The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight as military action against Iraq nears, the day's developments, two reports from "New York Times" correspondents-- John Burns in Baghdad and Michael Gordon in Kuwait, more on U.S. Military preparations and expectations, a Paul Solman look at what war prospects are doing to the price of oil, and some closing brink-of-war thoughts from Zbigniew Brezinski and Walter Russell Mead. NEWS SUMMARY JIM LEHRER: The developments today in the move toward war with Iraq. Ray Suarez has our war news wrap-up. RAY SUAREZ: The final hours for peace ticked by with no sign that Saddam Hussein would back down. He had already rejected the U.S. Ultimatum to go into exile by 8:00 P.M., Eastern Time, this evening. In Washington, Pres. Bush met with top advisers at the White House to take last-minute looks at military plans, and he sent Congress a formal notification of his justification for war. It said in part: "The President of the United Stats has the authority - Indeed, given the dangers involved, the duty - to use force against Iraq to protect the security of the American people " At a briefing, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer warned there would be sacrifices.ARI FLEISCHER: The American people clearly have seen what has been developing for months and months and months as a result of the diplomatic endeavors that the president tried while making plain and certain to the American people and to Iraq that if Iraq did not disarm, force would be used and American people understand that if force is used lives maybe lost indeed. I think there is no question the country understands that. RAY SUAREZ: Fleischer said the president hoped the conflict would be a short and precise as possible. But he went on to say, "there aremany unknowns, and it could be a matter of some duration." There were a number of signs today that a military strike was imminent. During the daylight hours in the Persian Gulf, one group of U.S. combat pilots patrolled the skies while another was told to hurry up and sleep and be ready for nighttime work. Whether that's tonight or not, U.S. commanders say they're ready for the call. VICE ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING, U.S. Navy: Make no mistake, when the president says go, look out , it's hammer time. RAY SUAREZ: Several warships are off the coast of Kuwait, part of the 300,000-strong U.S. and British presence. On the ground in Kuwait, allied troops moved to the Kuwait-Iraq border. They were slowed by a heavy sandstorm, affecting visibility. The advancing forces donned chemical weapons suits and packed live ammunition. At the border today, army officials said at least 16 Iraqi soldiers surrendered. That's a welcome sign for the U.S. Today it dropped two million propaganda leaflets over Iraq with specific instructions on how to surrender. It was also a day for final rehearsals to test out precision bombers known as Tornadoes, to conduct medical drills in case of chemical or bio-attack, and to dig trenches for desert warfare. Any victory will come with only limited help from Turkey. Ankara has allowed the U.S. to send logistical equipment to the Iraqi border, but it's said no to ground troops and airbase use. Today Turkey's government did ask its parliament to permit use of Turkish airspace. Separately today, military contractors prepared to clean up any oil spills ordered by Saddam Hussein. SPOKESMAN: This morning we have received some fairly credible information that there may be oil put in the water soon. Therefore, our tasking is to be prepared to go and meet that threat. RAY SUAREZ: U.S. warplanes bombed nine targets in the no-fly zone over southern Iraq today. The military said it was a response to anti-aircraft fire from the Iraqis. The Iraqi parliament declared its loyalty to Saddam Hussein today. The lawmakers held an emergency session and said they would sacrifice all for the Iraqi leader. They declared, "We are dedicated to martyrdom in defense of Iraq under your leadership." On the streets of Baghdad, armed members of the ruling Ba'ath Party deployed to fortified positions, but most residents with the means left the city. Others buttoned up shops and businesses and reinforced their homes. Refugees from Iraq headed for the borders today where they could. Police in Jordan stopped at least one truckload of Iraqis trying to enter that country. And in northern Iraq, Kurdish families continued to move away from key cities. They said they fear attacks by Iraqi forces. Opponents of war made their final appeals for diplomacy today. Betty Ann Bowser has that part of the story. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Even with America on the brink of war, nations opposed to the conflict wanted their voices to be heard today at the United Nations. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov challenged the U.S. claim that previous U.N. resolutions had given it authorization to invade Iraq. IGOR IVANOV (Translated): Not one of these decisions authorizes the right to use force against Iraq outside the United Nations charter. Not one of them authorizes the violent overthrow of the leadership of a sovereign state. BETTY ANN BOWSER: French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said a war with Iraq will only encourage terrorism. DOMININQUE DE VILLEPIN (Translated): To those who think that the scourge of terrorism will be eradicated through what is done in Iraq,we say that they run the risk of failing in their objectives. An outbreak of force in such an unstable area can only exacerbate the tensions and fractures on which terrorists feed. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Sec. of State Colin Powell did not attend. He was meeting with Pres. George Bush and the rest of his war council in Washington. In a separate development, U.S. Amb. John Negroponte said the U.S. and Great Britain want to tap into $40 billion in oil money currently held in Iraq's U.N. account and use that money to aid the Iraqi people after the war. In a last-minute effort to avert war, Saddam Hussein was offered exile today by the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain. In Saudi Arabia, officials there denied reports they had also made the same offer. RAY SUAREZ: And rumors swirled today that Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, had defected or had been shot trying to defect, but Aziz went before reporters in Baghdad to scotch the reports. He claimed they were part of a disinformation campaign by the U.S. TARIQ AZIZ: We are expecting similar rumors in the coming days, weeks and months maybe. And I would like you to be alert for such cheap psychological warfare. RAY SUAREZ: Aziz said he and all the Iraqi leadership meant to die in Iraq. The head of the U.S. Homeland Security Department sought to reassure Americans. The country went on high alert Monday for terrorist attacks. Sec. Tom Ridge said today that did not mean Americans should change their normal routines, but the Food and Drug Administration did issue new security guidelines for food companies, including employee background checks. The FDA also increased inspections at some plants. The British government urged Britons today to stock up on provisions in case of a terrorist attack. Some London residents were said to be carrying gas masks on the subway. Others left the city altogether, retreating to countryside locations. Jim? JIM LEHRER: Right. In the other non-Iraq news of the day, Yasser Arafat formally appointed Mahmoud Abbas to be the first Palestinian prime minister. Abbas will form a new government, but Arafat will still control peace talks with Israel. Pres. Bush announced last week he'd release a so-called "road map" for peace, once the Palestinians named a prime minister with "real authority." The U.S. Senate today refused to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The vote was 52-48. The Bush administration had pushed the plan as one of the key parts of its energy initiative. Environmentalists argued drilling in the refuge would jeopardize a pristine area. The House approved a bill making it harder to use bankruptcy toe wipe out debts. Supporters say too many people oppose the current system. Opponents said the new provisions would be unfair to people facing tough times. Pres. Bush supports the bill but its prospects in the Senate are uncertain. A blizzard buried parts of Colorado and Wyoming today. Colorado's governor called out the National Guard as winds piled up snow drifts five feet high. Mail delivery was suspended in the Denver area, and the city's international airport was closed, leaving some 4,000 people stranded. One death in Wyoming was blamed on the storm. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained 71 points to close at 8265, the NASDAQ fell three points to close at 1397. Now it's back to the coming of war, with reports from Baghdad and Kuwait, war planning, oil supply worries, and Zbigniew Brzezinski and Walter Russell Mead. UPDATE - WAITING FOR WAR JIM LEHRER: Waiting for war in Baghdad. Gwen Ifill talked with New York Times correspondent John Burns a short while ago. He is one of the few American reporters still in the Iraqi capital. GWEN IFILL: John Burns, so good to have you with us. Tell us, what is the mood tonight on the streets of Baghdad? JOHN BURNS: Well, you would imagine there is a great deal of apprehension. The city is quite extraordinarily quiet. It has been, in fact, since about noon on Wednesday as people headed out to country in the hundreds of thousands one suspects, all hunkered down in their basements, and a good deal of prayer, a good deal of solicitation from foreigners of insider knowledge, as if we had any, as to when the timing of the attack would come. But along with all of this apprehension, I think America should know that there is also a good deal of anticipation. Iraqis have suffered beyond I think the common understanding in the United States from the repression of the past 30 years here. And many, many Iraqis are telling us now-- not always in the whispers that we only heard in the past, but now in quite candid conversations-- that they are waiting for America to come and bring them liberty. GWEN IFILL: They are actually anticipating... eagerly anticipating war? JOHN BURNS: It's very hard, though, for anybody to understand this. It can only be understood in terms of the depth of repression here, and it has to be said that this is not universal, of course. Having traveled throughout Baghdad in the last few hours, I can tell that you there are occasions when people are angry-- an old woman selling vegetables -- somebody pulling up alongside me in a car with a Kalashnikov who made a big show of snapping a magazine into the Kalashnikov in a most menacing way. There are, of course, people who, because they are loyalists of the regime or out of fear or out of suspicion of America's motives, don't want this war at all. And we don't know how numerous they are, and we also don't know... still don't know, given the nature of this closed society, how numerous are the others. All I can tell you is that-- and every reporter who is currently here will attest to this-- that the most extraordinary experience of the last few days has been a sudden breaking of the ice here with people in every corner of life coming forward to tell us that they understand what America is about in this. They are very, very fearful, of course, of errant bombing, of damage to Iraqi infrastructure, and they are very concerned about the kind of governance... the American military governance that they will come under afterwards. GWEN IFILL: Let me ask you... JOHN BURNS: But there is absolutely... can I just say there is absolutely no doubt, no doubt that there are many, many Iraqis who see what is about to happen here as the moment of liberation. GWEN IFILL: Is there any evidence that you have seen so far of a buildup, a military buildup within Baghdad itself? JOHN BURNS: Late today, there was much more activity, a sudden deployment of troops in the streets that we hadn't seen before. At the same time, we're not talking about heavy fortification. We're talking about large numbers of men being deployed with Kalashnikov rifles to bunkers that are not more than about shoulder height, sandbag bunkers built at intersections, who, of course, are not likely to have much effect against the kind of air power that is about to be deployed against them. More difficult to tell is the nature of the fortifications outside the city. We do know that Republican Guard forces have been deployed to the outer defenses of Baghdad with increasing determination in the last few hours. So what we see in the city may be misleading, but the general impression is that for a government that looks as though it is about to confront its last stand, there has been remarkably little done in terms of fortification of the city. GWEN IFILL: Million dollar question: Where do you think or where does anyone think Saddam Hussein is now? JOHN BURNS: Well, we didn't see him today. We saw a great deal of him on Tuesday in the sense that he appeared on television in a succession of three high-level meetings. And the intriguing thing about those meetings was to me, amongst other things, that he appeared to be in a bunker, a low-ceilinged room of white marble, contrasted quite distinctly with the meeting places that we usually see him in, which has been high-ceilinged, ornate chambers. This suggests to me wherever he is, he is underground. We're told tonight by Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, who is in effect the fourth ranking man in the regime, who came over to the Information Ministry very casually, smoking on a Havana cigar, to deny that he had deflected to Iraqi Kurdistan. He told us the entire leadership is intact, the entire leadership will stay in Baghdad, what he called this glorious city of Baghdad. He says that they would be here for weeks and months to come and that American troops were about to encounter a long and bloody war. So where will Saddam be when American troops arrive at the gates of Baghdad? Hard to say, but the same Mr. Aziz told me some months ago at the conclusion of an interview, when I said to him as we left his office in a magnificent building here, I said to him, "How does it strike you that Gen. Tommy Franks could be coming into this building to look for an office only a few months from now?" He said, "you tell"... he said, "you tell Gen. Franks for me that by the time he arrives here, he will be chasing shadows." That rather suggests to me that Saddam Hussein and his ruling elite have gone to school on what happened in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden -- that is to say that they may just disappear. GWEN IFILL: John, you say that the leadership of Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants, had no intention of leaving. How long do you feel that you can safely stay in Baghdad? So many American reporters have already gone. JOHN BURNS: And we would ourselves have made that decision in all likelihood except for problems that developed at a late moment here with leaving Baghdad. Many reporters have encountered problems of harassment, in effect banditry on the road, out of Iraq to the west to Jordan, 350 miles from here. In the end, my colleague from the New York Times and myself, along with a number of other American reporters who were also encouraged or ordered by their editors to leave, met in sort of counsel here today and decided that it was safer all in all to stay here. And our estimation is that this job of reporting on what is coming can be done safely as we have to remember it was done in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, most memorably by, of course, Peter Arnett of CNN. GWEN IFILL: Okay, well, John Burns, we'll be hoping and working for your safety as well. Thank you very much for joining us. JOHN BURNS: It's been a pleasure talking to you. FOCUS - VITAL LINKS JIM LEHRER: Next, another war preparations report from Kuwait by the "New York Times" chief military correspondent, Michael Gordon. This is the third he's done for us. It's about how the various commands in the Persian Gulf region are communicating with each other. MICHAEL GORDON: One of the things that is particularly striking about this conflict is that the principal commands that nr charge of the war are located in different places. They are not even in different places they are in different countries. Here in Kuwait is the land command which makes some sense, this is the command that is going to oversee the marines and the Brits, it's headquartered here with a pretty souped-up, modern headquarters at Camp Doha. Then you got to go further south to find the headquarters of the Air Force, which at Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh; that's where the CAIOC is -- Combat Air Operations Center. The head of CENCOM, Gen. Tommy Franks, he's at a forward command post in Qatar. Then in Bahrain, which has historically been the headquarters of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, is Adm. Keating, who is the head of the 5th Fleet and NAVCENT, basically, the head of the Navy command. VICE ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING: Naval forces will contribute what we always bring. We've been in the Arabian Gulf since 1948 in one size or another. MICHAEL GORDON: The navy is going to have five carriers it hopes in the fight if they can secure the over-flight rights from Turkey. Plus there is a lot of Tomahawk missile shooters, as they're called - surface ships, submarines. They think they are going to be firing more sea-based Cruise missiles and air-launched Cruise missiles. So the functional command are going to be in four different countries, how do that is work? How do you work together since you are four different countries? VICE ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING: Seamless, you would not know it. That our boss, Gen. Franks, it really doesn't matter where in the world he is. I can sit at this computer right here on my desk and call up on the classified e-mail, classified world wide web. You notice a golf ball in the top that is a television camera and I can at any moment that Gen. Franks want to talk to me I come up. He see this is mug on his commuter screen. He can hook all of us in or only one of us, his choosing. Additionally, at least once a day, we have a regularly scheduled secure video teleconference where I go to another room and all of the components worldwide not just the four principal component that you mentioned, for example European command, folks in Afghanistan, folks back in the United States - LT. GEN. DAVID McKIERNAN: What the technology allows to us do today that we couldn't do very well 12 years ago is on almost a near real time basis collaborate with our planning. VICE ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING: A task force --. MICHAEL GORDON: It's very souped up plasma screen that shows the whereabouts of all the aircraft and all the ships in the Persian Gulf regions. VICE ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING: There is the U.S. Constellation. One of the three aircraft carriers we have here so I can drill down a little bit on her exact location. What her speed -- MICHAEL GORDON: What is means is commander in Tampa or commander in Bahrain or a commander in Doha City or one of the others in Riyadh, they can see wherever single aircraft is over Iraq and in the area. Where all the ships are. It can actually step back a bit and look from Turkey through Afghanistan to the Horn of Africa. LT. GEN JAMES CONWAY: If there has been one aspect of military command and control that has been amazing to me to watch over a career it has been this whole concept of communications and the ability to communicate between individuals, groups of individuals at distance. I mean, continents away. MICHAEL GORDON: All this computer and digital technology has made it more efficient to do the war. It doesn't mean everything they are planning will work or that there won't be problems in warfare but it means they can get their own orders to their own guys a lot easier and last time, there was a lot of inter operability problems as they like to call that. The air force talking to the navy wasn't always so easy. VICE ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING: I flew from the USS Saratoga from the Red Sea flying an f-18 in 1991 in Desert Storm, the air tasks order, the ATO was promulgated from the air campaign headquarters in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, and it was delivered as a newspaper, the New York Times might be delivered. We sent someone in. They picked up the hard copy thick message, got in an airplane and flew out to the Red Sea. MICHAEL GORDON: They would grab this thing because sometimes their missions would be hours away or the next day, race to their maps and try to figure out what they were supposed to do. That is how they disseminated the attack orders last time. VICE ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING: Young men had to sit down and hand scribe the parts of the message that was delivered like the newspaper, put it in various formats so that other folks could pick it up and take it down to the ready rooms and study it in each ready room. MICHAEL GORDON: This time it's done on line. They have years of experience and actually flying over southern Iraq through the, their patrol zone and the no-fly zone so from that point of view it's an entirely different situation. JIM LEHRER: That was Michael Gordon in Kuwait. Margaret Warner takes the military story from there. MARGARET WARNER: We get three perspectives on the night and war ahead. Retired Col. John Warden was Air Force deputy director for strategy, doctrine and war fighting during the 1991 Gulf War, and architect of the war's air campaign. Retired Army Col. W. Patrick Lang was a Special Forces officer, a defense attach in the Middle East, and in the last Gulf War, chief Middle East analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. And retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner teaches military operations and planning and is a longtime consultant to the Defense Department. Welcome back, gentlemen. Col. Warden as we all wait for the war to again help us understand what factors go into the decision for the president and his top commanders about when actually to begin an air assault like this. COL. JOHN WARDEN: If you could take yourself back in time and look forward you obviously would try to set the thing up to start at the time when you forecast ideal weather, ideal moon conditions and a variety of other things like that -- that you had everything laid out. But in reality, the war is really a far more driven particularly now by the political necessities that have arisen from the president's 48-hour ultimatum. So in reality, that as soon as the president says this is the time to go, then the operations will execute and those other considerations that may have loomed large earlier become significantly less. MARGARET WARNER: Does the fact that it's (a), a full moon and (b), there are a lot of - we hear - and we see sandstorms in Kuwait -- does that affect the air operation at all? COL. JOHN WARDEN: Only marginally, if obviously if we talked to the people that were flying the Stealth air planes, the B2's and the 117's, they would say they would prefer to go in with no moon, however they will be quite successful. From the standpoint of the sandstorms one of the, obviously, values of air power is that you are way, way up above where that sand is and certainly all of the strategic and the operationallevel targets, those things can be hit almost without any concern for the weather below. MARGARET WARNER: Did you want to add something? COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: I just want to add one thing: We almost forget as military people that one of the biggest traditions in military operations is secrecy. That has seemed to -- because of the press or whatever because of politics -- to have gone away. There is very little about this operation I think we don't know and we haven't known for a while. So it's important that we remember that. COL. W. PATRICK LANG: I was just going to add to what Col. Warden said - that from the point of view of the ground commander, the sandstorm and the mucky weather is good because it makes -- we see much better in the dark than anyplace else. MARGARET WARNER: And much better than anyone else. COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Yes. And better than the other side. So it's possible to move around in this kind of mess without -- them having even less chance to see you. MARGARET WARNER: Well, that brings up, Col. Lang, one of the developments of today, which is reports, going back to your point about no real secrecy, that most of the ground forces, the U.S. and British have moved from their back position in Kuwait right up to the border. What is the significance of that? What do you think that means? COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, it's quite significant because in planning large scale ground operations or any ground operations, you initially put the troops into what are called an assembly area back away from the line of departure, where the attacks are, so then when you are ready to go, you move up into what is called an attack position just behind the line of departure, they issue ammunition, all these things, and everybody sits down and waits for the time to go. And that's what's happened; all these troops have moved up from their assembly areas to their attack positions and are ready to go. MARGARET WARNER: But could that mean that far from the air war going on for three or four days as we have all been led to believe, or chose to believe, before ground forces went in, that they thing might go in a lot sooner? COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: I think you have to keep both ideas in mind. And that is they may not go for 72 hours but you have to be ready in case Saddam Hussein decides to do something. So one of the reasons you go to attack positions is to be ready. If he begins to burn the oil field, you could well want to put forces in there now. MARGARET WARNER: Col. Lang - we just heard - it was really Gwen's report with John Burns talking about the hunt for Saddam Hussein. As a former special forces officer yourself, can we assume we shouldn't assume anything but is it possible that Special Forces would also go in almost concurrently with an air assault? COL. W. PATRICK LANG: If, as Mr. Burns indicated, there are a large number of people in Baghdad who are really disaffected with the regime and who could provide shelter for teams searching for Saddam Hussein, then I think it's likely we go in early because the two things you need in Special Forces in the field are water and a place to hide because only a few of you, you only have light weapons, so if that is the case, then it's likely, that we'll go in early to stalk looking for the people. MARGARET WARNER: Col. Warden, the other significant military development today was Turkey said allied forces may use their air space. What is the significance of that in terms of designing the air assault, what will be possible that might not have been? COL. JOHN WARDEN: Well, obviously it's better to be able to use the air space that be not be able to use it at all but the thing that was I think obviously disappointing was the apparent withholding of the right to use the existing bases from which to fly; however, my recollection the last time was that the Turks withheld that until the very, very last instant, and then said you can fly out of Incirlik, so that might change. In the previous Gulf War, there were significant military targets in the northern part of Iraq, now most of which or many of which are in the Turkish autonomous zone -- or the Kurdish autonomous zone - so the necessity to get up there is less than what it was in the previous conflict. MARGARET WARNER: How serious a setback is it that the Turks are also saying not only can the U.S. not use the bases to -- the planes to leave from -- they can't even stop there to refuel? Do these fighter planes need refueling? COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: Well, obviously the tankers we can refuel. I don't think that is as much a problem but I think what this continues to point to is the problem of the risk of the northern operation. And that is that we have, we will have troops extended out there -- relatively light infantry with a lot, not having the armor they need to take those oil fields, which is I think going to be an important part early in the operation, the oil fields around Keokuk. MARGARET WARNER: Col. Lang, go back to this point about surprise, no tactical surprise, how much after problem is that? COL. W. PATRICK LANG: Well, it would be a very big problem, the lack of real tactical surprise here, which there isn't very much of, if it were not for the fact that the preponderance of combat power is so heavily on our side in the shape of all this air power that we have been talking about, smart weapons, and the very great skill of the ground forces on our side, that this is such a great advantage to us that I think it probably doesn't make a lot of difference really. MARGARET WARNER: Let's turn back in more detail to the air assault. You said last night, Col. Warden, that the aim of this very intense first twenty-four/forty-eight hours would be "to impose a strategic paralysis on Iraq." Describe what you meant and what that would dictate in terms of targets. COL. JOHN WARDEN: Well, strategic paralysis is the state where it becomes almost impossible for the state at a political or military level to do anything to repair damage, to change its plan, to put together counter offenses, or anything else of that sort. Strategic paralysis comes when so many things are affected in such a compressed time frame that it simply overloads all of the senses sort of like here in Washington. If all the lights, the traffic lights went out, the electricity went out, the phones went out, and all the bridges over the Potomac disappeared in 30 minutes, we would be utterly frozen. Now magnify that over a much larger area, over an entire country, and it really is something that is very difficult to deal with. Saddam Hussein is isolated. MARGARET WARNER: What would you add? COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: I think I would add that also is part of the problem. When the electricity goes out, that is when the humanitarian problems begin. So it's a very fine line that the United States is on between inflecting paralysis on a regime and paralysis on a humanitarian system inside the country. COL. W. PATRICK LANG: It's one thing, though, to paralyze them by the speed of your maneuver and the shock action of your rapidity of movement, things like that. It's a different thing to paralyze them by destroying their civilian infrastructure, which would then create tremendous humanitarian problems. And I don't think we're going to do that. COL. JOHN WARDEN: But I really need to point out that in the Gulf War the last time around although we shut off the electricity, we very carefully chose targets in such a way they could, that the electricity could be restored right after the war and there was very, very little damage to Iraqi infrastructure. COL. SAMUEL GARDINER: I really need to point out that the electrical system is very fragile and the water system is even more fragile and even power fluctuations in the electrical system will freeze up the pumps in the 1,500 water plants in southern Iraq so that even if we don't shut it down, if we cause significant multi-fluctuations there are 10 million people without water. COL. JOHN WARDEN: They may not be intending to hit the electricity, however if you made the point by cutting off the electricity you would reduce the duration the war by two to three days, I guarantee you would save more lives than would be lost as a result of that electricity being turned off. MARGARET WARNER: We have a very short time. Let me just ask you, Col. Lang, do the Iraqis have any defenses -- any serious defenses against the air assault? COL. W. PATRICK LANG: No, I don't think so. They have a lot of air defense guns that they -- are dangerous to low flying aircraft, so you have to be careful about what you fly in this vicinity of them and their missile systems I think these gentlemen and their colleagues are very capable of dealing with them. They really have no ability to deal with what is going to happen. MARGARET WARNER: All right. We're going to leave it there for now. Thank you -- all three -- very much. JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the war's oil issue, and Zbigniew Brzezinski and Walter Russell Mead. FOCUS - OIL & MONEY JIM LEHRER: The volatile price of oil. Our business correspondent Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston reports. PAUL SOLMAN: Monday morning this week, Colin Powell was about to hold a press conference, Pres. Bush would address the nation at 8:00 P.M. The price of oil, highly volatile in this environment, began the day at about $35.50, a barrel. It closed in on $36 immediately, within sight of its all-time high. ABN AMRO, the huge Dutch bank, trades in the oil market for clients like oil companies and big investors. Our first question to oil analyst Jan Stuart: Mightn't this be like the last gulf war, with prices running up in anticipation of it, only to plunge once it was resolved? JAN STUART: Back then, we had huge inventories. Prices right before the invasion of Kuwait were $16, $17. Prices before the start of this last crisis starting were already in the high $20s, low $30s. And then you started going into a war scenario. PAUL SOLMAN: Jan Stuart is a fundamentalist in the economic, not religious, sense. That is, he predicts prices using the fundamental determinants of supply and demand -- like the fact that producers and refiners, who've been running low oil inventories for years in order to save money, have even less oil on hand right now. JAN STUART: The single largest reason why those inventories are now so low is the political crisis in Venezuela, where in early December the national oil companies sided with the opposition to Pres. Hugo Chavez and paralyzed the Venezuelan oil industry. PAUL SOLMAN: With far-reaching effects up here in the north as well. The U.S. Imports almost 12 million barrels of the roughly 20 million barrels weconsume every day, mainly to make gasoline for transportation. Venezuela provided 15 percent of our imports, up near two million barrels a day, as much as Iraq's total daily output. SANDY WHITLOCK: Which is why we've seen the rise in gasoline prices and also the rise in heating oil... PAUL SOLMAN: Broker Sandy Whitlock. SANDY WHITLOCK: ...Influenced, of course, by weather. So we had what we call the perfect storm happening and throw the war tensions in on top of that and we've had a very volatile, very pricey market. PAUL SOLMAN: What was striking to us was just how many opinions were moving the price of oil from brokers at this desk alone. SPOKESMAN: Hey, what's going on? PAUL SOLMAN: That was Richard Schaffer, head of the oil desk. SPOKESMAN: We're trading $35.95 right now. $33.60 is the current low. And you got shorts are kind of battling this SPR release headline, you know, concerns that basically saying bush can give the order any time to release from the SPR. PAUL SOLMAN: The SPR, or "Strategic Petroleum Reserve," created in 1975 in the wake of the first Arab oil embargo. 599 million barrels of oil stockpiled by the U.S. in salt domes off the Gulf Coast, several months worth of imports. The question: If and when it might be pumped, which would dampen any price spike. PAUL SOLMAN: The broker explains it: AL ZAPULLA: The major problem with SPR is that it's kind of a one-shot deal, so the government has to be concerned that it's releasing it at the ideal time, because if they release it, people were saying as we approached $40, they were going to release it to kind of help bolster the economy, save the economy. PAUL SOLMAN: Because that would drive prices down if you suddenly flooded the market with oil. AL ZAPULA: Exactly. But now they have to worry if we're going to go in and take over Iraq, there's going to be a short-term disruption of Iraqi oil, which there already is, so people are saying you've got to keep it... I actually really have to make this call, we just came up on a dollar, I'm sorry, do you mind? PAUL SOLMAN: No, go right ahead. PAUL SOLMAN: Our interview may have cost the man money. AL ZAPULA: He is the (bleep) worst. PAUL SOLMAN: Because oil for near term delivery which had risen at the start of trades was down to now $34 a barrel, a loss of almost 6 percent within minutes -- the equivalent of a 500 or so point in the Dow. MIKE HILEY: It's collapsing, it started up here. PAUL SOLMAN: Which prompted another interpretation. Broker Mike HIley. MIKE HILEY: We came in this morning thinking that the 17th was the day. At 12/:01 there would Tomahawk Cruise missiles in the air. People are continuing to take the war premium out of oil prices now. PAUL SOLMAN: How many of a premium are buyers paying because war fears? Estimates here range from $2 to $10. Subtract $10 and you get some $25 a barrel that would be 25 cent less at the pump which is the price of oil futures. MIKE HILEY: Here we are the current price is $34. This was Friday's price. Again it flattens out around $25. PAUL SOLMAN: I see. So once you get out past around what year is this? MIKE HILEY: That is 05. PAUL SOLMAN: 2005. Basically the prediction is that the oil price is going to stay a little below $25 out into the future. PAUL SOLMAN: Now this long-term trend fits well with the plans of yet another country heard fro:. Saudi Arabia with 12 percent of world oil production, a quarter of more of the world's reserves and the world's easiest oil to get at. DAVID NISSEN: The best bet in the forecast in the price of oil is when you think the Saudis want the price of oil to be. PAUL SOLMAN: Columbia University Prof. David Nissen spent decades in the oil business. DAVID NISSEN: The Saudis aim to bring the oil market into compliance with what people typically have accepted it to be. Current policy for OPEC is 22 to $27 a barrel and bad things happen what it gets out of the range. PAUL SOLMAN: Nissen means that the Saudis in it for the long run want to keep prices reasonable because if prices rise too high the world might spiral into recession and cut back drastically on buying oil, might drill for oil otherwise the Middle East, might even switch to alternative energy. The prices crude had swung up to $35 for which we heard almost as many reasons as there were traders on the desk. JAN STUART: To call it an imperfect science is being way too nice. There are trend lines, directions - there are turning points, that's about as good as you are going to get. PAUL SOLMAN: AT the end of the day, though, oil had dipped below 30 for the first time this year -- a 17 percent drop since Monday morning. It's the collective best guess of those willing to bet on the eve of war and despite fears like torched oil wells in Iraq the market seems less worried than it has been in quite a while. FOCUS - ISSUES OF WAR JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, some closing thoughts on the eve of war. Among them: The issue of dissent. Kwame Holman sets up that issue with a report from the Capitol. KWAME HOMAN: It began on Monday with a speech by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. SEN. TOM DASCHLE: I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war, saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country. KWAME HOLMAN: Yesterday, republican leaders in Congress lined up to denounce Daschle's remarks. House Speaker Dennis Hastert released a statement saying: "Those comments may not undermine the president as he leads us into war, and they may not give comfort to our adversaries, but they come mighty close." Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum questioned the timing of Daschle's comments. SEN. RICK SANTORUM: ...Particularly when our troops are about to step off. It was unfortunate, it was disappointing, it was uncalled for, and I hope he thinks better of it and retracts his statement. KWAME HOLMAN: And at the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer, in a statement, said of Daschle: "He's essentially blaming Bush for the fact that we may be on the verge of war." Later in the day Sen. Daschle said he would stand by his comments. SEN. TOM DASCHLE: But I do think we have to be honest and open in a democracy. I think to do anything less is unpatriotic. And I'm going to continue to speak out where I think I have a responsibility to do so. KWAME HOLMAN: And then this afternoon Robert Byrd the Senate's most vocal critic of Pres. Bush's Iraq policy spoke once last time before the expected war. SEN. ROBERT BYRD: The case that this administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is not a war of necessity, but a war of choice. KWAME HOLMAN: Arizona Republican John McCain followed Byrd, disagreeing with what Byrd had to say, but not questioning his right to say it. JIM LEHRER: And that brings us to Brzezinski and Mead. Zbigniew Brzezinski is a professor of American foreign policy at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He was the national security adviser during the Carter administration. Walter Russell Mead is a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His recent book "Special Providence" is an historical look at the U.S. and the world. Dr. Brzezinski, how do you feel about dissent at a time like this? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Just for the record, let me add I'm connected also to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. JIM LEHRER: Sorry about that. ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: On dissent, it seems to me as long as we're not yet at war, it's perfectly appropriate for people to disagree as to whether the policy of diplomacy was conducted well or not -- whether we should be going into war or not -- but if you are not a pacifist and therefore totally against war, once war starts I think particularly in the early phases, our attitude has to be one of wishing for quick success, for complete success, for as bloodless a success as possible. JIM LEHRER: Walter Mead? WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Well, I basically agree with that. I think when you are in a war as a citizen of a democracy -- you do have a right and a responsibility to say something when you have strong moral convictions. I think Abraham Lincoln opposed the Mexican War and lost his seat in Congress I think as a result. But you also have to think about we've got -- all around you are people who have family members and loved ones who are fighting; this particular war, both Houses of Congress have endorsed it. It's being done legally. Unless you are a pacifist and opposed to all war, I think once the shooting starts, you need to kind of take and give it a rest. JIM LEHRER: Much has been said about -- moving on here now for a moment -- much has been said about the risks that are involved in this enterprise when it begins - if it begins later tonight, it begins tomorrow, it begins over the weekend -- there is very little chance now that it isn't going to begin. When you look at it, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, what do you think the president is risking either for himself or for us or for the world? How do you view it in risk terms? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: If we're talking specifically about risks, I think the short range risks are perhaps to his credibility. For example, if there are no weapons of mass destruction -- they are not used they are not there -- that certainly would damage his credibility. There are short range risks if they are used, and are very damaging to our troops, a lot of casualties. There are risks if the military operation bogs down in part because of weather, in part because of unexpectedly strong resistance. The longer run risks I think are the more likely ones, namely that we may get bogged down in Iraq; that our position in the region will become more difficult, that the United States itself will be more a target of terrorism and that American leadership world worldwide will be de-legitimated. Now, these are not predictions, you asked me about risks -- those are the risks. And I think it will be very important to see what we can do in some cases when we have a choice to avoid them. JIM LEHRER: What would you add or subtract from the list? WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Well, I would add maybe the risk that we don't take full use of the opportunities that may come with the victory. I mean, if the war is as short and as relatively bloodless as we're hoping, and if the Iraqis welcome the Americans into Iraq, here is a real opportunity for the president to in a sense give a lie to some of the anti-American propaganda that's going around. We have seen him moving toward some kind of a renewed peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- that is very important. I think moving U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia, as soon as that's feasible, is a powerful signal -- being very transparent in how we handle the oil and humanitarian issue for the Iraqis so that we're clearly not stealing their oil, and then using the opportunity to try to rebuild bridges with some of the allies who didn't stand as close beside us as we might have hoped in the crisis. But I think failing to capitalize on the potent for success may be one of the great hidden risks of the conflict. JIM LEHRER: More so than - you agree with Dr. Brzezinski - that's a bigger risk in some ways than the short-term risk? WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Right, war of course is if full of risks yet uncertain - I mean, when the Civil War started - you know -- half of Congress rode out to Bull Run to watch the quick and glorious battle that would lead to the collapse of the Confederacy. And it was a four-year disaster. Things happen in war that you don't expect. No battle plans survive contact with the enemy. So there are all - you know, the god of war is a very, very unpredictable fellow. And we don't know what is going to happen. The risks are enormous. JIM LEHRER: Have we been told about the god of war enough do you think? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: We probably have been saturated too much with the advanced technology of war and the implicit message being that we're so vastly superior that we may not be prepared for sudden shocks but I think the probabilities are quite high that militarily it's going to be essentially a very one-sided conflict. And it may not even last all that long. What Walter mentioned about the missed opportunities I think is a very good point. I think we face an enormous challenge of very great complexity with the risks but if we prevail quickly we have a major opportunity which we may squander because I'm not sure that we're really in the mood to do the good things that Walter mentioned. Are we really serious about moving on the Israeli Palestinian peace issue? Are we really serious on the other issues? JIM LEHRER: Why do you say that? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Because we've been so stand-offish; we've been so passive. I think it's quite evident, for example, that the president's statement last week on the road map for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was essentially precipitated by requests from Blair that he say something like this to help Blair and to convince the Europeans that we're serious about peace. If we win quickly, we might very well take the attitude, well, there is nothing to it. You see it was very easy - we really don't need to do these things. JIM LEHRER: You share those apprehensions? WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: I do, and I also think there is a good chance we may be distracted by other members of the axis of evil or other festering international crises. You know, when this Iraq thing is over, there is still North Korea; there is still Iran; there is still al-Qaida, there are failed states. There are still terrorist groups trying to get a hold of weapons of mass destruction. So I think what we are going to see in the aftermaths of Iraq is that the United States is going to face a kind of a possibly an overload, sensory overload of so many crisis, so many problems the Bush administration seems to be more comfortable with dealing with the securities side of the situation, and sometimes less interested in the slow, sometimes frustrating diplomatic processes that some of the other problems require. So it's going to be a real test of their statesmanship. It's going to be a real test of our ability as a people, I mean in a sense, if we fight and win this war the way we hope we're going to, then a lot of that talk about America the superpower, the hyper power, America the leader of the world, the unipolar nation in a unique moment of power is going to seem very, very true to a lot of people. And I don't know that all of us have thought through just how much responsibility comes with that kind of power. ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Can I just add something to that? JIM LEHRER: Sure. ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: You know, we look at the American military performance since World War II. We haven't really won any war decisively yet; Korea was a standoff. Vietnam was essentially a defeat. Somalia was an embarrassment. Kosovo was kind of - a victory with accommodation and Milosevic only feel months later. The first Iraqi war left Saddam in power. Yes, we won in Grenada; we won in Panama, but these are hardly big victories -- it's like putting a NFL team against a high school team. If we win big this time, there could be rather dangerous hubris, kind of a feeling, gee, we can do anything we want so we go after Syria or we go after Iran next. And there may be pressures for to us do that. And then we'll forget about the agenda that Walter and I have been talking about. JIM LEHRER: You both -- you share that concern - right, the hubris concern, if we're too successful too quickly? WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: I think hubris will be a factor. I think also is fear will be a factor -- that Sept. 11 really did have a powerful impact on the American mind. And people have been deluged ever since with stories of terrorists here, there, with various kind of attempts, duct tape all of this kind of thing -- and I do think that the combination of relief at the victory and war and pride in our forces plus this underlying fear could lead to unwise policies, I'm not predicting that it's going to happen but I think it's a possibility. JIM LEHRER: A lot riding on this? ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Everything is riding on this. Ultimately our global leadership is riding on this. It's not Saddam that is the issue; it's whether America can lead, lead constructively and in a way that others respect it. JIM LEHRER: Gentlemen, thank you both very much. And s the days continue, we'll be talking to both of you together like this again and again and again. Thank you both. RECAP JIM LEHRER: Again, the major run- up-to-war developments of this day: The final hours for peace ticked by with no sign that Saddam Hussein would back down. U.S. military forces in Kuwait moved toward the Iraqi border, preparing to invade. And armed members of the Iraqi ruling party deployed to fortified positions in Baghdad. A reminder, that once full-scale military action begins in Iraq, we'll have extended coverage outside the regular NewsHour times and on weekends. As I just mentioned, these two gentlemen will be with us and others, a correction before we go, in a recent report we failed to say Fox News Sunday was seen on Fox Television Network as well as the Fox News Channel on cable. We'll see you again online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.