The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; December 29, 2006

Here, in places called Indiana, and Kentucky, one that has ten plants from the foothills of West Virginia to the Pacific coastline. What company is this? Toyota, a company that along with its dealers and suppliers has helped create hundreds of thousands of US jobs, a company proud to do its small part to add to the landscape of America. And by BP, CIT, the Archer Daniels Midland Company, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the National Science Foundation, and with the continuing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Confusion rain today on when Saddam Hussein will be executed.

Late in the night in Baghdad, a top government official said the former dictator would be hanged by dawn Saturday. That would be 10 p.m. tonight, Eastern Time, in the US. We have a report on the day's advance narrated by Tim Rogers of independent television news. He has remained defiant to the end, and now it seems the end is in sight. Saddam Hussein, for so long, the absolute ruler of Iraq has an appointment with history and the hangman. The signs are that within the next 24 hours, the man who still calls himself president will suffer the fate endured by so many of his countrymen under his rule. This afternoon, a spokesman for Saddam's chief defense lawyer said Saddam Hussein's personal effects were being handed over by the authorities holding him. And that's a short sign. The execution is imminent. It's thought Saddam will be hanged in accordance with laws he passed himself almost 40 years ago.

He'll be hooded and dressed in green overalls. Before he's taken to the gallows, a Muslim cleric will offer him the opportunity to make his pinks with Allah. The execution itself is expected to be carried out by Niraki volunteer. It's unlikely to be a public hanging, but it is expected to be filmed to prevent conspiracy theories developing, and he'll be buried in secret in an unmarked grave. It was for atrocities like this that Saddam Hussein is now facing retribution. Many observers believing the outcome of his trial was never in doubt. But while his fate is now certain that of the country he leaves behind is far more difficult to predict. Saddam was sentenced to die for the mass killings of Shiites in 1982. On Thursday, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Louise Arbor, urged Iraqi officials not to act in haste. But Prime Minister Al Maliki said it would be an insult to Saddam's victims, not to carry out the execution. And late this afternoon, Saddam's lawyers

asked a federal judge in Washington to block his transfer to Iraqi custody and thereby stop the execution. We'll have more on this story right after the news summary. In other developments in Iraq, at least nine people died in a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque north of Baghdad, to the south in Basra. There was word of British soldier died yesterday in a roadside bombing. Also today, Iran's state-run television reported US forces released to Iranians detained in Iraq. They allegedly brought in small bombs to insurgents. The man internationally recognized as the prime minister of Somalia returned to Mogadishu today in triumph. Ali Muhammad Gaidi was greeted by thousands of cheering residents. Ethiopian troops were also on hand to secure the capital city. But some Somali set fires protesting the presence of the troops. From there, Ethiopian tanks and planes headed for a key crossroads town. They followed Islamic fighters who've pledged

to continue the war. The Somali president called the 24-hour ceasefire, but he also vowed to pursue the Islamic militia. I don't know, yeah. We're in Khaled, the Islamic Court's union has fled to Kismayu and the Juba region. They have military bases for terrorists training in that area, and we think they are going there. We don't accept terrorists in this area. The world recognizes they are terrorists. Also today, the UN said it will resume humanitarian food and flights to Somalia this weekend. The recent violence had forced the UN to halt its deliveries. Another major snowstorm buried parts of Colorado today for the second time in less than a week. The governor declared an emergency as the storm dumped as much as two feet of snow. Trecherous driving conditions forced several major highways to close. The Denver Airport remained open, but hundreds of flights were canceled. We'll have more on the storm later in the program. The family of former President Gerald Ford

held a private memorial service today in Palm Desert, California. The flag draped coffin, bearing the 38th president, arrived this afternoon at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church. Thousands of people were expected to pay final respects during the public viewing. The remains will be flown to Washington tomorrow for the state funeral. The Federal Communications Commission today approved AT&T's buyout of Bell, South. The deal is worth $86 billion, making it the largest telecommunications merger in US history. The FCC decision was the final major regulatory step in approving the buyout. On Wall Street today, stocks were down on the final trading day of the year. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 38 points to close at 12,463. The Nasdaq fell 10 points to close at 24.15. But for the year, the Dow gained more than 16%, the Nasdaq gained nine and a half percent. That's it for the news summary tonight.

Now, Saddam's final hours, Denver's back-to-back blizzards, the year in science, and shields and lowery. The Saddam Hussein story, and to Jeffrey Brown. And we begin with an update from Baghdad, from Nancy Yusuf, the Iraq Bureau Chief for the McClatchy newspapers. I talk with her moments ago. Nancy, it's been a very confusing day. What's the latest you have as the timing of the execution? Well, you're absolutely right. It's been very confusing with a lot of contradictory statements. The latest that we're hearing is that Saddam Hussein will in fact be executed tonight before 6 a.m. local time, which would be before 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We're waiting for that because we've heard several reports that he would be executed, that he wouldn't be executed. It seems that this all hung on weather. Saddam Hussein could be executed before age, which is

a Muslim holiday called the festival of sacrifice. There was some question as to whether someone could be executed on this holiday, which celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael for God. And it appears that they have decided that they can, in fact, execute him before that holiday starts. It's scheduled to start for the Sunnis at noon local time. Who in fact is involved in making the decision at this point? Is it the Prime Minister's office? The government is the U.S. involved, do we know? Well, the Prime Minister's office says that this is his decision that he will find the order. The U.S. has tried to say that this is an Iraqi decision and that they're not involved. Indeed, some of them are frustrated in part because of the back and forth that this process appeared throughout the day to be confusing and at times hastily put together.

But the Prime Minister has been very assertive and saying that this is his decision and that this is being put together by his team, which includes his national security visor, his minister of justice, and some leading members of parliament. Among the conflicting reports was whether Saddam had yet been turned over to the Iraqis by the U.S. Do you know any more on that? That's right. The Iraqi officials had said around seven o'clock or so that they had custody of Saddam Hussein. And this was significant because once they have custody of him, that's sort of the telltale sign that his execution is, in fact, imminent. And so when they said that, people assume that this was coming. The U.S. then came back and said about an hour later, we, in fact, have not handed him over. And the Iraqi government sort of backed away from that statement saying that they were working on it and that it was simply being held up with logistics and paperwork, but that, in fact, he would be executed.

We will know, in the next few hours, if, in fact, that is the case. Now, Nancy, when it does happen, is it known where it will happen and under what circumstances? Well, what the officials are telling us privately is that this will happen at Camp Cropper, which is where Saddam is being held. That is near Baghdad International Airport on the west side of the city. We don't know much about the circumstances other than that the government plans to videotape it. They say they will not distribute the videotape but that they will keep it for their records. It appears that Saddam will be alone. His family has declined to come to Iraq to see him. And the government has said that there will be a cleric and a doctor and a judge in the room when it happens. So you say videotape, but there's no effort or, in fact, an explicit effort that it not be a public event. Well, I think there is some concern

that if they make it public, that it will really inflame sectarian tensions in this country, and which is already in a sort of fragile state. I think that's why they're not going to publicly distribute this videotape. The key question will be, what do they show? As you recall, when Uday and Uday have sons were killed in 2003, they showed videos of his body. But Saddam sort of evokes a much more emotional reaction from people. And so what they show could really shape how people react to it and how much it inflames sectarianism in this country. What's been happening there today? Any reaction, either, in the streets or statements from prominent figures? The streets have been relatively quiet and part because it's all developed throughout the evening and when much of the country is on curfew, there are certainly, though, mixed reactions from people some are jubilant, something that this won't have any effect.

And some of the mosques earlier today, some people said that this was a necessary step, that it had to happen now, while others thought it was sort of unnecessary, and that there was no need to do this now when things are so tense in the country. The nation though is certainly bracing itself for tomorrow and how people react, particularly if images come out and the word is official. And if people see this as gratuitous in terms of when the timing happens, I think tomorrow will be the real test of how people react. Are you as officials talking about any extra U.S. or Iraqi officials talking about extra security precautions because of that? They are. The Pentagon has come out and said that the U.S. forces already, the Iraqi army and police have canceled leave for all of their soldiers. We anticipate there'll be some sort of curfew as there has been in the past for events that could really spur violence. So there's certainly a feeling of anxiousness

and anticipation for what lies ahead. The question will be, can they contain it if it becomes very emotional? And how much energy people really have to show their feelings about this? There's a feeling that while Saddam was only in power four years ago, given all the events that have happened here, that's a lifetime ago. And that Saddam is not nearly as relevant to people's lives as he once was. That people here are really focused on things like finding a job and giving electricity and water for their families. So it's almost impossible to know because the other half of that is Saddam evokes a lot of very strong passionate feelings on either side. So there's certainly a feeling of anticipation. All right, Nancy, use F of McClatchy, newspapers. Thanks very much. Thank you. Right after that conversation, we learn that witnesses are now gathering in the green zone.

And for more on all this, we now go to Diane Ornt-Licker, a professor of international law at American University, and Rajief Chandrasekharan, author of a book about the occupation called Imperial Life in the Emerald City. He's an assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, formerly the papers Baghdad Bureau Chief. Welcome to both of you. Rajief, what's your analysis of the confusion today and what looks like a rush to an execution? Well, I'm not sure it had to be this confusing. It all got started with some of Saddam's lawyers telling the wire services and television networks that he'd been transferred to American custody. And this may just be a big semantic issue here. All along, Saddam has been technically in the custody of the, well, he's been held and guarded by Americans. He's been in the legal custody of the Iraqis. I'm sorry if I missed spoke earlier. Saddam's lawyers said he'd been transferred

to a Iraqi custody and anticipation of an execution. So there might not have actually been anything happening other than American officials saying to his lawyers, well, we can't say when you can come and see him or deal with these final issues because that's up to the Iraqis to decide. And I think it's sort of snowballed out of proportion. But it is very clear that Saddam is in his last hours that the final preparations are being made. They have issued a red card to him, which is one of the last steps before somebody is sent to the gallows. I think Iraq's current government really wants to move with a lack of duty here because I think they believe that this will be an important symbolic moment. And Prime Minister Al-Maliki's government is facing some uncertainties back in Iraq. Their efforts to try to cobble together a new political coalition. He's facing some dissension from members of his party, most notably a political block headed by Mokhtada Al-Sater. This will certainly be an event that he hopes, I think, will galvanize the country, particularly the Sunni

and Shiite communities and even some moderate Sunnis there and the Kurds. So I think that's why you've seen this kind of quick movement toward an execution, even though there's sort of a 30-day window in which this can take place. Diane, remind us of exactly what this case was about for which he's being executed because this was not exactly the way these legal cases were supposed to unfold. Well, this particular case involved an episode in a town called Dujail in 1982. Saddam Hussein had been visiting the town and there was an assassination attempt, obviously unsuccessful. But there was a severe retaliation by Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants. Some 148 people were executed summarily after most of them after sham proceedings. So this was a trial of that case that principal defendants were charged

and convicted of crimes against humanity, which is a very serious international offense. You're quite right that when this whole process of trials began, it wasn't envisaged that the Dujail case would end up being the only case that Saddam Hussein was judged for. In fact, it was selected ultimately as the first trial because it was understood to be a relatively straightforward and relatively simple case to prosecute. It was relatively simple, partly because there was strong evidence. But mainly because it wasn't one of the great, big massacres or campaigns that involved hundreds of thousands of victims. And so in a sense, it was seen as providing an opportunity for a new experimental court to try itself out and to correct its own mistakes before it took on the big cases, the really big cases. It looks like it's going to be the only cases that Saddam Hussein was working together.

Was there a moment when it became clear that this would be the only case for which he himself would be tried? Well, there have been political pressures from the outset, from before the Dujail case began. For the court to move quickly toward prosecution and even before this case began at the highest levels of government authorities in Iraq, have said he should be tried quickly and executed quickly. And those kinds of statements were heard even before the first day of trial. Those kinds of statements and pressures have escalated. As Rajiv indicated, particularly in recent months as the security situation has continued to spiral downward, the political incentives for government leaders to see Saddam Hussein sort of summarily dealt with once and have increased. And so the writing's been on the wall for a while. Now, Rajiv, we heard Nancy Yusuf in the earlier interview talk about the different ways and the ambivalence that Saddam is seeing today. How important a figure is he in Iraq?

Well, certainly for many of Iraq's sheites and Kurds, which were so repressed during his nearly three decades of authoritarian rule, I think this will be a key moment of closure for them. At the same time, there is, in some pockets of Iraq, a growing nostalgia for Saddam Hussein, particularly among Iraq's Sunnis, who feel themselves persecuted by the Shiite-led government. And even- Because of the violence now. Because of the violence now. And also, you have Iraqis looking back and saying, well, under Saddam's days, we had more electricity. There was more security. I had a job. And of course, some of this is sort of looking back with rose-tinted glasses. And these sorts of periods of nostalgia are common in any political transition. You had it in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. You had it in Eastern European countries. And it may only be a short-term thing. But that does manifest itself today in Iraq. And that may well be a short to medium-term result of this.

You may start to see more Iraqis sort of looking back at the Saddamians and saying, well, it wasn't so bad after all. And in fact, when we look at the record, it was pretty bad. It was quite awful. I mean, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed, tortured, imprisoned. He was a ruthless man, but you still have those views that spring up organically among various communities in Iraq. And as that kind of thinking goes on, what happens with these other cases from the past, but thinking about reconciliation or what might happen in the future? What happens with the other war crimes cases? There are two parts of that question. What technically happens is that other cases will go forward, but Saddam Hussein won't be in the dock. So there will continue to be a case involving the on-fall campaign against Kurds that with the campaign in the late 1980s, in which 100,000 or more Kurds are believed to have been exterminated by the regime.

So that'll go forward, but without Saddam Hussein. That sort of bigger question about what significance this trial has. I think is sort of the really the most important question right now. The process that was envisaged has already, in a sense, been derailed. These trials were hoped to be, in a sense, a cornerstone of a new dispensation, where the rule of law replaced the rule of tyranny. And there was supposed to be a rather comprehensive reckoning with the past. And it was also understood that these trials would, by demonstrating respect for the rule of law, health and still respect for the rule of law in Iraq. The most striking thing about these trials is that they have unfolded their two that have begun. They've unfolded against a backdrop of extraordinary violence. And so there's this tragic irony, which is really an understatement. You see this trial, these trials that are meant to be a reckoning of the rule of law,

reinforcement of these values, playing out against a backdrop of just unspeakable violence. And I've been very struck throughout this trial and the other one this underway, that it's almost impossible to read a report, a media report, about what's going on in the trials of Saddam Hussein, without those same report simultaneously reporting another record-breaking level of violence elsewhere in Iraq. And that violence and the anticipation of tomorrow and tomorrow after that, what do you see in the streets? Well, look, I think there may be a short-term spike in violence. But I think when you look at it over a longer period of time, the insurgency's really moved beyond Saddam Hussein. The Sunni men who are fighting against the Iraqi government and the presence of US forces in that country are doing so for a number of reasons, for religious reasons, for monetary reasons, because they chafe at the presence of foreign forces

on Iraqi soil. They're not really doing so because of any great loyalty to Saddam Hussein. So Saddam's execution is not going to be the magic bullet that perhaps Iraqi officials think it might be in terms of dealing a death blow to the insurgency. And at the same time, it's also not going to be a magic bullet for the Bush administration, which is desperately searching for a new path forward in Iraq and trying to assemble a new policy, which will be announced, I suppose, in the coming days. The death of Saddam, it seems unlikely that it will, for instance, galvanize American support for a continued presence in Iraq or palpably change public opinion in this country. So I think that for both sides here and both the United States and in Iraq, this may not have as significant of an impact over the medium term or even the long term.

All right, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Diane, we're a warrant liquor. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Even though all of their equipment and personnel have been working 12-hour shifts, the state was still forced to close nearly all of the major highways in the eastern half of the state.

Last Wednesday, rapid accumulation couple with high winds shut down Denver International Airport for two days, stranding thousands of people and ruining holiday plans. There was much less chaos this morning, even though 500 flights were canceled in anticipation of the snow continuing to fall through Sunday. Airport spokesman Stephen Snyder bristled at the suggestion from some critics that the nation's fifth busiest airport was unprepared for last week's blizzard. And prepared is in our minds as a poor word because we were prepared. We did have crews out there the entire time. They were working as hard as they possibly could, but there are sometimes when the conditions just come to the point where you can't do any. So you can be as prepared as you want, but when you're doing snow removal and it's not doing any good, you can have 100 crews out there covering every square foot of the runway and the airfield attacks the ways and all of that. If the wind is undoing and mother nature is undoing, which you just did, you're not going to make any progress.

Snyder says the airport hopes to better coordinate snow removal efforts between the airlines, which are responsible for clearing the gates and ramp areas and the airport authority, which clears runways and taxiways. At a news conference last night, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said it could be a long weekend for air travelers. You know, the storm we had last week was 24 inches in 24 hours. I mean, that is by most accounts, the second largest accumulation in 24 hour period in the history of the city. So this appears to be at this point much slower and it's going to be a little more prolonged. I'm not saying that we won't still have some serious problems on Saturday and Sunday. There, I mean, some of the forecasts are projecting up to 33 inches from this afternoon through Sunday. I mean, if we get 33 inches of snow, there will be certainly periods of time when the airport will not be able to function. The city averages about 60 inches of snowfall annually, but major storms, particularly back-to-back storms, are rare. The last major blizzard to paralyze the city occurred in 2003. A major snowstorm

always provokes questions about why the city doesn't have more snow removal equipment, and city officials usually respond by saying that infrequent storms don't justify the expense. So if you're going to go out and spend, again, off the back of an envelope, $15 million to double the number of plows that we have, that's a significant expenditure. But if we look at the overall economic impact, I mean, we only need those plows once every seven or eight years, but if the economic impact is significant enough, and we are doing that analysis now, then I think that we have to look at that. This screen gives us a lot of information that we use for to help us decide what to do with our future deployments. Pat Kennedy is a senior street maintenance engineer. Our typical events are more in the three to four-inch range. The weather in Denver tends to have sunny days, a lot in the wintertime, so we'll get an event. We can keep up with the plowing, and then with the next few days, the snow will melt off with with mother nature. These last two events have both been major events in the order of 18 inches plus. This one, if it reaches its predictions,

and we're having a period of cold weather, so we're not getting the aid of mother nature. Our fleets are designed for working with a typical storm when we get these heavier storms, then we look at augmenting our fleet. Kennedy says the city is trying to be smarter about deploying its fleet. He showed us a computer resource called MDSS, or maintenance decision support system. It provides us with real-time data for pavement temperatures, snow, or weather conditions, and predictions of the event for the next 48 hours, and what treatments would be best for us to employ to keep our roads in the passable condition. The mayor says the city has hired private contractors and mobilized all of its snow removal assets, calling the effort unprecedented. Even five years ago, we would have 46, 48 plows total on the street, whereas by the time we all said on this storm, we're going to be somewhere between 160 and 180 vehicles.

So the manpower and the equipment that we are putting in place is unprecedented in the city system. But conditions are still difficult in many parts of the city, particularly on side streets that are deeply rudded and icy. I've been stuck. You've been stuck here all these days since last month. Yeah, do you have enough food? I have enough food. The city is coordinating efforts to dig out the elderly who can't shovel the snow on their own. Volunteers like this group who helped a 90-year-old woman with her walkway. Back out on the highways, crews will work around the clock, even while trying to cope with the piles clogging some lanes left over from last week. The biggest thing that we really had to focus on was really getting ready for this star moving out snow that had accumulated along ramps and along acceleration deceleration lanes that had narrow lanes because we just don't have any place to store this new snow. How much of a challenge is that? It's hugely challenging because there is no place to put it. We can't just plow it

over the guardrail. There's nowhere to store it. So we actually had to lift it, put it in dump trucks and haul it away and find our maintenance facilities or anywhere we had a little bit of extra land and just pile it. Stegman says the agency has been pulling in plows from all over the state and hiring private contractors. They're hoping that a respite from the heavy snowfall currently forecast for several hours tonight and tomorrow will help them keep up through the weekend, at least in the city. Now, around up of some of science's more intriguing findings of 2006, Gwen Eiffel recorded this conversation earlier this month. New discoveries in science this year taught us much about the enormity of what we do not know about the past, the present, and the future from the origins of space and the human race to the evolution of the planet as we live on it today. Three less noted

discoveries were eye-opening. Joining us to talk about them are John Rennie, the editor of Scientific American Magazine and Andrew Reppkin, Science Reporter for The New York Times and to author of the book The North Pole was here. John Rennie, I want to start with by asking you about this really interesting discovery of the Neanderthal DNA. What was that and how they find it? Well, back in November, two different research groups, one based in California and one in Germany, made reports on the first details we have about DNA that was extracted from the phybon of Neanderthal from about 38,000 years ago. The Neanderthals were people, they were human beings, and yet they were different species of person, really not the same as the modern humans that you and I are. And so this is something that a lot of biologists have been wanting to look at for a long time because within that genetic information we hope are clues to where the Neanderthals came from and just how closely related they may be to us. Andy Reppkin, do we know whether these

Neanderthals interacted with human beings as we know ourselves to be? There is pretty good evidence that they did. It's kind of a strange moment in history where you have a branch of evolution, a parallel universe kind of for this thing we call humanness that was going to fade out pretty quickly there. That's right in the depths of the last ice age when this, the last of the Neanderthals were kind of were overlapping with the last of, I mean the first, not the first, but with that parallel group of Homo sapiens that we all spring from. John, do we have any idea why then the Neanderthals disappeared? It's still one of the big mysteries of paleoanthropology that way. There are questions that perhaps we, our type of human being, basically just outcompeted them and they became extinct. There are questions of whether or not we interbred within the Neanderthals enough that they essentially disappeared that way. Looking at this, the first take on this genetic information that we were getting in, it doesn't seem that we interbred within the Neanderthals to

any significant degree, although that's still not certain and frankly no one can entirely understand why that would be. Andy Revkin, let me ask you about climate change, that's the big, it's a big political debate, but there were actual scientific discoveries about that this year, and in particular that the Arctic, North Arctic poll cap was melting, say that right for me. Well the Arctic Ocean, which is an ocean with a thin sheet of floating ice on it, which I got to stand on a couple of years ago, is projected now the latest computer simulations say that by 2040 in the summertime we could have a blue ocean on the top of the planet for the first time in many thousands of years and maybe a lot longer than that, and that's kind of a momentous thought. All of our history essentially, our lore and notion of the Arctic has been an ice locked, untouchable place, and to the idea that you can sail to the North Pole easier than you could ski to it is a new idea. But even as the edges of the cap are melting, apparently there's more snow at the center of the ice cap? Well on Greenland, which is this huge island just off to the side

that borders the Arctic Ocean, it's got a vast amount of ice banked up there, it's 13,000 feet high, I also got to go to the summit of that ice sheet a couple of years ago, and then there you have this competition between snow falling in the middle all the time, and ice melting and cracking away from the edges and flowing into the ocean. The iceberg that sank the Titanic came from one of those Greenland flows, and the new evidence this year is that there's more ice leaving Greenland than accumulating a snowfall in the middle, and what that means is Greenland's probably contributing more to the eventual rise in sea level that's been projected in the next 100 years as the world warms. John Rennie, do we have any better understanding of why to the greed of which human activity is causing this melting? Unfortunately everything that we're gathering in terms of information is just confirming all of the what the models have been telling us for some time. The greenhouse gases that we contribute particularly carbon dioxide from all of our industrial activities like burning coal are going up into the atmosphere and they help to trap that heat,

and unfortunately that seems to be the culprit. There's less and less doubt that the increase in global temperatures that we're seeing and the kind of melting that Andy is talking about that that could be caused by anything except a human activity. And yet there seems this doesn't seem to have set up the debate has it. As I've been writing most of this year, the debate you see in the public realm in the media is most often at the edges of what science actually understands. Unfortunately we the media are often attracted to the hottest voices in the room, and that basically comes down to someone saying there's a real-time catastrophe on one side, and someone's saying it's all the hoax on the other. But what John is pointing to is and what I've been writing about a lot is that there is a very powerful middle here that science really understands with more confidence than ever, and there's a big report coming on on this in February, that there is a human component to warming that it's getting more and more dominant, especially as China kicks into high gear in this century and dominates the greenhouse gas emissions that we kind of dominated for the 20th century, that we're headed to a world that is going to be

a transforming place, unless there is a lot done to change how we get energy, how we get our energy. John Rennie, I want to talk to you about something very mysterious, this other discovery, dark energy and dark matter, something we actually can't see, so how do we know that it's a discovery? Well, it's a good question. When we look around at the universe with our human eyes, pretty much everything we're seeing planets, stars, galaxies, that all's a normal matter and energy, but that only makes up about 5% of what is out there. 20% of it seems to consist of some sort of invisible dark matter that it must be made of something other than the kinds of atoms that we know that that exerts a gravitational force that is helping to hold galaxies together. And then 75% of the universe seems to consist of this even more mysterious force called dark energy, which is a kind of repulsive force that is pushing everything in the universe apart and making the universe expand faster and faster. Well, let's do our part Andy, if you had to look back on this year and the discoveries that we were paid less attention to, would you say that we

raised more questions than we've answered? My sense is we tend to pay attention to things that seem dramatic and powerful and some of the big developments this year have been related to the slow drips, the issues that don't make it a lot of media attention, climate change is kind of the ultimate slow drip in some ways, but there was another very powerful thing that happened that really slipped past everyone, which was the extinction of the first whale species. You know, this creature living in for 20 million years in the Yangtze River, this baiji dolphin vanished. They couldn't find it in weeks and weeks of searching. And that's the kind of thing that the extinction of species for hundreds of years has mostly been kind of out of sight and kind of invisible. And now it's happening to very large creatures that are very big part of our world. And that's something that I think is that the message is the slow drips matter, at least to me. And John, what do you think about the slow drips in the notion that there are questions which are raised, which are essential to science, as the ones that are answered? Well, I would

agree with Andy that a lot of times ultimately the most important things that happen in science are the ones that we're not focusing our attention on a lot, or sometimes are only peripherally related to them. For example, the Neanderthal genome story that you mentioned, one of the technologies that made that possible was a new type of technology that hugely accelerates the rate at which we can take any kind of DNA and get the sequence for that. Now, what that probably means is that, say within another 10 years, it would mean that you or I or Andy or anyone else out there, we could actually have our own individual DNA completely sequenced for a thousand dollars or so. And that could become a very important part of our medical records, for example, although there are going to be a lot of interesting questions about the security of that information and the meaning of that genetic information that we're all going to be coming to grips with. The year in science, John Renny of Scientific American and Andrew Radkin, other New York Times, thank you both very much. Thank you.

Since Gwen taped that interview, there were new developments on the global warming front. Scientists reported that a huge ice shelf broke away from an island in the Canadian Arctic. It was the largest break in nearly three decades, and the shelf itself was said to be bigger than the area of Manhattan Island. Geographers said they believe warmer temperatures played a major role in the break. And to the analysis of Shields and Lowry syndicated columnist Mark Shields and National Review Editor Rich Lowry. David Brooks is off in Mark this week. The death of a man who was spired to be speaker of the house and never knew what hit him, it seemed. Well, it is an amazing man. I really do believe that. I don't use the term loosely. It was said of another Midwesterner who became a quintessential Midwesterner, became an accidental president, Harry Truman. He was comfortable being Jerry Ford. He liked being Jerry Ford. He never thought

of being anybody else but Jerry Ford. Upon reflection, it's probably a pretty good litmus test for anybody who seeks to sit in the Oval Office. I always thought he was the most emotionally healthy former president. If not president, I ever met or covered in the sense that most presidents raise spend an extraordinary amount of time. Bill Clinton probably began the third grade around recess, I think, thinking about becoming president. But they devote so much of themselves in the time when they do leave that office eventually. There's a gaping hole in their psyche. With Jerry Ford, that wasn't the case. He didn't want to be speaker of the house. When they didn't, Republicans didn't want to majority in the 1972 Nixon landslide, he confided to his friend Tip O'Neill across the line that he told Betty that he was going to serve until 76, then he was out of there. It was O'Neill and Mansfield and Carl Albert who told Richard Nixon he was the most confirmable of all the possibilities to succeed, to succeed, to spirit or agno who of course he resigned and disgraced. I just think that history will be

enormously kind to him because after Watergate and Vietnam and the incredible tensions and ugliness in this country, Jerry Ford did heal the wounds of the nation. Rich Lowry is the Jerry Ford type of Republican, still very much in evidence on the national scene? No, Jerry Ford was a transitional figure and he won that primary battle in 1976 against Ronald Reagan technically, but he really lost it because the center of gravity of American conservatism and the Republican party was steadily moving out of Midwest to points further south and further west. And as a colleague of mine pointed out this week, if you look at the primaries at Reagan 1 with the exception of California, the primaries they won in 1976, they're all the so-called red states now. Reagan did well in those states where there are a lot of new Republicans. And even in that country, there's a lot of new people because the population acts as a real country swinging that way, which helped give the Republican party such an advantage in

recent presidential politics. But even in that convention that year, Ford's people thought Jerry Ford gave one of the best speeches of his life, but he graciously and spontaneously asked Reagan to come up to the podium and Reagan eclipsed him. And there's a feeling in the hall, geez, we got the wrong, we nominated the wrong guy and of course Reagan would get it in 1980. How does the pardon look 32 years on? I think it looks good. You know, can quibble with some of the details? Certainly politically, he should have laid the groundwork for it better than he did. He's sprang it on the American public and he paid a real price for that. But it was a wise and necessary decision, I believe, it just would have had a banana republic feel, I think, to have a former president caught up in legal proceedings. And as Mark points out, it's one of the ways that history has been kind to Jerry Ford, because a few people would have guessed at the time that the public would swing around eventually. And he would even, you know, get a profile and courage award precisely for having made

that call to pardon. Now, Mark, one thing that Jerry Ford did that you remember well is he actually, as a sitting president, went and testified on the hill about delivering that pardon. And one of his inquisitors, Elizabeth Holzman, said this week that she felt that a culture of impunity was put in place by that pardon, that before we knew what the charges were, he was already, Richard Nixon was already going to escape punishment. Instead of letting the system play out short of a trial, so that at least we would know what he was being pardoned for, in effect, we never knew what kind of goods investigators were going to have on the man who had really lied for years to the country. I respectfully dissent on this basis that because of the tapes, because of disclosures, because of the papers that were revealed both contemporaneously and since, Richard Nixon's departure, and the enormous disgrace attached to resigning the presidency, that nobody today seriously

suggests that he was railroaded in any way from the White House. And I think that it's become fairly clear that what the sins were, what the crimes were, that we don't know specific details, perhaps, I mean, enough of his own people that he appointed did do jail time, the fact that he didn't, perhaps, seems unfair to them, but he did. He is the only president in our history. That's an enormous disgrace to carry with him in perpetuity. I just did want to point out one thing that, on Richard's point about the pardon, and that was through the eyes of Thomas P. Tip O'Neill, who was pretty, was a friend of Jerry Ford, and he said, Jerry Ford called him on that morning, September 8, 1974. Tip O'Neill had just gotten back from church and he picks up the phone and he says, hello, tip, it's Jerry. And he said, Jerry, who? And he said, he said, all dozens of calls, he never had, from presidents, from the White House, it always been a staff,

a White House operator, could you hold, please, for the president? He said, Jerry, Ford, and he said, I want to tell you something, I want to do. And he said, he said, he said, Jerry, you've just killed your chances for your election. And that was of no concern to him to Ford. And he said, he just added, right, that he said, he asked him, he said, Jerry, it hasn't been any deal, has it? He said, you have my word, there was no deal. And I don't, I still think to this day there wasn't any deal. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm, one deal that Gerald Ford did make was with reporter Bob Woodward, setting his own death as an embargo. He gave an interview and he said, among other things, I don't think if I had been president at the base, on the basis of the facts I saw that publicly, I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq War. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer. He goes on to say, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people. But the former president said he was skeptical, whether you can detach that from the obligation number one of what's in our national interest. And I don't think we should go hellfire damn

nation around the globe, freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security. Now, this is a president, Rich Lowry, who was always always an internationalist, but seems to be counseling restraint here. Sure. Well, first of all, there's a little ambiguity on Iraq, because there's another interview that Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News wrote up that suggested President Ford supported the Iraq War. But that, the first part of that statement about he wouldn't have launched the invasion is, is pretty unambiguous. He doesn't surprise me a more moderate, more cautious politician than George W. Bush. And the last part of it about our national interest should be paramount. I don't think President Bush disagrees with that necessarily, but I do think he's let some of the poetic flourishes in his speeches suggest that he doesn't. And I think that's been a mistake. One thing about the whole Ford retrospective, I think in the White House, there's probably been a very interesting and hopeful reaction to the

way Gerald Ford has been regarded, because you talked to President Bush about his legacy. He always says, let's talk about 40 or 50 years from now. So he's probably heartened, by the way, Jerry Ford, who when he was president was portrayed, his clumsy is kind of adult, adult, an obstructionist when it came to Congress is now actually being hailed as a wise and courageous leader. And President Bush hopes decades from now something similar will happen with him. Mark, quickly, what did you make of those Ford remarks? I think they were totally consistent with Jerry Ford with what he stood for. And I mean, I think that consistent with his brand of Republicanism is what he was criticized for. I'd have some degree in the 76 campaign with Ronald Reagan for being a realist or traditionalist in foreign policy. One little item, he's given me credit for it. Prior to Jerry Ford, no incumbent president debated his challenger. With only had one presidential debate, Kennedy Nixon, Nixon refused to debate,

Lyndon Johnson refused to debate, because of Jerry Ford, every incumbent president since has had to debate, and we'll have to debate. This week, there was talks down in Crawford, Texas, between President Bush and key advisors. What do you see coming out of that, right? Well, I think there's going to be some sort of troop surge into Baghdad. It remains to be seen though how big it is and how long it will be. I think that notion of a temporary surge, which we hear about, is something of an illusion. If you're going to do this, you have to do a bigger rather than smaller, and you have to do it for a longer period of time. We're talking 18 or 24 months. But Bush has headed in that direction of some former and other. We're also getting indications. There'll be more a different kind of push for economic aid and reconstruction to Iraq and further push on the political front. So I hope what we're seeing here is a real classic counterinsurgency strategy that's coming from the top, from President Bush,

with its foundation being the indispensable aspect of any counterinsurgency campaign, which is security to the population, which is what we have not provided for the last three or four years. But Mark, if you listen to what Rich says, and look at some of the comments this week, it sounds like that prescription, a small intermediate surge will not make the pro build up people happy or the people who want to start drawing down. It's designed and make no one happy. No, Rich may be right, but I have to confess, I'm mystified. I'm in George W. Bush beat John Kerry in 2004. In large part, when voters were asked why they were going for him, they was forceful, decisive, resolute. Here we have since the election. In November, 17, fired Don runs Phil the next day. And now we're approaching two months of this sort of agonizing and public, the great decider having a non-resolution meeting at Crawford, Texas, as Americans are dying in the field, as the sense of drift in our policy. I really think

whatever the president comes up with, this has to be, it's his last shot to get American public opinion. And he's got to swing it in his direction because it is continuing to erode almost on an hourly basis. And it better be not only convincing, plausible, but it better show results in rather short order. Or I think the president's going to lose all his standing in the country. It's the last Friday night of the year. Some quick, quick picks on top news stories of this past year. Well, I was dividing them up into low lights and highlights from where I'm sitting. There are a lot more low lights this year. I think the firing of rumsfeld was one. He deserved to go, but it just showed how behind the curve bush was on a rack. It was the prelude to this really low ab of ear resolution and uncertainty on a rack policy that Mark referred to. And then kind of a tabloid story, the Duke Lacrosse case, the DA down there, I think, who exploited that case, which I think is entirely bogus to get reelected, has just been a disgrace to prosecutors everywhere.

We're not more to run in that story to a quick remark. Ray, the true great rules of Washington's scandals are it is not simply the act of a transgression to get you in trouble. It's inevitably the cover up, a cover up, but that's rule one. And rule two is everybody forgets rule one. And that's exactly what happened to the House Republican leadership in the Mark Foley thing. And I think that's a perfect example of a low light of the year. Gentlemen, happy new year to you both. Thanks so much. Again, to the major developments of this day, confusion rained on when Saddam Hussein will be executed and aid to the Prime Minister said it would happen by dawn Saturday in Baghdad. And in Somalia, Ethiopian troops pursued Islamic fighters after capturing Mogadishu. Washington Week can be seen later this evening on most PBS stations. We'll see you online. And again, here Monday evening for the first program of 2007. Have a great weekend. I'm

Ray Suarez. Thanks for joining us. Good night. morning week, soy and cocoa beans into your favorite foods. Somewhere in the hardland, a child is sitting down to breakfast, which is why so many work so long and take their job to hard, ADM, resourceful by nature. At CIT, we provide the financing to keep health care strong and healthy. We help energy companies find new resources. We work with communications companies to make the world smaller and life bigger. We offer financial aid to make college possible for

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Thank you. Good evening, I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is away. On the news hour tonight, the news of this Friday,

then a report from Baghdad on what could be Saddam Hussein's final hours, and to look at what effect his execution may have. Denver struggled to defeat Mother Nature, a science news roundup with John Rennie of Scientific American and Andrew Revkin of The New York Times, and end of the year commentary by Mark Shields and Rich Lowry sitting in for David Brooks. Major funding for The New's Hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by what Susie and I retire will be taking trips like this whenever we want. It's a good thing we've been planning. At Pacific Life, giving you the right tools to help you meet your financial goals is what we're all about as you look to the future, look to Pacific Life. Pacific Life, the power to help you succeed. There's a company that builds more than a million vehicles a year in places called Indiana

and Kentucky, one that has 10 plants from the foothills of West Virginia to the Pacific coastline. What company is this? Toyota, a company that along with its dealers and suppliers has helped create hundreds of thousands of US jobs, a company proud to do its small part to add to the landscape of America. And by BP, CIT, the Archer Daniels Midland Company, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the National Science Foundation, and with the continuing support of these institutions and foundations. And this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Confusion rain today on when Saddam Hussein will be executed. Late in the night in Baghdad,

a top government official said the former dictator would be hanged by dawn Saturday. That would be 10 p.m. tonight, Eastern Time in the U.S. We have a report on the day's advance narrated by Tim Rogers of independent television news. He has remained defiant to the end, and now it seems the end is in sight. Saddam Hussein, for so long the absolute ruler of Iraq has an appointment with history and the hangman. The signs are that within the next 24 hours, the man who still calls himself president will suffer the fate endured by so many of his countrymen under his rule. This afternoon, a spokesman for Saddam's chief defense lawyer said Saddam Hussein's personal effects were being handed over by the authorities holding him, and that's a short sign. The execution is imminent. It's thought Saddam will be hanged in accordance with laws he passed himself almost 40 years ago. He'll be hooded and dressed in green overalls. Before he's taken to

the gallows, a Muslim cleric will offer him the opportunity to make his pinks with Allah. The execution itself is expected to be carried out by an Iraqi volunteer. It's unlikely to be a public hanging, but it is expected to be filmed to prevent conspiracy theories developing, and he'll be buried in secret in an unmarked grave. It was for atrocities like this that Saddam Hussein is now facing retribution. Many observers believing the outcome of his trial was never in debt, but while his fate is now certain that of the country he leaves behind is far more difficult to predict. Saddam was sentenced to die for the mass killings of Shiites in 1982. On Thursday, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Louise Arbor, urged Iraqi officials not to act in haste, but Prime Minister Al Maliki said it would be an insult to Saddam's victims, not to carry out the execution. And late this afternoon, Saddam's lawyers asked the federal judge in Washington to block his transfer to Iraqi custody and thereby stop the execution.

We'll have more on this story right after the news summary. In other developments in Iraq, at least nine people died in a suicide bombing at a Shiites mosque north of Baghdad. To the south, in Basra, there was word a British soldier died yesterday in a roadside bombing. Also today, Iran's state-run television reported U.S. forces released two Iranians detained in Iraq. They allegedly brought in small bombs to insurgents. The man internationally recognized as the Prime Minister of Somalia returned to Mogadishu today in triumph. Ali Mohammed Gaidi was greeted by thousands of cheering residents. Ethiopian troops were also on hand to secure the capital city, but some Somali set fires protesting the presence of the troops. From there, Ethiopian tanks and planes headed for a key crossroads town. They followed Islamic fighters who have pledged to continue the war. The Somali president called the 24-hour ceasefire, but he also vowed to pursue the Islamic militia.

The Islamic court's union has fled to Kismayu and the Juba region. They have military bases for terrorists training in that area, and we think they are going there.