The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is visiting public TV stations, and on book tour. On the NewsHour tonight: A summary of the news; the story behind today's unemployment numbers; the battle shaping up for a Senate seat in Texas; the Senate debates the use of force in Iraq; Iraqi immigrants react to that idea; and our Mark Shields and David Brooks analyze it all.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: There were major new developments today in the war on terrorism. Federal authorities arrested four people in Portland, Oregon and Detroit-- including a former Army reservist-- and charged them with conspiring to wage war on the U.S. by aiding Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan. Two other suspects remained at large, outside the U.S. Authorities said that after September 11, 2001, the six obtained weapons and training to "fight a jihad." Five of the six allegedly traveled to Hong Kong, but were unable to reach Afghanistan. The sixth wired them money. There was no allegation they planned terror attacks inside the U.S. The so-called "shoe bomber" pleaded guilty to all charges in a federal court in Boston today. Richard Reid laughed in court as he admitted trying to blow up a transatlantic flight last December with explosives in his sneakers. The judge accepted Reid's plea, but refused to grant his request to drop references to his ties to al-Qaida. In response, Reid said: "I don't care. I'm a follower of Osama bin Laden. I'm an enemy of your country and I don't care." He'll be sentenced in January. John Walker Lindh was sentenced to 20 years in prison today. In July, he pled guilty to aiding the Taliban and carrying explosives, and has been cooperating with authorities since. In court today, a tearful Lindh said he never expected to be fighting American soldiers, but he accepted responsibility for his actions in Afghanistan. "I made a mistake by joining the Taliban," he said. "Had I realized then what I know now, I would never have joined them." In Washington, Attorney General Ashcroft said the three events made this a defining day in the war on terror.

JOHN ASHCROFT: Today's a day of justice for the citizens, the soldiers and law enforcement officers who defend our nation and our values and defend them each and every day. It is a day both of victory and a day of resolve -- of well deserved thanks for a job well done, coupled with a rededication to the job that lies ahead.

MARGARET WARNER: Ashcroft credited cooperation among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies for today's arrests. A new U.S. intelligence report concludes Iraq has biological and chemical weapons, but no nuclear arms. It says the Iraqis could make a nuclear weapon within a year if they obtained fissile material from elsewhere. Otherwise the report says it would probably take them a decade to develop a nuclear weapon. The CIA released the intelligence document today, as the Senate debated authorizing military action against Iraq. President Bush now plans to outline the case against Iraq in a speech Monday night in Cincinnati. House and Senate negotiators today reached agreement on a major elections reform bill aimed at averting a repeat of the 2000 Florida election fiasco. It would spend nearly $4 billion to help states pay to replace punch voting card machines; it also requires states to create new computerized voter registration roles and new ID voter procedures. Final approval is expected by the House and Senate next week. U.S. Unemployment fell a tenth of a point in September. The Labor Department reported today the jobless rate was 5.6%, the lowest in seven months. But a separate government report showed payroll jobs actually falling by 43,000. We'll have more on the unemployment picture later in the program. On Wall Street today, concerns about the economy and corporate earnings hurt stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 188 points, nearly 2.5%, to close at 7,528. For the week, the Dow is down 173 points. The NASDAQ was down 25 today, just over 2%, closing at 1139. For the week, the NASDAQ fell 59 points. A Los Angeles jury awarded a record $28 billion today, to a former smoker with lung cancer. Philip Morris was ordered to pay the punitive damages to Betty Bullock. She sued the company for fraud and negligence, claiming it hid the dangers of smoking for decades. Philip Morris said it would appeal. Maryland authorities said today they are looking for two men-- a driver and a sniper-- in the fatal shootings of five people in Montgomery County, outside Washington. At a news conference, police displayed assault and hunting rifles like the one they believe the gunman used. The county police chief said the victims were shot from a distance by someone who's clearly a skilled shooter. The apparently random attacks began Wednesday night and continued for 16 hours. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the unemployment numbers, the Texas Senate race, war and politics, Iraqi immigrants, and Shields and Brooks.

FOCUS BEHIND THE NUMBERS

MARGARET WARNER: A look behind today's unemployment report, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: The improvement in the September unemployment rate surprised many analysts who had predicted a worsening jobs outlook. So how does today's report spell some unexpected good news for the U.S. economy or cast more uncertainty on the already sluggish recovery? With me now are Ron Bird, chief economist with the Employment Policy Foundation, a non-profit educational and research organization, and Rebecca Blank, an economist and dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Well, Ron Bird, two different data sets telling us slightly different things: One, with a lower rate of joblessness, another saying that businesses and government shed 43,000 jobs in September. What does that tell you?

RON BIRD: Well, the difference between the household survey results and the establishment survey results is not surprising. We typically see in a number of months, those numbers moving in different directions. The change of down 43,000 from August and the payroll survey numbers is not a large number in the context of 130 million employee economy. The good news was an increase of about 700,000 in the estimate of employment based on the household survey. Both cases you're dealing with surveys and estimates. Essentially the economy is moving along at a slow recovery rate -- the unemployment rate staying about what it has been for several months.

RAY SUAREZ: But that drop in one month's time, 0.3%. You mention it is a large number of jobs in a very big economy. It adds up to a lot of people.

RON BIRD: Well, if you are talking about the payroll report that was 43,000 down out of 130 some odd million, so that's not a huge number. Of course any number is unfortunate. We want to see the economy growing. What we really need to do is see the economy back in the situation it was in a few years ago creating large numbers of new job opportunities.

RAY SUAREZ: Rebecca Blank, when you look at those two different reports, saying at first blush contrary things, what do you make of the numbers?

REBECCA BLANK: It's hard to make a lot of this month's unemployment numbers -- as Mr. Bird noted, these changes -- which is simply small -- The Bureau of Labor Statistics really said no significant change. The interest in looking over a slightly longer time period and if you compare today's numbers to three or four months ago, unemployment is down and the overall employment numbers are actually up slightly. Now unemployment tends to be a lagging indicator and what is puzzling here is that the employment side is looking better, but a lot of the leading indicators are actually turning down. And the real question is where are we going in is the leading indicators leading us and is employment going to go back up again, or does this employment situation herald good news? I'm afraid we just don't know yet.

RAY SUAREZ: Given that the unemployment rate is a fairly gross number, sort of the work force seen from 35,000 feet, when you break out different sectors, what do the finer grain numbers tell you about what's up with American workers?

REBECCA BLANK: I'm particularly interested in looking at the more skilled versus the less skilled workers. And there I think the news is that I'm very surprised actually at how low unemployment has stayed for everyone, but particularly for the least skilled. If you look at high school dropouts, their unemployment rates hovered at 8%, in comparison to double digit unemployment rates during much of the '80s and early 90s. The numbers still look good despite the economic slowdown. Some of the reasons for that is people dropping out of the labor market as opposed to looking for work. But the unemployment numbers in general, they look pretty similar across industries. There's not one industry that jumps out at you as being a lot worse.

RAY SUAREZ: Do you agree with that is this.

RON BIRD: I was glad to hear Professor Blank talk about the skills issues because in fact that's the central thing that I believe we need to be concerned about in this economy. 60% of the unemployed today are people with a high school-- only a high school diploma or less. Another 25% of the unemployed have a smattering of post-secondary training but have not finished any sort of degree program in a systematic way. The job opportunities that have been growing in the past 10 years have been job opportunities for people with skills, people with education, and it's that need that we need to address if we want to improve the outlook and for the unemployed and get the economy growing again.

RAY SUAREZ: But when you say we need to address that, what an 18-year-old without a high school diploma does might be fairly simple. What a 32-year-old without a high school diploma does, is what?

RON BIRD: That is an important consideration. One of the things we need to do is to think outside the box a little bit and think about ways to combine work with ongoing education, with continuing education, with returning to school.

RAY SUAREZ: Those discouraged workers that you mentioned, Dean Blank, do we know how many of them there are cumulatively, how many there are out there in the 284 million Americans?

REBECCA BLANK: We don't have regular data on discouraged workers. The short answer is no. What we do know is that they are heavily concentrated among the less skilled. That's the population you should worry about when unemployment rates start going up. A number of the discouraged workers appear to be older men who are going on to disability at higher rates than they were ten and twenty years ago. But there is increase among younger menace well. One can only guess what is happening there. My guess is a number of them are moving into underground economy jobs when they can't find mainstream jobs. That should be a real concern. You don't want to pull people out of the mainstream economy.

RAY SUAREZ: If some of them came back on stream, became merely jobless instead of discouraged workers, how do jobs arise in the economy to soak up some of the demand?

RON BIRD: Well, unfortunately in today's economy, the job opportunities for people with the least skills and the least education are few. On the other hand, if people have more skills, the job opportunities are there. During the last year, for example, during the recession, while total employment was, in fact, declining, we saw an increase of a half million over the year in employment of people with two-year vocational degrees. Clearly there's a demand for the skills there. We mentioned the discouraged workers -- the discouraged unemployed, the hidden unemployed, the people who are not looking but would like to have a job. A couple of questions asked on the household survey get to that issue. One measure comes back at around 390,000 based on people who say that they are available to work, they would like to work, but they haven't looked because they just feel that there are no jobs there for them. A broader measure is people that aren't looking for but a variety of reasons, but have looked for work in the last year. That's 1.5 million.

REBECCA BLANK: Can I jump in there?

RAY SUAREZ: Go ahead.

REBECCA BLANK: There is a big gender gap here that's important to look at. The discouraged workers are all focused on the men. If you look at the women over the last ten years, you see the opposite trend. Huge increases in labor force participation and no evidence in the current numbers and certainly not in the last ten years of numbers of discouragement. Some of that is due to increasing job opportunities for women. Some of that is due to very extensive welfare-to-work efforts. So again one of the interesting questions here is why are the men behaving differently than the women?

RAY SUAREZ: That's a good question. Do you have any possible answers? When you look at how people behave in response to these trends, what are some of the possible answers?

REBECCA BLANK: One possible answer is certainly our welfare reform programs where we've said to women in no uncertain terms, your safety net is disappearing and go get a job. Women have clearly responded to that. One of the things that strikes me is that while it's hard to find jobs right now, there doesn't seem to be a huge loss in jobs among a lot of the women who went out and found work in the mid-and late 1990s. If they would actually lose jobs and not be able to find others, the question of would they flow back into the welfare case load or what would they do becomes a very serious policy question.

RAY SUAREZ: And states under the budget press yourself they're under now with the recession, they can't extend unemployment benefits that easily, can they, Mr. Bird?

RON BIRD: Well, certainly the state's unemployment insurance systems are in, in 26 states, are operating below the recommended solvency guidelines for their trust funds. But just extending benefits is not the heart of the answer, I don't think. The issue we really need to address is getting the economy moving again. In some ways, 5.6% unemployment rate that we're looking at now, if you look in historical perspectives, you might say it's not that bad. It's not that high. It's lower than it was ten years ago; it's lower than it was twenty years ago. But the fact of the matter is we've seen, in the last five to ten years, that the last five years especially, that this economy is capable of a lot better. So we're frustrated to see the unemployment rate at what it is when we know it could be at 4%. And the key there is not band-aid approaches so much as getting the economy moving again getting the job creation engine started again by encouraging investment, and encouraging business to create new jobs and certainly by not doing things that put stumbling blocks in the way of job creation.

RAY SUAREZ: Ron Bird, Dean Blank, thank you both.

SERIES BATTLE FOR THE SENATE

MARGARET WARNER: Election Day 2002 is just 32 days away. The balance of power in the narrowly divided Senate and House of Representatives is at stake. And one of the most hotly contested races is the open Senate seat in Texas. Betty Ann Bowser has our report.

PEOPLE: Si se lo puede.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Not too long ago, Democrats in Texas were chanting Si se lo puede "we can do it" in any language. But just weeks away from the election, Democrats find one of their own, 48-year- old former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, with a good shot of retiring Senator Phil Gramm's Senate seat, a Republican seat the White House does not want to lose.

RON KIRK: You all are excited. I am excited, too. We can do it. Yes, we can. We have two big issues facing this campaign. One is protecting our freedom, and we're doing that. We will make America safe. But we also have to fight and protect our families as well. You need a Senator who will work with your representatives and your congress and your county judge to make sure we create the kind of jobs so you have the money to send you kids to school, to own that home, to invest in your businesses. (Applause)

RON KIRK: People who look at politics nationally, honestly, most people a year ago didn't even have Texas on the radar screen. They thought this was, you know, Bush country, solidly Republican; put that one in the Republican column.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Kirk is a moderate. As a two-term Dallas mayor, he was known as a pro-business Democrat who brought people together. The last time he ran, he was reelected with 74% of the vote in a city that was majority white and Republican. Kirk beat out four other candidates, including an incumbent Houston congressman, for the party's nomination in April. If he wins, he'd be the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate from a southern state since reconstruction, and the only black U.S. Senator.

CAL JILLSON: And the question in this race is, in a state that leans Republican by about ten points, can Ron Kirk generate enough excitement and enthusiasm...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Political scientist Cal Jillson from Southern Methodist University has been following Kirk's career.

CAL JILLSON: He's a big man; he's open; he's ingratiating, he's friendly. He's a natural politician. He works a room, he slaps people's backs, he rivets their attention when he talks to them. So when he enters a room, all eyes turn to him. He also has wonderful campaign stump speaking skills. So he's got the pizzazz, the energy that might make this very close. ( Cheers and applause )

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And Jillson says Kirk is one of a new breed of black Democratic candidates who no longer focus on civil rights.

CAL JILLSON: The new group of black Democrats coming up, of which Ron Kirk is one, are more moderate, Clinton third-wave Democrats comfortable with business, willing to talk to business, but being sure that their constituents get their due as well. These are the people who think that in order to have jobs, you have to have healthy businesses, and that's new for black Democrats.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Kirk's opponent is 50-year-old two-term Attorney General John Cornyn. In every sense of the word, he is President Bush's man.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I am here because there's no doubt in my mind that John Cornyn needs to be the next Senator from Texas. ( Cheers and applause ) he's the best man with whom I can work. He's a man who can help us get some things done to make America a safer and stronger and better place for all of us.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The President has already made two campaign appearances for Cornyn, a commercial, and the White House has not ruled out more stops before election day.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We've got to have a man like John Cornyn representing our state in Washington, and there are a lot of reasons why. >> Reporter: The President's influence was evident at a Cornyn campaign event in Dallas for Republican women.

SUE RINGLE: All Republican women and... and more than just Republican women, almost all women love George Bush and what he's doing for our country, and we need someone to work with our President rather than be an antagonist.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Former advisor to the President, Karen Hughes, was also on hand.

KAREN HUGHES, Presidential Adviser: One of the most concrete and specific things we can do in Texas to help President Bush is to elect John Cornyn to go to Washington to work with him for a safer and a stronger and a better America.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Attorney General Cornyn says he best represents the conservative values of Texans. He's proud of his record of cracking down on deadbeat dads and prosecuting pornographers, and he's quick to endorse President Bush's war on terrorism.

JOHN CORNYN: The way we keep the peace is by staying strong. We need to also protect our homeland against a new kind of threat that we did not dream could have occurred on our own shores just a scant year or so ago.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Meanwhile, the Cornyn campaign has portrayed Kirk as a left-of-center liberal Democrat who is out of step with mainstream Texans.

COMMERCIAL SPOKESPERSON: Hillary Clinton, working hard for Ron Kirk.

COMMERCIAL SPOKESMAN: President Bush is working hard for John Cornyn.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Kirk says Cornyn has relied too heavily on support from the President.

RON KIRK: Look, this fellow's been in law... in office, a statewide office, for eight years, and he can't stand up and say, "here's why I ought to be Senator." If the only reason he can give you to vote for him is that "I know George Bush and I'll do what he says," this election is not a referendum on George Bush. It's a referendum on what the people of Texas want. Who they believe will bring the most passion, the most intensity, and the most effectiveness to the job of looking out for their interests, for their kids, for their business, for our future.

JOHN CORNYN: I am proud of the people who supported me in this race and I'm delighted to invite them back home to Texas. These are people we're proud of, the President and Dick Cheney, others. Politics is a team sport. Are you going to be with the President and on his team, not that you'd agree with him 100% of the time, but that you share a similar view of government in our lives? Or are you going to be on Tom Daschle's team or Hillary Clinton's team or Teddy Kennedy? That's why Ron is reluctant to bring those folks here to Texas, because he knows that the people of Texas are pretty conservative.

JOHN CORNYN: Thanks, appreciate it.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The most contentious issue between the two candidates has been their positions on Iraq. Both initially said they were with the President if he found sufficient evidence for a military strike against Saddam Hussein. But when Cornyn criticized Kirk for dragging his feet in supporting a military strike, Kirk lashed out. Appearing before a San Antonio veterans group, he said minorities would likely be in the frontlines, and added, "I would be curious to see if we would go to war if the first half-million kids to go came from families who made $1 million." Analysts called the remark a blunder.

CAL JILLSON: It hurt him in two ways. Texas and lots of the south is pro-gun, pro-military. So to get sideways with the President on Iraq is not a good thing. And to raise the issue of race is also not a good thing, because he has run as a moderate business-friendly Democrat. Texans, white Texans, want to believe that civil rights is a phenomenon of history, and now everybody has a straight-up fair chance.

JOHN CORNYN: And then he took it down a really a low road in making divisive comments about race and class that factually I don't believe to be true. But certainly, it just was changing the subject to something that, I think, cheapened the contribution and commitment that our fighting men and women make on a daily basis.

RON KIRK: There were 350 veterans in that room. Every one of them understood what I was talking about, that my concern was that if I'm going to ask your child to go to war for us, I owe it to him, or her, to make sure that we give them every tool available to come home safe alive.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Kirk is expected to get 90% of the black vote, but he also needs people like Dallas businessman Jordan Davis, a Republican who's leaning toward Kirk.

JORDAN DAVIS: I think he's a pro-business candidate. And that's one of the things that I... as a person that's got an interest in how Dallas does, and how the economy is, I think that's the number one issue on most my peers' radar right now, is what's the economy going to do? And he's always been pro- business, both as mayor, and I think he'll represent that fairly going forward in... on a national concern as well.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The big unknown is what influence the man at the top of the state ticket will have on the Senate race. The Democratic challenger for governor is Tony Sanchez, a moderate pro-business candidate who has already spent tens of millions on his run for the state House against Republican Rick Perry. It's another tight race, and analysts wonder if Sanchez's ability to spend millions more to get Hispanics to the polls election day may help Ron Kirk in a state where two-thirds of registered Hispanics vote Democratic.

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, a debate about war, Iraqi immigrants react, and Shields and Brooks.

UPDATE WAR AND POLITICS

MARGARET WARNER: Fridays are traditionally quiet days inside the U.S. Capitol. Few votes are taken, attendance is sparse, and so, as a result, is the debate. But today those same conditions permitted a rare face-to-face exchange between two of the Senate's most senior members, Republican John Warner and Democrat Robert Byrd; they stand on opposing sides of the Iraq debate. Here's a sampling of their hour- long debate beginning with an exchange about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: If I might say to my good friend, I think it's helpful that Senators engage as you and I are, and I hope throughout this debate there's a great deal of that. Senator to Senator, eye to eye, to talk about these issues. But this biological, I say to my good friend,, the ability to manufacture it and move those sites around to conceal his industrial base, the ability to package it in such a way that it now can be transported long distances, that, I think, is new technology which is troublesome to me. We know full well of the willingness and the capability of terrorists to hit us as they did on 9/11. We saw them attack the "U.S.S. Cole" -- what is to prevent those biological weapons being placed into the hands of this growing network of terrorists, people who hate the united states, and bring it to our shores and distribute it?

SEN. ROBERT BYRD: We knew about their packaging. Why didn't the CIA Director say to me when I asked him twice asked him twice, once up in 407 and once in my own office, what is there that's new, from your standpoint of intelligence, that we didn't know three months ago? Six months ago? He's not been able to come one anything. So I say to my distinguished friend from Virginia, yes, I'm concern beside packaging and all that. But that's not new. That shouldn't make it all compelling that we vote on this matter of peace or war or preemptive strike before we go home. The people out there want us to come home. Let's go home to the people who send us here. Let's talk with them in town meetings. Let's tell them what we know. They have questions. They want answers. Let's go to our people the bosses, the people we represent. Let's go back to them before we make that fateful decision once and for all, which involves so much of the treasure and blood of the people who send us here. Let's go back to them. Let's get their feelings, and then we can come back and make this decision.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: The timing of the work that we're doing on this resolution is important, is now for many reasons. But I draw to the attention of my colleague that the United Nations is now deliberating at this very moment on the possibility of another resolution providing for yet another attempt for an inspection regime. If we show our strength and we show resolve as a unified Congress behind the President, to the extent that we do that, to the extent that resolution could be meaningful and have teeth in it and enforceability in such a way that we can avoid the conflict of war to resolve this question of weapons of mass destruction, which I know my good friend may have shared a view different than mine. But we know now he possibly doesn't have an operative nuclear weapon, but he is doing everything he can to get the materials to construct one or the materials to incorporate in such technology as he has in place now.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD: I say to my friend, let's let the United Nations, that forum of world opinion, speak. Let it make its decision. Let's see where those people stand. Let's see where those other nations stand, and then come back to this body and the body across the hall, the Capitol, and let the Congress make its decision after the United Nations has taken a position. Otherwise we get the cart before the horse.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: What was the quote of a Frenchman who said one time, "oh, tell me in which direction the crowd is surging so that I can run out and get in front and lead." Do you remember that quote?

SEN. ROBERT BYRD: No, but I remember Caesar when he saw one of the Roman soldiers running away from the battle, he took that Roman soldier and he turned him around and he said usual' running in the wrong direction. That's what I'm afraid we're doing.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: No, I say to my friend

SEN. ROBERT BYRD: We're running in the wrong direction.

SEN. JOHN WARNER: What the President has done to hope the United Nations will move in the right direction is to go there and speak to them and to lead, together with others, the prime minister of Great Britain. Lead, not wait and see what direction they go off in. No, that's the reason of the timeliness. Mr. Byrd, I've enjoyed it. Thank you. We'll have more on this floor in the days to come.

SEN. ROBERT BYRD: We will.

FOCUS TIES THAT BIND

MARGARET WARNER: Now how Iraqi immigrants in this country view the prospect of war with Saddam Hussein. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW Chicago has the story.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: This gritty neighborhood on Chicago's northwest side has been a port of entry for many immigrant groups. Signs in Spanish, Korean and, increasingly, Arabic, line the bustling streets. Many Iraqis began settling here a decade ago during and after the Gulf War. In Iraqi owned shops and restaurants, debate over U.S. policy is loud and constant.

MAN: Not today tomorrow. Take him out from Baghdad: Saddam and his family and all his government.

ANOTHER MAN: I want to bomb Saddam. Don't bomb civilians. Yeah, you kill... don't kill the civilians. Kill the government.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: This man fought with the Iraqi resistance after the U.S. pulled out in 1991. Fearing for the safety of family members still in Iraq, he does not want to be identified. He has built up a successful limousine service since arriving in 1992. He had been an engineer in Iraq and served in Hussein's Republican Guard before defecting and fighting with the resistance in the South.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We resisted for about three weeks, and then we had no choice. We didn't have the right weapon. We were not an organized army, just people fighting for freedom, so we had no choice but to leave.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: After spending a year in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia, he made his way to the U.S. Now he would like to see the U.S. go back to Iraq, but not without allies.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Invasion by solely and only the American forces, it doesn't look good, but if you're talking about all the American soldiers going into Iraq with no Iraqis, it's not a good idea. Some Iraqis will defend Iraq because they think this is an invasion, and they think that, you know, the United States is coming there to stay, just like, you know, the occupation of the British in the '20s to Iraq.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: What if they went in with a multinational force and approval from the United Nations?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: That's... that's the best way to do it. That will be very welcome by the Iraqi people.

MAN: Everybody knows that...

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Aiham Alsammarae is part of an earlier wave of successful Iraqi professionals who grated in the 1960s and '70s before Hussein came to power. He owns an international engineering company specializing in electrical power systems. He arrived in 1976 to get his Ph.D. in engineering and couldn't return to Iraq when Hussein took over.

AIHAM ALSAMMARAE: In 1979 Saddam Hussein take over the power over there, and he did execute three of my immediate family. Two of them is my brother-in-laws and one our cousin.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Alsammarae supports regime change, no matter who brings it about.

AIHAM ALSAMMARAE: Definitely. If he doesn't have a regime change, we will never have a democracy in Iraq. Saddam Hussein believe in one thing: Is control everything in his hands.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Should the U.S. go in alone unilaterally to try to bring about regime change?

AIHAM ALSAMMARAE: For my case, I like a change in Iraq, so if I can get help from anyone I welcome it.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Most Iraqi immigrants we spoke to preferred a multinational effort, but they didn't think the rest of the Arab world would react badly to a U.S.-only attack.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Do you think if the U.S. invades, it could inflame the Arab world and there would be more terrorism?

JOHN SALIBA: If you get rid of Saddam, you get rid of the... like they say, you get rid of the head people that supply the money and all that... it stops right there.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: In the neighborhood mosque frequented by Iraqi immigrants, almost everyone wants Saddam Hussein overthrown because of his treatment of the Iraqi people, though few see him as a threat to the United States. Emad Alzurufi dropped out of college in Iraq to fight with the Resistance in 1991. He wants Hussein out, but he's very worried about civilian casualties that could result from a U.S. attack.

EMAD ALZURUFI: I'm very concerned about that, you know, because as we see... as we know, all of us, you know, what happened in 1991. United States attacked in every single place, you know, bridge, you know, companies, you know, power station, water station, a lot of places, you know, very important for the civilian, you know, to use. And what the companies got to do with Saddam Hussein? The United States by their... they knows where he is. They know very well where he is. Why they don't go and follow him and, you know, take him out? Why they didn't finish the job in 1991?

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: So you'd like to see something that just goes after Saddam Hussein?

EMAD ALZURUFI: They could go just, you know, after him and take him out of the country or, you know, or kill him or do whatever is necessary, you know, to just, you know, get him, you know, go out of the country.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But not attack the country?

EMAD ALZURUFI: Not attack the country and not hurting the civilians.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: This woman also did not want to be identified. She fears that an attack on Iraq would be devastating for civilians.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I do have family there. I'm afraid. I'm very... and they, they're afraid too. They have no idea what's going on, because like I said, the war will affect everybody. It's not civilian, it's not Baghdad only. It's everybody.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Can you communicate at all with your family now?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It's very difficult, especially in my case. I mentioned before, I can't. I don't want them to be in trouble.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: She would like to see Hussein overthrown, but questions the motives of the U.S.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The United States is... what they are doing is not something for the Iraqis. That's everybody believes. United States, they are doing it for the... for the oil, and that's what the oil company is doing right now, is everything is with the oil. I mean, oil talks; it's not something for the people.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: For these people, pictures keep alive the memory of Hussein's chemical weapons attack on the Kurds in 1988. Some say they lost friends in the gas attacks after the uprising following the end of the Gulf War. They believe Hussein would use chemical weapons against any opponent. Still, many here were anxious to return to Iraq to fight. Several had this form from the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella group for the opposition, recruiting volunteers. The form asks such things as "Have you served in the military before?"; "What kind of weapons were you trained on?"; and, "Which Iraqi cities do you know well?" The owner of the limousine company was thinking hard about signing up. He says it would not take long to train the thousands of expatriate Iraqis he is sure will answer the call.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: They move very fast, and they are serious about... I think in a matter of three months for training, and from this time it should be... because every Iraqi knows how to use a machine gun, so that's no... three months, I think this army will be ready to go.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: How much time do you spend thinking about this?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Day and night. Every day, every night. I think about it all the time. It's on my mind. It's affecting my daily life, my family life every day. I can't get it out of my mind. It's on my mind all the time. I won't be settled or rested till this thing is over.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Alsammarae has spent many hours thinking about what will happen in Iraq if Hussein is overthrown. He has met with others active in the Iraqi opposition, with the state department recently picking up the tab for travel, to craft a plan for a post- Hussein Iraq.

AIHAM ALSAMMARAE: The government is between one year to three years, okay? And this government will push in the beginning to start making the constitution in the first year; and the constitution, which is rough like the democracy and all this things. The second year, we are trying to start electing the local governments and all this representatives and... and... and judges and whatever, okay? And the third year, we are going to elect the president or prime minister or the king, whatever, whatever the people decide in that time.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Chicago's Iraqi community was pleased to learn that the Bush administration is expected to ask Congress for approval to train 10,000 Iraqi volunteers to assist the U.S. military if an attack on Iraq occurs.

FOCUS SHIELDS AND BROOKS

MARGARET WARNER: Finally tonight, the analysis of Shields and Brooks. Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and David Brooks of the "Weekly Standard." Welcome.

Mark, the White House -- on the Iraq story first -- the White House pulled off a coup this week. Even before the house began debate, they staged a Rose Garden ceremony, the President, the bipartisan leadership of the house endorsing this compromised resolution. They even had a couple Senators. How did this happen?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I'll say first of all, I've yet to speak to a single member who said I, in those private briefings have seen the smoking gun, the conclusive evidence that there is an imminent threat. That is not the case. And I mean people basically are still waiting for that. But I think what has tipped the balance, Margaret, and many people have overlooked it -- was after September 11, the presidency itself was so much strengthened as an office, institutionally, as opposed to the Congress. Prior to that, there had been almost a balance between Capitol Hill and the White House. After September 11, in a time of crisis, Americans intuitively, instinctively turned to the President as the one voice who can speak to all of us and for all of us. And especially in a time of national crisis and national tragedy, the President, when the President invokes national security, not only is deference paid, respect is paid, respect is paid. And he is given largely the benefit of the doubt. So I think the President had, for the first time in ten years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the President had become the commander in chief in the time of crisis and I think it gave the President enormous political leverage.

MARGARET WARNER: Is that what's at work here, David, a sort of deference?

DAVID BROOKS: Partially, though Tom Daschle somehow has resisted the deference. Richard Gephardt the top Democrat in the House he really was changed by September 11. For everybody it was an important event but he really said the world has changed. My vote on Desert Storm, where he voted against it, was a wrong vote. That's very rare for a politician to say that. I misjudged Saddam. He really does mean to harm the United States; he said that. So he has come over. Since September 11, he has had a very good relationship with President Bush, a friendly relationship, a relationship with a lot of long conversations in contrast to the poisonous relationship that Bush and Tom Daschle have. So it was Gephardt really bringing many Democrats over that was the key to that event. The Daschle contrast is the striking thing. Some people are for going into Iraq, some are against. Tom Daschle has no content to his position. He has partisanship. He is against Bush on what he seems to be doing. He has no positive agenda. It's that vacuum at the top, the content vacuum, which is hurting Democrats in the Senate at least.

MARGARET WARNER: Let's go back to the House just for a minute, Gephardt's participation, Mark, do you agree with David's analysis of sort of why? And then explain, I gather there's tremendous unhappiness with him at least in some ranks of Democrats in his caucus.

MARK SHIELDS: There was and there is. And I don't know why. I mean David's speculation is probably as good as anybody's that Dick Gephardt had a Damascus experience and I think he was changed and it is rare when a political figure, especially a high political leader as Gephardt is in his own party, admits that he made a mistake on an important vote. And there's a lot of speculation, a lot of criticism, some from Democrats, some from Republicans that he is doing it for the 2004 -- his own Presidential ambitions -- so he can position himself as a national leader, won't be vulnerable on the charge. I think that's an unfair charge against Richard Gephardt because, given the intensity, and I've talked to dozens of officers on Capitol Hill, dozens of members, the intensity and the passion on this issue is all against going to war. It is not for going to war. If there is going to be a constituency, and given all the moving parts, I mean all the things that could go wrong and the occupation of Iraq in perpetuity and everything else, the cost in life and treasure and disruption, probably it would be a safer political position for a Democrat seeking the presidency in 2004, to be a critic of George W. Bush right now rather than an advocate. I think in fairness to Tom Daschle, Tom Daschle is troubled. I mean there's no question about it. I mean he is holding his own powder. He has got a difficult political situation. He will make his position known, I'm sure. And I don't think that the poisoning of the relations between them is because Gephardt is sort of a good guy and Daschle is a bad guy. The Republican National Committee has spent several times over millions of dollars to demonize Tom Daschle. I mean their attempt is to turn him into the Newt Gingrich of 2002.

MARGARET WARNER: So David, what is going to happen in the Senate? Because in the Senate Daschle has made clear he expects and there are going to be other alternatives offered on the floor.

DAVID BROOKS: Right. There will be the Presidential resolution, which is essentially what Gephardt endorsed. Then there will be a whole series of other resolutions. A resolution from Carl Levin, which will say let the UN decide first; let's let China and Russia decide before we decide. That's my spin on it. Then there is a more centrist resolution from Joe Biden

MARGARET WARNER: The Biden and Lugar

DAVID BROOKS: Joe Biden and Lugar, which says let's go after weapons of mass destruction but let's not change regimes. There have been 33 new democracies in the world since 1980 but let's not let that tide of democracy extend to the Arab world. -- again my spin on the Biden-Lugar resolutions. It will give Democrats a chance to vote for some resolution that appears tough on Saddam Hussein but ultimately the President's resolution is going to be the one that passes.

MARK SHIELDS: Joe Biden himself said that the train has already pulled out of the station. And I think the question -- it's a question of how many votes those resolutions will get, how strong the arguments will be. But I think there is very little doubt right now in Washington about the outcome in either the House or the Senate.

DAVID BROOKS: But the debate really will be important that is starting that'll be next week because we have had a debate about multilateralism; we've had a debate about the Iowa Straw Poll in 2004, how that's affecting this debate. We've not had a debate about Saddam Hussein. We've not had a debate about the Ba'ath Party and ideology; we have not had a debate of how Saddam courted Desert Storm. The focus has been as if we are debating World War II without debating Hitler the Napoleonic Wars without debating Napoleon. This debate will finally, I hope, get down to the key issue, which was: does Saddam have homicidal tendencies toward the United States?

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's shift gears now to the other big political story of the week, which was the New Jersey Senate race. Your thoughts, Mark, on first of all Senator Bob Torricelli and the way he left this race.

MARK SHIELDS: I never thought I would think of Richard Nixon's 1962 concession speech when he lost the governorship in California when he said you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, and then stormed had out of the room as a particularly gracious political event. Bob Torricelli's I thought -- self-pitying, self-adulating soliloquy was an exit which I've seen better on the New Jersey turnpike. It was really a bad moment for him. I mean I know he is under tremendous emotional pressure, but grace failed him.

MARGARET WARNER: So, of course the Republicans are crying foul here because the Democrats now want to replace him. What do you think of those arguments, David? Is it unfair-- or somehow dirty pool for a party at this close to the election, to switch candidates or try to switch candidates?

DAVID BROOKS: The law says that within 51 days before an election you can't switch the ballot.

MARGARET WARNER: The New Jersey ballot.

DAVID BROOKS: The New Jersey state law, and no matter what the cause of vacancy. But Republicans didn't understand that New Jersey is the state of no deadlines. I guess dead lines don't matter in New Jersey. If you don't feel like paying your taxes April 15, pay in March. If you don't feel like handing in your paper as a student, hand in your paper sometime later because the New Jersey State Supreme Court simply ignored that 51-day deadline. Now, apparently there is some vagueness in the law and I'm not a legal expert on this but it is an absolute terrible precedent for this country because we test our candidates. That's how we determine who is fit for office. Over the long months of the campaign, we say you have got to stand up for yourself, you have to go in this circumstance and this circumstance and that circumstance. You can't just parachute in like a relief pitcher in the ninth inning and suddenly because you're famous, you can't just get elected. That's a lousy way of testing candidates.

MARK SHIELDS: Testing candidates I think that is probably David's weakest argument. First of all, you have seven judges all of whom unanimously agreed, six of them are Republican appointed judges to the New Jersey Supreme Court. So they're not Democratic machine hacks or anything of the sort. Secondly, the Democrats didn't go down to central casting and said give us somebody who looks good, is a college president. They got a fresh new face -- Frank Lautenberg who had three terms in the United States Senate. Yes, I believe the campaigns mean scrutiny.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it is a bad precedent?

MARK SHIELDS: Maybe what we should do is we should give each party one mulligan I mean, in other words -- one case. California, the Democrats have Gray Davis -- an embattled incumbent Democratic governor who is unpopular, probably couldn't be reelected except the Republicans nominated Bill Simon == the one person in captivity that Gray Davis can beat like a drum.

DAVID BROOKS: So on November 1, Arnold Schwarzenegger comes in and we'll elect him.

MARK SHIELDS: Is he a citizen? (laughing)

MARGARET WARNER: All right. So, David, now, of course, the Republicans, as we've said, are crying "fowl" they've gone to the U.S. Supreme court to overturn this. People are drawing a lot of parallels with the Florida situation. Do you think the parallels are apt?

DAVID BROOKS: Some of them are apt the rewriting of the election rules. Some of them are not apt. And the interesting question is a political question -- is will the Supreme Court have the guts to take this up? They got torched to use a bad word in the circumstances -- over the Florida imbroglio. Are they really going to want to wade in again? I suspect there will be three votes in the Supreme Court to wade in again. But there won't be five. So Iexpect and republicans expect they won't win on this, that they will end up losing and they will be with Lautenberg forced to race.

MARGARET WARNER: Given, Mark, how close the Senate is, 50-49, given how important this race is, do you think this whole episode, however it turns out, is going to engender something of the bitterness that Florida did?

MARK SHIELDS: No, I think Republicans are trying to do that. They're trying to make this into the Daschle-Torricelli Lautenberg troika that's trying to change America. It's not rigging the results after the thing. There is an election. I feel bad for Doug Forester. He was one of the few people in civilization who was willing to run against Bob Torricelli who is a human buzz saw, had the reputation. He gets in the race against him, makes his only case is I'm not Bob Torricelli. His whole reason for running has ended when Torricelli leaves the race. So all of a sudden Forester has to put together a campaign and say I'm not Torricelli, I'm not Lautenberg. I don't know who else he isn't. He's probably not Henry Clay, either. But that makes it a different dynamic.

DAVID BROOKS: If I could make a stupid moral point. The National Democratic Party was fine with Torricelli's ethics when he was tied in the polls. Suddenly he is down 13 and there is a crisis of conscience running through the national Democratic headquarters leaning on him to pull out. This was so opportunistic. Maybe it is politics but somebody should at least attack the Democrats, criticize them for being so amazingly cynical.

MARK SHIELDS: Correction. Pressure did not come from out the pressure from within. His campaign did a poll last weekend that shows him 20 points behind and he knew that the outcome, I mean if Daschle and the others tried to talk him out of getting out of the race -- I'm not saying the Democrats are moral exemplars but you know, they want to hold on to it. I think the idea that Bill Frist is now a constitutional scholar, the Senator from Tennessee, bringing the appeal to the Supreme Court is sort of just stretches my credulity a little bit.

DAVID BROOKS: Anti-doctor remark.

MARGARET WARNER: More later. Thank you both.

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again the major developments of the day. Four people in Portland, Oregon, and Detroit, were charged with conspiring to wage war on the U.S. by helping Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan. Two more suspects remained at large outside the U.S. The so-called "shoe bomber," Richard Reid, pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a transatlantic flight. And John Walker Lindh was sentenced to 20 years in prison for aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan. A reminder that "Washington Week" can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Thanks for being with us. Good night.