The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this day; then, the latest on the Abu Ghraib court martial of Charles Graner; an update on the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan; the story of today's spacecraft landing on Saturn; the analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay on the horrors of the tsunami.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Sunni militants warned Iraqis today not to vote in the Jan. 30 elections. The group Ansar al-Islam issued the warning. It said, "We call up on all brother citizens not to participate because we are going to attack voting centers." The group claimed responsibility for killing a top Shiite official who'd been working to get out the vote. And separately, a senior Iraqi election official estimated half of the 14 million eligible voters will turn out. He said people in the most violent areas, Fallujah and Mosul, will be allowed to vote elsewhere. Across Iraq today, gunmen killed three Kurdish politicians in Mosul and an election official in western Baghdad. To the west, 15 Iraqi national guardsmen were attacked and kidnapped at gunpoint. And a U.S. commander in Baghdad said there are no guarantees against a mass casualty attack. He said, "If I told you I could guarantee that, I'd be a fool." The U.S. Military announced today four more U.S. troops died in Iraq in the last 24 hours. So far this month, 28 Americans have been killed. Nearly 1,360 have died since the war began in March of 2003. Another 10,400 have been wounded, mostly in combat. A U.S. Military jury convicted Charles Graner today in the Abu Ghraib scandal. He was accused of leading the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners depicted in dozens of photographs. The jury at Fort Hood, Texas found him guilty of conspiracy, assault and other charges. When he is sentenced, he could get more than 17 years in military prison. We'll have the full story on his trial right after this News Summary. President Bush has voiced regret about some tough talk on Iraq and the war on terror. In interviews on Thursday, he recalled saying "bring it on," when Iraqis began attacking U.S. troops. He told ABC News the words did not come across the way he intended.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I said some things in the first term that were probably a little blunt. "Bring it on "was a little blunt and I was really speaking to our troops. But it came out, and it had a different connotation, different meanings for others; so I've got... I'll be more disciplined in how I say things.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Bush said he also should not have said he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" after the 9/11 attacks. In Indonesia today, health officials began a campaign to head off malaria among the tsunami survivors. Workers fumigated refugee camps across Aceh Province. Standing water there has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes that carry the disease. Officials said they're no longer so concerned about dysentery and other water-borne diseases. A deadly attack in Gaza threatened new peace efforts in the Middle East today. Hours after the attack, the Israelis cut off contact with the newly elected Palestinian president. We have a report from Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON: First an explosion, then burst of gunfire. The sounds of the attack echoed through the Gaza night. Palestinian militants filmed the scene as a three-man suicide squad burst into the terminal. They killed six Israeli civilians before they, in turn, were killed. This morning the Israelis were piling up concrete blocks to seal the hole that the Palestinian militants blew in the terminal wall in order to get in -- nearby, the bloodstained debris left by the attack. Today operations were halted and all entry points to Gaza closed. The significance of what happened here goes beyond the killings that took place in this loading bay for the attack is a challenge to the new for the attack is a challenge to the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas based his election victory on a pledge to rein in the violence of intifada. Today Mahmoud Abbas declared such attacks do not help the cause of peace. But in Gaza City, thousands of militant supporters marched in celebration, and the three groups which jointly sent the suicide squad warned that such operations will continue. And tonight after the first funerals of the Israeli dead, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that his government is halting contacts with the Palestinian Authority. It's direct and dramatic pressure on the new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

JIM LEHRER: In the coming weeks, Abbas plans to meet with militant groups in talks brokered by Egypt. North Korea offered today to resume talks on halting its nuclear program. It happened during a visit by a U.S. Congressional delegation. The six-party talks include China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States. The last round was held in June. In response, a White House spokesman said North Korea's actions will show whether the offer is serious. A European space probe landed today on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. It was the first time a manmade object had landed on another planet's moon. As this animation depicts, the 700-pound spacecraft parachuted to the surface. It sent back pictures and scientific data to its mother ship, Cassini. Mission scientists celebrated in Darmstadt, Germany, and the head of the European Space Agency applauded the results.

JEAN-JACQUES DORDAIN, Dir. General, European Space Agency: We are the first visitors of Titan, and scientific data that we are collecting now shall unveil the secrets of this new world. So this is a fantastic success for Europe, for European industry first, which has demonstrated one more time its expertise and its capabilities.

JIM LEHRER: The mission was launched seven years ago. It's a joint undertaking by NASA and the European and Italian space agencies. We'll have more on this story later in the program. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 52 points to close at 10,558. The NASDAQ rose 17 points to close at nearly 2088. For the week, the Dow lost just under half a percent. The NASDAQ also fell a fraction of a percent. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The Abu Ghraib trial; the Darfur tragedies; the Saturn moon landing; Shields and Brooks; and a tsunami essay.

FOCUS - COURT-MARTIAL

JIM LEHRER: The court-martial of Charles Graner, and to Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: Army Reserve Spec. Charles Graner arrived smiling at the judicial center in Fort Hood, Texas, this morning for the final arguments in his court-martial. Graner is the ringleader of the soldiers who allegedly tortured and abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison in November 2003. He was the first of seven accused to go to court-martial. The others reached plea agreements. Besides assault, Graner was convicted of indecent acts, such as stacking naked detainees in a human pyramid while others took photos. Graner is also shown here giving a "thumbs up" next to the body of a dead Iraqi man. The court-martial took a day less than expected, largely because Graner chose not to testify. In his defense, his lawyer contended Graner was following orders from intelligence agents to use physical violence to prepare detainees for questioning. The prosecution charged he was abusing detainees for sport. Spec. Graner faces up to seventeen and a half years in military prison.

TERENCE SMITH: For more on the court-martial, we turn to Kate Zernike, who has been covering the proceedings for the New York Times.

Kate, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Can you tell us what the seen was in the courtroom just a few minutes ago when the verdict was announced?

KATE ZERNIKE: They came in quite quickly, and I think people -- the jury had come in about an hour ago to ask a question, and I think people suddenly had the rush that that -- the realization and the sort of rush that once the jury answered their question, they were ready to deliver a verdict. So I think it was read very quickly. There was a lot of - obviously, a lot of tension in the courtroom and then it was over fairly quickly. The charges were read, and it was guilty on all counts except for one, which was reduced from assault to battery.

TERENCE SMITH: And what was Spec. Graner, what was his reaction?

KATE ZERNIKE: He just, you know, with his lawyers, just sort of sat with them. He didn't seem to have this visible reaction.

TERENCE SMITH: I just wonder how you reconcile that with his sort of upbeat appearance earlier in the trial, and even as recently as this morning.

KATE ZERNIKE: Yeah, I mean, when this trial started, when opening arguments started earlier in the week, he was in the cafeteria joking with reporters, he was taking copies of newspapers that were lying around with stories about him and about the trial and pointing them out to reporters and really joking and saying he felt fine, saying he expected to testify. And it was very clear by yesterday morning that the defense was not going as well as he expected.

TERENCE SMITH: And in fact the decision was made, I guess, at the end of the defense presentation that he would not testify as, I guess you thought he would before. Was there an explanation of that?

KATE ZERNIKE: No, but I think from other military lawyers I've spoken to who know something about the case who have talked to the prosecution and the defense, they felt that the prosecution had a number of rebuttal witnesses that they planned to call, including Spec. Graner's supervisor from a prison in Pennsylvania where he had been accused of abusing prisoners in a civil suit. They also had a number of e-mails from him in which he spoke about abusing e-mails in somewhat of a -- not a gleeful but certainly a blithe tone, the way you or I might talk about going out to do groceries. That I think could have been very damaging to him; they could have brought that up if he said anything in his testimony.

TERENCE SMITH: Were there any other reactions in the court when the verdict was read, either from, you know, associates, family or, for that matter, the military jury itself?

KATE ZERNIKE: No, the military jury has sat pretty expressionless throughout the whole thing. They listened extremely attentively. They are all in dress uniforms, sort of an impressive crowd. But they were quite stoic about the whole thing, and appeared very business-like, very professional. Spec. Graner's parents were in the courtroom and obviously looked shaken by the whole thing.

TERENCE SMITH: What was the basic argument that the prosecution made during the trial?

KATE ZERNIKE: Well, the big question here has been: Was this following orders or was this just a group of seven soldiers on the night shift who were having a bit of fun? And the prosecution argued that this was really just about having fun; that this was something that Graner had done over and over and over again. He showed no remorse for it. In fact he seemed to be having a lot of fun doing it. And every time the defense would say, well, he was following orders, the prosecution would get up to the defense witnesses and say, but was there an order to stack these prisoners naked in a pyramid? Was there an order to have them masturbate? Was there an order to have them simulate oral sex? And every witness without exception had to say no, there was no order to do that, to do the things we've all seen in those photographs.

TERENCE SMITH: So none of the defense witnesses backed him up on that that?

KATE ZERNIKE: No. There was one - you know, there was one witness only who said that -- who was a prison expert -- sorry, a corrections expert who said that it was possible that the pyramid had been built to prevent these detainees from asphyxiation. But he hadn't been there; he had no firsthand knowledge of the case. Anyone who was there that night had to admit that they were not following orders.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. What happens now? Often sentencing follows right along after a verdict in a military --

KATE ZERNIKE: Right. The jury -- it's about 5 o'clock here in Texas and the jury has said -- the judge gave the jury the option of starting their deliberations on sentencing - I'm sorry, the sentencing phase tonight or tomorrow. We'll hear from -- we expect to hear from Graner, we expect him to make a statement and some other defense witnesses. We expect to hear from the prosecution side from two members of Graner's company, which is based in Maryland who will say he has really damaged the morale of the company. So both the prosecution and the defense will offer some witnesses. And then the jury will go back out with more instructions from the judge to consider his sentence. With this one count that's now battery instead of assault, the maximum is now fifteen years instead of seventeen and a half.

TERENCE SMITH: And that sentence then presumably would come when, tonight?

KATE ZERNIKE: That sentence would start tonight. Army officials have told us that he would leave here tonight in cuffs and be taken to the Bell County Jail, which is in nearby Belton, Texas.

TERENCE SMITH: One other thing about the defense.

KATE ZERNIKE: Sorry --

TERENCE SMITH: You wrote yesterday that several of the defense witnesses ended up bolstering the prosecution's case at the end of their testimony. Explain that. How did that work?

KATE ZERNIKE: Well, in one case, for instance, they called someone who had been a superior officer to Graner and they had said, well, didn't he get this report where you said that military intelligence or the interrogators say you were doing a good job running the prison? And indeed the report did say that, but the report had been written one night when they found that Graner admitted that he had bashed a detainee's head into a wall and caused the detainee to have these four wounds on his head; he was bleeding profusely when the superior officers got there. So the while the first line of the report was indeed positive and said he was doing a good job, the rest of the report said you know, you have discipline problems; we need you to follow orders. You can't - you know, you're just - you're not living up to our standards. So in each case you would have this well, isn't it true that... and the prosecution would just come back again and say that there were no orders to do this. And he was a continuing discipline problem and again there was repeated bad behavior.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay. Kate Zernike of the New York Times, thanks so much for filling us in.

KATE ZERNIKE: Sure.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The continuing crisis in Darfur; landing on Saturn's moon; Shields and Brooks; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay on the tsunami.

UPDATE - KILLING CONFLICT

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez has our update on Darfur and Sudan.

RAY SUAREZ: Last Sunday, the government of Sudan signed a peace deal with rebels, ending two decades of civil war in the biggest country in Africa. Even amid these celebrations, the other war in Sudan, in the western region of Darfur, continued. The peace agreement, signed in Kenya, was made between the Muslim central government, which controls northern Sudan, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army, a force made up largely of Christians in the South. The deal ends Africa's longest running war. Two million people have died from the fighting and from starvation, disease and displacement. The pact has several power- sharing provisions. Government and rebel fighting forces will merge. Political offices will be divided between Islamic North and Christian South. The country's substantial oil wealth will be shared. The South will be largely self- governing. The region will hold a referendum in six years deciding whether to remain in Sudan. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who co-signed the pact, said it was a hopeful moment.

COLIN POWELL: This is an historic agreement where the SPLM, the southern movement, has finally after 20 years of conflict come into a comprehensive peace agreement with the government in Khartoum. And now the peace can begin. This war, hopefully, will be coming to an end, although there are many difficulties ahead. And I hope that as a result of this agreement, the two sides working together can work together to solve the problem of Darfur.

RAY SUAREZ: But that peace pact does not address Darfur. In that region, government- sponsored Arab militias known as Janjaweed have waged a war on the African populace. More than 70,000 people have been killed since the conflict began nearly two years ago. Nearly two million have been driven from their homes into refugee camps. Last year Powell labeled the murderous campaign "genocide." But when asked Sunday whether the Sudanese continued to aid and abet genocide, the secretary of state was less forceful.

COLIN POWELL: It was my judgment that genocide was taking place, and I haven't seen the secretary general's latest report, but I look forward to examining it.

RAY SUAREZ: That report, released last week by the United Nations, says the situation in Darfur is only getting worse, and that the Sudanese government, despite promises to help, is instead deepening the humanitarian catastrophe.

RAY SUAREZ: For more, we go to: Francis Deng, a former Sudanese diplomat who's now the representative of the United Nations' secretary general on internally displaced persons, and Salih Booker, director of Africa Action, an organization which works for human rights in Africa.

Francis Deng, does this recently assigned peace deal mean that the fighting and dying is finally ending in southern Sudan?

FRANCIS DENG: Well, may I just make a minor correction? I was the representative of the secretary-general until very recently. My term has expired according to the terms of the rules. About the peace agreement, I have to say it was a momentous event and was received in Africa with a great deal of euphoria and enthusiasm. But as I sat there looking at the celebrations, I have to say that I was reflecting on what all that meant. And what it means is this agreement has come after ten years of negotiation that intensified over the last two years. And although a peace could obviously never have come too soon, I think it is a reflection, if you look at the size of the agreement, the volumes, the time it has taken, the details, it's evidence of the fact that we are dealing with a have profound, deeply divisive issue. And one has to wonder whether the devil is not yet in the details. It means that the parties, because of what divides them so profoundly, were really expecting to keep fighting for a long time. So when peace comes now, in a sense they're not really fully prepared for peace. So that the SPLM, which will become the government in the South, has to now take steps to shift from warring to peace- making. Secondly, it's a government - it's a peace agreement between the government and the SPLM --

RAY SUAREZ: Sudanese People's Liberation Movement?

FRANCIS DENG: Sudanese People's Liberation Movement -- and there are a lot of others outside who are very significant politically, particularly the political parties in the North and certain elements in the South, too. And thirdly, you are dealing with a situation where there is war, I'm sure it will come to that, in Darfur, and challenging whether the Darfur situation will act as a spoiler, whether those who are not in the peace process or in the agreement will act as spoilers and how much will the international community continue to be involved and supportive the way they have been of peace. These are questions yet to be addressed.

RAY SUAREZ: Salih Booker, your colleague sounds a little skeptical. Do you see in this deal conditions for peace to finally come to southern Sudan?

SALIH BOOKER: Well, I certainly do. But this is one of the most complex and challenging peace agreements in the world, perhaps in history. But of course the North-South civil war in Sudan is actually the world's longest running conflict -- 37 of the last 48 years since Sudan got independence in 1956. So it is a very important agreement. It's historically significant. And it also represents to a very significant degree a victory for the people of the South. It is the southerners' ongoing struggle for self-determination that has now been universally recognized that they have a right to self-determination -- under the terms of this agreement -- it will be six years before they can vote on whether they want an independent state or remain within Sudan. But it is enormously important, and deserving of celebration for the people of southern Sudan.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, now that that process has been completed, does it create some possibilities for now turning attention to Darfur? Does it help anything in Darfur?

SALIH BOOKER: Well, the optimistic view is that this peace agreement is going to help broaden the process of democratization in Sudan, the entire country. By changing the composition of the central government, by including southerners, the assumption is that the central government will then be more disposed toward ending the violence in Darfur and political negotiations. This peace agreement also means a lifting of the state of emergency in Sudan, so there should be greater space for political freedoms, for freedom of the press, freedom of speech and assembly. And so the assumption optimistically is that this agreement could really trigger a much broader process of democratization. The critical view, however, suggests that the government, by signing an agreement with the southerners, can now devote its military resources toward the fighting in Darfur. And of course the situation on the ground in Darfur, the facts on the ground are that conditions are deteriorating. Security is worse, and the humanitarian crisis is greater. The genocide continues.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, how is it going to go, Francis Deng? You've just heard which way the two forks in the road point, either to worse violence or better conditions.

FRANCIS DENG: Well, when you consider this is a war which is not only the longest in the world, but has cost so much lives-- over 2 million people dead, 4.5 million displaced, and many have gone to refuge abroad-- this is reason to be joyous about the achievement of the peace. But let me say, what this peace has done, what this agreement has done is try to reconcile two seemingly incompatible visions for the Sudan. In the North you have the Islamic Arab vision led by Islamic party that is now in power. In the South, you have sort of a pluralistic, secular Africa- oriented vision. What this peace has done, what this peace agreement has done is to more or less combine a separatist independent, almost independent South with the notion of a national unity. And the hope of the international community is that the six years will make unity attractive enough so that when southerners come to vote, they will vote for unity instead of for secession even though at the moment most southerners are more inclined toward secession if they were to vote today.

RAY SUAREZ: But if you are sitting at a refugee camp in Darfur today, is a government that may now include half its officers from the South, an army that will now arguably include half its officers from the South, be less likely to torment you, more likely to let you return to your home?

FRANCIS DENG: Absolutely. What actually the agreement promises is that the SPLM-- Specifically John Guerin-- will be part of the national government. He will be first vice president in an almost shared presidency. And the SPLM has been sympathetic to the cause of the South just as it had been to the cause of Noble Mountains and southern blue Nile that are now covered by the agreement. And there is no way that the SPLM is going to continue the war in Darfur. The government may think they can now devote their energies to the war in Darfur. At the same time, the SPLM and John Guerin in particular is being urged to do something that will help the situation in Darfur. It's a question of where you put your priorities. I think we should strengthen the agreement, get the southern SPLM involved in the government. And once they get active in the government, they will have an impact on the situation in Darfur. Otherwise the peace agreement itself would be endangered if the government continues to fight and expect the SPLM to be a party to that war.

RAY SUAREZ: Salih Booker, you mentioned that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is worsening. In fact, attacks went on even as the peace deal was being signed over this past weekend. How has that been able to continue? Why in your view has Darfur stayed on the world's back burner?

SALIH BOOKER: Well, certainly the government believes the international community is not going to intervene, and therefore it can sort of do as it pleases in a way still in Darfur. So in December the Sudanese government launched a major offensive in Darfur even while it was still engaged in peace talks with the Darfur rebels and Nigeria. There is a very small African Union peace observing force in Darfur, less than a thousand troops. They don't have a mandate to protect civilians. There are some two million civilians internally displaced who need protection. And the international community has just been unwilling to change the mandate of the African union force, to give it a United Nations Security Council Chapter 7 mandate to protect civilians and also to increase the size of the force and ultimately that would mean needing contributions from countries outside of Africa.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let me turn to Francis Deng at that point because until recently you were working for the U.N. in that process. Would the change suggested by Salih Booker of giving the U.N. more power in this situation change the situation on the ground in Darfur?

FRANCIS DENG: Well, actually my mandate as representative of secretary- general concluded with the mission to Darfur. I saw what was going on there and I got some intimate sort of accounts of what was going on from officials, talking to them, not just as representative of secretary-general but as a Sudanese who is concerned about the country. And I found out that it is really unrealistic for the international community to expect the government to rein in the Janjaweed, to punish them as criminals, when in fact it was they who saved the day for the government in the war with the rebels. So I think while it is important for the humanitarian issue to be addressed and for the protection of civilians to be given priority, ultimately what is involved is a political settlement. And a foundation has been laid in the peace agreement that has just been signed between North and South. And basically the Sudan government was relieved when after threats of international intervention the AU, the African Union, came in to say this is an African problem to be solved by the Africans and that of course shielded the government for intervention. But there is not enough capacity in the African Union to deal with the level of the crisis for the protection of civilians. So what is needed is there has been a lot of rhetoric on Darfur, a lot of outrage but not enough action. Africa Union needs a lot of support to meet the challenge and that has not yet been forthcoming.

RAY SUAREZ: Francis Deng, Salih Booker, gentlemen, thank you both.

FOCUS - TITAN TOUCHDOWN

JIM LEHRER: Now, the Titan landing. Jeffrey Brown has our story.

JEFFREY BROWN: After a seven-year journey aboard the spacecraft Cassini, the European space probe Huygens made a two and a half hour descent by parachute, and landed, apparently softly and safely, on the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. This afternoon it began transmitting scientific data back to earth, including several images. Scientists have had a long wait, but their hope is that information collected about Titan's atmosphere will shed light on the origins of life on earth. One of those scientists is Shaun Standley, an engineer with the European Space Agency. He's stationed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Welcome, Mr. Standley.

First I want to ask you why Titan? Why go there? What was the point of the mission?

SHAUN STANDLEY: Titan is one of the most mysterious objects in the solar system, it's a very large moon and has a large thick atmosphere, and is one and a half times as thick at the surface as the Earth's atmosphere. That's very surprising. Titan's atmosphere has some resemblance to the Earth's atmosphere in that it has a very a high nitrogen content and smog.

RAY SUAREZ: One scientist was quoted as saying Titan was like a time machine and is like what earth might have looked like then.

SHAUN STANDLEY: Yes, indeed. It has nitrogen methane and hydro carbon trace elements in its atmosphere but no oxygen. And this is possibly very similar to the primordial Earth atmosphere before the development of biological chemistry.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, from an engineering standpoint, this must have been quite a feat. I imagine you were holding your collective breaths this morning.

SHAUN STANDLEY: Yes, indeed. Everybody at JPL and at the European Space Operation center in Germany was elated by what we saw. This has been a very long mission and Huygens is very much a one shot deal. So when we first saw the signal spring up that gave us confirmation that we had successfully entered the atmosphere and Huygens was descending under the parachute, it was a very joyous time for us all.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now I know the early analysis is just beginning but some of these photos have come back. I want to show them and you can tell us maybe what we are seeing. One suggests water channels.

SHAUN STANDLEY: Yes. This was taken from about 150 kilometers altitude, and we are getting a resolution of about 40 meters on the surface. And this is suggestive of water channels draining into a coastline. Of course, we are not talking about a water coastline. We are talking about some kind of liquid hydro carbon, but it is still very exciting to see these weathering and drainage processes on the surface of such an alien moon.

JEFFREY BROWN: What kind of liquid might it be, and what clues would that give us?

SHAUN STANDLEY: Well, it could be liquid methane or liquid ethane or perhaps one of the heavier hydrocarbons, we really don't know yet. And yes, it's what we are going there to find out. It is going to take a few days and weeks to really conclude exactly what we are seeing.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay let's look at another of the photos' this one shows some boulders.

SHAUN STANDLEY: This was taken very close to the surface. But we don't know exactly how close yet. That information hasn't come out yet. But we think we are looking at ice boulders about ten or twenty centimeters across on a relatively flat plane and it looks like Huygens chose a pretty level landing site.

JEFFREY BROWN: The last one was taken during the descent, I gather. What are we seeing in this one?

SHAUN STANDLEY: Well, we are not exactly sure. This shows dark patches with very straight edges, so that once again it is suggestive of liquid abutting a solid surface. But we are really not quite sure what we are looking at here. It's going to take a lot more analysis to decide if we really are looking at some kind of liquid phenomenon or different types of texture in the terrain on the surface.

JEFFREY BROWN: Tell us what other kind of data is being collected up there. What exactly is it looking at?

SHAUN STANDLEY: Well, Huygens is mostly an atmospheric probe. It is not really a land mission like some of the Mars missions. And between 165 kilometers altitude, all the way down to the surface, Huygens did a complete atmospheric itemization of the constituents and the physical properties, pressure, temperature, and electrical properties and temperature and pressure. So there is a lot more science to come out yet. It is not just all imagining.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, you mentioned the Mars mission. Unlike the Mars rovers, which were sending data back for months and months, this was a very small window, wasn't it? Tell us why. Tell us how that worked.

SHAUN STANDLEY: Yes, indeed. The Mars rovers have solar rays on their back and they get some sunlight during the day and they can charge up their batteries and continue to work the next day. Huygens really couldn't operate from sun power because it is so far away. There is very little energy we could use for that. We are completely dependent on batteries that have been traveling for seven years and we can't charge up. So when we separated from the Cassini orbiter, really we just had the five batteries that we brought with us to power us for the next seven hours.

JEFFREY BROWN: What you've got now is basically what you get?

SHAUN STANDLEY: That's right. That's right. When the Huygens probe went over the horizon, Titan with respect to the Cassini orbiter, that's pretty much all the data we will get, although we did continue to try to track the probe carrier signal with Earth-based radio telescopes. We may get data out of that. It really is the four hours and thirty-six minutes we collected with the Cassini orbiter that will be the mission data set.

JEFFREY BROWN: The overall project of Saturn was a joint mission with NASA and the Europeans and the Italian Space Agency. But today was really special for the European space community. Tell us about its importance.

SHAUN STANDLEY: Well, the Huygens probe, this is very much a collaborative effort with the Cassini orbiter built by NASA, the Huygens-Henlow provided by the Italian Space Agency, but the Huygens probe was designed, built and operated by the European space agency. And this is the first time mankind has landed a spacecraft, an object in the solar system. So for us to be able to participate in such a wonderful collaboration is a really great achievement.

JEFFREY BROWN: I had a chance to watch the press conference in Germany today and there were tears of joy.

SHAUN STANDLEY: Yes. Everybody was very emotional at the European Space Operation Center. It's --some of these scientists have been working on this mission for 20 years, and it is just wonderful for them to finally see the fruits of all their years of labor.

JEFFREY BROWN: Okay. Shaun Standley, thank you very much for joining us.

SHAUN STANDLEY: Great pleasure. Thank you.

FOCUS - SHIELDS & BROOKS

JIM LEHRER: Now, the Friday night analysis of shields and brooks: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Mark, how do you see the significance this week of the administration declaring the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq over and none were found?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, a less prudent national leadership might not have waited for the evidence and rushed in and invaded a sovereign country -- another sovereign country but of course that wasn't the case with the United States leadership. There are three basic cases for going to war. The first was that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, and it was making enormous progress; (b), that it already possessed biological and chemical weapons; and (c), it had such a close working relationship with al-Qaida and al-Qaida groups that it could easily transfer these lethal weapons for attack on the United States. Those are the charges leveled, organized by the administration, by the president, by the vice president. There has been no substantiating evidence of any of the three since. And I think, you know, it's -- the other case was obviously to bring democracy to Iraq and make it a beacon for the Middle East. And that's probably in intensive care right now and third was to get rid of Saddam Hussein which was done. And so I just -- I think, you know, again the broadcast of 1358 Americans dead and, I mean, that was the reason for going to war. And that reason has been decimated.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree it has been decimated? And I would add this question to it, David, that without the argument that Mark just outlined of the three elements, the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe that the majority of the Congress, of the United States and the American public would have supported military action against Iraq?

DAVID BROOKS: No, I don't think so. Without the sense that there was a threat, some sort of long-range threat that Saddam posed, I don't think the Congress would have voted to it. I just would underline and I'm sort of going back to ancient history, But the Duelfer report, which was the report on WMD, did say very clearly that Saddam wanted these weapons. He pulled back so he could get sanctions lifted; he bribed officials in the UN, France, and China so he could get them listed. He reestablished arms relations, was importing arms freely and was hoping sanctions would be lifted, which the report said was palpably close and then he was going to build the weapons. But you know, Saddam was a long-range threat. But as for the war itself, we are now in the middle of an election campaign. I mean, this is where we will tell whether it was worth it or not over the next six months or a year. We have seen - you know, we've seen three elections in the Middle East. We have seen this election. You know, there are Iraqis voting in 14 countries; some of the countries nobody has ever voted before, but the Iraqis are voting. If it works, it will have been worth it.

JIM LEHRER: What about Mark's point, if I may, just to come back to it, that 1364 young Americans have died on the premise that there were that there were weapons -- the major premise was there were weapons of mass destruction there. Does that not bother you?

DAVID BROOKS: Obviously. There were many premises for the war. Many people had different premises. Some of them it was the weapons of mass destruction. I was at a gathering of significant conservatives, Bill Buckley was one; he's written a column, come out publicly. We were around a dinner table the other night and --

JIM LEHRER: This was recently?

DAVID BROOKS: This was two days ago.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

DAVID BROOKS: And I was asked did you support the war? Everybody around the table did support the war at the time. Would you have supported it knowing what we know now? It was 50-50. So that has an effect on people.

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

DAVID BROOKS: Frankly, it did not change my vote.

JIM LEHRER: How did you vote?

DAVID BROOKS: I voted yes both times because I think what we are seeing now in Iraq is the clearest moral confrontation, you know, since the Civil Rights Act, since apartheid. We've seen people against democracy, people fighting for democracy. If it works, those deaths -- and it's easy for me to say, I understand -- those deaths will have been worth it.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't, Jim. And I think --

JIM LEHRER: Remove the weapons of mass destruction and just go to David's point.

MARK SHIELDS: I don't agree with David's point because I think you have to go, if you are going to take a nation to war, you have to do it in an absolutely intellectually and honest and rigorously candid way. And you have to be understanding on the part of the people for them to make that kind of a commitment and point of sending young Americans to their death. And the point I dissent from David, the initial point, and that is the pre-war U.N. strategy was working. I mean, for 12 years he had not been able to move in any way. I mean for 12 years, and the administration's response -- asked this week would the president have changed in any way - no, no, no, nothing has changed. The only thing of interest and sort of concern is the intelligence. You know, we really got to find out why this intelligence was wrong. The big event at the White House I remember was the president awarding the Medal of Freedom to the director of that intelligence. So I mean, there doesn't seem to be any sense of disappointment or letdown that the intelligence was wrong; that led to us make that decision to go to war.

DAVID BROOKS: The court finding of the Duelfer report was that it was not working; that Saddam was getting out of the box, that he was - that was what the Duelfer report said; you can't pick out one element of the Duelfer report and excerpt all the rest. That was the problem. And as for the uncertainty, this is the whole nature of our lives since 9/11. When you have terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, you can't always wait till the weapons are raining down on you. You have to act early. And I mean this has been the debate over the last three years.

JIM LEHRER: Sure. Sure. And we went through it one more time because of the news of the week where they did declare finally that they've given up the hunt. Do you think that's smart, by the way, to drop the whole thing, forget it?

DAVID BROOKS: For a year everyone has been saying, Duelfer even before going to Iraq taking over for David Kay, he's been saying, I doubt there is anything there. I think it's pretty clear.

JIM LEHRER: Michael Chertoff, the president's choice to be the new Secretary of Homeland Security, what kind of choice is that in your opinion?

DAVID BROOKS: I think outstanding. I think there are a number of people around two who have popped up in job after job after job because they're super confident - competent. Phil Zelikow, the guy who wrote the 9/11 Commission report, the staff guy is one of those guys in foreign affairs, Michael Chertoff is another. He was the inspiration for characters in the book "One L" by Scott Turow. He was a Supreme Court --

JIM LEHRER: I didn't know that.

DAVID BROOKS: Yeah. Supreme Court clerk for William Brennan, served under Rudy Giuliani and then served in the Bush administration, the Carter admission, Whitewater, the Bush administration, he keeps popping up because he has a golden reputation and I think it is well earned.

JIM LEHRER: Well earned?

MARK SHIELDS: One of the characters -- Michael Chertoff is not bragging about the fact that he was the inspiration of one of the truly abrasive obnoxious people on the face of the Earth. But Jim his competence is established. When you get people like David Cole, a frequent appearer on our show -

JIM LEHRER: Sure.

MARK SHIELDS: -- card carrying liberal as he would be happy to say, say this man is not an ideologue; that he is intellectually rigorous and honest, Rick Ben-Veniste -

JIM LEHRER: Said it on this program.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. Without endorsing him but said this is a man of integrity. What was missing was he didn't have the panache, he didn't have the dash; he didn't have the Bernie Kerik swagger that the president was obviously smitten by but he is confirmable. And he has been confirmed for a lifetime job. The person who deserves the credit, if it does work out, and it is an enormous challenge, is the person who talked him into giving up a lifetime --

JIM LEHRER: Yeah, he was on the court and that's a big deal.

MARK SHIELDS: Arthur Goldberg gave up the Supreme Court to become U.N. Ambassador to Lyndon Johnson.

JIM LEHRER: -- Lyndon Johnson

DAVID BROOKS: In fact, it's sort of underlining because people are so cynical about politics -

MARK SHIELDS: Exactly.

JIM LEHRER: Good point.

DAVID BROOKS: -- but people do this as a service to the country and I'm sure that's what is going on. He was involved in 9/11. That's why people do this. There are a lot of good people like that, beyond --

JIM LEHRER: Very good point. This is - if there is a thankless job or a job that -- I mean, yeah, they'll thank you if everything turns out great but he's got 180,000 people; he's got all this stuff.

MARK SHIELDS: Twenty-two agencies.

JIM LEHRER: Twenty-two agencies; I mean, this is not a walk in the park.

MARK SHIELDS: The one drawback and the opposition you will see is from Sen. Clinton and I think probably and understandably --

JIM LEHRER: Explain that.

MARK SHIELDS: He was -- when he was counsel for the Whitewater Committee, the Senate Whitewater Committee, he was a zealous prosecutor, a zealous prosecutor. And those hearings, he badgered and I think it is fair to say browbeat White House staff, including Maggie Williams and others, the then first lady's chief of staff. And that committee came up with not a single finding of illegality, not a single finding of even impropriety. So, you know, there were some hard feelings but at the same time Chuck Schumer, Mrs. Clinton's colleague from New York, Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey and

DAVID BROOKS: Jon Corzine -

MARK SHIELDS: -- Jon Corzine, the other senator from New Jersey have already endorsed him.

JIM LEHRER: Is it possible to speculate, David, on how different a Chertoff Homeland Security Department will be than a Tom Ridge Homeland Security Department?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think he'll project a little more authority. I think he is someone who is ultimately very, very serious, very, very smart. I think he will project authority. As to how he will manage that agency is just going to be a terribly difficult task. And the one knock that was made against him is that he doesn't have demonstrable administrative authority. I hope he appoints a deputy who has that. But if have you skills, you can learn how to do a job, I think. And he has monumental skills.

JIM LEHRER: A media story this week, David; the CBS problem with the Bush National Guard story they did on 60 Minutes Wednesday, do you believe that CBS did what they did for political reasons, that that was anti-Bush political reasons?

DAVID BROOKS: It's hard to measure out the two things. One, there is the journalist trying to get a story. And you get excited by that. But they did shop this around to the Kerry campaign. They did have contacts with the Kerry campaign. They did go out searching for stuff. Whether they were motivated politically, I don't know what is in their soul. I do know there are poll results that 90 percent of working journalists voted for Kerry. Does that mean they're biased? No. If they're professionals are not, because they know how to do their job. But I do think it is a danger when there are so few conservatives in a lot of media organizations that things get carried away and there is nobody around to break it.

JIM LEHRER: How do you read it, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: From my experience, Jim, in hanging around national newsrooms for a long time I'd say there's only three biases and this really upsets my friend from the right. The three biases that journalists differ from the general public, they're more pro-choice on abortion rights than the general public is. They're more pro-in favor of gay rights and they're more in favor of gun control. Those are the only three I've ever seen. I mean, there is not a political agenda. And I think that may be just be a product of where they come from. But you know, I have to admit I'm a Dan Rather fan; I'm a CBS fan. And I feel terrible that this is the way his career ends, and I think there is a certain resentment that he was allowed a dignified exit on the part of some. But, no --

JIM LEHRER: Do you think they would have been as vigorous on this story if it had been about Kerry instead of Bush? That's the bottom line.

MARK SHIELDS: That's a good question. I mean -- but the idea of being in contact -- a lot has been made of, you talk to people in the other campaign -- I mean you get some of your best information, Jim, from one campaign, from the other. If you are interviewing John Kerry, I mean the Bush people are probably going to have as good questions as anybody. And I don't, you know, I don't know. But I mean I think there was a sense of competitiveness and the fact that Dick Thornburgh and Lou Boccardi - former AP and governor of Pennsylvania -- failed to find any bias makes a statement.

JIM LEHRER: Around the table you sat with the conservatives a couple of days ago, if that question had been asked of them, what would they have said do you think?

DAVID BROOKS: I don't watch CBS. I don't know particularly know. They would have said yes. There is a great sense among conservatives that you look at certain news institutions, you feel like you are fighting uphill. That's just the sensation people have about certain organizations.

JIM LEHRER: Under this organization's rules, I now have to say thank you both very much and see you next week.

ESSAY - OVERWHELMING

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers the impact of the tsunami.

SPOKESPERSON: That wave...

SPOKESPERSON: Oh, my God!

SPOKESPERSON: ...is a good fifteen/twenty feet tall easy!

ROGER ROSENBLATT: I think we never understood the meaning of "overwhelming" until the tsunami in South Asia. "Overwhelming": Overpowering, to cover over completely. The water was overwhelming, literally, as are the numbers of the dead. The depth and extension of grief are overwhelming. In terms of the news, the story overwhelmed all others: The destruction of property, the nations affected, the cost, the amounts necessary to feed, clothe, house, rebuild. NGOs overwhelmed by the tasks before them. Doctors overwhelmed by the hordes of the ill and the dying. The survivors overwhelmed-- dazed, displaced, orphaned, with nothing left in the world -- too big, too much to grasp. Not that it requires great numbers to be overwhelmed. When I arrived in Rwanda years ago to write a story for the New York Times Magazine, it was shortly after the slaughter, I stood on a bridge over the Kagera River, between Rwanda and Tanzania, and watched the bodies of the murdered Tutsis rise over the waterfall, then plunge. I was aware of the enormity of the massacre, something like the enormity of the dead in the tsunami. But I observed only one body at a time. Every life is a history. In John Donne's words, "Any man's death diminishes me." A single death is overwhelming. Yet some things occur that cover us completely, take our breath away: Odd in a world that understands so much, to be confronted by that which really is unthinkable. Focus on individual stories; break down the big picture into little pictures to attempt to bring the vast size of the event under emotional and intellectual control, to make the experience manageable. Focus on a face or two; focus on the face of a child who emerged alive, if alone. One says how beautiful such faces look, often because there is nothing else to say. The poor suffer the most from natural disasters because they have the fewest protections and because the world pays them the least attention until something like this happens. Even the tsunami might have passed from western consciousness sooner had not the victims included Europeans and American vacationers. Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, wrote an essay in Time Magazine urging the U.S. to pay more dollars and more heed to the poor before another wave washes over. Everyone talks about the poor, but no one does anything about them, just like the weather. For the present, what to say? Often we deliberately choose to say nothing, as a ceremonial response. So overwhelming has this disaster been, the principal reactions have consisted of moments of silence, silence serving as the inexpressible expressible. And in those moments of silence the tsunami continues to grow in the mind: Unimaginable, too big, too much to grasp. It could not have happened. I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: Sunni militants warned Iraqis they'd face death if they vote in the Jan. 30 elections. A U.S. military jury convicted U.S. Spec. Graner for abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. And the Israelis cut off contact with the newly elected Palestinian leader after a deadly attack in Gaza. Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.