The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, the news of this day, then the analysis of Mark Shields and David Brooks, a conversation with the chief of staff to the opposition leader in Ukraine, and a report on Apple Computer's successful turn to music.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: A U.S. Soldier pleaded guilty today in Baghdad to murdering an Iraqi. Staff Sgt. Johnny Horne, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, admitted he killed a badly wounded teenager last August. An investigator said witnesses called it a mercy killing. As a result, the military reduced the initial charge to un-premeditated murder. And separately, the U.S. Marines have charged Corp. Wassef Ali Hassoun with desertion. He was an interpreter in Iraq when he disappeared last June. Later, he surfaced in Lebanon and first claimed he was kidnapped. Three more U.S. troops died in Iraq in the last 24 hours. The military said today a U.S. Marine was killed in action in western Iraq yesterday. And two Army soldiers died in a helicopter accident at an air base in Mosul. All tolled, more than 1,280 U.S. servicemen and women have died in Iraq since the war began. Of that number, more than 1,000 have been killed in combat. In addition, nearly 9,800 Americans have been wounded. The story of a U.S. soldier who confronted Defense Secretary Rumsfeld took a new twist today. A Tennessee newspaper said it should have told readers one of its reporters helped the soldier frame his question to Rumsfeld. It happened during a U.S. Military town hall meeting in Kuwait on Wednesday. Army Spec. Thomas Wilson complained many military vehicles in Iraq still don't have enough armor.

SPEC. THOMAS WILSON: Now, why do we solders dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles, and why don't we have those resources readily available to us? (Cheers and applause)

DONALD RUMSFELD: It isn't a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it. As you know, you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

JIM LEHRER: Today, the newspaper publisher said the soldier came up with the question and asked for help with the wording. He said the reporter should have disclosed his role just the same. A Rhode Island television reporter began serving six months of confinement at home today. A federal judge sentenced Jim Taricani yesterday for refusing to say who leaked an FBI videotape. That tape showed a politician taking a bribe. The judge said the reporter would have gotten active jail time except for his health. He had a heart transplant eight years ago. President Bush nominated a top Treasury official to be energy secretary today. Samuel Bodman is now deputy secretary of the treasury. Before that, he held a similar post at the Commerce Department. He also has taught chemical engineering at MIT, and has run an international chemical company. Bodman will succeed Spencer Abraham in the energy post, if he's confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The prime minister of Ukraine accused opposition protesters of intimidation today in his battle for the presidency. He said his supporters will not accept victory by the opposition in a new, court-ordered runoff. The opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, flew to Austria for tests on an illness that's scarred his face. He says the government had him poisoned. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi won a victory today in his long-running battle against corruption charges. We have a report narrated by Gary Gibbon of Independent Television News.

GARY GIBBON: The Milan court acquitted Silvio Berlusconi on one charge of bribing a judge; on the other, it simply said that he couldn't be convicted because the offense was so old. (Speaking Italian) Mr. Berlusconi's lawyers say they now want a full acquittal on both charges, and will appeal. The Italian prime minister was accused of bribing judges to further his business interests. He's the first sitting prime minister to face serious criminal charges, but not the first Italian politician. In the 1990s, many in the Italian political elite found themselves charged with corruption. In the political vacuum that followed, Silvio Berlusconi's political career was born. Italy turned to a business magnate, its richest citizen, to lead them. Italian voters have tended to turn a blind eye to Mr. Berlusconi's attempts to shut down this trial. He argued it was politically motivated. He partially blocked evidence from a Swiss bank account, he decriminalized the offense of false accounting that was originally on his charge sheets, he forced through a law allowing defendants to swap a trial judge, and he passed a law granting himself immunity from prosecution. The upper court overruled that, but in the end, he didn't need it. He was saved, not for the first time, by the fact that Italian justice grinds so slowly that by the time it reaches its conclusions, the offenses are often out of date.

JIM LEHRER: Berlusconi is due in Washington next week to meet with President Bush. A major oil spill from a grounded freighter menaced a wildlife refuge off Alaska today. The ship ran aground on Wednesday in the Aleutian Islands and was ripped in half. It's now spilling thousands of gallons of heavy fuel oil. In the meantime, the Coast Guard continued searching today for six crew members from the ship. Federal safety officials have asked Daimler-Chrysler to recall 600,000 Dodge vehicles. The company said today they include Durango sport utility vehicles and Dakota pickups from the model years 2000-2003. The National Traffic Safety Administration has had reports a key joint can fail, and wheels can literally fall off. The company said it plans to respond to the government next week. Crude oil prices fell sharply today, despite OPECs move to cut output. Traders focused instead on news a pipeline in northern Iraq resumed pumping. In New York trading, oil dropped more than 4 percent, to settle under $41 a barrel. Crude prices have been falling for weeks, but they're still 30 percent higher than a year ago. There was fresh evidence today that U.S. inflation is heating up a bit. The Labor Department reported wholesale prices rose 0.5 percent in November. That was more than expected, and it followed an even larger increase in October. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than nine points to close at 10,543. The NASDAQ fell one point to close at 2128. For the week, the Dow lost just under 0.5 percent. The NASDAQ was down about 1 percent. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to Shields and Brooks, a view from Ukraine, and Apple music.

FOCUS - SHIELDS & BROOKS

JIM LEHRER: And at the end of a busy week of news, we go first tonight to the analysis of Shields and Brooks; syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Mark, the Rumsfeld armor flap, how do you feel Rumsfeld did in handling the questions from the troops?

MARK SHIELDS: Jim, you remember John Kerry's answer on the $87 bill appropriation: First I voted for it then I voted against it?

JIM LEHRER: I do remember that.

MARK SHIELDS: Okay. I think John Kerry does, too. As you know, you go to war not with the army you might wish to have but with the army you have -- might want to have at a future date. This war, Donald Rumsfeld knows and the president knows and everybody else knows, was not in response to firing at Fort Sumter or the invasion across the 38th Parallel in Korea or Pearl Harbor. This was a war of the timing and location of which was totally a choice of the administration. They'd been planning it, according to Bob Woodward, from September 2001. The idea that today barely over half of American military vehicles in Iraq are armored when one half of all the people you saw listed first at the head of the show, almost 1300 dead Americans, close to 10,000 wounded, one half of them have been wounded by improvised explosive devices, all right, but set off first by a radio signal, a phone signal, and the only thing that stops them are two: One is armor and two is a radio scanner. Every VIP who goes over there, as Gene Taylor, Congressman from Mississippi points out, when he goes over, anybody goes over, whether it's a VIP or a cabinet officer or a CEO, or whatever, they are surrounded by armor. Every vehicle has its own radio scanner so that they can disable those improvised explosive devices. Our soldiers and marines don't have that. And it's just... it'sa terribly serious indictment at this point in this war that Americans are scavenging as this fellow put it, to find the armor.

JIM LEHRER: A terribly serious indictment, David?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, to some extent, we trained, the army moves with a doctrine. The doctrine was "fast, mobile, high tech, get where you need to go" preparing for a certain sort of war. The insurgents found a flaw in what we had. They... once you're stuck there, you're not moving quickly to fight a lightning strike, you're stuck in urban warfare. We were not prepared obviously for this kind of warfare and so we didn't have the armor, we didn't have the heavy armor. They're producing it as fast as they can. There's no question it's a mistake. As for Rumsfeld's... you know, the press conference, a couple things. First of off, I thought it was great. I thought it was great they addressed him way that way, they had a confrontation. You know, I'm sure he wish he'd given a different answer. You give the answer you have, not the answer you wish you had. But, you know, he's a confident guy and sometimes he errs on the side of confidence.

JIM LEHRER: What would you say to those who say "why didn't he just say to the soldier, hey, soldier, soldier you've got a real problem. You've got a real complaint and I'm going to get to the bottom of this right now. This is awful, this is terrible, next question." Why can't he do that?

DAVID BROOKS: This is, I think, true of many people in authority and probably doubly true of him. But people in authority want to show how much authority they're in and they don't like showing the vulnerability. I actually think the president handled it pretty well. He had time to think about it.

JIM LEHRER: He said that, what I just stead next day.

DAVID BROOKS: Exactly. But, you know, it takes a strong person to admit that vulnerability. And this is not Donald Rumsfeld's particular strength.

MARK SHIELDS: Yeah, Jim, just one point. We're not producing it as fast as we can. The companies are not working at full capacity. The Congress has authorized basically a blank check for all the armor necessary to armor all our vehicles there. We've got 29,000 vehicles. Barely half of them are armored up today. So when they go out, it's a roulette they're playing. And the idea that we're not is just indefensible. I'll tell you very bluntly. If they were the sons of senators and the sons of cabinet officers and the sons of CEO's, the sons of syndicated columnists who were there instead of kids from Tennessee and small towns in Oklahoma, you better believe they'd be armored up.

JIM LEHRER: Is that a fair shot?

DAVID BROOKS: No, listen. In times of war... snafus are invented in times of warfare. I'm not going to defend and say they were prepared or they're armored up as well as they can be, but the idea where we've never had a war where the equipment hasn't been unbelievably ill prepared in some way or another, that's just part of warfare. And surprises happen. This is something the U.S. military was unprepared for. What Donald Rumsfeld is doing, by the way, and most of his life, is not running this war. It's not like the secretary of defense sits there and runs a war. What the secretary of defense spends most of his time this thing called the quadrennial review, which is planning for next war. What do we need? And I think one of the things Rumsfeld is doing and probably the reason he stayed is not because he's managing this war well, because he's in the middle of the quadrennial review preparing for the next war, preparing the military for the next war that will be like this one.

JIM LEHRER: The other big news of the week was the passage of the intelligence bill by both the House and Senate and by very huge margins. David, why did this happen? Why did this bill finally pass?

DAVID BROOKS: Because the president really tried. He really, really tried. He had a conversation. You know, he did something that I think they had problems doing in four years. One of the things they've done is they send legislation up to Capitol Hill and it's wandering off alone. There's not a lot of give and take, not a lot of conversation. That happened initially with this intelligence bill, with some communication, but not intense involved communication. And I think one of the things the administration did in the last week, they were frightened and they really got involved with Duncan Hunter, the House military expert, and Sensenbrenner, who was concerned about immigration issues and with Hastert and Frist. They really worked a way problem in a way that's not been common.

JIM LEHRER: The president should accept credit for this?

MARK SHIELDS: The president did step up to the plate, I think he was under enormous pressure to do so. I think there are a couple of things that ought to be commented upon: First of all, Jim, it was a 98-2 vote in the Senate and I think credit, there was real bipartisanship. It's something you very rarely see.

JIM LEHRER: Susan Collins a Republican, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

MARK SHIELDS: John McCain. And the families 00

JIM LEHRER: I wondered about that; I wondered how important they were.

MARK SHIELDS: Absolutely indispensable. They were the pressure. The president didn't want the commission, period, in the first place. The commission was held, the recommendations carried; they were resistant to the recommendations and they were a constant presence, a constant presence and a constant prod. Finally, I think in the House, which we you saw for the first time, there were 67 Republicans on final passage. The president's used to, you know, kind of ramming it through and there hasn't been a personal touch, there hasn't been a personal appeal in the past, they just kind of send it up and expect the Republicans to do...

JIM LEHRER: To say "aye" and go.

MARK SHIELDS: That's it. And I think what you see in the new reality, which no one in the political world is -- George W. Bush will never have his name on a ballot. Everybody who's voting out there has their name on a ballot in two or at most four years.

JIM LEHRER: You said the other week that Mr. Bush better get used to this, too, right?

DAVID BROOKS: The problems are within the Republican caucus. Social Security is what they're thinking about this week and it's just those problems... there are four or five different camps, they some have got to manage this. If I can just underline one thing, you know, there was the last week problem... the scare that came in the House. But then there was the longer term issue. And you just can't underline enough the commission and the importance of the commission. So many people around town felt good about how that came out. And it had just a tremendous force that carried through. And I think it's systematic of something larger which is that we're all stuck in this polarized world but a lot of people who are stuck in it are unhappy about it. And this commission was a break from that. And so I don't know if it can happen on any other issue, but it was a good story this time.

JIM LEHRER: There's never been a time, has there, when a commission like this, an outside of people not directly in government, come up with some recommendations and, boom, blows everybody away and here we are talking about exactly what they wanted they got?

MARK SHIELDS: They did, Jim, and they did a great job and Tom Keane and Lee Hamilton especially but the other members as well. You recall when John Aschroft and some folks went after Jamie Gorelick, one of the commissioners, you know, and kind of took a shot at her -

JIM LEHRER: She was at the Justice Department -

MARK SHIELDS: -- and they leaked stuff on her and the other commissioners... I mean, the Republican commissioners rallied to her support and said "uh-uh, you're not going to divide us." And that was, boy, you talk about something impressive and something almost unprecedented --

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. All right. The president's cabinet, he's almost got it all together now. How do you... David, how do you read the decision to keep John Snow as secretary of the treasury? I mean, that poor man was twisting in the wind here for several weeks.

DAVID BROOKS: In my view it was overplayed. Somebody said to the Washington Post "he can stay as long as he doesn't stay very long." I've been told that the person... whoever said that didn't know what they were talking about, they were not in a powerful position in the White House. There are a lot of people around town you talk to and they tell you more than they know.

JIM LEHRER: Nobody's ever done that to me. Have you, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: Don't be autobiographical.

MARK SHIELDS: Don't be personal.

DAVID BROOKS: Here's something I think I know, which is that Snow was never in deep trouble. As this thing was going on in the wind, Andy Card, chief of staff, called him twice and said "don't worry about it, you'll be fine." And I think he's been a loyal soldier and I think they admired the way he handled this two-week period where he really didn't make a peep.

JIM LEHRER: Did anybody who knows tell you anything?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. Let's be very blunt about this, there are a lot of people in the White House and close to the White House who are talking about this and for ten days John Snow was hung out to dry.

JIM LEHRER: Why?

MARK SHIELDS: You talk about twisting in the wind. It's a hell of a vote of confidence you get. I mean, he picks up the paper and it says "it isn't a question of whether he's losing the..." this is the New York Times, let's not talk about the Washington Post, let's talk New York Times, it's who he's going to replace - and just as soon as we have that replacement, and then the vice president is talking - they're talking to Jerry Parski from California, -- a big Bush supporter.

JIM LEHRER: George Will was pushing Alan Greenspan.

MARK SHIELDS: They're talking to all of these people. All of a sudden, Jim, they confront something. Fist of all, they can't beat somebody with nobody and they don't have somebody that's going to replace him. The second thing is they have got a White House economic conference next week.

JIM LEHRER: Toronto on the 15th --

MARK SHIELDS: How are you going to have one without a secretary of the treasury? So they say "you know who's doing a hell of a job? John Snow."

DAVID BROOKS: I think they just wanted to see 500 CEO's begin lobbying and campaigning for the job -

JIM LEHRER: We won't give it to you now but stay tuned --

MARK SHIELDS: John Snow must really feel good about it.

JIM LEHRER: Right. Generally... the word -- we talked about it here last week, Mark, the idea that most of the cabinet selections thus far, new people are not really new people - in other words people from within the administration. Do you agree with that? What does that mean, do you think?

MARK SHIELDS: They are. What's interesting to me is the people who are leaving, are people with either their own political constituency or following or their own political, their own public support. I mean, Colin Powell. You know, he's been an enormously popular figure. Tommy Thompson, one of the really dominant governors of the country as a Republican -- they were independent. John Aschroft: Governor and senator from Missouri; they had an independence to them. Whatever you say about these new folks, there's not much independence from the White House. And, you know, if there was a certain prickliness at times with Powell or Ashcroft or Thompson, you know, not going along with the White House program, I think these folks will be a lot more cooperative and accommodating.

JIM LEHRER: But you believe that maybe people come into a job not so independent and once they get in there become cabinet officers and get independent, right?

DAVID BROOKS: That inevitably happens, especially at places like the State Department. We have to be clear, when you're talking about cabinet government, it's not like the cabinet gets together and makes decisions. That just does not happen. What the cabinet officer does, if he's... he or she is secretary of something, either a lot of speeches. Robert Reich, who was labor secretary under Clinton wrote a book about being labor secretary. It was perfectly clear from that book he didn't run the Labor Department; he was sitting up there with five political appointees and they were making speeches. Or the cabinet secretary actually does the administration. Somebody in the State Department says, you know, "what we do is not foreign policy, it's foreign affairs. It's the day-to-day relationships we have with government. It's dull, not policy making, it's dull, keeping in contact, doing routine work of the department." So what the cabinet secretary... they're not part of the symposium making policy, they're doing the administrative work or else they're off making speeches. But we shouldn't pretend that these cabinet appointments say a lot about policy.

JIM LEHRER: I think he just said it doesn't matter who's in the cabinet of the United States.

MARK SHIELDS: I think it matters; I think it matters quite a bit, Jim, when you're trying to do two things: Social security and a tax overhaul. You better have some pretty strong and persuasive folks running treasury.

JIM LEHRER: Well, we're going to talk about that next week because, as you said, there's the big summit, economic summit and all that. We'll talk about it next Friday afterward. Okay. Thank you both very much.

FOCUS - OPPOSITION VOICE

JIM LEHRER: And now Ray Suarez has our Ukraine story.

RAY SUAREZ: The barricades are down, the posters rolled up, and most of the thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in Kiev's Independence Square have dispersed. But a few diehard supporters of Ukraine's opposition leader, Viktor Yuschchenko, lingered in the tent city.

SPOKESMAN (Translated): We are not trying to block the administration building anymore. We are here only for peaceful rally. At a moment's notice we could bring protesters back.

RAY SUAREZ: The two-week long blockade of major government buildings began as a protest against the November presidential election-- almost universally seen as fraudulent-- and grew into a political movement. This week two moves in the capital Kiev led to the blockade winding down. First, the Ukrainian Supreme Court ruled the presidential election between Yuschchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych was a fraud and should be repeated. And this week, the parliament voted for major electoral changes aimed at averting election fraud, and also moved to shift some presidential powers to the parliament. That cleared the way for a repeat election on Dec. 26 between the two Viktors: Yuschchenko and Yanukovych. Meanwhile, in Turkey, on Monday, Russian President Putin, who backs Prime Minister Yanukovych, warned western nations not to get involved in the crisis.

SPOKESMAN (Translated ): Our position is that only the people of any country, and this includes Ukraine in the full sense, can decide their fate. One can play the role of a mediator but one must not meddle and apply pressure.

RAY SUAREZ: Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Bulgaria on Wednesday, dismissed Russian claims of western meddling.

SPOKESMAN: Ukrainian and Russian authorities are hearing a clear message from North America and Europe, in diplomatic stereo. And that stereo sound makes a difference. And what do we say? Let the people decide. More than ever before, the fate of Ukraine rests where it belongs, in the hands of the Ukrainian people.

RAY SUAREZ: Today, Putin seemed to take a new tack, saying Russia would have no objections if Ukraine joined the European Union. EU officials had been involved in brokering a solution to the political impasse in Ukraine. Yanukovych's and Yushchenko's campaigns are remapping their strategies, but the opposition candidate once again was in a hospital in Vienna, being treated for the affects of a mysterious illness that has disfigured his face. Yuschchenko has said he was poisoned.

RAY SUAREZ: Now we get the perspective of one of the key strategists for the Ukraine opposition. Oleh Rybachuk is chief of staff for Viktor Yuschchenko. He has been in Washington meeting pro-democracy groups and administration officials.

And, welcome.

OLEH RYBACHUK: Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's talk about your boss, Viktor Yushchenko's health. Today he was checked into a hospital in Austria with just a little over two weeks to go until the polls open once again in the Ukraine. How sick is he?

OLEH RYBACHUK: Well, you know, a doctor says you need to avoid stress and you can imagine then while new the middle of campaigning it's very difficult to avoid stress. So he needs... we discussed this while discussing our tour, campaign, that he can take a couple of days now because actually for security reasons we are planning his campaign not so actively as it used to be when he was attending massive public rallies. Now, when we have TV open for us, when we have all other means of communication open for us and Yuschchenko has a very strong team, actually, he's got message. His voters got message already. He doesn't need to send something new. But I'm... as a chief of staff, I'm very much concerned about his further security risks and therefore we limited his public exposure.

RAY SUAREZ: But doctors have had so little to say about just what it is that's making him ill. Do we know that his life isn't in danger?

OLEH RYBACHUK: No, actually. I've been talking to doctors and it's not about danger to his life. He has fully recovered. Actually, he was very lucky that we was brought to Vienna because doctors said if he would stay another 24 hours in Ukraine, it could be a final solution, so called. And now after taking two treatments in Vienna, he has fully recovered, as doctor says, but he needs a certain rest and he needs to take care of this effects on his face which they call residual. But actually, internally there are no more damages so he has been cured internally but he needs rest later and he needs his face taken care of.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's talk about your own visit to the United States. Were you meeting with officials of the Bush administration?

OLEH RYBACHUK: Yes. I just had a couple of meetings at the State Department and your National Security Council.

RAY SUAREZ: Was that a touchy thing for you, given that Mr. Yanukovych has charged your party and your candidate with being too close to the United States?

OLEH RYBACHUK: Actually, it's not Yanukovych; it's very popular game which is clearly orchestrated from Kremlin and it's a long story. They tried to connect the fact that Yushchenko's wife is of American background. But this is originally coming from Kremlin. Their consultants decided that this is something very bad for Ukrainians, the fact that Yuschchenko has an American-born wife. But all the rest is just one of post-Soviet type stereotypes. When they try to say that... well, West is running behind Yuschchenko, therefore poor Russians have no choice but to support other candidate. The theory backfired strongly against Kremlin foreign policy, actually, and recently we heard that President Putin said that actually whoever Ukrainian people will vote for, Kremlin will be dealing with.

RAY SUAREZ: You've already talked about how you're not going to put your candidate so aggressively out on the trail over the next two weeks. Are you sure that the conditions are now in place this time to run a fair vote in Ukraine?

OLEH RYBACHUK: Well, the conditions are clearly much better than they used to be. You know, practically all the demands of opposition to amend law on presidential election, which made it impossible to use these absentee ballots as a major fraud instrument plus the fact that Prime Minister Yanukovych actually in resignation and the most notorious officials like prosecutor general was fired, central election committee chairman, which was caught into massive fraud and specifically using computer system was fired. So there are all prior conditions met. But more important, Ukrainians are not afraid. You know, when you have authoritarian regime, it has all its influence when people are afraid of them. But millions of Ukrainians demonstrated for 17 days despite cold and they've been very much determined and they have won. Never Ukraine saw such massive rallies, but very well organized and peaceful. Therefore, I can say that my nation changed completely.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, what's to say that the other side won't do the same? Today Prime Minister Yanukovych said that he won't accept and his supporters will not accept another vote if it goes the other way for Viktor Yuschchenko. What will keep them from going on into the streets and saying "we don't accept this vote" as your followers do?

OLEH RYBACHUK: Well, the problem is that Yanukovych knows very well the difference -- that it was not us sending people in the street, it was something which we've been always telling, that if government would try massive fraud, Ukrainian legendary patience may be exhausted. And this happens. We clearly predict Viktor Yushchenko's victory maybe in 20 out of 25 regions. So if Yanukovych will get some support in a few regions, you can imagine that this is only part of Ukrainian population. And when I heard today that all these threats of separatism and on Yanukovych region having referendum are now called back because governors who initiated this clearly understand this is a criminal act and they may enjoy up to 15 years in prison and that separatism threats have received a very sharp reaction in parliament and in public opinion in Ukraine. So these guys are now clearly on defensive.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you're talking and a candidate you just said could win 20 out of 25 regions in your country. Yet you're not so sure about his safety as he travels that country where he's so popular?

OLEH RYBACHUK: Yes, sir, I'm not so sure for a number of reasons. I have very good reasons not to be sure because we are dealing with the business groups which invested billions of dollars in Yanukovych and they've been pretty confident that Yanukovych will win. Nobody expected Ukrainian resistance movement. They've been very skeptical about this and they have support also from outside. We are talking about billions of dollars at stake and when the price is so high, you can never be sure of security. Moreover, we had clear life attempts at... in Yushchenko's case and if you not yet reported which I know of but I have to admit this that this security risk is something which worries me most of all. I'm positive about the campaign results, but I have to be very careful about making sure that Yushchenko's life is not more threatened.

RAY SUAREZ: Will he have to govern that way? I mean, if he wins on Dec. 26, will his life continue to be in danger from these forces that you've named?

OLEH RYBACHUK: Well, it's substantially reduced because Yuschchenko is extremely popular and moreover, security forces are cooperating now. You know, it's much easier to have preventive... let's say preventive analysis or preventive tactics to discourage attempts on the president's life than actually physical bodyguards because that's something which can be easily taken care of. But the fact that Yuschchenko is extremely popular and he is getting wide support among the population diminishes some risks. But anyway, at this point when nothing can stop Yuschchenko, they know that Yuschchenko is the clear winner and whatever might come to their... crazy heads is something which worries me a lot. These guys are not gentlemen at all, sir.

RAY SUAREZ: Let's talk about President Putin from Russia next door. He was a clear supporter of Yanukovych. There was said to be government support coming from Russia into the Ukraine for the Yanukovych campaign. You mentioned he softened his line, but if Viktor Yuschchenko becomes president of Ukraine after Dec. 26, what kind of relationship is he going to have with the president of your much larger neighbor who opposed you?

OLEH RYBACHUK: I will say not when but if Mr. Yuschchenko becomes president. I remember how Yuschchenko was describing me his first meeting with Putin. Putin saw him and says "Finally there is a new generation coming to power in Ukraine." So they're almost the same age, they are clearly different personalities like Yeltsin or Kuchma used to be. They-re clearly... the clear type of Soviet product -- clear Soviet product kind of managers. Putin is different. Putin government is different. And, frankly, there is no other way for Putin but to deal with Ukraine. And Yuschchenko has very good reputation among Russian business elite because his record as a prime minister shows that Russian investment was by far the largest during his prime ministership plus Yuschchenko proved to be the guy who plays by the rules, who doesn't have any business, unlike Yanukovych, any business plan standing behind him. And Yuschchenko is clearly creating sort of European standards for investments. And many successful Russian businesses are dreaming of these kind of business opportunities, while they've been facing clearly discrimination from Yanukovych while Yanukovych was promoting his own business in a number of very loud privatization cases.

RAY SUAREZ: Oleh Rybachuk, thanks for being with us.

OLEH RYBACHUK: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the musical comeback of Apple.

FOCUS - SHINY APPLE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, Apple remakes itself to the sound of music. Spencer Michels reports.

SPOKESPERSON: Happy, happy birthday baby...

SPENCER MICHELS: For the past couple of decades, Apple and the Macintosh computers it makes have been objects of adoration by a relatively small band of longtime enthusiasts led by graphic designers like Dom Dimento, and photographers like Colette Cann, who need versatile, easy-to-use computers to manipulate images, something Apple pioneered.

COLETTE CANN, Photographer: Had Macs since I was in middle school. And the first one we had as a family was an Apple IIE.

SPENCER MICHELS: But relatively few traditional businesses use Mac computers. Apple has less than 4 percent of the worldwide computer market, down dramatically from two decades ago. Today, however, due increasingly to the popularity of its digital music player, the iPod, Apple appears to be comfortably surviving, perhaps even riding high less than a decade after its very existence was in doubt. Rik Myslewski is editor of a magazine for Mac addicts.

RIK MYSLEWSKI: If I had like a $20 bill for every time Apple has been deemed "about to die," I would be able to buy a mansion. Apple's not dying. Apple keeps pulling another rabbit out of another hat, and it's always a beautiful rabbit. ( Music playing )

SPENCER MICHELS: The iPod is the biggest rabbit in co-founder Steve jobs' hat right now. Apple's three-year-old digital music player, which can be played with earphones or in a car, or can be attached to speakers, has soared in popularity, become a hot fashion statement, and is leading Apple's recovery. The iPod, which sells for $250 to $600, has close to a 60 percent market share in the fast- expanding field of digital music players. These battery-driven devices contain a hard drive which can hold and play up to 15,000 songs. Early in the year Apple introduced a small version, the Mini.

DAVE RUSSELL, iPod Marketing: Well, I have an iPod also. It has every CD I've ever

bought inside of it, so my entire music collection is on my iPod.

SPOKESMAN: We think music plus photos is the next big thing.

SPENCER MICHELS: Late this year, Jobs, who recently recovered from cancer surgery, announced Apple was adding photos to the iPod. The new device, which sells for as much as $600, can hold up to 25,000 photos. Nearly six million iPods have been sold, many of them at the increasing number of Apple-owned stores around the world, which are generating sizable profits for the company. Apple's stock price has nearly tripled since iPods first went on the market. The company promotes itself with savvy ads aimed at the pop market like this.

SPOKESPERSON: Hello, hello...

SPENCER MICHELS: The Irish rock band U2 recently made this commercial for free, hoping to share the iPod spotlight and promote its new album. And Apple has a deal with BMW to plug the iPod directly into the car's sound system.

TIM BAJARIN, Computer Industry Analyst: I see the iPod and the whole concept of this portable media as just the starting point for things that Apple can do over time.

SPENCER MICHELS: Apple agrees. After making deals with major record companies to distribute their tunes at 99 cents each, Apple's iTunes online record store sold 100 million in just over a year, for an astounding 70 percent market share. Apple exec Greg Joswiak says Apple iTunes and iPod have outpaced the competition.

GREG JOSWIAK: We've become the gold standard for both of those. There's not a product that is introduced without somehow having to refer themselves to Apple, to the iPod, to iTunes.

SPENCER MICHELS: Apple originally deigned the iPod to accept only songs downloaded onto an Apple Computer from its own iTunes music store but last year, the company made it possible for users of PC's to download songs from iTunes and then transfer them to iPods. Computer industry analyst Tim Bajarin estimates that PC users now account for up to 25 percent of Apple's iPod sales. Still, owners of other digital music players cannot download songs from iTunes, and iPod owners cannot play songs from most other online music stores. Bajarin says Steve Jobs' push to keep iTunes and the iPod proprietary could be problematic.

TIM BAJARIN: Yes, it's a risk. But Steve I think goes into that fully understanding what the risk is, and the fact that in reality he wants to create what is the best user experience, the easiest user experience for handling all digital media.

SPENCER MICHELS: Apple is making a mistake, according to Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks. Like Apple, RealNetworks sells music online, but it also runs a music subscription service where people rent songs for a month. RealNetworks has a new software called Harmony that will let iPod owners download its music, a development Apple is not happy about.

ROB GLASER: Clearly, compatibility is the right thing for consumers. People who we've talked to in the music business really cheer what we're doing because they don't like this incompatibility one iota.

SPENCER MICHELS: A slew of other online music stores has sprung up where you can legally download music for a fee. These sites are now competing with sites where free swapping of music takes place with questionable legality. Wal-mart is offering songs at 88 cents, E-bay is planning a site, and Napster, the formerly illegal site, has gone legit. Microsoft, Apple's old rival, is entering the music business as well, with its own music store. More than 60 different digital music players have come on the market, fighting to catch up with iPod. Most use an audio format that Microsoft developed, which allows them to download songs from a variety of sites.

SPOKESMAN: This is basically an MP3 player which is extremely small. As you can see, it fits in to this little pouch right here.

SPENCER MICHELS: Sony, which pioneered and long dominated the portable music player field with its popular Walkman, is pitching the choice it offers verses Apple's limited product line.

TODD SCHAFFER, Sony Vice President: Sony is the number-one shareholder in the total personal audio market, and that's going to continue. And as I mentioned before, we're about choice.

SPENCER MICHELS: But for now, Apple is the brand to beat in music. And execs say that will help its core business, computer sales, where the profit is higher but the sales slower. Jobs' strategy is to make Apple a digital hub, with iPod and iTunes enticing customers into the whole package that the company calls iLife. It includes programs to edit digital movies, improve and organize photos, and a program called Garage Band to compose music. Apple aficionados like Dom Dimento, who uses his computers for work and for play, say they endorse Apple's claim of seamless interaction between Apple products. He very much wants the company to survive.

DOM DiMENTO: I want these machines to be around forever. It would be... it would be horrible if they went the way of the Whigs.

SPENCER MICHELS: But customers in the digital world are fickle. And Apple's success today, especially in music, is a rapidly moving target for the likes of Microsoft and Sony.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments on this day. A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty in Baghdad to murdering a badly wounded Iraqi. Witnesses said it was a mercy killing. President Bush nominated a top Treasury official, Samuel Bodman, to be energy secretary. And late today, Daimler/Chrysler agreed to recall 600,000 Dodge Durangos and Dakota trucks. They may have a defect that can cause a wheel to fall off.

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

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