Is War on Terrorism Headed in Right Direction?; Battle Begins Over Nuclear Waste Storage
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Judy Woodruff. As the Middle East boils, is the U.S. war on terrorism heading in the right direction?</s>JONATHAN KARL, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill, where the battle has begun over a truly radioactive issue.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ed Lavandera in Dallas, where it's primary run-off day in Texas, and the main bout pits a teacher with a truck and a big city mayor.</s>BROOKS JACKSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Brooks Jackson on Capitol Hill with a question: does Congress ever see a favor it can't refuse.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from Washington, this is</s>INSIDE POLITICS WITH JUDY WOODRUFF.: : Thank you for joining us. I'm in our New York bureau today. We begin with the latest bloodshed in the Middle East. Amid intense fighting and explosions at West Bank refugee camps, Israel says 13 of its soldiers were killed in an ambush by Palestinian militants. In response, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said again the Israeli offensive in the West Bank will continue until Palestinian militias are crushed. Hours earlier, Israel finished its withdrawal from two West Bank towns, Qalqilya and Tulkarem. But at the same time, Israeli troops and tanks rolled into Dura, southwest of Hebron. In Egypt, Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to emphasize the positive.</s>COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm pleased that in the last 24 hours, the Israeli government has started to pull back from some of the cities that it had gone into, although there are still a lot of movements taking place and we have seen some rather fierce fighting in Jenin and the situation is unsettled in a few of the other areas, as you all know. Nevertheless, the president hopes that Prime Minister Sharon will end this operation quickly and start to remove the forces now.</s>WOODRUFF: From Egypt, Powell moved on to Spain, which will be the latest stop on his mission to stop the fighting in the Middle East before traveling to Israel on Thursday. Powell said today that he does plan to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, as well as with Prime Minister Sharon. He offered U.S. observers to monitor a truce he says he hopes to broker. Israel's pullout from two Palestinian cities helped to ease some of the jitters in the oil market. Here in New York, the price of crude futures was down sharply at the close of trading. Prices had spiked yesterday after Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq would suspend its oil exports for 30 days. Saudi Arabia helped to settle the market by saying that it would ensure global oil supplies. But there remained concerns about output from the world's No. 4 oil exporter, Venezuela. As Venezuelan workers staged a one-day general strike, the state oil company's refineries were shut down, or running at reduced rates. And crude exports were sharply curved. Now let's get the latest on the oil outlook at the White House, with U.S. gas prices on the rise. Here's our senior White House correspondent, John King. John, what is the White House saying right now about the fact that gas prices are still climbing?</s>JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Two concerns, Judy. One is an economic concern. We have heard the president say repeatedly in recent weeks, the economy is not out of the woods yet. Yes, it is recovering, but a sustained recovery is not assured. And the president saying again yesterday in an interview with "The Wall Street Journal," that he's worried that rising energy prices, specifically, rising gasoline prices, will put a ceiling, if you will, on the recovery and keep the economy from growing more quickly. So an economic concern on the one hand. Even though the administration says what Saddam Hussein is saying won't have a long- term impact, the administration is concerned it is hurting the economy a little bit, these rising prices. Even though they say they're seasonal, largely. On the other hand, there's a political concern. Remember the president's party normally loses seats in a midterm election year. Some concern here at the White House, if energy prices are up, if the recovery is not that strong, the voters will focus on the economy this November, blame the president and therefore the Republicans, for that. That's why you see the administration talking every day now. The secretary of energy out, saying he's keeping a close eye on this. If there's any price gouging, the administration will deal with that. So they certainly think it's a short-term issue, but they want to show that they're watching it very closely, because of the connected, if you will, economic and political concerns.</s>WOODRUFF: John, what about the White House fond hopes that there could be drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve? Now that the Iraqis have stopped exporting oil for 30 days, aren't they wanting to use that, perhaps, as an argument to go ahead with the drilling?</s>KING: They certainly are, Judy. And the president did that just so today. On the one hand, dismissing what Saddam Hussein says in terms of its impact. Saddam says he won't export any Iraqi oil for a month, or until Israel withdraws. The president on the one hand, says that shouldn't have any real impact on world global petroleum markets. But, as the president said at a fund raising event in Connecticut earlier today, it is proof to him that the Congress should get about the business of passing his energy plan, which would include more domestic production and, most controversially, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It was made pretty clear the other day, when Saddam Hussein stands up and announces he's going to try and organize an oil boycott. You know -- you know my opinion about Saddam.</s>BUSH: The world's not going to follow him. But it just goes to show how important it is to diversify our supply away from places like Iraq.</s>KING: So on the one hand, the administration critical, saying Saddam Hussein using this as a cynical ploy to try to curry favor in the Arab world at the time of Israeli aggression. Yet the administration, of its own right, trying to use it politically her at home, as it presses the Senate to pass the president's energy plan. But presses the Senate to keep that drilling, the most controversial part in the plan, perhaps, in whatever the Senate acts on -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: John King at the White House. Thank you, John. And as John was saying, the Senate is moving toward a vote on Alaska drilling, on ANWR, as early as this week. And some Jewish groups are backing up the Bush administration view. They are saying that oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would help the U.S. ease its dependence on Arab oil.</s>NATHAN DIAMANT, UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS OF AMERICA: Yesterday Saddam Hussein put a cup of coffee on our table, and it's time for us to wake up and smell it. He is trying to dictate American foreign policy by manipulating his oil reserves to pressure us to pressure our own foreign conduct and foreign policy, and the conduct of Israel's policies.</s>WOODRUFF: Now let's bring in CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein, of the "Los Angeles Times." Ron, how does this latest volatility in the oil markets, Iraq shutting off exports, prices going up, what bearing is all that going to have on hopes on the part of those who want to see drilling in Alaska?</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Strangely, Judy, probably not very much at all. In the end what we have in the energy bill in the Senate is pretty much what could be called mutually assured destruction. Even as both parties are growing more concerned about our dependence on foreign oil, the way the debate is unfolding, each side is blocking the other's principle idea for reducing that dependence on foreign oil. A few weeks ago, the administration, the Senate Republicans and the auto industry, blocked the main idea of Democrats for reducing our dependence, which was increasing fuel economy standards -- requiring cars and SUVs to get more miles to the gallon. That was summarily defeated. And in the next few days, it's pretty unequivocal that the president's proposal to drill at ANWR will be defeated as well. So we're likely to get what we got a decade ago, which is, if there is an energy bill at all, it will be without the main ideas that could have the most impact on both the supply and the conservation side.</s>WOODRUFF: Well, if you don't have that, what's left?</s>BROWNSTEIN: You don't have much. The last time the Senate tried to do this, in the early 1990s, they passed the bill only after -- as it looks like we're on track for now -- stripping out ANWR and the fuel economy standards. At that point we took about 46 percent of our oil from imports. Now it's up to 59 percent, and the term line is up for 2/3 by the end of this decade. I mean, there really is very little here. Both sides have chosen, as they do on many issues now in Washington, that they'd rather block the other side's main initiative, rather than compromising and taking a bit of each and putting it in the final bill that. That would require them to confront their base to do that. They choose not to do it. And I think what we're going to have, in all likelihood, is even if the staunchest ANWR supporters say they have virtually no chance of reaching the 60 votes they need to break a filibuster, right now, Judy, they're not even sure they have 50 votes to get a majority for the proposal, in which case they may never even offer it in the Senate.</s>WOODRUFF: So, Ron, you're saying, with all of the anxiety right now rising about oil -- we don't know how long it's going to last -- you're saying neither of the forces for more drilling in the U.S., nor the forces for conservation are going to be able to come up with anything.</s>BROWNSTEIN: It really is the all or nothing delusion, Judy, which we see in a lot of issues in Washington. I think the lesson of the past decade is that neither side is really strong enough in this argument, with this evenly divided red state, blue state America, to get what it wants, unless it's willing to give the other side part of what it wants. And at the moment, neither side is willing to do that. Even if we can get -- the administration hope is to get any kind of bill out of the Senate. Bring it into the conference with the House, which did include some ANWR drilling in their version, and maybe somehow squeeze it out of a conference committee with a provision to drill in Alaska. The problem is that if that comes back into Senate with no provision for fuel economy increase, which it won't have, since that didn't pass either bill, there's no reason why the Democrats wouldn't filibuster that. So even the proponents of ANWR say it's almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which a bill ultimately gets to the president's desk with it in it. And of course, the fuel economy is dead as well. And we're left with doing very little, when in fact, the public would probably prefer they do some of both at this point.</s>WOODRUFF: You're probably right. Ron Brownstein, thanks so much.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Sorry it's so gloomy.</s>WOODRUFF: And now let's turn to another issue that has some people worked up on Capitol Hill. The Bush administration plans to store nuclear waste at a facility in Nevada's Yucca mountain. Our Congressional correspondent, Jonathan Karl, has been covering the battle -- Jon.</s>KARL: Well, Judy, Nevada's Republican governor, just after he exercised a very unusual power to actually veto the president's decision on that, came to Capitol Hill to urge fellow Republicans to stand with him in standing up against the White House on storing nuclear waste at Yucca mountain.</s>GOV. KENNY GUINN (R), NEVADA: I'm calling upon all Americans to wake up to this grave danger of having nuclear waste transported through their communities, through their downtown areas, through their neighborhoods, alongside their schools, their rivers and their parks.</s>KARL: To make the case against using Yucca mountain as the nation's nuclear waste depository, opponents are talking about the 45 states the waste could travel through on its way to Nevada. But the Bush administration says Yucca is the only place to safely store the material, which is now scattered at nuclear power plants around the country, and is believed to remain radioactive for 10,000 years.</s>SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: Burying it 800 feet below a mountain in the desert near Death Valley will work. It's scientifically sound, and it's been studied for 20 years for $4 billion. We know it can work, and that's the best way to proceed.</s>KARL: Opponents of the Yucca plan have hired an army of top political strategists, including GOP pollster Frank Luntz, former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, and former Reagan chief of staff, Ken Duberstein. With at least $8 million in public funds from the state of Nevada, they plan to launch a national TV ad campaign. And on the other side, the nuclear power industry, which has hired former Bush chief of staff John Sununu and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, will spend heavily to make the case for trucking the waste to Nevada.</s>WOODRUFF: All right. Jon Karl, very awkward for Republican administration and a Republican governor. But they clearly disagree on this. Jon Karl at the Capitol, thanks. We will return to the Middle East crisis next on INSIDE POLITICS. Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Richard Holbrooke, will go "On the Record" about that war, and the prospects for peace and beyond in Afghanistan. It's all about political pork, when our Brooks Jackson pours over the entries in the latest pig book. Also ahead, in living color...</s>HOWARD KURTZ, "WASHINGTON POST": Let's face it. Black and white is so 20th century. People don't like shades of gray. They expect technicolor.</s>WOODRUFF: Howard Kurtz, on "The Wall Street Journal's" new look.