The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I`m Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Spencer Michels and Margaret Warner look at the controversy over roads in national forests, Tom Bearden recounts the troubles in caring for abused and orphaned children, Gwen Ifill talks to George Mitchell about his committee`s report on the violence in the Middle East, and Ray Suarez conducts a conversation about Ulysses S. Grant. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush will oppose short-term attempts to hold down gasoline prices. That was the warning today from the White House. It came as the private Lundberg Survey said prices have reached an average of $1.76 a gallon nationwide. "USA Today" reported they could hit $3 a gallon this summer in California and Chicago. But Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said the President is against setting price caps or repealing the federal gas tax.

ARI FLEISCHER: One of the things wrong with Washington in the President`s opinion is people move too quick from one quick fix to short-term solutions without focusing the people`s attention on the big matters that really count. And on energy, a focus on how to conserve energy, conserve fuel, develop more resources, have better infrastructures so that electricity can move across transmission grids and natural gas can move across pipelines in a matter that gets the product to the market, in a manner that lowers cost on a full-time basis for the consumer.

JIM LEHRER: The President is expected to announce his long- term national energy policy later this month. Israeli tanks shelled a Palestinian refugee camp today in the Gaza Strip, killing a four-month-old girl. She was the youngest victim since fighting began in September. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon called it tragic and said he was sorry. He said Palestinian mortar fire provoked the attack. A Palestinian cabinet minister denied that. We`ll have more on the Middle East violence later in the program tonight. Pope John Paul went to the Golan Heights today to appeal for peace in the Middle East. It was part of a visit to Syria, and a history-making pilgrimage that began last week in Greece. We have a report from Robert Moore of Independent Television News.

ROBERT MOORE: For the Syrians, politics and religion were inextricably mixed as the Pope visited the Golan Heights, the scene of bitter fighting in two Middle East conflicts. The Syrians have never rebuilt Qunaytirah, leaving the city as a monument to war. Most of the Golan Heights remains in Israeli hands. The Pope saw the ruins not in terms of politics, but as a perfect location for an emotional plea for peace. And later he praised those searching for compromise and those seeking to break down the walls of hostility and division. By coming to the wind-swept Golan Heights, an area disfigured by war, the Pope`s prayer for peace will have a real resonance, and he`s asking Arabs and Israelis alike to have the courage to forgive each other. The Pope has described this as a personal pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, but by becoming yesterday the first Pontiff ever to visit a mosque and today seeing the legacy of war, it`s been a remarkable trip for John Paul.

JIM LEHRER: Syrian President Assad welcomed the Pope Saturday, with harsh criticism of Israeli Jews. He said Jews betrayed Jesus Christ and tried to kill the prophet Muhammad, and he said today`s Israelis were no different. In turn, Israel`s President accused Assad of being anti-Semitic. And in Washington today, a state department spokesman said the Syrian leader`s words "inflame religious hatred." There was an outbreak of violence in Bosnia today. More than 1,000 angry Serbs attacked Muslims and visiting UN And western officials in the northwestern city of Banja Luka. They were there to break ground for rebuilding a mosque destroyed in the Bosnian war. The crowd beat some of them, threw stones and eggs, and burned Muslims` prayer rugs. The chief of the UN Mission to Bosnia, Jacques Klein of the United States, and more than 250 others were trapped inside an Islamic center. Serb police eventually rescued them. The "state of rebellion" in the Philippines officially ended today. President arroyo declared it last Tuesday after thousands of protesters marched on the Presidential palace. They demanded the release of former President Estrada, who`s jailed on corruption charges. The "state of rebellion" allowed authorities to arrest opposition leaders without a warrant. The U.S. Justice department today opened a civil rights investigation of the Cincinnati police. Last month, a white officer shot and killed an unarmed black man there, touching off riots. In a written statement, Attorney General Ashcroft promised a review of police practices. He acted hours before the release of a local grand jury`s report. And that`s it for the News Summary tonight. Now it`s on to the roads in forests controversy, abused and orphaned children, George Mitchell on Middle East violence, and a conversation about Ulysses S. Grant.

FOCUS -FOREST ROADS

JIM LEHRER: Spencer Michels has background on the forests story.

SPENCER MICHELS: Last Friday, the Bush administration announced it would go ahead with a Clinton administration ban on building new roads in national forests, but with some exceptions. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman:

ANN VENEMAN: Providing roadless protection for our national forests is the right thing to do, and because it`s the right thing to do, it`s important to do it right, for the land, for people, for communities, for states, and for the country as a whole.

SPENCER MICHELS: The roadless plan was issued by the Clinton administration in its final weeks, but never actually went into effect. It bars new roads and most logging on 58.5 million acres, about one-third of all national forest lands. Most of the land is located in western states like Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. Environmentalists had lobbied for the policy, saying it was the only way to protect pristine forest land and preserve critical wildlife habitats. But logging and mining industries said the rule effectively locks up valuable resources. The state of Idaho and a timber company sued in federal court to block the rule from taking effect. Veneman said the decision to implement most of the Clinton policy was made after a two- month review process, a process that she said revealed the need to allow local authorities to make changes to the plan.

ANN VENEMAN: We will work with states, tribes, local communities, and the public through a process that is fair, open, and responsive to local input to ensure the rule is implemented with more reliable information and accurate mapping. This includes drawing on local expertise and experience through the local forest planning process.

SPOKESMAN: We cannot let the extremists dictate what we`re going to do in our communities.

SPENCER MICHELS: It was local communities and politicians that voiced the loudest objections to the roadless plan when it was proposed three years ago. Communities like Cascade, Idaho, depend on logging for jobs and tax revenue, and loggers depend on building new roads to access the trees for harvesting. Residents in towns like Cascade said that if logging is stopped, the towns would whither away. The plan is slated to go into effect May 12. Amendments to the plan will be announced in June.

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner takes it from there. MARGARET WARNER: The day the administration announced its new national forest policy, interpretations of what it meant varied sharply. "Clinton Forest Rules to Stand," said the "Washington Post`s" front-page headline. "Bush will modify ban on new roads for U.S. forests," said the "New York Times." To further interpret and debate the new policy, we`re joined by Dirk Kempthorne, the Republican Governor of Idaho; and Jim Lyons, who was Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the Agriculture Department when the Clinton administration policy was developed. He`s now a professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Welcome to you both.

Jim Lyons, Secretary Veneman said she is not going to abolish the policy you all developed. But it is going to be amended so that local folks will have more of a say in decisions on whether to build a road in a particular forest. What`s wrong with that?

JIM LYONS: Well, there`s really nothing wrong with that, Margaret. In fact, that`s what we tried to encourage when we initiated a process to finally bring this issue to closure. I think the problem is that the Bush administration is substituting more process for certainty and resolution of an issue that has thwarted the Forest Service and has caused controversy in national forest management for decades. We simply sought to bring that to closure because the issues were never resolved at the local level, they were never resolved through the earlier planning process. And to go back to the process is going to lead to more controversy, more consternation and I doubt any real solution.

MARGARET WARNER: Most environmental groups who have been asked to comment on this said they see this as a way of sugar coating what is really a reversal of the policy. Do you see it as going that far?

JIM LYONS: Well, let me say first of all I`m cautiously optimistic at the comments of Secretary Veneman who said only minimal changes will be likely. The real question is what comes out on June 4 when the Department is supposed to announce the proposed changes they would like to see in the process. But the Bush administration has, I think, been very careful and to some degree very clever in how they`ve dealt with these issues. For example, on national monuments they announced earlier this year that they supported retention of the existing national monuments set up by the Clinton administration but then also were clear to say they would dictate through management plans how the monuments are to be used in the future. The devil is in the details with regard to this process. And really what unfolds in June and how the subsequent changes are to come about.

MARGARET WARNER: Governor, you don`t think the Bush changes go far enough.

DIRK KEMPTHORNE: Margaret, if I may put it in perspective. In Idaho, the amount of federal land that we have, you can put eight states from the eastern part of the United States within that total land mass that`s federally owned in Idaho. Amongst all of that forested land, we have a variety of state land holdings. This would deny us access to that. Now the revenue that we would derive from the state land goes into the state endowment fund, the recipient of that are the schoolchildren. So by not having access, this has a very detrimental impact upon the children - upon the education of them in Idaho. It has been estimated that over 30 years this could cost the state of Idaho nearly $300 million. Also we have just come off the worst fire season in recorded history in Idaho and in the West. The problem is that we have forests that are so filled, the fuel load is so sufficient, we need to have the opportunity to get back to healthy forests. This proposal by the Clinton Administration does not do that. The process which they use

MARGARET WARNER: You`re talking about this, to be clear here, you`re talking about the existing rule or the proposal by the Clinton administration, not the new Bush Administration policy.

DIRK KEMPTHORNE: No, the process by which the Clinton Administration conducted the National Environmental Policy Act was flawed. I`ll give you a simple example. During the first scoping process which was 60 days, we asked for an extension of time. That was denied. We asked for maps to show us here in Idaho what would be impacted. We never received the maps. The attorney general, Al Lance, and I sent a letter, Freedom of Information Act, we had to resort to that to get good information. The federal judge that is hearing this, I think, has made it very clear that he believes that this was a flawed process, and so that`s why at this point we are going to have to remain in court. I would add I have great confidence in President Bush and I appreciate the dialogue that we`ve had with the White House, but at this point, Idaho will continue its court case. Last week we were joined by the state of Wyoming and Montana. The Bush Administration, they cannot, by a stroke of a pen, rescind this rule that was put in place. What we would have to do is go back through the NEPA process. Therefore we`re going to stay with our court challenge.

MARGARET WARNER: You`re saying one you think it needs to be outright rescinded and, two, you think a federal judge actually has more power to do that in one fell swoop than the Bush Administration.

DIRK KEMPTHORNE: That`s true. That`s a tool that the President does not have. I don`t like us to be in court doing this. I think too often we are going into litigation rather than having results. At the top of your show, you showed, I think, Cascade, Idaho and the mill that`s operating there; it no longer operates because it has been shut down. A number of mills have been closed. Part of that is we don`t have a sufficient supply of timber. But we`re not talking about quotas to be established. We`re talking about forest health. There has to be a thinning. If we don`t, the pristine forests that my friend Jim Lyons is talking about, I`m afraid will continue to go up in flames.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me let Jim Lyons now respond. Okay, respond to that bill of particulars against the rule that you folks put in there that is at issue here.

JIM LYONS: I appreciate the opportunity, Margaret. It is good to hear from Governor Kempthorne again. Let me deal with the substantive issues first and then on the process issues. First on the issue of substance, the policy that we put in place would not restrict access to state lands, to tribal lands or to private land holdings. An exemption for road building for those purposes is clearly provided in the rule. With regard to concern about wildfire risk, I would also point out that the rule provided in exemption that allows for road building where there`s an imminent threat of fire and also provides for logging of small diameter trees, the kind of trees that create the kind of fuel the governor is referring to as a normal course of business; that would not be prohibited. It is interesting that the Forest Service recently did an assessment of wildfire risk across the country and they determined on the national forests about 60 million acres was at moderate to severe risk of wildfire. Of that, only 23% of those lauds were in roadless areas. At the current rate in which the Forest Services funded to do the kind of fuel treatment that the government calls for would take an excess of 30 years to get the work done. So why enter the roadless areas when the highest risk, the greatest threats to communities and the accessible lands are already roaded?

MARGARET WARNER: Governor, if these are roadless areas that haven`t been developed before, for the most part, why do they need to be developed now?

DIRK KEMPTHORNE: Margaret, when Jim Lyons mentioned the imminent threat, it`s because massive tracks of these forests have such fuel load. We`re losing our ponderosa pines because the other trees that are coming in are just taking over that. We will continue to have as we did last year in Idaho, one billion board feet went up in flames. That`s the equivalent of building 100,000 single family dwellings. We need to have the opportunity to get in there and reduce the fuel load.

MARGARET WARNER: Excuse me for interrupting you - though I thought he just said that the old rule did allow road building for that.

DIRK KEMPTHORNE: Well, I think it`s then the definition because I`m sure we disagree as to where those roads could be put. But Margaret that`s part of the point; when we asked for the maps, we did not receive the maps. This is very important to the State of Idaho. Again, we have probably the driest year that we`ve had in the last 100 years - so no moisture, forest that is filled with fuel and we don`t have the opportunity or access to get in there and remove the fuel, and also to develop resources that can help the children of Idaho as well as the jobs. What do you say to these folks that have lost their jobs now in communities that are probably just have one industry that was in that town?

MARGARET WARNER: Would you answer the last question the governor just asked?

JIM LYONS: I`d be glad to. Terms of timber supply, Margaret, this really has only a minimal impact. While there may be localized impacts, and we did estimate that between 500 and 600 jobs might be impacted over a five period, the truth of the matter is that roadless areas would only provide one-half of 1% of the national timber supply. This is not a substantive issue from a timber impact standpoint. The other point I want to make is that the information the governor sought in terms of maps is readily available and has been for some time. It was part of the extensive and frankly historic public participation process we promoted, on a web site that was made available by the Forest Service. You could go to any state. This is an example, this ~ the Idaho map that could you pick up with the web site and identify those specific areas that were impacted by the roadless proposal. So that information is available. We made every effort to make sure it was.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me just ask you one final question. Is really the issue here a basic difference about what the national forests are for, to whom they belong, and what they should be used for?

JIM LYONS: I think that`s really what we`re debating here. Frankly it has been a part of the debate over the national forests that has extended for a century. When Teddy Roosevelt first took the initiative to establish millions of acres of national forests there, was strong resentment and opposition from many western members of Congress. In fact, efforts were made to limit President Roosevelt`s authority to establish new national forests. We look at Teddy Roosevelt today as a significant figure in conservation history, the father of American conservation.

MARGARET WARNER: You see that it was a conservation effort by him, by President Roosevelt.

JIM LYONS: I believe it was, and I would characterize the efforts of the Clinton Administration in the same vain. I would emphasize these are not partisan positions. There is strong support among Republican members of Congress and others for the same kind of protections for roadless areas.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. And, Governor, how do you see the basic philosophical difference about what the national forests are for, whom they long and how they should be used?

DIRK KEMPTHORNE: Margaret, it is very important to draw the distinction between a roadless area and wilderness. Idaho has the largest wilderness area in the lower 48 states. What we are contending and I believe we`ll prove in court with the Attorney General Al Lance leading this is that the NEPA process was flawed. They didn`t follow it properly. And if I can, Margaret, just quote briefly from the judge`s ruling April of this year. "Because of the hurried nature of this process, the forest service was not well informed enough to present a coherent proposal or meaningful dialogue and that the end result was pre-determined. Justice hurried on a proposal of this magnitude is justice denied; he points out this was a flawed procedure.

MARGARET WARNER: Back to the philosophical procedure question for just a minute, though. Are you saying that you think the wilderness areas should be left pristine and are really for conservation and recreation but the national forests you think really should be available to be exploited or used by industry and local industry?

DIRK KEMPTHORNE: I wouldn`t use the term exploited. The wilderness is the pristine area. We are proud of that. The roaded area, it, too, can remain pristine. When we are talking about roads this is not putting in a four- lane highway. This is just allowing us access. And interestingly enough, all summer as I flew over this state watching it burn, I would stop and at times foresters would spread the map over the hood of the pickup and say we have been able to stop the fire here. And I would say, why was it stopped there, and they said well, there happened to be a road that helped as a firebreak. So we need to get pragmatic about this. We are willing to go through the dialogue and determine what ought to remain roadless and what should be roaded and we can get in there. But what is significant, if we don`t have access, we lose revenue to the schools of Idaho, we also I think, run the very high risk that these pristine forests that we believe in will go up in flames.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, gentlemen. Thank you both very much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, saving children, violence in the Middle East, and a conversation about Grant.

FOCUS - SAVING THE CHILDREN

JIM LEHRER: Abused and orphaned children: Despite billions of dollars and decades of reform efforts, many states are still struggling to deal with them and their problems. Tom Bearden has our story.

TOM BEARDEN: Any good memories in here?

ERIKA LAMB: In here? I don`t think so.

TOM BEARDEN: This notebook represents Erika Lamb`s childhood. It`s full of papers from Tennessee`s Department of Children`s Services, or DCS. It tells the story of a child who, along with seven siblings, was taken away from her parents because of violence in the home. She was put into foster care, which is supposed to be a temporary haven for children in unsafe conditions. But Lamb complains she was shuffled around the foster care system for the next seven years.

ERICA LAMB: They ruined my childhood. I never had a childhood. I felt like they sheltered me and fed me, but they did not give me what I needed, you know? I needed... I`m a type of person, I have to talk. I love to talk, and they didn`t talk, they didn`t...

TOM BEARDEN: When she was 14, Lamb says she was drugged and raped by one of her former foster fathers, who also served as her state-sanctioned sponsor. Lamb says DCS officials were unresponsive when she told them she was raped.

ERICA LAMB: Well, I think there`s a lot of dirty garbage behind it that they just didn`t want to bring out because it was going to make them look bad in the end, not me. And nothing was ever done about my case until after I turned 18- my rape case.

TOM BEARDEN: Four years later, Lamb, who now studies photography and works full time, received a victim`s compensation check for $2,000, even though charges are still pending against the perpetrator. Nationwide, almost 600,000 kids like Erica Lamb are now in foster care. That`s triple the amount from 20 years ago. Despite billions of dollars and decades of reform efforts, many states are still struggling to deal with abused children. In 1997, President Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which mandated that states had to move kids out of foster care within 15 months, either on to adoption or back to their biological parents. The federal government already provides states $7 billion each year to help them run their child welfare programs. This year, for the first time in more than six years, those funds are being audited. But advocacy groups say many child welfare agencies are run so poorly run that it takes lawsuits to force meaningful change. In fact, half the states` agencies are currently under court supervision.

SPOKESPERSON: There`s going to be serious enforcement activity. There`s just no question.

MAN: In a very real way.

TOM BEARDEN: Marcia Robinson Lowry runs Children`s Rights, an advocacy group. She`s working with lawyers to press a class action suit on behalf of over 10,000 kids in foster care in Tennessee.

MARCIA ROBINSON: This is an incredibly chaotic foster care system. When you look at the impact on children though, it is one of the worst we have seen. For example, about a quarter of the kids have been in ten or more different foster care placements. One little girl that we represent was in foster care for eight years from birth, had no contact with her mother, didn`t get adopted, did not see her caseworker hardly at all for the entire eight years. Now, how is that kid ever going to have a permanent home? Those are the kinds of problems that are being inflicted on children in this state with public money.

TOM BEARDEN: Juanita Vesey says the two kids who live in this house are prime examples of a system that doesn`t work. Five-year-old Charlotte, who is part of the lawsuit, and her nine-year-old brother, John, came to this foster home after half a dozen other placements.

JAUNITA VESSY: Both children were sexually abused and physically abused when they came into care. The mother was a prostitute, and not only were they sexually abused by the mother, but also some of her clients. The children were placed in foster care, then they were returned back to the mother, where they were resexually abused again, placed back in foster care, and then returned to relative placements, where they were sexually abused by the grandparents and the uncle in the home.

TOM BEARDEN: Their foster mother, who was fearful of revealing her identity because of complaints she has against the state, says the kids have serious problems

TENNESSEE FOSTER MOTHER: Inappropriate words, inappropriate acting out, slashing himself at school and at home, and breaking glass, holding it to his neck.

TOM BEARDEN: How about his sister? What`s her behavior like?

TENNESSEE FOSTER MOTHER: She seemed to have had more problem ongoing with... Not acting out; in a sexual way, with her brother or just with men.

TOM BEARDEN: She says the state provided inadequate and inconsistent help, and for the last two years, ignored her request for information on how she could adopt the children she`d grown to love in spite of their behavior.

TOM BEARDEN: Can you cope with having them permanently in your home if you don`t get the kind of assistance that you`d like to get?

TENNESSEE FOSTER MOTHER: Absolutely not. There is no way that we have the tools to handle these types of behaviors.

TOM BEARDEN: Finally, the day before our interview, she reluctantly asked the state to take custody of the boy because he was out of control.

MARCIA ROBINSON: The damage that we do to these children and into their adulthood is really devastating, and it`s things that people can`t come back from. And it doesn`t need to happen, and that`s what`s so awful about it. It doesn`t need to happen.

TOM BEARDEN: Lowry and children`s rights are demanding a complete overhaul of the Tennessee system.

MARCIA ROBINSON: What we`re really asking for is that the specific problems that are hurting children in this state be fixed; that there be a good system of accountability. What we`ve asked for in this particular case is that an expert panel be appointed to prepare a plan for this state,

TOM BEARDEN: The Department of Children`s Services would not consent to an interview because of the ongoing litigation. But Michael McSurdy, who acts as a consultant for the state, thinks DCS is doing the best it can.

MICHAEL McSURDY: I think that, you know, when you`re dealing with, at any given time, 11,000 children in our system- probably in a year we provide services for approaching 20,000 children- unfortunately there are going to be the cases that aren`t good news. I don`t think it`s the norm, though.

SPOKESPERSON: Hopefully there will be a period of trying the new plan and getting feedback from the regions.

TOM BEARDEN: After the threat of the lawsuit, the state hired Carolyn Hill of the Child Welfare League, an organization that regularly works with states trying to reform their programs. She says DCS is working hard to improve the system, and that lawsuits are not the best way to do that.

CAROLYN HILL: It`s clear that there are systemic reforms needed. It`s also clear that the department is well on their way in addressing those. There are more effective means to bringing about the system reforms that we`d like to see, whether it`s Tennessee or any other state.

TOM BEARDEN: But plaintiffs in Tennessee point to Jackson County, Missouri, where e similar class-action suit has made an enormous difference.

WOMAN: They go away when the snow melts.

TOM BEARDEN: Lori and Randy Ross live in Jackson County, just outside of Kansas City. More than 150 foster kids have received their love and care over the past 16 years, including many who have suffered severe physical or sexual abuse, or had other disabilities.

SPOKESPERSON: Fine, I don`t care.

TOM BEARDEN: Currently they have 13 biological, adopted, and foster children in their home. The Missouri lawsuit was settled in 1977, but the Rosses say it had little effect until 1994, when the courts finally ordered the state to comply with the consent decree. It forced the system to weed out bad foster parents, and support good ones.

LORI ROSS: Foster parents can be a parent if they have the support and services that they need; if they have the relationship with the state agency that they need to have; if they can work closely with that child`s birth parents, or help that child move on to adoptive parents, or make a commitment for adoption themselves. That`s what they need. Kids need permanence.

TOM BEARDEN: Since the consent decree, the state has set up procedures to make sure those relationships happen. Sheila Agniel is part of a monitoring committee that implements those procedures.

SHEILA AGNIEL: So these services are in fact being provided then by the school district and not DFS.

WOMAN: They`re supplied by the school district.

TOM BEARDEN: Everyone involved in the child`s life is interviewed to determine whether kids are getting adequate care.

SPOKESPERSON: What the report says is that the school districts don`t deal well with foster children.

TOM BEARDEN: Agniel submits reports to a quality assurance committee that makes recommendations to the Department of Family Services. As a result of those recommendations, foster parents now get more extensive training.

WOMAN: Sometimes these children have been very badly abused by their birth families.

TOM BEARDEN: And biological parents whose children are in foster care get therapy sessions designed to prepare them to care for their kids rather than lose them to adoption.

WOMAN: How are you going to know the difference between what is normal sexual exploration and child-to-child sexual abuse?

PARENT: Force...

WOMAN: If one child forces the other child?

TOM BEARDEN: An entire unit is now devoted to matching kids with adoptive parents, trying to comply with the 15-month federal deadline for moving kids out of the system. Randy and Lori Ross had just adopted three-year-old Jimmy on the day we visited.

JIMMY: Mommy, give me a chocolate chip cookie.

LORI ROSS: No. JIMMY: Why?

LORI ROSS: Because it`s almost dinnertime.

TOM BEARDEN: They say he`ll be much better off with his family status firmly resolved, instead of being in foster care limbo during his formative years.

LORI ROSS: It used to be that in foster care, children could be in a foster home without permanence for years. We had children in our home for five years that then ended up going back with their birth mother. That situation doesn`t happen anymore.

RANDY ROSS: We`ve had kids that had been in foster homes, six or seven different foster homes in a year, if not more.

LORI ROSS: And that is not common anymore. In general we`re doing a lot better job of finding families for kids and getting them in families more quickly, and that gives them a better chance in life.

WOMAN: Sam says good-night and goes to bed.

TOM BEARDEN: Most child welfare advocates hope that a combination of more money, more attention, and when necessary, lawsuits, will help spread Missouri`s success to the rest of the nation.

FOCUS - MIDEAST VIOLENCE

JIM LEHRER: Now, a new report on Middle East violence and to Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL: When the Israeli/Palestinian peace process was coming apart again last fall, President Clinton created an international committee to investigate what happened and to find out if the peace process can be saved. Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell led the five- member group, which also included former Senator Warren Rudman and three European leaders. The group`s report sent to President Bush but not yet officially released, calls for a freeze on Israeli settlements in occupied territories and a Palestinian crackdown on terrorism. Joining us now is the committee chairman, Senator Mitchell. Welcome, Senator Mitchell.

GEORGE MITCHELL: Thank you, Gwen. It`s a pleasure to be here.

GWEN IFILL: Your report seems to find that this latest uprising, which happened after the collapse of the Camp David Sharma Sheikh talks is not either side`s fault but that both sides - Israeli and Palestinian - have been acting in bad faith. Could you please explain?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, I wouldn`t call it bad faith. And we certainly don`t use those words. A series of events occurred and with the deep mistrust that existed on both sides, it spun out of control to create the current violence. We were asked originally to look at it on the assumption that it would be over and we would merely recommend how to prevent its recurrence. Of course, it isn`t over. It`s gotten worse. And so we shifted our focus to three objectives: How to end the violence, how to rebuild confidence, and how to get the parties to resume negotiations. And those are the objectives of our report and our recommendations.

GWEN IFHX: Today the State Department condemned what it termed a serious escalation that occurred by the Israeli Army entering Palestinian- controlled territories today. So it seems, as you just pointed out, that the balance is getting worse. What is missing in the process?

GEORGE MITCHELL: I think there has to be an immediate cessation of violence on both sides, a recommitment to the principles to which they have already agreed, both at the summit to which you referred in October of 2000 in Egypt -- the summit that occurred in the same place the previous year September of 1999 and agreements going back to Oslo in 1993; a recommitment to those principles. And there has to be a series of further steps taken to rebuild the confidence that has been so badly shattered on both sides.

GWEN IFILL: Now, you know that before your commission even began work, that Ariel Sharon called it a "historic mistake." He expressed the skepticism that you could make a movement early on. And now it`s being received - a large part in the Israeli community - as being fairly harsh on Israel. What is your reaction to that?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, I don`t know where you get your figure "large part of the Israeli community" I don`t believe that to be the case. We accepted many of the recommendations made to us by the Government of Israel and various groups, as we did on the other side as well. But the fact is that according to polls published just this week, two-thirds of the people of Israel, by margin of 62-36%, support the recommendations we`ve made. So I think it`s just the opposite. I think a large part of the people of Israel agree with the recommendations that we`ve made.

GWEN IFILL: Well, let`s distinguish between popular opinion and what the Israeli leadership is saying. Shimon Peres here on the NewsHour last week said that he thought that settlements, for instance, that you suggest in this report should be frozen, can be expanded nationally, and the ones that exist now should be allowed to expand. You in this report say that should not be allowed.

GEORGE MITCHELL: The problem is that there`s been a lot of dispute over whether so-called natural growth has in fact been limited to that. The Palestinians strongly deny that, and even in Israel, it`s a subject of some contention, one of the most influential newspapers, H`arretz has editorially urged that there be a freeze on settlement construction because of its very controversial nature. Obviously we recognize that there are differences of opinion and we didn`t expect that either side would simply accept all of the recommendations. That is, of course, what has happened. Both of them agree with the recommendations that coincide with their previous positions, and tend not to agree with those recommendations with which they previously disagreed. That`s understandable. The question now is not whether it`s received unanimously with support on both sides. It`s whether they are willing to get together to take the steps necessary to end the violence, rebuild confidence and resume negotiations.

GWEN IFILL: So where are we now in this very difficult process? Is it about stopping the escalation of violence just in the first - at the first step, or is it about ending - reaching a great, larger peace?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, the first step must be an end to violence. I don`t think there can be serious and sustained negotiations during a high level of violence such has existed. That`s not just true in the Middle East; that was my experience in Northern Ireland. I think it is true elsewhere. There has to be an end to violence. There has to be, on the Palestinian side an unequivocal renunciation of terrorism. We call it in our report reprehensible and unacceptable. And there has to be a crackdown on those engaged in terrorism who are within the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. There have to be corresponding steps on the Israeli side to try to create a sense of confidence that both are acting in good faith; that they are in fact partners in the pursuit of peace. I think it will take sometime but absolutely the first step must be an need to violence.

GWEN IFILL: Well, here`s the cycle which I guess you`ve been coping with for the last six months. Israel feels if it takes a move first, it`ll reward violence. And the Palestinians think if they move first, that they`ll be rewarding occupation. Where do you find a middle ground in that?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, I think there must be a willingness on the political leadership to move forward and a process by which they can have some reasonable assurance that if they take a step, the other side will take a step. Gwen, when I was called back to Northern Ireland by the prime ministers of Britain and Ireland in 1999, after the peace process there appeared to be in collapse, I spent three months. It only took a couple of weeks to figure out what steps had to be taken. Most of the time was consumed by developing a choreography of how and when the steps were going to be taken to give assurance to each side, in effect, the building of enough confidence to enable them to go forward. Now, in the Middle East has to be done by the party. We say that in our agreement; that`s not for us to decide. The timing, the sequence - but they have to begin that process. They have to create a reasonable on each side, if I do (A), you`ll do (B); that I`ll do (C); and you`ll do (D).

GWEN IFILL: Based on your experience in Northern Ireland and your experience now coming back from the Middle East on this report, what do you think is the fundamental difference between the leaders on the other side of the table in this dispute?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, of course, there are huge differences, and I don`t think it can be summed up in any one single or fundamental difference. I do think that what they have in common hasn`t gotten any attention but it`s really much larger and more important - and that is a genuine desire to have a peaceful resolution to conflict and to live side by side in peace and eventual prosperity. That`s why I think there`s going to be a resolution, primarily because the conflict now going on, which we call in our report, grinding, demoralizing, and dehumanizing - and believe me, it is all of that and more - I think that is unacceptable an the alternative difficult steps of negotiation to peace will prove less unacceptable than the current conflict.

GWEN IFILL: I hear you saying that both sides - either side has to be willing to step up to the plate, but there seems to be a cycle of blame, which goes unbroken here every time violence is renewed. How do you break that cycle of blame, or begin to?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, we tried to do that some in our report. Originally, we were asked to look at the past, but the members of the committee reached a decision that if we were to have any positive effect, we had to look at the future. We didn`t ignore the past; we did discuss it; we analyzed it, but by far the bulk of our report looks to the future. And ultimately that`s what the political leaders in that region have to do. And we stated specifically we are asking the political leaders to do something that is very difficult to lead when they`re not sure how many were followed. I believe though that the public on both sides in the majority - not all - there are elements there who really don`t want peace and who want continued conflict but I believe in the majority want a peaceful resolution so they can lead more normal lives and have the kind of peace and prosperity that I believe can come to that region.

GWEN IFILL: You and Senator Rudman and the three European observers who made up your commission are clearly the outsiders who came in and looked at this and tried to tell them what they could begin to do. One of the suggestions was that an international kind of a permanent international observer group come in and help to broker some of this. Israel didn`t want it; the Palestinian Authority did. Why didn`t you include the recommendation?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Because we agreed with the presentations made by the Government of Israel that such a force could not be effective unless it was supported by both sides. Your earlier mentioned that some say it is harsh on Israel. In fact that was the principal point of dispute. The parties spent more time on that subject than anything else. And in the end, we accepted as valid, the arguments of the government of Israel. You can`t send a force in of that type if it`s not supported by both sides. Otherwise I believe they`ll become too deeply embroiled in the conflict and will create a new point of friction. Such forces have worked when they were acceptable to both sides in the Middle East. And if the Government of Israel at some future point decides to accept it and the Palestinians still want it, then they can work it out. But right now we don`t think it will be a positive step.

GWEN IFILL: When you took on this task, President Clinton had just finished being very hands on, being very involved in trying to resolve this process. Since then, a new President has taken over who has resolved not to be quite as hands on. Do you think that the United States has a role in trying to make peace in the Middle East?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Yes, I do. I don`t think there can be peace in the Middle East without an active role by the United States. And I think the administration is acting on that premise as well. Secretary of State Powell has been very active. I`ve talked with him on several occasions. In fact, on the day after January 20, on the day after President Bush took office, I contacted Secretary Powell and went to see him and offered to let the administration withdraw the support of this committee if they wanted to since it was created under the previous administration. No, he said - we want you to continue; go ahead and complete your report. Obviously, they`re not committing themselves to supporting the report, and they are now reviewing it. But I think Secretary Powell has been extremely active. I think the administration will increasingly be active and I think they recognize there can`t be peace in the Middle East that durable and sustainable without active American participation and continued support.

GWEN IFILL: And what do you anticipate will now happen to your report, both the U.S. reaction, the Palestinian reaction, and the Israeli reaction?

GEORGE MITCHELL: Well, they have been given until May 15 to send in their comments. Look, it`s human nature. They`re going to say they like the parts that agree with their positions and they dislike the parts that don`t agree with their positions. That`s what I fully expect will occur. The real question will then come how can this or some other initiative be used as a basis to end the violence, rebuild confidence and bring the parties together. If that happens, this report will have served its purpose. That`s the principal basis on which members of the committee acted and the principal purpose of the report.

GWEN IFILL: Senator Mitchell, thank you very much for joining us.

GEORGE MITCHELL: Thank you, Gwen.

CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Now, a conversation about a new book, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: The book is "Grant" by Jean Edward Smith. It`s a biography of the battlefield leader of the Union Army in the Civil War and 18th President of the United States. Well, a big piece of work. Certainly by the time it`s finished I`m sure Grant possesses you as much as you possess him. What got you started on Ulysses Grant?

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Grant has always been a hero, really, to me. But I was in Canada for 35 years at the University of Toronto. And when you come to the United States from abroad, you recognize how fragile it was at various times and how close it came to coming apart. Grant was a hero because I think he saved the union. He saved the United States during the war. And during his time in the White House, he really helped the United States to regain stability after eight years of war and upheaval. And then in 1876, he shepherded the nation through the Hayes/Tilden crisis. I think Grant played a great... A heroic role during the war and a stabilizing role afterwards.

RAY SUAREZ: It`s easy to forget just what a mess the country was in 1868 after a terribly divisive fractious time under Andrew Johnson following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Did you have a chance to rehabilitate Grant politically?

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Well, I think the record speaks for itself. I think that Grant deserves rehabilitation. Grant really, during the reconstruction period, was one of the most powerful men in Washington, Andrew Johnson notwithstanding. And Grant pushed reconstruction in the South. Grant sought to secure the rights of African Americans, rights that they had been Granted under the Constitution against great opposition. And he continued to do that in the White House, he continued to fight on behalf of native Americans. It`s a much different figure from the one he`s commonly depicted as.

RAY SUAREZ: Yet we frequently turn to historians polls to talk about Presidents and their standing in history, and Ulysses Grant has not fared well, certainly in the last 100 years. Why is that?

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: During his lifetime, Grant was revered, elected twice with overwhelming majority, the only President between Jackson and Wilson to serve two full terms in the White House consecutively. Grant`s been trashed, I think, because of what he stood for. He stood for equal rights for African Americans, he pressed rights for African Americans during the reconstruction period. In the 1880s, that was no longer popular. And history, from the 1880s on, was written by, largely, by white supremacist historians, lost cause historians, and Grant was made into a villain as reconstruction was made into a villain.

RAY SUAREZ: But people who aren`t even aware of, let`s say, the southern power in story telling and the southern power in telling America`s history, would caricature Grant as the drunken leader of a very corrupt administration.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Grant didn`t look like a President any more than he looked like a general. But it was a little difficult to argue people`s... the first time the Civil War wrote him off as well. It`s difficult to argue with Fort Donaldson and Shiloh and Vicksburg and Appomattox. I think Grant can demonstrate his ability, beyond doubt. Presidential accomplishment, political accomplishment is more ambiguous, and there`s always room to disagree as to what constitutes political success. I think that`s part of it. I think also, a little like during the Eisenhower administration, American intellectuals, Eastern intellectuals couldn`t quite accept a man has rough hewn as Grant as being on top of the presidency.

RAY SUAREZ: It was also remarkable in reading your book to realize just how low his fortunes had gotten, and just how obscure he had become before an almost lightening march to the head of the Union Army.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Well, that`s wonderful, yes. Grant, for seven years after he was resigned from the Army in 1854, was in the wilderness. He was fighting a losing battle against poverty. He was reduced to selling firewood on street corners in St. Louis. Eventually he took a job with his father as a clerk in a leather goods store run by the family in Galena, Illinois, actually run by his two younger brothers. That`s about as low as Grant could sink, I think, and that`s what he was doing when Wargard fired on Fort Sumter.

RAY SUAREZ: Then within a few years, a really remarkably short period of time, he is a hero to Abraham Lincoln, who is wondering what his other generals can learn from Ulysses Grant.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Within the year, really. The union needed victories, and Grant provided one at Belmont, but then he provided a major one at Fort Donaldson. He captured the deteriorating... He moved into a deteriorating situation- his right flank had been turned- and he attacked. Captured Fort Donaldson, and his marvelous demand of unconditional surrender captured the nation`s attention. That was the first major union victory of the war. And after Fort Donaldson came Shiloh; and then the marvelous campaign, the incredible campaign against Vicksburg, when Grant cut himself loose from the supply base in Memphis, crossed the Mississippi River below Vicksburg, lived off the land and attacked Vicksburg from the East, surrendering on July 4,1873. It was a marvelous achievement.

RAY SUAREZ: Some of the detractors of Ulysses Grant`s generalship say that one of the reasons he could do that was because he came from a large and populous country. He could spend men`s lives with great abandon, and then always be sure that he could be resupplied.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Vicksburg is a great example of Grant using maneuver, of Grant taking an unprecedented risk of cutting himself off from his supply base, moving south of Vicksburg, and maneuvering so that he didn`t have to assault Vicksburg frontally. He tried to assault Vicksburg... He`d sent Sherman to assault Vicksburg frontally earlier and Sherman had been repulsed. Grant couldn`t capture Vicksburg unless he somehow maneuvered to attack it from its weak side, which he did. In the Virginia campaign in `64 and `65, Grant continually pressed Lee and continually moved to his left. His casualty ratio was smaller than Lee`s throughout the campaign. And then he crossed the James river. I don`t know if you`ve seen the James River where Grant crossed, but it`s an enormously wide river, tidal river. Lee had no idea where Grant was, and Grant was marching on Richmond from the South.

RAY SUAREZ: It is hard to imagine someone this modest, this unassuming, self effacing, being either a major military leader today or the leader of the country.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Grant was very understated. And it is... It is difficult to imagine. He was very single-minded and had enormous confidence in himself. And it really took the war for that to be given the opportunity to blossom. If the war hadn`t come along, Grant would have finished his life as a small businessman in Galena, Illinois.

RAY SUAREZ: But he didn`t want to run for President. He didn`t seem to want to campaign very heavily for advancement in the military. When the honors came, he took them, but not really in a self- seeking kind of way from your story.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Well, that... I think that`s exactly right. Grant didn`t campaign. In 1872, the Republican Party- he was running for his second term- the Republican Party was concerned because he wasn`t campaigning. They thought Horace Greeley was going to win, and Grant told them only two people have campaigned for the presidency before him and both of them have lost. And so he wiped Greeley out when the votes were counted, and he sat in the White House the whole time.

RAY SUAREZ: The book is "Grant." Jean Edward Smith, thanks for being with us.

JEAN EDWARD SMITH: Thank you very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday: A White House spokesman said President Bush will oppose short-term attempts to hold down gasoline prices. On the NewsHour tonight former Senator George Mitchell said an international peace commission would not work in the Middle East because Israel opposes the ideal; he chaired a commission that investigated Israeli/Palestinian violence. And a Cincinnati grand jury indicted a white policeman on two misdemeanor counts for shooting an unarmed black man last month. That shooting touched off rioting. We`ll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.