The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this day; then, two reports from Kiev on the Ukraine Supreme Court's ordering a new presidential runoff election; U.N. Secretary-General Annan's role in the Oil-for-Food scandal, as seen differently by Sen. Norm Coleman and former Sen. Timothy Wirth; a report on Bernard Kerik, President Bush's choice for secretary of homeland security; and the analysis of David Brooks and Tom Oliphant, sitting in for Mark Shields.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The Supreme Court of Ukraine threw out the presidential runoff results today. The court called for a new runoff on Dec. 26. Ukraine's prime minister was declared the winner in the original vote. The opposition candidate and outside observers charged it was rigged. Thousands of protesters have massed in Kiev ever since, demanding a revote. In Washington today, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said Ukraine is working out its own problems.

RICHARD BOUCHER: The point that I'm trying to make is it's not our formula. It's the Ukrainian formula. What we have wanted all along is for Ukrainian institutions, for Ukrainian people to be able to decide how to resolve the turmoil, how to move forward, how to have... who to have as their future leaders. And that's what we wanted, that's all we wanted and that is what's happening.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Also in Ukraine today, the parliament called for pulling the country's 1,600 troops from Iraq. Thevote was symbolic only. The defense minister has already announced Ukrainian forces will leave Iraq, but only after consulting with the coalition. In Iraq today, insurgents launched two major attacks in Baghdad. Gunmen stormed a police station near the dangerous airport road. They killed 16 policemen. Elsewhere in the city, a car bomb exploded at a Shiite mosque, killing 14 people. To the north, U.S. troops battled militants in Mosul. At least 11 rebels and an Iraqi policeman were killed in the fighting. And roadside bombs killed two American soldiers in Kirkuk and Baghdad. President Bush has asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to stay on the job, and Rumsfeld has agreed. It was widely reported today the two men made the decision in a White House meeting. There had been considerable speculation on whether Rumsfeld would stay for a second Bush term. The president nominated a new secretary of homeland security today. Bernard Kerik was the New York City police commissioner during the 9/11 attacks. He said today that experience will keep him focused on security challenges facing the country. Kerik will take the place of Tom Ridge if he's confirmed by the Senate. Also today, Tommy Thompson resigned as secretary of Health and Human Services. He said he's proud of efforts to improve health and safety, but he also had a warning.

TOMMY THOMPSON: I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not, you know, attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do and we are importing a lot of food from the Middle East and it would be easy to tamper with that.

JIM LEHRER: On Thursday, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth, turned in his resignation after only six months on the job. Today at the U.N. he said his departure has nothing to do with politics.

JOHN DANFORTH: I want to go home. It's just that simple. It's very personal. It doesn't have anything to do with making any kind of statement other than at this point in my life the question that I ask myself is, "what's most important to me?" And what's most important to me is my wife and my home, and having more time with both.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the Kerik nomination and the other cabinet comings and goings later in the program. One of the main militant groups in the Middle East announced a major shift today. Hamas said it would accept creation of a separate Palestinian state and a long- term truce with Israel. Until now, Hamas rejected peace accords and carried out attacks that killed hundreds of people. But Israel has killed a number of the group's leaders, and the U.S. and Europe have frozen its assets. Rescuers in the Philippines struggled to reach storm victims today after the latest typhoon. A series of storms has now killed more than 650 people and left 400 missing. We have a report narrated by Julian Rush of Independent Television News.

JULIAN RUSH: Flash floods have smashed bridges, broken roads and left thousands homeless. Typhoon Nanmadol, the fourth tropical storm to hit the Philippines in a fortnight. Food shortages, shelter and disease are now the priorities. Over 150,000 fled their homes to find safety on high ground. As they return, aid agencies say the death toll may rise as the full extent of the flood damage emerges. Rescue helicopters brought a handful of injured victims to an air force base in the capital, Manila. On hand to greet them, President Gloria Arroya; she blames illegal logging in the Philippines forest for exacerbating the effects of the storms. In just one decade between 1990 and 2000, the area of the Philippines' forests fell by 20 percent. Trees soften the impact of falling heavy rain; their roots soak up rainwater and bind the soils. The waters may subside in days, but the effects will last longer. The storms have hit the country's rice-growing areas, and the government will now import over 300,000 tons of rice to feed its people.

JIM LEHRER: It's estimated the storms have caused well over $20 million in damage. In Bhopal, India, today, hundreds of people demanded justice for victims of the world's worst industrial accident. Twenty years ago today, poisonous gas leaked at a union carbide chemical plant in the city. Indian officials said it killed at least ten thousand people and affected more than half a million others. The protesters said victims never received enough compensation. But the company said it settled with India's government years ago. The Catholic Church in orange county, California, has settled with 87 alleged victims of clergy abuse. The announcement last night did not mention a dollar amount. But news accounts said it could top the record $85 million the Boston archdiocese has agreed to pay. The Orange County settlement covers abuse claims going back to the 1960s. U.S. Unemployment fell last month. The Labor Department reported today the jobless rate was down 0.1 percent to 5.4 percent. Employers added 112,000 jobs in November, but economists had expected twice that many. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained seven points to close at 10,592. The NASDAQ rose four points to close at nearly 2148. For the week, the Dow gained a fraction of a percent; the NASDAQ, 2 percent. A published report today said baseball great Barry Bonds admitted using apparent steroids, supplied by a trainer. The San Francisco Chronicle said bonds told a grand jury he did not know they were steroids. He testified last year as part of a probe into a bay-area lab. In another development, the head of that lab told ABC News he watched track star Marion Jones inject human growth hormone. Both Jones and Bonds have publicly denied using banned drugs. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: The big court decision in Ukraine; a U.N. scandal debate; the homeland security choice; and Brooks and Oliphant.

UPDATE - POWER STRUGGLE

JIM LEHRER: The Ukraine decision. We begin with this report by Julian Manyon of Independent Television News.

JULIAN MANYON: It's the same chant but this time in triumph. Independence Square was packed as Viktor Yushchenko gave the speech his supporters had been waiting for. Ukraine, he said, is now a democratic society after today's Supreme Court judgment. People triumphed in the snow. People power triumphed in the snow. It was 12 days ago that the opposition launched this extraordinary protest, which has been far bigger and lasted far longer than anyone, including the government, had imagined. In the tent city which has taken over Kiev's equivalent of Oxford Street, Katarina was one of the first of many young people to join what they call their revolution. This morning, the 19-year-old student was preparing food for the demonstrators.

JULIAN MANYON: Why is it so important for you that you spend ten days of your life...

KATARINA: Because I will have children, in future, children, and I want that they have a nice future.

JULIAN MANYON: While Supreme Court judges debated behind closed doors, the young people of Tent City fought their tiredness and waited. Finally, the judges emerged to declare that last month's election was marred by fraud. They ordered the second round to be rerun on Dec. 26. In Tent City, celebrations broke out and spread through the square.

GIRL ON STREET: They're feeling that power in our hands, not in hands of mafia or bad people. It's in our hands.

JULIAN MANYON: Tonight they played the national anthem as Ukraine prepares for yet another round in this bitterly fought election. Then Viktor Yushchenko may well get his chance to try to heal a deeply divided nation.

JIM LEHRER: And earlier this evening, Ray Suarez spoke to frank brown in Kiev. He's a special correspondent for Newsweek Magazine.

RAY SUAREZ: Frank Brown in Kiev, welcome to the program. Did the Supreme Court give much reason about why it declared this election invalid? What did it have to say this afternoon?

FRANK BROWN: They... in the course of the evidence that they took, it became quite clear that there was ample evidence of fraud, especially in the eastern parts of Ukraine. And they got fairly detailed explanations, including documents, showing just what sorts of methods were used to increase the vote. For example, one election official said that after the polls closed, the computers showed a mysterious spike of one million votes, you know, that the vote tally mysteriously after 8:00 P.M. increased by one million. So it was quite obvious that there was a lot of sort of fraud going on, a lot of inexplicable behavior that the central election commission didn't do anything about, didn't take into consideration in ruling Viktor Yanukovych the victor.

RAY SUAREZ: So short of having their man proclaimed the victor by the Supreme Court, was this ruling pretty much what the opposition wanted?

FRANK BROWN: Yeah, it's exactly what the opposition was looking for. They couldn't have expected a better decision from today. The Supreme Court ruling says that the election of Nov. 21 was invalid and they'll have to run that election again with the two candidates on Dec. 26. So conceivably Viktor Yanukovych could win that election. But that looks quite unlikely if you look at the polls and you look at the sort of way the government and he himself have been massively discredited by their behavior over the last two weeks.

RAY SUAREZ: Yanukovych has said he doesn't want to participate in a runoff. Where does this leave him?

FRANK BROWN: In principle, if Yanukovych doesn't participate and if Yushchenko runs alone and he gets more than 50 percent of the vote, then he's the winner. It's as simple as that. The other... it depends really when Yanukovych drops out. If he drops out soon, then the third-place finisher in the first round of the election would run against Yushchenko, a man named Olexsander Moroz.

RAY SUAREZ: If people were on the streets and watching giant television screens, I guess that means they weren't at work. Is Kiev a capital that's really been pretty much paralyzed by this since the standoff began?

FRANK BROWN: Well, it's certainly paralyzed the central part of the city, but it's a big sprawling city and so, you know, outside this maybe two-square- mile area, it's actually quite easy to get around by car. There's a good metro system. But the government offices have been blockaded and they've even blockaded the private residence of President Kuchma located about 40 kilometers south of the city. So a lot of people have been inconvenienced, especially government workers.

RAY SUAREZ: Is this something that's new for eastern European countries after the end of the Cold War, an independent Supreme Court that's pushing back against the government?

FRANK BROWN: Yeah, actually. There was a good deal of surprise today at the nature of the ruling, at the independence of the court because the court really... the high court here and certainly the lower courts are very much subject to bribes, to political pressure, to even physical threats. They have a very poor track record for arbitrating these kinds of disputes. So it was a wonderful, pleasant surprise, I think, to the Ukrainian people.

RAY SUAREZ: This must be viewed as quite a setback for both the current president, Kuchma, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

FRANK BROWN: I think for Kuchma it's a bit of a present because this offers him a graceful way to leave power. He'll still have his legacy. For Putin it's a much different matter. It's a really big international embarrassment because he time and time again inserted himself into this campaign on behalf of the government's choice, Viktor Yanukovych. He appeared here twice during the campaign. He was one of the first, if not the first, world leader to immediately recognize Yanukovych as the winner even though there was massive fraud. And then just yesterday he met with Kuchma in an airport outside Moscow to give his personal advice about how he thought the situation here should proceed. So Putin has a lot at stake, especially on the international stage and the consensus is back in Moscow that this is one of the biggest mistakes, a sustained mistake of his time in office.

RAY SUAREZ: Frank Brown in Kiev, thanks for being with us.

FRANK BROWN: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: The U.N.'s Oil-for-Food scandal; the Kerik choice; and Brooks and Oliphant.

FOCUS - OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL

JIM LEHRER: Kwame Holman begins our U.N. Story.

KWAME HOLMAN: When it began in 1996, the Oil-for-Food Program gave hope to millions of Iraqi people who had become the unintended victims of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein. It allowed Iraq to sell its oil to finance purchases of humanitarian goods supervised by the United Nations. But the Iraq war brought the Oil-for-Food Program to a sudden end, and subsequent investigations show the program was poorly managed and riddled with fraud. At a Senate hearing two weeks ago, Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, who has been leading a seven-month investigation, laid out charges that Saddam Hussein himself pocketed billions of dollars manipulating the oil- for-food program.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: The failure of the program wasn't just in providing food, medicine and comfort to the Iraqi people; the failure of the program was also not having strong oversight and checks and balances that would have prevented a small group of people and nations from raping billions-- billions-- of dollars from the people of Iraq.

KWAME HOLMAN: This week, in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Coleman called on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to resign. He wrote: "Mr. Annan was at the helm of the U.N. He must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.'s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses."

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: It's in his interests and it's in the interest of the U.N. to step down, and I say this without pointing the finger of accusation against the secretary-general. Clearly he knows that people who were under him, people that he put in place allowed this massive fraud and abuse to occur.

KWAME HOLMAN: Coleman was speaking of Benon Sevan, a Cyprus national who directed the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program and now is being investigated for possibly taking kickbacks. Coleman also is troubled by the relationship Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, had with a Swiss company also under investigation for abuses in the Oil-for-Food Program. This week it was reported that Kojo Annan continued to receive monthly payments from the company for four years after he stopped working as a consultant. Yesterday, during his Oval Office appearance with the president of Nigeria, President Bush declined to endorse Sen. Coleman's call for Kofi Annan's resignation.

REPORTER: Do you think questions of fraud at the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Program have hurt Kofi Annan? Do you think he should resign, as Sen. Coleman has urged?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: On this issue, it's very important for the United Nations to understand that there ought to be a full and fair and open accounting of the Oil-for-Food Program. In order for the taxpayers of the United States to feel comfortable about... comfortable about supporting the United Nations, there has to be an open accounting, and I look forward to that process going forward.

REPORTER: Should he resign, sir?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I look forward to the full disclosure of the facts, a good, honest appraisal of that which went on, and it's important for the integrity of the organization to have a full and open disclosure of all that took place with the Oil-for-Food Program.

KWAME HOLMAN: Norm Coleman is one of three Republican senators who have called for Kofi Annan's resignation. Meanwhile, leaders from dozens of countries, led by Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, have spoken out in support of Annan. The secretary-general has commissioned his own investigation of the Oil-for-Food Program headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. An interim report is expected in January.

JIM LEHRER: And to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: So should Kofi Annan go now over the Oil-for-Food scandal? To debate that, we turn to Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota-- as we just saw, he's chairman of the Senate subcommittee that's been investigating the Oil-for-Food Program, and this week called on Annan to resign; and Timothy Wirth, a former Democratic senator and former undersecretary of state. He's now president of the privately funded United Nations Foundation. Welcome to you both.

Sen. Coleman, why now when all these different investigations are still underway do you think Kofi Annan needs to resign?

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: Because the investigations will help us understand the extent of the fraud and the abuse, whether folks like Benon Sevan were involved, whether folks who were connected to high government officials in Russia and France and Germany and China were involved in this. But there's no dispute that Saddam Hussein perpetrated a massive fraud on the Oil-for-Food Program, stole billions of dollars, used it to fund terrorism, rearm himself and to bribe high-ranking individuals connected to member states and Kofi Annan was the guy at the center. He was the boss at that point in time. And I don't believe there's any way for us to credibly investigate all of this if the guy who was in charge of the organization, who had appointed Benon Sevan is the guy who's going to receive these reports and have responsibility for ferreting out the fraud.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Wirth, what's your view? Is there enough on the table already, enough known already, that Kofi Annan just bears too much responsibility here?

TIMOTHY WIRTH: Well, of course not. I mean, the president, I think, had it right. Let's get all the information out there. Volcker will have his first report out in January and I think that there's a very productive place for the Senate and Sen. Coleman's committee to move ahead, investigate a lot of the smuggling that went on. There are two major streams of money in all of this, Margaret, one of them is the Oil-for-Food, which is probably around $5 billion, according to Sen. Coleman's committee's analysis. And then there's about $15 billion of smuggling that we knew about in the United States, the UK knew about, it was over a long period of time before Oil-for-Food. Let's get to the bottom of the whole thing and let's not jump to conclusions. Let's let Volcker's committee and I think Sen. Coleman's committee continue to do their work and let's find out what the real truth is here.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Coleman, explain... let me just ask you to explain to our viewers in layman's terms how... set aside the smuggling. Let's talk about the kickback scheme. How did that work under Oil-for-Food?

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: As stated in the early report the Oil-for-Food was set up to help the Iraqi people. Sanctions had taken place. There was difficulty in getting humanitarian goods... the program was set up

MARGARET WARNER: How was Saddam able to manipulate it?

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: The program was set up that you could sell oil for humanitarian goods for food. It was set up in a way that every transaction was through Saddam. So what he did is he got kickbacks on every single transaction. If you were to place a bid for humanitarian goods, Saddam would... it would add a surcharge into that bid that would go directly to him and to a bank in Jordan, a bank in Syria, a bank in Switzerland. There are a whole range of schemes he had in which every single transaction that took place Saddam got his percentage which he then used for whatever purposes he wanted to use them. And according to the Delpha report, Charles Delpha, from the Iraqi study group, he used them to rearm himself. He used it to fund terrorism. In the end, he used it to bribe key figures involved with Russia France, Germany, and the other member states of the Security Council.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, and let me just follow up by that. This scheme under which Saddam, in fact, had the right to decide who was going to sell the Iraqi oil, so it was just a prescription for fraud; I mean, it was a no brainer to set up kickbacks. Didn't the Security Council sign off on that? I mean, why is this Kofi Annan's responsibility that such a system so right for abuse even was allowed to get underway?

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: Well, a couple of reasons. You know, the sad thing here is that Sen. Wirth and I both agree on the goal. We'd like a stronger United Nations, we'd like there to be credibility and we're arguing about Kofi Annan. In any other organization in the country or in the world, a CIA who oversaw, who was in control when a multibillion dollar fraud took place under his nose and under people that he appointed to oversee the program would step down. In addition, we have today allegations about his son that are growing each and every day, the most recent ones today being that this 25-year-old at the time in 1998 got $50,000 from the company Cotecna which got the bid, replacing another company, a bid to oversee the program and did, obviously, a terrible job in overseeing it. So the bottom line is you have the man who was in charge, who appointed others to take responsibility and what you've got now are allegations of fraud allegations of corruption and we're arguing about Kofi Annan. He should step back, get somebody fresh in there, then we can have the transparency and credibility we need to get to the bottom of this.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Wirth,I'm going to get to you in one minute; I just want to make sure I understand what Sen. Coleman's accusation is here. Are you saying that you have uncovered evidence that Kofi Annan enriched himself or enriched his son or is your criticism that he was at the helm at a time of gross mismanagement?

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: My criticism is that he was at the helm. We do not have evidence today that ties him and so this shouldn't be about him. But we do have evidence that ties Benon Sevan, his hand-picked person to oversee the program, of taking bribes from Saddam. There is evidence that his son was involved in a relationship with the company which eventually got the contract and that his son received payments from this company up until a few months ago. These revelations keep coming out, new ones, each and every day.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Sen. Wirth, your turn. Take on those points. I mean, here was Kofi Annan at the helm at a time of gross mismanagement. He hired Benon Sevan, even after the allegations became public. I mean, they were in London newspapers within a month about Kojo Annan. He never either fired Benon Sevan, nor did he do anything about his son. Doesn't he bear any responsibility?

TIMOTHY WIRTH: Well, the secretary general, of course, bears responsibility, and that's why he set up the Volcker Commission to look at this, an independent study by probably one of the most prestigious people in the country. That study will be out, first phase, in January. It will be public, it will go to Sen. Coleman and his committee, it will be public documents and we'll see what the facts are. I think to suggest that because Kofi Annan was the secretary general at the time and because there was a problem that's being looked at independently that he should go is a little bit like saying that Don Rumsfeld ought to leave because of the Abu Ghraib scandal or because of what went on with Halliburton or so on. I mean, that's sort of an absurd jump to make. The secretary general has made it very clear, you know, he wants all the facts out on this. The facts on Mr. Sevan are still very much up in the air. There are allegations about a list and there are allegations about Sevan being on that list. But nobody's really seen that. This is a long time very distinguished U.N. civil servant and people really doubt that this happened. On the son... related to his son, that's a problem from a public perception as much as anything. There's not... there's tiny little bits of money involved in all of this, but that's not the issue, the issue is the perception and, you know, I think any time family members get into something with political figures it can be a problem. And we think back to Billy Carter or we think about Bill Clinton's little brother, we think about Neal Bush. I mean, these things always get understood very quickly and people jump to conclusions. I don't think we ought to jump to a conclusion about Kojo either, the secretary general's son. Let's let the facts come out before we make conclusions on all of this.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Let me just follow up because you watch the U.N. closely. As I said and I think we all know, these allegations that there were kickbacks going on was not new; the Security Council got reports, the British prepared a report about it. The sanctions committee in which the U.S. sits heard about it. Nobody really did anything. What is your belief, understanding, analysis, of why that was?

TIMOTHY WIRTH: Well, I think that the primary concern there is the so-called 661 Committee, which was set up by the Security Council to watch the Oil-for-Food issue. The UK and the U.S. dominated that committee and their concern was to make sure that none of the funds from the Oil-for-Food Program went to the purchase of weapons of mass destruction. So that was the major emphasis by the 661 Committee, particularly the U.S. and the UK. The evidence there is that they did a very good job and that this funding did not end up purchasing anything that was related to weapons of mass destruction. That's what the 661 Committee focused on. Should they have focused on other parts of it? Obviously they should have. But they did not. And it's getting at what happened elsewhere and why did the committee do it the way they did? You know, what was the secretary doing? That's what Paul Volcker is looking at. And let's wait for that report to come in. We'll have a first phase of that in January. Both the president and Secretary Powell have said let's wait for this report to come in and let's not jump to these conclusions, particularly at a time where the relationship between the U.S. and the U.N. is so important. The U.N. is part of the ticket of the U.S. solving the problems in Iraq, getting through election in January. The U.N. is very important and I think another part of this is to keep in mind that we really don't want to jump to conclusions and weaken the U.N. I think that would be a big mistake.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Coleman? Go ahead.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: We're not jumping to conclusions here. The U.N. is important -- the United Nations. We fund 22 percent of its operating budget. And so there has to be credibility in these investigations, credibility then in the conclusions. No one is arguing that this massive fraud and abuse took place. The Abu Ghraib comparison is somewhat absurd. Donald Rumsfeld didn't have his son making money off Abu Ghraib as Kofi Annan's son is alleged to. And yet the report that Volcker's going to deliver he will deliver to Kofi Annan. It's not going in an uncensored or un-reviewed form simply to me. Kofi Annan will get that report first. In addition to that, Kofi Annan, his responsibility for Benon Sevan, he's the guy he hired. Donald Rumsfeld didn't hire the guards at Abu Ghraib. No one is arguing that massive fraud and abuse took place. No one is arguing that, in fact, bribes were paid. No one is arguing, by the way, that Saddam rearmed himself through money both from Oil-for-Food and some of the front companies that he set up in Oil-for-Food.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. But let me just follow up on -

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: And if we're going to get to the bottom of it - if he doesn't have credibility -- how do you have the guy who was in charge at the time of the fraud be responsible for ferreting it out?

MARGARET WARNER: So are you suggesting that the Volcker probe which has been going on for months and the interim report is coming out in January is somehow tainted by the fact that the report will go to Kofi Annan? Are you accusing that there's any kind of collusion here? What are you saying?

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: No. I think by going to Kofi Annan that the credibility of what Paul Volcker does will be undermined. First, remember that Volcker has no subpoena power at this point in time. Volcker then will deliver a report to Kofi Annan and, again, I don't want to undermine the credibility of what Volcker does. There's a lot to be done here. We have to figure out, by the way, what happened to the billions that Saddam took. No one's talked about that -- dollars that may be well fueling insurgency that is killing Americans, coalition members and Iraqis today. There's a lot to be sorted out. But why are we arguing over Kofi Annan? Why doesn't he step back, bring someone in there who is not tainted by the allegations, the concerns, the fraud that took place and then let us all work together to get to the bottom of this?

MARGARET WARNER: All right, and Tim Wirth, you keep saying you want the U.N. to be strong and how important it is. Is it hard for (a), the Volcker report to be seen as having credibility and (b), for the U.N. to do its work when the CEO has this hanging over his head?

TIMOTHY WIRTH: Well, first of all, when Sen. Coleman says let's not argue about Kofi Annan, he's the person that's brought it up. I mean, every nation around the world practically has jumped to the support of the secretary general who's been the finest secretary general I think we've ever had. You know, and then to question the independence of Paul Volcker, you know, that's to question the independence of somebody... how do you possibly, you know, question somebody who is as remarkable a public figure as Paul Volcker? That's why he was selected. That's why so many people were engaged with persuading Paul Volcker to take this job on, independently fund it, independent individual whose report will go to the secretary general but it will also go to Sen. Coleman and his committee as will all the documents. As the president has said, let's see what happens in this report before we jump to these conclusions. Volcker is a man of enormous integrity. I believe the secretary general is a man of enormous integrity and leadership as well and if there are doubts about that, let's find some data, some real evidence about any kind of wrongdoing before jumping to conclusions.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Senators both, thank you.

TIMOTHY WIRTH: Thank you, Margaret.

SEN. NORM COLEMAN: Thank you.

FOCUS - SECURITY CHOICE

JIM LEHRER: Now, Kerik in for Ridge at homeland security. Terence Smith has our report.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Bernie Kerik is one of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America.

TERENCE SMITH: President Bush has tapped a street-smart cop- turned-executive to be the nation's second secretary of homeland security. The 49-year-old Bernard Kerik will replace former Governor Tom Ridge. Kerik rose to national prominence on Sept. 11, 2001. The then-New York City police commissioner was at the World Trade Center site before the second plane hit and on the scene when both towers collapsed. One week after the attacks, he escorted President Bush to the scene, still a mass of rubble and debris.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Bernie Kerik understands the duties that came to America on Sept. 11. The resolve he felt that morning will guide him every day on his job. And every first responder defending our homeland will have a faithful ally in Bernie Kerik.

SPOKESPERSON: Raise your right hand.

TERENCE SMITH: But two and half years later, the 9/11 Commission investigating the attacks said Kerik's department had failed to communicate effectively with rescue teams and people trapped in the rubble.

JOHN LEHMAN (May 2004): I think that the command and control and communications of this city's public service is a scandal.

TERENCE SMITH: Kerik defended his force saying they were crippled by current technology.

BERNARD KERIK: When the Towers went down, the cell sites were lost. Show me one radio that they will guarantee you this radio will go through that metal, it will go through the debris, it will go through the dust, you will have 100 percent communications 100 percent of the time. There is none. There is none.

TERENCE SMITH: Kerik was raised in the tough streets of Paterson, New Jersey. He was abandoned at an early age by his mother, a prostitute and an alcoholic who was murdered when Kerik was still a boy. A high school dropout, he joined the Army and became a military policeman. Later as a New York City cop, he served as a driver and bodyguard for Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He rose in the ranks to become head of the Department of Corrections and eventually commissioner of the city's police force. Since 2001, Kerik has been a partner in Giuliani's consulting firm, where he has earned millions of dollars. Over the years, Kerik has attracted controversy. After his autobiography, "The Lost Son," was published, New York City's conflict of interest board fined him $2,500 for using police officers to conduct research. In 2003, Paul Bremer, then U.S. administrator in Iraq, tapped Kerik to be that country's interim interior minister. Among other duties, Kerik was charged with training Iraqi police to cope with a deepening insurgency. But Kerik's efforts came under fire for failing to improve the security situation quickly enough. In an interview on the NewsHour soon after returning home last year, Kerik answered those criticisms.

BERNARD KERIK (Sept. 2003): I hear people on a daily basis criticize the president-- "You're not moving fast enough." In four months, we brought back 40,000 police officers, 400 cars in Baghdad, 35 stations, communications all over the country, just about, to the police. We've ordered equipment. We've put together a 2003 budget. We did it in four months. I couldn't have done that in New York City as the police commissioner in five years. So I'm not really sure what the critics are talking about when they're saying it's taking too long.

TERENCE SMITH: In this year's presidential election, Kerik campaigned for President Bush. He was a featured speaker at the GOP Convention in New York City, where he praised the administration's war on terror.

BERNARD KERIK (August 2004): We didn't ask for this war, but faced with an evil whose only mission was to destroy this country, we had to respond. We had to fight this war abroad, and we have to fight this war at home. This president responded with the creation of the department of homeland security, with the Patriot Act, and he has tripled,

tripled, the homeland security funding since 2001. (Applause)

TERENCE SMITH: At a ceremony at the White House today, Kerik said he understood the formidable task of protecting the nation's security.

BERNARD KERIK: Mr. President, I understand, as you do, the tremendous challenge that faces America in securing our nation and its citizens from the threat of terrorism. And I know what is at stake. On Sept. 11, 2001, I witnessed firsthand the very worst of humanity and its very best. I saw hatred claim the lives of 2,400 innocent people, and I saw the bravest men and women I will ever know rescue more than 20,000 others. There isn't a day that has passed since the morning of Sept. 11 that I haven't thought of the sacrifices of those heroes and the losses we all suffered. I pledge to work tirelessly to honor them and your trust in me.

TERENCE SMITH: Confirmation hearings for Bernard Kerik will likely be held when the new Congress convenes in January.

FOCUS - BROOKS & OLIPHANT

JIM LEHRER: And that brings us finally tonight to the analysis of Brooks and Oliphant: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant. Mark Shields is off tonight. David, what did you think of the Kerik nomination?

DAVID BROOKS: I like it. It's sort of in a town of turkey; he's a pastrami kind of guy. I like that kind of thing. But I do think that actually plays into the substance because one of the problems Tom Ridge had was an inability to project confidence. Ridge was given an almost impossible job of managing this new agency which was really an amalgamation of a bunch of different departments and that was tough. But the public rejection could have been a little stronger. And one really got the sense that what Ridge was doing was not... he was not mastering events but was sort of mastered by them, was being jerked around by things. I think Kerik will do a much better job at projecting a sense of control.

JIM LEHRER: The public face will be stronger?

DAVID BROOKS: Right. Because homeland security is... you know, people have heard about terrorism. They want to have a sense that somebody is in control of things whether anybody is or not. So... but I think he will do that quite well.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. What do you think, Tom?

TOM OLIPHANT: You know, to keep with your analogy, one of the tough things about Washington is it can turn pastrami into polenta very fast. Sorry. But what I think we need to keep in mind is the enormous size of the unfinished agenda that's on Mr. Kerik's desk when he starts work. We are still arguing about the adequacy of security at much of the industrial and transportation infrastructure in the country. I agree wholeheartedly with what David said about Tom Ridge's difficulties in projecting a face, a force, a vigor behind this office. But Kerik's going to have to take a fresh look at some very tough questions because...

JIM LEHRER: Like what?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, the best example I can think of is the chemical industry. Without pretending to be expert on the merits, there were some plans to very vigorously shore up the security at chemical manufacturing plants around the country for obvious reasons. Ridge was behind these efforts. The industry complained about cost and needless bureaucratic meddling or whatever. They went around him to the White House and they succeeded. And I thought Ridge was a lame duck from that moment on a couple years ago. And that's what has to stop. Kerik needs to take a fresh look at all of this and his personality will only be important as a benefit if he is able to take this new department all the way to preparedness.

JIM LEHRER: Do you think Bernie Kerik brings the attributes necessary to do that, to play this Washington game?

DAVID BROOKS: I think the public game I emphasize yes. His reputation in New York as an administrator was not sterling and that's half and maybe even substantively the most important job. It is very difficult to start up a cabinet department. It is difficult to start up a department that is already huge where half the people in the agency don't want to be there. They were happy where they were in whatever old agency they used to be a part of. I'm not an expert on this, but the reputation of the Homeland Security Department around town is a poor one.

JIM LEHRER: In what way?

DAVID BROOKS: Shambolic would be the word you hear. You do need an administrator. Now, Kerik can appoint somebody who's somebody who can get things to operate on time. And maybe the... what he does well, which is projecting authority, is what's needed publicly.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Tom mentioned the chemical thing. Tommy Thompson's parting shot we had on the News Summary, the outgoing HHS secretary, he said, by the way, if the terrorists want to do harm, they could poison our food supply.

DAVID BROOKS: Thanks for the suggestion!

JIM LEHRER: What do you make of that?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, actually one of the virtues, Tommy Thompson, one of the things he's undeniably conscious or given credit for is bio-terrorism and being quite aggressive about that. He's someone who's the reverse, who I think has done a better job within his department of administrating it than he has done publicly or has he done in a policy sense. You know, we had this big Medicare plan that came out a year ago and that was run out of the White House by Mark Melman - Mark McClellan

TOM OLIPHANT: Mark Melman is a pollster.

DAVID BROOKS: Right.

JIM LEHRER: Just keep going, David.

DAVID BROOKS: And so the HHS secretary was not deeply involved in the legislation affecting him. To me, that's a problem.

TOM OLIPHANT: But you just mentioned bio-terrorism and I think there's the example of something that happened that hasn't happened over at this new department. I mean, a problem was identified. Thompson, with a lot of help on the Hill, road this to, I think, the successful erection of an infrastructure that could deal with an attack. We got chemical plants, nuclear power plants, port facilities, air cargo operations, all these things that haven't been done, some of what Tommy Thompson did needs to get over to this place.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Speaking of what has not happened, there were 15 members of the president's cabinet. As of today, eight of them have resigned. But the one that was announced who is not going is Don Rumsfeld. How do you... secretary of defense. How do you read that?

TOM OLIPHANT: As some of had thought would be the case. It was rather interesting this afternoon, Jim. The White House and other administration officials began contacting reporters this afternoon to sort of pass this word that not only Rumsfeld...

JIM LEHRER: Top White House official, every story said.

TOM OLIPHANT: That's right. But actually the duty was farmed out a little bit more broadly than that. This was a rather reasonably full court press in private. Not only Rumsfeld but the top team, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Fife, the policy guy, they stay.

JIM LEHRER: I hadn't read -- that has not been on the wires yet.

TOM OLIPHANT: And I believe people on the Hill have told me that they have been telling their offices that they're going to be around, too. Unfinished business is the nice way of saying this. It's logical in a way because at no point have I ever encountered any disagreement on the president's part with any of Rumsfeld's policies. It is an unfinished book and it's not just the elections but whether the elections lead to a partial extrication from Iraq or whatever. It is sort of in the middle of the story and absent a real disagreement in the White House, I don't know why anybody would expect Rumsfeld to go.

JIM LEHRER: What do you think?

DAVID BROOKS: First, let's not ignore just the human factor here. The guy wasn't born yesterday and he's got... he's had a very demanding job for four years and when you watch him and when you follow him around for a day, as I did, he's got incredible energy. I don't know how... these people leaving after four years, they really are exhausted.

JIM LEHRER: They are tired.

DAVID BROOKS: And somehow we'll all be gone in a few million years and Donald Rumsfeld will hold some big important job in Washington. So there's sort of an amazing human factor here. I agree with Tom that I've never seen the president disagree with Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld disagree publicly. So theargument let's not change horses midstream has some viability. But let's be honest, this is going to be a very controversial move. There are a lot of people, especially in the Democratic Party, who think this is the guy who messed up the war. There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who think this is the guy who didn't send enough troops. And I guess one of the paradoxes is now we are sending in more troops. At the same time, the guy who didn't want to send in more troops is staying. But you have to believe over the long term the president really likes Donald Rumsfeld's grand vision, which is transforming and modernizing the military.

JIM LEHRER: Well, picking up on Tom's point, do you also agree with him that essentially to get rid of Rumsfeld now would be essentially saying publicly something went wrong with the war and that it would... Rumsfeld has to stay in order for the president to stay the course?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I half agree with that. But I think half... if they were going to get rid of him, this was the time of least... you where you admit that the least. It is normal for him to leave now. You could say the guy -

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. He's exhausted.

DAVID BROOKS: -- he's exhausted --

TOM OLIPHANT: The calendar is very unfriendly -- the elections. On the negative side, there are several investigations still going on. Whether you're critical of Rumsfeld or like him, in fairness to him, give him a chance... the prison business and some matters involving intelligence, Halliburton as well. So it... this is the wrong time.

JIM LEHRER: For Rumsfeld to go out?

TOM OLIPHANT: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: In general terms, do either of you see any significance, upside, down side, anything to talk about the fact that eight of the fifteen have resigned?

TOM OLIPHANT: Clinton was ten by the time his second term started. I just see one thing. I'm interested to see what David thinks also. In five cases the biggest ones from Bush's perspective: State.

JIM LEHRER: That's Powell.

TOM OLIPHANT: Justice.

JIM LEHRER: Ashcroft.

TOM OLIPHANT: Education.

JIM LEHRER: Paige. Let's have a list here.

TOM OLIPHANT: It's a lot easier for you. And HHS and I throw in CIA while we're at it. People either in the White House staff or extremely close to the president personally or politically have been moved to take over the departments that make the most difference to him. This is a control second administration as opposed to new face, new policy administration. That's my analysis in those major positions, at least. You get an outsider, say like a Carlos Gutierrez whom everybody likes to run the Commerce Department, but now you're not talking about the center of administration policy.

JIM LEHRER: Do you see it the same way?

DAVID BROOKS: I do. There's even a rumor that John Snow will be leaving the Treasury Department. There's a rumor Andy Card, the chief of staff, will move over there. I wouldn't bet on it but it's talked about. And to me it says a couple of things. The most interesting thing is it says for the past several administrations power has been controlled in the White House which is the White House building and the fancy building next door for tourists to Washington and not at the agencies. And yet people who really... the president trusts are now moving out to the agencies. Will policy make power move out with them? So I don't know. The other thing I think the president really decided in this first term, I will have a lot of people arguing and I'll sort of settle it. He had Powell and Rumsfeld arguing, for example. The president didn't realize that in Washington arguments are never settled; they just go on and on and on. And it can tear things apart. And so I think he wants to avoid that mistake.

JIM LEHRER: Finally before we go I want both of you to act as reporters. What's going to happen on the intelligence bill when Congress comes back on Monday?

DAVID BROOKS: I would be very surprised if it didn't pass. I think the president has really gone quite far in being aggressive in trying to win this thing over, making some concessions here and there. If the House Republicans stand up to the president in these circumstances, that really would be a remarkable signal to me.

TOM OLIPHANT: He hasn't taken the last step necessary to make this happen, in my judgment, and that is to insist to Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader DeLay's face that there be a vote. Letters don't count in this.

JIM LEHRER: He's writing the letter today.

TOM OLIPHANT: Doesn't count. That's pen service. Making a statement doesn't count. That's lip service. When you sit down... not even a telephone call --

JIM LEHRER: He also literally called these guys to the White House?

TOM OLIPHANT: Spending the president's capital is tough when you're trying to form a majority on a controversial issue. But this thing is... has the votes to pass; all he needs is a vote and a president doesn't have to break a sweat to insist that a House speaker of his party let a vote be held.

DAVID BROOKS: But if he voted and the majority of Republicans voted against, it would upset the majority for all sorts of votes to come. I'm just thinking in a calculated way here. It would really mess up the Republican coalition.

JIM LEHRER: So he not only has to... you're saying the president not only has to win, he has to get a majority of the Republican votes?

DAVID BROOKS: The way Denny Hastert runs the House is different than Gingrich, different than a lot of others. He's devolved a lot of power down throughout the caucus. And that means he doesn't try to be a dictator. And they love him for it and I think it works. The down side is that he can't just crack the whip the way other speakers in the past have been able to.

JIM LEHRER: Well the two chairmen who are holding this thing up, Congressman Sensenbrenner and Congressman Duncan Hunter, can the president call them?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, in one case -- Hunter's opposition has been effectively neutered because the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Myers, is now aboard because it's no longer a question of whether you have the House bill or the Senate bill, they've been compromised already in a Conference Committee. So the military issue doesn't have the strength it had a week ago. It's the immigration issue and Sensenbrenner that's holding it up.

DAVID BROOKS: And the president has called; he called him from Chile weeks ago about when this thing started. So they're standing up to the president.

JIM LEHRER: But the president is the one who has got everything riding on this Monday, right?

DAVID BROOKS: Or Lee Hamilton and the commission. But, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Politically.

DAVID BROOKS: It has now become a measure of status -- aside from everything else.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Thank you both very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: And again, the major developments of the day: The Supreme Court of Ukraine threw out the presidential runoff results and called for a new election. Insurgents launched two major attacks in Baghdad, killing at least 30 people. It was widely reported President Bush has asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to stay on the job, and Rumsfeld agreed. The president also nominated Bernard Kerik for secretary of homeland security. And Tommy Thompson resigned as secretary of Health and Human Services.

JIM LEHRER: And once again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 11 more.

JIM LEHRER: A reminder: Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.