Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Panel to Investigate Iraq Intelligence: 2/02/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june04/weapons_2-02.html

Initiating Questions:

1. How does the United States find out about what is going on in hostile countries such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq?

2. What was the argument President Bush used to go to war in Iraq?

3. Is it important to know if the prewar intelligence in Iraq was accurate? Does it change your opinion of the war there? Why or why not?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What did President Bush announce on Monday? What reasons did he give?

On Monday President Bush said he would call for an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate intelligence failures in Iraq but defended his decision to go to war.

"I want all the facts. We do know that Saddam Hussein had the intent and capabilities to cause great harm, we know he was a danger. … He slaughtered thousands of people," the president said.

2. What led to the president's decision?

Last week, former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay told Congress that prewar weapons intelligence assessments on Iraq, which led to the American invasion, was flawed.
"My view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgment, and that is most disturbing," Kay said.

During the hearing Kay also urged Congress to begin an investigation into why the intelligence in Iraq was wrong.

3. Who is Sen. John Kerry and what has he said about the Iraq war intelligence?

John Kerry is the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race. Sen. Kerry has said Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell chose intelligence that supported their case against Saddam Hussein, "misleading" Congress during the debate over whether to authorize military action against Iraq.

4. According to President Bush, what will the investigative commission examine?

In addition to examining the possible misjudgments in Iraq, the panel will examine problems in gathering information in such secretive regimes as North Korea and Iran as well as stateless groups such as terrorists.

"What we don't know yet is (reconciling) what we thought and what the Iraq Survey Group has found, and we want to look at that," the president said. "But we also want to look at our war against proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, kind of in a broader context."

5. What did former weapons inspector David Kay say about some of the problems in intelligence gathering?

David Kay summed up some of the problems in intelligence gathering in a discussion with Jim Lehrer on the NewsHour last week.

"We are not very good as a nation in our intelligence capability at reading the most fundamental secrets of a society, what are its capabilities, what are its intentions? You can't photograph those. You need Americans on the ground penetrating those societies and people who are speaking their languages," Kay said.

Discussion Questions (more research might be needed):
1. How would knowing that U.S. information about Iraq's weapons programs was incorrect, or at least incomplete, impact your opinions about the war in Iraq? President Bush? U.S. intelligence?

2. How can this commission impact the 2004 presidential election? Provide both positive and negative concrete examples for each political party.

3. David Kay explained how U.S. intelligence can be improved. He said,"You need Americans on the ground penetrating those societies and people who are speaking their languages." How can the United States begin to improve in this area?

Send your answers, in essay form, to extra@newshour.org for possible publication!