The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I`m Jim Lehrer.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Wednesday; then, two Iraq stories, an interview with Stuart Bowen, the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and what former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger told Congress about Iraq; plus, a Science Unit report on reaction to the decision to downgrade Pluto`s planet status; a conversation on drug safety with the head of the Food and Drug Administration; and a look at the discovery of an ancient village near Stonehenge in England.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: A new look at reconstruction in Iraq has found millions of U.S. dollars wasted. Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen reported that today. His quarterly report found: The growing violence has forced U.S. contractors to divert large sums to security. Weapons and equipment totaling more than $36 million cannot be accounted for, and an Olympic-size pool was built, but never authorized by the U.S. government

At a Senate hearing today, Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, lamented the findings.

LEE HAMILTON, Co-Chair, Iraq Study Group: There are very, very few things that hurt our effort more in trying to succeed in Iraq than that kind of performance, because it just turns all people off to know that there are people performing shoddy work, getting huge government contracts. There`s very few things that undercut our efforts in Iraq any more than that.

JIM LEHRER: Later, spokesman Sean McCormack said the State Department has investigated the failures. He also said Iraqi officials are trying to address the waste and abuse of funds. We`ll have more on this story in an interview with Special Inspector General Bowen right after this news summary.

In Iraq today, the U.S. military announced four more Americans killed since Tuesday. Car bombs targeted Shiite districts across Baghdad in the ongoing sectarian violence. At least eight people died; dozens more were wounded. The bombers targeted a major market and a bus loading zone.

In retaliation, a mortar attack killed four people in a Sunni neighborhood.

In Germany today, prosecutors issued warrants for 13 people in the alleged CIA kidnapping of a German citizen. Khaled El-Masri has claimed he was abducted in December of 2003 and taken to Afghanistan. He says he was mistreated, but then released after five months, and told it was all a mistake. The lead German prosecutor said the suspects are believed to be agents of the CIA.

Police in Britain made a series of arrests today in a terror kidnapping plot. Nine suspects were apprehended across Birmingham, England. News reports said the plotters meant to kidnap, torture and behead a British Muslim soldier and show the death on the Internet. Police would not confirm those details, but they did say this.

DAVID SHAW, Assistant Chief Constable, West Midlands Police: I cannot stress that we are literally right at the foothills of what is a very, very major investigation for us. And we`re proceeding very slowly, understandably, but very carefully, to be sure we build the best possible case and to assure that, where prosecutions are appropriate, we get all the evidence that`s necessary. But I have to stress this is a long process, one that will take days and possibly weeks.

JIM LEHRER: British reports also said the potential victim of the plot was under police protection.

Boston had a scare today, after at least nine suspicious devices were found. The objects were planted near bridges, street corners, and at a medical center. Authorities briefly sealed off part of the Charles River and two bridges.

Later, the governor said it was all a hoax. The Cartoon Network said the devices were magnetic lights used in a marketing campaign in 10 cities.

A former Time magazine reporter was the latest witness today against Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the CIA leak case. The vice president`s former chief of staff is accused of perjury.

Today, Matthew Cooper testified Libby talked to him in July of 2003. Cooper said they discussed Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, who worked at the CIA. Plame`s identity later became public.

The House today approved a huge spending bill to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year. The last Congress had failed to pass most of the spending for individual departments.

This new legislation includes increased funding for educational grants, medical care for veterans, and state and local police. It will also freeze funds for Amtrak and Community Development Block Grants.

On the House floor today, Republicans and Democrats jousted over the bill and the process.

REP. JERRY LEWIS (R), California: My friends on the other side of the aisle -- and I use the term "friends" sincerely -- have produced an eight- month omnibus spending bill that appropriates $463.5 billion. It is legislation that few have seen, which cannot be amended in any way, and that will pass this House after only one hour of debate.

REP. DAVID OBEY (D), Wisconsin: They were in the majority; they now are not. Now they`re in the minority. So we are trying to clean up their spilt milk, and they can squawk all they want about how we did it. The fact is, there are no new issues here. Virtually every single issue that will be debated today was already debated.

JIM LEHRER: The bill now goes to the Senate.

Senator Joe Biden joined the crowded presidential field today. The Delaware Democrat spoke of his 34 years in the Senate and his foreign policy experience. He said, "The next president is going to have to figure out how to extricate us from Iraq without making the Middle East even more destabilized." Biden has offered a plan to divide Iraq along ethnic lines.

The Congress of Venezuela today granted President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree. Lawmakers voted at a downtown plaza in Caracas. Chavez has said the move will let him build a socialist state by enacting sweeping measures.

He plans to nationalize utilities and telecommunications firms and impose greater control over oil fields. Venezuela is a major oil supplier to the United States.

The Bush administration announced plans today to raise the cost of becoming a U.S. citizen. Application fees for citizenship would nearly double, to $595. The cost of becoming a legal permanent resident would rise just over $300 to more than $900. The Homeland Security Department said the fee hikes will help pay to improve operations.

The Federal Reserve left a benchmark lending rate unchanged again today. Policymakers voted to keep the federal funds rate at 5.25 percent. Banks use it to set prime lending rates, and that, in turn, determines interest for consumer and business loans.

The Fed also said today recent readings on inflation were encouraging.

On Wall Street today, the Fed announcement helped fuel a rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 98 points to close at 12,621. The Nasdaq rose 15 points to close just under 2,464.

And that`s it for the news summary tonight. Now: reconstructing Iraq; Kissinger and Albright on Iraq; the big Pluto flap; keeping drugs safe; and something new at Stonehenge.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Today`s Iraq reconstruction report. NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: The violence that plagues Iraq every day has taken a huge toll in lives, but it also has disrupted ongoing efforts to rebuild a shattered nation.

In the nearly four years since the U.S. invasion, Congress has appropriated $21 billion for reconstruction, 80 percent of which has been spent, and now the president wants a further $1.2 billion.

The man charged with auditing how that money is spent is Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. His reports have been harsh indictments of the reconstruction effort and a catalogue of the challenges it faces.

The inspector general`s reports so rankled some members of the then- Republican-controlled Congress last year that House legislation was drawn up that eliminated his office. That effort later was thwarted by Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins.

Last night, Bowen released his 12th quarterly report, and the results were much the same as before. The lack of security remains the major problem, interfering with rebuilding. Corruption continues to plague Iraq, limiting the Iraqi government`s own reconstruction efforts. Infrastructure still is vulnerable, and electricity and oil production remain below pre- war levels.

Bowen`s report gave a mixed review on projects that have been completed. The inspector general found some successes in important projects, such as this rehabilitation center in Kurdistan, a women`s clinic near Baghdad, and a water storage facility in Nineveh province.

But as reported since last summer and re-verified in November, the plumbing in the Baghdad police college was so ineptly installed that sewage flooded floors and leaked through ceilings.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack reacted to the report and commented on the Iraqi`s policing of their own efforts.

SEAN MCCORMACK, State Department Spokesman: Where there have been instances of where the Iraqis have done investigations and found suspicions about fraud and abuse, those people have been held to account. We are just getting started; there are some hopeful indications there that the system is beginning to function.

KWAME HOLMAN: Bowen`s next report is due in mid-spring.

JIM LEHRER: And with us now is Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

Mr. Inspector General, welcome.

STUART BOWEN, U.S. Special Inspector General: Thank you. Good to be with you.

JIM LEHRER: The Associated Press story today about this said your report paints a, quote, "grim picture of waste, fraud, and frustration" in the reconstruction of Iraq. Is that a fair statement?

STUART BOWEN: I think fraud has been a small component, as our report points out, of the American experience in Iraq, the American reconstruction-led program. However, corruption on the Iraqi side of the ledger continues to be a significant issue. Barham Salih just pointed out last week that...

JIM LEHRER: Who did?

STUART BOWEN: Barham Salih, the deputy prime minister of Iraq, pointed out that corruption at the Beiji refinery resulted in a loss of perhaps up to $1 billion, and that money may have gone to the insurgents.

JIM LEHRER: Give us a feel for the kind of corruption we`re talking about. Who`s paying off who, and what are they getting for it? And give us some examples.

STUART BOWEN: Well, it afflicts virtually every ministry in Iraq. And the anti-corruption institutions that are there to fight it, the Commission on Public Integrity, the Board of Supreme Audit, and the Iraqi inspectors general are struggling on all fronts to overcome the corruption issue.

The commissioner on public integrity, Judge Radhi, who I visit with each trip, is himself under personal attack, despite the fact that he has been bold enough to pursue corruption allegations against the...

JIM LEHRER: But who`s paying off whom?

STUART BOWEN: Well, it`s really bribery and theft. Really, the oil smuggling is the biggest form of corruption in Iraq, and part of the problem is the fact of the lack of infrastructure security has taken out all the northern pipe lines. Thus, all oil transshipment in the north is by truck, which is subject to smuggling.

JIM LEHRER: So who`s getting rich here? I mean, Iraqis are stealing from other Iraqis.

STUART BOWEN: That`s right.

JIM LEHRER: And they`re getting rich. And where is the money going?

STUART BOWEN: That we don`t have information on. I mean, that`s on the Iraqi side of the ledger; I don`t have insight into that, but presumably abroad or criminally disposed of otherwise.

JIM LEHRER: But billions of dollars, at least $1 billion, and maybe more?

STUART BOWEN: Yes, that`s right.

JIM LEHRER: Are you saying then you and the United States have nothing that they can do about this?

STUART BOWEN: No, we are pursuing a vigorous bolstering of the anti- corruption institutions in Iraq. The Iraqi inspectors general are a new element created by CPA. And some of them are doing well, others not so well.

The Commission on Public Integrity, also created by CPA, essentially a new FBI for Iraq, has thousands of cases ongoing, but it`s overwhelmed by the task. The Board of Supreme Audit, the government accountability analog in Iraq, has been around for a long time, is conducting audits, and is trying to turn the tide, but it`s a very difficult task.

JIM LEHRER: But to be specific and parochial about it, it`s Iraqis stealing from Iraqis? It isn`t Iraqis stealing from the United States?

STUART BOWEN: That`s right: This is not about our investment of taxpayer dollars in Iraq. We have uncovered cases of corruption. They`re, as I said, a relatively small component of the overall investment.

But where my office has found it, we vigorously pursued it. And this week, Robert Stein, the former controller of the south center region in CPA, was sentenced to nine years in prison as a result of our investigations.

JIM LEHRER: CPA, that was the...

STUART BOWEN: The Coalition Provisional Authority.

JIM LEHRER: The Coalition Provisional Authority, Americans, Americans involved in that.

STUART BOWEN: That`s right. He was involved in a scheme with a contractor, Philip Bloom, who also will be sentenced soon, and there are others that are involved in that conspiracy for whom justice is forthcoming.

JIM LEHRER: Your quarterly -- this report today, every report that you have given -- and we`ve reported on every one of them since you began - - you always say security is the problem. You`ve got all this money, you have all these plans you want to do, but security doesn`t make it possible. Give us a feel for what the situation is now, why it`s so bad.

STUART BOWEN: Well, it varies across the country. In Baghdad, it`s the product of sectarian violence. In al-Anbar province to the west, it`s the problem of al-Qaida in Iraq. In the south, in Basra, it`s the result of intra-sectarian, intra-Shia conflict.

But more specifically, it`s dangerous across the country to varying degrees, except in Kurdistan, and that makes it very difficult for travel. My inspectors that need to get out and visit sites so that we can bring back reports of what exactly the U.S. taxpayers received frequently have their trips canceled because of security threats.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Bottom line here, like, for instance, electricity. Electricity has been a problem since even before the war. What`s the state of the electricity situation now in Iraq?

STUART BOWEN: It continues to be very grim. The electricity minister told me last quarter that he has an extremely difficult time repairing the power lines that get taken out by the insurgents, because his repair crews continually get shot at.

The insurgents have identified the Baghdad ring as a target, apparently, and they have hit it repeatedly, and that has reduced power to the capital to about six hours a day.

JIM LEHRER: And we`ve spent over $4 billion of U.S. money trying to get the electrical system working?

STUART BOWEN: The electricity sector was the largest infrastructure sector that has been funded by the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, and it`s still struggling.

JIM LEHRER: Where did the money go?

STUART BOWEN: It went into the...

JIM LEHRER: Real things?

STUART BOWEN: Yes, transmission stations. I mean, there are a number of new transmission stations that are still being built. There are substations being built. And there are generation plants that have been constructed.

But the state of the infrastructure after the 2003 war was much worse than had been anticipated. And particularly in the electrical sector, much needs to be done to bring it up to operating condition.

JIM LEHRER: In general terms, what`s the condition of the oil system now, the entire oil system?

STUART BOWEN: It needs enormous investment. There is very little refining capability. There is one major offshore terminal, al-Basra offshore terminal, that is essentially responsible for most of the exports from Iraq.

Significant work is being done there, but apart from that, there is limited capability. Just 9 percent of the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund was invested in the oil sector. Much more needs to be invested by Iraq itself.

And 95 percent of Iraq`s income is derived from the sale of oil and gas, so it`s essential that this critical sector become fully operational.

JIM LEHRER: Do you have any figures? Could you sell -- 95 percent of the money should come from the oil supply. How much of it is actually coming? In other words, of the potential, how much is actually being -- how much of it is out there and being produced?

STUART BOWEN: I don`t know how much is in the ground and not being pulled out because of lack of capability, but significantly more could be. I`ve been told that by all experts, and I`ve been told that, as Iraq invests more and is able to execute its investment -- and that`s the biggest problem, really, confronting the Iraqi program today, the lack of the capability of the Iraqi ministries to execute their capital budgets.

The end of last year, about $10 billion was left in the Iraqi treasury unspent, because of the failure of the ministries to execute. And, as the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Program comes to an end -- which it is now, it`s 100 percent under contract, it`s 80 percent spent -- the burden must shift to the Iraqi government to carry out the recovery of that nation. And that means that the oil ministry has to be able to carry out its capital program.

JIM LEHRER: Now, what about the programs where Americans, where U.S. contracting firms have been found guilty of shoddy work? You mentioned -- it`s been mentioned many times about this police academy. What else? Give us a feel for that.

STUART BOWEN: Well, the Baghdad police college is perhaps the most frustrating project that I visited. I was there -- it`s right on the edge of Sadr City in Baghdad. And I was there in September. We made six visits there.

To his credit, a whistleblower brought it our attention the problems there. And we found, indeed, the plumbing was disastrous and that the construction was shoddy. Many buildings were only half built. And, overall, this essential project was not meeting standards.

And as a result of shining the light of oversight on it, repairs were begun, and we made some progress there. But just yesterday, I heard from my chief inspector that the Iraqis have refused to accept it.

JIM LEHRER: Has anybody gone to jail for doing any of this stuff?

STUART BOWEN: No, they haven`t.

JIM LEHRER: Why not?

STUART BOWEN: Well, I think that one of the lessons learned from the Iraq experience is a careful review of the cost-plus contract system that the U.S. government uses. It can be subject to abuse, and I think has been occasionally in Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: Let me repeat to you a quotation from Lee Hamilton, co- chair of the Iraq Study Group, that we ran on our news summary a moment ago about this very thing. He said, "There are very, very few things that hurt our effort more in trying to succeed in Iraq than that kind of performance, because it turns all people off to know that there are people performing shoddy work, getting huge government contracts. There are very few things that undercut our efforts in Iraq any more than that."

Is he right?

STUART BOWEN: He is right, and that`s why I think another lesson learned from the Iraq experience is to have robust, forward-leaning oversight present on the ground in a contingency operation. In a relief and reconstruction program that can be subject to chaos, as is the case in Iraq, the possibility of bad actors taking advantage of the situation is always there. And deterrence is essential to limit the situations that Chairman Hamilton refers to.

JIM LEHRER: We also reported in the setup that some members, Republican members, of the earlier Congress wanted to get rid of your job. You`re still there; what happened?

STUART BOWEN: The Congress passed and the president signed the Iraq Reconstruction Accountability Act of 2006 in December, and that expanded my office`s oversight to cover fiscal year 2006 reconstruction money, and effectively means that we will continue to carry out the oversight that we`ve been assigned through 2008.

JIM LEHRER: Do you feel at any time -- do you feel like you`re swimming upstream? Do you feel like you`re making progress?

STUART BOWEN: Yes, I do. I think the fact that we`re present on the ground in Baghdad with 55 people acts as a deterrent effect against those who would take advantage of the situation. Moreover, it promotes efficiency, and it lets people know that there`s going to be some oversight.

More to the point, I tell all my auditors that when they`re carrying out their audits to work with management, to be transparent, to let them know what problems they find, and to fix them as they find them, rather than to wait for a report to come out. That`s essential.

JIM LEHRER: And keep blowing the whistle every time you see something that you think is wrong or could be put right or better?

STUART BOWEN: Absolutely. I think you shine the light on problems, and they can be fixed. If you ignore them, they may not.

JIM LEHRER: All right, we`ll see you next quarter. Thank you, sir.

STUART BOWEN: Great. Thank you. Good to be with you.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Still coming tonight: a Pluto fight; making drugs safe; something new at Stonehenge; and some words on Iraq from former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger.

Ray Suarez has the Iraq testimony.

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D), Delaware: The hearing will please come to order.

RAY SUAREZ: Secretaries Albright and Kissinger agreed on this much: Both told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the road ahead in Iraq and the Middle East is going to be difficult.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Former Secretary of State: I will speak both plainly and bluntly. There are no good options. If there were, many of us, including many of you, would not have been issuing such urgent warnings for the past four years. Those warnings were ignored; the result is that every available alternative now carries with it grave risks.

RAY SUAREZ: Henry Kissinger, who served under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and has advised President Bush on Iraq, said the U.S. must focus on its long-term interests in the Middle East, not just on ending sectarian violence in Iraq.

HENRY KISSINGER, Former Secretary of State: America has no interest in the outcome of a Sunni-Shia rivalry, as long as it is not achieved by ethnic cleansing and genocidal practices.

So I would say, if we are talking about long-range strategy, we should move into a position from which our forces can intervene against the threats to the regional security that I have identified and becomes a lesser and lesser element in the purely Shia-Sunni struggle.

RAY SUAREZ: Both former diplomats said the U.S. should talk about Iraq with neighbors Syria and Iran, an idea the Bush administration has not embraced. Kissinger offered some support for the administration`s plan to send more troops to Iraq.

HENRY KISSINGER: I think the surge is the better option. I do not believe we can withdraw from Iraq; that is the key question. We can discuss the kind of deployment, size of the deployment, but it should be done in relation to the conditions on the ground and to our national objectives, and not to abstract timetables.

RAY SUAREZ: But Secretary Albright, who served in the Clinton administration, disagreed. She said more soldiers and Marines in Baghdad and Anbar province would not help the situation.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: We do not have enough people; we do not speak the language; we do not know the culture well enough; and, quite frankly, we do not have the recognized legal and moral authority to go into Iraqi homes and compel obedience.

Each time we do, we loose as much ground politically as we might hope to gain militarily, and that`s why the president`s current policy should be viewed less as a serious plan than as a prayer.

RAY SUAREZ: Republican Senator George Voinovich expressed concern about U.S. public reaction to the president`s strategy and provoked a three-way exchange.

SEN. GEORGE VOINOVICH (R), Ohio: Well, our problem is, I think we have a big public relations problem with the American people, because I don`t think they understand what we`re really doing there and how important the region is to our future. And I think that`s why there`s a lot of people that are taking the position that they are, that says we have to get out of there.

HENRY KISSINGER: We have permanent interests there. The situation is changing rapidly, in directions which are unfamiliar to Americans because we are not used to dealing with people who are willing to kill themselves in this manner. And we have to understand the conditions in this area and not act impulsively at a moment that will affect the next decade.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), Illinois: What I gather, then, is you`re presuming that there`s a grand strategy and which would justify the escalation of troop levels or, at least, preclude withdrawal. And yet what I`m hearing is, is that, in fact, there`s no articulation of that strategy that you`re aware of right now, and you`re presuming that somebody somewhere must have one.

HENRY KISSINGER: If we now act out of frustration, we may start a process that prevents a grand strategy and that will drive us into an outcome that nobody wants.

RAY SUAREZ: Tomorrow, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continues studying Iraq policy with two former national security advisers.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: How the world of science is dealing with and fighting over the demotion of Pluto. NewsHour correspondent Betty Ann Bowser has our Science Unit report.

BETTY ANN BOWSER, NewsHour Correspondent: Educators like Kris McCall, who runs the Sudekum Planetarium in Nashville, have a challenge.

KRIS MCCALL, Educator, Sudekum Planetarium: How many planets are there in our solar system, nine, eight? Anybody have a different answer?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: There was already a show there called "Nine Planets and Counting," so McCall had to do a quick rewrite.

KRIS MCCALL: Why should Pluto be a planet?

PLANETARIUM VISITOR: Because, back in the `50s, they told us it was. I was raised that way, and I`d hate to see it be gone now after all those years.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The downgrading of Pluto to a new status called dwarf planet was decided by a vote of less than 400 of the International Astronomical Union`s 10,000 members at a meeting in Prague.

For the first time, they defined a planet, an object in the solar system that must be round, must orbit a star, and must clear out its neighborhood. In other words, it must not share its orbit around the sun with any other large objects. They said Pluto didn`t fit the bill because it had many other objects nearby.

The decision sparked a revolt among planetary experts, like these at a recent meeting of hundreds of astronomers and astrophysicists in Pasadena.

ALAN STERN, Astrophysicist, Southwest Research Institute: They put together a slap-dash result, which is not the way we normally do science. They did it by politics, by voting, which is not the way we do science.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Alan Stern was upset by the way the decision was reached.

ALAN STERN: Nobody ever voted on the theory of relativity. Nobody voted on whether DNA is the structure that encodes genetic information. When people put ideas out there, the ideas rise or fall based upon how well they fit the available data. But we don`t actually sit down and vote; that`s not the way it`s done.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Stern is principal investigator for the New Horizons spacecraft, currently on its way to the first close scientific encounter with Pluto. He was so upset by the decision he put a protest petition on the Internet. In four days, more than 300 scientists replied.

Astronomer Mark Sykes worked with Stern on the petition.

MARK SYKES, Astronomer, Planetary Science Institute: Every major discipline is reflected on the petition as saying, "You know, we have a problem with this. We can`t use it. We need something better."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Under the rules of the International Astronomical Union, it will be three years before a new planet definition can be considered. But that hasn`t stopped the protests.

Stern is disturbed about a requirement that, to be a planet, an object must clear its neighborhood.

ALAN STERN: I think a planet is very simply an object that has grown to a size that it becomes spherical under its own self-gravity.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: That simple?

ALAN STERN: It`s that simple.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: None of this "having to clear out the neighborhood" stuff?

ALAN STERN: I don`t know who made that up

BETTY ANN BOWSER: You think that`s silly?

ALAN STERN: None of that. I think it`s unworkable. I think it`s completely silly.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: One astronomer who signed the petition had already written a book entitled "Is Pluto a Planet?" David Weintraub thinks the new definition could confuse the status of other planets in the solar system.

DAVID WEINTRAUB, Astronomer, Vanderbilt University: Jupiter hasn`t cleared its orbit, so perhaps Jupiter is not a planet. I don`t think that`s what they intended.

Neptune, pretty big object, it has this other object that crosses its orbit and is in a very stable orbit, and that object is named Pluto. So Neptune has not cleared it orbit, so I guess Neptune is not a planet, either.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It`s not just scientists who are unhappy. The public seems to have a special fondness for the only planet discovered by an American.

MARGIE GIFFORD, Castle Heights Upper Elementary School: Anybody hear about Pluto on the news lately?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Margie Gifford`s sixth-grade science club in Lebanon, Tennessee, has been having an intergalactic meltdown since all of this happened.

MARGIE GIFFORD: How many of you felt disappointed, upset, sad, or downright mad when you heard the news about Pluto?

Evan, what`s so special about Pluto to you?

STUDENT: We`ve always called it a planet. We`ve learned about it as a planet. Why should we change it?

STUDENT: We`ve never actually had a real definition of a planet, and so we shouldn`t change it just because we don`t think that we should have a real definition now. Why didn`t we have one earlier in the years?

MARGIE GIFFORD: So what do you think about this definition?

STUDENT: I think the definition would have to be...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: As part of their protest, the sixth-graders are producing a program on the Pluto controversy to run on the school`s TV station. Even comedian Stephen Colbert has joined the fray by grilling astrophysicist Neil Tyson, whose Hayden Planetarium in New York City took Pluto out of its planet display years ago.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, American Museum of Natural History: I never wanted to kick Pluto out of the solar system. I just wanted to group it with its brethren.

STEPHEN COLBERT, Host, "The Colbert Report": It sure sounded -- a funny way of showing it.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: With its icy brethren in the outer solar system, and that`s all we did at the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

STEPHEN COLBERT: So, sure, you can be anything you want, just not here, OK? Not in my backyard? That`s what you said. "Not in my backyard" to Pluto.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: It`s got family where I think it`s happier there, because it`s one of the biggest of the ice planets.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Are you saying Pluto should be with its own kind, separate but equal?

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Yes, I guess that it comes out that way, doesn`t it?

STEPHEN COLBERT: Doesn`t it?

(LAUGHTER)

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Tyson decided Pluto did not belong with the planets, because, as a giant ice ball, it had very little in common with them.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: I got hate mail from third-graders. Well, it`s not so much hate mail, but anger mail, anger mail. "Please, Dr. Tyson, don`t demote our favorite planet. And here`s a picture of it so you can make a model of it and put it in your exhibit."

And it`s in whole packages, with cover letters from science teachers, that they`re like egging them on.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Tyson thinks the traditional academic business of counting planets, no matter how many there are, is an outdated way to look at the skies.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: To believe that just counting them and memorizing them in order from the sun, to believe that that`s an interesting exercise, misrepresents what we`ve actually discovered about the solar system.

And here in this facility, we group objects according to properties that are kind of interesting, like some are large and gaseous, others are small and rocky, others are icy. Some have storms. Let`s talk about that.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And if Pluto is a planet, then how to name other large objects being discovered near it in a faraway region called the Kuiper Belt? That was the quandary California Institute of Technology scientist Michael Brown faced when he discovered an object he named Eris.

MICHAEL BROWN, Astronomer, California Institute of Technology: What this is, is a little postage stamp of the sky, and three pictures in a row -- one, two, three -- and each of these little dots is a star, very, very far away. And right in the center, this one right here, you can see is barely moving across the sky. So over three hours, you can actually see that this thing has moved.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: He did not call it a planet. Instead...

MICHAEL BROWN: ... Kuiper Belt object is what I would call it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Brown says, as planetary scientists discover more and more objects, the new definition of planet will be very useful.

MICHAEL BROWN: I think it`s absolutely great. It needed to happen for a long time, and it`s the right definition. You`ll hear complaints. People like to nit pick and say, "Well, but this, but that, but this, but that."

Astronomers don`t deal very frequently in definitions. And so, when they come up with a definition, they`re not used to having people pick at it and figure out all the little problems.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Tyson says the scientific community will eventually come together on a planet definition, whether it includes Pluto or not.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: The real issue here is, it`s not a fight about what Pluto is. Pluto hasn`t changed. Pluto`s just Pluto. It`s this ice thing out there with a really funky orbit. The real problem is the word "planet" has not been defined since ancient Greece, and if you don`t have a definition, of course you`re going to have arguments.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Stern and Sykes already have a Web site up inviting experts from all over the world who are unhappy with the definition to a conference to discuss the science of planets. And organizers say there will be no voting.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Now, making changes on drug safety, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: Ever since the popular painkiller Vioxx was pulled from pharmacy shelves over safety concerns, there`s been heightened criticism of the way the Food and Drug Administration approves and monitors new drugs.

Last fall, the Institute of Medicine issued a scathing report, saying the FDA`s effectiveness is compromised by internal tensions, outdated procedures, underfunding, and poor management. The report took particular aim at the FDA`s failure to adequately monitor drugs, it said, after they go on sale.

Yesterday, after its own review, the FDA announced it was making more than a dozen changes to improve its drug oversight work. They include: creating a new system to monitor newly approved drugs once they come on the market; and giving agency staff involved in drug safety equal standing with staffers focused on drug approval.

Here to tell us more now is the FDA`s commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach. And welcome, Doctor.

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner: Thanks, Margaret.

MARGARET WARNER: Thanks for being here. Do you consider this a major overhaul in the way the FDA does its work?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: It`s a major step forward in what will be an ongoing process of continuous improvement. The FDA has had a long history of being the world`s gold standard for drug regulation and assuring the safety and effectiveness of drugs.

But the world has changed. And we are in the midst of major changes in medicine, and so the FDA must continuously adapt to the future of health care and ensuring the safety of these products.

MARGARET WARNER: So let`s take one that everyone is very interested in, which is how new drugs, once they`re approved or actually their safety is monitored, what are you going to change there? How are you going to change it?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, as you know, drugs are approved in the context of an experience in a trial with a select group of patients. And then they are out into the marketplace where they`re taken by a large population of patients.

We want to be able to assess, in that situation, in what you would call "post-market," the actual experience of the drug, both its safety, and, in many ways, even its effectiveness.

MARGARET WARNER: And that`s because clinical trials, while they take maybe a large group of people, I -- from what I understand, they`re all within a certain age range, and often the people don`t have multiple conditions the way ordinary people do.

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Right. And even though there are large numbers of patients sometimes in a clinical trial, it`s still really a small subset of people. And drugs can act differently in different patients. Patients are taking other medications in other circumstances. And this is now a great opportunity for us to learn more.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, so give us two specific steps you`re going to take.

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, one of the things that we`re doing is a pilot project, where we`re using a variety of tools to monitor drugs once they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration and, after 18 months of experience, to take all that information and analyze and assess how that drug is behaving in that population.

It`s more of a preemptive step rather than waiting to hear about a problem.

MARGARET WARNER: But by monitor, are you going to be asking doctors all over the country to report adverse reactions? Are you just -- is that already happening, you`re just going to collate it better? What are you really going to do?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, there are multiple steps in ways we`ll be able to do this. As you point out, there are opportunities through our adverse-events reporting systems for us to hear from doctors and from patients when there is an adverse event.

There are other systems that we can put in place where we can actively be able to look at isolated databases. We`re working with the Veterans Administration, for example, and also for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to look at their experience and mine that data in a way to get early clues.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, one of the criticisms in the critical report that came out -- the IOM, as it`s called, Institute of Medicine -- was that your work is not transparent enough in this area. When you issue this report card after 18 months, who is going to see it? Will the public see it?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Yes, it will. And we`ll be publicizing those events.

One of the initiatives, among the 41 that we presented yesterday, broken down according to looking at new science, to be able to predict the safety of these drugs. Informing and communicating risks more effectively is another important part of our strategy.

MARGARET WARNER: But just to be clear here, this is just a pilot program, so it`s not going to be all drugs, and I gather it`s not going it start for quite some time?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: We`re going to start it in March of this year. We`re going to be able to look at drugs. And in the sense of a pilot, we want to determine how to do it well. And we will then be able to do it with a whole host of drugs that we`re approving.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, what changes are you making in the way you approach your bread and butter, which is approving new drugs in the first place, the safety of that?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: And the third part of the report was to look at our internal processes and improve those processes, for example, utilizing tools of information technology more effectively, being able to create much more integration between those who are addressing the effectiveness of a drug and those who are addressing the safety issues.

MARGARET WARNER: Was the IOM report accurate, in your view, when it said that there really was an unhealthy tension between those two sides of the agency and that, when the chips were down, those involved in speeding a drug to approval or getting a drug approved had more clout than those involved in monitoring safety?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, I think the Institute of Medicine pointed out the fact that there is a tension. There is always a tension, in terms of, this is a rigorous scientific debate based on scientific evidence, but there will always be judgment and perspective, and we have to balance that.

MARGARET WARNER: But what are you doing specifically to redress that?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, one of the things we`re doing is to provide an opportunity for leadership and oversight of that process, to be able to create opportunities for those differences of opinion to be adequately aired, and then we come to a resolution of a final decision.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, let me ask about a specific examine, because when Congress looked into the Vioxx situation, there was testimony on the Hill that there had been scientists who had expressed misgivings about Vioxx`s safety, and they had been basically overruled or were not listened to by FDA managers. Is that going to be corrected?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Yes. Well, in the sense that we have to have processes in place where differences of opinion can come forward when there are needs for that to come through, an ombudsman function or be brought for resolution, those processes have to be in place.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, one of the members of the group that issued that previous report was quoted today as saying, "Well, this was a nice first step," but that you really needed to go further, and that, in particular, that the drug safety component or team or project still didn`t have the legal authority it really needed.

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, as I pointed out yesterday in our release, this is a major step, but it is just a step in what will be an ongoing process of continuing improvement. And we will look later at other opportunities to continue to enhance this process.

We do have to have systems in place where the decisions are always going to be made on the scientific basis of the data, and we will continue to find ways to use new tools to make that even more effective.

MARGARET WARNER: But now you`re describing a set of changes that strikes me are going to cost some money and take some staff -- I mean, if you`re going to create this new monitoring mechanism and some of these other new things -- yet your budget has been flat. I know this is probably like a softball question to you, but are you going to go ask Congress for more money and more staff?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, the initiatives that we rolled out are all being done within our current resources. There are additional resources that we anticipate that will be coming, for example, through the prescription drug user fee negotiations. And as we go forward, we`ll continue to present...

MARGARET WARNER: From the drug companies?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: And do you think these steps are enough to stave off congressional pressure -- and there are some bills floating around -- for a more radical revamping of the FDA?

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Well, as I said, we see this as a part of a larger process. I look forward to that dialogue, to continue to find ways that we can enhance the FDA`s effectiveness in our ability to monitor our safety and make those decisions. So I don`t see it as an either/or; I see it as complementary to a variety things that we can do.

MARGARET WARNER: Commissioner von Eschenbach, thank you.

DR. ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH: Thank you very much, Margaret.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, new discoveries about Stonehenge. Jeffrey Brown has that story.

JEFFREY BROWN: Stonehenge is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world and, with its huge stones aligned with the solstices, a place of great wonder and mystery. Now, archaeologists think they`ve shed new light on the site and the surrounding area, unearthing a village of dwellings built some 4,600 years ago, at the same time as Stonehenge.

The new findings are located about two miles from Stonehenge in southern England. They include a well-trod avenue from a site called Durrington Walls to the Avon River.

The excavations, partially funded by the National Geographic Society, were done last year and announced yesterday. Julian Thomas is a professor of archaeology at Manchester University and one of the directors of the project. He joins us from Manchester.

Professor Thomas, welcome to you. First, would you, if you would, describe these dwellings that you found?

JULIAN THOMAS, Manchester University: Well, these are very ephemeral little structures. Each one is no more than about four or five meters across.

And the main thing that we get in the ground is a clay floor with a little fireplace in the middle of it, and then around the edges, there will be wall lines defined by little stake holes. And those show us where walls, which would originally have been made of clay dorb or some kind of a wattle framework, would have stood.

JEFFREY BROWN: And how many did you find? And how many might there be in all?

JULIAN THOMAS: It`s a good question. They`re in two groups, so immediately outside the entrance of the Durrington Wall`s hinge, we`ve excavated six of these structures, but we think that there are a great many more there. We have a geophysical survey which suggests the positions of the fireplaces of 20 or 30 more.

And this seems to form a little village, which seems to be quite dirty. There`s lots of animal bones, lots of pottery, lots of fire ashes lying around.

But then, as you go up the hill and into the center of the great Henge Monument at Durrington Walls, there are another group of these little houses, and they`re set further apart from each other, and each one is surrounded by a timber stockade and a bank and a ditch. And these ones seem to have been kept considerably cleaner.

Now, because of the position of these, overlooking the main settlement, we think that these are rather different. So either they`re for rather special people or they`re not dwellings at all. They`re something like shrines or cult houses.

JEFFREY BROWN: The ones that you referred to as dirty, one of your colleagues said that they were used for feasting and partying, a kind of Stone Age celebration. Now, how do you surmise that? Is that from the artifacts that are found in these houses?

JULIAN THOMAS: Yes, that`s right. There`s a whole series of bits of evidence that point in that direction. One of the things that suggests this is that, when we look at the teeth of the pigs -- and there are lots of pigs being eaten on this site -- the eruption patterns suggest that they`re mostly being killed off in mid-winter.

And we think that both at Durrington Walls and at Stonehenge, mid- winter and mid-summer are the two really important parts of the year. And we think that this village, rather than being somewhere that`s occupied year round, is perhaps somewhere where people are gathering at a particular time of year. And we think that these people are semi-nomadic.

JEFFREY BROWN: So the key, as I understand, is not only finding these houses, but making the connection to Stonehenge, two miles away, so that you now have a kind of wider community. Explain to us how you think about this place.

JULIAN THOMAS: Well, it`s the avenue that connects Durrington Walls to the river, which actually, in the first place, led to us conduct the excavation. We wanted to find out whether Durrington, like Stonehenge, had an avenue that connects it to the river. We found it there, and as a bonus, we found the houses, as well.

But what this means is that Stonehenge, with its circles of stones, and Durrington Walls, with its circles of timbers, which are directly comparable, are actually linked together by this pair of avenues and the river.

And this means that, effectively, that they`re one integrated structure, and that you could move from one to the other, which is exactly what we think they were probably doing.

JEFFREY BROWN: And what does it tell us more about Stonehenge itself and what kind of activities went on there? I think people know, if they know anything, a little bit about it, as an astronomical observatory, or perhaps because of their religious rites or the burial rites there. What new light does this shed on it?

JULIAN THOMAS: It tells us, first of all, that it didn`t stand in isolation. It wasn`t just a stone setting there to be looked at. It`s part of a broader pattern, a bigger structure.

And it stands, both as a kind of complement, and as an antithesis, if you like, to what`s happening at Durrington Walls. So Stonehenge is stone, and Durrington is timber.

At Durrington, you have lots of feasting going on, lots of animals being perhaps sacrificed and slaughtered, lots of people coming together seasonally. At Stonehenge, it seems that there is less activity going on. There`s certainly not the feasting going on there, there`s not the breaking of pots and much material being deposited.

So it`s as if it`s a special place that people go to from Durrington Walls, and it forms part of a suite of activities, which is spread out across this landscape. It`s a very special place, but it`s a special place that gains its particular character by being different from what`s happening at Durrington Walls.

JEFFREY BROWN: Is there also the implication that the people who would have lived in these dwellings, you found, might have been the same people who built Stonehenge?

JULIAN THOMAS: I think that`s almost certainly the case. We now think that the sarson stones at Stonehenge were set up in the 26th century B.C., and that`s precisely the same date as we`re getting for our radio carbon dates at Durrington Walls.

And the fact that we have this integrated structure of the two monuments and their avenues connected by the river and that these houses are intimately connected with one of these avenues I think tells us that these are actually the dwellings of the Stonehenge builders.

JEFFREY BROWN: And the dwellers themselves, the people, what do these findings, these artifacts tell you about their social life, their social networks? Was it a more sophisticated society, perhaps, than we had thought?

JULIAN THOMAS: It certainly is a very sophisticated society, and it`s a society linked by a whole series of connections over very long distances. We know from scientific analysis that people are moving in this Neolithic period right the way across southern England, probably following herds of cattle or herding cattle from place to place.

But it`s the intimate details, as well, that we`re getting for these dwellings that are so interesting. We can see the marks where people have knelt by the fireplace. We can see little holes in the ground where they`ve deposited the remains of meals.

It`s all these things that are going on that are really so interesting, to get this fine grain of detail of what people were doing 4,500 years ago.

JEFFREY BROWN: Finally, you know, I started this by talking about referring to the mystery of Stonehenge. You`ve had a close look at the place now and this new site. How much mystery still remains?

JULIAN THOMAS: I think it`s a mysterious site now, and it was probably a mysterious site then, because I think the seclusion of what`s happening inside Stonehenge itself is very important.

It may not have been everyone who walked from one site to the other, and it may not have been everyone who was able to go inside those stones back in the Neolithic. I think it was intended to be a place where what was happening was a bit shady, a bit surprising, a bit mysterious, even back then in the Neolithic.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, well, Julian Thomas of Manchester University, thank you very much.

JULIAN THOMAS: My pleasure.

(BREAK)

JIM LEHRER: And, again, the major developments of this day.

The latest look at reconstruction in Iraq found millions of U.S. dollars wasted. On the NewsHour, Special Inspector General Stuart Bowen said there`s corruption in virtually every Iraqi ministry.

And German prosecutors issued warrants for 13 people in the alleged CIA kidnapping of a German citizen.

We`ll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.