April 25, 2003

Announcer: From our nation's capital, this is WASHINGTON WEEK. Here's moderator Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL, host: Hot spots at home and abroad--everybody wants a piece of Iraq. The US keeps a wary eye on Iran and Syria while Iraqi Shiites rise up with religious and political fervor. The message: Thanks for the help; now go home. Meanwhile, the weapons no one has been able to find in Iraq apparently do exist in North Korea, as tensions once again heat up that peninsula. Elsewhere in Asia and increasingly around the world, a new epidemic is spreading: SARS, a fatal and contagious disease that's wreaking medical, economic and political havoc. While at home, domestic issues slowly begin to return to center stage. Health care, tax cuts and the run-up to Election 2004. Plus, Rick Santorum--what was he thinking?

Covering these stories for us tonight, Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times, Martha Raddatz of ABC News, Ceci Connolly of The Washington Post and Richard Berke of The New York Times.

Announcer: Here again is moderator Gwen Ifill.

Analysis: Finding a way to manage the peace in Iraq

GWEN IFILL, host: We've probably said this here before: Finding a way to manage the peace in Iraq may yet prove every bit as difficult as waging the war. It's only been a little over two weeks since the statue of Saddam Hussein fell in Baghdad, but there are many complications, not the least of which is: Who's in charge? Who should be?

Doyle, I dare you to explain.

Mr. DOYLE McMANUS (Los Angeles Times): I'll try, Gwen; I can't--I can't promise. But the Bush administration in Iraq is facing a--a sudden outburst of democracy without a whole lot of rules and a lot of order to--to--to put it in--in kind of a--a sensible place. There is no government in Iraq, but there is an opposition. That's the good news-bad news joke of the week. You're right to say it's only two weeks in.

And we should probably remember that two weeks into the war, we were all worried about how the ground campaign had ground to a halt and would this war end anytime soon. There are some signs of progress in Iraq, mostly on the hardware side. Electricity is coming back on. Water if flowing. Oil is flowing. There's a little more order in the streets. They are ca--the--the United States forces are capturing senior Iraqi officials and intelligence officers and important people like that.

The problems are on what you might call the software side. It's proving to be very difficult to get this new political order up and running. The problem is that the--as I said, the opposition is already up and running in the--the institution of principally the Shia and Sunni Muslim clergy. Every Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, they have prayers. They have enormous rallies. They get up and they denounce the American occupation. They've already decided two weeks into it that this occupation has gone on for too long. And that's a potential problem.

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times): Doyle, do you think the administration underestimated the--the unrest and the anti-American sentiment?

Mr. McMANUS: There's no question that the administration underestimated it, and they have admitted as much, mostly in private. They didn't expect people to denounce the occupation only two weeks into it. The other problem is that some of these groups, but not all, are linked to Iran. Some of them have had their leaders in exile in Iran for 20 years. Some of them get Iranian funding, and the administration says that Iran is actively sending agents into Iraq. And I have no doubt that that's true. Iran is next door. Iran has enormous interests here. The Iranians have supported the Iraqi opposition for 20 years. It would be nuts to expect the Iranians to keep their hands off when the United States Army and Marine Corps are occupying the country, but that's a problem.

But that's not the whole problem. Even if the Iranians weren't there at all, there are militant Shia and Sunni Muslims, who we have managed by the--by the American occupation to unite these two sects in wanting the Americans out, and they are seizing city halls, seizing mosques, trying to take power in--in local ways.

Now the next thing to watch--and there may be a--a positive glimmer of hope here--is that on Monday, General Garner--Jay Garner, the American administrator of Iraq, is holding his next big meeting of Iraqi political figures. And the principal Shia Muslim group is called the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution. Its leaders have been in Iran. They were going to boycott that meeting. They are too big to ignore. For all of the tough talk coming out of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who said, `Iranian-style government, no way. That ain't going to happen,' on the ground, General Garner's people have been talking to the Supreme Council people and trying to get them into the tent. So the--the question on Monday is: Do they come into the tent? And if they come into the tent, what do they do?

Ms. CECI CONNOLLY (The Washington Post): So, Doyle, that's--a lot of the players who are actually there in Iraq--I--I guess one of the questions that--that I've had is what may not be there. All of these so-called weapons of mass destruction--has anyone found anything yet that is solid, concrete evidence?

Mr. McMANUS: No. Little bits and pieces of equipment, protective equipment, some precursor stuff. But you're right, it's the--it's the dog that isn't barking. It is the big thing that the United States forces expected to find, and it's not there. And th--and this week, President Bush said something that officials have been saying before on a background basis, which was, `Well, maybe he pulled a fast one on us. Maybe Saddam Hussein destroyed all the stuff in the weeks before the war.' Actually, some Iraqi officials had said--had said things like that as well.

So th--this is going to be a much longer search. It's going to be based on collecting all the scientists and finding out where the evidence is, if it's there, was it destroyed. There's a--a much larger American team that is only now getting organized and going over.

Ms. CONNOLLY: Right.

Mr. McMANUS: This--this search has a little bit of an air of improvisation about it just as the effort to get police on the ground and to stop the looting had a little bit of the air of, `Oh, yeah, we got to do that part, too.'

Ms. MARTHA RADDATZ (ABC News): Doyle, I know--I know we talk about this a lot, but what if--what if the United States doesn't find anything? What about the credibility of the United States? And another thing I was thinking about this week: What does it say for the intelligence-gathering operation, going into the war where you had Secretary Powell in front of the United Nations saying they have this, they have that? And now the administration really is dialing back a bit...

Mr. McMANUS: Yeah.

Ms. RADDATZ: ...on what to expect.

Mr. McMANUS: Yeah.

Ms. RADDATZ: A lo...

Mr. McMANUS: Yeah. And it's a--that's a--that's a very good question, and that re--that review will be done within the intelligence community, we're told. It'll be done by outsiders whether the administration wants it done or not, and American credibility will take a tremendous hit. But the administration and the intelligence community are still saying they're convinced the stuff is there somewhere.

IFILL: Thanks, Doyle.

Analysis: Three-way meeting in Beijing

GWEN IFILL, host: Now on to North Korea. A three-way meeting in Beijing. At the table, representatives from the US, China and North Korea, but by the end of the week, there was no apparent progress on the main topic: Does North Korea have nuclear arms? With suspicions, charges and countercharges in the air, Secretary of State Powell had this warning for North Korea.

Secretary COLIN POWELL (State Department): (From 4/24) They should not leave this series of discussions that have been held in Beijing with the slightest impression that the United States and its partners and the nations in the region will be intimidated by bellicose statements or by threats or actions they think might get them more attention or might force us to make a concession that we would not otherwise make.

IFILL: But despite that warning, there was tough talk anyway. Yesterday, North Korea declared they do, indeed, possess nuclear weapons.

So where do things stand, Martha?

Ms. MARTHA RADDATZ (ABC News): Well, this went from three-way talks to two-way talks to hit-the-highway-early talks. These ended earlier than they thought they would, and this came after a comment that was not in the three-way talks, was not in the two-way talks. It was an aside where the North Koreans said to Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, `By the way, we have nuclear weapons.'

Now the United States has always suspected that North Korea possessed two or three weapons, but this is the first time North Korea has said this. So everyone was, `Oh, these talks are in terrible, terrible shape.' They've now said this. The State Department yesterday, all over Washington, they were spinning this in a way--`Was it a productive meeting?' `Well, we wouldn't say that.' `Can you characterize it in any way?' `Well, we can't really characterize it except to say we went there to tell them some things and to listen to what they said, and that happened.'

But the truth is this may not really have gone as badly as people suspect. China, the host of this meeting, in some ways, was insulted by this. You had North Korea. They bring North Korea to these meetings, and North Korea pops off and says, `Hey, by the way, we've got nuclear weapons.' China is the strongest ally of North Korea. So in a sense, this could backfire for North Korea and give the United States more negotiating power because they can bring China in and say, `Hey, we've got to pressure them together because you can see how they're behaving.'

Ms. CECI CONNOLLY (The Washington Post): Well--and then what would that mean for the--for the hard-liners back here at home?

Ms. RADDATZ: On this issue, I don't think there is quite the split that people think there is. I don't think there are very many people in this administration who really want to see a nuclear North Korea. So the--the hard-liners are not quite as hard-line on this. There is certainly some talk, particularly from the Pentagon, that they don't want to negotiate with North Korea, never wanted to negotiate with North Korea. You heard this rhetoric for months and months and months leading up to these talks that they won't really call face to face in these trilateral and sort of get around this in any way you can, but I don't think the split is as big on this issue. You heard Don Rumsfeld say today, `We want to--we want to settle this in a--in a diplomatic way.' In fact, it's one of the first times I've seen him sort of go back to, `Secretary of State Powell will handle this instead of...'

IFILL: But we heard the president say tonight, I guess, in the interview that's airing on NBC, `This is the old blackmail game,' which sounds kind of tough.

Ms. RADDATZ: It--it does sound tough, but I--but you also hear the president say always, `We want to handle this in a diplomatic way.' The president has a lot on his plate right now, and he probably wants to keep his eye on domestic things and the economy and probably doesn't want this to go south, either. I think what you might see in the--in the coming weeks, in the coming months is try to get these talks back. They didn't--they didn't rule out further talks by any means, nor did the North Koreans. So you might see some progress.

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times): Martha, what do you think the North Koreans are up to? It sounded like bluster to me. Is it--are they just negotiating, or what do they have in mind?

Ms. RADDATZ: Well...

Mr. BERKE: What do we think?

Ms. RADDATZ: Well, I think it's always hard to see what the North Koreans have in mind. They certainly have a different way to negotiating than most people do, but you hear this all the time. I mean, I can't--you've all seen the wires constantly, `North Koreans say we have this. North Koreans do this.' And--and it--they are very bellicose about this. What they might have been saying is, `By the way, we're not Iraq. We've got nuclear weapons. We've got what you may not think they have at this point.' But North Korea is armed with nuclear weapons, `So don't think you can come in here and bomb us the way you bombed Iraq.' I mean, in some senses, what the North Koreans are doing makes them seem more frightened.

Mr. DOYLE McMANUS (Los Angeles Times): And what they also said, I gather, the second half of their statement was, `And whether we use these weapons or not is up to you.'

Ms. RADDATZ: Yes.

Mr. McMANUS: Is the administration i--i--inner--interpreting that as an outstretched hand of...

Ms. RADDATZ: Well--well, that--that--that was the other thing yesterday. There is all this interpretation about what exactly they were saying. Were they hinting they might test the weapons, hinting they might give them to someone else? And certainly, the hint was there. I don't think they came right out and said it, but certainly it was a way to say, `You've got to negotiate with us. You've got to give us something or, in fact'--and--and they may well test something.

IFILL: So w--so what has to happen next now? We're waiting for another meeting to be scheduled?

Ms. RADDATZ: I think you'll probably see them try to schedule some sort of meeting, wait for China to try to put the pressure on North Korea again and try to get these parties back together in some way. I don't know where you take it from here, but as long as they're talking, they're happy.

Analysis: Rising of SARS cases, quarantines expanding and the disease spreading to North America

GWEN IFILL, host: Well, as if the nuclear threat weren't enough for one continent to deal with, this week saw the galloping rise of SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome; and as new cases emerge, quarantines expand and the disease spreads to North America. The consequences are multiplying.

So, Ceci, give us the latest tally.

Ms. CECI CONNOLLY (The Washington Post): Well, as of this afternoon, Gwen, we had reported about 4,600 cases worldwide, 275 deaths. About 26 different countries now have cases of this new pneumonialike illness. In the United States, we're reporting about 41 probable cases, that's been creeping up each day. Two hundred and thirteen others, though, that are being closely monitored here in the United States. Thankfully, no deaths here at home. But aside from sort of the health impact, the economic impacts of this are really becoming quite large and quite serious. You're seeing, especially in Asia, the impact where you once had growth forecasts of 2, 3, 4 percent. Now they're down around 1 or possibly even no growth.

There was a Chamber of Commerce official from Toronto speaking today about--now all of the cancelations. Springtime is a popular time to go up there, tourism, baseball games. He said one convention that just canceled would be a loss of $20 million to that city's economy. A number of airlines already suffering are now calling for bailouts. They've been canceling flights. So it's a very broad impact.

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times): What about other--how we're handling this--this epidemic? I don't know if it's an epidemic yet or what we call it, but how is the US--how is the CDC equipped in handling it compared to China which was accused of being sort of mis--mishandling it at the beginning and the--and the Canadians? What--and--and also when I think about it, the Third World countries, are they in--in real trouble and...

Ms. CONNOLLY: Potentially, yes. Absolutely. If you see cases get into some of those Third World countries, it could be very difficult to contain spread. With respect to, say, the differences between China and the US, frankly, the health officials here say probably a little bit of it is luck with the United States. They really scratched their heads and can't quite figure out why we haven't seen more cases, why we haven't seen death, and they don't necessarily think that we're out of the woods by any means.

China, of course--this first started in southern China in Guangdong province in November, and the first that anyone from China even mentioned this was not until late February. And even then, all throughout Beijing, it was an enormous cover-up. They were literally taking SARS patients, loading them in buses and driving them to hotels immediately before the investigators from the World Health Organization would show up so that they would walk into a hospital and not see these cases. And that's why every day right now, you're seeing the numbers in China going up by hundreds.

Ms. MARTHA RADDATZ (ABC News): Ceci, even though people in the United States seem quite calm about this, if it comes to the United States in a bigger way, are we prepared for any kind of epidemic? Do those masks really work? I mean, what--what happens?

Ms. CONNOLLY: Sure. Masks do work because what we know--what little we know about this coronavirus so far is that it appears to be spread most often from droplets, say sneezing and coughing. Possibly also it survives on surfaces, and that's why it can be so contagious. There are simple things like hand washing. Believe it or not, there was a reason why our mothers told us to wash our hands. It's one of the best and simplest things you can do to protect. But the great fear here, Martha, is that if we get large numbers of cases, our--our hospitals are not ready to handle those. You need to isolate those patients, put them in special rooms with separate airflow. And also, frankly, the state of our quarantine laws in this country is a patchwork of 50 different laws, and there's a lot of anxiety about whether or not public health officials could really step in swiftly and--and isolate and quarantine large c--numbers.

Mr. DOYLE McMANUS (Los Angeles Times): Well, in that sense, Ceci, I've been wondering if this, in a--in a strange way, is almost a--the kind of dress rehearsal for what might happen if smallpox or some other bioterror weapon were used against the United States.

Ms. CONNOLLY: Oh, sure, absolutely; and maybe that's a little bit of a silver lining to all of this right now. And certainly what you're hearing from the medical community is that because of all the anxiety over bioterrorism, they certainly were more sensitized to watching for mysterious illnesses coming in. They're better. It's called surveillance in the medical world and--and--and have their emergency command centers and that sort of thing. So it's a drill, but they're also spotting the weaknesses.

IFILL: OK, Ceci.

Analysis: Presidential bids for the White House

GWEN IFILL, host: Well, now we turn the corner to domestic politics. You may have heard while everything else was going on that there are nine Democrats running for president. What's not so commonly known is that the campaign has also begun for that guy in the White House, the president of these United States.

Rick, first off, what is the White House doing to get ready for 2004?

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times): Well, if you ask them, they're doing nothing, Gwen, but that's not true. That's not the reality. My best example of how sensitive they are about being perceived as being too political or planning for '04 is that a reporter from the Chicago Tribune went to Houston the other day to cover a Karl--a--a--a speech by Karl Rove, the president's political guru, at a Republican event in Houston. He was halfway through the speech and some people came up to him--guards came up to him and said, `You can't be here.' They took his tape and kicked him out.

IFILL: Kicked the reporter away?

Mr. BERKE: Kicked a reporter away. Hauled him out of there, and that--that--that gives you some sense of how nervous the White House is about anything--any coverage of their political plans for '04, but the reality is they are very deeply engaged. They have it all plotted out, and the whole strategy is--is to keep the president looking presidential, commander in chief and looking above politics.

You remember in '96--we all remember we were waiting for Bill Clinton to announce his re-election campaign. Well, he never did, and that was part of their strategy. And if you think they were cleaver about it, just look at George Bush. And what they're doing--their latest gambit is they're putting off the convention--the Republican National Convention in New York until September of '04, which would be the latest Republican convention in history. And the reason they're doing that--one reason is so it would coincide with the commemoration of 9/11, which is another event...

IFILL: But they might...

Mr. BERKE: ...that would make him look sort of--national security is the issue.

IFILL: But they may miss the Alabama pre--qualifying date as a result, I think.

Mr. BERKE: They don't...

IFILL: They don't--they don't care about that.

Mr. BERKE: But anyway, they want to put off the general election as long as they can as a way to keep the president sort of in the Rose Garden, not on the stump, and there are other financial reasons for doing that as well. And part of it, too, is they plan to spend right now in the primaries at least $200 million which would be a record. I remember being in--in LA...

Mr. DOYLE McMANUS (Los Angeles Times): Rick, wait a minute.

Mr. BERKE: Yeah.

Mr. McMANUS: In the primary...

Mr. BERKE: In the primary.

IFILL: Right.

Mr. McMANUS: ...who's running against him?

Mr. BERKE: No one, and that's--that's--that's what...

IFILL: Well, no, it's not no one, and that's th--what I wanted--what we want to get to next. What about Dick Gephardt? He talked this week about health care.

Mr. BERKE: Well, Gephardt gave a speech, and poor Dick Gephardt, you have to realize, he--he stepped down as the leader of the Democrats in the House, and he's a serious presidential candidate, but he hasn't been able to get much traction. He raised not as much money in the early quarter--first quarter of this year as a couple of the other candidates. And he's just trying to get some attention for his campaign. So he gave a speech, and he said, `Let's repeal the Bush tax cut and put it all into an effort to--for sort of universal health care,' which is a very ambitious proposal which we really haven't heard since the '92 Clinton campaign which got him a lot of attention then. But you know what happened in '94 with the Hillary Clinton health-care plan. So it's a very sort of risky strategy for a Democratic candidate to come out with that. But Gephardt needed to get some traction, and this has gotten him a lot of--of positive attention, and it's--it's intended to draw him support from the Democratic liberal activists that he'll...

Ms. CECI CONNOLLY (The Washington Post): Well...

Mr. BERKE: ...he would need for the nomination.

Ms. CONNOLLY: ...certainly, Rick, I think that as long as the campaign sort of returns to domestic issues, which seems to be the conventional wisdom at this point, the economy would be right up there; but my sense is that certainly health care becomes another high one on the agenda. And I'm wondering if--if you think we'll see other Democrats, certainly Howard Dean, a physician...

Mr. BERKE: Certainly Howard Dean.

Ms. CONNOLLY: ...going out and staking that ground. What will the other Democrats do now to distinguish themselves?

Mr. BERKE: Right. Well, we're already seeing other Democrats out there who are talking about a larger health-care measure. They see this as an im--as an important issue. But the risk here is it can pull--Gephardt's proposal could pull the whole Democratic field to the left to a point where the--the White House would be pretty happy to have a very liberal nominee to campaign against.

Ms. MARTHA RADDATZ (ABC News): Who is the White House worried about as far as the...

Mr. BERKE: You know, y...

Ms. RADDATZ: Anybody?

Mr. BERKE: ...you try to figure it out, but they don't seem to be worried about anyone. You know, you could look at, you know, Joe Lieberman...

Ms. RADDATZ: Despite the fact that they're starting to campaign so early.

Mr. BERKE: ...Joe Lieberman who's a moderate, but they don't think he'll--you know, he'll get the nomination 'cause he's too moderate in--in the primaries. You look at John Edwards, but they think he's popular in the South, but--but they don't know if he has the heft, so...

Analysis: What was Rick Santorum thinking?

GWEN IFILL, host: Well, we're going to get back to all of that because we've got to stop here to talk about Rick Santorum. In case you've had your political meter turned off this week, Mr. Santorum is a Republican senator from Pennsylvania who said in an interview with The Associated Press, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." This did not go over well with gays and lesbians, Democrats, a few Republicans or anyone who never liked Senator Santorum in the first place. His response?

Senator RICK SANTORUM (Republican, Pennsylvania): (From 4/23) ...suggested my comments which are the law of the land and were the reason the Supreme Court decided the case in 1986 is somehow intolerant, I--I just would argue that--that it is not. It is simply a reflection of the law.

IFILL: So this week, I turned to the panelists around the table to ask our favorite WASHINGTON WEEK question.

What was he thinking, Doyle?

Mr. DOYLE McMANUS (Los Angeles Times): Well, I'm going to defend Senator Santorum for a minute. He--he--that is the way the law stands and the Supreme Court decisions stand now, but he went beyond that. He said that the Supreme Court was wrong when it declared 25 years ago in the case on contraception for women, that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution. That's the decision that led to Roe v. Wade, the case providing abortion rights. He basically is taking the same stance that Judge Bork did 20--20 or so years ago, and it's not what the Republican Party really needed to hear right now.

IFILL: Martha.

Ms. MARTHA RADDATZ (ABC News): What was he thinking? I don't think he was thinking. I think part of the problem is--and this happens all the time, and we'll have to see how this plays out, but he wasn't thinking how that would be perceived. I mean, in--in what Doyle says, that makes a lot of sense, but when you put things out in the general media, it's often perceived very differently.

IFILL: Ceci.

Ms. CECI CONNOLLY (The Washington Post): This poses a real political problem for President Bush and others in the Republican Party because, once again, he's hitting that sort of pressure of, `Are you going to stick with one of your own making these sorts of controversial comments?'

IFILL: Rick.

Mr. RICHARD BERKE (The New York Times): I think this is a ritual in Washington of Republicans criticizing homosexuals, and I don't think it's going to hurt them very much. Barn--remember the Dick Armey quote about Barney Frank calling him, "Barney fag"? You've had Trent Lott who said comments. There's a whole history of prominent Republicans who have said negative things about gay people, and they're still in office and they whipped up a lot of controversy, but--but they get support from their conservative supporters.

IFILL: And unlike what happened with Trent Lott, the White House today came out and actually supported Rick Santorum. So it doesn't look like he's going anywhere soon.

GWEN IFILL, host: Thank you, everybody. We'll leave it there.

If any of you at home want to weigh in by e-mail on that topic, our address is WASHINGTON WEEK at pbs.org. I'll see you on "The NewsHour" and again next week on WASHINGTON WEEK. Good night.