The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. One week into the war with Iraq. We have the major developments of the day; our regular military analysis with retired Colonels Lang, Gardiner, and Anderson; our nightly conversation from Baghdad with John Burns of the New York Times; another home- front report from Sacramento, California; plus, before we go, a tribute to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the man for many seasons.

JIM LEHRER: The war against Iraq went into a second week today, with its leaders vowing to pursue it as long it takes to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Pres. Bush and British Prime Minister Blair met at camp David, outside Washington. At a news conference afterward, they gave their appraisal of the war so far. Here is some of what they said.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: British, American, Australian, polish, and other coalition troops are sharing the duties of this war, and we're sharing the sacrifices of this war. Together, coalition forces are advancing day by day, in steady progress against the enemy. Slowly but surely, the grip of terror around the throats of the Iraqi people is being loosened. We're now engaging the dictator's most hardened and most desperate units. The campaign ahead will demand further courage and require further sacrifice, yet we know the outcome: Iraq will be disarmed; the Iraqi regime will be ended; and the long-suffering Iraqi people will be free. Mr. Prime Minister.

TONY BLAIR: Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for your welcome. Thank you for your strength and for your leadership at this time. And I believe the alliance between the United States and Great Britain has never been in better or stronger shape. We had this morning a presentation of the latest military situation, which shows already the progress that has been made. It's worth just recapping it, I think, for a moment. In less than a week, we have secured the southern oil fields and facilities, and so protected that resource and wealth for the Iraqi people, and avoided ecological disaster. We've disabled Iraq's ability to launch external aggression from the West. Our forces are now within 50 miles of Baghdad. They've surrounded Basra. They've secured the key port of Umm Qasr. They've paved the way for humanitarian aid to flow into the country. And they've brought real damage on Iraq's command and control. So we can be confident that the goals that we have set ourselves will be met.

REPORTER: Given that the resistance is as strong as it's been in the South and that we have what you call the most hardened, most desperate forces still around Baghdad, are we to assume that this is going to last... could last months and not weeks, if not days?

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, I'll answer that question very quickly, and you can get to his. However long it takes to win. However long it takes to achieve our objective. And that's important for you to know, the American people to know, our allies to know, and the Iraqi people to know.

REPORTER: We've, all of us, noted quite a shift in emphasis over the last few days from the hope that this could be over very, very quickly to the military in both countries briefing about months. My question is really, why do you think that shift has taken place? Did we underestimate the scale of Iraqi resistance? Has it been the weather? Has it been poor advice at the beginning of the campaign, or is it a military question?

TONY BLAIR: There is no point in entering into a speculation of how long it takes except to say we have been, I think, just under a week into this conflict. Now, because of the way it's reported, you've got this constant 24-hours-a-day media, it may seem to people that it's a lot longer than just under a week, but actually, it's just under a week. And in just under a week, there is a massive amount that has already been achieved. I mean, after all, coalition forces are within 50 miles of Baghdad, the southern oil fields are secured, the West is protected from external aggression, we've got forces going into the North. Now, we will carry on until the job is done.

REPORTER: Could I ask you both, the justness of the cause that you believe this war is? Why is it, then, that if you go back to that history, if go back over the last century or indeed recent conflicts of your political careers, you have not got the support of people who have been firm allies, like the French, like the Germans, like the Turkish. Why haven't you got their support?

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: We've got plenty of western allies. We've got... I mean, we can give you the list. Ally after ally after ally has stood with us and continues to stand with us, and we are extremely proud of their participation.

TONY BLAIR: The reason why I think it is important to recognize the strength of our alliance... yes, there are countries that disagree with what we are doing. I mean, there's no point in hiding it; there's been a division. And you obviously have to take... and go and ask those other countries why they're not with us, and they will give you the reasons why they disagree, but I think what is important is to bear in mind two things: First of all, there is an immense number of countries that do agree with us. I mean, I hear people constantly say to me, "Europe is against what you're doing." That is not true. There is a part of Europe that is against what we are doing. There are many existing members of the European Union and virtually all the new members of the European Union that strongly support what we are doing. So there is a division, but we have many allies. As I say, at some point, we will have to come back and we'll have to discuss how the disagreement arose, but I have no doubt that we're doing the right thing. I have no doubt that our cause is just, and I have no doubt that were we to walk away from this conflict at this time, we would be doing a huge disservice to future generations.

JIM LEHRER: Prime Minister Blair went on from Camp David to New York City to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Annan. In Iraq today, the pace of the war picked up again. Terence Smith has our war roundup.

TERENCE SMITH: The weather was dramatically better across Iraq today, and coalition forces took advantage of the improved conditions in the air and on the ground. U.S. and British warplanes resumed bombing in earnest today, flying more than 600 missions against Republican Guard positions and key targets in and around Baghdad. Towering plumes of smoke could be seen billowing above the city's skyline. (Explosions and gunfire) The pounding continued into Friday morning Iraqi time. It was the heaviest bombing in days. Iraq's health minister charged that the U.S. was deliberately targeting civilians in an effort to break the public will, something coalition forces have repeatedly denied. The sandstorms that had crippled air operations and slowed the military's ground advance towards Baghdad finally cleared, allowing U.S. and British forces to resume their march towards the Iraqi capital. But on the outskirts of Nasiriyah, U.S. troops continued to skirmish with Iraqi forces following a night of fierce battles -- (Explosions) all in an attempt to secure the southern town. Military officials said Iraqi troops suffered numerous casualties and lost scores of vehicles. As the fighting raged on, thousands of refugees poured out of Nasiriyah. Further north, near Najaf, U.S. troops said they encountered some continued resistance from the Iraqis after fierce firefights over the past two days.

COL. WILL GRIMSLEY: They attempted to blow up the bridge which was moderately successful, but we've still been able to use it. In the 48 hours since, these guys have been in constant contact mostly dismounted soldiers a mix of paramilitary, some military, some with uniforms, some not. In pick-up trucks, in dump trucks, in some military vehicles attempting to run roadblocks, infiltrate in and around positions. It's been virtually constant contact for the past 48 hours.

TERENCE SMITH: In northern Iraq, cargo planes began delivering supplies to U.S. paratroopers who dropped into the Kurdish- controlled area. We get that part of the story from Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON: It was a dramatic opening of the long-awaited northern front. 1,000 U.S. airborne soldiers carried out a low-level parachute drop into northern Iraq, at a location that the Pentagon at first declined to specify. Daylight revealed they had in fact landed at an airfield controlled by Kurdish forces some 50 miles away from the Iraqi front line. The Kurds have been preparing the airfield here for weeks.

SOLDIER: Here we jumped into a friendly portion of Iraq, and we know that there are some terrorist factions here, so we have to be careful, we have to be alert, but we have to be mindful that we do have friends here.

JULIAN MANYON: The airborne soldiers will soon, in Washington's worlds, be robustly reinforced. Transport aircraft will bring in troops, equipment, even tanks. The result will be less formidable than the full mechanized division, which the Pentagon wanted to send in by land until the Turkish government vetoed it, but it will still be a potent strike force. The U.S. troops will work closely with Kurdish forces, and the Kurds are delighted.

HOSHYAR ZABARI: We and the peshmerga forces that are working very closely with U.S. Troops and the coalition forces in order to coordinate all our moves on a day-to-day basis.

JULIAN MANYON: American bombing of the Iraqi front lines is intensifying. Small numbers of Iraqi troops are said to be deserting.

TERENCE SMITH: There was more action in southern Iraq today. British troops continued aggressive attempts to secure the al Faw Peninsula, a task that's vital to efforts to bring in humanitarian aid. The British swept the area, thoroughly searching Iraqi vehicles and their occupants for weapons.

SOLDIER: Open it, please.

SOLDIER: Get down, get down, get down. Lay down, lay down. Hey, you, too!

TERENCE SMITH: The troops also conducted mine-clearing operations in the nearby waters after new mines were found in the channel. At the CENTCOM briefing today in Qatar, Vice Brigadier General Vincent Brooks provided details.

VICE BRIGADIER GEN. VINCENT BROOKS: The actual term that is used is really "bottom-influenced mines." These are sub-surface mines that are able to be programmed if need be to count the number of hulls that pass over top of them, and at a certain point, however programmed, they detonate. So before we proceed with humanitarian assistance through that area, we want to ensure that's all cleared, so clearing operations continue today. I want to show you the type of mine that we're describing here. This is a Sumer mine developed by the Iraqis from another country's design, and, as I mentioned, it is programmable. We believe that these have been developed since the imposition of sanctions; before 1991 Iraq did not have these.

TERENCE SMITH: British forces also continued their siege of the city of Basra. There was more fighting with Iraqi fighters there, and the beginning of an exodus from the city. Alex Thompson of Independent Television News reports on the situation there.

ALEX THOMPSON: Basra's civilians, as well as the soldiers, are now paying the price as British troops attack what they say are military targets only across the city, killing and injuring civilians as they do so. Basra Hospital, already short of medicines, clean water, and electricity before the invasion, now has a crisis, as forces loyal to Saddam Hussein hold out against the overwhelming British and U.S. forces. (Sirens wailing) It's not purely military targets which are attacked. Overnight, the city's TV and radio stations were also bombed. Hundreds of civilians have fled South towards the invasion forces. This was the situation six miles south of the city today. It's not known how many more may have gone North and East. This map shows the targets, such as the Ba'ath Party headquarters, dotted across Basra, the focus for air and artillery strikes in the past 36 hours. To the west, the British seventh armored brigade now holds the international airport. Overnight, British army forces say air strikes destroyed the TV and radio stations in the city. This morning, British challenger tanks moved eastward, south of Basra, and the army says destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks. But here's the problem: From the northeast, Iraqi forces are still able to re-supply and reinforce down the Tigris Valley. The British challenger tanks and warrior armored vehicles of the 7th Armored Division are spearheading the attack on Basra, but it is proving a lengthy business, resistance stronger than anticipated, and every day more civilians are killed and maimed. As soon as it's deemed safe, those armored vehicles are bringing in aid to try and win over people here. This was al Zubayr, southwest of Basra, yesterday.

SPOKESMAN: Have you got... ( gunfire ) ...forward a face position?

SPOKESMAN: No.

SPOKESMAN: ( Yelling )

ALEX THOMPSON: Earlier, British tanks and U.S. Jets had obliterated what they said was the Ba'ath headquarters in al Zubayr.

MAJ. JOHNNY BOWRON: They have a mixture of weapons, generally RPG's and AK-47 rifles, but sometimes mortars, and they operate in small bands, generally trying to ambush convoys as they move around the town.

ALEX THOMPSON: Moving up the Basra road, the British army's mission to gain intelligence and to try to begin winning hearts and minds is underway. To the South: Safwan, still under Ba'ath Party control and not fully secure. Al Zubayr is just north of here, the scene of fighting for several days. (Heavy artillery fire)

SPOKESMAN: Okay. ( Indistinguishable )

ALEX THOMPSON: At the roadside and in vehicles, Iraqi ammunitions are discovered, seized, and blown up.

2ND LT.ANDY SHAND: In terms of weaponry, there was a find some 800 meters up this main road, 300 mortar rounds, some RPG rounds. It's quite a considerable find. Obviously represents a threat.

ALEX THOMPSON: The British say they've come to win hearts and minds, but the locals are terrified of being shot by them, many still carrying white flags as some kind of protection. Every vehicle flagged down, the occupants questioned by an interpreter, and then the vehicle searched.

TERENCE SMITH: There are now some 125,000 U.S. and British troops fighting in Iraq, an increase of 13,000 since Tuesday. And today at Ft. Hood, Texas, the first deployment from the 4th Infantry Division is boarded planes for the flight to Kuwait. More than 12,000 soldiers from the 4th are expected to join the northern front in Iraq in the coming weeks. They received their orders in January but were delayed by Turkey's refusal to allow them to enter Iraq across its southern border. In Washington today, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the military has enough combat power on the ground and, he said, the continued build-up had been planned all along.

DONALD RUMSFELD: The only big change in the plan was the fact that the 4th infantry division did not come in by land through Turkey. But the plan is as it is, and every day the number of coalition forces in Iraq is increasing by one or two or three thousand people. And it's going to continue to that. We have plenty of forces en route.

TERENCE SMITH: The Iraqi military issued its own assessment of the war today. It said coalition forces had exaggerated their gains so far. The defense minister predicted U.S. and British units would encircle Baghdad within five to ten days, but he warned that they would face months of street fighting there. He said, "we feel that this war must be prolonged so the enemy pays a high price." According to the latest casualty figures, a total of 27 U.S. troops have died so far, more than half of those in combat. Eight are missing, and seven are prisoners of war. At least 22 British soldiers have died, with two missing and presumed dead. British Prime Minister Blair charged today that some captured British soldiers had been executed. The Iraqis denied it. Some of the wounded have been flown to the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany. Several spoke to reporters today, including this U.S. soldier who was shot in the arm last Saturday, during fighting at Nasiriyah.

STAFF SGT. JAMIE VILLAFANE: Wasn't really scared through the whole thing. At first it was more of a shock than anything. I was relieved to find they all reacted the way we would in training, the way that all of us are trained. We figured out that getting shot at really wasn't that bad. It was just the getting shot part that really sucked. (Laughter)

TERENCE SMITH: For its part, Iraq said today at least 350 Iraqi civilians have been killed so far in the war, and at least 4,000 wounded. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Thanks, Terry. In related developments today, the U.N.'s sharp divisions over the war resurfaced at the Security Council meeting on rebuilding Iraq. Ray Suarez has that report.

RAY SUAREZ: Humanitarian aid began trickling into Iraq Tuesday. Relief groups say they'll have a major civilian crisis on their hands without a major global effort. How to do that and who should be in charge are already in dispute at the U.N. The cracks were revealed at the Security Council, already bruised over the Iraq invasion and its legitimacy. Some 80 ambassadors spoke at the open session. Many said the U.S. and Britain bear primary responsibility for aid relief.

MUNIR AKRAM: Mr. President, as stipulated by the fourth Geneva Convention, those in effective control or occupation of any territory are responsible for meeting the humanitarian needs of the population.

RAY SUAREZ: The most pressing agenda item: How to restart the U.N. program that lets Baghdad sell oil to buy food and medicine. Secretary General Kofi Annan suspended oil-for-food shipments just before war broke out. Resuming them requires a new resolution, but the wording is in dispute. Some countries are wary of language that implicitly approves of the war.

SERGEY LAVROV (Translated): We will continue to oppose attempts to directly or indirectly legitimize the use of force against Iraq, or shift responsibility of them to the international community through the United Nations.

RAY SUAREZ: Today at Camp David, Pres. Bush urged the council to act quickly.

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: This urgent humanitarian issue must not be politicized, and the Security Council should give Secretary General Annan the authority to start getting food supplies to those most in need of assistance.

RAY SUAREZ: There's also friction over the makeup of a temporary government in Iraq once the fighting stops. Today, the U.S. and British leaders addressed that.

TONY BLARI: It's important there again that the U.N. Is involved, and that any post-conflict administration in Iraq is endorsed by it.

RAY SUAREZ: But there's a strong difference of emphasis between the U.S. and its main wartime ally. Numerous reports say the Bush administration wants to limit the U.N. role and have retired American General Jay Garner act as temporary civilian administrator. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed postwar Iraq at a House hearing yesterday.

COLIN POWELL: We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future.

RAY SUAREZ: But in New York, most representatives appealed for a central role for the United Nations. Some questioned the motives of the combatants.

YAHYA MAHMASSANI, U.N. Ambassador, League of Arab States (Translated ): The motive behind that war is the beginning of a dangerous era that depends on absolute power to implement the plans and schemes that will be imposed on the peoples and the states of the region, in order to redraw its map in a matter that is acceptable to the occupying power.

RAY SUAREZ: Yesterday, Annan asked member states to put aside divisions, which he said could have grave consequences for the international system.

JIM LEHRER: During that U.N. debate, the Iraqi ambassador accused the United States of trying to exterminate the Iraqi people. With that, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte got up and walked out. He said later, he had listened to as much as he could.

INSIDE BAGHDAD

JIM LEHRER: Now back to the war itself, and our daily report from Baghdad. Margaret Warner talked to John Burns of the New York Times earlier this evening.

MARGARET WARNER: John Burns, welcome back. There were reports less than two hours ago of new bomb blasts in Baghdad. How do they compare to ones earlier in this past week?

JOHN BURNS: It's hard to find words that don't simply sound overstated or clich for this. The power of what we saw tonight is really astonishing. I personally have never witnessed anything like this, and I have been under bombing before. We do not know, of course, what sort of bombs they were. We don't even know for certainty what the targets were other than they were in the heart of the government area of Baghdad. But they shook the ground with the most tremendous force, and they were followed by a kind of rumbling that is almost associated with an earthquake. Car alarms all across the city were set off. And then, of course, the mosques fired up their loud speakers in command of Saddam Hussein, no doubt, and into the night -- the stillness of the night that ensued on these enormous explosions came these plaintiff cries of "Allah... ( speaking Arabic )"-- "God is great, God is great." The mosques have all been ordered to do this whenever a bombing attack takes place. The other thing that is quite significant, I think, is a week ago, when the bombings started, the air defenses here were working well enough that air raid sirens went off whenever aircraft were approaching Baghdad. There are no air raid sirens anymore, and there is no anti- aircraft fire, which suggests to me that the United States has effectively suppressed whatever air defense Iraq has.

MARGARET WARNER: I know you were at the briefing earlier today by the defense minister, and at least from the quotes that have been reported here, it sounds as if he certainly was, "a," defiant, and, "b," vowed to make the U.S. and British pay a very heavy price and prolong this war. Tell us about that.

JOHN BURNS: Yes, his name is Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmed. And he... it's a sobering thing to listen to him, not least because he is a quieter person, a much less doctrinaire individual than the Iraqi leaders we normally meet. This is a military man and a man with a sense of military history. I'm getting the impression that there's less polemics and more fact in what he has to say. And what he had to say tonight, I would have to say it chilled the blood of any American or for that matter any Englishman hearing it, considering that our forces are advancing rapidly on this city. First of all, he acknowledged that they could, as he put it, encircle Baghdad or great parts of Baghdad, he says, in as little as five days. That suggests a realistic assessment of the bombing that is now going on in the outer defenses of the city some ten or fifteen miles from where I'm sitting. In fact, he says, "bring it on, Bush, we're ready for you." He says they will learn such as a lesson as the Americans and British will never forget. He said that they will fight street to street, that the battle will be extremely bloody. He spoke about-- referring to predictions that this could be over as you may remember a little over two weeks ago we were talking about a war that could be over in a week or two weeks-- he said he thinks more in terms of two months, which would put us right into the summer where British and American groups would be fighting in temperatures of 120 to 130 degrees and wearing chemical weapons suits. All in all, it was an extremely daunting prospect that he put forth. And I left that room thinking that this could be a nightmarish encounter for us, that is to say, for the citizens of the United States and the United Kingdom.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, we read today, or actually saw, that there was on Iraqi TV some black-and-white... it looked like silent video of Saddam Hussein. And my question really is, what is the state of Iraqi state television today, a couple of days after the U.S. bombed it?

JOHN BURNS: Well, that tells its own story. The radio and television headquarters, which are beside the Tigris River right behind the information ministry building, which thank God has not yet been bombed since it's a building in which we are obliged to do quite a lot of our work. The radio and TV headquarters was bombed with enormous severity two nights ago, and within five or six hours, two or three of the three state television channels were up and running again, and have continued to do so. They have, in Donald Rumsfeld's phrase, they've got workarounds. These are technically proficient people. And seeing Saddam tonight simply further compounded the sense that this man is very much in control of this country, and you only have to take the measure of the deep anxiety and apprehension there is among Iraqis when they meet foreigners and discussing anything at all that has to do with this war in terms that are anything other than simply kind of echo of the state propaganda. From that, you know that Saddam Hussein is in absolute control. Over the weekend, after the first few days of the bombing, when there was some doubt that he had survived the attempt to assassinate him with the initial Cruise missile strike, there was a change in the mood here. There was a sense that people thought he might be gone. If that were so, if that sense were to spread, I think this regime would unravel very quickly. There is no such sense among Iraqis tonight. They are convinced that he is still alive, that he's still in power, and that he still has the potential to inflict extremely severe retribution on anybody-- anybody-- who shows any sign of defecting in the mind, much less taking up arms on behalf of a foreign force that is about to arrive at the city's gates.

MARGARET WARNER: John Burns, thanks a lot.

JOHN BURNS: It's my pleasure.

FOCUS - MILITARY MOVES

JIM LEHRER: And we go again now to our retired colonels: Former army Special Forces and Middle East intelligence officer Patrick Lang; Marine Corps urban warfare expert Gary Anderson; and Air Force operations planner Sam Gardiner.

Col. Gardiner, what do you make of what John Burns just told us? Were you shivering, as I was, listening to him?

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: Well, yes. But the answer to the question of what I make of it, I think there are three things going on over Baghdad in the air war. The first one is we declared essentially that today we had freedom to operate over Baghdad, that the air defense system has been destroyed enough so that you no longer had to use only Stealth and Cruise missiles. So that's the first thing that happened.

JIM LEHRER: John Burns seemed to confirm that by saying there's no anti-aircraft fire, et cetera.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: Right. Once that happened, you could then begin to use things like the B-52s, which my guess would be that's what he's seeing reflected. -- bigger weapons so that you will see now targets....

JIM LEHRER: That's the bigger explosions, the rumbling are B- 52s.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: That's my guess at this point. The other part of this is, we're also... you know, having done this for now for so many days, we're down the priority list of targets that Cruise missiles can destroy. I mean, the high value, high return targets were done in the early days. Now after this many days, you're down to where the marginal return....

JIM LEHRER: Like what? What kinds of things?

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: We're down to barracks. If you see... they're talking about hitting a Republican Guard barracks. Now, surely there's nobody in the barracks. In fact we've heard that they're out into neighborhoods, but we struck the barracks anyway. So that there's not a high return on that, there is a value of disruption but not a real return of military value for hitting that target.

JIM LEHRER: Col. Lang, what did you think of what John Burns said and put it in an overview context if you wish?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, I was very interested in what he said about General Sultan.

JIM LEHRER: The defense minister.

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Yes, who gave this briefing today. He's briefed before. I've listened to his briefings both days. They are both professional and comprehensive. The previous briefing he gave was quite accurate as to what had been going on around Nasiriyah. I think Burns is right. I mean if this guy is a real soldier. If he's running the defense, it may explain to some extent why things are going so coherently from the Iraqi side. In terms of the whole things that are going on generally, I would say that we are now in a kind of a holding pattern while people resupply, bring up their rear echelons and all available forces move forward. But what we're facing in the Baghdad area is this big red zone in which I would be willing to bet you that the forces of the....

JIM LEHRER: The red zone is a big circle around....

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: A big circle around Baghdad in which the defense is. I would be will to go bet you the guards are planning to break themselves down into company-size unit teams.

JIM LEHRER: How many?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: One hundred and fifty -- maybe half a dozen tanks, something like that and dig themselves in, in places where there are a lot of buildings which are ambiguous as to whether or not they're civilian because the buildings are good protection and we're going to be inhibited about shooting up these places that might be houses. Clearly their intention is that we should have to fight our way through that whole zone and into the city where they're planning a defense in depth. This is a serious business. I hope we're really taking it as seriously as it deserves.

JIM LEHRER: Col. Anderson, this is your area of expertise, urban combat. When youheard what John Burns said about what the defense minister said about having to go house to house and whatever, what went through your mind, sir, in terms of what's about to happen or could happen?

COL. GARY ANDERSON: There's no doubt in my mind that that's what they've been planning all along. They haven't made any secret of that. Obviously, Hussein would like to turn this thing into a Stalingrad II type situation. The issue is, will the troops go along with it? I agree with Pat that -- very professional briefing today, very clear layout of their plans and operations. The problem is the execution. It's like, you know, it's like a good war college student that lays everything out on his maps and so forth and then somebody comes in and does something perhaps unexpected and throws him off his feet. I think that the real problem that they're going to have is that you can see how spread out their defenses are. You've got a mobile offense coming at you. There's sort of an axiom in mobile warfare that your reserve has to be strong enough to or fast enough to deal with the penetration that might occur. There you have two problems there.

JIM LEHRER: Excuse me. Meaning that you do your best to get through it to create a hole and then you have to get through the hole, right? Is that the deal?

COL. GARY ANDERSON: That's correct. But once they're through the hole, then you have to have some kind of a fire brigade to stop it if you're on the defense. That defense is going to have to be fast enough to catch that hole. The other problem they have is because they're so exposed from the air, if they start to move, they're very, very vulnerable to attack by air. So it's a challenging problem from their perspective.

JIM LEHRER: But what about from our perspective, what about from the offensive perspective? This is the one thing everybody said going in we wanted to avoid was house-to- house fighting anywhere much less in Baghdad. Now, what does that present for the offense?

COL. GARY ANDERSON: Well, I think the way that I've heard Gen. Wallace brief his campaign plan is he doesn't intend to rush in and seize key nodes leaving his flanks open once he gets to the city itself.

JIM LEHRER: Key node? What's that?

COL. GARY ANDERSON: Everything from water plants, power plants, control headquarters, if you find out where their headquarters are and so forth. But the Russians rushed in and managed to get themselves enveloped in Grozny. He's going to try to be I think very careful to probe and find weak spots that he can exploit and not try to get caught in that situation.

JIM LEHRER: Col. Gardiner, for instance, the Washington Post had a front page story about Tom Ricks who is very plugged in, their Pentagon reporter for many years, who essentially said that now the military commanders are preparing for a much longer war than they had anticipated because of what may happen in Baghdad. If you follow what Col. Anderson just said, not rush into it, et cetera, do you read it the same way?

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: Well, actually I talked to tom a couple times during the day. I think what he's sensing is the trend that we've talked about here for the last couple nights, which is the idea that it's really two things: It's the battle in the city that becomes a worrisome thing, but it's also the amount of fire power that you have in the theater and the threats that we begin to experience on the line of communications and-- and this is not to be trivialized-- the maintenance problem and supply problem.

JIM LEHRER: For us you mean.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: For us. It's just a matter that the dust and the distance have taken their toll. Tom said that the marines, some of the units are running low on fuel -- bad. You have got to have fuel to move ahead -- and that some of the third infantry units are running low... running below their ten- day supply of munitions and food.

JIM LEHRER: Once it comes to battle in Baghdad, what use then is there for air power? What can air power do once it goes into that?

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: That's a very interesting question because, you know, we talked about the shock-and-awe dimension of the strategic battle. That will be reduced to a smaller level in this fight, and that is that if you're trying to defend against someone like the coalition who has both highly mobile forces that we were talking about and control of the air so that if you move, you die -- so that all you've got... I mean, it's the combination of the two and hopefully we can leverage it. And this is on the tactical level -- not just on the strategic level. It's very important to have that... the air that you can call in.

JIM LEHRER: But it would be very difficult to call in air strikes in the middle of Baghdad without risking the lives of a lot of innocent civilians. That's the other side of it.

COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: What you can do, you can kill tanks, you can kill artillery, you can kill multiple rocket launchers -- when it comes down to one or two soldiers, that's the tough part.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of one or two soldiers, Col. Lang, finally much was said going into this that was going to be a war unlike any other war in history. And yet the newspapers I read are full of photographs of marines and soldiers walking down muddy roads, the people crouched behind tanks, you know, in firing positions. Those pictures could have been taken in World War II or Korea or Vietnam or anywhere else. What's going on here?

COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, in the end, it comes to be true as I'm afraid I have suspected for a long time-- and I know Sam has as well-- that in the end when you're fighting an enemy who turns out to be determined and you wish to seize objectives on the ground, in this case to achieve regime change, you have to focus on what you achieve on the ground, how much territory you seize. This means infantrymen, grunts, tanks, engineers, people like this. The pictures you're going to see from now on are going to have a lot of that in it. Be very glad to have air support. Once the fighting starts, the inhibitions about a few Iraqis more or less are not going to hold very long.

JIM LEHRER: Col. Anderson, from a marine grunt's point of view it's always the same, is it not? It doesn't matter what war it is.

COL. GARY ANDERSON: I think the marines are very comfortable with this kind of warfare. They've trained for it. I don't say they like it. But this is what they do. And I think the real question, if Saddam wants to put his guys in front of our guys, it's going to come down to cold steel. I'll bet on my guys.

JIM LEHRER: Thank you all three very much.

SERIES - ON THE HOME FRONT

JIM LEHRER: Now, another home front report. We've been reporting on the effects of the war in Sacramento, California. Here's number three, on how the war is impacting education. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

TEACHER: Let me start with this short clip from CNN, and then talk about what you've seen since Thursday and how things have changed.

CORRESPONDENT: From the air, more Cruise missiles, 40 already launched.

LEE HOCHBERG:: As the first all- out war this generation has seen plays out on TV, schools in Sacramento tried to find a balance between educating students about it and comforting them.

SPOKESMAN: Another sign that the battle plan is unfolding here. On the horizon in that

direction about two miles, I can see tanker trucks moving up.

LEE HOCHBERG: At the city's McClatchy High, seniors devoted their honors government class one day this week to the war. Teacher Ellen Wong started the discussion with an educational angle, asking students to look closely at the images being broadcast from embedded reporters.

ELLEN WONG: You know, the fact that they're with them seems... yeah, seems scripted, seems like a production. And are you thinking about that when you're watching it?

DENNIS GENEST: I think it has to be scripted. You can't just have reporters and news channels choosing to go wherever they want.

SARAH BULLOCK: And you have the military tell the reporters the only place they can go, or where they can go? That means you only get the side of the story that the military wants to tell you.

LEE HOCHBERG: As the discussion progressed, Wong tried to determine how disturbed her students were by what they were seeing.

ELLEN WONG: Do you think that you'll begin to feel the weight of the war as it goes on longer? Will you begin to feel a little more depressed about it, I mean...

STUDENT: No.

ELLEN WONG: I was moved emotionally by the P.O.W. this morning, because she looked terrified to me, and that really rattled me. I was just so uncomfortable. I thought, "they're going to kill that girl."

TU TRAN HUYNH: I want to feel some kind of strong emotion about this war. It seems mean, but I want to see what their reaction is, the families who have people that got shot at, the family... I mean...

ELLEN WONG: Because you think that people will react the way they should react to war?

TU TRAN HUYNH: Yeah, because it's right there. You cannot turn your back on someone bawling at - because their loved one died.

NICOLAUS MEAGHER: I haven't seen any actual buildings blowing up or people getting hurt, so it feels - I can't really feel an emotional thing from it because it does feel like a videogame to me.

LEE HOCHBERG: At an elementary school in the quiet Sacramento suburb of Elk Grove, James Sutter teacher worked a bit more cautiously with his younger sixth grade students. They asked him about some words they've been hearing.

JAMES SUTTER: Michael, what's your question?

STUDENT: What are P.O.W.'s?

JAMES SUTTER: Prisoners of war. That's what P.O.W. stands for. In a conflict situation, obviously there will be some soldiers that are taken by the other side who have not died; the other side takes control of them. Do you know what the Geneva Convention is?

EMILY JOHNSON, Student: Well, wasn't that that treaty when they signed that they couldn't, like, exploit people, or, like, killings and stuff on the TV. I don't know.

LEEH HOCHBERG: The school had asked parents to talk to their children about war so teachers wouldn't be the first to broach the subject. The administration also discouraged the use of television images in grades one through eight, but Sutter found even newspaper images upset some students.

JAMES SUTTER: A real disturbing picture. How many people saw this picture? How many people felt a little empty in their stomachs after seeing this picture? I saw that and I was pretty yucky in my stomach. You're not alone in feeling a little bit wild about this situation. You know, when you're looking at the pictures, you're thinking, "gosh, what is that?" "How does that make me feel?" "Why do I feel a little bit," you know, like I said, a little bit yucky in your stomach? If they're bombarded with a lot of images that can be disturbing, some of them have the opportunity to speak at home about it, some don't. And to come into a neutral atmosphere where it's okay to say their mind I think is really healthy for them.

LEE HOCHBERG: Some psychologists say the graphic images of war should be left out of middle school entirely. Sacramento State University's Steve Brock trains school psychologists.

STEVE BROCK: The images of those soldiers that were allegedly executed, you wouldn't bring that in. Images of soldiers that are wounded and in pain, I wouldn't bring that in.

JAMES SUTTER: We have a really good list of names that you can use to be able to write to today...

LEE HOCHBERG: Psychologists say middle-schoolers might feel more control over these times by writing letters to the troops, as Sutter's sixth grade class did, or writing letters to the troops, as Sutter's sixth grade class did, or writing the president or Congress with their views. The younger the kids, the less the war entered the classroom. In a second grade class at Elk Grove, teacher Heather Oakes tried to keep things as normal as possible, but she did feel the need to assure her students they were safe. She showed them how far the war zone is from their school.

HEATHER OAKES: It's all the way over here. And we are all the way over here, a long ways away from Elk Grove, right?

LEE HOCHBERG: Oakes says while she hasn't introduced the subject of war, she's listening to her students' worries-- if they introduce them.

HEATHER OAKES: About nine students came up to me the morning after the conflict; a couple of them said, "I don't want to be at war." I just made sure they felt safe.

LEE HOCHBERG: And more than ever, as psychologists advise, she's giving lots of hugs.

JIM LEHRER: And again, the major war developments of the day, and again to Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: Pres. Bush and British Prime Minister Blair met at Camp David and vowed to pursue the war as long as it takes to get rid of Saddam Hussein. The weather improved dramatically in Iraq, and the U.S. launched heavy new air strikes on Baghdad. U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld defended the war plan and said the coalition forces did have enough combat power in Iraq, but he also said more troops were arriving every day. And the Iraqi defense minister predicted U.S. and British forces would encircle Baghdad within five to ten days, but he warned they would face months of street fighting there. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Thanks, Terry. And in other non-war news of this day: The Centers for Disease Control confirmed a second health care worker has now died after getting a smallpox shot. The CDC said it's investigating, and for now, it's advising people with a history of heart disease not to be vaccinated. A federal advisory panel urged the government today to compensate people injured by the program. The Institute of Medicine also said the states need more money to run the effort. The World Health Organization urged airlines today to screen passengers leaving several Asian nations, and Toronto, Canada. All have seen outbreaks of a deadly flu-like illness that's now blamed for at least 54 deaths worldwide. Today's recommendation named Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Hanoi, in Vietnam, and several parts of China. The U.S. Labor Department today proposed new rules on who qualifies for overtime pay for the first time in half a century. Under the new rules, another 1.3 million low-income workers could receive overtime. They include assistant managers in stores and restaurants. Nearly 650,000 white-collar professionals, including some engineers and pharmacists, would lose overtime. In all, the changes might affect nearly 22 million Americans. The regulations could take effect late this year. The economy grew very slowly at the end of 2002. The Commerce Department reported that today. Its revised estimate said the Gross Domestic Product increased 1.4 percent from October through December. The growth rate had been 4% in the previous quarter. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 28 points to close at 8201, and the NASDAQ fell three points to close at 1384. And before we go tonight, a few words about, and from, Daniel Patrick Moynihan who died yesterday.

JIM LEHRER: He was a renaissance man and then some-- senator, professor, ambassador, thinker, storyteller, loyal friend, an intellectual who grew up poor in New York City, where he shined shoes to help his family make ends meet; the only man in history to serve four consecutive presidents in high- level positions, from John Kennedy through Gerald Ford. Whatever he was, wherever he was, he was a man of ideas, of public service. In 1981, he appeared on this program with his first Senate opponent, conservative James Buckley. The subject was U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia and Israel. The tenor was classic Moynihan.

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN (The MacNeil-Lehrer Report 1981) Look, it is the Saudis who in January said, "let's cleanse Jerusalem of the Jews"; the Saudis who in March said, "our enemy is not the Soviet Union, it is Israel"; the Saudis who on Saturday said the United States sixth fleet defending the... its own airplanes in the airspace over in the open seas, high seas, declared it to be a medieval act of piracy. Now, this is not something that should get us aroused to the point of enmity. But to arm people who say such things, what sense does that make? What does the administration... what comes next?

JIM LEHRER: Let's ask the secretary.

JAMES BUCKLEY: I must confess that this reminds me of some campaign debates I had with the senator a few years ago. I would like to think that he was dancing around the point.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. For non-New Yorkers, let me explain, of course, that these two gentlemen opposed each other in a race for the United States Senate in New York a few years ago.

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN And have a very high regard for one another.

JAMES BUCKLEY: That we do, that we do.

JIM LEHRER: Later in 1981, he discussed the crisis in Poland, where the government had imposed martial law.

JIM LEHRER: You suggest going to the United Nations. You, of course, are a former ambassador to the United Nations. What could the U.N. do that might be effective?

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN: It can watch the soviets prevent anything from being done. We cannot too often show the world what the nature of that regime is. No, they'll veto anything, of course, but let them do it. Let them explain that to the world.

JIM LEHRER: Always Moynihan had great respect and confidence in the process of democracy. In 1982, he talked about the use of a filibuster in the Senate on the issue of school prayer.

JIM LEHRER: (The MacNeil-Lehrer Report 1982) Senator, are you at all troubled by yours and others' use of a filibuster to accomplish this?

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN: No, sir, we have played by the rules. We have those rights under the rules. The Senate was intended to be a deliberative body and a careful body and not a place where by a majority of one you can change the balance of powers within the American government. We are fighting -- sir, if I can, I kept it in my hand for three weeks now, the Constitution, and that is sacred. And that... it goes beyond any issues of the moment.

JIM LEHRER: On another occasion, he even quoted something in Latin on the NewsHour.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH (The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer 1995): And you think that by responding to it this way, we could do more harm than good, is that right?

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN Hippocrates, primum non nocure, "First do no harm."

JIM LEHRER: A decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the communist government, Moynihan predicted the downfall of the Soviet Union. In a 1998 conversation with David Gergen, he said the CIA had failed to see what was coming.

SEN. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN (The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer 1998) We knew that the Soviet Union was gaining on us inside the government. We knew that the per capita GD in East Germany was higher than West Germany. I once said to head of the CIA, CIA Director, you know, "any taxi driver in Berlin could have told you that wasn't so." He said, "any taxi driver in Washington." But it was what our computer models told us. It was the crossover point, a model that began under Eisenhower and the Soviet growing faster than us, and at a certain point they would surpass us. And we were utterly unprepared, and I would put it to you this way: We still act as if the Soviet Union was our enemy and somehow is still there in the form of Russia, don't notice that the Russian people overthrew a totalitarian regime of the most extraordinary power, bloodless revolution, and whereas... and right away after World War II, we began to rebuild Germany, rebuild Italy, Japan, as well as France and Britain. We do nothing while Russia just begins to fall apart, and it... with the second-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, and it... we can't be open about this.

JIM LEHRER: Daniel Patrick Moynihan was, above all, a wordsmith. Columnist George Will has said Moynihan wrote more books than most senators have read. In fact, he authored 18. He was 76 years old, a navy veteran. He will be buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday. Political writer Michael Barone wrote about Moynihan today. "He was the best thinker among politicians since Lincoln, the best politician among thinkers since Jefferson." We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.