then for women most at risk over 50 as a further inducement for women to come in and do it, they will be absolutely free as part of the preventive services we provide.

MR. HOLMAN: Mrs. Clinton will go before three more committees this week.The congressional debate on health care reform is just beginning.

MR. MacNeil: And we will begin our focus on the Clinton health care plan later this week with a look at the impact on doctors. FOCUS - STATE DEPARTMENT

MS. WARNER: Next tonight, the growing controversy over America's role in international peacekeeping efforts. At issue is the U.S. mission in Somalia and possible troop deployment to Bosnia. In a speech to the United Nations yesterday, President Clinton urged the U.N. to be more selective in taking on peacekeeping commitments. At a news conference later in the day, the President for the first time laid out his criteria for U.S. involvement in a proposed peacekeeping operation in Bosnia. The U.S. is being asked to supply 25,000 troops.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I would want a clear understanding of what the command and control was, and I would want the NATO commander in charge of the operation, I would want a clear timetable for first review and ultimately for the right to terminate American involvement, so that we -- I would want a clear political strategy, along with a military strategy. After all, there will be more than soldiers involved in this. And I would want a clear expression of support from the United States Congress. Now, there are 20 other operational things I would want, but those are the big policy issues.

MS. WARNER: Meanwhile, Congress is pressuring the administration to end U.S. troop involvement in the Somalia peacekeeping operation. Congressional leaders talked about their concerns after a White House meeting this morning.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Majority Leader: The longer any operation goes on, whenever there is a loss of life, whenever there is this, there are going to be questions and reservations and arguments that this is different from what I thought it was going to be, and clearly that exists not just in the case of Somalia but also in Bosnia and will exist, I submit, in any instance in which American troops are called upon to go overseas.

MS. WARNER: The departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Colin Powell, also discussed the peacekeeping issue today during his farewell appearance at the National Press Club.

GEN. COLIN POWELL, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: The exit strategy will get the political process in place in Somalia, raise up the district councils, put a functioning police force in, turn more and more over to the U.N., so that the U.S. can move out our quick reaction force, and so that ultimately the U.N. can complete its mission. I don't know if they'll be as successful as they have been in Cambodia, but the U.N. is shooting to see if they can complete this whole process by early in 1995. Bosnia is, is a far, far more difficult challenge. The thinking of most people in the administration, as well as our friends in Europe, is that if we are going in to help implement an agreement, then it must be a real agreement, an agreement that the parties are willing to abide by. And so that's one of the entry level questions. And the exit strategy has to be related to how long do we have to stay there to put in place the terms of the agreement and see that everybody is complying with the terms that they've signed up to.

MS. WARNER: Mr. Clinton's top foreign policy advisers went to Capitol Hill last week to see how congressional leaders felt about sending 25,000 American troops to Bosnia. Defense Sec. Les Aspin was among the Clinton aides taking soundings on the Hill, and he joins us tonight. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. So did you get an earful on Capitol Hill? What did you hear about whether you can get congressional approval for sending troops to Bosnia if you're still involved, as you are now, in Somalia?

SEC. ASPIN: I think that the reception was frankly a little better than I thought. People didn't come out of their chairs totally at the thought of doing this thing. There was discussion about the problem of going into implementation, implementing the agreement in Bosnia, but there was also a lot of discussion about the down sides of not doing it, and they are considerable, the possibility that people will still be killed, with the resulting outflow of refugees, the concern about, in the Muslim world about what will happen, and if the war continues, perhaps Bosnia or the Muslim country there will disappear entirely, the possibility that continued fighting in Bosnia will lead to overflow of the fighting in Kosovo and other parts, and maybe ultimately ending up with a whole Balkan war with the Turks and the Greeks involved in it. So the down sides are very real, and I think that it's a sobering prospect all around. And I think the members of Congress found that the prospect was kind of sobering, and they were pretty sympathetic to the dilemma the President faces because ultimately the President has not yet made a decision and ultimately it's his call on this.

MS. WARNER: And what's your assessment of the relationship of the current Somalia mission to these prospects for going into Bosnia?

SEC. ASPIN: It really is a very different situation in Bosnia than it is in Somalia, and I think that we've learned some things from the Somali experience which we're going to be applying in the case of Bosnia, but, you know, we're going to have several of these things going on at the same time. And we are today sending some troops into Haiti, again, a very different kind of situation. We've had for some time troops involved in the, feeding the Kurds and other enforcement of the U.N. resolutions still going on in Iraq. None of these take a humongous amount of people. There's not a large force involved in any of these things, but in sheer numbers, we're entering a world in which there are going to be several of these things going on simultaneously.

MS. WARNER: Well, there have been a lot of reports recently that the administration is trying to get out of Somalia a little more quickly.

SEC. ASPIN: Yes.

MS. WARNER: Now, I remember the last time we had these reports in August, you gave a speech trying to put a stop to all this, so I looked it up.

SEC. ASPIN: Yes.

MS. WARNER: And you said at the time, which was a month ago, that the U.S. should remain in Somalia until the violence pretty much calmed down in Mogadishu, till the warlords gave up their heavy weapons, and until credible police forces, as you put it, were operating in the major cities. Is that still the --

SEC. ASPIN: Exactly. I think that those are still the objectives, and those are what is connected to some of the U.S. forces. I think that the -- that as part of that what we've seen today, the discussions that the President had on the run there, interview in the Oval Office, in the cabinet room, he was talking about the political agenda that we need to get started. And that is key to the whole thing, is getting the political agenda started because at the core of our difference with the Italians, I mean, our view is, and I think the U.N. view now is we have to have a two-track system. We have to have a military track or a security track that's still working on the issue of security in South Mogadishu. But we also need a political track, and that political track will lead to the other two parts of the agenda that I was talking about, which is dealing at least somewhat with the heavy weapons, and getting up a police force at least in the major population center.

MS. WARNER: Now as part of the political track, I gather you're suggesting that African leaders convene a conference in November to try to work out political reconciliation.

SEC. ASPIN: Correct.

MS. WARNER: Could Aidid supporters be part of that conference?

SEC. ASPIN: That really would be up to the people convening the conference.

MS. WARNER: Really.

SEC. ASPIN: I think what we ought to do is ask the African leaders to convene this conference, to run the conference, and not micro manage it, let them decide who they're going to have.

MS. WARNER: So you wouldn't rule out having Aidid's people --

SEC. ASPIN: I would say that you ought -- if you're getting it up and running -- you ought to let the people who are doing it decide how they're going to do it.

MS. WARNER: And so on the military track or the security track, could you envision a scenario in which U.S. forces would leave, while Aidid was still operating?

SEC. ASPIN: Yes. Part of the whole strategy has always been that we ought to rotate forces, and, and that he's still part of the plan, so the, the current plan has two parts to it. One is the part we were just talking about, which is getting a political track up and running. The second part is to bring in some more troops on a rotating basis, more U.N. troops, and there's several countries that are taking a look at it, because frankly there are several countries that are scheduled to rotate out by the end of this calendar year.

MS. WARNER: But is the U.S. --

SEC. ASPIN: So, so the U.S. would -- we have looked forward to and hope to have a situation where we would be part of that rotation.

MS. WARNER: Well, Dee Dee Myers, the White House spokeswoman, said today that 1500 U.S. troops will be rotating out in the next couple of months, and some Indians and Pakistanis and Egyptians coming in. Is that a permanent rotation out?

SEC. ASPIN: Let me explain. That statement -- I think there was some miscommunication, because I don't think there's been any decision about the numbers yet, and there has not been any decision about the particulars of which countries are doing it, but the basic point of what she was making is absolutely right. Part of the strategy has been before -- is to rotate troops through on these, on these missions, and as part of the U.N. mission in Somalia, we would have a rotation. The Belgian troops and the French troops I think are scheduled to leave in December. What we need to do is to make sure that as that, part of that rotation goes, that the American troops be part of the rotation.

MS. WARNER: But how low could the U.S. troop level -- it's now at 5,000 --

SEC. ASPIN: Well, the key part that we provide is the logistics, and that would be hardest to replace. What the American --

MS. WARNER: Which is how many?

SEC. ASPIN: Well, that's the, that's the bulk of them. Let's see, that's out of the 4500 -- that's probably close to 3,000. And the strategy has always been if you can get a security, enough security, you can replace the logistics troops with, with private contractors. In other words, you would get that out of the military altogether, you'd contract out the job of doing the logistics, but the logistic part is the hardest part for us to just hand off to another military. In fact, it is the one military capability that the United States has which is really unique. The other is communications and intelligence. But it's the kind of thing that our military has in a way that very few others can match.

MS. WARNER: And will the 400 U.S. ranger troops be staying, the ones who ostensibly were there to capture Aidid?

SEC. ASPIN: Well, they're, they're part of the, of the quick reaction force, so that's part of the, of the numbers above the 3,000 or --

MS. WARNER: That would be rotating out?

SEC. ASPIN: We would look forward to trying to rotate them out.

MS. WARNER: Soon.

SEC. ASPIN: As soon as we can get some, some plan. I wouldn't want to put a timetable on it yet, although we are very anxious to try and put timetables on it. We just haven't got it at this time.

MS. WARNER: Let me turn to Bosnia now.

SEC. ASPIN: Sure.

MS. WARNER: Because the President did lay out all these criteria yesterday for going in. And his key point seemed to be that he felt we need to have the right to terminate American involvement. Now if we go back to the onset of the Somalia venture, President Bush insisted on that in the U.N. resolution as well, and technically the U.S. always had the right to get out when it wanted. But as a practical matter, of course, once you're in, if the venture isn't successful, it's hard to get out. How do you really prevent that?

SEC. ASPIN: Not necessarily. I mean, there was never any date certain that was established with Somalia. What we're thinking in terms of Bosnia is that there would be a date certain, there would be a specific timetable. And one way that you might do it, and one of the ways that's being looked at, is to have NATO's involvement end at a certain date. In other words, the way this thing is likely to work is that the U.N. will pass a resolution asking NATO to help implement a Bosnian peace settlement. NATO could then turn around and say, we will undertake it for a given length of time.

MS. WARNER: How long?

SEC. ASPIN: A year, two years, eighteen months, I don't know what it would be, but we would undertake to do this. We, NATO would undertake to do this for a certain amount of time, and then we would, would turn the problem back to the U.N. We believe that in that length of time the bulk of the thing will, will either succeed or fail. It will happen during that period, and then we want to turn it back. And in that case, that would be the extent of the U.S. involvement, that amount of time. Now that is totally different from what was set up in Somalia.

MS. WARNER: But isn't that sort of a green light to sort of -- let's just take the example of Aidid -- whoever in the Bosnia situation would want this to fail to just wait out the U.S. and NATO?

SEC. ASPIN: You see, that's what makes this, Bosnia, so different from Somalia. Somalia there was no political settlement. And people did want it to fail, Aidid being No. 1. But in the Bosnian settlement, the point is, the hope that nobody wants it to fail, otherwise, we're not -- we shouldn't go in there. This is -- we are going in to implement a peace agreement, and as Colin Powell said on the television here as, the thing that -- the clip from his speech -- what he was saying we've got to have an agreement in which the parties agreed to abide by it, and so you don't have anybody who is waiting for this, otherwise, we shouldn't be going in. You see, this is what makes this so different. There are two things that are different about Bosnia than about Somalia. One is a real nailed down exit strategy, a date certain probably that we're talking about. And the second is a political settlement that you're trying to implement, but with the cooperation of the parties. Now that doesn't mean that every Serb commander needs to be on board, but the bulk of the Serb forces have to be on board. And so there shouldn't be anybody that's playing the Aidid role who will want to wait it out.

MS. WARNER: Let me ask you quickly about Haiti, 600 military advisers, engineers, going in. What's really their role, and what's going to happen if they're attacked?

SEC. ASPIN: See, this is even less or it's even different from peacekeeping. I mean, you've got military forces in the modern world that go in to fight wars as they did in Desert Storm. You've got equal military forces to go in and do peacekeeping as they may end up doing in Bosnia. You've got military forces going in to provide famine relief to stem hunger as is happening in Somalia. Here's yet another case, what they're doing under this agreement, and this is part of the agreement that was worked out between Aristide and the opposition to Aristide is that the United States, a limited number of forces will go in there for two missions, both of them kind of civil affairs missions. One is CB units to go in and help construct roads and hospitals and other things, and the second is a trainer unit to go in and train the Haitian military to help them in professional training of their capabilities. That was decided in the agreement that was worked out between the two sides, and it's a limited role. It is not a peacekeeping role. We're not -- we're doing something other than peacekeeping, or we're doing civil action under that kind of an agreement.

MS. WARNER: Let me ask you about the House action today on the gays in the military issue. The House passed, I don't know, a resolution, or --

SEC. ASPIN: The language of the bill was --

MS. WARNER: -- of the bill.

SEC. ASPIN: Yeah. It was the same -- essentially similar as the Senate, as I understand.

MS. WARNER: Saying that homosexuality was an unacceptable risk to military morale. What is this going to do to President Clinton's plan?

SEC. ASPIN: Nothing. The -- this language is not incompatible with the Clinton proposal.

MS. WARNER: So you're going to go ahead and just issue --

SEC. ASPIN: We have regulations that were ready to be issued, and we had them before. We worked this language out when Sen. Nunn worked the language out. We were very content with that language.

MS. WARNER: And so what happened today is really irrelevant?

SEC. ASPIN: Only, only what would have happened today is if they had done something from the Senate and they defeated the amendments, it would have made a difference, so now that the House language is the same as the Senate language, it's not an issue in disagreement in conference, so we feel we can go ahead with the plan which was to issue these regulations. We couldn't do it if the two sides were different. We had to wait for the conference.

MS. WARNER: And let me end with one final question on Russia.

SEC. ASPIN: Yes.

MS. WARNER: Do you know what President Yeltsin plans to do if the deadline goes past?

SEC. ASPIN: No, I don't. I don't.

MS. WARNER: And how would the U.S. react if his troops did storm the building with force?

SEC. ASPIN: I think -- we can't say at this point what, what the reaction would be. We don't even know how it's going to come out. We've been -- I think it's safe to say -- very pleased at the support that President Yeltsin had throughout the country leading up to this, but we're watching these events with a certain amount of trepidation, and we hope that they will resolve without bloodshed, and we hope that it will resolve peacefully.

MS. WARNER: Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. ASPIN: Thank you.

MS. WARNER: Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, an update from Moscow, and Lebanon's prime minister. UPDATE - ULTIMATUM

MR. MacNeil: As we just heard, the events in Russia are on the front burner of Clinton administration foreign policy concern. We now get an update on the increasingly tense standoff in Moscow between President Yeltsin and the parliament. Our report is from Ian Williams of Independent Television News.

MR. WILLIAMS: Overnight, Boris Yeltsin tightened the noose. Hundreds of extra riot police and interior ministry troops have been brought in. And trucks and razor wire now surround the parliament building in Moscow. The area is completely sealed off. Those who wish to are being allowed to leave. But police are letting nobody in, including journalists, as well as deputies and their supporters. Through loud speakers mounted on an armored personnel carrier, police read Mr. Yeltsin's decree dismissing parliament. They ordered those inside to surrender their arms by 11 o'clock tomorrow morning, orders that were greeted with derision by the dwindling number of hard-line protesters still outside the White House. There was no indication of what will happen if the ultimatum is ignored. Mr. Yeltsin has again said he does not intend to use force, but all the signs are that he does want to bring the week-long standoff quickly to a head. Earlier, inside Ruslan Khasbulatov, the parliamentary speaker, had appeared looking tired and drawn. Under his suit he wore a bullet proof jacket which he proudly displayed to his colleagues. Later, he claimed the White House could hold out for six weeks. He again called on the army to join him, to ride in what he called the fascist outside, and said the White House defenders would fight back.

RUSLAN KHASBULATOV, Speaker, Russian Parliament: [speaking through interpreter] Me and my supporters are not about to leave the White House. Any blood spilled will be on the hands of those who initiated this coup de ta. Yet, as the tension has risen around the White House, the prospect of a violent conclusion to the siege alarms many Yeltsin advisers who have urged him to avoid it.

SERGEI KARRAGANOV, Member, Presidential Council: They want it to be peaceful, and they want it to be peaceful by principle, but also they want it peacefully because they understand that if there is bloodshed there are tanks, and if there are tanks in the street, then they will lose.

MR. WILLIAMS: That is because of the likely reaction among the public and workers to any violence. Until now, the reaction in Moscow has been largely one of indifference. The workers at the Zil car factory, one of the largest employers in Moscow, are typical. They greeted a call for a general strike from today made by Alexander Rutskoi, parliament's choice as president, with a mixture of humor and derision.

SPOKESPERSON: [speaking through interpreter] No, I'm not going on strike. Are you joking? What would the strike change anyway? Nothing.

MAN ON STREET: [speaking through interpreter] We're not about to go on strike. It's not necessary. What for? I haven't even considered the possibility.

MR. WILLIAMS: From this, many Yeltsin advisers have concluded that the longer that the president ignores parliament and just let them wither away the better.

SPOKESMAN: The people have changed. They are interested in doing business, in caring for themselves, and some are doing well, some are surviving, but nobody's interested in the poor, becoming a normal society, a normal society people care for themselves, rather than for the old, old guys fighting there.

MR. WILLIAMS: The build-up of force outside the White House continues, and does seem at odds with new government statements tonight insisting that parliament is not about to be stormed. Tension has already been growing between riot police and demonstrators seeking to get back through their cordon to the White House where the parliamentary leaders are making maximum political capital out of the alleged threat to their lives. The danger of this ending in violent confrontation now seems greater than ever, a prospect that alarms many of Mr. Yeltsin's own supporters. They believe it will merely hand the moral high ground to his opponents, promoting sympathy, even support, for a group of people who so far have been seen as desperate, even comical, in their attempts at portraying themselves as an alternative government.

MS. WARNER: After Correspondent Williams filed that report, protesters trying to reach the parliament building did clash with police. Only minor injuries were reported, and the crowd eventually dispersed. Later in the evening, additional soldiers were moved into position near the parliament. NEWSMAKER

MR. MacNeil: Next, we continue our series of Newsmaker interviews with Middle Eastern leaders following the historic accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Tonight we interview the prime minister of Lebanon. Once an island of tranquility for Muslims, Christians and Palestinians, Lebanon has been shattered since 1975 by more than a decade of civil war, and different pieces of its territory are now under the feet of Israeli and Syrian soldiers and various guerrilla groups. But with the winding down of the civil war three years ago, Lebanon has been trying to reconstruct its buildings and its government. At the head of that effort is Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for joining us.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Thank you.

MR. MacNeil: What is preventing Israel and Lebanon from reaching a peace agreement?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: You know, we went to Madrid to reach an agreement, because I think my country will benefit most from the peace. I am peace believer, and I think we should reach an agreement with Israel to withdraw from Southern Lebanon, and we will participate in the global, comprehensive peace in the area.

MR. MacNeil: Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, speaking to the United Nations today, asked: Does Lebanon have a government capable of exercising independence?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Sure, we are capable, but, you know, he is trying to find reasons to stay in the 10 percent of the Lebanese territory. We said that security on that area, it is our responsibility. It is not Israeli responsibility. Israel has occupied this area since 1978, and then it enlarged it in 1982. So far since then, the situation was never been quite there, because of that situation, that occupation is not an answer to the security of Israel. The security of Israel will be assured by a political agreement, and so they have to withdraw from the land they have occupied since now, you know, 40 years.

MR. MacNeil: But haven't they in the negotiations now offered to withdraw from the land they occupy if Lebanon, if its army can displace the Hezbollah and other guerrilla groups, and guarantee Israel's security, and that it won't be attacked from that territory?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Hezbollah is a reason, is an excuse. Hezbollah is there. I know that Israel is saying always disarm Hezbollah, but they never said they are ready to withdraw from the Lebanese occupied territory. They want us to be in attack with Hezbollah before they withdraw, which means while they are occupying part of the country, they want my government to attack the people who are resisting the occupation, which has never happened in the history of human beings. We said we recognize that this area has to be under the responsibility of the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army, but you have to withdraw first. When you leave the country, it will be our responsibility to assure the security in that area, and we'll be accountable for that.

MR. MacNeil: You don't think that in the new mood created by the PLO-Israeli deal that you can sort this out with Israel?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: I hope so.

MR. MacNeil: You're trying to?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yeah, I'm trying to, and I tell you Lebanon will benefit most from the peace. We have paid a very high price for the problem of the Middle East.

MR. MacNeil: With 40,000 Syrian troops still on your side and your government still in a state of some dependence on Syria's goodwill --

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: This is true.

MR. MacNeil: -- can you make a peace with Israel before Syria does?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: You know, it's not a matter of -- no, I cannot, not because I have 40,000 soldiers in, in my country. This is not the reason. The reason that the interests of both countries are very linked together, if I made a peace treaty with Israel before Syria, I will affect the interests, the national interests of Syria too, and also, if Syria made a peace treaty with Israel without Lebanon, Syria will affect negatively the national interests of Lebanon.

MR. MacNeil: You have to coordinate?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: We have to coordinate in the peace treaty but about the withdrawal of Israel from the Northern Lebanon and the, and the assurance of the security by the Lebanese army, that is something that can be happened independently.

MR. MacNeil: Why do you think the Syrian president, Mr. Assad, is slow to move now on this?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: I don't think he's slow.

MR. MacNeil: You don't think he's slow?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: No. I don't think that he is slow, no.

MR. MacNeil: We had Mr. Mubarak of Egypt on the program last night, and he said, well, it's difficult to go too quickly, because it may be a shock to the people, so you have to take it -- he said "the people," presumably meaning the Syrian people.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: I don't think so.

MR. MacNeil: And so Mr. Mubarak said, so you have to take it on a gradual basis. So is Mubarak right? Is Assad afraid of shocking Syrian or Arab opinion?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: No. You see, Assad and his people and my side, and the Lebanese people, we believe in peace. We are not going to peace because there is, part of our land is occupied. This simply will not lead to peace. We believe, we are going to peace, toward peace, because we believe in peace. I believe in peace. Assad, I think, now he is a big believer of peace. I met him several times, and he made it very clear that the best for the whole area, the best for the people of Syria is the peace, but he is looking for a just peace, a comprehensive one, and a global one. And I don't think that Mubarak meant that Syria will be shocked by peace. I don't know anyway. I didn't --

MR. MacNeil: There's -- let me quote you Ayatollah Fadlala, who is a, a Shiite priest --

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Ayatollah Fadlala.

MR. MacNeil: Well, he is a Shiite --

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: -- who talks to the Hezbollah and to Shiite opinion. He said earlier this year the talks are moving at a snail's pace in order to condition the Arab mentality to accept Israel through this condition -- through this continuous dialogue. Is he right? Is that why, is that why Assad was so annoyed at the PLO deal with Israel, it was just too sudden, and opinion had not been prepared for?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Let me, let me explain to you. You know, this area is very small, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Golan, it is very small, and it's very connected, one to each other, and anything that is happening here will affect the rest of the area. Why Golan was lost? It was lost because of Palestine, because of the Palestinians. That's right. And why we have an occupation on the South? Because the Palestinian was there and because of that. And also King Hussein, he wanted war in 1967 because also of the Palestinian problem. So all these problems are connected one to each other, and it was previously agreed upon the Syrian, the Lebanese, the Palestinian, and the Jordanians, even the Egyptians, to go together in peace. And we went to Madrid accordingly. So Assad, I think he was upset because they had made an agreement alone. He wants -- and I think he's right -- that all of us has to go to peace together.

MR. MacNeil: But the reason for all these disarrangements in the Middle East, as you've just said, are the Palestinians' unhappiness over their fate. Now they've made a deal with Israel.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes, okay.

MR. MacNeil: Does the reason exist any longer?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: No, it's not existing any longer. It doesn't exist to make war but to make peace. It exists because it is better to go into peace together, you see.

MR. MacNeil: You saw President Clinton yesterday.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: Did you get an indication that he has any initiatives forthcoming that will help Syria along with its decision?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: President Clinton was very clear that he believed that the peace has to continue, and it is not enough to make a peace between Israel and the Palestinian to have a peace in the Middle East. We'll have a peace between the Palestinians and Israel only, and not all the Palestinians, because there is big part of this Palestinian are out of this agreement, the Palestinians who are living in Lebanon, or are living in Syria, or living in diaspora, all over the world, also Syria still have a part of its land occupied and Lebanon also. President Clinton was very clear that he will do all his best to assure the peace in the whole area, and I ask him to send Mister -- secretary to the area to try to make a shuttle between the three countries who are negotiating.

MR. MacNeil: Warren Christopher.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Yes.

MR. MacNeil: And has Mr. Clinton, himself, indicated he will make any personal moves with Assad to --

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: No, he didn't say.

MR. MacNeil: He didn't say that. You -- come back to your country as it stands at the moment -- you have launched a massive effort to rebuild the city of Beirut, which has been ravaged by war all these years. What, what role do you envisage for Beirut in the future?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: For Beirut, or for Lebanon?

MR. MacNeil: Let's say for the city of Beirut.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: For the capital. You see, Lebanon is a small country, and Beirut is capital, and we used to play the role, an important role, an important financial role before the war, and even during the war the banks still function. I would like to see Lebanon playing an important role financially in the culture also. We have several universities. We have American University. We have French University. We have Lebanese University. We have two American universities, in fact, in Beirut, and I would like to see these universities strengthen more and more, and I would like to see my country play more important role in spreading the democracy all over the area.

MR. MacNeil: Because of the conditions in Lebanon, a lot of Lebanese money went overseas, $40 billion I've seen estimated. Have you created enough new confidence to lure any of that money back yet?

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: You see, this money that left Lebanon to outside, this money has been made outside, outside Lebanon, before the war, during the war. The effort I made since I came to office is to bring that trust to the Lebanese among themselves, and with the state, and to encourage the Lebanese who are living outside to come back, and they are coming back. I've seen a lot of Lebanese who are leaving Europe, the Arab world, they are working. Even in United States and Canada, you see a lot of Lebanese going back to Lebanon.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Prime Minister Hariri, thank you very much for joining us.

PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Thank you. RECAP

MS. WARNER: Again, the major story this Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton testified before two congressional committees to press for passage of the administration's health care plan. President Clinton called for a political solution in Somalia to allow the withdrawal of peacekeeping troops, and Defense Sec. Aspin said on the NewsHour that the U.S. is watching the political standoff in Moscow with trepidation, and he expressed hope that violence would be avoided. Good night, Robin.

MS. WARNER: Good night, Margaret. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with a Newsmaker interview with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kosyrev. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.