The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is off this week. On the NewsHour tonight, Kwame Holman and Gwen Ifill on the debate over funding American troops in Kosovo, Tom Bearden looks at the effect of lengthening missions on the National Guard and reserves; we'll have a Lee Hochberg report from Oregon and a Margaret Warner discussion on ballot initiatives, and a favorite poem from a California middle schooler. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

RAY SUAREZ: Congress today debated the future of the U.S. peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The House voted 264-153 to set a deadline of July 1, next year, for withdrawing the troops. That's unless European allies pay their share of rebuilding Kosovo. The Senate considered its own deadline measure, but Secretary of State Albright warned against it.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: This is playing with fire. In the Balkans, signs of impatience can be misinterpreted as symptoms of weakness. We cannot afford that in a region where weakness attracts vultures. Our job with our partners is to prevent future violence and help democratic principles take root. And if we leave now, I predict now we'll have to return to the Balkans again and again.

RAY SUAREZ: Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush joined the White House in opposing any deadlines for the Kosovo mission. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Governor Bush also backed President Clinton on the China trade issue today. He urged Congress to approve a bill giving permanent trade benefits to the Chinese. He said it was in the economic and national security interests of the United States, and would encourage political freedom in China. The bill won approval in key House and Senate committees today. In Sierra Leone today, pro- government forces captured rebel leader Foday Sankoh in the capital, Freetown. We have a report from Richard Vaughan of Associated Press Television News.

RICHARD VAUGHAN: Sankoh is seen here on the right of the picture, immediately after his arrest-- injured, stripped, and surrounded by his captors. British forces later took him to a secure location where w was being held by the Sierra Leonean authorities. The British foreign secretary, speaking in Moscow, welcomed Sankoh's capture and detention.

ROBIN COOK, Foreign Secretary, Britain: This deprives the rebels of their leader. I hope it means that it will deprive them of the reason for continuing their fight, and encourages me in the view that we have actually put the rebel advance into reverse and that we are on our way to our objective of stabilizing Sierra Leone and putting the peace process back on track.

RICHARD VAUGHAN: Sankoh disappeared last week after his rebel fighters opened fire on civilians demonstrating outside his home in Freetown. 19 people were killed. In an apparently unconnected incident, a number of RUF rebels were shot dead by British paratroopers on Wednesday. The British troops are in Sierra Leone to assist with the evacuation of European and commonwealth citizens. Sankoh's current whereabouts are not known, and it's not clear how the rebels, who are still holding 350 U.N. peacekeepers, will respond to their leader's capture.

RAY SUAREZ: Since that report was filed, the rebels have freed 80 of those hostages. The Environmental Protection Agency today unveiled new rules to fight diesel pollution. Refiners would have to make fuel that's virtually sulfur free, and trucks and buses would have to cut tailpipe emissions by 95%. Officials from the EPA and the oil industry held separate news conferences in Washington.

CAROL BROWNER, EPA Administrator: Every American who has driven behind buses or heavy-duty trucks is very familiar with the smell of diesel fuel and the clouds of thick exhaust emissions. Such air pollution is not just dirty and annoying. It is a threat to our health -- particularly in light of growing evidence linking it to lung cancer.

EDWARD MURPHY, American Petroleum Institute: The EPA's proposal goes beyond what is practical and cost-effective or supported by existing technology. It would require refiners to make huge investments that could drive some out of the business and make them reduce the volumes of sulfur diesel that they manufacturer. A reduction in supply, even small, could hurt diesel consumers, particularly the trucking industry.

RAY SUAREZ: The new requirements would be phased in over seven to ten years. They're expected to be become final later this year, after a period of public comment. Two longtime suspects were jailed today in the bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Former Ku Klux Klansmen Thomas Blanton and Robert Cherry were charged with murder. The bombing killed four young girls and captured national attention. A third man was convicted in the case in the 1970's. He died in prison. The investigation was reopened three years ago. The largest, most complete tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found went on display today. Chicago's field Museum of Natural History unveiled the 67- million-year-old fossil, named Sue for its discoverer, Sue Hendrickson. It's 41 feet long, with teeth as long as a human forearm. It was unearthed in South Dakota in 1990. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the debate over funding the Kosovo mission; the guard and reserves on longer and longer missions; voters make laws at the ballot box; and another favorite poem.

FOCUS - DEPARTURE DEADLINE?

RAY SUAREZ: Congress and Kosovo. We start with a report from Kwame Holman.

KWAME HOLMAN: The United States still has some 5,900 troops in Kosovo. That's about 15% of NATO's peacekeeping mission there. But this afternoon in the House of Representatives, an unlikely pair of allies made a move to end U.S. involvement in Kosovo. Republican John Kasich of Ohio and Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank cosponsored the legislation that would force U.S. troops to withdraw from Kosovo by next April 1, unless the President certifies America's European allies are meeting their military and humanitarian obligations.

REP. JOHN KASICH, Chairman, Budget Committee: When you take a look at it in terms of the commitment that the United States has made and the amount of resources that have been expended, it is very reasonable for us to call on our European allies to live up to there pledge.

REP. FLOYD SPENCE, Chairman, Armed Services Committee: The air war was mainly our war. They couldn't even participate. They didn't have the technology to do it. So we expended a lot of our assets in doing that. Now our European allies must shoulder the burden of keeping the peace.

KWAME HOLMAN: Opposition to the conditional withdrawal of troops from Kosovo was voiced primarily by Democrats.

REP. SAM GEJDENSON, (D) Connecticut: We are now in a position where the European forces are the overwhelming part of the military, and they are, not in every instance, not in every account, but shouldering their burden for the first time.

REP. NORM DICKS, (D) Washington: If we have an argument with our allies, we should sit down with our NATO partners and negotiate directly with them. But to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and to try to set a date certain on this matter to me is foolish and counterproductive.

KWAME HOLMAN: While the House was debating withdrawing troops from Kosovo, the Senate was preparing to begin its debate on similar legislation.

SPOKESMAN: Mr. President, could I take one minute to state the Byrd-Warner amendment?

KWAME HOLMAN: An amendment cosponsored by Virginia Republican John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, would bring the troops out by July of next year, unless Congress votes to extend their stay. Defense Secretary William Cohen is opposed to setting a deadline for the troops in Kosovo, and has said he would recommend the President veto any such legislation. And a spokesman for George W. Bush yesterday said the Republican presidential candidate also is opposed to the measures. Nevertheless, the House approved the Kasich-Frank amendment on Kosovo troop withdrawal overwhelmingly.

SPOKESMAN: The ayes 264, the nays are 153 and the amendment is agreed to.

KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, this evening back in the Senate Arizona Republican John McCain and Michigan Democrat Carl Levin introduced an alternative amendment that would allow troops to remain in Kosovo indefinitely unless Congress votes to remove them. Final Senate votes are expected tomorrow.

RAY SUAREZ: Gwen Ifill takes the story from there.

GWEN IFILL: Now, for more on the U.S. role in Kosovo, we are joined by Republican Senators John Warner of Virginia and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and, Democratic Senators Joseph Biden of Delaware and Carl Levin of Michigan. Senator Warner, the House just 90 days ago maybe, in March, passed a resolution, a bill that would do exactly the opposite of what it passed today. Since you helped draft that House resolution that passed today, which set new limits on our involvement there, what is the say about Congress changing its mind about what our role in Kosovo should be?

SEN. JOHN WARNER, Chairman, Armed Services Committee: Well, Gwen, I don't want to speak for the House of Representatives, but you're correct. The action just voted on overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives is a contribution that I made of some several months ago when I came back from Kosovo and I learned first hand that our allies had not lived up to their commitments in bringing in the necessary funds, the necessary policemen and the like to reestablish that war-torn region. And I said, "Time is out. We should bring to their attention our willingness to remain as a partner, provided they live up there to their contributions, which they committed to do." We flew the majority of the missions in 78 days of combat, supplied the majority of the ammunition, the airlift because we had the equipment and we were an integral part of NATO to do just that. And I think it's important, as we, the Congress, are about to expend $2 billion of taxpayers' money for the operations past in Kosovo and up until this September, that we should make it very clear that we want to continue as partners in this operation, provided first the allies live up to their dollar commitments and, secondly, into next year, that a succession of Presidents, President Clinton first and then the next elected President come to the Congress and say, "it is important to remain." And I can tell you right now, if the next President says, that he'll get the Senator from Virginia's vote, assuming he makes a strong case. So it's not that we're trying to pull out; we're trying to bring the Congress in as an equal partner, as the Constitution provides, and voice on behalf of the people, the continuation of this mission in Kosovo. Your next section deals with the problems in the military today of retention and recruiting because our men and women are stretched so far around the globe, they're not staying in, in the numbers necessary to maintainour force. This is one of the reasons.

GWEN IFILL: Let's try to get to the other side of this story. Senator Biden, we just heard Madeleine Albright say today that she believes that action on the Senate on this bill would be playing with fire. You've heard the NATO Commander Wesley Clark also say that this would give Slobodan Milosevic the victory he could not achieve in the battlefield. How do you make that case on the floor of the Senate?

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, (D) Delaware: I think it's real easy to make the case on the floor of the Senate. Whether I get the votes is a different thing. First of all, we have 100,000 troops in Europe that aren't in Kosovo or the Balkans. If we're stretched so thin, why don't we take 5,800 out of Europe - 5800 out of Germany. What's the - no Americans die -- 5,600 Americans are in Kosovo. People aren't dying now. The carnage has ended. There is the beginning of a stability in that region a building of a stable region of Europe. And at the same time, the Europeans have now met their commitment. -- 40,000 forces on the ground are non-American. 5,600 are American. On average, we're expending 13% to 17% of whatever the category is, police or reconstruction funds or whatever. And so we're doing... the Europeans are doing what we asked them do to do. Now, if this is a constitutional issue of the Congress speaking, well, let's vote now. If it's a constitutional requirement now, then it exists. If doesn't become a constitutional requirement until next year when John and others say that's the time we're going to make the decision, then there is no constitutional requirement. Either it exists or it doesn't. And lasts point I'll make is this: The idea that we can in fact withdraw all our ground forces from that area and expect there not to be a change in the environment in that area in a negative way is, I think, is pollyannaish to think that's the case. I just think this is a bad idea.

GWEN IFILL: Thank you, Senator. Senator Hutchison, you just heard that point. And you support withdrawal. If this bill does pass, if this amendment does pass, what does that say about the United States' commitment to peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo and elsewhere abroad?

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, (R) Texas: This is not about withdrawing troops. We're not setting a deadline to withdraw troops. What we're doing is saying we want the next President to be able to come in, look at the situation, assess it and have a plan. What has been missing in the Kosovo operation is a strategy and a clear mission. We are acting as policemen right now. We have our U.S. troops guarding maybe one family, taking that family to the dentist and back. That is not what we signed on to do. Now, we can do these kinds of things on an interim basis, but we've got to set in place the groundwork for them to have a police force because, as Senator Warner said, we're losing our own troops. I visited on Easter Sunday a guard unit that is there for eight months in control in Bosnia. The guard unit is there because we didn't have an active-duty unit to send. When the Senator from Delaware says we have only 6,000 troops on the ground in Kosovo, he's not counting all the troops that are surrounding those troops for their protection and safety. Now, I don't quarrel that we want to have them protected, but it is not an efficient operation for us to have that many troops in Bosnia and Kosovo on a mission that is unending, that is wearing out our active-duty troops and affecting our own national security interests. So we're trying to do something responsible, we're trying to set a timetable in which a new President would come in, give us an assessment of what we can do to have a lasting peace. We're not going to drop our allies and walk out. We're not going to be irresponsible friends.

GWEN IFILL: If I can just peg you bring you back on the point you just made about the new President. Are you a supporter of Governor Bush. Governor Bush said yesterday that he thinks the Senate and Congress would be overreaching by passing this amendment.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: I respectfully do not think that is the case. And I think that, if Governor Bush... I haven't had a chance to talk to him, but I if I this... I think if he understood that we are trying to give him time, if he is elected, to put a strategy in place and then, if he comes to the Congress and says, "I need six more months or nine more months or we need to set an exit that lasts for two years," we would be supportive of that, if we saw a clear plan and he made the case, which I think he is absolutely capable of doing.

GWEN IFILL: Senator Levin, let's talk about Presidential prerogative for a moment. This President obviously has already threatened to veto the entire under lying military construction bill if this language is included. Is this a question of Presidential prerogative, or is this a question of that this Congress does not trust this President that we have right now?

SEN. CARL LEVIN, (D) Michigan: In my judgment, it's a question of whether it's wise to set a deadline, and we might as well address that issue first and foremost. This language sets a deadline. It says Congress can change its mind next year and undo the deadline, but it sets a deadline, period. Now, if the sponsors of the language in this bill want to strike that deadline, we have a totally different situation. But the deadline is there, it is July of next year, unless Congress changes its mind. That creates between now and then, a very dangerous period of uncertainty and instability, which in the words of General Clark, who is our commander there until recent weeks, creates danger for our forces, that period of uncertainty is very dangerous because Milosevic will seek to gain an advantage during that period and because both the Serbs and the Albanians, because they're uncertain whether we will change our mind and stay, are going to seek to arm themselves for the day in which we leave. Now, the NATO Secretary-General, Mr. Robertson, has written us very clearly that from NATO's perspective, this bill means the effective pullout of American forces is threatened and that will do severe damage to the NATO alliance. What this does is, after we have won a victory there, after we have returned a million refugees to their home, it just sort of grabs defeat from a victorious situation. Now, there's plenty of problems there, let me tell you, but there's no use turning a victory into a defeat by creating in deadline and the uncertainty which is then created.

GWEN IFILL: How about that Senator Warner, would the passage of this amendment just be a setback?

SEN. JOHN WARNER: No. You know, I regret that everybody's saying the sky's going to fall in. We're but 15% of the total force of over 40,000 troops in this region. To follow my good friend Senator Levin's argument, if 15%-- and we're not taking them all out, we're only taking out the ground combat troops. We're leaving in the support and the airlift and so forth, so the U.S. isn't pulling out all together. But the point is: If the other 85% are so inefficient as to induce Milosevic to come crashing back in again, I just think that's almost injurious to those wonderful nations that are in there, the 85%, that you can't handle the job if a few more of your troops replace ours. Furthermore, there's a provision in this bill which says, if Milosevic or anyone else were to begin to threaten the security of the Kosovo region, our President could waive this legislation and immediately send in forces that are necessary to stop that type of aggression. So we're not walking away from this ever situation.

GWEN IFILL: Senator Biden, is that enough of an assurance for you?

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: That's no assurance, Gwen. What it says is, look, there's stability now. We'll pull out. If instability is created, we'll be go back in. Look, right now we all talk about... spend a lot of time dealing with, this all four of us, whether or not Milosevic is going to destabilize Montenegro. There is a great discussion about whether or not NATO would move if he did that. You know that, John, and we all know that. Now, what do you think Milosevic will conclude, his options are if the 5,600 American forces, ground forces, combat forces leave? And what do you think the rest of our allies will do? What do you think those nations that aren't the front-line states are going to do? They're going to say, "wait a minute now. They're out, we're in?" I mean, I don't get this. And in terms of the next President, the next President of the United States, he doesn't need this to make a judgment. If he leaves the troops in, he's obviously made his judgment.

GWEN IFILL: Senator Hutchison, why don't you respond to that.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: I would say it is time for the United States of America to become a leader, to act like the superpower that we are. I see a whole different scenario. I don't see us just leaving Kosovo, pulling up stakes and leaving. I see us convening all the parties and coming back together and saying, "okay, what can we do to create a lasting peace?" And I think passing this bill will give the incentive to them to come to the table. And I think if we act like a leader and we present a plan and we have all of the parties at the table, their incentive will be there, they will come to the table, we will have the chance for a peace that will really last, we will do our part to transition, through the time that we have to to make sure that that peace is on the right footing, and then we would be able to cycle out. So I don't see...

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Will Milosevic be at the table?

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: Absolutely.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: Milosevic an indicted war criminal, we're going to have at a table to negotiate with him.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON: Otherwise, you're going to have our troops on the ground in harm's way with no mission and just declare that status quo is a policy. Status quo is not a policy.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: For 50 years, we had 300,000 troops in Europe doing just that. Thank God our fathers and mothers had patience.

GWEN IFILL: Let me bring Senator Levin in on this for a final answer, which is what should our mission be. Senator Hutchison says we are kind of aimless and don't have a mission right now in Kosovo. What should it be?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Our mission is to maintain the stability in there with our allies. We're doing a very good job of it. We're gradually getting that stability back. We've returned a million refugees to their homes. The Europeans have taken over 85% now of this chore. They have 85% of the ground forces. They are doing the lion's share of the humanitarian assistance and other assistance. For us to pull the rug out from under our own allies after we have won this success it seems to me is an absolute non-to policy, it is the worst thing we can do after we have been able to bring some stability back to the Balkans and avoid a much wider war, which could drag us in even deeper.

GWEN IFILL: Anybody want to take a crack at how this vote's going to turn out tomorrow?

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN: I would just say the following: You saw that strong vote in the House. I think the Senate will take a look at, that but we have over 100,000 American soldiers right there as a part of the NATO force. This is a NATO operation, and they could respond. Our President has the authority to make them respond if a problem occurs. Let me just say the bottom line is this: We should not be spending $2 billion without Congress speaking on this issue and reserving to itself the right to vote in the future on the next President's plan to stay or not stay. That's what it is.

GWEN IFILL: That will have to be the last word. Thank you, Senators, all very much.

RAY SUAREZ: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, citizen soldiers on longer trips from home, when voters head to the ballot box to pass laws, and another in our series of favorite poems.

FOCUS - CITIZEN SOLDIERS

RAY SUAREZ: But next, the impact of long peacekeeping missions on the national guard and the reserve. Tom Bearden has the story.

TOM BEARDEN: In Salem, Oregon, Mindy Hagerman has a brand new baby named Tyler. It was a difficult pregnancy, ending with a cesarean section delivery. She also has four-year-old daughter Bree to take care of. But her husband isn't here to help.

MINDY HAGERMAN: Do you want me to tell them what daddy sent you when he was over there for you to take to your preschool?

BREE: Dinosaur treats.

MINDY HAGERMAN: Candies. And what did he say? Where were they from?

BREE: Bosnia.

TOM BEARDEN: Bosnia-- that's where Bree's father is. First Lieutenant Robert Hagerman is spending nine months at Eagle Base near Tuzla, headquarters for the multinational peacekeeping force operating in the American sector in Bosnia. He flies evacuation helicopters for the 1042nd medical company. Mrs. Hagerman says she's okay most of the time, but once in a while his absence really hits her.

MINDY HAGERMAN: It's one of those things that it blind-sides you. You'll be just going... Doing something real easy and wouldn't... you wouldn't think it would hit a little nerve, and then all of a sudden you'll think, "oh, I remember when Rob's home, that's what we do."

TOM BEARDEN: It's tough, isn't it?

MINDY HAGERMAN: (crying) It is.

SPOKESMAN: We're going to head through the Menvez routes up to McGovern, drop off supplies. They're all loaded. We're all set.

TOM BEARDEN: Lieutenant Hagerman was lucky. He was allowed to come home for two weeks shortly before his wife delivered Tyler. But then he had to go back to Bosnia.

1ST LT. ROBERT HAGERMAN: I said my good-byes, gave them a hug and a kiss, turned around and there was no way I could look back, absolutely no way.

TOM BEARDEN: So what's new about any of this? Military families have faced these hardships for generations. But they used to be the families of full-time, active-duty career soldiers. Robert Hagerman is a part-time solider. He's in the Oregon National Guard. More and more guardsmen and reservists are facing lengthy deployments that many never anticipated. For nearly 50 years, most reserve units only went to weekend drills once a month and spent two weeks in the summer on training exercises like this one in Oklahoma. After Vietnam, the Pentagon pursued a new policy of assigning essential support units like Medivac, civil affairs, and aerial refueling to the guard and reserve instead of the active duty forces. As a result, reserve call-ups increased 300% over the past decade. Retired National Guard Major General William Navas:

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM A. NAVAS, Army National Guard (Ret.): The idea here was to structure the regular forces, especially the army, in such a way that you could not fight a war like Vietnam without the use of the citizen soldiers, the guard and the reserve.

TOM BEARDEN: General Navas says the policy was designed to bring the question of how to deploy U.S. troops directly to the American people.

MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM A. NAVAS: Because now the American people are starting to question, "should we be involved in this long-term, protracted involvements?" And one of the things that makes it to the forefront is the fact that you're taking, you know, units from all over the United States.

TOM BEARDEN: The first test of the policy came in the Persian Gulf when some 265,000 reservists were called up for Operation Desert Storm. The need to activate guard and reserve units didn't end with the gulf war. Peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and elsewhere proliferated. For the 1042nd, that translated into a nine-month assignment to Bosnia that began in February. Individual soldiers sometimes serve much longer. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, Charles Cragin, says in the future, reservists should expect it.

CHARLES L. CRAGIN, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs: I think there are still some out there that have not fully appreciated that this force has been transformed in the last few years. And to some extent, we don't do a very good job sometimes in our advertising. I mean, I still hear advertisements that say, you know, "two weeks in the summer and, and a couple of days a month." That's fine as far as it goes. But I think we also have to go the extra mile and explain that these are expertise areas that we truly rely upon, and we're going to be continuing to use them.

TOM BEARDEN: Reliance on the reserves reached a new level in March when the headquarters element of the Texas-based 49th Armored Division took command of the American sector in Bosnia after extensive stateside training. It's the first time a guard unit has commanded active duty troops in the field since the Korean War.

SOLDIER: Gentlemen, the commanding general!

TOM BEARDEN: Major General Robert Halverson, the recently retired state deputy insurance commissioner, commands the 49th Armored Division.

MAJ. GEN. ROBERT HALVERSON, Texas National Guard: We built a team, brought it over here. That team is functioning very well. And if you walk around and look at how soldiers are doing their job today, you can't tell that one is a reserve component soldier and the other is active duty soldier.

TOM BEARDEN: But the General says there is one key difference.

MAJ. GEN. ROBERT HALVERSON: Most of our soldiers have never been away from their... Their families, unlike active duty soldiers. And so it's a... it's a real challenge for the soldiers to separate from their families.

TOM BEARDEN: General Halverson says despite the hardships, morale is high. Most of the servicemen we talked to, like 1042nd commander Matthew Brady, agreed.

MAJ. MATTHEW BRADY, Oregon National Guard: I'm having a good time. It's exciting. It's something that we don't get to do in our unit other than maybe at annual training every, you know, summer. So to me, this has been a blast.

TOM BEARDEN: But some reservists and guardsmen are facing a serious problem: Keeping their civilian jobs, even though federal law is supposed to guarantee those jobs will be waiting when they leave active duty.

SPOKESMAN: Thank you very much.

TOM BEARDEN: John Hayes is the 49th division headquarters' first sergeant. He was a pilot for Petroleum Helicopters, incorporated, the largest U.S. Helicopter Company, flying workers and supplies to offshore oil drilling platforms.

1st SGT. JOHN HAYES, Texas National Guard: Petroleum Helicopters, when they discovered that I was going to be gone for up to two years on this deployment, they felt like that they did not have to keep my job available for me, even though I explained to them not only my interpretation of the law, I sent them a copy of the... of the code, a copy of the Act. Their response was to terminate my employment there.

TOM BEARDEN: Sergeant Hayes is pursuing legal action against the company, which denies the charge. But firings are extremely rare, and the Defense Department says most employers abide by the law.

SPOKESMAN: Do you have earplugs?

TOM BEARDEN: Some soldiers simply quit the guard rather than deploy. Several 1042nd guardsmen left when the unit's deployment was announced. Three of them were Oregon state troopers. David Montgomery, who was not deployed to Bosnia, went the opposite way. He resigned from the state police so he could continue flying transport planes for the Oregon guard. He says the Department is forcing guardsmen to choose.

CWO DAVID MONTGOMERY, Oregon National Guard: I know several people in the guard that... or I should say that were in the guard that wanted to stay in the state police and they saw the writing on the wall and they made the smart decision to get out of the National Guard and support the state police if they wanted to be state troopers. I mean, it's been made clear to me and to quite a few people that I know that if you want a future in the state police, then you're not going to be in the National Guard or the reserves. That's their unofficial policy. It's systemic, it's widespread.

TOM BEARDEN: Lieutenant Greg Hastings is a spokesperson for the Oregon State Police. He says he's not aware of any guard-related problems.

LT. GREG HASTINGS, Spokesman, Oregon State Police: We support the members who are part of the National Guard and any of the active reserves of the armed forces. We do everything that we can to make sure that they can meet whatever commitments, or any activations that they may receive throughout the year.

TOM BEARDEN: But Montgomery says that's not true. He and another former trooper filed federal complaints against the state police. The U.S. Department of Labor is in the process of referring the complaints to the local U.S. Attorney, who will decide whether to proceed in court. If long deployments are causing problems for state policemen, some small businesses are finding them potentially ruinous, like the Mobile Salvage Logging Company, a seven-person operation harvesting timber south of Salem. Robert Johnson scrambles up and down the steep hillside, attaching felled trees to a drag-line that takes them up to the top. He faced a potentially catastrophic problem when Bill Kelley, the man who operated the drag-line, deployed to Bosnia with the 1042nd, where he fixes helicopter turbines. Johnson says he would have had to shut down without Kelley, but found a replacement at the last minute. The experience has given him pause.

TOM BEARDEN: When you go looking for people in the future and somebody tells youthat they belong to the National Guard or the reserve, are you going to look at them a second time? You going to look at them a little bit skeptically?

ROBERT JOHNSON, Mobile Salvage Logging: That's a good question because I think if they're going to start putting these guys, you know, over there more, it could be a question to ask him. I know you're not supposed to, probably, but it would be a tough one because if they're going to get called away, you know, you get them trained for a while, and then all of a sudden you get them the way you want them and then they call them away, it could be a difficult situation again.

TOM BEARDEN: Even so, Johnson says Kelly's job will be waiting for him if he still wants it.

SPOKESMAN: If you go to the chaplain...

TOM BEARDEN: Other employers say there are great advantages to hiring members of the guard and reserve. Ted long is the director of the Columbia River Correctional Institute, a minimum security prison in Portland.

TED LONG, Columbia River Correctional Institution: Benefits to me are staff who get ongoing training in the specialty that most likely fits in with our mission, the joint mission of public safety with the military reserve and guard units, and the public safety mission of the Department of Corrections use a lot of the same... need a lot of the same skills to get the job done.

TOM BEARDEN: But Long, who has two employees currently serving in Bosnia, says there's a limit to how supportive he can afford to be. 10% of his corrections officers are members of the guard or reserve.

TED LONG: It's possible that a comprehensive deployment or activation of 10% of my workforce would certainly deplete the resources we have, the large pools of candidates to temporarily work. It would have a significant, substantial impact.

TOM BEARDEN: Some guardsmen and reservists have a more immediate problem. They've had to give up much larger incomes than their temporary military pay.

MINDY HAGERMAN: I think there's someone in the unit that I want to say was an architect, or is an architect, has his own company, makes over $125,000 a year, and with the guard, he's going down to $28,000 a year. And that's just... I mean, that's a true sacrifice.

TOM BEARDEN: All of these issues cause some to worry about whether the guard and reserves will be able to recruit and retain enough people for the future. The 1042nd's Major Matthew Brady says he plans to stay in the guard.

MAJ. MATTHEW BRADY: Will it deter me personally? No. And a lot of it has to do with our ability to go back to work when we get home. Will it deter a lot of our soldiers? Yes, it will. People did not join the National Guard to go away that often. We knew what the commitment was when we raised our hand. However, what we committed to was one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, and the possibility of going to conflict should our country need us. This is an example of when our country needed us. However, like you said, the guard and the reserve are being called upon more and more, and more often, to go to these kind of operations, and people are not going to stay in knowing that this is... and the unit that we belong to, you know, it's one of those units that will be deployed more often than others.

TOM BEARDEN: But General Halverson doesn't think the guard will have a retention problem.

MAJ. GEN. ROBERT HALVERSON: I think that you will probably find some soldiers who say, "no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to take that chance." But by the same token, I think you will find others that say, "hey, I signed on to do this. I'd signed on to serve my country. If I need to go do a deployment, I'll go do that." These soldiers who come and do this are very enthusiastic about the mission. They're going to go home much better than they were before they got here, and they're going to look forward to training. The biggest concern I have-- them accepting the slower pace of things once we go home. That's going to be a more difficult challenge.

TOM BEARDEN: Even so, the Pentagon recently announced it would limit future army guard deployments to six months.

1ST LT. ROBERT HAGERMAN: I think that's the far edge of what's bearable, and I think they see that as well. I will say that two and three months, four month rotations, are much more enjoyable as far as time away from home goes.

TOM BEARDEN: For the moment, the Oregon guardsmen are counting the days to their return to the Pacific Northwest this fall, and wondering when, or if, they'll be asked to go overseas again.

RAY SUAREZ: Tomorrow night, Tom Bearden reports on how American troops are helping keep the peace in Bosnia.

FOCUS - DEBATING INITIATIVES

RAY SUAREZ: Now, the ballot measure story. Are initiatives the purest form of democracy, or is the process falling prey to moneyed special interests? We begin our coverage with this report from Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting.

LEE HOCHBERG: Oregon is one of the nation's most active states when it comes to initiatives. It's averaged 15 per year in the 1990's, and even had six in yesterday's primary election. One involved a road tax. The heavy trucks that roar down I-5 in Oregon do more damage to the road than cars do. For 50 years, the state has taxed the trucking industry for its share of the repairs. But industry lobbyists convinced the state legislature this winter to change the system, so Oregon motorists pay more for repairs in the form of a higher gas tax, and truck lines pay less.

ANNE O'RYAN, American Automobile Association: I was appalled by the blatant disregard and arrogance of the legislature to kowtow to the big out-of-state special interests.

TOM BEARDEN: Anne O'Ryan of Oregon's AAA says the new law was outrageous. The motorist group used the state's initiative system to let Oregon citizens decide on it. In the form of measure 82, it went to public ballot. The trucking industry began a $4 million advertising blitz to win the election.

SPOKESMAN: ...Costing the average driver less than $3.75 a month, and guarantees we get the highways we need.

TOM BEARDEN: Polls showed the measure so unpopular, though, that with only a third of the money spent, the industry suspended its campaign. The new citizen gas tax was overwhelmingly rejected.

SPOKESPERSON: Stop super-majority voting.

TOM BEARDEN: The initiative system was born of the populist reform movement a century ago, to lessen the influence of money in politics. It enables citizens to bypass state legislatures and enact laws themselves. Laws go to a direct public vote if they generate enough signatures. 24 states use the process today. About 400 initiatives nationwide are now in the process of getting on the ballot, and about 6% will succeed. In Oregon, which requires a relatively low number of signatures, the success rate is usually higher. Some of the state's most innovative laws, like suffrage for women in 1911 and legalization of doctor-aided death for terminally ill patients, were enacted through initiative. But Oregon political activist Dick Springer says many grassroots initiatives in Oregon were derailed by well-funded special interests in the 1990's.

DICK SPRINGER, Activist: Whether it was to limit a harvest and clear-cutting of our forests, limit pollution of our streams, expand Oregon's bottle bill, truly grassroots efforts that had significant public support in the polling, those measures flipped around after millions of dollars of paid advertising.

TOM BEARDEN: More and more, initiatives are sponsored by big money, and fought by big money. Oregon doctors backed measure 81 on this week's ballot, to put a financial cap on jury awards. Proponents raised $700,000 in the campaign. Oregon psychiatrist Ron Hofeldt says doctors can be unfairly driven from their profession by huge malpractice awards.

RON HOFELDT, Psychiatrist: What's we're simply trying to do is to protect the practice of medicine, so the initiative system is an option, and we're using it.

LEE HOCHBERG: The doctors got financial support from insurers and national companies like General Motors, who want jury awards capped. But they came up against $1.5 million from opponents, largely out-of-state trial lawyers who don't want awards capped. The opponents' campaign focused on people like Linda McCathern of Portland, who was awarded $7.5 million by a jury after her Toyota Forerunner flipped over, leaving her a quadriplegic. McCathern says she hasn't seen a penny yet-- her money's been tied up in court appeals-- and she resents all the cash big corporations spent to promote the ballot measure.

LINDA McCATHERN, Accident Victim: I see the big money at work is the insurance companies, automobile industry; anyone that is motivated by profit over justice. And that's what's truly behind this.

LEE HOCHBERG: Oregon voters yesterday rejected the proposed cap. The measure's sponsors say money from outside Oregon doomed their campaign.

RON HOFELDT: This is an Oregon issue, and we wish that the outside money would stay outside. I think it's mind-boggling to all of us, the number of dollars that's coming into this. And it's, I think, a statement of what politics today is all about.

LEE HOCHBERG: Activist Springer says it's not what the initiative system was supposed to be about. He's brought on telephone canvassers to push an initiative of his own for the November election that will limit contributions to Oregon ballot measures to $1,000 apiece.

RAY SUAREZ: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, two perspectives on the initiative process which is used in nearly half the states and in hundreds of localities around the country. "Washington Post" political reporter David Broder is the author of "Democracy Derailed: Initiatives Campaigns and the Power of Money." Dane Waters is president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute in Washington, an organization that studies and promotes the initiative process. Welcome, gentlemen.

Well, David Broder, your book title pretty much sums up your attitude-- "democracy derailed." What is so bad about the initiative process?

DAVID BRODER: I said "derailed" deliberately because I think this was an idea that came to our country about 100 years ago, which was noble in its intent, worked quite well for a while, it was designed to empower average citizens to write the laws at a time when many people saw the corruption in the legislatures. They still see that kind of corruption in legislative bodies today, but increasingly, the initiative process is being used by powerful interest groups and by millionaires who have their own personal political agendas.

MARGARET WARNER: Would you agree with that, that the initiative process has moved quite a ways away from its original concept?

DANE WATERS: No, I would not. I mean, the initiative process was designed to allow people the opportunity to get around the legislature when it was unwilling or unable to deal with certain issues. Today you have rich special interests or millionaires who have tried to get issues through the legislative process and they have been unsuccessful, so they've turned to the initiative process. So it is being used exactly as the progressives and populists envisioned it to be used 100 years ago.

MARGARET WARNER: It does let citizens, though, too, doesn't it David, if the legislature's unresponsive, it gives them another avenue.

DAVID BRODER: When I was reporting on this, I found that there were some genuine citizen initiatives. For example, people who were interested in animal rights often can... in protecting game from what they regard as cruel hunting or trapping practices, they can generate a lot of volunteer support, and they can really manage to get these initiatives on the ballot by their own efforts. But for every case of that kind, I found many more where it was the money that was driving the process. It was the groups or the individuals who had money to put into it who could pay the people who collect the signatures, who could higher hire the lawyers to write these initiatives, and most of all, to hire the political consultants that run these very expensive campaigns now to pass or defeat these initiatives.

MARGARET WARNER: How much of a role does money play in the success of these initiatives, in getting on the ballot or in winning?

DANE WATERS: Well, you have to take the money issue and break it down into three separate discussions. First, is money necessary to utilize the initiative process? Yes. Primarily because of the restrictions and regulations that have been placed on the process. Now, if you talk about what role money plays...

MARGARET WARNER: And you're talking about... Excuse me, that you have to collect, for instance, a certain amount of signatures, and they all have to be to be registered voters.

DANE WATERS: Right. In California you have to collect a million signatures in 120 days. That requires a lot of money. So it takes money to utilize the initiative process. Now, as far as what effect money has in the success of initiatives, only 40% of all ballot measures pass, and that is because people are predisposed to vote no on new laws. When more money is spent in an initiative campaign, that just raises voter doubt, and voters are smart and they're confident and they vote no. You can't take money and just buy a yes vote. Academic after academic says that's not the case. And, you know, David in his book says it doesn't jibe with his viewpoint. But the research shows that that is not correct.

MARGARET WARNER: You raised, David, in your book another criticism apart from the money, and you said... You called the initiative process "an alternative form of government that's alien to the constitution." How do you think it's alien to the constitution?

DAVID BRODER: The men in Independence Hall created what they called a republic in which we would governor ourselves through elected representatives who would be accountable to us at election time. And they put into place all of those checks and balances, which we learned about in our high school civics classes. Those checks and balances were designed to be sure that there was genuine consensus in the society before law was written. Those checks and balances are largely missing from the initiative process, where an individual or a group gets the law written exactly the way they want it by the lawyers that they have hired. It goes on the ballot exactly the way they want it, and then the campaign is designed to sell it exactly as they want it sold. There is never a point in that process where there is a serious discussion, negotiation between the supporters and the opponents to try to work out consensus, which is the essence of the legislative process.

DANE WATERS: The checks and balances on the initiative process are the same that exist on the normal legislative lawmaking process. If an initiative is proposed that infringes upon anybody's minority rights, the courts are there to strike it down. Our founding fathers created a system... created a Constitution, which was a wonderful document, but they allowed slavery and they didn't give women the right to vote. And they saw that this was a document that needed to be changed and altered. After 100 years, the progressives and populists said, "hey, this is a wonderful document. We have a great system of checks and balances, but we need an additional check and balance on representative government." That's why they proposed the initiative process.

MARGARET WARNER: But you would agree, wouldn't you, that for instance, in the legislative process, you have hearings. You have that kind of public debate on an issue that you don't have here, you just have basically competing advertising.

DANE WATERS: Well, no. You do have public debate. I mean, the genesis of getting an initiative on the ballot, it's a very difficult process. For example, in Montana you write your language, you submit it to the state, the state reviews it, the state gives you comments about whether or not it's constitutional or not, they say you should consider this. So you have that entire process. Then once that occurs, then you have to go out and convince, you know, in California, a million people to sign it, which means you have to approach actually four million people because only 20% of the people you approach actually sign a petition. And then you have several months to convince 50% plus one of the voters that, "hey, this is a good idea." And there's a lot of public debate.

MARGARET WARNER: That's not enough for you in the checks and balances department?

DAVID BRODER: The people that I interviewed who run these campaigns I thought were remarkably candid because they said, "look, it is not our job to explain the initiative. That's not what we're hired to do." And what in fact they do, and Dane has seen this many times, is they find a slogan that will attract people or assemble... some of these initiatives-- one that I wrote about in Nebraska in 1998-- 12,000 words of constitutional language. Nobody in his right mind is going to read that much thing, so they find a handy slogan that will attract people to it, or if they've been hired by the other side, to repel people from it.

MARGARET WARNER: Yet, and you also wrote that in your reporting, you found that the citizenry really likes these.

DAVID BRODER: They love them. And that's one reason that I think in the very near future, we're likely to confront a proposal from a presidential candidate that we bring the initiative process to the national level. And that's one reason I wrote this book, because I think we ought to look carefully at what is now happening in the states before we make this fateful decision to bring the initiative process to the national level.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think we're moving in that direction? Does your group support that?

DANE WATERS: We look at the national initiative process. However, that requires Congress to actually let the people have it. You know, people support term limits and presidential candidates have espoused term limits, but Congress is not about to impose term limits on themselves. I just don't see it in the cards that they're going to allow the people the national initiative process.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it's a good idea, though?

DANE WATERS: I think it's a good idea. I think there needs to be a national check and balance. Now how exactly it's structured is open to debate, but I think it's something that should be looked at.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think there's a way to reform this reform?

DAVID BRODER: The courts have been very protective of the initiative process. They have said up to this point, "you may not limit the amount of money that is contributed to an initiative campaign or the amount of money that is spent on an initiative campaign." There have been proposals from time to time at the state level to regulate the campaigns, but the state legislators that I talked to, knowing the popularity of this process, tend to be, I think, fairly cautious about trying to meddle with it because their constituents don't like it.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thanks David Broder and Dane Waters. Thanks very much.

DANE WATERS: Thanks for having us.

FINALLY - FAVORITE POEM PROJECT

RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, another poem from poet laureate Robert Pinsky's project of asking Americans to read their favorite poem. Tonight, a young man from Santa Monica, California, reads a tanka, an ancient Japanese short poetry form.

KIYOSHI HOUSTON, Student: I'm Kiyoshi Houston. I have three middle names, Sean, Shenon, and Kamihana Okala, and I'm a student at Lincoln Middle School. Next year I'll be starting high school. I'm in eighth grade. I have one baby sister, my mom, and her boyfriend, Onjay. She says she's been reading to me since I was even in her uterus, playing music and reading books to me. So it was, once again, one of the poems that she read to me, like, before bed or we were sitting on the couch or I'll be working my homework and I'll finish it, and she'll go, "hey, let's read some poems." This is an untitled tanka by Sone Nayoshi Tada, translated by Kenneth Rekshov. "The lower leaves of the trees tingle the sunset and dusk. Awe spreads with the summer twilight." Reciting in Japanese I love watching the sunset on the beach. Because we live right next to the beach, I can just walk out there some nights and watch it, or we'll be driving, and I'll look out the window, and there's always, like, a purple or orange or some wonderful combination of colors that, like, puts me in awe. In the poem, they use the word "awe," but... And also, when my mom was little-- and in turn she told me this-- my Grandpa Houston, he told my mom that when, at sunset, when it comes, the angels are baking cookies for you, and that our ancestors, that his father and his father and so on were all baking cookies when the sunset comes in. So that's always kind of a tie- back, and it makes me think about the people that must have lived before me and given birth to who I am and to me. "The lower leaves of the trees tingle the sunset and dusk. Awe spreads with the summer twilight." Reciting in Japanese

RECAP

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday. Congress debated the future of the U.S. peacekeeping force in Kosovo. But Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush joined the White House in opposing any deadlines for the mission. Bush also backed President Clinton on the China trade issue. And pro-government forces in Sierra Leone captured rebel leader Foday Sankoh. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Thanks and good night.