The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this Wednesday; then the latest on the deadly approach of Hurricane Rita towards the Texas and Louisiana Gulf coast; a look at what's behind the surge of violence in Iraq; and excerpts from today's Senate hearings on a pre-9/11 intelligence program called "Able Danger."

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Hurricane Rita grew into a monster storm today, taking aim at Texas. Top winds reached 165 miles an hour. That made Rita a Category 5, the most powerful kind of hurricane. The warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico fueled the storm. It spread 300 miles across, and had the potential to keep growing. Forecasters said it could make landfall early Saturday along the central Texas coast. In Texas today, mandatory evacuation orders went out for all of Galveston County and low- lying parts of Houston and Corpus Christi. That could mean an exodus of more than one million people. As the day went on, thousands of people poured out of Galveston, jamming highways leading north. Others boarded school buses, heading inland. Nursing homes also began to move patients out. In Houston, the mayor appealed for the public to help those who can't leave on their own.

BILL WHITE, Mayor, Houston: There will not be enough government vehicles to go and evacuate everybody in the area. And we need the citizens who are the first line of defense, neighbor caring for neighbor in this community, to do your job and to go out and to actively look for those who may need assistance.

JIM LEHRER: State officials in Louisiana urged 20,000 people to leave southwestern parishes. And in New Orleans, engineers worked to fortify levees amid fears the city could flood again. Also today, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported faulty construction of flood barriers caused the disaster after Hurricane Katrina. They said it now appears the storm surge was less than first believed.

The death toll from Katrina topped 1,000 today. The new total was 1,036, including nearly 800 people who died in Louisiana. More than 200 others were killed in Mississippi. Cleanup crews in Mississippi cleared a key obstacle today. They blew up a five-story casino barge. The storm surge from Katrina left the wreck blocking a main highway.

Federal officials moved today to get the jump on Hurricane Rita, after heavy criticism of the way they handled Katrina. The federal emergency agency, FEMA, positioned hundreds of truckloads of water, food and medicine at key locations. In Washington, FEMA's acting director, David Paulison, would not make direct comparisons with Katrina. But he did say this:

DAVID PAULISON: We are making an extraordinary effort to make sure that we have a coordination system in place, where we are talking with those people, like I said, almost on an hourly basis, making sure that they have the things they need to do the job. We are not making any assumptions in this storm. We are asking questions, they're asking questions. Communication is so, so important.

JIM LEHRER: Later, the president issued an emergency declaration for Texas and Louisiana. We'll have more on Hurricane Rita right after this News Summary. The U.S. House approved $6 billion in tax breaks today, to help the Gulf coast recover. Charities providing help are also eligible. The package now goes to the Senate. Two dozen House conservatives called today for putting off the Medicare drug benefit to pay for hurricane recovery. They also want to rescind some of the projects in the new highway bill.

In Iraq today, government troops fought with insurgents in an upscale section of Baghdad. U.S. armor and helicopters cordoned off the area during the gun battle. Five insurgents were killed, along with two policemen and an Iraqi soldier. To the south, several hundred Iraqis rallied in Basra against the British Army. We have a report from Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News.

LINDSEY HILSUM: Outside the police station in Basra in morning. Demonstrators demanding that the police chief resign and the two British soldiers be handed back to the local authorities. Iraqi ministers have been sent to Basra from Baghdad to investigate. Local police are reported to have ignored an order from the government to hand the soldiers to the British. The Iraqi prime minister in London was keen to prove that the writ of central government does apply in Basra.

IBRAHIM AL JAAFARI, Prime Minister, Iraq (Translated): Once I get back I will follow up in detail the truth of what happened. It doesn't mean that Basra is beyond the control of the sovereign central government of Iraq.

LINDSEY HILSUM: The defense secretary, appearing alongside Mr. Jaafari, played down differences and problems.

JOHN REID: We will not cut and run and we will not leave the job half done. We will stand by Iraq when times are tough and we will be a committed friend, not a fair weather friend.

LINDSEY HILSUM: British forces occupy the four southern provinces of Iraq. Only two months ago the Army predicted it would hand over Maysan and al- Muthanna to Iraqi control this year with the Dhi Qar and Basra to follow next year. That plan now looks rather optimistic.

British public opinion may be influenced by the image of troops being attacked in their armored vehicles, but a rapid departure of British forces could have its own consequences. The British have tolerated the different factions in Basra. They may now move against the gunmen. But, in doing that, they risk the kind of confrontations the Americans encounter every day.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the situation in Iraq later in the program.

Israeli forces formally abandoned four Jewish settlements in the West Bank overnight. The withdrawal finished a process that included a pullout from all of Gaza. The Israelis plan to keep 116 other settlements on the West Bank. Also today, Palestinian President Abbas rejected international appeals to dismantle militant groups. He said, "This is our affair."

Four leading U.S. Senators met with President Bush today, to discuss his next Supreme Court nominee. They said they floated several names to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The president did not discuss his own list. But Democrats and Republicans said they carried warning messages to the White House.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: I have raised a certain cautionary signal that I believe the next nomination is going to be a great deal more contentious than the Roberts' nomination. And I say that because bubbling just below the surface was a lot of frustration in the hearing which we just concluded.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Again, I urge, as I have several other times, for the president not to send up somebody who is there just as a lightning rod or just as a justice for one segment, one segment of society or one segment of the Republican Party. That would be a mistake.

JIM LEHRER: The Senate Judiciary Committee votes tomorrow on the nomination of Judge Roberts to be chief justice. Sen. Leahy said today he will vote for Roberts. Another committee Democrat, Edward Kennedy, said he will vote against.

A federal judge approved settlements for WorldCom investors today, worth more than $6 billion. The money will go to some 830,000 individuals and institutions. Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, among others, will pay the bulk of the settlements. Investor lawsuits alleged they should have known of the mammoth accounting fraud that destroyed WorldCom in 2002.

The price of crude oil rose today, as traders braced for a hit on U.S. refineries in the Gulf by Rita. Oil futures in New York gained another 60 cents to close at $66.80 a barrel. That news pushed stocks lower on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 103 points to close at 10,378. The NASDAQ fell more than 24 points to close at 2106.

Molly Yard died today in Pittsburgh. She was president of the National Organization for Women for four years, beginning in 1987. She led the group's fight against Robert Bork's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But in 1991 she suffered a stroke and had to step down. Molly Yard was 93 years old.

And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The coming of Rita; the violence in Iraq; and a pre-11 intelligence story.

FOCUS - FINGERS CROSSED

JIM LEHRER: We begin our hurricane coverage in the battered city of New Orleans, where the approach of Hurricane Rita has people on edge.

TOM BEARDEN: The Army Corps of Engineers continues to work on strengthening the levees that failed after Hurricane Katrina, flooding 80 percent of the city. Over the past three weeks thousands of tons of fill material have been dumped to seal the huge gaps that developed. They've also driven massive metal barriers across the canal's channel but the whole system is still fragile.

BRIG. GEN. WILLIAM GRISOLI: Well, the system has been weakened from the storm that we just had. And what we want to make sure we have is we're able to repair and protect from a tied al flow or a tied al influx or heavy rains.

TOM BEARDEN: Brig. Gen. William Grisoli is the deputy commander of the project. He says Hurricane Rita's path will determine whether the levees will hold.

BRIG. GEN. WILLIAM GRISOLI: What we're anticipating now, we feel we might have some flooding. That's why we advised the city and the parishes about the reoccupation. We were concerned about that. So we saw there might be some flooding based on either three inches of rain in six hours or six inches of rain.

TOM BEARDEN: Does the possibility exist that that 80 percent of New Orleans that flooded once before will flood again?

BRIG. GEN. WILLIAM GRISOLI: There is a possibility depending on the storm and how close it gets to us.

TOM BEARDEN: This past weekend New Orleans' mayor Ray Nagin announced the timetable for reopening parts of the city and invited business owners and some residents to come back and start cleaning up. But federal officials questioned the wisdom of that giving the state of the levees and the impending Hurricane Rita and the invitation was withdrawn.

SPOKESPERSON: Can I take your arm?

MAN: Yes, okay.

TOM BEARDEN: In the French Quarter, authorities were still removing people who had ignored the Mayor Nagin's original evacuation order three weeks ago.

SPOKESMAN: Just get right in the car over here.

TOM BEARDEN: Contradictory messages from local and federal authorities didn't stop Billy Spain from starting to clean up his water-damaged restaurant in the French Quarter. But he's nervous about Hurricane Rita too.

BILLY SPAIN: Very concerned. Very concerned. I'm watching it today, listening to it on the radio. They tell us we've got to go; we're going to have to go. It would be devastating to New Orleans if this happened again, but we'll pick up the pieces just like we did for Katrina and we'll move on. We have to. This is our home. You know, we love New Orleans. There's no other place I'd like to live but New Orleans.

TOM BEARDEN: Spain's restaurant, The Star Steak and Lobster House, employed 35 people. He says he can complete repairs in about a week if he gets help getting the materials to do the job.

BILLY SPAIN: We have water. It's not drinkable but it's good for cleaning and done whatever we're doing. You know, there's myself and one other employee here. That's basically it. And all of our employees are scattered everywhere. So we hope to hear from 'em. We hope to get 'em back. He have a little roof damage, flooded in the kitchen, flooded in the dining room. Basically we have to rip everything out and start all over. Hopefully we can do that. I really hope that, you know, they don't forget about the small business people. It's very important that the small businesses stay here.

TOM BEARDEN: Jim Sugarman is the general manager of the House of Blues, a large bar, restaurant and concert hall just down the street. It employed 350 people before the storm.

JIM SUGARMAN: We did have some leaks in the ceiling. But really because we didn't take on any floodwater, the damage is very, very minor, some wind damage and just a little bit of water damage.

TOM BEARDEN: The building was practically undamaged, its ornate decoration and folk art completely intact.

JIM SUGARMAN: So we have got air conditioning and lights.

TOM BEARDEN: But Sugarman says there aren't any customers now. He doesn't know when they might come back.

JIM SUGARMAN: Our business is very much dependent on tourism and convention business. And our concert business is 80 percent local. And the locals aren't coming back anytime soon so unless there's some sort of huge public relations effort to get business into New Orleans, we're going to struggle.

TOM BEARDEN: How crucial is the functioning of the French Quarter to the economy of New Orleans?

JIM SUGARMAN: Oh, it's critical. I think someone said it's the engine that runs the economy of the city. I think that's very true. It's the perfect place for the Phoenix to rise from the ashes so we're lucky that the French Quarter was left intact. We'll build from here.

TOM BEARDEN: Every businessperson we talked to was confident that New Orleans' vital tourist economy would rebound. They just don't know when.

JIM LEHRER: Jim Sugarman flew to Los Angeles on business today. He said he was confident Rita would miss New Orleans. But Billy Spain is planning to leave if the hurricane comes within 100 miles.

FOCUS - WAITING FOR RITA

JIM LEHRER: Now, the "Waiting for Rita" story as seen from Texas. Gwen Ifill has that story.

GWEN IFILL: Learning from Katrina. The water is stockpiled -- bottled water -- the ambulances are on standby and the National Guard is on alert. As the hurricane season prepares to land a second punch along the Gulf Coast, this time officials say they are poised to react.

We look at some of those preparations with: Major John Jones, area commander for the metropolitan Houston Salvation Army; Dr. John D. Stobo, president of the University of Texas medical branch at Galveston; and Maj. Gen. Charles Rodriguez, the adjutant general for the Texas National Guard.

Maj. Gen. Rodriguez, are you prepared for Rita?

MAJ. GEN. CHARLES RODRIGUEZ: We are prepared. Our soldiers and our airmen are on standby and more of them are coming.

GWEN IFILL: Describe to me what you mean by prepared. How many soldiers, how many airmen? Where are they coming from?

MAJ. GEN. CHARLES RODRIGUEZ: The governor has put on notice 5,000 National Guardsmen from Texas, and we are at about the halfway point for readiness. The other half are coming from the soldiers who have previously deployed to Louisiana in support of Operation Katrina.

GWEN IFILL: And what do they do once they get there? Are you using them for the kinds of things that we saw in Louisiana and in Mississippi to keep the peace or are they standing by waiting to see what their role is?

MAJ. GEN. CHARLES RODRIGUEZ: Well, what's happening right now is we are keeping our forces in assembly areas away from the impact area. We don't want to harm the forces. They are in locations about a hundred and fifty/two hundred and fifty miles inland and able to respond first by aviation and then by wheeled vehicles.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Stobo, tell us a little bit about what kind of evacuation preparations you have made at the hospital in Galveston.

DR. JOHN STOBO: Well, we began this morning about 8 o'clock using both helicopters and ambulances to evacuate patients from the hospital. We had approximately 577 patients in the hospital yesterday. This morning we had a little over 400, roughly 440 patients. Right now we have 70 patients in the hospital. We plan to probably stay at about 70 patients in the hospital and we'll provide care for those patients with personnel who will stay throughout the storm.

GWEN IFILL: How many of those patients are unable to move on their home? We saw what happened in nursing homes in New Orleans, for instance.

DR. JOHN STOBO: Well, as of right now, we don't have any patient in the hospital who is unable to move on their own. The patients who are in the hospital are patients who we feel we can provide healthcare to in a safe way or patients who don't have any place to go. But they're not critically ill patients. All of the critically ill patients have been removed from the hospital.

GWEN IFILL: Maj. Jones, you have been involved in the sheltering of evacuees from Louisiana as well as, I guess, preparing for what may happen if people... as people are evacuating now in Texas. What kind of strain has that put on you?

MAJ. JOHN JONES: Well, it's put a great deal of strain upon us. We are still trying to figure out where Katrina ends and where Rita begins. We were operating two shelters ourselves and still have approximately 100 people in those two shelters that have not been placed in temporary housing yet, so consequently, we're faced with the responsibility of evacuating some evacuees as well as our own residential shelters which we operate on an ongoing basis.

And then we've been operating a major distribution center for the Katrina persons which we now have to shut down as of today, move all of our equipment and try to salvage what supplies we can to a safe location so that we'll be in good shape and ready to respond immediately as soon as the force of Rita has passed.

GWEN IFILL: When you say you're trying to figure out where Katrina ends and where Rita begins, does it seem just like one continuing rolling disaster to you? Or are there different qualities?

MAJ. JOHN JONES: Well, no. That's really it. They're stacking on top of each other. It takes a tremendous toll on your personnel, your volunteers who are working hard for one disaster and then trying to recruit them back for a second one, your ongoing staff who are growing weary because you're working twelve/fifteen-hour days, seven days a week through the whole thing.

We're still trying to help Katrina victims for a very long term, which is an unusual part of a hurricane and then trying to then prepare for another one that comes in while overlapping the service that is still going on for Katrina.

GWEN IFILL: Maj. Gen. Rodriguez, as you try to decide where to deploy your National Guardsmen, some of them I know in Louisiana, there was some discussion that up to a third of the National Guardsmen were already deployed in Iraq; some of them came home. Is that also true in Texas?

MAJ. GEN. CHARLES RODRIGUEZ: The state of Texas has about one third of its soldiers and airmen currently deployed or in the pipeline, leaving close to two thirds or a little bit more than a half who are available. And many of those are poised and ready in the assembly areas.

GWEN IFILL: Do you work in concert with the local police, with the state police, with other law enforcement, or are you a separate entity as you enter into this kind of disaster assistance?

MAJ. GEN. CHARLES RODRIGUEZ: The National Guard works for the governor and we get our marching orders from the Division of Emergency Management here in Austin. They get requests from counties, from metropolitan mayors, and when the requirements exceed the capability of local officials, they request to the state and then the state makes a decision. We often provide that support at the state's request.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Stobo, as you prepare now for the onset of Rita, from what you saw at least at a distance in New Orleans and what you experienced in helping to shelter some of these evacuees from Louisiana, how has that experience affected what you're preparing to do now?

DR. JOHN STOBO: Well, we had talked about evacuating patients from our hospital even before Katrina. It's something quite different from us. This is the first time in 114 years that we have evacuated patients. Usually what we've done is let the patients who are the least ill go home and then take care of the sickest.

But what happened in New Orleans quickly solidified our thinking and made it clear that the best plan of action is to evacuate all the patients that we could from the hospital. So that's... that made a very important turning point in our thinking and in our planning.

GWEN IFILL: I skipped over a little bit about what your role is in helping evacuees from Louisiana. Could you describe that for us?

DR. JOHN STOBO: Well, we took care of approximately 500 individuals in our clinics. We actually staffed a clinic in Galveston. We opened up our clinics on campus to the patients. We took care of about 50 patients in our hospital. So we certainly did some but not as much as many others in the Houston area did.

GWEN IFILL: Maj. Jones, the acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration today listed a long laundry list of things which he is prepared to do, which is creating portable hospitals, beds, water. Do you have stockpiles? Do you have with all of the effort that has been put forth for Katrina? Are there stacks of bottled water? Are there shelters already set up and ready to go?

MAJ. JOHN JONES: We did not normally keep stockpiles, but in this case we have gone out because we've had sufficient advanced warning. And even as of today we were stockpiling food mainly to help operate our mobile feeding units, which are going to be critical after a hurricane such as this as they go into the communities and try to help people with meals, which they can't do because of lack of power or for whatever other reason.

So we have been stockpiling food and water and other items that we need for the immediate crisis. And then as soon as the crisis impact is over, we would move into a recovery phase and help people with cash vouchers and other kinds of sustenance to get them through the initial phases of getting their lives back together.

GWEN IFILL: The Red Cross has said that Katrina in their case has put strain on their ability to provide trained help to volunteer in these situations. Are you having that same type of difficulty?

MAJ. JOHN JONES: We've been very fortunate and the volunteers we have had come in are some very qualified volunteers who were very quick learners because we do have a very good volunteer program which is ongoing. And a number of these people are familiar with our Salvation Army operation.

But as the disaster wears on and becomes elongated, then the volunteers seem to fall off. I don't think it's as much quality as it has been quantity and longevity of the volunteer force.

GWEN IFILL: Maj. Gen. Rodriguez, let's talk about evacuation for a moment. We have heard the mayor of Houston. We've heard the governor of Texas, every local official and the president of the United States urge people to leave, urge people to evacuate. Does the National Guard play a role or is it prepared for any kind of resistance to that evacuation order? Are people leaving?

MAJ. GEN. CHARLES RODRIGUEZ: Yes, people are leaving. Just as an example, two of our general officers in the National Guard are moving their families tonight as we speak. It's the prudent thing to do. And that means that there will be less people who may have difficulties and need emergency assistance after the storm.

GWEN IFILL: What happens if people choose not to leave as happened in some cases in Louisiana?

MAJ. GEN. CHARLES RODRIGUEZ: Two things: One, they either weather it or they suffer the consequences. It all depends on Mother Nature and how severe it hits their area.

GWEN IFILL: And also back to the same question to you, Dr. Stobo. One of the interesting things we saw that happened after the hurricane hit in Louisiana was the health outcomes, that no one had seemed to take as much into account.

How are you preparing for the unexpected or the expected health outcomes from a potentially very lethal flood?

DR. JOHN STOBO: Well, we learned a lot from what happened after Katrina or what was possible to happen. And we have health personnel on site who will actually stay through the hurricane and be prepared to deal with the aftermath and the recovery. We have about a thousand individuals who we initially thought would have to stay and work with us to provide healthcare to the patients, but since we've been able to evacuate so many patients, we've been able to decrease that number of employees considerably.

But we will have people here to take care of the 70-some-odd patients that remain in the hospital as well as to provide healthcare to emergency workers and others in Galveston that are going to be needed for our emergency room and our trauma center.

GWEN IFILL: And, also, I should point out Galveston is a little different topographically than New Orleans is, and so you're preparing differently perhaps?

DR. JOHN STOBO: Well, Galveston will flood with the storm surge and the rain but it will drain very quickly. And we have sufficient fuel to fuel our emergency generators for a little over three days. Certainly the island will drain within that time. And we can decide in that period of time whether we will have to evacuate further or whether we will be able to get additional supplies to continue to provide healthcare to the remaining patients as well as others who come to the facility.

GWEN IFILL: Gentlemen, thank you all and our best to you.

DR. JOHN STOBO: Thank you.

FOCUS - HISTORIC FLOOD

JIM LEHRER: With Rita comes memories of the deadliest natural disaster in American history. And Jeffrey Brown has that story.

JEFFREY BROWN: Sept. 8, 1900: The day a Category 4 storm hit Galveston, then a city of about 38,000, and one the most prosperous in Texas. After the storm, between six and ten thousand people were dead, and more than three quarters of the city were completely destroyed. Elizabeth Hayes Turner wrote about it all as co-author of "Galveston and the 1900 Storm." She's a professor of history at the University of North Texas, and joins us from Dallas.

Professor Turner, we just saw the citizens of Galveston today have warnings. They have evacuations underway. What was it like for people back then as that storm approached?

ELIZABETH HAYES TURNER: It was very different. Isaac Klein was chief of the weather bureau at Galveston. His only contact was by telephone or by telegraph with the U.S. Weather Service in Washington D.C. And at that time, there was no ship-to-shore communication. So they had to rely on land reports coming from Cuba.

The earliest reports came about Sept. 4. They weren't very seriously taken from Cubans who gave a devastating report of what was happening on their island. So the U.S. Weather Bureau reported to Klein that we see a tropical storm commencing. It's coming your way. But it wasn't until Sept. 7 that it started to look worrisome.

The way warnings were communicated in 1900 was by the weather bureau chief putting a flag up on top of the levee building indicating that a serious storm was about to approach. Isaac Klein claimed in his later reports that he went along the beach and he warned people to leave the island. But he of course would have to stay because he was responsible for seeing it through the storm.

JEFFREY BROWN: So a lot has changed in that way.

ELIZABETH HAYES TURNER: Absolutely.

JEFFREY BROWN: Give us a picture of Galveston then before the storm, this prosperous town.

ELIZABETH HAYES TURNER: It was the entrepot of Texas. It was the main port through which the commerce of Texas came and went. There were beautiful mansions created by wealthy citizens who had made their money out of either cotton exporting or cotton pressing and shipping, of course.

JEFFREY BROWN: Tell us then what happened with the storm. Give us,... if you could, paint us a picture of the devastation.

ELIZABETH HAYES TURNER: The storm began to surge around noon on Saturday, Sept. 8. And it was at that point that residents closest to the shore began to panic, not panic exactly but get out of their homes, move to safer, higher grounds and safer structures. Now higher ground wasn't very high. It was only nine feet high at the highest point on the island. But those that did not leave their homes, who felt that their homes were seaworthy enough, sadly many of those died because the storm surge was 15 feet and the winds were probably in the neighborhood of 130 miles per hour.

The houses closest to the shore were demolished first by the waves and the wind and they served as battering rams to the houses behind them until finally, a whole 1500-acre stretch of land near the coast was absolutely wiped clean of homes. Those structures then ended up in a 30-foot, three-mile pile of debris down the middle of the island. That pile of debris actually protected parts of the interior of the city, the part where many of the wealthier homes were. So what emerged out of the storm was then a civic elite who could lead the city into its recovery.

JEFFREY BROWN: Let's talk or tell us a little bit about that recovery. How quickly could it take place? And what was different about the Galveston that was built?

ELIZABETH HAYES TURNER: It did not take place very rapidly. In fact, it was days before there was sufficient communication between the mainland and the island. All of the means of communication were gone. The railroad bridges were washed away. So people had to cross the bay in boats. The rescue efforts began as soon as they heard the news on very early Monday morning. And Houstonians brought in about 100,000 gallons of water in car trains as well as supplies and a volunteer force of about 250 rescuers to come on the island.

By Sept. 13, it was clear that martial law had to be declared on the island because of looting and because of civilians killing each other over the aspect of looting. So the mayor brought in the Texas militia. Martial law was declared. The militia men arrived. They set up tents for the homeless along the beach.

A couple of days later, Sept. 17, Clara Barton arrived with the Red Cross and with eight members of her team began to set up a distribution and warehouse center in the commercial district. I would like to say that Clara Barton's influence on the recovery was very great. There were several things that she could do for the catastrophe. One, she served as a magnet. People sent money and goods in kind to Clara Barton because they trusted her and they knew her work.

The second thing that she did was to elevate middle class white women on the island to official roles within the emergency civic structure. She demanded that they become co-chairs of all the wards where relief was given out because she said these women had been doing these relief efforts anyway for years. Why not make it official? So white women were elevated to the role of political entities at that point.

JEFFREY BROWN: Professor, just briefly because we only have a few seconds left here. I just want to ask you in the long term, Galveston, I gather, missed out on the oil boom that was taking place and was really never quite the same that it had been before?

ELIZABETH HAYES TURNER: Spindle Top was a phenomenon in 1901. Galveston was in its recovery stage at that point. And the wharfage on the island is limited so the oil refining business ended up in Houston. After 1914 Houston dredged a deep water port giving access to sea going ships. And they by-passed Galveston so its recovery... in its recovery it missed the oil boom.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Elizabeth Hayes Turner, thank you very much.

ELIZABETH HAYES TURNER: Thank you.

FOCUS - ON THE EDGE

JIM LEHRER: Now, the escalating violence and strife in Iraq. We begin with a report narrated by Spencer Michels.

SPENCER MICHELS: The chants and banners in the streets of Basra made it clear: No to occupation and British aggression. This group was protesting Monday's raid by British troops to free two undercover British soldiers who had been arrested and held by Iraqi forces for shooting local police.

SPOKESMAN (Translated): We demand that the two British terrorists should be handed over to the Iraqi authorities and ordered to be put on Iraqi trial.

SPENCER MICHELS: British troops decided to use force to free the two soldiers after fearing they had been transferred into the hands of militants. There are increasing concerns in southern Iraq that members of Shiite militias are also members of the new local police forces. The situation in Basra points to a broader fear that new Iraqi security forces have also been infiltrated by Sunni militants. Iraq's national security advisor told the BBC yesterday our Iraqi security forces in, I have to admit, that they have been penetrated by some of the insurgents.

Basra is just one of many Iraqi cities to see a surge of violence in the past week. It began after the U.S. launched an offensive against insurgents in the northern town of Taliphar. The ten-day operation was led by Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops. In Washington yesterday, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said the insurgents were on the run.

DONALD RUMSFELD: The people of Taliphar were liberated from the grip of insurgents and foreign extremists who had tried to turn the city into a base of planning operations and training. A number of insurgents were caught fleeing the city dressed in women's clothing, hardly a sign of a confident group supported by the citizenry.

SPENCER MICHELS: But one week ago more than a dozen suicide bombs went off around Baghdad, killing 160 people and wounding more than 500, marking the bloodiest day in the capitol since the war began.

Al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility and said it was in response to the Taliphar offensive. One day later a suicide car bomber drove himself to a convoy of police vehicles in the Dora District of Baghdad; 21 people died.

This weekend a remote-controlled car bomb tore apart this Shiite market on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, leaving more than 30 dead and scores more wounded.

SPOKESMAN (Translated) I was here when the blast took place. I saw dead and injured people scattered on the ground. I saw a man whose head was blown up and cut into two halves.

SPENCER MICHELS: Americans have also fallen victim to the upsurge in violence. Yesterday in Mosul, four members of a diplomatic convoy were killed by a car bomb.

JIM LEHRER: And to two former U.S. Middle East intelligence officials. Wayne White covered the region during his 30 years at the State Department, until earlier this year. He's now an adjunct scholar at the Middle East institute. And Reuel Gerecht was a CIA Middle East officer from 1985 to 1994. He's now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. First, the specific situation between the British and the police in Basra, how do you see that situation? What's going on down there?

REUEL GERECHT: Well, it's not clear. I mean, it appears the British had some type of operation that these two individuals were engaged in some type of either intelligence mission, and it went awry. I mean, we were talking about it earlier that apparently they got caught at checkpoints. They didn't want to stop. And there was gunfire and they finally ended up being arrested. And obviously the British didn't want to take the chance that these individuals would be hurt.

I think what you're looking at now really is sort of the blow- back, I think, in part from the British very light-handed management style down in Basra. It's even lighter than the Americans have had in the North. And you also have competition now amongst these various Shiite militias, them trying to gain a position of power. It's a fairly wide open town.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that? Is it an isolated thing just related directly to the situation with the British and the Iraqis in Basra or is it part of the total insurgent violent situation?

WAYNE WHITE: Well, I would agree that it's more generalized, Jim. Throughout the Shia South, which has been more quiet than Sunni-Arab areas we've heard much more about or Baghdad which is....

JIM LEHRER: A lot of the recent violence has been in Baghdad.

WAYNE WHITE: Exactly. In the South there are a lot of... there's a lot of competition between militias. Much of the police in the South and in various towns is actually loyal to various militias. And I think one aspect of this that's disturbing and confirms this is that the British probably don't fully trust the police because of their connections.

JIM LEHRER: Well, do you agree that the British light touch has come back to hurt them a little bit? Should they have been tougher against these folks to begin with? They've been there two-and-a-half years now.

WAYNE WHITE: Exactly. It gets into the issue of militias. The British have been given a sector which is easier to occupythan areas further north. But what we're finding out through this incident is that even Shia very deeply resent occupation and that there are tensions just below the surface even in the South.

The whole issue of militias here is critical. Throughout the country, militias have not been taken down as they were supposed to be, in part because security has been inadequate and they've been needed to supplement more regularized security. They've even been used unwisely, I believe, in some of our operations against Sunni-Arab strongholds in northwestern Iraq.

And when you use Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia militia in those engagements, you're basically fostering even greater tensions along ethnic sectarian lines.

JIM LEHRER: Some people are suggesting that they take these incidents and they add them with other things and the strife over the constitution and other things and they look at the horizon and they see a civil war coming. What do you see when you look at the horizon?

REUEL GERECHT: I mean, I don't think we're at the civil war point. I don't think we're on the precipice. There are problems. I mean when you still look at Iraq what strikes me is actually how limited the revenge killings have been. You're certainly seeing an increase but when you consider how enter mixed the Sunni and Shiite communities are particularly in the central lands and in Baghdad and you think about the violence that has been directed towards the Shiites, towards the Kurds and if you think about how....

JIM LEHRER: You mean in the history of violence.

REUEL GERECHT: In the sense... since the fall of Saddam Hussein and then also during Saddam's rule, you would have thought particularly how important the light motif of revenge is in Iraqi society that you would have seen a lot more communal violence, sectarian strive.

You haven't actually seen that. The center has more or less held, I think, in all three of the major communities. However, it is certainly true that the constant pounding that you've seen of the Shiite community by the Jihadists, the undiminished insurgency, I would disagree with Secretary Rumsfeld. I do not think we have the insurgents on the run. It is taking a toll. Something could crack. It's possible. But we're not there yet.

JIM LEHRER: How do you read it?

WAYNE WHITE: Pretty much the same. I would like to add that a number of military commanders have said recently something very correct.

JIM LEHRER: U.S. military commanders?

WAYNE WHITE: U.S. military commanders, that the insurgency cannot be taken down militarily. It must... the solution must be political. And on a political front, we're only moving forward in fits and starts and in some areas not at all. So that's very, very distressing.

JIM LEHRER: But is the constitution and the political problems with the constitution and getting at the vote coming on Oct. 15, is that also motivating some of this new violence?

REUEL GERECHT: Perhaps. I mean, I would dissent a little bit. I think the American military sometimes is giving it an easy way out. I think much of the American military has not wanted to engage in a counterinsurgency campaign if for no other reason is we don't have enough troops on the ground.

I don't think -- the notion that you're going to get a political solution to the Sunni insurgency I think is a bit overstated. I don't think it's possible to have that political solution unless you have an active counterinsurgency campaign where the Americans actually try to occupy the ground and ensure that cities remain clean of insurgents. We haven't seen that. So far the Pentagon has gone has shown no desire to go in that direction.

JIM LEHRER: Do you....

WAYNE WHITE: I think that one of the main problems is that we do not have enough troops in country. As we've seen with Katrina, to go back to your lead story-- and I hope I'm wrong but maybe Rita as well-- there's a pressure to even pull troops out of Iraq with the constitutional referendum coming up.

Remember, the last election, we couldn't secure parts of the country and large areas of the Sunni heartland couldn't even vote. Now they were boycotting many of them so it didn't matter maybe then. Now they want to vote, many of them. Will they be ale to vote? I'm not so sure. I don't know whether we can secure a lot of the country for this upcoming referendum which will be very important.

JIM LEHRER: But the troop issues aside, just getting the Sunnis and the Shiites to agree that they have to agree eventually if they're going to have a future together in this country, no closer to that?

REUEL GERECHT: It's going to be very hard. One of the things that is obvious from the work up to the constitution is essentially the Shia and the Kurds decided to move on because they just couldn't make their peace over the constitution draft with the Sunni Arabs. And one thing we have to keep in mind is that the Sunni Arab delegates were under pressures that others weren't. They were under the pressure of being assassinated, you know, if they took back something that was less than something close to their maximalist demands.

JIM LEHRER: What do you see in the immediate future, more of this? There's been a drum beat. We've reported it here night after night after night particularly the last couple of weeks. Is there more of this to come between now and Oct. 15, and then it will stop and there will be something else will happen? Do you have... what's your crystal ball say?

REUEL GERECHT: I would say you're going to continue to see a pretty high level of violence. I don't foresee the Shiite community cracking and starting to shoot each other. There's an enormous amount of animosity there. And if that were to happen --

JIM LEHRER: You mean within....

REUEL GERECHT: Within the groups. I mean, the three principal groups here, the followers of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr or the Mahdi Army, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party, they all don't really like each other very much. And there are differing reasons for that, some of them quite profound but I don't see them going into a state of war with each other.

If that were to happen then Iraq I think is finished. But I think you're going to continue to see the, certainly the insurgency continue. And until you see a change of tactics in the way we handle that insurgency, I don't expect this to diminish.

JIM LEHRER: What about you? What do you see in the future, the immediate future?

WAYNE WHITE: In the immediate future more violence particularly in the lead up to the referendum which will interfere with the vote. And beyond that as we move on to a new government, we will also see surges of violence as the insurgents try to tear down what's being built up. I would like to make a comment about intra-factional fighting in the Shia South and in the Kurdish North - that even once, if this works and we get some kind of federated system, we could then see a rise in in-fighting in the various regions.

The model for that is the 1996 breakdown which was total in the Kurdish North where the Talibani forces, the Popular Front of Kurdistan and Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party went at each other full bore, calling on Iranian and Iraqi support. This could happen again once a common enemy is removed.

JIM LEHRER: The common enemy and then they each want to flex their own muscles that they have newly acquired? Is that what you're suggesting that could happen?

WAYNE WHITE: Yes. Exactly. Within their own areas once the national issue was settled one way or another and that could be failure or success. We could see a rise in in-fighting within the various regions even amongst Sunni Arabs between old Saddamists, you know, former regime elements and religious, you know, militants.

JIM LEHRER: Meanwhile the insurgency continues to grow in strength?

REUEL GERECHT: I don't think it's going to diminish. You're not going to get a political quick fix to this. Not amongst the Sunnis. You've got to remember the political process is primarily there for the Shia community. It keeps the Shia community on course. It keeps the moderate elements in play. I think for the Sunni insurgency you're going to have to have a much more aggressive counterinsurgency campaign. And that doesn't seem to be on the horizon because Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld doesn't seem to want it.

JIM LEHRER: Okay. Thank you both very much.

FOCUS - ABLE DANGER

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, Able Danger and what it knew before 9/11. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Eighteen months before the Sept. 11 attacks a since disbanded intelligence unit code named Able Danger identified 60 foreign terror suspects inside the United States. On that list were four of the subsequent 9/11 hijackers including Mohammed Atta, the alleged ring leader of the attack who flew the first plane into the World Trade Center. However, attempts by "Able Danger" team members to share their information with the FBI in February of 2000 were blocked by Pentagon lawyers.

The story of "Able Danger" first came to light in a New York Times story last month but attempts this morning by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter to find out why the information wasn't shared hit several dead ends. At the start of an investigative hearing Specter questioned whether the federal Posse Comitatus Act might have come into play.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: That is a statute which was enacted shortly after the Civil War which prevents the United States military from being engaged in law enforcement activities. If the Posse Comitatus Act precluded this information from being turned over by the Department of Defense to the FBI, then that is a matter which may require amendments to the Act.

KWAME HOLMAN: Specter had hoped to hear today from former Able Danger team members themselves. Army Reserve Col. Tony Schaeffer was a liaison to the Able Danger unit from the Defense Intelligence Agency. J.D. Smith was a civilian analyst on contract. Yesterday, however, the Pentagon notified Schaeffer, Smith and several others that permission to testify was denied.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: It looks to me as if it may be obstruction of the committee's activities, something we will have to determine.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Pennsylvania Congressman Kurt Weldon did testify, a senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, it was Weldon who first helped members of Able Danger, Smith included, tell their story to the media.

REP. CURT WELDON: He was prepared to state as he told us that he had an Able Danger chart with Mohammed Atta identified on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base until DOD Investigative Services removed it. He was prepared to discuss the extensive amount of data collected about al-Qaida underscoring the fact that Able Danger was never about one chart or one photograph but rather was and is about massive data collected and assembled against what Madeleine Albright declared to be in 1999 an international terrorist organization. He too has been silenced.

KWAME HOLMAN: Speaking on behalf of Col. Schaeffer, Washington lawyer Mark Zaid said there was confusion among some in the Pentagon at the time whether the Army was compiling information about U.S. citizens.

MARK ZAID: Those within Able Danger were confident they weren't compiling information on U.S. persons. They were potentially people connected to U.S. persons. Again I said they never identified Mohammed Atta in the United States. Apparently the problem that came up was on the chart where his image was he was listed under Brooklyn, New York or something to that effect. It had Brooklyn. Those within the Army either in the legal level or some of the policy levels were apparently showing apprehension and concern that somehow that was then linking to data compilation of U.S. persons.

KWAME HOLMAN: And former Army Major Erik Kleinsmith said he was directed by a Pentagon lawyer to destroy the information citing Army regulations to prevent the military from compiling data about U.S. citizens.

ERIK KLEINSMITH: Soft and hard copy was deleted or destroyed.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Did part of that involve operations within the United States?

ERIK KLEINSMITH: No specific operation in the United States, only a presence that was known. We were unable to get to the details for the specific persons or information in the United States before we were shut down.

KWAME HOLMAN: William Dugan, assistant secretary of defense, tried to explain the delicate nature of domestic intelligence gathering.

WILLIAM DUGAN: I guess I wish to convey to the committee that U.S. person information is something that we are skittish about in the Defense Department. We follow the rules strictly on it. We want to do the right thing and follow the attorney general guidelines.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Mr. Dugan, Mohammed Atta was not a U.S. citizen was he?

WILLIAM DUGAN: Based on what I've read in the press since Sept. 11, 2001, I don't believe he was.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Mr. Dugan, you're the acting assistant secretary of defense for intelligence oversight. Can't you give us a more definitive answer to a very direct and fundamental and simple question like was Mohammed Atta a U.S. person?

WILLIAM DUGAN: No, he was not.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: We're dealing with the intelligence gathering data of the Department of Defense and prima facie reason is to believe and that had that information been shared and the FBI was trying to get it, 9/11 might have been prevented. I hope you'll go back and talk to the secretary and tell him that the American people are entitled to some answers.

KWAME HOLMAN: Responding elsewhere in the capitol this afternoon, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the Senate Intelligence Committee has jurisdiction over the Able Danger matter and that he has offered that committee a closed door briefing.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: Hurricane Rita strengthened into a Category 5 storm, with winds of 165 miles an hour. It could make landfall along the central Texas coast on Saturday. Thousands of people poured out of Galveston, Texas, under a mandatory evacuation order. And the U.S. House overwhelmingly approved $6 billion in tax breaks to help Gulf coast residents recover from Katrina. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening.I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.