The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; August 1, 2007

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to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Iraq suffered twin blows today in its struggle for security and political unity. bombings in Baghdad killed at least 70 Iraqis, 70 others were killed or found dead elsewhere. And the largest Sunni Arab bloc withdrew from the Iraqi government. We ever report on the days developments narrated by Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News. Not a job for the faint heart of this. Baghdad firefighter has attacked the blazing tanker detonated by a suicide bomber at Petrol Station. By the look of it, it could have been a lot worse, but the explosion in a mostly Sunni Muslim part of town killed at least 50 civilians and injured 61. As far as earlier, a parked car blew up next to an ice cream parlor in Carada, a mixed shopping

district in the heart of the capital, engulfing three minibuses and six cars. This one, living more than 20 dead and 30 wounded. Today, though, a particularly dark day in all this gloom, because this morning Iraq's political realities ambushed any remaining hope that Iraq's politicians could bridge the sectarian divide. The main Sunni Arab bloc pulled its six ministers out of Iraq's Shia-led ruling coalition, further hobbling the virtually dysfunctional government undermining its legitimacy and its national unity status. The government is continuing with this arrogance, refusing to change its stand and slam the door shut to any meaningful reforms to saving Iraq. The Prime Minister and indeed the President of Iraq feels that this action is unnecessary, is not helpful in the present political situation that Iraq is in, and that many issues

have been addressed and can be negotiated and can be overcome. The move may all be posturing a barometer of Sunni politicians' growing desperation to extract some concessions from Iraq's new Shia masters. In Washington, President Bush spoke to Iraqi Prime Minister Al Maliki on a video conference call. Spokesman Tony Snow said Mr. Bush emphasized that Iraqis and Americans want action, not just words. U.S. military officials announced today four more Americans died Tuesday in Iraq that raised the July toll to at least 78. It was the lowest monthly count in eight months. But it's up from last July when 43 Americans were killed. In other developments, the Associated Press reported more than 2,000 Iraqis were killed in July, one of the highest totals this year. The Iraqi government said the figure was closer to 1600.

And one British soldier died today in a roadside bombing in Basra. Bomber Defense Secretary Rumsfeld today denied any cover-up in the death of Pat Tillman. The pro football star turned Army Ranger was killed by a friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004. The Army initially said he died from enemy fire, and the truth did not come out for five weeks. Today, Rumsfeld told a house hearing, I know that I would not engage in a cover-up. I know that no one in the White House suggested such a thing to me. Former top generals also denied any cover-up. Well, I have more on this story later in the program. Another Taliban deadline passed today for 21 South Koreans held hostage in Afghanistan. A Taliban spokesman said the remaining captives were still alive. The militants have already killed two of the South Koreans. They threaten to kill more if the Afghan government does not release Taliban prisoners. President Bush pressed congressional leaders today to expand terrorist surveillance efforts

this week. He wants to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has proposed changes. They would include efforts to monitor overseas contacts without warrants. They're a White House meeting today, Democratic leaders promised action. What we committed to was to work closely with the administration to come to agreement on FISA law. I have said that in the House, we will pass FISA legislation this week. And you notice I was very conscious in the Senate. I don't promise any legislation because the rules are so different, but we would like to do that. And to read also said he's concerned about putting surveillance power in the hands of Attorney General Gonzalez. Several Democrats have accused him of perjury in his testimony about surveillance. But Senate Minority Leader McConnell said today there's no reason to delay.

This job better get done. We cannot and hopefully will not leave town without this FISA modification that Admiral McConnell has requested. Hope our Democratic friends understand that. I think they do. The proof will be in what happens for the balance of this week and getting this job done. The FISA law was first adopted in 1978. We'll have more on this story right after the news summary. Congress pushed ahead today with plans to expand a children's health insurance program. The House neared approval of reauthorizing the so-called S-chip program at a cost of $75 billion over five years. Democrats said it's overdue. Republicans argued it's too expensive and should be limited to the poor. Don't believe them. They don't want to provide the additional funds. They know that this expires on September 30th and it will if we don't do something today that there'll be a million kids that will automatically not have their health insurance.

We're not changing any of the eligibility today. It's day that want to change the eligibility. This bill will extend S-chip benefits to families earning $60,000 and up to $80,000. That means it does not provide money for health insurance to the poor or the near poor or the working poor. We're all for that. That's why we initiated the program. We just don't think it ought to go to upper middle income Americans. In the Senate, Republicans failed today to scale back a similar bill costing $60 billion. President Bush has threatened a veto either version. He says they would cost too much and shift too many people away from private insurance. Rupert Murdoch's news corporation and Dow Jones and company made it official early today. They announced Dow Jones had agreed to be bought for $5 billion. It publishes the Wall Street Journal. And New York City today, Murdoch had little to say to reporters except to confirm the deal was done.

We'll have more on the buyout later in the program. The Justice Department today slapped British Airways and Korean Airlines with fines of $300 million each. The two airlines agreed to plead guilty to charges of price fixing. The scheme began in 2004. Justice officials said the companies raised the fuel surcharge from $10 a ticket to as high as $110. British Airways also faces $250 million in fines from the British government. In Wall Street today, stocks rebounded as investors focused more on strong profits and other upbeat indicators. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 150 points to close at $13,362. The Nasdaq rose 7 points to close above 25.53. And that's it for the new summary tonight. Now a surveillance debate. Times felled on Tillman, warming in Greenland, buying Dow Jones at an Antater Fleming essay. Judy Woodruff has our surveillance story.

Ever since 9-11, the Bush administration has argued for greater freedom to electronically eavesdrop on terror suspects. This week, there is new urgency as it pushes Congress to allow it to intercept overseas communications that are routed through the United States. That is complicated by the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which requires prior court approval for wiretaps that have a domestic component. Two views now on the issue from Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and from Peter Hookestra of Michigan. The Ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. Gentlemen, thank you for being with us. Representative Hookestra, you first, I know you've been in meetings on this much of today. The Bush administration asking for permission to listen in on phone calls and emails between terrorists under what circumstances. Well, really, we just came out of a two-hour briefing with the director McConnell. And it's very clear that when we are talking about foreign intelligence on foreign terrorists

who are overseas, there's unanimity. Everybody, I think that was in that meeting today, Republicans and Democrats believe that we should be collecting on that information. That is exactly what the Bush administration is asking for, targeting foreign terrorists overseas and that we ought to be able to collect on those individuals. If we're collecting on an American, the administration is very clear. Collecting on Americans, you need to go to a court and get a warrant. But what about the aspect of this, where, if it's foreign, say, someone who's suspected to be a terrorist in one country overseas, talking to a suspected terrorist in another country overseas, but that call or email being routed to the United States. Is that what's at issue here? Well, what's happened is over the last 30 years, technology has changed significantly the FISA law has not. We have collected in the United States for years on different types of communications

means, where it was foreigner talking to foreigner. We've collected, we've collected on those without warrants. That's exactly what the administration wants to do, is to update the law for what has happened with technology. And without court permission. Without court permission. The Bush administration, I think most members in the room again. Hundreds of Democrats don't want to extend civil liberties, U.S. civil liberties, to terrorists who are overseas. So Senator Wyden, what is the argument then, if that's what the Democrats are saying, that there should be court permission, why? I don't quarrel with much of what Peter just said when you're talking about foreigners, making calls to other foreigners overseas. Our government ought to be able to listen. So what Peter described is much more limited, much less of an overreached in what the administration has been talking about for months and months, Judy. The fact of the matter is, this is a dangerous time for America, and it didn't just get

dangerous in the last few days. But unfortunately, the administration has wasted a lot of time on trying to get a bipartisan foreign intelligence surveillance act proposal through. For example, one of the earlier versions would have given the attorney general essentially unprecedented authority. The attorney general would have had authority in effect to immunize people in the administration who knowingly broke the law. I blew the whistle on that in a public hearing. Now we're talking about a much more limited bill. One of the key issues in this more limited bill that is going to hopefully be addressed in the last few days concerns first the authority of the attorney general and second how long this period would be for a new law, would it go on indefinitely or would it be more limited? I'm hopeful that we can get a bipartisan compromise on it. So you're saying there's no disagreement on foreign to foreign calls or emails, however they're routed.

You're saying the only hang up now has to do with the role of the attorney general in this? The attorney general, how long this law would last for and also we want to be sure that when you're talking about innocent Americans that we nail down the fact that there has to be involvement of the foreign intelligence surveillance court. But I think working in a bipartisan way with this much more limited proposal and I want to emphasize this is very different than what the administration was talking about earlier. I'm hopeful that we can reach a bipartisan compromise and make sure in our country duty that we fight terrorism ferociously while at the same time being true to American values. So Representative Hooks, what does this come down to? It sounds like Senator Wyden is saying the Democrats can go along with the part that you described at this at the beginning of the interview. Well thanks Ron, thanks for your kind comments. We miss you over in the house but you're doing well in the Senate. But now I think that is the thing Republican Democrats are very much focused on we recognize

we're at a time of threat, we recognize that today we got to collect the dots if we expect the intelligence community to connect the dots. So we're in agreement there, I think it's really a matter now of getting the right language, the right words on a piece of paper so that what Ron and I are talking about that when we look at that that we read those words and we get the same understanding and we see the same meaning in those words and sometimes that's a little hard to do but I think it's possible and I think we're again with Ron. I think we need to get this done before we go home. Put it into layperson's terms for us Congressman, when you say right language on what, on the role of the attorney general? Yeah, because I mean the what who makes the decisions where what exactly is a foreign target and where does the FISA court come in and reviewing to make sure that American civil liberties are protected and I'm very encouraged by what Ron has to say and what I come out of the meeting with this afternoon that there's a tremendous amount of agreement

that whether this proposal from the president is scaled back from where it was or not, it is now in the realm of the doable. Judy, the fact is we can get a bipartisan proposal here but we can't give a blank check to the attorney general, we've had abuses of the Patriot Act in the past, we've had abuses with the national security letters, let's zero in on foreigners communicating with foreigners overseas, this is a period of real danger, we ought to target those kinds of communications but when you're involving law abiding Americans or ought to have to be a requirement that it go through the foreign intelligence for valence court, I think we can reach that agreement this week. Let's zero in on the attorney general role, let's come back to that since you keep raising that Senator Congressman Hookstra, what is it that you see should be the role of the attorney general here? Well, number one, it's really the responsibility of the director of national intelligence to make sure that the intelligence that they are collecting is on foreign sources and the attorney general should review and audit that and that might actually be something that

a Pfizer court could also review. The important thing and this is where I think Ron and I are probably in very close agreement when it comes to capturing the communications of an American citizen or an American person, the attorney general and the Pfizer court and this is in the latest proposal from the White House that the attorney general and the Pfizer court will review and audit what happens to that information to make sure that American civil liberties are protected. And Congressman Hookstra, does that sound like something you and your colleagues can live with? Are you asking me that question? You already asked me. I'm sorry. I'm meant Senator White, as long as the audit process ensures that the court is involved in a significant kind of way. What I've been concerned about and this goes back to the earlier drafts is it just looked like an open-ended grant of authority to the attorney general. That's not going to be acceptable given the abuses that have taken place in the past.

We're all agreed that this is a dangerous time. We all agree you've got to go after terrorists relentlessly, but we can do it without throwing our constitutional rights in the trash can. And Congressman Hookstra, a question on the timing of this. It's been reported that the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, came forward with this request just last Friday with only a week to go before Congress was to go home for the August recess. Is there something we should know about the rush to do this? I don't think it's been a rush at all, Judy, I mean the first, or one notification came to the committees back in April that we were missing significant quantities of information. The DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, published an editorial in the Washington Post on May 21 stating the same thing that there are increased risks and there are significant intelligence gaps, Congress is known about this gap for a significant period of time. This didn't just get here last week Friday.

So Senator Wyden, how did it happen that there's this flurry of activity this week? Well, Judy, I don't think it's coincidental. It always seems that the administration gets serious about these terrorism issues right before a congressional recess. Let's work in a bipartisan way and get the job done. In fact, the matter is a lot of time was wasted months and months of consideration that could have gone to a bipartisan bill that was targeted and was responsible, was really dedicated to discussion about it, about an overreach. We've been successful now in zeroing and on a more limited approach, an approach that will protect the interests of this country. Let's get on with it and I think if we can make sure that we get a responsible period of time for which this law lasts. We can find the role of the attorney general to one where the court is going to also be responsible where we've got Americans involved. That's the kind of approach that can build a bipartisan foundation. Judy, I just want to say the House Intelligence Committee, when we did the Intelligence

Authorization bill a couple of months ago, this was an issue on the floor. We've been trying to get this issue addressed for quite some time. We understand that now it's a scaled back approach and that's what both sides are working on. This bill does not even resemble the original version. That's why I think we can work together and get it done. Senator Wyden, Representative Hoekstra, we appreciate it. Thank you both. Thank you. That Congress takes another look at the most publicized American combat death in Afghanistan. Congressional correspondent Kwame Holman reports. Army Ranger Pat Tillman died in April 2004 in Afghanistan. Initially the Army said the former NFL star was killed by hostile fire. But five weeks later, after a widely publicized memorial service and the Posthumous awarding

to Tillman of the Silver Star for bravery, it was revealed that Tillman's fellow soldiers shot him to death during a chaotic nighttime firefight in the Afghan mountains. Ultimately there were six military investigations into Tillman's death, raising questions as to whether the military deliberately withheld the truth. And at a congressional hearing in April, Tillman's brother Kevin, a fellow Army Ranger blasted the initial misreporting about his brother and asked for further inquiry. It's a bit disingenuous to think that the administration did not know about what was going on something so politically sensitive. So that's kind of what we were hoping you guys could get involved with and take a look. Today the same House government reform and oversight committee called in the top military leaders at the time for answers. We will be examining the actions of the senior leadership at the Department of Defense. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testifying for the first time since resigning from the Pentagon last year was joined by former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers, General

John Abazay, the former combatant commander in Afghanistan and Iraq, and General Brian Brown, who was head of Special Operations Command. The committee tried unsuccessfully to subpoena Lieutenant General Philip Kenzinger, who headed Army Special Operations Command and oversaw Tillman's Ranger Unit. Yesterday the Army formally reprimanded Kenzinger for deceiving officials investigating the Tillman case he could be demoted and may have his pension reduced. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman focused on a memo from Army General Stanley McChrystal sent a week after Tillman's death in April 2004, advising Abazay, Kenzinger and Brown that Tillman may have been killed by his own troops. When did you receive this memo? I believe that the earliest I received it was on the 6th of May. The existence of the message came to my attention, but it was known within my staff that something was out there. And we found it, I called the chairman, I told the chairman about it, and it was my impression

from having talked to the chairman at the time that he knew about it. The tragic truth can only fall somewhere between screw up and cover up, between rampant incompetence and elaborate conspiracy. The committee's top Republican, Tom Davis of Virginia, asked Rumsfeld and the Myers about their recollections. How and when did you learn that Corporal Tillman had been killed? I don't recall precisely how I learned that he was killed. I could have been internally or it could have been through the press. It was something that obviously received a great deal of attention. Were you aware that President Bush was going to reference Corporal Tillman in a correspondence dinner's beach on May 1st? No. So, to your knowledge, your recollection, you never had any conversations with the president or anybody at the White House about that possibility. I have no recollection of discussing it with the White House until towards the, when it became a matter of public record about the fratricide at that point.

And when the family was notified, I'm sure there were discussions with the White House, but prior to that, I don't have the recollection of it, possibly Dick does. Dick Myers and I met with the White House frequently, but I don't recall the thing in the subject. And I don't recall either ever having a discussion with anybody in the White House about the Tillman case one way or another. You were aware of the extensive media coverage being given to this event when he was killed, absolutely. Did you instruct your staff at any point to try to influence in any way the coverage? Absolutely not. All of the former military officials expressed regret that Tillman family was not told the truth earlier, but said they had no direct responsibility for the series of actions that led to the Army's misreporting of the killing. Still, retired General Avizaid had this to say. It's very difficult to come to grips with how we screwed this thing up, but we screwed this thing up. Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings asked a blunt question.

And I asked all of you, do you think there was a cover up? By DOD, in no instance, has any evidence of a cover up to use the phrase you used, then print presented or put forward. Chairman Waxman continued the line of questioning. Do any of you think there was a cover up of the errors or actions belong? There was no never any attempt to cover up anything. I don't have all the information. General Avizaid, yes or no on this question. Do you have any comment? No sure. I don't think there was a cover up. I tried to do the right thing and the right thing didn't happen. I agree with General Avizaid. I don't think there was a cover up. Connecticut Republican Christopher Shea said the hearing should not have been called at all. I am hard pressed to know how this is going to save one American life. I am hard pressed to know how this is going to help us achieve the results that we need to achieve in Iraq or Afghanistan. But I think this was a huge screw up, warning on the lines of malfeasance. And I think we all agree with that.

So I'm not belittling the issue. I am just simply saying this committee should be spending time dealing with some other issues that we clearly have to wrestle with. Tillman's mother Mary and his wife sat through the three hour plus proceeding and left without speaking to reporters. Now a story from Greenland about the effect climate change may have on sea levels. It was co-produced with Jeffrey heen's styles and polar polluza. That's an international polar year project funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, which also funds the new's hour science unit. New's hour correspondence, Spencer Michaels, narrates this report. On Greenland's west coast, residents of the town of Iluosad, the name means among the icebergs, say they are already feeling some results of global warming. Climbing temperatures have affected the fishing and tourism industries, the lifeblood

of the town's 4,500 residents, sometimes for good, sometimes not. Some people say it's okay because it's warmer. Some people they are worried about the future. What happens if an ocean is changed and the fish is moving out? Changing ocean temperatures means some species of fish have left, but others have arrived from the south. Fishy now takes place year round. What most people are afraid of, the cold water fish is disappearing and their equipment is to fish, cold water fish. So they're going to have a big bill in the future if they want to change their gear. Dog sledding a major tourist activity used to run through April. Now it's limited to midwinter. The implications of a warming climate go far beyond Iluosad.

Because the water is getting bigger and bigger, maybe the islands of the Atlantic, it's getting drowned. You don't have to be a scientist to see the changes, that big changes. But you do need to be a scientist to know just how big the changes are, how fast they'll come, and what they mean. That's why researchers are focusing on the Yacabsoven Glacier, one of the world's largest. It is so large that the icebergs that break off from it, a process called calving, are sometimes more than 40 stories high and three city blocks wide. The glaciers are slowly moving rivers of ice. The Yacabsoven used to creep along at a pace that could truly be called glacial. Then in 1997 it doubled its speed. It's now moving more than the length of a football field each day, making it the world's fastest glacier.

Its ice also thinned and the calving front, the place where the icebergs break off, has retreated inland. After these icebergs reached the ocean and eventually melt, they raise sea level. But not enough is known scientifically about the reasons for these changes, or their impact, or how fast they will happen in the future, here and elsewhere. Even a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC, couldn't answer those questions. It said scientists simply did not have enough understanding of the melting process to make solid predictions of future sea level rise. That's where researchers like New York University's David Holland come in. So the IPCC report, there are two headlines from it. One is that in the next century, the planet near temperature is going to increase. That is solid science, totally credible, believable, good observations, good model. The second headline is that sea level will rise between 20 and 60 centimeters.

That's totally incredible and unbelievable. That's just a guess based on past behavior, how much sea level has risen in the past century. We cannot predict yet sea level change, and we're stuck, and we're stuck because we are unable to model processes that we have not observed. To make those observations, oceanographer Holland and a team of scientists headed this summer to the Yachub-Saven Glacier. Which because of publicity it has received has become a poster child for global warming. The fact of it is that the water and the depth of this field are not known, and yet this receives a lot of media attention as a reason why sea level will go up. So it's fundamental research, and basically the reason it's not measured is because it's just hard to get to. Just how hard Holland learned firsthand, his first night he was stranded on the ice without half his gear after fog grounded his supply helicopter. The next day the rest of his team was able to get just one more flight out, so they tried

to cram their scientific instruments onto that aircraft. Then it was a 40-minute flight to their observation post. The scientists had just a week to do all their work. It was Holland's first visit to Greenland. It makes one repluses just absolutely stunning. And I think also that this is a place where important consequences of climate change occur not in theory, but in fact, these are the kind of places we're talking about if climate change is going to have an impact on populations in the future. It's what happens in these kind of places matter. He has one basic question to answer. Are there ocean waters in this fjord warm enough to be causing the observed melting of this ice sheet? To find that out, Holland had to start pretty much from scratch. We really want to know about how the ocean and ice interact. But the fjord itself, the depth of the fjord is not known, the temperature of the water is not known, and you can go on from there but with not knowing those two things, nothing

is known. They assembled a rugged weather station which they hope will send back data including video every day for many years. Meanwhile, at the University of New Hampshire, glaciologist Mark Fonsdock has been compiling data he collected this spring on the speed of the glaciers and how icebergs shear off them. Our motivation for studying this system is understanding how you tie big glaciers that are draining a tremendous amount of ice to changing conditions both in the atmosphere and in the ocean. And we're trying to understand the rapid changes that the ice sheet has shown us so that we can have some idea what it will do in the future. He and his colleagues want to figure out what controls the speed of the glacier and the calving. Fonsdock set up time-lapse cameras to watch the changes in a compressed time frame. This is a week's worth of motion of the Yacab-Saven. This is a day in the life of the Earth's fastest glacier.

Continuous motion, more than 90 feet a day, fast for a glacier. Fonsdock found the glacier actually moves in fits and starts. Scale here is that that's probably about 150 meters high as it rolls over. Sometimes there are sudden violent calving events, an hour long series of crashes sounding like a freight train. Scientists took a series of still photos of the event shown in this black frame. The thing to take from that and from the rapid changes in the Yacab-Saven area, I think, is that the ice sheets are much more sensitive to fairly subtle changes than we would have predicted having not seen it. To get even more information, two scientists on Holland's team went out on Disco Bay, off of Lula-Satt, to observe where the icebergs end up. Team Member Ralph Buckmeyer works with the National Research Council of Canada. Right now we're entering this significant scene here and we have to see where we can

actually go and launch the TDD before that all bets open. They were using an instrument called a CTD, conductivity, temperature, depth, to gather data about seawater to see if it's warmth could be what's triggering the glacier's melting and movement. Later that week they were also able to deploy the glider, a kind of instrumented mini submarine. They hope in future years to fly it underwater, taking measurements below the icebergs. Flying over the glacier, they also managed to lower instruments from their helicopter. For the first time, they measured the fjords depth, almost 900 yards. A CTD found deeper water, two degrees warmer than right at the surface. And even with freshwater pouring in from the melting ice cap, they found water way back in the fjord where icebergs break off was salty, confirming how in suspicion that changes

in the ocean may be what is causing the increased melting. The research this year was just the beginning of what's designed as a 10-year project. What's really needed is a decade-long period of observation. We need to be able to correlate when the ocean is warm and cold in this fjord to when the ice is moving and not. So little snapshots are good, but the key observational thing is to get long-term. We make the observations synthesize, understand the time series, and we will be able to make models that predict the future of sea level, hopefully soon enough. These models may have implications beyond Greenland. It may be that Greenland has some, can teach us something that will allow us to better project forward what Antarctica may do in a warm inclement. But we have to learn the story in Greenland first, where we have a lot to learn. What they do learn over the next decade could help them predict how far sea levels could

rise in the future and ultimately whether apocalyptic visions of massive coastal flooding are valid or not. And now Rupert Murdoch wins his big prize and a race Juarez. Global media magnate Rupert Murdoch now has a signed merger agreement between his news corporation and the financial news organization Dow Jones, parent company of the Wall Street Journal. The approved $5 billion takeover offer is assured passage when it goes to a final Dow Jones shareholder vote later this year. The deal will pay stockholders $60 in cash per share and news Corp is agreed to appoint a member of the bankroft family or another person to their board of directors. Murdoch has also agreed not to interfere with news decisions. He will establish a special committee with the power to approve the hiring or firing

of top editorial officials. The agreement still faces regulatory review with me to discuss the details of the deal and its effect on American journalism is Geneva Overholzer, professor of journalism for the University of Missouri. She's a former editor of the Des Moines Register, Ombudsman at the Washington Post, and once served as a member of the editorial board at the New York Times, and Norman Pearlstein who worked at the Wall Street Journal for 23 years, including nine as its top news executive before becoming editor in chief of timing. He's now a senior advisor to the Carlisle Group in Norman Pearlstein, let me start with you. Now that the acquisition is all but done, is this good for the journal, major pillar in American journalism, and is it good for journalism? Well, I think it has high potential to be very good for the journal, especially when considering the alternatives. The entire news industry as well as the business press have really been under extraordinary

financial pressure and where they're not a deal with Murdoch, I think there would be continued layoffs at the journal, continued cost cutting and a continued struggle to try to get the business right. Murdoch has a passion for the journal, wants to invest in more news resources in expansion of the overseas editions and in the websites. But I think remains to be seen, and as obviously the concern of many journalists is that you can point to some of Murdoch's publications and to some of the business of newscorp and ask whether it is possible for the journal to remain editorial independent and compatible with those institutions. My own experience at Time Warner, where there were many divisions that, if you will, were not practicing journalism while CNN and Time Inc were, would suggest that it is possible

to cohabit and the question is, how committed Murdoch will be to guaranteeing that editorial independence? My own bet is that he didn't spend $5 billion to destroy that product. Geneva over, who's the same question? You know, I think there really are causes for worry. I agree with many of Norman's points. It's a good thing that Rupert Murdoch wants to spend a lot of money on the Wall Street Journal. And this purchase plays out against enormous unsettlement in the news-gathering world, as you well know, Ray, and the public has a good reason to wonder what is going to happen to journalism in the public interest. We'll watch this sale. It'll be interesting to see. Will he pull punches on coverage in China? Will he do a major series? Will the Wall Street Journal be doing a series on the effect of international corporate ownership on big media? I mean, you know, it's an important question. But I think that even if the attempts to kind of keep it as independent and nonpartisan

as it can be succeed, one question for all of us now is so many of our media are operating under this same kind of ownership structure, where there is family control, important media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Clatchy newspapers, can any family resist what happened in this case? We'll get to that a little later, but I want to return to something we mentioned earlier, which is that in return for getting the acquiescence to the sale of major members of the Bankroft Group, Rupert Murdoch made some promises. Once he owns the paper, are those agreements for real? Do they have some longitudinal heft out into the future? Well, it seems that the people at the times of London are inclined to question whether or not the agreements will hold. My own view is that the man is going to own the place. And when family ownership or corporate ownership keeps its hands off a newspaper, I'm

not sure that's always the way to go. I assume in the future, however long that deal holds, this will be Rupert Murdoch's newspaper and we'll see what he does with it. I agree with Norman. He doesn't want to tarnish the jewel, but is his goal really journalism in the public interest? That's my question. Well, Norman Pearlstein, is it? Well, I think he has a goal of journalism in the public interest. I think he also will want to be an active owner, and I think he will want to establish a publication that challenges the New York Times for setting a national agenda on many issues, and that will challenge the financial times on many business issues. But I think where you're going to see a lot of that is really on the editorial page, and if anything, I think some of my former colleagues on the editorial page worry that Murdoch is not conservative enough. Well, what does the record say, Norman Pearlstein, about acquisitions of this kind by News Corp in the past?

But for people looking for signs, what can they look to in this fast-growing company that will give them some comfort? Well, I think the biggest question is, certainly, the acquisition of the Times of London in the early 80s, and if you read the book by Harold Evans, who was then the editor of Good Times, Bad Times, it is full of examples of Murdoch allegedly re-nigging on his promises. I was living in Belgium at the time, and I guess you were in England at the time Murdoch took over the paper, and my own sense was that while he and Evans clashed on a number of issues, it wasn't about the serious investigative pieces that Harry was best known for, he clearly moved the editorial page to the right, but when Charles Douglas home replaced Evans's editor, I saw no significant change in the editorial product during the three years he was editor from 82 to 85. I would also look to the Australian where Murdoch went 20 years without turning a profit,

creating a national paper that I think is clearly the best paper in Australia. It's not even close. So there are prestige properties, Professor, in the Murdoch's stable, that the company is not monkeyed with a great deal. Does that give you pause for hope? And Norman would agree that there is dispute over whether the company has monkeyed with them. Other people, Harold Evans own book obviously seemed to indicate that he felt more strongly that there was real monkeying. I think we just don't really know what he will do with it. I think there are good aspects. He's going to put money into it, and Norman's right that we would have seen layoffs. We're seeing layoffs everywhere. But I think we ought to recognize with this is that we are now in an era where the ownership of newspapers, which has been sustained by advertising, the model isn't working anymore. Is the new model that we're going to have major international corporations owning our media in this country, even if they don't keep their hands off?

I think it's an important question for us to think about what it will mean. Well, earlier, Norman, Pearlstein mentioned the financial times, and mentioned the New York Times, and people have been talking about Murdoch broadening the Wall Street Journal to become a major news platform, not just a business news platform, and the financial times and international financial paper. If people at those two institutions are worried about this acquisition, doesn't that mean a good competitive fight, and isn't that good for journalism? Well, it may be, but the Wall Street Journal is already a serious broad newspaper. It's not just a financial newspaper. The Wall Street Journal is really one of our most substantial handful of news gathering organizations, reporting on the nation, reporting on international news. Is that what Murdoch is really interested in? I assume he wants to build a major international news gathering operation, yes, but putting it together with all the rest of what he's doing. Now, will he, if he intends to invest in the journal in the way that Norman thinks, then we may be very well off.

I have my doubts about whether or not we will see the kind of complete independence from ownership pressure that I think is essential to free news. One very good test of that is going to be how aggressively he encourages the journal to cover newscore in himself. That is very difficult for an owner to do, and there aren't many CEOs who are committed to that level of editorial independence. But it should be clear that everybody is going to be watching every move at the Wall Street Journal, and one of the toughest things, in fact, will be for an editor to write a story about something positive that newscore is doing. That's probably true. I think he's so smart. We'll see very vigorous coverage. You're exactly right. It's hard to do vigorous coverage of your own business. I think he is a role smart guy, and we will see vigorous coverage. The question is, three years down the road, what will the coverage of China look like? Will we still be watching well enough? Professor Norman Pearlstein. Thank you both. Thank you, right.

Finding tonight an encore from S.A.S.A.S. and Taylor Fleming on addiction and rehabilitation. They are proliferating up here in the lovely and expensive hills of Malibu, residential rehab centers I'm talking about. With names like Promises and Passages and Renaissance Malibu, they are protected by gates and unlisted addresses. They offer a well-healed and often famous clientele, a luxurious place to stare down the demons of alcohol and drug addiction while staring out at the luminous Pacific. The young pop star Brittany Spears had heard tabloid chronicle 28 day, $48,000, stay in promises. This glamorous spa-like facility, complete with massage therapists, elegant sheets, and gourmet food.

There seems to be a veritable trail of celebrities signing on for a now-trendy stint in one of these high-end places, often after a very public fall from grace. Think Mel Gibson after his arrest and racist chatter or other high-profileers who confess to being powerless over alcohol, like Congressman Mark Foley and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Then, it's on to Oprah or Barbara Walters to tender an apology for bad behavior and complete the disgrace to redemption cycle. It is easy to be a little cheeky about all this and hard not to be at least a little given the vast majority of people who couldn't possibly afford this kind of detox deluxe. Currently, addiction affects 22.2 million Americans and only 10% of them get any kind of treatment at all. Of the roughly 2.2 million prisoners in this country, at least half are alcohol or drug dependent and will be released back into society, addiction intact.

But even among the treated, whether they've gotten their help in prison or an AA meeting in a church basement or in Malibu's lap of luxury, the relapse rate is huge. Only about 20% of first-time rehabbers will stay clean and sober for a year. Addiction is daunting, as any of us know who have watched a loved one battle fiercely against it. It is understood now as an insidious disease with genetic, biochemical and behavioral factors. A fancy way of saying, it seems to be a thing deep in, a craving of mind and body, a habit of self-anesthetizing that is extremely difficult to break and extremely easy to fall back into once broken. The pharmaceutical companies are trying very hard to come up with a magic pill, but meanwhile, one in four Americans must watch a family member struggle with addiction, and that is not an easy thing to do.

There is so much wreckage. That goes for the celebrities, too, and their families. They might start on the road to recovery up here in the opulence of Malibu, but down there will be the same slugging, slogging day-to-day fight to the finish. The same amends to make, the same repair work to do. For some, Britney Spears and the other party girl of the moment, Lindsey, Lindsey, Lindsey Lohan, who has also tried a residential rehab program, it will be plenty tough. They are still so young, so pampered, victims not just to their own party girl appetites, but also of a celebrity worshipping culture that is in effect and enabling to borrow the addiction lingo, and they and their loved ones will pay an unknown price for the rest of their lives. Off as I have been by some of their antics, I nonetheless root for them. As I do for anybody and everybody, trying to rest themselves, free of an addiction. I'm Angela Fleming.

And again, the major developments of this day, bombings in Baghdad killed at least 70 Iraqis, and the largest Sunni Arab bloc withdrew from the government. U.S. military officials announced four more American deaths in Iraq. The total for July was 78. Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld denied any cover-up in the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. And in a letter released late today to senators, Attorney General Gonzalez acknowledged concerns he was misleading in testimony about terror surveillance. And again to our honor role of American service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, we add them as their deaths were made official on photographs become available. Order in silence are 12 more.

We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening when we'll have a newsmaker interview with House Speaker Pelosi among other things, for now I'm Jim Lara, thank you and good night.

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On the news hour tonight the news of this Wednesday in the President's proposal to expand surveillance programs as seen most differently by Senator Ron Weiden and Congressman Peter Hofstra. From today's Pat Tillman friendly fire hearings featuring former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, a science unit report on the impact of global warming on the glaciers of Greenland, two views of Rupert Murdoch's deal to buy Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, and an encore essay on rehabilitation by Ann Taylor Fleming. Somewhere west of Topeka, someone's getting out for a breath of fresh air, which is why a farmer is harvesting corn and why a train is transporting corn and why ADM is

turning corn into ethanol, a renewable, cleaner burning fuel. Somewhere west of Topeka, someone's getting out for a breath of fresh air, and lots of us are helping make sure that fresh air is actually fresh, ADM, resourceful by nature. Retirement isn't just about spending endless hours enjoying warm tropical waters, it's not even just about leaping and jumping for joy because you plan to head smartly, and it's not even about sharing time with family and friends over a great meal whenever you want. Or is it? It's time to start thinking about tomorrow, Pacific Live, the power to help you succeed. The new AT&T, and by Chevron, 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. Iraq suffered twin blows today in its struggle for security and political unity. bombings in Baghdad killed at least 70 Iraqis, 70 others were killed or found dead elsewhere. And the largest Sunni Arab bloc withdrew from the Iraqi government. We ever report on the days developments narrated by Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News. Not a job for the faint heart of this. Baghdad firefighter has attacked the blazing tanker, detonated by a suicide bomber to petrol station. By the look of it, it could have been a lot worse, but the explosion in a mostly Sunni Muslim heart of town.