The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; September 21, 2007

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and now wireless, all working together to create a new world of mobility. Welcome to the new AT&T, the world delivered.

Pacific Life. Chevron. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. The US Senate blocked legislation today to set a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. It capped a series of failed Democratic amendments to a defense authorization bill. Senator Levin of Michigan and Senator Reid of Rhode Island sponsored the measure. It fell 13 votes short of the 60 needed

to beat the threat of a Republican filibuster. Levin vowed not to give up and said the language will be reworked and a compromise presented. We'll have more on this story right after the news summary. Secretary of State Rice announced a full review today of security practices for US diplomats in Iraq. That came after last weekend's deadly incident with private security contractors protecting a US convoy. The Blackwater USA guards allegedly opened fire in response to an attack killing at least eight civilians. In Washington, Secretary Rice called for a complete assessment. We have needed and received the protection of Blackwater for a number of years now. And they have lost their own people in protecting our own people. And that needs to be said in extremely dangerous circumstances. I take very seriously and call the Prime Minister Maliki to regret the loss of life. And we will review with expeditiously the procedures.

We will review how we carry out our security. Blackwater resumed some diplomatic escort's outside Baghdad's green zone today after a brief suspension. And Iraqi Interior Ministry report released today disputed claims the contractors were ambushed. It found the Blackwater guards opened fire first from four positions. In the latest violence in Iraq two aides to the top Shiite cleric, Grant Ayatollah Al-Sustani, were gunned down overnight. One was killed just south of Baghdad, the other near Basra. And the U.S. military also announced three more American deaths today. That raised September's U.S. death toll in Iraq to 52. Nearly 3,800 Americans have died since the war began. There were appeals for help today for the severe flooding in Africa. More than 200 people have been killed, thousands more displaced.

A stretch of countries across the continent were impacted from Senegal to Ethiopia. We have a report narrated by Lucy Manning of Independent Television News. Africa, a continent more used to dealing with drought, now has a very different problem on its hands, floods, across ways of east and west Africa. Countries are struggling to cope with the downpours. The UN estimates a million and a half people have been affected. Ghana, where these pictures were taken, is now under a state of emergency, as villages, roads and bridges have been swept away. In Uganda, as in other places, the water has washed away the crops. Today, the government here also declared a state of emergency in the worst hit areas. There's now serious concern about food shortages, and with the roads damaged, it's difficult to get aid to some of the water-logged areas, even the UN is struggling to get its vehicles through. So helicopters are the only way to get out

of the cut off villages. The Red Cross is now warning a massive international aid effort is needed, with basics like food, clean water and shelter, now a priority. The concern is that with more rain likely over the next few weeks, the situation will only deteriorate. With the floodwater running into wells, there's now a risk of epidemic breaking out, and some have already died from waterborne diseases. Actually, the fear we have is, the water people are using for daily living, like drinking and cooking is very poor. For some of these people, they face yet another humanitarian disaster. After famine and civil war, they must now cope with the floods. The UN has asked for $43 million for Uganda alone. Back in this country, Delaware State University in Dover was in lockdown today. Two students were shot in the early morning hours. Both were hospitalized, one in serious condition.

Police spent the day searching for a lone gunman and identified two students as persons of interest. A university spokesman explained the lockdown for the 1,200 dorm residents. We have a rain made arrangements for them to leave in an orderly way if they want to. We are not allowing unfettered, roaming around the campus at this point, because we still don't have this guy. Now, we'll probably have to make some decisions on this later on, but we're not there yet. This shooting comes six months after a student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people in a shooting rampage. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 53 points to close at 13,820. The Nasdaq rose nearly 17 points to close at 2671. For the week, the Dow and the Nasdaq, each gained more than 2.5%. And that's it for the news summary tonight. Now, the war in the Senate equipping the troops in the war, shields and lowery, and Ken burns on the war.

And the war debate goes on. NewsHour congressional correspondent Kwame Holman has our report. So I ask my Republican colleagues for the courage and wisdom to join the American people and bring our troops home. The Senate Democrats believed this would be the week. They finally reversed the course of the Iraq war. But by weeks end, it actually appeared. They had lost momentum. You've got to have a timetable. And if it's not in law, then it least would ought to be a goal. And that's our goal. And we're not going to be discouraged. The much anticipated progress report on the U.S. military surge in Iraq, delivered to the Congress last week by General David Petraeus, ended with his recommendation to stay the course, at least for another six months. Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and a majority leader, Harry Reid, hoped enough Republicans wouldn't buy the extension. And this week's scheduled votes on several amendments

to a Defense Department bill, each designed to bring the troops home sooner. But Republican leader Mitch McConnell had set the bar high, agreeing not to filibuster the amendments, but insisting that 60 votes be needed for any of them to pass. The challenge, the force, is to get to the 60 votes. And Democrats' best chance they believed came Wednesday on an amendment by Virginia's Jim Webb, requiring U.S. troops to be given as much time at home as they spend in Iraq or Afghanistan. We are asking our men and women in uniform to bear a disproportionate sacrifice as the result of these multiple extended combat deployments with inadequate time at home. We owe them greater predictability. But Webb attracted only 56 votes, even losing the previous support of fellow Virginian Republican John Warner. So I in no way, in any way, denigrate what Senator Webb is trying to do.

It's just that we have an honest difference of opinion. In mind, based on basically the same facts have been given to him, he has a different analysis than do I. The vote on Webb signaled doom for an even longer shot amendment offered yesterday by Wisconsin's Russ fine gold that would have cut off funding for combat emissions in Iraq by June 30. Now, once again, it is up to us here in Congress to reverse this president's intractable policy to listen to the American people, to save American lives, and to protect our nation's security by redeploying our troops from Iraq. We have the power and the responsibility to act, and we must act now. Arizona Republican John McCain partnered with fine gold long ago on campaign finance reform legislation, but not on this issue. Madam President, I rise to oppose the amendment offered by my good friend from Wisconsin, and I would prefer to be discussing other reform issues

with him than this one, but this is an important amendment. And we must not send our country down this disastrous course. All of us want our troops to come home, and to come home as soon as possible. But we should want our soldiers to return to us with honor. The honor of victory that is due all of those who have paid with the ultimate sacrifice. 70 senators sided with John McCain, only 28 with Russ fine gold. One less vote than fine gold was able to muster on a similar attempt back in May. By this morning, Senator Levin could only hope for a better showing for his amendment, one mandating combat troop withdrawal's begin within 90 days and to be completed within nine months. The president has a dozen times said the American people need to be patient. It's the opposite message, which has a chance of working to the Iraqi leaders that we are mighty impatient here in America. We're impatient with the doggling of the political leaders

in Iraq who are the only ones that can achieve a political settlement. We cannot impose that on them. Only they can reach it. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham argued that the opposite was true. There is no evidence to suggest that reconciliation would be enhanced by rejecting Petraeus and adopting the Congress's plan for Iraq. Quite the opposite. I think all the evidence we have before us is that a smaller military footprint when you're training and fighting behind walls empowers the enemy. If we adopted this resolution, the security gains we've achieved. I believe would be lost. The Senate split 47, 47 on that argument, defeating the 11 amendment. Levin says he'll consider removing the mandates in his amendment in favor of goals in hopes of rounding up more Republican votes next week. Now another side to the Iraq war effort

keyed to the Congressional debate over the Defense Department's budget. Here's the first of a three-part series on how the military decides which equipment to provide US troops. Tonight, the subject is body armor. Our economics correspondent Paul Simon is the reporter. The U.S. Army's 232nd birthday party and the Pentagon's intercourt yard. On display, new recruits for the Army. Don't get them. Congratulations. Welcome aboard. We need you. New stuff for the troops. First and foremost, the very latest body armor. I'm confident as the product manager that we are fielding the best body armor that is available to our soldiers. But then, how to explain this.

In my song this shot, in the chest, like he's one of these things, he was murdered. How you doing? Thank you very much. Families across the country, like Javier and Marion La Rosa, have for several years now, been trying to buy different body armor for loved ones headed to Iraq. The least that we can do is giving something to give you a better chance of going back alive. Xavier Hermosillo has several family members in the fight. It's bad that there's there to be shot at, but to not have the best possible equipment is criminal. The charge in its starkest form that the way our military buys equipment, the procurement system, has wound up short-changing our troops in combat, costing lives at the front, both American and Iraqi. The debate has raged very visibly over the body armor issued to U.S. troops. Interceptor, made by six different contractors, outer vest made of Kevlar and material to repel flak and even pistol rounds, inserted ceramic plates

to resist assault rifle fires. Thank you very much, and I'm going to bless you. Families like the La Rosa's in Tennessee have been raising money to privately by armor called dragon skin. Its scale-like design of overlapping ceramic disks, its manufacturer claims, repels bullets better, is more flexible, covers more of the body. But the army and Marines have banned dragon skin. Because, as Mark Brown, the general now in charge of procuring body armor, it failed the army's test. Bottom line is it does not meet army standards. Some parents, however, are suspicious of the testing and say the troops are getting a raw deal. And don't tell me that I can't protect my son or my son-in-law or my partner, et cetera, with the best possible vest because of army politics. I won't tolerate that. While the army, despite requests over several months, wouldn't talk to us about how its procurement policies affect the troops, skeptics were eager to. The soldier always gets skimped on.

At a book event in Washington recently, Pierre Spray, an engineer who helped design the F-16 fighter, worked under Robert McNamara at the Pentagon, and has since become a critic of it, said the reason is obvious. There's a revolving door between the military and industry. Thus, those in the procurement system, when they spend money, spend it on the high ticket items, they would get them their jobs as vice presidents of Northrop and Grumman and McDonald's and Boeing and so on. Because all the contractors were behind it, the congressmen were voting like crazy for it, and all the generals were seeing their future, their future retirement depended on these programs. Programs like the $110 million Osprey, the $350 million F-22, this $2.5 billion submarine, a new $3.3 billion destroyer, the $13.7 billion CVN-21 aircraft carrier. Meanwhile, one complete set of interceptor body armor

goes for less than $1,000. To outfit our entire armed forces, active and reserve, $2 billion at most, says former Marine Colonel Jim McGee, who went into the body armor industry, claims that because of the modest amounts, there's no constituency for body armor in America. Is Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon in the body armor business? Hell no. You know, there's no money in it. Or not enough money to avoid worrying about cost. In order to reduce cost in something that's made of fabrics, you need to reduce the amount of fabric that's in the item. And in the case of body armor, that's Kevlar, which is where they went to the, you know, shrink at the shoulders to this almost brass scrap-like thing they have now, big scallop in the back of the body armor. That makes no sense at all. I mean, exposes your kidneys, but it took out 200 inches and 200 inches translates to cost. Working within the cost constraints, McGee helped develop the Army's interceptor body armor, but has become a fan of its band rival, Dragon Skin,

a technology he says. There's two generations ahead of anything I've ever seen. And he's not the only one. Newcomer Dragon Skin has been hyped on cable TV. How do you feel about that? How about he? This guy doesn't have any bullet holes at him. No surface. Raw raw clips are up on the internet. Everywhere, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, browns, everywhere. A firefight in a rock. And in May, NBC News investigative reporter Lisa Myers did several stories questioning the Army's tests. And NBC ran its own independent testing. In that testing, Dragon Skin outperformed the Army's body armor and stopping the most lethal threats. The late four-star Army General Wayne Downing, an NBC news analyst, observed the tests. But what we saw today, Lisa, and again, it's a limited number of trials. Dragon Skin was significantly better.

The debate was on with a vengeance. Were our troops being short-changed or weren't they? The Army promptly questioned NBC's test, released the data to prove, Dragon Skin had failed Army testing catastrophically. We tested eight vests, four failed, 13 penetrating shots out of 48. All six of the body, the current body armor producers of the US Army in their employ passed this live-fire test protocol with zero failures. Zero failures is the correct answer. One failure is sudden death, and you lose the game. Congress then weighed in with a hearing. CEO Murray Neil of Pinnacle Armor, Dragon Skin's maker, blasted the Army. The information coming out from the Army is fraught full of inaccuracies. House members then blasted Pinnacle CEO. Is it your intent to impune the integrity of the Army? It astounds me to hear you suggest

that our military would rig the system in favor of some favored vendor contractor when labs are at stake. The military then took center stage and offered an evident specialist Greg Miller shot in Iraq last December. Fortunately, he was wearing interceptor body armor with your indulgence. I'd like to thank him publicly for his outstanding service to our nation. Republican Trent Franks of Arizona, however, asked the Army to test interceptor against Dragon Skin one-on-one, much as NBC had. But let's test this out and get to the bottom of it and do what's right for the soldiers of this country. Meanwhile, the debate on blogs, military message boards and elsewhere railed on about the adequacy of US body armor and the military's testing of it. Engineer Nevin Rupert, for example, was the reigning army expert on Dragon Skin for one of the military's main test labs.

Yet he'd been barred from the army test at which Dragon Skin was penetrated catastrophically. Why barred? No explanation. Who's my supervisor? These determines whether I could go or not. And this is who? I can't give names. Being careful is lawyer there as we spoke, Rupert won't give names. No wonder, since after objecting to his exclusion, Rupert was fired for insubordination and is now suing. Why fired? Well, he supported and still prefers Dragon Skin, thinks army officials were trying to sabotage it to protect interceptor contractors. And who was championing interceptor? A then-cernal named John Norwood. He wrote a request to my direct chief by requesting that I be removed from the flexible body armor program. Meanwhile, Norwood, present at the test that failed Dragon Skin, retired last summer,

immediately went to work for interceptor contractor armor holdings, with $350 million in body armor contracts in the year since Norwood's appointment. Norwood declined our request for an interview. While General Mark Brown wouldn't give us an interview either, he did talk to NBC's Lisa Myers in the spring. Are you aware that an army colonel who oversaw the testing of Dragon Skin now works for one of the companies making the army's current body armor? Yes, I'm aware. And you're not troubled? No, I'm not troubled at all. And you don't see a conflict of interest at all? Not since he followed all the laws and regulations and ethical rules about post-service employment. No, I don't see a conflict. We asked Winslow Wheeler a long time capital Hill staffer turned defense spending watchdog for his reaction. The law is full of loopholes and they're not even enforcing but tatters are left of the old revolving door legislation. And the practice of someone leaving the military for a job with a company he awarded contracts to?

It's standard behavior. It's the way the system works. It's the way the system keeps itself going. Now based at Camp Pendleton, Lieutenant General James Mattis commanded Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. He thinks procurement officers are obvious choices for industry. We're all human and I can't say that something like that couldn't exist. But I can tell you that when probably more than 75, 80% of the officers at Quantico are fresh back from fighting overseas and the rest of them are probably preparing their seed bags to go overseas. It's not an environment which that sort of thing would be allowed to exist for long simply out of the self-interest of those Marines who are there and who have the interest of their troops at heart who they've been fighting alongside. But there's evidence of other interests as well. The main interceptor contractor over the years has been point blank.

Yet in 2005 the Marine Times reported that point blank's interceptor vests had been failing quality tests for two years and we're now experiencing actual penetrations by bullets they were designed to repel. Marine Colonel Gabe Petrichio had issued waivers to send thousands of point blank vests from the same test lots to the front. Despite complaints from the civilian tester that they would jeopardize lives. You raved point blank vests. I waved those particular lots, that's correct. Why? Because they'd passed his own test at a private lab says Petrichio and vests were badly needed at the front. In my conscience I could not be sitting on two, three, four thousand vests that were sitting in a dispute that I was absolutely convinced after seeing independent testing that they should leave, go to the field and provide Marines the protection that I believed they deserved.

But fueling doubt about the procurement process is the long list of this same company's trials and tribulations. Point blank had already been sued by several police departments, accusing them of making defective vests. The point blank vests Petrichio waived were recalled from Iraq 5,000 of them. Point blank's parent company, DHB, was at the time the subject of a defense department and a criminal investigation still ongoing. DHB's former president, who signed the waivers with Colonel Petrichio, is under criminal indictment for accounting fraud. Meanwhile, three people who worked for Colonel Petrichio in the Marines went to work for point blank's parent, DHB. Petrichio himself retired two years ago and set up a company to consult with a military on the testing of, among other things, body armor. Yet he insists the revolving door isn't necessarily what it seems. What don't people who are suspicious of it not understand about the revolving door?

Well, we all have a right to make a living. There's a certain workforce required in the area to perform these services and clearly there are people that come off of uniform or quite frankly from the civil service as well that have those skills and expertise. They're necessary to help the government continue to do its business or the private sector and so it seems like a natural transition. Natural to some suspect to others. The SEC's file investigation on them. The stockholders have a, they filed suit against them. The Marines had some quality control issue with some of the best, but somehow point blank kept getting the orders. I mean, it's bewildering to me how this is how this can be justified. In fact, point blank continues to make interceptor body armor vests for our troops, getting a contract just this June for another $50 million. Meanwhile, rival Dragon Skin is still banned by the army and Marines and is under threat of

debarment by the Air Force. Families like the LaRosa's, however, won't be convinced until someone else tests interceptor against Dragon Skin. The army has requested submissions for new body armor testing this fall, but no head-to-head testing against interceptor, independent or not, is scheduled or contemplated. Part two in Paul's series looks at the guns the troops are using. And now to the analysis of shields and lollaries syndicated columnist Mark Shields, National Review Editor Rich Lowry, David Brooks, is off tonight. Rich, why can't the Senate get anything

passed on Iraq? Well, the key here is for a long time has been the moderate Republicans who are discontented with President Bush's strategy in the war, but aren't willing to go over to where the Democrats are mandating a timetable for withdrawal or even a cut off of funds. So unless you Democrats get those Republicans, nothing is going to happen. And that's why we're supposed to have this cataclysmic debate over the war in September and it's ending in a whimper exactly where we were earlier in the year. In fact, the Democrats, the same way, Mark, that actually the Democrats are losing steam rather than gaining steam on them. Yeah, they certainly are not getting any momentum at all Jim and probably the hope, the highest hope Democrats had was in the amendment offered by Jim Webb, the freshman Democrat from Virginia, himself, former secretary of the Navy and company commander in the combat Marine Corps in Vietnam, but which was that the dwell time had to be that is the time away from the deployment into combat zone had to be equal to the time in combat.

A contrast that, for example, of the British, where the troops were six months in Iraq, two years, 24 months out. And that's historically been the case with the Americans. And it's not just being a way. It's obviously retraining. It's refurbishing. It's restoring. And it got in 56 votes in the summer in July when it was up and comes to vote this time with Tim Johnson, the Democrat returned to the Senate from hemorrhage. And John Warner, his colleague who had supported him in July, five minutes before the vote, says he can't be with him responding to an treaty by the Secretary of Defense that this would screw up, might screw up the troop rotation of the troops already there, even though Webb had put in 120-day enforcement provision that would take us up to Christmas. But you know, when you don't get it on this one, which strikes me as totally reasonable, and I think struck a probably a majority of the Senate,

and I think that he lost the next two. It's still big. Yeah, big. Fineberg, and then today's 11-day final. Well, Richard, why is it that more Republicans won't go with the Democrats on this? Well, first of all, specifically on the web amendment, I think that key Republicans found the Pentagon's objections persuasive and how hard this would be to manage, and also if it passed and became law, the lightliest way a commander on the ground would deal with it if it was pinching him, and if he needed more troops wouldn't be to say, okay, forget about this war. We don't actually need those more troops would be either to extend the tour's more or to call up National Guard units, and no one relishes either of those prospects. But I think the key thing here is conditions improved somewhat in Iraq, and I think that's always been the key to the debate. Now, you can argue about how much they've improved, but it certainly stabilized the political state of the war, and I compared a little bit, if you go skydiving,

you go in a free fall, you know, you're falling, I don't know how fast, extremely fast, and then when your parachute goes up, you feel so you're being yanked up. You're not really being yanked up. You're just falling less quickly, but the rate of change has changed, and you feel that sharply, and I think that the Iraq debate's a little bit like that, it's stabilized. You know, it's not going up for the Republicans, they're not happy where they are, but it's stabilized, and that meant the downward trajectory stopped, and Democrats are trying to force a date for what they're all just are stuck. And there's stuck because of what's going on on the ground, Mark? I know if it's what's going on in this, I mean, I think what comes to the conclusion, Jim, that there is nobody in the United States military in the Congress, in the administration, who could answer the question, tell me, how many troops is it going to require for us to achieve a U.S. victory in Iraq? Because there is no number. There is no number that can be given, because there is no victory to be achieved. So I think what we're really talking about

is there's not, neither party is going to ever boast, we won Iraq. And I think that the President's made the commitment and made the decision, which Republicans have obviously gone along with, and I think have accepted, that there's going to be 100,000 American troops in Iraq on January 20, 2009, and that George W. Bush may have started the war, but he hasn't lost the war. And haven't they, haven't they specifically by remaining stagnant, this whole, to pick up, that's a different analogy than you use that by the way? No movement. Also, it can, it can it also be seen as an endorsement of the Petraeus approach. It's going to have to happen or up or down on the ground, but right down it's on hold. What it did, yes, what it did was it froze people. It froze. I mean, I think that there were no conversions. There was no great number that said, G. Petraeus makes sense. I'm going to go over to that side. But it stopped the hemorrhaging, and it stopped, I think, the potential defections that Democrats were hoping for to get to that

magic number of 60, which isn't, which seems so attainable yet after this week seems even more remote. Even more remote now? Well, I think at least the Bush is good in terms of waging the war in his terms until March when Petraeus comes back again. Petraeus has effectively shifted the cataclysmic debate from September to March, and it's probably not going to be cataclysmic then. Either my guess is, absent something really terrible happening and Iraq to change the dynamic again, that President Bush will be able to wage this war on his own terms without serious restrictions from Congress until he leaves. I think that as of March, there will be a new face of the Republican Party. It won't be George W. Bush. The Republicans will have a presidential nominee, and believe me. You see the Republican retirements this past weeks. They say the war doesn't play a part. I'll tell you the part that war plays. They know right now that the prospects of

the Republicans remaining in a minority status in the House and in the Senate and reduced minority status is real, and that's no inducement to come back from the term to be in the minority again. So you're seeing these surprising number of retirements from people. You didn't expect to retire, and come next March with the election then, within over the horizon, Republicans will not want to go into another national election with Iraq as the centerpiece issue. They don't want to be on the defensive. Do the Republicans and some of the Democrats who voted for it get any points for voting for the resolution attacking Move.org? Move.org? Move on.org for a Jackie Betrays? Well, this is the most extraordinary thing. I think the ad is outrageous. They shouldn't have run it. And I thought it would be a one-week story going together with Petraeus's testimony. We're now in the third week of this being a story, and Rudy Giuliani has made a brilliant use of it by running his own ad, pushing back in the New York Times attacking Hillary Clinton over it,

and then MoveOn.org is now attacking him in Iowa. The funds they're spending on those ads might as well go directly into Rudy Giuliani's treasury in terms of how much this helps them in a Republican environment. But I think that was a mistake. And the thing that gave it so much oxygen, I believe, is just top Democrats should have right out of the bat just said, this is wrong. They shouldn't, they shouldn't speak of the general in this way. And that would have, I think, stopped it. But instead, it's gone on and on. And Hillary voted against condemning the ad, which is, I think, a sign just of how important that anti-war left constituency is in the Democratic Party. How do you say it? I think it's an embarrassment to the United States Senate that they cannot decide anything about Iraq. They can't come to any conclusion, and they can stand up there and berate an ad, which I found and have said was, I thought, tasteless and counterproductive. First of all, Americans do not like to have people's names made fun of. Everybody has had the experience, him or herself, at one time, and having their own name made fun of. And to do it in

this unflattering, unfair fashion was beyond the pale. But for Republicans who'd been nothing on the defensive, been an offensive crouch on Iraq, been pummeled about the shoulder and head, now all of a sudden, they can come out and they can go on the offensive. And my goodness, I mean, now they're not going to let go of it. They're just going to continue. The Democrats, I agree with Rich on this point, Jim. The Democrats should have taken a leaf out of Ronald Reagan's playbook. Ronald Reagan is running for governor of California. The big issue, some big issue, we always have big issues, was the John Birch Society, and whether Reagan would accept their support or their endorsement. Reagan had a very simple straightforward statement. I welcome the support of all law-abiding, freedom-loving Californians, but because anybody endorses me doesn't mean I have endorsed them. And they should have done the same thing. Now, I welcome the support, you know, that means does not mean I'm endorsing move on. That is not my platform, that is not my party, but quite frankly, nothing didn't do it well.

All right, speaking of the Democrats, we want to ask a question or two about the Democratic nomination race. Last night in Davenport, Iowa, five of those candidates participated in a debate, which was sponsored by AARP and Iowa Public Television and Judy Woodruff was the moderator. Here's a little taste, beginning with a question of John Edwards about Hillary Clinton and her health care proposal. You have been very critical of Senator Clinton's acceptance of lobbyists' money and what you call her ties to corporate America. Well, you've now had a chance to look at Senator Clinton's health care proposal. Do you think that it was influenced by her association with these lobbyists? No, no, I don't. I think her health care proposal is actually a very good health care proposal. It's very similar to mine, so it's very hard for me to be critical of it. I do think that as much as I respect her, I do think we have some differences about the most effective way to do this. I don't believe you can take money from health insurance, drug companies and insurance company lobbyists, sit at the table with those people,

let them pay to play and negotiate and compromise your way to universal health care. I think if that worked, we would have universal health care today. I don't believe it works. Senator Clinton. Well, been there, done that. 15 years ago, I was advocating for universal health care and I think it's tremendous that we have unanimity here, that what was a lonely struggle all those years ago is now the accepted set of convictions for the Democratic Party. Compare that to the Republicans. They don't have a clue or a willingness to talk about or move toward what we are committed to. Will it be hard? I know that better than anybody. It's going to be hard. But I also know that if we are smart about building the political coalition, which I think was not possible 15 years ago, because not enough people understood that this was not just about the uninsured of whom there are now many millions more,

this was about everybody. People with insurance who were being denied coverage by the insurance companies. Rich, as they say in another sport, how would you score that? I think she had a very good week, and I think she's very well-spoken. And the big story, I think in the Democratic race, is the way Hillary Clinton is dominating it without doing anything that's really going to hurt her in the general. Putting aside a few things on Iraq, including that vote we just talked on about with moveon.org. But there's very little room between her proposal and John Edwards, as they mentioned there, and between Barack Obama's. And it's something that she can sell in a general election. And if you looked at her rollout this week, I think there are two key things. If you read about the 800 words synopsis on her website the day she gave the speech, I've never seen choice used so many times in one 800 word piece of writing. It was almost like a typo. And the other key thing that she said this week right out front is that if you like your health insurance plan, you get to keep it. And that immediately, politically, puts off the table

and lessons, the potential opposition, of all those people who are satisfied with their health care, and there are a lot of them out there. Mark? I think that when Sarah Clinton's doing, I think you sell her strategy very well exhibited in the change with Judy and with Sarah to Edwards, that is to mute all differences among the Democrats. She did the strategy. We have one precisely the same thing at Iraq. It's now there's no real difference among us. We get a lot to see here. There's no other guys. There's no nothing on the other side. And she did on Iraq, she was trying to write health care. It's always good to review the bidding on health care. There's no question. There's been a sea change in American attitudes and values on the subject. It's the number two issue, even among Republicans now. It ties immigration as the number two issue behind Iraq. So it is an issue that's right. And it's one where the Republicans really are nowhere. I mean, they're right on that. I think it showed that she'd been through it before Jim.

I think that she's learned from it. I thought it was sure-footed. I thought John Edwards was right. He's been the pay center on all these issues, on the war and health care. But I thought one thing that's important to remember is that that kill was killed in 1993-94. And the person who killed it was a friend of an old friend of this show in mind, Bill Crystal. Bill Crystal said about as his mission to kill health care even before it appeared. Luke and Branch, and he was very open about it. And the idea was, Jim, that if the Democrats put an entitlement on that was popular, it would be to their credit and the Republicans would be in the minority permanently. Okay. Quickly, before we go, the Attorney General nominee, Michael Mukazi, what do you think? Is he going to make it? Yeah, he'll definitely make it. And it was a nomination that had the confirmation fight in mind. They wanted to win it and have it go relatively quickly. It probably will. The other top candidate was Ted Olson, who the Democrats were really going to kick up a stinkover because they haven't forgiven him among other things for representing Bush

in the Bush v. Gore Florida case. And a lot of conservatives don't know a lot about this guy. He's not a movement conservative by any means, but on all the key issues that are in play now and hot in the political debate from Pfizer to the Patriot Act, to all the war on terrorist stuff, he's a rock-solid conservative who's right where the Bush administration is. So I think it's pretty shrewd pick. Shrewd pick? Well, on the Democrats? Yeah, I mean, I think Chuck Schumer has one of Chuck Schumer's four Chuck Schumer Democratic Senate campaign committee chairman and one of his four nominees that he suggested to the White House. So I mean, at guarantees that he's got home state support and had Mary Joe White, the former U.S. Attorney from New York on this show, speaking very glowingly about him. I think it is to avoid a confrontation. They want someone who's confirmable. I do think that the Democrats of the Senate will have exact as their price for confirmation. Some documents from the firing of the U.S. Attorney's, and I think that Fred Fielding will be in a mood to accommodate. Use the White House counsels. Yeah, okay.

Rich? Mark? Thank you both. Thank you. And finally tonight, Ken Burns on the Second World War. Jeffrey Brown has our report. Once again, Ken Burns is telling the story of a war. I always looked around and wonder now, how many men am I going to lose? But this time, a war that's within the living memory of many Americans. In the war, a seven-part, 15-hour PBS series, Burns offers a bottom-up version of America at home in a broad during World War II, not from the view of the generals or leaders, but of ordinary people. We had started losing boys in the neighborhood. The boy up here on the corner was a Navy pilot. He was killed. The boy down the street was an air force pilot, and he was missing in action. They started disappearing all around us.

And I remember the impact it had on me. Well, I could see my bullets just tearing into them, and we had so much firepower that the bodies would fly some yards. As I was doing this, I was doing it knowing I had to do it, that it was my job. This is what I had been trained to do. And I dealt with it fine. But when I got back home to the base in Normandy and landed, I got sick. The film has stirred significant controversy. In response to some criticism that no Hispanics or Native Americans were featured, Burns added scenes to the end of three of the episodes. Well, they used to tell us that the Japanese could see very far, but they could see far enough to kill you.

Also fearing potential FCC sanctions due to the graphic nature of the language in the film, PBS is offering stations a version that cuts out several uses of expletives. The war begins this Sunday night. And Ken Burns joins me now. Welcome to you. Thank you so much for having me. First thing I noticed is no scholars or experts, little focus on the political leaders. Why did you do it this way? We've paid lip service for years and years and years in our film to a so-called bottom-up history, but in point of fact, it's been just that. And we really in this one wanted to get at the essence of what combat was like. And so we felt that there is a scrim that comes down that blocks our attempt to understand the Second World War for focused entirely on those celebrity generals and the politicians on the strategy and the tactics, the armaments and the weaponry, and feel that we could have an unmediated view of what it was really like if we could just get to so-called ordinary people. And so we told the story of the American experience in the Second World War from the bottom-up by following the fortunes of about 50 people,

most of whom come from four geographically distributed Americans. It's interesting you say a scrim comes down because one could think about it a different way, movies, books, the history channel, and in one sense World War II was quite familiar. It is. And yet I think we don't really know what's at its heart, the worst slaughter ever and the history of humankind. We see it as the good war. How do we negotiate that thing? And I think what we wanted to do is realize that a lot of documentaries provide the context, which is all very well and good and very important and we do too, but rarely lack the intimacy. And those that have an intimacy to them then are at a specific moment and lack the context. And what we are trying to do, would it be possible to tell the story of the Second World War, arcing from Pearl Harbor to the surrender from the bottom-up, so it was intimate, but giving you that overarching thing. Could you do what I've never seen done before? The European and the Pacific Theater simultaneously anchored or triangulated with a sense of what's

going on at home and still be free of the hagiography that comes along with the hero worship of the generals and the politicians? You mentioned the good war, the greatest generation. Now, these are phrases that we've had with us for a long time, and I have in the past wondered whether whatever truth they have to them, whether they oversimplify what must be a very complicated event in history. Well, what did you come to think? I think that particularly with the good war idea, I think we understand why, as the decades have receded, I think we've begun to understand that our reasons for involvement were unambiguous, that was not a big debate about whether we should be doing it or not, the way we are with so many wars that have followed the Second World War, but I think by allowing that to sink in to sort of calcify that we've forgotten how horrible this war was. It's the worst war ever. Now, the greatest generation, I think human nature's the same, and this is, of course, the same generation that brought out the worst. I mean, the people who

perpetrated most of the atrocities of the Second World War are part of the same generation too. We wanted to sort of see if we could break the log jam of these terms and just get at just experiences. All we really wanted to do was to bear witness to what our folks did, and these are people that we hope you get to know, like family members, somebody you might have had Thanksgiving with over the course of the production. The criticism over the lack of Hispanic voices, we did a debate on this show a few months ago about it. You have called it, you've said it's a painful episode for you. Did you look at it as an attack on your artistic license or what you were trying to do? Will it change your thinking about how you work in the future? It won't change how we do things in the future, and I'm very proud of the film that we made, and I was sorry that so many people made judgments about it without seeing. I think we honored all the veterans experience. We knew we couldn't tell everything, and in fact,

we went into these towns for five years and weren't seeking specific ethnic identity, but specific combat experience. But you know the purpose of artists to kind of transcend these dialectics of politics that bump into each other, and we felt it was incumbent upon us to listen. I've been telling stories that haven't been told in American history all my professional life, and so we had the opportunity to rise above this situation, to go and film additional things, to add them at the end of a couple of the episodes, and I think begin to make some, not all, whole in this regard, and still not feel that we as artists had in some ways compromised our original vision, and we struggled very hard to find a ground in which we can do that, and I think the stories that we've done are as good as anything in the film, the veterans that you meet are so powerful that it sort of proves the point of the original film, is that we knew we couldn't tell everybody we were gathering as many folks that came up to us, shared their stories, and those who had misunderstood our original intention now have an opportunity to be made whole,

but I think it still proves the value of our original approach. I have to ask you speaking of storytelling, I mean we live in an age notoriously short, the attention spans, and our kids, certainly my kids, they're multitaskers, right? They're doing a lot of things at once, yeah, you're asking a lot of viewers, you continue to, and I want to continue to, I think all real meaning in this world, accrues in duration, the work you're proudest of the work that I'm proudest of the relationships we care most about, have benefited from our sustained attention, and it is true with all of our technological options that we do think that our attention span has eroded to that of a NAT, but it's all just a couple minutes on YouTube and we think we know it, but let's also remember that kids, millions and millions of them bought a book that's going to take them a lot longer than 14, 15 hours to read, the most recent Harry Potter, and have devoted their attention to that in great great numbers, so I think there's always a reservoir of possibility,

or maybe opportunity to devote attention, and all we can say is filmmakers, that if you extend to us the courtesy of your attention for these 15 hours, we promise we will not disappoint you. All right, Ken Burns, his film is the war. Thanks very much for talking with us. Thank you. And Lynn Novick, co-producer and director with Ken Burns, will answer your questions about the making of the war to participate in that in our insider forum, just go to our website at pbs.org. And again, the major developments of this day, the U.S. Senate blocked legislation to set a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. It capped a week of failed Democratic amendments to a defense authorization bill. Secretary of State Rice announced a full review of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq that was prompted by the killing of eight Iraqi civilians

by private security contractors. And police at Delaware State University search for a gunman who shot two students early this morning. And to our honor roll of American Service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available here in silence are 10 more. Washington, we can be seen later this evening on most PBS stations. We'll see you online.

And again, here Monday evening with an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson, among other things. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lara. Thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by July. Some say that by 2020, we'll have used up half the world's oil. Some say we already have. Making the other half last longer will take innovation, conservation, and collaboration. Will you join us? The new AT&T, Pacific Life, the Atlantic Philanthropies, and with the ongoing support of these

institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. To purchase video cassettes of the news hour with Jim Lara, call 1-866-678-News. I'm PBS.

Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Jim Lara. On the news hour tonight, the news of this Friday, then two angles on the US military mission and Iraq, a report on the partisan divide in the Senate on when to get out, and the first

of three Paul Simon takes on military equipment priorities. Plus, the analysis of Mark Shields and Rich Lowry substituting for David Brooks. And speaking of war, we'll close with a Ken Burns conversation about his new documentary on World War II. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by Now headquarters is wherever you are. With AT&T data, video voice, and now wireless, all working together to create a new world of mobility. Welcome to the new AT&T, the world delivered. Pacific Life, Chevron, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world.

Good with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. The US Senate blocked legislation today to set a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. It capped a series of failed Democratic amendments to a defense authorization bill. Senator Levin of Michigan and Senator Reid of Rhode Island sponsored the measure. It fell 13 votes short of the 60 needed to beat the threat of a Republican filibuster. Levin vowed not to give up and said the language will be reworked and a compromise presented. We'll have more on this story right after the news summary. Secretary of State Rice announced a full review today of security practices for US diplomats in Iraq. That came after last weekend's deadly incident with private security contractors

protecting a US convoy. The Blackwater USA guards allegedly open fire in response to an attack killing at least eight civilians in Washington. Secretary Rice called for a complete assessment. We have needed and received the protection of Blackwater for a number of years now. And they have lost their own people in protecting our own people. And that needs to be said in extremely dangerous circumstances. I take very seriously and call the Prime Minister Malachi to regret the loss of life. And we will review with the expediting.