The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is off. On the NewsHour tonight: Our summary of the news; what big changes may be on the way in paying for retirees' health care; the argument over photos showing American soldiers' coffins; food makers cope with the low carb craze; and a look back at the week's news with Mark Shields and David Brooks.

NEWS SUMMARY

RAY SUAREZ: President Bush today ended tough trade and economic sanctions imposed on Libya in 1986. The move will allow American petroleum companies to import oil and resume other commercial activities with the North African nation. Libyan assets held in the U.S. will remain frozen, however. A White House statement praised Libya for dismantling its weapons of mass destruction. It said that made the United States and the world safer. Iraq's U.S. Administrator formally announced today that certain members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party could go back to work for the Iraqi government. Paul Bremer said the new policy applied to thousands of former teachers and military personnel. But he said those deemed to have been party members "in name only" were eligible. Ambassador Bremer acknowledged a ban denying public sector jobs to all former members of the disbanded party had been "poorly implemented." In a nationally televised address to Iraqis, he said recruiting experienced people was crucial to building the country's new armed services.

L. PAUL BREMER: The minister of defense announced his appointment of the top Iraqi generals in the new Iraqi army. Iraqi officers drawn almost entirely from the honorable men of the former Iraqi army already command these forces. Over 70 percent of the men in the Iraqi army and Iraqi civil defense corps served honorably in the former Iraqi army. They have asked to serve their country again and we welcome their service.

RAY SUAREZ: A radical Iraqi cleric today threatened to unleash suicide attacks if U.S. forces entered the holy city of Najaf. Muqtada al-Sadr has been holed up there for weeks, encircled by U.S. troops with orders to capture or kill him. During Friday prayers, al-Sadr said: "If our cities, our holy shrines, or our clerics were attacked, we will be time bombs in their faces." U.S. Military officials said negotiations to end the standoff could proceed, adding, there were no imminent plans to attack. Today in Samara, north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed one American soldier. And a White House message of condolence confirmed that former pro-football player Pat Tillman had been killed in Afghanistan. In 2002, Tillman ended a four- year NFL career and turned down a $3 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the army. He was said to have died in a firefight yesterday during a search for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. Defense Department officials today defended a policy prohibiting photography of the remains of U.S. war dead. It came after photos of flag- draped coffins from Iraq appeared on a web site thememoryhole.Org. They had been released by the Pentagon last week under a Freedom of Information Act Request. Yesterday, officials said there would be no further releases. They called the photo displays "unwarranted" and "undignified." We'll have more on this story later in the program. In Saudi Arabia today, the interior ministry announced security forces killed four suspected terrorists in a raid. A fifth suspect blew himself up. It happened in the port city of Jeddah. Four of the five suspects were on the government's most-wanted list, according to the Saudi press agency. The government also claimed the raid prevented a terror attack in that city. On Wednesday, a bomb blast in the capital, Riyadh, killed five people and injured nearly 150. Both sides in the Zacarias Moussaoui case claimed partial victories today after an appeals court yesterday ruled his trail could proceed. The three-judge panel granted Moussaoui's request to be allowed access to three al-Qaida prisoners he claims can exonerate him in the 9/11 attacks. The panel also ruled the prosecution could introduce evidence about the 2001 attacks and seek the death penalty. Yesterday's ruling is subject to further appeal. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today said he was no longer bound by a promise to President Bush not to harm Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat. The prime minister said he was releasing himself from the three-year-old pledge. Sharon did not say Arafat was an imminent target of assassination. A White House official said the U.S. Opposed such action, saying "we consider a pledge, a pledge." Israel has recently killed two leaders of the Palestinian group Hamas. North Korea appealed to the United Nations for humanitarian assistance today, following yesterday's train explosion near the Chinese border. Several hundred people were killed, and thousands injured in the blast, according to North Korean officials. Initial reports yesterday put the deaths at nearly 3,000. We have a report from Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News.

JONATHAN MILLER: This is North Korea's main line from the capital Pyongyang to the border with china. And this is the city of Ronghong Kong. 36 hours after massive explosions, there are still no pictures but Red Cross officials have been to the scene and pay parts of the town have been razed to the ground. Pyongyang's ambassador to the United Nations reluctantly admitted in New York that his country needs help.

PAK GIL YON: We need the help of the international community for emergency relief.

REPORTER: There was an accident.

PAK GIL YON: Through the carelessness.

JONATHAN MILLER: Transport infrastructure in the democratic republic is something apparently snagged an overhead power cable and dropped into the trainload of dynamite. The area around the station was reduced to ashes. This satellite image taken last year shows the railway line running down the left side of the screen. To the right, densely packed housing. North Korean officials say 1800 homes were here leveled. The situation though is so chaotic and accurate information is in such short supply, that no one is sure if it's 50 dead or 500.

RAY SUAREZ: The International Red Cross said it was ready to send aid to North Korea, and reports from South Korea said some humanitarian aid workers were already on the ground. A Vatican official today reminded priests they must deny communion to politicians who support abortion rights. At a news conference in Rome, Cardinal Francis Arinze reaffirmed the Catholic church's requirement for receiving communion. Arinze was asked if it would apply to U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry, a Catholic who supports abortion rights. The cardinal said it was up to American bishops to interpret the doctrine. Senator Kerry would not respond directly to the cardinal's announcement, and reiterated his support for the right to abortion. Employers could trim or end health insurance benefits for their retirees once they're eligible for Medicare. That option would be permitted in a proposed rule approved yesterday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It could affect more than 12 million people who rely on employer-sponsored health care programs to pay costs not covered by Medicare. Several federal agencies must still review the EEOC ruling. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. International financial leaders assembled in Washington today for this weekend's spring meetings of the World Bank and international monetary fund. Treasury secretary snow and Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan hosted discussions with officials from the group of seven major industrial nations. Snow praised the U.S. Economy, saying it is much better than it was a year ago and that the "upward trend is strong." Snow's appraisal was supported by good manufacturing news today from the Commerce Department. It reported orders for big- ticket durable goods rose a greater-than-expected 3.4 percent in March. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 11 points to close above 10472. The NASDAQ rose more than 16 points to close above 2049. For the week, the Dow gained a fraction of a percent. The NASDAQ rose more than 2.5 percent. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: health care insurance for retirees; photos of war dead; the low-carb diet craze; and Shields and Brooks.

FOCUS - BENEFITS CHANGE?

RAY SUAREZ: Now the debate over a new rule governing health benefits for retirees. Margaret Warner has more.

MARGARET WARNER: Yesterday's decision by the equal Employment Opportunity Commission could have major impact on companies that offer health benefits to their retired employees, and to their present and future retirees as well. By a 3-1 vote, the commission said companies may create two classes of retirees: Those under the Medicare age of 65, and those 65 and older, and offer them different health benefits without running afoul of the Age Discrimination Employment Act, or ADEA. Four years ago the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had ruled that any age based distinction violated that law. For a closer look at yesterday's decision and its potential impact, I'm joined by Leslie Silverman, an EEOC commissioner who voted in favor of the rule, and David Certner, director of Federal Affairs for AARP, which opposed it. Welcome toyou both.

Miss Silverman, why did the EEOC do this? What were you tries to address by making this change?

LESLIE SILVERMAN: We were trying to address the effect of the Eerie County decision on the current retiree health system.

MARGARET WARNER: That's the third circuit...

LESLIE SILVERMAN: It is.

MARGARET WARNER: That I referred to.

LESLIE SILVERMAN: There was a decision and it called into question all the retiree health benefits out there. We heard from members of Congress. We heard from unions. We heard from boards of education, and they all said to us this decision means it will have to change. If we have to change, we will end up dropping our retiree health benefits. So we felt we had to take this action.

MARGARET WARNER: What you're saying, in other words, is faced with the prospect of having all... having to offer all or nothing,, they were saying to you, rather than have to cover someone from 55 until near 90, we just won't offer it at all?

LESLIE SILVERMAN: Exactly. They were saying it was too hard to comply with the decision and faced with the escalating health care costs and changes in accounting rules, this is one more thing that is making it too hard to offer our benefits to retirees.

MARGARET WARNER: But it's the--

LESLIE SILVERMAN: It's the current system I'm talking about. This is how retiree health benefits are currently offered in this nation.

MARGARET WARNER: You all oppose it. Why?

DAVID CERTNER: The EEOC is supposed to be the organization charged with protecting age discrimination laws, protecting all the workers, in this case all the retiree. And basically what EEOC decided is health care costs are very expensive in this country. It is hard to provide health benefits for retirees for everybody. So we're just going to forget the class of people over 56 who we are charged in to protect, in favor of the younger class. We think that's a mistake. We think we should have protections in place for retiree health benefits for all retirees and not simply throw over the older retirees in favor of the younger retirees.

MARGARET WARNER: There are ten or twelve million people retirees over 65 who get Medicare plus the employer-paid benefits. Roughly a third of the Medicare recipients. What do they use the employer-paid benefits for?

DAVID CERTNER: Generally they use them as a supplement to the current Medicare benefits. They fill in the gaps that Medicare doesn't cover, especially for the last few years and currently, of course, they provide very often prescription drug benefits which of course we don't have until the new law kicks into place in 2006. But they may also cover other kinds of payments that Medicare doesn't cover.

MARGARET WARNER: Is it AARP's view that once this takes official effect, a lot of them will be kicked off?

DAVID CERTNER: Well, the problem is we've seen a decline in coverage for retiree health benefits, older and younger, over the past decade. This has been an ongoing problem because primarily health care costs have been so high. What we are seeing here is we don't want to see a change in the rules that basically remove another protection for older retirees against having their benefit cut off or reduced.

MARGARET WARNER: Did the EEOC look at or try to come to some determination of how many of the current recipients of these employer benefits would get cut off?

LESLIE SILVERMAN: It's our belief that none of them will be cut off because of our decision. We believe rather that if we let the Eerie County decision stand, then more people would be cut off, and what David is not talking about is the people who have retired early before 65. There are a good percentage of the plans out there, called bridge plans, and they cover people that are early retirees. And sometimes, and this has always been lawful, those benefits stop at 65. And this decision effectively will make it impossible for employers to provide that and therefore all these early retirees, many of whom are teachers, are going to end up with no benefits at all.

MARGARET WARNER: By decision, you mean court decision called into question the bridge plans.

LESLIE SILVERMAN: That's exactly right because before that court decision, everybody presumed that our retiree health system was fine, that it didn't violate the law. No one has ever considered it to have light violated the law before that decision. So suddenly that called the whole retiree health system into question.

DAVID CERTNER: Let me just respond to that because that is simply incorrect. In fact, EEOC back in the Eerie case supported they decision of the Eerie County case. It is not unusual that they ruled that way because they said it does apply...

MARGARET WARNER: Did the EEOC take the position prior to the case?

Rather than getting back into the legal history, let's go back to the substance of this. Is it possible that once they're freed of this obligation or the fear that they will be obligated to provide coverage from 55 on, that companies will actually be more willing to at least offer these bridge plans, which have been reduced in number, as I understand it, number of companies willing to do that, that at least they will be more willing to cover someone who takes an early buyout from 65 when Medicare kicks in --

DAVID CERTNER: Well, you have to understand what the law allows now. The law currently allows you to provide a benefit similar to Medicare for pre-65. In fact, the law allows you to take Medicare into account when determining a benefit for a younger retiree. What we see happening is the younger retiree gets a better benefit package from the employer than what Medicare has to offer. That's always been illegal under the law - that's what the challenge is now. But of course the challenge is that we have pressures on both benefits for younger retirees and older retirees.

MARGARET WARNER: So my question is, might this improve the prospects for the younger retirees?

DAVID CERTNER: It potentially could improve it for younger retirees because what you have' done is throw aside the whole class of older retirees. We don't think you should be choosing to throw aside the older retirees for the younger retirees, particularly from an agency charged with protecting an older worker versus the younger worker. We think we should have more of a negotiated settlement, if we need to, to protect both classes.

MARGARET WARNER: Miss Silverman, as Mr. Certner pointed out, the companies are under no obligation to do this and the number of companies that offer this to their retirees has gone down dramatically. One set of numbers I looked at said in 1980 fully one-half of companies do it. It was the norm and now only a third of the large companies do it and only 10 percent of the smaller companies. You've heard a lot from companies and unions, and so on. Did you try and assess real evidence as to whether making this change would actually help halt the decline in the number of companies willing to offer retirees benefits?

LESLIE SILVERMAN: We did try to look at it. We tried to figure out what was best in the public interest and what we found is if we didn't act, it was going to cause more harm than if we did act and stop the situation. And just to respond to something that David brought up, the way that many of the under 65 early retirees are currently getting their health insurance, is that they are getting the same health insurance benefits that workers are getting. In order to comply with the decision, companies would then have to come one a whole new insurance system for those older people who have retired but under 65. And when you take those people out of the current system and create a new system for them, automatically it is going to be more expensive. Faced with that proposition, employers are just not going to do it and employees... former employees are going to be the losers.

MARGARET WARNER: A quick question. What happens to the current retirees who got these benefits, not just as a result of some deal they made with their employer personally, but under contract? Let's say auto workers. There's some kind of big contract with the labor union. Are they grandfathered in or are they at risk?

LESLIE SILVERMAN: All of the union contracts are at risk because they are usually coordinated with Medicare. Anything that's coordinated with Medicare under the eerie county decision is at risk first of all. That's one of the reasons we've heard from the unions. It's their members, they're some of the people that are going to get hurt.

MARGARET WARNER: Under the new law you think they'll be better off?

LESLIE SILVERMAN: I think they will be better off.

DAVID CERTNER: What is truly at risk is retiree health benefits for all retiree. We have companies offering retiree health benefits in dwindling numbers but most of the companies that offer them to both the pre-56 and post-65. The large majority do both; the concern is that by saying you don't need to protect the older retirees under the Age Discrimination Act Anymore. One more way of saying to employees we know you want to get out of the system. Here is a way to do it. You can drop your benefits for the older retirees and maintain them for the younger retirees.

MARGARET WARNER: Final question. What is AARP going to do about this?

DAVID CERTNER: We've tried very hard to work with the EEOC, with other interested parties to try to negotiate a solution that will protect the retiree benefits from both younger and older retirees. This vote obviously went against us. We will continue. I think there was leeway given to discuss this further. If we can't get any resolution out of the EEOC, we'll look at all other options including the option of going to court.

MARGARET WARNER: Are you ready to defend this in court?

LESLIE SILVERMAN: We are. We're very comfortable with what we did yesterday.

MARGARET WARNER: David Certner and Leslie Silverman, thank you both very much.

FOCUS - IMAGES OF WAR

RAY SUAREZ: Now to the controversy over showing the coffin pictures of the war's fallen soldiers, and to media correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: At Fort Hood, Texas, yesterday, joy, relief, laughter, tears and news cameras met the Fourth Infantry Division as it returned from combat duty in Iraq.

SPOKESMAN: We bow our head in loving memory.

TERENCE SMITH: But no cameras covered the return to the United States of more than 50 of their fallen comrades. The soldiers of the Fourth ID killed in Iraq, like all American military personnel killed overseas, have come home through Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the largest military mortuary in the United States. In the past, the arrival ceremony at Dover has been public, as it was in 1983 when President Reagan received the bodies of more than 240 marines killed in Lebanon. But for the last two and a half years the Pentagon has strictly enforced a policy originally enacted in 1991 that forbids news media coverage of the return of the fallen. That prohibition was broken this past week when pictures surfaced of both the preparations to return American dead and ceremonies greeting their arrival at Dover. Last Sunday, the "Seattle Times" featured on its front page a photo taken by Tami Silicio, an American military contractor in Kuwait. The photo of flag-draped caskets prepared for transport was sent to the "Times" by a friend of Silicio. Both Silico and her husband were fired by their employer, Maytag Aircraft, on Wednesday for violating company and Pentagon policies. And yesterday thememoryhole.Org, a website devoted to combating government secrecy, published over 350 photos of repatriation ceremonies at Dover Air Force Base. The website's operator obtained the photos through a Freedom of Information Act request and received the photos from the Air Force last week. The Department of Defense said yesterday no further release of photos would be authorized. The firing of Silicio and her husband was reported last night on the network's evening news broadcast. The controversy, coupled with the release of the pictures by the air force, has led to renewed debate over the photo prohibition policy.

TERENCE SMITH: Joining me now to discuss this are Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations, and Dana Milbank, a White House correspondent for the "Washington Post." Welcome to you both. Bryan Whitman, as we noted in the setup, the ceremonies at Dover in the past have been quite public, rather formal. Occasionally attended by presidents, President Reagan and others. Why the change in policy? Who imposed it back in 1991 and why?

BRYAN WHITMAN: Well, you raised the important point there. This is a policy that's not really new. It's a policy that is some 14 years old. And it's a policy that was born out of a desire to find the right balance, the balance between respecting the privacy of our servicemen and their families, particularly those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and that in providing access to news media to all our military operations.

TERENCE SMITH: But there have been exceptions in... it's the policy but the practice, there have been exceptions.

BRYAN WHITMAN: There have been a couple of exceptions but for the most part policy has been in force and adhered to over that 14 year period.

TERENCE SMITH: I mean, President Clinton was there to receive the victims of the bombing of the U.S.S. "Cole".

BRYAN WHITMAN: And there was an instance when an exception was made when we had the tragic accident of Ron Brown's aircraft.

TERENCE SMITH: But in other places around the world, you've done some reporting on this, Dana Milbank, the ceremonies are public and photograph?

DANA MILBANK: Well, they had been until last year. And that's why the public may not be aware and Bryan is quite correct, that the policy at Dover dates from 1991 with very few exceptions. However, at other air bases, sort of the intermediate point like Ramstein in Germany during the Afghanistan War, they were... there were bases there, Andrews Air Force Base. So this is first conflict, the Iraq conflict, in the last two decades or so where we are not seeing a lot of pictures of the flag draped caskets coming home. While it's true that we weren't seeing them previously very much from Dover, the public probably was not aware but they were gettingthem from other bases. It is definitely being enforced system wide throughout the military with more strictness until, at least until this past week when there was this flood of photos.

TERENCE SMITH: Including a very big photograph on the front page of your newspaper, "Washington Post". Today, Bryan Whitman, what's the problem with those photographs? In other words, what way to in what way do they possibly invade the privacy of the families or anything else?

BRYAN WHITMAN: Well, you know, we don't -- we should all be concerned that we don't do anything at the time of grief for one of our fallen comrades -- that we make it - that we make it more difficult for them.

TERENCE SMITH: Do you think those pictures do?

BRYAN WHITMAN: I think that those pictures have a potential to do that.

TERENCE SMITH: How or why?

BRYAN WHITMAN: Well, because it is an invasion into their privacy as they have received word of a missing or a killed loved one. I think, you know, we should all take a look at this, perhaps in the shoes of the mother or the father who has lost a son or daughter or a husband who has lost a wife or a wife who has lost a husband. Our service members don't ask much of us. They ask to be well trained. They asked to be well equipped and they ask to be well led. And if something should happen to them, they ask that we take care of our families. And this policy is designed to take care of their families.

TERENCE SMITH: Is -- I have to ask this. Is the policy also designed to soften the impact of the casualties in the war?

BRYAN WHITMAN: No, I think that's an unfair argument. I guess I'll tell you why. I mean this conflict we put some 600 reporters out on the battlefield at the commencement of combat operations. Every time we have a casualty as a result of combat action, every time we have somebody that's been killed, we put out a news release on that. The command puts out a release on that. We in the Defense Department, we follow that up with a release that gives the name of the individual, their hometown, their age, and we do that for every service member that's killed in action. On the Defense Department website, daily we post the casualties. So idea that we are somehow trying to not let the American people have the information about the cost of this war in terms of the human sacrifice, I think is not a true reflection of what the facts are.

TERENCE SMITH: But Dana Milbank, images are very powerful, and they have an impact. Is there concern from your reporting at the White House about the political impact of these images?

DANA MILBANK: Well, of course there has to be concern, and it is very true that the military has kept very up-to-date statistics about the casualties. They've not been hiding anything. But as you say, images matter a great deal. In fact, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hugh Shelton said several years ago that in considering any foreign engagement, we have to consider the Dover test. And that is when the public sees flag draped caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base, are we still going to have the national stomach to continue with this? So I don't know the motives of the Bush administration or the earlier Bush administration or, in imposing this, but clearly the effect also is to soften the blow. I mean it's no accident that President Bush is often out there talking about the importance of staying the course, and about the sacrifice, but he has not attended a funeral of a soldier who has fallen in Iraq. Those images are very powerful. And the White House, if a lot of these images are coming out repeatedly, coupled with images of violence in Iraq without images showing progress, this could really undermine public support for the war. So we don't know what the motives are. We know the effect is quite beneficial for the policy not to have them out there.

TERENCE SMITH: Is that a concern?

BRYAN WHITMAN: Well, Terry, we don't have ceremonies at Dover, okay. There is a ritual that we go through and I think some of the photographs that you see demonstrate what we've always said, that we, throughout the remains of the transfer process, we treat them with enormous respect and dignity.

TERENCE SMITH: And those photographs seem to say that.

BRYAN WHITMAN: But the appropriate place to really render honors, and to acknowledge the sacrifice that somebody has made is at the gravesite. And it's at the gravesite because that's where friends and family can be. That's where members of the military unit can gather. Ands that's where the media, with the permission of the family, can be there to cover....

TERENCE SMITH: I guess what's different is at the gravesite it's an individual ceremony, an individual exercise and is there not some impact when you see a whole plane load full of coffins?

BRYAN WHITMAN: And the family is then in a position to make that choice, whether or not they want media coverage or not. We have a responsibility to our service members broadly, and so we have to make policies that first and foremost go to support our families and our troops.

TERENCE SMITH: Dana Milbank, did you have any qualms at the "Washington Post" about running the photograph -- any concern about the impact on the families that Bryan Whitman is talking about?

DANA MILBANK: Not really in this instance. The concern is to make sure permission was received because it was not directly coming from the air force. It went through this website. It is not at all like the case several weeks ago in Fallujah where you had the grisly images of the bodies and you knew who they were. You knew their names. The relatives would be knowing it's them. A lot of wrestling with that, decided to run images that weren't easily identifiable. That doesn't really have that because actually in these images we have no idea who any of these soldiers were. They were unknown soldiers to us. They didn't come out with their names attached and obviously it's not identifiable because they're all in identical caskets with identical flags on top. So the respect for the family and contextualizing at the gravesite I think is the more powerful argument that military is making. Obviously it is hard to violate somebody's privacy if the person is completely anonymous as they would be in this case.

BRYAN WHITMAN: Let's imagine though just for a second that if there were ceremonies at Dover, and we did open them up for media coverage, think about the young husband or wife with a small family in the middle of the country or on the West Coast or anywhere. If there were to be ceremonies that were being covered by the media, they would feel compelled to be there to honor....

TERENCE SMITH: In fact the military has provided transportation in the past.

BRYAN WHITMAN: To honor their loved ones. But you would then be asking them to remove themselves from perhaps the only support structure that they have in their community, and to travel a great distance to be there out of the sense of obligation. What we really want to do is to move the remains on as quickly as possible so that they can be returned to their loved ones and so that they can have those ceremonies and they can have that recognition.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay. Bryan Whitman, Dana Milbank, thank you both very much.

RAY SUAREZ: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Carb cutting rocks the food industry, and Shields and Brooks.

FOCUS - LOW CARB CRAZE

RAY SUAREZ: Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago, has the diet revolution story.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The low carbohydrate craze is changing the way American consumers eat and shop.

BONNIE DEININGER: Oh, my gosh. I used to eat pasta probably four times a week, five times a week. And, absolutely, mashed potatoes with, you know, a piece of fish and mashed potatoes and vegetables -

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Thinking that was healthy.

BONNIE DEININGER: -- thinking that was healthy.

DAVE ROSENBERG: Next week our bakery department is going to offer its own artisan line of fresh-baked breads that are low carbohydrate. We're also bringing on muffins, and they're low carbohydrate and made fresh at our bake house.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The basic idea behind a low-carb, high-protein diet is that by limiting the amount of carbohydrates the body gets, it would begin burning more fat instead. Some researchers and health professionals have remained skeptical of diets like the Atkins, saying they fear that people will eat too much protein and fatty foods, leading to increased cholesterol and heart disease. Although the controversy continues, a newly released study found that 59 million adult Americans are currently controlling their carbohydrates. Harry Balzer's firm, the NPD group, has been analyzing American's eating habits for the last 25 years. He says, interest in a low-carb lifestyle really took off last year.

HARRY BALZER: In February of 2003 when we did our survey about "are you or are you not on a diet?" we found that about 1 percent of the population said they were on a low-carb, high-protein diet. Six months later that number tripled; it went from about three million people to eleven million people. You don't have diets moving that fast anywhere unless something is happening.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Recently in Denver 500 people representing 250 companies showed up at the first ever low-carb business conference, shocking the conference organizer, Dean Rotbart.

DEAN ROTBART: This is an unbelievable event in the sense that when we started planning it in late September, we thought we would probably have a couple dozen companies to come: We would sit around a single table and we would talk about industry issues. And so we invited a few friends and the whole planet showed up. I mean, this is the hottest thing to hit the food industry probably since frozen foods. I mean, to be perfectly honest, you probably have to go back to the invention of the refrigerator and the freezer to see how important an impact this has had on the industry.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Major marketers are moving toward low-carb foods in a big way. Sales for low-carb products were estimated at $1.3 billion last year by the Nutrition Business Journal. McDonald's is testing menu choices such as a bun-less Big Mac. Burger King also offers a burger without the bread, while Subway has come up with a sandwich that replaces bread with a wrap.

COMMERCIAL: But with under 11 net carbs, they will help you satisfy your goal for low carb goals.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: At a downtown Chicago subway several customers were delighted with the new choice.

SHEILA WHITE: I thought it was great. It's a great alternative to some of the other things maybe that I would have been eating for lunch during the week or also for dinner. And it's good to have places that are fast food restaurants that are now catering to a different lifestyle, versus more of the higher carbohydrate diets.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Franchise owner Murad Fazal says it took three months of negotiations between Subway and Atkins Nutritionals, Incorporated, to gain the right to use the Atkins name on their products. After that it's been smooth sailing.

MURAD FAZAL: It's been amazing. I mean, we're selling them so well, we just can't even keep them on the shelves long enough. There is a huge craze. You know, obviously there's been a shift in the consumers from a low-fat diet to the Atkins and low-carb diets, and now we just have another product that's been endorsed by the Atkins organization. We have another product on the menu to provide to our customers.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The low-carb revolution has had some losers as well as winners. Producers of high-carb producers have seen a drop off in sales. A study by the National Bread Leadership Council says bread sales are down by 40 percent. This Chicago bakery hasn't experienced that kind of a drop, but sales have slowed down in the last several years. Company president Robert Piccheitte attributes some of that slowdown to the attention focused on low-carb diets.

ROBERT PICCHEITTE: I think this whole Atkins issue is if you look at papers and things, it's getting a higher and higher profile from you guys, and more and more people are starting to ask about it.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Red Hen is one of the very few bakeries in Chicago that makes all of its bread by hand. Bakers mix and shape each loaf before it goes into the oven. Red Hen supplies Chicago's top restaurants and hopes to open several more retail outlets in the next year. One of the ways Red Hen responded to the concern about carbs was to put in a suggestion box asking people if they wanted a low-carb bread. Some of the answers: "Yes, please, low-carb bread." Or: "You are kind and you did not ask about carbs. No, in my book, bread is not dead." Red Hen's bakers have been working hard to develop a low- carb bread. But they've found it's not that easy, especially when good taste is a must.

ROBERT PICCHEITTE: Anybody can eat cardboard. But if you can eat it and it tastes good, that's a whole different story, so that's what we're shooting for.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Why is it so hard to make low-carb bread taste good?

ROBERT PICCHEITTE: Because you're removing the flour portion that really has that... the flavors and the texture, and you're putting in a protein base, which... that's what dries it out. It's like beans-- you know, beans and soybeans and those kinds of things-- if you taste those products, they're very flat. You know, they're not full of the great flavor that the flour's got.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: While bread and pasta sales have slowed down, sales of beef have picked up. At one of Chicago's top steak houses, Gibsons, waiters proudly display huge cuts of beef and carb-conscious customers dig in.

WAITER: This is the Chicago cut. This is Chicago. Looking for a piece of meat. All they got, flavor. Chicago is meat tonight.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Even the Mad Cow Disease scare hasn't kept customers away, says managing partner John Colletti.

JOHN COLLETTI: Our sales were up sizably for the year 2003. But we have seen our locals and a lot of customers pushing the white away, pushing the breads, even pushing some of our phenomenal double-baked potatoes, and staying with the meat, salads and our fish too.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: In Gibson's bar it's new low-carb beers that are selling. With all the new low-carb products rapidly entering the market there is growing pressure to set standards defining what low carb means.

DEAN ROTBART: This industry needs to start thinking like an industry. I'm very committed to making it do that. It needs to make sure it protects consumers, because there are some bad operators already out there slapping "low carb" on things that really are not, putting ingredients in low- carb products that are... may help you lose weight but they're not healthy.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Rotbart understands that if the new low-carb industry does not set standards, government regulators may step in, a step he would like to see the fledging industry avoid.

FOCUS - SHIELDS & BROOKS

RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, the analysis of Shields and Brooks: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "New York Times" columnist David Brooks. Mark, the events come fast and furious. The 9/11 Commission, an up=tick in the violence in Iraq, and then the release of the Bob Woodward book. Does the Woodward book have anything in it that adds context to these other things that we have been hearing about?

MARK SHIELDS: It does. What makes it remarkable, Ray, is that why do people talk to Bob Woodward? Bob Woodward is a great reporter but one of the reasons I think people talk to him, I think is that Bob Woodward lets the participants' quotes carry the narrative. He doesn't make swooping judgments. As a consequence, Democrats can read it, that's how Bush had it in his mind when he came anywhere near office to go to war with Iraq and Republicans said Bush people can say doesn't gee, doesn't he look like a strong and decisive leader. He is not being pushed around by anybody. In that sense, it is a book that, I guess, as you look at it you have to feel a certain pity almost and I'm sure he hates that word, for Colin Powell, who is a diminished figure. He was not a key player in the decision to go to war.

RAY SUAREZ: By events or by this book?

MARK SHIELDS: By events I think portrayed in this book. People talk to Woodward because if they don't, they know their rivals and adversaries will. So they figure they're going to get their shot in anyway. But in the first book he was sort of a heroic figure, in the first Bush book. In this one he just seems diminished. The Powell doctrine with which he is totally identified, using the use of overwhelming force and the exit strategy for a defined task was totally repudiated and rejected by his adversaries within the administration who said we could do it lighter and cheaper and quicker and, you know, today we are paying the price for what was that mistake.

DAVID BROOKS: I guess I agree with both those points, first on the fact that both sides tout the book. Democrats see a lot of scandals and things they can use in the book. John Kerry has used it. The Bush campaign has put it on their website as something you should read because they think it shows Bush as a as a strong leader asking smart questions, very involved. And the interesting thing also is Colin Powell is the interesting thing that comes out. Usually in Woodward books and they're now exceptions -- we have a whole flow of them, the source, the main source is the hero. But in this case Colin Powell clearly was a major source but he's not quite the hero. And he's not I think in part because he was ignored but in part because the major foreign policy decision of this administration was whether to go to war in Iraq and he never made his opinion known. He was half in, half out. He never stood up for one side or another. In contrast, some of the generals said, you know, they laid down the law when Donald Rumsfeld was with Tommy Franks was sort of interfering with some of the war plans, Tommy Franks said hey, I'm the general. You either like it or get out.

RAY SUAREZ: I'm interested to hear you say that, David, because there are passages in the book where Colin Powell makes very clear his misgivings about this as an enterprise and also makes it clear that he is not very happy at being left out of the party when there are plans afoot.

DAVID BROOKS: The crucial conversation is a 12-minute conversation with the president in which he is not asked to give his view. And this is the crucial meeting where the president is going to go ahead, and he doesn't ask Powell what he thinks. And Powell doesn't say anything. To me, if you're secretary of state, huge decision, you have to make your opinion known. Then he does say I'm with you, Mr. President, so he is half in and half out.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, maybe I'm thinking of a different juncture because there is also the encounter with the president where he says, if you do this, I hope you understand the ramifications, if you do this, you are going to own it.

DAVID BROOKS: All right, and then at several other points in the narrative, he is clearly hostile to what the Defense Department is doing, clearly worried about the way things are going, especially post-war. In some parts he is very supportive and most parts I suppose he has great reservations and feels the train is leaving without him but he never takes a stand, never declares a firm position I would say either way.

RAY SUAREZ: Whether he took that stand or not and I think David makes a strong point, there is no question the lines were firmly drawn and he was on the other side, and one of the more remarkable scenes that Bob Woodward reports in this book is a dinner party at the vice president of the United States home, Dick and Lynn Cheney. There are Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, one of the leading architects of the war, Ken Edelman, a very close confidant, former Reagan official, and very supportive of going to war with Iraq and Scooter Libby, the chief of staff of the vice president. They are there not simply to celebrate the U.S. Military successful toppling of Saddam's regime. They're there as reported openly to celebrate the vanquishing of Colin Powell. I mean Colin Powell has been vanquished. So the lines were drawn within the administration and Colin Powell was not seen as part of the team. David mentioned Tommy Franks. One of the better things in there was Tommy Franks in really characteristically colorful fashion said of Doug Fife, another Rumsfled and Wolfowitz ally in the war at defense, he said I have to deal with the expletive deleted stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day when we're talking about Doug Fife. It's that kind of candor that Woodward gets that the rest of us envy.

DAVID BROOKS: I was wonder how you were going to quote Tommy Franks without any curse words. The other thing is the president who clearly sides with Cheney sometimes and sides with Powell in the key decision to go to the UN, and the president sort of does emerge, I think, for most people, I get this all the time -- people ask who really runs the administration. And I always try to say the president runs the administration. He runs every meeting, sides with different people at different times. And I think this book does prove that beyond a doubt that he is the one who is running every meeting, he is probing, asking questions of people at briefing, unimpressed byGeorge Tenet's briefing on the weapons of mass destruction, said not very persuasive.

RAY SUAREZ: But then buys the case.

DAVID BROOKS: Tenet says it is a slam dunk and then he buys the case after Tenet says that. By the way, Tenet is another loser in this book.

RAY SUAREZ: Given what we heard with great attention paid to the 9/11 commission, how does this book and the story it tells mesh with the story that's emerging of how these decisions were made in the months after the terrorist attack?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I mean, the president appears far more engaged. I guess what I want in a president and maybe what is missing in the portrait of George Bush that I see here, I want someone who is more thoughtful than I am, more reflective than I am, smarter than I am and more decisive than I am. And George W. appears more decisive. I think there is no question about his decisiveness. I think David is right. I don't think he does ask the questions. I don't think... I mean he obviously missed the questions about what about afterwards, and he did accept what was absolutely stupid advice about... they were talking about 60,000 troops doing this in September of 2003. And General Myers this week testified, admitted that was their plan and how wrong it was. And they had to force them to even up it to where they were. I think the president, you know, didn't ask as many questions and wasn't as reflective as I want my leader to be. But he certainly is decisive and I think that portrait of him emerges.

RAY SUAREZ: This week Americans got to see for the first time in real numbers, the bodies of American soldiers, not as bodies but as flag-drape coffins, taken as they're being brought back to the United States. The as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request as we heard earlier in the show -- a big development, a sort of interesting cultural moment -- how do you see it?

DAVID BROOKS: One of the things that's happened in the polls in the past two weeks is that we've seen how disjointed the discussion in Washington is from the discussion in the country because we've had just terrible news for the president in Washington at the same time the president's approval ratings have gone up. His vote -- his relationship with Kerry in the polls, he is now up by 5 or 7 percent depending on the polls, and support for the war has risen, support for completing more troops for the war has risen. There is a significant new move in the public saying, you know, this is a tough situation, tough war, casualties, these coffins coming back, but we've got to fight this thing to win. And so far there is a majority that, a small majority that thinks Bush is the president to do that. So I don't think the coffins and the sight of the coffins are going to affect that. I think the Americans people are very intelligent and mature and they know when see 700 people have died, there will be 700 boxes coming back.

RAY SUAREZ: Why did the Defense of Department insist....

DAVID BROOKS: I don't think they're giving the American people enough credit.

MARK SHIELDS: I think what we are seeing... I disagree with David's assessment of the polls -- a margin of error on both sides. "Newsweek" up and CNN down and I don't think there's been that sea change that he describes. I will say this. We are having the debate now, I think in a strange way, and Dover is part of this, and whether in fact we should see coffin, that we didn't have before the war. Before the war in the run up and the rush to go to war, the stampede to go to war, I think both the Congress and the press forfeited their obligation for the debate. We are getting Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator from Nebraska this week said we have to think about a draft, an issue that known previously only by Charlie Rangel and Fritz Hollings. We went into the war basically saying we are going to have a tax cut where you are going to pay no price, bear no burden. That's part of what we are coming to right now. The Dover test was laid down by General Hugh Shelton in 2000, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: He said any president, before he commits Americans to combat, must ask himself and face the Dover test, which is whether Americans can view their most precious resource returning in flag-draped coffins. They decided to short circuit this. The president is not simply the commander in chief. The president is the comforter in chief. That's what Ronald Reagan did after the Challenger, it's when he spoke about we saw them break the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God. It's what he did when he went to welcome back the 241 Americans, marines blown up in Lebanon, when Bill Clinton did when he... when the Americans blown up at the embassy and at the U.S.S. "Cole." There is a certain pictorial denial going on in this administration, and the president has jet to be-- has yet to attend a funeral and has yet to be comforter and chief to the nation.

DAVID BROOKS: He has made several visits to the wounded. He has made private calls and private visits. His decision was I'm not going to turn this in a public ceremony. He was going to try to be more discreet about it.

RAY SUAREZ: We have very little time but a quit comment on the announcement of the Catholic Church that it going to ask priests in the United States not to give communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights.

MARK SHIELDS: It was not the Catholic Church. It was Cardinal Iranti, who was the cardinal, the Nigerian cardinal who said it in a press questioning. There is a question here of whether the Holy Eucharist Communion will be used as a political football, the cardinal archbishop of Baltimore has been meeting trying to come up with some sort of a prudential decision on this. I mean I think there are those in the Church who recognize that Mary Landrieu, the Democratic senator from Louisiana has her seat in the Senate in large part because the archbishop of New Orleans came out against her because she had cast pro-choice votes in the Senate. So I think, you know, there is a real question but there is a question as well, what do you believe and what does a Catholic belief and John Kerry is... has yet to talk about the poor, has yet to talk about universal health insurance, other issues that deeply concern the Catholic Church.

RAY SUAREZ: Quickly, David.

DAVID BROOKS: I guess I think the Catholic Church has a right to issue instructions on the church teachings. I don't think it will affect the politics one way or the other.

RAY SUAREZ: You don't see the thin edge of the wedge for the rest of the campaign season?

DAVID BROOKS: No, I really think john Kerry's Catholicism will not be a major issue.

RAY SUAREZ: Gents, thanks a lot.

RECAP

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major developments of the day. President Bush today ended tough trade and economic sanctions imposed on Libya in 1986. Libyan assets held in the United States will remain frozen. In Iraq, the U.S. Administrator formally announced certain low- ranking members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party could go back to work as civil servants. And North Korea appealed to the United Nations for humanitarian assistance after yesterday's train explosion. 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. Have a good weekend. I'm Ray Suarez. Thanks and good night.