The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. The assault on Baghdad, we have the day's developments; excerpts from a Rumsfeld-Myers briefing at the Pentagon; analysis from Gardiner, Lang, and Davis of our retired colonel corps; the story of two U.S. Air Force personnel and their mission in Iraq; and a Paul Solman homefront report on the war and the economy.

JIM LEHRER: U.S. forces reached the edge of Baghdad today, amid continued fighting across Iraq. Kwame Holman has our war news roundup.

THE WAR WITH IRAQ

KWAME HOLMAN: American troops in frontline units faced twin enemies-- the Iraqis and temperatures that reached 90 degrees. The heat was made worse by the need to use chemical suits, and at least three soldiers collapsed from heat exhaustion. But the advance continued, as pressure mounted on the Iraqi capital. The U.S. Third Infantry Division seized the Saddam International Airport on the southwestern outskirts of the city according to news agency reports. Armored units pushed to within six miles of the Iraqi capital meeting little resistance. U.S. Military officials said some American troops now were closer to their target than many American commuters are to their jobs. Inside Baghdad, large sectors were thrust into darkness tonight when the electricity went down for the first time during the war. At the Pentagon, joint chiefs chairman Gen. Richard Myers said U.S. forces weren't to blame.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: In terms of the power, central command has not targeted the power grid in Baghdad.

REPORTER: So you don't know why the power might have gone off?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: At this point we do not; CENTCOM is looking at that themselves.

KWAME HOLMAN: ABC News broadcast images of bus loads of Iraqi civilians and soldiers leaving Baghdad and surrendering to U.S. troops in central Iraq. The U.S. did take on a major Iraqi leadership target today. About 50 miles west of Baghdad, special operations forces raided one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces, officials said. Brigadier Gen. Vincent Brooks showed videotape of the mission.

BRIGADIER GEN. VINCENT BROOKS: It is a known residence that is used by Saddam Hussein and his sons. They did take fire on entry from anti-aircraft artillery. Near the entry point of the compound itself, the helicopter was put down on the ground. An aerial gunship provided some support, as required. You can see the movement in the upper corner entering into the building that was just blown open. The raid did not yield any regime leaders in this case, but documents were taken that will be valuable for intelligence, and they will be examined further.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Iraq's information minister continued to deny reports of coalition success.

MOHAMMED SAEED AL-SAHHAF: They are not even 100 miles, or whatever, they are not in any place. They are on the move, everywhere. They are a snake moving in the desert, they hold no place in Iraq.

KWAME HOLMAN: There also continued to be reports of Republican Guard fighters from four divisions heading south from city to meet the U.S. Advance. New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins is with marines near Aziziyah about 20miles southeast of Baghdad.

DEXTER FILKINS: Today we crossed the Tigris River on a marine-built pontoon bridge that they had built the night before so it was pretty impressive. We got on Highway 6 and just started driving north. I have to say that it's the first time in slugging it out here that I felt that Baghdad was just on the horizon. We were tearing down the road at 40 miles an hour, and the tanks were going 40 miles an hour and they're throwing pieces of tread all over the place. We're just racing along. The other thing that was just really amazing today were just lots... hundreds and hundreds of Iraqis streaming out... streaming south, I should say, out of various cities, out of Baghdad as well, coming south and invariably, you know, honking their horns and waving and cheering and waving flags and people on the streets doing the same. When all these Iraqis today saw, you know, whatever it is-- my gosh, 800 vehicles rumbling up the road, tanks and everything else-- it was clear to them the United States is serious this time and is going to get rid of this guy. So what we witnessed today was just an outpouring of, you know, joy. And at the same time on the horizon there's gigantic clouds of smoke and fire and helicopter gun ships and tanks and American tanks engaged, firing. They passed through a town today called Azizyah -- there were what some of the soldiers believed to be the front end of the division of the Omida Division of the Republican Guard. There was a lot of fighting today. You know, they were dispatched pretty quickly. I must say that all along the way for the past several days, there's been these little sort of pin pricks really that don't amount to much more than that, guys fire a few shots and the U.S. trains their guns on them and it's over in a couple of minutes. But this was real today. I mean, this was a big fight. I don't know if there was any artillery on the Iraqi side, but there was some actually because I saw them dragging it out. This was a real fight. There were some people in there. I saw some... at the end of the day a Medivac helicopter coming out probably with some American casualty heading back towards the American base.

KWAME HOLMAN: There was another marine battle south of Baghdad in Kut on the Tigris River, there was another marine battle. One American reportedly was killed during the firefight, another in an accident. U.S. Officials say some Republican Guard soldiers gave themselves up in Kut.

BRIGADIER GEN. VINCENT BROOKS: We know that we had a bus, for example, near al Kut this morning-- actually, just off to the west of it-- a bus that approached. And I believe the number was 53 members of the Republican Guard said, "we've had enough. We surrender." And so there are surrenders that are ongoing as well. We've captured enemy prisoners of war as a result of combat action.

KWAME HOLMAN: Near Karbala, two U.S. aircraft went down. The navy launched a search today for an FA-18 and its pilot, and at least six Americans were killed when an army Blackhawk helicopter crashed last night. And an F-15 may have fired mistakenly on American soldiers killing one and injuring several others. Amid other reports of possible friendly fire incidents, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld addressed the issue at the Pentagon today.

DONALD RUMSFELD: There have been friendly fire incidents in every war in the history of mankind. It's... there are portions of this battle space that are enormously complex, and human beings are human beings. And things are going to happen. And it's always been so, and it will beso this time. It's always sad and tragic, and your heart breaks when people are killed or wounded by blue- on-blue fire.

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: We'll have to investigate each one of them, see if it was a breakdown in our techniques, our procedures, or if there was a technical breakdown that we have to shore up, and we can do that.

KWAME HOLMAN: In Najaf, a Shiite leader urged Iraqis not to get in the way of U.S. forces as they secured the town. Still, hundreds of demonstrators confronted the soldiers as they moved toward the town's mosque, one of the world's most revered Shiite Muslim shrines. And British troops made their deepest drive yet into the city of Basra, fighting within four miles of the city center. They captured a factory where Iraqi militia had been spearheading resistance. In northern Iraq today, Kurdish forces continued to push forward toward Mosul. They captured one town, but Iraqi resistance began to stiffen. Julian Manyon of Independent Television News is traveling with the Kurdish fighters.

JULIAN MANYON: U.S. jets are pounding Iraqi troops on the road to Mosul. The Iraqis are being ordered to stand and fight after yesterday's retreat, but they are taking terrible punishment. Earlier we advanced on foot towards Mosul, which is part of Saddam's heartland. We followed a unit of Kurdish peshmerga through miles of territory which the Iraqi army has abandoned. With us, a half a dozen U.S. Special Forces soldiers who, for a time, were hopeful that the enemy had pulled out altogether.

JULIAN MANYON: So what's your procedure when you get off to a place like this?

SOLDIER: Well, usually we sneak up to it at dark in the middle of the night. But seeing how the peshmerga pretty much secured the whole high ground here, we're just going to walk up a bit farther. And they're moving.

JULIAN MANYON: We just heard a shot over there.

SOLDIER: Yeah.

JULIAN MANYON: The Iraqis were a few hundred miles ahead of us when they opened fire.

SOLDIER: Right there. Right there. ( Gunfire )

JULIAN MANYON: Soldiers and journalists dived for cover and the peshmerga rapidly began to fire back. ( Gunfire ) the troop situation here on the road to Mosul. Up to just a few minutes ago, we were walking calmly down the road with a few members of the U.S. Special forces. Then our position was fired upon. Since then both U.S. troops and Kurds have gone into action as you can see behind me taking over former Iraqi army position and opening fire are what they believe are enemy positions further ahead. Kurdish and American troops began to move forward towards the enemy. Iraqi troops fired back from behind a low hill, and their mortar rounds began to land nearby. We took cover. ( Explosions )

SOLDIER: Roger, grid 7-0.

JULIAN MANYON: The Americans called in air strikes and the jets screamed in. But tonight, the Iraqis are still holding out on the road to Mosul.

KWAME HOLMAN: Pres. Bush declared today "the vice is closing" on the Iraqi regime. He spoke to thousands of marines and their family members at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. At least 13 marines from there have been killed during the war, the most of any U.S. Military base. Mr. Bush took note of that in his remarks.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: There is a tradition in the corps that no one who falls will be left behind on the battlefield. ( Cheers and applause ) Our country has a tradition as well: No one who falls will be forgotten by this grateful nation. We honor their service to America, and we pray their families will receive God's comfort and God's grace. ( Applause )

KWAME HOLMAN: Later, the president met with the families of five marines killed in the war. As of today, the U.S. Military's confirmed death toll was 52. That figure did not yet include at least nine soldiers and marines reported killed today. At least 16 U.S. troops still are missing, and seven are prisoners of war. The British military death toll remains 27; Iraq claimed as many as 1250 civilians killed and more than 5,000 injured; there were no figures on Iraqi military casualties, but the British said more than 9,000 Iraqis had been taken prisoner. A former American prisoner of war had surgery today at a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Army supply clerk Jessica Lynch was rescued Tuesday. She had suffered broken limbs and an injured back when her unit was ambushed on March 23. Today in Palestine, West Virginia, Gregory Lynch said his daughter was in good spirits and she said some of the early information about her condition was wrong.

GREGORY LYNCH, SR.: We have heard and seen reports that she has multiple gunshot wounds and knife stabbing. The doctor has not seen any of this. He looked for the gunshot wounds, for the knife stabbing, and there is no entry whatsoever.

KWAME HOLMAN: Lynch said he had not yet asked his daughter about her ordeal, but according to the Washington Post today, she put up a fierce fight even after being wounded. The report said Lynch shot several Iraqis, and kept firing until she ran out of ammunition. Military officials said they're still investigating the battle. Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Thanks, Kwame.

Secretary of State Powell put the European allies on notice today, that the United States must lead in rebuilding after the war. He met with members of NATO and the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, and addressed the postwar roles of the U.N. and NATO. Here is some of what he said.

COLIN POWELL: We all understand that the U.N. must play a role. The president has said so. He said it clearly. The nature of that role and how it is to be played remains to be seen. But one also has to remember that it was the coalition that came together and took on this difficult mission at political expense, at the expense of the treasure, the money that it costs, but at the expense of lives as well. And when we have succeeded, and when we look down the road to create this better life for the Iraqi people, to rebuild this society, to rebuild this country after these decades of devastation wrought by Saddam Hussein, I think the coalition has to play the leading role in determining the way forward. This is not to say that we have to shut others out, and not to say that we will not work in partnership with the international community, and especially with the United Nations.

BARRY SCHWEID, Associated Press: Mr. Secretary, that military job that you envision once Saddam Hussein is gone, will that benefit... would that benefit by the participation of NATO peacekeepers?

COLIN POWELL: At some point, the combat operation that is under way will transition into stability and security operations, and ultimately into other kinds of operations, and we will have to make an assessment at that time of what the needs are. I'm pleased that there was at least a receptive attitude here today, that NATO, as a group, is willing to consider a NATO military role, if one is appropriate, and that's a judgment that will have to be made at some time in the future. So we've begun a discussion within NATO. The important thing is that nobody raised any objection to that possibility.

JIM LEHRER: In response France insists the U.N. Must take the lead role in the reconstruction of Iraq. The foreign minister said the United Nations is the only international organization that can give legitimacy to this. In New York U.N. Secretary General Annan said only that the issue was under discussion. Russian Pres. Putin said today his country wants good ties with the United States despite strains over the war. The Russians opposed any U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, but Putin said cooperation with the U.S. on other issues is still in Russia's interest. The Bush administration has also complained that Russian military gear is reaching Iraq, possibly through Syria. Today U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said again Syria had failed to stop military shipments into Iraq. The Syrians have denied it.

FOCUS - ADVANCING ON BAGHDAD

JIM LEHRER: The possible assault on Baghdad was a major focus of today's major briefing. It was conducted this afternoon at the Pentagon by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Myers.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Let there be no doubt, the most dangerous fighting may very be ahead of us. And by its conduct in this war, the Iraqi regime has shown that there is no depth to the brutality to which they will not sink. The regime has been weakened, to be sure, but it is still lethal, and it may prove to be more lethal in the final moments before it ends. For the senior leadership, there is no way out. Their fate has been sealed by their actions. The same is not true for the Iraqi armed forces. Iraqi officers and soldiers can still survive and help to rebuild a free Iraq if they do the right thing. They must now decide whether they want to share the fate of Saddam Hussein, or whether they will... will they save themselves, turn on that condemned dictator, and help the forces of Iraq's liberation.

REPORTER: What can you tell us about what it appears the special Republican Guard and the other security organizations around Saddam Hussein appear to be doing in Baghdad now? These special organizations have special ways of approaching things that are not necessarily conventional.

DONALD RUMSFELD: No, that's right. I mean, we do worry about them, for example, attacking the Shia population in the east side of the city. They've done that type of thing before and then tried to blame it on other people. We've... they've apparently been involved in various incidents where they've tried to conduct the killing of innocent men, women, and children, particularly Shia, and blame it on coalition forces and that type of thing.

REPORTER: Gen. Myers, factoring in the air campaign that has taken out a lot of the Republican Guard divisions to the south, there are some U.S. Commanders who are expressing surprise at the lack of resistance that they're seeing as they're rolling to Baghdad. Is your perception that there is a tactic...

DONALD RUMSFELD: Who is expressing that?

REPORTER: Some commanders on the ground, from embedded reporters talking to them. Is there a tactic, do you feel, by the Iraqis to draw coalition forces into the city to try to do an urban warfare scenario?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Let me just say we talked about... we've talked to... no. I think if you look at the way the combat is being conducted, we are... coalition forces are destroying most of the equipment associated with these Republican Guard divisions. A lot of the people have been killed. A lot of the people that come out after dark to attack our tanks, that might be a line in the shadows, the death squads and those sorts of folks, a lot of them have been killed as well. So it doesn't appear... we know that they're dispersing, sometimes with equipment, and our forces are smart enough to figure out that you don't want to get in where you could be enveloped somehow. So they're taking all that into account.

REPORTER: Gen. Myers, I wanted to take you back to the whole issue of urban warfare as it seems eminent there may be a conflict there. Can you give us a sense, the model you've used to gain in terms of the blend of lethal, non-lethal, how might it be different than this great urban conflict people have envisioned?

GEN. RICHARD MYERS: First of all, you never know how it's going to go out. The tactical situation could be very different from what we suppose. So I mean you're just going to have to be ready for lots of things. You have got a city of Baghdad, you have got about five million residents half of whom are Shia that have been persecuted by the regime -- probably will not be friendly to the regime. They're basically on the eastern half of the city. You would have to... you could assume that they might be helpful. When you get to the point where Baghdad is basically isolated, then what is the situation you have in the country? You have a country that Baghdad no longer controls, that whatever is happening inside Baghdad is almost irrelevant compared to what's going on in the rest of the country. What's going on in the rest of the country? You have the southern oil fields. We'll see about the north. You have the face now of a... by the time probably of an Iraqi administration, interim administration, some form of people standing up now starting to work the post conflict governance. It will take some time but you'll have that. So you're going to have Baghdad isolated. You're going to have half the population that probably wants nothing to do with the folks, the regime. You'll start working at it as you can. One of the things you can do is be patient about that. This notion of a siege and so forth I think is not the right mental picture.

REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, do you have any information that would lead you to believe that a third party, perhaps a foreign government such as France or Russia, might be encouraging what's left of Saddam's regime to just hang on in hopes of cutting some kind of a deal? And is there any deal available to them, short of their end?

DONALD RUMSFELD: The answer is yes and no. There's no question but that some governments are discussing from time to time, some sort of a... cutting a deal. And the inevitable effect of it, let there be no doubt, is to give hope and comfort to the Saddam Hussein regime, and give them ammunition that they can then try to use to retain the loyalty of their forces with hope that one more time maybe he'll survive, one more time maybe he'll be there for another decade or so, for another seventeen or eighteen U.N. resolutions. And as to the second question, there's not a chance that there's going to be a deal. It doesn't matter who proposes it, there will not be one.

REPORTER: Sir, is the escape scenario for Saddam Hussein now off the table with the unconditional surrender language you're using? And Gen. Myers, is the...

DONALD RUMSFELD: The ultimatum was 48 hours. It expired a week and a half ago.

REPORTER: But after that, there was still some talk from the administration about you'd still welcome a scenario where he went off to Algeria or wherever.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Who said that?

REPORTER: I was under the understanding that the administration would still have accepted his departure to shorten the war, to end the war, even after the ultimatum expired, even would facilitate it.

DONALD RUMSFELD: There's not much we can do about it. If he's able to get out of the country, he's out of the country. But if you're asking are we still encouraging him to leave, the answer is no. And I don't know who in the administration would have said that.

JIM LEHRER: And to our nightly analysis of the military situation, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on the coming battle for Baghdad, we hear from two of the NewsHour's retired colonel corps. Former army Special Forces officer and Middle East intelligence analyst W. Patrick Lang, and former air force operations planner Sam Gardiner. Joining them is former marine lieutenant colonel Dale Davis. He's held air defense and counterintelligence posts in the Middle East, the Gulf, and North Africa. He's now director of international programs, and also teaches Arabic, at the Virginia military institute. Well, today the secretary of defense said forces are closer to the center of the Iraqi capital than many American commuters are from their downtown offices.

Sam Gardiner, what does the way they've gotten there tell you about how they plan to approach this final phase of the conflict?

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: Well, it's interesting, Ray. I think that the last day the movement was much faster than anybody had expected. The Baghdad division, the Medina Division, didn't seem to hold up. Now what that tells me about the way they may fight is, there are sort of two options available. One of them is what some have called tactical patience, which means we're going to do this slowly and methodically and not take casualties. The other one, if this situation is the way it has unfolded to this point, we might see a rush towards the center of Baghdad taking some symbolic places in the center of the city and declaring victory, not that we would have controlled the city but that sort of movement with the notion we've sort of had all along that if you do that, the place would come apart, the regime would fall apart. People would surrender. So although this may have been -- this tactical patience may have been what we went in with, it could very well... we could very well switch to this fast shock-moving option.

RAY SUAREZ: Dale Davis a short time ago on the on-line publication Inside Defense.Com a story moved quoting a senior U.S. Officer in the theater as saying they plan to use an array of air, ground and special operations attacks on selected Baghdad targets before land forces advance on the city. How do you do that?

LT. COL. DALE DAVIS: Well, it's very similar, in fact, to regular conventional operations outside of urban areas. But what's different is that the key terrain is no longer a hilltop or a river valley or a draw; it's specific locations within the city, usually buildings or symbolic structures. We have great technological advantage. We're going to have our special forces in there and perhaps more importantly we're going to develop a very... we're going to engage in a very intensive human intelligence effort to develop those target lists and then attack them to attrite them, so we're looking at where the artillery is, where those tanks are that are located close to civilian infrastructure and try to very delicately take them out with precision-guided weaponry. So we want to attrite those capabilities they have before we go in and seize this key terrain that exists inside the city.

RAY SUAREZ: You make it sound so easy - develop human intelligence. Where do you start getting the tips from? Do people start approaching U.S. forces?

LT. COL. DALE DAVIS: Hopefully-- and I am sure that, in fact, we do have developed some assets inside the city already-- you'll have your special forces operators in there, some CIA assets in there, you're going to have even tactical counterintelligence personnel moving around trying to develop relationships to gain the trust of the Iraqi people and then through a variety of means acquire information on where the bad guys are, who is good, who is bad, and then at the same time we're going to engage in some reconnaissance and force operations where we send a unit down a particular avenue of approach just to see where they meet resistance and develop an entire... put all those pieces together to develop a real picture of the urban battlefield.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: This is all true. And it would become truer and truer the longer the battle for Baghdad lasted. You're right about that because, you know, you scoop up a bunch of these civilians and you get to talk to them. One of them will tell you something about somebody. You bring him in and you talk to them and then they tell you something else -- kind of daisy chain this down the road to figure out what's going on. But I think the situation is actually going to develop faster than that. What we saw today I think is that these Republican Guard divisions were smashed badly by the air force and they had withdrawn as best they could into the environs of the city. The movement forward of the 37th Cav and the marines seemed to me as a combat intelligence guy seemed to be an advance against rear guard. You had groups of 10, 15, 20 people with small arms and light armored vehicle trying to delay the advance of our reconnaissance forces. They sold their lives dearly. If you listen carefully to this stuff today, there was a lot of fighting today on both axes and all sorts of dead I Iraqi soldiers and busted equipment and things like that. But, nevertheless our people moved forward on to the airport. We're real close to downtown now. I think the temptation is going to be very strong to go down these high speed avenues of approach and see some key terrain. You know, the telecommunications, the utilities, important government buildings and then see if the whole things collapses because it might be that it's going to collapse.

RAY SUAREZ: Let me quickly follow up on that because along with reports from the front about lots of dead Iraqis, as you say, there are also some front line commanders saying they rolled ahead after engaging the enemy and found that they didn't find the dead Iraqis that they expected to find there.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Yeah.

RAY SUAREZ: Now can units of the Republican Guard, once they've lost their effectiveness, once they've lost key officers, won they've lost their structure, fall back and reconstitute under new commanders inside new units that are further back into Baghdad?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Probably not very well. But they can sure try. You know, they could fall back-- you're right. They didn't find enough casualties in the front line. The dead Iraqis we're talking about were all people killed during the rear guard actions against our reconnaissance forces. They can fall back with infantry weapons and try to amalgamate themselves into the defense of the Baghdad area but it's gong to be a tough thing to make that a coherent defense in a crisis like this. If you keep pushing, they're apt to go down.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: Just a couple of points. I think I agree with Pat about it feels fragile despite the fact that we thought this would be such a tough battle, it just feels fragile.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: It does.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: I guess I want to sort of pick up on the point about one of the reasons bad guys pick cities-- and I guess I can say this as a air person-- is because the air power tends not to be as good in the cities. Over the history sort of warfare in the city, since the end of World War II, the average engagement is about 100 yards inside the city. That's when you see a bad guy and you begin to exchange fire. That is inside the danger zone of air-delivered weapons so that's why when you find that people say if you're going to take on the Americans do it in the city because our advantage tends to go down.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: You know, that's one of the unusual things about this war. In spite of the fact we've had such low casualties on our side. I don't mean to slight the dead in this. I would never do that. But, in fact, our losses have been pretty slim compared to the Iraqis who have lost men steadily all the way from Nasiriyah all the way up to this place. But we've lost so many men, it kind of obscures the fact that the Iraqis have fought continuously throughout this whole zone and at close range. Many of these engagements people were nose to nose. One tank commander was cited as having shot a couple men with his nine millimeter pistol right alongside his tank. These are remarkably close engagements by people who come right up to our armored vehicles.

LT. COL. DALE DAVIS: That level of commitment gives me some concern because we really haven't seen any of the Special Republican Guard. We know that they have prepared for the defense of Baghdad. How much they've been attrited is a huge question mark.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, one interesting story that moved on the wires this afternoon talked about the dispersion of Ba'ath Party resources all through Baghdad, sort of the equivalent almost of clubhouses in neighborhoods all over the city, each one heavily armed, each one, I guess a place that you could fall back to if you're fighting inside a neighborhood.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: The story sort of... it sounds as if they have picked some areas to defend. One of them was the airport, which is kind of hard to understand why because the advantage was to us out there. The other two are the western suburbs. Now this is where the fighting gets close and tight in the residential area. And then the other one is sort of at the suburbs beyond where the road from al Kut and from Karbala come together. There's suburbs there, and then finally sort of downtown where the government buildings are. So it's sort of... I think what you're seeing is that they are trying to strengthen the resistance in those areas.

RAY SUAREZ: Earlier in the program we saw videotape from an incursion into a presidential palace. There are a lot of things going on in Iraq that we haven't seen and we don't see. Why was it important for us to see American forces inside that building, Dale Davis?

LT. COL. DALE DAVIS: I'm not so sure it was so important for us to see that. It was very important for the Iraqis and the Arab world to see that because that was a direct affront to the potency of Saddam. In other words, we can come to your house any time we want and kick in the door. That image for the Arab and for the Iraqi demonstrates that Saddam's demise if it has not already occurred is imminent.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: You know, this thing down in Najaf with this Shia Ayatollah is also extremely important in a similar because Shiaism is the religion of the oppressed and those who wish to think themselves oppressed and the ayatollahs down there in Najaf are the symbols of resistance to oppression by the Sunni element of the population. If it is at all true that an ayatollah of that seniority is going to in fact endorse or say don't interfere with us on this thing, this will have a profound effect on the Shias in southern Iraq.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: I think what we will see in the fight for Baghdad is a continuation of this. There's a lot of discussion of what we've learned from the British in Basra. We've seen pictures that wherever there's a picture of Saddam Hussein, they knock it down, they go after the symbols as a symbol of the fact that we are eliminating the regime. So that's going to be a big part of the battle of Baghdad.

RAY SUAREZ: And the British are making camp inside Basra for the first time tonight. They've bedded down there. I guess they could sleep anywhere they want in that part of the country but bedding down in Basra becomes significant on what, a different plane, Dale Davis?

LT. COL. DALE DAVIS: Well, the fact that they're there, they're in control. That's just one more sign that the regime has gone. It's no longer capable of preventing them from exercising their will inside the city. It builds the confidence of the people.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: But we've got to not forget. I know that they had decided to go into Basra a week ago and it's taken them a week after the decision to go in before they were able to actually clear enough so they could go in.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: It's going to be tough to hold this place together after the fall of Baghdad because, you know, the Kurds now have an army. They have what amounts to a real state in the north. This is unheard of in Kurdish history practically. They have real and perhaps justified expectations of what their cooperation ought to mean for them as a people. Then the Shia as well. They're going to be willing to be in favor of us for now. But how are they going to feel about it afterwards when we don't want them to be too close to Tehran? These could be really serious problems afterwards.

LT. COL. DALE DAVIS: I would point out these loyalties change very quickly. The Shiites welcomed us in 1982 into Beirut, and within a year their loyalties changed drastically.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: All they have to do is get the idea that your interest and theirs no longer align and then the thing changes extremely fast.

RAY SUAREZ: One thing we're getting consistent reports of now friendly fire casualties at a much higher rate that happened in the Gulf War. After the Gulf War, commanders were said to be pretty upset about this and new technologies were pioneered to try to lower that rate. But we're still seeing it. Why?

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: I don't know that I can say why. Just a couple things, Ray. First, there's inning more painful than a friendly fire incident. As far as the ground forces are concerned, we've made a lot of technological progress. Leading units have on them infrared reflectors. They have flashers that appear on the radar of aircraft, so that knowing where a column is should be he's yes than it ever has been in any war before. So it's... you know, I mean, it's a problem that's been worked a lot. It's been worked hard. The other problem with the Patriots is somewhat of a puzzle. You know, there now have been three friendly fire incidents of Patriots, two where they've shot down, one, a British aircraft, and the other the FA-18 and another in which a Patriot radar was shot on, fired on by a U.S. aircraft. That's sort of baffling. Maybe it's because we're just working out the technology because that is a new technology -- certainly a new technology moving forward in the battlefield.

LT. COL. DALE DAVIS: As an old hawk missile officer, I can tell you that the process for identification friend or foe has progressed tremendously. This is perhaps now that we've seen three subsequent events, this is very likely to be some sort of a software glitch because the requirement on the human side, that's possible one time, maybe twice but not three in such a short period of time to misidentify an aircraft like that.

RAY SUAREZ: Gentlemen, we'll stop it there for tonight. But thanks a lot.

CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Next, a conversation with two Americans who are part of the air assault on Iraq. Tom Bearden has the story.

TOM BEARDEN: The Air Force's F- 15E strike eagles operate around the clock, in all kinds of weather. The basic F-15 is a single seat fighter designed to shoot down enemy aircraft. The E-model is a two seat variant designed to attack ground targets with precision-guided weapons. F-15s are a major part of the coalition air armada that central command credits with destroying two Republican Guard armored divisions defending Baghdad. Airman First Class Shannon Murphy and Major J.D.-- he doesn't want us to use his last name for security reasons-- are stationed at an undisclosed base in the Middle East. Murphy works in the command center, keeping track of every aircraft. J.D. is a weapons systems officer. He controls the strike eagle's weapons from the back seat.

TOM BEARDEN: What kind of targets have you been hitting?

MAJOR "J.D.": The targets vary. Sometimes, the first couple nights, were command and control, headquarters-type buildings, leadership, weapons of mass destruction. Concentrating more on the forward troops, like the Republican Guard, targeting tanks, artillery, triple-a pieces, armored personnel carriers, anything we can find, basically, out in the open. It's more of a threat to the army than it is to us, but obviously we want to take those parties out.

TOM BEARDEN: Using pretty much all precision weapons?

MAJOR "J.D.": Almost exclusively precision- guided munitions. In fact, I haven't employed anything that's not been precision yet.

TOM BEARDEN: How much does weather affect your operation?

MAJOR "J.D.": At times it does. Our aircraft is an all-weather aircraft. We're capable of delivering weapons through weather, but it does hamper some of our capabilities. It has an effect. The last couple of days the weather has been a lot better, and we've been able to push it up a little bit. The sandstorms played havoc, but I think it pretty much played havoc with the bad guys, too, so we're on track.

TOM BEARDEN: How much risk are you at when you do these missions?

MAJOR "J.D.": It varies. Sometimes some of the targets are a little bit more defended than some of the others. If you go to Baghdad, obviously that's a little bit higher threat. I was at Baghdad the first night, and there was quite a bit of fireworks there, more than I'd ever seen before, even including Desert Storm. But other targets aren't quite as defended, some of the targets a bit further south. However, there are some vital targets down there, and obviously you can see what the army and the marines are having to go through, and we're trying to help them as much as possible.

TOM BEARDEN: I'm surprised you saw so much flak over Baghdad, because the TV pictures this time are very different than last time.

MAJOR "J.D.": Right. The TV really doesn't do it justice because you can't see the entire panoramic view like you can looking out the cockpit. I know the first night of desert storm, the triple-a was a little bit heavier, but this time it was a little bit more intense because it was a little bit lower level, lower altitude. But it seemed to me there were a lot more air bursts, a lot more SAM tracks, not as much air activity, haven't seen a lot of that, but the triple-a was pretty thick.

TOM BEARDEN: SAMS is the acronym for surface-to-air missiles.

TOM BEARDEN: Did you think that the SAMS were under guidance, because there been some question about whether or not their control facilities have been knocked out.

MAJOR "J.D.": It varies. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, and we just have to deal with that with certain tactics in the way we go about that.

TOM BEARDEN: You think about getting shot down?

MAJOR "J.D.": Oh, sure. Everybody does. But you don't let it stick in your mind. You've got too many other things to worry about. You've got a wing man to worry about, you've got a flight lead to worry about, you've got the mission to worry about. You've got CDE, which is a big, big deal for us, making sure we're not hitting the wrong target, or hitting something we're not supposed to.

TOM BEARDEN: CDE means...?

MAJOR "J.D.": Collateral damage estimate, making sure that the target we're supposed to hit is not too close to a hospital or mosque or anything like that. You have too many things to worry about to let it bother you while you're in the air. It's usually on the ground you start thinking about it.

TOM BEARDEN: When you're on the ground, do you think about possibly being a POW?

MAJOR "J.D.": Sure, especially when you see some of the things we saw last week on TV. It worries you a little bit, but the training kicks in and takes over.

TOM BEARDEN: How long is a typical mission? How long will you be up in the air, refueling?

Is there a typical mission, I guess is the better question.

MAJOR "J.D.": No, there's not. They vary quite a bit. Some of the sorties we've flown have been up to ten hours long, depending on what you're doing, and other sorties have been as short as two and a half, three hours.

TOM BEARDEN: Ten hours is along time to sit in that seat, isn't it?

MAJOR "J.D.": Yes, sir, it is.

TOM BEARDEN: Major J.D. Is a veteran of several deployments to the region. But this is Airman Murphy's first. She says being separated from her husband is tough.

AIRMAN SHANNON MURPHY: I've been married for eight months today. My husband's also in the service. He's in Jacobabad, Pakistan, right now.

TOM BEARDEN: Do you get to talk to him very often?

AIRMAN SHANNON MURPHY: No. It is hard, but e-mail is nice. Thank god for technology. But he does e-mail when he can.

TOM BEARDEN: Do you worry about each other's safety?

AIRMAN SHANNON MURPHY: Yes, but knowing what I know, I feel pretty safe over here, and I know he's safe over there. Honestly, I'm more concerned about just getting this stuff done, because this is our ticket home. So once we get those guys up and back and our job's done, and we can go home and worry about that later, but right now it's just really intense with the job and the mission and everything else surrounding it, really.

TOM BEARDEN: Have you seen the television coverage of the demonstrations, the antiwar demonstrations worldwide, and if you have, what's your reaction to them?

AIRMAN SHANNON MURPHY: I've seen a couple, and they obviously upset me to some degree, and at the same time it's what we're defending. I mean, we can do that in our country; we don't have to hide it. You know, they televise it, for God's sake, so they put it over TV and radio, any way they can. And that's what we're pretty much here to defend, so it doesn't get taken away from us. I don't like it, but I have to support their views as well as mine.

TOM BEARDEN: In some small sense, though, do you feel, perhaps, personally betrayed?

AIRMAN SHANNON MURPHY: It depends. Everybody's got their own point of view. I mean, I have mine. I don't know about betrayed. That's kind of a harsh word, but it's just kind of sad. I don't think they really know what's going on. I don't think they really understand our motivation and our mission.

TOM BEARDEN: Both Murphy and J.D. Say the 9/11 attacks are a big reason they're willing to be here, despite the hardships.

AIRMAN SHANNON MURPHY: I'm stationed in Japan, and it was nighttime, and I watched it, and it puts a whole different sense into what you're doing and how, you know, a person as small as you is part of something so big, and making a difference. It's really quite amazing.

TOM BEARDEN: How about you?

MAJOR "J.D.": Absolutely. Sept. 11, I wound up flying what they call a noble eagle sortie now, combat air patrol over Atlanta for about six hours, and my only really regret is that I didn't get a chance to bomb Afghanistan. I'm happy to be here.

TOM BEARDEN: Do either of you make the connection between 9/11 and the Iraq conflict itself?

MAJOR "J.D.": I do.

TOM BEARDEN: Why do you make the connection?

MAJOR "J.D.": Mostly because of the weapons of mass destruction potential. What was demonstrated on Sept. 11, what basically terrorists are capable of, if they were ever able to put their hands on a weapon like that, what happened on Sept. 11 would basically be multiplied potentially tenfold. So were here to eliminate that.

TOM BEARDEN: Murphy was scheduled to go home this month, but both airmen have been notified that they'll be stationed in the region until the war is over.

SERIES - ON THE HOMEFRONT

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, another homefront report, our business correspondent Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston continues his looks at how the war is impacting the economy.

PAUL SOLMAN: Wednesday morning at Bank of America in Manhattan-- a trading floor we visited two months ago when the Dow was at 8,000. The explanation then: Not the risk of war, but the uncertainty surrounding it. And today?

MICKEY LEVY: There's still a huge uncertainty out there that you cannot put probabilities on outcomes and conditional outcomes. You just can't do it, so that uncertainty is still there.

PAUL SOLMAN: Bank economist Mickey Levy was still somewhat uneasy, as was an economist we brought with us, David Wyss of Standard & Poor's.

DAVID WYSS: We know what the risk is of having a war: 100 percent ( Laughter ) but there's still a lot of uncertainty about the outcome of that war and what happens next.

MICKEY LEVY: And that's why if you look back over the last couple months, the stock market has been volatile, but very choppy, and it really hasn't gone anywhere.

PAUL SOLMAN: In other words, though the stock market has swung by some 15 percent since our last visit, both up and down, it started the day just where it had been at the start of February. Within minutes though, the Dow was up more than 2 percent; oil prices dropping. To Mickey Levy, that was evidence for the cautious optimism he's now feeling.

MICKEY LEVY: Over the last couple days, what jumps out at me is the decline in oil prices, if they stick and if they fall a little lower-- unambiguously positive for the consumer; increases their disposal income and on business operations costs, margins, and profits.

PAUL SOLMAN: It could be, then, that the steep run-up in oil prices before the war had been slowing the economy, that the recent drop of more than 20 percent in the price of a barrel is about to help revive it. But as we've seen on other occasions, oil spurts and swoons for lots of reasons. Julian Barrowcliffe runs Bank of America's oil desk.

JULIAN BARROWCLIFFE: This was the euphoric period where everybody thought the whole thing would be over in 48 hours and it would be a cakewalk.

PAUL SOLMAN: Right. Right from here down to there, right?

JULIAN BARROWCLIFFE: This was the "oh, this is more complicated than it looks" reversal, okay? (Laughter ) where the market stopped falling and found its feet. This recent blip here is actually short-term problems in Nigeria. There were production outages in Nigeria because of strikes over there. And then the final thing that's really taken things down in the last two days is this SARS virus. It's really destroying demand for refined products-- things like jet fuel and so on-- particularly in the Far East. Nobody's traveling in the Far East.

PAUL SOLMAN: If oil moves on the very latest information, so do stocks. Ian Winer runs the NASDAQ desk, where prices were up almost 4 percent before noon.

IAN WINER: Nobody is really sure how to handle what's going on in the Middle East right now. And that's why you see these big moves one way or another, because people get so crowded one way or another, and all of a sudden something changes, and they're forced to react to that, and everybody reacts at the same time. And that's why you get moves like you had today.

PAUL SOLMAN: The NASDAQ jumping, the Dow up more than 200-- what was driving this mini-boom?

DAVID WYSS: All of it is based on a rumor. Everything is trading on the rumors that are coming out of the Middle East, not on what's happening to the economy or the fundamentals.

PAUL SOLMAN: Not all the news was positive, but Wyss' longer- term forecast is moderate to healthy growth later this year based on a stealth recovery in capital equipment spending already under way, helped by lower oil prices. Moreover, said Wyss, as we made a quick stop at the Times Square Toys R Us...

DAVID WYSS: Total consumer spending is doing okay. The saving rate is staying down around 4 percent. We're getting continued increases in consumer spending, slipping around month to month mostly with car sales, but people are still spending money. They are spending it a little bit on different things than they were a couple years ago.

PAUL SOLMAN: Especially on items for the home. On the street though, at Broadway's half-price ticket line, the signs weren't encouraging. Are you surprised at how short the line is?

WOMAN ON STREET: Very surprised. I remember when it used to snake around, even early in the morning. Just shocking to me.

PAUL SOLMAN: Wyss had to admit that right here, right now, the economic indicators were still pretty grim.

DAVID WYSS: We're now at a nine-year low on consumer confidence. People are scared. They're nervous.

PAUL SOLMAN: And they're not coming to New York. Ask any street vendor.

STREET VENDOR: Business is slow. And it certainly is off a couple of clicks from last year, definitely.

STREET VENDOR: Business is terrible.

PAUL SOLMAN: Terrible?

STREET VENDOR: Terrible, absolutely, yeah. What kind of reaction are you going to get every time you have a war? Good things happen to us while we're during a war? Of course not.

STREET VENDORE: I used to do $2,000 aday. Now I'm down to $200 a day. Tell me what happens. 9/11 killed us, and this finished us.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, unemployment has risen to 8.5 percent in New York City. And we could find only one worker who didn't complain about losing his shirt: The naked cowboy. How do you make money?

NAKED COWBOY: People put a dollar in my bib when they take my photo. Saturday was my best day yet: $1,435 in five hours.

NAKED COWBOY SINGING: 'Cause I'm the naked cowboy coming to a town near you I'm the naked cowboy coming to a town near you.

PAUL SOLMAN: From the ridiculous to the sublime. A sonata from Heinrich Biber from the 1670s, Andrew Parrot conducting. The relevance? Even nonprofits like the New York Collegium, rehearsing at riverside church, are hurting. Wyss, a board member here, says donations are down $200,000 on a budget of about a million.

DAVID WYSS: We're down about 20 percent probably on donations this year. Last year we got a lot of donations coming in even after Sept. 11 because I think there was a feeling, "let's show support for New York." This year that's died.

PAUL SOLMAN: Due in large part, says Wyss, to stock portfolios that are still down due to uncertainty about the war, of course, but also uncertainty about an economy that-- whatever else you can say about it-- doesn't look any too robust just at the moment.

JIM LEHRER: And today there were further signs of weakness. The Labor Department reported the number of people filing for unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level in nearly a year. And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 44 points to close at 8240. The NASDAQ fell less than one point to close below 1397.

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major war developments of this day, and to Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN:: U.S. troops reached the outskirts of Baghdad, fighting in 90-degree heat. Wire service reports said elements of the army's third infantry division had seized Saddam International Airport. After nightfall the lights went out in much of Baghdad but the U.S. Military said it had not bombed the city's power grid. And a U.S. plane and a helicopter went down near Karbala, possibly as a result of friendly fire. At least six Americans were killed. Elsewhere a U.S. plane reportedly fired on American soldiers killing one of them. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Thanks, Kwame. In non-Iraq war news today, U.S. planes attacked Taliban fighters in southeastern Afghanistan. About 60 rebels were holed up in a mountainous area near Spin Boldak. The air assault on their positions backed up a ground push by U.S. Special Forces and Afghan troops. An Afghan military commander said there was evidence the Taliban were getting more organized again. And before we go tonight, our continuing honor roll of U.S. Military personnel killed in Iraq done in silence, using official Defense Department listings and photographs as they are made available by the families of those killed.

JIM LEHRER: Tonight's edition of Frontline is about the diplomatic efforts leading up to the war with Iraq. Please check your local listing for the time. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with Mark Shields and David Brooks, among others. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.