The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, the news of the day; a Newsmaker interview with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Arab reaction to the deaths of Saddam Hussein's top lieutenants, his sons; and another heated clash over a federal judicial nomination.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: U.S. Officials from the president on down today welcomed the deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons. They were killed yesterday in a firefight with U.S. forces in northern Iraq. In Baghdad, the commander of coalition forces, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, called it a turning point in the ongoing war. In Washington, President Bush said the news should reassure the Iraqi people.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Saddam Hussein's sons were responsible for torture, maiming, and murder of countless Iraqis. Now more than ever, all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone, and will not be coming back.

GWEN IFILL: Some Iraqis celebrated the news today, but a group of Iraqi militants threatened revenge. And two more U.S. Soldiers were killed in Iraq overnight and today in separate attacks in Mosul and west of Baghdad. At a pentagon briefing today, Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz was asked if killing Saddam's sons might backfire on U.S. troops.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I've heard speculation of the kind that says, well, in revenge for these attacks there are going to be more attacks. Well, there's not an unlimited number of these criminals and they're not getting more people coming over to their side, I can guarantee you. I suspect they'll get more afraid. But we'll get more intelligence and clean them up. The one thing I'm sure of is

GWEN IFILL: Earlier in the day, another audio tape surfaced, said to be of Saddam Hussein. It was apparently recorded Sunday before the deaths of his sons. The voice on the tape warned: "This war has not ended." And the U.S. Military today announced the arrest of a top Republican Guard official. He was number 11 on the list of most-wanted Iraqis. We'll have more on all this and an interview with deputy defense secretary Wolfowitz in a moment. The U.S. Military today unveiled plans to send fresh troops to Iraq. Under the plan, elements of the army's 82nd Airborne Division would replace units of the Third Infantry Division by September. Those troops have been in the region since last fall. The plan also calls for two National Guard brigades to be mobilized for stints of up to a year. The Bush administration defended a top White House official today in the state of the union furor. On Tuesday, deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley took the blame for letting the president claim Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa. He said he forgot about two CIA memos that warned against using the same information in an earlier speech. Today, White House spokesman Scott McClellan had this t to say.

SCOTT McCLELLAN: Nothing that was said changes the underlying case which was clear and compelling. America is safer because of the action we took. The Iraqi people are going to realize freedom and democracy. And that's going to help bring about peace and stability the middle east, which is important to addressing the underpinnings of terrorism.

GWEN IFILL: In response, Democrats called again for a full investigation. Michigan Senator Carl Levin said the disclosures raise more and more questions. FBI agents were asked to track al-Qaida cells in the U.S. As early as march 2000. That was a year and a half before the September 11 attacks. According to the Associated Press, that information is contained in a congressional report due out tomorrow. The report also concludes the FBI did not possess enough information to prevent the attacks. Iran's intelligence minister announced today his government is holding top members of the al-Qaida network. He declined to give their names. On Monday, President Bush again accused Iran and Syria of harboring terrorists. Today, a White House spokesman said it's unclear if al-Qaida members in Iran are actually in prison or being given safe harbor. Rebels and government forces in Liberia battled today for a key bridge in Monrovia. The combat came one day after a cease-fire was declared. As the fighting continued, war veterans and others demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy, demanding food. And U.S. helicopters brought in another 20 marines to protect the embassy there. Nearly 800 people now claim they were sexually abused by Catholic clergy and other church workers in the Boston archdiocese, dating back to 1940. State Attorney General Thomas Reilly said today the number could top 1,000. He released a grand jury's report and called the findings staggering.

THOMAS REILLY: It is important, it is very important that there be an official public record of what occurred. The mistreatment of children was so massive and so prolonged, that it borders on the unbelievable. In its totality, it represents one, if not the greatest tragedy, to befall children in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, ever.

GWEN IFILL: Reilly said the archdiocese still has not made a full commitment to protecting children, but he confirmed Cardinal Bernard Law and his aides will not face criminal charges for transferring abusive priests to different parishes. That's because until last year, their actions were not crimes under state law. Law resigned last year as archbishop of Boston. It's now nearly certain that California Governor Gray Davis will face a recall election. Today was the deadline for county officials to verify signatures on recall petitions. The Los Angeles Times reported the counties had already verified more than enough names to place the question on the ballot, possibly in September. Davis insisted today he would beat the recall. A gunman opened fire at city hall in New York today, killing a city councilman. A plainclothes officer then killed the gunman. The victim, Councilman James Davis, had campaigned against urban violence. His shooter was a political opponent who entered the building with him and avoided a metal detector. Mayor Michael Bloomberg condemned the attack.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: This is an attack on democracy. We will not stop until we find who did this. It is not terrorism, it appears to be a random act, but we cannot allow this to go on -- ever. This is an attack on all Americans.

GWEN IFILL: The shooting took place in a balcony area off the city council chambers. The mayor said the motive remains unclear. The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved a disputed nominee for a federal appeals court post. The vote on Alabama State Attorney General Bill Pryor was split along party lines, 10-9. Democrats wanted more time to investigate his fund-raising activities and objected to his antiabortion beliefs. Pryor may now face a Democratic filibuster when the full Senate takes up the nomination. We'll have more on this later in the program tonight. The U.S. House voted today to roll back new federal rules, allowing big media companies to buy more TV stations. The vote came on an amendment to a spending bill and over a veto threat by the president. The fight now moves to the Senate. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 35 points to close at 9194. The NASDAQ rose 13 points to close at 1719. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Defense Department's Paul Wolfowitz, more reaction to the deaths of Saddam's sons, and politics and judges.

FOCUS - SADDAM'S SONS

GWEN IFILL: First, the aftermath of the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein. The president and several senior administration officials declared the developments a turning point in the Iraq war, but we start the story on the ground in Iraq. U.S. soldiers sifted through debris today inside the bullet- ridden house that was the site of yesterday's raid. The U.S. Military announced yesterday that Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, were among four people killed during a fierce firefight between Iraqi gunmen and American soldiers. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, explained how the bodies of Uday and Qusay were identified.

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ: The identification was done through multiple means. We had senior former regime members do visual identification of the body. We had four individuals that independently verified that we had both of Saddam Hussein's sons. We also compared x-rays and verified that the injuries on one of the bodies were consistent with the injuries that had been suffered by this individual during a previous assassination attempt. Also, we used dental records to identify the bodies. And for Uday, the match was 90 percent, and this was limited only because injuries to the teeth made a perfect match impossible. For Qusay, the dental match was a 100 percent certainty. Autopsies will follow, but we have no doubt that we have the bodies of Uday and Qusay.

GWEN IFILL: Across Iraq reaction to the Hussein brothers' deaths has been mixed. In the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, bursts of gunfire lit up the sky in celebration last night, and today many Iraqis said it was a dream come true. In Mosul, crowds of residents have taken to the streets. Some shouting in celebration, others angrily chanting Saddam Hussein's name. But some Iraqis said they still want proof that Saddam's hated sons are indeed dead. In western Iraq, a group of insurgents armed with rocket- propelled grenades and AK-47s vowed revenge against coalition forces.

SPOKESMAN (Translated): If this news is true that Uday and Qusay are dead, we shall raise hell on Americans. Even the unborn child will take revenge for Uday and Qusay. America, Britain, and Israel will know no peace. We will take our fight into America, into Britain, into Israel, and of course in Iraq. We will make them regret everything they did to Uday and Qusay. All the Iraqis are ready to fight and oppose the invaders. Allah's willing, we shall execute our revenge.

GWEN IFILL: While coalition forces have stepped up security in anticipation of retaliatory attacks, ambushes against American troops continued.

GWEN IFILL: And with me now for a Newsmaker interview is Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. He just returned from a four- and-a-half-day trip to Iraq.

Welcome.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Nice to be here, thank you.

GWEN IFILL: How much of a turning point is the deaths of the sons, Uday andQusay?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I think it's very important. I mean, I came away with two major impressions about how Iraqis feel, and one is a sense of celebration, and gratitude to American and British forces, and personally to President Bush and Prime Minister Blair for liberating them. But the second impression is that they still live under a blanket of fear, they certainly were not sure when I was there that the regime was gone for good. The kinds of horrors that the world has read about we got to witness, sadly, firsthand, mass graves in Hillah, for example, marsh Arabs who've been driven practically into extinction; liberation came just in time to save a fragment of those people, but not the people in Hillah. So to overcome that fear we need to begin going after the people who committed it, and those two creatures are among the most important. So I think it's going to lead to a much greater willingness for Iraqis to come forward and give us the kind of intelligence we need to finish this job.

GWEN IFILL: Do Iraqis believe in spite of everything we heard, e coalition ground commanders say about the dental records and the other matches that prove that these were indeed Saddam's sons, do they believe it, and if they don't believe it, do they need proof, are you willing to release photographs?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Well, it's something we have to think about, because the disbelief runs very deep. I mean, it goes to the level almost of paranoia. I encountered questions from very sophisticated Iraqis that seem to think we would leave them and let Saddam come back, and we're not going to, and I think one of the great effects of yesterday for Iraqis is to demonstrate our seriousness. But we need to make sure they believe this, but the other interesting thing about yesterday is the celebrations, I mean all that firing in the air in Baghdad and Americans being hugged in restaurants by Iraqis thanking them, Baghdad is a predominantly Sunni city, so those people shooting off those guns were presumably predominantly Sunnis, and what I encountered when I was there as it wasn't just the Shiites or Kurds who hated Saddam, the Sunnis hated him equally, because what he practiced was equal opportunity oppression.

GWEN IFILL: How important was the manhunt to get these two in particular?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: The manhunt has been intense looking for mid level Ba'athists of all kinds because those are the people who were hiring the people who kill our troops. By the way, my knowledge of this is may be the first so-called guerrilla war in which the main oh was contract killings, killings for hire. We've always been on the lookout.

GWEN IFILL: Who ordered those killings?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Mid-level Ba'athists; people who used to be in the secret police, people who used to be in the Special Republican Guards, the number 11 whom was just caught, as you announced, was the commander of the Special Republican Guards. These were the secret police of the Republican Guards, the torturers and murderers who kept an eye on the Republican Guards who kept an eye on the regular army. It was a country of spies spying on spies.

GWEN IFILL: How do you know Saddam Hussein isn't ordering these attacks?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: If he's alive I think he's contributing to it. Everybody we encountered said the way to understand these people is to think of them as a very large criminal gang with certain Stalinist aspirations, and they are going to continue trying to kill. But they do not enjoy the support of the Iraqi people and that is a crucial thing, as we build their confidence, and we're doing that, and the work the men and women of the U.S. armed forces are doing is outstanding. And it's interesting too, I think, the example of seeing women in uniform and doing the kinds of things American women soldiers do, is having a very nice effect in those places where things are stable.

GWEN IFILL: Will you ever completely be able to build their confidence without eliminating Saddam Hussein the way you have his sons?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: It certainly will make a very big difference. Look, finding one person in a large country is not something ever guaranteed, but it's definitely the most important thing we have to do right now.

GWEN IFILL: You mentioned the guerrilla war. General Abizaid used that term for the first time last week. You were on the ground there. Describe for us what that looks like, what that actually means, the guerrilla war in Iraq right now.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: He used the word guerrilla because certain of their tactics are like guerrillas. It's hit-and-run tactics, drive-by shootings, and it's sabotage, blowing up power lines, blowing up pipelines. What they are doing as he has said is targeting success. They don't want us to succeed, so if we're getting electricity going, they will blow up electricity. If we're getting a town council elected, they will try to assassinate the members of the town council. But we have the Iraqi people on our side and the more confidence they develop, and they're developing more every day, the more intelligence we get on these criminals and the more we're rounding them up. We're having real successes throughout the country. And in the north and southern part of the country the situations are basically very stable.

GWEN IFILL: Was this the occupation that the Pentagon planned for with this ups and substantial downs?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: What we planned for, and we planned extensively and we budgeted, it was called reconstruction and humanitarian assistance -- that is to say to reconstruct the war damage, we anticipated there might be massive destruction of oil fields to assist what we anticipated might be large refugee populations or food or medical crisis. None of those things happened, there is no refugee crisis, there is no humanitarian crisis. There isn't a lot to reconstruct from war damage, but it turns out there's a lot to rehabilitate, from 35 years of deliberate mis-investment of taking the wealth of that country instead of helping the people, pouring it into weapons and palaces and doing it in a way that was deliberately punitive to the populations he didn't like, like the Kurds or the Shia or these poor marsh Arabs, who he turned a whole area the size of New Jersey from a prosperous, productive marsh land into a vast wasteland desert in order to drive these people. The village we visited had been moved at gunpoint 17 times.

GWEN IFILL: I want to follow up or button up this whole discussion about guerrilla war by using some words you used today in your briefing at the Pentagon. You said the Pentagon consistently underestimated the ability of that regime to terrorize its own people, which begs the question, did you also underestimate the ability of that regime or what remains of it to fight more aggressively in the post-war period than you had counted on?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Well, I think I said we, and by we I mean the U.S. Government as a whole. I didn't mean the Pentagon. We'll take our share, but we're not going to take it by ourselves. It's been my experience over the long period of time that it is somewhere between difficult and impossible for Americans to imagine what it's like to live in a country where the government not only practices torture and summary execution, but will actually torture children in front of their parents in order to pressure the parents. That is unique, with perhaps the exception of North Korea among the world's tyrannies. And people who live like that, who live for 35 years like that, are like people who lived in an isolation cell with no light and no news and no knowledge of the outside world for 35 years, and now they're coming into sunlight and they're breathing the fresh air of freedom. I think these, this criminal gang has, which I guess we might have hoped would take its medicine and melt into the background didn't do so, but they're going to lose, we'll get them.

GWEN IFILL: How long will that take?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: As long as it takes. And the troops have the spirit to do it, the morale of the troops is just fantastic. The one thing they keep asking is, we'd like it if you would tell us how long we're going to be here and for a particular --

GWEN IFILL: Which is why I ask that question --

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: And what they say is if you tell us it's a year, that would be fine, which is for that kind of work a pretty long time. The temperatures out there hover around 120 degrees all day long. So to say I'm willing to stay here for a year, but I'd be happier to be told it's a year than to be told it's eight months and have it turn into nine; the certainty is important, and we are working, as your broadcast indicated, to get that certainty for the troops.

GWEN IFILL: How long do you think Americans can stomach waking up every morning and hearing about another one or two soldiers killed in action or in accidents or in ambushes for a war that they thought had largely been --

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I think as long as they understand the stakes and the stakes here are enormous, the stakes really are not just bringing freedom and democracy to the people that suffered for so long. Americans have an appetite to do that kind of thing -- but importantly to end Iraq as a place that exports terrorism, as a place that exports instability. It will contribute to a Middle East that is much more, much less friendly to terrorists, and it'll make the world safer four or children and grandchildren. American people can take that when they understand the mission, and the troops understand the mission, they really do.

GWEN IFILL: As you gauge the challenges for reconstruction, the Pentagon dispatched a group of folks from a local Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic International Studies, to come back and report to Secretary Rumsfeld about how difficult it would be, and among other things they reported that the window of opportunity is closing to get reconstruction under way fully. What do they mean by that, and did you see evidence on the ground while you were in Iraq to support that?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I think what they're focused on is at some point if you lose the supports of the general population, then it turns from just hit-and-run contract killings for hire into a population that opposes you. I think we're a very long way from that. I do agree with what they, and I saw it everywhere I went, that there is a great sense of urgency about getting basic services going, especially electricity, and getting jobs to get these restless young men back in employment; it is very important -- you can't separate that effort from the security effort. Without security you can't get electric power going, but without electric power people may get disgruntled. So this needs to be approached with a sense of urgency, but I think we can do it.

GWEN IFILL: Are there enough U.S. troops on the ground to provide the kind of security you're talking about?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Absolutely. What we need more of is not U.S. troops; we need more Iraqi troops, and we're doing that, as your broadcast indicated, as General Sanchez indicated in his briefing. And now that we're recruiting Iraqi civil defense force, I think 7,000 or 8,000 Iraqis are -- in a very short period of time have come forward and volunteered. But there's no reason to have a young American standing hard on the bank and becoming, frankly, a target for these terrorists, when there are plenty of Iraqis who hate the terrorists, hate the Ba'athists who will help us do it.

GWEN IFILL: What happened to troops from other countries, that coalition of the willing, which Michael Gordon in the New York Times wrote this week, the not that willing and the not that able is the way he scripted it, what happened to them?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Michael is wonderful. But I can give you some great counter examples. For one thing the British have been with us from the beginning, I visited Basra, they're doing a great job there. They're going to replace their all British division with a multinational division that includes an Italian brigade that will be responsible for one whole province. The British say the Italians are exactly what we need because they have 3,000 very professional cabineros... up north the marines, in the northern part of the southern region, the Shia heart land -- our marines are getting ready to hand over command to a multi-national command commanded a Pole. The Poles are enthusiastic and very confident. Where you get into the hard territory there are very few country besides us and the British that want to take on these areas that are still combat areas, but that's why we need Iraqis, because Iraqis are ready to help us in those areas too.

GWEN IFILL: I know you weren't there to personally go searching for weapons of mass destruction, but certainly this is something you have always stood by, that they existed, they were part of the reasons to go to war in Iraq. You were quoted, famously in Vanity Fair Magazine assaying the truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. Government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason. It sounded cynical.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Not cynical at all. I said there are three reasons, I mentioned the other two, we can go into them later, let's stay on this main one. It's not my opinion. It's been the unanimous opinion of the intelligence opportunity for many years going way back into the last administration, there are quotes from President Clinton on this issue that sound exactly like President Bush. You know, Baghdad is a city, I believe, an area something like ten times Washington D.C., I think it's comparable to Los Angeles. As we were flying over looking at thousands of houses and thinking, any one of those could have enough anthrax in the basement to kill a whole city, we're not going to find it by house to house searches. We're only going to find it by painstakingly getting people to talk to us and that's going to take time. I would hope the fate of Uday and Qusay might encourage people to talk a little more. But it's going to take time.

GWEN IFILL: You're still counting on human intelligence on the ground?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: It's the only way.

GWEN IFILL: To point the direction to where these weapons might be?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: It's really the only way it will work.

GWEN IFILL: Is that something the U.N. inspectors could have done?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: They could have done for of it than they did do, but it's a hard job, it would have been a very hard job for them also.

GWEN IFILL: As we talk about intelligence, as you know, certainly this happened before you left and while you were gone, there's been much discussion about the role that intelligence played in supporting our decision, the U.S. decision to go to war, a big drama in Britain as well as here. How important do you think pre-war intelligence was and how useful and accurate do you think it was in providing the underpinnings for the argument to go to war in Iraq?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I think Prime Minister Blair said it with an eloquence that I can't reproduce, but I can try to paraphrase it when he spoke to the joint session of Congress, and he said that if it were to turn out that they didn't have weapons of mass destruction, what we've done for the people of Iraq in building a free and Democratic Iraq would have been worth it in itself. But he said, and I agree with him on this, that he remains deeply convinced that this regime had those weapons, that this regime was a threat to the whole region and to the rest of the world, and that that threat has gone away.

GWEN IFILL: If there was a strong humanitarian argument to be made about the atrocities being committed in Iraq as a reason to go to war, why wasn't that the core reason?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Well, I think putting young American lives at risk is something that I believe, and I think the president believes, you do to preserve the security of this country. But if you're looking at the issue of was this war moral or immoral, was it a war against Iraq or for Iraq, there's no question it was moral. There's no question it was for Iraq. The only question is whether it advanced America's security. And I'm absolutely convinced that it did advance America's security because that whole part of the world which has been a breeding ground for terrorists now for over a decade will be less of a breeding ground when we succeed, and we will succeed in helping the Iraqi people build a better country.

GWEN IFILL: There has also been a substantial debate going on about the source of a claim in the president's state of the union speech about uranium from Iraq to Niger. Did the Department of Defense have a hand in any of that? By now we've heard that the head of the CIA say it was my fault, the deputy national security adviser say it was my fault, did this ever pass through the Department of Defense?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: We're in the lucky position of saying that particular one never went by us, to the best of my knowledge. But look --

GWEN IFILL: Do you believe it to be true?

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I think that everybody is focused on a very tiny minor issue. If you look at the intelligence assessments about chemical, biological, nuclear weapons, and personally I always believed the chemical and biological were much more dangerous because the assessments were they have them now, not that they're just working on them, there was never any basic doubt that this was a man who was consumed with acquiring those cape abilities, and look, for twelve years, he sacrificed an enormous amount of money, which means to him enormous numbers of palaces, enormous numbers of Mercedes Benz, tanks, artillery, terrorists, all the things he liked to buy with his money, he gave them up in order not to have to give up his chemical, biological nuclear programs;. I'm pretty sure they were there.

GWEN IFILL: Secretary Wolfowitz, thank you very much for joining us.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Nice to be here. Thank you.

GWEN IFILL: Now, how do the latest developments in Iraq look to the Arab world? Margaret Warner has that.

MARGARET WARNER: For that assessment, we turn to Murhaf Jouejati, a resident scholar at the middle east institute in Washington. Born in Syria, he's now an American citizen. Adeed Dawisha, a professor of political science at Miami University of Ohio. Born in Iraq, he's also become an American citizen. And Hisham Melhem, Washington correspondent for the Beirut newspaper "As-Safir." Born in Lebanon, now a U.S. citizen, he also hosts a weekly program on al-Arabiya, the Arab satellite channel. Welcome to you all. Professor Dawisha, beginning with you, we just heard Paul Wolfowitz, we also heard President Bush today talk about the significance of the killings of Uday and Qusay. How does it look in the Arab world as a whole and in Iraq?

ADEED DAWISHA: Well, there is a difference between the two. In Iraq of course as the secretary said, there was a lot of elation at the death of these two. Bus the Iraqis have suffered directly at the hand of these two monsters. It's actually different in the Arab world because even though there is a recognition that these guys have had perpetrated a lot of suffering on the Iraqi people, nevertheless there is still a kind of underlying affection for the regime of Saddam Hussein because of its stand against America and indeed its stance on the Palestinian issues.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see it that way Murhaf Jouejati, a mixed picture then?

MURHAF JOUEJATI: It certainly is a mixed picture. I don't think Arab public opinion is a monolith like any public opinion around the world, so it is truly a mixed picture and you're going to get many people who are elated and genuinely happy about the death of those two characters. And these are the people who have suffered the most under these two. So I think it is a function of how much repression those two have inflicted on people. So outside of Iraq, they were not able to inflict any repression, and therefore here the picture is different. While there is genuine happiness, I think that Saddam Hussein is out of power, there is also a resentment -- a resentment against America, that takes liberties, that brings down regimes, and that kills people under occupation. Here I think there is a certain segment of Arab public opinion that is going to see the killing yesterday of Uday and Qusay as political assassinations. Why were these people not disarmed, why were they not taken alive, why were they not put before a tribunal? So again, I agree with Professor Dawisha, the picture is mixed.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you see that, Hisham Melhem, and tell us about particularly what you see in the Arab media today, including on your own satellite channel.

HISHAM MELHEM: Well, obviously very few people shed tears over the death of these two people who perpetrated atrocities bordering on, in fact, including genocide against the Kurds and the marsh Arabs in the South. At the same time, people are not happy with the American occupation of Iraq for a variety of reasons. There are many people in the Arab world who believe that the United States cannot do anything right, or correct in the Arab world, giving the traditional American support for Israel,. At the same time, there is also a real denial on the Arab side. Arabs don't like the fact that the United States came to change an awful regime like the one ruled by Saddam Hussein in Iraq and because that exposed their weaknesses, because that exposed the failure of the whole Arab state system. And until this moment there are Arabs who are still unwilling to denounce that regime and its atrocities. Recently Arab parliamentarians met and they refused to condemn the mass graves and the killings that were perpetrated by a falling regime. That gives you an idea. Many people in the Arab media also exaggerate the short comings of the American occupation, and there are many of them. But many of them also still look with nostalgia to the man who ostensibly stood up to the United States. Many Arab journalists won't even admit that things are not great today in Iraq, but today there are more than 80 publications in Iraq, in a country that was under Saddam Hussein that had three major rags, and that's the problem that you have in the Arab world.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me go back to the two killings yesterday. Mr. Murhaf Jouejati, how important do you think it is that the United States offer some sort of proof, you heard Paul Wolfowitz say he saw was an argument because there was great disbelief; he called it disbelief bordering on paranoia.

MURHAF JOUEJATI: Yes, paranoia and a lot of conspiracy theories, and these are conspiracy theories I think are not born in a vacuum. They are the result of a historical mistrust of the West, because more often than not the West in general and the United States in particular have lied to the people of the region. Case in point, 1991 uprising in the south of Iraq that was encouraged, called for by the United States and the U.S. never came to their rescue, and there are many cases in point. So I think there will be a great deal of disbelief that these two have been killed, and so a lot of proof is going to have to come forward to quiet down the conspiratorial theorist.

MARGARET WARNER: But, Professor Dawisha, couldn't the U.S. also be much criticized in the Arab world if it showed -- drew some pictures of these two men dead, particularly after the U.S. was critical of the Arab media for showing dead U.S. soldiers?

ADEED DAWISHA: You know, the showing of pictures in my opinion is more important in Iraq than in the Arab world. The Iraqis themselves have to see evidence that these two guys have been killed. They lived, it's the Iraqis who lived in this state of fear for the last 30 years, a state of fear that has implanted in them a sense of Saddam's indestructibility. They would be very slow to recognize or to believe the American coalition forces that these two men have been killed. So I think it's in the case of Iraq absolutely essential that people see pictures that these two men have died. As for the Arab world, I don't think really it's going to change any opinions. As I said earlier, as far as the Arabs are concerned there is a much higher value placed on the Palestinian issue, on standing up to the Americans, than there is on the notion of an Iraqi suffering, as encapsulated by an opinion, an op ed in an Arabic newspaper that says yes Saddam Hussein may be a despot, but at least he is not a coward, meaning that he stands up to the Americans. That kind of warped value system will continue. Therefore it doesn't matter to the Arabs or to me what the Arabs think about this. It's very important that the Iraqis themselves are made to believe that these two men have died.

MARGARET WARNER: So Professor, thinking about the Iraqis themselves, do you think the killing of these two sons, at least among those who believe it has occurred, will, as both the president and Paul Wolfowitz predicted, make everyday Iraqis much more, much less fearful and more willing to cooperate with the occupation including providing intelligence to round up the rest of the resistance?

ADEED DAWISHA: I think this is the core issue involved in this. It might not persuade these few people who are taking pot shots at Americans, it will not persuade the die-hards of the Special Republican Guard and the security officers whose own situation has deteriorated considerably as a result of the demise of the Saddamist regime. But it will have a major impact on ordinary Iraqis who have believed up until now that Saddam and his sons might come back one day and therefore will wreak havoc on them for cooperating. Now that these two are dead it makes people believe that the possibility of Saddam dying or being captured is that much greater, and you will see more people willing to cooperate, willing to work for the Americans certainly in construction, for example, or in other aspects of social life, joining the militia or joining the new military forces. That's where it's going to have the major, most important impact.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think it's going to have that great an aiming inside Iraq?

HISHAM MELHEM: I think it will have a great impact inside Iraq because these two brothers were pillars of the regime. They were not killed because of the sins of their fathers, they did commit atrocities themselves and they were pillars of the regime and their demise will help again in undermining that myth of Saddam's invincibility and his regime's invincibility, and I think people in the Arab world should allow the Iraqis to deal with their future, to determine their own future, and I don't believe for a moment that the Arab League can play a major constructive role, unfortunately. I believe the Arabs who supported that regime cannot criticize those who are trying to create a new politics in Iraq after 35 years of tyranny.

MARGARET WARNER: But there is great criticism, is there not, in the Arab world as a whole of not only the American occupation but of the problems that the Americans are having?

HISHAM MELHEM: You know, you've heard my reservations on the war, and I'm very critical of the American shortcomings. At the same time there is also, one can be incredulous when you listen to an autocrat saying that this new council that was formed recently was not elected. And who is saying this, people who would never sanction elections in their own governments.

MARGARET WARNER: I hear Professor Dawisha laugh -

HISHAM MELHEM: I hear Arabs calling for quick elections in Iraq. I would like to see elections tomorrow. But you cannot have elections like that after 35 years of tyranny and total chaos and destruction. You need to allow politics to emerge. There is a growing debate in Iraq today, unfortunately it's being stifled by people who are either holdouts from the old regime or people who have their own visions of the future of a tyrannical Iraq, whether it's religious or secular. But I think the Arabs should allow the Iraqis - to allow the flourishing of politics in Iraq, and they can criticize the American shortcomings. I don't care what your views are on the war, I think these people should be allowed to determine their own future.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me just get to Murhaf Jouejati first and I'll come back to you professor. Polls had said earlier that he felt many Iraqis really couldn't believe that the U.S. couldn't be doing a better job. Does that ring a bell with you? Does that sound right to you? There's almost a conspiracy theory about why the occupation is going so badly.

MURHAF JOUEJATI: Well, here is the United States that promised before the war that the Iraqi people were going to see very quick results. They talked of the before and after in Iraq. And that sounded very good. But after the war in Iraq, the Iraqis, I think, are mind boggled by the fact that the Americans cannot put up electricity together or provide adequate drinking water, or basic services, or provide security. Granted it has not been very long since the war has ended, but it has been since April, and according to many Iraqis on the street, people who have never been supporters of the Ba'ath or Saddam Hussein, we receive quotes every day in newspapers that if they have weapons they will go after the Americans and that is because their life has become in many cases even more miserable than it was under Saddam Hussein. So it is mind boggling that a technological super power cannot provide adequate electricity for a city like Baghdad..

MARGARET WARNER: What does that lead people to think, professor, the Americans don't want it to work? Where does that line of thinking take them?

ADEED DAWISHA: Can I just say one thing? I wanted to say amen to everything that Hisham Melhem said about the Arab response to elections and democracy in Iraq. I just wanted to say that. As for the Iraqis, yes, absolutely, there is a kind of fueling of this conspiracy theory. Iraqis cannot be made to understand that here we have the greatest power in the world, I saw one person on TV saying you have America dropping a bomb from about 40,000 feet and hitting a target which is ten yards by ten yards and you're telling me this great power cannot restore electricity to Iraq? Now, whatever the problems that the Americans are facing, and I believe them to be genuine, nevertheless as far as the Iraqis are concerned that simply fuels the kind of theories about the Americans not wanting to do it, so that they can stay longer, that they are actually punishing them for not cooperating any more, and all these kind of theories, so it is absolutely essential, as Secretary Wolfowitz has himself admitted that we really need to get these basic services going in terms of electricity, in terms of water, in terms of employment, all of these things have to be done and have to be done very quickly before we actually lose a lot of this initial good will that we had earlier.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thank you, on that note, Professor Dawisha, Murhaf Jouejati, and Hisham Melhem, thank you all three.

FOCUS - BENCH BATTLE

GWEN IFILL: Passions rose Tuesday in the Senate's on-going fight over judicial nominees. Democrats have blocked two of President Bush's choices for the federal bench. Today they objected to another. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy insist they are good friends and have remained so even as the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee has bounced back and forth between them in recent years.

SPOKESMAN: You're the one that raised it!

SPOKESMAN: I raised it because...

KWAME HOLMAN: That friendship was tested this morning as Leahy tried to use committee rules to prevent a vote on the nomination of Alabama state attorney general William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of appeals in Atlanta.

SPOKESMAN: I'm objecting to having a vote at this time under rule four. I would ask for a vote on my objection.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: Well, I will overrule the objection, and the vote will be on whether the ruling of the chair overruling the objection should be sustained. The clerk will call the roll.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I want to vote pursuant to rule four.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: I don't care what you want, that's the way it's going to be.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Okay, you're not going to follow the rules then.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: I'm going to follow the rule. I overruled your objection, and the vote will be on whether the chair should be sustained.

KWAME HOLMAN: Leahy had wanted more time to finish an investigation into a recently released report about Pryor's fund-raising activities as a member of a Republican attorneys general group, but hatch objected to yet another delay.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: This is the fifth time we have delayed this vote. It is unseemly that we have to keep delaying and delaying this vote. All we want is a vote up and down.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: You can force a vote if you want, but you do so in violation of the rules.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: Well, then I'm going to force a vote then.

KWAME HOLMAN: Initial concerns over Pryor's nomination focused on statements he has made concerning the Supreme Court's 1973 "Roe V. Wade" decision, establishing a woman's right to abortion. New York's Charles Schumer questioned Pryor during his confirmation hearing last month.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Now, you've said on occasion, on several occasions, that "Roe V. Wade" is "the worst abomination of the history of constitutional law." A, do you believe that as of right now?

WILLIAM PRYOR: I do.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Okay. I appreciate your candor, I really do. And second, would you endorse the court's reversing "Roe V. Wade" at the first opportunity, just as you argued for the court to constrict the Violence Against Women Act, and you got five justices to agree with you?

WILLIAM PRYOR: Well, obviously... ( chuckles )... if I had the opportunity to be a court of appeals judge, I wouldn't be in the position to do that, senator Schumer.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: But please, what can you say? I mean, you feel this so passionately and you've said repeatedly abortion is murder. What can you say today that will give comfort to a woman who might come before you trying to control the destiny of her body, trying to exercise her fundamental rights? Wouldn't it be logical that she would be concerned that you would be looking for a way "within the confines of the law"-- because everyone looks that way; no judge will admit they're going outside the law-- to deny her that right to choose?

WILLIAM PRYOR: I would say that that woman should be comforted by looking at my record as attorney general, by looking at the fact that though I have vehemently disagreed with "Roe V. Wade" on the one hand, as attorney general, where I have had a constitutional duty to uphold and enforce the law on the other hand, I have done my duty. And in the context specifically of when the Alabama partial birth abortion law was challenged, that law could have been interpreted in at least a couple of different ways. I looked at the precedents of the Supreme Court in "Roe" and in "Casey" and gave the narrowest construction available to that law and ordered the district attorneys of Alabama to enforce it only in that narrowest construction.

KWAME HOLMAN: This morning, Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions said Pryor's views on abortion simply are consistent with his views as a practicing Roman Catholic.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: The doctrine that abortion is not justified for rape and incest is catholic doctrine. It is the position of the pope and it is the position of the Catholic Church in unity. So are we saying that if you believe in that principle, you can't be a federaljudge? Is that what we're saying? And are we not saying then good Catholics need not apply?

KWAME HOLMAN: That statement ignited even more passions. Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin:

SEN. DICK DURBIN: As a Catholic I sit here and resent what I'm hearing. People who are and are not Catholics are speaking for a religion they do not belong to. There are many Catholics who see this nomination much differently than those who support Mr. Pryor. I believe that his position should be addressed on the merits, and I would hope that you would instruct members of this committee to expunge references to religion from this point forward. This is beneath the dignity of this committee.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I would just say it this way. Yes, we have a prohibition on a religious test for this body, and I don't think any member on either side would be prejudiced against a person because of the faith that they have. But what if their personal views are consistent with that faith? What if their personal views are sincerely to the fact that abortion is morally wrong and it's the taking of innocent life, need they not apply?

SEN. DICK DURBIN: I deeply resent this new line of attack from the right wing that anyone who opposes William Pryor is guilty of discrimination against him because he is a Catholic.

KWAME HOLMAN: The committee approved William Pryor's nomination, with all ten Republicans voting for and all nine Democrats voting against. Democrats still could block the nomination through a filibuster, preventing the full Senate from voting on it just as they have with the circuit court nominations of Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen.

ESSAY - THE LAST LAUGH

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers the legacy of a television pioneer.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: What does the world owe Charles Douglass, who died recently at the age of 93 and who invented the laugh track? There was nothing philosophical about his invention, certainly nothing intentionally ominous. (Laughter) (applause) The idea of a laughing machine occurred to Mr. Douglass when he was working as a technical director in television's early days. One day he realized that he could embellish an audience's live response with the added sounds of laughs, hoots, jeers, moans, gasps when there was no audience present. Mr. Douglass lived a very long life and, I hope, a happy one, full of the sounds of real people really enjoying themselves. But when I read of his passing, I couldn't help thinking, "what hath Charles Douglass wrought?" (Laughter) I mean, apart from the dreary, formulaic sitcoms that have depended on his laugh track to make them to seem funny when they were not? Here's the standard scene: A character quickly enters a room and makes a remark as a kind of punch line. It happens in every sitcom. And when it does, Mr. Douglass' invention is put to work. Here is the scene without Charles Douglass.

JERRY: Nice duds.

GEORGE: Huh, you're telling me, huh?

ROGER ROSENBLATT: And here is the world he wrought.

JERRY: Nice duds.

GEORGE: Huh, you're telling me, huh? ( Laughter )

ROGER ROSENBLATT: The laugh track not only manufactures laughter; it strongly suggests that one ought to laugh. It has a will of its own which works on our will. This, then, is what Charles Douglass and his laugh box have done. The principle behind his creation was that people were not required to effect their own presence. The consequences of this idea have been numerous.

VOICE: Hello, and thank you for calling.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Every time one hears a mechanical voice on a business phone offering a choice of selections.

VOICE: No one is available to take your call.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Every telephone answering machine with an automated voice has Charles Douglass to thank, if they could think to thank. One can't be certain about the extent of his influence, of course, but not long after Mr. Douglass' machine came such life improvements as the automatic coffeemaker that also implied the presence of an absent person, the automatic lawn sprinkler, and the VCR that turned itself on and off without human attendance, not to mention the entire universe of virtual activity in the land of computers. Did our brave new world begin with the virtual laugh? Will it end with it? In the 1950s, about the time that Mr. Douglass was present at his absent creation, Ray Bradbury was publishing a science fiction story called "There Will Come Soft Rains," about a California house where there are machines that tell the family what bills need paying, what birthdays and anniversaries need celebrating. At night, there is a machine that recites Sara Teasdale's poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains," about the end of the world; which is what Bradbury's story is about since the machines continue talking long after the family, indeed the whole world, has been obliterated by a nuclear war. ( Explosion ) ( automated voice ): I'm Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major developments of the day: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the U.S. will soon release photos of the bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons to prove they are dead. On the NewsHour tonight, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said finding Saddam himself remains the most important task in Iraq. And a gunman opened fire at city hall in New York. He killed a city councilman before being shot dead himself.

GWEN IFILL: And again, to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add names when the deaths are confirmed and photographs become available. Here, in silence, is one more.

GWEN IFILL: We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.