The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight a Newsmaker interview with U.N. Weapons Inspection Chief Richard Butler; as the Senate begins debate over expanding NATO, a four-way debate of our own; and a conversation with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter about her Beethoven mission. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The strong U.S. economy is helping Social Security's financial problems. The annual report of Social Security trustees today said the system now faces insolvency three years later than previously estimated. Last year's report said the plan would be drained by the year 2029. Today's pushed it to 2032. The report said Medicare trust funds would be in trouble by 2008. President Clinton announced the findings at a White House ceremony.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Today's report is encouraging. It shows we can honor our values and meet our most fundamental obligations even as we balance the budget. However, these modest improvements only underscore the fundamental challenge we face. We must act to make certain that Social Security is as strong for our children as it has been for our parents. Above all, let me say again we must save every penny of any budget surplus of any size until we have strengthened Social Security.

JIM LEHRER: On Wall Street today the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered a second straight day of losses. The Dow closed down nearly 19 points at 8898.96. In other economic news today orders for big ticket manufactured goods were up .4 percent in March, according to the commerce Department. That's despite a continued slump in demand for aircraft. New orders are the main indicator of how busy U.S. factories will be in the months ahead. On the tobacco story today the Justice Department announced that Liggett & Myers would cooperate in a criminal investigation of the tobacco industry. The company would not be granted immunity from prosecution. Liggett & Myers is the smallest of the big five cigarette makers, marketing Chesterfield and L&M, among others. Liggett was the first to settle last year with 22 states that sued the industry to recover Medicaid funds. Iraq's foreign minister today called the decision to maintain sanctions very disappointing. He spoke in New York, where last night the U.N. Security Council continued the sanctions that have been in place for seven years since the Gulf War. Chief Weapons Inspector Richard Butler said Iraq controls whether they will be lifted.

AMBASSADOR RICHARD BUTLER, Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector: If Iraq will give us full cooperation, will give us the remaining materials, documents, and evidence we need to verify their claim that they have no more weapons of mass destruction, our promise is we will do that verification honestly, with very high level of competence, and as quickly as possible.

JIM LEHRER: We'll talk to Butler right after this News Summary. Also today, two Jordanian airplanes carried U.S. humanitarian aid to Iraq. Seventy-five thousand pounds of medicine and nutritional products valued at $2 million were sent by the organization AmeriCares. It received President Clinton's approval to arrange the first American airlift to Baghdad since the Gulf War. The Senate Finance Committee heard more harsh criticism of the Internal Revenue Service today. It was the start of four days of testimony on alleged abuses by the IRS. There were similar hearings last September. Legislation to revamp the agency is expected to reach the Senate floor next week. Senior IRS personnel executive DesJardins, Yvonne DesJardins, was among those testifying today.

YVONNE DES JARDINS, IRS Executive: Unfortunately, a good portion of what I have observed leaves much to be desired when it comes to consistent treatment of individuals regarding discipline and in the manner in which the IRS deals with whistle-blowers. The whistle-blowers are ostracized and careers destroyed, and those senior officials who engaged in the misconduct which was reported and substantiated are not only protected from receiving any disciplinary actions but are oftentimes rewarded during the same year the misconduct occurs.

JIM LEHRER: Also today, IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti appointed former FBI and CIA Director William Webster to review the IRS's criminal investigative division. The debate over expanding NATO continued today in the U.S. Senate. Opponents offered an amendment for a three-year freeze on new NATO members. It would go into effect after the former Soviet bloc countries of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech republic are admitted. The Clinton administration opposes that amendment. The expansion plan requires a 2/3 vote for ratification. We'll have our own debate later in the program tonight. The Senate approved a spending bill today that includes nearly $1 billion to pay United Nations dues, but the bill has an anti-abortion provision the president opposes. The House has already passed a similar bill. It denies aid to international family planning organizations that support abortion. A three-judge federal appeals panel heard arguments today in Denver for overturning the conviction of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. His lawyers claimed a juror violated court orders by discussing the case with another juror and that the trial judge unfairly excluded evidence someone else was responsible for the bombing. McVeigh was sentenced to death for the 1995 bombing of the federal building in which 168 people died. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Richard Butler, the debate over expanding NATO, and a violinist with a mission. NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: The Iraq story and to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It will take a resolution by the U. N. Security Council to lift economic sanctions against Iraq. And that can come only when two organizations certify Iraq has removed or destroyed its illegal weapons and the materials used to produce them. In the Security Council yesterday the International Atomic Energy Agency reported there is no further indication of prohibited nuclear equipment, materials or activities, though some data remain to be provided. But UNSCOM, the U.N. commission investigating missiles, chemical and biological weapons, reported virtually no progress in verifying disarmament in those areas over the past six months. In a press conference today the Iraqi foreign minister defended his country's compliance.

MOHAMMED AL-SAHAF, Foreign Minister, Iraq: We told the Council and reminded the Council that the Security Council Resolution 687 was adopted in 1991, seven years ago. And the ongoing monitoring has been in place for four years. That's to say since 1994. And all weapons prohibited under Resolution 687 were destroyed by the end of 1991. And all related factories and equipments have been destroyed, everything. Therefore, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi leadership expected their sanctions to be lifted long ago. The Iraqi people have been subjected to unprecedented injustice by the policy of continued starvation and repeated military assaults. Nevertheless, regardless, the degree of inequity and injustice to which Iraq has been subjected, it has cooperated with the Security Council and the special commission in the hope that promises of the lifting of sanctions talked about by the representatives of the special commission and members in the Security Council be carried out.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For more now we turn to Richard Butler, executive director of UNSCOM, the U.N. commission charged with eliminating missiles, chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. Thanks for being with us, Mr. Ambassador.

AMBASSADOR RICHARD BUTLER, Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector: Thank you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You just heard the statement that Iraq has eliminated the prescribed weapons. What's your response to that?

RICHARD BUTLER: We discussed that yesterday in the Security Council, Elizabeth. Iraq is pursuing a policy at the present time, which you've just heard from the foreign minister. What I said in my report to the Council is disarmament by declaration. Now, sadly that's not legal and not acceptable. It begins with their declaration of the truth, but then it's our job to verify what they've declared. We've not been able to report an end to the chemical, missile, and biological disarmament process because their declarations have not been adequate and, above all, have not been able to be verified. It can't be by mere declaration alone. What I did in the report of the last six months--apart from noting that there wasn't progress because of the crisis we've just been through mercifully ended by the Secretary-General--what I did was unprecedented in setting forth a list of priority issues to give Iraq a clue, a menu, if you like. There it is--if they give us the information that we need listed in that list of priorities, we will be able hopefully to verify their declarations and bring all this to an end.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. I want to go through some of those priorities in a minute, but, first, just generally, explain what it is that you're lacking. When you say that they declare something, are you lacking--without getting into specifics yet--are you lacking the documents that would show that they, in fact, did destroy those weapons?

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, first of all, on destruction, the destruction to which Foreign Minister Sahaf referred was unilateral destruction to the extent that it, indeed, took place, carried out by Iraq by itself. May I say softly that in itself was illegal. The Security Council has always said that any distraction must be under international supervision for the very good reason because then we can see that it actually was done. Now, moving on to your point, what we need is the variety of things necessary for verification. In some case it's physical materials. We're at the moment digging up some destroyed missile warhead remnants in the desert in Iraq to put the physical materials together to verify destruction. Sometimes we need a documentary record that shows us what chemicals or what biological substances were produced, so we can bring them to an account. Finally, sometimes we need to interview the persons who gave the orders or carried out the destruction. It's a mixture of those things.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. On the biological weapons specifically, Iraq denied it had biological weapons until 1995, since then has said it's gotten rid of all of them. What do you need there to prove that that is not the case, or to verify that it is the case?

RICHARD BUTLER: The biological record is the saddest of them all. It's been a seven year relationship, and as you've just pointed out, for the first four of those years, Iraq's stance was that it had--was absolute denial--that it had no program at all. When it couldn't persist with that any longer, it gave us a declaration of its biological program, which we've had looked at by ourselves, obviously, but by international experts as well on a number of occasions since that time over the last few years. And we've never been able to find their biological declaration credible. It's got internal errors, internal inconsistencies. We have found and destroyed some of the plant with which they made biological warfare agents in the past. But their basic declaration is what is the biggest difficulty here. It's internally inconsistent. It's not a credible document.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So what is your main fear here? Could you be specific about what you think perhaps still exists, or that you cannot verify doesn't exist.

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, up to a point only, but please bear with me in understanding this. First of all, it wouldn't be a good practice for us to simply say this is it and only it, because that would violate the basic provision that Iraq has to tell us. But trying to be as positive as I can, I want to make this clear: Our job is to verify their claim. Now if we can't do that, I can't report to the Council that it's over. That's not the same thing as to say that I'm going to step forward and say, we accuse you of having this or that weapon. In the biology area, to give a specific example, we can't give adequate verification to their claim of how much anthrax they made. We see the importation into Iraq of an amount of growth medium for anthrax three to four times larger than the amount of the anthrax substance that they said that they made. Now, that's a big discrepancy. That's a gap that we need to close, and we need a better declaration and more truth from them in order to close it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How hard is it to provide those documents for Iraq? Is it just a matter of giving them up? Could they be hard to find? Do they not exist?

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, this is a point that I ended on in my statement to the Security Council yesterday. In summary, I said this: We know that Iraq has the materials that we need within its possession, whether they be physical materials, documents, or persons we need to interview. We know that they are in their possession. Secondly, we know that they alone can decide to give those things to us, give us access to those things. Thirdly, we are honest. We are competent. We want this to be over. We can do it quickly. So if you put those three factors together, the key is really in Iraq's hands. They have the materials that we need to do this job of verification, to say to the Council we're satisfied there are no more prohibited weapons; it's up to Iraq to pick up that key and turn it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now turning to the chemical weapons, what do you need to show that the claim that Iraq made, that it's gotten rid of all of its chemical weapons, is true, or not true?

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, in our priority list, for example, there are three main things mentioned. We need a much better accounting of how much of the chemical nerve agent VX they made and possibly weaponized in the past. We need a better accounting of how many chemical munitions, that is, shells or rockets or bombs that had been filled with chemical warfare agent, how many of those still remain. Recently, Iraq sought fairly quietly but, nevertheless, to resist our going after that accounting, but then did agree. And we've just completed a mission in Iraq where we were able to advance that a bit. And we do have reason to think that there remain munitions filled with chemical substance. And finally, we need a similar accounting for chemical warfare agent manufacturing equipment. We've destroyed a great deal of that, but we do need to bring it to final account so that we can say to the Council close the chemical file. They're the main things that we need in order to do that. We've signaled this to Iraq, and we're asking them now to join with us and cooperate and get this job done.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And on the ballistic missiles, what do you need?

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, we've given a good accounting for the long range missiles that they have imported in the past from the former Soviet Union. We've basically declared those--and there were 819 SCUD missiles--and we've basically declared those accounted for. But we've indicated to Iraq we still need an accounting for possible indigenous missile production or prohibited missile production. We need an accounting of prohibited missile propellents, the fuel that is used exclusively for the fueling of SCUDS. I find it very mystifying that they won't give us the letter because if all the SCUDS have gone, why would they want to keep the fuel, if it's only useable with that missile system? You know, it seems a silly matter, but we are required under the law to account for missiles, all subsystems and propellants of a prohibited range. And they're the main issues there.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ambassador, in a written reply to your report, the deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz wrote that the report isn't neutral. He said: "It is almost an American document aimed at justifying the American military concentration in the region." How do you respond to that?

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, those claims sadly are simply without substance, no substance whatsoever.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And finally, as a result of the February agreement that you mentioned that the Secretary-General negotiated with Saddam Hussein, some sites, presidential sites, have been opened. How are the investigations there going, and will they continue in the future?

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, that agreement, the result of an extraordinary piece of diplomacy by the Secretary-General, is quite crucial to us because it does give us access where we didn't have it before, namely to presidential sites. It also enshrines the new Iraqi promise to cooperate fully with us, the one on which I'm hoping to be able to rely in the future. Our first entry to presidential sites, completed a few weeks ago, were for baseline purposes only, to get a sense of what was there. There are over a thousand buildings in these eight sites. And we did that well. And it was a great cooperative effort and a good spirit prevailed. We will, presumably, need to go back in the future if our disarmament work takes us back. If we have reason to go to look at them building within one of those for disarmament purposes, then a decision will be taken to do so.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: There's been some indication that there's a misunderstanding--I believe the comments today by the Iraqi officials--a misunderstanding on whether the inspectors can continue to go indefinitely into those sites. I believe that some Iraqi officials have said maybe not indefinitely, maybe just a few more times. What's your understanding on that?

RICHARD BUTLER: Oh, it's unambiguous. The Memorandum of Understanding, the document the Secretary-General signed with the government of Iraq, talks unambiguously about initial and subsequent Those words mean that we can go back. And when regulations were drawn up under the memorandum to, you know, to govern our operations in visiting presidential sites, was made abundantly plain that when I or the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency decide that we need for technical disarmament reasons or monitoring reasons to go back into those sites, we may do so.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So, Mr. Ambassador, what do you think will happen next? How do you understand the strong reply from the Iraqis to your report, really critical comments made about it, and also the differences over the presidential sites that seem to be coming up now? What do you think lies ahead, another deadlock between the two sides?

RICHARD BUTLER: Well, I honestly hope not. A very important promise was given at the highest level to the Secretary-General, and I earnestly hope that it be kept. The sort of posturing that has gone on in, you know, the last week or so around our report is something that I regret--not done by us, of course--but characterization of the report as fallacious, et cetera, is not right. But I don't to get into mere argumentation about that. I believe that serious commitments have been made, and above all, I believe the end of this is actually within our grasp if Iraq will keep its promise and give us the materials we need. No one wants another crisis. So I'm hopeful that the glass will be seen as half full, not half empty, and that the opportunity of the next few months to get this job done will be seized. And we've promised that we'll do our part of it with integrity and with all possible speed.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Ambassador Richard Butler, thank you very much for being with us.

RICHARD BUTLER: A pleasure.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the expanding NATO debate and a violinist with a mission. FOCUS - DEFINING THE MISSION

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our NATO discussion.

KWAME HOLMAN: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed at the height of the Cold War in 1949. Its aim--to form a military alliance that would protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union. Along with the United States and Canada, NATO is composed of 14 of Western Europe's largest countries, from Iceland in the West--to Turkey in the Southeast. To counter NATO, the Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact made up of the Central European Soviet satellites--including Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. As the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Warsaw Pact soon dissolved and most of its former members began to make overtures to join NATO. But Russia consistently opposed any expansion of NATO to the former Soviet satellites. In 1997, however, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin met in Helsinki and reached an agreement. Russia reluctantly would go along with NATO expansion in exchange for a new security arrangement between Russia and the West. But the question remained: Which countries would become new NATO members. The United States wanted only three: Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. France and several other nations wanted to add two more-- Romania and Slovenia. The U.S. position prevailed, and at a NATO summit in Madrid last summer, President Clinton made the formal announcement.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I still remember the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the Prague Spring of 1968, the Gdansk shipyard in 1981. But we also appreciate the fact that when these three nations threw off the shackles of tyranny, they embraced democracy and tolerance; they devoted themselves to reforming their economies and their societies, to settling age old disputes with their neighbors. They have done the hard work of freedom now for over seven years, and they have proved that they are ready to share in the full responsibility of NATO membership.

KWAME HOLMAN: Now, the President needs 67 votes or 2/3 of the U.S. Senate to ratify the NATO expansion treaty. The final round of Senate debate began yesterday after some Senators complained not enough time had been set aside to examine such an important foreign policy issue.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, [R] Maine: The matter of NATO expansion is perhaps the single most important foreign policy or defense issue to come before Congress this year. Because of the complexity of the issues involved, the importance of this decision, and its implications for our relationship with Russia, I have not rushed to judgement on this issue. Today, however, I would like to explain why, after careful consideration and much consultation, I have decided to cast my vote in favor of NATO expansion.

KWAME HOLMAN: With many in the foreign policy establishment, including all the living former secretaries of state, supporting expansion and with the senate leadership strongly on board, approval of the treaty was expected to be overwhelming. But in recent weeks, a smaller but influential group of foreign policy experts has been speaking out more forcefully against the three-nation expansion of NATO. The group includes: George Kennan, author of the Cold War Doctrine of Containment of the Soviet Union; Sam Nunn, the former Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; defense secretary to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Robert McNamara; longtime arms control negotiator Paul Nitze; former admiral and CIA Director Stansfield Turner; and President Ford's and Bush's national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. Such opponents say the proposed NATO expansion will alienate Russia, fueling the forces of nationalism there and destabilizing Russian democracy. They also say NATO expansion will impose enormous new costs on the U.S. taxpayer. The Congressional Budget Office estimates those costs could go as high as $125 billion over 15 years, a figure strongly disputed by proponents.

ANNOUNCER: [Commercial Segment] Nuclear war--the threat went away when the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended. But now the Senate is about to vote on spending $60 billion to expand NATO--

KWAME HOLMAN: A business group that opposes expansion based on such budget concerns created this TV ad aimed at blocking ratification of the Treaty.

ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Senator Smith and Senator Harkin for organizing this group. What an interesting coalition this is.

KWAME HOLMAN: Last week, the small bipartisan group of Senate opponents of the NATO expansion also jumped into the debate. They hope at least to amend the treaty over the next two days. A final Senate vote is expected by the end of the week.

JIM LEHRER: Our own debate now among Senators John Warner, Republican of Virginia, and Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, both members of the Armed Services Committee, and Michael Mandelbaum, a professor at the Paul Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, who's written widely on European security issues, and Robert Hunter, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO now a senior adviser at Rand, a Washington study group. Sen. Lieberman, what to you is the most important reason for expanding NATO?

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, [D] Connecticut: Well, to me the most important reason for expanding NATO is the principle of freedom. NATO is a military alliance, but it is an alliance in defense of the principle, which is freedom. It was formed after the West's experience with fascism in Europe during the Second World War. It was formed to stop Soviet aggression in Europe, but it was always during the Cold War not just a military bloc; it was a bloc in defense of the principle of freedom, against Soviet Communists, who were defending a very different idea of how states should relate to individuals. We've won that war, and now the nations who lived under Soviet domination aspire to join us in the family of freedom. They're knocking on our door. I think we have a moral obligation to let them in. I can't believe we would turn them away. And as we let them in to this expanding family of freedom, we will secure Europe, and we will also help ourselves by bringing allies in our own defense of our own security and NATO security. So it's all about principle, which is freedom.

JIM LEHRER: Principle, freedom, a moral obligation, Senator Warner?

SEN. JOHN WARNER, [R] Virginia: Take no disagreement with freedom. It's the most precious thing in the world, but I strongly disagree when he opens his hands and says, take them all in, it could be 12 in number; you could be creating another mini-UN--unwieldy, inefficient, indecisive, when we have in place an alliance for now 50 years that has worked beyond the expectations of everyone that put it together. Jim, tonight, the men and women of the armed forces of the United States are serving all over the world in the cause of freedom, but they have too few ships, too few aircraft, and our total military budget, in terms of GNP, is less than what we had before Pearl Harbor, and yet the Senate within the next few days could be voting to add to their mission and to expend dollars, American taxpayer dollars, over and above our commitment, which we should always keep to the present NATO, which should be going to our military for modernization and to help relieve the pressure on the men and women of the armed forces today. I say it works, it has worked well, and it will continue to work well, and its size today is better able to assure freedom and the American presence, which is essential on the European country, than if we open it up and go from sixteen to perhaps twenty-eight.

JIM LEHRER: Ambassador Hunter, it works. Why fool with it?

ROBERT HUNTER, Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO: It works because it meets the needs of the time. It met the need of containing the Soviet Union and Communism better than any other alliance. The need today in addition to spreading freedom to countries who for all those years wanted to be without it, in addition to that, it's a chance to provide confidence, stability, in the center of the continent. But we had three wars in the century, two hot wars and one cold war. We have a chance to take these countries who want to join us out of history, giving confidence to everybody, including the Russians, that we will not again have a conflict in this part of the world.

JIM LEHRER: What about Sen. Warner's point, though, that this creates another mini UN, all these countries are already involved in this kind of thing at the UN, why have another organization?

ROBERT HUNTER: We took the decision to enlarge four and a half years ago. The reason it took so long to get here was to make sure that as NATO takes in new members it can be just as strong, if not stronger. We have required of each of these countries coming in that they settle any disputes they might have with our neighbors; that they agree to join Allied Command Europe, our military muscle, that they do things for their own military strength, that they demonstrate democracy, get on with their--we have a whole shopping list. The three countries that the Senate's voted on this week have passed that test, and anybody else we take in is going to have to pass that test too. Who knows? We may never take anybody else in.

JIM LEHRER: When you look at this, what do you see as the single most important reason not to expand NATO along the lines that is now before the Senate?

MICHAEL MANDELBAUM, Johns Hopkins University: It's not only pointless because these countries are not remotely threatened, it's dangerous. If you take the case that Amb. Hunter and Sen. Lieberman make, then it applies just as forcefully, if not more so, to countries to the East of these three. If you believe what they say, we have to take in Ukraine and the Baltic countries as well on Russia's very border. Russia has said that this is unacceptable. In order to defend the three Baltic countries, we would have to recreate Cold War military forces and probably rely on nuclear weapons. On the other hand, if we did not take the western alliance all the way to the Russian border, then we would be excluding new democracies, drawing a new line of division in Europe, and consigning friendly democracies to the wrong side. So we have a possible choice if we go ahead with these three countries that certainly don't need NATO. For that reason we ought to follow Sen. Warner's wise advice: stay where we are, keep the NATO we have, and proceed to deal with the issues that really threaten the United States.

JIM LEHRER: You say these countries don't need NATO. Why do they want it so badly if they don't need it?

MICHAEL MANDELBAUM: Well, one has to wonder how badly they want it. First of all, they certainly do not believe that they're incapable of conducting democratic politics without being part of NATO. Their motors are purely anti-Russian. They had about 50 years with the Russians, there's no doubt about that, but it's also the case that they don't have borders with Russia now, that they're not threatened by Russia, and that whatever their views of Russia, they're not willing to spend a dime to protect themselves. These are countries that cut their defense spending in half since 1989.

JIM LEHRER: You're talking about Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

MICHAEL MANDELBAUM: I'm talking about Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The measure how concerned they are is how much they're willing to spend, and they're spending nothing. If you go to these countries and say we'll give you an American nuclear guarantee and upgrade your roads and military facilities at no cost to yourself, why would they say no, and that's the deal I think they're getting.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Lieberman.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Well, quite the contrary. They are spending to upgrade their military to NATO's standards, and the opposition to this enlargement bringing these three in is based on the two factors cited in your earlier piece. One is the fear of alienating Russia. But every poll that I read says that the Russian people don't care about NATO enlargement. What they care about and what is the threat to stability in democracy in Russia is their economy, about whether they're going to have a job, whether they're going to get paid, whether their kids can get educated. So to do a kind of psychoanalytic, political reaction to supposed fears in Russia and, therefore, to shut the door on these countries and the opportunity to stabilize Europe post Cold War is for us incredibly to redraw the line that Stalin drew in Europe after the Second World War.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask you a question.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: He says Russia does not want to be upset. You're wrong, my dear colleague. Their thinking in their Russian parliament, the Duma, of not ratifying our important arms control agreements--

JIM LEHRER: Because of this?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: That's because of this NATO enlargement. I've met personally with them. Secondly, we're dealing in compassion, gentlemen. We all share the compassion for these nations having suffered in World War II. I'm concerned about the future, the young men and women of our armed forces who will be a part of NATO and who will be called upon if necessary to fight. They're not even stationing troops in the new countries for fear of aggravating Russia. I say to you this decision is not made at the right time if it's to be made. Russia is struggling for its political identity, struggling for its economic survival in the free market, and we have an uncertainty about the year 2000 as to who will succeed into leadership. And that's why I put forth an amendment this coming Thursday to say if unwisely the Senate admits the three, then that's--

JIM LEHRER: That's it.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: --it for a period of three years, so we can study and get cost analysis and--

JIM LEHRER: Let me--

SEN. JOHN WARNER: --live through the Russian transition to the next government.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask all of you, beginning with you, Ambassador Hunter, those of us who are not experts on NATO ask this question: What--how could you have an alliance without an adversary? I mean, is this an alliance against Russia? If it's not, who is it against? Who are these people protecting? Who are we going to help them protect themselves against?

ROBERT HUNTER: We do have an adversary. It's the kind of uncertainty, instability, lack of confidence that helped give us the three wars in the past. You don't have to have an enemy to prevent war. If NATO were just enlarging, as we've been hearing here, then perhaps it would be a bad idea in terms of the Russians--that's not all it's doing. In fact, NATO has been reaching out to the Russians to try to draw them out of their 80 years of self-imposed isolation. Now, there may be some concern in Russia, as Sen. Warner correctly says, about hurt feelings and about NATO incorporating countries that used to be part of their sphere of influence, but Mr. Yeltsin didn't have to go to Paris last year and sign the agreement for a partnership with NATO. The Russians this very day don't have to be at NATO working with the alliance on a strategic partnership and, in fact, today is the 860th day that troops have been in Bosnia. That includes 1500 Russian soldiers acting just as though they were already in NATO. So all these things are being done together to help prevent what Sen. Warner is talking about of our troops ever having to fight.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think this could actually have a negative impact, that it could cause more instability, rather than stability?

MICHAEL MANDELBAUM: It's already had a negative impact. We're already getting less cooperation with the Russians on the issues that matter to us, including first and foremost reducing the nuclear threat to the United States. The deputy chairman of the Committee on National Security and the Russian parliament was here a few weeks ago. He's devoting night and day to trying to pass that treaty, and he has said flat out that this makes it much harder for him, that NATO expansion has interfered with arms production and with the desire of Russian democrats to cooperate with the West. So there's absolutely no doubt that this is hurting us. The question is how much. And alas, this is going to be the gift that will keep on giving because if we pass this first expansion, we will be morally and politically and strategically committed to taking it all the way to the Russian border.

JIM LEHRER: What about Sen. Warner's amendment, even with Sen. Warner's amendment?

MICHAEL MANDELBAUM: Well, Sen. Warner's amendment will help but the pressure will still be there. We'll never be able to get this off the agenda.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: Do you realize that the American taxpayer today is expending billions of dollars to help Russia in the dismantling safely, primarily of its military equipment related to nuclear weapons? That's with one hand, and the other hand we're taking a hot poker and shoving it right into them and saying we're going to start to build the ring around you of these new nations, and that poses a potential threat in their viewpoint, looking from their side.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Lieberman.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Jim, the fact is that NATO has always had two purposes: one is common defense against an enemy previously from the East, no longer from the East; secondly, it has been an institution in which disputes among the members could be resolved, and that's why I feel very strongly that my friend, Michael Mandelbaum, is absolutely wrong on this one. There would be greater instability in Central and Eastern Europe if we turned these nations down because NATO membership has given them a motivation to democratize, to move to market economy, and to reconcile their problems. We have threats. The threats will come from instability in Central and Eastern Europe, and not from the East but from the South. Remember, that as we approach--

JIM LEHRER: The South.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: The Middle East. Remember, as we approached the possibility of military action just a few months ago in Iraq, the forces in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland were among the most enthusiastic and steadfast about coming to our aid. These three countries add 200,000 soldiers to NATO. In fact, they reduce the prospect that my friend from Virginia has suggested. They will protect American soldiers from going into combat that would otherwise have to do it. They share our burden.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think would be the effect if the U.S. Senate turns this thing down?

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: Oh, I think it would be devastating. I think that the effect, again, Russia has nothing to fear from these three countries in our expansion, so this is all psychology there. In these countries it would create tremendous instability; it would probably bring about the movement against some of the democratic trends that have occurred.

JIM LEHRER: Just by a vote in the U.S. Senate?

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: I believe it would because--it's a slap in the face to these people who have fought for freedom. And now they've gotten it, and we would shut them out.

JIM LEHRER: Sen. Warner, Sen. Lott was on this program last week. I asked him what was going to happen, and he said that he thinks the Senate will, in fact, ratify this. Do you count the same way?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: In my judgment, the persons in opposition--Senators in opposition's growing. We've crossed the 20 mark. We had 24 votes today on the First Amendment. The key amendment--

JIM LEHRER: You need what? You need--

SEN. JOHN WARNER: We need 34.

JIM LEHRER: You need 34. Okay.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: It's not that we're trying to trash the American foreign policy. We're thinking about the future and how our foreign policy can add greater strength to Europe, less risk to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, and, indeed, less cost to the American taxpayer. And Russia is stabilizing now to stabilize itself politically, militarily, and economically. And there's a window of an opportunity. They pose no threat. They couldn't even put down a civil war in Chechnya, much less mount a military attack against these three nations today.

JIM LEHRER: We have to go. The vote is going to come tomorrow or--the final vote Thursday night. Gentlemen, thank you all very much. CONVERSATION - PLAYING BEETHOVEN

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a violinist takes on Beethoven, and to Phil Ponce.

PHIL PONCE: German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has been called one of her generation's most influential musicians. She first came to international attention as a child prodigy under the tutelage of famed conductor Herbert Von Carrian. Since then, she's been in demand in concert halls and recording studios around the world. Now, at age 34, she's taking on what she says is her most important music projects so far--spending the year performing Beethoven's 10 Sonatas for Violin and Piano around the globe. Here's a brief excerpt from a rehearsal with pianist Lambert Orkis.[

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER PLAYING VIOLIN]

PHIL PONCE: And now we're joined by Anne-Sophie Mutter, who's in the midst of the American leg of her year-long tribute to Beethoven.Welcome.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER, Violinist: Thank you.

PHIL PONCE: First question: Why are you doing this?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: It's such an exciting project because I can finally live Beethoven's life for a span of 15 years. As a soloist, I never have the chance to really encounter such a long spread of development. There is one concerto by Beethoven and one triple concerto--that's it. And he started composing these ten sonatas when he was only 27. So I got to meet a very young, very witty, very charming and playful man, which you would not necessarily think Beethoven was because we all know the Beethoven of the eruptive middle period of his life, a man who could be very brutal also in his musical language. But there are many, many faces to Beethoven.

PHIL PONCE: So when you say 15 years, these 10 sonatas were written over the course of 15 years of life. And in that way, you're sort of getting to know Beethoven.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Yes, that's right. And I get to know him as a pupil of Haydn evolving into his own style, and then we close the cycle with Sonata No. 10, we are already hitting Opus 96, which is rather late. And we chose a Beethoven which is very mature and for all the struggle he has to go through, for all the struggle of getting deaf, and various other problems in his life. You can feel how he finally not gives in but he accepts the way life treated him. And he still finds beauty in it. And that's very touching.

PHIL PONCE: Let's back up and just throw out some very basic terms, maybe too basic for some, but a sonata is a type of chamber music, and it's usually written for one or two solo instrumentalists.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Yes, that's right.

PHIL PONCE: So in this case it's piano and violin.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Yes.

PHIL PONCE: And Beethoven just wrote ten.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Yes.

PHIL PONCE: And the way you're doing it, the ten sonatas, how do you split them up over the course of the concerts in each city?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: We split them up over the course of three evenings. They belong together in a certain array of grouping. For example, the Opus 12, there are two--there are three sonatas which belong together, which you cannot separate, because one actually initiates the upcoming one. And then in the first program we as well, as in the second half Opus Twenty-three and -four are once published under the same Opus, which showsvery much that they belong together. And the next program consists of three pieces he has written for Alexander, the Russian Czar. And the last set of sonatas consist of two pieces which are of enormous size, "size" meaning the musical ideas are so broad and substantial that he needs four movements, for example, in the "Kreutzer" to express that we have various variation movements in the "Kreutzer" as well. That was written for a wonderful violinist, "Bridgetower," which also did the world premiere. And there's a great story going with that because when they, both of them did the premiere, Beethoven on the piano, Bridgetower broke into a cadenza in the middle of the piece, and Beethoven jumped out of stool and, you know, congratulated Beethoven--Bridgetower, and said, wow, that's great, do it again. That, for me, knowing that story now shows very much that he was a passionate performer, that he was not at all this kind of classical, maybe remote and very controlled composer.

PHIL PONCE: Ms. Mutter, how many hours total do the three concerts comprise, roughly?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: About five and a half.

PHIL PONCE: Five and a half hours of playing over three nights. Isn't--do you get tired?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Mentally, never, but physically, of course, you can count your bones after these programs.

PHIL PONCE: So, is the exhaustion in the--in what--in the arm? Is it in your neck? Is it just throughout?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Primarily, the exhaustion comes from the constant dialogue between the piano and the violin. Let's not forget that they are titled Piano and Violin Sonatas, and actually in the first ones the piano is really the leading instrument in the sonatas. Later on, Beethoven challenges that by putting the violin side to side with the piano. And that's one of the great moments for me as a violin player and a soloist, to see how the violin evolves from the mere role of accompanying the piano in Opus 23, which is the fourth sonata, already being the equal partner and the singing voice finally of Beethoven's composing.

PHIL PONCE: Do you feel a personal bond with Beethoven?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Very much, yes, very, very much. Not only because he has put the writing for violin in a new perspective, that he has given an equal right for the violin to be as important as the piano, but also because he had such wonderful human goals and dreams. He was always dreaming. Think of Phidelia, where he describes the ideal partnership between two people--the eternal love and that you would sacrifice your life for your beloved, or the 9th Symphony, where he dreams of brotherhood, eternal brotherhood. I mean, these are, of course, illusions, but something, nevertheless, to try to achieve on a small scale.

PHIL PONCE: I'm also told that even between performances rehearsal is very important to you.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Yes. Well, it is crucial for some--

PHIL PONCE: Are you a perfectionist?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Yes. But, do you know, for some non- musicians it's hard to understand why Lambert and I are constantly rehearsing. It's not that we don't know the pieces by now, but it's--first of all, every evening you have to prove it to yourself, to the audience, that you--that the spirit is really flying there, that the sparks are flying, and you have to climb this mountain every evening. If you have conquered it the evening before, that doesn't mean anything. The moment you go on stage, you have to do it again.

PHIL PONCE: What motivates you to climb that mountain night after night? Why do you do it?

ANNE- SOPHIE MUTTER: Well, there are wonderful moments happening in music. There is a bond happening between the musician and the audience because the audience is the third very important partner in the concert. They are the ones who want to hear it. They are the ones who, you know, the silence they can produce, that's really the soil on which music can grow or not.

PHIL PONCE: What do you experience? What are you thinking, what are you feeling as you're making music on stage?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: It depends if it's an easygoing evening, if everything is just right, the piano is great, and the acoustic is wonderful, and the audience is attentive, and then, of course, you're flying. There are other evenings where you have to work very hard and struggle very much because of many, many reasons, but it's wonderful to feel a sort of development, a sort of change every evening. You know, this constant dialogue between piano and violin can be so refined and very changeable.

PHIL PONCE: Your parents were not musical, I've read, but when you were age five, you demanded to have violin lessons. I mean, what was the impulse there?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Some recordings I heard. I remember that we listened to a lot of music at home, and I vividly remember a recording of Mendelssohn with Menouin. And that probably was the initial trigger, you know, that put me into passion.

PHIL PONCE: Now, aside from the fact that you're highly thought of as a musician, the image that you project off camera with the image of glamour and the image of the beautiful gowns, have you sort of raised the bar for other performers where now they not only have to sound good but look good too?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: You know, for me most of the problem is that I do more in music than only brush up my violin. For me, very and most important is that I try to leave a small mark. I'm very much reminded of what Mother Teresa once said. She said on earth you can do only very little things, but you can do little things with a lot of love. And when I'm able to give a benefit with Lambert together as we do it for the Esther Boyer College in Philadelphia, Temple University--

PHIL PONCE: That's a music college in Philadelphia.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Yes. Then that leaves a wonderful mark because it's inspiration not only for the teachers there that they are acknowledged that we tried to help them in order to get new instruments but also for the students, who see that they are taken serious; that somebody from overseas, you know, is putting them in the limelight.

PHIL PONCE: Well, you didn't exactly answer my question, but I'll take that answer. Last question: How do you feel when you've finished one of these--when you finish the third night of this ten sonata cycle? Are you exhausted? Are you exhilarated?

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: It depends on how well the concert went. If it was a good concert, then I'm very grateful because these pieces are so wonderful, and not only that it hopefully gives something to the audience, but it also gives much to the ones who play, who are connected with Beethoven at that moment. Great stuff.

PHIL PONCE: Ms. Mutter, thank you very much for being here, and good luck with your year's endeavor.

ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER: Thank you, Phil. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday, the Social Security trustees' annual report said the system would remain solvent until the year 2032, three years longer than expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a second straight day of losses, closing down nearly 19 points, and on the NewsHour tonight Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector RichardButler said Iraq has failed to provide hard evidence it has destroyed its chemical and biological weapons. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.