The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

I'm Ray Suarez. Today's news, a climate change report, a grim outlook for Iraq, minimum wages, shields in Brooks, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay, all tonight on the news out. Good evening, I'm Ray Suarez.

Jim Lehrer is away, on the news out tonight, the news of this Friday, then a look at the bleak forecast on climate change released today in Paris, an assessment of the challenge ahead in Iraq in the latest National Intelligence estimate, a news hour report about the minimum wage gap between Idaho and neighboring Washington state, the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks, and S.A.S. Roger Rosenblatt returns with some thoughts about the impact of an image. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by. What Susie and I retire, we'll be taking trips like this whenever we want, it's a good thing

we've been planning. At Pacific Life, giving you the right tools to help you meet your financial goals is what we're all about as you look to the future, look to Pacific Life. Pacific Life, the power to help you succeed and by CIT, the Archer Daniels Midland Company, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the National Science Foundation, and with the continuing support of these institutions and foundations and this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. At least 19 people were killed today when severe storms ripped across Central Florida. They were the worst such storms there in nearly a decade. Governor Charlie Chris declared a state of emergency in Volusia, Sumter, Lake, and Seminole

counties where the damage was worst, Kwame Holman narrates our report. The destruction from the tornadoes and thunderstorms was widespread, hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed by storm cells that hit in the dead of night and stretched into mourning. In their wake, pieces of metal siding hung from power lines and wrapped around stop signs. A school bus lay on its side. This street sign was a mile and a half out of place. It's like a freight train coming through your house. I ran into my closet and huddled on the floor and prayed. Everybody so far seems like they're just not even really worried about starting to clean up yet, still trying to sink in. The emergency workers went house to house looking for people. They left spray paint X's reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina marking which homes had been checked Florida Governor Charlie Chris. Our priority today is search and rescue. We want to make sure that anybody who's in the affected area that we make sure we get

them out, we get them out safely. Florida state meteorologist said it was like another severe weather system nearly 10 years ago. This is something that we've seen here in the past in our state when we have El Niño conditions in place back in 1998 and February. We had numerous tornadoes touched down in Central Florida in the middle of the night. We had one storm within this overall line. We call those supercells and that was a rotating thunderstorm that moved on shore. And it started to produce the tornado once it got over to Sumter County right around 3 in the morning. Several counties opened shelters for those who lost their homes and an estimated 10,000 homes and businesses in the region were left without power. State officials said it could take days to confirm a final death toll. International scientists issued a stark new warning today on global warming. In Paris they put out a comprehensive report that concluded humans are very likely to blame for warming that causes more severe weather and the effects will continue for centuries

even if governments act now. The U.S. and more than a hundred other nations agreed on the wording. In Washington, energy secretary Samuel Bodmann defended the Bush administration's record. We estimate that the U.S. has invested more in climate change, science than the rest of the world combined. And while that is entirely appropriate given the size and the scope of our economy, that is, I think, a very remarkable statistic. We'll have more on this story right after the news summary. U.S. intelligence agencies released a grim new assessment of Iraq today, its cited sectarian violence, a weak Iraqi government, and other critical factors as threats to the country's future. And the report forecasts the Iraqis will find it difficult to turn things around in the months just ahead. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said the document justifies the president's decision to send more troops. The president came to the same conclusion that in less efforts to reverse these conditions

in Iraq show measurable progress in the coming 12 to 18 months, the overall security situation will deteriorate. We needed to do something different, which is why we have a new strategy, and we need to make sure our progress in carrying out that strategy, things that the Iraqis need to do, and things that we need to do. While Democrats and some Republicans had a different view, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said there's nothing in the report that suggests the president's plan is a winning strategy. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Another U.S. helicopter crashed in Iraq today, killing two American soldiers. That was on top of six U.S. troops killed Thursday. Iraqi witnesses said the helicopter was shot down near an air base north of Baghdad. U.S. officials did not say what caused the crash. Elsewhere, U.S. troops killed 18 insurgents in Ramadi overnight. No American casualties were reported there.

Pentagon leaders said today the Iraqis have to do more to meet their troop commitments in Baghdad. The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs, Marine General Peter Pace, said Iraqi units are showing up, but it just over half-strength. The units that were designated to arrive in Baghdad have begun to arrive on the schedule. It was supposed to be the first brigade is there, the second brigade is in route, and the third brigade will be full closed by the end of February. However, you're correct, and David, right now, the initial units got there with about 60 percent. They're not at the level. We would like them to be total strength-wise, but they are showing up on the timeline that said they would. Defense Secretary Gates has said the U.S. could halt the flow of American troops into Iraq if the Iraqis don't keep their promises. There was word today President Bush will ask for another $100 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this fiscal year. The Associated Press reported the money will go for military and diplomatic operations. It said Mr. Bush plans to ask for $145 billion in 2008.

He presents his annual budget to Congress on Monday. In Afghanistan today, the Taliban overran a town that British forces left in October under a peace agreement, residents said hundreds of fighters entered Musa Kala and destroyed the government center there. NATO said an unknown number of militants were involved, a Taliban commander was killed near the same town last month. This was the most violent day yet in the infighting between the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. We have a report narrated by Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News. The incessant, automatic gunfire punctuated with bigger bangs, residents huddling in their homes, Gaza City, empty, the city of ghosts, the fragile truths between Hamas and Fatah dead of the men with the guns slugged out. No respite in the dawn, the one and a half million people of the Gaza ghetto condemned to the ever-intensifying violence of an interneasing feud that's fast becoming the Palestinian

civil war. Our faith in Allah is all we have left who repeats again and again, another small boy caught in the crossfire. 70 Palestinians killed in the spreader side in just a couple of months, 20 in 24 hours, 200 wounded. Fatah gunmen attacking the Islamic university today, Hamas stronghold. As what they say they found, they also claim they'd arrested seven Iranians in here. Hamas denies this, but there's growing discomfort in the Arab world about Hamas's links with Tehran. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah is called an urgent meeting between the two factions of the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Tuesday to bang heads together well away from Iranian influence. Leaders of Hamas and Fatah were at least talking today. As God's help, we agreed on a ceasefire, this Hamas man said, but he and the Fatah man

muttered about mechanisms and modalities and said they still have to work things out. In Washington today, the U.S. and others urged peace talks with the Israelis to resume despite the Palestinian infighting. Secretary of State Rice met with counterparts from Russia, the European Union and the UN. Rice said even with the violence, there's simply no reason to avoid the subject of how we get to a Palestinian state. Texas today became the first state to mandate vaccinations for cervical cancer for school-age girls. Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order that starting in September of 2008, girls entering the sixth grade must have the vaccine. It guards against the sexually transmitted virus HPV. Media giant, by-a-com, demanded today the online video on demand service YouTube removed more than 100,000 unauthorized clips. The two sides had been in talks for several months over copyright infringement, but by-a-com said YouTube failed to add filtering tools to stop the video from appearing.

YouTube said today it would take down the by-a-com clips. Unemployment, aged up in January, the Commerce Department reported today the jobless rate was 4.6 percent. That's a tenth of a percent higher than in December. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 20 points to close at 12,653. The Nasdaq rose seven and a half points to close at nearly 24-76. And for the week, the Dow gained 1.3 percent, the Nasdaq rose 1.7 percent. That's it for the news summary tonight. Now, global warming, a grim outlook for Iraq, differing wages in neighboring states, shields and brooks, and rose in black, on Barbara. Now a major new appraisal on global warming. Margaret Warner has the story. Today's announcement in Paris, from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,

was its fourth such assessment since 1990. And its most urgent warning yet about global warming, what's already occurred and what lies ahead, by unanimous agreement, the 2,500 scientists and government representatives said there's now at least a 90 percent certainty that mankind is to blame for the warming already being observed. As to the future, the projections were stark. Among them, in this century, the planet will warm up by between three and nearly eight degrees Fahrenheit. The weather will be hotter everywhere, with some areas becoming drier, while others see more rain. And sea levels will rise. Evo Dubor, head of the UN Climate Secretariat, said it's time for the World to Act. It's important that all governments have agreed to the conclusions of the scientists. And therefore, these conclusions can no longer be a subject of discussion in the political

negotiations but should be considered as a given, and that's an important step forward. The signal that we receive from the science today is crystal clear. The next phase of the group's report, do this spring, will focus on the impact of global warming and how humans might adapt to it. For more now on these findings, we turn to Kevin Trendber, one of the draft contributing authors of the report. He is the Director of Climate Analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, and he joins us from Paris. And Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He's also a member of the UN Climate Change Panel, and a contributor to the report. Welcome to you both, Mr. Trendber, beginning with you, the finding that's attracted the most attention today, is the one saying that there's really 90 percent certainty now that the climate warming that's already occurred since the middle of the last century

is due to human activity. How much warming has there been, and what led you to that kind of certainty that mankind is at the root of it? Well, as two steps to this, the first one is what has happened, the observations of what has happened, and I thought a very important statement in the report to quote, is that warming of the climate is unequivocal, and then it goes on to qualify that and say that it's not just the global mean temperatures, which the six years since the last report are in the top warmest seven years on record, but also a whole host of other variables from snow cover and sea ice, rising sea level, melting glaciers, drought around the world, changes in hurricanes, all of these kinds of things come together to provide really compelling evidence from many different lines of evidence to suggest that indeed warming is happening. In addition, the models have improved substantially so that they can now simulate a lot of

what has happened in the models themselves, and the ability to match those things provides a lot more confidence than in what we can say in the future. And this has led to this statement, which is actually greater than 90% certainty. It is very likely that global warming that is happening is due to human activities. Professor Avonheimer, let me go to you. First of all, if you use the word model, do explain what a model is. What jumps out at you about this report? You worked on the previous one as well, as I understand. Right. What jumps out at me, in addition to what Kevin mentioned, is the fact that both the temperature increase and the rate of sea level rise have accelerated, and furthermore, that unless the emissions that are causing the climate change or brought under control, we can expect more climate change in the future, in fact we can expect more climate change regardless, but

if we don't bring the emissions under control, we can expect potentially very, very much greater changes than what we have already seen. So to use maybe an unfortunate metaphor, this is just a tip of the iceberg compared to what may be in store for us in the future. Professor, why couldn't it be just a normal cyclical development? Well, as Kevin has said, the matching of what the computer models project for what the pattern of warming and the pattern of climate change should be with what has actually been measured now for essentially going back over 100 years shows convincingly and definitely that the warming is by and large due to human activity and that we will get more substantial warming in the future. Kevin Trendberg, the report predicted or forecast that now in this century, and I converted from Celsius to Fahrenheit, so I hope this is correct, that the planet is really short

a warm-up between 3.2 and 7.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Give us an understanding of first of all how dramatic that is and what it might lead to. Well, the warming we've had is around about, that see it's about one and a half degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of the 20th century and about one degree Fahrenheit since about 1970 and so the rate of warming has increased, that's one of the key aspects of the global temperature increases. The warming is also greater of the land and at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere in the Arctic region and so this is the thing that affects the polar bears and their livelihood. And so with a greater warming, we expect the amplification of the effects we're already seeing. So around the subtropical region there is a drying that's been going on increases in droughts and some increases in rainfall at higher latitudes and it is rainfall, some of

the what used to be snowfall is now occurring is rain and so there are large-scale patterns of changes in the rainfall and the rainfall distribution which has real consequences for human activities and for the environment because it increases the risk of droughts and the subtropics and other places around the world because as temperatures warm up it creates a drying effect of the atmosphere on the surface and at the same time in other places where it does rain it's likely to rain harder and this relates also to changes in hurricanes and so it means that the extremes of water are going to be much more unmanageable both the droughts stream and the risk of floods. So Professor Oppenheimer which areas of the planet where many people live are most at risk? Well I'm most worried about the coastal zones everywhere.

One sort of nugget in the report is that the last time the poles were as warm as they could get over the next few decades due to the greenhouse gases. Substantial parts of the Greenland ice sheet and perhaps the Antarctic ice sheet had either melted or disintegrated away into the ocean and sea level was something like 15 feet higher than today. Now that isn't going to happen overnight it's a relatively slow process but we may be essentially remaking the faces of the earth by putting a lot more water into the ocean, reconfiguring the coastal zone, drowning areas like river deltas where tens of millions of people live in some countries like the Netherlands, Bangladesh, the Louisiana deltas in this country and to my mind this is the most pervasive and most threatening consequence of global warming it will be very expensive and once it gets underway it's essentially impossible to stop.

Why is that? There's a long inertia in the system, ice does not respond immediately. The warming could push us to the point with only a relatively few degrees of global warming where we would start to lose eventually large portions of the ice sheets. So policy makers would have taken heed of that and start to think about raining in the warming before we cross thresholds that we're not even sure of the location of. So Kevin Trendbirth, go back to that point about what really can be done, your report was saying it's inevitable is it not that some warming is going to occur no matter what we did. I mean if tomorrow we stopped emissions, all emissions which obviously is going to happen, the planet would still continue warming. This is correct and this relates to the fact that the carbon dioxide that we've already put into the atmosphere has a long lifetime and so even if we don't put any more in what we've already got hangs around there for many decades maybe more than a century and so that's one component and then the other component is the fact that the oceans are still

responding to the climate change that we've already had the changes in the heat that's flowing through the climate system and so that has an adjustment time of order 20 years and this means that these kinds of things are going to occur no matter what we do in the future. It's mainly after about 30 years or so that what we do now has its main impact and it can be very important and so further out the policy decisions that are made today with regard to emissions and what we put into the atmosphere are very important but indeed you also need to recognize that we're going to have to live with some climate change and that relates then very much to a proper assessment of the impacts and how you adapt to those changes that we're expecting to happen in the future. Very briefly Professor Oppenheimer so how much control does mankind have at this point over this process? The bottom line is that the future by and large still rests in our hands that we can

avert the most threatening part of the warming but we will have to start action now. We can't wait around and it's encouraging that California, the northeastern states, the European countries have all introduced caps on emissions and then intend to bring them down. Really it's an inside the Beltway problem at this point Washington has to take some beauty. Still to come working for the minimum in Idaho and Washington, Shields and Brooks and a photo of a horse but first the daunting challenge in Iraq, Jeffrey Brown has our story. It has a bureaucratic title, prospects for Iraq stability, a challenging road ahead but the so-called National Intelligence Estimate or NIE has been much anticipated as a

window into how the intelligence community sees the state of play in Iraq and it comes amid a heated political debate in Washington. A declassified portion of the report was released today, the first one on Iraq to become public since the controversial estimate that was prepared shortly before the war. It begins in stark terms, Iraqi society's growing polarization, the persistent weakness of the security forces and the state in general and all sides ready recourse to violence are collectively driving an increase in communal and insurgent violence and political extremism unless efforts to reverse these conditions show measurable progress during the term of this estimate, becoming 12 to 18 months, we assess that the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to the latter part of 2006. For a further look we're joined now by Paul Pillar, he served as the CIA's National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005.

He managed a number of intelligence estimates including on Iraq, he's now on the faculty at Georgetown University. Robert Grenier served as the Iraq Mission Manager at the CIA from 2002 to 2004, welcome to both of you. Let's start with you with an overall assessment of the assessment, do they pull any punches here? No, actually I was quite favorably impressed given the political climate within which these judgments are being made. I was afraid that there would be a tendency to over-equivocate, to try to sugarcoat the results and I don't think that this estimate, at least, as reflected in the key judgments, does that. I think they make some very tough calls and I think they do it in clear language. Oh Pillar, what portford of Iraq comes through here? It's a portrait of a very grim and difficult situation as the National Security Advisor said today in commenting on it. I agree with Bob, I don't think punches were pulled. There's no surprise here for anyone who's been following the Iraq story over these last four years, but it's a very clear statement of both the current situation and trends.

Do you mind us what this report is? Who does it and for whom and how important are they, how seriously are they taken? A National Intelligence estimate is one of a number of different products that the intelligence community produces in which all the constituent agencies, some 16 or so are involved under the leadership now, the Director of National Intelligence. So this is just not just the statement of CIA or any one agency. They seem to have a larger or better cache national intelligence estimates due than some of those other products, but in terms of how much attention they're paid, well in the end the policymaker decides on policy. All right, well let's take a look at part of what the estimate says about the internal situation in Iraq. We have a graphic here given the current winner take all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene. Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this estimate and the absence of unifying leaders among the Arab Sunni or Shia with the capacity to speak for or exert control over their confessional groups limits

prospects for reconciliation. Now Mr. Renier, what are they telling us here? Well, I think that what they're telling us here is that the prospects for any near-term reconciliation are virtually nil. I think the best that we can hope for is some progress in setting the predicates, if you will, for an eventual return to some sort of stability in Iraq. You see it the same way, virtually nil in the... I do, and the significance of this statement is that it's not just a matter of the security problems impairing political reconciliation, but also the political problems. Not only does the security affect the politics, which is of course the basis for the so-called surge in Baghdad, but the politics themselves are at this point virtually infractable. And the absence of any unifying leaders, have jumped out at you? It does, and it raises the obvious questions about Mr. Maliki and the fact that there

really isn't anyone else on the horizon one can point to as a kind of savior. All right, another issue that's been a great debate, of course, is what to call this. To what extent is it a civil war? It says the report says the intelligence community judges that the term civil war does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, nonetheless the term civil war accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements. Now, this requires a little translation, I think. Are they saying there's a civil war or not? I think very clearly they're saying that yes, of course it's a civil war, except that it's considerably worse than the simplest of a war. In fact, what we see in Iraq right now is several different wars, some persons of which, I think, are accurately described as a civil war, but in fact, there is violence among the number of groups, in fact, there is intra-Shia violence as well.

There is violence between Kurds and Arabs. So if you're looking for a simple description of the conflict in Iraq, you're not going to find it, and I think that's reflected here in this key judgment, but I think they are also saying, just as clearly, yes, absolutely, this is a civil war. So yes, they're saying there is, but they don't want to say, really, there is, I mean, explain that. It's kind of a convenient formulation from the administration's point of view, which does not want to use the term civil war, but what the estimate is saying is, as Bob elucidated, we have a civil war plus a lot of other violence on top of that. All right, one more issue that's obviously been debated right now is how quickly the US troops might withdraw. So here's what the assessment says about that. If coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the term of this estimate, we judge that this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq. Now this is clearly going to this current political debate. How do you read what the assessment is saying here?

Well, there too, I think the assessment is very clear. They're saying that whatever else you might want to say about the US military presence, it does have some elements of a stabilizing effect, that if US troops were to be withdrawn completely and precipitantly, then there would be very little to somehow attenuate the sectarian violence that exists right now, particularly in and around Baghdad between Shia and Sunni, and that attenuation were to be removed, then that could lead to a very rapid and downward spiral. We should point out a couple of things the estimate doesn't say on that score. One, they talk about rapid withdrawal, but what about a not so rapid withdrawal? And another point, which is an important issue in the policy debate is, okay, these are the untoward consequences that the estimators say would happen if a rapid withdrawal occurs now. What about if it occurs a year from now or two years from now or a slow withdrawal, three years from now? They don't really address that, and it's not the job of the estimators to address that. It's not the job that's going to ask you.

Well, because their time frame is 12 to 18 months, and so, which is a typical time frame for an estimate on a topic, a fast-moving topic of this nature. So it's quite legitimate for the estimators to say, look, don't ask us to project what would happen if the US withdraw say two years from now. One of the things that they have here is, at the end of, at least the four-page report that we're able to see, is a section on triggering events, things that could happen that could make the situation much worse, the assassination of the key religious figure, for example. Do you sense that this is a major concern in the intelligence community? Well, it's difficult for me to speak for the intelligence community at this point, but I would think that it would have to be. After all, just in the last week or so, we had a situation where there was a very large heavily-armed Shiite group that was planning, we are told, to kill the most senior leaders in the Shiite community. And that would have been precisely this sort of precipitating event that is described here

in this report, and when I don't even want to think about what the results of that might have been, particularly under circumstances, if they had been attributed to the Sunnis. So yes, I think that these have to be a great concern on the part of the intelligence community. This is one of the last things about what happens to a report like this. You've been involved in them. And quickly, we saw both sides of the debate jump on different parts of it. What happens now? Now it's history. I mean, the news is old news. It's on the shelf. There will probably be another NIE like it maybe a year from now, two years from now. The last previous one was in 2004. There is nothing else that the administration has to do or the intelligence community has to do with this. All right. I'll fill our Robert Grenier. Thanks for walking us through it. Thank you. Next, look at the minimum wage and how it can shape local economies when it differs

from one state to the next, Lee Hockberg of Oregon Public Television Reports. When you cross the border on Interstate 90 from Idaho into Washington State, you move from a state with the lowest minimum wage in the country to one with the highest, $7.93 an hour after a recent 30 cent raise. Have the higher wages in Washington hurt businesses on that side of the border. Not at Papa Murphy's. Business is booming. Profits are steady at the restaurant in Liberty Lake, Washington, two miles from the border. Manager Tom Singleton. I've got 14 employees and they're all making, well, they start out at $7.93 an hour, some make more, depending, and in the last three years, we haven't raised any prizes. Have it had to fire anybody on the fire, anybody off or nothing. Because Idaho's one of 21 states that has never raised its minimum beyond a $5.15

roll rate, half of these Papa Murphy's employees, like 18-year-old Nicole Booth, come across the border from Idaho, with a higher wage. When you like think about it in hundreds of dollars, like, that's more, that's like three more gas tanks full of gas or, you know, like, it's worth it. As the Washington State wage jumped eight times in eight years, critics predicted jobs would disappear, and consumer prices would soar. But unemployment in this growing corridor along Interstate 90 is the same on both sides of the border, a small four to five percent. In fact, many employers on the Idaho side have matched Washington's rate in order to keep employees. We can't find any smoking gun to say that there has been a negative impact on jobs. It's a nice theory, but in the real world, the impact is small. Instead of Washington economists, Scott Bailey, says the state's nearly $8 an hour minimum

wage is exactly where it was in 1968, adjusted for inflation. He says even industries with lots of minimum wage jobs are doing fine. In the restaurant industry, note impact that I can find. In the retail industry, no impact that we can find. In agriculture, when there's a big freeze in Southern California and wipes out the orange crop, that's a much bigger impact on prices than the minimum wage. Economic modeling done at Washington State University suggests minimum wage increases are absorbed by the Washington economy with very little overall damage. The report adds such increases are beneficial to minimum wage workers. Yet there clearly are places where Washington's high minimum wage poses a problem. At the stepping stone Christian school and childcare in Liberty Lake, five of the 29 employees earn minimum wage.

When the facility gave them raises in January, it gave boosts to those just above them as well. Driving overall labor costs up $675 a month. Finance director Shelley Graybeck says the center had no choice but to cut employees or reduce their hours. We've already let one part time teacher go and there's about three others that we've cut back anywhere between two and eight hours a week. She says restaurants can raise prices to cover higher salaries, but her daycare can't ask much more than the $4 to $800 per child per month. It's already charging. Parents are paying good money to have their children in quality care, but because of the increases in minimum wage we have had to make cuts in our materials such as construction paper, glue, markers, books, those kinds of things as well as in teacher hours to make up for that. And in the slower, less sizzling economic areas of Washington state and rural towns along

the Snake River like Clarkston, it may also be tough to absorb the higher minimum wage. While it's true, business has never been better at the Sari's finest pizza, it comes at a price. Minimum wage workers had to scurry to keep up on a recent jam Tuesday night. Owner John Fissari says he made about $50,000 in profits last year, but he's going to have to give up a third of that this year to pay higher wages. I mean, I gave everybody a raise. Like I told you, the full time people deserve the raise too. They're the ones doing the work, so it cost us $15,000. Yeah, we're boom, it looks great out there. I have to be doing that kind of business to stay in the same spot that I was five years ago. I have to. He's up to the price of pizza 60 cents, but says in this moderate income town, he can't go much higher. He's beginning to wonder about the argument that he should provide as young workers

a life sustaining wage. My employees are high school kids. My employees are college kids who need a few bucks just to get by until they get their next gig. I don't have families trying to make a way of living here. You don't have people coming up asking you for extra days and extra hours. You don't. They're trying to get time off. Can I go home, please? I want to go play video games. With competition from pizza houses on the lower wage Idaho side, opening in Clarkson is a decision he says he would not make again. Do you think after I see this situation, do you think I would spend a dime and it's you know, town like this or on the border? No. Not a dime. It's foolish. It's foolish. Why wish your money? The playing field would become more level if the proposed federal minimum wage of $7.25 becomes law bringing Idaho's rate closer to Washington's. Anonymous Bailey emphasizes some workers do try to support their families on the wage.

So a federal increase would be a good thing for many Idaho residents too. There's a lot of high school kids who have a job because they're helping to put food on the table for their family. If you're earning 5.15 versus earning 7.90, absolutely it's going to impact your quality of your life. But it worries Rob Elder, who owns the hot rod cafe in post falls Idaho. If I have to pay everybody out here on the floor, my whole team, 7, whatever it becomes, that's a huge deal. That would be literally doubling my cost in labor dollars. You take that twice the hours, times that's why he's the employees, time of 3 and 6 and 5 days a year, they'll scare you how big of a number that is. That could mean a cut in his profits he says, currently around $200,000 a year, or higher menu prices, or maybe cutting the number of hours his employees work.

Just down the street, another Idaho businessman bristled at that, saying it's time for a different way of thinking. My question to be in this is that maybe you should do is not put as much in your pocket. Maybe you should find some way to put something in your employees pocket. Ron Nielsen owns ground force manufacturing, an Idaho company that manufactures heavy duty truck bodies and employs 70. He says he's hired some of his low skilled employees out of jails could have offered minimum wage, but didn't. I say that we need to raise the level of compensation for anybody that trades their time for money to a level of compensation where he can make a living. If their business is that fragile, that this amount of increase right there is going to run them out of business, maybe they shouldn't be in business in the first place. More than half a dozen states have already enacted laws that will raise their minimum wages over the next year or two.

Meanwhile, the Senate this week approved what would be the first increase in the federal minimum wage in 10 years, $7.25 over two years. However a series of small business tax breaks the Senate attached to the bill could jeopardize it's eventually becoming law, the house wage bill has no tax cuts included. And to the analysis of shields and brooks syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks and this week Mark, we don't like the troop surge resolutions merged from two to one, does that help their prospects any? I think it helps their prospects in two ways. First of all, it takes it out of the presidential arena. You had Joe Biden and Chuck Eagle want to Democrat, want to Republican, both potential actual in one case presidential candidates, so that colored I think the political appeal of them diminished the political appeal.

And John Warner stepping forward, if you recall at any time there's been a suggestion of even debating or criticizing the administration policy, the automatic response from congressional republicans and the administration in general has been, you're jeopardizing the troops, you're jeopardizing the morale, it's unfair to them. Well in John Warner, you have Mr. Republican himself. I think it's the only Republican from the Virginia ever reelected, 30 years in the Senate, form a naval veteran of World War II, Korean, Marine officer veteran, Secretary of the Navy, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, so he can stand up to that truth, exactly, exactly, I don't think he stands up and I think it improves the chances. Can they get to 60 votes to even debate the thing in the first place? Doesn't look like it. I think they seem to be falling short, you've got to remember there's a non-binding resolution, it does absolutely nothing, absolutely. So what they're trying to do is deliver a political message, and the question is, what political message are they trying to do?

I think Senator Biden is trying to deliver a slap at the president, you've got to change your whole policy. Senator Warner is trying to do something differently, he wants to stand up for the institution of the Senate and come up with some bipartisan approach. But I've heard one senator after another, Senator Senator Obama say this, Senator Quarker say this, say that the crucial issue is not the 20,000 troops, that's just a symbolic issue. The crucial issue for them is what is the grand strategy for Iraq moving forward? Some of them want a regional diplomacy solution, some want to get out, some want this soft partition. And they're using this troop surge idea just as a tag, as a resolution, just to get them to this larger debate, which I think they really will be the substance of the debate. The tactics of whether 20,000 will help for hurt is not something that are particularly well qualified to judge or that interest. Now there are some pretty good nose counters on both sides of this question, and there must be people getting some very heavy pressure right now to join one side or the other. Do we know who's in the cross answer this week? Well, we do know people like Lamar Alexander is in the crosshairs Norm Coleman from Minnesota. A lot of the people who are, and there are a lot of Republicans in this camp who are suspicious

of the war, the way the war has been conducted, would like to see a big change. But don't see the purpose in, there's going to be a surge, General Petraeus wants a surge, don't see the purpose in a resolution that undermines something that's going to happen, which our generals command. So they want to change, but they don't want to be seen to be undermining Petraeus. Do you think both that there are still a lot of votes out there that are gettable? By one side or the other? Well, not to be too much inside baseball, but on a procedural vote, which is what cutting off debate is, usually members of both caucuses stick with their party leadership on a vote like that, if a party leadership asks them to do it, not on the merits. I think the Republicans will find themselves in a very difficult place if they try and fill a bus to this and prevent a debate. David's right, it is a non-binding resolution. This, we are now approaching the fifth year of this war, a bloody device is an incredibly costly and damaging national experience, and it's a war we rushed into without debate on inadequate misleading information, and it's never really gone debated.

If this is the first chance, really, for the Congress to debate it, and the Republicans want to kill it on a procedural motion, I just don't think that's a politically sustainable position over an extended period of time. David's right, it is a non-binding, but it's a baby step. It's the first step, and we're going to face this. The President now is requesting and being required to do so to come up with an additional request for supplemental appropriations for the war. That is going to be the vehicle over which the real debate is. Here we say the type of debate about the reality. This is so insular what the Senate is doing, and it has so little to do with reality. We just heard about the NIE, which seems to be shoots an exoset missile right in the middle of the President's policy, because it says there will be no national reconciliation in Iraq, and it shoots an exoset missile right in the Democratic policy, one of the Democratic policies, because it says withdrawing quickly would lead to a calamity. The debate should not be on the surge or the non-surge. The day of age should be, if those two options are terrible, is there a less terrible option, and if you went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee here this week, which I did,

there are a lot of people talking seriously about other options. I think the most persuasive is the soft partition option that acknowledges the country's splitting and trying to devolve powers. But we should have a debate about that, and I hope that will be the debate that Senate has next week's not about 17,000 troops, 12,000 troops, 0,000 troops. That's what we will, and this is the vehicle for which we're going to have this debate, and I think it's important that the debate, which is really, literally, four years coming, start and begin, and I think that's what this week is really about. But David mentions the National Intelligence estimates released, and it says that even if you get the violence under control, that won't necessarily achieve a political solution to this project, it was truly, it was truly devastating, and to hear Jeffrey Brown's interview and the two intelligence experts saying that the prospects for any near-term reconciliation are nil.

There's been nothing but bad news, I mean, not simply on the ground there, but we also had the Congressional Budget Office tell us that it was going to cost four and a half times more than the administration said, it could cost up to that, that it would require 15 or 20,000 more troops than the President has requested. So there's just nothing but really bad news coming, and I think those who are looking for some glimmer of optimism or encouragement are a really hard press tonight. No, I'm not. I mean, I think it was a clarion call for this soft partition idea. It says they're never going to get back together, so if they're never going to go back together, face that reality and figure out what we can do, and this is what a lot of people have been talking about like Les Gelb and Joe Biden for a long time, and it's tough to do because you've got to get the soonies and the shea to agree tacitly to decentralize power. You've got to get the countries in the region. You've got to have a big diplomatic offensive to do it. You have to have more troops to police the mix areas, but that's the sort of intelligence series of steps people need to be thinking through once they digest the realities reflected

in the United States. But we came through in the United States that we have precious little influence of control over then there, that the soonies have not accepted the minority status, and that the shea are terribly insecure in the new majority ruling position. I mean, they're serious for found it ate problems there that whether it's 25,000 or 50,000 more American troops, it's hard to believe they're going to remedy. But getting out is that's the wrong policy. Moving in the same slipstream with these other stories where the confirmation hearings for General Casey is chief of staff of the Army. He's one of the men in uniform most responsible for the current policy, the way we were running the war militarily. He was in charge there for two and a half years, and it was Republicans, not their right. Who were taking the bark off during this year. And it was primarily John McCain who has been saying for three years, there are not enough troops in General Casey with General Abizaid and with Donald Rumsfeld and with the president have been saying there is enough, there are enough troops. And then as we move forward, it came to a flash point because McCain wants five more

brigades as part of this surge. And Casey was saying two brigades. And the argument, you know, in the argument against him is it's always just enough to lose. It's never sufficient. What do you really think the two brigades is going to make that big a difference in Baghdad? A lot of people don't think five brigades could make a big difference, but it illustrates a lot of the problem that a lot of people have found with General Casey's decision-making, which is never really committing enough resources. It's interesting, you're actually right. John McCain is the ranking Republican. There's always a retained control of this on it. He would be a chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He's been the president's conscious supporter on Iraq. And here he is taking on the Republican president's nominee to be the chairman of the Army, the Joint Chiefs, Chief of Staff in the Army. It was just really unthinkable a year ago. That would not have happened. But for the reality in Iraq and the election results of 2006. And I guess it only adds that it struck me watching John McCain, his frustration is

genuine, you can almost feel it in his presence, just watching him over over that failed policy, is that they're like a married couple Republicans are right now, the disagreement may be overruled. What kind of marriage? Well, I mean, the problem is actually over religion are children of money, but they're arguing at this point about who's going to carry out the trash or who's going to walk the dog. He's going after Casey, who's going to be confirmed. It just struck me that it was an act, an honest act, but an act of frustration on John McCain's party. I'm not sure how married it is, they've had a legitimate tactical difference for three years. Yeah, he's still going to be... Oh, yeah, he's still going to be... Oh, yeah. He doesn't take the argument to the president. See, he's using Casey. I mean, he's criticized as a worst influence on the president. He's called Rumsfeld the worst secretary of defense. He goes after Casey, basically his problem is for the president. Well, the president would say, and this is a marriage of management, I've always deferred

to Casey, which is true. He has always deferred, never asked questions about Casey, how is this going to work? Do we need more? Do we need less? He's always just deferred. Gentlemen, thank you. Finally, tonight, Roger Rosenblatt returns with some words about the power of a picture. The best thing about the picture of Barbara O in The New York Times this week is that the horse is standing. Standing is the way we want to see horses, those historically favored animals with whom one associates spiritual virtues. Horses are seen as imposing yet modest confidence yet temperate, Jonathan Swift thought them rational and judicious as well, and peaceful their eyes read peaceful, and stoic their faces read stoic, but it's the physical creature that grabs our attention first and last.

A thousand pounds, fifteen hundred or more of thick long neck, shoulders, and haunches. All that serene power resting atop shatterable legs, as Barbara O's right hind leg shattered in the pretense, and the nation otherwise absorbed in war and baseball, turned its collective sympathies toward a fallen horse. A fallen horse unthinkable, except when it happens, falling is not supposed to reside in the nature of the beast. Of a horse, especially a race horse, a thoroughbred for crying out loud, one expects only speed and fluidity, the animal's muscles ripple, its hooves like stones beat down on a track. That's the way horses are meant to be, so whenever they collapse, people's hearts collapse too. Something about the nobility one infers from merely looking at them, and something about this conjunction of extreme power and extreme fragility. He's up, he's down, put down to the count.

This is, provide the illusion of endless majesty in the reality of frail underpinnings, a little like some of our institutions, under the like us. No wonder Richard III offered his kingdom for but one of them. It wasn't even trade. Barbara O won the Kentucky Derby just before this picture was taken, and that is how one wishes to see him. Before the fall, caught in profile at a moment of glory and standing without a tremor, at the top of his game. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. Again the major developments of this day, severe storms in Florida killed at least 19 people. International scientists reported humans are very likely to blame for global warming, and the effects will continue for centuries. U.S. intelligence agencies released a grim new assessment of Iraq's prospects, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in January, and that's a tenth of a percent higher than in December.

Washington Week can be seen later this evening on most PBS stations. We'll see you online, and again here Monday evening. Have a great weekend. I'm Ray Suarez. Thanks for joining us. Good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lara is provided by. The world's demand for energy will never stop, which is why a farmer is growing corn, and a farmer is growing soy, and why ADN is turning these crops into biofuels. The world's demand for energy will never stop, which is why ADN will never stop. We're only getting started, ADN, resourceful by nature. And by CIT, Pacific Life, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the National Science Foundation, and with the continuing support of these institutions and foundations.

This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. To purchase video cassettes of the new hour with Jim Lara, call 1-866-678-News.

I'm PBS. Sorry, I'm back! .

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is away. On the news hour tonight, the news of this Friday, then a look at the bleak forecast on climate change released today in Paris. An assessment of the challenge ahead in Iraq in the latest National Intelligence estimate, a news hour report about the minimum wage gap between Idaho and neighboring Washington state, the weekly analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks, and S.A.S. Roger Rosenblatt returns with some thoughts about the impact of an image. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer is provided by...

. What Susie and I retire will be taking trips like this whenever we want. It's a good thing we've been planning. A Pacific life, giving you the right tools to help you meet your financial goals, is what we're all about as you look to the future, look to Pacific life. A Pacific life, the power to help you succeed, and by CIT, the Archer Daniels Midland Company, the Atlantic Philanthropies. The National Science Foundation.