The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, a summary of what happened today, reports from the Pentagon and from Afghanistan on the war, a Ramadan discussion of the beliefs of Islam, excerpts from Putin's radio call-in show, and some Friday night analysis by David Brooks and Tom Oliphant.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: U.S. Air strikes have killed a top deputy to Osama bin Laden. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said today intelligence reports indicated Mohammed Atef died earlier this week, near Kabul. He's suspected of helping plan the September 11 attacks in the United States. In southern Afghanistan, the Taliban reportedly agreed to abandon their headquarters city of Kandahar to tribal leaders within 24 hours. The Afghan Islamic press in Pakistan said Taliban Leader Mullah Omar would head into the mountains. In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman was skeptical.

SPOKESMAN: The reports-- we're seeing a report that I've seen, indicating that Mullah Omar may be relinquishing control of Kandahar, I don't put much stock in at this point. I don't believe it. I think that our forces who are there are still operating under an assumption that it's a hostile environment, and I think that the opposition groups are probably operating in the same way. There's going to need to be quite a bit of dialogue amongst these groups for them to be convinced and others to be convinced that that will be the case.

JIM LEHRER: Earlier, a Taliban spokesman told the BBC his militia was still in a good position in Afghanistan. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan began today in Afghanistan and much of the Arab world. In Kabul, people gathered for Friday prayers, and heard sermons urging them to hunt down supporters of Osama bin Laden. In Pakistan, the foreign ministry said it did not expect a pause in U.S. bombing. It said the attacks had already been reduced considerably as the Taliban lost ground. Two American aid workers told a harrowing story today of their rescue from Afghanistan. The Taliban arrested Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry in August and accused them of preaching Christianity. They and six other foreigners were freed early yesterday, south of Kabul, and U.S. Special Forces flew them to Pakistan. Today at a news conference, curry described how the Taliban moved them from Kabul on Wednesday.

DAYNA CURRY: They said that they were taking us and we needed to write a letter to our families and ask for money and that's the only way we were going to get out is if we paid for it. And they said they're going to take good care of us, but we felt-it's probably one of the times we felt we really were probably in danger.

JIM LEHRER: Mercer then told of the battle that ended in their release in a town south of Kabul.

HEATHER MERCER: All of a sudden we looked out the window and we saw all the Taliban just running madly through the city, fleeing. And all of a sudden an opposition soldier comes in with reams of ammunition around his neck, and he just starts screaming, "you're free, you're free, the city's free. The Taliban have left." And I think all of us were in complete shock.

JIM LEHRER: The two women said the Taliban generally took good care of them during their months in captivity. Congress approved the compromise aviation security bill today. It puts airport screeners on the federal payroll for at least the next few years. It also calls for inspecting all checked bags by the end of 2002 and installing machines to detect explosives in bags. Supporters said the bill would mean more police and increased inspections by Thanksgiving.

SPOKESPERSON: We're securing the top of the airplane. We're securing the bottom of the airplane. We're securing the cockpit of the airplane. We are securing the airports through which people go. We are going to beat the terrorists. We are going to secure the people of our country so that we can travel in freedom.

SPOKESMAN: We are gathered here today to raise the bar of security higher than ever before -- hopefully to look beyond the last tragedy, to anticipate what might next happen. And in this legislation, I believe we achieve that objective.

JIM LEHRER: President Bush is expected to sign the bill Monday. In Atlanta today, a security breach virtually shut down one of the nation's busiest airports, Hartsfield International. Federal authorities evacuated the airport and stopped domestic flights from leaving after a man ran through a checkpoint and disappeared. The restrictions were lifted several hours later, but the shutdown disrupted air travel across the eastern United States. In Washington, National Guard troops began patrolling the U.S. Capitol today for the first time since the 1968 riots. They were called in to relieve Capitol police who've been working long hours since September 11. The Federal Aviation Administration today ordered inspections of the tail fins on some Airbus A-300 jetliners. An American Airlines A-300 crashed Monday in Queens, New York, killing 265 people. Federal safety investigators have focused on why the tail fin sheared away from the plane moments after takeoff. In economic news, the Federal Reserve reported industrial output fell 1.1% in October. It's been down 13 straight months, the longest since the Great Depression. And the Labor Department reported consumer prices fell 0.3% in October. A record drop in natural gas prices led the decline.

UPDATE - AFGHAN BATTLES

JIM LEHRER: Now our update on the battles in Afghanistan. Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: After speaking at the naval training center near Chicago today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld responded to the reports that U.S. bombs dropped south of Kabul killed al-Qaida's military commander Mohammad Atef.

DONALD RUMSFELD: The reports I've received seem authoritative, and indeed, as you point out, he was, I guess, very, very senior -- Number two-- something like that-- we have been, obviously, seeking out command-and-control activities and have been targeting them, and have targeted and successfully hit a number of them, particularly in the last five or six days.

REPORTER: But you don't have any confirmation on...?

DONALD RUMSFELD: I do not.

KWAME HOLMAN: Atef's affiliation with Osama bin Laden dates to the early 1980s, when Atef reportedly helped recruit fighters for the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation. Atef's daughter married bin Laden's son earlier this year. The Egyptian-born Atef was charged with masterminding the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, in addition to being implicated in the planning of the September attacks. If he's been eliminated, officials say, that's consistent with their number one goal in Afghanistan: Disabling al-Qaida. Rumsfeld was asked if bin Laden still was there.

DONALD RUMSFELD: I suspect he's still in the country and, needless to say, if we knew his whereabouts, we would have him.

KWAME HOLMAN: Rumsfeld also had on hand photos of U.S. Special Operations troops traveling on horseback in Afghanistan.

DONALD RUMSFELD: The ones in the North have tended to be U.S. Special Forces who are embedded in Northern Alliance elements and have been assisting them with communications to bring in food, to bring in ammunition, to bring in medical supplies, winter gear, and also to communicate with the overhead air power that the United States has been supplying in Afghanistan. And every time we put a Special Forces team in on the ground, they... Targeting improved dramatically. In the South, the U.S. forces that have been on the ground have been in intermittently. They have been, for the most part, special operations U.S. Military, and they've gone in to do various tasks. They've done assessments. They've done some specific jobs of going into compounds that are owned by senior people in the Taliban or the al-Qaida, looking for intelligence. More recently they have been disrupting and interdicting some roads.

REPORTER: There's a growing concern about the Northern Alliance as they move into these cities, as

they take over the cities. Yes, there is a hospitable atmosphere for them, but there are reports coming out of Afghanistan that they are committing atrocities and that they are killing people, telling the Arabs who are there that you can surrender and be killed. I mean, that's...

DONALD RUMSFELD: Come on, now.

REPORTER: Well, that's the reports.

DONALD RUMSFELD: It is... There's a report on anything you want to find and repeat. The fact of the matter is that it is perfectly proper for the Northern Alliance and anyone else, including American soldiers, to tell people either to surrender or be killed. If you're in conflict, that is what you do. And if they refuse to surrender, as they're refusing to do in Kunduz right now, there's going to be fierce battles, and a lot of people are going to be killed.

KWAME HOLMAN: Rumsfeld said Taliban and al-Qaida members now being held will be interrogated by the United States.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the first of two reports from Afghanistan. Bill Neely of Independent Television News is in Jalalabad, one of the latest towns claimed by the Northern Alliance.

BILL NEELY: The Taliban are gone but the guns are not. It's eastern Afghanistan, but it's more like the Wild West. In Jalalabad, the streets are filled with gangs of heavily armed men carving up a city where there is no law-- just one traffic policeman. At least six factions claim they rule here; six men want to be governor. There's potential for anarchy, which is exactly what people don't want.

MAN: We want the security.

MAN: I have not lived any single day in peace. Even last night, I could not sleep, because of lack of security.

BILL NEELY: Adding to the volatile mix: Armed children. This is a unit of teenagers. Golman is 14, Armin 15. Then there's Jalalabad's main prison: The doors are open because 186 prisoners were freed yesterday when the Taliban were driven out.

SPOKESMAN: A cruise missile.

BILL NEELY: The Taliban fled from sustained bombing that devastated their barracks, tore holes in Jalalabad's airport runway, and ended their five years of rule as quickly as it had begun. For the last two weeks, American bombs and cruise missiles fell on Taliban positions here every day, twice a day, and they haven't stopped. Overnight we heard missiles falling about 20 miles from here. The American warplanes are attacking retreating Taliban troops. Osama bin Laden's summer home in Jalalabad was one of the first targets. (Speaking Pashtun)

MAN: (translated) "The Arabs went to the mountains."

BILL NEELY: Bin Laden's Arabs were seen retreating here. They, too, are still a threat.

(Woman Weeping)

BILL NEELY: The Taliban murdered Abdul Haq when he tried to organize an uprising against them. His family returned to Afghanistan today for the first time in five years. They, above all, hope the Taliban are being driven out forever.

JIM LEHRER: Next, ITN's Julian Manyon reports from Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.

JULIAN MANYON: These are the first pictures of British troops in Afghanistan. Royal marine commandos, reputedly members of the Special Boat Service, on the roof of a wrecked aircraft hangar at the Bagram Air Base, which is now securely in Northern Alliance hands. The first mission of the 100-man British team is reconnaissance, to evaluate the situation around Bagram, and assess the condition of the runways. Hundreds more British troops may arrive within days. They will clear a pathway to the Afghan capital for humanitarian supplies. They may also use Bagram as a launch pad for missions against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network. Our attempt to approach the British soldiers led to a violent confrontation with undisciplined Northern Alliance troops who refused discussion. They fired shots into the ground to make us stop, slapped our interpreter in the face, and hit a cameraman with a rifle. We've been marched away from the area of the control tower where we saw what we believe was at least one British soldier, but the Afghan soldiers here are still trying to interfere with our filming. A short time ago, they threatened to shoot us if we went any further, and it must be said that the British contingent is at least ferociously well protected. British troops will face major problems getting the ruined air base, which was once the hub of Soviet power in Afghanistan, to function. The battle of the Taliban is only the latest to ravage the area. Though the runways are in reasonable condition, virtually all the air base buildings are destroyed. Some aircraft movements are now taking place. A Russian-made helicopter flew in, and a little later an Antinov transporter, also Russian, came in to land. Bagram could now play a major role in the war.

JIM LEHRER: And to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on the military picture after this remarkable week, we go to Mark Thompson, national security correspondent for "Time" magazine. Welcome, Mark.

MARGARET WARNER: What makes the Pentagon think that this al-Qaida military commander Mohammad Atef has been killed?

MARK THOMPSON: Well, apparently on Wednesday a bunker, a military bunker belonging to the al-Qaida forces was hit south of Kabul. They didn't know what they had. It was a pre-planned mission, not especially going after this guy. But within 24 hours, telephone wires and radio waves across the world were going out to the various al-Qaida cells saying God, they've killed him. And the Pentagon has deduced, it learned this morning, that Atef was the fellow that they got.

MARGARET WARNER: And if it's true, what impact do they think it's going to have on al-Qaida, on its operations?

MARK THOMPSON: Well, this fellow was the military chief of al-Qaida. He was responsible for Osama bin Laden's personal security. As the Pentagon guy told me today, Osama is hearing footsteps. I don't think you could kill someone in al-Qaida that would shake Osama as much as the fellow they got two days ago. So I think it will do a lot to their morale. It will hurt it. It will crimp their military planning for any future events but plainly what concerns folks at the Pentagon is what is already in the can was already set to go--.

MARGARET WARNER: In terms of terrorists.

MARK THOMPSON: Right. In terms of terrorist acts won't be changed perhaps by his death.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's step back and look at the big picture. Just a week ago we had the Pentagon still declining to even confirm that Mazar-e Sharif, the first big city or town at least that the Northern Alliance took had been taken. Now they're saying today - or at least the Taliban's lost control in two-thirds of the country. Why do they think it happened so fast?

MARK THOMPSON: Well, basically it's a new way of conducting war. Using precision-guided munitions what the Pentagon did really for the first three weeks was attacked the rear. Remember the reports about the folks in Kabul going to the front lines to avoid the bombs in Kabul. What was happening was they were attacking depots, reinforcements, armaments in the rear. Then when they began to attack the guys in the front, the guys in the front picked up their phones and said help, they got no answer. So all the front lines were exceedingly brittle. And once the fellows in the front lines called and found out they couldn't get help, panic happened and whoosh, like a guillotine, the Taliban went South.

MARGARET WARNER: How do they assess the reports coming out of the region now that Kandahar, which of course is the Taliban stronghold in the South, has been, or at least Mullah Omar has agreed to leave in 24 hours? Again, the Pentagon, as we just ran, said they were skeptical of this. What do they think is going on?

MARK THOMPSON: I mean in both Taliban stronghold, Kunduz in the North and Kandahar in the South, we're seeing immense pressure being brought on the Taliban. And they are splintering unto themselves. You have got the fellows who want to fight to the death and the rest of them who are saying gee, you know, maybe we really don't. And that's great from the Pentagon's perspective because it's when people are in disagreement with their intimates that secrets tend to be spilled. And although the Pentagon tonight I don't think really has a firm idea of what is happening, they do know that the ground is shifting beneath the Taliban in both of these cities and that's a good chance to pick up valuable intelligence about bin Laden or any of his key lieutenants.

MARGARET WARNER: But now would the Pentagon want a deal to be cut where Mullah Omar and all his top lieutenants could leave in safety and go to the mountains?

MARK THOMPSON: I don't think the Pentagon believes they can leave in safety. I mean if you have a guerrilla force, you need the support of the local population. What we've seen over the past week is many of the Pashtun tribes in the South really don't care for the Taliban that much. And if you don't have that, you must have sustenance from the outside, from Pakistan and there are U.S. Special Forces all along that border now making sure that aid of that nature doesn't flow in to Omar or any of his cronies.

MARGARET WARNER: So how has the U.S. Military strategy, or at least focus shifted to take account of this new reality on the ground?

MARK THOMPSON: Well, plainly the bombing is much more concentrated now. You know, if they had 200 caves last week, now they're down to 50 or 100 in the region they've got to look through. So they're going to concentrate on that.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me stop you there. You mean U.S. forces think they've taken out half of bin Laden's caves?

MARK THOMPSON: No. What they think is that half of them are no longer protected by Taliban forces, so it's a safe bet that Osama, as his circle gets tighter and tighter, he is going into a smaller and smaller universe of caves and a lot more U.S. Special Forces are going in, in that region and they're working closely with local Afghans who are seeking retribution and basically they're being told to find Osama. They're bombing the caves. In some cases they're sending Afghans into the caves. In the next 48 hours, are a pretty crucial time for seeing if they actually nab bin Laden.

MARGARET WARNER: Explain further why they think the next 48 hours or 24 is so key for that.

MARK THOMPSON: Because now is the time of maximum turmoil. You know by early next week everyone is going to get a little used to this new geography. But right now nobody is sure where borderlines are. You know, bin Laden or any of his folks aren't sure if they're safe where they are. They're going to be checking; they're going to be trying to go to more secure locations so they're going to be moving. But the place they're moving in is smaller. So all things are working against him and in favor of the U.S. force.

MARGARET WARNER: Now there's also of course a lot of confusion in some of the towns that the opposition has taken. We saw that report on Jalalabad. There are reports that in Kabul rival forces are dividing up the town. How worried is Pentagon that they're going to have another kind of conflict on their hands among, sort of a return to the civil war we saw there?

MARK THOMPSON: Well, they were very worried early this week about Kabul and were quite pleased when the slaughters that occurred were basically retail, not wholesale as one guy told me. They don't think that is going to last forever. They want a UN peacekeeping or some other kind of force in their quickly at least to act as a sheriff. And we don't have that yet. The next week is going to be critical to be sure we don't have broader bloodshed than we've had already.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, how does this - the British troops coming into the Bagram Airfield, how does that fit into what the sort of next phase is, or this phase?

MARK THOMPSON: There are British troops as well as American troops at that base. They are primarily going there to dispatch humanitarian aid. That is the part of the country most hard hit by the drought and by Taliban forces. So it is largely going to be for humanitarian aid, but, you know, you can hide an awful lot of guns, an awful lot of bombs under, you know, under foodstuffs. So there will be a military component there. It just brings the fight closer to where the Taliban are. Our pilots have been flying from the Arabian Sea for a month. Those are long flights. You know a plane can do one, maybe two missions a day switching crews. You bring planes into that base, and they can fly four or five times a day.

MARGARET WARNER: So is that the plan, to actually use that base also for, as they say, close air support?

MARK THOMPSON: They will if they need to. This thing is moving so fast I think the idea that they have a plan written down in ink is inaccurate. It's written in chalk and they keep erasing and writing new stuff.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mark Thompson, thanks so much.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, differences among Muslims, Putin on the radio, and Brooks and Oliphant.

FOCUS - OBSERVING ISLAM

JIM LEHRER: Observing Islam, as Ramadan begins amidst the war in Afghanistan, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: In Afghanistan and much of the Islamic world, Ramadan prayers began this morning, hours after a sliver of the new moon appeared the night before. The holy month of fasting, prayer, and reflection recalls God's revelation of the Koran to the prophet Mohammed 14 centuries ago. This year's holiday comes amid intense curiosity and debate over the world's fastest growing faith and its future. It has 1.2 billion adherents; from the traditional Saudi Holy Land, to Indonesia, Macedonia, and parts of the U.S. Beyond geography, Islam has a diversity of interpretations. The differences played out this week in the parts of Afghanistan where the Taliban and its strict doctrine pulled out; many men immediately shaved their beards, and some women showed their faces in public.

RAY SUAREZ: Three scholars join us now. Azizah al-Hibri is a professor of law at the University of Richmond. Khaled Abou el Fadl is an acting professor of law at UCLA. He teaches classes in Islamic law and terrorism and the law. And John Esposito is the director of the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. He is also the author of "Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?" Well, this Ramadan, perhaps more than those in many a year, has been speculated about, anticipated. What's the significance of this month in the Muslim calendar, Professor al-Hibri?

AZIZAH AL-HIBRI: It is a very important month -- individually and collectively. It is the month where the individual takes stock of their whole life; of their relationship to their maker, their relationship to other people, and tried to build this relationship on harmony and purify one's self so that if we notice we have shortcomings in the past, we try to overcome them. And we try to create peace around us. This is the time when you go visit your family, reestablish family bonds, friendships and so on. It's really a very peaceful and pious time, or it ought to be, in the Muslim world.

RAY SUAREZ: And Professor el Fadl, is there a uniformity of observance? Would the way the rhythm of life changes be pretty much the same in Senegal and Singapore and Pakistan?

KHALED ABOU EL FADL: Well, the onset of the months of fasting does affect the social rhythm and the social practices in the Muslim world all around, so it is actually quite a delightful sight to see the streets empty at sundown as people gather with their family to break fast and the mosques fill up for the night prayers as people focus on worshipping God.

RAY SUAREZ: So, if you were traveling in a place where much of the population was Muslim, it wouldn't change that much depending on where you were in the world.

KHALED ABOU EL FADL: Well, of course there are, you know, cultural variations as to what type of exact ritualistic type manifestations take place, but the overwhelming spiritual feeling of -- is noticeable all around the Muslim world wherever you go. It's remarkable that at sundown when the call for prayer is sounded, the streets literally all over the Muslim world just empty and people are all eating at the same time. Shortly afterwards you see the streets fill up as people head to mosques to perform the prayers.

RAY SUAREZ: And John Esposito, this is an experience that must have been unknown or almost unknown in the west until recent decades, where there are now large numbers of Muslims living in minorities in our part of the world.

JOHN ESPOSITO: That's true. I think a lot of people-- I always tell them I moved into the field about 30 years ago, and 30 years ago you talked about if you knew anything about Islam, it was out there. Today it's the second or third largest religion in Europe and America. 30 years ago when we described the landscape of New York, the New York I was raised in you talked about churches and synagogues. It was unheard of to realize that we now have mosques in Islamic centers not only in major cities but in towns and urban areas. There are more Muslims today living in minority communities than at any time in history.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor al-Hibri, during the brief report that preceded our talk, we saw men getting their beards shaved, we saw women taking off the birka. Is this kind of observance called for by scripture, or this is really an expression of local practices that has more to do with the culture of Central Asia or the culture of North Africa than it has to do with observance of the religion itself?

AZIZAH AL-HIBRI: I would say it's the latter, especially since we are talking about covering one's face and growing a beard. Many jurists who have looked at not only at the Koran but the Hadit, the words of the prophet and tradition might disagree whether a woman should cover her head or might all agree that she should cover her head. But they would disagree certainly about covering the face. But the Taliban took a position that the face must be and all the other parts of a woman must be covered. And the men should grow a beard. This was their interpretation based on some evidence; for example, that people at the time of the prophet had beards. But that's really not an argument to impose this kind of requirement on people today. In Islam there is a diversity of interpretation of text, and we have lived with this diversity, in fact celebrated it in many ways because Islam is about freedom of thought. The problem comes when one mode of thought wants to impose that mode on the rest of the population, because it denies the other-- the freedom of thought vis- -vis God and their religion.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor El Fadl, I don't know if there is back in controversy or back to being renegotiated or if this has always been part of a millennium history of the faith. Has there always been a renegotiation, or are there long settled periods that then break out into sort of a family argument about observance, about the rules, what they mean?

KHALED ABOU EL FADL: Well, of course, like all religious systems, and especially a religious juristic tradition like the one that exists in Islam, there is a very rich tradition of hermeneutics and interpretation and schools of thoughts and so on. And you will find strict interpretations and liberal interpretations. I think that the problem that we observe in the case of the Taliban is a tendency not just to go to the most strict interpretation and the less tolerant of human dignity, but to enforce it, to, in fact, assume that one knows the truth and the divine law and that one is entitled to force all others to live according to that. And, of course, this type of attitude ebbed and flowed at different times in Islamic history -- but I think was the power of the state in the modern nation states was the power of centralization and the power of the state to reach into the private lives of people, it had become particularly worrisome and it can become particularly destructive of individuality and the private conscience of human beings.

RAY SUAREZ: Is there a problem with pluralism, John Esposito?

JOHN ESPOSITO: I think that Islam is going through a period of discussing and debating the realities of pluralism in the 21st century. It's comparable to me to the Roman Catholic experience. I think people forget that Roman Catholicism didn't officially accept pluralism until Vatican II, and a lot of the debates within the Muslim faiths over modernity and various aspects of modernity, they may be faced differently or may be responded to differently, but I think that we're seeing a similar kind of struggle within Muslim communities. If you go from Egypt to Indonesia, you see Muslim thinkers writing about pluralism today, what does that mean within Muslim societies, but also what does it mean to be a Muslim minority living in Europe and America, and to live one's faith when in fact you are going to be a permanent minority? It is a very healthy debate but I think as my colleague, Khaled Abou El Fadl, alluded to before, it brings out the best and the worst in people, and you see the kinds of fights that can occur, you know, on the ground and attempts by some to move forward and others to attempt to silence the struggle between if you will, conservatives and reformers but also between moderates and extremists.

RAY SUAREZ: What do those words mean, moderates, extremists, conservatives?

AZIZAH AL-HIBRI: Exactly. I find them very confusing because as a scholar of Islamic family law, for example, I've looked at the various schools that are classified as progressive or strict. And I find out that they all have a combination of various features. And really what we're talking about today is how certain groups who adopt these schools have interpreted them in the modern society and behaved politically on the basis of them. And so as we have said earlier, when there is an imposition of one's interpretation of others, we are talking now about the power of the state, and that is not acceptable in Islam because in Islam diversity is supposed to be celebrated. And the state should stay away from supporting one way of thinking as opposed to another.

RAY SUAREZ: But don't we get into a problem when we talk about the state in the first place? Is there a mosque and state in orthodoxy where they are two separate things?

AZIZAH AL-HIBRI: From day one, they are to some extent quite separate, but ultimately they all have a religious basis, which is a belief in God. It is not-- it is not a secular state in that sense. But there is a separation of power; and in fact one could describe a very similar separation of powers to the one we have in this country. Also remember there is no such thing as a clerical structure in Islam. So there is no clergy that is going to establish a theocracy. What we are seeing today is really a bunch of people who have political views of one kind or another and are using religious symbols and language in order to further their points with the masses who are religious. But to think of the theocracy in the western sense that is an inaccurate description of what happened, for example, 1400 years ago in the Muslim world.

RAY SUAREZ: But Professor el Fadl, aren't some of the struggles we're seeing now in the majority Muslim countries just over that question, whether there is a separation between religion and state? Some of the armed groups in the field say they want to fuse the two, to have there be no daylight between a government and the religious authorities.

KHALED ABOU EL FADL: I think part of the problem is exactly the problem of authoritativeness and legitimacy and authenticity. Who really represents the tradition? Of course in debates with these types of organizations, you know they tend to accuse the other side of having their own political causes, of either pro-westernism or liberalism, or inclination towards democratic pluralism, and that they try to rummage through the Islamic tradition to find support. And so it's easy for both sides to claim that the other is primarily politically motivated and then searching for a religious garb. The main issue is that the Puritan orientations, orientations of strict constructionism and orientations that imagine a golden age in Islam that must be returned to, orientations that reject the in-- the cumulative interpretive tradition of Islamic insights and hermeneutics tend to see issues in a dichotomous way -- in a black and white way. Shades of gray and notions of diversity of opinion and tolerance is not very respected. If you believe you have the ultimate truth, your tolerance for the other is not very high. And I think that's part of it, is that they conceive of this state as basically guardian for orthodoxy, guardian for correctness, correctness of belief, correctness of practice, and in my own view, in my own opinion, in doing so, they corrupt the richness of the Islamic tradition and the corrupt-- and they corrupt the very strong heritage of discourse in which on every opinion you would have six different points of view, all of them equally legitimate.

RAY SUAREZ: What are we seeing played out now in what is essentially a Muslim-Muslim battle in Central Asia?

JOHN ESPOSITO: I think, you know, what one is seeing is a struggle for defining one's future, for defining what it means to be now a people now that one is free. But I think part of the problem you have in Central Asia is that many of the people who are in power are really people who were you know, members of the party before. And the struggle that you're going to see in Central Asia is going to be a bit similar to the struggle you are seeing across the Muslim world. You have authoritarian regimes and authoritarian regimes that in fact are about staying in power. They're not about building a pluralistic society. They're not about developing a culture for civil society for democratization. I think the risk in Central Asia, it will be similar to the risks that we see in many countries in the Muslim world of authoritarian powers that, in fact, will alienate groups within the masses and then there will be a reaction. And the more you put pressure down, the more the risk is that you will wind up with an extremist reaction exploding back, and the state will then have an excuse for further repression. The challenge to countries like America and Europe will be where they stand on issues of self-determination and democratization, and with regard to the future, because in terms of our own relationships and our own security, it's going to be very important.

RAY SUAREZ: Guests thank you all. Good to be with you.

FOCUS - NPR ON THE AIR

JIM LEHRER: Now, excerpts of Russian President Putin's interview last night on the radio. Media correspondent Terence Smith reports.

TERENCE SMITH: President Putin spoke directly with the American people during a live, call-in session with national public radio host Robert Siegel. It was the first time a Russian President has taken questions directly from Americans. He was at times serious and at times light-hearted in his answers. Mr. Putin was asked if he thought President Bush was exaggerating when he described Osama bin Laden as the "evil one."

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian Federation (Translated): Actually, I think President Bush is being very mild in his choice of words. I have other definitions and epithets to offer, but I, of course, am being restrained by the fact that I am talking to the media and this is hardly appropriate. The thing is that the people that you have just referred to, terrorists, especially terrorists who base themselves on man-hating fundamentalist ideas, these people, these terrorists, don't really treat the rest of humanity as human beings. We are not even enemies as far as they're concerned. We're just dust.

TERENCE SMITH: President Putin was also asked about his experience as a KGB agent and its relevance to his position today.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN (Translated): It helps me. And I never, ever regretted working, taking up a job with the external intelligence department of the Soviet Union. I did my duty, I served my country, and I believe that I did a fairly decent job, at that. However, one must not forget, of course, that we lived in an entirely different world then-- in a world that is no longer here. As far as I know, though, in the United States, there is a certain amount of experience where ex-intelligence employees became heads of state.

TERENCE SMITH: The President was also asked what influence Andrei Sakharov and other human rights activists have had on Soviet and Russian history.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN (Translated): At different periods, certain periods of time in the life of any nation, there will be people who turn the light, if you will, and they show a road for the nation to follow. And no doubt Andrei Sakharov was one of those people who turned on the light.

SPOKESMAN: A visionary for the Russians.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN (Translated): Yes, exactly, a visionary, and also someone who was able to not only see the future, but to express, to articulate his thoughts, and do that without any fear. And that is also very important.

TERENCE SMITH: In all, the Russian President answered 30 out of some 2,000 questions submitted by phone and e-mail during the hour-long broadcast.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, our Friday night analysis, tonight by David Brooks of the "Weekly Standard" and Tom Oliphant of the "Boston Globe." Mark Shields is off tonight. This has been some week, David. Today Congress finally passed the aviation security bill. What happened to cause that to happen?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, it didn't happen a month too soon. The pressure became overwhelming. The people just became disgusted with the idea the two sides couldn't get together with 4,000 planes flying a day. They finally got a compromise, which came from Trent Lott's office, which essentially the Senate won. The workers are federal. There were some sops to the house, they'll be able to fire the federal workers and there will be pilot programs for private workers. But essentially the pressure on the House Republicans became too much for two reasons: First of all, it was framed by Dick Armey, the whole argument, and Armey has a talent for framing every Republican position in its least attractive light, and he did it again this time - as sort of a union versus anti-union issue, . and the American people don't care about that. They wanted to feel safe when they fly. And the second overwhelming pressure, which finally caused the house to cave was the American people in a time of crisis, trust the government to do law and order issues. And that's a lesson that should be learned on this issue, it should be learned on Justice Department and FBI anti-terror issues and we'll probably learn again and again.

JIM LEHRER: Tom, what would you add to that?

TOM OLIPHANT: Sometimes logjams are broken because there are compromises. Other times logjams are broken because there is a cave-in. And this one was avalanche proportions. I think an additional factor here in the last month or so has been the repeated, sometimes egregious violations of security procedures that continue to happen at airports, including right here, right tonight in Atlanta -- more than 90 by Norm Mineta's count, I believe. And that made the House position unsustainable. And you could hear the sighs of relief from the Republicans in the House who were able to join that 410-person majority today to get rid of this issue.

JIM LEHRER: All right now -- one issue they have not been able to get rid of yet though is the economic stimulus package. Explain where that rests as we speak.

TOM OLIPHANT: In a way I think it is the flip side of the point I just made about airline security. Here is a case where the parties are talking past each other, really as if they were talking from different planets. And in an atmosphere like that, you don't get compromise.

JIM LEHRER: Explain the two planets.

TOM OLIPHANT: One planet... And I think the best example came from a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by Vice President Cheney -- you hear language that talks about the economic slowdown in terms of a loss of confidence, a sharp drop-off in business investments in new jobs, leading to the conviction on the administration's part-- and most Republicans-- that the answer is tax cuts. From the Democrats, you get an analysis of the economic slowdown that focuses on the rising unemployment rate, the sharp falloff or apparent falloff in consumer demand, resulting in a recommended policy that emphasizes the stimulation of consumer spending, or at least its maintenance. They go right past each other. I thought the best example of the failure this week was the inability of the Senate centrists to get any support from either side for a kind of split-the-differences compromise.

JIM LEHRER: Yesterday they said there aren't enough votes to pass either one of these things passing in the night.

DAVID BROOKS: Likely in the Senate nothing will pass. Eventually the President, Tom Daschle, and the House will get together without passing anything in the Senate and finally get a compromise they can work at. The funny thing is, while the semi-high toned debate is going on about whether it's consumption...

JIM LEHRER: A philosophical debate.

DAVID BROOKS: Meanwhile, it's full pi ata time in the Senate. I mean, there's - people just know - as one congressman said, "it is a grab bag, so let's grab." Everybody is grabbing. A lobbyist said it was his patriotic duty to get his favor for his company, which he did. We have got stories about Hill staffers, former Hill staffers, making millions getting this and that. There's funding for the eradication of aquatic weeds. Everybody is grabbing. It makes, frankly, the airline security bill look like Plato talking with Socrates. It is really almost sickening vision up there, the full stimulus package. I think a lot of people have come to the conclusion it would be better if nothing passed.

JIM LEHRER: That's a possibility, isn't it, as the economy starts to get a little bit better off, forget it. Let's not stimulate anything.

TOM OLIPHANT: Again, I think we may find out, as the months pass, that the issue may not be the recession. The issue may end up being the nature of the recovery, which may be an argument for not resolving this.

JIM LEHRER: You mentioned the anti-terrorism law enforcement thing a moment ago, David. There has been a debate this week because of the executive order that President Bush signed that would have terrorists tried in military tribunals rather than regular military courts. The civil libertarians-- Bill Safire of the "New York Times" wrote one of the toughest columns I've read by him-- and others have come down very hard on this. How do you feel about this?

DAVID BROOKS: What we're seeing are a lot of people who are perfectly happy to drop 50,000 pound daisy-cutter bombs right on Osama bin Laden's head are suddenly upset at the possibility we may arrest him without reading him his Miranda rights. There have been, like from Safire and other people, what I think is real hysterical over-the-top reaction against somehow the infringement of civil liberties. The Bush Administration faced this choice. We may, within an hour, now arrest one of these top guys.

JIM LEHRER: Mark Thompson said it could happen in the next 48 hours.

DAVID BROOKS: That was the time pressure the administration faced to come one a policy where we would try these guys and come up with the policy quickly. So they gave the President maximum discretion and the problems they face, they said, "suppose we pull one of these guys out of the cave-- do we need the right search warrant to go into the cave? Do we want to have a trial where we have to spill our intelligence guts to the public and therefore tell Osama bin Laden what we know about him? Do we want a trial where Osama bin Laden's Johnnie Cochran turns it into a show trial or where our witnesses have to be in public?" Those are real constraints, real things most Americans probably don't want to see. I think the administration was reasonably prudent in just saying they issued an executive order saying it's going to be up to the President, Secretary of Defense, to set up the military tribunals and we'll see what happens.

JIM LEHRER: Tom, how do you feel about it?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, speaking as one of those civil libertarians, let me try to match David's challenge to avoid the hyperbole because I happen to think he's right, that the alarms about this perhaps have been overstated. But if that's the case, then I think the order the President has fashioned does his own intentions harm by not defining the conditions as David just did. It's open-ended. For example, it makes possible the trial of people in this country under those circumstances.

JIM LEHRER: Not just people pulled out of caves in Afghanistan.

TOM OLIPHANT: Exactly. The second point is, if you study the Administration's statements on and off the record this week, I think you'll find the focus on the message that we're doing this because of that contingency David mentioned and because simply we can, because it's legal. There is precedent for it. There has been no attention paid by the administration to the question of whether we should do this; in particular, the impact on opinion in the world, in terms of presenting cases that are factually grounded, the impact on the historical record of winding this up in a way that can stand the examination of history, which often has not been kind to military tribunals.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think that the reaction to this, to some of the negative reaction, would kind of ensure or help ensure that it isn't abused in a way that... If it is only used on the Osama bin Ladens?

DAVID BROOKS: The Administration has sort of hinted in various venues they won't use it domestically. But the politics of this, I think, are very tricky. What you see, as we've seen in past war time events, you've got the extremes, the Bob Barrs and the Barney Franks who are against and in the center you have not seen the Democratic leadership come out vehemently against this. In the center, I really think there is a majority in favor of the military tribunals. I will say one thing where I sympathize with what Tom just said: The Administration has set this up extremely poorly. The Justice Department has communicated very poorly in a whole series of measures. This I think is the most defensible thing they've done but they preceded it with hard-to-defend things.

JIM LEHRER: You mean like listening in to telephone calls between lawyers and clients?

DAVID BROOKS: Exactly, and not releasing who they detained and why they detained them.

TOM OLIPHANT: Extending the dragnet from first 1,000 people -- now you want to question 5,000 people. I mean after all, the investigation since September 11 have not really gone very well in this country. The real progress has come in places like Spain, and France, and Germany, and Britain and Jordan.

JIM LEHRER: And speaking of things that have gone well this week, how about the war on Afghanistan? You quoted Vice President Cheney. Another thing Vice President Cheney said in the speech, he took some hits on the pundits, saying that, a surprise, I'm paraphrasing wildly here - much to the surprise of the pundits this war has gone very well. Is there some crow to be eaten, do you believe?

TOM OLIPHANT: Gobs of it, in my opinion. There is an institution... During the bombing of Yugoslavia, I used the term "commentariat" to describe politicians and journalism. It's the fog of journalism, not the fog of war. I think the same mistake has been repeated this time. You have a basically solid plan for prosecuting military hostilities that aren't going to be over in 24 hours and it unfolds. Our system, with its minute micro examination... I mean it's as if on D-Day we had had specials on why it was tougher in Omaha Beach than Juneau or something, and one of these years, this system in politics and journalism is going to end because we look, truly, like idiots.

JIM LEHRER: David?

DAVID BROOKS: That hasn't stopped me. I would say, first of all, we should be not looking at every conflict through quagmire-tinted glasses, which is what we have done. Because in the past three conflicts, we have succeeded beyond the commentariat's view. Cheney was not by name but attacking my boss, Bill Kristol, who was critical of the Administration.

JIM LEHRER: Editor.

DAVID BROOKS: And in his view-- and absolutely correct and well documented-what happened in the middle of this campaign is we switched strategies -- George W. Bush switched strategies. We started out with a State Department-organized strategy of not going after the Taliban but going after al-Qaida, not supporting the Northern Alliance but going after the terror camps. We didn't use the B-52s until October 30, and that was after a long shift, engineered in part by Donald Rumsfeld and in part by Condoleezza Rice, in which we radically shifted strategies where we said we are going to help the Northern Alliance. They're going to be our guys and they're going to go in and take over.

JIM LEHRER: Do you want to help yourself with your boss at the "Boston Globe?"

TOM OLIPHANT: I dissent. I think the record will show a gradually unfolding and escalating plan and this idea is to create a situation where the good guys, seen as Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, prevailed over the bad guys, seen as Secretary of State Colin Powell, and I do not think the historical narrative will support that.

DAVID BROOKS: The evidence is clear. Colin Powell was on the record saying the moderate Taliban should be in power.

JIM LEHRER: You guys keep talking about this, but I'm going to say good night to you, officially. Butthank you both very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: And, again, the major developments of the day: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said authoritative reports indicate U.S. air strikes have killed a top deputy to Osama bin Laden. There were unconfirmed reports the Taliban will abandon the Afghan city of Kandahar. The U.S. Congress approved a compromise aviation security bill. And a security breach shut down Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta for four hours, and disrupted air traffic across the eastern United States. A program reminder: "Washington Week" can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.