The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this Friday; then the latest on the approach of Hurricane Wilma; a look at the U.N. report citing Syrian involvement in a high-level assassination in Lebanon; a Newsmaker interview with Palestinian President Abbas; and the analysis of David Brooks and Tom Oliphant.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Hurricane Wilma hit the Mexican coast today with winds of more than 145 miles per hour. The storm slowed again today but remained a dangerous Category Four hurricane. The massive eye blew ashore on the island of Cozumel, 35 miles south of Cancun. Its slow progress delayed its expected arrival in Florida until Monday. In Mexico, winds blew over palm trees and whipped up waves in flooded streets. The storm could dump as much as 40 inches of rain on Cuba, where nearly 400,000 people have already evacuated to shelters. Florida residents continued to move forward with storm preparations today. Homes and businesses were boarded up, and streets deserted, as people headed north. Mandatory evacuations were issued for the first time today for the Florida mainland. Emergency officials asked residents to leave in parts of the Gulf Coast town of Naples and nearby Marco Island.

A U.N. report has officially linked Syria to a political assassination, that of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The report concluded the decision to kill Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials." U.N. investigators stopped short of directly blaming Syrian President Bashar Assad. In New York City, Syria's ambassador dismissed the report as a political ploy.

FAYSSAL MEKDAD, U.N. Ambassador, Syria: I'm really disappointed. I feel very sad that what was expected to be a very credible investigation has turned out to be a very political analysis of the situation.

JIM LEHRER: In California, President Bush called on the U.N. to convene a special session to take up the report.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The report is deeply disturbing. The report suggests that it is -- strongly suggests that the politically motivated assassination could not have taken place without Syrian involvement.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on this story later in the program. The U.S. military announced four more U.S. troops were killed in Iraq today. Three Marines were killed west of Baghdad, in a roadside bombing. A soldier died in an ambush in northern Iraq. That makes at least 59 U.S. military deaths so far in October, 19 in the last week; 1,983 Americans have been killed since the war began.

A defense lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants was found dead today. He was abducted by masked gunmen yesterday.

And the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad offered a new assessment today on when Iraqi security forces will be able to stand on their own. He spoke to Pentagon reporters.

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM WEBSTER: We're talking about an army that can pick up and move and go out to the borders to defend the country, and be able to sustain operations out in the open for a long period of time. It's probably going to be a year and a half, two years before that system is mature enough to operate on its own.

JIM LEHRER: Gen. Webster did not say what impact his assessment would have on a withdrawal schedule for the 159,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq.

Palestinian President Abbas issued a warning to Israel today. He said Israel should not interfere in the January Palestinian parliamentary elections. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has said his government would not agree to the militant group Hamas fielding candidates.

Abbas told the NewsHour in an interview the Palestinians would not try to block certain Israeli parties from their elections.

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): Israel cannot demand that we exclude anybody from the elections. Therefore, I believe that the U.S. administration must talk to the Israelis. And we will also talk with Mr. Sharon at the time we meet him to inform him that that position is wrong, and that does not mean democracy.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have that interview in full later in the program tonight.

North Korea will return to six-party nuclear arms talks in early November. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations, said that today after a four-day visit to the country.

Richardson also said the North Koreans showed some flexibility in their demands. In earlier talks, North Korea insisted on a light water reactor in exchange for ending their weapons program.

NATO agreed today to send up to 1,000 troops to the earthquake devastated region of Pakistan. They will include an engineering battalion and a medical unit. That fell far short of yesterday's request by a top U.N. official for a massive airlift on the scale of the Berlin airlift after World War II. We have more on the relief effort from Emily Reuben of Independent Television News.

EMILY REUBEN: It's now two weeks since the earthquake struck, and still there aren't enough tents. There aren't enough helicopters either so food and blankets still aren't reaching those who need them. The Pakistan military is distributing food and the tents they have on foot. What they need and what they've been asking for is help.

NICK ROSEVEARE, Oxfam Humanitarian Director: There are insufficient tents for the needs that exist. And so we want governments to dig in to their military stocks that they have. We know that governments that prepare for action in very cold climates do carry stocks of this kind. And we're appealing, really, for those stocks to be contributed to this humanitarian effort which is about saving people's lives.

EMILY REUBEN: The fact is Pakistan can only make and distribute 5,000 tents a day. At least 8,000 are needed. And they have to be strong enough to withstand the winter and big enough to house a family, so most commercial ones simply won't do.

Also, if the tents are to reach the people here, they need to be delivered by helicopters that so far haven't arrived. And that may well be where NATO's 1,000 troops pledged today will come in. Many of them are engineers. And in the absence of helicopters and tents, they will be clearing roads to help people get down from the mountains and into more secure camps.

JIM LEHRER: The Oct. 8 earthquake killed at least 79,000 people.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay went to court in Austin, Texas, today. He faces charges of violating state campaign finance laws. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Tom DeLay smiled broadly as he entered a Travis County courtroom with wife Christine for his scheduled arraignment on money laundering and conspiracy charges.

Since his indictment three weeks ago DeLay has insisted the charges brought by District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat are politically motivated. But this morning DeLay's lawyer questioned the politics of Judge Bob Perkins. Dick DeGuerin asked the judge to recuse himself from the case because he contributed money to moveon.org a left-leaning political organizations.

DICK DeGUERIN: Mr. Earle seems to think it is just a Democrat-Republican thing but I noticed yesterday moveon.org to which you contributed were selling T-shirts with Mr. DeLay's mug shot on it to raise money.

JUDGE BOB PERKINS, Travis County, Texas: Well, let me just say I haven't ever seen that T-shirt, number one. Number two, I haven't bought it. Number three, the last time that I -- number three, the last time I contributed to Moveon that I know of was prior to the November election last year when they were primarily helping Sen. Kerry.

KWAME HOLMAN: Perkins postponed the arraignment and agreed to let another judge hear DeLay's request for a new judge in the case. Prosecutor Ronnie Earle said he would contest that request. The entire proceeding took fewer than four minutes.

Later moveon.org issued a statement denying it was selling Tom DeLay T-shirts and said DeLay's lawyer either had bad information or lied in court.

JIM LEHRER: On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 65 points to close at 10,215. The NASDAQ rose 14 points to close at 2082. For the week, the Dow lost 0.7 percent. The NASDAQ rose 0.8 percent.

Jazz singer Shirley Horn died in suburban Washington, D.C., yesterday, following an extended battle with diabetes. She was best known for slow ballads that included her signature use of silence in music.

Here she is singing "Take Love Easy" last December at a Kennedy Center concert in her honor.

(SHIRLEY HORN SINGING)

JIM LEHRER: Shirley Horn was 71 years old.

And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: Here comes Hurricane Wilma; a murder in Lebanon; the leader of the Palestinians; and Brooks and Oliphant.

UPDATE HURRICANE WILMA

JIM LEHRER: Jeffrey Brown has the latest on Hurricane Wilma. He spoke a short time ago with senior meteorologist Bernie Rayno of AccuWeather.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mr. Rayno, where is Wilma now and how strong is it?

BERNIE RAYNO: Well, Wilma right now is a Category 4 hurricane maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour. And it is right over Cozumel. In fact, you can see the eye going right over Cozumel. This is the dot which shows the airport in Cozumel. It is right in the middle of the eye.

Also just off to the south of Cancun, and Cancun is feeling the full brunt of this Category 4 hurricane as we speak; this is what we are going to be looking at here Friday night into Saturday. This red area is where we are going to see maximum sustained winds up over 100 miles per hour. We're going to see at least ten to twenty inches of rain. Some spots are going to get more than that.

And I will tell you what, Cozumel and Cancun will never be the same. I shouldn't say never, but it's going to take a good time to clean this area up, probably about five to ten years before it's back to what it was before Wilma hit.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now all day long forecasters have been saying that this one is hard, particularly hard to predict. What is your tracking telling you about where it is going in the coming days?

BERNIE RAYNO: Well, it is going to be hard to predict because it is going to be slowing down across the Yucatan Peninsula we think as we go through the night. It is also going to be weakening over time as well. And here is why it is going to be weakening: It's going to be stalling over land a little bit and move very slower. And the water in the Gulf of Mexico is much, much cooler. So not only is it going to be overland which brings dry air into the storm but once it moves over the water it's going to be a little cooler.

Now what's going to then happen as we get into the weekend, the storm is going to encounter westerly winds across the central Gulf of Mexico. That is going to do two things: Number one, it's going to start turning it more to the right. And number two, it's still going to allow it to weaken more.

Right now the threat area, and this is on Monday, we're looking for landfall Monday, anywhere from Fort Meyers down towards the Keys, probably as a Category 2 or Category 1 hurricane. Category 2 hurricanes, maximum sustained winds of ninety-six to one hundred and eleven. And of course Category 1 is seventy-five to ninety-five. So it's a formidable storm for South Florida early next week, but it's not the same monster that it is right now.

JEFFREY BROWN: This one got a lot of attention for turning from a tropical storm into one of the strongest ever. How did that happen? How does that kind of thing happen?

BERNIE RAYNO: Well, in my 15 years of operational forecasting, I have never seen a storm go from a tropical storm, then to a hurricane, then to a Cat 5 in 12 hours. That is what happened. In fact, it was the strongest hurricane ever recorded given its pressure in the Atlantic basin. There was a lot of warm water across northwest Caribbean. Remember, it is that warm water that helps feed the hurricanes and allows it to strengthen.

Also conditions were perfect in the middle and upper part of the atmosphere -- very light winds that did not disrupt the inflow of the hurricane. And that is why it got that strong. But, remember, that was two days ago. It has been slowly, ever so slowly weakening am but as we speak, it is still a Category 4 hurricane.

JEFFREY BROWN:: Okay, Bernie Rayno of AccuWeather, thanks very much.

BERNIE RAYNO: My pleasure.

FOCUS MURDER PLOT

JIM LEHRER: Unraveling a political murder in Beirut. Margaret Warner has our story.

MARGARET WARNER: This was the scene in downtown Beirut last February after a massive explosion killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Fingers were pointed at neighboring Syria which had occupied Lebanon for nearly 30 years.

Hariri's death triggered massive demonstrations in Beirut, demanding the Syrian troops leave. And in April, they did. Soon after, Lebanon held new elections that diminished Syria's heavy political influence there.

Separately, the U.N. Security Council tapped a German prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, to conduct an unprecedented international investigation of the crime. Yesterday Mehlis delivered his first report to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The conclusions made public today pinned responsibility for the assassination squarely on top Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials. It said the attack was carried out with a group with an extensive organization and considerable resources and capabilities; that many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination; and that the likely motive of the assassination was political.

The report also noted several interviewees tried to mislead the investigation by giving false or inaccurate statements, among them, Syria's foreign minister, Farouk al Charaa. Today Syrian officials vehemently denied any involvement in Hariri's death.

FAYSSAL MEKDAD, U.N. Ambassador, Syria: Syria strongly believes that it is innocent and that the committee has to look somewhere else to find those who committed this heinous crime.

MARGARET WARNER: The tone was similar on the streets of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

MAN (Translated): The report is orchestrated to give Syria a bad image.

MARGARET WARNER: Some of the most startling revelations in Mehlis's report came in e-mailed copies in which names marked for deletion nonetheless appeared in the margins. Those sections fingered Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother, Maher Assad, and his brother-in-law, the powerful military intelligence chief, Assef Shawkat.

That accusation like the rest of the report on Hariri's killing was based on extensive interviews conducted with senior Lebanese and Syrian officials.

Among those interviewed was Syria's interior minister who had exercised major influence in Lebanon, Gen. Ghazi Kanan. Kanan was found dead in his Damascus office last week from a gunshot through his mouth.

In Lebanon today the U.N. report dominated the newspapers. In the U.S., Secretary of State Rice said, Accountability is going to be very important for the international community.'

The Security Council is scheduled to discuss the report on Tuesday. Mehlis, meanwhile, says his investigation continues.

And for more on all of this we turn to: David Ignatius, a foreign affairs columnist for the Washington Post who's covered Lebanon since the early 1980s; and Hisham Melhem, Washington bureau chief for the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar; he also hosts a weekly program on the Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya. Born and raised in Lebanon, he's now a U.S. Citizen.

MARGARET WARNER: Welcome to you both.

David Ignatius before we get into all the details, what did you find most striking about this report?

DAVID IGNATIUS: Well, I just found the tone extraordinary. If you think of a novel, imagine The Godfather Meets the Baath Party' -- it is so unlikely. But you read the details of this investigation and as your earlier report says, they have a witness who says that the head of the Lebanese security met with the brother of the president of Syria, Maher Assad, and the brother-in-law of the president of Syria, and they together plotted to assassinate the former prime minister of the neighboring country, Lebanon. There's all kinds of evidence in this document that back up their claims. I found it a quite devastating piece of investigation.

MARGARET WARNER: What was your immediate reaction?

HISHAM MELHEM: I saw in the report broad political and moral indictment of the Syrian regime, specifically a criminal indictment of both the security apparatus in Syria and Lebanon; also I think it's an indictment of pervasive culture of fear and intimidation in most of the Arab states, not only in Lebanon and Syria.

Beyond that, this report could be historic for the simple reason that this is the first time since the Lebanese conflict began in the mid 1970s, and for that matter, throughout the Arab world in the last 50 years, this is the first time we have seen a serious international investigation into the killing of a major political figure.

And in the Arab world, we've seen literally scores of such killings going without any serious investigation or any consequences. That is why it is historic.

MARGARET WARNER: David, the report, while the report, for instance, the thing you just mentioned and we mentioned about these five gentlemen, that comes from one witness but the report absolutely concludes that this could not have been carried out without the active involvement of the Syrian, senior Syrian officials.

As we heard, the Syrians are saying it is riddled with inconsistencies, uncorroborated reports. Help us out with this. How extensive is the evidence to back up that major charge?

DAVID IGNATIUS: The evidence is extensive but its witnesses, it's evidence that would have to be tested in a court of law. There is some technical evidence. There were a series of cell phone calls within minutes before the bomb blast took off -- as it appears -- the route of Hariri's motorcade was surveilled by Syrian and Lebanese agents.

There is other communications information, some brutal threats that were made by Syrian officials against Hariri that have -- were recorded or appear here in transcription.

But I think the honest answer is that to make this case in court will take a lot of work. And it will take witnesses who stay alive. I mean, you know, the key person in Syria in some ways overseeing Lebanon, a man who was a friend of Rafik Hariri's in fact, ended up dead a week ago from an apparent suicide.

Very few Lebanese that I talked to believe that was a suicide. I know that French officials are very worried that in the next few days reprisals will come in Beirut against potential witnesses in an attempt to derail this investigation.

MARGARET WARNER: What was your thought about how well documented this is? I mean Mehlis says himself there is a lot more to be done and all this has to be tested in a tribunal.

HISHAM MELHEM: There is also belief that Mehlis did not include everything he has or he knew in this report because, again, this is an interim report. This is not the final word.

Now obviously as David said, there is a significant amount of recording, of taped conversations.

MARGARET WARNER: Transcripts.

HISHAM MELHEM: Transcripts between Syrian officials, intelligence officials and Lebanese politicians, recording of conversations between Prime Minister Hariri himself and a senior Syrian official probably found in Hariri's office in addition to interviews with literally scores and hundreds of witnesses.

And most of it paint a bleak picture of conditions in Lebanon when the Syrians were operating and shows the depth of the animosity that the Syrians had for Rafik Hariri because they saw in him a potential for creating a political coalition in Lebanon that would include other figures and other groups in Lebanon that will say to the Syrians, ask the Syrians to leave Lebanon and their hegemony over the country.

MARGARET WARNER: The report does say that the motive was political. Was that the political motive, that Syrians had one for getting rid of Hariri?

DAVID IGNATIUS: If you look at the text, Margaret, you will see that this key meeting that took place in Damascus that we have referred where the Syrian President -- Assad's brother and brother-in-law plotted with the Lebanese colleague --

MARGARET WARNER: According to this one witness.

DAVID IGNATIUS: According to this witness, took place two weeks after the United Nations Security Council had approved Resolution 1559 calling for withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

In other words, it appears to have been a direct response and reprisal against Hariri, who had been a champion of this call for Syrian withdrawal. It was intolerable to the Syrians and it they took, it is alleged, brutal action.

MARGARET WARNER: And the Syrians thought, did they not, that Hariri was in cahoots with French President Chirac to get it through the U.N.?

DAVID IGNATIUS: They regarded this as a French-Hariri project. They were very close. And in fact, it was the French who had pushed the United States to pass 1559 in the first place.

MARGARET WARNER: Then there is this very important meeting in August of 2004, they interviewed many witnesses from, this is from President Assad summoned then President Hariri to Damascus. Why was that so important, just tell us a little about that?

HISHAM MELHEM: He was summoned to Damascus, before he went to Damascus he had to meet the Syrian intelligence boss in Lebanon on his way to Damascus. And he had to meet him; he had to meet him again on his way back from Damascus. It was a short brisk meeting, ten, fifteen minutes according to many people. I even spoke with -- before the matter -- this was a well-known story, account of what happened in Lebanon. According to Hariri, he told a number of people, family members parliamentarians, other colleagues that President Assad said essentially I want you to say yes to my decision to extend the terms that the President Emil Lahud

MARGARET WARNER: Who was pro Syrian.

HISHAM MELHEM: More that than pro Syrian, I would say. And if you don't do that, I will break Lebanon over your heads and over the head of his ally, and in other accounts he said Jack Chirac thinks he can drive Syrian out of Lebanon I will destroy Lebanon, I'm going to destroy Lebanon. This account or this chilling account was corroborated by a number of witnesses. And it was a very short meeting.

And in fact, we heard about this account from many people before Mehlis, immediately after the assassination of Hariri, this is a very well-known story. I mean, these threats to Hariri are believed in Lebanon to be extremely documented and true.

MARGARET WARNER: Now another charge in this report by the investigator is that Syrian officials actively tried to mislead investigators. Give us an example or two of how the investigators concluded that. In other words, the Syrians were saying one thing and somehow they had evidence of something else.

HISHAM MELHEM: Well, in fact, that meeting with Assad and Hariri, according to, Farouk Charaa, the foreign minister of Syria, and according to the last security boss in Lebanon painted a misleading picture. It was cordial, it was friendly. Assad referred to Hariri as my friend. And when you compare that to the other accounts, the Lebanese accounts it is black and white.

And also there were other reports in which the former Syrian ambassador in Washington, Willard Marlin, very well-known in the United States, saying one thing to the commission on the record and then according to a transcript of a taped meeting between Hariri and Willard Marlin, Willard Marlin essentially is telling Hariri we got you cornered. I mean, it is a completely different account.

MARGARET WARNER: Where does it go from here? Let's say at the U.N., first of all, David?

DAVID IGNATIUS: Well, Margaret, President Bush today began to suggest what the U.S. Vie, and this is a view that has been worked out especially with France but in consultation with the Lebanese government with other allies. The president called for a meeting at the United Nations of foreign ministers, in other words, an unusually high level meeting next week, probably, you know, the middle of the week that would discuss what to do about Syria and about this report condemning Syria's top leadership in this killing.

I'm told that the administration is discussing now, will be brainstorming over the weekend what that session should call for. There is a worry first and I mentioned this earlier, the French are very concerned that on the ground in Lebanon Syrians in effect will double their bets. You think we have been brutal so far? Just watch and really try to back everybody off. So there is a feeling that you have to move very quickly.

There is a worry in the administration that simply announcing sanctions, you know, of indeterminate duration won't really get at this. There is a need to act very quickly and decisively. We've had sanctions placed against Cuba for what, 40 years. I mean, so there is a desire not to put Syria in that category for permanent sanctions, maybe much more aggressive sanctions, short term, maybe a call for very quick delivery of key witnesses and information, or much more dramatic action subsequently.

MARGARET WARNER: So, in other words, you think that will be the game plan here to try to put more pressure on Syria to actually cooperate further with this investigation?

HISHAM MELHEM: The American assessment of the Syrian regime is that it is weak and flailing. And I think that is an objective assessment of many Syrian watchers, Europeans in the Arab world or in the United States. And I think while the Americans publicly talk about change of behavior in Damascus, not necessarily change of regime, they believe at this stage that they cannot deal with the president. They don't believe him. They want him to deliver on certain specific promises. And they are going to hold him accountable. And that is why this word "accountable" accountability was used

MARGARET WARNER: Which Condi Rice used.

HISHAM MELHEM: -- by not only Condi Rice but other American officials, definitely.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Hisham Melhem, David Ignatius, thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The Palestinian president; and Brooks and Oliphant.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Our Newsmaker interview with the Palestinian president, as conducted by Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: When Israel pulled out of Gaza two months ago the end of that 38-year occupation looked less like a significant step toward peace and more like another version of the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israeli government had agreed with the Palestinian authority that the settlements should be partially destroyed rather than handed over intact. But it ended up being some settlers themselves who wrecked the things they couldn't carry away before the soldiers came to force them out. And Palestinian mobs burned down buildings that the Israelis had not destroyed, including the synagogues.

And since the Palestinian Authority assumed control over Gaza, there has been an upsurge of violence. Palestinian security forces often appeared overwhelmed amid running clashes with Hamas militants in Gaza and armed gangs connected with the ruling Fatah Party.

The violence has also spread to the West Bank; attacks by Palestinians have killed at least four Israelis. And as many as 20 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory raids by Israeli forces.

A summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Abbas has been shelved twice. The two last met at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt last February when they brokered a cease-fire deal, but the Israelis have demanded that Abbas disarm militant groups and the Palestinians are calling for more freedom of movement in and out of Gaza.

It's against this backdrop that Palestinian President Abbas came to Washington for talks with President Bush. But the American president expressed optimism about the prospects for Palestinian statehood.

He also called on both sides to fulfill their obligations under the so-called road map to peace the two sides agreed upon two years ago.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The way forward must begin by confronting the threat that armed gangs pose to a genuinely democratic Palestine. At the same time Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes its road map obligations or prejudice the final status negotiations with regard to Gaza the West Bank and Jerusalem. This means that Israel must remove unauthorized posts and stop settlement expansion.

RAY SUAREZ: I spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas earlier today.

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. President, thanks for joining us. Is the road map still a workable plan? Does it contain the ingredients that will end us with two states living side-by-side in peace?

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): I believe that the road map is the international -- the only international reference that is available now to resolve the Middle East question and the Palestinian-Israeli struggle. It contains everything in order to solve this question right from the beginning to the end including the Palestinians' independent state.

I believe that we are after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, we should go back to this plan so that we can implement it to arrive at what President Bush had announced in his initiative to establish the independent Palestinian state, which is viable, contiguous, live side-by-side with the state of Israel.

RAY SUAREZ: The plan involves both sides having expectations of the other side. What is it that you and your government want from Israel?

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): We want Israel now at the present time to resolve a number of problems, particularly regarding the Gaza sector -- sector and the crossings, in particular, and then the issues that we had basically agreed on at Sharm el Sheik, which are the exit from the cities and release a number of prisoners and those who are wanted and exiled.

This is the beginning so that we will go on and continue directly step-by-step the other issues contained on the road map.

RAY SUAREZ: And the Israelis want from your government certain guarantees about security, certain assurances that violent elements will be controlled. Can you do it?

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): The question of security and other issues, and other violations that are taking place are an issue that concerns us primarily more than it does the Israelis. We are concerned that the situation in the Palestinian territories be quiet and all violent acts stop and all instigation acts end also so that we can create conducive climate for the future and peace.

When we agreed with all the factions for the troops now, that which is being implemented, not 100 percent, I would say but with a high rate of implementation, there are certain violations from the Israelis and from the Palestinians. The second point and now there is another step and that is to stop all semblances of armed appearances in Gaza sector and in the West Bank.

RAY SUAREZ: The United States for its part says that it will pressure the Israelis about increasing the size and the population of the settlements. But the Israelis so far have continued to build and continued to move population in. Is this an impediment to moving forward?

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): This is an issue that we have talked at length about in the past visit. And in this current visit with the American administration, we told them that there must be some credibility to our political work, a continuation of settlements, and the building of the wall and changing the topography of Jerusalem does not give the impression or the hope to the Palestinian citizens that there is a full use and that is coming in the future.

Therefore it is imperative that we talk directly with Israeli government to stop these activities. We know that the issue of border and Jerusalem also and other issues will be discussed in the final status negotiations. But let us suppose that all these activities must stop in accordance to the resolutions that have been adopted and that were mentioned also in the road map and the written report.

We don't come with a new thing that is outside of framework of the international legitimacy. But we are asking the implementation of the legitimacy if we want a true peace and if Israel wants real, true peace, I have to mention here -- remind Mr. Sharon that these activities must stop and we should answer directly to the final set of negotiations, if they wish, officially or informally, we don't have any objections. But we should start from now to discuss these issues so that we do not waste time.

RAY SUAREZ: In the next round of Palestinian elections will it be possible to bring Hamas into the process and make it into a regular political party?

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): Firstly, when we talk about democracy which we have adopted as a practice and a policy, adopting democracy is not only a method or practice, but also to give results, the results, if we wanted a true democratic results, everybody, all children of the Palestinian people must participate in the elections, otherwise we cannot follow a pick-and-choose democracy. This is something that we will not accept.

RAY SUAREZ: But this may be another example of a gap between Israel and the United States. I understand that the President of the United States is willing to see Hamas in these elections, and perhaps these Israelis are not.

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): I do not ask from the Israeli government to exclude anybody from the elections when Israelis enter into the elections, we see that there are 32 lists from the extreme right to the extreme left this is democracy also to us. Israel cannot demand that we exclude anybody from the elections. Therefore, I believe that -- the U.S. Administration must talk to the Israelis.

And we will also talk with Mr. Sharon at a time when we meet him to inform him that that position is wrong, and that does not mean democracy.

RAY SUAREZ: One final question, sir. What would you say to Israelis who watching their television, reading their newspapers, saw what happened in Gaza after the Israeli forces left? Should they be reassured about the peace and security of Israel by what happened in Gaza? Should they be reassured about the future of the West Bank by looking at Gaza after the pullout?

MAHMOUD ABBAS (Translated): I believe that Gaza experiment is a useful one that the Israelis and the whole world should see -- that when the Israeli army had left and the settlers had left and we pledged that exit be quiet and without any incidents at all, that indicates that we believe in peace and we believe in stopping violence no matter what the causes are.

We do not want at all that our people should live under the fear of violence. Also we do not for the Israeli people to live either under the fear of violence. At the same time, we also need to be a nation with own, its own independence with the right force of determination.

If the Israelis wish that we should arrive to that point, definitely they will be the winners. They will be the winners because in the end, their neighbor enjoys their rights and will be a friendly neighbor, allowing neighbor, and a neighbor who would deal with them in a neighborly way. And we are close in the same region, we're in the same area, sharing the Holy Land together.

Consequently, we are a bridge for them towards the whole Arab and Islamic world because that this world looks at the Arab Israelis and say unless this issue is resolved, then we will not have any relations with Israel or any dialogue with the Israelis. This must be understood by the Israelis.

RAY SUAREZ: Mr. President, thanks for being with us.

MAHMOUD ABBAS: Thank you, thank you very much.

FOCUS BROOKS & OLIPHANT

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, the analysis of Brooks and Oliphant, New York Times columnist David Brooks, Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant. Mark Shields is off.

JIM LEHRER: David, Harriet Miers, how would you describe the state of her nomination tonight?

DAVID BROOKS: It's kind of an unimpressive object and an immovable force. Unimpressive object is the way she's conducted herself over the past week. She has met with senators and the meetings have not gone well.

They have gone fine but none of the senators were impressed. And when you talk to senators about what they think of her so far, disappointed is the word that comes up -- fine but not impressed. And so there is a lull about it. And the opponents are sure they are doing the right thing. And the people supporting her are not sure they are doing the right thing. So there is this momentum against her.

On the other hand, there are two things working in her favor: One is the president who I'm told is extremely committed to her, to the point where if she said hey, Mr. President this isn't worth it, he would say no, you are sticking this out; we are going to get you through.

JIM LEHRER: He wouldn't let her out even if she wanted to leave.

DAVID BROOKS: I believe that, yes. And secondly there is a great deal of pressure from the leadership in the Senate to get her to the hearings, under the supposition that the woman deserves a hearing.

JIM LEHRER: You are talking about the Republican leadership.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: How do you read it tonight?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, in fact, so strong is that, that they kind of stepped in and stop this process of the one-on-one visits with senators. I think --.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree that really didn't go well?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, the dustup with Arlen Specter, I think, was revealing.

JIM LEHRER: Explain that.

TOM OLIPHANT: In her meeting with -- he asked one of the standard questions, which is exploring view on privacy, what do you think of the basic Supreme Court decision in 1965 Griswold versus Connecticut. And Specter came out afterward and said she basically supports the decision as settled law. She was back on the phone to him within an hour --

JIM LEHRER: And that is important because that is the basis on which --

TOM OLIPHANT: It is the intellectual foundation

JIM LEHRER: Roe v. Wade and the privacy issue is a result --

TOM OLIPHANT: So she is on the phone to Specter within an hour in effect contradicting what "he said, she said". And Specter, it takes a lot of work to make Arlen Specter mad at this stage of the process. He wants to get to the hearings. He has got no interest in being for or against her ahead of time. And he comes out and he actually yields to her version of what happened. But, in fact, he was quite angered by it. And her --.

JIM LEHRER: He yielded to her but he didn't say I misheard her. I yield to her correction. That is just interesting.

TOM OLIPHANT: And then the responses to the questionnaire I think compounded the problem because this unwillingness to show anything in the way of philosophy or ideology. Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter appeared together in public to express their displeasure, quite remarkable. I think the atmosphere right now the late comedian Shelley Berman summed it up perfectly, what you hear is the sound of one hand clapping.

And it needs -- it is not so much suffering from the presence of opposition as it is the absence of advocacy.

JIM LEHRER: Well, David, remember last week Mark Shields spoke rather eloquently about how unfair this whole thing is to her as a person, as an individual.

Now you are saying that if she has had enough of this and she thinks that this is an embarrassment and she is going to go through this thing and she believes she isn't going to make it, then you still don't think the president would let her go?

DAVID BROOKS: I think the president is determined, apparently, according to meetings he has had. And you remember John Bolton at one point said hey, I'm not -- the UN ambassador.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

DAVID BROOKS: I'm not sure this is worth it. And once the president got in the fight, he said no, we're going to get there. And the point is, nothing else matters except getting 51 votes. And I think there is a feeling that if she is C plus in the hearings, that is good enough to get her to 51.

JIM LEHRER: You agree with that?

TOM OLIPHANT: Yeah, you can't -- it is like flunking out of an Ivy League college, you really have to work at it for that to happen. And when the hearings unfold, remember there are three Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee who have the capacity to torpedo this thing: Jeff Sessions, Coburn of Oklahoma, and Brownback of Kansas

JIM LEHRER: All of them very conservative and pro-life.

TOM OLIPHANT: Yes, very much so, particularly Brownback and Coburn in this context. At the moment I don't see any signs that one of them wants to oppose her. And without that, this is -- 51 is a possibility.

DAVID BROOKS: But then this goes to Mark's point, which is that she has to spend her life thinking about these issues. And she is going to be thrown and asked these questions. And I guess she was asked at one of the meetings, who is your favorite Supreme Court justice and she said Warren, and people were debating --.

JIM LEHRER: She said that to Sen. Leahy

DAVID BROOKS: And so, you know, there are going to be a million questions and believe me, every day if there is one miscue in the hearings, that will be a big story of the day. And that will have its own dynamic.

JIM LEHRER: Quickly, the folks you talked to, in other words, the conservatives were really up set about this and are mounting a campaign against her. Have you seen any waning of that any weariness, any dampening of their enthusiasm whatever that word is dampening of their enthusiasm against her?

DAVID BROOKS: No, and I wouldn't even say it is enthusiasm. People like her, and they feel sorry for her. They like the president. They just don't you know -- they've been waiting a long time for this. And this is not the thing that excites them.

JIM LEHRER: Tom DeLay was in court today in Austin, Tom -- charged having to do with the money laundering charge, State of Texas charge. Are there any signs that his absence in the Republican leadership of the House has had any impact at all?

TOM OLIPHANT: Not really. I watched very carefully about ten days okay. They had another one of these energy bills, they are really tax bills, on the floor. And it took a great deal of arm twisting over the time limit again to get to win by a couple of votes. DeLay was on the floor.

JIM LEHRER: Over the time limit means they have a certain time for the vote and they don't have the votes so they just keep extending the time until they twist some more arms and whatever --

TOM OLIPHANT: Yeah. And DeLay was on the floor breaking legs and twisting arms.

JIM LEHRER: Just like old times.

TOM OLIPHANT: Just like nothing had happened. And also I don't believe in the great man theory of history. And life really does go on. And Dennis Hastert has had to be speaker in fact, a little bit more than he has been recently. And the substitute leadership, I think, has also performed rather well.

They have a terrible dilemma to resolve on whether to cut the budget and if so by how much but those decisions will be made by people without him to the extent it is necessary.

JIM LEHRER: What's your

DAVID BROOKS: What I have heard is that he is still around but he has no staff. And if you have no staff, there is a limit to how much one person can do. When you have a staff you have a whole barrage of people. So a lot of House Republicans have said now is the time we can cut spending because DeLay was also against spending cuts. He is an institutionalist; he believes in appropriations and he believes in buying votes.

JIM LEHRER: That is where the power is.

DAVID BROOKS: Right, so now you have this coalition, people like Mike Pence, who's quite a conservative member from Indiana, other people who are more moderate and now they think, you know this budget is just out of control; because DeLay is gone, we've got a chance to really cut spending.

I must say also in the House it is a roiling sea of unhappiness right now because of the polls, because they are facing election and because the Republicans especially know they have really about six, seven months to redefine themselves, and in some places define themselves against President Bush so they can win in the Northeast.

TOM OLIPHANT: Though again, Speaker Hastert has been one of those bulwarks against the kind of conservative revolution that some of these guys are advocating. And I still do not see the route whereby the House Republicans get from here -- which is no proposal -- to there -- which is a full round of deep budget cuts.

JIM LEHRER: New subject. What are you expecting next week on the CIA leak case, David?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, if I knew I would be -- I mean --.

JIM LEHRER: What are you expecting?

DAVID BROOKS: An ocean of anticipation here. My liberal friends are in a frenzy. They can barely think. They're waiting for the great fall of Karl Rove.

JIM LEHRER: Are you?

DAVID BROOKS: I mean, if I had to bet, I would think there is, you know, the man was asked to testify four times. That's not a good sign. There is apparently no report; that is not a good sign that he is going to issue an report without indictments. So you know, now the buzz centers on Scooter' Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, primarily, but also on Rove and you would expect there would be some indictments, I guess I would bet that.

And to me the crucial thing about the indictments will be are they indicted for something that happened before the investigation, which is the violation of the Intelligence Act. Or are they indicted for something that happened during the course of investigation, which is perjury.

And if it is just about something that happened within the course of the investigation, they will be a big fight. The Republicans will defend it. If it's not, people will hang back and wait for the trial.

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, I'm not sure because perjury and obstruction of justice are very serious offenses in and of themselves. And it's also a very stark atmosphere when crimes like that are alleged. The information that we are all gossiping about is primarily --.

JIM LEHRER: We are not gossiping. We are analyzing, Tom.

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, actually, I do stand corrected because that's true. It is coming from lawyers involved in the case more than it is --.

JIM LEHRER: There have been more leaks about this leak story

TOM OLIPHANT: There are two kinds of lawyers as near as I can figure. One wouldn't tell you if your coat was on fire, the kind I tend to respect more. But there is another kind. And I am just struck by how universal is the assumption there are going to be criminal charges.

JIM LEHRER: Every story today, a slightly different angle on some of the stories but whether it's going to be conspiracy, whether it's going to be perjury, whether it's going to be this, that or whatever but everybody -- the consensus of the leaks was that it was going to be some kind of indictment.

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, I can say that that is true. I mean this is -- the lawyers who are willing to talk about it universally expect that.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah, back to things we know about. The constitution vote in Iraq, how important an event was that?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think as many people have said, it is not -- you don't have events to turn the corner in Iraq but you have a process. And this was part of the process. It was tremendously important. The Sunnis were voting, and it was tremendously important that people were looking beyond this election to the actual assembly elections later on.

And then the other thing that happened this week was that Condi Rice went to Capitol Hill and actually laid out an anti-insurgency strategy. This is the first time the administration has done it. And it happened now because it took a long time to crush Donald Rumsfeld; the Defense Department was running the strategy. And they were sort of let's get out of there; let's have a withdrawal strategy. Finally the secretary of state and the State Department have said no, let's have a victory strategy. That is another important step forward.

JIM LEHRER: We had, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Walter Mead on the night of that and both of them said that same thing, that they interpreted it that the State Department is finally taking over the Iraq policy.

TOM OLIPHANT: To an extent I agree. There is no question that -- I mean I believe Dr. Brzezinski made this point also, a terribly important one, and that is that there is a tremendous difference in tone and in substance between Secretary Rice's presentations on Capitol Hill this week and President Bush's speech at the beginning of the month. This was an anti-insurgency strategy.

And however, what keeps happening is the violence and the deaths, the uncertainty about what the cost is, and there is an element of Secretary Rice's presentation that is important to bring up here. And that is it comes with an open-ended commitment. And it's not clear to me politically that this country can sustain an open-ended commitment at this level of violence and cost.

JIM LEHRER: Finally, there is an event beginning tomorrow called the World Series, Chicago White Sox versus the Houston Astros, do you have a position on that?

DAVID BROOKS: I have a political position.

JIM LEHRER: What is your position?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, first I'm in favor of the World Series because the big money teams are not in it. But secondly --

JIM LEHRER: But everybody else says nobody will care because it is the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, that is not true. Roger Clemens is pitching. People will care. One always has to support the industrial city over the Sunbelt city; that is very important because the industrial cities have suffered. And secondly you have to support the White Sox because they are not the lakefront cubbies who are the wine bar team, the White Sox are the tavern and bar team.

TOM OLIPHANT: The Mayor Daley team on the south side of the city. I totally agree, it has been 88 years and so all progressives are behind the White Sox for justice reasons and also because we want forgiveness at last for shoeless Joe Jackson.

JIM LEHRER: Oh my goodness. Gentlemen, thank you so much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: And again, the major developments of this day: Hurricane Wilma remained a Category Four storm as it pounded the Mexican coast with winds of more than 145 miles per hour. A U.N. report linked Syria to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. And former house majority leader Tom DeLay appeared in an Austin, Texas, court to face charges of violating state campaign finance laws. Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening, when we'll have the first of our 30th anniversary update reports on some key stories we've covered over the years. For now, have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.