The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Good evening, I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is celebrating the fourth of July holiday. On the NewsHour tonight, our summary of the news, then a look at NASA's dramatic bullseye in space today. An interview with Bruce Gordon, the new head of the NAACP, and a conversation about the war in Iraq with four veterans of that conflict. Major funding for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer has been provided by Cathy just built a beautiful new home, right at the water's edge. I'll tell you the... ... real story. I've been a professor at a local university since I was 28, and my husband's been at it longer than I have. You don't build a big nest egg on a couple of teachers' salaries. You need a plan and a financial consultant who isn't afraid to roll up his sleeves. [music] Smith Barney. This is who we are. This is how we earned it.

Somewhere west of Shin Yang a teenager is stopping for dinner, which is why the soybean harvest west of Peoria is not stopping. And a soybean processor is not stopping and ship's captain on the west coast is stopping but just for a while Somewhere west of Shin Yang a teenager stopping for dinner. A dinner rich and soy protein. At ADM, we like the idea there'll be no stopping him now. ADM, resourceful by nature. And by Pacific life. And CIT and... The William and Laura Hewlett Foundation, making grants to save wildlife, water, and the great open spaces of the West. This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. NASA marked this 4th of July holiday with a new first in space. Early this morning, a probe from the deep impact spacecraft

slammed into a comet half the size of Manhattan. Rough images from the mainship showed the collision some 83 million miles from Earth. It was the first such feed in space exploration. In Pasadena, California, scientists erupted in applause at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Later, they said the comet mission symbolized the hopes of NASA's discovery program. Really pushed back the envelope of what was generally thought to be possible. And in doing that, inspire or capture the imagination of the general public and hopefully inspire new generations of engineers and scientists to go and do even bigger and better things. If you need a good example of that, you look at the deep impact mission in the events of the past 12 or so hours. Deep impact is certainly meeting all those goals in space. The flyby ship continued past the comet, photographing the new crater on its surface. The images could give scientists the best view yet of material from the early solar system.

We'll have more on this story later in the program. This was the country's 229th Independence Day, an American celebrated in time honored ways. People gathered for picnics and parades, including the nation's oldest 4th of July processional in Bristol, Rhode Island. They've held one there on the 4th of July for 220 years. Last night, fireworks started early at the Mount Rushmore National Monument in South Dakota. The display lit up the images of four presidents, Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Washington. Today, President Bush made a holiday visit to Morgantown, West Virginia. He sounded the themes of last week's address on Iraq, urging resolve in the face of continuing losses. We pray for the families who've lost a loved one in freedom's cause. And we know that the best way to honor their sacrifice is to complete the mission. So we will stay until the fight is won.

American troops in Iraq also celebrated under heavy security. They capped off two days of 4th of July barbecues and sports. Some escaped the heat of 110 degrees by swimming at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces near Baghdad. Also today, U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested 100 suspected militants near the Baghdad airport. And Egypt said it was trying to win the release of its top diplomat in Iraq. He was kidnapped Saturday night in Baghdad. Witnesses said his abductors pistol whipped him and shouted, American spy. There were conflicting reports today. A second missing U.S. servicemen has been located in Afghanistan. A provincial governor said the missing American had been wounded and taken to shelter with local Afghans. He was part of an elite special operations team that disappeared last Tuesday near the Pakistani border. U.S. officials announced yesterday they rescued one of the team members. They disputed this new report. Violent protests erupted today in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Two days ahead of the G8 summit. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded the world's richest nations take action on poverty and environmental protection. We have a report by Martin Geisler of Independent Television News. Riot police clushing with protesters, following a standoff which lasted all afternoon. This was billed as a carnival rather than a protest. But it was the one demonstration police here feared may bring violence to Edinburgh's streets. They promised a robust response and that's exactly what they delivered. There was a definite tension to the demonstration which frequently threatened to descend into disorder but stopped just short of that for most of the day. All afternoon groups of anti-capitalists and anarchists were moved around the city centre at times outnumbered by the police whose tactic was simply to block them in and contain them. There are several different groups here and several different agendas

but one common feeling that the police today prevented them from exercising their democratic right. This is the G8. This is what demonstrations are about. This is what democracy is all about. These guys are stopping us during that. They're entering upon our rights. But the police have praised their officers who they say based massive provocation. What we're seeing today is behaviour that's absolutely irresponsible and unacceptable. The police response to that has been measured and proportionate. With the G8 summit still two days away police expect more of this both here in Scotland's capital and around Glen Eagles. President Bush departs for the G8 summit tomorrow. The United Church of Christ endorsed gay marriage today. It's the largest Christian church yet to do so. The UCC is a generally liberal denomination and has traditionally supported gay rights. Today's vote was non-binding on individual congregations but some conservative churches may still break away. The man who founded Earth Day, former senator Gaylord Nelson died Sunday. He suffered heart failure at his home outside Washington.

The Wisconsin Democrat proposed the first Earth Day held in 1970 and he was a lifelong advocate of conservation and national parks. As shown in the documentary Earth Day and Beyond Gaylord Nelson's good fight. Unless the public sees places like this they don't know they exist and they don't know that they are threatened. Understanding the importance of natural areas is vital to preserving our future. The documentary aired this past May on Wisconsin Public Television. Gaylord Nelson was 89 years old. That's it for the new summary tonight. Now it's on to NASA hits its target, the NAACP's Bruce Gordon and an Iraq war veterans conversation. This fourth of July, NASA put on a fireworks display of cosmic proportions when the deep impact probe collided with a speeding comet.

NASA hopes the collision will give us a peek at ice and rock left over from the early solar system. The two-part probe about the size of an SUV took off January 12th from Cape Canaveral on a winding 268 million mile journey. One part of the probe collided early this morning with its target. The comet temple won at 23,000 miles an hour. The impact left a hole that may be as wide as a football stadium and 14 stories deep. The second part of the probe zoomed past the comet and continues to relay images back to Earth. To walk us through the project is one of deep impacts, chief engineers Rick Grammier, welcome. Now that you've had a couple of hours to sift through your early photographs and some of the images and data that's being sent back from the fly by craft, can you say now that everything went as planned? We can say that it went better than we planned. It's absolutely phenomenal how well it went.

We didn't have to exercise any of our contingency options and the science we're getting back is phenomenal. That smaller craft that was meant to collide with the comet. Once you lined it up and it was on track to smash into it, what happened then? It was just a situation where then it was time at JPL to sit back and let it happen? No, not at all. Actually, it was quite tense. We let it go 24 hours before impact. We put it on an impact trajectory, which it was basically in free flight then for 22 hours. But we had always planned that during the last two hours, the auto navigation software would kick in and we would have to perform up to three what we call impact trajectory maneuvers. And in fact, that's exactly what we did. The first maneuver was computed and fired at 90 minutes prior to impact. It then assessed where it was,

computed another solution and fired at 35 minutes before impact. And then finally, 12 and a half minutes out, it performed its last maneuver, which is basically to offset it so that it could be viewed by the fly-by spacecraft and it performed flawlessly. The pictures of the approaching surface of the comet are really stunning until how close to impact time was that smaller craft taking pictures. Actually, the last picture we got back was three seconds prior to impact, which is phenomenal. We had thought that we'd be lucky if we could get one 30 seconds. That was our goal to get one 30 seconds prior to impact. But we were concerned about the dust particles when we fly through the coma that would be knocking the impactor spacecraft back and forth and may cause it to have its optics sand blasted. And it just kept taking it all the way in. And what did the other craft that was watching all this going on see? Well, the fly-by obviously was standing back

a little bit per the plan. We had slowed it down just long enough so that it could get 13 minutes of imaging of the actual impact and the crater formation. And it in fact had its own algorithms that targeted that exact same spot, which was one of our concerns as well, that it wouldn't be able to see the impact side if it didn't compute it right. And it performed again flawlessly. And it actually captured the impact, the resulting bright flash, which was just fantastic. It captured the crater formation and the debris that was thrown out. Then as it passed under and started looking back, it could still see the cratering debris that was being illuminated by the sunlight. So it actually captured just some fantastic images. This early on before you really had a chance to go over your data, what observations can you make just based on what you've been able to see so far?

Well, that's a good question because we haven't had much time to actually evaluate the data. What we can say is we're definitely positive that we created a crater that was larger than a house. If you recall, we thought maybe up to the size of a football stadium. They're still trying to sort that out and we're still trying to get the data down. So we know that we created quite a crater. We believe that it penetrated quite deeply, which means we'll get a very good look at the interior and also throughout some of the interior composition of the resulting impact debris. We do know or feel that the surface is likely a very soft crust on the surface and that it was definitely looks like it might have been layered. We can't say that for sure. The scientists are still trying to figure it out. But what I can tell you is we just have a wealth of scientific information to go through in the next months. That spray of debris that came from the cratering.

Any of that being collected? Is any of it capturable? Or this is really an observation mission? This is really an observation mission. It's unlike stardust that went through Veltu to capture or collect some of the particles coming off the coma. This was strictly to create the impact crater and observe the ejecta as well as how the crater forms, which tells the scientists a lot about the material properties and constituents of the actual comet itself. There are observation platforms that obviously orbit in the earth like Hubble and Spitzer and Chandra that are observing this in various regimes of the spectrum as well as observatories on Earth. Once the fly by craft tells you everything it knows about this morning's event, is there any work left for it to do or is it just hanging out there in space? No, there's not much work left to do after that. Basically, we'll spend the next couple of weeks, 10 days,

getting all the data off of it. It was continuing to image per the plan. After it flew by, it would periodically turn back image and then turn back so it could relay the data down. We're quite full on board on our memory right now from all the data that we have taken. And we're playing that back. And when that is completed, then we'll basically mothball the fly by spacecraft. Will you ever be able to see Temple 1 again in the future from any other observation point? Well, certainly this is one of the periodic comments and so it comes into the solar system about every five and a half years. And it's observable via the observatories on the ground or if they wish to observe them from the orbiting platforms they can do that as well. But we don't have another plan to send another spacecraft there. Rick Ramirez, thanks for being with us. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Happy Fourth of July. Same to you. Still to come on the NewsHour a change at the top of the NAACP and veterans' views of the Iraq War. Gwen Ifill recorded the NAACP interview before the holiday weekend. Bruce Gordon is the new chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a former telecommunications executive Mr. Gordon succeeds Kweisi Mfume, who is now running for the United States Senate. Welcome, Mr. Gordon. Thank you. It's nice to be here. For those who have been following the NAACP for the last couple of decades, we always think of it as being led by politicians or civil rights activists or preachers. You're none of the above, at least not to the naked eye. What does that signify? I don't think it signifies anything other than that. The organization looked for the best qualified person who could lead it at this stage in its history,

and they chose me. Your business background is important in that choice? I think so, because the organization wants to be effectively operated needs to be. It needs to raise money. It needs to be fiscally disciplined. It needs to attract new members. And these are things that I think I learned to do during my time at Verizon. The things that you just outlined are pretty significant. Those are big needs that you're talking about. Does that mean the NAACP in any way is at a turning point in its existence? I think you could argue that a civil rights organization like the NAACP is always at a turning point, so to speak. But now is a good time for the organization to get ready for the next two decades. And addressing building endowments, addressing building the size of the membership base are things that will really put it in good stead for the years ahead. I read a story where the head of one of the local NAACP chapters said he spends a lot of time going to visit schools.

And when he goes to the schools, he plays a game with young students saying to them what does NAACP stand for, and that he'll give them a prize, and that they can say it correctly, and that he seldom has to give out prizes, because sometimes the kids confuse it with the NCAA. So the future are these children. How do you begin to suggest to them that the NAACP is still relevant? Gwen, I think that you've really identified an issue that will get a lot of my attention when I get started, I think that what we first do is attract 20 to 35-year-olds, because they are underrepresented in the membership base of the organization, and therefore underrepresented in the leadership of the organization. I think I have some ideas on how to do that. And as we do that, we're going to start to broaden the focus, not change the focus, but broaden the focus to address issues that this particular demographic cares about. And as that happens, I believe we will find a more vibrant NAACP, a more relevant NAACP,

and then maybe we can start to deal with the children in the schools that you've heard or visited. Let's talk about the financial situation of the NAACP, is the organization currently in the red or in the black? The organization is in the black, only because it's got a modest reserve that it's relying upon. The fact is, if you look at the organization's ability to balance its budget, it's been a struggle the last two years, in terms of annual operating finances. So what we've got to do, as I said earlier, is to build the kind of discipline. And keep in mind that when you increase membership, you're increasing the revenue flow from those new members. So getting an annual revenue flow that exceeds what the organization is now seeing and expanding or building an endowment that provides sort of the stability that the organization needs is really where I'm going to spend my time and focus my attention.

Last I heard, the membership is about, leveled off at about 500,000, which is about where it was in the 1940s. So how do you jumpstart that? Well, one of the things that I will do is take advantage of relationships I have with business leaders across this country who are already calling me and telling me how excited they are by my appointment and what it might mean for the future of the organization. So the memberships are actually already starting to come in. But for the next year, as I said earlier, I am really going to focus on attracting 20 to 35-year-olds. That means using some of the people that they listen to who, by the way, have been award recipients at the annual image awards. I'm going to reach out to those people and get them to be spokespeople. I'm going to use the internet. This generation is electronically oriented. We've got to use a technology platform to reach out to this segment and really bring them in in significant numbers.

And I actually think that this is a very doable thing. The NAACP has gained a reputation over the last several years of being aggressively partisan. President Bush became the first president since sitting president since Herbert who were not to attend and speak to your convention. He didn't meet with your predecessor until December of 2004 for the very first time. What do you do to erase that image? Or is that even an image you want to erase? It is not an image that I want to continue. And as I look forward, which I'm absolutely doing, my plan is to reach out to the White House. I think I need to build a bridge to this current administration. This does not say that the base of the organization needs to move to the right. This does not mean that the policies of this organization need to change. It simply means that when you have an organization like the NAACP, which has been in place for close to 100 years and done the things that it's done, there ought to be a relationship with the administration.

It doesn't mean we have to agree on every issue, but I am absolutely certain that there is common ground that could be identified for us to collaborate on and build a constructive relationship going forward. Julian Bond, who is the chairman of NAACP, and I guess in some ways, your boss, has been one of the harshest critics of this administration. How do you reconcile what the chairman says and what you say? I think that Julian and I will be very aligned in what we both say. And I think that Julian would say to you that he's not as much a critic of the administration as he is for some of the policies that are not consistent with what the NAACP stands for. But Julian and I have talked this through. I think we're going to be a very good team. I think his history as a civil rights leader is very valuable and will continue to be valuable. And I think that my perspective as a person who has worked in corporate America, worked to build bridges, I think that we will collaborate, we will be consistent, and we will make progress.

It sounds like you're taking an organization which has gained a reputation and has built a reputation of being focused on social inequality issues and changing it into one that talks more about economic inequality issues. Is that a correct interpretation? There's no question that I will try to expand and put more energy behind what I'll call economic equality. Employment, getting corporations to really adopt very productive and successful diversity programs and black enterprise just identified 30 companies who are doing just that. Which says to me, it can be done. We just need more. Access to capital continues to be an issue in the African American community. I will focus on that. Really building the base of minority suppliers who get to do business with corporate America is yet another priority of mine. So yes, economic equality will become far more visible as a set of initiatives we will pursue.

And politics by the wayside? Politics, to me, can never go by the wayside. I have said to many people over the last week or so I intend to go where the trouble is. And that says to me, once we identify a problem, we will find its solution. If its solution is embedded in political intervention, so be it. If its solution is embedded in building relationships with Wall Street and corporate America, so be it. I will find the trouble. I will go to the trouble. We will find the solution and utilize any and every mechanism necessary to solve those problems. Bruce Gordon, thank you so much for joining us. I am best to you. My pleasure. Thank you very much. Now, how does the war look to the troops fighting in Iraq? Last week, the news hour brought together three soldiers

and a Marine who recently returned from the country. All four are now off active duty or out of the military. Margaret Warner sat down with them after President Bush's Iraq speech at Fort Bragg. Army Staff Sergeant Greg Baumgardner served two tours in Iraq, first in the initial invasion in 2003, and again from August 2004 to this past April. Army National Guard Sergeant Benjamin Flanders served with an infantry company in Iraq from March 2004 to February of this year. He's now active in Operation Truth, a group that advocates on behalf of U.S. soldiers. Army National Guard Specialist Patrick Resta was a combat medic in Iraq from March to November of last year. He's now active in the group, Iraq veterans Against the War. And Marine Reserve Sergeant Sam White fought in Fallujah, Ramadi, and elsewhere from August 2004 until three months ago. When the President gave his speech this week, he said he understood the sacrifice that the four of you have made

and that other men and women in uniform have made but that it's worth it. Sergeant Flanders, when you left Iraq this spring, did you feel it was worth it? I think it was worth it in the sense that, when I think about the enemy that we were confronting, you know, this is an enemy that was targeting civilians, it was targeting their own security force, as well as political leaders within the democratic process, and without any viable police force or security force for Iraq to have, I felt it was our responsibility to stay until we could stand that back up, reconstitute it. So it was worth fighting for people that couldn't fight for themselves, definitely. Sergeant Baumgartner, do you think the sacrifice is worth it? I think we're at the point now we're seeing, we're at the point of diminishing returns. I think that the soldiers and Marines and Airmen that are serving over there, I think they're doing a great job and they're throwing a lot of their heart into it, but I'm wondering what we're getting back as a nation out of our deployment of 140,000 troops to that theater of operations.

I personally don't see a lot of progress that's being made on the ground there. Let me ask you a specialist Resta, just on the overall question, and when you left, you were a medic, you left in last November. When you left, did you feel the sacrifice was worth it? I made an important contribution? No, I didn't. As during the time I spent there, the attacks got worse and the security situation degenerated. I think it was obvious to all of us that were there. And just to kind of echo what he said. I think that two years into this war the situation hasn't improved and even the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have said so in numerous press conferences. And Sergeant White, how do you feel? Do you feel the sacrifice was worth it? Did you feel that way about yourself personally when you left this spring? Absolutely, I did. And what I did is I looked at the town next to us, the town that we were protecting, the town that we took antibiotics to the sick children, food, candy on a regular basis in the town.

And they saw us, my squad personally, diffuse a daisy chain mine. And I don't know if you know what a daisy chain is, but for the people that don't know it, it's several mines linked up to each other next. They're connected by wires. And when one goes off, the rest of them goes off. And they saw us diffuse this right next to their soccer field. So, I mean, on a broad spectrum, I can see where they would say that the progress isn't being made. But I think in a smaller, more precise level, if you really look at it, you're going to see some progress being made. Let's talk about strategy and tactics. And I'd like you all to talk from your own personal experience what you actually saw. And Greg Baumgartner beginning with you because you were in the active Army, staff sergeant. The president has seemed to be saying this week that essentially the US strategy and tactics are the right ones.

And we just have to stick it out. Did it appear to you that way? I supported a whole brigade there in Ramadi and the Ramadi Fallujah corridor. There are soldiers... ...and this was doing psychological operations. And this was doing, yeah, psychological operations. I was the detachment sergeant of a detachment that supported an entire brigade, which is about 4,500 people or so. And by and large, we were going out every day, interacting with the people, trying to get to know them, and trying to convince them to take a certain course of action or certain type of behavior. And in that contact with the Iraqi people, I saw soldiers every day making a difference in their individual lives. But in the bigger picture, I didn't feel that we were making much of a difference on the ground. I get the feeling from each Iraqi that I talked to that they didn't really want us there. And no interest in our continued presence there.

If we were going to stay, they were interested in us providing electricity and providing water and providing generators, anything that they could really kind of get for free. Other than that, they really would just keep asking us when we were going to leave, because Ramadi being a mostly Sunni area, they had a vested interest in seeing us remove ourselves from the situation, so they could kind of go ahead and take control of their own destiny. Sam, what you served also in the Sunni Triangle, but you had a different experience. To you, did it appear that the US approach was working, and it's just a matter of time. What I saw, the strategy that they gave us, was they said the commanders in ten. This is what we want you to do. This is where we want you to get to, and it's up to you to decide how you're going to do it. I think that's great from a man on the street kind of point of view. I agree. But in the larger picture, I think we're talking about efficacy of the mission as a whole. And while I think each individual soldier

and those small company-sized elements and battalion elements, they're doing a great job. But when you look at Iraq and the Al Anbar province as a whole, it's a mess. But what are the standards for that? Where do we need to be to call ourselves successful as an army, as a Marine Corps, as a military force? All right, let me get Patrick Resta in here and Patrick Resta, you were a combat medic with the Army National Guard. How did all this look from your end in terms of the US troops tactics and for that matter equipment? Did it appear to you that the US approach was making progress? No, it didn't. I was told that I was going there to help the Iraqi people. And then once I got there, I found out that I could not treat them unless they were about to die. And that injury had been caused either directly or indirectly by US forces, such as an IED going off or a car bomb going off or, you know, civilians being shot at a checkpoint or something like that. So I don't think that's really conducive to getting people on your side. There was one night in particular where

a local Iraqi walked to the gate of our camp after he had been beaten up pretty severely and pistol whipped. And basically the people in town told them that if he came back to town they would kill him. They saw him in the town again. And he came up to our gate begging for help. I went out there to dress his wounds and take care of him. And he was begging me to save his life. And he was just, you know, turned away and told, you know, go to the Iraqi police and they'll help you. You know, it was after nightfall and the police aren't functioning, especially not in my area. So it was that kind of callous, that kind of callous disregard that really, really set in what's really going on over there for me. What was your view, Ben Flanders, as an Army National Guard, sergeant in terms of the strategy and the tactics? Well, just to sort of give a different perspective from what Patrick was saying is that our company would help out anybody that we came across. If we came up on traffic accidents,

even if it wasn't caused by US military personnel, Medics would jump out. We would address them. But we'd also, and we have to direct the Iraqi people towards their own infrastructure and hopefully they can get going as far as reconstituting the hospitals and police and the Army and things like that. We responded to bombings that happened in markets. Some of our soldiers were cited for a valor for pulling, actually pulling out innocent Iraqis from suicide bombs that had gone off in a marketplace. So it was, we were there. We were there to help out as much as we could. And from my experience, you're driving down the road and we're not shooting at anybody. Nobody is our target. We are the target. And in some nights it was kind of rewarding to see, okay, so these are the bad guys. And rather than targeting innocent civilians, why not target me? I'm the one with the gun. I'm the one with the armor. You can shoot at me first. So I really appreciated our role being over there in that sort of like, hey bad guys, here we are.

So, and I want to ask all of you this, what is your assessment? What was your assessment about the insurgency? How effective was it? You've all painted a picture of a constant atmosphere of danger. It was very effective. And the thing they have us beat at is the human intelligence side. Maybe you can speak more to this. But they can use cruel and unusual methods in order to extract information from people that we couldn't use. There's sort of this torture that word is getting thrown around. Well, the true torture is when you behead innocent civilians and throw them on the side of the road, which we came up on more than once. That's how they get their message across. It's very effective at holding the Iraqi people in oppression. Same as what Saddam did. Except now we got a different enemy and different people holding the Iraqi people down. And Greg Baumgartner, you also speak Arabic. A little.

Well, probably more than the rest of us. So, probably gave you a particular insight into the insurgency and how it was regarded by the rest of the population and how effective it was and why. I think that their insurgency is very effective. And I think, especially through their use of intimidation, we would go into a particular area in a convoy or in a patrol or on a raid. And we would see people on the street who we would approach and talk to, but they would shy away. They'd take a step back. They'd begin looking at other people in the crowd. And we knew that there were insurgents in the crowd we were talking to, influencing them right in front of us. And they're not armed. They're not wearing a uniform that says, I'm an insurgent. So, it's very difficult to determine who that person is. And then once you do, can you arrest them? They haven't done anything. Sam, I've seen you nodding as Greg was talking. Yeah, and I agree with a lot of it. And one of the biggest things is the anonymity.

We would have people that they go into a crowd. They come out of the crowd. They shoot at us and they go back into the crowd. And you don't know who has a gun. You don't know who had a gun. You don't know this or that. So that is one of the things that they have going with them. But I thought that I thought was very frustrating was the fact that one of my Marines was one of the Marines that was in my unit. He was killed by an IED. And as his vehicle, the IED exploded on it, the vehicle in the rear saw these two people on the side of the road and then these two people running off. So they automatically reacted and went over there and detained these people. But the only way that they could really tell that as a person that did it is they took them back to the site where they actually exploded the IED

and they matched his footprints up. How much interaction did you, Patrick Resta ,as a medic have with the insurgency? What was your view of how effective they were? I went on patrols in the town surrounding my village pretty regularly. It was clear to me that at least some people had infiltrated the Iraqi security forces. I was teaching a first aid class. And I remember introducing myself and then I asked, you know, who in the class had had any kind of first aid training before. And it was a class of about 30 and about 20 of them raised their hands. And when I asked where they said there were in Saddam's security forces and in his military. So it was clear to me that no one had done any background checks on any of these individuals. And then to go into the towns and have roadside bombs planted regularly. Obviously people are seeing who's digging the holes, wiring these things, burying them. And our camp attacked regularly from inside the towns, having mortars fired at us. And no one would help us out or tell us who was behind the attacks, even though it was obvious.

It's all of us that they knew who was doing it. How much interaction did you have with everyday Iraqi people? And I know you don't speak Arabic, but to what degree could you gauge how they really felt about the U.S.? The U.S. first of all coming in and toppling Saddam and then the U.S. staying on? I think obviously no one is going to complain about Saddam being gone. Obviously he was an evil person, but I think the war was sold to them as kind of a drive-through toppling of Saddam. And obviously that's not what happened. My unit got there replacing a unit that had been there for a year. And all the locals knew we were going to be there for a year also. And they saw this as kind of an ongoing thing that would go on for several years. And that's not what they want. Craig Baumgartner, what was your... I assume you talked to a lot of Iraqi citizens given your language ability. There was a small portion of Ramadi, a place called Tameem. And it had a lot of teachers, a lot of more educated people, a little more diverse, some Kurds, some Shia, but mostly Sunni area. And these people, especially the teachers, you would go into their homes

and we'd be searching for weapons or something like that. And sometimes they'd offer us tea and be very, you know, his hospitable, just like most Arab people are. And they would say, you must stay. Please tell President Bush, tell your commanders you have to stay because you're the only thing that's keeping us from these former regime elements who are pretty much in control of the area. And then other people on the street would openly shout vulgarities in English, a lot of, you know, a lot of real hostile anti-American, anti-Semitic graffiti downtown. So it runs the gamut even in a place like Ramadi. But by and large, my feeling from the people in Ramadi where they didn't want us there and the people that did were afraid to say it in the open because of, again, because of that intimidation campaign at the end. Ben Flanders, what was your experience on that score?

Well, I didn't have that much interaction with the Iraqi people. But I think the most interesting thing was the interpreter that lived inside of our company compound. And I sort of talked to him about, what about this occupation period? And he became somewhat angry with that term occupation. He's like, what are you guys taking? All you do is give. I mean, he sees the headlines. He sees how much money we're sending into Iraq. And, you know, he doesn't see it as us robbing them so that we can take the land or we can take the oil and things like that. So he was very appreciative of our presence there. If I may interrupt, I think people like that at least in the area I was in were definitely in a minority. Most of the people that we kind of interacted with were very displeased because when we came into Ramadi and set up, we took all the best facilities. We took both of the palaces that were in that area. We had already shut down the local factory, the only glass factory in Ramadi, the only real economic engine in the whole city. And they saw us, the people I interacted with, saw us very much as takers instead of givers. They saw us as being responsible for the water being off,

the electricity being off. In fact, they kind of thought we were punishing them for something because they would hear a car bomb go off. And then the electricity would go off immediately afterwards and they would kind of associate it to. In reality, we had no power over that. Sam White, what was your experience? Anywhere you go, you're going to have people, for instance, some people want George Bush to be president. Some people want someone else to be president. Wherever you go, there's going to be people that like you, there's going to be people that hate you. And I saw both of it. And I think that we should get out in the open, at least I'm going to get out in the open. Anyone who thinks that three years from now or two years from now, we're just going to up and we're just going to take every piece of machinery that we have and just leave the country of Iraq and let them deal with themselves. I think they're delusional. I mean, we have a presence in Germany for the last 50 years. But I saw both people. There's people there that wanted us to be there

and there were people there that did not want us to be there. So let me just, because this is fascinating, but there are a couple of things we want to cover. One is the training of Iraqi troops. And again, talk from your own experience and I'll start with you, Sam White. Why sitting here in the United States does it appear it's taking so long to train enough Iraqi soldiers to really be able to take on the job themselves? And then the U.S. can leave, as the president said this week. There are some people that I would see in the dining facility and it would just, I would get this vibe from them that they were just there to have a paycheck. And then there were some people, maybe some of the older or the younger or just some people that you could tell in their eyes that they really wanted to get along with us. They really wanted to learn what we had to teach them. And one of our colonels gave us this story one time and said, well we had 40 people that we trained and then on graduation day, one of them showed up. And then he said, but that one person also was threatened

with his life, his children's lives were threatened and he still made it. He still came. One of the people, the translators, name was Louis, that was in our unit and he worked with us the entire eight months that we were over there, or the entire time that I was over there. He had to have a, just a fake name because they actually had an award or a reward for him. But he came to work and whenever we let him go back on vacation and see his wife, he had to go in an anonymous state. We had to drop him off literally on the side of the highway and have some taxi pick him up so he could go in there and not have to worry about anyone seeing him have anything to do with the military and then going to his house and leading the insurgents back to his house. So it's going to be a long time, I'm not a long time, but it's not going to be overnight this process. It's not going to be overnight.

I don't know how long it's going to take. But I can say that it's going to take a lot longer than I think that we have out on the table, at least in the press here. What makes you think that from your own experience? From my own experience, I saw a lot of desertions especially after they were directly attacked. We had a car bombing and 12, I think it was 12 or 14 Iraqi soldiers lost their lives. And then the next day we had a lot of soldiers who just left in the middle of the night. As far as the quality of the training, I think we're doing the best we can to bring the soldiers to the level that they need to be. But some are unwilling to go. And others are just poor quality troops. But then there are some very professional soldiers in the Iraqi military. Very, very professional soldiers, soldiers who have seen combat before against Iran in the 1980s, saw combat against us in both wars and were consummate professional soldiers. And they're going to be the backbone of their military. But they're, I found them to be few

and far between because most of the professional soldiers, in my opinion, are either working for the insurgents or they're staying home. Ben Flanders, how do you think the training's going with Iraqi troops? The training's going pretty slow, but I think we should be protecting them more. But I think you'd hear somebody else say, well, if we let them in, if we start letting them into our compounds and things like that, you'll get the Mosul attack that killed 24 people. You get the Samara attack that happened last March that killed 15 people. You can't really trust them. We would pass by checkpoints of Iraqi police or the Iraqi Army and just kind of give them a wave. And if something went down like a firefight, we helped them out. But what's their incentive if they see bombings, if they see that there's nobody protecting them and that these insurgents are better equipped, they're better trained. Who's protecting them? They're a whole lot, they're more likely to say, well, forget it. I think I'll just go home. Do you think that the President spoke to this this week about whether we need more U.S. troops there? Sam White, I'll

begin with you. Do you think we need more U.S. forces? I think ideally we would want more U.S. troops, simply because there's always people saying we need more cops out in the street, but we need more security guards. We need more teachers. Well, we need, it would definitely make it a lot faster if we had more people there filling in the gaps that the other people aren't there to be able to do. Do you see that? I don't think more U.S. troops are the answer. I think that'll just make the situation worse. If you look at what these people behind the attacks are saying, they're attacking U.S. forces and those who collaborate with them, I think the only way the situation in Iraq is going to get a lot better is for the Iraqi people to have faith in their government, that it's a legitimate government and is acting independently. Greg Baumgartner, do you think the U.S. needs more troops there? I think, yeah, I think we do. I think just from my experience, I mean, I could have used another 20 or 30 soldiers at a minimum to do the job that I was trying to do with just 12 or 13 guys. What would more troops give the U.S. force there?

The thing is, is that without more troops, we're not getting the footprint on the ground that we need to interact with every person that we need to, because the differences we're making are individual differences in individual lives, and that's great. But we're... There's just not enough of them. It's just not enough. The President this week asked for the American public to have patience and to stick it out. And my question to each of you is, one, when you were in Iraq, did you feel you had the American public behind you? Just from your friends and family, do you sense in any way that the American public is losing heart for this effort? Patrick. I'm not, you know, sure what the American public behind me really, really means. I was sent there to do a job, and I did it, and I think that's the way most of the other servicemen operate while they're in the country. Is your family now that you're back supportive of what you did? No, they were not supportive of the war before I went. So no.

Sam, what was your experience? One, did you feel the public was behind you when you were there? And two, what are you hearing now that you're home? Well, without a doubt, I felt the support, without a doubt. I was getting cards from kids in elementary school in Oregon, and I was getting, at one point, we had so much food that people sent us that we had to actually either try to give it away or throw it away because we were going places, and now that I've come back, as far as like, do my parents support it, well, between myself, my mother, my father, my brother and sister, we have over 45 years of military service. So my mom told me, don't do it, Sam, don't do it, because she didn't want me to go over there and get killed, but she was proud of me when I did do it, and when I came back, so. Greg, your experience? I think we all had the same experience. I think the American people, my family, especially, were very supportive of the soldier, and the Marine on the ground, and I really appreciate that.

But I think looking at my family and looking at the people I'm talking to, there's less and less support for the war. And people say something that kind of confuses me. They say, thank you for your service, and they also say, and thank you for defending our country. And I walk away kind of scratching my head going, well, I know there's terrorism in Iraq, but when I was there the first time, there was no terrorism. So no one's saying to you, gee, is the war a good idea? I think people are, and certainly when I talk to people, we talk about that. Is the war a good idea? Is it not a good idea? I think people are questioning the war. And I think that that's really good. I think it's really good to have a dialogue that we're. that's happening, although not the higher levels I'd like to see it, but I think the dialogue is very good. And Ben Flanders, your experience on both those points. There was obviously family support for somebody going overseas and fulfilling their duty, but I heard a lot from my family. You know, I support you guys, but I didn't believe in the invasion. I didn't believe that that was a good enough reason to go to war.

You hear that sort of dichotomy, which is good, divorcing their own beliefs and justifications for the war, and then looking at the actual people that are on the receiving end, executing that mission or that foreign policy. So it was a mixed bag. I mean, well, it was always unequivocally supporting me and my wife and my family, but there was also, like, but I don't support the war. I didn't support the invasion. And now people, I think, are just feeling generally frustrated and confused about what they're seeing from news reports. All right. That was really terrific, and I really thank you all. And thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you. Again, the major developments of this day, a probe from the deep-impact spacecraft slammed into a comet as planned 83 million miles from Earth. Americans at home and near Iraq celebrated the 4th of July. U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested 100 suspected militants

near the Baghdad airport, and Afghan officials claimed a second missing U.S. servicemen has been found. The U.S. military disputed the report. And again, to our honor role of American service personnel killed in Iraq, we add them as their deaths are made official and as photographs become available here in silence are 12 more. [no audio] [no audio]

[no audio] And before we go, a reminder to tune in tonight for a capital 4th, the annual PBS Live Broadcast of the Celebration on the Mall in Washington. Check your local listings for the time. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Thanks for watching. Have a safe holiday. ...what you see. At CIT, we're in the business of financing great ideas, so you can take yours all the way to the top. You've worked hard over the years creating a

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Good evening, I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is celebrating the 4th of July holiday. On the NewsHour tonight, our summary of the news, then a look at NASA's dramatic bullseye in space today. An interview with Bruce Gordon, the new head of the NAACP, and a conversation about the war in Iraq with four veterans of that conflict. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer has been provided by... David and Cathy just built a beautiful new home right at the waters edge. I'll tell you the real story.

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This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. NASA marked this 4th of July holiday with a new first in space. Early this morning, a probe from the deep impact spacecraft slammed into a comet half the size of Manhattan. Rough images from the main ship showed the collision some 83 million miles from Earth. It was the first such feed in space exploration. In Pasadena, California, scientists erupted in applause at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Later, they said the comet mission symbolized the hopes of NASA's discovery program. It really pushed back the envelope of what was generally thought to be possible. And in doing that, inspire or capture the imagination of the general public and hopefully inspire new generations of engineers and scientists to go on and do even bigger and better things. If you need a good example of that, you look at the deep impact mission in the events of the past 12 or so hours.

Deep impact is certainly meeting all those goals in space. The flyby ship continued past the comet, photographing the new crater on its surface.