The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Monday, the February Bush-Gorbachev summit was postponed because of the Gulf War. Pres. Bush said in a speech the war against Iraq was a just war, more Iraqi planes went to Iran, and a U.S. team arrived in Saudi Arabia to help deal with the oil spill. We'll have the details in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: On tonight's NewsHour after reporting the latest in the Gulf War, we examine why the Bush-Gorbachev summit was put off, then a report on life in Baghdad as told by refugees and Iraqi TV. Next, we look at the massive Gulf oil spill. Charlayne Hunter- Gault reports from Saudi Arabia and two experts describe what is possible and what isn't to clean it up. Finally, we have a report on special anti-terrorism measures in Los Angeles. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Next month's U.S.-Soviet summit was postponed today. It was to have been held in Moscow February 11th to 13th. Pres. Bush met with Soviet foreign minister Alexander Bersmetnik at the White House. Afterwards, Sec. of State Baker and the foreign minister announced the delay.

SEC. BAKER: The Gulf War makes it inappropriate for Pres. Bush to be away from Washington. In addition, work on the START Treaty will require some additional time. Both presidents look forward to setting an exact summit date as soon as it becomes feasible to do so.

MR. MacNeil: When asked if the recent Soviet crackdown in the Baltic republics was a factor in the decision, Baker refused to answer directly, saying the statement speaks for itself. He said the Moscow summit would be rescheduled to a later date in the first half of this year. The latest clash involving Soviet troops and Republican authorities in the Baltics took place in Lithuanian. The government today said six members of the elite black berets attacked two customs posts, firing shots and beating up one of the officers at the post. Correspondent David Rose of Independent Television News filed this report on the mounting tension in Vilnius, Lithuania's capital.

MR. ROSE: Every day, hundreds of Lithuanians march to the parliament in Vilnius. Many of these people say they are ready to fight and die to defend their democratically-elected parliament. It's heavily barricaded with concrete blocks, barbed wire and sand bags. Inside, young men guard the building round the clock. They've got hunting rifles and shotguns and there are rumors they have calasnikov rifles and uzie submachine guns as well. This is what they're defending, the Lithuanian parliament in session today, and the right to criticize what most see as the oppressive Soviet government. There are 10,000 soldiers garrisoned in Vilnius and many regard the parliament as provocative, if not subversive, and astonishingly, the military commander has just warned that he may not be able to control these troops. As part of the war of nerves, nighttime patrols have been shooting at cars and beating up local people.

MR. LEHRER: Pres. Bush today defended the Persian Gulf War as moral and just. He said its purpose was not to destroy Iraq, but to confront evil with good. He spoke at a convention of religious broadcasters in Washington this morning.

PRES. BUSH: Saddam tried to cast this conflict as a religious war. But it has nothing to do with religion per se. It has, on the other hand, everything to do with what religion embodies, good versus evil, right versus wrong, human dignity and freedom versus tyranny and oppression. The war in the Gulf is not a Christian war, a Jewish war, or a Moslem war. It is a just war and it is a war with which good will prevail. We seek nothing for ourselves. As I have said, the U.S. forces will leave as soon as their mission is over, as soon as they are no longer needed or desired, and let me add, we do not seek the destruction of Iraq. We have respect for the people of Iraq, for the importance of Iraq in the region. We do not want a country so de-stabilized that Iraq, itself, could be a target for aggression.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Bush also said the United States will play a major post war role in bringing peace to all of the Middle East.

MR. MacNeil: Iraq launched two more Scud missiles today at Saudi Arabia and Israel. The one aimed at the Saudi capital, Riyadh, was shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile. Debris landed in a greenhouse. There were no reports of injuries. The Pentagon said the other aimed at Tel Aviv apparently fell short of its target. Witnesses saw Patriot missiles being launched into the sky. Israeli officials later announced that parts of the Scud missile fell on Arab villages in the West Bank. Allied forces continued their around the clock bombing of Iraq and Kuwait. More than 2500 sorties were flown in the last 24 hours. The central command said a U.S. Marine harrier jet was lost in combat. It was the first reported allied loss in more than two days. There is no word on the fate of the pilot. The Washington Post reported today that in spite of early allied successes, significant portions of Iraq's military machine remained intact. The article quoted unnamed officials as saying 65 percent of Iraq's air fields are operational and only 8 of 36 Scud launchers have been disabled. The Pentagon this afternoon said all fixed launchers are out of action and that the allies have enjoyed a good success with the bombing of air fields. The Pentagon said about 130 Iraqi airplanes are out of action, either destroyed or flown over the frontier to Iran. The report came at a briefing by army lieutenant general Thomas Kelly.

LT. GEN. THOMAS KELLY: We have indications of more than 80 Iraqi aircraft now that have flown to Iran. I think why it's taken place is quite clear. The aircraft remaining in Iraq they believe will be destroyed and I believe they're right. They'll either be destroyed on the ground or in the air. Now why the Iranians are allowing them to do that and what agreement suggests between the two countries I don't know, but I do know that Iran has stated on several occasions that they intend to abide by the UN sanctions and that they intend to impound the aircraft, so I think that's a pretty good deal.

MR. MacNeil: Iran has said it would impound the planes that landed there for the duration of the war. But Gen. Kelly said the allied forces would be prepared to deal with the Iraqi planes if they came out for combat. Iraq Radio today claimed that captured allied pilots have been wounded in allied air raids. No nationalities were given in the brief announcement which was attributed to the official Iraqi news agency. Iraq last week vowed to place captured airmen at possible allied targets to deter attacks.

MR. LEHRER: U.S. troops continued to get ready for the ground war if and when it comes. Reporter Brad Willis filed this press pool report about the First Marine Division near the Saudi-Kuwait border.

MR. WILLIS: Rolling through the desert, a Marine patrol near the Kuwaiti border mapping out the thin no man's land that separates Iraqi and American forces, armed with deadly Toe missiles and ready for confrontation.

MARINE: I want to let 'em know to stay out of my way, don't ever come back, so I've got to get home to my family, let 'em know they can't mess with the United States of America.

MR. WILLIS: Never knowing what they'll find, they approach camps with caution. Here they find three men who say they're part of the allied forces, but there is uncertainty. The Marines believe some of these shacks could hold Iraqis passing intelligence reports North to Kuwait. The patrol moves fast to avoid attack, looking for signs of the unusual in a bizarre landscape. Towards mission's end, they learn they're being watched.

MARINE: That white truck out there's taking notes of us. I'm going to see what he's up to, all right?

MR. WILLIS: They chase the truck and bring it to a halt. Its driver claims to be with the Saudi National Guard. There is suspicion and distrust, but nothing can be done. The patrol moves on towards home base, unsure if what they saw today was what it appeared to be, knowing only that they came close to the enemy and he knew they were there.

MR. LEHRER: A missing CBS News team may have been seized by Iraqi troops. A network spokesman said an Iraqi deserter told Saudi interrogators he saw four foreigners taken into custody by Iraqi soldiers. The missing men are Correspondent Bob Simon, Producer Peter Bluff, Cameraman Roberto Alvarez, and Sound Man Juan Caldera. They disappeared near the Saudi-Kuwait border a week ago.

MR. MacNeil: Baghdad Radio said today that Muslim guerrilla attacks around the world would make Pres. Bush a prisoner in a black house. The radio also said that Egyptian Pres. Hosne Mubarak should expect to be assassinated for betraying Islam by opposing Iraq. Meanwhile, conditions for civilians in Iraq were reported to be worsening. Refugees fleeing the country said large numbers of civilians have been injured in around-the-clock allied bombing. Iraqi television today released pictures of children who it's said were injured by the bombs. They were being treated at a Baghdad hospital.

MR. LEHRER: U.S. military officials said the flow of oil into the Gulf has slowed considerably. Saturday U.S. bombers destroyed outlet pipes which fed an oil terminal 13 miles off Kuwait's shore. The slick is now 35 miles long, 10 miles wide, and estimated to contain more than 11 million barrels of oil. A team of experts from the U.S. Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency arrived in Riyadh today to devise a clean up program. Some oil has polluted the beaches along the Saudi coast. The Pentagon said it is from an earlier Iraqi attack on a refinery. The larger slick has not yet reached shore. At a briefing in Riyadh, a U.S. spokesman talked about efforts to control it.

SPOKESMAN: The extent of that slick remains a little bit unclear. I assure you that it is being monitored. It appears that we have stopped the flow of oil, but we continue to seek positive confirmation of that fact.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have more on this story later in the program.

MR. MacNeil: There were more war related terrorist attacks today. In the Philippines, two men shouting, "Long live, Saddam" hurled a grenade at a provincial radio station. No injuries were reported. Police said the men were suspected Communist guerrillas. In the Greek capital, Athens, terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at an American Express office and a bomb exploded in the offices of an American insurance company. There were no casualties reported in either attack. There was no claim of responsibility for the incidents, but police detained an Iraqi national for questioning. That's our summary of the news. Now it's on to why the Moscow summit was put off, the war as seen in Baghdad, whether the Gulf oil spill can be cleaned up, and anti- terrorist efforts in Los Angeles. FOCUS - TROUBLED PARTNERSHIP

MR. LEHRER: Today's diplomatic casualty of the GUlf War the February Bush, Gorbachev Summit. The question is what its postponement says about the state of the new U.S. Soviet relationship. Secretary of State Baker and the Soviet Foreign Minister were asked about the strategic arms treaty this afternoon which was to have been the center piece of the Moscow Summit.

SEC. BAKER: There are a few problems. Some of which are of a technical nature that we have been wrestling with really since Houston on the 9th and 10th of December that we still need to close out. Issues involving the perimeter of portal continuous monitoring, data denial and a few things like. On the most part they are technical issues and we are going to continue and the Minister and the President just agreed in the Oval Office that we would continue to try and conclude a strategic arms treaty if possible during the month of February. We will try to work as hard as we can to conclude it.

REPORTER: The Soviet compliance with the conventional treaty is that a factor in this?

SEC. BAKER: Well the two treaties are not directly linked but we do have some concerns regarding the CFE treaty and we have discussed those today and they were mentioned very briefly in the Oval Office.

REPORTER: Are you concerned that the Soviet Union is drifting toward dictatorship?

SEC. BAKER: I said on the occasion of Mr. Schverdnadze's resignation that I think that we would be foolish not to take the warning that was embraced in that resignation serious and would certainly hope not and I don't believe that is the intention as the MInister has explained to us it is not the intention of the leadership in the Soviet Union.

MR. LEHRER: Now some perspective on the Summit cancellation. It comes from James Billington the Librarian of Congress and a Scholar of Russian History. Jerry Hough. Professor of Soviet Affairs at Duke UNiversity in Durham, North Carolina and Nina Belyaeva the President of the Inter Legal Research Center an anti Communist Policy Group in Moscow. She joins us from San Francisco. Professor Hough was postponing the Summit the right thing to do?

PROF. HOUGH: It seems to me that was the only thing to do. First if the President were in Moscow and the Saddam Hussein did something, chemical weapons on Israel, attack on our troops, when the President was miles away, thousands of miles from the Pentagon that would have been impossible. And secondly the START Treaty is really a symbolic event. It is a start as they say and what is important is to be able to say this is the beginning of a new era, this is the time of peace, this is the start to a new world and those words would have been totally hollow in time of war. So it seems to me that the war itself made absolutely necessary.

MR. LEHRER: Nothing to do with the situation in the Baltic.

PROF. HOUGH: We don't know.

MR. LEHRER: No I mean from your perspective. Would that have been reason enough not to have the Summit too?

PROF. HOUGH: In my perspective it would not have been. Whether it would have been for the Administration I don't know. I guess my real feeling is that if there had not been a war then Mr. Gorbachev would have timed the events in Lithuania differently. He would probably waited another month until after the Summit done it a month earlier. But in any case we will not know what President Bush would have done at this time.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Belyaeva in San Francisco how do you feel about the cancellation of the Summit, or postponing the Summit I should say?

MS. BELYAEVA: Well it has something to do with Lithuanian events. I imagine that is definitely connected. Some how it probably was not the main cause of the postponing of the Summit but you remember several times was speaking to the T.V. observers saying that he is very much concerned and he mentioned that in some relation to the to the Summit that he was going to have withGorbachev. Remember that when we witnessed the economic blockade of Lithuania by the President and there was concern raised here in this Country, the Administration raised the question of their concern but then for diplomatic reasons they just slowed down the question and said that would not make any steps that would prevent President Gorbachev to pursue his policy whatever he believed was better to do for his country. I think for the same reason the American Administration is not raising this question today but I think that it definitely influenced the final decision.

MR. LEHRER: From a point of view of somebody who is interested in continuing Glasnost and peristroika in the Soviet Union, in another words the reform movement in the Soviet Union is the postponement of this thing a good thing or a bad thing.

MS. BELYAEVA: I believe that it is not a good thing because the worst thing that you can do in a crisis period is to quit dialogue and I believe the sooner they have this Summit the better because during the Summit not only the Treaty is going to be put up as a question but also all the sort of processed that are taking place in the Country and this question could at least raised and attracted attention and could be discussed. And together with the Summit a lot of other events going on and it would be a huge press coverage, So it would just draw attention to the question and probably bring some solution of it.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Bellington what is your view? Did the President do the right thing?

DR. BILLINGTON: Well I don't think that he had much choice. I agree with that. But I don't quite agree with the last speaker. I think that it would have been unfortunate in view of what is going on in the Baltic and what is going on in the Soviet Union generally now. That is an additional factor and I think that it was proper diplomatically of the Secretary of State not to allude to it and publicly embarrass Gorbachev who is in a difficult position. But he has been leaning to the right, at least in my view, since last Spring and very markedly in the last few months. And there is a fundamental crisis of legitimacy in the Soviet Union going on the Summit always has a legitimizing factor for your interlocutor and if you believe as I do that the only long run legitimacy, indeed the only long run stability in that country is going to come from the progressive enfrachisment of the democratic forces. To have legitimized the repression of the last three or four months by showing up, while it hasn't been in any way curb, would have I think sent a very bad signal throughout the Soviet Union but I defer to my Soviet Colleague she lives with in it.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Hough how do you feel about that? Would there have been value in President Bush going to the Summit, sat down across the table from Gorbachev and pounded on the table a little bit about what is going on in the Baltic. Ms. Belyaeva thinks that would have a terrific thing to have done?

PROF. HOUGH: Well I think what would really matter is whether he did anything or not. That is, is he going to stop most favored nation treatment, is he going to hold up arms control. The leaders of the Baltic Republics have been saying, I think, with some justice that we are not doing very much. Now my own view is that the President is quite right. In my view the President of the United States has to be concerned about American worldwide interests. According to the Los Angeles Times yesterday 1700 people have been killed in Cashmere last year by Indian Troops. The New York Times today is talking about the suppression of 10 million Kurds inside Turkey. It is perfectly obvious what happens to women in Saudi Arabia. My general feeling is that we can not go on a policy which say one people, one language, one country, without simply ripping apart the third world. So if he just goes and he talks and he winks his eyes it has no impact. If he does something real I think that he is making a mistake.

MR. LEHRER:Ms. Belyaeva what do you think of that?

MS. BELYAEVA: Well I still think that it would be important just to refer to that question because, the Soviet Union, got in focus of American attention and Press coverage because of the democratic process in the Country and the whole image of the evil empire was destroyed because of the democratic process and what we witness now is a complete reverse process. I reminds me very much of the October revolution when repressive organs were given such a great power that there it was difficult later on to limit it and it became a force that overwhelmed all sorts of authority in the country and that is one of the steps that has been taken recently. And so that should not be denied by the international community.

MR. LEHRER: But what about Mr. Billington's point that if the President of the UNited States would have gone ahead business as usual, gone ahead with the Summit that it would have given legitimacy to what Gorbachev has done.

MS. BELYAEVA: It depends how he will behave in the Summit. It does not mean that he could quite from any type of relations because while I am deeply convinced that quitting from dialogue is the worst thing to do in a crisis situation. So he has to raise the question and say whether it is a policy of the Government and let the President say openly what does it mean because now it is very different reports and central television is being accused by speakers on independent programs about the lack of true information of what is happening in the country. So that Summit could bring a lot of light to the situation and make the leaders of the countries responsible for what they do inside their own country in front of the international community. I think that would be very important.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Billington starting with you what is your feeling about what is happening over there, what is happening to Gorbachev? Is this the real Gorbachev that we are now seeing, is he being forced to act the way that he is acting, what is your analysis?

DR. BILLINGTON: Well I think Gorbachev has always had a fundamental decision whether he is going to maximize his own power or whether he is going to produce an irreversible reform process that will fundamentally transform the Soviet Union?

MR. LEHRER: With or with out his as head of the Government?

DR. BILLINGTON: That is right. And he has chosen very clearly the former. He is very gifted at maintaining and maximizing his own power. Each time it is announced as necessary in order to reflect a reform. What remains is his own power what vanishes is the reform. Whether it is the political reform which is essentially cancelled out by his super presidency, whether it was the economic reform that was essentially rejected by him. What is interesting is the economic reformers they have gone off to places like Kazastan. There is a democratic movement coming from the bottom up now. And it is the very strength of that which has produced this terrible reaction of the inter core of the imperial system that is having their last stand in my view and Gorbachev has shrunk back from things. He is a tragic figure I think rather than a sinister figure but nonetheless we have to deal with the consequences of the tragedy. That he is not willing to follow through. That he seems to unconsciously be becoming a transitional figure to a more autocratic system rather than a transitional figure to permanent set of reforms.

MR. LEHRER: Professor Hough do you agree with that this is a man more interested in holding on to power than he is in implementing the revolution that he began himself?

PROF. HOUGH: Well I absolutely agree that this is the real Gorbachev. That is this is not a man being forced to do something by the military and absolutely agree that he took advantage deliberately, deliberately took advantage of the chaos in order to consolidate his power. But I think that we often have a tendency to say either you are a democrat or you are a dictator like Stalin. But there is a whole category of people that I don't have rally a title for that I sometimes call modernizing Czars. People like Ada Turk in Turkey, like the President of Singapore in recent years, Mubarick in Egypt, Hussein in Jordan. That is a series of people who are quite authoritarian but they permit legislatures with limited powers, the go ahead with economic reform, the allow freedom to travel and the like and I think that it is that category that Gorbachev is in. That is I don't see him moving totally to the right now. I see him separating the radicals from the moderates. He is going to say you want to over throw the system, you want to break up the country and I will smash you but if you want real autonomy and want to work for 1994 or 1995 elections then with limits I will let you do it.

MR. LEHRER: You are shaking your head Mr. Billington?

DR. BILLINGTON: Well I think that it is really quite unrealistic to think of Gorbachev in these terms. I mean there are sort of fascist goons prowling in the Baltic Republics now. There has been a purge, an almost entire purge of the leadership structure. The difference is that unlike Atturk and the reforming Czars of the past this man is a legacy, the inside nomenclature, the inter group of the Communist Party. He never had any dealings with the nationality problem. He never was outside the Russian Republic. Her was sort of priveledged child of this system. he tried these other things in a cosmetic sense and I think he was genuinely thought that he could get them and keep the old system. Now he finds he can't and he is falling back on the worst aspects of the old system and failing to use the dynamic forces which is not the reform from above, which is not going to work in the old system but the democratic movement which is rising up from below. There was even a letter of 64 members of the KGB, where all the elected officials are on the side of the democratic system and all these ones that we are reading about are the unelected people who are terrified at the very reforms that he has unleased. So there is dynamism and there is a new legitimacy coming in Russia as well as the other Republics which Gorbachev has essentially been frustrating even though he helped unleash it.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Belyaeva what is your analysis?

MS. BELYAEVA: Yes I do agree that Gorbachev is mostly a tragic figure and a transitional figure and if we follow his rise and all the steps he made through five years of peristroika and his attempts to change. So what he was actually going to change. He is the sort of leader who emerged through the Party apparatus and he feels very comfortable with the structure that is built like a pyramid, up down. When you can issue a decision and you are sure that it will be implemented and he unleashed the forces with which he did not know how to deal with and he failed in getting in dialogue with them. And it is really a tragedy for the leader, a reformer in a totalitarian structure if the leader like that did not figure out the forces that will be social forces., a very strong social force that will be with him through all his change process. Because he relied on the Party apparatus first because if you remember his book peristroika he was referring to the Party, communist party will be the leading force for peristroika and he really tried to do that. When the party leaders were all fired out through elections then he made his point on Soviets and tried to build his system on Soviets as another old structure and after Soviets were elected it was again proved that they were not effective and this system doesn't work either.

MR. LEHRER: Professor Hough is this tragic figure Gorbachev helped or hurt by this decision to postpone the Summit or is an irrelevancy with his problems right now?

PROF. HOUGH: I don't think that he is a tragic figure. I think that he is the modern Peter the Great and he will go down as Mickel the Great, as a great modernizing Czar. I think the Summit is irrelevant as long as it is a foreign policy. The Bush Administration after the war is going to have some very serious decisions as how it handles him but I think that is going to be more fateful for American foreign policy than it is for Gorbachev. We've got a Middle East to handle. The last thing that we can do is push him in to supplying the Iraqis or causing us trouble in the Middle East.

MR. LEHRER: Okay gentlemen, Ms. Belyaeva. all three thank you very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the Newshour views from Baghdad on views of the Gulf war. Can the Huge Gulf oil spill be cleaned up and Los Angeles prepared for terrorists. FOCUS - VIEW FROM BAGHDAD

MR. MacNeil: We turn now to a look at the Gulf War as seen and experienced in Baghdad. In a letter circulated at the United Nations today, Iraq's foreign minister called the allied bombing raids "brutal" and said they had killed more than 320 civilians, wounded another 400, and caused widespread damage in residential areas. The letter gave no details of military damage or casualties but claimed it was not as great in Baghdad as some experts have forecast. It was Iraq's first official account of the opening days of the Gulf War. Meanwhile, unofficial accounts of the impact of the allied bombing raids have been filtering out of Iraq in a variety of ways. From Amman, Jordan, Correspondent Carolyn Kerr of Independent Television News reports on the picture that has emerged so far.

MS. KERR: This is the first large wave of refugees that have been allowed to leave Iraq for almost a week. Some have been waiting on the Iraqi side of the border for seven days. Diplomats here suspect they were held up to stop reports of conditions in the country leaking out. Eyewitness accounts from refugees here have been the main source of information for Western journalists since they were thrown out themselves. Today's evacuees from Baghdad speak of bleak conditions in the city and low morale.

REFUGEE: No electricity, no gas, no power, no telephone, no TV, no food, no open shops.

REFUGEE: Everything bombing --

MS. KERR: Saddam's fear is that such people may also carry tales of allied military successes, information he's carefully trying to suppress. This is the image of war which Iraq wants the Western public to see. These are Iraqi TV pictures, apparently showing the effectsof allied air attacks. Often distinguishable by their poor technical quality, they provide journalists with limited evidence of the effects of war. ITN's only other source of material is provided by two Arab cameramen. Their pictures show similar signs of devastation, but every cassette they shoot must be stamped by the Iraqi censors before it's allowed across the border, along with the information sheet which accompanies it. So when these pictures are eventually monitored in Amman, the journalists viewing them are often unsure of precisely what they're seeing. ITN's Brent Sadler was forced to leave Baghdad eight days ago. Since then, he says the Iraqis have tightly controlled the flow of information.

BRENT SADLER, ITN Middle East Correspondent: They will consider their propaganda now to be successful because the only pictures, the only images that the world is seeing out of Iraq are civilian casualties, plus damage to civilian buildings, and nothing else, no military targets, nothing else at all. We haven't seen one Iraqi airplane in the skies, one missile launch site, no military equipment whatsoever, and that was the same during the Iran-Iraq War.

MS. KERR: But often the material is so stage managed its credibility is in doubt. Some of these children appear to have been coached in Iraqi rhetoric.

CITIZEN: (Speaking through Interpreter) I was having lunch when the coward, Bush, who won't face our heroic army, started attacking children instead.

CITIZEN: (Speaking through Interpreter) Please God, Bush the coward will be punished for what he's done to these children.

MS. KERR: Such heavy-handed manipulation can be counterproductive. At least one American correspondent felt unable to use these pictures at all.

SHEILA MAC VICAR, ABC Correspondent: Because I didn't have the freedom or the opportunity to be in that hospital myself to talk to the children, to talk to the parents, to talk quietly to doctors or other hospital staff. There is an awful sense of manipulation in those pictures and I don't like being manipulated by anybody, whether it is the Iraqis or whether it's the Pentagon, and if I really think that I'm being manipulated, then I will back off and back away from using images like that.

MS. KERR: Peter Arnett, who works for the American cable network, CNN, is the only Western correspondent allowed to stay in Iraq. But every report he files is carefully censored. At present, these pictures of Saddam Hussein briefing his generals may be the only military images he allows out of the country. But censorship of those within Iraq may yet prove more effective than relying on the skepticism of those outside.

MR. MacNeil: CNN's Peter Arnett was granted an 90 minute interview with Saddam Hussein earlier today. He asked Hussein whether he would use chemical weapons against allied forces. Hussein said that so far Iraq had been able to maintain its balance without them, but he did say that Iraq will use weapons comparable to those used by the enemy. FOCUS - CRUDE WEAPON

MR. MacNeil: Next, the oil slick in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. military today said that acts by American jets had apparently stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf. But the Saudi government estimated that 460 million gallons of oil had already washed out into the waters of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, making this the largest spill in history. In response, teams of international experts began arriving today in the Gulf to assess the damage and begin the clean up. In a moment, we'll talk with two experts about that effort. First, Charlayne Hunter-Gault hasthis report from Saudi Arabia.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The quicker you can respond, the better. That's what the leader of a U.S. government team of oil spill experts said today upon arriving in Saudi Arabia. As the task force was whisked off to briefings and emergency equipment arrived to contain the disaster, Brigadier Gen. Pat Stevens told reporters that allied bombing had dramatically cut the flow of crude oil into the Persian Gulf.

BRIG. GEN. PAT STEVENS, U.S. Army: It appears that we have stopped the flow of oil, but we continue to seek positive confirmation of that fact. That slick is moving South we judge at about 15 miles per day and will bring the Southern edge of it tomorrow to the vicinity on the Saudi coast of Rasal Mishad.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: There is confusion whether the oil seen washing up on the beaches of Northern Saudi Arabia is actually from oil tanks in Kafji damaged by the Iraqi bombs. But experts say the worst is yet to come. When the spill from Kuwait reaches Saudi Arabia tomorrow, the biggest oil slick in history many times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill, 10 miles wide and 35 miles long, it's an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented scale. Saudi officials are calling it an act of environmental terrorism.

ABDUL BAR AL-GAIN, Saudi Environment Official: Marine lives and resources have been endangered. Saddam Hussein is waging a war on the region's wildlife.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Birds and fish are already dying. It's expected that the spill will slaughter much of the region's rich marine life which includes dolphins and whales, sea cows and turtles. Also threatened is the region's drinking water, since most of it comes from desalination plants where water from the Gulf is treated to remove the salt. This plant at Kafji has already been shut down by Iraqi artillery fire. Other much larger plants further South on the Saudi coast may be tainted by the spill in the coming days. As officials grapple with emergency measures to contain the spill in the short-term, scientists already predict that it will take at least a decade to clean up these waters and much longer for the Persian Gulf's marine life to return.

MR. MacNeil: Now to two experts on oil spill clean-ups. Adm. John Costello is president of the Marine Spill Response Corporation which was founded by the oil industry after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. Formerly, he was a vice admiral in the Coast Guard where he saw oil spill response activities. John Gallagher is a vice president at Hudson Maritime Services in Camden, New Jersey. Mr. Gallagher supervises oil spill clean-ups for his clients, which include Iramco Services, the American subsidiary of Saudi Iramco, the Saudi Arabian oil company. Adm. Costello -- and just before I ask you a question, let's have, if we can, have a map up which shows where the desalination plants are. According to the American officials there, the edge of the spill is going to reach Ras al Mishab tomorrow, Tuesday. That is 100 miles North of Jubail, where the biggest Saudi desalination plant is. Supposing they're able to keep it away from that, how can the environmental damage from a spill that's now estimated at 11 million barrels, which is three times the biggest spill in history -- that was the one in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 -- how can a spill of that size be minimized?

ADM. COSTELLO: I think the ecological damage is already a given. At this point, I think the choice is to make priority decisions for the salination intake so that the water for the human beings can be maintained. This is a damage control situation they're in over there now. The conventional approach to responding to an oil spill does not pertain to this catastrophe. It's gone beyond that.

MR. MacNeil: And that's on account of its size. I mean, that's really what I'm asking. Is this just too big and too massive to contain or deal with in conventional ways?

ADM. COSTELLO: I believe that's exactly the case. Now we have to separate the lower end of our environment from the upper end of our environment and human beings and their needs will have to take priority and the protection of the desalination intakes is paramount.

MR. MacNeil: Would you agree with that, Mr. Gallagher, that this is 11 million barrels is just too much to consider a conventional attack? I mean, we all know how the Exxon Valdez one, which was massive by our standards, much smaller than this, what effort and everything it took.

MR. GALLAGHER: This is 42 times the size of the Exxon Valdez.

MR. MacNeil: Forty-two times.

MR. GALLAGHER: Yes. We were talking about 11 million gallons there. We're talking about 11 million barrels here. I would agree with the admiral on that. It --

MR. MacNeil: Basically we're not going to clean this one up in terms of getting rid of all the effects of it?

MR. GALLAGHER: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: Now let's just talk about the desalination thing, because it's reported a Norwegian ship, the Al Wasat, is due to dock there at Jubail tomorrow. It can suck up 1400 tons an hour and then it puts that in tankers and they take it away and it's made into kerosene apparently. Fourteen hundred tons is how many -- what kind of a dent does that make in this sort of a -- how many barrels in a ton?

MR. GALLAGHER: Well, that's seven barrels per ton, so 1400 --

MR. MacNeil: Fourteen hundred tons an hour it can pick up.

MR. GALLAGHER: So multiply that by seven, that would give you the number of barrels, and that's still nowhere near what we're dealing with in the --

MR. MacNeil: That's just a tiny, tiny dent, but it could perhaps keep that, the edge of it away from the desalination intakes.

MR. GALLAGHER: It could. The primary defensive there, defensive measure there are the booms.

MR. MacNeil: It also has three and a half miles of booms and British Petroleum and others are sending in a lot of booms right now.

MR. GALLAGHER: From South Hampton, and there are already indigenous booms in the area too so they have a lot of equipment there to protect the intakes, but as far as removing oil, it's going to be a massive job and something that's beyond the capability we have now.

MR. MacNeil: Beyond the capability -- even if the whole world could cooperate with all of its equipment and even if there were peacetime and no danger to anybody getting shot or interfered with, it would still be beyond the capability, is that what you're saying?

MR. GALLAGHER: That's right.

MR. MacNeil: So let's move on. What happens to the oil in that climate, in those waters, if most of it, if you can't do anything to most of it?

MR. GALLAGHER: It's a light Kuwaiti crude and the lighter ends of that tend to evolve rather rapidly; they could be losing as much as 50 percent of the volume of that oil over the number of days it's been in the water now.

MR. MacNeil: Losing it how?

MR. GALLAGHER: It goes into the atmosphere. It evaporates off. The crude, itself, is a very light crude. It's probably the consistency of diesel oil, and the lighter ends, the things that gasoline -- those parts of the oil will tend to evaporate off rather rapidly into the air, so the volume decreases substantially just through evaporation. The burning there also has helped that somewhat.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. Now Adm. Costello tell us, if the top end of the crude range evaporates -- and some of it has already burned off, as we know -- there have been fires there -- so supposing only half of the oil is left from evaporation, what happens to what's left and what form does it take?

ADM. COSTELLO: Well, it becomes increasingly dense. Eventually it will become roughly the equivalent of asphalt. But mother nature has a way of remediating that and we know from past experiences with major spills that given enough time, mother nature has generally restored the ecology to what it was before. The problem here is we're dealing with something that's 40 times anything we've experienced before and as I understand it, it is in a relatively confined ecosystem in the Gulf, the flushing action in the Gulf is substantially less than that which we have in Prince William Sound. So --

MR. MacNeil: You mean the Straits of Hormuz are so narrow that the waters don't just get flushed out and changed with fresh water.

ADM. COSTELLO: That's correct. The flushing action is much slower and that that's going to impede the recovery of the environment definitely.

MR. MacNeil: Now, Mr. Gallagher, another point. I heard a report on National Public Radio this morning that the Gulf is already something, even before this happened, something of a disaster area because of many previous oil spills, and that the ecological system were already sort of on the point of real danger. Can you confirm that through your information with Iramco?

MR. GALLAGHER: Well, during the Iran-Iraq War, there were some substantial discharges of oil into the waters. As a matter of fact, the spill in 1983 resulted from an attack on a platform, an offshore platform on the Iranian side of the Gulf, and it caused a substantial discharge during that period. There were many tanker sinkings and burnings during that period also, so that the environment there is already stressed from the previous spills.

MR. MacNeil: Stressed. I mean, we're not starting with anything pristine. We're starting -- stressed meaning the wildlife, the marine line and everything was already endangered to some extent or on the margins?

MR. GALLAGHER: I assume they would be with that amount of oil going into the water. Yeah.

MR. MacNeil: I see. So this is going to push them further. Now Adm. Costello, back to your point. If you can't go in and deal with that sludge that you say is the form of asphalt -- and I guess many people have seen it as a result of the Exxon-Valdez on the beaches -- that heavy, heavy, thick tar -- if you can't deal with that and it sinks to the bottom, you say nature takes care of it. How long does it take nature to take care of it?

ADM. COSTELLO: Well, again that's a function of a number of factors. What is the water temperature? What is the level of microorganisms in that particular region, and it will vary, and I simply don't know the specifics for the Gulf.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah. Its figure was given as we led into this. One of the environmental experts saying as much as a decade. Is this - - do we know for instance in colder water like Alaska -- how long does it take this stuff to break down biologically?

MR. GALLAGHER: Well, the higher temperatures in the Gulf should aid the biological activity substantially. Oil, itself, is a natural product. It's something that occurs in nature and it does eventually break down into its natural constituents, so that the process there depends a lot on the type of bacteria that are available in the Gulf in the process. I'm not familiar with that either, so I couldn't really confirm or correct that prediction.

MR. MacNeil: But to go back to the quantities involved, Adm. Costello, is it unreasonable to think that things like the chemicals that break down oil -- we've seen washing, detergents and things used before -- and we ran a piece sometime ago off Galveston, an oil spill there where they were using a microbe that actually eats the oil near the shoreline -- are the quantities involved here such that they just put that kind of treatment beyond consideration?

ADM. COSTELLO: Well, bioremediation, that's the microbes, shows the most promise on shorelines, rather than at sea. I think the jury's still out on how effective bioremediation is on water. But you're quite right. The quantities that are involved, even if it were effective, the amounts involved and the difficulty in applying bioremediation agents on the open sea I would think, my judgment is that they're not feasible now. Another approach is through dispersion, which is basically something like a detergent breaking the molecules up and distributing the oil vertically in the water column, I don't think that would be a feasible approach anywhere near desalination intake, because that's exactly what you would not want to do. You prefer to keep the oil as long as possible on the surface under those circumstances.

MR. MacNeil: I see, because the intakes are lower down.

ADM. COSTELLO: I would expect they are, yes.

MR. MacNeil: Just one other question here before we end this. This is just the beginning of this war. The chances of other oil getting into that Gulf are not beyond anybody's imagination. We're just at the very beginning of this kind of danger.

MR. GALLAGHER: I'm sure he has some other things up his sleeve for getting more oil into the water. What they are I guess we all have to guess at.

MR. MacNeil: But both of you gentlemen are saying, in effect, that the best that can be done is to try and protect the human beings in this case through the water supply and that not a lot can be done for the marine life because of the quantity here.

ADM. COSTELLO: Well, in this particular event, yes, but I think that if we could prevent or minimize any future discharges, that would be the course of action to take, but of course, the source is in a war zone.

MR. MacNeil: Yeah.

ADM. COSTELLO: And the normal conventional techniques to contain and remove are not feasible.

MR. MacNeil: Well, Adm. Costello and Mr. Gallagher, thank you both for joining us. FOCUS - TERRORISM ALERT

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight the threat of terrorism, environmental and otherwise, that has so many people in this country on edge. Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles reports on what officials in Southern California are doing to calm things down.

MR. KAYE: In San Diego and in Los Angeles, police agencies are investigating recent fires at businesses owned by immigrants from the Middle East. What might ordinarily be treated as common arson investigations has attracted the attention of the FBI.

LAWRENCE LAWLER, FBI: Because of the ownership and background of the people that are there, the potential exists that if there was arson that it may be a terroristic act.

MR. KAYE: When the war began, the FBI, together with other federal and local law enforcement agencies, reactivated a terrorism task force, a squad initially formed at the time of the 1984 Olympics. To date, police agencies say they have detected no acts of terrorism related to thewar, but they have been busy investigating threats.

MR. LAWLER: I think we had about 80 calls in one day that we thought we needed follow up on.

MR. KAYE: Is it holding at about 80 calls a day, or is it falling off?

MR. LAWLER: Now it's falling off.

MR. KAYE: To what?

MR. LAWLER: I think yesterday we probably had about 20 and I expect that it will go down.

MR. KAYE: The ethnic diversity of Los Angeles is fertile ground for hate mongers. Muslim and Jewish groups have been particular targets of anonymous threats like one recorded by the Islamic Center of Southern California after the bombing of Tel Aviv.

THREAT: What I saw tonight on television, that's it. I'm going to start bombing a few of your places now. I want to see how you feel about this.

DR. MAHER HATHOUT, Islamic Center of Southern California: So far we got the last three, four days, about six, seven, some calls, some individuals wrote letters.

MR. KAYE: Threatening what?

DR. MAHER HATHOUT: Oh, as I mentioned, insane language like you go home, not realizing that this is home, which is the home of all American citizens, including Muslim-Americans. They are not less Americans than anybody else.

MR. KAYE: In response to threats, Arab and Jewish groups have stepped up security. The day school at the LA Mosque was moved out of the building. Synagogues and other Jewish organizations are carefully inspecting mail and keeping close watch on their buildings. The extra vigilance is not confined to ethnic groups. The City of Los Angeles is also taking more precautions, curbing access to reservoirs and power plants, because of the Gulf crisis. At Los Angeles Airport, curbside luggage check-ins have been eliminated and officials are on the lookout for unattended cars and baggage. The Los Angeles police bomb squad is working overtime, responding to calls. One typical false alarm involved a bag of clothes left in a women's restroom at police headquarters.

LT. DANIEL LANG, Los Angeles Police Bomb Squad: Since the war started, it was last Wednesday at about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we have handled approximately 65 calls for services in that seven day period. A comparison, normally we will handle two calls a day and so you can see we're up to almost 10 calls a day.

MR. KAYE: Any actual bombs?

LT. DANIEL LANG: There have been no explosive devices found that are related to what's going on in the Persian Gulf.

MR. KAYE: Because of the large work load involved in tracking down suspicions and threats, FBI agents have been pulled off other investigations. The FBI has also been questioning Arab-Americans. That's been a source of controversy. Counter-terrorism agents are busy, but the FBI won't discuss surveillance of possible suspects. No doubt agent Lawrence Lawler wishes all his investigations could be as easy as one threat police quickly disposed of.

LAWRENCE LAWLER: We've had even callers call in a bomb threat to 911, which isn't real swift, because when you call in to 911, your address pops up on the screen so that they can respond in the event that you're unable to communicate with them. That person's in custody now.

MR. KAYE: David Lehrer of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith counsels Jewish groups on security. He said that although the threat of terrorism is real, the community should not be fearful.

DAVID LEHRER, B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation League: We're urging people to keep their heads on, not to run around like Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling down. If they simply take increased steps with regard to security, are aware of potential problems, I think we can obviate most of the problems that might arise.

MR. KAYE: Officials in Los Angeles say the number of panicked calls has subsided in recent days, but police are keeping open an anti-terrorism hotline activated when the war began, and they are clearly taking the threat by Saddam Hussein very seriously. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Once again, the main stories of the day, the U.S.- Soviet summit scheduled for next month was postponed. Sec. of State Baker said it would be inappropriate for Pres. Bush to be out of the country while the U.S. was at war. He also cited problems in negotiating a strategic arms treaty. The Pentagon said more than 80 Iraqi planes have now flown to Iran. The U.S. command said American bombing raids seemed to have stopped Iraq from dumping oil into the Persian Gulf. An Iraqi missile aimed at Saudi Arabia was shot down. Another aimed at Israel fell on Arab villages in the West Bank. And in a Washington speech, Pres. Bush defended the war as moral and just. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with continuing coverage of the Persian Gulf War and a State of the Union preview with Gergen & Shields. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.